The emptiness in vision and mission statements

There is a striking similarity in the vision and mission statements of most public agencies in Kenya.

Many aim to be 'world-class', 'globally competitive', 'regional leaders' and other such superlatives in their areas of operation, all essentially implying a strong desire to be top in the global tables of the services in question.

One cannot doubt the sincerity of these visions. It is indeed a normal instinct to want to succeed and improve in whatever activity we undertake as humans.

What is not clear though, is the amount of effort our public agencies are putting in to make this a reality.

Whereas becoming the best global player in offering any service is no mean task, the route to getting there isn't necessarily as complex.

It many cases, it begins with an honest self-assessment of the level of service offered by an organisation vis-a-vis where it wants to be. That is, to beat the best global performer in its category.

The old adage has, after all, maintained that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

For our public service visions to become a reality, an accurate self-examination might be a prudent place to start.

This would see us detail our current performance levels. For instance, the current level of service can be indicated by the number of days it takes a utility agency to connect a new customer from the time an application is made.

Many such studies by international partners are always rubbished as meant to undermine our competitiveness as a nation. What about conducting our own candid studies?

Since most Government agencies offer a number of related services, developing a template of all the core areas of focus and working out the average time it takes to offer those services, say over the last one year, should not be too difficult.

This will clearly paint our current standing with respect to the best performers in the world.

Consequently, this not only demonstrates the amount of effort required to attain the top spot, it also more often than not inspires fresh focus and effort to improve performance.

There are few employees, for instance, who will not be moved to learn that a service that takes their organisation 60 days to offer takes only seven days in Mauritius and three in Japan.

It would seem that in many cases, public agencies have intelligent guesses on where they stand in comparison with their best performing peers. More often than not, however, many prefer vague comparisons than more damning clear figures or levels of service.

This often creates a big paradox and a debilitating scenario for many State agencies. How can we so eloquently proclaim a targeted destination when we don't know where we are with respect to that destination?

By conducting a critical self-assessment, a State agency/department may end up in a situation reading like this, "It takes four  working days to offer service X in Singapore, it takes our organisation 40 days".

This certainly creates an awkward feeling in any organisation. Yet it is this very awareness and dissatisfaction with the current state of things that often fire up revolutions in service delivery across the world.

This discontentment with mediocrity also tends to earn a public agency goodwill and necessary support from the public and other critical stakeholders.

Whereas citizens will be unhappy to note it takes their local water company three months to connect them, compared to a global best standard of two days, they will certainly admire the courage of the water utility to own up to such damning inefficiency and this, in many ways, indicates decisiveness about tackling the status quo.