Francis Wade | Reversing neglect: Vale Royal and Vision 2030 Jamaica

Your company has proclaimed a vision for the future. You have done a good job, pleasing a range of stakeholders. But how do you maintain momentum beyond the initial launch so that tangible results are achieved?

It is said that Jamaica is a nation of samples. We are fantastic at start-up innovation, able to conjure original prototypes which are world class by any measure.

Yet, the above statement is made to underscore the absence of a culture of implementation and maintenance. As some say, one hires a Jamaican to come up with an innovative idea, a Trinidadian to design the launch party, and a Bajan to manage the routine, daily activities.

Case in point: Vale Royal. Recently, an internet meme showed the results of an anonymous visit to the classic 1694 property. The Jamaican coat of arms did little to hide the tumble-down wreckage of the former official residence of past prime ministers.

The universal reaction? Abject horror. This was not our country’s finest moment. Obviously, some piece of government machinery failed to work, producing an eyesore. The only saving grace? The fact that the embarrassment is a far distance from the gate on Montrose Road.

What can we learn from this mistake about aspirations such as ‘Vision 2030 Jamaica’, and apply them to your company’s vision statement?

Visions are extremely hard to maintain.

Compared to physical objects, your statements about the future are only made using bits and pieces of imagination. While this imaginary picture is usually translated into the written word, the captures on paper or digital formats are not very important.

Instead, a vision of the future comes to life in the hearts and minds of willing listeners. They participate by forging their own future of some faraway, but desirable destination. In their mind’s eye, something they want to realise inspires them and provokes strong emotions.

However, it’s much easier to conjure up a physical sample of a product. By contrast, the task of speaking from the future to an audience is terribly hard. Perhaps this is why those who do it well are honoured: Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela.

As such, keeping a vision alive is more difficult than maintaining a building. Today, both Vale Royal and Vision 2030 Jamaica need to be rehabilitated. Neither is beyond the limits of recovery, although the methods would be different.

But take a moment to draw this closer to home. Are stakeholders in your company inspired by your vision statement? Has its impact decayed over time? Can you bring it back to life?

Visions aren’t accomplished by the ordinary.

Perhaps there is a shared shortcoming by those who were responsible for setting up the management of both Vale Royal and Vision 2030 Jamaica. The invisible assumption? That someone in a routine job would instantly produce visionary, game-changing results just because they were expected to.

If you think this is only a government problem, think again. In your company, there are people who specialise in keeping things running.

Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, would say they keep “static quality” intact. They are important, but ordinary.

As such, you don’t ask such persons to instigate a change. For this task, you need specialists in “dynamic quality” who specialise in making a difference.

The point Pirsig makes is that both roles are needed, but their jobs must be carefully balanced.

Perhaps the mistake made by Vision 2030 was to rely on the keepers of “static quality” in government to do two additional jobs: execute and govern a vision. So even though we began impressively, as we usually do, we aren’t finishing this 21-year race very well. As such, your company must be careful to institutionalise the execution and governance of its vision and strategy.

This is the only way to ensure that your end game to achieve extraordinary results will avoid decay. While this may sound like a new concept, we can learn something from a recent success story.

Jamaica’s reduction in our debt to GDP ratio is widely hailed as an international miracle. The bipartisan, long-term effort which borrowed disciplined oversight from private sector, trade unions and civil society remains exemplary.

Perhaps your company needs a VPOC. What’s that? A vision-oriented Economic Programme Oversight Committee or EPOC-like institution designed to maintain key aspirations. It would actively work to balance static and dynamic quality so that your visionary end-game doesn’t fall into disrepair. Sometimes a board can play this role.

The same applies to Vision 2030 Jamaica. Without a VPOC, the gap to becoming “the place of choice” is likely to grow in the remaining six years and ruin the biggest aspiration formed since independence.

Francis Wade is a management consultant and author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity. To search past columns on productivity, strategy and business processes, or give feedback, email: columns@fwconsulting.com.