Team building lessons from Kenyan

Organisations must ensure that hiring, promotions and remuneration process is just and fair to all staff members. photo | fotosearch 

By VICTOR OTIENO

Summary

• The Kenyan election cycle is probably the most dramatic, if not the most expensive globally.
• Whilst they are associated with a lot of negativity, there are great team building lessons organisations can learn from the political class and activities surrounding elections.
• The strength and unity of a political party is anchored on how well it handles it nomination process.

Most of us are familiar with corporate team building and often associate it with staff members going out of town to the beach or Masai Mara to have fun, bond with colleagues and take part in activities meant to galvanize team work.

While that is a good assessment of what team building is; it is intrinsically myopic. Team building espouses total activities in and out of office that are geared towards increasing efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation by ensuring all the different functions operate seamlessly.

In short, team building is aimed at ensuring the organisation operates and performs like a well oiled German machine.

The Kenyan election cycle is probably the most dramatic, if not the most expensive globally. Whilst they are associated with a lot of negativity, there are great team building lessons organisations can learn from the political class and activities surrounding elections.

The strength and unity of a political party is anchored on how well it handles it nomination process. It is at this stage that it is able to recruit able candidates to fly the party flag in various positions in government be it governor, senator, Member of Parliament among others by ensuring they represent the interests of the party.

It’s therefore important that the process is perceived to be fair, verifiable and credible.

As witnessed in past party nominations, if the process is not well managed it leads to fallout and weakening of the respective teams.

Organisations must ensure that recruitment, promotions and remuneration process are just and fair to all staff.

They say that in politics there are no permanent enemies or friends, therefore politicians are known to be very good at coalition building.

Simply put, politicians have mastered the art of aggregating both human and non-human resources to achieve certain goals such as forming government.

Organisations must learn such critical attributes by ensuring people are able to work together regardless of position, race, educational background all to achieve overall corporate targets instead of focusing on uncorrelated departmental targets.

Most of us are familiar with corporate team building and often associate it with staff members going out of town to the beach or Masai Mara to have fun, bond with colleagues and take part in activities meant to galvanize team work.

While that is a good assessment of what team building is; it is intrinsically myopic. Team building espouses total activities in and out of office that are geared towards increasing efficiency and effectiveness of the organisation by ensuring all the different functions operate seamlessly.

In short, team building is aimed at ensuring the organisation operates and performs like a well oiled German machine.

The Kenyan election cycle is probably the most dramatic, if not the most expensive globally. Whilst they are associated with a lot of negativity, there are great team building lessons organisations can learn from the political class and activities surrounding elections.

The strength and unity of a political party is anchored on how well it handles it nomination process. It is at this stage that it is able to recruit able candidates to fly the party flag in various positions in government be it governor, senator, Member of Parliament among others by ensuring they represent the interests of the party.

It’s therefore important that the process is perceived to be fair, verifiable and credible.

As witnessed in past party nominations, if the process is not well managed it leads to fallout and weakening of the respective teams.

Organisations must ensure that recruitment, promotions and remuneration process are just and fair to all staff.

They say that in politics there are no permanent enemies or friends, therefore politicians are known to be very good at coalition building.

Simply put, politicians have mastered the art of aggregating both human and non-human resources to achieve certain goals such as forming government.

Organisations must learn such critical attributes by ensuring people are able to work together regardless of position, race, educational background all to achieve overall corporate targets instead of focusing on uncorrelated departmental targets.