7th August, 2018
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode and a Professor of Political Economy, Prof. Pat Utomi on Tuesday charged public servants in the state to prioritise and channel their energies towards productivity.
The duo spoke at a two-day training programme for public servants in Ikeja, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria. The theme of the training is “Strategic Management and Transformational Leadership in the 21st Century-Agile Management Model.”
According to Ambode, the 21st century public service must place emphasis on the prioritization of productivity above all else, as productivity was of paramount importance for a number of reasons.
The governor, who was represented by the Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions, Dr. Benson Oke, said when each officer of the Lagos State Civil Service was productive, the members of the public interfacing with the Civil Service would obtain such huge benefits and satisfaction that would positively rub off on the reputation and morale of the Public Service as a whole.
“It is only then that the agile management can only be said to have been of any consequential benefit. The organisation itself is second in line to benefit from increased productivity. Therefore, when employees are highly productive, the organisation achieves its goals of investing in them in the first place. Productivity also helps to motivate the workplace culture and boost morale thus producing an even better organisational environment,” he said.
According to Ambode, the 21st century agile management in the Lagos State Public Service called for officers to be more practical and realistic about their decisions and proposals, saying that in the first place, realistic goals must be set and the actual concerns of the people who stood to be affected by the decisions of public servants must be taken into consideration.
“What this does is that it builds trust between the public service and the citizens whom they ultimately serve. Additionally, it minimizes waste because less time and resources are expended on correcting or re-doing strategies due to inadequate information gathering before policy formulation. Officers of the Lagos State Public Service must also deepen their technical skills and knowledge if they must be an integral and functional part of the 21st century-compliant agile management model.
“Many public projects now require the buy-in of members of the public many of whom are savvy enough to demand to see charts, diagrams, models, graphs and other tools before accepting the proposals or acknowledging the competence of those charged with the execution of the project. Furthermore, it is now the age of information technology and public servants have to begin and complete their work exclusively on computers and the Internet in order to claim the benefits of speed, scalability, and inter-operability of systems that the agile management model calls for,” he said.
Ambode added that agile management in the Lagos State Public Service also called for officers to develop a penchant for laser-like focus on the minute details of projects and policies in their formation and execution, stressing that policy makers could no longer afford to take their eyes off the ball of details, adding that there was now unprecedented and unrelenting attention by the public on the activities of policy makers.
Speaking at the event, Utomi when civil servants were well motivated, they tend to develop emotional intelligent which would enhance and boost productivity.
He also said that for impossible things to become possible, one would rather need visionary and good leaders to effect the change, hence his support of a transforming leaders and officers as being canvassed by the Lagos
State Government.