Given the candid insight from new LRA Chairman - Rob Gillespie - that 'mis-management and disarray' characterised the challenge facing the NEW Board of Directors, many may now understand why this writer and others stood up to make their concerns known at the July 2006 AGM debacle. I doff my cap again to those who bore the brunt of the stinging reaction that was directed back at these courageous individuals who 'dared' to raise questions.
The only thing good about the reaction was: it showed what ACTION every individual can stimulate when so motivated - even if for the wrong reasons. We'd seen nothing like it in three years!
Quite simply, the Lonehill Community Initiative will succeed or fail on three points:
1. Quality of Community Leadership - mostly STRATEGIC and VOLUNTARY
2. Quality of Service Provider Leadership - mostly Operational and Professional (PAID)
3. Stakeholder Support & Project Funding
It's always difficult to criticise VOLUNTEERS for messing up, but in my mind, in a massive community initiative like Lonehill's volunteers who provide leadership should hold themselves up to a higher standard than any listed company executive - people's lives, families and properties are at stake. And others in the community should hold these leaders up to such higher standards without fear of retribution. I've already commented that an honorarium system should be brought in to reward exceptional service/activity on the LRA board.
I am pretty impressed with the stabilisation efforts of the current LRA Board - especially with the clearly positive impact of Chairman: Rob Gillespie - certainly one cannot fault their first 100 days of stabilising efforts so far. It is clear that some are putting in time and effort way beyond call and duty (which is the standard lot of the passionate few).
However, I do concern myself with commenting on our long-term community initiative strategy and share these thoughts for the brainstorming pot.
Priority No. 1 Strategy should be simple:
SECURITY ==> VISIBILITY & VIGILANCE ==> FUNDING
The above being my non-academic rendering of the No.1 priority concern and solution requirement for our community initiative, which I expand upon below:
Security is a function of the quality of proactive Visibility & Vigilance of our security force on the ground which in turn is a function of the inflow of funds from local stakeholders and elsewhere.
This brings me to the Quality of Service Provider Leadership that we see in Lonehill. And here, I feel hugely cheated as a community resident by what we have received from our PAID service providers.
I am of the very strong opinion that we have WASTED far too much money - many MILLIONS of rands, in fact - on both our security service provider (my performance report card: 60% to 70% - massive room for improvement) and administrative service provider (my performance report card: 30% - and that primarily for maintaining a relatively simple debit order run - the missing marks a pointer to a BIG failure and BIG disappointment in my books) who have squandered the opportunity to reward us with the exceptional performance that we have deserved as a community for the voluntary efforts and contributions that we have put in to this initiative.
Instead of providing innovative, inspired leadership to take this community to new heights... our current service providers seem to me to have been nothing more than limp-wristed order-takers, wimpish- to non-existent decision-makers, and continually on the defensive against constant reaction to poor service levels.
This post will focus on our security service provider first.... and where they are failing themselves and us.
Let's face it, CRIME is the No.1 concern on most South African's minds right now. Even the world's media is calling South Africa 'the most crime-ridden country in the world' - heard on Sky News today. Just following the posts on Carte Blanche and other 'concerned about crime' sites (see also www.stand.co.za ) make even the most optimistic of us loyal and patriotic South African's wince when confronted with these links.
More important however is for our security provider to recognise the importance of getting inside the minds of the criminals that attack us and to strategise and implement proactive ways to beat them before they can hit us.
1. Hijacker :
'We watch you each and every day going to your house, check all the surroundings, how is the place secured. And we, we check how you get inside the house - whether you buzz, you wait for the gate to open. We follow according to the days of when is the car needed. If it takes us a day to follow you, we'll do it. If it takes us a day and a half we'll do it. But towards the day of the car when it's needed, we'll be having the car from you. Definitely we'll take it.'
'Just like to robbery - you need two snappers standing to shoot anything that's going to come around; a driver to take over from the owner; and a gunman pointing at the driver to get out… to respond. And these other two, they're not watching at the car; they're watching on the oncoming people... who want to like respond towards the hijacking; whoever responds, they shoot.'
2. Carte Blanche - Anatomy of a Hijacking
'Some of us, we used drugs, we used muti. We go in there thinking of getting what we want, and we are angry, aggressive.'
So what do we gather:
i. They surveil their areas
ii. They operate in numbers
iii. They are likely to be arrogant and fearless
So common-sense says that PROACTIVE security looks to isolate suspicious (unrecognised) vehicles containing two, three and four (most likely 3 to 4 occupants, primarily male, but don't ignore the use of females to throw one off guard) and to let them know that they are under close surveillance - that's what we used to have in place here.
Col. Mickey Ferreira used to stimulate 'spot' road checks with orange cones to highlight this level of VISIBILITY (at any time of the day or night)... and his orange light and recognisable vehicle used to be everywhere in the community. Never again seen from local security service provider management since 'the Colonel' was 'removed' from the area at the height of what seemed to be our most effective and visible proactive security solutions of three years ago. Why was he removed..????
Quite simply, our current security service provider leadership needs to get MORE PROACTIVE & VISIBLE in a 'Management By Walking Around' model of management, with more effective use of vehicle positioning and proactive guarding initiatives (e.g. visibly taking notes of suspicious looking vehicles and occupants - and making criminal elements sweat).
Get innovative... get proactive... give us some WOW factor... for goodness sake! Maybe reward proactive guards for the pre-emptive arrest of such vehicles containing such characters.
The biggest embarrassment to me, if I were in that service provider leadership position, is that their competition appears to have higher visibility in this community through their street corner promotions and vehicle positions. And somehow I think that this may well be reflected in the number of Lonehill residents who have signed onto the competing services in competition to the LRA initiative.
Yes, I feel cheated by having paid over so much to this security provider over the years and not having seen too much exceptional and innovative local leadership and application in return from them to make our community stand out as a totally UNIQUE security initiative. Many other communities have caught up to what we initiated and have even surpassed us.
This is not to say that I don't have the confidence in them to up their game... I DO - hence 'my performance report card: 60% to 70% - massive room for improvement'... but it is up to them to make something happen NOW. Just go along to Dainfern (get our local security manager to take you there, visit their control room) and see what quality of service they get for approximately the same funding.
The above is a lot more than I can say for our Administration Service Provider - I have very little confidence in their capabilities to deliver anything of innovative value and feel hugely cheated at having, I believe, paid close to a MILLION rand last year to have them at the administrative core of a service said to be have been characterised by 'mis-management and disarray'. I will point out where I am of the opinion that they have failed us in the next post.
Trevor Nel
Lonehill Resident - 011 - 705-2790
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