Lonehill: Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

Perceptions are important... and here's what I perceive right now while driving around Lonehill.

It seems to be pretty clean and in good condition once again, and the proactive guards and vehicles seem to be far more visible and attentive again. Just the way we like to see it as a minimum basic standard of service delivery.

Clearly, LRA Chairman Rob Gillespie and his team have stimulated a marked improvement in the management of security service levels, communication and visibility of our inititiative. Let's give credit where credit is due.

It is always important to encourage those who make a difference.

Giving credit where credit is due... the more I think about this... the more I believe that this is what makes for quality leadership.

I'd certainly like to see a lot more prominence given to those who have clearly stood up at significant moments in Lonehill's past, and to those currently and in future who do and will stand up, to make positive difference-making things happen in a MASSIVE meaningful way in this community.

Often these people are unheralded, go unrecognised, are in danger of being forgotten, and their input is often ignored for puerile personal/political like/dislike reasons (i.e. grow up, people), or just not sought after. I talk of people like Lindy Boulanger (Lonehill's most caring connector); Joy Cook (vociferous Complex representative), Geoff Caplin and Bill Parr (both made the Observer program tick like a well-oiled clock), to name just a few. There are many others that I can mention.

This forum has been very much about the strategic RAISING of our community standards by getting the 'right people on the bus' and removing those who have clearly not made any significant measurable difference off the unique foundation of a cash-positive community initiative that we contributors have provided them with.

The continual raising of standards is the essence of LEADERSHIP that everyone should look for in any project that they champion... and which is almost universally lacking in most projects driven to failure.

This interesting presentation - The Importance of Being a Leader - www.fngla.org/leadership/doc/ImportanceofBeingaLeader.ppt - has some interesting pointers (from slide13 - titled Give Credit Where Credit Is Due) that can be applied to greater effect in our Lonehill community initiative:

Pointer 1. Create a climate where people are involved and important.

Pointer 2. Always give credit for the contributions of others…no matter what the size of the contribution.

Pointer 3. We become more powerful when we give our power away.

Quote: 'You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit.' - Harry S. Truman

Some further interesting quotes and pointers from the presentation that stimulate thought related to our initiative are:

Quote: 'The success of a grassroots group is attributable, in part, to the coordination and motivation of group members. The extent to which a grassroots organization encourages members to identify with the group may be important for sustained success.' (Bettencourt, p. 170.)

This quote highlights one of my key concerns for our current LRA executive who appear to operate almost directly contrary to the above sentiment. Methinks they appear a little too fearful of, or overly-sensitive to, the criticisms of others and/or lacking in confidence to bring a major day-long INDABA together of all key interested stakeholders in this community (yes, decision-makers in Summercon, the Shopping Centre, Complex Chairpeople, Church Leaders, Business People, anyone with a passionate interest in our community) - whether they agree or disagree with individual Board members views.

If the challenge is a fear for facilitating such meeting, I will happily do it (as much-loved as I am by many of the above ;-) or I will find the second-best of facilitators from outside this community to do it.

The danger in not doing the above is that the 'few' will again misread the sentiments of the community or thumbsuck their own assumptions once again which will lead to a repeat of last year's disastrous first AGM happening again in the future.

To repeat Point 1. above again: Create a climate where people are involved and important.

Quote: 'Ninety-nine percent of all failures come from people who have a habit of making excuses' George Washington Carver

Anyone attending the latest quarterly feedback session would have been galled at the silly excuse of people being too short to do a decent job on the community noticeboards. I long ago gave up buying the silly excuses emanating consistently from the same source. I find it difficult to accept that short people lacking in any ideas are still around to regale us with consistent excuses and apologies. It does nothing for the current executive who appear to stand by such mediocrity. Someone please show me what they do to make a positive difference in this community that can't be done a thousand times better by those more motivated. Get the right people on the bus... or show me some measurable indication of their positive contribution to growing this initiative.

By the way, did anyone notice at the last quarterly feedback meeting presentation that our unilaterally changed logo (obviously changed sometime during our farcical marketing debacle era) seems to reflect the singular resident - "Lonehill Resident's Association" (note the apostrophe) as opposed to what we used to be - "Lonehill Residents Association" - reflecting all residents. Someone please correct me. Am I again showing my grammatical ignorance, to which I will always profess.. ;-)

If I'm correct this error will forever symbolise for me the classic mistakes of mediocrity made by autocratic, unitlateral decision-makers who believe that they alone represent a community's interests. I wonder who signed off on it?

Quote: 'Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility….In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility.' Michael Korda - Editor-in-Chief, Simon & Schuster

What are the measurables (KPI's/CSF's - Key Performance Indicators/Critical Success Factors) that LRA service providers and LRA board members are asked to deliver on? What numbers can we use to assess how well people are delivering on their responsibilities? These have not been clarified in the current executives term which can indicate a specific weakness or fear for accountability. As community stakeholders we're entitled to hold our service provideres and excutives to account... and they should relish the challenge.

Pointer: 'You Cannot be a Leader if Your “View” Does Not Change… A leader encounters the world outside the boundaries of an organization, the more you know about the world, the easier it is to approach it with assurance. Take every opportunity to expand your “view”.'

To be honest, I think that current LRA board members seem to have done a great job of re-instilling basic MANAGEMENT criteria over people that should be able to manage themselves. I don't believe that this is 'leadership'. I believe that leadership needs to recognise that strategy and direction needs to be applied to stimulating a massive leap in the growth of our community initiative project. Get rid of those who cannot manage themselves.

Pointer: 'True leaders foster risk taking, encouraging others to step out into the unknown, rather than play it safe' (Kouzes & Posner, 2002.)

Personally, I have found this to be the one major stumbling blocks for the vast majority of those who have found their way onto the LRA board during my time of involment since initiating this Lonehill community project. What they miss is that it took some huge risks by us founder/initiatitors of this initiative to put our reputations on the line to deliver an initiative of this scale. To take it to the next level takes much less of a reputational risk than it does to sit back and preside over its mediocre collapse into a heap of mismanagement and disarray.

So in giving credit where credit is due to those who have brought us back to a basic minimum standard that we had once achieved a few years ago... my ongoing encouragement is for the LRA Board to be different to their immediate predecessors and open up to include those who want to make a massive difference in this community... everyone can be catered for (regardless of their vested interest) with the correct strategic thinking. Just do it..!

For extra reading:
Communities: Coming Together Through Effective Leadership
http://www.achievementgaps.org/nea/CommunitiesComingTogether.pdf

Regards
Trevor Nel - 011 705-2790
Lonehill Resident