‘‘ One of the By Products of Colonial Rule was the mass production of managers and not leaders . The culture of management was so strong that everything was geared towards getting people to manage what colonialist had created and this gave birth to a whole generation of fault finding managers instead of Transformationminded leadership .’’
Britain contributed the Rolls Royce , Bentley , Jaguar , Land Rover family which includes Range Rovers , Aston Martin and others . France has contributed the Citroen , Peugeot and the Bugatti . Italy has contributed the Maserati , Fiat , Lamborghini , and Ferrari . Japan has contributed Toyota , Nissan , Mazda , Subaru and others . South Korea has produced Hyundai , Kia and others . Sweden has produced Volvo . Germany has produced Porsche , Mercedes , BMW , Volkswagen family including Audi and Passat .
Now all these countries I have mentioned are individual countries some of them even smaller than Nairobi . Let us now come to Africa . A whole continent of 1.3 Billion people has not been able to produce and contribute a car that will command respect on the global stage yet a lot of the resources that other nations have used to produce these cars come from Africa . The truth is this - Prosperity is not a function of resources . It is a function of the capacity to convert the resources into revenue .
Many people have landlocked brains that can only build from precedent but there is a level where you can benchmark your imagination to create something that will change the world like our ancestors did . Don ’ t be a victim of the diminishing return value of information where the more you know the more ignorant you are . Knowledge comes from process and execution – the process of studying about something in the past would take you to a lot of information before you get to where you are going .
Now technology has eliminated process so we have a lot of informed fools . In the absence of process , knowledge can come through execution and failing forward fast but if we don ’ t create the environment for that then it ’ s also a
‘‘ One of the By Products of Colonial Rule was the mass production of managers and not leaders . The culture of management was so strong that everything was geared towards getting people to manage what colonialist had created and this gave birth to a whole generation of fault finding managers instead of Transformationminded leadership .’’
waste . Don ’ t see anything as final . Everything is in a state that can be converted to another .
Finality thinking is the fuel for stagnation . It is the opposite of creative or solution thinking which MUST find a way out of every situation . Many Africans subscribed to finality thinking based on information they get in the news about Africa being poor and as such they resign themselves to whatever fate brings their way . We must rebel against labels that were given to us without our permission . We must never allow our memory to be more powerful than our imagination .
The world has advanced through active imagination . Transportation advanced from foot travel to beasts , from beasts to carriages and from carriages to engines . Ignorance grows on those who do not expand their minds . The rate of mind growth must be exponentially greater than the encroaching power of ignorance . There is nothing like once intelligent , always intelligent .
Develop a Culture of Transformation
One of the By Products of Colonial Rule was the mass production of managers and not leaders . The culture of management was so strong that everything was geared towards getting people to manage what colonialist had created and this gave birth to a whole generation of fault finding managers instead of Transformation-minded leadership .
This is a key reason why we have been stuck in one form for ages . It is how we were programmed . The era of management made it wrong to even think differently and divergent thought was considered rebellious . Your greatness is determined by your ability to be different .
As a nation , we need to define the Kenyan Experience . France is associated with Luxury . Silicon Valley is associated with Innovation . Hollywood is associated with creativity . If we don ’ t define our own experience , others will define it for us as they have done in the past calling us a hotbed of terror .
The day you stop desiring for more is the day your death process begins . Transformation is a movement from one form to another and not excessive activity within a form . We have stayed in the form of
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