Charles Iyore, a partner at DNA Capital, writes from Darenth Kent, England. He can be reached by email at Dioncta@aol.com and +447932945002 (text only) Ma fé in Edo language and her various other dialects means, we are wealthy, we are endowed, we have worthy brothers and friends, we are unfettered and free. There could be no better description of the state of man. (– A code breaker as a child, able to decode any language by the age of three years, and to make that decoded language from whatever location, his reference or “mother tongue” through life). If only men were God, many would, out of conscious or unconscious bias, prevent these children from decoding and acquiring languages without their endorsement. And so it is, that this all important certification of speech is not awarded by men, but obtained by demonstrated ability. Also, the courage children demonstrate in developing walking skills and achieving motor independence is yet another of these universal attributes, available to all children, naturally equipped to put in the effort. A true seal (warrior)!   That is the nature of mankind. We are the world!   If individually, almost unaided, man as a child is able to achieve these remarkable feats, what then puts them, in many instances, on a downward development spiral, as groupings later in life?   My earliest memory of documented validation as a pupil growing up, from outside the family, was by my head teacher, Mr. J. E. Jones, who wrote in my school leaving testimonial, “Charles has remarkable latent abilities.”   I have always believed that all, in that valedictory cohort, had remarkable latent abilities. Life therefore has been about bringing those abilities to play for the individual and common good. For that to happen however, talent must meet opportunities to gain full expression. Beyond the individual’s efforts as exponents, one way of bringing talents and opportunities together is through social order, otherwise called governance.   If governance is unable to bring these innate talents to full expression, then it fails the individual and the society as a consequence, by denying all of the benefits possible. This may well have informed the notion of “Opportunity Britain” away from extreme ideological political positions and the halfway house option of governance driven by Welfarism.   Life is the ambition and courage you put into it “We need to be ambitious for our common good” Life needs to be driven by courage and ambition to deliver transformational results, but that ambition should not just be limited to the personal but must transcend in concentric circles to the family, clan and to society, anchoring eventually to shape global direction if it makes the mark. The more the individuals following that trajectory, the better communities become.   Against that background, the cohesion of societies and by extension world order, is tied to the quality of leadership in the home, through communities and ultimately to countries, who allow for the progression of that productive free expression, as demonstrated by the child (in formation).   Developed and underdeveloped countries are separated by the quality of ambitious projections for the common good as delivered, after enunciation, by the leadership. – A destination of purpose and the mountain tops of challenges and possibilities placed before them. When they surmount these challenges, progress is made.  And “Yes we can”.   If every state action is transactional and driven by narrow personal interests, you would deliver a state with a lot of motion but no movement (progress) –The hustle.   Social order in its basic description. Societal civilization as measured by sustainable growth, is the ability of the membership to deploy their commonwealth in the design and the continuous improvement of their creature comforts. Governance must therefore evolve an administrative structure, able to hold it all together, and always deliver on this objective. A wide deviation from that objective is anti-social and if continuous, may well be on a path to failing.   The leadership, as derived by whatever politics of choice, must first recognise the strengths of the population in their demographics and deliberately challenge them to their abilities. The young need to be in training and under instruction to be able to replace the workforce as it ages. The workforce, charged with converting the commonwealth into the desired creature comforts, must be appropriately skilled and the aged should be properly cared for, to uphold the dignity of life, after a hard working life.   Given the finite state of matter and the inability of man to create it, many are driven to thinking that the commonwealth would not go round and hence resort to bestial struggles of primitive acquisition.   The ability to develop an ordered process that continuously adds value, is what the husbanding of the commonwealth entails, as measured by:

• How well the aged and war veterans are cared for?
• What ‘skill sets’ are available in the workforce and how quickly they can be retrained to meet changing demands and match the competition?
• How effective the programme of instruction and training is, to prepare the youths for joining the workforce?

  The support system to make all these possible, are built around the following:  

1. Money in its right conception and circulation
2. The building of critical utilities and infrastructure, leveraging on the economics of scale
3. Securing internal peace and cohesion, as well as, the preservation of the territorial integrity of the state.

  Putting together the tapestry of bureaucracy to deliver on these objectives can be quite challenging and isomorphic mimicry is the wrong path to take in the weaving process. – Because it looks like it, does not mean it is.   The sense of belonging that delivers patriotism comes from the good execution of the first set of pre-requisites: care for the aged, quality of the workforce, as well as, the training and instruction of the youths to prepare them for joining the workforce.   The ability to deliver on them however, is predicated on how leaderships understand and deliver on the second set of objectives, which are a clear understanding of the concept of money as impetus for domestic productivity gains, the ability to efficiently evolve the many utilities and significantly reduce the unit cost to lower cost of production, and how all these can make internal peace and the preservation of the territorial integrity an acceptable collective effort, because all are involved.   When all these linkages fail and the output cannot be justified by the commonwealth deployed, then there is the need to go back to first principles and press the reset button.   Governance fails because of the choice of team players or the poor pegging of the field at play.   The disarray presented is like that of a herd of sheep without a good shepherd, and the shepherd chosen must therefore be alive to the responsibilities as outlined above. The enormity of the challenges, when the ship of state is wide adrift, will have very little tolerance for poor decision making.   What is the commonwealth? The commonwealth is all that lies below and above the said jurisdiction, sits/lives on the jurisdiction and to a certain distance into the adjoining body of water, as agreed by binding international agreements.   The broad description of public and private sectors, as well as, the third way, does not put those assets outside of the asset management responsibility of the shepherd. If the vision of the shepherd is to put all the assets into flight in a sustainable way, then the wings must be well designed to keep the body in flight with no one left behind. So what are the wings? What is the body that must be carried? And what are the transmission mechanisms for keeping the state in flying orbit? All of these assume that the direction of flight will always be determined well in advance, to avoid turbulence and rough paths. (PLANNING).   It’s akin to financial derivatives, where the quality of the underlying assets will determine its market acceptance and the yield following market value price discovery. So when governance settles, it must begin the process of team assembly which is driven by a single vision and often developed through ordered and continuous induction till all are engaged.   Sustained leadership induction. The development of ideological and management inductions has an established pattern. The leader chooses a team (disciples), who in turn choose their teams and all the way, till all are engaged. This ranges from fully paid positions through partly paid positions to unpaid citizenship engagements. When the messages delivered through such channels (administrative set-ups) remain clear and do not suffer from the attributes of “Chinese whispers” then it is possible, running on the right ideas, to go into orbit. Such an arrangement will permit the individuals to unleash their full potentials, reduce the turf wars and from the point of view of organisational commitment, bringing about automatic internal adjustments needed in membership groupings.   The leadership is then able to design a playbook and set measurable deliverables in line with expectations. With that done, the footprint can then be expanded as a playbook to include the region, so the units thereof (countries) are able to establish fiscal consolidation, and come into economic convergence. – The European model.   With so many countries in orbit together, it is difficult to ignore the region in international exchange calculations. Such an economic sphere of influence is far more important than simple political aggregations and the continuous verbal displays by their leaders on international platforms.   Choosing the path of progress If we choose this path of progress, it should be clear by now, that this is not a single subject analysis, but one that requires the use of economic principles as technology for markets and the use of scientific discovery in the delicate balancing act of using technology for development.   If it all looks and sounds too abstract, here then is the primer. The transmission lines of governance are the political administrative structures, as well as, the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs). If you disable them, there can be no transmission. So by disabling the 774 local governments because they are not applying themselves well, is like the government bucking her own governance processes. You must find ways to make them work.   If the same applies to all the other departments and agencies of the three tiers of government, then you can begin to imagine the extent of dysfunction. The government, by setting the tone of making herself dysfunctional, very quickly influences the conduct of business in the private sector and the third way (non-governmental agencies and charities) and therefore  not equipped to regulate them.   A more detailed primer will require point data and details from the system. There now, my friends, are the entropy (disorder) levels, of our collective undertakings.  

• business a.m. commits to publishing a diversity of views, opinions and comments. It, therefore, welcomes your reaction to this and any of our articles via email: comment@businessamlive.com