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Battling Human Performance and Change in AfricaHuman performance improvement in the African context is a constant battle. In technical vocations, performance is traditionally improved by technical training. In an environment where the importance of technical training and skills development can not be ignored, there are substantial problems involving technical training and performance management. There is resistance at every turn. This frustrates trainers and managers and impacts negatively on the task of improving human performance. At the outset, recruiting people for technical positions is difficult. Technical careers have a stigma attached that is not easy to ignore. All parents want their children to be doctors, bank managers or teachers rather than plumbers, electricians or motor mechanics. The reality is however that there is a tremendous shortage of technically trained people in Africa. The diploma disease, first mentioned by English sociologist Ronald Dore, is a reality in Africa where you might just as soon have your coffee served by a graduate with degrees in religion and politics as by an uneducated waiter. They would rather be educated and working for a pittance than be technically trained and earning a reasonable salary. Attendance figures for universities are way better than technical colleges. Once people are employed in technical arenas, there must be a programme of ongoing training and development as technology changes, techniques are refined and new products are developed. Performance improvement is vital to the success of business operations. Employee resistance to training is however high because it is essentially change, The African continent does not embrace change very well. One has only to observe the changes of government (or lack thereof) and weather patterns to understand how little resilience the continents' people have to change. There are many reasons behind the resistance to training, one of which is that the outcome of training is most likely to be one of improved human performance. This could indicate better productivity and accordingly reductions in the labour force. To save jobs therefore, do not accept training. Employees would sooner take a sick day than attend a training course. In the upper echelons where the educated people have been more exposed to the difficulties of human performance improvement, the resistance to change is not as marked. Older employees are often of the attitude that they might not do well on the training course because they will need to change their old ways of doing things. This may well require additional effort or concentration which is a change in their working conditions. Accordingly they resist the training; they resist the change. One would think that coaching the employees would be the first step to resolving this issue, but coaching is also not a well accepted strategy in Africa. If one looks at the tribal method of teaching and relaying information through the generations however, it is little more than coaching. The main problem with coaching is the individual attention. In Africa, when an individual is singled out, he is marked, either positively or negatively. Being singled out is also very un-African. Management is therefore faced with some real problems in technical environments where an ongoing and focused training ethos is vitally important to the success of the enterprise. A strategy that does work in technical environments, where better levels of human performance are required, is one of team coaching. It is almost as if the African football team ethos is necessary in the training environment as well. The concept of union and team seem to be far more acceptable than peaks of excellence. If management are to succeed they will have to become far more team focused, coaching teams of workers to all attend training courses and improve their individual and team performances. Changing Africa is very difficult. The future of any nation lies with its people and the way they are trained. We can offer the best training in the world but if the attitude to change is not right, we might as well try to move Kilimanjaro. Kim Heptinstall is the owner of Thane Consulting, a specialist training consultancy operating in Cape Town, South Africa and specialising in technical training in Africa
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