Jamani, Let's Pay Attention to Detail!

Now here is where we separate excellence from mediocrity (there is no halfway house). You either execute with excellence every single time, with every single thing that you do or don’t even bother.

This post is going to be painful my brothers and sisters so please brace yourselves for the onslaught. 

If we don’t point these things out amongst ourselves and make a point to change the way we think, perform and present ourselves, then we would continue performing at a less than satisfactory level, all the while wondering why we are not being recognised and rewarded for our efforts. I write that it is something we need to dig up ourselves because I know many take offense and make excuses when ‘wageni’ point out where we fail to produce quality results.

One thing we need to know from the word go is that we are not called to do the best we can. No, no, no, terrible misunderstanding. We are called to do the best that can be done by anyone in this world. Yes. Daunting as it may seem, each time we do something, we need to show the highest level of workmanship that can possibly be done by a human being in access to the resources to do so. Do you know what this means? This means that you are not even comparing yourself to others, this means that you are comparing yourself to what a human being has the potential to deliver and believe me, applying skill and with faith and determination, a human being can do all things.

This leads me to ask, why do we compromise on delivery? I often make a joke saying that you cannot fire the average person based on the actual undertaking of tasks because when you look at each item on someone’s job description you will see that they do actually do what it asks. However, the quality of execution is what leaves you reeling. Take these areas as examples and write back to tell me if I am not justified in my stance:

Arts and Craft

Tusiende mbali, ebu tuangalie vinyago vyetu (let’s not go too far, let’s just look at our carvings); you find that yes, the carving is identifiable as a specific object but let’s take a closer look at the finishing details of many of our ebony wood animal carvings and you would notice, for example, that; the wood is bumpy and chipped in parts; one of the animal’s legs is shorter, forcing the buyer to have it lean against the wall as opposed to free-standing on their display shelf; the underbelly of the animal is rough and untouched, simply because when placed on display, it is usually not within direct view; should there be tusks; one may be larger and longer than the other and without being mishandled, falls off at the slightest touch. I can go on and on.

Look at the prices though. So what do tourists who have travelled the region do instead? They buy from Kenya. This eats at me every single time.

We get so close to producing quality that would undisputedly justify its price, but fall short on the finishing. This also goes for jewellery, metal works and furniture (oh, don’t get me started with the quality of metal grills and wooden furniture, that’s a whole other topic for an entire article, I simply won’t go there).

Printing

Faded ink and black blotches on photocopies, wrong pantone colour and different sizes in one batch of business cards and, even amended written details on magazines, we start with the very best of intentions; to deliver a product, but quality is seldom considered as part of the paid fee. Being miserly with resources, ignoring detail and loss of attention and interest ‘because you do the same job day in and day out and one customer is just the same as another and what do I care if they shout, I don’t get affected by it, they business isn’t mine anyway so what do I care (besides, they don’t pay me well enough for me to make sure I do a good job for them)’ cost Tanzanian businesses too much money, reputation and loss of repeat business. The individual? Forgoing training, promotion, recognition opportunities, to name a few.

Writing Documents

No one has, not one excuse for not doing grammar and spell checks on word processors. To take it back even further, no one has any excuse not to use computers where they have access to them; at an office or internet café.

It doesn’t take much to press a button that will initiate an action that goes through your document to flag up incorrectly written words or ill-fitting syntax. The program does it for you. Of course, I recommend that you read and re read your document to make sure you haven’t missed or misstated anything but for crying out loud, everything you need to make sure that what you deliver doesn’t come one step shy of the best presented document that can be done, is integrated into the application. Use it!

This then takes me to the words we use. Short of tickling or annoying the recipient, there is nothing of business value that is added to using inappropriate and sometimes outright wrong words in communication.

I mentioned this on the radio and I will write it here; someone wrote to me saying that they attached their CV “for [my] nourishment”. How does the CV nourish me? Did this person (a) assume that they knew this word and that it was used appropriately (b) actually feel that I would be nourished by reading the CV (c) not know the word but thought it sounded interesting and intellectual so felt they should just slot it in there (d) none of the above (e) all of the above?

It is beyond me and my mental faculties as to why we get so lazy and non committal to our own success. It remains beyond me.

So someone submits something which, in general content and context is appropriate but in detail, poor to the chore. Those that are guilty of this, tell me, where are you always rushing to that you cannot spare a few minutes to read through your submission and scan for spelling and grammar mistakes, misused words etcetera?

Wherefrom does this confidence in having done something right and this arrogance that even if not, you will send it anyway ‘because you at least understand what I am trying to say so you can overlook the errors’ or ‘if there is anything wrong, then just change it before you forward it’ originate?

When you send me an e-mail with the subject (in capital letters): “APPLIATION FOR JOB”, I don’t take you seriously, will skip your mail, look at others I think are more serious (and likely to be so at work as well) then maybe turn back to yours last. And you better believe that I am not the only person that does this.

For those who submit half-baked work to supervisors expecting them to do the formatting, grammar and spell checks etcetera, shame on you. Do you know how much time you waste? So instead of getting to the heart of the matter, you first expect me to correct the document?

Font type and size, bulleting or numbering, paragraphs consistency etcetera, you did the course (at least professed to on your CV), you figure it out. By the way, not everything has to be formally taught, many of us pick up a lot of what we know through trying things out as the need arises. If you care about your future and want to progress fast then you will go out of your way to research how to best present yourself and endeavour to execute with excellence every single time.

You can only hone your skills in an area by applying them. We sometimes get so excited by listing all our qualifications but keep them as trophies on our CVs and never actually apply them in the world of work. 

Honestly, you know we have lost the plot when organisations put ‘producing quality products’ in their vision and mission. Producing something qualitatively should not win you a prize. It is the minimum standard expected of anyone engaged in an area. If you award me for quality execution you imply that mediocrity is the minimum expected performance standard, so when I execute with excellence it is such a great deed of note that I must be rewarded for it.

If I won’t lose my pay or benefits for being mediocre, why bother strive for more? What if I don’t want your prize for quality performance? Are you as an employer, content with people producing less than quality every single day? If not, stop rewarding people for results that are really the minimum standard a human being can produce all other things being equal. Make it clear, daily, that this is the standard of execution expected, guide and encourage but also penalise when it falls short of the mark.

There shouldn’t be a different yardstick for Tanzanians because Tanzania has to compete in the global arena and no one there is cutting us any slack. The sooner we wake up to that, the better prepared we will be to deal with competition.

WaTanzania, we have all that it takes to stand out as one of the most developed countries on this continent but our relaxed attitude towards life; putting little in and expecting phenomenal returns is what is keeping us where we are.

Look at our resources, including human, to ask yourself ‘how can a land so rich, be so poor?’

Never forget that ‘Only Developed People Develop Nations’.