THE pettiness of a challenge will produce a pettiness of response. That’s like don’t focus on trivial issues or you will trivialise what you do.

I like learning from history; not just the academic history that our school system pumped our way. I am now reading ‘Bunyoro, Tropical Paradox’ by Walter Bazley (Pub. 1993 but about his years in Uganda as a government administrator in the 1940-50s).

(available for free here from the Internet Archive –> https://archive.org/details/bunyorotropicalp0000bazl/page/n3/mode/2up?view=theater)

Many bits of the book confirm that there are numerous things about human life that will not change with time.

This specific passage made me smile:

“One thing we shared was a feeling that we were privileged to be doing that very work on which we were engaged. It was a serious, life-and-death struggle with nothing frivolous about it. Later, when I joined the Canadian Public Service, I realized that the low morale was a consequence of public servants having work that was trivial and uninteresting and which, in many cases, did not need to be done.

The pettiness of the challenge produced a pettiness of response so that people became consumed with trivia – the hours of work, the coffee breaks, the overtime. I heard that a fairly senior and well paid officer in the Treasury Board had spent two years writing a policy paper on the subject of who pays for the coffee served at government conferences.

In Bunyoro I never once heard the word ‘overtime’ used in the government although everyone worked longer than the standard hours. Coffee breaks or tea breaks just didn’t happen because we had enough stamina and interest in the work to last from breakfast to lunch without them. Nor did I ever hear anyone discussing their pay and allowances; to have done so would have been thought of as bad manners.”

Bazley was speaking mostly of his European (he was Canadian) workmates in the administration but there was also a Munyoro – Henry Berunga – and he had stated the same about the Sabairu of Bugungu in an earlier chapter. Give people challenging work that makes a difference and they will do it diligently with the seriousness it deserves; they will Be Serious about it.

On the other hand, if you immerse them in minutiea, have them focusing on small matters like reporting, filling out forms, and all those other bureaucratic and irritating things that many workplaces focus on…the poor delivery will show itself.

Avoid the petty and trivial, therefore, because we know for sure that the pettiness of a challenge will produce a pettiness of response; again – don’t focus on trivial issues or you will trivialise what you and your people do.

Cheers,

Simon Kaheru

www.skaheru.com
@skaheru