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I invite you to get your mind around reading this book. There is a lot to learn from it
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Title: Sabotage: Eskom under siege
Author: Kyle Cowan
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 9781776390595
This topical book is a result of an in-depth investigation by journalist Kyle Cowan.
He investigates the challenges faced by Eskom (the national supplier of electricity for South Africa) and its leadership. By using cleverly chosen chapter headings, Cowan weaves a story from a consistent flow of detailed journalistic accounts.
Loadshedding – a quick summary for non-South Africans
The country has experienced loadshedding since 2008.
“Loadshedding” is Eskom’s nice-sounding term for rolling electricity black-outs, province by province, region by region and then by residential area.
The public have learned to follow mainstream and social media and be on the lookout for loadshedding announcements. These can come at short notice (a few hours).
A “stage number” is allocated by Eskom, “stage 1” being the least severe and “stage 6” the most severe experienced to date. Each area in the country is allocated to a zone, and published tables inform electricity users when their electricity will be switched off. Many users rely on being kept informed by the app “Eskom-se-push”, which was recently announced as being the most downloaded app in the country.
Loadshedding has become a normal part of life. Conversations about it increase when it is experienced more frequently.
It is well known that the negative impact on people’s lives and on the South African economy is significant.
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Some of the people describe what they are doing clearly, and refer to pertinent information to support their actions. (...) There are people who appear to be defending their positions by selecting single points of principle to prove others wrong.
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In recent weeks, we have experienced loadshedding. The fact that I have been reading this book has easily flowed into conversation. Mostly, my small sample of friends and acquaintances have heard about this book and want to read it. One of the responses has stuck in my mind. “I want to read the book. I really should read that book. I am not sure that I will understand all the technical stuff in it”.
Two distinct styles in one book
The response from my friend stuck with me because it reinforced what I experienced as two distinct writing styles used by the journalist author. One style relates to the descriptions of people and is easy to assimilate. The other, which relates to business matters, isn’t.
First, then, to the descriptions of people. The personalities jump out of the pages. Direct quotes, anecdotes and story are used to describe the individuals and how they have approached challenges at Eskom.
Examples of how conflicts have been handled are supported by explanations that could come only from thorough research.
The author allows the reader to form their own opinions about each of the people described.
Some of the people describe what they are doing clearly, and refer to pertinent information to support their actions. They speak about vision, clear business goals and higher purpose. As expected from a good journalist, the author provides evidence to support what these individuals say.
There are people who appear to be defending their positions by selecting single points of principle to prove others wrong. The author then provides evidence to discount these defences.
What do we learn from these interviews?
We see that the leadership of Eskom deals with complex issues and manages the organisation within governmental and political frameworks. Leadership of private companies is difficult. Leadership of government portfolios is difficult. To lead Eskom, the management navigates both spheres of leadership. On top of this, the products that Eskom deliver are highly complex.
The descriptions of the contractual and technical matters were not easy to read. I found myself needing a pen and paper and drawing pictures and mapping concepts, so that I could try to make sense of it all – all the time, gaining more respect for the expertise that is required to run this vast organisation.
It takes many years to develop and build new electrical infrastructure, whether it be a new power station or the power lines that transmit power from the power stations to the transmitters and to the end users. In South Africa, for many more years than it takes to develop and build new infrastructure, nothing was done. Skills were lost. And starting from scratch has been difficult for both Eskom and suppliers.
With such complex infrastructure, things are bound to go wrong. It is unfortunate to read how often the various parties seek legal advice and resort to legal recourse to resolve business issues. This relates to both technical issues and personal issues. The amount of legal cost spent over the past years is mind-boggling.
How committed is the current leadership?
The current leadership has a different dream. If people work collaboratively, they can achieve more than working as individuals. Imagine if the organisation could turn itself into a truly high-performing one, and each person and team could go to work being motivated and knowing that there is consistent forward movement and improvements in outcomes.
Kyle Cowan asked the hard questions.
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This book led me to see that sabotage includes actions on a very broad spectrum.
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By being open to be interviewed for this book, and by sharing information to answer Cowan’s questions, they are showing that they are committed to a collaborative approach and are open to being held accountable.
What stops the current leadership from achieving their dreams for Eskom?
The current leadership comes across as being realistic about the challenges that Eskom is facing:
- Corruption in procurement is real.
- Incompetence and lack of training are real.
- Politics and personal agendas are real.
To encourage desired behaviour, organisations use KPIs (key performance indicators) to measure performance of management and staff. If individuals or teams meet their KPIs, they will get better bonuses and salary increases.
That sounds good, but when a certain set of KPIs is chosen, it can have unintended consequences for other performance areas of the organisation. For example, with the ignoring of short-term maintenance issues to achieve higher productivity KPIs in the short term, there is a risk of longer-term outages because of insufficient maintenance.
As a teenager in the 1980s, I remember my parents having this exact conversation about Eskom in our lounge at home. It was a conversation that sparked my interest to study in a business direction. One of the chapters in the book is, “The more things change, the more they stay the same”. This is all too true.
A whole chapter in the book is devoted to complex KPIs relating to power plant performance and outages, and how they interact with each other (or not).
Even bigger challenges
The book contains wonderful excerpts on the history of Eskom, particularly pertaining to the experiences of Jan Oberholzer and André de Ruyter, two of the most senior leaders who are currently at the helm.
The current leadership is trying to overcome many challenges, the most significant of which are described in the book:
- Governmental and political interference
- Poor performance
- Corruption
- Sabotage
And so, to the title. Apart from maintenance issues, one of the major reasons for electricity outages has been physical sabotage. Some of the damage to infrastructure could only have been caused by purposeful acts, and by people who had intimate knowledge of the power plants and infrastructure and how they work in relation to each other.
The question we are left with is: who all are guilty of sabotaging Eskom?
We can ask ourselves: what is the definition of sabotage?
This book led me to see that sabotage includes actions on a very broad spectrum.
The one end of “hard” actions on this spectrum is doing things like deliberately cutting cables. The other end of “soft” actions is doing things like criticising and complaining.
As uncomfortable as it is, can we each own that the definition of sabotage is broad, and that all South Africans are guilty of some form of sabotage from time to time?
The “hard” actions are perpetrated by a few people. The criticising and complaining are done by many.
How big is the impact of the criticising and complaining:
- On Eskom?
- On South Africa?
What do we do first?
We own our role in sabotage.
We acknowledge when we criticise. We acknowledge when we complain.
We can even acknowledge that we have good reason to criticise and complain. Because we do.
And then?
We think of a way to challenge ourselves to be positive.
We think of a way to challenge ourselves to be accountable.
And, if we can’t come up with any ideas, we start by being grateful for the people who work tirelessly at Eskom to ensure that we have as much electricity as they can possibly provide.
We each have an ongoing responsibility to do what we know is right, to support our leadership and to resolve challenges in a positive way.
A final challenge
If you haven’t read it already, I invite you to get your mind around reading this book. There is a lot to learn from it, and a review cannot do it full justice.
Kommentaar
Seditious conspiracy is a crime in various jurisdictions of conspiring against the authority or legitimacy of the state. As a form of sedition, it has been described as a serious but lesser counterpart to treason, targeting activities that undermine the state without directly attacking it like breaking Eskom through policies and procedure.