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| Make
a Difference — the spirit of ExCEL |
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Mr
Lim emphasised
effective leadership and communication. |
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This year’s
ExCEL Convention, held on 13 October, emphasised
the essence of the ExCEL movement — empowerment
and improvement. Read the cover story to find out
the views of the Head of Civil Service and the Chairman
of ExCEL on the directions of WITS and SSS. The
cover story also features two WITS projects that
were presented at the Convention and how a ministry
revamped its own WITS convention.
Has the ExCEL movement lost its way and does the
Emperor have no clothes? Mr Bilahari Kausikan —
Second Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Chairman of the PS21 ExCEL Functional
Committee — suggested as much during last
year’s ExCEL Convention. As a result, many
had wondered if the Work Improvement Team Scheme
(WITS) and the Staff Suggestion Scheme (SSS), key
anchors of the ExCEL movement, were headed for the
guillotine.
The verdict was clear at this year’s ExCEL
Convention: the WITS and SSS are here to stay, and
for good reasons.
Both Mr Bilahari and Mr Lim Siong Guan, Head of
Civil Service, reminded us about the underlying
philosophy of the ExCEL movement during this year’s
ExCEL Convention.
“The WITS movement is based on the belief
that when people get together, ideas grow, people
learn, things happen and good results come out of
teamwork,” said Mr Lim. “The SSS works
on the same assumptions that people want to see
improvements in the way they work and to create
new value. It gives all public officers an avenue
to voice their ideas and see them implemented —
in spite of the bureaucracy.”
Mr Bilahari put across his perspective in more colourful
terms: “WITS and SSS are really about empowerment
— the idea that every public servant, regardless
of rank, can contribute to a better public service.
They are deeply subversive… they ensure that
even if you have a stupid boss, he or she cannot
easily jam your good idea.”
Despite this strong affirmation of the spirit of
the ExCEL movement, a healthy debate continues over
the form WITS and SSS should take. Some feel that
having competition — for example, where 100
judges judged almost 400 teams over four days last
year — promotes form over substance. The sometimes
rigid and prescriptive use of WITS tool also came
under fire and WITS and SSS were tagged a “numbers
game”. However, these views were, by no means,
representative of all public officers. Based on
the ExCEL survey done in 2003, about half of all
officers surveyed said they enjoyed taking part
in WITS and SSS and would still take part in them
if given a choice not to. “It’s a case
of whether the glass is half empty or half full”,
remarked Mr Lim.
Nonetheless, with half of all officers saying that
they would rather not participate in WITS and SSS
if given a choice, what emerged was the need to
go back to the basics. Both Mr Lim and Mr Bilahari
agreed that the way forward for ExCEL is to raise
the quality of leadership and communication.
“Some managers and supervisors take the approach
which says ‘Just give me the numbers, I don’t
care how you do it’. Such an attitude discredits
the entire ExCEL movement and reduces the system
to a number game,” said Mr Lim.
Indeed, the perception that the ExCEL movement is
a “numbers game” is a “manifestation
of poverty in leadership and communication”.
Mr Lim urged ministries and agencies to counsel
managers and supervisors who might not realise that
they are dampening spirits and giving the wrong
signals on what WITS and SSS are all about.
Managers and supervisors must be open to new ideas,
encourage and recognise the enthusiastic, give guidance
to those who are unsure of their projects, and overall,
promote initiatives from the ground. Effective leadership
is critical for the ExCEL movement to succeed.
Communication of the basic spirit of ExCEL is just
as essential. Already, some efforts have been made
to communicate the spirit of ExCEL. For example,
since January 2004, the IM has been revised to allow
teams the freedom to choose whichever tools they
feel are most relevant to their projects. Mr Lim
opined that it is most destructive to “reverse
engineer” a WIT project to make it appear
as if specific WIT tools are used. He asked that
officers “use only the tools you need, report
only the things you did, but give some thought as
to whether the tools you did not use could have
been useful in your thinking and decision process”.
This year’s ExCEL Convention has helped to
communicate the essence of the ExCEL movement —
empowerment and improvement. Compared to ExCEL Conventions
in previous years, this year’s Convention
was shorter, simpler, and cheaper and had no element
of competition. The four-day affair was trimmed
to one, with each ministry making only one presentation,
in whatever format they desired, to share their
experience. Without pomp, and even without breakfast,
this year’s convention was about taking the
ExCEL movement back to basics. As the Covention’s
slogan reminded us, it was about the spirit of improvement
and innovation — to “Make a Difference”.
In Mr Bilahari’s words, this year’s
Convention is “on (the) real sharing of experience…
and not competition for competition’s sake”.
Much remains to be done to advance the spirit of
ExCEL — for example, reviewing the most appropriate
and motivating way of gauging the progress of ExCEL
across the Public Service. Nonetheless, revisiting
the basics of the ExCEL movement this year has been
like tailoring the emperor’s new clothes —
something exciting to celebrate!
What are your views about WITS and SSS?
Send your views and comments about the ExCEL movement
to psd_ps21@psd.gov.sg.
The speeches of Mr Bilahari and Mr Lim at the ExCEL
Convention 2004 can be found at www.ps21.gov.sg/hot.html. |
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Next: Self-registration
is a breeze |
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