This is the success story of a giant of a man who, for the past two years, has been buffetted by stinging political forces that have not only affected his health, but also the wellbeing of his family. Yet throughout months of adversity, Pravin Gordhan has not wavered in sticking to and articulating deeply held principles of honour, decency and integrity.
He is for many the epitome of success. He is humble about his accomplishments, can be self-deprecating at times but with a backbone of tungsten steel when it comes to speaking out about the ills of society and the travails of the planet.
We meet on the sidelines of yet another conference he has been invited to address, where delegates want to hear a combination of hard truth flavoured with optimism. They want a sage to tell them that it’s going to be all right.
He’ll do that, but not before telling them that being part of
the leading 1% in SA places a huge expectation on them.
How they behave, how they treat their staff, how they need to be less greedy and how to become more active members of civil society.
Notwithstanding a longer view that we can get it right in SA, he tells me that the state of the country and the ANC keeps him awake at night.
"So many people have given their lives, their time, their energy and their potential over many years," he says.
"But at the same time there is also the reassurance that we have done well in the past 20-odd years, and we have a foundation that can’t be cracked. We will, I know, be able to build on that foundation again."
If anyone has the right to be bleak, it’s Gordhan. So what drives the optimism? "It’s a long-standing and fundamental belief that we need a more just society. And as my understanding increased both politically and in terms of what social justice meant, that developed into a passion. But with passion also comes the question of how to achieve concrete results."
Gordhan believes there are two key elements to achieving results. "One is having a strategy to overcome obstacles and the second is to not lose one’s sense of the goal and the principles that inform what we do.
"I have been one of those individuals who always looked at opportunities to do better, not in a personal sense but in an organisational sense."
He cites the South African Revenue Service (SARS) that he ran for years where his driving dictum was asking why it could not be benchmarked against global institutions. As it turned out, he achieved that status. But more importantly, he says, people should have the humility to learn from others. Not to mimic them perfectly, but to adapt what you learn from them to your own circumstances.
On goal setting, Gordhan cautions about overreaching. You need to break down the challenge into bite-size chunks and become hyperadaptable to your environment. He also says while dynamic people like to forge ahead, more progress is typically made by having the ability to work in groups.
"It is about a collective ethic in a sense. Although leaders must play an important role in catalysing or crystallising thinking, the thinking happens in the particular environment."
But how does a leader find it within him or herself to listen, because often the more experience you have, the better you think you are at knowing everything? It’s about tempering arrogance, which he says is a dangerous phenomenon.
"Sometimes you might overstep the individual element, and other times you might understate it. But it is having an understanding that you need to build fluidity into your life."
Given the default to group dynamics and staying true to principles of modesty, I know my next question on when he thought he had achieved success is going to solicit an answer full of twists and turns.
"Success has never been part of my vocabulary but the feedback one gets is satisfying."
Gordhan returns to his struggle and activist days, saying when he’d mobilised large numbers of people around a campaign, even if only a partial victory was obtained, it was about as good as it got.
Gordhan admits to feeling a sense of accomplishment as finance minister (twice) and head of SARS. "It was validating because I got to see people and machinery grow and with that came respect from the public."
It was validating because I got to see people and machinery grow and with that came respect from the public
— Pravin Gordhan
He has been at the vanguard of the fight against state capture and he’s come in for a battering. He does wake up some mornings and ask how much longer he can [carry] on at the pace that has consumed his life.
"I am privileged to have a supportive family and comrades and friends who are honest souls who want to bring about real and important change — both within the ANC and within the government itself. That keeps me motivated."
He is touched and moved whenever he walks into a shop or a garage, he says, and experiences the level of political understanding in the country and what and who is right — and what is wrong.
For a man who sets a pace that would challenge and shame people half his age, Gordhan says downtime has become critical…. He takes time out late in the evening to relax and flip through news channels.
He thinks it’s critical to spend quality time thinking.
He also confesses to being something of a magpie when colleagues and friends send him articles and clippings. But it all informs a bigger dynamic, which he says enables him to refresh the answer to questions such as, What is going on in the world today? What are the new dynamics that are unfolding? What do those dynamics mean for new trends that might actually be developed? Where are we in this country at this point in time? What are the new complexities that we actually have to deal with?
Apart from Nelson Mandela, Gordhan surprises me with the person he looks up to. While he’s not a Catholic and not even religious, he admires Pope Francis for reintroducing sanity and contesting well-accepted norms of consumerism, individualism, greed and … accumulation.
We get into a hard political critique about SA’s body politic when I ask him if he has broken rules in his life.
"In the old days you had to break rules in order to make new ones. More recently we were lectured by President [Jacob] Zuma about how we should exercise ‘the ANC conscience’, which is prescribed in its constitution," he says.
"It says very clearly: contribute to nonracial unity and nonsexism; contribute to social and economic development for all South Africans and transform the economy. He [Zuma] breaks all the rules."
I am hopeful it is, and that is where optimism comes in. But at the same time that is where the realism comes in as well
Gordhan dismisses the legacy question with what I think is a little contempt.
"Legacy is built into what you do at a day-to-day level. If you do it well you will be remembered for it. If you have done it badly, you will be remembered for that as well."
I ask if, in 2018, SA is going to be a better place.
"I am hopeful it is, and that is where optimism comes in. But at the same time that is where the realism comes in as well,"
he replies.
"Nothing in SA, or indeed the rest of the world, is going to emerge without a contest; without some level of struggle. Those battles will have to be fought and there is no guarantee you are going to win. The only question is how much destruction and loss of opportunity, and loss of benefit to the majority of South Africans that we are here to serve, [have] resulted [from] this dip in our fortunes. And that is the regrettable part of where we are heading," he says.
"But at the end of it all, as long as you are part of the struggle — this new struggle where we all need to be alive, aware, vigilant, engaged and involved."
As we pack up and Gordhan leaves us, a spontaneous and tumultuous applause erupts from the room next door. The man is a rock star.
• This is an edited extract of Compelling Conversations with 20 Successful South Africans by Jeremy Maggs, published by Jacana Media. Meet Maggs and Gordhan at the book launch at 6.30pm on Tuesday (January30) at Exclusive Books Rosebank, Johannesburg.
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