JABULANI SIKHAKHANE: Snares in Transnet ecosystem will trap Portia Derby’s successor too

The popular assessment of the success or failure of a leader or manager to achieve set goals often ignores the network of organisations, institutions and customary practices — the ecosystem — that play a crucial role in progress or a lack of it. This applies to public policy in general. 

For example, a careful study of the failures of state-owned entities in SA will find that the ecosystem within which they operate is a big explanatory factor of their performance. Of course, there would be other factors, including in some cases the appointment of the wrong people to run these institutions. A culture of corruption would be another factor that would overwhelm some institutions. Also, even the best talent, as followers of soccer or any other sports would know, has its fair share of “bad moments”. 

The popular imagination often focuses on individuals. Yet, even the best managerial or leadership talent can be tripped up by a hostile ecosystem. Popular imagination would rather hang Portia Derby for the failures of Transnet instead of looking at the difficult ecosystem, including corruption, sabotage and conflicting government policies, within which she had to lead the rail and port company.  

Transnet is a self-contained ecosystem that operates within a larger one. So, the difficulties of the Transnet ecosystem, which is informed by such factors as those that are outside the control of management, would have made improving the performance of the company a challenge. 

I’m not suggesting Derby, who has now resigned, and her team shouldn’t be held accountable for their performance. My point is that Derby’s performance has a context to it. That context includes failures by other arms of the state, including the police, to play their part in cleaning up the transport ecosystem. If the ecosystem isn’t cleaned up, Derby’s replacement will also struggle to make any difference to the company’s performance.

Institutional growth

The importance of an ecosystem was best illustrated by American sociologist Howard S Becker when writing about American popular songs. In a 1994 article Becker wrote that the US had “produced, over a period of perhaps 70 to 80 years, and most importantly in the first half of the 20th century, an enormous body of popular music”. 

He explained that the development of this body of popular music had “coincided with the growth of institutions”, which had enabled the music to be performed for the public. These included vaudeville houses, musical theatres, taverns and nightclubs — all of which had become common after the turn of the century. Later came the recording industry, radio and film. 

There were other constituent parts. Songs had to be written (composers) and played (musicians and singers) for audiences. But this required, as Becker outlined, that “a network of organisations, institutions and customary practices had to grow up to maintain the music and carry it to the world”.

As Becker pointed out, traditions do not exist without people to keep them alive, especially so in a performed art like music. The tradition continued because in addition to songwriters, musicians and singers, there were commercial institutions — sheet music and record stores — that made these songs widely accessible. Dance halls, night clubs, theatres and vaudeville houses provided the venues where audiences heard the music “in ways that gave it added cachet and meaning”. 

“It was never in any way ‘necessary’ or given that such organisations would arise. It only needs be said that had those organisations not developed as they did, American popular song would not have been what it became,” Becker wrote. 

He made the point that “this kind of integrated look at the institutions of an art and the various kinds of actors who made those institutions viable” is applicable across time, place and genre. 

Problems elsewhere

In SA’s case, making the necessary changes to state-owned entities requires a similar approach — one that sees them as parts of an ecosystem. Transnet or Eskom aren’t islands. They operate within a particular environment, one that includes other state institutions and public policies.

The ecosystem approach also applies to the management of the entire economy. It calls for an understanding of how one policy affects other parts of the economic ecosystem. Often, a solution for problems in one corner of the economic ecosystem creates problems elsewhere.

Policymakers often don’t do the work necessary to understand this, which includes a regular assessment of public policies for their impact, not only in terms of achieving their objectives but for unintended consequences. 

• Sikhakhane, a former spokesperson for the finance minister, National Treasury and SA Reserve Bank, is editor of The Conversation Africa. He writes in his personal capacity.