This team dreamed big and was like a breath of fresh air at the Treasury

Over the holidays I read Martin Oduor-Otieno’s biography, Beyond the Shadow of My Dreams.

Doing so brought back many memories, not least of when I and others worked with him to change the culture at the Ministry of Finance during his time there as Permanent Secretary and a member of the so-called Dream Team.

I had got to know Martin prior to him being parachuted into the Treasury, during the time he was chairman of the accountants’ body, ICPAK, when I held the equivalent position at the Kenya Institute of Management.

So when I learned of his appointment as PS I went to see him, to offer support for what I imagined would be a serious need for culture strengthening. My timing could not have been better, as he had just formed his Change Team, which he immediately invited me to meet.

They were an excellent collection of characters, lively and bold, not at all the stoney-faced bureaucrats we were accustomed to confronting. The leader of the team, Stephen Wainaina (now Planning Secretary), was always calm and cheerful, willing to try new approaches but sensibly cautious.

And important to the change process was the vibrant Julius Kipng’etich, then an economics lecturer at the University of Nairobi and, like me and my colleagues at The DEPOT, a consultant to Martin and his colleagues.

We held an initial workshop with the Treasury leadership and the Change Team at the Outspan, where the basic objectives of the new culture were defined.

Above all, Martin and his fellow transformers wanted to reverse the prevalent inward and upward flow of energy to “the boss”. Rather, they wanted it to flow downwards and outwards, towards those who dealt with the clients of the ministry, both within and beyond government.

Instead of living in constant dread of being “summoned from above”, the new paradigm was to serve the internal and external customers — with the seniors acting as facilitators rather than blockers.

Key to the success of the programme would be a flattening of the precipitously steep organisational pyramid that existed at the time.

Martin was amazed to find that as he emerged to visit other offices — a practically unheard of phenomenon at the time — he would spot Treasury officials disappearing into doorways so as to avoid being seen by the great presence.

Along with this came the need to soften the impenetrable walls of the departmental silos.

It was clear that the spirit of renewal would need to spread way beyond those gathered at the Outspan, and it was Mwaghazi Mwachofi (Financial Secretary and also newly recruited, from IFC) who suggested that 10 per cent of the total ministry staff of 3,300 would need to become champions for the desired change if we were to break through the prevailing apathy and the inevitable resistance that would be provoked by what was planned.

In the months that followed a family of nationwide programmes mobilised an army of 330 change champions. They were selected from all departments and levels, and from offices both within and far beyond Nairobi.

Most were chosen because of their suitability to take on the challenge of becoming change agents. But a few were brought in because to have excluded them would have asked for trouble!

Meanwhile other key components of the change programme kicked in, including a vigorous internal communications campaign and a cleaning up of the Treasury Building.

Slowly but surely the culture transformation began to be felt. Of course there were the sceptics and the cynics who, even as they paid lip service to the process, confidently predicted its demise.

For many the culture, however dysfunctional, was what it was. They were convinced that there was nothing anyone could do to change it… and certainly not a handful of outsiders unfamiliar with how to manoeuvre in the stale and dusty corridors of power.

Two further serious challenges confronted Martin and his colleagues. The first was the effect on morale of the very high pay differential between the Dream Team recruits and everyone else in the ministry.

(The other imports at the Treasury were Economic Secretary Peter Gakunu, Investment Secretary Kitili Mbathi and Director of the Government IT Service, Juma Okech.)

And the second was the overall public sector environment within which the change programme was occurring.

It was more than apparent that the revolution taking place in the Ministry of Finance was deeply threatening to the political and technocratic establishment of the day.

To use today’s language, what we were witnessing around the turn of the century was a “Treasury Spring”. And we know how what happened in Tunisia’s Arab Spring spread like wildfire to other countries where the leadership had disconnected from its followers.

So Martin and company were forced to be the quietest of revolutionaries, tip-toeing through their reforms without them showing up too prominently or provocatively on the radar of the hawks that surrounded them in other ministries and not least in the Office of the President.

The more credit to them therefore that they managed to achieve so much, and in less than two years.

For make no mistake, their leadership did transform the mindsets at the ministry. The breath of fresh air that blew through its offices was invigorating and motivating. People became more open, more cheerful and more productive.

Of course others elsewhere did get to know about what was happening, and envied the emergence of the new healthy culture. And as the news spread it all became too much for the topmost leadership to contain, so the Dream Team had to go.

Much of what they achieved was washed away with them. But much remained. They were heroes of their day, greatly to be admired.

(In my next article I will reflect on the significance of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, one of the great achievements that emerged from the Treasury in Martin’s time.)

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