After the Brazilian, Afro-European and North American montages of the digital play “The Art of Facing Fear”, the company Os Satyros will premiere the world version in June, with actors from Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Cape Verde, China, Cuba, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Korea, Nigeria, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, United Kingdom, USA and Venezuela, who will each perform from their homes, directed by Rodolfo García Vázquez, director of Brazilian company.
Actors from five continents will gather by their love for theatre to talk about the planetary event that changed the lives of more than seven billion people.
“The Art of Facing Fear”, recognized as one of the iconic works created during the pandemic, was staged for the first time in June 2020, talking about the perplexity and fear of an unknown situation faced by the entire planet, and that even today it has many unanswered questions.
The montage, which has already been seen by more than 30,000 people, is a co-production by Os Satyros and The Red Curtain International, an artistic organization from India, a country that is today the epicenter of the pandemic.
Although in times of global confrontation by Covid-19, the resumption of artistic activities still requires a lot of effort and care, it is a fact that theatre artists need to work. It is a world that returns little by little, varying according to the stage of control of the pandemic in each country. But it is still a matter that concerns the entire planet, so there is nothing better than bringing together the experiences of the five continents, synthesizing, in an artistic work, the same feeling that helps the world breathe. In an apparent contradiction, this becomes possible right now, in this new life in front of the screens.
THE COMMUNION OF DIFFERENCES – LANGUAGE, CULTURE, TIME ZONE
Directed by Rodolfo García Vázquez, co-founder and director of Os Satyros, the show will be performed mainly in English, with excerpts in other native languages of the actors. As with all rehearsals, all presentations will take place remotely and in real time, with each actor in their home, in their country and in their respective time zone, using technology to reconcile different worlds.
“Twenty-five actors from five continents! If you think finding them was difficult, imagine booking rehearsals with all these time zones. Fortunately, The Red Curtain International has already developed some expertise in assembling calendars across multiple time zones, as we have already produced two versions of the global online theatre festival The Good The@tre Festivals & Awards. The International Jury also had to watch the live performances (recorded plays are not real theatre!), so we already knew a little bit about the best times if the world needed to meet online. Os Satyros also knows a lot about making a global rehearsal schedule across time zones, as they had already produced the Afro-European and North American versions of this play,” says Indian director and producer Sumit Lai Roy, one of the founders of The Red Curtain International.
“The Art Of Facing Fear” retains its original motto, but will be renewed due to the cast’s multiple nationalities and also the passage of time between its first debut and today: “No work by Os Satyros ignores socio-political, economic and artists involved in the work. Therefore, the script will reflect much of the dynamics developed with this cross-cultural cast,” explains Rodolfo García Vázquez.
SYNOPSIS
In a dystopian future, people are trying to reconstruct stories from a life before the pandemic. In quarantine for 5,555 days, isolated and anguished, they created an internet group to connect. These friends don’t understand how electricity still exists or there is access to the web, because television stations and newspapers have ceased to exist and cities have been abandoned. Depression, loneliness, fear of contagion, anguish over the proximity of death pervade the scenes of the show.
THE IDEA OF A WORLDWIDE PERFORMANCE
The idea of “The Art Of Facing Fear” version The World United was born in 2020, during the technical rehearsal of Os Satyros for the Good The@ter Festival & Awards, produced by The Red Curtain International, a global non-profit organization that champions The@tre Without Borders.
We will be happy to arrange exclusive interviews, if you are interested, with the Director and/or any of the cast and crew from any of the 5 continents represented in this global effort to help people cope with the after-effects of the pandemic.
Showing time
PRE-SHOW: June 18th (Friday), at 11pm (GMT) with subtitles in Portuguese
PREMIERE: June 19 (Sat), at 4am (SOUTH AFRICAN TIME) or 2am (GMT)
FREE SEASON
PRESENTATIONS AND TIMES (South Africa , Cape Town time ):
06-18 (Friday) at 2:30 am
06/19 (Sat) at 8:00 pm and 4:00 am
06/20 (Sun) at 1:00 pm
06/26 (Sat) at 8:00 pm and 4:00 am
06/27 (Sun) at 1:00 pm
03/07 (Sat) at 8:00 pm and 4:00 am
07/04 (Sun) at 1:00 pm
TICKET BOOKING: from June 1st at https://www.theredcurtaininternational.org/
DURATION: 60 min / CREDIT RATING: 16 years / GENRE: drama / SEASON: until July 4th
“The Art of Facing Fear” World United version
A motivating factor
Despite a challenging environment, after 3 years of hard work, SGTD (Société de Gestion du Terminal à conteneur de Doraleh) Doraleh Container Terminal team achieved the Africa best performing Container Terminal – according to Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) review compiled by the World Bank and America-British firm, IHS Markit. In regards to the achievement and other issues Capital talked to Abdillahi Adawe Sigad, Chief Executive Officer of SGTD to highlight their achievement and their future plan. Excerpts;
Capital: Can you tell us about the recent ranking of ports by World Bank and Markit Report?
Abdillahi Adawe Sigad: This report was compiled by the transport and logistics division of the World Bank which is a well-recognized institution and the IHS Markit, which is a firm from Great Britain which combines information, analytics and expertise to provide solutions for business, finance and government. This report has a governing indicator from the world bank called CPPI meaning Container Port Performance Index and the aim of this index is to rank the different container terminals in the world. This report in its latest version ranked Djibouti first in Africa and to this end we are quite happy for our country and for our tea. We also thank our customers (Djibouti and Ethiopian) and other pertinent stakeholders of our operations: Djibouti Ports & Free Zone Authority, ESLSE, EMAA, Freight Forwarders Associations (Djibouti & Ethiopia), Customs (Djibouti & Ethiopia) who have played a measurable role on this performance.
The performance indicator (CPPI) is measured according to two different approaches. One is the administrative approach and the other is the statistical approach. For the administrative approach, the IHS and World Bank division of logistic and transport division basically interviewed the maritime and logistic professionals working with Djibouti port with regards to the efficiency of SGTD Doraleh Container Terminal. And on the statistical approach assessed the Terminal performance by encompassing and benchmarking the operational performance data versus other terminals..
Thus, this report combined two approaches which eventually ranked Djibouti first in Africa. This is a very good achievement for Djibouti and also for the customers of the Djibouti port. Furthermore, to all Ethio-Djibouti customers and all the stakeholders it’s a motivating factor to be the leader in Africa and to compete in a global level.
Capital: How was the port handling performance?
Abdillahi Adawe: I would say its performance is top notch and the first in Africa. What we can evidently see is that, our port has high efficiency in the port loading and un loading process, because this is the measure of the performance index. In Djibouti port, has a performance of 75-80 containers moves per hour per vessel. The average in most of the African ports is 40. We are really looking forward to surpass our current efficiency by reaching to a level of 100 containers in order to attract more shipment and more international trans-shipment to Djibouti. Because we have the capacity and the performance to achieve it, we believe this performance will increase the trust of our existing customers and also attract more international customers which in return will benefit our traditional customers such as Ethiopia and Djibouti, because when we build more value to the port it makes the port less costly for the traditional customers.
Capital: Who will be your customers when the trans-shipment increases?
Abdillahi Adawe: There are two types of customer who we are always looking forward to serving in our transits; one is the East Africa and the red see customers, which include Ethiopia and beyond such as South Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Yemen, and also Saudi Arabia, thus these are referred to as our regional customers since they are closest to us. On the other hand, we have more volume which can come from the East West traffic, which is the major consumption areas which includes Asia and Europe. Since we are in the middle of that big areas of traffic, there is a possibility to have some transshipment of these customers as part of our business.
For the Transshipment segment, we want to compete with other ports on the other side of the Red Sea and the Middle East in order to be the on the transshipment port for the East-West traffic.
For the hinterland segment, we want to reach landlocked country beyond Ethiopia – such as South Soudan, Ouganda, East DRC,… This will also benefit Ethiopia; if for example we have customers in South Sudan, their containers will go from Djibouti port to South Sudan through Ethiopia which can benefit to the Ethiopian economy.
Capital: What’s your view on the railway project that will connect the port to Ethiopia?
Abdillahi Adawe: The rail way project is not in kind a new project since railway company has almost been working for three years now. Having been connected by rail, the SGTD Dolareh container terminal has in-fact been the main user by far of the railway facilities. The container between Dolareh terminal and our counterpart Ethiopian shipping lines Mojo Dy Port are in the heart of the railway today and as a result we load and unload an average of two trains in the terminal but we have a capacity to operate six trains and we are looking forward for the Ethiopian customers to use more the train, because trains are more reliable, faster and easier means to transport goods. Furthermore, the more we use the railway system the lesser time it shall take to pay the debt that facilitated its construction which was contracted by the two countries.
Capital: Have you faced any challenges with regards to using the railway transportation?
Abdillahi Adawe: Actually, we have a harmonious relationship between Ethio-Djibouti railway Company and their sub-contractors, the JV managing currently the operations, as well as, the Ethiopian shipping lines, the main customer of railways transport modal.
The challenge is that, we do not have enough volumes of business despite us knowing that the railway transportation has a potential to pull in big volumes of business. Therefore, we will like to see the EDR and the management company to find more customers in Ethiopia in order to use this asset to a large extent.
Capital: What are the main challenges you are facing form the Ethiopian side, from Ethiopian customers?
Abdillahi Adawe: We don’t have challenges but we are looking into better ways of improving the point of contact since there are many players in this logistics field. For example, we have the ESLSE, EMAA, the Ethiopian customers, the Freight forwarders, transport companies and also customs.
Having a good flow of communication and contact is integral to our successful operations and better service for the customers After inquiring some of our customers we have noted that sometimes there is lack of contact between the port and Ethiopian customers. To this end, we have a project to address such challenges. Within the project we developed, we planned to come here (Ethiopia) and organize a meeting and workshops with Ethiopian customers to extensively discuss with them on the current challenges and the possible way forward in order to improve our contact and communication services.
We want to develop a better communication link for example through the various associations such as the freight forwarders association in order to address any issues that may arise.
We are planning on making assessments on September this year, hoping that the covid situation will be behind us. Thus, in summary we don’t have challenges but we are continuously seeking to improving areas with Ethiopia customers in order to provide more access to information from the port directly to the customers and when customers feel like they are facing a problem, they can directly contact us and we shall duly resolve the problem.
Capital: So, what would you say is the main purpose of your visit here?
Abdillahi Adawe: For my visit here, I intended to share with our customers the performance of our terminals and to also announce that we are planning to extend our service of communication by inviting some of the customers to Djibouti and similarly for us to come in Addis and in other economy areas in Ethiopia and share insights and information of our operations with the customers. Of course, during my visit, I will also meet with customers, freight forwarders and our major customer, the Ethiopian Shipping and Logistic Enterprise.
I would like to extent my gratitude and thanks to the Ethiopian customers, in particular ESLSE for their support and suggestions and also for challenging us in performance. It is through this support and performance suggestions, that we are able to enhance the efficiency of our port.
Massive greed and the COVID 19 pandemic
Last March, when “The Wall Street Journal” devoted a full-page to the wonders of a $4 million Bugatti sports car that goes up to 200 KMH in around 12 seconds, many realized that the era of super-excess has truly dawned. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a terrible toll on millions of people across the globe, while thousands have prospered as never before.
Richard Phillips, a New York-based international analyst argued that their new wealth has created a manic greed pandemic, hurling caution to the winds and perhaps, leading to a grave crash ahead. Volkswagen Group, owner of the Bugatti brand, may only make 50 of its hyper-vehicles a year, but there could well be orders for far more. For instance, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Tesla founder Elon Musk added more than $60 billion each to their personal fortunes over the last year as the stock market valuations of their companies soared. Each of them is worth more than $170 billion at current share prices.
According to Richard Phillips, they are not alone. According to Forbes magazine, there are now a record 2,775 United States dollar billionaires. They represent the zenith of the wealth accumulation produced by the largesse of America’s central bank, the Federal Reserve Board. Fearing a depression as the COVID-19 crisis blasted the United States economy, the Fed opened the money-creating taps one year ago. Since then, it has pumped approximately $3.1 trillion ($3,100 billion) into the economy. The cash flood has kept interest rates at incredibly low levels and made borrowing by anyone in good standing extremely easy, thus inducing demand for shares on the stock exchanges.
Frank Vogl, Co-founder of Transparency International and author of “Waging War on Corruption: Inside the Movement Fighting the Abuse of Power” noted that the Standard and Poors 500 index, the best measure of United States stock market performance, is up 45 percent over the last year. Dow Jones Industrial Index is ahead by 41 percent, and the Nasdaq Composite Index, which focuses on technology shares, is up 62 percent! The liquidity bonanza created by the Fed has made bankers even more greedy for quick profits. That is something they cannot accomplish by lending to most folks given the low interest rates, thus having to take increasing risks. Of course, not all of them pay off!
For example, Credit Suisse, the giant Zurich bank that one might think of as cautious and conservative, just fired two of its top executives, dismissed several, cut its dividend by two-third and announced it was not going to buy back large amounts of its shares. The bank’s shareholders are unhappy of course. However, the bank then gambled on a company called Greensill Capital, headquartered in the United Kingdom. Greensill Capital was engaged in highly complex financial entanglements but seemingly respectable with former United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron as a senior advisor.
Joseph Vann, Director of the Program in Countering Transnational Organized Crime at the George Marshall European Center for Security Studies stated that the company went bust and Credit Suisse lost at least $3 billion, along with several other big banks that also lost cash. Soon after, the bank lost another $4.7 billion by lending to a United States-based private family fund called Archegos, whose secrecy enabled it to speculate wildly by massive borrowing. Archegos ended up over-borrowing and cannot repay its lenders.
According to Joseph Vann, the current stock market madness has seen far wilder developments. For instance, prominent United States hedge fund manager David Einhorn, head of Greenlight Capital, drew attention to the shares of a delicatessen in New Jersey listed on the stock market under Hometown International with a current value of around $100 million. Even if it offers customers wonderful sandwiches, the valuation seems bizarre given that it owns only one shop, was closed for most of last year due to the pandemic and thus had total sales of $13,976 in 2020. Its official filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, however, shows that it amassed total costs and expenses of $638,414 in 2020.
Frank Vogl stressed that Einhorn’s complaint was not directed at the owners of the delicatessen, or even those who wildly speculate in its shares or shares of other companies with negligible real value. Rather, his ire is targeted at the United States government’s market regulators who allow this kind of wild speculation and fail to investigate market developments that look bizarre. His concerns are being reflected in Europe where, in addition to the huge losses at Credit Suisse, there are increasing concerns about the role of financial market overseers.
According to Frank Vogl, Greensill’s collapse has triggered investigations in both the United Kingdom and in Germany. The continuing investigations in Germany of the massive fraud and collapse of Wirecard, once one of Germany’s top finance companies, underscores multiple failures by banks and regulators alike. Allegations that some bankers abused conflict-of-interest rules to deal in the shares of the company are just one part of a catalogue of failures by BaFin, the German financial regulatory agency.
There will be more Wirecard, Greensill and Archegos debacles. There will be more mad bouts of speculation in the markets concerning companies like Hometown International. These are all symbols of an era of excess. As the frauds, hyper risk-taking by big banks and hedge funds and unregulated speculations in objectively worthless shares of assorted companies multiply, so does the prospect of a big oncoming crash.
This need not happen if the official oversight authorities on both sides of the Atlantic respond now with firm and uncompromising resolve. Fundamentally, there needs to be a transparent public discussion of the chronic imbalance in our world today between massive economic hardships for so many and the extraordinary wealth generation for the expanding Bugatti-buying class.
HR transformation in the new normal
By Abiy Getachew
Even though change management has been in existence for over half a century and companies invest a lot in tools and trainings, most research shows a constant failure rate of 60-70% for organizational change initiatives (McKinsey & Company). Does this imply that all we know about change management is wrong? Should we divert from the Kotter eight success factors and go to the drawing board and start a fresh? Should we abandon the main elements of the change management framework such as engagement, communication, small wins and building the business case?
While it may be reasonable to rethink the basics, scholars and practitioners unanimously agree that the content of change management is reasonable correct. The problem arises mainly because the managerial capacity to implement change is woefully underdeveloped (Ashkenes, 2013). This applies not only to organization wide change but also for change within a piece of it, for instance HR transformation.
Successful HR transformation will benefit the business in multiple ways. First it helps to develop personal competencies which is needed to deliver personal, stakeholder and business result. Second it helps to directly develop business capabilities which are important to deliver business result. In other words, HR transformation helps to:
- Build competencies used to deliver personal, stakeholder and business result (A),
- Build an effective HR department (B) and
- Build business capabilities (C), all with tremendous business result (D) (Fig 1).
Hence, the most important question to ask is how to pursue a successful HR transformation? And how to make that change sustainable?
In an effort to answer the above questions, this article is organized as follows: first we discuss what HR transformation really mean and why organization need to pursue it. Following it, we outline the process of HR transformation along with the major success factors and its implication for Ethiopian companies. Lastly, we conclude by summarizing the key points to consider when conducting HR transformation.
The business world has seen arguably the most disruptive change in the last nine months than the last nine years which brings a new and urgent demand for change. In the midst of COVID induced recession, some industries are in the verge of extinction while some few gain a momentum upward profit. In this context, HR faces a unique challenge and probably needs to redefine how it works within an organization. In other words, HR needs to pursue a true transformation that demands an integrated, aligned, innovative and business focus approach. In that sense, HR transformation is not equal to efficiency gain and should not be done in isolation. It should not also be initiated by the whim of some individuals. And it is successfully completed only when it helped to implement the business strategy and drive business result.
However, the old way of thinking that this process takes more time, rely on heavy process and should start from inside the company is no more useful and valid. The current unique situation requires a fast, slim, and an outside-in approach where HR transformation should focus on its impacts on external stakeholders who matter to the company. In other words, HR transformation begins with an understanding of the business context (both the general conditions and specific stakeholder situations) and translate this into business strategy that feeds to HR Re-design.
While stakeholder measure primary tracks the outcome of HR transformation as a recipient of transformation, HR transformation has far more impact within organization and outside. For instance, a successful HR transformation should change the culture, identity, and image of the company. This means it will enable the company to build these capabilities which result in huge impact on the business. Ultimately, these capabilities become the identity of the firm, part and parcel of deliverables of HR practices and will be key in implementing business strategy.
Even though there is no magic list of ideal capabilities, the following seems to be an inherent outcome of successful HR transformation in a well-managed firm.
- Talent attraction
- Motivation and Retention
- Speed in making important decisions
- Shared mindset
- Accountability
- Collaboration and Learning
- Customer connection
- Innovation
- Strategic unity
- Simplicity in strategies, process and products
- Social responsibility
- Risk anticipation and Management
- Efficiency
However, the HR transformation team should do a capability audit to identify those capabilities which are critical for the organization’s future success. With those prioritized capabilities, scorecard may be created, and progress can be track from the base line.
Practitioners in HR transformation suggest four core phases to pursue effective change. First, the process should start with a clear rational for why transformation matters. This is building the case for why organization do transformation. The second phase is to clarify the expected outcome from transformation. Following this is to redesign HR which answers the question of how we do transformation. Lastly the process focuses on transferring ownership to line mangers and strategist to create sustained change.
Within the four core phases, the pieces come together in milestones, activities, and outcomes. HR practitioners who have worked with many companies (both which have succeeded or faulted in HR transformation) identified 13 milestones, outcomes and activities to turn these phases into action plans. However, the duration of transformation may vary from organization to organization depending on the unique organizational culture, level of anticipated change, expected resistance and degree of support from the broader organization.
But even with a carful description of the phases and detail of doing HR transformation, change is difficult, and many people not only resist it but try to undermine it. Hence it is not surprising that many studies found that only a third of change initiatives succeed. Hence, the issue here is, what factors distinguish successful HR transformation than those with partially success or complete failure? Several research in change management mention several factors like empowerment, incremental change, and key stone change. Since the factors are many and varied, it is difficult to arrive at an exhaustive list. However, one comprehensive study (lead by Dave Ulric and his team) which is made for the last 20 years on effective organizational change shed light on the issue and hence better to skim the cream.
According to that research, the major success factor is to have the leadership support for the change. This is a measure of the extent of having public and legitimate leadership inside and outside HR. Successful HR transformation also rely more on having a shared need of why the organization do transformation and developing a clear sense of outcomes of transformation. Moreover, mobilizing commitment from key individuals and knowing the decision that needs to be made are key in moving the transformation forward. However, all these conditions will not bring sustainable transformation unless the change is integrated with business activities and a blueprint of it is tracked, refined and adjusted while learning is taken from the transformation during the process.
Can we adapt the outlined process to local firms? That may be the primary question which readers of this article may ask. As many developing countries, Ethiopian human resource practice is different from the west due to differences in cultural factors, economic systems, political and legal systems and industrial relations. It is at a rudimentary state where most of the practices is done randomly and without any strategy, mainly because of Ethiopia’s limited experience in industrialization. Hence, a tremendous improvement in HR practices can be achieved by following the outlined approach, which in turn accelerate the transformation to strategic human resource practices in all areas of HR. Of course, the level of resistance and leadership buy in may initially work against the change. But never lose hope as this might take some time to reach its critical mass.
Overall, if done successfully, HR transformation will greatly contribute to deliver personal, stakeholder and business result. Explicitly, personal effectiveness, value for internal and external stakeholders and business competitiveness. Effective HR transformation produce in business result because it equips the HR department with capability to impact the business performance. Out of these capabilities, the one with the highest business impacts are employee practice (HR policy/practices used for employees), Capability support (HR effectiveness at supporting capabilities) and Stakeholder value (HR design to deliver values to stakeholders).
Abiy Getachew Sime is Senior Consultant at HST consulting PLC
You can reach at him at abiy.getachew@hst-et.com
