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Friends & Friction: You need to be bold to change culture

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Muzi Kuzwayo CITY PRESS columnistPHOTO:
Muzi Kuzwayo CITY PRESS columnistPHOTO:

It is getting out of hand and society is going out of pocket.

I had thought I had seen it all, until I saw a mobile fridge and a chest freezer locked up with a chain. Inside the fridge were cold drinks of an intoxicating kind, and the freezer kept rump, sirloin, fore ribs, topside and shanks. The key was held by the son-in-law, who was effectively a bouncer at the funeral.

“The first three letters of the word ‘funeral’ are f-u-n,” someone once told me as he sipped more than a healthy dose of the European stuff.

“It is a celebration, a send-off, a home-going, a till-we-meet-again party, and you have to get new clothes for it. It is the Oscars of the departed.”

I thought I had heard it all until a jolly plumpy aunty called for a gin before the start of the funeral procession.

“I just want to crryyy … I want to weeeep …” she said.

As the cortege left the house, I heard a sharp wailing sound from her and her cohort. Mission accomplished.

Death has sadly become an opportunity to loot from the bereaved … those beautiful cups that mum kept in her cabinet for years, waiting for “strangers”; that can’t-get coat that she treasured and you’ve seen her wear only once or twice – keep an unblinking eye on them, otherwise they’re going to disappear forever.

Is it poverty? Is it self-hate? Is it apartheid? What has made us sink so low that people steal from those who are mourning? The worst are the neighbours who scale fences with filched plates of food and ice cream tubs full of scones.

Why should we eat scones at a funeral? Aren’t we mourning? If we have to eat something, how about tea and dombolo, or anything that shows that this is not about the good times?

People have the gall to complain about the quality of the food as if they have come to a five-star hotel. Why should the pre-funeral mourning period take a week and sometimes even longer while the costs keep going up and up?

This is a clear case of acculturation, as our culture has been completely overwhelmed by a cocktail of modern vices.

A people whose culture is mired in regression cannot be successful. It is time to change our behaviour, and this will require an intervention by the department of culture.

Acculturation does not only happen among nations – it happens all the time in business organisations.

Where there is a movement of people, there is bound to be a diffusion of habits and ideas.

Every time a company employs a new person, it invariably imports a different culture, which is good for diversity and, ultimately, the business itself.

Unlike in a country, the business leader must define a set of desired values.

The company leadership must also define the desired behaviours, while being receptive to good new habits, which it must encourage and reward, but must also specify the non-negotiables.

Laziness and mediocrity, for example, are vices that companies must not tolerate.

The culture of learning should be enforced with ferocity, and the slackers should be pruned because, if staff members fail to learn, the organisation fails to learn, and eventually stagnates
and suffers.

The culture of the organisation must be aligned to the strategy.

There is no point in enforcing the rigidity of a law firm in a creative industry, or bringing the disorder of creativity to a mining company where safety procedures are the lifeblood of the business.

Changing the culture of an organisation, indeed, of a people, takes time. Patience is necessary, but boldness is the key. The leader must be willing to take the first step and invest in it. He or she must be the visible proponent of change and paint a picture of success.

  • Kuzwayo is the founder of Ignitive, an advertising agency
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