Cutting out the future of Lahore

After a process of evolution our local government system has devolved power at the doorsteps of local communities and as part of this arrangement, Lahore today has an elected Nazim (mayor) and elected council. Lahore is a wonderful city of a great historical interest. Not just the intellectual grandeur of the city is charismatic but also the well-endowed cultural heritage. In the same breath, owing to its fast track urbanization, Lahore lends out and out challenges and opportunities to the Lahore District Nazim, Amer Mahmood. He needs to look and see how to invent Lahore’s future. Implicitly and explicitly, it is high time for making local democracy work for the residents of this old city.

For making Lahore a futuristic city, it needs leadership in action—leadership that anticipates change and harnesses it to positive advantage. The city requires strength in diversity, partnership, and citizen participation, which Amer Mahmood must offer. He needs to innovate, create and lead. The city must have a destiny to sustain. The challenge is to make change our friend, not the enemy.

Amer Mahmood must be deeply involved in making and reviewing policy for transforming Lahore into a city of future. It will work best if he also respects the roles, expertise, and goals that elected and appointed officials bring to city governance. They should sit down together and develop relationships that work in this term. It is also time for the city to take greater responsibility for its economic future.

He should work with the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry to explore how City Government can more effectively participate and partner in shaping Lahore’s economic future. The two institutions can focus on substantial issues and work together on a strategy for change and reform.

For making Lahore a modern city it should welcome the information age while providing ways for people to come together. Besides technology initiatives Amer Mahmood should push off policy initiatives and thus help people connect. This should create opportunities and places for people to gather. The city of Lahore to prosper in the 21st Century needs to improve its capacity to deal successfully with the new international context. The most successful will be closely connected to the rest of the world—through trade, transportation, technology, education, arts and culture. Indeed, the future promises dramatic and significant life style choices for exercise and connection.

Civics of the 21st Century will be more about relationships between people than about structures of government. The key is to get people talking and working together across the boundary lines that traditionally divide and diminish a community.

We expect from Amer Mahmood to offer the leadership that reaches from neighborhood to region to global. There are important and timely opportunities for thinking and acting outside of the box.

We need a new approach to transit in Lahore. Increasing traffic congestion is a fact of life. We cannot build our way out of the problem. Any solution must include improved rapid transit.
Amir Mahmood should plan a process to design a transit system for people to ride. He should develop a passion in making busses work for everyone.

He should also create places worthy of our affection. Indeed, he can create such places. He must take decisive steps for making Lahore as the business, governmental, cultural, and educational center of the 21st Century. For that matter he must take deliberate steps today to shape the future of tomorrow. The best way to do it is to invent future. He must go for it, search out and use the concepts of smart growth and new urbanism.

His task should heave in “leadership in the key of e,” that is, enterprise, environment, education, E-commerce and E-government, and eccentricity. These are the tools by which he can bring benefit to that which is most important—the people—not an extension of global uniformity, but a unique people, in a unique place and made unique by their collective endeavor.

We need a new – a different – local government to continue the task of modernizing Lahore—a new role for a new century. A role that challenges the sense of inevitable decline that has hung over local government in the previous years and provides local people and their representatives with new opportunities.

With strong leadership, the best days of cities lie ahead. So be it for Lahore. Lahore in coming days is an exciting, diverse, urban, and a futuristic city—a good place to live as well as to work and do business. It also is an exciting time for all those involved in the art and politics of city building. The right principles and the right leadership, together we can make a difference in Lahore.

Amer Mahmood should be more than a ribbon-cutter. Although he does plenty of those over and above his prolific role, he must also heighten further his attention on community safety, cleaning up the city, and making the environment business friendly. He should be involved in determining the vision for the city, not in terms of day-to-day administration, but as the key figure in deciding policy and direction for growth.

To be a good Nazim of pride, Amer Mahmood must articulate the vision of a better place and future; must lay down the challenge to constantly do better – to never rest on laurels – then cheer the community along as they work at delivering that vision; the economy, jobs, life-long education, transport, public safety, health, well-being and always, the environment.

He must reach for this vision using the tools of the 21st Century; even anticipating tools not yet even made. We don’t want the smokestacks of yesterday, we want the technology of tomorrow. Lahore is ready for a progressive city that focuses on the future. He should reach beyond what he knows to grasp and that might be a bit ahead of its time. Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation

21st Century Business Leaders

In comparing the desired characteristics of future business leaders with the desired characteristics of the past business leaders there are both similarities and differences. Many qualities of effective leadership are seen as being important for yesterday, today and tomorrow. Characteristics like vision, integrity, focus on results and ensuring customer satisfaction which are still alien to Pakistan, are factors that were critical in the past and will be so in the future.

21st Century leaders will be thinking globally, appreciating cultural diversity, demonstrating technological savvy, building partnerships and sharing leadership.

Globalization is a trend that will have a major impact on the leader of the future. In the past, even major companies could focus on their own country or, at most, their own region. Those days are soon going to be over. The trend toward globally connected markets is likely to become even stronger in the future. Not only would leaders need to understand the economic implications of globalization; they will also have to understand the legal and political implications.

Two factors that are seen as making global thinking a key variable for the future are the dramatic projected increases in global trade and integrated global technology. There will be difficulty buying something made in one country because it will almost be impossible to determine what percent of the product is actually made in that country. Future leader will need to spend time in multiple countries to better understand how multi-country trade could help their organizations achieve a competitive advantage. In an environment where competitive pressures are rapidly increasing, producers will have to learn how to manage global production, marketing and sales teams.

New technology is another factor that is going to make global thinking a requirement for future leader. With the use of new technology it will be feasible to export even office and "white collar" work around the world. Computer programmers in Pakistan will communicate with designers in Italy to help develop products that will be manufactured in Indonesia and sold in Brazil. Leaders who are stuck in local thinking will be hard-pressed to compete in a global marketplace. Leaders who can make globalization work in their organization's favor will have a huge competitive advantage.

As the importance of globalization increases, future leaders will also need to appreciate cultural diversity. They will have to understand not only the economic and legal differences, but also the social and behavioral differences that are part of working around the world. Respect for differences in people is one of the most important qualities of a successful global leader. Developing an understanding of other cultures will not be just an obligation, it will be considered as an opportunity.

The appreciation of cultural diversity will need to include both the "big things" and "small things" that make up a unique culture. For example, few Europeans or Americans who work in the Middle East have taken the time to read (much less understand) the Qur’an.

The ability to motivate people in different cultures would become increasingly important. Motivational strategies that are effective in one culture may actually be offensive in another culture. Leaders who can effectively understand, appreciate and motivate colleagues in multiple cultures will become an increasingly valued resource in the future.

Technological savvy will be a key competency for the global leader of the future. It means that every future leader will be a gifted technician or a computer programmer. It also means that leaders will need to understand how the intelligent use of new technology can help their organizations; recruit, develop and maintain a network of technically competent people; know how to make and manage investments in new technology and be positive role models in leading the use of new technology.

New technology would become a critical variable that will directly impact organization's core business. I however feel pity for Pakistani executives who stubbornly think that they are either "too busy" or "too important" to learn the power of new tools. The organizations that have technologically savvy leaders will have a competitive advantage over organizations that did not.

Many of the future leaders will see the management of knowledge workers to be a key factor in their success. Knowledge workers are people who know more about what they are doing that their managers do.

In dealing with knowledge workers old models of leadership will not work. Telling people what to do and how to do it becomes ridiculous. The leader will be more in a mode of asking for input and sharing information. Knowledge workers of the future may well be difficult to keep. They will probably have little organizational loyalty and view themselves as professional "free agents" who will work for the leader who provides the most challenge and opportunity. Skills in hiring and retaining key talent will be a valuable commodity for the leader of the future. Sharing leadership may be one way to help demonstrate this skill.

To successfully prepare for the next millennium, tomorrow's organizations will have to either change the mind-set of many leaders or change their employment status. For leaders who are near retirement, this may not be an issue. For middle-aged leaders who lack the needed new skills this may be a challenge. Leaders will have to learn why the new skills are important. They will have to understand what they need to learn and be shown how they can best learn it.

The "bad news" is that many existing leaders do not see the value of these new competencies. The "good news" is that almost all of the top high-potential future leaders do see the value of these new competencies. Future leaders may be recruited to help mentor and develop present leaders. If future leaders have the wisdom to learn from the experience of present leaders and present leaders have the wisdom to learn new competencies from future leaders, both parties can share leadership in a way that can benefit their organization. Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation