Courtesy Guinness Book of Records, the name GHANA has suddenly become a reference point and all attention being paid to the wonderful achievements of our sisters, daughters, young mothers to break world records in Singing and Cooking at the peril of their life, considering the fact that they have to sacrifice sleep, rest, comfort, stand on their feat, all in an attempt to achieving the ultimate award; breaking their respective world records.
Suddenly, all TV and Radio Stations worldwide, Social Media networks and channels have focused their media on these crowd pulling events. Afua Asantewaa set the pace and completed successfully, followed by Failatu, whose program is ongoing.
Much as we are congratulating our women for their outstanding performances which had marketed and advertised Ghana globally as a Country that has rich human resources that given the recognition and exposure, they would excel in their individual fields of endeavours where they are best fit.
How did Afua Asantewaa and Failatu reach these stages in breaking the Guiness Book of Records? The answer is simple; they sent their Proposals to the Guiness Book of Records electronically, without knowing anybody (no protocol preferential treatment).
They waited patiently and the Guiness Book of Records acknowledged and responded to their proposals, outlining the guidelines, terms and conditions pertaining to would-be contestants. Unfortunately the work culture that existed in the corridors of the Guiness Book of Records hardly exist in Ghana.
If Guiness Book of Records are to operate in Ghana with their office manned by Ghanaians, these ladies dreams and visions would have died and not achieved. Per our work culture and practice, letters, proposals, reports, business plans etc presented to Ministries, Departments, Agencies, Institutions, Corporations, Companies ARE NEVER ACKNOWLEDGED AND RESPONDED TO.
That makes the difference between the work culture in Ghana where these documents officially received and signed at the receptions are either shelved, shredded or taken to the groundnut sellers, smoked fish sellers in exchange for their goods. Afua and Failatu and their cohorts with potentials to exhibit their God given talents and experience wouldn’t be known if Guinness Book of Records had acted the same manner as Ghanaians do, not responding to correspondence.
By our typical Ghanaian office practice, a lot of talents, ideas, visions that could promote Ghana through innovative ideas that could create jobs, bring tourists, investors are not able to achieve their goals; their documents submitted are either not responded to or hard copies dumped into the dustbins and thrown away to the refuse dumps, only for these rich knowledge to be burnt.
The work culture as exhibited by the Guiness Book of Records is in line with International Best Practices, where people paid to handle certain roles and responsibilities are accountable to their tasks. The system works so much so that emails received for example go through all sections of the Departments so one’s failure to act on them promptly could lead to dismissal.
What happens in our part of the world where we don’t attach seriousness and attention to correspondence received. By this unprofessional behaviour, we have directly or indirectly diminished individual talents and potentials, compared to well structured institutions as demonstrated by Guinness Book of Records where systematic procedures and processes are put in place to unearth one’s potential.
Until we adopt best practices by acting on correspondence and documents received, either electronically or hardcopies, we would suppress l talents from coming into the limelight.
Emmanuel Tetteh Mensah,
Executive Director,
YOUR PROCUREMENT EYE.
Emails: yprocure.Eye@gmail.com
tetteh200005@gmail.com
