Francis Wade | Why We Can't Afford to "Peanut Butter" a Vision 2050 Jamaica

As a leader, board member, or connected party in a government ministry, department, or agency, you might be perplexed.

Why, in spite of your very hard work during Vision 2030 Jamaica (V2030), has there been no improvement in GDP or productivity?

You know what it feels like to drive home from a successful strategic planning retreat with one question on your mind: "Will our plan move the most important indicators of economic growth?"

There's no doubt that Jamaica is underperforming. If we were a US Fortune 500 company, our ranking would have slipped from 166 to 187 between 2019 and 2025. Today, our people produce about US$8,100 of GDP per citizen, while a worker at Walmart produces US$324,000 of revenue per employee.

Our common complaint? Many Jamaicans say that we just don't execute well enough. Our plans don't bear fruit, even though they are lauded as some of the best in the world. For example, V2030 was a key input to the formation of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

But maybe this diagnosis is only partly correct. There are some tough lessons a Vision 2050 Jamaica (V2050) should learn from V2030.

The Hard Lessons

Look at what V2030 accomplished. A drop in debt-to-GDP. Primary surpluses across political administrations. A successful IMF programme exit. An exemplary fiscal turnaround. A fall in the murder rate.

Yet, there is a paradox, fiscal gains alongside flat GDP growth. Consider a stiff diagnosis: we demonstrated fiscal discipline, but abandoned strategic discipline. And this has nothing to do with execution.

"Peanut buttering" occurs when leaders make the mistake of spreading limited resources — money, talent, attention — across so many priorities that none receive the concentration required to move. It happens when trade-offs are ignored. In other words, X and Y are both included in a plan even though the organisation cannot afford both.

The evidence?

Most now see V2030 as a long wish list. It has everything we could imagine, including a rise to developed country status. This is not to point fingers: in 2019, plans of this kind were state-of-the-art in national development planning.

The development community has responded to failures by labelling these plans "aspirational", which deflects accountability at scale.

Further evidence sits in the corporate plans submitted by ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) each year to cabinet. There is a second twist. Every MDA produces annual plans aligned with V2030. However, civil servants have become more sophisticated: anything and everything can now be "aligned."

In other words, the "X-and-Y" culture of V2030 has made its way into each MDA's planning. This is peanut buttering at every level.

Concentration, not Spread

But this practice is not inevitable. Look at Norway.

The country discovered North Sea oil in the 1960s when its population was around 3.7 million. Most resource-rich countries spend the windfall. But Norway recognised the resource curse known as "Dutch Disease", and devised a simple but contrary strategy: "Do not spend the oil money on the domestic economy."

Today, the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global is valued at about US$1.7 trillion — the world's largest. This is strategic discipline at its finest. Most Norwegian ministries do not touch the fund. A small number of agencies carry the load; the rest do not pretend to. The asymmetry is by design, not an accident.

Having failed to grow GDP, Jamaica now faces a similar decision, and the V2050 draft is where that choice will be made or missed.

The Choice

The choice is structural, not aspirational. V2050 must concentrate where V2030 spread. It must name the fewest priorities that can achieve the most important outcomes. This is what separates strategy from a strategic plan.

Almost all the corporate plans I review lack actual strategy. They don't help MDAs decide:

• What to cut from a budget.
• What's contributing directly to GDP growth, and resilience, versus playing a support role.
• How their ineffective processes slow down GDP growth outside government. For example, recent improvements to the Tax Administration of Jamaica's vehicle licensing are miraculous.

The call to replace V2030 grows. As someone involved in an MDA, you have a short window to insist that the structural question — concentrate or spread — is answered before the document is finalised. The next strategy retreat is where this practice begins: refuse the X-and-Y culture, and what you produce will be a strategy, not just a wishlist or plan.

COVID and Hurricane Melissa have taught us that we can focus our efforts in an emergency. A V2050 project must give that focus, without waiting for one to hit.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To search his prior columns on productivity, strategy, engagement and business processes, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.