Chief Yomi Adewunmi is a Management Consultant and writer with a career spanning over three decades during which he once consulted for the World Bank on human capital development. But in spite of his professional exploits, it is his humanitarian engagements that have earned him immense recognition. Recently, however, Adewunmi, a Past District Governor of Rotary International, District 9110, Nigeria, added another title, Effective Performance Appraisal to his list of publications. After its launch last week, he spoke with BANKOLE SHAKIRUDEEN ADESHINA about his life, profession, his writings and why it took him 15 years to complete his latest book.SITTING and observing him at close range, Chief Yomi Adewunmi, the chief executive at Agroec Consultants Company, a Lagos-based management consultancy outfit, comes across as a thorough, meticulous and conservative man. And so conservative is he that his viewpoints about issues are almost always difficult to compromise, especially issues he had taken time to study before embracing.But make no mistake, Adewunmi is not rigid. He is at the same time a good listener. For anyone able to articulate his or her position well, Adewunmi could also be receptive of new ideas.Before the latest publication, he had published A Rotary Fact Finding Book and A Compilation of Rotary Projects in the last 25 years in District 9110, Nigeria. The successes recorded with those publications, propelled him to complete his latest secular literary material.Adewunmis two previous books were though not designed to be commercially successful, they were yet important, in that, they comprehensively propagate the works and ideal of Rotary and its impact on the society.Rotary and its principles of service to humanity have eaten too deep into my system like a terminal disease. I prefer to spend my last coin on humanitarian projects and programmes that will benefit and alleviate the sufferings of the needy around me. My belief in life is that there is nothing more valuable and satisfying than service - putting smiles on the faces of the needy. It should be stressed to the younger generation that the essence of life is not acquiring, it is giving. And he who give, takes.Through his activities in Rotary, Adewunmi acknowledges he has impacted the lives of many downtrodden Nigerians, including his kinsmen in Ososa, where he sank five water borehole projects.His third and first secular literary material, Effective Performance Appraisal took a prolonged period of 15 years before completion. Nonetheless, Adewunmi is unperturbed. He feels like a fulfilled and bestseller author and is indeed savouring the success of the publication.Undoubtedly, he has every reason to be happy. After all, he is not competing with the likes of literary giants Professors Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka. So, to him, the length of time taken to put his 145-page book together, rather, reflects his thorough and meticulous nature in arriving at a work that would be useful to all facets of literary and academic segments in the country.Explaining the reason for the delay in publication, he says it has been due largely to his professional and humanitarian schedules. I hardly have time for myself. But above all, I enjoyed and derive fulfillment from every bit of my engagements, be it professional, Rotary, family or religious assignments. However, like I have explained to personalities at the launch of the book, the delay in publishing the work was not intentional. Rather, it was borne of the need to do a thorough job that will be academically and literarily acceptable anywhere in the world.Besides, when the book is being reviewed, I want the exercise to be a pure criticism of what I wrote and not the combination of peoples works. This is common today, people want to write for the sake of it, not being mindful of the materials they are churning out. That is one of the morally and academically damaging challenges facing the industry, he adds.Speaking on the content of the book, Adewunmi explains that the publication is aimed at reviving objective and unbiased constant monitoring of performance of employees, with the aim of ensuring effective organizational management and sustainable human capital and economic development for the country.He however adds that the material was published for all knowledge seekers, including government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), schools (Universities, Polytechnics and Colleges), analysts, researchers, NGOs, among others.Performance Appraisal is the estimation or determination of the work or quality or manner or success in working or action. It is the process of determining or estimating the worth or quality of work saddled unto a subordinate by the supervisor. Also, Performance Appraisal is a management tool designed to assist managers in developing a workable career plan and assist in the organization development processes, he wrote.He said performance appraisal is a tool annually used by trained managers to measure the productivity and redundancy level of the personnel, with the hope of designing a workable strategy for the effective management of the organization.According to him, the annual performance review, has assumed an exasperating dimension in many organizations and in some, it is non-existent. Yet, the development, motivation, retention and training of personnel to make better managers depend on the important exercise that is being handled with levity and nonchalant attitude by organizations.Unfortunately, Adewunmi regrets that the instrument of Performance Appraisal, ordinarily, ought to enhance Content-Driven improved performance at work, instead of a Contest-Driven improved performance.He went on to explain the term, content-driven as a situation whereby a worker is genuinely and consistently improving his or her performance and productivity level, as a result of the training and motivation he or she has been exposed to. On the contrary, he said contest-driven is an improved performance necessitated by the need for competition and often time, inconsistent and unintended at effective organization management.Unfortunately Performance Appraisal has been bedeviled by several problems, which include victimization, personalized rating, witch-hunting, outright falsehood and cannot-be-bothered attitude towards the career and progress of individual employees. Unfortunately, attempts to improve the process over the years have not yielded much progress, as it becomes clear that promotion of employee are hardly based on job achievement but less important factors like servility and loyalty to boss at work.Also, Adewunmi laments bitterly about the high profile of social insecurity, occasioned by activities of morally bankrupt and half-baked unemployed youths in the country. According to him, moral values had degenerated rapidly today because of inability to pay attention to moral upbringing and extensive education and training in whatever chosen career. People must be trained. You must have the basic knowledge of whatever you want to do in life. After all, nobody builds something on nothing. The disappearance of this constant appetite for knowledge and moral values in our society is one of the issues leading to breakdown of social peace and order. Therefore, parents, guardians, churches, mosques, corporate bodies and individuals must embark on a holistic campaign to return to the glorious era, he submits.In Nigeria today, his profession is seen as rather unpopular, compared to law, medicine, banking, politics and others. This assumption was given credence by his children, who have all taken to other professions - lawyer, doctor, diplomat, political scientist amongst other. He however attributes the low patronage of the industry to one of the factors responsible for lack of personnel productivity and effective organizational management.Adewunmi had his elementary education at St. Johns Anglican Primary School and Government College, Ibadan for his secondary education before proceeding to the University of Ibadan in 1971 for his first degree. He later went to University of Lagos (UNILAG) for his Masters in Business Administration.Adewunmi had worked with the Lever Brothers Nigeria Limited between 1972 and76. During the period, he rose to the post of Section Manager (Edibles). Thereafter, he joined UNIPETROL Nigeria Plc in 1978 as Sales Representative before he left for training at NIM. He later went for Management Consultant training at Scip Gores and Velayo (SGV) in Philippines, under the auspices of a World Bank programme. He is a fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Training and Development (NITAD), Institute of Management Consultants of Nigeria (IMCO), Certified Secretaries and Reporters and member, NIM.He joined Rotary in 1982 as a chartered member of Rotary Club of Ilupeju and moved to join others in forming Rotary Club of Gbagada in 1983, with him as chartered secretary. In 2006-7, he served as the District Governor of Rotary International, District 9110, Nigeria, the second to the highest position in the international humanitarian organization.
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