Idris Jala, Malaysia’s ‘Transformation Minister’

By Stephanie Jacob

In late July, KiniBiz interviewed Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department and CEO of Pemandu, Idris Jala. In this first of a three-part series, the man unofficially known as Malaysia’s transformation minister recalls how he came to take on that mantle  – including the need to be convinced that the country’s top political leadership was on board the transformation wagon.

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Transforming a nation is tricky task. A balance needs to be found in terms of size and scope. Move too slowly and the programme might never get off the ground. Rush the process, and the project will likely run out of steam.

In 2009, two factors made it clear to the Najib Abdul Razak administration that an in depth plan to change how both the nation’s economy and government operated was needed.

The first factor was the global financial crisis of 2008/2009. The government wanted to undertake a programme that would transform Malaysia’s economic structure to one capable of surviving in a volatile global economy. Furthermore it wanted to outline a clear roadmap towards achieving its goal of developing the country into a high income nation.

The second factor was in response to the deep dissatisfaction shown by voters during the 2008 General Election. The deep losses suffered by the ruling coalition were a clear indication that a large part of the voting public were not satisfied at the way the government functioned and operated.

As such the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) was created as an arm of the Prime Minister’s Department to oversee the National Transformation Programme (NTP). The NTP was split into two main components, the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) and the Government Transformation Programme (GTP).

To helm this transformation, Idris Jala a technocrat from the private sector was tapped by the Prime Minister to lead the charge by helming Pemandu. Officially, Jala’s designation in the government is Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department and the chief executive officer of Pemandu.

Unofficially however, he is known as Malaysia’s transformation minister.

Becoming Malaysia’s ‘Transformation Minister’

Prior to joining the government, Jala had already built a reputation as being a turnaround expert in the private sector.

The Sarawakian spent a large chunk of his career in the oil and gas sector, working for industry giant Shell for 23 years. Jala was posted to several international locations throughout his career including Amsterdam and Sri Lanka.

From 2002 to 2005, Jala was managing director of Shell MDS (Malaysia) and the vice president of Shell Malaysia Gas & Power (Malaysia). During this time he led the business turnaround of the loss making Shell MDS, which was then the first gas-to-liquids commercial plant in the world.

Although well known in the oil and gas field, Jala was nonetheless still relatively unknown to the public when we was tapped to take the reins at Malaysia Airlines in December 2005. At that time, the carrier had just experienced its biggest financial loss, and Jala’s brief was to save the airline and keep it flying.

To do this, Jala initiated his first business transformation plan in February 2006 with a focus on cost cutting. In less than two years his plan helped turn the carrier around, and in 2007 MAS recorded historic profits.  During his tenure from 2006 to 2008, the airline posted 10 consecutive quarters of growth.

So it was to Jala, that the PM turned in 2009 to lead the government’s transformation efforts.

Jala recalls being hesitant at first, saying “in the beginning I said no, I was not really interested in it. And the reason I was not interested was that I was not sure there was enough collective leadership.”

He believed that the Prime Minister was genuinely keen to undertake the transformation programme, but he was not sure that the rest of the Cabinet was as enthusiastic. However after  participating in several Cabinet workshops, he became convinced that the rest of the top leadership was also committed to the transformation.

Jala said that this was important because if “you want to do a country transformation it begins with the top leadership – not just the Prime Minister. But more importantly the Prime Minister and the Cabinet must completely want do it.”

Convinced that there was political leadership and will to push the transformation forward, Jala joined the Cabinet in September 2009.

Keeping an eye on ministerial performance

Central to the transformation plans, is the creation of an environment of achievement, accountability and integrity.

In line with changing how the government functions, an emphasis was placed on the need to monitor the performance of civil servants by setting clear and significant goals to be achieved. This process was started at the very top, by setting ministerial key performance indicators (KPI) for all Cabinet ministers.

The KPIs are created in lab sessions that involved representatives of the private sector and other relevant stakeholders to that ministry. From the labs, a set of agreed upon goals are given to each ministry to meet.

Progress towards these goals are monitored closely, including in a one-on-one session between the individual ministers, the prime minister, and Jala to review progress every six months. During these sessions, ministers were required to give an account of their progress – including providing explanations if they had fallen behind on meeting their KPIs.

As both goals and progress were determined via the labs, this minimised the risk of anyone trying to cheat the system.

When asked if monitoring the performance of his peers can sometimes be uncomfortable, given that there are some strong personalities in the cabinet, Jala admitted that it can. Especially when a minister has fallen behind his or her progress towards the set goals.

However in general, the ministers appear to appreciate the process that has been put into place, said Jala.

“The labs have been an eye-opener for many of the ministers of what was happening on the ground…when you look at things from a very high level you probably miss out the real issues of implementation. When we ran the labs the real problems with implementation surfaced and they were visible. From that standpoint, many of the cabinet ministers actually appreciated that level of understanding,” explained Jala.

He added that there is tendency for staff not to report problems back to the ministers, as they want to keep problems down the line. However by taking apart these issues in the labs, problems become more apparent to the ministers. This allows the ministers to channel their efforts towards addressing actual ground level issues, rather than addressing what they perceive as being the problems.

Creating a goals-based system as well as monitoring and evaluating ministers, has also encouraged healthy competition between ministries. Jala explained that ministers often ask him privately how their ministry did versus the others, and there is a desire to be the best.

However there is a need to ensure that the competition does not get out of hand, as the labs often concludeed that inter-ministerial or inter-agency cooperation is needed to complete a project. For example the ongoing River of Life clean-up project, requires the participation of over 40 ministries and agencies.

Changing behaviours will lead to changing mindsets

With over 40 parties participating on a single project, it is imperative that the various groups work in tandem. In the past getting the different governmental bodies to work effectively has been a challenge.

For Jala, one of the keys of transformation is changing behaviours and the way things are done – rather than changing mindsets which can take years. He explains “we do not begin by saying lets spend 10 years, five years changing mindsets before we start addressing the issues at hand. We just start by saying these are the things we need to do and we will do it this way.

“And I think a lot of reasons we succeed is because our approach is attacking or changing the way we do things, changing behaviour and consequently over time you will change mindsets. When they see the results, they will say that is a good way to do it.”

In tomorrow’s piece Idris Jala discusses the progress of the ETP and the GTP, he highlights the successes so far and addresses criticism against the programmes. He also comments on the areas he believes are lagging.

Tomorrow: Tracking the progress of ETP & GTP