Alphonce SHIUNDU

YALI invited the Vice Chancellor of Kenyatta University,Prof Olive Mugenda to give one of those motivation/inspiration talks. She is, they said, a transformational leader. The good professor came and gave a talk titled “Systems Theory and Transformational Leadership: Building blocks for sustainable performance” It was, in a nutshell, the story of her life, intertwined with the story of Kenyatta University. Here are 30 things she said. Read, get your lesson, smile and move on. Is it ever that serious? Well, let's see.... "When I was here many many years ago, this place was like a desert…The first thing I did was make it green. Have you seen the beautiful green hedges? When we first planted, the students would uproot them, but I'd tell my people to go and plant them again… now if you try to uproot them, the students won’t allow it. They love it!  "In a university like KU, even if I didn't transform it, life would go on.  I'd come to the office,...

The first week at YALI just flew past. I remember that first day on a sunny Monday morning when the tears rolled down the cheeks of Mark McCord as he shared his personal story about taking responsibility for decisions he made years ago. I don’t know how he felt, because I have never made a decision that directly led to the death of someone I worked with. The past is a great place to visit but a terrible place to live. #YALITransformation pic.twitter.com/weigeXT8Z7 — YALI RLC EA (@YALIRLCEA) August 24, 2015 I am a journalist, so inadvertently, I may write stories that get people killed or fired or haunted. But it has never been that personal, like Mark’s guard when Mark was a bigshot of some company in Jalalabad in Afghanistan, and he watched as an IED planted on a road blew out his guard. His friend. His colleague. After Mark’s tears, there was this game about the basic things that you need to know about people; about their families. Farah called it Bingo. I didn’t know it...