The protesters, headlined by Gen Z and Millennials, demanded President William Ruto fire his Cabinet and in its place nominate Kenyans of integrity, vision and with proven track records. The President seems to have heard the instructions from his employers loud and clear but his delivery fell flat on its face. In appointing a partial Cabinet, the President threw caution to the winds and instead reappointed the same old faces to the cabinet. The people are furious. Some reshuffling.
For many political pundits, the chance to reconstitute the Cabinet was Ruto’s golden opportunity to win the trust of not only the protesters but also of the wider general Kenyan public. It was a second chance to redeem his democratic and governance credentials.
Unfathomable to many, the President defined the situation differently and decided that this was the time to focus on his 2027 reelection bid. In picking his part-cabinet Ruto was in essence erecting his beacons for 2027. This is his reelection campaign team. The President is calling the bluff of Gen Z’s declaration that he will be a one-term president. The President has defined this as a political nuisance rather than a governance conundrum and his cabinet as a political juggernaut. How in the hell did the President so badly misread the situation and squander such an opportunity? What is President Ruto communicating to “we the people”?
Lately, for Ruto, communicating is beginning to feel like Groundhog Day. No matter what spin he gives the popular protests to try to get his message across, he too often finds that the next day he is facing the very same blank stares, predictable objections, and questions that indicate that he failed to make it stick — that people just aren’t buying his spin on the situation. Not criminals, not treason not even blaming ‘evil’ society or development partners is washing.
I aver that the reason President Ruto finds himself in this cycle of nothingness, no breakthroughs is that his approach to communication to the people is based on an outdated mental model. It’s a model some pundits describe as a “post office”. Ruto is in charge. He views himself as the drafter and the sender of the message and others as the receivers. If problems arise, Ruto looks for disruption somewhere along the route.
In applying this post office model Ruto and his handlers are focusing their attention on the sending process, rather than the give-and-take of effective conversations. Even when President Ruto calls a press conference, as he did earlier on with the quintessential trio of Linus Kaikai, Eric Latif and Joe Ageyo to ask questions and truly value their buy-in, Ruto is still preoccupied with his own message. This leaves him ignorant about the larger context and reality on the ground, including emerging issues and game-changing opportunities. In the extreme, thinking in terms of the post office model leaves President Ruto to make decisions in isolation or miss the early warning signs of dysfunctional momentum.
Could President Ruto have defined the situation differently? Could he have done things differently? The answer is yes. He could have, heck, he still can communicate differently. Unlike the post office model, a two-way conversation reflects a more open, balanced, and reciprocal sharing of perspectives. Here, communication is approached as a puzzle or a collage, with each person holding a critical piece. The purpose is not to deliver the perfect message or to win people over, but to explore an issue or opportunity together — pooling observations and data, raising and testing assumptions, and creating new ideas out of the mix.
Conjure this. You call in a top technical team with a diverse skillset to diagnose malfunctioning equipment, when they get to work, no one lectures. Instead they tell stories, triangulating what they know to form a more complete and coherent picture of the problem, thereby enabling them to fix the equipment.
Mr President, learn to listen with a willingness to be influenced. The best way to improve communication is to focus on the listening part. Allow time for listening to Gen Z’s, millennials and all Kenyans and what they want to discuss. When you create time and listen with an open mind, you bring out others’ confidence and encourage them to share their questions, needs and ideas. And as you learn more about their mental models, you can frame your ideas more effectively.
The writer teaches globalisation and international development at Pwani University