In recent three months, in large cities of Kazakhstan, following the initiative of the Eurasian Institute of Integration, a series of expert meetings on discussion of the program Ruhani Zhangyru was held. Representatives of EII discussed topical issues of modernization of the public consciousness, social and political trends in the context of the Third Modernization, as well as implementation of the program Ruhani Zhangyru with leading experts of the country.

Today, we asked the director of the EII, Gany Nygymetov, to tell us what he discovered for himself after conversations with such a wide circle of Kazakhstani experts and scientists.

'Modernization of public consciousness’ — what is it for you?

You know, if we snatch these words out of context, for someone the concept of consciousness modernization may seem strange and incomprehensible. The questions arise: ‘what’s wrong with my consciousness, why someone’s trying to modernize it?’

If we speak in scientific terms, the public or collective consciousness is a collection of ideas, views, social feelings, habits and customs of people conditioned by the objective reality and affecting it. The society consists of individuals, each person has his own individual consciousness, and a social consciousness is formed on this basis.

I would answer these questions as follows. The President, speaking of modernization of consciousness, calls on every Kazakhstani to self-development, self-improvement, forming himself as a modern competitive person in a rapidly changing world.

That's exactly how I understand the modernization of consciousness. Everything starts with us and with thoughts in our heads. If inside there is a chaos, eternal depression, laziness, bad habits, low values ​​— do not expect a bright life for yourself. No one can help in such a situation. Only you can help yourself, taking responsibility in your hands. We must live with good thoughts, faith, love, dreams and be able to adapt flexibly to changes in life, not to break down on the way to our cherished goal.

When I was in the US, I was very impressed by the endless optimism in the Americans. Personally, I like being an optimist and somewhere even an idealist in life. It's easier to live and create. I remember how my grandmother liked to say: "Everything will be fine. The main thing is that there should be no war." Therefore, we should not complain too much, we live in a good time of peace. We will try harder, work, achieve, and success in life is guaranteed.

Why stay away from modern life, hope for someone, laze, go to religious sects, at some extreme, live in stereotypes, dogma, archaically think and perceive the reality? This has never led society to success and progress. Precisely this message I see between the lines of the President's article on the modernization of consciousness.

Do you think it will be possible to modernize the Kazakh public consciousness?

Let me begin with a little background. In April this year, the President proposed his programmatic article "Bolashakka bagdar: ruhani zhangyru", which refers to the modernization of public consciousness. It is worth mentioning that this is not the first time that the Head of State called on the people of Kazakhstan to rebuild themselves to new realities and change their thinking.

In 1993, N.Nazarbayev wrote an article very similar in conception, which was called "Ideological consolidation of society as a condition for Kazakhstan's progress". Then there was an uneasy period of time for our country: the Soviet Union collapsed, devastation, the economic crisis. Nobody knew how to proceed. It was necessary to learn to live independently in the conditions of an independent state, and gradually withdraw from the usual Soviet ideology and economy. It was necessary to rebuild, develop a new political system, create a market economy, modern institutions of civil society.

For such a cardinal transformation, a new type of thinking was required from everyone — from the country's leadership to the population. It was important to change the public mood, define new development guidelines, educate the modern values ​​of the new state, avoid a split in society.

And then the President tried to give his answers on these difficult questions in that article, which became a sort of ideological platform of Kazakhstan in the early 90s. This year I have re-read this article and was surprised: how much it was visionary, fundamental. I recommend that many read it, because the ideas outlined in it are relevant for these days.

And now, almost 24 years later, the President offers his new ideological work. It is also very deep, yet accessible to everyone. An article about our time, about what is waiting for us, what to prepare for, how to change. I am confident that this article will be equally successful in terms of relevance and depth of thought after many years.

Therefore, answering your question, I can say: from the point of view of the correctness of the chosen goal and long-term vision of the problem, the President has designated everything 100%. In other words, half the success is ensured. The second half of the success of the modernization program of public consciousness depends on the quality of performance.

By the way, world experience shows that since the 1970s and up to now, different corporate programs of organizational changes in 70% of cases have failed and do not reach the planned results. For us, it is a question of country change, much more difficult, and accordingly, risks of a failure are higher.

Therefore, it is very important to ensure high quality of the President's program implementation, and this depends on the personnel and responsible executors in the center, especially in the localities, and on the whole society as a whole.

Do we have such personnel?

The program of modernization of public consciousness is, as a matter of fact, the big national plan for change management.

The historical time has greatly accelerated. Everything around is changing rapidly. As they say, the Stone Age ended not because the stones ended. The oil age is also destined to die. In this situation, what Kazakhstan, an oil country, should do?

If earlier, in the 30s of the last century, companies entered the stock market and lived there for 90 years, today they die quickly and leave the market in 10-15 years on average. Obviously, not to die, companies and entire countries need to change, adapt, remain flexible, young, constantly evolve.

If nothing is done and live inertly in such a new global reality, then our days are numbered. Therefore, these changes occurring in the world, we must somehow manage for ourselves, to adjust in advance.

This is the importance of the program "Ruhani zharyrou". It is an attempt to mobilize society to change, develop the necessary qualities, values, skills for life in the modern world under the new conditions.

Fortunately, the population of Kazakhstan as a whole expresses readiness for personal changes. The results of the survey conducted by our Institute this year showed that 82% of the respondents are positive about the changes.

Now it is important to turn a positive attitude into a practical effect. In this regard, very much depends on the quality of public management. How did you correctly ask: "Do we have the appropriate staff to implement the program?" I will confidently answer that there are both in the center and in the regions. The implementation of the program now uses the project management approach.

However, there is a few professional staff. It is necessary to attract more qualified young specialists to the civil service. Educate, invest more in the development of modern state managers and human capital.

The success of the modernization program depends heavily on the quality of the people responsible for it. We need state managers of change who have charisma, leadership, a new paradigm of managerial thinking, using modern techniques and strategies that understand and talk with the population, which inspire confidence in it.

State managers must constantly learn, improve, in other words, modernize themselves. Bad is the manager who sees his goal only in the observance of certain established processes, rules. Modern managers in the world see their goal in implementing positive changes in the life of the organization, the industry, the country as a whole.

Do you teach change management in universities, can you tell us more about this course?

Since September of the last year, I began to teach part-time at two universities in Astana: the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan and the KAZGUU University. I started with the subjects Management and Leadership. This year, I offered my course on Managing Change to Civil Servants-Masters of the Academy of Public Administration. In fact, I had a desire to teach this subject after the article "Ruhani zhangyru", precisely for the reasons I mentioned above.

Change management is a new area of ​​modern knowledge. Abroad, this is much taught, more than 80,000 books on this topic have been written, practical strategies and instruments of change have been developed. I see my mission in introducing our state employees to this topic, which will be useful in their work.

Training is one of the most effective methods for introducing change, so I can say that I make my contribution to Ruhani Zhangyru daily, both at the main EII work and through teaching activities (laughs).

As I have already said, the changes around happen swiftly. For example, now in the system of state administration, we are actively introducing project management. This is very necessary and useful. But many developed countries are already implementing Agile management technology in the civil service. It turns out that we are behind, and the world is rapidly moving forward. There is much to modernize further, in one word.

Can such factors as our historical traditions, the mentality prevent modernization?

I like the way President focuses attention on two aspects of modernization in his Article. First, no modernization can take place without preserving the national culture. Secondly, in order to move forward, we must abandon those elements of the past that do not allow the nation to develop.

Therefore, traditions are important, but they should not interfere with progress.

Modernization consists in the fact that society will get rid of a number of archaic habits and addictions that do not fit into a civilized successful world.

Wastefulness, pretentiousness, search for quick profit, disrespect for each other, tribalism, regionalism, clout, injustice, religious fanaticism are those phenomena that can hinder the progress of our society and we need to fight it resolutely at all levels.

We shouldn’t seek excuses for these phenomena in our special Kazakh mentality and so on. New social values, such as pragmatism, the cult of education, competitiveness, openness of the national consciousness, should become a strong immunity from returning to the habits of the past.

Our people have wise traditions and a rich spiritual culture. We need to return to this wealth, absorb it into the blood and be able to take the best that there is in the world of other peoples, changing and creating a better life for ourselves.

Thank you for the conversation.