PUTRAJAYA, July 14 — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak Monday asked organisations in the government to emulate the success of the German football team which he said won the World Cup 2014 through unanimity.
“In my opinion, we can sum up the success of the German team as individual brilliance and commitment to extraordinary teamwork.
“When we are able to consolidate individual performance in the context of unanimity as a cohesive unit and work together in the spirit of consensus, our achievement will be far greater than the sum of the individuals,” he said at the presentation of Treasury excellent service awards at the Finance Ministry complex in Putrajaya.
Najib, who is also the finance minister, gave away the excellent service awards to 76 people, among them a recipient of the special excellence award in the Premier and Special Grade (JUSA).
Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Mohamad Hanadzlah, Deputy Finance Ministers Datuk Ahmad Maslan and Datuk Chua Tee Yong and Treasury secretary-general Tan Sri Dr Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah were also present at the event.
Early Monday, Najib joined 25,000 football fans to watch the final match of the 2014 World Cup on a huge screen at Dataran Merdeka in Kuala Lumpur.
Germany beat Argentina 1-0 through the goal scored by Mario Goetze in the 113th minute after the game went into extra time.
Najib said that at the organisational level, if an individual puts in extraordinary hard work and has strong organisational culture, he or she would attain a higher level of achievement.
“Thus, if we extend this to the level of a government, we will not be working in a silo.
“We work in a government across boundaries; we are not working in silos. Then, of course, the performance as a whole will reach a higher level,” he said.
Meanwhile, Najib expressed satisfaction with the nation’s economic performance, saying it had achieved a level that one could be proud of.
Citing examples, he said the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) had risen to 6.2 per cent in the first quarter of this year.
Besides, he said, in the World Bank Doing Business 2014 report, Malaysia had scaled to the sixth position from last year’s 12th while the IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook 2014 showed that in terms of competitiveness, the country rose to 12th position from 15th last year.
“We cannot achieve the highest position overnight, but if there is improvement, we can say there is a trajectory.
“We hope that such examples can stimulate us to more successes in the future,” he said.
–BERNAMA
