Mark Barnes shoots from the hip when he outlines his remedy for an institution that has fallen on hard times. He knows getting things back on track will require finesse and nerves of steel Seldom has an appointment generated more excitement and hope than that of businessman Mark Barnes to head the South African Post Office.This is as much a reflection of his credibility and fame as a newspaper columnist and business commentator on TV as of the calamitous state of the Post Office. It reached such depths after the prolonged and seemingly suicidal strike of its labour force last year that no one was quite sure if it still existed.Enter Barnes, 59, a dynamic and combative (a story that he punched an executive at Brait before quitting as CEO in 2000 is "the biggest load of s**t in town", he says) actuarial science graduate from the University of Cape Town, former deputy MD of Standard Corporate and Merchant Bank and executive chairman and founder of JSE-listed Purple Group.story_article_left1Early this year, he wrote a column in Business Day about the Post Office's extraordinary potential and how it could be realised. He followed up with a strategy proposal to Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who invited Barnes to a meeting with himself, Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene and Telecommunications and Postal Services Minister Siyabonga Cwele at the Union Buildings.The cabinet approved his strategy and asked him to execute it, starting in January next year. What may have persuaded them was his access to skills and private sector money."One thing I brought to government, which I think they were very pleased to hear, is that I do engage with the skills set of the private sector and I do engage with the capital of the private sector," says Barnes. "The skills set and the capital would not come to the Post Office unless there was a private sector authority whom they trusted and with whom they could engage on commercial terms."I am presenting myself as that person. I know where some people live, I know where the capital lives, I understand the economics of what is required. And I will get some key skills."Herein lies his first challenge, because importing skills will not go down well with the Communication Workers' Union if it thinks this will disadvantage its members or set back transformation.He won't bring them in long term, says Barnes, "because I do buy into the transformation objective. But in the first few months I'm going to have some very key skills."If, as he says, he intends bringing the Post Office in line with its peers in the developed world, where only 30% of their business is traditional postal services, he will need a lot more new skills for a lot longer than the first few months, surely?How many of the old workforce will have to be replaced?"We'll need a more skilled workforce, but we'll still require people to deliver things."block_quotes_start The truth is the Post Office will die, and it is dying, rapidly, unless there's a massive change in attitude, direction and energy block_quotes_endE-commerce is all very well, but someone has to get the stuff to your front door. He hopes that will be the Post Office, which, with cheaper costs and a wider network, could replace private couriers. One of his first calls will be to Amazon."A significant portion of the Post Office's business will still be dependent on physical presence and physical delivery," he says.The Post Office houses Postbank, which he wants to see doing what other banks do, such as deliver social grants and take deposits. This will require tellers."We're going to have people who are in situ in the Post Office doing different things. Yes, of course they're going to have to upskill."This is not a six-month plan, it's a three-year plan and a five-year plan."Before he began discussions with the government, the Post Office said it would have to cut 5000 jobs and close 672 branches."That was because they were taking an old-fashioned business and contracting it into a smaller version of an old-fashioned business," he says. "When you start adding services to the Post Office I'm not sure that the job cuts figure stays the same, because you've got a growth strategy instead of a rationalisation strategy."story_article_right2Then there's the embedded culture of nonperformance. How does he change that without upsetting the unions?"I don't know that it is an embedded culture," he says. "And it is not embedded in South Africans per se, it's embedded in an organisation that presents no future strategy. It's embedded in a place where you go to work knowing that the organisation for which you're working is in a state of collapse and demise."Give people a sense of purpose and "they rise to the occasion", he says."I've seen this in businesses."In the private sector, perhaps, but in the public sector?"We've got to get over these kinds of biblical divides between the private sector and the public sector. There are people involved here, and those people are capable of work. If they have some proper leadership."Proper leadership is easier when you don't have unions to worry about. How will he handle them?"Blunt honesty. I have come to help. I'm not an appointee, I didn't arrive with my CV, I arrived with a plan."Will that cut any mustard with the union?"Yes. I've had the most overwhelming support across all demographics."Not yet from the Communication Workers' Union, though."When I sit down with them and say: 'Let me tell you what I think we can do together. Your choices are quite stark. Either we hold hands and embrace the possibility of an economic future, or we face the demise of the Post Office and we let it rot.'"Have they ever been persuaded by reason before?"This is about survival. It's beyond reason. I will come with the truth, and the truth is the Post Office will die, and it is dying, rapidly, unless there's a massive change in attitude, direction and energy."block_quotes_start Investing in the Post Office with its network, assets and other built-in advantages would be a no-brainer if investors didn't know it was the Post Office block_quotes_endThis, of course, is what the legendary former SAB boss Meyer Kahn said when the government appointed him to turn around the police 16 years ago. If you think Barnes is blunt, you should have heard Kahn.It didn't work. after two years, he pretty much admitted defeat.Then there was former Anglo executive Bobby Godsell at Eskom and former head of the JSE Russell Loubser on the board of SAA. They all believed they had government support, because otherwise, as Barnes argues in his own case, why would the government have appointed them? And they were all beaten in the end by political interference."Maybe we weren't this close to trouble," says Barnes. "I think as a country we are close enough to trouble that we will eventually hold hands, because we have no choice."When we voted in 1994 it wasn't because we were friends, it was because the alternative had become too ghastly to contemplate. And we are going to hold hands again."What excites Barnes so much is the prospect of running the Post Office as a business. But as the government continues to demonstrate at SAA and Eskom, it sees state-owned enterprises primarily as vehicles for transformation.story_article_left3Barnes says these two objectives only clash when there is no economic strategy to support transformation. Thanks to him, the Post Office, unlike the other state-owned entities, will have an economic strategy. This will ensure economic prosperity, a fundamental prerequisite for transformation.When he delivers economic prosperity at the Post Office and shows that it no longer needs government money because it can raise its own capital, "they will be my friend, I promise you".However, although his appointment has been greeted with "great enthusiasm" as a sign of a thaw in "this chilly relationship between government and business", there has been no investment interest from the private sector."I haven't presented them with anything yet to be interested in," he says a bit waspishly.Investing in the Post Office with its network, assets and other built-in advantages would be a no-brainer if investors didn't know it was the Post Office, he says."Take the Post Office out of it and I could list it tomorrow."That, of course, will be his challenge. And he knows that not everyone will want him to succeed."There will be people who want me to fail, but good morning, you'd better wake up early."cbctbarron@gmail.com..