Edition 23 | 24 February 2026

Each week I try to look at systems, in business, in leadership, and in society, and ask a simple question:

What standard are we actually operating by?

Last week that question applied to fiscal credibility. This week, it surfaced somewhere less expected, on a series of street poles in Sandton.

Legal Isn't the Same as Appropriate

While driving down Rivonia Road in Sandton, my daughter asked about a banner on a street pole. Once she pointed it out, I noticed it wasn’t just one. The same advertisement repeated along several poles on one of the busiest entry routes into Sandton.

The establishments being advertised are legal. The imagery, while suggestive, likely complies with advertising codes.

So the issue isn’t legality.

It’s incentives.

Every pole carries a fee.
Every placement generates revenue.
Every approval passes through multiple commercial filters.

At each stage, the decision is rational.

The advertiser wants visibility.
The media owner wants revenue.
The agency wants the campaign live.
The regulator checks compliance.

No one actor is irresponsible.

And yet the cumulative outcome shapes a public environment that families, commuters, and children move through daily.

This is how standards shift, not through defiance of rules, but through optimisation within them.

In finance, we see the same dynamic.

A primary surplus can exist while total debt continues rising.
Load shedding can ease while households fund private alternatives.
Compliance can be achieved while credibility erodes.

Individually, each decision makes sense. Collectively, the system drifts.

The real question is not, “Is it allowed?”

It’s, “Is this the standard we want to normalise in shared spaces?”

Because systems rarely collapse from illegality. They weaken from incremental tolerance.

View the full post and comments on LinkedIn

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On My Desk

Attention now turns to the Budget Speech tomorrow.

Preparation this week has been about revisiting the numbers and thinking through the trade-offs that matter most: debt servicing costs, revenue realism, and whether spending priorities align with outcomes.

The speech may be watched closely. But as always, credibility will rest less on announcements and more on what follows.

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Closing Perspective Standards matter. In fiscal policy. In public leadership. In corporate governance. And in everyday civic life. When we outsource judgement to legality alone, we lower the bar without noticing. A society, like a business, is ultimately shaped by the standards it chooses to uphold. Keep thinking. Move forward. — Yusuf Visit my website

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