He heads the National Lotteries Board where, “We make thousands of dreams come true for the people of our country,” says Lalith Piyum Perera, best known in Sri Lanka as the youthful champion of youth leadership. With his rare and distinct skill and overriding passion for identifying and building youth leadership, Piyum Perera has established himself as a driving force in training youth to become successful leaders.
Leaders come from all walks of life, people can become leaders at any point in their lives, or be better leaders over time.
Prescribing to this view wholeheartedly and pitching his might to train successful leaders, Piyum Perera is a youthful public administration professional who wears many hats. In the recent past he won recognition and accolades for his role as the head of the National Youth Services Council (NYC), an experience that would escalate him to his next career move directly involved with providing political leadership to this country.
In the recent past, attorney at Law Lalith Piyum Perera distinguished himself as a champion for building and nurturing youth leadership. As past head of the National Youth Services Council (NYSC), Perera has been in the forefront of launching and promoting organisations that build youth leadership and training young academics and professionals for leadership roles in their chosen fields and at national level, as Sri Lanka’s future leaders.
“I would rather let others to speak about me than describing myself,” Perera says. His charismatic contribution to building the next generation of Sri Lanka’s leadership is endorsed by several distinguished personalities. (See highlight box)
Perera, a new generation leader is aiming to shed the old image of the Lotteries Board and transform it into an innovative brand, which could compete with international Lottery brands.
In an interview with BMD, Perera spoke of his role in leadership training and his multi-faceted career.
The middle and only son of a five-member family, he is surrounded with older and younger sisters. Married to Dr. Paya Thamari Jayasinghe, they have a family of three children, his only son too being the middle child. watching and playing cricket, yoga, snorkelling and diving are his favourite sports and relaxation.
Excerpts from the interview:
Q: What is your key strategy to build the brand for Sri Lanka’s leading National Lotteries Board (NLB)?
The National Lotteries Board has been making thousands of dreams come true for Sri Lankans, for more than five decades, and in turn, has supported the country’s development. With no change in ownership, the organisation is striving to convert the perception from being a welfare-oriented government board to an innovative brand. This will elevate the brand image to a position where it can compete with global lotteries as well as other businesses in the country. This strategically broad definition of the scope of NLB will empower the brand to increase and sustain market share.
With its flagship product, “Mahajana Sampatha” and extensive portfolio, NLB currently sells 21 lotteries every second. NLB has benchmarked itself against international lottery brands and Sri Lankan governmental organisations, which have embraced branding. The brand began its turnaround by focusing on the core value of lottery, which is creating opportunities for the government and the people. The organisation has demarcated territories for its 10+ lottery brands, targeting specific segments, to penetrate new market segments. The core of NLB’s business which is welfare and CSR will also have seeped into the brands.
Q: What are the CSR activities the Lotteries Board supports?
A: We provide assistance to places of worship, schools, hospitals, religious festivals and events for artists and differently abled people.
Q: Future Plans for NLB?
A: Plans are to make NLB the first $1 billion company that is 100% owned by the government of Sri Lanka through our new digitalization project.
NLB was established after abolishing Hospital Lotteries under the Finance Act. No.11 of 1963. Certain sections of the above act were repealed and amended in 1997 under the Finance (Amendment) Act. No.35 of 1997 and in 1998 under Finance Act no 22 of 1998.
Q: What is your perspective on leadership?
A: Leaders are individuals who are able to develop a large enough view of their world, and the people in it, to see a way of reducing the struggle with uncertainty they are experiencing in it. By effectively communicating this vision to the community, the leader will inspire certain members to cooperate and collaborate amongst themselves in an effort to make it a reality.
Effective leadership gives people wings!
Good leadership places people first.
Responsible leadership makes the world a better place, i.e. lasting, peaceful and with happy people.
Q: How should a leader handle their organizational crisis?
A: After 20 years of building teams, it would take a very long document to define all of the ways teams tend to fail. Let me define ways to prevent team failure. Very few teams succeed in becoming high-performance teams without excellent team leadership and facilitation. Often companies fail to spend time developing, training and rewarding quality team leaders and facilitators, both of which are skill sets requiring training and experience.
Q: How do you set organizational goals?
Goal setting is one of the more challenging tasks that leaders face. There are short- and long-term goals, plus overall business objectives to consider in addition to the individual team and employee goals. They must be relevant and timely to motivate people to reach them, but also can’t be so fine-tuned that team members feel micromanaged. It’s a tricky balance to strike. To avoid all those, I simply follow these four steps I used many times in my life: establish realistic expectations, set long-term & short-term goals, track progress and avoid micromanaging.
Q: How do you motivate employees?
There is a lot of good advice included here, so I’ll answer this question on a deeper level—why do you want to motivate them? If it’s to get them to produce more quality and/or quantity, then follow all of the “exchange” advice offered here, to “do this for that.” But if you want to motivate them to realize their full potential because you care about them AND your business, then that will come from an entirely different place…and they will know it…if you let them.
People are not like machines…they can be a lot more demanding, but they can far exceed your expectations too. So, hiring the “right” employees must come first, ones that match your company’s culture…and if that does not include higher-than-average wages, then what does it include…to generate higher-than-average performance? You offer a product to your consumer, you also have to offer more than just money to your employees, if you don’t have more money to offer.
Lalith Piyum Perera
Chairman, National Lotteries Board ,
Visiting Lecturer of SLIDA for postgraduate students,
Secretary of Voice for Justice,
Member of Ex Co and Lawyers’ Association (SLPP), Former Director-General of Youth Services Sri Lanka, Former Chairman of National Youth Services Council Former Chairman of the Sri Lanka Federation of Youth Clubs,
Former Chairman of NYSCO
Former Secretary to Asia of the World Youth Congress, Former Adviser to South Asian Young Politicians’ Platform (SAYPPL),
Former Director-General to the Oceanic University of Sri Lanka and
Jaycees Toyp winner – 2013 under Law, public policy and Politics
Career highlights
“I would rather let others speak about me than describe myself.”
(Achievements and Contributions through Quotations and Statements by Distinguished Figureheads)
“The World Youth Conference 2014 to be held in Sri Lanka is also the very first in the whole of Asia and it is a tremendous achievement of Chairman Lalith Piyum Perera” – Dr Palitha Kohona, Former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations. Dr Kohona made this statement while addressing a side event to promote International Youth Conference, 2014 at UN Headquarters in New York, 2013.
“The model and structure of Sri Lanka Youth Parliament and the Structure of Federations of Youth Clubs are two best models in the world at the moment. We must praise the effort of the chairman.” – Layne Robinson, Youth Affairs Division, Commonwealth Secretariat in London, Layne Robinson made these comments while commending the structures of Sri Lanka Youth Development.
“Introduction of a system in the calibre of Youth Parliament by the Chairman has contributed immensely towards youth and it is one of a kind that you may find in whole of the world.” – Ahmed Alhendavi, Former United Nations Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth. Ahmed Alhendavi made these comments while visiting Sri Lanka Youth Parliament
Education and academic achievements:
i. Boys College, Mahara (1982-1987) – Grade Five Scholarship
ii. Royal College, Colombo-07 (1988-1995) – GCE Ordinary Level and GCE Advanced Level
iii. Sri Lanka Law College (1997-2000) – Attorney-At-Law Finals
iv. Kingston University, United Kingdom (2003-2005) – Masters in Business Law
v. TVET training project Polytechnic, Singapore – Certificate of Management and Development of a Modern Institute Course at Nanyang Polytechnic
vi. The International Visitors’ Council of Columbus, Ohio, USA – Certificate for Legislative Fellows Program for South and Central Asia
vii. State Department of United States (2012) – Certificate for Professional Legislative Fellows Course
viii. Ten Outstanding Young People of Sri Lanka (TOYP) Winner in “Political Legal and Public Administration” category – 2013
Q: What is your advice to young entrepreneurs, leaders and professionals?
“Dream crazy and act towards it so we all can build this nation for the greater good. Because old methods won’t work anymore in the current world situation.
