Productivity is calculated by dividing each country’s GDP by the average number of hours worked annually by all employed citizens. In my opinion, country productivity simply means the financial evidence for problems solved by business communities over a period of time. 



According to a 2018 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, businesses in the African continent are among the lowest ranked when it comes to productivity.



This means corporate Africa needs to solve problems that matter. In each firm, the chief executive officer is the chief problem solver for customers and the firm.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">In every enterprise, problems are resolved at a different level. The man at the gate solves the problem of parking and watches out for thieves and intruders.</blockquote>



The chief operating officer solves the problems of disorder
and inefficiency. The ability of a leader to recognize that everybody in any
enterprise has the capability to solve a problem makes the business system
efficient and productive.



When a leader believes he is the only one who can solve all
problems at every level of an organization, it only wastes the corporate
potential. Everybody in an organization has the potential to solve challenges. 



Problems are facts of every business because we live in an
imperfect world. For winning enterprises, tests are stepping-stones to maturity
and productivity.



There are two perspectives to a problem that will put firms in the winning mode. 



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/woman/2019/03/11/the-businesses-of-the-future-20-new-wealth-creators-on-the-african-continent/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Businesses Of The Future: 20 New Wealth Creators On The African Continent (opens in a new tab)">Businesses Of The Future: 20 New Wealth Creators On The African Continent</a>



It is important to be reminded that an outstanding person is
the one who resolves an outstanding problem. 



Can you think of an outstanding billionaire who didn’t
resolve an outstanding problem? I believe there is none. 



I think a team’s attitude should be focussed on solving an
outstanding issue for all humanity.



That is what Larry Page and his team have done by creating
Google. They solved the global problem of searching for information at the
click of a mouse. 



Secondly, problem-solving is the quickest route to leadership. In every society, people fall into two categories of problems; those who create them and those that solve them. As an entrepreneur, you will be rewarded based the degree of problems you solve, not the ones you create.



As a team member, when you solve a problem beyond your
current job description, you are likely ready for a promotion.



Thirdly, the capacity of the entrepreneur is more important
than the size of the problem. The problem is the self-image of the person. This
means an entrepreneur will not take on activities on the outside that he or she
is not capable of on the inside.



These three attitudes mentioned above are important for any
firm to create a winning team. Let me quickly say that it is only effective
when a business leader helps his or her associates and team members develop
this attitude. 



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2019/02/03/african-countries-should-rethink-how-they-use-e-government-platforms/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="African Countries Should Rethink How They Use E-government Platforms (opens in a new tab)">African Countries Should Rethink How They Use E-government Platforms</a>



When they express these attitudes, they solve challenges
with you in the enterprise. Don’t be caught by the ‘Moses syndrome’, because
you cannot solve every problem in your enterprise by yourself.



Problem-solving is first an attitude and then a technical
skill. Now let me share with you a few technical skills that are applicable to
problem-solving.



The first step would be to erect a business thermometer to
identify the issue. Focus on vital aspects such as finance, sales, marketing,
customer satisfaction, employee performances, and turnover rate.



You need to look for an anomaly in the vital signs before
you can identify the threat and knock it off.



Secondly, prioritize the problem and identify the most important and urgent of them and attend to it. The problem can be important, important and urgent, or urgent and unimportant. 



READ MORE | <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/economy/2018/12/12/deals-dollars-and-developments-on-the-african-continent/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="Deals, Dollars and Developments On The African Continent (opens in a new tab)">Deals, Dollars and Developments On The African Continent</a>



You must be able to place it in the appropriate category. You will need to dig around the it to define the real issue. If the sales are poor and it is an important and urgent concern on your priority list, the next thing is to dig around it and define the elements of the problem, both internal and external.



Thereafter, select a project team to solve the contingency. 



Whether it is to be solved in two hours, two days, two
months or two years, call the project team and give them responsibilities
within a space of time to solve it.



Finally, select the best solution and create a policy. Look at all recommended solutions to the problem and select the best that suits it. Evaluate the solution appropriately and set up a policy that can guide against the recurring of the problem in the future.



-Victor Mamora

Two businessmen compare work on laptops while sitting on beanbags. Pretoria, South Africa

To Increase Productivity Corporate Africa Needs To Look For Problems

Ghana is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies this year, according to the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the IMF. Its projected growth in 2018 is between 8.3-8.9%.
The Ghanaian workforce is young, with 57% of the population under the age of 25. This means millions of new graduates enter the workforce each year. One woman who understands the struggle that awaits this unsuspecting group in corporate Ghana is Human Resources (HR) entrepreneur, Rita Kusi.
Kusi is the founder and CEO of Keeping “U” Simply Intact (KUSI) Consulting, a marketing, training and recruiting company based in the United States (US) and in Ghana. She is also the Managing Director of threesixtyGh, a social enterprise company with an online presence showcasing innovative ventures in Ghana and the people behind them.
Born in Bolga, Northern Ghana, Kusi’s family gained access to the US through the US Visa Lottery in the early 80s. The family relocated to the US in 1991 where Kusi remained until 2013. And that is also where she amassed a wealth of experience working in several sectors.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2018/04/24/cracking-the-code-and-bridging-the-gender-gap/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Cracking the Code and Bridging The Gender Gap</a>
After college, Kusi worked a number of temporary jobs, from telemarketing in Atlanta to door-to-door sales in Maryland. She even tried her hands at customer services and working in cafes.
“I think for me having held all these jobs opened my eyes and I realized especially what I wanted to do in corporate America,” says Kusi.
All these experiences came together when she applied for a new role as HR assistant. When she did not hear back from the company regarding her application, Kusi took the initiative and called the hiring manager.
“So my dad told me to call and get feedback and as I called my CV happened to be in front of the hiring manager and he invited me in for the interview. I knew nothing about HR but I was just really looking for a job and I ended up getting that job and it was the longest I ever stayed at any job so that was a sign,” says Kusi.
She had finally found her calling in HR but it was not until a nostalgic visit back home that she would merge all her US experience together, ushering in a new life as an entrepreneur.
There were no real training programs at the time focused on improving the quality of customer service in Ghana. Kusi seized the opportunity to provide quality HR training programs, which she hoped organizations would pay for. And they did. This was the birth of Kusi Consulting.
From training services, the company has morphed its offerings into recruitment services and Kusi is now diversifying into skills-training as well as business process outsourcing, where the company handles the pay roll function for other corporate clients. Her timing couldn’t be more perfect. Hiring the right people is critical for companies to reduce employee attrition and enhance returns from HR. Companies face challenges in accurately perceiving and assessing an employee’s quality attributes prior to hiring that employee. This problem is more pronounced in African economies, which involves novices who do not have prior work records attesting to their raw skills, learning abilities and motivation. And this is where Kusi comes in.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2018/02/13/remembering-corporate-legend/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Remembering A Corporate Legend</a>
She believes a specialist HR function is imperative in every organization to ensure maximum output by each employee. However, she has had some difficulty convincing corporate Ghana.
“It has been challenging operating here especially being a female because it is literally a man’s world and in this country, it’s all about who you know… There is that challenge of how do I make myself look older and more respected?” she says.
But ever resilient, Kusi refuses to back down. She hopes to create her own temp agency where she has skilled staff inhouse which she can outsource on demand to other companies. Her newly-formed team is just as passionate about the business and with that focus, she is rebranding her company to be a leader in HR not only in Ghana but across Africa.

Rita-1

The Ghanaian Who Brought HR Corporate America To Ghana

Aluko &amp; Oyebode, Nigeria’s formidable commercial law firm, at No.1 Murtala Mohammed Road in Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria, is unusually empty for a Saturday.
It gives one enough time to admire its plush interiors. Describing it would be taking a page out of a John Grisham novel.
The imposing building houses three floors of prime real estate in the heart of the city and on one of the most expensive strips in Lagos.
As you walk in, the blood-red walls are juxtaposed with grey metallic fixtures and fittings. The décor of the building is reminiscent of past cultures of various African countries.
Each floor is delightfully curated with Afro-centric artefacts and in the middle floor of the building is the firm’s seat of power, the office of its leader, Gbenga Oyebode.
For a sweltering Nigerian afternoon, Oyebode is dressed like no other in a 100-mile radius of the elite Victoria Island hub of Lagos: in a two-piece power suit, his signature outfit. Today, it is in black, accented by a deep blue tie.
Oyebode is cordial and pleasant with the team as he takes his position on the ground floor for the first set of pictures for the FORBES AFRICA cover.
He is the Chairman of Aluko &amp; Oyebode, one of the largest integrated law firms in Nigeria with over 70 lawyers and three offices in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. 
The firm provides a comprehensive range of specialist legal services to a highly diversified clientele including top-tier Nigerian, international and multinational clients. In his capacity as chairman, Oyebode coordinates the various practice areas of the firm.
Described as a consummate dealmaker who has received plaudits from clients and peers alike for his corporate acumen, Oyebode’s areas of expertise cover energy and natural resources, power projects, foreign investment and privatization, telecommunications and project finance. 
It is not just his formal dressing that is unusual.
Law firms in the country, family-owned by tradition, almost never run their firms like well-oiled machines providing solutions for several sectors at the same time. Oyebode was one of the pioneers of this concept. And it has not been an easy journey.
<blockquote>&#8220;It exposed me to these great minds I read about in the The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times and I said very quickly to myself that I wanted to be like them,”</blockquote>
The 59-year-old spent the early years of his life musing over the promises of life in the civil service, a path taken by his father. It was a stable and comfortable job and one had guaranteed employment as well as a good salary. But he was compelled to ponder the possibilities of a riskier career.
“In those days, being a civil servant was the dream of every young person due to the stability of the job. However, as I started reading law, it became clear to me that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and for a lawyer that means opening a law firm,” says Oyebode as he takes a break from the photoshoot to begin our interview.
And that is exactly what he did. But not just any law firm, he wanted to leave behind a dynasty of great lawyers whose work would carry on long after he was gone.
If he had worked for any Nigerian law firm, his future would not have been guaranteed.
<div id="attachment_36614" style="width: 855px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36614" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-36614 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DSC8493-Edit-e1530521149348-845x1024.jpg" alt="" width="845" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DSC8493-Edit-e1530521149348-845x1024.jpg 845w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DSC8493-Edit-e1530521149348-300x364.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DSC8493-Edit-e1530521149348-600x727.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DSC8493-Edit-e1530521149348-247x300.jpg 247w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DSC8493-Edit-e1530521149348-768x931.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DSC8493-Edit-e1530521149348.jpg 1300w" sizes="(max-width: 845px) 100vw, 845px" />Gbenga Oyebode is Nigeria&#8217;s formidable legal mastermind. Photos by Kelechi Amadi-Obi.</div>
“The history of Nigerian law firms in the early 80s and some of them today was that they were set up by great minds essentially to be kept in the family. Their children went to law school and even if you were a great lawyer who worked with them, they make it very clear that you shouldn’t be thinking about your future at the law firm, because they were going to hand over the business to their children. So I understood that it was not going to work for me,” says Oyebode.
At well over six feet, Oyebode has a towering presence in any room, yet his calm and cordial disposition immediately sets you at ease and makes you feel as though you are having a conversation with an old friend.
Sitting in the conference room of his eponymous firm, Oyebode recalls a series of events that shaped the course of his career.
Like the time he was going to university and struggled to get guidance from mentors who would have advised him on the best path to take to become a successful legal entrepreneur.
The prominent Nigerian lawyers at the time were not strictly lawyers who worked at the firm but were mostly also involved in other professions.
According to Oyebode, the earliest nationalists of Nigerian politics were all lawyers, who used the law that they had learned abroad to change the system in Nigeria to gain independence and push the envelope against colonialism.
That would later become the real motivation for Oyebode to become a lawyer. For him, the ability to use law to change the political system with democracy or creating value was a calling he wanted to be a part of.
After graduating from the University of Ife in 1979, he immediately went to the Nigerian Law School and thereafter, completed his postgraduate degree at the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) in the United States (US).
“What UPenn did for me was show me that there was a different way to do things and that the world was bigger than the opportunities I had in Nigeria. One of the most significant things about going to an Ivy League institution is how they draw from great minds around. So we went to conferences where great minds in the capital markets were and it was a game-changer. It exposed me to these great minds I read about in the The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times and I said very quickly to myself that I wanted to be like them,” recalls Oyebode.
His journey is a textbook case study on how to systematically build a business step by step. He eschews convention. From the minute he finished primary school, his father signed up to a subscription of Reader’s Digest that was to become his monthly diet.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/entreprenuers/2017/08/02/success-bag-entrepreneur/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Success Is In The Bag For This Entrepreneur</a>
“He thought that it was important for us to read. He said it was important for us to understand what happened around the world. So one of the things that I do continually even today is I read the Reader’s Digest every month. It shaped my view of the world and created for me a situation where I learned more about the things that were happening around me and I was not limited to Nigeria,” says Oyebode.
His tenure as an associate at White &amp; Case, one of the world’s leading law firms, helped him visualize the type of law firm he wanted to build of his own.
“American law firms were the type of law firms I thought we could replicate in Nigeria. Their vision for building big partnerships and for those partnerships to survive named partners was impressive. So it was very clear where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. I worked with White &amp; Case for a year and I said to myself it was time to come back home,” says Oyebode.
Home had changed a whole lot while he was away. Nigeria had returned to democracy after years of military rule. The business environment was growing and there was a need for competent people to push the envelope and help with the development of law and business.
Furthermore, there were less than 10,000 lawyers admitted to practice law and Oyebode decided he would rather be one of 10,000 in Nigeria than one of a million in the US.
Soon after making that decision, disaster struck. No sooner had he returned to Nigeria did the crude oil market collapse and the Nigerian economy took a dip for the worse. The democratic government that had motivated Oyebode to come back was very quickly removed in a coup d&#8217;état in 1983.
“Before we knew it, the [Muhammadu] Buhari government was in power. To make matters worse, the naira had collapsed and the country was looking at a structural adjustment program with the World Bank. So contrary to my plans, things changed very quickly. I couldn’t go back to the US and I had to make do with things in Nigeria,” says Oyebode.
But where there are clouds, there is also a silver lining. Oyebode chose to keep faith and stick it out. He applied to work for the Gulf Oil Company, which later merged with Chevron, and spent two years learning about the oil and gas industry.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/cover-story/2017/12/01/bank-on-this-man/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Bank On This Man</a>
“That was very instructive because it gave me an opportunity to work in an industry, which was Nigeria’s biggest foreign exchange earner. I essentially cut my teeth working in Nigeria’s oil industry. I saw through the merger of Gulf and Chevron and then decided it was time to go out and do my own thing.”
In 1985, Oyebode went into partnership with friends and started his first law firm 
Ajumogobia, Okeke, Oyebode &amp; Aluko. After eight years of success, the firm was dissolved due to internal challenges. The string of such incidents, be it the country’s economic downturn or disagreements with partners, have all contributed to the success story Oyebode is today.
“What is impressive about Oyebode is his calmness and composure in times of crisis. He has the ability to look beyond that problem and says ‘how do we move on from this and get to the solution’,” says Tunde Folawiyo, Managing Director of Yinka Folawiyo Group in Nigeria.
That steadfastness has been an invaluable trait for Oyebode over the years.
He went on to establish Aluko &amp; Oyebode with his other partner. Perpetual wins translated into mammoth personal gains for the legal mastermind.
Oyebode’s is also the story of a smart entrepreneur who, spurred by the increase in the proliferation of Western companies in Nigeria, spotted an opportunity in corporate law and has methodically worked to cash in on it.
He is currently advising on the Brass LNG Project, a joint venture between NNPC, TOTAL, Conoco Philips and Agip for the construction of a $3.5 billion Liquefied Natural Gas plant. He has also advised on key transactions like the $1.275 billion financing of the Exxon Mobil Natural Gas Liquid II Project, the $1.06 billion financing of trains four and five of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Plant Expansion Project and the $3.5 billion financing of the NNPC and Mobil Producing Unlimited Satellite Oil Field Project. He sits on the boards of MTN Nigeria, Nestle Nigeria and CFAO, among many others.
“Corporate law was something I was good at. It’s something that is dependent on your network and it is something that comes naturally to me. At White &amp; Case and at Gulf Oil, that was my forte. I had invested a significant amount of my time around that so I was able to very quickly develop as a good oil and gas lawyer,” says Oyebode.
His wife, Aisha, attests to this. “What I admire most about Gbenga is he is very kind and warm and he is a people’s person. I do not know anybody that doesn’t like Gbenga.”
It was what Oyebode did next that distinguished him from his peers.
“One of the people that I studied a lot was Chief Chris Ogunbanjo. He ran the biggest law firms in town and was a lawyer who represented all the multinationals and was a lawyer who got involved in the businesses he represented. So when I came back [to Nigeria], I saw his model as one that I could emulate. I saw that he was able to achieve his objective, which was essentially run a significant law firm and become the advisor of the biggest corporates in the market as well as the repository of knowledge of what it means to work in Nigeria,” says Oyebode.
And that was to become Oyebode’s operating style over the next two decades. His modus operandi was simple.
Find opportunities, which he could maximize, and provide professional services and legal advice to top-tier corporate clients and where there was an opportunity, take a chunk of the business.
“One of the things as an entrepreneur that you tend to look at is opportunities around you, so long as those opportunities don’t divert your from your chosen path. If you ask me what I want to be known as, I would say a lawyer first, then an investor,” he says.
Oyebode sits on boards of companies that he has invested in as well as boards that he has been invited to join due to his significant expertise in corporate Nigeria.
<div id="attachment_36622" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-36622" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-36622 size-large" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DSC8532-Edit-1024x684.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="684" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DSC8532-Edit-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DSC8532-Edit-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DSC8532-Edit-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DSC8532-Edit-768x513.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/DSC8532-Edit.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Photo by Kelechi Amadi-Obi</div>
The last two decades have seen a veritable boom in the business. For Oyebode, the key is passion for what you do.
“I am driven to build a big firm. We have 85 associates in three offices. There are 16 partners in the firm across the different practice areas that you expect a full service law firm to have, from legislation to corporate law to intellectual property, to risk and governance. So these are all key sectors that are sectors for growth of the Nigerian economy. The rationale is building a legacy that is driven by return,” says Oyebode.
Ever the opportunist, Oyebode is also looking to capitalize on the growth in demand of global companies looking for local partners in the real estate sector. He has a two-hotel deal with the Fairmont Group to establish hotels in Lagos and Abuja. Given the size in the number of tourists and business people in the country, Oyebode believes there is tremendous growth opportunities in this sector.
“The view is that there is still a gap around the hospitality business in Lagos. I go to Accra and I see the Kempinski and Movenpick hotels and I know that if Accra can do it then Lagos certainly has significant scope to develop hotels. Abuja only has the Hilton.”
But it has not all been smooth sailing. No sooner had he started his second stint at a law firm that tragedy struck.
“Life is about tripping and falling and learning from mistakes, pulling your strengths and moving on. My partner, Bankole Aluko, had a mild illness and called in sick for a couple of days. I decided to pay him a visit after work and on my way there, I was told he had passed away suddenly. It was a big shock because we had built everything together and most of the lawyers that joined us did so because of our strength as a firm. I had the corporate law expertise and he was a litigation expert. I thought it was all over at the point,” says Oyebode.
It was dark times for Oyebode.
“In those days it was very difficult to get clients. They came to you because they knew you and your reputation so it was very personality-driven. Today, clients look at your brand and your track record. So losing Bankole both as a dear friend and a professional was devastating.”
He vowed to continue the legacy they had started together and leave his name on the business as a named partner, which still stands today. These days, Oyebode is more interested in giving back. He mentors the next generation and is finding ways to give back. He has also turned his attention from corporate boards to philanthropy boards and actively seeks out opportunities to contribute to the community.
On the issue of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s (EFCC) fight to retrieve Nigeria’s stolen loot, which is estimated to be billions of dollars from state coffers, Oyebode offers some practical advice.
“My concern about Nigeria is not the lack of law or policy but always about execution. I think we have a robust legal system, we have laws and policies in place and we have a strong civil service. Do people obey the law around the world? Yes, and that is because they are afraid of sanctions. So if you do not obey the law or sanctions, then you pay the price. So our problem is a lack of execution of good policy, inconsistent application of the laws and sometimes, we have allowed federal character and the process of rotating positions to trump skill and expertise so therefore mediocrity is able to rise to the very top.”
But that is an ongoing fight, which Oyebode believes will not be solved overnight. Presently, his focus is on leveraging his expertise as one of the most formidable and accomplished legal minds to add value and give back to Nigeria.
His legal firm is a victim of its own success. And this is a happy problem to have.
&nbsp;
Herbert Wigwe, the CEO Access Bank, one of Nigeria’s top banking institutions, calls Oyebode one of the strongest legal minds, not just in Nigeria but also across the world.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="wp-image-36617 size-thumbnail alignleft" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Herbert_big-e1530520980422-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Herbert_big-e1530520980422-150x150.jpg 150w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Herbert_big-e1530520980422-100x100.jpg 100w" sizes="(max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px" />
“And I say this because I have a strong personal relationship with him, apart from the fact that in Nigeria, he runs the strongest corporate law office. The existence of what is a modern Access Bank would never have happened but for people like Gbenga&#8230;.All of these attributes have led him to sit on most of the large corporate boards in the country…Saying Gbenga is the new face of business in Africa is not something that is far-fetched; it is something that he has proven over and over again in his career.”

DSC8546-Edit

The Tall Lawyer, Investor And Philanthropist In A Power Suit

It was an eventful rainy Thursday afternoon. Workers left their desks to watch the action through their office windows. It was one of the many marches against state capture. On this day, civil society organizations were picketing outside the office of global consultancy McKinsey, right opposite the FORBES AFRICA headquarters in Sandton, South Africa.
McKinsey is one of the many companies, in the country, implicated in alleged corrupt dealings between state-owned power utility Eskom and consultancy firm Trillian. McKinsey and Trillian stood to earn more than $490 million from Eskom.
It has been a year of drama in corporate South Africa. As strange as it may sound, a lot of South Africa’s protests, like this, have one family as the common cause.
Weak-kneed politicians allegedly allowed members of the Indian-born Gupta family to wield undue influence. This influence has gone from meddling with the state’s top jobs to conniving with private and public companies to act in their favor.
Another company in hot water is Bell Pottinger, a British public-relations firm connected to the Guptas by a $130,000-a-month contract. It was stripped of its membership in the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA) in the UK, after it was found that the PR agency deliberately fanned racial tensions, with creations like &#8216;white monopoly capital&#8217;, in South Africa, in favor of Zuma, while it worked for the Gupta-owned Oakbay Capital.
“We took this decision because we were not satisfied by the explanations given. We have never passed down such a damning indictment,” says Nicholas Dunn-McAfee, Head of Public Affairs, Policy and Research at PRCA.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/billionaires/2017/12/08/south-african-billionaires-fortune-plunges-2-billion-day-amid-accounting-scandal/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: South African Billionaire&#8217;s Fortune Plunges More Than $2 Billion In A Day Amid Accounting Scandal</a>
It gets worse.
For years KPMG South Africa has said it stands for integrity. Instead, the tax, advisory and auditing firm now stands alleged of giving advice so that money can be taken to Dubai to avoid tax payments. They also turned a blind eye to several conflicts of interest while auditing 36 Gupta-linked companies and compiled the so-called South African Revenue Services (SARS) rogue spy unit report which was used as part of the smear campaign against former Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan.
There are consequences.
For KPMG, for example, pressure has been piling. The firm withdrew all its findings in the ‘rogue unit’ report; senior executives, including CEO Trevor Hoole, resigned; and it has been dumped by major clients, among them, Sasfin Bank, Sygnia Asset Management, the energy investment company Hulisani, and the University of the Witwatersrand.
Like the protesters in Sandton, Magda Wierzycka, Chief Executive Officer at Sygnia Group, an asset management company, says all involved should be held accountable, stripped of their licenses, fined and even jailed.
“There are no excuses. They did what they did for money. They were not ignorant of what they were doing,” she says.
Opposition political parties, rights groups and private citizens are playing their part to make sure unethical companies are punished. The problem is corporate misgovernance affects the whole country.
<div id="attachment_34798" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34798" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34798" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Alastair-Macduff-Chairman-and-Chief-Executive-Officer-of-the-Turnaround-Management-Association-Southern-Africa.-copy-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="451" />Alastair Macduff, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Turnaround Management Association Southern Africa. (Photo supplied)</div>
South Africa was downgraded to junk status and went into a recession. At the time of writing this article, $1 was equivalent to R14.16 at its worst, it went to about R17 to the dollar. It means business confidence is at an all-time low.
“Businesses are feeling the impact of low investor confidence, weakening exchange rates and high fiscal uncertainty,” says Alastair Macduff, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Turnaround Management Association Southern Africa.
“Restoring investor, business and consumer confidence will require a concerted effort to address these pressing issues – and address them in the best interests of the country as a whole,” he says.
Wierzycka agrees.
“In a funny way, what has happened to KPMG and McKinsey is actually very positive… Positive in terms of waking corporate South Africa to what is happening and to the fact that they can no longer sit on the fence and stay silent,” she says.
According to Wierzycka, South Africa’s corporate sector is suffering from a moral crisis.
“The dilemma is, do you change providers based on the fact of they are implicated in state capture even when it’s inconvenient to do so?”
<div id="attachment_34795" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34795" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34795" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Mckinsey-strike-501-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" />People protests against corruption outside the McKinsey office in Sandton, Johannesburg. (Photo by Motlabana Monnakgotla)</div>
Wierzycka has lived it. She offered Bianca Goodson, former Trillian CEO turned whistle-blower, a job. This after Goodson’s new employer, Sage, accepted her resignation after she told them she was blowing the whistle on her previous employer. Goodson provided documented evidence that the Gupta-linked firm swindled hundreds of millions from state-owned enterprises Transnet and Eskom. Wierzycka called Goodson, and all whistle-blowers, heroes.
“When I heard what Sage did, I was actually breathless. The true heroes of the story of South Africa are the belittled whistle-blowers… Bianca took tremendous risks in disclosing the information she disclosed on Trillian, McKinsey, Eskom and a number of others. It seemed a completely natural thing to reach out to her, if anything else, to reassure her that she is not alone in this fight. When I did, I met a lady who is incredibly competent. So let’s be clear, I gave her a job, not because she is a Trillian whistle-blower but because I encountered a woman of tremendous bravery with a strong moral compass and qualifications that are arms long,” says Wierzycka.
<div id="attachment_34797" style="width: 311px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34797" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34797" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Magda-Wierzycka-Chief-Executive-Officer-at-Sygnia-Group-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="301" height="452" />Magda Wierzycka, Chief Executive Officer at Sygnia Group. (Photo supplied)</div>
Goodson has a five-year-old daughter and, according to Wierzycka, she was petrified.
“My biggest concern was her personal safety. If she had died in a random hijacking, no one would think because no one knew her name. So, what I thought was that the most important thing that needed to happen was to get her name out there in the headlines.”
Wierzycka’s good fight doesn’t end there.
Earlier this year, Sygnia started a new money market unit trust and the firm said it will donate 100% of the management fees, earned on the fund, to non-political organizations fighting corruption. Sygnia also fired KPMG when news on state capture allegations broke.
“At the end of the day, I think it’s up to each company to make a choice. In the instance of KPMG, their board of directors make up their own minds as to whether what they’re seeing is what they expect to be seeing from their service provider and how serious they view what the company has done. In the instance of McKinsey, do you honestly want to do business with a company that has robbed South African taxpayers while we have a tiny taxpayer base supporting such vast percentages of the South African population which is living in inequality… Are you happy, morally, to do business with a business like that? That’s a question each board of directors has to ask,” says Wierzycka.
Another problem with some corporate companies is that they use denial as a first response when they are embroiled in a crisis. It creates a bigger mess.
KPMG South Africa, as an example, hired Nhlamu Dlomu, previously Head for People and Change, to clean up the mess as their new CEO. She couldn’t answer many questions posed to her, probably because she wasn’t prepared to be the CEO of one of the four top audit companies in the country that was facing its greatest crisis.
Women CEOs in times of corporate crisis may be a global trend.
A PwC report found that 38% of female CEOs are forced out of the office; compared to 27% of male CEOs. Another study, by Utah State University researchers, found boards are more likely to promote women and minorities to top leadership roles when an organization is in crisis.
“To me, that was a typical response of an international company that thinks  putting a fairly attractive female in front of clients is going to solve the problem… I think that the reason they are losing the battle in the court of public opinion is because they’re arrogant,” says Wierzycka.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/04/01/give-us-water-not-statues/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Give Us Water Not Statues</a>
Before firing KPMG, Wierzycka says she advised the audit firm to withdraw the entire ‘rogue unit’ report and they refused.
“I said, ‘let’s talk about the money then, because we know that this is blood money, whether it’s stolen from taxpayers or the farming community in the Eastern Cape. R63 million ($4.43 million) will go a long way towards fighting corruption. So donate all this money to organizations which are fighting corruption in South African courts. At least try to redeem yourself in the eyes of the South African public.’ I was told no…,” recalls Wierzycka.
KPMG only withdrew sections of the report, under questioning in parliament, admitting that it was wrong about the SARS report and that their conclusions and recommendations were incorrect.
Clearly, it will take more than marches in Sandton to bring about change.
<div id="attachment_34801" style="width: 360px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34801" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class=" wp-image-34801" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Sylvester-Chauke-Founder-DNA-Brand-Architects-300x277.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="323" />Sylvester Chauke, Founder DNA Brand Architects (Photo supplied)</div>
<h1>How To Weather A Corporate Storm</h1>
Sylvester Chauke loves to communicate. We meet him in his well-decorated office in Fourways, Johannesburg. As we enter, we are welcomed by multiple awards on the walls behind and in front of his desk. It is like we have entered a trophy factory.
“I don’t know how many awards I have. Not all of them are here but this is all inspiration and it is kudos to the hard work we do,” he says.
This is a world away from where it all started.
At 12 years old he went for a TV commercial audition. He loved it. Since then, he knew he wanted to work in the media industry.
There was research and soul searching. It ushered in a marketing and advertising communications degree, from the University of Johannesburg, and an internship. He never looked back.
Five years ago, he founded DNA Brand Architects; a marketing and brand consultancy company that advises people on how to avoid or deal with corporate crisis. He employs 34 people and counts Vodacom, Edgars, Bonang Matheba, Steers and Wimpy among his clients.
“It is all about taking all these fields of communication, whether it’s broadcasting, advertising, and brand communication, into one space,” says the 36-year-old.
According to Chauke, it is very obvious that there is a corporate communication crisis in South Africa. He says in most businesses, communication is just seen as PR. They send press releases and hope for the best. They don’t plan for a crisis.
“Most businesses don’t think that they have to think and plan for it, they just become overly confident, to some extent quite arrogant, to think that they are such great brands that can sort of overcome anything. We are seeing it right now with the likes of Bell Pottinger, KPMG and McKinsey. It is indicative of that communication is a ‘by the way’ thing,” says Chauke.
It is dangerous. When companies say the wrong thing, they risk losing their clients, or worse, the company. According to Chauke, planning for a crisis isn’t rocket science.
“Most of the time you can anticipate issues. For example, when your financial results come out and they are not good, you should plan what you are going to be saying to the stakeholders about the performance. It is the same if you are going to be retrenching 2,000 people, you need to be prepared.”
Chauke says every business needs a crisis management plan, reviewed annually, for crises they can’t anticipate.
“The biggest challenge that we have is people think because you are a CEO, and you speak to a crowd of 1,000 in a conference, you can handle media. That is so not true. You need an experienced spokesperson to handle that.”
He says Africans should inspire the world.
“I think that if the way that we do business is given a chance and doesn’t get distracted by all the corruption, scandals and corporate blunders, the way we do business would inspire others because we push regardless,” he says.
Maybe this is just the kind of inspiration corporate South Africa needs.

Anger At The Corporate Slippery Slope

Many people are living in silent desperation, hoping to achieve something better from their careers. They go to work, going through the same routine day in, day out, yearning to become entrepreneurs.
I think most established companies will be surprised by how many of their employees want to resign to start their own thing.
Unsurprisingly the key motivator for this is a need to make more money. Another reason that drives many successful entrepreneurs to embark on this journey is an unquenched need to come up with something better than what is currently in the market, or identifying a niche they can exploit better than most.
Adrian Gore, the Founder of Discovery Holdings, jumped ship because of an innovative product he had in mind, and look at what Discovery is today.
However, be careful of the fallacy that making your own money is simple. Forex trading is a good example – many lose thousands of dollars in their attempt to create an additional income with this market. They are attracted by the lifestyle these traders show off on Instagram and YouTube – the majority of which are fake – and burn their fingers trying to replicate the supposed success.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/investment-guide/2017/09/19/be-prudent-when-purchasing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Be Prudent When Purchasing</a>
For people around the world there are generally three great regrets in life. The education they did or didn&#8217;t get, the people they marry and the careers they find themselves in. Regarding careers, many are constantly looking for a way out. Venture capitalist Peter Thiel talks about the conundrum of a job at a Wall Street firm: while people outside want to get in, those inside want to get out.
Let me address the differentiation between being self-employed and being a high impact entrepreneur. Being self-employed is where your business cannot exist without you, like a doctor running a practice. True entrepreneurs put systems and structures in place so the business will operate with or without them.
The same thing working professionals set out to get, is often the same thing that stops them from starting their own business – money. Other hurdles include the fear of losing a stable income, the uncertainty of what kind of business to start, and a lack of confidence in themselves to pull it off. Only the brave jump ship; and they stick with it in  tough times and periods of abundance.
The solution for companies is to encourage an entrepreneurial spirit within their organization. New ideas shouldn’t be seen as a threat to bosses; innovation does not mean that colleagues are gunning for your position in the company. New ideas need to be debated. Those that are rational and viable should be explored rather than suppressed – therefore the concept of being an intrapreneur with your current employer comes with the advantage of having many resources to fall back on.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/investment-guide/2017/07/05/timing-is-everything/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">READ MORE: Timing Is Everything</a>
Entrepreneurship should not be considered a side hustle. I agree with the notion that it&#8217;s ideal to jump ship once your business starts generating an income that can sustain your monthly expenses, because you don&#8217;t want to ask for your job back, with your shoulders slumped and head down.
Anyone going into entrepreneurship should understand there is lack of sympathy in business; there are no pity parties in this game. You can&#8217;t claim that life has done you wrong; no one is buying that kind of nonsense. Don’t try to get people to feel sorry for you – this is not a talk show.
If you want something better, go and get it. But be prepared to work hard for it. &#8211; Written by Paul Mashegoane

Jumping The Corporate Ship

Michael Phelps is sprawled on a couch in a Lower Manhattan hotel, sporting a beard, a gray beanie
cap, a white T-shirt and Under Armour sweatpants and sneakers, an athlete in repose. He’s in New York to accept yet another lifetime achievement award for his triumphs in five Olympic Games, another chance for him and others to revel in his past glories. What Phelps wants to talk about now, however, is the future. “I’ve spent decades staring at that black line at the bottom of a pool,” he says.
“I’m ready to do something new. I’m ready to channel my competitiveness into something else.”
Phelps, 31, is four months removed from what he swears was his last Olympics. The second phase of his life has begun, he says, and it has two main parts: He wants to create a brand that burns brightly for decades to come, but he also wants to become a global champion for the causes that mean the most to him—swimming and the wellbeing of children.
On the brand side Phelps is, of course, well established as a corporate pitchman. Under Armour, Omega, Intel, Activision and Beats by Dre are among his well-known sponsors. (Some of the lesser known: Master Spas, Krave and Sina Sports.) At the height of these sponsorships he earned an estimated $7 million a year. Many of the companies are longtime partners and plan to stay that way. “We hope he’s with us forever,” says Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour, which signed Phelps in 2010.
But Phelps is not content simply to be the face of someone else’s brand. In 2013 he left his longtime sponsor Speedo, and the following year he started a swimwear line called MP. He found a partner in Aqua Sphere, a swimwear and swimming accessories company, which now sells Phelps-branded suits that range from $40 to $475. “I’d like to someday have the biggest and best brand in swimming,” he says.
His business role model is, of course, Michael Jordan, whose Nike Inc. Jordan Brand sold $2.8 billion worth of shoes and apparel last year.
Swimming obviously isn’t as merchandisable as basketball, but Plank says Phelps’ ambitions shouldn’t be dismissed: “Michael has that special trait, the ability to be clutch and win when it counts, which he demonstrated over and over at the Olympics. I think he can be the king of all things water.”
Phelps’ other main post-Olympics goal involves his foundation, which he started in 2008 with the $1 million bonus he earned from Speedo for his record-breaking eight gold medals in Beijing. His biggest initiative is the im program (“im” for “individual medley,” one of his strongest events, and for the affirmation “I am”). The program focuses on making children “water-safe.” (Drowning is the leading cause of injury-related deaths for kids ages 1 to 14 in the U.S. and the third leading cause worldwide.) Phelps’ mother made him take a water-safety course when he was a boy, and he says that’s the reason he became a competitive swimmer.
The im program has 104 teams in all 50 U.S. states and another 176 in 33 other countries, and through it 16,000 kids have learned how to swim (for three-quarters of them, the program was their first time in a pool). “I’d like for that number to be 50,000 someday soon and then 100,000,” Phelps says. “The goal is to get every kid in the world water-safe.”
To accomplish these dreams, Phelps will need to become a lasting global icon, no easy task for even the most successful Olympians. Jesse Owens, in the end, was more a powerful symbol than a brand. Muhammad Ali’s boxing career spanned two full decades after his Olympic gold in 1960. And Caitlyn Jenner remains famous four decades after decathlon heroics in Montreal but for reasons no one could have foreseen in 1976.
Yet Phelps was no ordinary Olympian. He began as a 15-year-old prodigy in the 2000 Games and provided a glimpse of the greatness to come in the 2004 Athens Games. Then came the triumph in Beijing in 2008 and the weary wins in London in 2012, followed by the drinking and depression and the stint in rehab. All of which culminated in the redemption in Rio in 2016. In the end Phelps had won an Olympic record 28 medals, all but 5 of which were gold.
That level of longevity and excellence in the Olympics has given Phelps the kind of global profile most American athletes lack. And with his longtime agent, Peter Carlisle, Phelps has been laying the groundwork for a global presence since the beginning of his career. He started visiting China and making deals there five years before the 2008 Games (the Chinese call him the Flying Fish). Phelps and Carlisle used the same playbook for Rio—he made four pre-Olympics visits to Brazil and has since signed a deal with the Brazilian media giant Grupo Globo. And he will soon embark on a tour of Vietnam, Ethiopia, South Africa and Latin America.
Phelps, of course, has been through this before, when he retired for the first time after the 2012 Games. “This time is different,” he says. “Back then I just wanted to dig the deepest black hole and be left alone.” Now “life is so different and so much better. I have Boomer [his 8-month-old son] and Nicole [his wife]. I have other things to worry about than just myself.”
Phelps says he travels three weeks out of every month, and at meetings he doesn’t just show up for the grip-and-grin but really dives in. “I’m actually sitting at the table now during the discussions, asking questions,” he says. “Some of this is self-reinforcing. I want to be out there now. If I isolate myself as I’ve done before, I know the road I’ll go down, and I know it won’t be pretty.”
A question remains: Is he really done competing? “Yes, definitely,” he says, while admitting that he said the same thing in 2012. The 2020 Olympics is out of the question, but Carlisle has been floating an intriguing scenario regarding the 2024 Games. “I think Michael is 100% sure he’s done right now,” he says. “But what if the 2024 Games are awarded to Los Angeles? And what if there was a spot open on a relay team?” Carlisle leaves the thought there, as any good agent would.
Phelps just smiles when this idea is brought up. “I’m happy now,” he says. “And I’m excited for what’s ahead of me.”

The Flip Turn

I have taken a sabbatical from corporate life and as I write this I am experiencing, first hand, the cultures, history and architecture of the ancient world in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor.
Travelling through Turkey, the Balkans and the new countries born of the collapse of the Soviet Union, one cannot escape the striking diversity of the infrastructure that modern citizens of these countries have inherited. There are important lessons we should have learned from the past, but have we?
Roman engineering and construction techniques laid the foundation for our modern construction technology and methods – they created massive infrastructure across 5,000 kilometers of territory from northern Europe to northern Africa and the Black Sea in the east over a period of around 500 years from 27 BC. The Romans were dedicated master civil engineers and constructors using marble and hard rock, such as granite, transported from all corners of their empire to create cities comprising massive structures, water and transport systems, as well as public facilities that could accommodate thousands in stadiums. They invented concrete and the manufacture of kiln-fired red brick. They recycled materials and large building components as the empire expanded and contracted.
“Why did the Romans build so many ruins?” asked a tourist to our great amusement – fact is that their structures have outlasted most others, hence these are still with us. The Romans worked from a master plan, used detailed design techniques, the best materials, and skilled craftsmen. They mastered logistics, manpower and project management like the ancient Egyptians had done 3,000 years earlier.
The Ottoman Empire usurped the Romans in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor for the next 400 years into the 15th century before Eastern European communities started to win back their countries from the oppression of the Ottoman Turks and re-establish their own art, culture and architecture. During their reign, the Ottomans, while perfecting the construction of large domes in their places of worship, chose interlocking soft sandstone and used simpler construction methods. Their structures have not survived as well, with some notable exceptions, requiring regular restoration and preservation, at great cost.
In Istanbul there are two obelisks a hundred meters apart. One is sandstone from the Ottoman era around 1400 AD, but now a crumbling image of its former self. The second is an Egyptian granite obelisk still in almost pristine condition from around 2000 BC, situated upon a still substantial foundation of a Roman hippodrome built circa 330 AD of solid granite, marble and red brick and mortar (cement).
Fast forward to my visit to Romania and Bulgaria, where the fabulous granite and marble structures of the Renaissance period, through to the 18th century post the defeat of the Ottoman Turks, stand proudly while all around are the crumbling relics of Soviet Russia era multi-story mass housing blocks and public buildings – falling apart after only a few decades. The new democracies in these countries have massive restoration and rebuilding programs – substantially funded with EU contributions, which fuels the British, French and German taxpayer debate on who benefits from the EU.
The contrast with the structures of the ancient and antique world is remarkable.
Spotlight moves to Africa and what has been achieved in infrastructure delivery.
The crumbling RDP houses, the years of time and cost overruns on public sector power plants and pipelines, roads and railways. The lack of infrastructure planning and maintenance across our region is in stark contrast to the world class private sector delivery of mines, toll roads, World Cup stadiums, renewable energy plants, commercial and retail infrastructure and private hospitals delivered in recent years.
It would seem obvious, and history tells us, that infrastructure is best delivered by professionals using proven design processes, skilled craftsmen, the appropriate materials and technologies, effective planning and project management techniques.
Infrastructure delivery should not be controlled by politics, cadre deployment, state institutions that have limited technical capacity, tenderpreneurs, or cobbled-together contractors who may be well-networked.
By nature of their training, demonstrable skills and track record, infrastructure delivery is the domain of professional individuals and companies who should, but still wait patiently, be invited into the inner sanctum of government to discuss the master plan for both South Africa and the regional infrastructure backlog that will unlock the future.
The Romans had this sorted – why can’t we?

Where is caesar   when you need him

A woman in a boardroom often needs to work twice as hard as a man; and it also means conveying the right intent and tone, and paying attention to the finer details, body language being one of them.
“Within our very patriarchal history, the boardroom is still very much a man-cave, where the few women who have dared to ‘trespass’ constantly navigate both the written and unwritten man-cave code,” says Khosi Jiyane, a clinical psychologist and corporate training facilitator in Johannesburg.
In order to survive, some women have felt the need to man-up, as currency for being seen and treated as one of the boys, which she says has resulted in some men feeling threatened, while some fellow women see it as a “betrayal of femininity”.
Thrown into this mix are gender and cultural pitfalls that can be effectively countered if the female executive is aware of her body language.
Being attentive is a key aspect according to Durban psychologist Claire Newton who says: “Be sure to sit right up at the table and lean in over the edge slightly. Put your hands and arms on the table. Have a notebook and pen to take notes, but never fiddle with your pen. Don’t take notes on your lap if there’s a table in front of you, this forces you to move away from the action. Women tend to do this a lot. Men don’t.”
“Also ensure you have an open posture, meaning you don’t block the front of your body in any way. Blocking off the front of your body makes you feel safer (which is why you do it), but other people get the message you are insecure and unapproachable,” says industrial psychologist Brian Jude who has been in the communication training industry for 35 years. He says it’s important to stay true to your own personality in the boardroom.
“More aggressive people tend to take up space, with quieter people taking up less space. With any kind of boardroom activity, stay in your comfort zone,” says Jude, adding that women generally feel more comfortable crossing their legs or ankles, but that the ‘figure four cross’ or loose leg cross should be avoided as it is perceived to be aggressive.
“Keep your hands and arms parallel to the body as much as possible. You can use your hands in natural gestures, such as open palms, but avoid any form of finger pointing, which is seen as aggressive.”
He adds that the ‘match and mirror’ technique in body language must be subtle.
“As the other person changes body position, count to four and then change your own position to match. If there is gentle eye contact, maintain the same behavior. This can create an enormous connection, but not if it’s overdone. If you do it too quickly, it is interpreted as mocking behavior,” says Jude.
And while it may be daunting to enter the man cave, never use flirtatious techniques.
“Women are used to flirting and may tend to try and use this in what is still a predominantly male environment. Clothes must be conservative and neutral, with no overt jewelry. Maintaining a professional demeanour says ‘take me seriously’,” says Jude.
Carry handbags, tablets, or files at your side and not in front of your body;
Be aware of nervous habits – don’t fiddle with hands or hair;
Good eye contact shows you are listening, but do not hold eye contact to the point of being either uncomfortable or threatening;
Avoid sitting in the chair next to the door – if you are speaking when someone enters, you lose your message;
Pushing your sleeves up slightly and putting your arms on the table shows you are serious about what is happening in a meeting;
Be aware of your facial expression at all times.

Khosi-Jiyane

Body Of Work

Charm is that intangible quality which draws attraction and creates a connection.
Legendary French actress Sarah Bernhardt defined it as: “You must have charm to reach the pinnacle. It is made of everything and of nothing, the striving will, the look, the walk, the proportions of the body, the sound of the voice, the ease of the gestures. It is not at all necessary to be handsome or to be pretty; all that is needful is charm.”
It’s a key ingredient for success in a social setting, but what about the business environment?
Inner Life Skills (ILS) Master Coach Asanda Gcoyi from South African capital Pretoria says charm is extremely important in business.
Having graduated cum laude with an MBA from China’s Peking University, Gcoyi has worked in Beijing and has coached in intercultural settings in various areas including global leadership development, entrepreneur development and life coaching.
“Some people are really just not charming and they make absolutely no effort to be. There’s almost a lack of awareness about how important this is, especially in business.
“Charming people possess social skills that enable them to go out there and generate business on behalf of their companies. Whether it’s a budgetary request or pitching a new project, charm goes a long way in ensuring your proposal is listened to and even considered,” says Gcoyi.
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She highlights that having charm is far removed from being a “people pleaser”.
“It’s rather the ability to get your way because people can relate to you and your personality, mannerisms and the way you carry yourself inspires confidence. Charm is by nature verbal and non-verbal. Verbal in that you say what matters and non-verbal in that your gestures are synchronized with your words.”
While some professionals may be natural charmers, there are techniques to cultivate a charming manner according to Gcoyi:
Open ended questions, such as “what do you think about….” This invites thought and a considered response which goes a long way in creating more authentic connections with others.
Be a good listener – you can do this in two ways: either by backtracking, which means you use the same words that the other party uses, i.e, pick a word they have used and include it when it’s your turn to speak. The second way is to mirror and match the other party through tone and language (verbal and body). Gestures such as nods need to be appropriate and tasteful and not as if you are rushing a person through what they are saying, or being dismissive.
Eye contact conveys self-assurance as well as saying you care about the communication taking place and you are giving it your undivided attention. It’s important to note that this applies in a Western setting as direct eye contact in other cultures, including some Asian and African, may read it as intimidating or even arrogance or disrespect.
Smile and laugh – a smile is the surest way to win favor in most interactions, but can never be enough in itself. A winning smile is usually accompanied by open and inviting hand gestures for example.
Genuine pleasure – when you are authentic, you speak with others from a place that is not pretentious. Open mindedness tends to lead to a genuine interest in others.
Durban-based Arthie Moore, CEO of Celebrating Humanity International and Co-Founder of the Transformational Leadership Institute, says a charming person “has the type of personality that adjusts to be inclusive of everyone, anywhere and at any time”.
She says John Maxwell’s book, The 5 Levels of Leadership highlights that leadership is about character.
“According to Maxwell, to become a person of influence, one has to have integrity, values and a strong character. To have charm adds to that mix and allows one a journey of continuous growth as a charismatic leader.
“Charming people have the ability to adjust their tone, body language, eye contact and way of interacting to make sure that others feel comfortable in their space. At the same time, they are thoughtful and have meaningful conversations. They do not undermine or overpower with their own opinions. In order to succeed, we need to adjust continually to become more effective. A charming leader who is effective is guaranteed to succeed in leading and inspiring their entire teams. Success just follows on as a natural progression,” says Moore.

shutterstock_117241084

Turn On The Charm

Fervently chasing after a passion that took me quite long to identify.”
This is what Affiong Williams’ Twitter profile reads. Spend a day with the 28-year-old entrepreneur and you believe it’s not just a clever line, but the story of her life. Her first job out of college may have been in the corporate sector, but for Williams, her passion for business was one she couldn’t ignore. It had tugged at her since she was a child growing up in Nigeria.
She was only six when with the help of her cousin she cooked and sold food to her neighborhood. By second year in college, she had already dabbled in a few odd businesses, such as buying and selling handbags on campus. She left Nigeria when she was 11, spending most of her formative years in South Africa. College was a defining time. It was here she realized what she didn’t want to do.
With a bachelor’s degree in physiology and psychology, she wanted to switch to medicine but realized her strength was business. The post graduate degree she pursued in business administration at the Witwatersrand Business School in Johannesburg was invaluable.
Williams acquired a job with an entrepreneurship incubator, which exposed her to the world of start-ups and businesses. Here, she could apply all the theory she had learned, spending four years, starting as an intern, ending as a portfolio manager. She looked at services that would help entrepreneurs grow across different sectors. It awakened her innate flair.
“I was most inspired by the entrepreneurs. In any economy, small to medium enterprises create the most jobs. I told myself this is what I want to do.”
Williams started researching business ideas and the sectors that inspired her. The South African economy was highly-developed and she knew her competitive advantage, being a foreigner, was also limited, so she veered towards Nigeria.
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“Agriculture was becoming very topical. I started reading up and asking questions,” she says.
Why is there so much inefficiency? Why is there so much waste? Why are fruits rotten? Why can’t we create finished goods? Why do Nigerian products look unappealing? What is stopping Nigerian products from being sold anywhere in the world? A few more pertinent questions and it was the light bulb moment she had been waiting for.
“I decided this is the sector I wanted to get into. I also knew agriculture is a big job creator. I wanted to make Nigerian finished products look good, I wanted to use up our raw materials, and employ a lot of people. I became obsessed. I read about fruit juices, cassava, cash crops etc, and moved into fruit.”
Capital was the next issue.
“I looked at the capital required for food processing. I started figuring out cost in terms of investment. I then stumbled upon [the idea of selling] dried fruits and realized very few people were doing this. It was not that expensive and there were not that many healthy options out there.”
In February 2012, determined to win a government entrepreneurship grant, Williams made the decision to move to Lagos.
“I knew I would win this N10 million (just over $60,000) grant that was going to be my source of capital. I traveled to Nigeria for a second round of applications and made a decision to move back, because I was so sure I would win this grant,” she says.
But did she?
“I did not. My name was not called.”
It was a setback, but Williams had it mapped out. With her savings of $15,000, she started on what was a sink-or-swim journey into a tough market that required more analysis. She drew from her experiences.
She started understanding the value chain better, and engaged in some market-research to see what consumers thought of her dried fruit product. With a tighter rein on funds, it was time to focus on the market.
“Lagos is a hugely urbanized city with a growing middle class and this is where we focused the business. We found a fair percentage of exposed and well-traveled Lagosians already familiar with the product,” she says of the growing number of health-conscious Nigerians, who had little or no time on their hands. Food choices available on the go were a major determinant of health trends.
“Because we are a food product, we are lucky. People can use an immediate taste test to prove whether they like it or not. For our core market, it’s an affordable product,” says Williams. The epiphany may have taken a while, but it was the formula she required.
Agriculture is the most important sector in the Nigerian economy and contributes up to 35% of the country’s GDP. Its 170 million population represents a large domestic market that can support and sustain local production and processing. Unfortunately, limited collaboration exists across regional value chains.
As agribusiness plays a role in jump-starting economic transformation through development of agro-based industries, successful agribusiness investments stimulate growth by providing new markets and developing an input system. This hadn’t escaped Williams’ notice.
She introduced ReelFruit, a healthy range of snacks with variants of mango and pineapple, into the Nigerian market. These are preservative-free fresh tropical fruits, dried and ready for snacking. Its target market is mainly working women, and more products are being developed: a fruit and nut mix, a cashew brand, health drink and kids’ candy. Over the past year, ReelFruit has sold in 62 locations in Nigeria.
“From a business perspective, it made sense, because we are then not exporting raw materials but actually finishing the products here. And if markets can be found for them locally or overseas, then, that’s a win. I found a partner in Ghana to produce on my behalf. They provide the finished product. Now, we get bulk products and are responsible for the packaging. In March 2013, we started selling finished products,” she says.
William’s business has also garnered recognition. She won the BiD Network Women in Business Challenge award in the Netherlands in 2013, and also the top prize for Creative Focus Africa. What inspires her?
“The can-do attitude of Nigerians. There are so many norms and misconceptions about the African woman. As an entrepreneur, despite all these, if you are passionate enough, you will always find a way around it. Having a vision and purpose is what pushed me the most to start a business,” she says.

Little Bites Of Lagos

Depression and anxiety are highly stigmatized in the boardroom and top executives have become masters at keeping it locked down, going to extreme lengths to hide such problems.
In the fast-paced corporate world, if you are falling apart, you dare not show it. But is that a good thing?
Recent research has shown many successful women are victims of stress as they strive to balance work and family. But even as children and careers collide, women need to prioritize their wellbeing.
Take 40-year-old successful corporate woman and mother of two, Nicci (surname withheld for confidentiality), who says she experienced “a ridiculously heightened sense of anxiety” possibly linked to post-natal depression after the birth of her first child.
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“I was 36, I was trying to run a business, a home and look after my baby. I remember feeling isolated, alone and incompetent, and being an established business woman, that was a terrible feeling,” she says, echoing the thoughts of many like her.
“I have learned there is no such thing as the perfect balance between a career and motherhood. This is a myth propagated by the media and there is no way women are achieving this holy grail. There are times when you have more time for your career, then something happens and bang, you have to pay more attention to your family. It’s also important to note that a man who has a successful wife often simply assumes he will also have the perfect wife and mother and it is our complicity in this which adds to the pressure. We, as women, try and do it all,” says Nicci.
Dr Colinda Linde, Chair of the Advisory Board at the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG), and a practicing clinical psychologist, feels modern working women have no role models when it comes to managing the demands of a career and family life.
“Even if our mothers worked, few had careers which resembled those of today and the demands of parenting have also changed, with children’s schedules often as busy as those of their parents. In a dual income household, it mainly still falls to the woman to run the home. This leads to feeling divided and not really being present in the moment – when you are at a school event, your phone is still beeping and when you are at work, your home or issues with your children may also be on your mind,” says Linde.
Over time, this leads to stress and burnout. She says while women learn to rely on other women such as housekeepers or mothers to help with child-rearing, they tend not to expect their partners to take on domestic responsibilities.
“There is a trend emerging where men are doing more to help in the home than their fathers did, by a significant amount, but it is still a relatively small part compared to the typical female portfolio of duties,” says Linde.
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Falling Off The Cliff
Richard Hawkey from Equilibrium Solutions, who has worked with Linde and has conducted substantial research, reveals findings where anxiety, depression or burnout, while highly stigmatized as a sign of weakness, are more than common, with women more affected than men.
Hawkey, who calls himself ‘the recovering banker’, says he slipped into severe clinical depression in 2010 after 15 years in a top position in the finance sector.
“As a senior manager, I had no idea how damaging stress was, or that if you are a Type-A personality (achiever, driver, controller), there isn’t necessarily a slow decline to warn you the cliff is approaching – you simply fall off the end one day. I was happily married, with great children and a house in the suburbs, along with all the trappings of success, so how could I have a breakdown and become depressed?”
Since then, he has recovered and is finishing a Master’s degree in Applied Psychology, and also set up his company Equilibrium Solutions, which in partnership with several doctors, has designed Vitals Software, a confidential online stress self-awareness and management tool.
He gathered and analyzed data from 2,500 respondents surveyed via this online resource. Most were white-collar workers, 98% from South Africa.
Hawkey says key findings, such as 37% complaining of unexplained chest pains were “worryingly high”, as was the 50% of respondents ‘living for Fridays’, highlighting high levels of apathy
and demotivation.
He adds women consistently scored higher than men in the manifestation of various symptoms.
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Hawkey says the situation may well be worse than indicated by the findings, as anecdotal evidence reveals executives are self-medicating, won’t use Employee Assistance Programs and will take two weeks of leave pretending they are ‘going on holiday’, but in fact are booking into a psychiatric unit.
“This anecdotal evidence is quite terrifying. Executives will pay for such treatment with cash and will not use their medical aid in order to keep the problem hidden,” he says.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 350 million people across the globe suffer from depression, with less than half receiving treatment due to a number of barriers, a prime one being the social stigma attached to mental disorders.
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More Pressure For The Top Brass
While women trying to balance a career and family are expected not to show any weakness, Hawkey adds that women in the upper echelons of management are particularly under pressure, as they have to appear tough and if from a historically-disadvantaged background, have to prove themselves beyond tokenism, while at the same time shoulder the burden of family.
“My advice to women who are feeling overwhelmed is to speak to someone you trust. It’s important to know you are not alone,” he says.

Don’t Worry,  The CEO Gets Depressed Too

To say Nicky Oppenheimer is understated is an understatement in itself. It is tantamount to saying his family – the third richest in Africa – is well off; or that Winston Churchill, another famous Old Harrovian, was a fair public speaker.
It must be tough suffering the stare and glare that goes with being the scion of a powerful world famous family, but Oppenheimer wears his eminence lightly as he sits opposite me for this rare interview. This Johannesburg office may be dressed lavishly, but the man himself, in a blue open-necked shirt, is not. He is measured, calm and guarded as he chats about everything from entrepreneurs and corruption to government and business. There is a glint of pride in the eye when he mentions, fleetingly at the end of the interview, his son’s first class cricket career as an Oxford Blue. Jonathan Oppenheimer bowled for Combined Universities against one of the world’s finest batsmen, West Indian Brian Lara.
“He bowled the first three and moved them away and then brought one back into the pad. Lara LBW Oppenheimer 0,” chuckles the proud father.
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The laidback calm belies a busy few years for the Oppenheimers and the two corporate giants that the family took generations to build: Anglo American and De Beers. In the next few years, the family will invest billions into Africa and her entrepreneurs with straightforward business philosophy.
“You have to learn to get on with people, you have to learn to determine the bullshit from the serious stuff, and then you have to have a good common sense and a vision of where you want to get to,” says Oppenheimer.
This no nonsense approach is driving the family forward in the business of private equity. The investment drive came after the wrench of selling out from De Beers, the largest diamond producer in the world. Along with Anglo American, De Beers may have survived political upheaval and two world wars, but the recession of 2008 proved a turning point.
“From a De Beers perspective, it came at a bad time. De Beers had just being opening new mines so we had to borrow money to pay for the mines – you don’t get a return very quickly – so we had to renegotiate our debt conversance with the bank, that environment wasn’t easy. We managed, we had to turn to our shareholders and get more money from them; this was post privatization. So both Anglo and the family put up more money, which was brave on both our parts,” says Oppenheimer.
“In my father’s lifetime, he talked about the great depression, where the situation was far more dramatic than anything I ever had to face, and you knew that people wanted to have diamonds, there was never any lessening of desire just that they didn’t have the income to do it. So you had to cut your cloth to suit that and wait for the times to improve… It never occurred to me that the business wouldn’t recover, there were times where you have somewhat sleepless nights.”
The emotional decision came in 2011. After 85 years, the Oppenheimers voted to sell their 40% stake in De Beers, the business that built the family fortune, for an estimated $5.1 billion. For the first time in decades, the family had no stake in any listed company.
“Not quite a difficult decision, the fact that there were three shareholders in De Beers, the family, Anglo and the Botswana Government was always in my view an unstable arrangement and I knew something was going to happen at some stage. Either Anglo would say it was not a business for them or they would say they really want to be in it in a much more serious way than we are at the moment and they came out on that side and made us a very fair and reasonable offer. And then of course I was in a difficult position because I had to deal with a business I had been in all my life on the one hand, and then the requirements of the family, my sister, her children, my children. We ended up in a situation where my heart made me say ‘look we should stay with De Beers’ but my head knew absolutely clear that this was the right deal to do.”
Analysts in Johannesburg will say Mary Slack, Oppenheimer’s sister, was a strong voice in the decision to sell.
“She (my sister) was not in the day to day running of the business… We all ended up wanting to sell,” replies Oppenheimer.
The parting broke a link with De Beers that dates back to Nicky’s grandfather, who led the family’s charge into Africa.
A London trading company posted 21-year-old EO Oppenheimer, the son of a German cigar merchant, to South Africa to buy diamonds. He took to the diamond trade like a duck to water and his knowledge of the stones was unparalleled; legend has it that Oppenheimer used to carry a note book around him to write down any useful business information. By the time he was 30, Oppenheimer was the mayor of the diamond town of Kimberly – no mean feat in an age when grey hair ruled the roost.
“I always remember him as a very quiet guy, I remember him as the sort of guy that if you bumped into him you rebounded,” says Oppenheimer.
The formidable Harry Oppenheimer was the next generation – a strident man who made his mark both in business and politics, as well as guiding his son in the art of business.
“No, I don’t think he was a tough man in business, he had a very good view of the right way to get to a point, to how to negotiate his way there. I would have thought my grandfather was a tougher business man,” says Oppenheimer.
“I always knew that my father was there and I could discuss business matters with him, and that gave you a head start, it never got you to the finishing line, so that was whether you could deliver or not. He taught me business went on and it was an assessment of risk and to be a successful business man you have to take risks. There is no good being risk adverse, then you go nowhere.”
Nicky Oppenheimer’s air harks back to the gentility of 1950s Britain, where he began his education at prep school at the age of seven. Harrow and Christ Church Oxford followed.
“I am of an age where going to university was the last holiday of your life and I thought that was absolutely fantastic. Politics, philosophy and economics was a good sort of all-round degree. I thought it was fantastic, wonderful life. I didn’t work very hard I got a third-class degree at the end of it all. But I had a lot of fun,” he says.
When Oppenheimer arrived home in South Africa, the army called him for national service.
“The army had a terrible problem with me and that was that I had a degree, and so if you have a degree you did your basics and then became an officer. So, I became an officer and then they had no idea what to do with me. I had no skills that were of any use to them at all. I was sent to a great big parking lot just outside Pretoria and I signed my name every time a vehicle came in and I signed saying the vehicle had four tyres and two headlights. I always say that the army taught me how to sign my name very fast,” he smiles.
Then, Oppenheimer took his seat on the board, which he was to occupy for 37 years.
“It is what I saw myself doing; I had a particular love within the Anglo business, the diamond business. I was lucky enough to achieve what any diamond person’s primary ambition would be and that’s become chairman of De Beers. I’ve been extraordinarily lucky,” he says.
Not too soon after the De Beers exit in 2011, the family set up its investment arm Tana Africa Capital with the investment company E. Oppenheimer &amp; Son and Temasek, a sovereign wealth fund from Singapore. The partners put up $150 million each and sources say the family is also ready to invest the billions from the De Beers deal. The investment company will look at agriculture and consumer businesses. It will also consider deals in media, healthcare and education up to $50 million.
“We are Africans and we would like to invest in Africa. So we are busy looking for things to do, we have some investments but we are constantly on the lookout,” says Oppenheimer.
Tana Africa Capital has already invested in Promasidor Group, a company founded in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1979, that sells everything from powdered milk to tea in 30 African countries. Regina is Egypt’s second largest pasta manufacturer and owns the country’s only durum wheat flour mill. It has an expanding export business into Africa and the Middle East.
Oppenheimer has faith in African entrepreneurs.
“People are pretty entrepreneurial in Africa and growing so and that is very encouraging, a constraint in Africa is bureaucracy,” he says.
“The problem rests on the fact that, so many African economies are mineral based. The thing with minerals is that you can’t pick them up and take them anywhere and that allows government, wherever they are, to be bureaucratic, which is not business friendly, because a business can’t simply say I don’t like you I’m going to go somewhere else, you’ve got to deal with it. As a continent we’ve got to learn that you’ve got to be business friendly and find ways to create an environment for business to flourish and that means a bit of a mind change. The important thing is they (governments) have a huge role to play in controlling the environment. The less they have to do with the actual business, in my view, the better.”
I venture that, in the words of Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is to keep government out of business.
“What one has to realize and what governments have to understand is, they are missing an opportunity. The penny will fall and then they must do much more than you talked about. They have to create the environment, they have to set the rules and regulations and tax rates but actually running of business is something short term that government is really bad at.”
And corruption?
“You have to stand up for what is right, corruption is an extremely insidious and dangerous thing and very difficult to eradicate once it starts… I often ask people once you’ve become a corrupt society, how do you stop being a corrupt society? And you don’t get very satisfactory answers. I think you have to demonstrate that you can be successful and contribute to society while being ethically sound, and it will be a long and slow process.”
More legislation, I venture.
“I always worry about legislation and what is does. When legislation comes forward, it is designed to catch the crooks. To my mind the crooks are always too clever to be caught. What is does is make honest people’s lives intolerable. So there has to be legislation but there has to be a drive to get people to believe in business ethics and doing the right thing.”
Then there is the struggling mining industry, which Oppenheimer spent more than half of his life working in. South Africa was shaken by a costly four-month strike in the platinum mines, followed by sapping and unprecedented power cuts. The Energy Intensive User Group that represents 32 of the country’s biggest energy consumers – including the smelters and mines – says 97% of its members are cutting back on capital projects because of a fear of power cuts.
“I think [mining] has a huge contribution to make. People talk about it like it’s a curse, which it certainly isn’t. Minerals have a future, if you’re blessed with minerals that’s a fantastically good start – you’ve got to use them. I think what happened in Botswana is a good example of a country that has taken its diamond revenues and put it to a good cause. You’ve got to find a way of encouraging mining, and mining is more long term than almost anything else. So you’ve got to create an environment where somebody is going to invest billions of dollars with a view that the first return will be seven to ten years away and the confidence to believe that the deal you have and environment you’re dealing in will still be there in seven to ten years. Then you will find people who will invest and companies and businesses will do… It is going to depend on the mining legislation, which is a bit up in the air at the moment. If you want to invest in a mine, you have to say ‘am I confident that the environment that the government creates for me will stand the seven to ten year test.’”
Oppenheimer concedes that the battered image of mining, in the land of his birth, has made foreign investors think twice.
“I think that people are looking at South Africa and waiting to see – that’s a bad situation. You want them not to be in wait mode, you want them to be in invest mode. The key thing in South Africa seems to be the creation of jobs. The government task I think should be to do everything in its power to create jobs so that the huge number of unemployed youth we have in the country can get jobs, get wages, fair proper wages and that needs to color every decision they make,”
says Oppenheimer.
As for the man himself, he is throwing himself into a number of philanthropic projects including the effort to save the endangered pangolin. Apparently, the long-tailed, scaly mammal is prone to electric security fences in the bush and is dying out.
If the pangolin survives and corruption dies, surely anything is possible in Africa.

‘Corruption  Is An Extremely Insidious And Dangerous Thing’

There is a new buzzword in town. Everywhere you go, businesswomen and top exe-cutives are complaining about their inability to maintain a quality work-life balance.
With the world economy still struggling, many executives, and indeed employees at all rungs, have felt the need to demonstrate their commitment to the company. They often do so at the expense of other priorities in their lives, such as family time and the things they do for fun.
Reports show that women, especially mothers and wives, feel part-icularly hard done by. They feel that their office hours demand a lot from them, and because of this, they are unable to meet the demands of their husbands and children.
It does not help that men – so goes the narrative – are reluctant to do their bit at home. They just sit on the couch and watch sport on television, forgetting that their partners have had a hectic day of their own running businesses.
While I have some sympathy for women who have to navigate this struggle, it really feels to me like the novelty of this problem is a tad exaggerated.
Everyone who works or runs a business necessarily needs to sacrifice something if they are to be successful. If it is a career or a business, then hobbies or time with family might have to suffer.
That is life. It is has been like that for a long time.
If in doubt, maybe these women should ask their domestic workers how they do it. In fact, they could ask their grandmothers, or even their own mothers. They could ask rural women or others on the factory floor how they get it right.
Just because business schools have not dedicated time and scholarships to how the night shift office cleaners, the domestic workers and the farmhands are able to manage working long hours and raising children – often for less money than their bosses spend on a pair of Jimmy Choos – does not mean they do not struggle with balancing work and life.
What some of these women forget while they are networking at business conferences is that there is another woman in their homes. And that this other woman is ensuring that the house is clean and that the children are bathed and fed.
If they were really serious about this work-life balance, they would be paying their domestic worker more because she obviously cannot be helping her own children with their homework when she is busy with the boss’s brats.
If someone is walking your dog, running your household and supervising your children’s feeding habits, chances are that their own children and household are being neglected.
Like the CEO, the poor domestic worker must also go home and be a mother to her children and a partner to her significant other. They too struggle, because invariably they have less of a support system than their bosses.
To use the catchphrase: their work-life balance is out of balance. Yet they carry on instead of making a big song and dance about it. They do not throw tantrums, because despite their low station in life, they understand implicitly that a working life requires certain sacrifices.
It is not because their own husbands and children deserve less love than those of their bosses.
I am sure that the idea of carrying a child on one’s back while getting on with the business of living did not come from a seminar on how to handle the work-life balance. Someone just threw a baby on her back, found something to keep the child from falling off, picked up a hoe and went to work tilling the fields. The trend caught on and has shown itself to be highly effective, even though it has yet to feature in business schools’ research.
Corporate and businesswomen who complain about a poor work-life balance must just snap out of it. Life is tough and it does not get any better as you climb the ladder.
It has nothing to do with being a woman. Instead of looking for symp-athy, they should try to be creative about using their time effectively.
We all have 24 hours in a day and unless you plan better, it does not matter whether you are a man or a woman, the CEO or the tea lady, you will keep ending up at the wrong end of the work-life balance.
So here is a tip for all those women stressing about how to find the right work-life balance. Pretend that you are an avant-garde employer. Take the employee you have forgotten is just as much a woman as you are out for a drink and ask her how she manages.
Who knows, the outing may just make you avant-garde instead of you faking it.

Balancing business and pleasure

A couple of weeks ago I went on a real vacation. I didn’t bring my computer, I shut off my phone. The only time I even thought about work was when my mind wondered to topics of long term strategy. I didn’t worry about the day-to-day operations at my company even once. Why? I did not need to. I had a strong and capable team that kept everything moving forward in my absence.
Early in my corporate career, a manager leaving on vacation said to me, “Unless my house is burning down, don’t contact me.”
I was shocked by his brazen disinterest in work while he vacationed. “This guy is not going to last long,” I thought. Instead, it was one of the best leadership lessons I ever received. He had a chance to take a well-needed break. His team members had a chance to stretch their leadership, develop confidence, and grow. His actions were signs of an effective leader. But most leaders balk at the idea that a manager-level employee would even think of telling others that they will not be available during their vacation.
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<h4>Surviving vacation</h4>
In his Forbes article Take A Serious Vacation: A CEO’s Advice To All CEOs, Jim Moffatt, the chairman and chief executive of Deloitte Consulting LLP, says, “If your business can’t survive your vacation, you’ve got a bigger problem.” He suggests that leaders and managers treat their vacations as a “test” – not just of the leader’s ability to take a break, but of what happens to the organization when they are absent for an extended period of time.
However, the inability to take a vacation isn’t limited to the corner office. A recent study by Kelton Research commissioned by the Radisson hotel chain indicates that nearly half of the total American workforce doesn’t use all of their allotted vacation days. From my experience leading HR functions at mid to large sized companies, I can confirm that the core offenders are managers and leaders. And when asked why this group of hard working professionals left vacation days on the table, most sighted their fear of losing momentum or missing quarterly or annual objectives. In other words, they felt that things would fall apart as soon as they left.
Perhaps these managers and leaders are a product of a workforce that simply has too much on their plate. Kelton’s study did find that heavy workloads were one of the primary reasons workers decided not to take more time off. If this is the case, organizations must ask a critical question – who is taking a break from the day-to-day operations to think about the long-term strategy of the business?
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<h4>The problem with doers</h4>
If corporations don’t ask and answer this important question, they may very well find themselves with an organization full of doers and no leaders. While all companies certainly need both, employees need to be able to recognize and respect the difference. An organization full of doers is simply not going to last.
The story of Edwin H. Land and Polaroid is a glaring example of the fate of an organization of doers, brilliant as they may be. As Polaroid grew, Land had teams of people working in shifts at his side. As one team wore out, the next team rotated in to continue the work. Land was at the core of everything at Polaroid and was even accused of wearing the same clothing for eighteen consecutive days because he refused to take a break. Subsequently, his successors mismanaged the company and the once-great organization headed into a downward spiral. In his 2012 book Instant: The Story of Polaroid, Christopher Bonanos tells the story of Polaroid’s competitor Kodak referring to Land’s company as “He” instead of Polaroid. In October 2001, Polaroid declared bankruptcy.
I have worked for both doers and leaders. Despite the hours doers work, I always learned more from the leaders. One of the best leaders I worked for told me that as an HR executive I should be sitting in the lobby greeting employees and reading the paper. This is a bit extreme, but what he was saying is that I needed to spend my time thinking about the big picture – our people strategy to drive our business forward. I shouldn’t be down in the weeds chasing up performance reviews, reviewing improvement plans, or attending every vendor meeting. He encouraged me to build a strong team to do that work.
The other problem with doers is that they frequently don’t lead by example. It is disingenuous when a leader tells me to stop working and take a vacation or recover from an illness, but a week later they show up to work coughing and sneezing. Some doers will boast about not having taken a proper vacation in 10 years. Working for these leaders, I never felt I was allowed to fully unplug despite their encouragement to do so. As with all aspects of effective leadership, walking the talk is the only way to create lasting change.
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<h4>Making yourself redundant</h4>
A leader is not doing their followers, boss, or organization any favors by building a team that can’t function without them. They have a duty of care to teach their followers to fish instead of fishing for them. At day’s end, the true test of effective leadership manifests itself when a leader is absent.
The one thing that all effective leaders do is make themselves redundant so they can move on to even greater challenges and help more people – knowing that the team they built will flourish and carry on the mission. All my personal success as a leader has been a result of living this principle. The only boasting I do is about taking all my vacation each year. I encourage you to do
the same.
As a leader or manager, here are three simple questions you should ask of yourself daily to ensure you are practicing effective leadership and building sustainable teams and organizations:
<ol>
<li>Can I go on vacation without my computer and phone?</li>
<li>If I get sick, can I focus on getting better without working or being in contact?</li>
<li>If I quit today, would my team/organization continue to be successful and grow with minimal disruption?</li>
</ol>
If you can’t answer ‘yes’ to all the above questions, you need to either build a new team, develop the one you have, start trusting your people to work on their own making it okay to fail and learn from mistakes, or move into a role that does not require people management.

Make Yourself Redundant:

Helena Dolny has always taken the road less traveled. Currently, she heads up Grey Matters, a consultancy which focuses on leadership development, strategic planning, coaching and institutional transformation.
At 60, she is an accomplished, world-renowned empowerment specialist, writer and author of several books in fields as diverse as coaching, economics, organizational design and biography. Her vast expertise in navigating the choppy waters of corporate South Africa on the cusp of change and transformation is exactly what drew me to her as a potential columnist for FORBES Woman Africa.
I also knew Dolny had a way with words after reading her poignant account in the book Slovo: The Unfinished Autobiography. In it, she explains the context in which her late husband, Joe Slovo, wrote his memoirs, and why they were left incomplete. Slovo, one of my personal heroes, is a legend and icon of South Africa’s liberation struggle. He was the country’s first housing minister and served in former president Nelson Mandela’s Cabinet. Slovo died of leukemia in 1995, barely a year after democracy dawned. Dolny was his second wife.
Her inside track on the vagaries of corporate South Africa struggling to come to terms with change comes from her many experiences in the public and private sector. In 2005, Dolny served as the director of leadership development, coaching and mentoring at Standard Bank. It was a role which she says offered her the opportunity to recalibrate the bank’s delivery team. Prior to that, in 2001, she was with the human resources division of First National Bank. Her book, Banking on Change, is an engaging and candid account of her tumultuous experiences as the managing director of the Land and Agricultural Bank of South Africa. Dolny headed up the bank from 1997 until her dramatic departure in 2000, when she was embroiled in a spat over the direction of the organization and the pace of transformation.
Dolny also served as a member of the Presidential Commission on Rural Financial Services, and in 1996, was an advisor to South Africa’s first minister of agriculture and land affairs, Derek Hanekom.
Her journey towards becoming a coach and empowering women leaders in the corporate sector spans many decades. Dolny’s professional passage started when, as a youngster, fresh out of university and armed with a degree in agrarian economics, she made the journey from the north of England to the shores of Africa. Along the way, she came into contact with revolutionaries, rural peasants, presidents and academics, all of whom set her on a course that would invigorate her life forever.
The heady winds of change were sweeping across the continent. Dolny had been involved in the anti-Apartheid movement during her student days in England. Through her work in Zambia, Mozambique and later in South Africa, she soon came into direct contact with those at the epicenter of change in southern Africa.
Explaining her decision to work in empowerment and development, and the connection between land and economics, Dolny often makes reference to her parents. Both were World War II refugees; her father was Polish and her mother hails from what was then Czechoslovakia. Her folks were ‘salt of the earth’ types, she says, and could have become very different people, were it not for their class positions . While her mother, who had greater class mobility because she finished school later on in life , became a nurse in England, her father was a factory worker.
“Although my dad worked in a factory, he was very inventive and always practical. In a different society he could have been an engineer. When growing up we heard stories of their lives during the war. Given my parents’ upbringing, I am not surprised that I wanted to go into an enabling environment,” she says.
“In my gap year I travelled to Zambia. I had to come via South Africa, and eventually, after completing my studies, I ended up in Mozambique.”
Dolny’s passion for and interest in land issues was sparked in part by a friend’s father, who owned a dairy farm. She also remembers wanting to study something ‘practical’ instead of philosophy. She enrolled in agricultural economics at Reading University in the United Kingdom, as conventional wisdom at the time dictated that “because you were a girl”, it was advisable to “read economics, rather than science”.
Shortly after Mozambique won its independence in 1975, Dolny found herself designing a bookkeeping system.
“When [The Mozambique Liberation Front] Frelimo took power in the 70s it was a very powerful time. It was a time of barefoot doctors doing stints in villages among the rural masses. I remember, at that time, my first task was designing an accounting system for people who had just come off a literacy course. Then we could dream,” she says, smiling.
As an agrarian economist in Mozambique’s Ministry of Agriculture, Dolny worked with farming cooperatives on development planning and bookkeeping from 1976 to 1981. She then joined a Canadian non-profit organization called Cuso (Canadian University Service Overseas), which supported development projects in Mozambique.
Dolny has traversed both the public and private sector as an economist, banker, empowerment specialist and currently as an executive coach. However, the thread that runs through her work over the years is a belief in the need to build and develop strong and ethical leadership in public and private institutions.
“The fish rots from the head,” she says, stressing the importance of developing and harnessing credible, quality and capable leaders.
As a member of Comensa, and with a string of degrees (including an MBA and a Master’s in professional coaching) under her belt, Dolny is at the cutting edge of her industry on the continent.
Asked to explain the difference between coaching and mentoring, she says, “Coaching is customized learning. Mentoring is about cloning little mini-mes.” Coaching, she continues, allows her to develop systems that are uniquely tailored to the individual.
In the November edition of FORBES Woman
Africa, Dolny will be debuting as a regular columnist, offering insights into how to navigate corporate culture and architecture across the African continent.

Tag: corporate

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