The Choice is yours Religion and Culture

Both Religion and Culture are locked in a great battle for the souls of men.

Books for EIAR

Allan Bukusi hands over five copies of How to prosper in Employment to the Director General of the Ethiopian Institute of Agricultural Research - Dr Mandefro Nigussie at a ceremony in the Institute Library earlier today

The Corruption Virus: the more the laws the more the corruption!

The corruption virus: The more the laws the more the corruption!

The article by Ruth Mbula in the February 10^th Sunday Nation suggests that part of Cabinet CS Fred Matiangi core brief is to fight corruption in the country. Many other leaders have not achieved any significant results in this battle. While the celebrated CS has earned high marks in education reforms, the public will be keen to receive tangible relief from official extortion to not only alleviate poverty, but to accelerate economic production. Nonetheless, the frustrating fixation on corruption should not be a personal agenda, it is institutional. Corruption is generated from the very laws the government puts in place to curb it. The more the laws the more corruption grows. Allow me to illustrate this with an interesting story found in ancient scripture.  

God gave Moses Ten Commandments. The religious leaders took these ten simple laws and converted them into five books. Years later Jesus the Christ would drive out corrupt officials who had converted the Temple of worship into a den of thieves. The religious leaders had taken the simple act of worship and made it into a corrupt money making scam by enforcing a complex detailed set of nefarious laws to extort money from hapless believers. The temple officials used the institutional power and privilege they had to create laws that imposed punitive taxes and burdens on the public.

This colonial strategy to fleece the common man is replicated in our public service institutions and parliamentary process. The simple act of driving a vehicle on the Kenyan roads is infringed upon by no less than five different national institution; KRA, NTSA, TLB, INSURANCE, INSPECTION, POLICE including the ADMINISTRATION police! The process of registering a business takes six months to a year!  Our legal experts recently created 47 governments out of one nation. Parliamentarians raise their own salaries through commissions and parliamentary bills- all through legal institutions! The abundance of laws or legality does not guarantee justice. However, the abundance of laws does create conflict, confusion, collusion, corruption and multiple avenues for the corruption virus to flourish.

Dear Dr. Fred Matiangi, your performance in the battle to free the soul of Kenyan entrepreneurship will not be evaluated by the number of corrupt officers you sack or the number of people you take to court on charges of corruption. Your national service will be appraised by the number of superfluous legal institutions you shut down and the measures you put in place to empower Kenyan citizens to freely participate in rewarding, vibrant, ethical socio-economic enterprise in our country.

Allan Bukusi

Leadership Consultant & Author

This is how to go about transforming your organization.

There are four types of organization transformers. These agents of organization transformation have one, two or all of these transformative qualities;

1. Triggers or activators
2. Enablers or facilitators
3. Creators or inventors, and
4. Implementers or developers

These four categories of transformers also double up as the transformation process steps as well. For any form of transformation to take place there has to be some sort of trigger or crisis that makes the organization re-look at its circumstances. The trigger could be an emerging need, a progressive development or a crisis or destabilizing event within or outside the control of the organization or person. This trigger or activator may be deliberate or completely unforeseen. The challenge for a leader is to determine that the emerging situation is an opportunity to steer the person or organization towards transformation and growth.

Sometimes organizations face threats such as employee strikes or technology revolutions. Sometimes however, leaders and managers miss the opportunity to take an organization through a quantum leap or transformation cycle simply because they miss read the signal as a “disturbance” or interruption to normal operations. These leaders and managers take the approach of problem solving or emergency to put out the fire and normalize the situation back to the state in which it was before and thus miss the opportunity to change the state of the business or organization.  Triggers and activators often see things from a different perspective – a position of possibility and opportunity.

ENABLERS & FACILITATORS

Enablers or facilitators are first and fast responders and reformers. These read the signals very quickly and are able to interpret and accept the challenge of the opportunity to change transform and become even better in their circumstance. Enablers will dig into their (own) resources to facilitate the development of the idea, initiative or action. Enablers are not frontline operators, but without their structured intervention an activators idea and or initiative may never see the light of day. Facilitators enable the transformation process to get off its feet by providing the requisite skills, knowledge or process knowhow to move the concept towards recognition and consideration.

CREATORS AND INVENTORS

Creators and inventors get down to the business of creating new platforms, revamping aging processes and identifying new process maps that support the new idea. They create paradigms in which transformation gains legitimacy. These people need not be technicians. They may be financial, legal framework modelers who create a context for the new reality they would like to come into being and obtain acceptance by consumers. Creators and inventors think beyond borders, they are not limited by systems and structures. Indeed they create systems and structures to engage objections and opposition to the new and innovative. While Enablers may be advocates of transformative ideas. Creators and investors are the engineers who move it from concept to practice by relating it to what is available and creating the missing technology to bring the transformation to life.      

IMPLEMENTERS AND DEVELOPERS

These are those who are willing to carry and take the risk of an untested idea and develop it into reality. Implementers do not have the answers. However, they will find them, develop them and make them work. These are the strategy drivers of concepts they believe can work and are ready to give the best of their energies to make it happen. Very close at heart to entrepreneurs these risk taking CEOs are the agents of change that are often visible knocking on doors, out there on the front line, not taking NO for an answer. Their attitude opens doors to opportunity and options previously barricaded by bureaucracy, legalese, and virgin land. Implementers have to be pioneers as they cut through uncharted waters. These are the explorers of old charting out paths for others to follow through with the benefits they want to bring through to individuals, the organization and the market.

FINALLY,

As an individual the transformation front changes as you move through these phases of bringing about the new improved state of the business. If you are working in and with a team, you may obtain some relief by outlining the transformational role you would like each of your team mates to play in order to sell and roll out the transformation process effectively and efficiently in your organization. One more thing – pray without ceasing! I can guarantee your good idea will be resisted as you work out how to reset the obtaining reality.

Illusion of entrepreneurship; A potent response!

This article is a response to Adema Sangale’s article- Illusion of entrepreneurship: we cannot all be queen bees- published in the January 27^th 2019 – Sunday Nation

Whereas I am an entrepreneur and I wish that all would be as I am, I appreciate that not everyone can nor needs to be one. As Adema clearly detail in her article the science of entrepreneurship is that 9 out of 10 startups fail. That statistic is hard to ignore any way you think about it. Yet many people think that “entrepreneurship alone” is a solution to our economic problems. I believe that one faithful employee is able to do more for his family and for his country than nine failed entrepreneurs. However, there is no shame in failing in an entrepreneurial venture. And there is no shame in being a faithful employee. Feeding your family and building the nation with a God given opportunity to earn an income and create wealth is the object of both the entrepreneur and employee.

The next question is then “how do we supply the 500,000 jobs a year that Kenyan politicians keep promising us? I beg to turn this question around and ask; what value are those already in employment creating for their families and the economy? Many of those in employment are simply net consumers of income rather than creators of wealth. Here is where I make the distinction between a faithful employee who understands the power to create wealth provided him or her by the opportunity to work and those who merely attend employment to get money. The majority of our employees live from “salary to salary” with no idea of how to create wealth. They make no savings, no investments and spend all their money on lifestyle expenses such as rent and toothpaste. These expenses add no value to the employee’s net worth and only ensure they retire back to poverty upon expiry of the employment period.

The heart of the issues raised by Adema is “employability”. All the bees in the hive are employable from the queen to the worker. Each has a responsibility to add value to the hive economy until death.  However, many of our people are looking for jobs, but are not willing to work. The heart of employability is the character to create value or solve a problem. Unfortunately, education programs do not teach us this virtue that entrepreneurs understand fully. Check the lives of Njenga Karume, Richard Branson, Simeon Nyachae, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and other successful entrepreneurs. You may decry their lack of education, but then you will be missing the point. These people were all willing to work to create wealth.  We can advance this nation much more and much faster with a generation of faithful employees than an “illusion of entrepreneurship”. If 2 million employees developed the habit of saving 100 shillings each month, they can pump 2.4 BILLION shillings back into the economy each year! Instead of occupying ourselves with the “illusion of entrepreneurship” lets humble ourselves and be faithful with every opportunity we get to put our hands to work!

Allan Bukusi

Leadership Consultant & Author of "How to prosper in employment"

27^th January 2019

Also see

Employment and enterprise are the same thing

The five laws of successful employment

Employment is a business

The entrepreneurial employee

How to start a business without capital

The age of the employee has come to an end

The Economic Empowerment Mindset

The 33 Laws of Self Employment

Your "Job attitude" will make a difference in 2019 - Happy New Year!!!

MY FIRST JOB EXPERIENCE 

For an average 27 year old Nigerian lady, getting a well-paying job, a good house to live in and a well-to-do husband are the major goals. Investment and acquiring an asset is usually on the last rung of the ladder. 

Just before I met Allan Bukusi, the author of ‘My first job: How to prosper in Employment’, I was a resentful employee; an administrative officer at my first job that paid about 50,000 Naira (137USD); an amount I believed could not take care of my personal needs. I knew I wasn’t ready to stay there for long. However, after reading the book gifted to me by the author himself in 2016, I had a transformed mindset on employment and the potential of creating wealth as an employee. 

Some of the key concepts highlighted in the book are milking the opportunity in a current employment: personal development and investment while working. I am excited to say that while at the initially dissatisfied employment, I took quite a number of online courses as a form of personal development and with savings from my meagre income, I acquired a piece of land as an investment. I made the best opportunity to prosper at my first employment; and I’m still working in that line. 

I strongly recommend this book to all age categories especially young graduates who seem unprepared for the world of employment. 

Ibukunoluwa Ajao 

Nigeria

Your business is as big as your vision - Happy New year!!!

Your business is as big as your vision. If all you want is a job then that is all you will get in 2019. Expand your vision, trust God and rule the universe He wants you to oversee. And a Happy New Year to you!