Planning II: The Tests
Chapter 3:
When I got to Aba, I made the mistake of making it obvious to them that I was desperate to make a change. Those guys were smarter than the inexperienced me; they were going to smoothly frustrate me out of the region. And yes they did. They kept coming to me to help them solve every single issue; their apartment power issue, procurement of spares, vehicles issues, reporting, diesel, health and safety, IT….I was running crazy. It was not even the volume of the request alone, but the manner in which they asked and the pressure they mounted. One month after, I packed my bags, typed my resignation letter and was ready to send it. I decided to get on a conference call with about four Tony boys I was closest to, and they discouraged me from resigning. They shared their experiences in their various regions, made jokes, insulted me and told me to get back on the ring. I unpacked, deleted the resignation mail, brought out my paper and decided to draw up a strategy.
I listed out all the problems I had noticed or encountered over the weeks one after the other. I tried to categorize them based on which ones I could solve, the ones I should not bother solving, the quick wins, the ones critical to the region and the ones important to the management. I had no formal training, all I was using was just logic and my guts. I took 3 days off work to really drill down on how I’ll approach the mission; and at the end of it all, I had created templates, processes, and a well crafted strategy to improve the network performance, to standardize processes, reduce wastes, create structures and influence their attitude to work.
I decided to start one-on-one semi-formal meetings with the engineers — to address their pain points and also develop a relationship with them. I realized our store keeper was under-utilized yet overworked, so I started with him. I spent hours with him just selling the vision of how he could be a better person; a force to reckon with in the organization, and how his work could be made easier so he would have enough room to go back to school. Funny enough, he bought into the vision and then we got to work. I then unveiled the step-by-step plan to him; he was going to be my chief of staff and right-hand man, since he knew their language, how they saw things and what motivates them.
I spent about 7 months in Aba, and in that period, I first revamped the entire store and made it up to standard by orderly re-arranging the spare parts and using proper labels — hundreds of over 200 unique items. I also created a system for tracking the spares that go out and come in. Secondly, I discovered that one of the major reasons for the poor uptime (% availability) across sites in the region was because the engineers did not do gen servicing and would instead sell the engine oil & parts, and there was no way to effectively stop that. So I introduced “Operation Return Black Oil”. I sold this idea to Mr Tony and my manager, and they gladly bought it. For every 10 liters of engine oil given, I was expecting a fraction of black used oil back. Lo and behold, it worked! The performance of the sites exponentially improved. Ejike and I were also able to get buyers for the black oil and we started generating huge revenue for the region. The one stone-two birds way!
The revenue was so huge that I started using it to solve other problems. We revived two abandoned vehicles and made them stop-gap vehicles should any of the team’s vehicle break down, since Aba roads are notoriously very bad. In addition, we also revived the mobile generators that would serve as stop-gaps — to reduce prolonged downtime. I also made sure I stopped the engineers from using their personal funds for operational activities. I would get requests approved fast from HQ and also use the regionally generated revenue to keep things running pending when the cash arrives. The love and trust they had for me went to another level, and I got more black oil! Ejike later told me that he noticed I never took a dime from the generated revenue or inflate the requests to the HQ, despite having the freedom to do so. I let him know that true freedom is you choosing not to be a slave, a slave to money in this case. Several private sessions with him started having a massive impact on his life and how he saw & did things. His story changed in just few months. He took over at Aba when I was deployed to Akwa Ibom to stabilize operations where we just acquired. Ejike moved from being a store keeper to being the regional administrator. That was the biggest achievement for me.
Reminders from Coffins
The Akwa Ibom experience was a bit different. I was now shuffling two roles; regional admin and field engineer. The field engineer role was wilder than I thought! It required me working round the clock. That experience still has an effect on me till date, as I find it hard to sleep at a stretch without waking up at intervals. My team members who did not have formal education would argue with me that I’m a technician and not an engineer. It wasn’t their fault, considering the kind of job I did. I would do generator servicing, support in overhauling generators, supply non truckable sites with kegs of diesel, wash generators, tanks….it was a serious manual labor. I could not even tell my friends the full details of my job. They were always calling me “expatriate”, only if they knew. There were several days we worked overnight on sites trying to make sure that the network came back on so people could make calls and surf the internet. So take it easy when you are cursing MTN, Airtel and others.
Where I stayed in Akwa Ibom was my inspiration. Abak (yes, with the ‘k’) had so many carpentry shops and what they specialized in were coffins. Every time I was on the road, I would see coffins and would ask myself; “what do you want to be remembered for when you die?” I ensured that I lived a life of integrity. Integrity to deliver my work beyond expectation; integrity not to cut corners. I never engaged in any deal or collected one naira from anyone. And trust me, it’s almost impossible. So impossible that when I was leaving Anambra (the region I went to after Akwa Ibom), my team member said he had been doing field work for over 10 years and had worked with different people, but had never seen someone not eventually do deals. Apart from being a man of faith, I just knew their money will not make me rich. I was not hungry for money; despite that I had no savings, I was hungry for something else — to make a difference in my world.
My last days in Akwa Ibom and Anambra were memorable. While I was washing a generator at a site in Akwa Ibom, a field supervisor that worked for Ericsson (the customer representative) entered the site and was checking the equipment. I was engrossed watching him, spent about 5 minutes lost in my thoughts. He was well dressed, neat, not looking stressed….meanwhile, I was looking dirty, engine oil all over my clothes, and sponge soaked in detergent on one hand. I walked up to him and asked; “Mr Nsor, how did you get here? How did you get this job? Where were you working previously?” The answers Nsor gave me triggered something in me. Hope! However, few months down the line, during my last days at Anambra, Emeka the field supervisor from Ericsson called me a low life and that he was going to destroy my career, because my team member reported that he was demanding money from us.
New role alert
The maintenance planner in Lagos resigned and I was offered the role. With the Emeka’s incident and the prospect of returning to Lagos, I jumped at the offer. The role would involve end-to-end maintenance management of all the power equipment on the sites managed by my company in Lagos. This was good news to all my friends and loved ones, they will finally get to see me regularly. I packed my bags and said goodbye to the team. The son was ready to rise from the East, and set in the West.
You can read the next chapter here >> You can read the next chapter here >> Execution: Sets In The West
