
I HATE CHEATING
A Peter Drucker Essay Submission
I love my job
I love grandpa
I can work for free
I work alone and I love to work with other people
But I hate cheating.
‘Oga, you have passed your bus stop, you just dey sleep for inside bus, no be agege you sey you dey go?’
‘Oooch’, I shouted.
I impulsively recalled that I wasn’t living in Abuja anymore where my Uber driver will take me to where we exactly agreed while I rest at the back of the car to take an exquisite siesta at a cheaper cost that fits the life of a prince.
‘Chairman, this is Lagos ooo, you no go fit dey do like this’
‘Abeg, no vex, make I come down’
I alighted and this added to the sour feelings of my relocation to Lagos. Although the rents in Abuja was inexplicably high but living in Africa’s most populated city is sometimes worse than a trickle from hell. Lagos is a headache with almost 22 million residents living in a state with an area of 3,577 km². I wake up every day by 5am, a sign that disinterestedly confirms that I am good enough to make it to the office few minutes before 8am. I thought this new job will be interesting. Does it really worth it? Can’t I change the world in my own little way? My new job requires that I work with tools that had been designed by people I don’t know. I get field instructions from a country many miles away. I had been totally disenfranchised from the value chain.
The Lagos tussle is taking much from me this time. I worked as a foot soldier that was hired to carry out this very sordid job. I thought I was coming to save education but I was killing it. The need for my new organization to make money from poor parents and run a sustainable venture made us say things that didn’t exist. There were some oga at the top who didn’t care much about what happened. However, I love my job, my passion for educating the African child was unbridled and the best way to save my job was to lose it.
I love my job
We are still hovering in a world that is yet to offset the quandary in accurately defining who should get a larger chunk of business profits. Taking a cue from the financial banks whose major task is to secure public funds and add interests to them — their least paid are often the marketers, the tellers and the guards. If any member of this group falter on their job for a day, the ripples can be highly disastrous as against a top manager whose single decision is often safely guarded and vetted by a board that consist of many people or team of consultants.
The difference between who gets what and who doesn’t is often based on social appraisal of such positions and not who gets the job to the doorway of the consumer. Little wonder why many top organizations fails especially those who disproportionately reward those at the higher echelon and deride those adding true value down the ladder; those closer to the market and the heart of the consumers. Drucker narrated in book — Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices that a star salesman should be expected to make more money than the regional sales manager. It should apply in the research laboratory, and in all other areas where performance depends on individual skill, effort, and knowledge.” The reality today is that many field workers or salesmen whose work has become more critical in today’s business are often the least paid. Drucker believed that “knowledge professionals” may need to legitimately receive more in salary than the managers over them. The reason is largely due to the fact that generic human resource are becoming ubiquitous and the specific skill and impetus to sell or close deals are becoming more complex to define. Companies now prefer to just sell than to invent, they prefer to rearrange than to innovate –a poor leadership trait of our generation.
The difference is getting clearer by the day and the marketplace is rewarding institutions that pay good service to those who create consumer value which is itself the genuine act of an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is anyone who can sell any product or create any service to a consumer by directly influencing her decisions. Many organizations today are filled with weak leaders who struggle to understand the market because they choose to see the workplace as an institution rather than a team of influencers. Many of today’s organizations have majority of their employees work on designed prototypes and make them machines who are often told what to do rather than allow their employees contribute to how it can be done. These people work as morons and find interactions less critical.
One of my close friend works as customer care manager in a top eCommerce firm in Nigeria. She complains that she is often been apportioned restricted time to speak with customers and to deliver scripts based on notes from training sessions. She complained that most of the time the customer never really get satisfied and the effect is that the company might be losing relevance by the day. I laugh as many have not yet come to the terms with the new social reality of today’s business is near and will explode in moments to come. When the world faced economic recession, oil rich countries like Nigeria felt like superheroes as they withered the storm due to surplus crude oil proceeds, today the story is different — Nigeria is near recession.
Saadia Zahidi of the World Economic Forum exposes the reality that we shy away from which is that technology and socio-economic trends are changing business models, and consequently the types of jobs that are needed, while half of all jobs are predicted to be at risk of automation. Technology is changing how work is organized, with new platforms connecting consumers of human capital and owners of human capital in ways that were not possible in the past.
Staying in Lagos was good for me as I was in the epicenter of the continent’s economic hub. I love my job and this was the time to push it to various limits. Nonetheless, I know what my job was. It was to continue to stay relevant while I convert my passion into a meaningful contribution to the world which gives fulfillment while I have the freedom to decide my fate and future. My job was not to follow instructions and become a slave for what I can lord over. Quitting my work was easy because I found my job and in a place where economic possibilities are fairer to strangers now than ever, as we journey down into the new future of work; I know many others will join me soon.
I love grandpa
My president is a 73-year old dark horse. He is a former military head of state and God knows Nigerians don’t like anything soldierly. They form part of the poor stories that belie the economic infractions in our nation. My president this time has changed in few ways. He is no longer the responsive commando but a gorgeous and capitalistic geek who wants to save enough money to do quite a lot. His efforts have been highly commendable but Nigerians want to see how this can deliver the country from its economic woes. The Nigerian N-power project will employ 500,000 graduates as teachers into public schools for 2 years. This dismal project is the crux of the current government entrepreneurship drive. What can an educated 35-year old man do with 20,000 Naira ($57.1) in a month? — I think we are only setting him to grow old into poverty.
I need my president to take advantage of the changing economic order and create a new system where an inventive entrepreneurship culture will be the driving face of economic policies. Entrepreneurship not as we understand, which are mere creation of institutions but the one that will strengthen our economic environment and pays credence to anything that creates values either within when two friend doing business in a coffee shop or among strangers collaborating in a digital market space.
I will suggest few ways grandpa can get this done. First, grandpa must set up working committees that will present responsive findings and reports on the relevant knowledge, skills and technology that we need to produce and distribute economic values in Nigeria. The committee will need to also research out services and products that commands high local consumptions and those that can give Nigeria a comparative advantage in international trades looking beyond the bedeviled crude oil whose current plunging prices has left the country in economic shame. Third, there is a need to produce a strategic document that will show how we can align and match relevant knowledge and skills to trades that creates economic opportunities. On the action side, we will then need to revamp our educational, infrastructural and policy directions.
We will need to focus on our educational institutions which will need to shunt moribund cherished knowledge, schemes, syllabuses, courses and orientation that have failed and tilt towards the reality of the market by developing initiatives that drives collaboration for innovation on campuses. Our schools will be a need to start creating system that measures their impact to the value creation chain. School departments and faculties have to be more competitive, not in terms of how many students that attracts per time but in how many valuable researches are communicated to for national development. Educational institutions that are not living up to expectation can as well expect less funding. Our public institutions must receive open funds from tax payer’s monies but they will have to be capitalist in their orientation. Grandpa will need to set up schemes that will train and retrain many Nigerians on specialized learning areas especially in collaborative product designs, communication and information technology that can drive innovation.
More importantly is a strategic shift in infrastructural priorities and policy decisions. Nigerians don’t need the road where those who ply on them are poor and are poised to dire health hazards that existing hospitals can’t handle. To drive entrepreneurship, our infrastructural investment must be directed into building a compendium of practical knowledge that drives instant growth. Grandpa will have to ensure that investments and fellowships in research especially in STEM driven economies are sponsored.
There is a need to provide steady scholarships for studies in computer programming so as to aid the effectiveness of the many designs in other fields. The president will be need the country to form partnerships with top ICT firms like Oracle and HP to provide cheap technologies for local entrepreneurs in deals that can even be covered through barter exchanges. Policies will have to direct associated companies to be involved in the training and certification in the educational institutions.
There will be a strong need for implementation of laws that will protect entrepreneurship from failing. I am still embattled that a country fighting hard to garner prosperity still has a long estranged process in the registration of new businesses. The copyright commission is only a theme in business books and not too many people understand how to harness the treasures in owning an intellectual property.
I love grandpa and I must tell him what I know is the truth. Young Nigerians are ready to work as they experienced more inclusiveness and are tired of corrupt business leaders they find everywhere. We need him to create an environment where easy networking is possible. Tribe, religion and culture irrespective — people are ready to work with anyone who can make them find economic and social meaning.
I want to work for free
After my masters’ degree five years, I started 1864 Academy with the mission to providing career orientation, training and mentoring to disadvantaged Nigerian kids. The model was designed and it looked like it was an instant success. I applied to the Dell Social Innovation Lab at the RGK Center at the University of Texas. Out of about 1,700 projects reviewed worldwide; I was one of the top twenty. I was a made a fellow of the Innovation Lab where made made possible by my purchase of a second-hand blackberry phone which I am forever grateful to. In the last Social Innovation Summit in Lagos about a month, I met a lady during the networking session and she told me she doesn’t understand what social entrepreneurship is about. I told her it’s nothing new — it’s just the need for businesses to focus more on social impact rather than profits when creating economic value. She was into fashion and wanted to understand what this new trend means to her business. She smiled as I told her it wasn’t out of the ordinary — you just need to make more business decisions that creates social impact which I believe will help you higher profits.
Nonprofits or for-profits, societies and companies can only thrive in innovation when they generate customer value either via products or by engaging them. I decided not to bother much the business type ensured that I engage in a lasting mutual exchange. Drucker in his seminal book titled Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices alluded that a company can make a social contribution only if it is highly profitable. To put it crudely, a bankrupt company is not likely to be a good company to work for, or likely to be a good neighbor and a desirable member of the community — no matter what some sociologists of today seem to believe to the contrary.”
I work alone and I love to work with other people
Technology is not the only thing changing the world, the new world itself is changing technology, our work and the way income is distributed. Sociologists will always predict than new economic models will always change social relations and determine new course of human life. In Drucker’s essay on The First Technological Revolution and Its Lessons, he alluded that without a shadow of doubt, major technological change creates the need for social and political innovation. It does make obsolete existing institutional arrangements. It does require new and very different institutions of community, society, and government. To this extent there can be no doubt: technological change of a revolutionary character coerces; it demands innovation.
In Nigeria, the sharing economy is providing an economic lifeline for many young entrepreneurs. It is just evolving but it is representing the new face of work. CNN says Uber could be bigger in Lagos than it is in London. In its first 16 months, Uber provided 30% more rides in Lagos than it did during its first 16 months in London.
Another is Jekalo, an online platform where you can share a ride with someone going along the same route as you whether you are a ride owner or a passenger. Also recently lauched is GoMyWay a ride-sharing marketplace connecting passengers with ride owners going along the same route and have empty seats to spare. GoMyWay is funded by Angel investors Sim Shagaya (CEO/Founder, Konga), Co-creation Hub and Bill Paladino (Ex-amazon and Naspers executive).
Drucker gave an astute judgment on the future of the knowledge worker in his article for the Economist titled Will the Corporation Survive when he noted that many employees, perhaps a majority, will still have full-time jobs with a salary that provides their only or main income. But a growing number of people who work for an organization will not be full-time employees but part-timers, temporaries, consultants or contractors. Even of those who do have a full-time job, a large and growing number may not be employees of the organization for which they work, but employees
But I hate cheating
So now I have started my business and I am waiting to hit the jackpot; I don’t have a long list of debtors or arrears. I had set up my website using the free tools on wix.com. I was lucky to have a 50 percent price off the cost on domain hosting on father’s day. I send out bulk mails using Mailchimp free services. I use Picktochart and Tableau to engage people in sublime data visualizations. I have had to learn how to use whiteboard animation applications like Sparkol’s VideoScribe to tell insightful pitches and stories. I like the spectacle of my company logo on the works I have done for my clients. I hate cheating and now I have the full grasp of my emotional and financial worth. I am not listed in the yellow pages but until then I have a new experience coming with the great feeling of an entrepreneur who always believe he can become the next big thing while doing what he really loves to do.
However, there are fears that this cheating might continue if there are no proper regulations to protect the informalities in these fledging momentum. Entrepreneurs must begin to tell their stories in public spaces and enlighten people on the possibility of freedom and they start solving problems that government and its agencies are finding hard to crack so as to gain the new face is required. Larrec Jean-Claudehe, Professor of Marketing at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France suggested that today’s entrepreneurs want to be intellectually challenged, and some even want to make a difference in society. Their motivations are strikingly different from those of their predecessors of the 1980s, which in the long-term could be a contributing factor to sustainable success.
Until the days when Nigeria will grow into an entrepreneurship society, employees need to look within and collaborate in innovative ways turning their jobs into an entrepreneurial passion; we can stay ahead of time in what Drucker describes as the fastest with the mostest.