Power To Our Women II
Happy International Women’s Day
Women will continue to be crucial to Africa’s development.
In June 2019 I wrote a piece outlining why I believe this to be true and how we at Impact Africa Network are setup to fully capitalize on female talent as a key strategic advantage.
Since then, we have proceeded to intentionally execute against this strategy and by International Women’s Day this year, we have a total of 7 out of 10 leadership roles occupied by women across our organization.
The fundamental thesis is that women are in general better equipped to nurture and thrive in complex people centric systems; and startups are the quintessential people centric systems of our day, giving women an advantage in their development (with a particular focus on local dynamics in Kenya).
As economies mature, the need for specialization increases because productivity demands it.
In an innovation/information driven world, high skilled work specialization along with the the ability for knowledge workers to hold highly dynamic complete work systems in mind along with the people relationships involved increases. Head and heart working together in high speed harmony are the perfect balance for the 21st century.
Focused, detail oriented execution, effective conflict resolution, creativity, collaboration, and patience are indispensable skills for working with groups of talented, emancipated, ambitious professionals, who are the archetype in the tech industry.
Generally speaking, women tend to possess a higher degree of the aforementioned qualities compared to their male counterparts.
What men tend to possess more of is an unbridled confidence in their abilities to make things happen even in the face of long odds, which, is quite a useful mind trick enabling the risk taking required for breakthroughs.
Women on the other hand, tend to be more cautious and methodical in their decision making which has been quite essential in ensuring our species has not yet ran off the extinction cliff in a headlong masculine-driven blind pursuit of some conquest or other. One thing we can all be sure of is that at least one of the many currently extinct human civilizations disappeared because a man failed to listen to woman.
The flip side of the assertion that women, particularly in developing economies like Kenya are better equipped for the work demands of the 21st century is that their male counterparts are buffeted by external social economic pressures robbing them of the precious element required for high performance in the highly dynamic world of knowledge work, focus.
Right from the gun in the career race, young men in Nairobi are under disproportionate pressure to demonstrate mating eligibility as measured by displays of discretionary spending power necessary for lubricating dating life. And, in a city where jobs are scarce relative to supply, which has the effect of depressing wage prices, the ability of most young men to play the part as scripted is severely compromised.
Layered onto that is the spectre of traditional gender roles where men are fully expected to man-up by footing the bill on all dating activities ratcheting up the pressure to earn money faster to stratospheric levels.
It comes down to the brutal facts of procreation. In the animal kingdom attracting a mate is a performant exercise, and the male of the human species is not exempt and must demonstrate an ability to provide for the prospective family if they are to ensure continuation of their gene pool. An unspoken ‘show me the money’ is what is being negotiated.
When assessing the human condition the tendency is to over complicate matters conveniently forgetting that we are merely evolved apes driven by the very same instincts that got us here in the first place.
The pressures young men face to demonstrate financial able-ness early in the career lifecycle creates a heightened level of anxiety which makes it difficult to focus on patiently developing a career or building a business, both of which do not usually present as readily profitable. The result is a certain jumpiness in pursuit of the next shiny object that promises improved economic outcomes sooner, a fast money mindset takes hold.
This, coupled with an elevated risk appetite among males yields a distracted mind among young men. Where women will double down on the opportunity at hand, patiently working it, their male peers will be constantly scanning the horizon for the next quick win, the upshot is degrading of their work product, trustworthiness, and skills development.
In time, the patient tortoise outpaces the jumpy, distracted hare.
Given these conditions and all things remaining equal, women are demonstrably a surer bet particularly in the deep, committed type of work required to bring innovations to market, which if nothing else require a steady, trustworthy hand.
Those who haven’t walked the startup journey tend to always woefully underestimate the the sheer level of effort and commitment required to bring innovations to market.
Therefore, we do not deploy our Power To Our Women thesis as a convenient fashionable, if important statement. Far from it. We do it because we believe it provides us the best chance of achieving our big hairy audacious vision of building 10 scale-ups that provide 10K jobs with a combined value of $10B.
And, in true Impact Africa Network fashion we have seen and seized the opportunity to expand the impact of our thesis beyond our four walls by turning PTOW into a conversation platform.
On October 2020 we kicked off the Power To Our Women live cast series where the women of Impact Africa host conversations with global female business leaders and change-makers with the intent of inspiring a new generation of female leaders in Africa.
The impact of this has blown even our minds.
Today, the women of IAN are imbued with certain beautiful confidence that I don’t believe would be present in the absence of those powerful weekly episodes, further confirming the importance of representation in human development. Seeing and hearing from those who look like us in positions of power and leadership has a transformative effect.
As the child of a single working mother who struggled her entire career to keep a roof over our head, I have always felt a deep call to support women because I am intimately familiar with the struggle.
What gets me up every morning raring to go is the opportunity to work on changing the African narrative with some of the most high performing, high integrity, high collaboration humans I know, and the fact that numbers of them are African women is a major source of pride and joy for all of us at Impact Africa Network.
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Impact Africa Network is a non profit charitable entity (US 501c3) because this is the only type of capital that works for the heavy lifting, patient, capacity building work needed to develop fundamentally sound startups attractive to investors.
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