Aligning C-Suites with the ABCs of Game-Changing Growth
The blind man who lacks eyes, says eyes stink.
- Hausa proverb
January 23, 2023 – Have you ever tried to convince someone to do something they did not want to, like trying to get children to eat broccoli or wait until Christmas day to open their presents? That is what it was like convincing colleagues to visit me in Mozambique when we opened an office there. When I was finally successful in convincing our Finance Manager to come, he said, “Everyone thinks I’m crazy to go, but I’ll come because I trust you.” Another colleague brought an entire suitcase of food because he did not think he’d find any in Mozambique. The third colleague who came said, “I expected 1955. But this is so beautiful and modern.”
Why does the blind man say that eyes stink? For the same reason our colleagues and C-suite members shy away from considering investment in Africa. Neither knows what they are missing out on. The blind man doesn’t know what eyes can do. Our leadership team has no idea the possibilities and growth Africa offers.
Many of today’s CEOs grew up in the 1980s and ’90s, singing along to “Do They Know It’s Christmas” or “We Are the World,” all to raise money for starving African children. Sadly, for many CEOs, their image of Africa has not changed since. And this isn’t helped by media reports that continue reporting, almost exclusively, on hunger, war, and disease.But guess what? Poverty, gang wars, and disease exist in New York City, London, Sydney, Shanghai, or any other city and country in the world, yet it does not stop investment in those countries, and it should not stop investment in Africa. Don’t be afraid to remind your CEO of that!
The CEOs of tech companies like Alibaba, Cisco, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, SAP, and Twitter all visit Africa regularly, have invested in infrastructure, offices and multiple local tech initiatives.
Without the explicit support by the C-suite, your colleagues will not pay attention, the investments won’t be approved, and top talent won’t join the effort.
Prioritizing Africa should be on every C-suite members’ agenda in order to have a clear, company-wide vision, an implementable strategy, and adequate budget. But how do you do this?
In my book, Africa: Open for Business, I share some stories of different ways I’ve helped clients and colleagues get an Appetite for Africa.
Create curiosity
I always have on my desk a children’s book called Africa’s Not a Country. People would often pick it up and say, “Oh, this is cute. Oh, wait, Africa’s not a country?” It opened up so many conversations about Africa.
At one company, we presented the Africa strategy to the company board in the form of a three-act play, which everybody still talks about to this day! We may not have won a Tony, but we got the board’s approval to proceed with our strategy. More on this later in the book.
When you visit my office, my walls are covered with cool pictures of Africa. There’s a picture of me standing on top of a customer’s oil storage tanks; another of me looking out over a customer’s copper mine; another of me on a site wearing a hard hat, safety vest, and boots, which all go great with my dress! There are shots of a 14,000 square meter warehouse under construction and pictures of skyscrapers and shiny glass office buildings or five-star hotels—the kind that you would expect in Dubai, not somewhere in Africa.
Have some fun!
At one company, to help the C-Suite understand the challenges of hiring the right country managers, they first had to identify the characteristics and skills they thought a manager in Africa would need. They came up with over 20! The C-suite was divided into two teams ad given three minutes to choose which 8 of the 20-plus characteristics and skills were really the most crucial, because we all know one individual cannot have all the desirable characteristics and skills. It was fun and insightful to hear them debate which was more important—sales or financial savviness—or if having African experience or warehousing experience is more beneficial. In the end, it was a great way to drum up their enthusiasm and support for Africa.
Address their individual concerns
The C-suite needs to know that operating profitably and sustainable in Africa is very doable. However, they each will have their particular concerns: legal is concerned about ethics and corruption, finance about repatriating funds and which international banks are operational there, while marketing is concerned about image, and so on…
More on this in the next post….
In the meantime, you can find out more tips and stories about how I’ve helped other companies align their senior leadership teams and C-Suites in Africa: Open for Business, available on all Amazon sites in print, audio and e-book formats.
The second book in the series, Africa: Reframing Political Leadership, gives you a front row seat to my interviews with Heads of State across Africa on their views, insights and experiences concerning political leadership in Africa and the intersection of politics and business.