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My Wife’s Sweet Potatoes

My wonderful wife

"Side hustles" or simply engaging in a side business besides our regular jobs is common these days. This is normally done with the intent of increasing ones earnings as far as income is concerned. It’s also one of the great ways of diversifying and expanding one’s horizon as far as career and business growth is concerned. Most employees in both the public and private sectors are running small businesses on the side in order to supplement their salaries. Some also hope that someday when their small businesses grow, they’ll be able to comfortably exit formal employment to fully run their own businesses.

It’s also common for business people to divert from time to time from their main area of business operation so as to try a hand in another line of business.

Sweet potatoes

It’s against this backdrop that my wife came up with an idea of selling sweet potatoes (ngwashes). My wife runs a communications consultancy firm and at this time she wanted to try her hands on something different besides her day job. This idea came as a result of the observations we had made in our Ngong neighborhood. Whenever we bought accompaniments for breakfast i.e arrow roots or sweet potatoes, we discovered that many a times they were not fresh. Sometimes these tubers were even rotten and considering the high cost of these products, my wife felt that we can give people good value for their money by trying the sweet potatoes business with the main target being our neighborhood clientele.

So after some consultations, we decided to give the “ngwashe” business a try. The most important factor was the supplies. My wife worked out the available options as far as getting our supplies is concerned. After a few weeks of consultations, we finally decided that my mum would be a great source of our sweet potatoes supplies. The main obstacle here is that my mum lives in Moi’s bridge (situated between Eldoret and Kitale towns) yet the sweet potatoes were meant to be sold in Nairobi. Unknown to my wife and I, this was going to bring about a huge logistical nightmare mainly because of the distance and the expenses involved.

When we finally got my mum to get the supplies for us, my wife sent her the amount of money needed to buy the sweet potatoes, to pay for the labor involved and for transportation expenses. Having done that we thought that the work would be done in like 2 days and we’ll be having our sweet potatoes in a short time ready to take them to the market. But this was not to be because of the heavy rains that were pounding several parts of the country at the time. This made it hard for the sweet potatoes to be harvested since the work involves a lot of digging in order to get them from the ground. By good luck the skies did clear for a while and the harvesting of the sweet potatoes commenced and was completed successfully. This was definitely a sigh of relief for us for we knew that finally, our sweet potatoes will be on the way to Nairobi.

However, that was when the real logistical issues now surfaced. The initial plans were to use one of the bus companies that also operate courier services along the Nairobi-Eldoret-Kitale route. Easy Coach Bus Company seemed to be the best option mainly because of their organized structure (or so we thought). An “employee” of easy Coach Bus Company in the Moi’s bridge office informed my mum that they will be able to transport the sweet potatoes without any problem as long as we pack them in some standardized quantity. Transport preparations were therefore being made based on the information provided by this particular Easy Coach Bus Company “employee” at the Moi’s Bridge office.

An easy coach bus

The sweet potatoes had to be transported using a motor bikes (boda boda) which had to make several trips because of the quantity of sweet potatoes involved (two 100kg bags). However upon reaching the Easy Coach offices in Moi’s Bridge town, we were informed that Easy Coach will not be able to provide the courier services as we had been informed. Apparently the “employee” who had said the company will provide the courier services wasn’t present (I thought all employees of any reliable company should be homogenous as far as the company’s services are concerned). This was a major issue that had to be solved as soon as possible.

Finally my mum decided to try using the services of Postal Corporation of Kenya (how many people still use Posta anyway?). The Postal Corporation of Kenya services turned out to be more expensive and as such we had to send more money to cater for transportation. The Posta guys informed us that the sweet potatoes will be transported to Nairobi overnight and as such we’ll be able to get our luggage (sweet potatoes) the next day early in the morning (since when were they that fast?). We however decided to keep our hopes alive hoping that the Posta people will keep their word.

To our surprise, early the next morning my wife received a call from The Postal Corporation of Kenya informing her that the sweet potatoes had arrived (this must clearly be the new face of Posta). As you can guess we were really happy that finally the consignment had arrived. My wife then made arrangements to pick the sweet potatoes from City Square post office - of course she had to deal with a particular watchman with very little knowledge on PR issues who kept on asking irrelevant questions on how sweet potatoes were transported through the Posta’s courier service. The long and the short of it is that my wife finally managed to get the consignment after a long weary wait. She was also advised by the employees there that she can have the next consignment sent straight to the Karen Post Office branch which is near our home. This is a clear indication to me that there have been some improvements at The Postal Corporation of Kenya while we have been away. And sure enough we had our second consignment picked from the Karen Post office a few days later courtesy of one great Posta employee.

The distribution of the sweet potatoes wasn’t easy but it was definitely a lesser challenging job considering what we have been through. Everyone who had a chance to taste the juicy sweet potatoes kept on asking for more of the same. I never knew people would get addicted to sweet potatoes. Within a few days all the sweet potatoes that my wife had bought were over and people kept on asking for them. This made us realize that selling sweet potatoes in the Ngong area is great business because of the high demand available.

We were unable to get more sweet potatoes from Moi’s Bridge partly because of the rains that have been causing floods in different parts of the country. However my wife is still determined to grow the sweet potatoes business after realizing that resilience, patience and hard work pays well. Having said that, we’ll be having our next huge consignment of sweet potatoes coming in early next year (2012), courtesy of my lovely wife.

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Good Organizations-You Shall Know Them By Their Alumni

The value of an organization as far as mentoring and churning out of leaders is concerned can be known by looking at the said organization's alumni. The influence and impact that an organization's former employees are having in the various sectors of Government and the economy is a clear picture of how far their former employer invested in them in terms of mentoring and training them for leadership roles beyond the organization's doors.

An organization that's always churning out "impoverished" alumni is one to be avoided at all costs by prospective employees and clients alike. This is because the alumni are a reflection and some sort of a "brand" for their former employer. Having said that it's therefore important to understand that the value of the "brand" that is the alumni reflects on the overall value of an organization.

When Forbes magazine published the "10 youngest power men in Africa" 3 members in that list i.e Ghanaian,  Fred Swaniker who is a founder, African Leadership Academy, Cameroonian  Acha Leke,  Partner, Mckinsey & Company and Kenya's Gachao Kiuna,  CEO, Transcentury Group are associated with McKinsey. McKinsey is one of the leading companies as far as mentoring and creating leaders is concerned. The McKinsey alumni consists of the who is who in the corporate world and government. These include CEOs of global companies, corporate strategists and government advisors just to name a few. A notable McKinsey alumni is the management guru Tom Peters.

Another company known for the creation of influential leaders is Goldman Sachs which has produced leaders with the power to influence governments and corporate policies. Goldman Sachs's alumni's presence can be felt aacross the world from the USA to the oil rich gulf states. This is an organization that has produced Prime Ministers, Treasury Secretaries, and even the current World Bank President Robert Zoellick. The influence of Goldman Sachs is global partly due to the kind of almni it's managed to churn out over the years.

We cannot say enough of Microsoft, JP Morgan, Barclays Bank, Morgan Stanley, Safaricom, Airtel, UUNET, Oracle, SAP, Cisco, Apple among many others whose value has been heightened because of their mentorship and training programs that are based on the creation of global leaders.

There are many other companies, both big and small, with great policies aimed at creating leaders. Based on my own observation and research, some of the small and mid sized companies to watch out for here in Kenya as far as the training and mentoring of leaders among its employees is concerned include:

1.  Cionada Communications - A business communications outsourcing firm

2. Wylde International - An organization development consulting firm 

3. Intrepid Data Systems - An enterprise productivity solutions and  

    creative digital branding and online marketing firm.

The above three are among the organisations whose alumni have already started making inroads and having impact in their respective industries.

In conclusion, an organization that's producing the best alumni is bound to attract the best talent which is ultimately good for the bottom line.

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Iconic Leaders

Iconic leaders are the kind of leaders that have been associated with a certain organization or brand. These leaders cannot be separated easily from their organisations or brands because of their "attachment" to their respective organizations and brands.

It is hard for most people to separate Bill Gates and Microsoft. In fact not many people associate him with the  the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in which he is currently actively involved. This is because during his days at Microsoft, Bill Gates became a "brand" of sorts and one could not think of Microsoft without Bill Gates. The same goes for Larry Ellison of Oracle, The late Steve Jobs of Apple and Donald Trump just to name but a few. 

In Kenya, for a long time people associated Safaricom with Michael Joseph. This was to an extend that some people thought that Safaricom would lose its edge if Michael Joseph left. Michael Joseph could not be perceived to be working anywhere else apart from Safaricom.

Such is the influence of iconic leaders in all spheres of life be it in politics, business, religious organisations and even in academia. 

Organisations that are run by these type of leaders should put in place a comprehensive and water tight succession plan. They need to guard the organisation against shocks that might come by at the exit of their iconic leader. This is because if not handled properly, the clients who are attached to the organisation or brand based on the leader might lose their strong attachment once the leader leaves. This therefore means that the clients should be informed of the pending changes long before it happens so that they can prepare themselves psychologically for the absence of their iconic leader. This will do well in maintaining client loyalty and opening up the clients' minds to the realisation that the organisation or brand is more than just the leader.

Iconic leaders are great for the organisation because of their attractiveness to clients. they can shore up profits and build the brand name of the organization. But care should be taken to separate the person from the organisation for continuity's sake.

At the end of the day, good employers will always attract good leaders who are able to propel the organisation from one glory to the next regardless of who is in charge.

Why Selfish Leaders Triumph (courtesy of Susan Adams, Forbes Magazine)

Statue of Genghis Khan: A new study shows that people prefer dominant leaders.

Would you rather be led by a saint or a tyrant? By the Dalai Lama or Genghis Khan? A new study suggests that while people appreciate the generosity and altruism of a Mother Theresa, they prefer to be led by Al Capone.

In the study, set to be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, business school professors from Stanford, Kellogg, and Carnegie Mellon, ran three experiments that tested participants’ perceptions of altruism and social status. The study subjects could keep a pot of 10 game chips worth a total of $20 or give the sum to a group pool. When they gave the chips away, they either helped their fellow group members, or both benefitted their own group and hurt another group at the same time.

After they finished, participants answered questions about how they perceived their fellow participants. Those who gave more away, not surprisingly, got more respect and admiration, or what the researchers call “prestige.” Others, who demonstrated a willingness to be selfish and to do harm to others, were perceived as having another kind of status, which the researchers characterize as “dominance.”

At the end of two of the experiments, the researchers asked participants to choose someone to lead them in two different contexts. In a non-competitive situation, subjects chose a leader with lots of prestige, who gave the most chips to the group. But to lead them in a competition with another group, subjects voted for a person who scored high on the dominance scale.

“It turns out that the perception of dominance is critical to leader emergence, because it fits people’s prototype of what a leader is,” says study co-author Robert Livingston of Kellogg. “Leaders should be decisive, assertive, strong, powerful, independent.”

Livingston says he and his colleagues were somewhat startled by their findings. “If you ask people, what are the qualities you want in a leader, no one says they want a ruthless leader,” he notes. But unless they’re voting for someone to head a benign organization like a trade group or a philanthropy, it turns out that people tend to support leaders who value their own power over the well-being of the group. For Livingston, the study suggests an explanation for many of the world’s problems. “People wonder how it is that there is so much corruption,” he says. “The world is rife with leaders who show relatively little concern for the well-being of the group.”

“People are attracted to the wrong leaders,” says Livingston. “This is what our data are showing.”