There was a soft tap on the door. He heard it but chose to ignore it. Another tap. Again, he ignored it. Then a knock. Followed by another knock. Hard knock. Momentarily he picked up the ground phone and started conversing on it. He paid no attention to the knocks on the door. On the contrary, he pitched up tone. It followed that the door of his office got opened. Slowly. By the visitor. Kept it ajar for some seconds, then closed it. Softly. But then again, he continued talking on the phone; “ . . . It’s fine with me, chief. I’ll send someone tomorrow. I’ll oversee the rest of the transactions myself, thereafter. Be assured . . .” Waiting for the boss to finish the phone conversation, the visitor located the nearest seat and sat down furtively. After the manager had talked on the phone for about 10 minutes, he hang up and asked the visitor what he could do for him. Standing up, the visitor dipped his hands into the pocket of his oversize blue work-suit, showed the manager a telephone fault-detector, clippers and said, “ . . . sir, you may not know me. My name is Juma Odhiambo. I work in the maintenance department of this company. I’m here to fix and connect your ground phone which was reported broken down.” How I wish you were around at that point to see beads of perspiration profusely forming on the forehead of the manager and running down his face. Pools of sweat. You ask, “Monsieur. What happened?” Oh. Honestly. I don’t know. But your guess is as good as mine.
It happens a lot. Too much pretense. Too many people on the planet today play-act life. Pretending that things are working when deep down their hearts they know and the public notices that things are falling apart. Not wanting to slow down, pause and reposition themselves. Next time you fly, ask the pilot to walk you through the cabin and show you gadgets in the cockpit. As it flies from one airport to another airport, airplane misses campus of route and destination. It’s the pilot that recalibrates the pin and repositions the airplane on its course. Some years back, I had the opportunity and privilege to talk to an engineer who was working with an aircraft manufacturer. When asked why aircraft manufacturers don’t fix the glitch so that planes don’t lose course of their voyage, his response surprised me; “. . . that makes flying planes boring and dull . . .” I am grateful to my engineer friend. I picked an insight from his rejoinder: ‘Stay open to areas you are weak in. How will experts know and assist if you conceal your shortcomings?’ The big story - Embrace detours. They are part of our lives and make life worth living.
I may not know you personally. But I know one thing about you. You’re a leader. Great leader. You may not be in-charge of an organization or a business unit. As long as you breathe, you are a leader. You have not only an opportunity but responsibility to show leadership. Leadership is situational not hierarchical. One assumes leadership when one takes charge of one’s area of gifting. As a leader, you have one responsibility. Do you know it? I’ll explain. The number one responsibility of a leader is to take people on a journey from a point, where they are now, point A, to where they want to be in the future, point B. Using area of gifting. Akin to airplanes taking passengers from one airport to another airport. The primary job of a leader is to bring change and leave people better than he or she found them. Period.
When a road undergoes maintenance, traffic is usually blocked. Road users are not only tipped off to slow down as they approach the affected part but provided with temporary bypass. Driving on bypass is generally uncomfortable, especially on soil-caked diversions. The ride is bumpy, dusty, and unbearable. One needs to reduce speed if one is to ease the discomfort. But once you cross the diversion, you pick up speed from where you left. Our life, too, is burdened with maintenances, roadblocks, bypasses, diversions, detours.
The journey called life is not an easy trek. It’s an uphill climb. All the way. To the top. Your destination. Unfortunately, there are no elevators. You have to take stairs. As you journey to your top, you’ll meet detours. Obstacles. You’ll receive unwelcome news. You’ll meet setbacks. You’ll experience disappointments. You’ll suffer defeats. You’ll be subjected to upsets. You’ll be let down. You’ll be blamed. You’ll be gagged. You’ll get stuck. You’ll get stressed up. They’ll hate you. They’ll throw rocks on you. Sometimes the journey will prove to be a nightmare. That’s not the time to throw the white towel into the ring. No matter how good you may be, how articulate you may be, how good your leadership may be, there will always be someone to criticize you and your work.
Reminds me of my favorite high school Latin translation from Ovid’s book – Epistulae ex Ponto; “For someone to love you, others must loathe you.” In the same way you drive on and negotiate bypasses and road diversions, be calm, prepared, resolute, focused when you come face to face with life barricades. The primary law of success requires that you pay price. The fastest man on the planet, Usain Bolt, put it beautifully when he advised; “ . . . the hardest is the most satisfying.” Problems come to toughen us. To rewire the mind. To reshape the body. To rebuild broken soul. To rekindle the spirit. To discipline the mind so that it doesn’t get over-excited with rewards when we reach the mountain top. The body heals with physiotherapy. The soul heals with reflection. Spiritual growth comes from adversity.
The ability to manage detours is a measure of the strength of your character. View problems as opportunities for growth and change. Problems are the fuel that pulsate the soul. No matter how far afield problems seem to take you, the trip is necessary. Ride on. Embrace it. No matter how hard it hits, you have a reason to keep on climbing. When detours knock you down, acknowledge them. Pause to understand the cause. Dust yourself off. Re-energize. Re-strategize. Keep one boot in front of another boot. Row the boat seaward. J. Walker is famous for the tagline – ‘keep moving.’
Don’t allow yourself to be agitated by small issues. Have faith that the uphill journey will take you to your top. No matter how many difficulties you face, don’t ever blame the person you see in the mirror. Understand that detours happen to everyone. They are everyday occurrences. They come and go like seasons. Don’t blow them out of proportion.
You say, “Monsieur. I don’t know what you are talking about. I’ve never experienced setbacks in my life.” Oups. I know who you are. You’re playing small with your life. You are like an airplane that is on a taxi mode, shunting on the ground. You’ve not yet taken-off into flight mode. Airplanes don’t belong to the ground but the air. It’s only when they are airborne that airplanes experience turbulence. Not on the ground. Don’t play small with your life. The more you engage life, the more setbacks you’ll encounter, the bigger and more rewards you’ll attract.
Heroes don’t always live in the sunshine. Sometimes they get hit by a cyclone or tsunami. Yes, heroes get forged in the crucible of trials. They never crumble. That’s what makes them heroes. The world needs more heroes. Don’t wait for your neighbor to be one. Do your best to become a hero yourself. Life is about laughter and tears. Tears offer better lessons and insights than laughter. Tears provide better classroom to understand the vagaries of life than laughter.
It's Always the Hard Part that Creates Value
Most of the times, we allow ourselves to be upset by small matters. History is littered with examples of successful managers who pulled business from collapse; politicians who endured imprisonment; high school students who defied the naysayer teacher . . . you won’t amount to much; . . . you are mentally retarded; . . . you will never see the corridors of university. Employees, who started their career in the mailroom and rose through the ranks to become C-suite executive managers. Stay-at-home spouses who studied through correspondence to become college professors. Entrepreneurs who started as street vendors and went on to become business tycoons.
All history makers that have walked the planet before us, met and navigated detours. Yes, it is this part of their lives that made them history makers. We don’t hear much about Nelson Mandela’s presidency – Mandela is known for his 27-year incarceration in prison. Mandela changed his country, South Africa, from a jail cell, not from a castle. You may not know that Martin Luther King Jr started his ministry guest-pastoring in friends’ churches - but you and I have watched, read, been taught about, and listened to his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech that did not only led to his assassination but changed the political landscape of America. Imagine forming a company and being fired from it - Steve Jobs would be the best person to narrate the ordeal to you. It was his second coming to Apple that made Steve Jobs titan of his industry. Many people don’t know that Mother Teresa’s bona fide name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu - but everyone knows her as a nun who resigned from employment, collected all her employee benefits, went into the streets of India, and spent all her pension money, not only on people that she was unrelated to but the less-privileged and outcast of society.
Allow me to repeat it because it’s such a key point. It’s the hard part (detour) that creates value in life. Yes, you don’t need me to introduce to you, one Floyd Mayweather. You know him as the most successful athlete in the field of boxing with fifty wins and no loss for a career that spanned two decades. You may not know one thing, vis-à-vis his upbringing. Floyd was once used as human shield by his father when the father was threatened at gun point. Indeed, you may have heard, read about, met Reginald Mengi, founder of IPP Group - conglomerate with interests in mining, bottling, media, financial sector and the first to roll out television broadcasting station, ITV, in Dar es salaam. What you don’t know about the late Reginald is that he started his business in his bedroom, assembling ballpoint pens. He defied the odds, detours of life, to become the richest and remarkable businessperson in his country, Tanzania. You don’t need to be a soccer fan to know Lionel Messi. But what you don’t know about Messi is that at age 11, he was cut from football academy after being diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency, being shorter than his team-mates. He defied the odds, detours of life and went on not only to play for Barcelona - the most successful football club in the world - but to win the men’s Ballon d’Or award seven times. No footballer, living or deceased, reached this level of achievement.
Oh. Lest I forget: What is your story? What detours have you endured in life that you can share with us, as your devoted cheerers? Tell us your story.
Detours work like chisel in the hands of a sculptor. They remove debris from you to sculpt you into a better human being. Detours work like a tennis racket in the hands of Novak Djokovic – when used appropriately, they bring world championship. You may have experienced the loss of a job, the death of a loved one, received an unpleasant medical report, failed to achieve your company budget, or been unable to secure a loan facility that would have put your business on the right trajectory, or you are about to retire - your employer is preparing a retirement party for you, but you have not yet secured a house for your family. My message is: no matter how hard detours of life hit, you have a reason to keep on moving. Understand that you have the same power as that of Walt Disney. Steve Jobs. Nelson Mandela. Mother Teresa. Reginald Mengi. Floyd Mayweather. Strive Masiyiwa. George Nga Ntafu. I don’t have space to list down all people who started from a humble beginning, defied the odds, went their way to become gurus of their industry. We are cut from the same cloth. The ability to manage detours of life is a measure of strength of our character. Engage life.
Don’t fight detours to the extent of conversing on a dead telephone like the manager in the opening paragraph. The moment you start to think you are an all-rounder is the moment you start to slide into the deep valley of irrelevance. Park your ego. Problems happen to everyone. Don’t even pray that they should go away or should not happen to you. Ask people who came through serious illness, they will tell you that it was the most wonderful thing ever happened to them because it gave them a chance to go about their life differently. Hardships give us classroom to dig deep into the chambers of the soul to re-discover ourselves. Treat hardships as friendly reminders that you are more than flesh, blood and bones. You have soul and spirit that relish and nourish on adversity. Every time I encounter detours of life, I raise my spirit by reminiscing the wise words of Pema Chodron, who sagely said; “. . . nothing ever really attacks us except our own confusion. Perhaps there is no solid obstacle except our own need to protect ourselves from being touched. Maybe the only enemy is that we don’t like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. But what we found as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.”
Verily verily I say unto you. People who understand and follow these codes of life, don’t only grow as titans of industry, but become successful, do more with their lives and go on to become great.
Lester Chinyang’anya ǀ General Manager - Operations ǀ Minet Malawi
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