News about the broken-down machine at Iringa Tea Factory spread in the region. It was in everyone’s mouth – the young and the old. It did not come as a surprise, though. Eighty percent of the economically active residents of Iringa and the nearby town of Sumbawanga were employed at the factory. If the system was not put back to life as soon as possible 1,200 jobs were going to be lost. Yes, one two zero zero jobs were at stake. A dark cloud had descended over Iringa and Sumbawanga towns. Jobholders, the majority of whom were blue-collar workers, kept asking each other, “ . . . how else are we going to earn a living if the system is not fixed?”
A story is told about Mzee Jabir Hafid Odhiambo. Octogenarian. Old and weak. But witty. His frailty was obvious in his walking. He walked with a shuffle and stupor - his head tilted forward. More often than not, he needed help in dressing up due to life-threatening arthritis that he was suffering from. You could see and feel his pain just by looking at the old man. He nursed his swollen limbs.
He was reclining in a low-lying chair at his shamba – farm - when his mobile phone beeped. Typical of the old man, he first ignored the call. Two more calls. Then, he picked up. At the other end of the line, came a fainthearted voice. Someone in need. No. Worse. Someone in trouble. After he had exchanged pleasantries with the caller, the latter introduced himself and cued the reason for calling. Mzee Hafid Odhiambo asked the caller three quick questions, then dropped the phone. He seemed to have figured out something from the conversation. To the surprise of the onlookers, his state changed. Instantly. His face radiated. He regained what psychologists refer to as a ‘resourceful state.’ Athletes dub it ‘the zone.’ He quietly dashed into his rickety makuti hut, and came out with an old small grey bag, donning an overfit blue work-suit and a matching helmet. He beckoned his twenty-year-old grandson to drive him to Iringa Tea Factory. One hundred and forty-five kilometers. Uphill. From Mikumi, where he lived. The young man better drive with the highest alertness. Gitonga hills were not only foggy but treacherous beyond consequences.
Upon arrival, Mzee Hafid Odhiambo wasted no time greeting senior managers and the CEO who had gathered in the parking area, chit-chatting about the broken system. He went about the task at hand. He checked the whole system, examining every piece with precision and total attention. He walked around for a few minutes, then stopped. He focused on one specific area of the system. He caressed the area. While keeping the left hand on the area, he pulled out an adjustable pipe wrench and a hand auger from the grey bag. Using the pipe wrench, he loosened and opened one valve of the machine, inserted and squeezed the auger into the tubing, and gently tapped on it with the wrench. Three times. Suddenly, the machine coughed to life. “Eureka, I got you!” he whispered to himself, punching the air with a fist. Everything began running again. The CEO and his managers hugged each other in ecstasy. Subordinates and junior employees who had gathered around whistled wildly in jubilation. The whole campus was enveloped with veneration of ululation. Rightly so - they had reclaimed and re-secured their jobs. Unnoticed, the old man slipped his equipment back into the small grey bag and left quietly without saying a word to the managers. Nor did he bid farewell to the CEO.
He drove back to Mikumi. Four days later, he prepared and sent an invoice to the CEO of Iringa Tea Factory. The bill made the CEO fly into a rage. “Nonsense. How can this be? Impossible. This is pure madness!” the CEO objected as he paced towards his phone handset. He quickly dialed the old man’s number and barked, “Forget it, mzee. I will not pay this despicable bill without it being explained.” Two days later, the CEO received a fresh invoice from the old man, explained, as follows: ‘. . . For calling my phone number – one shilling, . . . for bothering me to travel and work on the system – one shilling, . . . for you not teaching your artisans how to identify and fix problems – one shilling.’ At the foot of the invoice, he scribbled a narration in bold letters, ‘. . . for knowing which valve to open and where to tap – seven hundred and fifty million shillings.’ He signed off the invoice - Mheshimiwa Mzee Jabir Hafid Odhiambo, Mikumi. An hour later, an electronic bank transfer of seven hundred and fifty million and three shillings was remitted by Iringa Tea Factory to the bank account of Mzee Jabir Hafid Odhiambo of Mikumi.
There is a famous story about Pablo Picasso. Picasso is believed to be the greatest painter of all time. One day, whilst strolling the streets of his hometown, Malaga, in Spain, Picasso bumped into a charming lady. “Hello, Mr Picasso, I am your great fan. I follow your work closely. Can you, please, make me a drawing?” Picasso smiled at the amiable lady, happily pulled out a pencil and a piece of paper from his handbag, and drew a picture of the lady. He handed the drawing to the lady. “Wow, Mr Picasso, this is amazing. It is the best drawing that has ever been drawn of me. Thank you, very much, sir.” She started to walk away. “Excuse me, madam. Before you walk away, first pay for the drawing – that should be ten million dollars.” Puzzled, the lady responded, “Oh Mr. Picasso, it can’t be - ten million dollars. How? It only took you thirty seconds to draw the picture!” Picasso smiled and responded confidently, “Honorable lady, it took me thirty years to learn how to paint that picture in thirty seconds.”
As a leader of people, what is your metaphorical pipe wrench and auger? Do you have a symbolic small gray bag? Do you walk around with a figurative pencil and a piece of paper? The brain tattoo question is, when did you last sit behind a desk with a coach, mentor, course facilitator, teacher, or maharaja, to discuss personal mastery and business trends of your profession? When did you last visit a bookstore, let alone purchase literature material of your profession? How often do you hone your skills? Yes, skills of your craft. If the answer to the question is ‘less often,’ I should admit, that you are committing an unpardonable crime. There is a saying in Swahili, which is also one of my favorite brain tattoos, ‘. . . endapo utakwenda kitandani ukiwa na kiasi cha uelewa ulicho amka nacho asubuhi, basi siku yako ilipita bure - If you go to bed with the same level of knowledge that you wake up with, you have wasted a day.’
Many people dutifully service their cars every five thousand kilometers, yet they do not bother to look after themselves, to service and feed their brain, to unleash their potential. Whenever they have a problem, the solution is to rush to external consultants. I need to put this right because it’s such an important point - the health of our mind and spirit is the most crucial business capital that we possess and will ever possess. Building a successful business goes far beyond providing great products and services. Great leaders build leadership that attacks problems in the bud. Great leaders, jealously, safeguard the livelihood of the led. Albert Einstein put it better than I could when he said, “ . . . you cannot solve today’s problems with the same ideas that created them.”
Will you be comfortable being operated on by a surgeon who tells you as you lay on the operating bed that you are his first patient since leaving medical college some thirty years back? How comfortable will you be to be represented by a lawyer, who while driving to court for a high-profile trial, confides in you that he is not well-versed in the field of your case, but “ . . . I will try my best?” Imagine a battalion of soldiers marching to war with the field commander - as they approach the battle line, the field commander tells the soldiers that he does not know whether the adopted approach will work or not. Unless one is known for irrational opinions, cases in point should make one sweat. You wouldn’t want to be a specimen for a rookie surgeon, nor offer a moot trial for a novice lawyer, or present an obvious mark for a rival gunner. Why, then, should the led cherish the passivity of their leader, who hardly updates his skills or competence? Life has a very fair accounting system. The world treats us in equal proportion to the way we treat it. Everyone wants the best out of life. Choose to be a well-versed leader. Leaders are learners.
I may not know you personally. But I know one thing about you – that you’re undeniably a leader. The price for being a leader is that you become the topic among the led. If you want to keep being reveled in by the led, continuously grow, learn, and adapt. Pat Summitt, Head Coach of the University of Tennessee, may have said these words a long time ago, but his point is still valid, “If you don’t want to take responsibility to update your skills, don’t be a leader. That is the deal.” Pause for a minute. Remember what kicked Nokia out of business? I’ll be honest with you. Passivity of the leader. Ineptness. Failure to adapt to change. Inability to see the future in current trends. Inelasticity. Refusal to upgrade. Stephen Elop, Nokia CEO, is famous for his speech that he made whilst in tears on the collapse of Nokia, “. . . we did not do anything wrong, but somehow we lost.” May I invite you to read ‘The Decline and Fall of Nokia,’ by David J. Cord. You will thank me later. It’s a good read - rich in lessons.
Next time you fly an international airline, such as Qantas, Emirates, Air France, South African Airways, Blue, Jet, Etihad, KLM, United, Kenya Airways, or Delta, pay attention to the pilot’s announcements. Apart from issuing weather updates about the destination, veteran pilots always say something about their career background, the number of air miles that they’ve covered, and the number of times they’ve taken the jets to the air - Boeing, airbus, bombardier, et cetera. They don’t give passengers the information for a snob, applause, or show-off, but to build confidence in their passengers that they are in the hands of an expert. Who wants to be in the hands of a learner pilot at 40,000 feet above sea level?
No matter how polished you are, there are going to be times when you come face-to-face with situations that we call problems. You have no option but to deal with them. Squarely. Do you have the sensory acuity to deal with problems that rock your craft? Your prowess will one day be tested and questioned. Your success will be measured by whether you solved the problem, like Mzee Jabir Hafid Odhiambo and Pablo Picasso or you failed to solve the problem like Iringa Tea Factory, above. Every leader needs to develop a system or team that he can fall back on on a rainy day. Harvey MacKay once said, “. . . one must dig a well before one gets thirsty.” Keep your wrench, small grey bag, pencil, and paper accessible and within reach. The led have high expectations of their leader, and their ability to solve their personal and team problems. A leader is the custodian of the careers of the led. A leader has the responsibility to secure the careers of the led because they have given the leader the best thing that they have got - that is - their time. Honor their followership and trust as their leader. Hone your skills ad infinitum. Do not leave problems of the business and those of the led to the likes of Mheshimiwa Mzee Jabir Hafid Odhiambo. One day, they will not be available - that is when the leader will realize and understand the seriousness of the crime committed against the led.
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