BusinessDay 24 May 2017

Wednesday 24 May 2017
COMMENT
SMALL BUSINESS HANDBOOK
EMEKA OSUJI
Dr Emeka Osuji
School of Management and
Social Sciences
Pan Atlantic University
Lagos. eosuji@pau.edu.ng @Emyosuji
The problem of poverty in
Nigeria is not abating. At
best it is getting worse and
at worst it has gone beyond
our capacity to manage.
And this has nothing to do with the
laudable policy of microfinance and
its very successful implementation.
Nigeria is at critical cross roads of its
socio-economic development. The
continued organised misgovernance
and manipulation of religion and politics
by vested interests have ensured
that we get into a bind that is hard to
break. Today, the poor in many parts
of the country are no longer afraid of
poverty because something worse
than poverty has arrived. They fear for
their lives. As things stand, the nation
is in such a bad shape that in or out of
recession, it makes no difference to the
lives of most of the ordinary people. In
Nigeria hard facts are risky to share but
the man dies…..
There is incontrovertible evidence
that most of the 36 states have practically
become unable to meet the needs
of their people. They exist only because
it is politically profitable to some of our
political class to continue to maintain
this failed structure and leadership
style. Not only are the majority of the
states insolvent and unable to meet
their financial obligations, they are
BRIAN REUBEN
Brian Reuben is a global thought leader
on business and leadership. He helps
business leaders improve performance
and make more profit. @brianreuben
Conventionally, it is thought
that increased pay leads
to increased productivity.
But a recent study by
economists at the University of
Warwick found that happiness led
to a 12% increase in productivity,
while unhappy workers proved 10%
less productive.
According to Professor Andrew
Oswald, one of three researchers
who led the study, companies that
invest in employee support and
satisfaction tend to succeed in generating
happier workers. At Google,
employee satisfaction rose 37% as a
result of those initiatives—suggesting
that financial incentives aren’t
enough to make for highly productive
employees.
Your most important assets are
human beings and interestingly man
is more of an emotional rather than
intellectual being. The biggest and
most profitable companies in the
world understand this truth and are
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Microfinance and the challenge of failing states
flatly unable to provide safety and security
to their people. And this is one
of the parts of the Nigerian problem
that everyone would like to avoid but
the man dies…...
Worse still, the institutions endowed
with the capacity to secure them
have been privatized. The police and,
sometimes, the army whose primary
duty is to protect the people, have been
parcelled out to politicians and the
privileged few on guard duty and as orderlies
for all manner of people. Few are
left for the real calling. As a result, the
streets have been occupied by dangerous
gangs who make sure that, in some
rural areas, farmers no longer farm and
traders no longer come to markets. The
economic activity of the poor, which is
the basis of microfinancing has been
victimised and brought to a standstill.
In such areas, one begins to wonder
how the effectiveness of our microfinance
programme can be assessed, as
social collapse and insecurity continue
to rubbish microfinancing.
A recent Channels Television presentation
on the power supply challenges
faced by artisans in Nassarawa state
was as elixir for this piece. Although it
was a rehash of the tale of woes we get
from all over the country on the failure
of governments to solve the basic problem,
which everyone knows is behind
the mass poverty in Nigeria–debilitating
epilepsy of power supply. In that
story, a spray painter and many other
artisans, who seek to legitimately earn
a living, spend all they make to provide
power through generators. This is the
same story everywhere and instead
of declaring a national emergency on
electricity we are busy splitting hair
on what an Acting President could
sign and not sign.; and following the
same spending pattern that brought
us to this shameful state – a battle of
supremacy between the executive and
How many of us know that
there are days reserved for
armed robbers to rob the
people in some places and
that there are days when
people in some villages literally
dress up and wait to be
robbed by armed robbers?
The robbers come on certain
market days as a matter of appointment,
to rob the people
in some villages outside Lafia
in Nassarawa state
the legislature, a bloated civil service of
many ghost workers the source of whose
entry to the service has never been found,
translucent security votes and inflated
contracts and more.
Following the Nassarawa story I
decided to dig deeper on the economic
activity of the poor in that area of Nigeria.
The results are terrifying. As we sit in
Abuja to postulate our shares of the 2017
budget, life has come to a standstill in
many parts of the middle belt. At a point
one wonders whether some of these
states, including Nassarawa and Taraba,
are not worse hit by Boko Haram than
the North East. I don’t know how many
of us are aware that life in many parts of
that area, especially outside their state
capitals, is a nightmare. How many of
us know that there are days reserved
for armed robbers to rob the people in
some places and that there are days when
people in some villages literally dress up
and wait to be robbed by armed robbers?
The robbers come on certain market days
as a matter of appointment, to rob the
people in some villages outside Lafia in
Nassarawa state. I was told that the rob-
bers come on market days to rob those
who sold cattle. It was alleged that the
police is aware and feeling inadequate
to confront the robbers, often close by
6pm and return to their bases, leaving
the people to their own devices.
This further strengthens the argument
that Nigeria as presently constituted
cannot serve the needs of a modern
state. The borders are wide open and
trailer loads of strangers, most of whom
do not speak any Nigerian language
poured into Taraba when Sambisa
Forest was attacked, according to the
Governors Chief of Staff. The strange
visitors entry was turned to a political
discourse and nothing happened.
This story of the artisans in Nassarawa
is not a unique. It is the story of
every part of the country. The absence
of electricity, among other tools of
economic empowerment, has made it
impossible for Nigerians to depend on
themselves. They have been deprived of
the opportunity to exercise their talents
and therefore, poverty has become the
destiny of many children yet unborn.
Poverty reduces the quality of the human
person. The poor often sound
incoherent and appear somewhat
unintelligent because they have little
learning and no time to think outside
the box of hunger and destitution. They
are forced to focus on the immediate
stomach infrastructure challenges to the
exclusion of any futuristic engagement.
Some governments around the world,
including North Korea, have at one
point or the other used mass emiseration
to elicit loyalty from their people.
Microfinancing cannot succeed in
an environment where people have
suspended their will and enterprise and
resorted to opportunism and dependence
on prebendalism. The essence
of microfinancing is to tackle poverty
by empowering the poor who are economically
active. This is what prompted
the federal government to launch the
How to build a highly productive workforce
as such committed to the emotional
stability of their workforce. Lara
Harding, People Programs Manager,
Google gave an insight into how
Google look at their people when
he said, At Google, we know that
health, family and wellbeing are an
important aspect of Googlers’ lives.
We have also noticed that employees
who are happy ... demonstrate
increased motivation ... [We] ...
work to ensure that Google is... an
emotionally healthy place to work.
Perhaps one of the most important
things business leaders
must accomplish is shaping the
perception of their workforce in the
direction of their corporate vision.
When workers see themselves as a
part of the company, when they feel
at home, are happy and take pride
in their job they can withstand any
pressure at work.
The happiness of your workforce
is directly linked to their productivity.
The truth is that even one
unhappy employee can negatively
impact on your organisational
performance. So you want to have
happy and satisfied employees because
that’s good for your business.
Ironically being the highest paying
company in your industry does not
guarantee a happy workforce. It
takes an intelligent mix of mission,
culture and management to create
happy employees.
Mission
A mission defines what a company
live for. It begins by a clearly defined
and effectively communicated mission
such that everyone in the organization
from the CEO to the Janitor
understands clearly, believe in and are
excited about; a mission the workforce
so believes in that it shapes their life
and work attitude. There is the apocryphal
story about a janitor at NASA
who when asked by someone what
he was doing, replied ‘I’m helping to
put a man on the moon.’ How could
the Janitor think that way? The answer
is simple. The leadership at NASA did
a good work in communicating their
mission to the entire workforce.
People are glad to be a part of
something meaningful. They put their
best effort in a mission or goal that
excites them. This is where you begin.
Clearly every successful organisation
has an exciting mission that is so
well communicated that even their
security men understand it. For Coca
Cola, it is to refresh the world in mind,
body and spirit. To inspire moments of
optimism and happiness through our
brands and actions. For Microsoft, it is
to empower every person and every
organization on the planet to achieve
more. Need we be surprise then these
companies make it into the list of the
best companies to work in?
Culture
“There’s no magic formula for a
great company culture. The key is just
to treat your staff how you would like
to be treated.” – Richard Branson
The corporate culture is the core
of any businesses and it is as important
as getting in the sales. According
to Investopedia, a corporate culture
refers to the beliefs and behaviours
that determine how the company’s
employees and management interact
and handle outside business
transactions.
You should let your corporate
culture inspire happiness among
your workforce. The advice of Mr
Branson sums up the secret of creating
a culture that will make the heart
of your employees to sing. Following
his advice delivers the magic of happiness
in your organisation. Imagine
for instance, an organisation where
the CEO understands how to be firm
as well as laugh freely with the employees.
That’s just like a good daddy.
The staff are glad you are there, not
scared. Consider Facebook which
targeting a ‘frictionless’ workplace
has everyone working together on
big, white, communal desks.
Even Mr. Zuckerberg doesn’t have
an office. Instead, opting to work
alongside the other employees in the
‘bull-pen’ like workspace. Potentially
having an intern work alongside the
boss is incredibly daunting, yet motivating.
This surely adds to the corporate
culture at Facebook, as equality
is not only preached, but practiced.
So think about your peculiar case
and create a culture that inspires
11
National Microfinance Policy, which has
gone a long way to tackle the endemic
poverty across the country.
Today, microfinance banks, numbering
about 1000 have been established
and working all over the country.
However, while considerable progress
has been made in canalizing financial
resources to the poor and boosting their
economic activities, it does appear that
much has not been achieved. As more
microfinance institutions get into the
fray, more people seem to get into the
poverty net. There are more educated
beggars today than in 2005. Many are beginning
to think that the microfinance
sector is failing in reducing poverty.
This may be a wrong impression but
it is justifiable based on facts outside
the control of the microfinance sector.
It is hard to talk about microfinancing
without talking about poverty,
its raison d’eter. Nor can we discuss
poverty in Nigeria without mentioning
the rapidly shrinking ability of the
state to protect the citizens. How does
a microfinance institution deal with
the poor in a state where people sleep
in churches and mosques most nights?
How do people survive in a state where
hotel management evacuates guests
because an attack was expected? This
is what is going on in the villages of
Nassarawa state and perhaps, other
surrounding states. I hope Boko Haram
has not left and changed tactics while
we continue to bombardSambisa.
Could it be that the robbers are not
mere armed robbers? Could it be that
Boko Haram has stopped holding
territories but makes do with ensuring
that the place is destabilised? As I said
there are certain topics we do not like to
discuss but microfinance fails wherever
the state fails.
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your employees to believe in your
company. Be a mentor rather than a
superior. Be unassuming, employees
like it.
Besides that, find ways to make
people laugh freely at the work place.
Nothing beats creating a happier corporate
culture by bringing smiles and
laughter into the work place.
Management
According to Hal Rosenbluth in
his book Customers Come Second,
“Profits are a natural extension of happiness
in the workplace.” Your employees
will care about your business
to the degree you care about them.
Part of management’s responsibility
is to manage the total well being of
the employees. You can’t close your
eyes and insist on performance when
a staff is weighed down by emotional
issues. You can’t act like you don’t
know someone looks depressed when
you should as a matter of fact observe
the disposition of your people. Show
enough concern in the affairs of your
people and they will be happy to give
you their commitment.
Finally, it matters how happy your
people are. Their productivity depends
on how happy they are. When
you care about your people they
will care about your business. If you
neglect that you will watch profits go
down the drain.
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