The Other Rules of Engagement – an instructive guide for leaders

Our Rules of Engagement (ROE) got exciting buzz going so we researched and discovered various rules of engagements that leaders can leverage as they the crack employee engagement code.

If talent is a competitive advantage and maximising shareholder value is the main reason why your organisation is in business, do you have rules of engagement?

The Other Rules of Engagement – an instructive guide

1.    Get inside their heads: More than ever, great managing is a matter of intense understanding of each unique individual, knowing their abilities, their aspirations, and how they work best.

2.    Make them fearless: No one can promise job security anymore. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make your people courageous, able to focus on the company’s goals rather than self-preservation.

3.    Make money a non-issue: Money isn’t everything. It only gets you so far. But companies that mishandle this emotional area will make it a bigger deal than it has to be

4.    Help them thrive: Work conditions and policies can’t help but affect people’s health. Getting them right, and with the right intent, doesn’t just reduce costs; it invigorates the employees and the business.

5.    Be cool: Talented people don’t have to work for boring companies, and most won’t. Loosening up and making a uniquely stimulating culture create a real competitive edge.

6.    Be boldly transparent: There are no more secrets; everything about a company is public, or will be. Behave accordingly.

7.    Don’t kill the meaning: People need to be part of something bigger than just a job and a paycheck. Meaning drives higher performance

8.    See their future: What people do today is largely motivated by where they think it will take them in the future. It’s as true on the job as it was for every employee dreaming of a future career when he or she was in school. Companies that are deliberate about helping employees chart that future get those people’s best work.

9.    Magnify their success: What a company does not recognise, it should not expect to see repeated. Making a big deal of employees’ accomplishments ensures the victories will be multiplied.

10.    Unite them: People have always been willing to take one for the right team, but players get traded much more these days. With people moving between companies at a faster pace than ever before, it’s never been more important to create conditions that foster strong collaboration

11.    Let them lead: Employees don’t just want their opinions to count. To accomplish all they can for the company, they need the chance to take the lead.

12.    Take it to extreme: Your best people are itching to accomplish something incredible together. Challenge, rally, and support your people and you will be struck by what they can do.

HR experts advocate new approach to varsity education

Human resource experts have insisted that there is the need to revisit the issue of a faulty education system that have failed to prepare university graduates with the right skills suited for today’s work environment. This calls is coming even as employers and organisations continue to grapple with the challenges in recruiting the right talents with its attendant socio-economic implication on the nation,

Arguing from an organisational perspective, experts in the world of work believe that organisations hire people to perform specific tasks that help them achieve their business goals.

They pointed out that in today’s ever competitive world of employment, it is routine by employers to recruit candidates that parade not just a certificates that bears first class or second class upper division, but seek candidates with the right working skills that can contribute to the development of their company.

Experts further disclosed that much more than anything employers today want their recruits to be competent technically in their chosen field. They also want them to come of school well equipped with complementary life skills such as problem solving, reflective and critical thinking, interpersonal and teaming skills, effective communication, organising skills and abilities to translate ideas to action.

However with the growing unemployment rate in the country and employment companies finding it difficult to get the right candidates as a result of poor quality of graduates from our tertiary institutions, CEOs and Human Resources are worried for the future of the workforce if this issue is not resolved soon.

Often employers of labour have complained about the lack of relevant skills by the so-called graduates from the country’s institution of higher learning while other institutions running post graduate programmes have introduced internal examinations to test the aptitude of the graduates before admission, human resource practitioners have said points to the doubt that exist about the quality of the degree certificates obtained from the tertiary institutions.

Taking a holistic view of the situation as it concern the short fall of employable graduates in the country today, Ayodele Jaiyesimi, head, Human Capital Development, First Bank Nigeria, says the situation has really assumed a worrying dimension.

According to her, “There is a dearth of skilled man power, employers hardly find graduates today who have the basic of the basis, most of the time we do a basic aptitude test to get people in and you find out that you can’t even get 10 percent of them that will pass appropriately. So, when we are talking of skills, it is a huge problem for us in the banking industry”.

With this widening skill lacuna between industry demands and quality of the nations graduates, the human resource practitioner is of the view that there is much work to be done, “I feel we need to be committed to working together to lift up standards in the country”

Citing the efforts of her organisation towards this fight, she revealed the First bank have a corporate university so that from the entry level, candidates employed undergo series of courses that will trained them to fit the standard of the company irrespective of what they might have studied in the university.

Abraham Laleye, CEO, Robins Begg Consulting Limited, while reacting to the issue pointed out that human capital development is be devilled with the neglect of the present and past governments concerning its promises to the citizens in the area of investment in education, which has remained largely undelivered on account of primitive expressions of greed by the political elite.

Laleye noted that the universities should work more closely with the industries, try to understand their needs have a forum where there could be an exchange of ideas as to the challenges the industries are facing and how they can develop a proper curriculum to address these challenges.

Apparently disenchanted with the poor quality of university graduates, revealed that a country like the USA has strategically provided for the needs that would become very predominant in the next 50 years for professionals and have made strategic moves to fill the gap wondering why Nigeria should not follow suit.

He says the problem of skill gap is increasingly becoming a multi-faceted one, noting that organisations are looking for certain skills to help their business improve.

The employment consultant further noted that if organisations are serious about getting the right talents; there are lots of processes they have to go through. “They need to understand that talents require skills to be able to ensure that it has perfected the art of doing what you want them to do”.

“When organisation tries to recruit people to function in a particular department, what I discover is that they focus a whole lot of attention on people qualification and experience which is quite important, but they need to understand that qualification and experience cannot substitute for attitude and talent”. He said

NLI targets leadership capacity among members

The Nigeria Leadership Initiative (NLI), in the last eight years, has engaged in the exploration of leadership and values that challenges its accomplished leaders (senior fellows) and emerging leaders (associate fellows) to think more deeply about timeless ideas and their implications for living more successful and meaningful lives.

Consistent with its mission to create a growing, global network of credible, accomplished community-spirited Nigerian leaders, committed to taking responsibility for driving positive change in Nigeria and Nigerian communities,”

NLI reached another milestone with the induction of the inaugural Fellows Class; a cohort of leaders was inducted in a ceremony chaired by Bisa Williams, US deputy assistant secretary of state, at Yale University, New Haven, CT, US.

Speaking on the Fellows’ seminar, Yinka Oyinlola, CEO of NLI, stated that leadership is about self-awareness, agility and maturity as it is about critical thinking, foresightedness, communication and other soft skills.

He affirmed that the “fellows are already leaders for whom figuring out solution is needless as they will undoubtedly be dealing with different set of challenges that will require futuristic concepts for the challenges of the next decade. With the successful delivery of this maiden Fellows’ seminar, NLI has made a valuable contribution to the development of high impact and value-based leaders for Nigeria.”

The seminar modules are on: values; leadership; innovation; and impact. Designed as an intensive and interactive program, the Seminar will be led by world-class moderators who are in two categories: Yale Professors provided cutting-edge theory and knowledge while challenging conventional thinking; and, practitioners who have solved real-life complex issues and challenges through work experience

The programme done in collaboration with NLI Partner, Yale University had 17 Nigerian leaders participating in the seminar themed High-Impact Leadership for a Better Society. The major objectives are to: challenge the participants to think more deeply about living more successful and meaningful lives; move the Fellows from success to significance with focus on high-impact leadership for a better Nigerian society; and encourage them to move from thought to action through a high-impact class project.

The basis of NLI’s Fellows Programme is to inspire inductees to be comfortable in their leadership role and thrive under uncertainty. The dynamic nature of context and timing was the premise of several interrogations underlying the curriculum: what key capabilities, not lessons or courses, are required to continue a leadership journey while also providing tools for the Fellows to walk into their roles within the society and their respective organisations.

As NLI Fellows, they were taken through the leadership journey of self-awareness, agility, and maturity as well as critical thinking, foresightedness, and negotiations. Given that the Fellows were at the inflection point of transitioning from functional leadership to a holistic and bigger-picture view of the society, they acquired new approaches of rallying people toward a common purpose.

The newly inducted NLI Fellows includes professionals from all walks of life.

Rules that shape organisational success

Sam Walton, the legendary founder of Wal-Mart, had identified certain rules for running a successful business. They are simple and straightforward, but guess what? I would bet that a great many businesses don’t follow them and they’d be better off if they did.

1. Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anyone does. Passion is at the top of the list of the skills you need to excel. When you have passion, you speak with conviction, act with authority and present with zeal. If you don’t have an intense, burning desire for what you are doing, there’s no way you’ll be able to work the long, hard hours it takes to become successful.

2. Share profits with your employees. If you treat them as partners, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will perform beyond your wildest dreams. Employees are the life-blood of any good company. Many companies seem to have fancy incentive programs for the big wheels, but smart companies have bonuses and profit-sharing all the way down the line.

3. Motivate your partners. Money and ownership are not enough. Set high goals, encourage competition and then keep score. Competition makes you better and stronger. You should not only welcome stiff competition, you should actively seek it. You’ll never realise your full potential unless you’re challenged. Similarly, if you don’t set goals to determine where you’re going, how will you know when you get there? You must stay focused on your goals above all else. Truly dedicated individuals won’t let anything interfere with attaining their goals.

4. Communicate everything you possibly can to your employees. The more they know, the more they will understand. Information is power, but it must be used to empower your workforce. You will be amazed how a few snippets of information can transform a business into a powerhouse.

5. Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. In addition to point #2, find ways to let your employees know that you value their contributions. Invite your customers to share their stories of great service and post them for all to see. Catch people doing a good job and let them know you notice. It keeps everyone motivated and does wonders for retention. Remember that your successes result from a group effort.

6. Celebrate your successes. Find some humor in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Maintain a positive tone, even when things don’t go as planned. Although a failure may not be funny at the time, there’s always a lesson to be learned. Often, the lesson learned is humility.

7. Listen to everyone in your company, and figure out ways to get them talking. Many people think that communication means getting others to do what you want them to do. For them, good listening means, “I talk, you listen.” These people have forgotten the basic truth about being a good listener: Listening is a two-way process… Yes, you need to be heard. You also need to hear the other person’s ideas, questions and objections. If you talk at people instead of with them, they’re not buying in their caving in.

8. Exceed your customers’ expectations. There’s one thing no business has enough of: customers. Take care of the customers you have and they’ll take care of you by coming back and bringing their friends. On the flip side, disappoint customers, and they’ll disappoint you and then disappear.

Control your expenses better than your competition. Wal-Mart tries to help its customers follow this rule. If you aren’t already watching pennies, start now.

Swim upstream. If everyone else is doing it one way, there is a good chance you can find your niche by going in the opposite direction. Following the crowd leaves you with very little room to maneuver.

To succeed, organisations need to strategically invest in employees’ health, wellness’

BASSEY EDET, CEO, Crest Wave Consulting Company, a health, wellness and psychological fitness company, in this interview with KELECHI EWUZIE reveals that for organisations to succeed, employees’ safety at workplace must be a priority. Excerpts:

Career path

I qualified as a doctor more than 13 years ago and I specialised in mental health more than seven years ago. I am into training and research and I have done quite a lot of things in mental health.

Motivation

Nigeria is a virgin land of opportunities. When you look at the Nigerian work space you find no niche for treating Nigerians right. A lot of organisations do not have provisions that treat workers right. In societies that truly work, treating workers right is the first step in any organisation’s or government policy.

I hear that there are some statistics about unemployment but I think if the unemployed had a safety net; it would improve the work space perception, so individuals even when they lose their jobs or are yet to be employed will have a safety net to fall back on.

My motivation for setting up this company is just to provide a short term measure to improve safety in the work place and by so doing add value to the lives of people in the work place.

Crest wave consulting

The company was registered in 2008 and we have been working with several companies and hope to take it to the next level. What we are trying to do as much as possible is to add value by supporting health and safety in the workplace and in the community, so we practically provide services in areas that border on health and safety.

Psychologically, we have been involved in many health interventions during communal clashes. Currently, the nation is under siege psychologically, and the current Nigeria frame work does not guaranty for the safety and health of the work place for the worker.

You see a situation today where organisations treat their workers as commodity not as part of the framework or an investment. Most organisations declare profit in terms of cash but don’t declare profit in terms of investment in people and we think health and wellness are strategic long term investment strategy.

If you look at studies that have defined people that have moved companies, a lot of them have moved to companies for pecuniary gains but much more have moved for the psychological contracts that they signed with the companies and the companies have kept their own part of the psychological contract.

Sometimes, employees go to companies so that they could feel like a part of the workforce, a company that delivers on its promises and makes them feel protected. If you take employees who work in International oil organisations before the mergers and the rest, they have a sense of safety because the work culture affects them, the work place protects them and they have a sense that they have a place that they can feel safe.

What we want to imbibe in the Nigerian work space is to make it safe and productive for its workforce.

We offer customised wellness programmes for organisations -big, small corporations. But, our major market is the big ones for now, big to medium scale for now because of the size. What we basically do is address and customises management issues.

Nigerians resort to a lot of spiritual resources to cope. The country is one of the most religious countries in the world and coincidentally one of the most corrupt countries as well. But religion plays a role on how we cope and that’s why we have not lost our minds.

Also we know that coping determines productivity. I would believe that if we reframe the way we can cope, the way people process things, we can be optimal in productivity and that is part of our programme on offer.

We also offer a gamut of services. We craft a programme to include mantra, to include lots of discussions on how we can improve organisations waistline along side with their bottom line. So we would help employees and employers keep fit physically and also financially.

We also do health promotion programmes. There is one we call ‘Small step giant strides’. It’s one of the unique programmes where we are using a customised speedometer, i.e. a step counter, we try to get each worker to improve his/her mobility in the work space, not just mobility career-wise but mobility within the work space. What we wanted to encourage was to allow each worker to walk a minimum of 6 miles a day. It would do a lot for your cardio-vascular functions.

For each intervention that we carry out, we do pre and post assessment on coping and inability to cope. The bulk of our training is to ensure that at least 30 percent of the workforce that works in a high pressure work space and high pressured environment like Nigeria show signs that they are coping well with their work.

We believe that one thing we could do is to skill up the people in the work space so that they can manage their outside, compartmentalise their lives but at the same time manage the interdependent compartment of their lives.

An ideal place to work

An ideal work environment is a place that employees feel that the contribution they make is adequate to improve the growth of the organisation. It is a place where staff feels happy going to work. It is a place where a worker feels he is part of the community so that his contributions to that work environment are meaningful.

Sadly, what we find here in Nigeria today is that Nigerians don’t see the connection between what they contribute to the general advancement of the company and how the company makes progress.

An ideal environment is where the staff feel that they belong to the organisation, where they are rewarded for the amount of work they put in. Also when members of staff have issues, they can be adequately protected and cared for.

If a corporate organisation in Nigeria takes care of its staff well, it will be have optima productivity. The work environment right now hasn’t got as much elaborated frame work to operate in that is why we are offering a step to eventually improving to work space.

Leadership style

My style of leadership is all-encompassing. I carry everybody along where every staff contribution is vital. I like the participatory type of leadership

In my organisation, we have a share vision, we believe in one another and we believe in adding value. With a shared vision and value addition, everybody has a sense of belonging in the company. The greatest thing you can give to any staff is to make them feel that the company also belongs to them.

Dealing with competition

We try to introduce things that are norms in other societies into our Nigerian work space by putting a framework where you can have the work space to be ideal for optimal functioning. The challenge is that the work spaces are as unregulated as you can think, but in all this, it is an opportunity for growth.

Shortage of talent in the work space

There are two angles to this shortfall, the demand and the supply. The demand is to skill up and this requires a lot of the money and it is very difficult. If a graduate or an employee wants to take a course to improve him or herself, there is no provision to borrow money. Access to fund is really an issue; there are no provisions easily available for someone to skill up talent.

The second thing is that market differentiation is not easy because when there is projection that is clearer, planning becomes easier.

As you know Nigeria market is evolving. In developed economies, they can determine in the next five years where the services of a certain field of professional say doctors can be required in a particular region so the government will set out a certain amount of money to train professionals to fill that need, but we don’t have that in Nigeria and that is a problem.

Another problem is that the motivation for people to train in a given sector is poor because a lot of people they don’t see a long term value adding proposition in certain sector of the economy and they are further discouraged by the statistics of unemployed graduates in the country.

However, what I encourage people to do is to grow themselves so that they can be relevant.

Work /life balance

It is very easy. I am there whenever I am there, it means when I am working, I am working and when I am at home, I relate with my family. I have two children and they can be very engaging.

I also balance my life by mentoring other people children. I think the greatest gift you can offer is to model the kind of society we desire by modelling children. One of the greatest transference of values is through modelling.

I feel that modelling is one of the things I do, I model to my children my values and to other people’s children. When I am there, I am their father, as spouse to my wife and a mentor to other children around me. So I am there full time.

Prospect

I see us being among the greatest players in Nigeria and within the next five years I think we should have one or two branches in the western part of the continent.

Where major and independent marketers made N278.84bn in 2013

Players in the downstream sector of the Nigerian economy, comprising the major and independent marketers, realised a gross income of N278.84 billion from the sale of the premium motor spirit (PMS), automobile gasoline oil (AGO or Diesel) and dual purpose kerosene (DPK) from January to December 2013. The breakdown shows that N116.6bn or 42 percent was realised on PMS, N85.4bn or 31 percent on AGO, and N76.8bn or 28 percent on DPK.

In terms of litres, the major marketers with 2,453 retail outlets dispensed 313.35 million litres of PMS, 130.94 million litres of AGO and 118.45 million litres of DPK. Consequently, the marketers namely: Forte Oil, Conoil, Total, Mobil, Oando and MRS made N64.7 billion representing 23 percent of the total gross earnings that were realised in 2013.

On the other hand, the independent marketers which have 24,226 retail outlets across the 36 states and FCT made N214.1 billion which amounted to 77 percent of the earnings made by downstream players. Further analysis shows that N86.2 billion on PMS, N67.6 billion on AGO while N60.2 billion was realised on DPK.

States with the highest petrol stations

Ogun, Lagos, Oyo, Kaduna, Kano and Osun states account for 9,818 petrol stations in Nigeria. That amounts to 37 percent of the 26,679 petrol stations owned by major and independent marketers. Ogun State with 2,420 retail outlets emerged the best investment destination for this kind of business activities and it is followed by Lagos 2,153; Oyo 1,846; Kaduna 1,238; Kano 1,104 and Osun 1,057 retail outlets.

One geographical characteristic is common to these states which is the fact that each one of them shares borders with so many states. As a result, they have so many road networks which enhance the movements of goods and persons and this in turn allows transporters to access so many regions in the country. The states with the least number of petrol stations are Yobe, Ekiti, Zamfara, Ebonyi and Bayelsa. Yobe has 301 stations in 2013; Ekiti 238; Zamfara 234, Ebonyi 198 and Bayelsa 75.

If the consumption of PMS is a good proxy for how states contributed to Value Added Tax (VAT), then we would rank the Nigerian states thus: Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Abia, Anambra, Kano, Akwa Ibom, Kaduna and Benue as the top ten most productive states in Nigeria in this regard. A total of 113.2 million litres of PMS was dispensed in Lagos state in 2013; Ogun, 102.8 million litres; Oyo, 68.7 million litres, Abia, 63.1 million litres; Anambra, 53.5 million litres and Kano, 53.1 million. Others are Akwa Ibom, 50.2 million litres; Kaduna, 47.1 million litres and Benue 41.1 million litres.

Another implication is that these states could have had the worst electricity supply in 2013. A past survey conducted by BusinessDay Research and Intelligence Unit (BRIU) supported the assertion that PMS use is lower when electricity supply is regular. The study found that for petrol stations located in residential areas, the sale of PMS is always high when power outages are frequent and vice versa. Relying on this study, one would conclude that one of the reasons why the sale of PMS was that high was because electricity supply conditions were worst in the aforementioned states in 2013.

Similarly, if the consumption of AGO is a good proxy for industrialisation in Nigeria, then there is no doubt in the claim that Ogun State is the Industrial base of the nation. Supporting this claim is the fact that in 2013, the state recorded the highest sale of AGO which amounted to 56.9 million litres. Lagos, Abia, and Kaduna followed in that order with the sale of 47.5 million litres, 29.6 million litres and 26.5 million litres of AGO respectively.

Other top ten most industrialised states are Anambra, 26 million litres; Kano, 25.4 million litres; Akwa Ibom, 25.3 million litres; Benue, 23.4 million litres; Imo,20.4 million litres and Osun, 20 million litres respectively.

This paragraph will surely interest the Federal Government and most especially the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs. A few days ago, the FG announced the award of a contract worth N9.2 billion for the provision of cooking stoves at the rate of one million stoves per annum for rural women under the National Clean Cooking Scheme.

The states where the least kerosene was used in 2013 were Sokoto, 7.5 million litres; Nassarawa, 7.4 million litres; Taraba, 7.2 million litres, Gombe,, 6.5 million litres; Jigawa, 6.1 million litres and Yobe, 5.7 million litres. Others are Zamfara, 4.3 million litres; Ekiti, 3.9 million litres; Ebonyi, 3.7 million litres and Bayelsa, 2.5 million litres.

Where the use of kerosene is very low, it means that sources of fuel such as firewood will the high in use. The motive of the FG is to address the indiscriminate felling of trees. Therefore, BRIU will suggest that the first port of call should be the rural women in the aforementioned states.

The earnings realised by the petrol stations varied across the states of the federation in 2013. This is measured by the average amount of each product dispensed in each state per every retail outlet. The petrol stations in Abuja, Abia, Anambra, Bayelsa and Bauchi were the most productive in terms of the sale if PMS. An average petrol station in Abuja dispensed 90,303 litres of PMS in 2013. It was followed by Abia, 76,974 litres, Anambra, 73,229 litres; Bayelsa, 72,840 litres; and Bauchi, 63,744 litres. The same goes for the sale of AGO and PMS.