“Our strategy requires time to play out. It is a strategy designed to build sustainable long-term value for our constituents, beginning with serving our customers best. The performance metrics that matter to us are not the typical Wall Street trailing financial output indicators. Instead, they are the metrics that reflect industry thought leadership, high customer […]

If you attend a corporate retreat in Kenya, you just know what you’re going to do during the outdoor dinner, don’t you? After sufficient alcohol has been imbibed and inhibitions have been sufficiently loosened, you will undoubtedly do a “Mugiithi” dance. This is where you form a human train with the leader at the front, […]

The 2 hashtags, #TwitterBigStick and #TwitterThumbsUp were never intended to be finished products in any sense. As I have said from the outset, they were simply a demo of what focused tweeting can do. They play on very human needs: to express frustration when good service or value for money is not provided; and to […]

“One of the odd questions I keep being asked about the iPad is “Where do you plug in USB stuff?” It’s a sister phrase to the weird criticism oft thrust at Apple’s device, “Ah, it’s too limiting for me: I can’t plug in USB sticks.” This is weird because other makers, notably Apple’s biggest competitor, […]

Another year, another set of Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education results. And another year in which parents, children and the media go into a seemingly uncontrollable frenzy about the significance of the results. I have written about this peculiar phenomenon before, and no doubt will again. For I fail to understand why we have to […]

“A tumultuous 12 months that saw revolutions in the Middle East, a worsening debt crisis in Europe and a tsunami in Japan has set the tone for corporate activity in 2012. Caution, flexibility, nimbleness and deep knowledge of host countries are more important than ever, executives and their advisers said at the World Economic Forum’s […]

In business, relationship management is all the rage these days. There seem to be no salespersons any more, just relationship managers (RMs). It sounds warm and fuzzy and touchy-feely, as though you, the customer, have someone in the organization specially focused on you. Most of the time, it’s an elaborate hoax. What’s the difference between […]

“Soon after Citigroup let go of 100 employees across India last month, many functional heads received an unusual brief. They were asked to scout for jobs for those who had been terminated. Counsellors were also roped in to soften the blow and professional services firms were hired to make the career transition of the terminated […]

Do you get the feeling that slowly, painfully, a new Kenya is being born? So do I. The old guard are being forced to concede ground; the old ways will soon be consigned to history. A new Kenya, one fit for the young and the connected as well as the decent and the discerning, will […]

“Japan’s Panasonic Corp forecast a record annual net loss of $10.2 billion on Friday, joining beleaguered rivals Sony and Sharp in a sea of red ink as they struggle to fix their broken TV businesses and overcome criticism that they have lost their way. Panasonic said it was headed for a loss of 780 billion […]

People everywhere love freebies. If it’s “free,” we want it. And we want lots of it. Here’s the thing, though: nothing is really free. Resources are limited. To provide or make anything on this planet consumes resources. So if something seems free, it’s up to you to work out who’s bearing the cost. Some simple […]

“As I jogged down Wall Street in New York in October through the barricades, police horses, and thousands of activists, something became clear. The masses had self-organized and social media had added yet another social movement to its résumé. At the same time, something else became clear to me. Much higher than street level, in […]

A drive on one of Kenya’s highways is, we can all agree, a hair-raising experience. We have one of the world’s highest road fatality rates, for one simple reason: the roads are full of what our president fondly calls “pumbavus” who have inexplicably been allowed to drive. So you will get pea-brained drivers coming at […]

#TwitterBigStick is a hashtag that escalates bad service and bad behaviour by organizations. Thousands have used it to give instant feedback on poor experiences and neglect. It give ordinary people a voice and an instantaneous way of channelling feedback constructively. Ignoring #TwitterBigStick can lead to a severe reputation battering, often in a few hours of […]

“The Italian cruise ship the Costa Concordia sank off the coast of Tuscany last Friday night, after smashing into rocks off the island of Giglio. The 114,500-tonne vessel, carrying 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew, hit a submerged reef at 9.42pm, after the ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, had steered it to within 200m of shore to […]

Looking at Apple’s fourth-quarter 2011 results is enough to boggle the mind. Which company do you know that grows its revenues at more than 70%; that sells a million (expensive) iPhones every three days; that sells more phones every day than there are babies born in the world; and that is currently worth more than […]

“1. Reading stories can fine-tune your social skills by helping you better understand other human beings. 2. Entering imagined worlds builds empathy and improves your ability to take another person’s point of view. 3. A love affair with narrative may gradually alter your personality—in some cases, making you more open to new experiences and more […]

A few weeks ago I predicted that 2012 would be the year of the “Twitter Big Stick” in Kenya: a time when both politicians and large organizations feel the force of feedback from social media. I pointed out that the reason for this is that the little people – customers, users, voters – now have […]

“I long ago realised that to understand a business I would learn much more by talking to people involved in day-to-day operations than the chief executive. They represented “what is really going on here?”” JOHN KAY, Financial Times (January 3, 2011) The excerpt shown, from Professor John Kay’s regular FT column, caught my eye. I […]

In Kenya there are Big People, and there are Little People. There are very few Big People, and very, very many Little People. The Big People call all the shots and make all the decisions, and the Little People obey. The slightly bigger Little People spend all their time and effort trying to become Big […]

I have a Friday 13th date with Jeff Koinange on his famous bench, K24 TV Capital Talk. The show will be aired at 8.00 pm Friday, repeated 10.30 pm. Also repeated Saturday morning, 9.00 am, and Sunday evening, 10.30 pm. It will also run on www.YouTube.com/K24TV.

Since the mid-80s, academics have been carrying out regular skills surveys, asking detailed questions of thousands of employees. In 1986…72% of professionals felt they had a great deal of independence in doing their jobs. By 2006, that had plummeted to just 38%. Which is shocking but also makes sense: if you’re a teacher you now […]

We are becoming a country of queues. Wherever you look, and wherever you go, people are standing in queues. Increasingly long queues. What is a queue? A place where a long-suffering user or customer gets increasingly annoyed with your organization and your brand. Given how widespread this problem is, it always amazes me how little […]

“This was a year, sadly, when examples of poor leadership (bad decision-making, selfish actions and inexplicably bone-headed moves) seemed to outnumber the good.” JENA MCGREGOR, The Washington Post (Dec 19, 2011) As we end another year, we in the business world have to concede an uncomfortable fact: 2011 was not a great year for corporate […]

I attended a graduation ceremony recently, and was struck by something said by one the graduands, a class president. She quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson, certainly one of the more quotable people who ever passed through this planet. Here is the quotation:    “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and […]

It’s time for the annual Sunshine Awards from this columnist: highlighting the significant events and people of 2011. Before you proceed, please remember the selection process is opaque, peculiar and idiosyncratic, and not subject to external auditing. The Damburst of the Year was the amazing outbreak of popular uprisings. Starting from the Arab world this […]

“Managers often mistakenly assume that a high-growth industry will be an attractive one. Wrong. Growth is no guarantee that the industry will be profitable. For example, growth might put suppliers in the driver’s seat, driving up the industry’s costs and limiting profitability. Or, combined with low entry barriers, growth might attract new rivals, thereby increasing […]