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Creativity that lasts

February 1st, 2011

I am reading this book by Anthony Mayo and Nitin Nohria titled ‘In Their Time” (Harvard Business School Press) and came across this quote attributed to Carle C. Conway chairman of Continental Can Company, “It is American businessmen and the businesses they conduct which are performing miracles of prodigious production in our nation’s emergency.” To put it in context this was part of a speech he made one month before the bombing of Pearl Harbour.

I must say that it hit a nerve.  Nothing can be truer particularly in Africa. Although we are not all still fighting ‘wars’ in the true sense of the word we are all embroiled in a different sort of war – survival. While our different governments are busy faffing about, the businessmen are the ones keeping the economy and the people going. Take Nigeria for instance, utilities that people in most advanced countries take for granted are luxuries here.

That we have light, water, security, food, entertainment, health care, even education is all down to the efforts of these businessmen and women. They are truly the ones producing on a daily basis the miracles and we owe them a lot. Where would we be without our private schools and hospitals? Government hospitals which really should be the epitome of health care is a joke and most times are crippled by strikes, where our police men have failed us various security companies have come up to give us some level of peace.  What about the companies that digs our bore holes so we can have water or even the ingenious barrow pushers who deliver water to our doors, daily?

Truly the survival of any economy rests on the ability of its entrepreneurs to rise to the challenge and continue where the public sector has been unable to meet up or has failed completely. While the reasons for filling these gaps may not always be altruistic or for the good of the people, the fact still remains that, entrepreneurs fill a vacuum that has been created for various reasons.  It is the same all over the world. The only difference between us and our foreign brethren is that in the process of filling the vacuum they continuously seek to up their game and be the best. Somebody’s affirmative dream becomes a multibillion dollar business the next day. Rarely in Africa! So why are our businesses not featuring so much on ‘Forbes List of 100 Most Prosperous Businesses’.

It is not for lack of creativity, certainly not.  If anything we are probably more creative than our overseas brothers simply because the struggle for survival pushes us to become highly innovative and as the saying goes, “When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.” In Africa we are not short of innovation, as human beings we all have an element of creativity in us and this becomes even more pronounced when we are pushed to the wall. How do you explain the fact that when you have a bad tyre you take it to the vulcanizer, who sorts you out sharp! sharp!!  Oyinbo people, I don’t think, understand that you can patch a tyre and use it for another two years, as far as they are concerned if you have a problem with your tyre, buy a new one! But out of necessity someone came up with the idea of patching tyres and it has worked for decades. No! Creativity is not our problem, the examples abound.

What we lack is staying power. The need for survival drives us to be creative but that “je ne sais quoi” keeps us from doing things right. Our counterpart in the foreign climes hits upon an idea and he/she spends a lot of time thinking of ways to continuously improve on it and get better at it.  Before you know it a huge conglomerate worth billions of dollars is born and he is setting up in Africa.

We need to stop being limited by our environment and circumstances and start dreaming big. I don’t profess to know what lies beneath our inertia but I know that we have to start dreaming big. It would be amazing to find African owned businesses (businesses that actually started in Africa) opening shop in Europe and America and competing favorably with companies in those continents. It starts with having a dream and believing in it, then following the dream up with a plan, structures, R&D, expansion etc. and before you know it you are conquering the world. We need to do things right and do the right things, we need to aspire to be great and leave behind a lasting legacy, we must eschew the word ‘manage’ from our vocabulary. It makes us complacent and ready to settle.

There is no doubt that the challenges are legion and the obstacles seemingly insurmountable, but I tell you, it can be done. We need to call on every ounce of determination we can muster, grit our teeth, and develop tunnel vision, in relation to our dreams, and soldier on.  It’s only a matter of time.

In the meantime let us celebrate the fact that amidst the ‘war’ raging around us, the entrepreneurs are keeping the wheels of progress churning. Perhaps one day, our various governments will have a rethink and begin to take their responsibilities seriously. Until then all hail the businessman and woman who for centuries have kept us from completely been annihilated!

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