Fate of System Thinking

I do believe in faith, but I am sure a prophecy that I was going to author a book this year would have seemed farfetched at the beginning of this year. My lack of faith as it were would not have been founded on disbelieve but on caution and pragmatism. I have had three manuscripts on various subjects. Books I never attempted to publish as I was content with my little blog I have kept since 2011. My first memory of writing was in high school with a poem called ‘My Love’ and subsequently my first attempt at a book was an anthology of my thoughts, poems I had collected through varying moments and yet I author a business book, ‘Fate of System Thinking’.

For the avoidance of doubt, it is a real book. The emphasis may appear humorous but the subject matter begs no laughter. The book deals with a couple of questions. The central question however remained, ‘Why has Ghana not produced so many multinationals?’ I am sure different people will have different opinions but I draw from insider stories from UT Bank, Capital Bank, uniBank and the Ghanaian banking industry to learn why indigenous companies are not as successful as we will wish they were. The book is not a personal rant but an academic piece backed by hard core verifiable research, data and rigorous thinking.

The book is fortunate to have Mr. Prince Kofi Amoabeng giving a foreword with a review from Mr. Steve Williams. If these two names are familiar to you, then I am sure you are questioning what the content of the book might be. I do not think anybody can teach the lessons of the failure of these banks better than the former Managing Director of UT Bank and yet he grants this book blessing and credibility. Mr. Williams is an expert on so many levels and yet found this book worthy to be read by all persons who intend to learn.

The book is the first of its kind in Ghana by documenting the facts and figures behind the collapse of these banks. If you are an entrepreneur, business manager, student or a believer in building Africa, then this is a must read. Without equivocation I will give a money-back guarantee to anyone who does not find the book useful. I must however caution it is not a story book, it is almost academic and thoughtfully heady. Weightier matters call for careful introspection and I hope this book will encourage all readers to take a closer look at our social and economic structure. For all that it may be worth, do not miss an opportunity to read ‘Fate of System Thinking’, the central thesis challenges traditional thinking of enterprises, the book reckons that; thinking of an organization as a system is bound to be suboptimal, we may need an interconnected approach to thinking but more importantly we need to think of businesses as biological organisms with a consciousness of its own. Like a child born and subject to nurturing, so must enterprises be ‘socialized’.

I like to conclude with a quote from Nelson Mandela in the book, Conversations with myself, “In real life we deal, not with gods, but with ordinary humans like ourselves: men and women who are full of contradictions, who are stable and fickle, strong and weak, famous and infamous.” We know without a doubt that all over the world, men and women are born and die, some may leave no memories of their lives, not even their names, it would appear they never existed at all and yet others cause generations to pause, reflect and reconstruct. I have no doubt the lessons in the Ghanaian banking industry offers us such memories by which we may build a new day.

Grab a copy, let us reflect and rebuild mother Ghana. Please share this, encourage other to pick a copy, buy it as a gift for other, invite our speakers to engage through the thinking and together we will be partners at making Ghana and Africa proud. 

Grit & Gravitas

I contemplate in very few words, two words that in my humble opinion is the foundation for all nobility and virtue; Grit and Gravitas.

The science of Grit has gained popularity with Angela Duckworth, pioneering its study. It is argued that the essence of grit remains elusive although it correlates with a couple of other traits having its own nuances and anomalies.  Grit is defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, as “firmness of character; indomitable spirit.”

Gravitas however, is derived from the Latin gravitas, meaning weight, and from gravis heavy, suggesting that people who display gravitas are grounded, possess sound judgment and are able to deal with “weighty” issues. Ancient Romans thus rated gravitas among the highest of the fifteen virtues needed to attain a reputable position in society.

I do not intend to discuss the theories of these traits but to tell the tales of a man who embodies them. This piece is written to celebrate him as he celebrates his 66^th birthday tomorrow, 22^nd February. It has been eight years since I have known him and I am convinced he is the best example of a leader nature ever gave Ghana. UT Bank had everyone wondering on 14th August what must have gone wrong, from that has proceeded varied opinions about him but I tell him as I know him:

1. Confident and kind, without being arrogant: The first time I meet him in person was in a cafeteria at work sometime 2010. I was a young graduate who had gotten a job in his company. He had grown his small micro finance business to become a household name, he had acquired a bank as a local finance house. He was in the news and was pioneering an understanding of financing for the informal economy. He was loved and respected by all, yet he entered this cafeteria, joined the queue and literally brought sunshine into the room. He hugged and made jokes and waited till it was his turn before he got his food. I only looked on with no words but admiration. As interesting as nature will have it, he came to join my table, I was shy, nervous and sober. He asked my name of which I mentioned and although I do not recollect the exact conversation, he did proceed to make me feel at home and I always looked forward to sharing a table with him at lunch as the conversations were extremely insightful.
2. Courage to trust against all odds: He had called the company Unique Trust for the obvious reason of solving the financial services problem in Ghana in an unconventional way but more importantly was his philosophical disposition of engendering trust for the sure reason of our common humanity. Ubuntu was our sure chant because of the belief that, ‘I am because you are’. You may debate how much of trust one ought to allow but we cannot deny one of the biggest problems of the black race is the lack of trust to collaborate to do anything indeed extraordinary. Great things will require the effort of more than one person, it will even require more than the fine task to bean-counting, it requires a commitment to summon persons of honesty and integrity. Do not speak to me about how he failed, tell me about what a broken state we live in, where the genuine trust of people who toil to rebuild the broken walls are betrayed. Without collective action, none of us will get to the top, and I guess his wrong was to trust our ability to work collectively. As we celebrate ‘Wakanda’ in the cinemas, let me suggest to you one who built one, T'chaka Prince Kofi Amoabeng.
3. He keeps walking forever: These words are his firm assurance, keep walking. He has told stories of having failed at several businesses before he started UT Bank, he has openly shared some of the biggest challenges he faced that could drown the strongest of souls and yet he keeps his calm and amazing disposition, looking forward with a firm commitment to a step at a time. The history of financial services in Ghana will never be complete without his story because he walked against all the odds. I am so sure, there is more we will see of him soon. This is because he never lost his grit and gravitas. 

Layman Brothers was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch) before declaring bankruptcy in 2008. Goldman was the biggest and yet was only saved because Warren Buffet invested $5Billion when it was in similar need. These are some of the biggest names and best brains in the field of financial services and yet, their stories are not different from UT Bank. I am a risk management expert and agree we ought to reform financial services and have need to do banking differently but I celebrate an amazing leader who created a Ghanaian enterprise that gave hope to all the thousands of savings and loans and microfinance companies we have. A good man who taught me what is possible with grit and gravitas. A man who against all the odd pioneered an understanding into the informal economy of Ghana. A man many of his critiques owe, a man who believed in Ghanaian businesses and gave everything for local businesses. Happy birthday Sir, my story will never be complete without telling yours. You are an eternal gift to Ghana.

Mindlessness: Caught in Military’s Course

I have had a respectable career, undoubtedly a market leader in my field in a relatively shorter period than usual. I premise this most vulnerable piece with an estimation of strength so as to help readers understand that, the most resilient may have their moment. This post aims at helping anyone who may peradventure find themselves close to a Nervous Breakdown reconstruct from those ashes. Like the mythical Phoenix, these ashes are the place for rebirth and renewal. I wish to reflect on a module for a happy life for people like me who may have known too little affection and have a burden of self-worth to proof in order to be accepted and loved.

For the purposes of background, nervous breakdown is generally viewed as a period when physical and emotional stress become intolerable and impair one’s ability to function effectively. One experiences physical, psychological, and behavioral symptoms when going through a breakdown. The signs of a nervous breakdown may however vary from person to person but a diagnosis is usually conditioned on the following symptoms: depressive symptoms such as loss of hope, anxiety with high blood pressure, tense muscles, clammy hands, dizziness, upset stomach, and trembling or shaking, insomnia, extreme mood swings or unexplained outbursts, panic attacks, which include chest pain, detachment from reality and self, extreme fear, and difficulty breathing, paranoia, such as believing someone is watching you or stalking you and flashbacks of a traumatic event. I will digress to tell two stories from which I shall pull it all together.

A story is told of David in 2nd Samuel 23: 15-17, a king longing for water is privileged to have three of his strongest men get him water against all odd by breaking the Philistine camp, David considering the effort sacred and worth as much as the blood of these soldiers poured the water as a sacrifice to the Lord. It was on Friday, when I had left a branch review and with the whole bank's end of day outstanding, I run to get a card, a gift for a loved one. I had sought to join another lane, completely mindless of a military convoy, saved by only a dent of grace but carefully insulted and humiliated by a military man whiles everyone looked on. The tale gets shorter with the card been rejected and pretty much embarrassing moments which I have very little strength to recount. At the same time I had cost business dependents considerable loss of time as end of day needed to be approved. 

Early, in the week, my Chief Operating Officer had called me indicating how much of weight I had lost and that I had to take care of my health and work as I was not the person he knew. It is an obvious fact of science that urban life presents considering stress as the meta analysis by Reddy and Chandrashekhar (1998) revealed higher prevalence of mental disorders in urban area i.e., 80.6%, whereas it was 48.9% in rural area. Mental disorders primarily composed of depression and neurotic disorders is twice as likely in urban setting as so I am sure most people reading this can relate to the acute stress and its related consequences. Herein I share my opinion for finding peace in our hyper stress environments.

1. Pursue Positive Self-affirmation. Narratives of people we consider important affects how we think of ourselves. These thoughts affects how we behave and value ourselves. Science professes the therapy called, cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a talking therapy aimed at helping people solve problems by changing how they think and behave. The premise of this help says that, the concept that your thoughts, feelings, physical sensations and actions are interconnected, and that negative thoughts and feelings can trap you in a vicious cycle. The obvious commonsensical approach therefore is to opine that we stay away from negative thoughts and people. This can however be counterproductive and we end up focusing more energy on the negative. I think it is more productive actively tendering towards the positive rather than seeking to stay away from the negative. Positive people and environment may not be common yet I think God has gifted each of us with at least one person who loves and treasure you, just as you are. The difficulty however is usually, we do not like these people and end up been the source of negative environment to them. The task therefore is of us to be positive and endearing to the gifts of love God has given us, be positive to those who seek us and to actively value those who affirm our personhood rather than dwelling too much on those we have over esteemed their opinion of us. Do not perpetrate the hurt of rejection you receive from those you love. Love when despised for your love to someone is all the energy they may need. I had always believed been with someone you love rather than someone who loves you but that way of thinking is can be a problem when your love is never enough. You must thank God for the gift to love and learn to love those who love you, we can be flexible to those who are nice to us and by allowing ourselves to be appreciated by others, the loathe of those we love will matter less over time. Allowing ourselves not to overestimate the value of the loss is important as that consequently undervalues anything else that may be had.
2. Renew you calling, a wise woman told me in the midst of these challenging times, “you cannot lose twice.” Whatever we want, for which we are stressing ourselves is not comparable to the blessing of what we have now. Denmark is known to be the happiest country, with people having a good work life balance. The ultimate secret is argued to be contentment. Contentment does not mean mediocrity but it means understanding what is important in life. Denmark is a beautiful country with its people focused on what makes them happy and fulfilled. It is a rich country where people contribute to the overall meaning by focusing on what they do best. This engenders societal trust and an enabling environment for beauty to thrive. I love what I do but in those moments, I did not have the energy to do work as I love to, the secret however is, whatever we do not have or may have lost should not make us loose the things that could potentially give us the positive self-assurance we need. Giving up all noble pursuits is a likely trap but the key is to know those pursuits are windows from which we may escape the darkness we find ourselves. 
3. Appreciate Life for purpose and its big picture. All the stress of life reaches out to an irreconcilable mess if everything is resolved to be random. The sure endless conclusion will be to no end if it is all deemed meaningless. I think one of the most powerful thought patterns than can help us overcome every darkness is to believe and know, it is intended to building the new us required for a new level in our life. 

In conclusion, let with reflect on Abraham Lincoln who suffered many of life’s setbacks and went through circumstance that could stress the most resilient and yet the 16th president of United States is deemed  to have a distinctively human and humane personality. His opinion of the way out is such gloom is known in his quote “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” Happiness is therefore not a goal but a way of living. You can be happy if you want to, right now. See the beauty in anything, look at the positive side, and count your blessings. A research by Harvard of 740 leaders indicated that 84% suffered from chronic stress which undoubtedly affected their effectiveness. The signs are obvious in the increase in addictions and attention clamoring with the shock and awe sometimes in all the nudity, but the cure in perhaps a change of mind. Let us actively engage our minds and direct it on the course of positivity for wherein is our sanity.

Death to Silence: Birth of Gratitude

It’s refreshing to break the long silence with the story of Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, who known to be a senator and historian in the Roman Empire was believed to have lived between 56 and 120 AD. Agreeably, little is known about him, either than he was a great orator, a master of rhetoric and noted for his amazing career in law and politics. He however had a cognomen (nickname) ‘Silent’. The irony of him known as ‘silent’ yet a gifted masterful orator and in command of legions interests me as I drop a pinball to end the deafening silence.

Tacitus gained Praetorship and became a member of the priestly college that kept the Sibylline Books of prophecy and supervised foreign-cult practice and yet remained and was known ‘Silent’. I explore the why and how Tacitus rose to such extraordinary heights and yet was notable for the nickname ‘Silent’. I will also share some graces as I have known them in my over a year of silence.

For the many for whom the title, Praetor, may not mean much, consider him the overlord of a province for the empire, a governor perhaps, just with a little more power to command the army and/or to be the magistrate. His heights may best be known from the quote, “Let there be two with the authority of the king, and let them be called praetors, judges and consuls from their going before, judging and consulting. Let them have the supreme right of command of the military.” (Emphasis mine) How then does such a man of such great power stay ‘silent’ and yet remained effective?

• Tacitus had an opportunity to write a biography of Agricola, his father-in-law, and from that, he explains what is meant to serve a tyrannical emperor. He lived in tough times and for a thinker as he was, I assume sober reflections took the better part of him. The surviving portion of his two major works: the Annals and the Histories examine the reigns of the Roman emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors (69 AD). A lot could be said about all these kings, but I reserve such in the interest of my communicating my point succinctly. Nero who succeeded Claudius had the reputation for tyranny and extravagance, Claudius is believed to have begun the conquest of Britain and in whose reign a lot of infrastructure development happened in Rome, a man who was subsequently murdered by poisoning. It will appear to me Tacitus, a man who himself is not known to have been born to nobility, yet at the center of such regal drama, will be silent to say the least, at least as a means of not losing focus and remaining contemplative and strategic.
• Gaius is deemed to have made significant contributions to the understanding of psychology of power. Psychologists refer to this as the paradox of power. The very traits that helped leaders accumulate control in the first place all but disappear once they rise to power. Instead of being polite, honest and group-focused, they become impulsive, reckless and rude. I am sure he thus was mindful to remain true to himself even as he walked on the corridors of power. He had to be careful to be Tacitus although titled Praetor.

People give authority to people they genuinely like. Likability is thus the essential question of leadership and influence, more so now when military might matter less, at least on the interpersonal and corporate levels. I thus come to the most essential question of this post, which I believe all of us seek: How does one become likable? How does even men like Tacitus, known men of silent become likable? Likability has become a science and there is so much to learn from the research but I highlight three things as I have learnt:

1.         Genuine likability will only proceed to the genuine. In been genuine is the trait of congruence with self which engenders the trust the leader needs. Not many people like fake, but in an era of high paid cosmetic plastic surgery, real can be difficult to ascertain. Genuineness does not in any way prevent growth and reinvention of self but genuine people know who they are. They are confident enough to be comfortable in their own skin. The may grow and evolve but always know what drives them and do not seek to be like everyone or to do things because it’s a societal norm. Perhaps Kendrick Lamar’s second verse in his song Humble makes all the point; “watch my soul speak, you let the meds talk… I’m the realest nigga after all.” I have had my identity questioned in these silent moments but I remain true to myself and my call.

2.         Love rather than fear breads likability. In "The Prince," a treatise on the art of politics, the 16th century Italian philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli insisted that compassion got in the way of eminence. If a leader has to choose between being feared or being loved, Machiavelli insisted that the leader should always go with fear. Love is overrated, he asserted. I am sure many of us may have gotten into this debate and perhaps still not sure whether or not love or fear is the gateway to likability. Note that, such were the beliefs of men like Nero under whom Tacitus served, as the story of Rome was been told, there existed a parallel development of Jesus of Nazareth who had been crucified and his followership had become revolts in the empire. Their leader had told them "It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant.” They had been taught to love their enemies and to choose love irrespective of the cost. In retrospect, Rome became the foremost proponent of the Gospel of Jesus of which it was the fiercest critique, Rome fell and Jesus triumphed surviving into 2018 AD. I have had in these year the hard choice of love sometimes unto rejection and acquiescing to a path of fear, and hard as it has always been, I elect love as a lover of Jesus, assured of this one thing that His words are true.

3.        Finally, to the grateful heart favour proceeds. Gratitude as a word is a gift from Latin, with its origin among the Romans. I am fortunate to have learnt Latin for two years. The word is from ‘Gratus’ which is a masculine, a feminine variation of ‘Grata’. It is from the Singular Masculine Vocative that we get ‘Grate’, the base for grateful or gratitude. The word is more of an inference to a ‘pleasing’ disposition but the English define grate as reducing to small shreds. I believe the way out of such obscurity is to reduce the complexities into small shred with a pleasing disposition appreciating how each strand has led to building who you are.

I end with a quote by Tacitus of the Emperior Otho, “Namque Otho pueritiam incuriose, adulescentiam petulanter egerat, gratus Neroni aemulatione luxus” which literally means, “For Otho's had been a neglected boyhood and a riotous youth, and he had made himself agreeable to Nero by emulating his profligacy.” Otho became an emperior for only three months, was banished, led his men into revolt of which many died, his wife was taken by Nero the King he sought approval from and later committed suicide. In conclusion, I suggest to you that, in silent sober introspection and truth to self, Tacitus although not known of noble birth rose above all having a grateful heart even when he served the worst of tyrants and yet Otho seeking to be like Nero and by such forsaking all He was, seeking to be pleasing to him and following after his profligacy ended up losing his wife and life. I beseech you to have a grateful heart, remain true to yourself and choose love if even that path does not lead to the easiest course, the sure and certain end of purpose it shall. Happy new year my friends.