What has influence got to do with it?

Last week I wrote on the heart of entrepreneurship and the resilient spirit every entrepreneur needs to lead a profitable organization, which goes beyond the academic tutelage of entrepreneurship.  Beyond having a resilient spirit is the need to be surrounded by a loyal and skilled workforce. There is an African adage that says “an Iroko tree does not stand alone in the forest”. What this means is that there can never be a great or successful entrepreneur without the support of his or her people. Every successful organization is an evidence of an integrated and excellent workforce.

Todays business environment has evolved from the days of the formal dress code to the acceptable norm of the term ‘corporate casual”. This evolution found its way into the corporate world in the 21st century.  Gone where the fat knotted ties and in came the open neck shirts. Gone where the leather briefcases, replaced by the knapsacks and the laptop bags.  The 21st century became a mother to numerous changes that saw the business terrain mutate to what it has become today. Chief amongst these changes and in my opinion most vocalized are the subjects of corporate culture, leadership within an organization and harnessing talent for growth and return on investment.

Organizations have become aware of the importance people development plays in the success of every organization. Though the world is hurtling towards automation of services, still, human capital has proven to be the best asset owned by an organization. Examining how successful international brands have harnessed this asset to achieve global success will help Nigerian organizations evolve and thrive.

Taking a look at the Virgin group, the company’s organizational goals are tied to the goals of the founder, Sir. Richard Branson. Virgins’ management style reflects three out of the five management styles formulated by the Management theorist F. Taylor. This comprises- training, selection and payment pecked on results, reflecting the organizations great emphasis on its people as the pivot for driving the success of the organization today. Sir Richard believes in investing in talent, intelligence and rewarding hard work, his transformational leadership characteristics celebrates influence rather than coercion and penalty. It was Max Depree in his book “Leading without power: Finding hope in serving community” who stated, “Earning trust is not easy, nor is it cheap, nor does it happen quickly. Earning trust is hard and demanding work. Trust comes only with genuine effort, never with a lick and a promise.” Thus, the business success of the Virgin Group springs from its founders ability to inspire trust and to influence his organizations processes, the actions and work ethics of his people and making his goals, passion and vision theirs. Virgin operates an amorphous approach to decision-making; this is as a result of the brands presence in over 100 countries and its mergers and acquisitions of over 200 companies worldwide. To properly harness and control this giant Sir Richard Branson ensured each business regardless of their diversity lays great emphasis on the different business environment where each partnership operates. The other factors that played a role in the web of success of the virgin brand is the ability to adapt and think outside the traditional and rigid requirements of running a business but rather focusing on innovation, trends, transformational leadership and peak performance through motivation, achieving a high level of loyalty and commitment amongst employee, clients and partners.

Despite its complex business model, integration and independent operation of each business within the group, the leadership of the Virgin Group has been able to translate the organizational culture and the glamorous virgin brand across board ensuring each business speaks the same vibrant, youthful and vivacious character of the organization and the founder.

Google is not exempt from using influence through transformational leadership to birth a globally successful organization. The phrase “what would we do without Google” and “thank God for Google” has been bandied about on twitter and across all other social media. Google has not only pioneered but has remained the leader in search engine technology and software, birthing a transformational change in how businesses and institutions operate. Google’s focus on people development is also worth looking at. To foster team building, Google developed  “Project Oxygen” to identify what managers need to do to become effective leaders. Like Virgin, Google has a forward thinking Leader that incorporates innovation to meet up with changing trends. Key focus for Google is on empowering teams and eliminating micromanaging, promoting productivity and results, communication skill, team building, vision, strategy and open door policy that allow a free flow of communication between management and staff.

A look at the Nigerian business terrain shows a slight universal shift towards a transformational style of Leadership. However, there is still the need for change in reorienting Nigerian organizations on the importance of   applying influence and not coercion, penalty or bullying to empower employees to strive for a better professional track record. This ultimately will lead to return on investment. It is not enough to celebrate business moguls and their successes through monopoly. An in-depth x-raying of policies and corporate culture needs to be carried out on Nigerian organizations to have a holistic picture of the impact of influence on employee engagement and return on investment.

Taking a preliminary foray into the suggested research in the preceding paragraph, it is noteworthy that there are Nigerian entrepreneurs who understand the power of influence and transformational leadership who are currently empowering, mentoring and coaching their employees to achieve verifiable and profitable results. Organizations such as those led by Mike Adenuga the business Mogul behind Globacom the foremost indigenous Nigerian Telecommunications Company, Ernest Azudialo who won the Sun Business person of the Year in 2014. He is also the business maestro behind Nestoil Plc.  and Namdi Okere the founder of Computer Warehouse Group.

I found the Computer Warehouse Group’s story quite fascinating. It is quite rare to have an African company go under the microscopic lens of an American Ivy league school not to talk of a Nigerian organization. Going through excepts of the case study carried out on the Computer Warehouse Group by M.I.T it is amazing that someone who once considered himself an “unlikely entrepreneur” did an amazing job of leading a successful business through positive influence. This validates the core of this article. Below are some excepts from the case study; “The CWG has a reputation for entrepreneurial leadership, well-trained and motivated employees and a penchant for customer service, what okere called “customer intimacy.”

To ensure the organization has sufficient workforce to meet their growing expansion needs and to beat the nomadic tendencies of employees and also build loyalty, Okere solicited for international certification for his engineers, which became a point of pride for CWG and its primary assets. “We were working with Universities in Ghana, Uganda and Nigeria to encourage the development of technical engineers with world-class skills. We gave prices to the top-graduating students of these departments, and offered employment.  For CWG, addressing the skills shortage removed a barrier to its future expansion plans and created an opportunity to make a positive contribution to growing intellectual capital in an area that was crucial to Africa’s future economic development.”

The point is that CWG is a great example for Nigerian organizations to understudy. Their culture and policies and integration of people and processes to achieve success are a great case study. Looking at all the successful brands such as The Virgin group, Google, Facebook, The Hilton group, Globacom, Nestoil, CWG amongst others, we can see a trend in the leadership style and corporate culture of these organizations.

I am a firm believer that using positive influence and transformational leadership trumps the use of power, office or position to motivate any workforce or grow an organization.

MUNA ONUZO