Zachary Aldwin : Milkshake in the boardroom
The crux of the conversation was the differences in the people he would interview here in Zimbabwe and those in the USA. His main observation was that workers here, when interviewed, were all copy-paste clones that could tell you what they did, but had no tie-in to the company vision or history. Essentially you can interview almost any person in any industry and be able to use that interview in any other company’s documentary.They all sound and behave the same. He compared this to his experiences in other countries where you could have two companies in the same industry, the same field, and interview two workers in the same position and get totally different flavours of interview.
Take, for example, oil drilling rigs. Company One is a long standing company with a rich history and tradition.
The worker might say ‘‘I work here because I know these guys will take care of me, I’m in it for the long haul and love security of the job. This part I’m replacing today has been chosen because it will last longer than anything else on the market.’’ Company Two is a rapid rise, new firm that has been going for ten years.
The interview goes something like ‘‘I love change and innovation, here we are on the cutting edge of technology and this part we are changing here today is the most up-to-date, efficient one we can find.’’ The Zimbabwean equivalent, should we drill oil, would be ‘‘I work here. We drill oil. I’m taking this part out and putting another one.’’
In summary, he said, no one has their own story. There is no personal buy-in to the company brand and no filter down of company vision. Even upper management, where you may expect education to play a role, tend to parrot from which ever management book they have just read.
Flowing on from this conversation I looked at the vision and values of a random selection of half a dozen ZSE listed companies. Five of the six listed ‘‘Integrity’’ as a value. ‘‘Teams’’, ‘‘accountability’’, ‘‘excellence’’, ‘‘openness’’, and ‘‘passion’’ each scored three hits.
Phrases like ‘‘the best’’ and ‘‘a market leader’’ peppered vision and mission statements. I am tempted to expand the comparison across the entire stock exchange to see if the similarity persists on a larger scale.
Now these are not wrong values. If all we are doing, however, is creating textbook companies with no flavour of their own then perhaps that is why our workers all behave the same across sectors.
When there are five of you trying to be ‘‘the best’’ in a field it leaves little to differentiate between you.
Tell your story. What do you really do and why do you do it? Figure that out and put it into your vision. Let your webpage resound with your story and the particular edge you bring to the field.
Filter your vision (which really should encapsulate your story) down. Don’t just hire for the sake of hiring; hire for the match with your vision.
Hire for the attitude that matches what you want in your company. Create a position where others of a similar persuasion are joined to your cause.
I do not think that all Zimbabweans are clones of each other. They just need to be put in the right places that allow them to flourish. Bring out the different flavours of personality that we have working in our organisations.
Create the buy-in with them so that when someone asks what they do they do not just parrot out company policy in a mindless fashion, but rather, with exuberance, passion and pride they tell your story as if it was their own.
E-mail: boardmilkshake@gmail.com