Conscientious Objector: The Kangaroo Plan & Other Analogies

Conscientious Objector: The Kangaroo Plan & Other Analogies: "The Kangaroo Plan & Other Analogies The other day I was talking with two former small business clients of mine just catching up. Then ..."

The Kangaroo Plan & Other Analogies

The Kangaroo Plan & Other Analogies

The other day I was talking with two former small business clients of mine just catching up. Then we started talking about my new business ventures. At the end of our conversation, one of them asked if he could be a part of my business. I said sure – if his had a half of million dollars to purchase the license, why not. He laughed and suggested that how about he sign-up to get the license and when the business picks up he can then give me the licensing fee. I smiled in turn and said “Sure, that’s what I call in business a ‘Kangaroo Plan’, so keep on hoping!”  The other guy asked me what a “kangaroo plan” is. I explained that as you know the Kangaroo has a pouch it carries its baby, so a “business kangaroo plan is when you carry someone in your pouch and you do all the hopping work! We all burst out laughing. He like the term and was going to use it from then on. The Kangaroo plan is an expression I use often in my business training and conversations with small business clients. However, up until then no one had ever asked me what it meant so I had not really articulated the meaning of it. I just assumed that whoever heard me say it understood what I meant.
I recalled that a very dear friend of mine once said to me, I used a lot of animal analogies in my conversations. As it happens she was venting about her eldest brother’s mannerisms and I told her he is “a damn Rooster”. She asked me why I had called him a Rooster. Well, I explained that from what she was saying, all he does is stand on the family pedestal suggesting ideas and ordering everyone around, but he never steps up to the plate to execute solutions or contribute funds to the family problems – well that’s a Rooster! It gets up at the crack of dawn to give its crow, waking everybody else then spend the rest of the day doing nothing else but posturing in the yard or chasing the hens! She laughed so hard because she said it was so befitting of his mannerism. Then another time we were debating, more like disagreeing over something and I said she was acting like a goat (being stubborn and silly at the same time)!  She called her mother and told her I had called her a goat! Her mom thought it was hilarious, and agreed with me –she is a country girl who grew up in Louisiana – she knows how goats behave. From then on every time we got into our heated debates, I would accuse her of being a goat again and we would just burst out laughing and the difference of opinion would dissipate.

Growing up half my childhood life on a commercial farm owned by my paternal grandparents involved living and interacting with a lot of farm animals, as well as some wild ones too. We had cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, donkeys, dogs, cats, etc, encountered hyenas, vultures, rabbits, deer, monkey, baboons, snakes, lizards and all sort of insects!  The stereotype that in African people are living happily with lions, elephants, cheetahs, zebras and the like is not true. The ‘real’ wild animals don’t come near human habitats unless they get desperate for food. Anyway the experience of living on a farm taught me a lot about animal behavior. Over the years I unconsciously related these behaviors to human personalities and habits. It wasn’t till my friend made her observations about my analogies that I realized how often I make these parallels.

I have seen a lot roosters, goats, hens, bulls, cows, pigs goats and sheep in many of us! Hens fuss a lot for no apparent reason like damsels in distress and seemingly on the brink of hysteria, donkeys just take it and take it and then one day they just go rouge in public without warning; bulls always take charge stay cool and take their sweet time, sheep just follow each other in a bunch and if one gets separated it becomes so frantic like it missing its body parts, prigs are dirty, sloppy greedy and act like there is scarcity, monkeys are always needing something and when they can’t get it they will steal it and they are cunning at it too, baboons are very territorial, bullies and swagger around with a sense of entitlement and authority over what I don’t know. However cows are the most interesting because they have such diverse mannerism and behaviors. This I learnt from herding cattle.

Although we always had farm workers, my grandfather believed that ownership comes with responsibility and  a disciplined work ethic. When we visited on school holidays all the vazukuru (grandchildren) had to participate in some of the farm chores reserved for the grandchildren, like cattle herding, sheep and goat herding, weeding my grandmother’s groundnuts fields and occasionally going to the dip-tank, a system to combat cattle disease. The duty I liked most was going to dip-tank, because all I did was eavesdrop on conversations between my father, grandfather and uncles catch up with the other farmers and watch the cattle resist getting in the chemical water, but once they were in the barrack line resistance was futile! It was not a frequent chore as the cattle only went there once every six months or so. From this experience I learnt about what I now call the ‘dip-tank management style’ in organization management. However, of the herding chores sheep were easiest…they always stay together like jello! Cattle herding, which was the most frequent duty we did, was better than goats which were your worst nightmare. You got the goat herding chore instead of time-out. With experience, having cattle duty became easy - all you needed to do was keep the heard together in a contained spot till they were done grazing, then take them to the water hole  in the paddock. Thereafter, the sun would be too hot and once they had grazed and drank they usually go under the tree shed to sleep or just get away from sun..

 So one day, my cousin and I had the duty of herding cattle instead of going to the groundnuts field. It was one of those holidays close to harvesting season when all the maize (corn) is nice and green in the fields. The first rule of thumb in herding cattle was one had to watch them at all times. The second was making sure that the cattle don’t go into the maize field. My cousin and I had done this a million times. It was better than going to plough weeds in my grandmother’s ground nuts fields. Anyway on that day when we were herding cattle my cousin and I were supposed to drive the cattle to the paddock for their grazing, but we didn’t feel like it. Besides there were parts of the paddock that gave us the creeps when the vegetation was green and thick, so we were scared of being in there in the mornings because the cattle would have more energy and enthusiasm to wonder than later in the day when the sun is too hot in the afternoon and we could control them easier. She and I decided we were not taking them into the paddock but were going to keep them in another part of the farm with a grazing field near the house. All morning we managed to do this, and then to keep ourselves entertained we started playing hide and seek. After much  running around we decided to sit on the flat expansive granite rock (ruware) to enjoy the sun, tease some lizards while eating some wild berries we had pick up and continue our endless chatting. Then we fell asleep in the warm sun only to be awoken by loud yelling and screaming going on from the workers. From the direction where the noise was coming from, we knew instantly the cattle were in the maize field! We were in trouble. Our next chore would certainly be goat herding! It was. We were relegated to goat herding till my grandmother protested on our behalf.

Usually cattle are domesticated well and they know they were not supposed to go into maize fields. But in this particular herd there was one unruly naughty cow called “Milka”, so named because she always gave lots of milk, and she is the one we all knew had to watch. Milka could lead the entire herd astray and unravel your day with one move. Keep her in check and the whole heard would also be under control.  Due to her notorious tricks Milka wore a bell around her neck because she was known to wander off into all sorts of places and trouble and you could hear her comings and goings! I can never forget that damn bell of hers. Whenever it rang faster, you knew she was up to no good. Afterwards she would have such a look of contentment and satisfaction from her mischief. She was so boldly unruly that it was like dealing with a conniving, manipulative female human being. She would watch you all the time and the moment she realized you were not paying attention she would be at her shenanigans – whatever her flavor of trouble was for the day. I think she resented humans for taking her milk every morning.
I remember another incident I had with Milka. My cousin and I had been on cattle duty again, and we had had a great day in the paddock with the cattle. As we were heading home she broke away from the head and made a run for this thicket in the paddock. This thicket always gave me the creeps because it was a dark cluster of these big bushes, trees and vines all clumped up in this area. You could see through it but it was so dark, you did not know what might be lurking in it.  When she got into it, Milka just stood in the middle of it watch my cousin and I throwing stones at her trying to get her out. Two hours later she was still standing there, we were almost in tears as it was getting late and dark. It was like she was getting even with us, taunting and mocking us. We felt powerless. Finally by some miracle one of the bulls called Masvivi (named after my great grandfather) just got tired of it and went into the thicket and started thumping her with his horns till she got out. I was so angry at her I threw sticks at her all the way home.  As it got late, my grandfather got worried and had sent the workers to look for us because they did not know why we had not shown up. Being late usually meant that the cattle may have gone into the neighboring farmer’s fields and he would hold the cattle hostage till a ransom was agreed on. That was how disputes were resolved among the farmers.

The day of the maize raid, we knew Milka had orchestrated it. For a while we were not allowed to have cattle duty till my grandmother’s protest and also my brother and my cousin’s brother left the cattle to go into the neighboring farmer’s maize field. That was worse. They had been swimming in the paddock pond and lost sight of the cattle. Of course who had taken the lead into this trouble – Milka. I don’t remember what eventually happened to Milka but she certainly left a lasting impression on me. In school and at work I have encountered lots of female Milka’s too!

Copyright @ June 18, 2011 by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA (Strategy Leadership Institute in Private & Public Affairs); Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.

URBAN Entrepreneurship: Challenges & Solutions

Attended the White House Urban Entrepreneurship Summit at Rutgers-Newark today....what an eye opener!!! I urge all Africans to take their development best practices and repackage them for developed emerging markets, for this is intellectual property capital bar none!!! Our breakfast keynote speaker was Russell Simmons with his latest book, Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All. The first thing he said was integration destroyed minority entrepreneurship because it destroyed self sufficiency and innovation in the black neighborhoods. I expected to hear gasps in the room there were non so I took it as concurrence. It sounded like a social capital argument; I am not a fan of Putnam. Then he redeemed himself in my mind by saying in his conclusion forget just being friends with just people of your own race or ethnicity – make friends outside your comfort zone, network, invite diversity to your dinner party, because business is about embracing and knowing people of all backgrounds. He gets it.

The essence of the Summit was discussing ideas on how we can best promote urban entrepreneurship? Many ideas were generated from this conference. Of interest was the first panel of practicing entrepreneurs that gave their testimonials – challenges with people management, motivation and incentives;  payroll taxes to worker’s compensation; business liability insurance; building a business that’s scalable; operations management; need for more entrepreneurship training to CEO personal development and giving back through mentoring.

The other panel I had a chance to sit through was on public-private partnerships for urban entrepreneurship development made of all the local, federal, and not-for-profit dignitaries. I have been in this conversation before. They were selling PR. How much cash infusion (really AID) is “invested” into minority and women businesses and urban entrepreneurs to get them on a level playing field; what resources are available; all the initiatives coming out of Washington that will be so great for this business constituency; how much we finally got it in this administration or the other; initiatives and programs to promote young entrepreneurship – the catch them while they are young approach; how we love our urban entrepreneurs and how we feel their pain and suffering and we are trying to do everything we can to get them started and going. This is a common narrative! Frankly as an administrator in small business development, I am fatigued by this narrative and sometimes feel hopelessly defeated! Its well meaning sounds good, if not great at times even inspiring. But is inspiration what we need in this era of globalization? Sometimes they get it and sound like they are on point (like today) but sometimes they are completely disconnected from reality.

No one on this panel talked about technology competiveness and global competitiveness. We are living in the first developed wealthy country of the world with everything available in excess yet access to internet technology is inaccessible to most residents and microenterprises of the urban community. It should be free because, even if they wanted it they couldn’t afford the monthly premiums. For the businesses, they come for business plan training and they have no typing skills, writing skills, analytical skills – forget research skills – that we can teach, but one has to know how interpret that data! They do not know how to download basic information or use social media functionally to grow their businesses at no cost at all even if they have access to online technology. It’s unnerving to say the least and there is lots of work to be done.

My question to the public-private partnership panel was: “How come no one at the local, state or federal level had ever thought of putting an application demo or simulation that would help the federal or state contracting procurement process; such as  having the online business registration process demos; or the licensing and permit application demo; or the copyright, trademark registration process demo; or the minority, woman and veterans business enterprise certification application demo so that we can teach small businesses about completing the application form, demystify these application qualifying processes thus more businesses will gain access to these government procurement opportunities, instead of having only a live online protocol process that is accessible one business at time?” I have a PhD in research capability and even I sometimes find the process daunting when I have to do it for a small business! They looked at me strange – maybe it was my accent – who knows. Its common sense! I was clear at the implications of my question - if you want to get urban entrepreneurs to access opportunities you need to remove the barriers we all know are preventing them from getting it. Such as complicated application processes and certification requirement and buddle contracts that they cannot access because they have not yet mobilized the capacity and capability yet they are potentially successful small businesses.  You can’t put a big piece of T-bone steak in from of a baby and wonder why they are not eating it – they need to grow teeth first before they get bite into that steak. How do small businesses grow teeth, by trying out small contracts and fulfilling them so that as they grow they gain experience and capability to enable them to manage big ones. It was a similar question I asked to the White House Ex-Im Bank delegation to Newark about why they did not have different export-import financial funding packages based on business size that would enable different small, medium and big businesses to benefit from their services, like fishing nets with different hole sizes that enable a fisherman to catch different size fish if he so chooses. If we really want small businesses to participate in export initiatives we have to give them incentives that fit their sizes and gradually graduate them to medium then big business. Another aha moment!

As a public administrator, I know that too much customization or specialization of programs increases the cost of doing business, but the benefits in the long run outweighs the costs.  If reduces the income disparities. The Minority Business Development Agency notes that the quantity of minority businesses does not match the quality of revenue earnings from this business community given their numbers in the economy. The US Census Bureau study in 2002 of large minority businesses ($1million+ in revenue) vs. small minority businesses (under $1m) showed that 2% of large firms grossed 64% of revenues and had 58% paid employees whereas in comparison 98% of the small firm grossed 36% of revenues and had 42% paid employees! Clearly the difference in job creation was small yet the gross revenue disparity was much bigger. The implications are that wealth in large firms is in the hand of a few, yet they are benefit from exclusive government contracts that the smaller firms cannot access at their under 1 million dollar levels of capacity yet they are producing comparable job creation in the economy. The benefits of letting small firms take a bite of the pie certainly will outweigh the administration cost of introducing programs that they can access in the mean time. Using this data, the MBDA concluded that “while smaller in number, minority firms with receipts of $1million or more generate a much larger percentage of all minority revenues and paid employment than firms with receipts under $1 million.” What they do not mention is that at these gross revenue levels the percentage of paid employees is too low given that the opportunities are only open to a significant few – 2%. My conclusion, urban entrepreneurs and small firms are marginalized from access to procurement opportunities by government policy design!  

Copyright @ June 6, 2011 by Dr. Tendai Ndoro begin_of_the_skype_highlighting  end_of_the_skype_highl(DocNdoro) – Founder, SLIPPA (Strategy Leadership Institute in Private & Public Affairs); Brighten The Corner Foundation; CEO EDCTrainers, LLC.