Skip to main content

SPORTS AS AN ANALOGY FOR BUSINESS


Like everybody else I know, my spirit was lifted by the success of our athletes at the World Athletics Championships last week.

The diminutive Halima Nakaayi showed the heart of a lion, sprinting over the last 100m of the women’s 800m event to snatch victory from a more favoured American runner. It was so uplifting to watch. Subsequent stories about the challenges she has had to overcome to get where she is now were testament to the determination of the woman.

Joshua Cheptegei’s victory, while no less inspiring, had a different quality to it. Cheptegei was the man to watch going into the event. He won previously at the Commonwealth Games last year and the in the just concluded Golden League. He was a silver medalist in the 10,000m at the last World Championships in London, pipped to the tape by the now retired Mo Farah.

Cheptgei still had to battle the Kenyans and the Ethiopians all the way. But as a favourite he lived up to expectations, which sometimes is more difficult than not being expected to win and winning, like Nakaayi.

The Uganda team, which represented us in Qatar have useful lessons for business.

But using Nakaayi and Cheptegei as examples, this is what I learn from their process and eventual success.

Like almost all businesses in Uganda the two champions have been working with so little and delivered so much. Nakaayi talked of athletes who could not even afford a bottle of water during training but still show up, lace up and get on with it.

In our context the Ugandan businessman has a lot going against him –  little capital, and even when its available its expensive, a lack of networks to leverage, challenges of taxation and a general high cost environment. But every day they turn up for work and do the best they can under the circumstances.

Nakaayi and Cheptegei begun by working very hard under horrendous conditions. Their hard work, while people around them were whining and complaining, led to some limited success which got them noticed by powerful agents and companies abroad. The same in business we need to work hard in our current circumstances, the hard work will lead to growth and eventually we will be noticed by more powerful partners with whom we can grow to the next level.

But one has to define hard work.

I am sure Cheptegei and Nakaayi don’t just go out and run for hours, at any time of the day and over random routes. I am sure they have a schedule which regulates their work and rest, they have specific exercises intended to improve their overall performance and I am sure too, that they watch what they eat.

The same in business hard work does not mean being everything – owner, salesman, accountant, watchman in your business and working around the clock. Of course in the beginning you may very well find that to be true, but for the business to succeed most of the work will be done building the systems and placing people to run them...

If you think about it why would a partner, investor or financier be interested in your business if when you, the owner/salesman/watchman were hit by a boda and died the business would go with you?

Now that they have reached the pinnacle of their sport only time will tell whether they can sustain success. They are young and should be able to have more success in future. They will find that it is just as hard or even harder to stay at the top, as it is to climb to the top.

In business too, when our first big deal comes we need to keep our excitement under control. We need to keep doing what we have been doing to get to that point. So for example if It has taken 20 pitches to get the one sale, be prepared to do 20 more to get the next. Just because you have enjoyed some success shouldn’t make us relax.

There are things, which have to be done whether you are a success or not. Keeping your shop open, marketing, which sets up your sales, cost management, system building and meeting obligations. When success comes for athletes and businesses it’s almost as if you have to run faster just to stay in the same place.

Again congratulations to Nakaayi and Cheptegei for their success and for serving as an example to all of us.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NOT ONLY THE HARDWARE BUT THE SOFTWARE TOO

In the middle of September the United Nations released its annual Human Development Indicator (HDI). This index serves as an indicator of the quality of life of a country’s people by measuring the health, education, inequality, poverty and security standards. Aside from the statistical measures of development like GDP growth, this is obviously a better measure of how people are actually doing. In this year’s HDI report Uganda was ranked 162 out of 189 countries with a HDI score of 0.516. The index goes from zero to one, the nearer you are to one the better. Our score puts us in the low human development category. But as bad as that sounds we have been worse. In 1990, the earliest year that these figures were compiled our score was 0.311 even the UN recognises that we have improved 66 percent in the last three decades. According to the UN figures life expectancy has risen to 60.2 years   from 45.5 in 1990; expected years of schooling has doubled to 11.6 fr...
Post a Comment
Read more

THE MUKWANO I KNEW

We have lost the greatest Ugandan entrepreneur of our time, Mr Amirali Karmali, more popularly known as Mzee Mukwano. I have known Mzee Mukwano for more than 40 years and most of what I am today is due to him. And I am not alone. "He has helped countless people through school – as he did me. Helped countless more in business – as he did me. And he has been a steadfast friend and source of support to countless more – as he was to me.... I first met Mukwano around about 1977. My mother was the secretary for the chief of operations at Uganda Airlines, a man I knew only as Hamid. Mukwano had come to charter the Uganda Airlines’ Hercules plane and I happened to be around the office then. He was a short man, an unassuming man, but clearly a serious businessman who would charter the plane to bring in goods that were in high demand here. He run a popular whole sale shop in Nakasero – Egesa Commercial Agencies, a beehive of activity and the go-to place for anythin...
Post a Comment
Read more

FINANCING OUR ENTREPRENEURS, A CHALLENGE WE CANNOT IGNORE

In recent weeks the issues of financing for business has been in the news, in one form or the other. We have seen the challenge a past minister is facing with having to hang onto his home. The case is in court, so we can’t discuss its merits and demerits, just to say he may have fallen prey to some predatory practices, with the lender skirting dangerously on the edge of the law. Across the border in Kenya a cap on bank lending rates has been repealed. Three years ago Kenya’s parliament passed a law restricting lending rates to two percentage points above the rate at which the central bank lent money. In reaction banks pulled back their lending to businesses, depressing the economy and prompting the reversal. So now banks can “properly” price their loans, often to the discomfort of small and medium sized businesses. The two incidents are related and speak to the availability and cost of credit. In my business career I have benefitted immensely from credit. It is next...
Post a Comment
Read more

GOOD BUSINESS SENSE WILL HELP OUR AGRICULTURE

The recent drought has at once alerted us to our deficiencies in our agriculture production and reawakened a drive to revitalise the sector. How is it that a country with half the arable land in the region has people suffering starvation? How is that our crops dried up in the fields when a fifth of our land mass is under water? And on a macro level how is it that the 70 percent of our people who rely on the land directly for a living, account for 30 percent of our economic output or GDP? Given our natural endowments in land, weather and manpower it is obvious that we are performing well below our potential. Reversing this trend of affairs should be the concern of everybody in the country. A lot of the debate has revolved around increasing production, value addition and market access locally and internationally. And rightly so. Taking one example the Uganda Coffee Development Authority says that the average yield per hectare is half a ton of coffee. But meanwhile with...
Post a Comment
Read more

OIL: WE NEED TO GET OUR ACT TOGETHER… YESTERDAY

(Published February, 2017) We are on the cusp of an important period in the history of this country and whether we can derive maximum advantage from this will depend on our capacity to put aside petty rivalries and come together as the business community. Over the next three years at least $20b or almost the size of the entire economy will be spent in readying us for first oil. This money will be spent on building infrastructure in the oil bearing areas of western Uganda, on our side of the oil pipeline to the Tanzanian port of Tanga, on the oil refinery and any number of things that will be needed to support oil production. About $3b (sh11trillion) was spent during the exploration phase of which less than three in every ten shillings   or about sh3trillion went to local contractors and suppliers. But this happened over eight years. This despite our local disorganisation and ignorance of the industry and its dynamics. However we should not be content with t...
Post a Comment
Read more

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR GRADUATION, ITS NOW TIME TO WORK….

Thousands of students will be graduating from their respective universities in coming days and months. Makerere, our country’s oldest university will kick off its ceremonies on January 15th and the other universities will follow. The graduates have already had a taste of the real life, having finished their studies mid last year and tried to get employed. Many know by now that the world can be harsh and unforgiving. I hope many are tightening their belts in readiness for the struggle ahead. Some may have decided to kick the tin down the road by continuing with school. And others may have given up altogether. My prayer is that there are more of the first and less of the last kind. In talking to young people, I find that what is needed is a reorientation of their minds – a mindset change. Let me share with you certain facts to help manage their expectations of the world and how they can fulfil their potential in our context. First of all, the world owes you ...
Post a Comment
Read more