The Federal Republic of Incompetent People [FRIP]
PART ONE [UNEDITED]
How did we get here?
This is a book in the making but will begin as a series of articles and podcasts.
We may have lost our bearing on the most fundamental thing and I am hoping this will serve as a compass to lead us back to the values, required to build a great society that thrives socially and economically.
The title had to be provocative to capture the attention of an extremely distracted generation. Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, there is clearly a proliferation of seminars, workshops, and teachings on career and professional related topics across the globe. Nigeria is not lagging in content. In fact, I once joked, there are more teachers and preachers on Facebook than there are people to listen to. I am hoping I can redirect the efforts of all we self-styled professors, to aim at where it really bites — the issue of incompetence.
Every day, I now receive at least a call from a business leader or associate, seeking a versatile and competent resource to hire and I am wondering, why don’t the teachers address this issue. Some think its tiny drops of water that make a mighty ocean; well frankly speaking a lot of the content is ethanol (what I sometimes call air) and evaporates before it hits the ground.
Just yesterday, I called a client and she sounded extremely grumpy and after probing further she said, “work is frustrating me”. I immediately said let me guess, “you’re likely inundated with opportunities but have no one to get the work done with you. i.e. no access to a reliable, competent and affordable business analyst or generalist with basic thinking and writing skills”. She said I was not only right, but it was extremely “upsetting” to her considering the plethora of training out there on social media. This lady, by the way, is an international media executive whose mentors include some of the World’s most successful women including Fortune 500 Executives and U.S Government officials; I saw the pictures. But here she could not find a good graduate to pay N150k a month and go to sleep on her work — the requirement is basic comprehension and composition from Secondary School English language, with a tiny dose of research and analytical thinking skills. I have these calls literarily every day from different places.
I know a leading medical practice that has been existing for over 30 years. The clinic has a policy of retraining certified Doctors, who by the way already spent 6years+ in medical school, before allowing them to treat patients because they actually need retraining. Same for nurses and other medical professionals. Another clinic I know has a policy against hiring from Teaching hospitals. While the underlying causes of these issues run deeper than my superficial examples, it is important to bring the attention of Nigerians to the issue itself.
I have two top public servants who asked me to send business analysts to their offices and they would pay their salaries and I declined because I was not ready to babysit any untrained graduate and our current training school cannot meet demand. A summary is middle-level civil servants lack basic competencies for use of Spreadsheets for data gathering and analysis, PowerPoint presentations, creating executive-ready proposals and reports for critical decision making. But are still pursuing post-graduate degrees, spending money, and aiming at the wrong target.
I am currently recruiting to fill the roles of Human Resource and Finance Manager for a client. Instead of being spoilt for choice, I am finding it extremely difficult. From experience, I have discovered that competent HR and Finance Managers are extremely difficult to find because the respective professionals in the market do not understand the strategic functions attached to such roles. So on one hand, you have aspiring professionals spending time and money acquiring professional certifications, which have good objectives but miss the actual mark — value desperately required by business owners and decision-makers. For instance, quite a number of HR managers do not know how to design effective and agile performance management systems that can help management make strategic decisions about Human Resource costs or contributions; no wonder most CEOs relegate HR to a small support function when it should be the top three critical functions if not already performed by the CEO. Most Senior Accountants and some Financial Controllers, that should be positioning for the role of Finance Manager, on the way to becoming CFOs, cannot build financial models, determine the most critical financial ratios to analyze and track for businesses and help a Chief Executive Officer make informed decisions about the capital structure of the business, strategy, and finance, cost rationalization and so on.
Let me bring it home. Even in faith-based organizations — where we are taught to believe we can fly, which I believe personally; when the rubber hits the road, I have observed that clergymen do not rely on their congregants for highly skilled professional or competent workers in countless cases I have experienced when it comes to dealing with matters of management, science and engineering. While we applaud the meritocracy practiced to engage the best for the required work, there is a more difficult conversation we need to have — are our people competent? Selah. These happen even at the secretariat or organizational office level. Nigeria is a society that is still learning how to tell itself the truth, which according to the Good book is truly the only way to our freedom.
The anomaly for me is the underappreciation of the subject of competence. This phenomenon, in my opinion, is one of the reasons why we are where we are, as a nation.
Let me further drive home the sad point — we were filling the role of General Manager for a 100-room hotel in one of the South-South States. The Promoters told me point-blank at the beginning of the project — get us someone from Ghana, Kenya, or Rwanda. So, in the whole of the South-South with all the unemployment, we cannot find a GM material? We ended up shortlisting two Indians and were spoilt for choice. What about an upscale Restaurant in central Nigeria, where we had to bring in a Mexican to manage the place and ensure the Promoters’ over N100m investment does not go down the drain. The guy sure delivered value — showing us how to build harmony between service, the food, waiters, music, and ambient lighting, to create the perfect experience for the customer. That revealed to us his deep competence in managing restaurants.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have countless stories!
I watched a documentary recently about the battle for supremacy between the United States and China, on one of the next frontiers that will define mankind — Artificial Intelligence. Computers are now beating the World’s best game players, detecting cancers more accurately than humans Doctors and driving trucks autonomously in the U.S. These products are built by companies that are owned and managed by CEOs and Executives who are under 35years. These are hardcore competencies that drive societies and deliver the development we all so desire. In my beloved country, our motivation and inspiration are heavily skewed to entertainment and soft skills. I do not have a problem with either but let me illustrate the problem. Nigeria’s professors and educational trainers are likened to an engineer who spends time describing the colour of the car, parts of the car, the name of the car, the history of the car, the motivation of the manufacturer of the car, and so on, but never actually teaches anyone how to build or drive the car — which is the real value proposition required to deliver development for a nation.
We know SME business owners spend a considerable amount of time reversing the negative effects of incompetent and poorly trained employees. We have seen some CEOs performing the tasks that otherwise should have been done by young entry-level brilliant graduates or NYSC members — who crying there are no Jobs. Such tasks include proposal writing (one of the most sought-after but yet scarce competences in Nigeria today); sending error-free email responses to clients, building simple financial projections, writing simple strategic/business and operational plans, etc.
I visited a Farm in Ogbomosho four years ago and met one of the early agric. aggregators, who had acquired over 1,000 hectares and was offering non-farmers an opportunity to invest in Agriculture without visiting a farm. We now have several of such AgricTech platforms providing various contributory investment schemes. I asked the gentleman who was managing an impressive integrated farm of cashew, potatoes, and some cattle what his greatest challenge was. Expecting to hear poor support from the Government or lack of funds. He said “Human Capital/Workers”. He said “we rely on migrant farmers from The Republic of Benin and Togo. I Immediately promised never to give an able-bodied beggar in Nigeria money again and apologized to President M. Buhari for getting upset when he called Nigerian youths, lazy. As I write this, one of my clients with a 75k MT rice mill (over 1.5million bags per annum) is complaining rice paddy is scarce, meanwhile, Nigeria has enough arable land, in my opinion, to feed a third of Europe or even more.
There is nothing wrong with teaching emotional intelligence, how to be an effective leader, or how to influence people, etc. but frankly speaking the containers you’re training are mostly clueless and in most cases, the trainer is just unconsciously interested in building a profile or equally clueless. Graduates and even experienced managers with decades of experience cannot write simple proposals to apply for grants or a decent email to a client without the reviews of the CEO or external consultant, and we are still teaching what? Let me hold it there.
This is my personal opinion and it is not also an attempt to downplay the talents out there churning out good content on self-help, personal and professional development. I have a theory that Nigeria’s media space is saturated with Self-styled Professors (of which I am among) and this is probably responsible for making it hard for genuinely interested students to find the combination of contents to consume, apply and fully become competent. It’s almost like perpetual fireworks when you go online. As I said, there are more preachers (teachers) on Facebook than the congregation. Of course, some diligent folks are led to the right sources but trust me it is a busy highway out there on social media, which may potentially be reducing the focus and concentration bandwidth of the average person, who in addition to listening online, is expected to read a book and do their real work (practice what they’ve learned).
The curriculums used are most times not robust and limited to the expertise of typical motivational and inspirational speakers as facilitators — who in turn lack the core functional and industry expertise of the business and professional principles they are teaching. Motivation and inspirational speakers have their role in society and I am forever grateful for the part of the foundation I received from them, but I now know that was just part of a required balanced diet; which I hope to share in these series of articles.
More so, this may be why we still cannot find competent people to hire despite the numerous teachers out there sharing great stuff. People need to learn or be taught how to mix the right diet (content) for career success — understand what business leaders and companies are seeking.
Why is the subject of competence a big deal?
The challenge of finding talent for my clients and the stories they share about their frustrations made me nickname Nigeria’s poor human capital appreciation as The Federal Republic of Incompetent People (FRIP). Think about your — domestic staff, plumber, mechanic, secretary, sometimes Doctor or even Senior Executive — then you may begin to appreciate the subject of competence. For me, I don’t close my eyes to any so-called amateur or professional and generally have lost faith and have no expectations of any professional because of the level of incompetence I have seen.
Let’s be clear, Not all Nigerians are incompetent and the title of this article is not directed at the country, infact its generic. However, my objective is to bring attention to the culture of incompetence and proffer solutions to all stakeholders concerned.
By the way, let me define incompetence: it is the failure of an accredited worker or professional or organization to meet pre-agreed deliverables or output standards within a defined time frame and the further failure of this party to acknowledge, learn, take responsibility and/or compensate for any damages or loss caused to the customer (internal or external).
I currently get calls every week from entrepreneurs and business owners seeking talent for all kinds of roles, meanwhile, I also get calls from folks asking for job openings. So, I got confused and that was what sparked my interest in this powerful phenomenon of competence.
The Good Book told the story of Joseph, a slave who turned Prisoner (for rape allegations) but despite all that rose to become Prime Minister in a foreign land. Not many followers of this faith understand the significance and depth of the story; if they did, Nigeria would be a first world country. Competence can overcome serious forms of prejudice once it can solve a difficult problem or add significant value to a good system.
We have high unemployment and underemployment rates, both combined and estimated to be over 40% according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and I hope this book will help employers cultivate or find the right talent and close the mismatch gap.
I appeal to you the prospective reader of these series, please give me a few minutes of your life, to provoke you on this particularly important subject of competence. Even though I am still developing expertise on the subject, these are my preliminary findings and I hope it changes your life’s trajectory. We need more competent out there. Stay tuned!
Due to the attention span of today’s average reader, there was an attempt to write this uniquely; therefore, it is devoid of the academic and professional nuances. The opinions therein are also mine and do not represent those of my employer, colleagues, clients, and associates.
By The way, who is the author of this series — Meet Emmanuel Tarfa
I wasn’t rude but I needed to get your attention first and I hope I did.
I have 12-years’ experience in Management Consulting. I have advised mom and pop shops (one-man businesses), publicly quoted companies, and even key public servants at the State and Federal Government levels.
My Functional Expertise Span — Corporate Strategy, Business Process Re-engineering, Organization, Human Capital Management, Operations, Strategy, Financial Analysis & Modelling, Documentation aspects of Corporate Finance and Marketing, and Sales.
My Industry experience covers Financial Services, Healthcare, Agriculture, Energy (Oil and Gas and Power), Media and Entertainment, Telecoms, Not-for-profit, Public Sector, Hospitality, Business Services, and Retail.
Through recommendations and referrals, I have been part of a growth story that has serviced over 120 clients. Earning me the reputation of the Consultant’s Consultant — which means I now advise and support other business consultants and companies.
Some of my most interesting projects: Project Co-lead; Internal Revenue Service Optimization strategy for 2 Northern States in Nigeria. Project Sub-Lead, Portfolio Audit — Investment Portfolio review of 44 small and medium scale businesses across ten Nigerian states, for a Tier 2 Financial Institution. The lessons gathered from our findings is another book.
I have been privileged to work with experts from some of the World’s top global consulting firms and been involved in projects that have had an impact on State and National levels.
I postulated 7 core competencies observed in consultants that are the most sought-after skill sets that are unemployment proof. I have tested the same on several business analysts that I have trained. Some of which, have moved on to work for local and global corporates, while others are currently running impressive companies.
I actually believe in being modest because life is a marathon but I had to say all the above to meet the protocols of being perceived to be a thought leader or qualified to speak on such a serious subject; and so you do not tune out quickly, especially in this age of high social media activities (highway) and numerous self-styled Professors.
Introduction — What is Competence?
Competence is responsible for pushing people to positions of massive financial and social success in today’s world. Let me tickle your imagination below are the publicly available remuneration packages of some top-paid CEOs in the U.S and in Nigeria for 2018 according to Investopedia and Nairametrics respectively. I just took the top three (3).
It is also important to note, most shareholders do not compensate incompetence.
Let us do a little exercise, take a minute to write down mentally or physically what you would do with a million dollars right now. Buy your parents a house in Lekki, a brand-new car, trips abroad, help that charity, etc. Now imagine having that in 100, 200, or even 500 places, hold on, that is not all, you get this every year!!! You can stop here, run around and return to continue reading this.
For those who will begin to say this is corporate greed; well, I am just trying to help some folks understand that competence will help them rise above daily challenges of house rent, living from hand to mouth, and the fear of being unemployed or poor.
Your compensation reflects your abilities (competence). If you now decide not to take what you deserve, that is a different problem and by the way, why do that? When you could be a blessing to others. You should, therefore, strive to be competent and consequently successful if not for your sake, to help others around you. I believe competence can reduce inequality in some cases because it will place a demand on creating value for the rich and this will eventually trickle down — competence will seek to always find a way around the problem.
So, what is competence? I define it as the optimal and relevant combination of knowledge, skills, and work ethic, required for solving problems and creating commercial value or social impact for a cause or an organization. Competence is demanded at Corporate, Social, Government, and even faith-based organizations. In this book’s context, I define the three components of competence as follows:
- Knowledge — the intellectual or mental awareness or stored memory of a subject or discipline. I.e. you know what you’re talking about
2. Skills (core competencies) — the several abilities applied — to translate acquired knowledge either through trial and error, informal or formal education — to solve problems and create value. i.e. You actually know how to get the job done to satisfactory levels.
3. Work Ethic — The disposition of the individual while carrying out the work or while seeking to increase knowledge and skill. Also known as an attitude — it is a soft but critical issue, arguably the most important determinant of success. It is a state of mind. You may have heard the saying, “your attitude determines your altitude” — I cannot agree less. It is the engine oil that reduces the friction associated with meeting the intensely competitive and high demands while working.
Let me bring it home. Our firm has a recruitment division, and we currently have several roles to fill. Roles as common as HR or Finance Managers to more complicated roles such as Head of Growth, Public Sector. These functions, specifically HR & Finance, which you would think are like “pure-water”, a term for ubiquitous in Nigeria; are extremely difficult to fill especially for companies pivoting into a growth phase. With all the certification out there (no disrespect to their relevance) most candidates fail to meet the basic requirements of converting knowledge to skills and eventually competence.
On the contrary, the few times I have tried to recruit expatriates and was spoilt for choice especially from India. I am not saying all Nigerians are incompetent or all Indians and expatriates are competent. There are of course exceptional talents and even the U.S has attested to the quality of Nigerian workers. Notwithstanding, within Nigeria, there is an entrenched culture of incompetence.
The fundamentals I will be sharing below will help fine-tune the personal development journeys of individuals and hopefully help them understand the essence of competence.
Some individuals have something but the dynamic nature of the workplace and the paranoia of today’s bosses, largely influenced by the external pressures of shareholders, regulators, competition, and the customer, has led to an era of specifications. Competence is sometimes contextual, i.e. an individual can be great and accepted to be competent in one company, only to move to another and become a disaster. Part of the requirements of competence is adaptability, what Reid Hoffman defined on his Podcast show, Masters of Scale as — “Being an Infinite Learner”.
Understanding the Universe of Competence — The Context
From my observation, one of the reasons why we perform poorly intellectually in Nigeria is because we fail to pay attention to the fundamental or basic building blocks of any discipline or even thought. In other words, we fail to understand the ABC and 123 of what we do. For instance, I once asked at a lecture to a very prominent Faith-based group what sector of the economy their institution was classified, and someone echoed the “soul-winning sector” among other wrong answers I got. What tower are you seeking to build on this poor foundation? Therefore, we cannot discuss competence outside the following fundamentals:
- Economy, Sectors, and Industries — The Sphere of Activities
2. The companies — Profit maximization entity
3. The Functional Area — The Job Description
The Economy
The economy is largely used to describe the sphere, where goods and services are created. Every country’s economy is engaged in productive activities powered by companies that are organized in sectors — parts of the economy. The entire output is measured as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is expected to grow. The productivity of a nation is tied to the unique competencies of its labor force.
There are examples to buttress my point — China and Singapore. China has achieved quality at scale (as illustrated by Tim Cook in an interview), while Singapore has demonstrated the power of investing in human capital — with no natural resources, it has the largest concentration of rich individuals by population density. Singapore was overcoming its food insecurity problem because it does not have arable to land by planting indoors vertically. Let me demonstrate how competence could translate at a national level, Plateau state (one of my favorite Nigerian states) in Nigeria has a larger landmass than the country of Israel, but the latter has almost the same GDP as Nigeria’s.
When you think about Germany or Japan — what type of goods and services come to mind — Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen, and several other sophisticated medical, industrial products among others. So what can Nigeria be known for? Ladies and gentlemen, competence is the bedrock of a developed society!
Examples of Sectors
NB: The difference between sector and industry: the latter is a subset of the former.
Companies or Organisations
Companies or organizations are the value-creating or problem-solving entities.
For very large organizations, they have achieved economies of scale and can afford the inefficiencies of what I define as “corporate loafing”, derived from the concept of social loafing. I defined the former as the case of having employees who are giving less than their required capacity — 100% but yet remain under the radar, undetected by the system due to corporate inefficiencies such as overstaffing.
Sometimes work tilts toward a few competent folks, while others “loaf” and still get paid. This is harder though, in small business for obvious reasons. Therefore, I have concluded from observation, starting a career in small business, under a very competent boss or system puts one a different trajectory and level of competence when compared to another who started in a large already successful business. It is like a lion in the zoo or one in the jungle — who will be more skilled at catching a game? I leave you to decide.
So let us focus on SMEs and Start-ups. Talking about small businesses and startups, let me narrow down on an aspect related to competence: Baby Bosses. Check it out on Netflix. Let me explain my self-proposed theory: Baby bosses are entrepreneurs, mostly millennials who start businesses and grapple with combining external pressures with sometimes incompetent employees. This leads to a combustible situation that always degenerates. These bosses who are sometimes supervisors are impatient especially if they are very competent but are still learning to understand the balance between exhibiting empathy and demanding productivity. The employers who can achieve this balance, progress to build a formidable team that achieves great feats. I am mastering this approach, with patient coaching and respect for the feelings of others, I have seen average grade employees rise to become indispensable.
They hope to alleviate this misalignment is one of the inspirations behind this soon to be a book. Baby Bosses are here to stay; we also need them to lead innovation and create jobs but dealing with them requires competence.
We will begin Part Two discussing Functions.
To be continued…
