Page 88 - Msingi Afrika Magazine Issue 16

Economy

markets. efficient and effective management “just like the biblical prodigal son”
In Chapter Four (Designing a of the resources and maintain entre- (p. 55). The authors provide useful
Winning Strategy) and Chapter Five preneurial focus. practical guidance relative to how to
(Managing Efficiently and Effec- identify and hire talented employees
tively), Kuada and Mangori spark Chapter Six addresses the critical and the do’s and don’ts of firing
the interests of both practicing question of developing and main- employees that hurt the business.
and prospective entrepreneurs in taining trust with business partners.
designing a winning strategy and Kuada and Mangori indicate the In Chapter 8, Kuada and Mangori
addressing the management con- difficulty for people to engage in explore the choice of an appropriate
cepts of efficiency and effectiveness long-term business relationships leadership style for business ven-
as they pertain to entrepreneurial in Africa. This means a pervasive tures. Leadership is everything for
ventures, respectively. The authors trust deficit in the African business any organization, but even more so
not only defined entrepreneurial environment. The authors enumer- for the success of entrepreneurial
strategic planning process (Chapter ate the adverse consequences of ventures. The authors explain the
4) as well as efficiency and effec- trust deficit. According to them, two dominant leadership styles:
tiveness (Chapter 5), but they also “The lack of trust imposes addi- task-oriented and employee-orient-
operationalized contextualized them. tional costs on businesses, including ed. Sometimes these two leadership
The chapter brings to life some im- shortages of critical inputs, delays styles are perceived as polar oppo-
portant ideas to help guide entrepre- in payments of wages and salaries sites and mutually exclusive. But
neurs in their understanding of the to employees and non-delivery as Kuada and his colleague made
strategic planning process and how of goods to customersˮ (p. 49). clear, the two leadership styles can
to design and implement strategies Building trust is the key to creating be practiced by the same individu-
that have high potential to achieve and expanding network in business. als, depending on the circumstanc-
goals. The strategic planning process There is a truism in the dictum that es they face, or the maturity and
helps entrepreneurs to establish the “one’s network equals one’s net competencies of the employees they
long-term goals and objectives of worth.” If trust is the foundation lead. While employees are generally
their enterprises; identify steps to be of successful business undertaking considered stakeholders of the orga-
implemented and allocate scarce re- and trust-building is a learnable skill, nizations, the authors sue for them
sources for achieving the goals; and how do entrepreneurs go about to be given a psychological sense
evaluate whether or not the goals developing it? The authors provide of ownership. They also discuss the
have been achieved. practical learnable skills in building seven roles a leader can assume as
and sustaining trust. a mentor. The “ACHIEVE” mod-
In designing a winning strategy, el - Ability, Clarity, Help, Incentive,
entrepreneurs ought to be cognizant Chapter Seven dwells on managing Evaluation, Validity, and Environ-
of the import of efficiency and employees well. In this chapter, ment - proffer a useful framework
effectiveness as they pertain to man- Kuada and Mangori navigate the for gauging successful leadership
aging successful business ventures. terrain of hiring and firing employ- performance.
Scarce resources need to be used ees. In African context, hiring one’s
in efficient and effective ways to family member is considered an ab- Chapter Nine addresses the issue
achieve business goals. It is com- solute obligation, while firing a non- of communicating with maturity.
monplace for African entrepreneurs performing family employee who Kuada and Mangori anchor commu-
to assume that strategic planning actually hurts the business is almost nication as a phenomenon that fa-
for business venture is an exclusive an unpardonable taboo. The authors cilitates daily operations of ventures
territory of large corporations, and indicate how creative entrepreneurs and mediates effective coordination
that efficiency and effectiveness have endeavored to successfully nav- of business activities. According to
apply only to such corporations. By igate this treacherous terrain to cir- them, while both external and inter-
contrast, the authors lay out granular cumvent “the predatory demands of nal communications are crucial, the
steps and specific process to guide the families” by staying away from latter binds employees together and
entrepreneurs who undertake small- family social gatherings to avoid improves morale in the business;
scale business ventures. The process undue pressure until they have built facilitates planning and co-ordina-
of strategic planning helps to instill up substantial financial resources tion of business activities; and helps
discipline not just in terms resource before re-joining the family and be employees make the right decisions.
allocation, but also with regards to welcomed back into the family fold, While speaking up is important, the

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