John Lennon

John Lennon

Principles of Warfare

 

The Principles of Warfare are as relevant to Business as they are to Battle

As an ex Army commander now in the civilian world, the Principles of Warfare remain as valid in the Civvy world as they did in the Military. Sure a paradigm shift is required, but see just how relevant the principles/concepts are to business and civvy life:

• Objective: Direct all actions toward a clearly defined, decisive and attainable objective. The civvies talk another language…goals, KPIs call them what you will. The ultimate purpose of business is through providing a service to customers thus creating wealth.
• Offensive: Seize, retain, and exploit the initiative. In business the principle is so applicable: “run with it” and maintain the momentum, take opportunities and go for gold.
• Mass: Mass the effects of overwhelming knowledge power at the decisive place and time.
• Economy of Force: Employ all business skills/ power available in the most effective way possible; allocate minimum essential business skills and time to secondary efforts.
• Maneuver:  Be flexible , don’t stick to the rules, think laterally and don’t carry on with ideas and methods that don’t work. Think “blitzkrieg and be adaptable.
• Unity of Command: For every business objective, seek unity of command and unity of effort by all personnel.
• Security: Always consider that your business plans can be used by competitors to acquire unexpected advantage.
• Surprise: Strike the market/clients or competitors at a time or place or in a manner for which they are unprepared.
• Simplicity: Prepare clear, uncomplicated plans and concise orders to ensure thorough understanding by all staff..

The British military adds to the above list:

• Maintenance of Morale Obviously (well in my opinion) critical that business colleagues are well motivated and well paid.
• Administration. Yes sadly time and skills are required on this aspect .

There are a few other military terms which are applicable in the whole field of business, which I might just leave for another time.

 

 

Long ago…

One day when I am big….

The Great Warrior

When I first learnt of him he was a terrorist leader, the epitome of the Rooi Gevaar.   When I heard of Madiba’s death today, the tears rolled. They rolled because yet another round of the Circle of Life has closed, but they rolled mostly at my naivety.

 

If there is anything Madiba taught us, it was gentleness and humanity, not to mention the stupendous power of forgiveness. Part of what made him such a remarkable human being is that you would be hard-pressed to find a person who had not been influenced by him in some way. He was the person who looked through the vicious shells of Apartheid leaders, prison warders; the insensitive crusts of us self-righteous whites who did not want to change. He looked through them all, saw the human beings inside, and reached out to them. He gave us all the mercy we so desperately wanted, and he led others to it too.

 

Madiba gave us many tools. He is done giving now, and we should be ready to accept that. What we can do if we want to honor and respect him is use those tools and remember those lessons. The way I see it, if we really want to show love for Madiba,  We should be praying for ourselves.

 

We should pray that we can learn to forgive like Madiba.

 

We should pray that we learn to sacrifice, without complaint, for the common good.

 

We should pray we learn that even time we believe is wasted can be used to achieve so much good: in learning, in thought leadership, in becoming greater within ourselves; while we wait for circumstances beyond our control to change.

 

We should pray that we learn his great gift of introspection, so that we never let the bitterness grow inside us, even when it seems nothing is changing.

 

We should pray that we have the courage to speak up and be honest, even if there are grim punishments in store for us when we do.

 

We should pray to be gentle, but not meek – to fight for what we believe in.

 

We should pray that even when we are old, we can still dance, crack jokes and wear a loud shirt.

 

And most of all, we should pray to remember that all great changes begin with the person in the mirror: our own transformation leads it all.

 

If all South Africans, in fact if everyone strived for this, maybe, just maybe, we will be able to give Madiba the same gift back that he tried to give to us: a country that works, indeed a world that works

 

He has paid his debt to South Africa, and more. He has led each one of us to be a better person, create a stronger South Africa and a better World.

 

Let’s move forward with the lessons he sacrificed so much to teach us.

 

Rest in Peace Great Warrior.

 

 

 

GIMME

Ok so some followers have asked about life in Guinea….

 

I am at a Village called Loila, in a Camp as you see above. We are exploring for gold in them thar hills…for a company called Avocet.

There is gold …and thousands of illegal miners too, who sell their gold at the market on a Sunday.

Its poor…very poor. And sad, very sad. With little or no infrastructure…no electricity in any village, no tar except one main easy west road which is not brilliant anyway.

Theres no cell communication outside the 4 main cities.

 

 

 

 

 

    

The Mango Hunt

 

 

Different from a snotty kid moaning that they want a sweet in Pick and Pay!

Here you just take one if you can reach!

STATUES

STATUES

On a hill overlooking a slum and designed by the looks of things to be viewed in full splendour from the Dakar international airport is the biggest statue I have ever personally seen. We’ll get to the second biggest one in a moment but WTF? The 49m high bronze statue of communist era design was built in 2008 by 50 North Korean workers and is dubbed the “Monument of the African Renaissance”. It cost US$ 17 Million.

On a rubbish-strewn path below the statue, impoverished residents living in cardboard shacks endure incessant power blackouts and flooding. For some, the situation is so desperate that they risk their lives crossing the sea on flimsy wooden boats bound for Europe.

 So the second biggest statue I have ever seen? It’s a 40m tall stainless steel statue Genghis Khan on horseback, on the bank of the Tuul River, at Tsonjin Boldog (54 km east of the capital Ulaanbaatar), where according to legend, he found a golden whip. The statue is covered in 250 tons of stainless steel

is symbolically pointed south toward China built by South Koreans and completed in 2010.

Visitors can walk to the head of the horse through its chest and neck of the horse, where they can have a panoramic view. The complex is reported to have cost US$4.1 million.

In the city, 50 odd k’s away, the only steps the estimated 500 000 homeless, living in the sewers will ever climb up, is to street level.

The “African Renaissance Residential Park” or the “Ghengis Khan State Hospital” would have been much more fitting memorials.

But there again, are these symbols any different from the Porsche Cheyenne parked outside a mud hut in Guinea?

As it is

AFRICA, the saying goes, is a shit country.

For those of you who have never travelled in Africa, (outside South Africa) should. It is an eye opening and thought provoking experience, laced with fascination, awe and touched (not just a bit) with misconceptions.

Not talking here of the cosmopolitan street cafes in downtown Maputo or the view from the Raddison Blu hotel overlooking the bay in Dakar, that’s another issue and contradiction all together. Venturing out of South Africa’s borders to Europe or the East is different somehow. The differences are easier to relate to…But Africa? Wow man, what a country.

It is dirty, the infrastructure sucks, the smart, clever boys ignore who put them in power as the traffic is stopped to let them through in their foreign air-conditioned black 4 x 4s. The masses are poor, trying by any means to survive, to buy some food or a decent pair of tackies. Kids polish shoes of passers’ by. It’s monochrome ochre.

Everyone wants to score something…if it’s not a direct bribe to stamp your passport, it’s a request for money or a cheat on your change or the exchange rate. You will be told to pay to charge your cell phone or use the bathroom. To be told by a policeman “you must pay me to pass here” is a common occurance. Naturally being white doesn’t help, even the mosquitos seem to pick you up easier.

To even start to describe the life people live in a way others can relate to is difficult, but I found this description of Guinea (as an example) online:

“Both livestock and pedestrians use the roads and there are no traffic signs. Driving is very different from Western countries. In the event of an accident, you should go to the nearest police station. There are no emergency services and no ambulances. In the countryside, it is advisable to use four-wheel drive. Be aware that you could attract thieves interested in your gas, water and car parts, so it is better to travel by convoy only. Roadblocks can be encountered. Copies of the following must be carried, with no exceptions: passport and visa, vaccination record, vehicle registration, international driving permit, home driving licence, proof of road insurance and vehicle safety check certificate. During the rainy season, from June to November, most of the roads are not useable. There is no public transportation in the country and tourist facilities are limited outside the capital.

Airline companies offer regular links from Conakry to the cities of Kankan, Siguiri, Labé and N’zérékoré. It is not possible to enter the country via private jet unless you have the Guinean authorities’ permission.

Cost of Living The value of the currency has fallen continuously over the years. The inflation rate is high, and prices are still rising. The economy is cash-based and credit cards are not widely used. Travellers’ cheques (in USD only) are accepted only at banks and some hotels.”

Of course Colonialism and Apartheid are the favourite scapegoats for potholes, joblessness and the gap between rich and poor, but I fail to see why or how this can still be relevant 20 odd years later. For goodness sake? The tar roads that were well maintained; that are now full of potholes is the Colonialist’s fault only because they tarred them in the first place. Apartheid is to blame for joblessness only because the apartheid system which created work doesn’t exist anymore. What an argument. What a joke.

At the time of writing, Mali (which has been a growing democracy for the last 18 years) is undergoing a coup de’etat, with soldiers under command of a Captain shooting and looting. With an election due in less than a month, discontented soldiers could not wait for a democratic change but stormed the government buildings and national broadcaster…the psychology of military incompetence indeed. What a joke.

I think if South Africans visited Africa or at least kept up to date on the happenings in Africa they would be more grateful of their past, more appreciative of their present and have more positive hope for their future.

Meeting Bingo

MEETING BINGO

This is a game to be played with a colleague attending the same meeting. (Preferably the bubbly little HR girl who is thinking of leaving early tonight and not listening to the meeting anyway)

It works like this… You each are given 10 of the words/phrases on this list below:

Roll out

Lessons learnt

SWOT Analysis

Think outside the box

Pushing the envelope

We have no choice

User friendly

Hit the ground running

Team building

The writing is on the wall

Win win situation

Cost to company

Rome was not built in a day

Bottom line

Don’t rock the boat

On board

In principle

Contributions

Going forward

Capital costs

Forecast

Analysis

Service provider

London/Hong Kong/Sydney office/Head office

Hidden costs

From the time the chairman says “Is that all of us here?” , you start marking off each word/phrase that on your list, as they are spoken in the meeting.

The winner is the one whose words have all been uttered, marked off, and shouts “Bingo!”