Tag: blogging

Rethinking the Workplace: Embracing High-Performance Teams Over Traditional Company Structures

Rethinking the Workplace: Embracing High-Performance Teams Over Traditional Company Structures

The traditional workplace has long been compared to a family, where members are bound together by a sense of loyalty and camaraderie. While this approach has its merits, it may be time for companies to evolve their thinking and consider structuring their workplaces as high-performance teams, much like sports teams. By adopting the traits of sports teams, companies can foster an environment that prioritizes performance, learning, and individual growth, ultimately driving the organization’s success.

Conditional love and minimum performance standards:

Unlike the unconditional love and acceptance found in families, sports teams value performance and have minimum standards that players must meet to remain on the team. In a business context, setting clear expectations and holding employees accountable for their performance can motivate them to excel in their roles and contribute to the organization’s overall success.

Embracing competence and diversity:

Sports teams thrive on the diversity of skills and abilities that different players bring. In a high-performance team, each member’s unique strengths and competencies contribute to the team’s overall success. Companies can benefit from embracing diverse skillsets, backgrounds, and perspectives, as they can lead to more innovative solutions and improved decision-making.

Prioritizing individual milestones and achievements:

While families often prioritize group milestones, sports teams recognize that individual milestones drive team success. By encouraging employees to set personal goals and celebrate their accomplishments, companies can foster a culture of continuous improvement and personal growth, ultimately contributing to the organization’s success.

A focus on learning and adaptability:

Sports teams are constantly learning from their experiences and adapting their strategies to improve performance. Companies that adopt this mindset can create an environment that encourages learning and development, both from within the organization and from external sources. This will help employees grow and adapt to the ever-changing business landscape.

The choice to belong and commit:

Unlike family members, who are bound together by blood, sports team members choose to be part of the team and commit to its success. By fostering a workplace culture that values dedication, passion, and commitment, companies can attract and retain top talent that will drive the organization forward.

Recommendation

To evolve the traditional workplace and adopt the high-performance team mindset, companies should take the following steps:

  1. Establish clear performance expectations and hold employees accountable for meeting them.
  2. Value and promote diversity of skills, backgrounds, and perspectives within the organization.
  3. Encourage employees to set personal goals and celebrate their achievements.
  4. Foster a culture of continuous learning and adaptability, encouraging employees to learn from both internal and external sources.
  5. Create an environment that values passion, commitment, and dedication, attracting talent that actively chooses to be part of the team.

By embracing the traits of high-performance sports teams, companies can create a workplace culture that prioritizes performance, learning, and individual growth. This shift in mindset can lead to greater success, innovation, and adaptability, ultimately driving the organization forward in an ever-changing business landscape.

Righteous Indignation; Things That F***ing Piss me Off and Give Me Hope

Last week, the Ugandan social media was awash with the #UGBlooggers7days [collated by the dutiful and obsessive Joel] hashtag. A conversation that started with a one Raymond’s insatiable greed for Ugandan reading material thereby plummeting the whole blogosphere into a blogging frenzy. Suffice to say I’m glad I was there to suggest the 250 word limit because certain people were talking 600 and 400 words as a minimum. And that had its own deliciousness. Savour it
 
More interestingly, in the course of last week, I read a post by SamiraSalwani where she explained a phenomenon called white privilege and colonial mentality. From thought provoking to downright alarming at the state of affairs in my country. I couldn’t believe my eyes as I read it. More, I couldnt believe the directness of it all. It was as if she was being fueled by that calculated methodical anger you get from serving a revenge ice cold. Under the surface but seething. Cold. Calculating. Then I realized that the ghosts I was imagining as racial anger was her razor sharp intellect.
 
Throw yourself upon it and die.
 
Die.
 
Die cut up in pieces from it.
 
Die with your ignorance bleeding from every crevice in your body.
 
It was not only sharp, it was steady and abiding. Diamond hard. Never goes blunt. So I looked up several of her other articles. Yeah, diamond hard intellect. But I digress.
 
“White privilege (or white skin privilege) is a term for societal privileges that benefit white people beyond what is commonly experienced by non-white people in the same social, political, or economic circumstances.” – That is how Google describes it.
 
This is what Samira had been talking about. How Ugandans or Kenyans were more likely to treat people of Caucasian extraction in more privileged ways; quicker service at restaurants, more attention in service queues, etc because of the colour of their skin. Because of a perceived superiority.
 
No sooner had that storm subsided than Simon released the mother of all hailstorms. The blog post can be read here. At 11:00PM he was livid and frothing at the mouth. Imagine a bull mastiff with rabies and an itch. Tearing into the New Vision and its editors. Asking pointed questions and causing uneasiness all around. He was taking names and no prisoners. 
 
But what he did do was raise once again the question of how a colonial sport for which every single element (riders’ kits, horses, saddles, jumping bars, etc) had been imported was able to get a page and a half of coverage in a country where our national netball team, which is going to the world cup by the way, couldn’t even afford to buy water last week. I swear I think I saw a swear word in Luganda.  
 
And as if the night would not end just like that. At one 1:00AM someone posted this scan from a newspaper advert yesterday. An advert for several jobs and an administrative assistant. The admin assistant had to be a foreigner!! What the f*** were they thinking? Can you be more disrespectful than that? How dare you?!! Is this your father’s house?!!
 
Now I was frothing at the mouth. I wanted to say something. To write to these people. To say to them they couldn’t be so stupid. You can’t feel that untouchable and hope to get far ahead. Then I realized that it wasn’t just me. Its like all the media I had been exposed to had riled me up, had made me think of all the opportunities that people had missed and all the mistreatment people suffered because of this stupid white privilege.
 
But also I felt a sense of relief as I dozed off.
 
Why?
 

 

Because my anger was a sign. A sign that there is a new wind sweeping across Africa. People were questioning these “practices”. And they won’t stop because the awakening was happening. Yes, the good jobs might continue going to the less educated less experienced white people and their lackeys. The projects will end and they will have to go back home, or not. But us here, we are building our country. One brick at a time. One step at a time. And hopefully through blogs like this, one story at a time.
 
I’m off to lunch

Uganda Bloggers 7 Day Challenge:The 4 Stages of Mentorship: A Quick Exploration Of The Inevitable Conflict Between Mentors & Their Charges

Back when I was but young and naïve I was mentored by a young man who was only but slightly older than I was and who my friends derisively called “The Shark”. He was in the 95thpercentile of intelligence of anyone I had known at the time. Even to this day, The Shark is in the top 5 most intelligent people in the world I have met. He was astute. He worked like a demon. He was driven. He was many things to many people but above all he was torrentially unrelenting. He would not quit and could not be out performed. He wore you down with the sheer amount of energy and work output he brought to a single project or even a conversation. These things made him unbeatable but also unforgiving. Of any insurrection or disloyalty. Or any perceived slight done to him.
He was what I wanted to be. I attended law school so I could learn how he thought. I dated law school girls so I could see women through his eyes. I even went as far as mimicking his gestures to achieve the demagogue like – power he held over rooms when he spoke. Oh, how had I been patient.
One day as we walked from his hostel to Wandegeya to get some rolex for supper he said something to me “There are 4 stages to any mentorship Identification, Bonding, Conflict, Resolution. We are heading into the conflict zone. Be prepared.” I was confused so I asked him and what follows is the transcript of that relationship.
Identification: There is a stage where the mentor and the mentee evaluate each other. Each one assessing their prey. Each one thinking they have the advantage on the other. The mentor driven by some egoistic need to impress upon someone young their skills and their wisdom. The desire to get unquestioned loyalty and attention. The mentee thinks he has found a gold mine. Where he can learn without question, slack without rebuke and be treated with favour without end. At some point in this stage the decision is made to enter this dance to the death.
Bonding: The bonding process was essential as after discovery the mentor and mentee got to know each other, spent inordinate amounts of time with each other. The mentor sees all their own promise and achievements in the mentee while the mentee hopes that they can be up to and maybe even more than the mentor. They will adopt their mentor’s speech patterns, diction, choice of reading material and even dress elements or overall approach to fashion (grungy, rugged, formal, sharp, clean cut, etc) It was in this space that the critical mistake of crossing boundaries was always bound to occur. For the mentee, it was out of naiveté but for the mentor the decision was almost always borne out of some misguided sense that they could trust the mentee and after all, if they were “showing them the ropes” why couldn’t they “let them in”. The result was a mismatch between expectations and reality. This is of course naturally aided by the process that it’s only the people who you care about who can hurt you.
Conflict: And then it finally came. It’s confusing that people who can be so obsessed with each other can so quickly devolve into near mortal enemies. Why? Because in most cases what draws people into mentor mentee relationships is what revolts them against each other. In the bonding process above the “deep dive’ that happens allows people to look deep and what they often see is a reflection of themselves. And they don’t like that. They quickly notice traits that are way to familiar with, either taking advantage of others, a mean streak, a penchant for exploitation, taking others for granted, a knack for ingratitude, etc. These things trigger a separation of swift and decisive proportions.
Resolution: In the time apart both parties think evaluate and weigh the mentorship and what it could do for them. Whenever the mentee repents (as the mentor has no need to and will never feel the need to and more importantly is bound for the sake of the relationship dynamic never to apologize) and sees the folly of their ways, they re-approach, this time with the hindsight of wisdom and the cautious shield of distance; careful to never be too clingy or appear too eager or too keen. Tempered. Tamed. Mentored.
Today I have mentors but I make the deliberate effort not to work with them. On projects yes, over the long haul definitely not. Because they are human. Because they are fallible. Also, idols like mentors are better seen on a pedestal and never up close. Whether that is because to not show the cracks in the idol or the flaws in the mentor, it’s a practice that serves to protect both of them.

REPOST: Uganda Bloggers 7 Day Blogging Challenge: Calling All Ugandan Bloggers

This is a call to all Ugandan Bloggers, all protocol observed.

There has been a decline in the blogging habits of many erstwhile Ugandan bloggers. We do not know whether it is because you guys got jobs and went abroad but that is not the point. In a bid to renew the blogging culture of many of us Raymond, Nev, Allan with the input of Olive, Ruth, Dan , Lynn and I, decided to challenge ourselves to write each day for at least 7 days starting today.

You can write about anything and everything as long as it is not less than 250 words.

Please share you blog on Twitter so we can comment and experience your experiences with the hashtag #UgBloggers7Days.

Let others know.