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Vow to listen…

Written by Bongeka
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I was watching an interesting talk show and the guest that day happened to be Wole Sonyika. I think when we think of Africans who have elevated the status of our continent, Wole Sonyika’s name features amongst the great. Sonyika is a legendary Nigerian playwright and poet. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in literature, the first African to be honoured in that category. The talk show host asked him quite a few interesting questions and his responses were also quite ingenious, obviously not shocking coming from a writer/artist.

But, there was one question that really stood out for me. She asked, ‘Sir, what did you learn from your childhood that has shaped you to be the man that you are today’. He sighed and paused for a while and then said “I spent a lot of my time with adults and around adults, just listening. I was fascinated by the discussions of my elders and that began to shape the way I viewed the world, so yes, listening”. He further went on to echo that it’s very important that people listen and reflect.

I immediately started connecting the dots in my mind recalling a conversation I had with one of my friends. We often raised our concerns about corporate and especially corporate meetings. We noticed that people don’t like listening in meetings. Most people just want to comment and not really listen. What we observed is that some of the comments were a repetition of what someone else had already said, the only difference is they were uttered in bourgeois English. Other comments derailed from the objective of the session.

Sometimes you would witness those characters who like cutting people in the middle of their presentations. If you are a person who prefers to listen attentively so that you completely in tuned with the subject matter and understand what your role is post the meeting, you struggle internally in meetings. There is this unwritten pressure/rule that you just have to say something in a meeting so that you can be seen as someone who is engaged and alert.

I think of my own life, in instances where I have listened I have done a great job. We all fall into the trap of not listening but just hearing. Listening is an effort to not only hear what is being said but listening ensures you analyse and engage with the information you hearing.

I love the scripture that says “Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” Great listening is a gift. I admire people who really do a lot of listening. I know in my life I have a few of those people and I must say the people who are great listeners are quiet brilliant and full of great wisdom.

As Paul Sloane also said…”Great conversationalists are great listeners. Also, when you listen you learn. When you are speaking you are not learning anything new. Make a conscious effort to focus on what people say. Show that you are interested by asking questions that support and develop the conversation; ‘What do you mean exactly?’, ‘What happened next?’, ‘How did you feel about that?”.  (http://www.lifehack.org)

My enjoy life tip is this- if you really want to make a lasting impact in your business, in your industry and in your relationships, please take a vow to listen more. I Bongeka vow to listen.

Life,

Who are you accountable to?

Written by Bongeka
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My sister and I really enjoy watching the crime channel. But trust me when I say we have no intentions of becoming criminals, we simply watch it out of fascination. We are fascinated that there are human beings who think like that. Some of the crimes are so well planned but what shocks us the most is that most of the murder crimes are committed by people closest to the victims.

We always pose the question when we watch a gruesome act; don’t these people have a conscience? Do they not fear God? Do they not fear what their loved ones or the community will say?

I remember echoing to my sister that I am very afraid of someone who is not accountable to anyone, to a point that I will be very scared to marry someone who is not accountable to any one because that person could kill me. I am accountable to different people and I always think twice before doing anything, because I always think about the consequences of my actions.

I know this is very contrary and goes against what we often hear in our generation. We are constantly bombarded with the gospel of “do whatever feels right to you”. I have a bit of an issue with that. I’ve been in situations where I felt like punching someone in the face or getting a gun and shooting them and that felt right to me at that point because of the hurt I was experiencing. But, I didn’t because the consequences of my actions would have not contributed to a more peaceful society.

I think if we begin to live with the “accountability mindset”, we will act appropriately. If we have that consciousness even in our work environments we won’t abuse company resources and when we make mistakes in the projects we work on we can simply admit the wrong done and adjust our behaviour accordingly.

We live in a world where people just want to do whatever they feel and throw the “I have rights phrase” in your face and that is why we have so many challenges in our world today. I was reflecting and realised that in the periods of my life where I didn’t have the “accountability consciousness”, I made some really foolish mistakes. The minute I adopted the accountability mindset I changed my tactics.

Being accountable to someone does not take away your power, but rather it gives you the tremendous honour of subconsciously being of service to those around us. We often picture serving as a very domesticated act (e.g. washing people clothes; making coffee for someone at work; running errands for someone etc.), but I would like to argue that when we consciously think about our actions from an accountability point of view, we can really do great things collectively.

Life

Even in the herd I want to be heard…

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I was listening to this guy on the radio and he was talking about different parenting styles and he mentioned one that he considered most effective. He mentioned that most parents raise their kids like a herd, forgetting that each child is an individual with unique qualities. Sometimes parents solely focus on the academic side of a child forgetting that the child may not be strong academically but may possess so many other great attributes. They can place the child who is academically strong on a pedestal and constantly compare their other kids to this “faulty” standard. I just thought to myself, wow, that’s fascinating wisdom.

We have often been raised that if you don’t do well at school, there is something wrong with you as a child. The parents forget all the other amazing attributes that you have and forget that your intellect is only a certain percentage of your human make-up.

Unfortunately, this form of socialisation trickles down from generation to generation. It gets manifested in various environments. We meet leaders who often lead their team like a shepherd leading a herd. They have a particular way in which they like to work and if a team member compliments that style, that team member is considered to be excellent and trustworthy. If another team member is different they are considered rebellious. Sometimes leaders don’t get to the heart of the matter and try to understand that people are different and they bring with them unique working styles. No one wants to be just a number…we all want to be treated and celebrated as individuals.

I may be in the herd, but I really also want my voice; my own unique voice to be celebrated. There is nothing worse than being compared to those around you. When you compare me two horrible things happen. Firstly, I withdraw from my full potential and secondly all creativity is drained from me because of the lack of motivation.

My enjoy life tip is this: So, if you occupy a position where you seem to be the shepherd of the herd…please ensure that every voice is greatly celebrated.

Growing, ,

Who is my customer?

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Conventional wisdom tells us that one of the most important relationships, is the relationship between the supplier and demander. A well known speaker I was listening to reminded me of something I hadn’t heard in a while. He said “in order for something to be successful the supplier has to be at the mercy of the demander. You control the market by your hunger.”

I must concur that most businesses fail not because the concept is bad but because there is no demand. No matter how great your service or product is, if there are no customers demanding it…there is no point.

You don’t own the market…the customer does. We are increasingly in a period where customers have the biggest say. Business leaders are investing millions on their customer focus units. More and more corporate strategies are gearing up in ensuring that the customer is the focal point.

As much as this statement is true for business organisations it’s also true for all those of us who wake up every day to do something. Whether you a home executive or a business executive, have you paused and asked yourself who is my customer?

The customer is always King…and I am also asking myself…Who is my customer? I often echo that I feel really called to write and share everyday wisdom in the hope that it will encourage those who read to pursue their purposes. I am hoping that whoever will read this and other column’s I’ve written, will respond and articulate whether I have adequately supplied to their demands.

World Affairs

In Isolation

Written by Bongeka
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I am home for a while as I am making some critical decisions about my life. I love being home with my family…family is good but I am not going to lie…there is something that I don’t like about being in my home town.

I realised that you don’t always grow whilst within your community, but you grow when you are away. I think Jesus said it best when he uttered the statement “a prophet is not honoured in his home town”. Often for people to be great there is a period of isolation or separation that needs to happen in their lives. Your ideas are not always embraced when you around your relatives and maybe to a certain extent rightly so…they sometimes don’t see you beyond your humanness and that is due to them witnessing the occasional ups and downs of your life.

I look back at the time when I moved to another city, to start my first job and I must say that was one of the best things that have ever happened to me. It was more than just a first job, but it was one of the turning points of my transformation.

I grew as a person, learning to see the world differently than I did before I left; I am much more open-minded. Sometimes when you go away you learn new things that you can implement when you come back.

I think of examples of people who became great and how isolation played a role in their lives. In the bible we hear that Abraham was told by God to leave his own country to go to a new land which God promised and it was this land where the Messiah would be born. We know that Abraham is one of the most integral characters in the biblical narrative and he did become great.

I think of the South African narrative and the story of the father of our democracy, Nelson Mandela. His was an unfortunate isolation but none the less an isolation that landed him in prison for 27 years. Mandela’s influence spans across every continent and his legacy lives on. Some of the great leaders we know of; were isolated from their environments in some way. When you read some of their autobiographies; there are stories of how they either studied or lived in another country or city.

I have reason to believe there is something about being isolated from your birth environment that moves you closer to becoming the person you meant to be. I am also in a season of preparation for my isolation. This is probably going to be the biggest and greatest change in my life. I have moments of being scared, but the peace and excitement I have surpasses every ounce of fear. I know that my separation will yield tremendous benefits.

There comes a moment in every person’s life where isolation will happen and this is going to be one of the most difficult but rewarding experiences of one’s life.

Isolation is a time of spiritual, intellectual, materialistic and to a certain degree physical “cocooning” of one to become great.

Growing

I still believe in love…

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I am by no means trying to be cheesy by writing an article on love in the month of February. Thanks to mass media…we have been bombarded with red and white flowers, chocolates and all things romance. I am also enjoying reading insights on love in Gary Chapman’s book on the 5 Love languages for singles. This month I also witnessed the marriage union of one of my very close buddies.

Love is a beautiful thing… so much has been said and written about this topic for centuries and centuries and as the cliche goes…not only money but love also makes the world go round…

So pardon me, I am not even going to attempt to write a piece on love, what it is, its various types and all the amazing things we know about it.

I am actually writing this piece as a confession to myself…so you dear friend, will get a snippet as to what sometimes goes on in my very interesting heart. As I mentioned one of my buddies got married over the last week. I have been to numerous weddings in my lifetime and have watched them on TV countless times. But there was something about this wedding that awakened something in me that I didn’t even know was becoming dormant.

The depth of the love the couple had for each other not only shown in their words but there was a pureness, a light that was so evident in their eyes that for a moment it was like I was allowed to see the very depths of their spirits. It was real, it was unconditional, it was selfless and it was God-like. I don’t recall the exact moment…but during the course of the festivities I fell in love…a love that was always there but due to the stress of my current journey was seemingly decreasing. A love that once liberated me from the shackles of my past, a love that I knew was birth before the very foundations of this world…I actually fell in love with Bongeka again…

I realized that the world over embraces the notion of being in a romantic relationship but my “aha” moment was further cemented when I realized that a great marriage can never be built until you come to a point where you truly and I MEAN truly love yourself. It is this love that makes me wake up and even despite the many mistakes I make and still say I love you Bongeka. You can never love God and your neighbor as yourself if you don’t really love who you are. I woke up with this thought this morning…”there can never be another Bongeka just like me…sure we may share the same name and surname, even birth day even nationality and other things”…but I am unique and there is no one else like me.

It is this love that gives me strength even when I feel like all my dreams are not coming into reality…it is this love that gives me the energy to begin writing even when I don’t have inspiration…I still believe in love…I still believe in God.

Love,

Your Excellence…

Written by Bongeka
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I bumped into one of my old diaries recently when I was packing some of my stuff. I began to open up a few pages and was marvelled at some of the things I wrote two years ago. I can’t fully express how some of them were so funny, interesting but mostly insightful. One thing in particular blew my mind off and I knew I had to share. The diary entry dates 14 May 2015. The entry was inspired by a book I had read and I wrote “The outcome of excellence is as a result of consistency and diligence.”

This blew my mind both in the positive and negative. I sat there quietly and for a few seconds, I really looked deep into my heart pondering what this meant for me at this point in my life.

What is excellence? According to the oxford dictionary definition, “excellence is the quality of being outstanding or extremely good”. In a lot of our dialogues we often speak of excellence and success as a power couple and I have to agree that this is a perfect union. When we express excellence at school, work, business, and our relationships, it’s because our overall objective is to attain success. Obviously that success mirrors differently for different people.

Back to the line that got me thinking, consistency and diligence equals excellence. Most people I have met want to be excellent and successful in everything they do and I want that so much too. I cannot tell you how I read this line at just the perfect time. I was complaining to myself about myself a few weeks about how I lack success in two particular areas of my life. And when I read this, I reflected and realized that actually I have been deceived, I was neither diligent nor consistent, and how then did I really expect excellence let alone success in these two areas of my life?

I fundamentally believe excellence and even success should not only be limited to our careers, businesses, academics or even relationships. There are other deep areas of our lives, i.e. our thoughts, our motives, our inclinations; shouldn’t we also place a demand of excellence in these areas? I mean personally I will give an example, I have an issue with someone being a great CEO and having received all accolades but that person comes home and is abusive to their family. Their behavior in turn affects their children, they grow up to be dysfunctional members of society and the vicious circle continues…now tell me how that is excellent and successful?

We so rush to be excellent for the outward things that others will celebrate about us. But my friend let the excellent attitude exude every area of your life…I mean literally, your mind, your soul, your heart, your body etc…

My enjoy life tip is this: We simply cannot “change” or make a difference in the world as most of us like to echo, if we have not learnt to make basic changes in our own individual lives. How do we conquer the world if we have not conquered ourselves? Remember again the mystery of your excellence lies in diligence and consistency.

Words,

Receive your sight…

Written by Bongeka
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I woke up this morning, and this word just came straight to my heart “short-sightedness”. I was amazed and just laughed. As someone who loves to share everyday experiences through writing, I really have to make sure I am always alert to appreciate the wisdom that is always right before me and around me. I starting thinking about this word and two classic examples came into my mind.

I recall a conversation I had with a business executive at work. I was actually giving him feedback about what people had said in the workshops we had run. A lot of people were complaining about a strategic project that the business had introduced. They just didn’t understand the logic behind it and felt that things should have been kept the same. They will say things like “why are we changing so many things, let’s leave things the way they are”. So I was sharing this feedback and I must admit after receiving the feedback myself I really felt concerned about what people were saying and also began to have some doubts about the project, Until…

Well it’s true when the proverb says “The first to speak in court sounds right until the cross-examination begins” Until the executive began to open my mind about why the business had embarked on this strategic project, I realised that there were two sides to this story. It’s true that there were teething issues, like any major change but the overall crux of the matter was that the leaders who had signed off on this were not being short-sighted. He began to unpack to me how our competitors were gaining momentum and if we don’t strategically position ourselves for the future, we run the risk of closing shop like so many great corporate giants.

But this particular project was going to be our “competitive” jackpot. Not even one of our competitors had caught onto this, and we were ahead of the game. He made me realise that leadership is a shrewd occupation because you see things other people don’t see. Yes your decisions will be challenged, sometimes in the face of difficulty, you can also question your own decisions, but one thing is sure…You simply cannot afford to be short-sighted. You have to receive the right sight…you need foresight.

In a recent example, I was watching the 10 year awards celebration of our Premier Soccer League (PSL) and Super Sport partnership. They began to “throwback” to the time when this whole partnership was established. They shared how in the inception, the government and mass media at large challenged this. Their biggest concern was that soccer is South Africa’s most loved sport and that moving the game screenings to a paid channel would mean that millions of South Africans would not be able to enjoy the beautiful game and this would cause an upheaval in the land. But, they were wrong…the 10 year celebration was an outcome of the success of this partnership. Imagine if the PSL and SuperSport leaders had succumbed to the naysayers but they didn’t because they were not short-sighted and the benefits have been great.

In whatever field you in and whatever your position is, if you want lasting and sustainable change you cannot afford to be short-sighted. Changes and decisions that will outlast and outlive you need to be approached with the greatest of foresight…

Wisdom,

Live at your own pace…

Written by Bongeka
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As part of my daily routine,I really love going for a jog early in the morning. This morning though was a bit funny, so I wanted to share this. As I left our apartment gate, I started jogging in my own pace which others may consider slow. There was another lady who left the gate together with me and she was super-fast as she jogged and left me with a huge distance between us. As I was jogging, there were three guys standing around, mere on-lookers really. One of them commented and said to me “run faster and catch up with her, come-on, she is better than you, run, run.”

I told myself, “You know what Bongs, just ignore him”. He and his friend’s then started walking behind me and the dude just couldn’t shut up. He screamed behind me saying “this jogging thing is tough neh”. Well, thankfully I was about to take a turn and that was my escape from him. I kept at my pace not resting anywhere but as soon as I turned to go downhill, guess who I found, the same lady that was running/jogging at a fast pace. There she was tired as ever and walking slowly and had her hands on her waist. I just raised my hand to salute her and kept jogging at the same pace. When I got home I really laughed at this incident and reflected on everything that just happened.

In many ways, our lives are like this, we could be living our lives the way we know is best as per the Master’s will. And then we receive commentary from mere on-lookers who begin to compare us with those around us. If we are not clear and careful about the purpose of our lives, we can easily fall into these traps and live at a pace foreign to us. Can you imagine what would have happened to me if I decided to speed and succumbed to the pressure of what that guy had said? Maybe I would have been so tired that I would not have finished the distance I had planned to jog. When we live life in a pace that’s not ours, more often than not, we will not accomplish the things we meant to do.

 

Life,

The art of being still…(Bonus edition)

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Clarity about my purpose and most of the ideas I have thought off and have made a reality were birth from a place of being still. We find ourselves in an interesting period in our Generation, where there is an ever increased focus on people talking about purpose. A lot of people want to find out what their purpose in this world is and my question to you dear friend is, have you practised the art of being still?

What does it mean to be still? It means finding time in our busy lives, to be by ourselves and just silent. People do this differently, I prefer waking up early to pray, read and mediate on the word of the Lord. I find when I do this, I reflect a lot about my life and I allow God to speak to my heart, offering me direction.

In one of my still moments, I was also reading the book of Genesis 11:12.There is an interesting story that made me realise something and further clarified this thing about purpose.We are introduced to a few characters namely, Abram, Sarai, Haran, Lot and Nahor. Now Lot’s father Haran had died, so Lot ended up living with his grandfather; Abram and Sarai Abram’s wife. In the context of our modern society, we probably will ask ourselves why didn’t Lot just find his own place, but remember people in the olden days had more of a communal conviction and it was normal for one to live with relatives even though they were old enough to live on their own.

Now, what was interesting to me is that Lot could have either chosen to stay with Nahor his other father’s brother or stay in the land of Haran, where his grandfather had died. But he decided to follow Abram, when Abram decided to go to another land with his wife. Could it be that Abram had exhibited such great fatherly love to him that he followed him wherever he went?  Lot would not have followed him, if Abram was not treating him right. What I learned from this story is that Abram who God later changed his name to Abraham to mean “the father of many nations” was purposed to be a father. Abraham’s purpose was to be a father and bring forth a nation. Look at the first thing we hear God say to him in Genesis 12:2, “I will make you into a great nation”.So I have reason to believe that his purpose/destiny i.e. to be a father to nations, began or was established even before God called him and changed his name.

I started thinking about my own life; I know that one of the things which are a major part of my purpose is to be involved in humanitarian/ socio-economic development work. I know I am meant to be a communicator and share ground breaking research and solutions around some of the socio-economic issues we face in the world.

In my still time, I was just reflecting on the time when I was in primary school and I began to enter speech contests; joined the debating club and in high school I did a lot of biology talks. As I was reflecting I realised that I always chose topics that had some sort humanitarian/human rights/social development inclination. To recall just a few, I remember in primary school I did a speech on racism and xenophobia.

In high school, I did research on human cloning and presented that. My teachers were so impressed that I represented my schools both in primary and high schools in regional and district competitions.  In varsity, I did a lot of study on labour and organisational studies and movements which have underpinnings of human rights. So what am I trying to say? That our destiny/purpose is like that exercise of connecting the dots one-by-one, until an image that makes sense is formed. Even before your purpose is crystal clear to you,the dots started connecting slowly. Are you wondering, what is my purpose? Well my friend, begin to trace back your life and look at things that have been a common feature and ask God and trust me the time you spend practising the art of being still, the clearer your purpose becomes.

Wisdom,