One of the popular sayings in Bunyoro goes “You cannot hide an elephant.”
The elephant is a very big animal. It is very difficult to hide it. If something is outstanding or extraordinary, it is very difficult to hide it.
Always do your best in any setting so that you can get noticed. If you are very good, people will always notice you.
One of Uganda’s former presidents, Idi Amin Dada, put it plainly “You cannot win a Whiteman by points in a boxing game. Beat him with a knockout.” Amin, once a boxer, had learnt that the only way to win a boxing match against an opponent was by a knockout which is difficult to steal, so to say.
The same goes to a star employee. You cannot hide a genius. You cannot hide an outstanding employee.
I often get excuses from staff trying to justify their poor performance that their boss takes all the credit. I tell them: no one can hide an elephant. Do your best. Let your boss take all the credit. Let the boss be excited and fail to recognize you. The rest will see through the lies. They will know who the real person in the department is.
It is not easy to hide an elephant. It is not easy to hide an exceptional staff.
In my company, Summit Consulting Ltd, we do computer forensics. Sometimes, the team leader takes all the credit how he analyzed the mobile phone and extracted evidence. However, when you ask: how where you able to extract What’s messages? How did you recover the password? the same person asks to invite his colleague in who was in the lab.
You cannot hide an elephant.
To get more insights, listen to the Podcast, You cannot hide an elephant, below.
I remain, Mustapha B Mugisa,
Mr. Strategy.
