One of my blog posts fans invited me to his company – a nursery school. He has done great for himself. As of 2019-year end, he had 180 children. With school fees at Ugx. 600,000 per month – not Term – but monthly, that is over Ugx. 108m monthly! A daycare center is not an easy business. The children require a lot of attention and care. And parents are picky. They pay a price because they expect high-quality service. Accordingly, a Nursery has a high operating costs structure –a cost-income ratio of over 70%. To run a successful Nursery the…
#Mindspark 3: Read new books to transform your life
In Mindspark 2, you categorized your opportunities and challenges. You formulated the most pressing strategic issue. Two people shared their strategic challenges. “Lack of money due to lack of a well-paying job.” “Miserable life because of a bad choice of a marriage partner.” I want to recommend you to read the book, “Playing ToWin.” Get a copy of the book here, and buy Amazon Kindle for a great experience. Or read an article summary of thebook here. I recommend you make this your #1 must-read book in 2020. My approach to strategy is informed by ten books, including Playing To…
#Mindspark 2: Your choices to win
In Mindspark 1, you identified the opportunities around you. You also made an analysis of challenges in your way of tapping into them. A strategy is needed only when two things are present: an opportunity to tap into. Or a strategic challenge to solve. You cannot tap into an opportunity unless you address internal impediments to growth. It is against this background, we define strategy as “a process of making choices to win with stakeholders specifically customers against the competition.” Back to your opportunities. For each opportunity, categorize against the respectivemarket niche or opportunity segment (Table 1). The list on…
#Mindspark 1: Your year of positive habits
It is 1st January 2020. Congratulations! Let’s walk this year together. This day is special. It also marks the start of the new year and decade, 2020 – 2029. If you have not yet drawn your personal strategy, do it this week. As they say, imagination is more important than knowledge. I hasten to add, informed action is more important than all of them. Get a piece of paper, a pen and write. For you in the dot come era, open your notes app. Here is how to go about it. Start by listing ALL your current major opportunities on…
Four skills of winners, part 2 – Discipline.
Jennifer worked as a Science Teacher at a public school in Hoima town. She lived in a rented house near my sister’s home in Kiryatete. A single mother of one, Jenniffer had a known daily routine – wake up at 5.am, mop the compound, move the chackoal stove infront of her house and prepare breakfast. Bring the baby to my sister’s house. Leave for work by 6:30 am. She did this routine consistently for the six months I lived at my sister. At the end of the day, at 6:30pm, she would passby home to pick the son, Barungi without…
Four skills you need to become a leader’s confidant, part 1 – Trust.
In sports speak, a great leader is the one who wins games. It does not matter how great ‘your team passes the ball.’ If they are not winning matches, tough questions are asked. If performance does not improve, the manager is sacked. Whether it is managing a football team, a political office, or a business, leaders need people around them who have four qualities at a minimum – trust, loyalty, discipline, and expertise. I have worked with many leaders and executives, all of them agree that you can train expertise but not the first three. Any leader, therefore, will choose…
