At 9:00am sharp, I was signaled by a smartly dressed lady in a blue dress, in her mid-30s to enter. I later learnt she is the Strategy& Innovations Manager at my prospective client, a Tier II financial institution. It was my turn to make a presentation of our strategic planning approach to the bank’s top management team. Standing in front of a full 15-seater boardroom can be worrying sometimes. With experience, I have now improvised to always take three deep breaths silently; and hope for the best and look people in the eyes. Jane, the smartly dressed leady that had…
Tool #27 of 104 is the power of integrity
Proverbs 13:20 “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. Things do not become easier. It is you who becomes better. If you just sit there and do not improve, you will experience tough life by every other coming day. We have been looking for an accountant to join our team. It is not easy to find a good professional. This week, we shortlisted three candidates who had passed a series of written hands-on exercises well demonstrating strong technical skills in accounting. At Summit Consulting, we have arranged our interviews such that face to…
Tool #26 of 104 is the power of the tongue
Ecclesiastes 1:9 “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” The first time I gave a speech went like this: “What is your Makerere University? What is it that one thing that drives you to wake up early every morning and keep improving daily? When I failed the technical exams for an admission to Munteme Technical College (TECO), I thought it was the end of my career. I had worked a lot to get an admission. In our village, graduates of TECO made up the who is who…
Tool #25 of 104 is the power of reading
Ecclesiastes 1:9 “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Some people you meet, and they go. Others you meet, and they stay with you forever. I am not one who enjoys listening to motivational talks. I have given several speeches personally over the years. And like all speakers, there is that feeling of hubris that ‘I know it all.’ It is a bad feeling as it invites us not to improve. But this changed sometime back in 2007 on my very first trip to South Africa. In…
Why try me with your sister?
Why try me with your sister? “At about 9pm, I had a knock on my bedroom door. Not sure of who was outside, I opened the door. It was my wife’s sister. She was wearing a see-through pink night dress, so tight and revealing like someone with a tight swim suite walking out of a swimming pool. I could see all her body corners. I was suddenly alarmed. This lady had personally escorted my wife, her sister, to the airport for a seven days business trip to China for an early morning flight. As my mind was racing through so…
Marriage woes: to check the phone or not
“I want you to recover all the WhatsApp messages, SMSs and Facebook chats. My husband is always smiling while chatting on the phone a for a long period of time in the evening. First, he comes home late. Then, he hooks himself on the phone and chats as he smiles. He won’t let me share on the jokes. It is him and the person on the other side. He is growing cold towards me and I need to know what exactly he is up to.” As a Team Leader at a digital forensic investigations firm, Summit Consulting Ltd, I often…
