I usually give time to young people to discuss their career progress and aspirations. Now with virtual interactions, I have more time to do this. With hindsight, I know several mistakes one must avoid to progress. Here are some of my standard advice: 1.If you do not have something to do, find anything to do. Just be busy. Wake up early. Work 365 days a year and do your best. Create problems so that you have something to keep your minds busy. You don’t want to be comfortable through and through. I usually ask young people to ask for something…

Ask any young person, they have an idea of what they would want to become when they grow old. Many times, the aspired career is informed by the people around us. When you are growing up, you see the teachers smart, wearing clean clothes which many of the people only put on during big days like Christmas or Eid. Many young people at one time, fall in love with the teaching profession. As they grow, however, they change…  Yet, over 80% of children do not become what they aspired to become while growing up. Why? With more information, better choices.…

#mindspark Many times, the best creative thinking comes from setbacks and obstacles. You don’t chose your friends. They chose you. Keeping up appearances is never sustainable. So don’t follow that tired, commonly given advice “surround yourself with people better than you.” The fact is, you won’t find them. Even if you get into their circles, they will reject you. People need folks who belong to their ranks and levels. The worst punishment you can mete on yourself is trying to fit in a class that you do not belong. Britons have a word for it: keeping up appearances. So, don’t…

As part of the staff satisfaction survey, we included a question, what would make you leave your current position? Surprisingly, the answer was not about money. Many employees would leave for other reasons. Below are some of the major reasons stated: Failure to value the contribution of the employee. Many staff hate it when the employer or their direct supervisor fails to value the contribution they make. This means effective ongoing collaboration and communication between employees and their direct reports would make work more satisfying. Companies must put in place collaborative tools to deepen both vertical and cross-sectional communication. Having…

Figure 1; Misaligned pillars Take a moment to study figure 1. What can you determine from the figures? Ask any leader or manager, why strategy execution fails, and the responses are varied. Many blame a poor culture and weak performance management mechanisms. Before you consider fixing the monster called “culture” and an automated performance management system, first fix the structure to strategy alignment. Failure to do so affects effective strategy execution difficult. If the structure is not reviewed to align with the new strategic priorities, execution will unravel. In Figure A, the house is stable because the pillars are properly…

A typical internal audit project has six phases – planning, inception meeting, fieldwork or data collection, exit meeting, reporting, and follow up. Working as an Internal Auditor in Nile Bank sometime in 2002, we used to spend a lot of time in planning – when you have several audit areas to review, what informs your priority list? Why audit one area and not the other? The answer was found in risk-based auditing. And so, internal audit has to work with other experts like risk management department to review their risk management processes and assess whether to rely on their risk…