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Two years ago I was invited to be a guest of honour at my former school on a prize-giving day. Before the event kicked off I was politely told that I am going to be an “assistant guest” of honour.
The guest of honour for the day was going to be a representative of a  popular philanthropist with the community. I accepted the new post with honour and humility.
Any village school in its normal sense cannot miss an opportunity to please the major donors.
True to the prediction the representative disappointed.
Last year I read in the newspaper that the humanitarian par excellence philanthropist was busy helping himself with his employer’s assets.
Does giving away stolen money bless an individual? All of us had made the wrong assumption about his source of new found wealth.
Surely, pure common sense dictates that we give what we own.
The law of giving only helps in increasing the works of your hands.
Giving away someone else’s sweat helps in blessing the work of the person who has been deprived of his assets.
Still on the spiritual side, there is a fascinating behaviour by Christian businessmen. They believe that the more they tithe and give the more they will receive. I also share the same belief.
They further believe that if you look after the pastor (i.e. take care of all his needs, send his children to school, buy him top-of-the-range vehicles etc), he will spend most of his time praying for you and your business. As a result of this, blessings will overtake you.
However, I have witnessed the businesses of some of these spiritually blessed brothers going one way.
I came to the conclusion that prayers must also be accompanied by physical ethical action which is grounded in the so-called business principles.
If you spend all your time giving, praying and sleeping, you will certainly be spiritually blessed but physical poor.
I read recently that one of the most well-paid and motivated “staff” members at Dynamos FC  is the n’anga. His net salary is US$2 800 per month.
The assumption is if the n’anga is happy Dynamos will be assisted to win more matches than its competitors. This will also lead to financial success and everybody will be happy.
This tradition has been passed from previous administrators to the current administrators. Any administrator who doesn’t share these beliefs or ethos will be booted out of the Zimbabwe’s most popular club.
Ultimately the success of any soccer club must be translated into financial success in any club.
This has been sadly lacking at DeMbare. Despite having one of the happiest n’angas in their midst their books leave a lot to be desired.
It therefore means for Dynamos to succeed it has to keep its n’anga happy and apply proper financial and human resources management practices.
N’angas cannot be expected to solve their capitalisation challenges.
In other words, cultural beliefs must be complemented by ethical hard work in order to achieve success.
The use of juju or lucky charms is not restricted to Dynamos alone, but it is a worldwide phenomenon where even some chief executives of Top Fortune 500 companies put on lucky belts, lucky hand bands, lucky bangles, bute (snuff), etc, before crucial board meetings or crucial annual general meetings.
Let’s take a look at the effectiveness of some of the cultures we have been following for many years. (My analysis will be restricted to the few roles of wakwasha [sons-in-law] and varoora [daughters-in-law] in Manicaland).
In most funerals and traditional ceremonies varoora and vakwasha are supposed to do all the manual labour, i.e. cooking, digging graves, ferrying water, etc.
The assumption is vakwasha are indebted to their father-in-law for being given their beautiful daughters and varoora are happy to show visitors and their in-laws their hospitality.
In some instances, an expensive beast is slaughtered at the funeral for chirariro (dinner).
In most cases the food is badly prepared and at worst poisons the partakers.
Are varoora and vakwasha the correct human resources mix we have at our disposal for such important functions?
What about vazukuru (nephews) — young boys and girls?
Don’t we get the best results from the volunteers than from forced labour?
Surely, the sacrifice of foregoing an expensive beast should be met with the people who are motivated to cook it well.
Elections in Zimbabwe generate a lot of mixed feelings. I have no doubt that 99 percent of the current strategic plans have an item on the pending elections.
Most major business decisions are deferred until after the elections. Elections are assumed to bring instability and chaos. Is this true?
Business people’s mindsets need to change. Worldwide, elections present the greatest opportunities for tourism, retail, transport and advertising industries.
I wonder how many in these specific sectors are gearing to cash in on elections.
Definitely most of them are singing from a different hymn sheet from mine.
Like me they believe if the weed structure is damaged in a dam you are not likely to catch fish.
They don’t have time to check whether it is scientific that you don’t catch fish when the weed structure is damaged.
Life assurance companies have had it so good over the years.
However, with hyperinflation experienced in our recent past, most of them had their balance sheets devastated.
It would appear they are still in a slumber. They seem to have forgotten their deposit mobilisation role.
They have assumed that there is no more fish in the dam because the algae (confidence, disposable income) has disappeared.
They probably need to be creative with their baits (product innovation) and wade into the dam.
You may be encountering some revolutionary changes in the way your business is operating just as we visited the irrigation dam and noticed that the water level has gone down drastically (to the point of destroying most of the algae weed structure) you may be unable to control the changes that are happening in your industry.
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