Bekeme: Hi, guys, how’s it going? Have a slight headache, but I’ll be fine. Thank you for listening to the Good Citizen show. It’s me, Bekeme aka Mummy G.O and we’re back with a bang. How’s your Friday going? My Friday is going good. Traffic has started building up in Lagos, but with Lagosians, so we deal. And I’m excited to announce that CSR-in-Action was twelve years old two days ago. So we’re preteen. We’re almost a teenager, but we’re pushing and pushing along. So it’s really exciting for me that twelve years ago, we conceived this vision to contribute to governance in Nigeria. And twelve years later, we still stand. Considering all the data that you see about many businesses not going past conception, many of them falling off the radar after about two, five years. Two to five years, and we’re still here waxing even stronger and stronger. So, there’s something that we’re doing right. And I’m thanking everybody who supported our journey so far in this Nigeria. So when everybody shouts, Nigeria no good, Nigeria no good, we’re there. We’re keeping at it. So, I’m grateful. I’m also excited to announce that in less than two weeks now just over a week, we will be having our 11th Sustainability in the Extractive Industries Conference.
This is a conference that we’ve had again for eleven solid times. Well, ten. The 22 November will be the 11th time. And what we do with this conference is that we get the different stakeholders, from business, government, host communities, academia, to come together to judge or discuss and find solutions to the problems that we all know typically equivalent in the oil and gas and mining space. And it’s free of charge. Thanks to Ford Foundation that has supported us the past five to six years. We bring this conference to you, a world-class happening in Lagos, in VI, free. And so you can go to our website, www.sitei.org. Limited slots are available. So, if you’re a real professional, please don’t come there just to eat the nice, wrapped rice that we’re going to be offering. If you have interest in that space, if you work in that space, oil and gas, mining, and even agriculture, provide services to that space. Do hurry now to our website to go register and join. Okay, so for today’s topic, we’re talking about Digital Disruption, and I have my colleague with me on the show, Thelma. I have many cohosts these days, so Thelma is one of my cohosts, and she’s going to join me to talk to special guests that we have on the show today.
Everybody knows what has happened during COVID since COVID happened. The things that we thought we could not do digitally are now being done. Firstly, when I was growing up, I remember asking my mother if I wanted a laptop, she was like, to do what it’s not like now that even my four-year-old has a laptop and stole around with it and knows how to boot it and turn it off and search for stuff by himself. Those days, if you know how to press a laptop outside of a computer lab at school, then you are one of the OGs. And now, as I said, it’s prevalent. Everybody has access to digital resources, whether it’s social media, whether it’s their personal blogs, whether it’s just sending emails on the go. We would also notice that we don’t have that many cybercafes around. So there’s been a digital disruption since COVID, my office now works only three times a week. Some offices have never gone back in. There are people killing it wherever they are with jobs, but virtually. So there’s been a digital disruption that has happened all over the world. Even developing countries are not left out.
Okay? So we see things happening that we never thought were possible. That’s why I’ve always loved the mantra of then bank PHB, impossible is nothing. And so today, to discuss this concept of the rise of digital disruption, I have with me on the show Mr. Michael Nwayemike, a digital marketing and business strategist and CEO of Markova Creative Limited. Thank you and welcome to the show, Michael.
Michael: Thank you very much.
Bekeme: I hope you’re doing good
Michael: So far so good. Yeah, getting here, the traffic was an issue, but we’re here.
Bekeme: So Nigeria’s traffic is like the British and the weather, especially Lagos. Like, how’s the weather today? The weather looks much better. How was traffic? That was traffic. That was going to be my next question. How is traffic? Where have you come from?
Michael: From the mainland. Yaba, it’s amazing how it takes a lot of intelligence just navigating the road, right. Having a driver these days is truly necessity.
Bekeme: It is a necessity. And the interesting thing is, because of the traffic, you still get tired. Yeah, just sitting in that traffic is tiring. It’s sapping. We love Lagos, so we’ll deal with Lagos like that.
Michael: Tell me about it. We don’t have a choice, we are here.
Bekeme: So, quickly diving into today’s topic, we’re talking about embracing Digital Disruption in 2023 and beyond. As I said earlier, since the Pandemic, lots of companies have transformed and it’s helped us to do more things. Now people don’t have to worry about setting staffing needs because you can hire people from all over the world literally. I remember that before now when you thought about hiring somebody and they said, oh, I’m in Ghana, you’d be like, what am I going to do? And then even us at CSR-in-Action now we have a company in Canada and we can work remotely with our colleagues without fear of businesses moving. Like you literally can be here and do business wherever and there’s no anomaly to it. Now, it also helps us with the reduction of having to sit in things like traffic, because most of our clients actually want virtual meetings.
Right. So these things are happening so tell us now, very quickly, put bluntly, what would you say is this Digital Transformation? And is it a good thing?
Michael: It depends on who you ask. The concept of Digital Transformation is kind of like an umbrella term at this point, right? It kind of means different things to different people. But for the purpose of clarity for our listeners, I think I’ll try to keep it as layman as possible. I would define Digital Transformation as the selection, the design, the implementation, the overall adoption of technology in hardware, software, services, and processes. And the goal is to kind of increase efficiency, enhance the quality of work, to be able to scale the number of people you can work with, to be able to essentially, the goal is to use technology to enhance every facet of a business operations.
Bekeme: You know what? As we’re talking, did you see my eyes go wide? Like, okay, if this wasn’t as layman as possible, what would you have said?
Michael: We do that sometimes. The idea is that the thing about this is such a buzzword now, right, that a lot of people tend to use it for look, I’ve seen certain meetings when for two, and three hours I’ve been talking to Digital Transformation. Even I didn’t know what they were talking about. So it’s very important that listeners can kind of understand that. The idea is to say, what can technology do for me, human resource? What can technology do for your customer service, for your client acquisition, for your customer success and happiness? All these things. So, yeah, that’s what I would define at this point what Digital Transformation looks like.
Bekeme: Yeah, I mean, we’ve been seeing that it’s been used now in different aspects of our life, lives, even with the government. We have the bimodal voter accreditation system. These were things that we used to talk about, but now they were used during the Anambra state elections. I remember that early on, when we started with this SITEI conference that I announced at the beginning, we couldn’t actually get government to respond to any of our requests without actually flying to Abuja. Like the federal government. We couldn’t get anything done if we didn’t fly to Abuja. So for us, it’s a huge deal that now they’re actually even agreeing to scan letters and to send our emails instead of us paying FX that are now triple the cost that they wear as well. I mean, I just heard recently that no matter what time you buy flight one with not less than 65,000. That is crazy. That is crazy. Just last year, this early last year would buy tickets for 18,000. And then now it’s so high. I think for entrepreneurs like me, that’s the big plus, that you can actually do these kinds of things.
Michael: The reality of things is there are a lot of people who have been preaching that technology needed to be embraced at a much faster pace. But a lot of businesses were very focused on business as usual.
Then COVID happened then have to find a way to work together. And then companies now realise, you know what? Yeah, I don’t really need to be in the office all the time. And I think that since then, companies have had to be forced to explore opportunities where they don’t need to travel as much. They don’t need to spend as much. They don’t need to. What can technology replace? And yes, with this efforts thing, I can certainly relate. I’m scared to look at what the efforts are right now because it looks like every single time it’s like a 20% bump every time you look at the website.
Bekeme: It’s crazy. Then you could buy early and then that was that. I guess one of the things that this digital transformation has done as well is to help with reduction in emissions.
Michael: Secondly, certainly. I think transportation, certainly, as we know, is one of the biggest contributors to emissions. Being able to slow that down so you can only reserve that for the most urgent and the most important trips certainly has been a good addition. And that’s just that because when you talk about being in the office and burning generators, five days a week, now you’re working from home. And yes, residential power consumption is nothing close to commercial power consumption. I’m sure you know that. So yes, even though it has been out of necessity, it certainly has had its blessings for businesses.
Bekeme: Yes. Now when you talk about these blessings, so they’re really good things that digital transformation has brought, some of the things we’ve mentioned already. But then when you live in the real world, you find that you still have to monitor output. Again, as businesses, you then have staff working from home. How are you able to use that same technology to your benefit? How do you know that they’re not going to the market whilst they’re supposed to be at work, how can a business actually now harness properly the power of digital transformation efficiency.
Michael: That’s a hard one. The solution will vary from company to company. Here’s what I say to my clients and stakeholders. Digital transformation is not just about bringing some tools and putting them inside of a system or inside of your business. It requires a rethink. What I mean by that is my strong suggestion to monitoring this particular example that you’ve given has always been focus on the results and not the how tools. Try to foster a result on the work environment. All you are doing is looking at the quality of the work and the time frame that that work has come out. When you do that, also, you send the message that you trust your employees that they can actually get the work done. Now, don’t get me wrong, people will abuse the system. Understand it. It’s a fact of life. However, in innovation, one of the things we see is that you’re not looking for a perfect solution. All you want is to be 1% better than you were before. That’s what it is. 51% is all you need. The question is, if I start my journey. The thing about transformation is it doesn’t end. We had a time when we had data entry where we had to move from ledgers to Excel. Then we went into the software. That was another evolution. Now we are looking at machine learning and artificial intelligence that will take this data and crunch them into actionable insight. It never ends. We don’t know what the next generation is going to look like. So it’s a journey, it’s not a destination. So to that effect, the goal is simple. Aim for being 1% better than you were when you were in office at all times. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s easier said than done. I will tell you the truth. People who know me know I’m as traditional as I get. When are talking about the ability to have to work hybrid. I think hybrid is the future of work. I spoke with the team and the first thing I said was, look, if you think that people are going to work from home because it’s not the in thing, not here.
I would need to know that we have systems and processes that will make sure that our work does not decline. If you can tell me that, look, if you guys want to work four days a week, I will leave it to you. But the work must not decline. If in doubt, everybody gets back to the office. And so by saying that over and over again, you’re instilling them a sense of accountability. They do understand that, look, I better sit up. Otherwise, I will lose all of these benefits.
Bekeme: Yeah, but there’s that one person who just drags everybody with them, everybody down with them. So, for instance, during COVID, we had a manager who… So we had this tool called time doctor. So I guess anybody who can check it out. And I thought that to a large extent for a small business, it worked well enough. But then you still had people who knew that there were deliverables to be done. You had a set of deliverables that should have been accomplished by the end of the week who would come with excuse, something I did o, but somehow I couldn’t finish it. Even though you think, Oh, actually, this is the same volume of work other people are able to finish. But then this person says they can’t. Then you check time doctor, and then you find that for an entire week, this person worked only 13 hours. There’s usually that person who drags everybody back. I think that’s one of the negative aspects of remote working because I think that to a large extent, there needs to be some level of maturity, consciousness. Correct. I don’t know whether to say integrity and loyalty involved as well.
Michael: Personal accountability.
Bekeme: Accountability is very critical for that to happen. Typically I think that… I was hoping that I would hear searching other tools. It does make sense when you say that you get to remind people these are the expectations. But then there’s that one person that draws everybody’s attention.
Michael: One of the things I found out, too, is in every team, you will have people who are just coming along at the pace of everybody else is, particularly with journeys like this. Punish them. Punish them. Don’t punish the team. Every time you bring everybody back, you send a message that you don’t really trust anyone. One of the things I found out, too, and I’m sure if some of my staff members are listening, they would agree with me, is that good people don’t like to be micromanaged. Just let them do them. Hold the part that you want to control, which is the outcome, the expected outcome. This needs to be done and needs to be done on time and then let them do them. Now, in the event they’re not able to make it happen, one time, two times, then we have a conversation and say, Look, I let you guys have this time because I trusted it’s not working. So you guys, you come to the office. The rest of you stay in the house. You know what I mean? Then it’s a journey. Like I said, it does take some time to get used to. Five, six months in, you now realize, okay, people have gotten used to it. The nostalgia and the feeling, the euphoria of being at home and not doing… They would have gotten over that. And then they can actually turn that into some a… They’d affirm the right habits, if you will. And then time doctor, go easy on the monitoring.
Bekeme: We haven’t even used time doctor in a bit.
Michael: Yes, because the truth of the matter is it helps. Don’t get me wrong, there are certain scenarios where it does help.
Bekeme: I like this scenario. So how else would you have been able to tell if a person gave you all sorts of reasons why they didn’t complete their job? How would you then be able to tell empirically that this is what had happened?
Michael: Think of them like you would think of freelancers.
Bekeme: But you can’t. They’re not freelancers.
Michael: I know. The incentives now need to be shipped to outcomes and not to deliverables. When people start to realize that their pay and their remuneration is dependent on certain milestones, which is the way that majority of PP have been handled, people start to arrange themselves properly. But give them the… What’s the word? Trust them first, let them break it, and then you can now decide, Okay, you know what? This thing I gave to you, I’m taking it back. Or if you’re going to work, here are the new rules. It’s very important to do that because there are some people who thrive working from home. They do. Yes. They do. They do fantastic. They’ll work longer, harder, way more efficiently with no distractions. And every single time you think of the group in that way, you let go of the ability to literally explode.
I agree because I’m one of such people. Just today I was complaining in the office, like, why do you guys have to come into my office all the time? Why can’t you just let me work in peace? This is why I like to work from home because I’m in my own head and I’m just working efficiently. But Thelma, I’m sure that you have thoughts on this, but before I go on, you’ve been listening to the Good Citizens show. I’ve been talking about embracing digital transformation. Thelma works with me at CSR-in-Action. So I’m sure Thelma has thoughts. How efficient are you, thanks to the digital age and being a millennial Gen Z who always thinks… I’m sure she would say, You know what? I don’t agree that we should be monitored, but carry on.
Thelma: Well, I’ve currently been put on the spot right now.
Bekeme: You haven’t said anything to us since. Okay, we want to hear your thoughts. Okay.
Thelma: So concerning the monitoring like it’s always been said, like you said, I do agree that people work very well from home. But that part you said, or you talk about people being dragged with the whole team or something like that. I feel in a space, in a workspace, to be able to manage the efficiency of people, you have to know each of them. How will I put it? There are stretch points where their. At that point you’ll be able to say, okay, this person can do this. At this moment, I can do that. Each person can be able to drag the other person to get to this other level. So it’s a team effort. Yeah, it’s a team effort.
Michael: I certainly agree. I think there are opportunities where the team will need to self-will police each other sometimes. But I also see that efficient people, you want to give everybody the opportunity and then let people kind of fall into place. Some people will do fantastic and run with some people will struggle to get there. Some people will fail completely at it. And then you can now find out, okay, this person’s strength, maybe this person needs to be in the office more often. Maybe that person remembers I said the future is hybrid. I believe hybrid is the future. You want to be able to have that combination because you have alignment; you have the camaraderie of the office. You can’t replace that. That’s not going anywhere anytime soon. But the idea is that it has to be some kind of a balance.
Bekeme: I agree. I think that there needs to be obviously a meeting point. Sometimes it just feels like you’re working with a robot. Especially people who were hired during the pandemic and never had a chance to actually meet the actual team. So we do have a chance for a call. We forgot to ask you to call in 0700923923923. You can call us and tell us any good or bad experience that you’ve had around digital transformation, particularly in the workplace. And I’ll say that I have to agree with Thelma when she talked about people monitoring each other, I think that some of the times when we’ve literally just talked to the one person, they just carry on. But when the team has to tell them look, if you put us in trouble, you’re not going anywhere, they’re not happy about that. Secondly, because it’s an ecosystem when a person doesn’t actually carry out the role, it means that the other person or the other people are allowing them to drag them behind.
So it means that you are not speaking up. And I attribute that to professionalism. When you see that your deliverable will not be achieved because of a colleague, but you choose not to say anything because you don’t want to seem like a bad person, I think that that is a lack of professionalism and that’s the reason why. I think that to a large extent that they are somewhat interlinked, like having to hold other people accountable when they see because oftentimes the leader may be occupied with some other thing because oftentimes the roles can be strategic. You are the team member who has to work with this person all the time. And during the course of the week you think that certain roles have been dropped, but you’re not saying anything about it. So, I do think that to a large extent it makes people accountable when everybody is held accountable to make things work for them.
Okay, so I would say that I would want to ask you before we go, because we just have a few minutes what do you think is a competitive advantage? Do you think that businesses that are more willing to adopt? I mean, do you think it’s every business that needs to think about digital transformation? And do you think that businesses that do are more competitive?
Michael: Yes, an emphatic yes. It is my very strong suggestion and recommendation that businesses, even though they are not technology default type businesses, to start thinking about how they can inject technology. One erroneous line of thinking is saying things like technology is the future. No, technology already exists. It has been here for the last 20 years. And what we are seeing right now is now everybody’s been talking about Gen Z and all of this. No, this is just the audience, the first real digital native generation. And we can already see that it’s a massive difference in terms of how they see the world and how we see the world. They are the smartest generation has ever come. The smartest. However, they’ve got different priorities, right?
Bekeme: She said yea. I don’t know about that.
Michael: Right now. At 22 you would you would marvel at what they know and what they are able to pull out. Here is the problem. I think that they are also the easy generation because they kind of have grown in an environment where people we really didn’t have to survive as much. So, if you look at me, majority of the issues that employers have had with Gen Z, there’s always been that they are lazy. They are optimised for soft life.
Bekeme: It’s all about soft life. This whole technology thing is all about soft life because they don’t have to kind of use that common sensical knowledge to street smart to get back.
Michael: But you know, you’ve got to kind of put yourself in your shoes. They were born in a city, in an environment you remember that we actually had to use dictionaries. We went to the library, we did our research. These people were born when Google already existed. I have any question, all I have to do is Google and there’s an answer. They are used to instant gratification. It’s their reality. So, the point is that what you consider as easy, it’s just that they have a different reality from us. See, I suffer too don’t worry; I am inside my eyes are really new dispensation, right?
Bekeme: And so how do we work with that new dispensation is what we need to find.
Michael: So I think that business owners and business decision makers need to rethink from the bottom, right? Write a list of majority of the services and the internal operations and then ask yourself this question what can technology do to enhance that experience?
Bekeme: Okay. Thank you so much, because there’s always so much to talk about. And I was arguing here, but I don’t know that you’re the smartest. I think my generation is the smartest generation.
Anyway, thank you for listening, everyone. We’ve been talking about digital transformation on the Good Citizen show. It’s been me, Bekeme, aka Mummy G. O. We’ve had Michael Nwayemike on the show and Thelma Emiri of Gen Z generation. Follow us on social media and same time next week, Friday on the show.
