Francis Egbuson

One of the most satisfying aspects of our work is the privilege to meet clients - it is truly an exciting opportunity to listen and work with the client to achieve their business objectives. Usually, we will run into clients 'know what they want' or others who will rely on our experience in the diagnostic process to get a solid understanding of the problem. And this can take a number of iterations to get to the issues, evidence that these issues exist, the impact of these issues on the business and the type of solution we can customize. Now nothing could have prepared us for last week, when we ran into a client who was 'surprised' at the suggestion that the issues the sales team was facing could not be dealt with in isolation of how the sales team was been led. 'we don't do the work, our sales people do' was the emphatic conclusion of the sales leaders at the meeting. Implication is 'fix' our people and we will be fine. Specifically, the sales lea...

During our staff meeting yesterday, our internal business partner made two suggestions for increasing the number of call outs to clients. Call outs are a way of contacting clients to set-up appointments for our Client partners - people who are the key sales and account management folks. One suggestion was that the head of the business should make certain calls if we wanted to increase the likelihood of getting the appointments - these will be calls to Heads of business and other executives. And the second was that we should get the local newspaper business directory. The idea of the local newspaper business directory is a great one because it will have a considerable listing of all businesses in Uganda. But it was the reason that we did not have it at that time that stunned me. We had been waiting for our accountant to buy it. I later learnt that the initial idea for the purchase of the business directory was discussed over three weeks ago. And here is the sad part, our ...

I ran into the excerpt from a new book by former spiritual adviser to President Barack Obama, Joshua DuBois. It quotes lyrics from a song by Nina Simone titled “Feeling Good”; Birds flying high, you know how I feel Sun in the sky, you know how I feel Breeze drifting on by, you know how I feel It’s a new dawn! It’s a new day! It’s a new life for me And I’m feeling good. —Nina Simone, “Feeling Good” DuBois in making his point that no matter what is happening around us, we still have the choice on what to keep our focus on, also quotes Psalm 59 which narrates the Psalmist choices in the midst of crisis: See how they lie in wait for me! Fierce men conspire against me for no offense or sin of mine, Lord. . . . They return at evening, snarling like dogs, and prowl about the city. They wander about for food and howl if not satisfied. I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, ...

As we match towards 2014, it is important to remind ourselves about why we do what we do as business. Why do customers continue to rely on our content, delivery capability and follow-up. Why do we continue to get referrals and why do people who attend our workshops give us 9 or 10 in our post workshop assessments. To be sure, our plan is to run a profitable business, with solid margins and great pipeline of future business. But as I reflect, what keeps Julia Nansubuga  - a 6-7 month pregnant woman running through the parking lot of Uganda Revenue Authority to deliver a proposal ahead of time, is not the profitability of the business or the prospects of future options. And as the ex-Google Uganda employee opined “this is great and I know I am in the right place”. That “right place” is right because of our mission. As FranklinCovey Executive Vice President, Sean Covey put it in his December memo to owners, “ In the end, we do what we do because we care about our mission....

It took my family and I almost two hours to get to the airport at Entebbe on Saturday. Traffic crawled along and we thought there was an accident on the way. But we crawled along until we go to Entebbe, no accident, just lost of cars and trucks on the road. We arrived at the entrance and we were told that our favorite airline gate was closed. We pleaded with airport security and airline representative but we were told that we were late - gate closed an hour ago. So we called our travel agent who insisted that we could still board because aour seats were "available". She said "you be an African and put something in that man's hands". The "that man" was the supposed supervisor. I said "put something in his hands?", "yes!" was the response. So we ended up staying the night in Entebbe for the next flight where we did not have to "put something in that man's hands" and where I did not have to prove the authenticity of my...

A client of mine asked a question a few days ago, after a few hours of our second requirements gathering session, “what is your success rate, I mean do you have sure fire way to change human beings..”. This client was expressing a feeling most have when it comes to investing in themselves or their staff. “Will I really change?”, “Can old dogs learn new tricks?” others might ask. You at the bottom of these questions are long held beliefs that it is difficult to quantify investments in training, especially in programs or processes that involve change in human behavior. But the good news is that old Dogs can learn new tricks and it takes about 28 days to begin to see evidence that adults have learning new behaviors.  The process as Samuel Smiles reminds is in forming new ways of doing things and overcoming the old ways that maybe working against us. The quotation now made famous by the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People program, Samuel Smiles says the following: “Sow a thought,...

                                                                                                                               I spent about 12 hours today flying from Entebbe, Uganda to Dar Es Salaam. What started out as a simple process to catch a flight turned out to be quite exhausting. I arrived at the Entebbe Airport at about 6:45 am in morning for a 9:45 a...