Francis Egbuson

We had the privilege to facilitate a learning session with members of the Uganda Private Educational Institution Association (NPEIA) held at St. Lawrence University last week. The session was attended by about 110 members from the various districts around Kampala, Wakiso and Luwero. This learning session was part of the multi year partnership between NPEIA and our firm CEMM. The objectives of the partnership are to enable NPEIA members achieve the learning and commercial objectives of the association, create process, content and faculty for on-going professional development for administrators, head teachers, teachers and other staff and provide access to Franklin Covey's whole school transformation process called The Leader In Me. CEMM is the exclusive licensee for Franklin Covey in Uganda, Rwanda, Togo and Burundi. As part of the interaction, we shared the following in response to NPEIA members interest: 1. Leaders who make a difference in peoples lives have a combination of Chara...

During the Covid-19 lockdown in Uganda, one of our clients - a financial institution with a footprint in 12 countries in Africa, offered our firm the opportunity to train in online delivery. The purpose was to have a team of trained Facilitators in Africa who could deliver their content on Self- Management. This was our first encounter with online delivery at scale. We had another opportunity with another financial institution to deliver to over 600 branch managers. This institution had a footprint in 35 countries in Africa. This delivery was done at a time when most of sub-saharan Africa was experiencing lockdown. Since these two experiences, we have gone on to include online teaching and learning as an integral part of our delivery experience. We have done so for corporates, public sector, educational institutions and preparing young entrepreneurs in East Africa. Based on these experiences, my sense is that online teaching and learning will shape the way we learn and apply learning i...

 My wife and I had breakfast with Mariano Takishimi, an Argentine born Japanese Chef who manages 3 operations in Los Cabos Mexico. After I got beyond the awe of dining with someone who actually knows about food, I asked Mariano what legacy he would like to leave behind. This is a question I am wrestling with based on a class project on Action Learning and Coaching. As part of the data collection portion of the class, I set out to interview a number of stakeholders to get a wide angle view of the topic of what it takes to live a life that is Legacy driven. My interview list includes two entrepreneurs, two leaders of businesses we provide services to and are intimately familiar with the work we do, and selected members of our staff. So Mariano would be me or the two entrepreneurs. Mariano, who is Japanese, was born in Argentina. Mariano’s father wanted him to study business so he could join the Hitachi corporation where his father worked as an executive. Mariano followed his passion ...

  A 5 Star is remembered Today friends and family came together in Olney, Maryland United States to bury a friend, colleague, Aunty, mentor and a believer in the saving grace of God, Khalea Queen. Khalea Queen passed away July 11th 2022 after a period of hospitalization.  My wife and I met Khalea at the Bethel World Outreach (now Harvest International) church where Khalea and I served on a Church committee called the 5 Star team. The team was setup by the founder of the Church Bishop Darlingston Johnson to review and make recommendations to provide a more excellent member experience. While Sister Khalea volunteered at the Church, she was a teacher with the District of Columbia public school system. In that capacity, we came to know Sister Khalea (as we fondly called her) as a hardworking, loving and delightful human being. Sister Khalea made significant contributions to the team especially in the area establishing a program management office (PMO) for managing all church proje...

I had the privilege of been a guest on the Watoto Church Power, Sex and Money program last week Friday on the topic of goal setting. Watoto Church is Pentecostal congregation established over thirty years ago by Pastor Gary Skinner and his wife Marilyn.  The interviewer Ronnie Habasa did an excellent job of facilitating the process to ensure that we focused on the topic in a conversational, light hearted and meaningful way.  Now, with most people’s experience with making New Year resolutions and not keeping them beyond February 14 th (Valentine’s Day) of the same year, and the feeling that people in the Church may think of goal setting as some corporate ritual, I was very impressed by the level of interest and enthusiasm from the audience. And it was the preparation for the session that also proved to be very rewarding. I listened to Pastor Rick Warren’s sermon on Transformed: How to Set Personal Goals By Faith and Change Your Life By Changing Your Mind. Two pivotal s...

It was a gathering of 122 business leaders from 30 countries in sub freezing temperatures in Boston on January 19-24 to learn about Disciplined Entrepreneurship (DE). A process and set of tools developed by MIT Professor of Practice and Chief Executive of the Martin Trust Center for Entrepreneurship, Bill Aulet. It was a gathering of intense energy and collaboration facilitated by a world class Faculty and the Boston Venture and Angel network. As someone who worked in a startup and went on to co-found our company, the time in Boston was reminder that what makes for a successful startup is the quality of the founding team. Contrary to my early beliefs that one needed a killer application to be successful. Its the team and the single most important condition for a successful business is a paying customer - a point Bill Aulet drummed the entire week. Below are some of my other take-away from my time at the Entrepreneurship Development Program (EDP); Entrepreneurship is a process ...

One of the participants in a focus group session we had recently with a Kampala based US owned Telecommunications Tower Company, said at the end of the session that ‘most of the answers came from us’, almost to his surprise. And another asked, ‘do you have anything to add or were we just spot on?’. As I reflected on the comment and the question, it reminded me of one of the mindsets of adult learning, that is adults are inherently resourceful with a wide reservoir of experiences which people bring to attend to any problem or opportunity at hand. And to quote Malcolm Shepherd Knowles, the American educator well known for the art and science of adult learning, because adults see themselves as independent and self-directing, there develops a ‘’deep psychological need to be perceived by others, and treated   by others as capable of taking responsibility for ourselves’’ and if ‘’others are imposing their wills on us without our participating in making decisions affecting us, we e...