Lessons Learned from the Land of The Unexpected
If you’ve read my earlier post (which you can find here), you’ll know that I’ve spent a bit of time leading teams and running businesses in the self styled Land of the Unexpected — Papua New Guinea.
Parts of this country were still being explored by Westerners well into the middle of the 1900’s, it exerted its right to independence in the 1970’s but even today, it’s a hot, steamy melting pot of languages, cultures and peoples.
Truly one of the last frontier economies, I’m constantly amazed by how much it taught me, and whilst my classroom has taken me through some of the most bizarre circumstances, the lessons I’ve learned are so poignantly transferable to life and business anywhere.
Here are just a few that still inform the way I think about leadership and business every day.
Just because his shirt is ripped…
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a largely rural, agrarian and subsistence economy, you’re not going to find (many) people swanning around in the latest designer labels.
Some of the biggest sales we’d make were to guys who’d rocked up in a battered 4x4 (or more often than not on foot) with a tattered shirt, half consumed rubber flip flops (thongs to my antipodean readers) and a BIG bag of cash. They may have travelled for days to get to the city, hitched part or all of the way, slept in friendly villages and avoided theft by a hair’s breadth JUST to get to you — what does that tell you?
The lesson: This is pretty much a variant of the old ‘don’t judge a book’ adage. Never discount anyone just on the basis of how they look, treat everyone with respect, you never know their story unless you take the time to find out.
Road’s washed out boss…
PNG is one half of a huge island, there is limited road connectivity, no rail transport and the only way to get most places is plane or ship.
But when your customer is dependent on your product, can’t produce their’s without yours, is losing money EVERY day you don’t satisfy their requirements; ‘I couldn’t figure out how to get it to you’ just isn’t going to cut it.
The lesson: Solve problems as creatively as possible. No road? Can we get it on to a ship instead? What’s the going rate for air cargo? Can I consolidate with another one of your customers. Beyond that, ‘just in time’ may not (is unlikely to!) work in a place like PNG unless you plan. Know the shipping schedules, build contingency into your timing, talk to your customers about their needs and work out how to solve the problem with them, not for them.
A gate and some guards don’t mean you’re safe…
PNG suffers from a poor reputation regarding violent crimes. In my experience it is no different from many economies on the development curve; but it never pays to be complacent. I recall one day sat in my office when my assistant came running in — my sales team (who were in a room one floor above me) had been held up at gun point and whilst thankfully no-one was harmed we had critical information, computers and cash stolen from us.
The lesson: Risk management is a must in any business, assess what your business needs and implement risk management policies that make sense for you — if you’re handling a lot of personal data, make sure that you have appropriate security systems and back up, if you manage cash on a regular basis, switch up your routes or the bank branches you deposit at. Do your best to dodge the bullet before it’s fired.
Language isn’t a barrier…
There are well over 800 individual languages spoken in PNG. The national languages are Tok Pisin, a language borne of the vast trading networks and intermingling of peoples, and English. But it is not rare to meet people who will speak only in the former. And whilst Tok Pisin (or pidgin as it’s known) is an amalgamation of a number of languages including English, it has its own nuances that may not be obvious to the uninitiated.
The lesson: We live in a global market — irrespective of what the politics of the day are trying to tell us — and language should no longer be a barrier for you or your business. Figure out how best to communicate with your customer, face to face, in writing or on the phone, pay attention to cultural norms, but don’t let not speaking the same lingo stop you in your tracks.
The ‘too hard basket;…
There was a running joke amongst people at a managerial level in PNG that if something hadn’t been done it had been put in the ‘too hard basket’. I’ve no idea whether this was a southern hemisphere thing as I certainly never heard it much in the UK. It was a derogatory way of saying that a subordinate hadn’t done something — either wouldn’t or more likely couldn’t.
The lesson: Literacy in PNG is still well below the global average and that’s because of lack of decent educational infrastructure and resources. It often falls on the private sector to train its employees and provide ongoing learning and development. If someone doesn’t know how to do something — show them, teach them and repeat the lesson; not everyone has been as privileged, has had the same learning opportunities — take the time to invest in your people and the dividends can be immense.
If you’re going to lead, then show it…
One of the hardest moments in my career happened back in 2014. I’d just walked into the house in Melbourne after another 3 week stint away from my wife and kids. I’d managed to get myself upstairs, showered and was about to sink into bed when the call came: ‘Boss, the warehouse is on fire’. Within 24 hours I was 24 hours I’d flown back up to Lae, crawled through what was left of the warehouse, reassured the staff, the customers, the banks and our suppliers; spoken to the authorities and done whatever else could only be done by me.
We’d gotten this business on track after a couple of difficult years and this news had been like a knife to the chest; but what we achieved from that low point is something I’ll always be incredibly proud of.
The lesson: I was the guy in charge. Me. Moi. Mi’pla (Tok Pisin). And if you’re leading people, in these situations, you need to go beyond acting like a leader and step up in a big way. Leadership can’t be defined in a listicle, how you act will be your legacy. If I hadn’t personally gone out to our customers all over the country to reassure them, the business would have been dead. If I hadn’t delivered a plan to our bankers that helped them to help us, we’d have been sunk. If I hadn’t spoken to the management and staff to reassure them we were going to get through this, we wouldn’t have.
Don’t act like a leader — be one
There are a million and one things that I could talk about, and I’d love to share more with you over time. This unique country never stopped amazing me, and really earned its name as the Land of the Unexpected.
About me: Currently CFO in an EdTech business, I love writing, photography, learning new stuff and taking businesses from zero to something contact me by email: aarish@emergeone.co.uk
