Public Discussion Forum – February 2013 Presentations
Zambia Unsaid Truth Presentation Feb 2013
Zambia’s Strategic Advantage as an Investment Destination
Power Networking Speech
- Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry, MINISTERS, Director General ZNBC,
- Leaders in Government
- Our Host, Luckie Chiyowele
- CEOs, Leaders in Business
- Ladies & Gentlemen
It is a pleasure to be here tonight. On behalf of TopFloor and the American Chamber of Commerce, thank you for giving me the opportunity to have a few moments of your time.
We are all here because we have some interest in providing financing to SMEs, we want to access financing for our own SMEs, or we’re maybe interested in the subject. More than this, we are interested in either accessing better finance or capturing more customers by providing better financing...Read more
The Value in Value
Eeeeesh! My people need training! They have just failed to deliver on time and I am responsible. Productivity is not what it needs to be for my staff to deliver.
Was it because they did not know how to Word-merge or create a chart in Excel? Or that they did not understand the lag and lead-times of the project they are managing? Or did my email go down again for days because your IT staff simply do not have the skills....Read more
The Need for a Quality Revolution
To be the best, we need to be unlike the rest. All too often in our local setting, the focus from the employer’s perspective is on making a profit or perhaps even just on keeping in the black. From the employee perspective, the focus, more often than not, is on performing to a sufficient degree just to get paid. Then there is the consumer perspective where the focus is often times on convenient procurement, particularly when afforded limited choice.
I’m sure many of our readers will agree, that from a consumer and buyer perspective, we all deserve better than the second-rate and sometimes sub-standard products and services that we receive in -country. What must it take for us to receive quality service or products that are designed to meet our needs and expectations as global citizens?…Read more
Your Voice deserves attention
By Dave Vosburg, Managing Director, TopFloor This quarter Airtel is launching a 3.75G network, Huawei is introducing 4G phones,and iConnectis rolling-out its 4G network.But where did 3G go? Tens of thousands of Zambians are accessingthe internet on their mobile phones… but they have never used a desktop to view the web.In technology,Zambia is leap-frogging over a generation or more of technology, and surpassingmany cities in developed nations, and some countries entirely!In December, TopFloor hosted Avivah Wittenberg-Cox to discuss the concept of Womenomics. Womenomics highlights the perspective that women now represent the majority of the talent pool, and a majority of the market, so a better gender balance in leadership yields better corporate performance. In casual discussion,Avivah spoke of her visits with corporations in Europe and North America as being frustrating. She indicated that entrenched male interests often prevented leaders from changing their behaviors, policies and procedures to encourage gender-balancing.:..Read more
Performance Management : Critical Learning Tool
As discussed in a post earlier this month (www.topfloor.co.zm/blog), approximately twenty percent of our learning comes through feedback and observation. A critical piece of the feedback we use to learn is from performance appraisals with our line managers and other stakeholders whom we interact with in our role at the company.
Implementing a robust performance management system is necessary to maximize the learning and performance of your staff. Having met with dozens of human resource managers and discussed the challenges they face in implementing their performance management programs, there are three common mistakes that are made consistently which are the cause of the majority of frustration:….Read more
How Do We Learn? 70 – 20 – 10 ?
Last night I was having a discussion with Dave Forman, Chief Learning Officer for the Human Capital Institute, and he reminded me of a principle that we often forget as managers responsible for the learning and development of our workforce.
70 – 20 – 10
- Seventy percent of our learning comes from experience at our jobs solving challenges day-to-day
– Twenty percent of our learning we receive through feedback, direct or by observation
– Ten percent of our learning happens through formal training”….Read more
Choosing Your Workforce
I am finished with employers complaining about talent. I have heard time and again from fellow CEOs and managers that they are unable to find employees with the right knowledge, skills and attitudes. I am here to state that the answer to our talent challenges are not with the people, but the cause is the organizations we lead and for which we work.
Hiring for Attitude
One of our expert trainers was speaking with a CEO who was expressing his frustration over the challenging talent environment. “There just are not enough people of the kind we want.”….Read more
TopFloor on Womenomics
Warren Buffet is arguably the most accomplished investor in the world. Over decades he has taken a very modest amount of capital and turned it into billions of dollars, making him one of the richest people globally. He has also become a great philanthropist, giving the majority of his riches not to his children, but investing it in critical health and development issues.
But how did Warren do so well? Warren built his empire through value-based investments, rather than growth investments. A value-based investment strategy identifies opportunities in which companies are under-valued and future growth is guaranteed, whereas a growth investment looks for opportunities in an industry in which market-beating growth is expected….Read more
Psychometric Assessment… …Psycho-What?
Make sure you don’t hire a psycho!
Four months ago you hired a Director who you were hopeful would be integral to the advancement and transformation of your organization. You spent months developing the precise job description, contracting a recruitment agency to provide you with a pool of above average individuals and interviewing dozens of candidates. After all the effort, you and the selection committee settled on the ‘perfect’ candidate. She had all the skills, knowledge and experience to meet and exceed your expectations. Then month number four struck. The probationary period ended, and you’ve realized you’ve made a mistake….
We have all had this experience, realizing that we have hired the wrong person when its virtually too late. It is not uncommon for someone to be ‘good on paper,’ interview convincingly, demonstrate knowledge, and perform at the beginning of their role before a lack of results brings expectations crashing down. Sometimes it may even be our hope in finding a candidate within a target timeframe and our over-investment in the process that contributes to distorted expectations and mis-hiring. Let’s admit it, hiring is more of an art than a science… right?…Read more
