Do Start Up Companies Really Need to Play Office Politics? Business Ideas for Starts up Firms in Africa to Gain Brand Recognition and Acceptance.
Do Start Up Companies Really Need to Play Office Politics?
Start up companies are the future of work in this country. They would need to pick up where the multinationals companies have failed.
The popular saying that there is office politics everywhere. That it is inevitable. But the question to ask is; those companies that have been playing office politics where as it takes them to? Many are still in the same phase of their business growth. Many are yet to get to the peak. And so many are yet to become a global brand by merit.
Start up firms should look inward. Build a strong formidable team. Invest in people and see difference this would make in their corporate objective. Business should not be about who get what and how. The competition race within the system should be eliminated.
Business should be aimed at scanning their external business environment time to time. They should not be found wanting in internal drama that doesn’t have anything to do with business and positioning.
The employees that are busy fighting on who get to be procurement manager or chief commercial officer lack the technical know-how of their business. At the end of the day, it is about win/lose game. The one who lose would now take his talent elsewhere why the one that won might not be competent enough to help the company grow to its potential.
In business organization, it is business first. All these ideas of political science and game puzzle are not priority. Multinational firms and some real sectors are just after job titles. Nobody cares about the company mission and vision. They just want to wear the ID card and sit in the office as the Unit Head and something like Chief Controller.
When taking time to ask some employees about what their role is in their company. I have come to find out that only few knows exactly why they have been hired and what they have been hired to do. Many are only after activities. You see the Commercial Manager climbing the stair case more than 20 times in a day. Sometime you would see them using the company official car and lift for mere activities. Those in Finance, Front Desk, Data Unit and so on would be clamoring that their work load is much. Whereas is Just too much paper work full of activities. They would say they feel like interchanging their job role with guys in Social Media Unit or Business Development. Not knowing everyone has quota to contribute to the company. Even the security and facility team should never be overlooked as they all play crucial role in the system of work.
In a startup firm employee engagement is very important. I am very good at communicating business goals and expectation to my staff in the telecom industry. So that everyone would know what is expected of them on a daily basis.
The call center team are doing a well-done job in any given industry. They take time to listen to people and resolve their issue accordingly. They are the first contact which client get to interact with the company. They have to be at the best behavior at all times. They work hand in hand with sales and marketing team. The PR of the company depends on these guys greatly. Their job is relationship building and management.
The CEO of a startup firm should let every unit knows that they co-exist. No department should feel he is doing much more than the other.
Marketing today and tomorrow. Always and every time. Marketing unit is the only functional areas of business that deals with result. It is the onus of the Hr. in a startup firm to make sure they recruit the best Team with a wider experience.
Should we sack people for playing politics in our organization? The answer I think is No. But we should call those staff that want to form that informal act to take caution. As it is not the formal reason why the start up firm has been establish. They should read their job description and specification. Which I believe know no company JD said that staff should be part of office politics.
Staff should be strongly educated on Company politics just the way they do with topic like Conflict of Interest. If company fail to do this. It means they have forgone good administration. Every job they advertise to the public would be format. Such jobs and who take such jobs would be determined or decided by the politician inside the office. The question here is do you Hire that Finance Manager to run accounting activities or political welfare in your company. This politics has no ending. It would breed Sexual Harassment, heavy competition, corruption, fraud, scandal and so many menace in the office.
The startup companies shouldn’t be a place where one individual intimidate another individual. We all co-exist. No staff should see one unit head or MD or CEO and be scared or start running away or abandon his job in other to rush back to office.
The startup companies that would thrive well in Nigeria should also be the one where people call each other freely by their names. The idea of using title should be churn. It brings about barrier and fence. We need complete candor. No excessive nick name like Madam and Oga. Calling each other by name make human to relate freely with each other.
We need to leave politics to the folks at the national level to play. Since it is a dirty game. We need neat guys in our corporate organization. We need people that have inter-relationship. People that believe in putting the company objective before their personal objective. We need win/win situation.
There should be no election as to who would head a unit. The HR. should do their performance appraisal and evaluate the employees accordingly without being bias.
One of the reasons why we cannot account for top 10 companies in Nigeria is too much politics that they run in their respective companies. They have no regards for employee. The Hr. or business owners in some of these companies abuse people. they use the staff more and pay them less. Those at the top are so powerful that they make sure they frustrate life of their staff. They impose sexual request on their staff. They engage their staff without pension plan. They have no transparency in what they do.
So, who does politics help? Many of these companies if they got award or being mentioned in the news as the best place to work. It is simply based on human influenced. Nigeria companies especially the mafia one can go any length to buy award or n0mination. It is in our DNA of corruption.
To know if a company is doing well. Researcher or anyone saddled with the task should start with the employee. Past and present. I don’t want to hear that Artificial Intelligence does the survey or benchmarking. We ought to have gone far in this country beyond banks. There are key industries that we are supposed to have allowed to have been thriving in this country. Those who enjoyed working in the banking industry are the one who worked in the time of Cecilia Ibru or Tayo Aderinoku or Hakeem Bello-Osagie. The bank and the telecom are sold out product. Phased out.
Politics doesn’t paved way for professionals. A bad system would always beat a good person down every time. People are getting tired of stress and drama all in the name of working in an office.
Set up your new business. Put the right system in place. Educate people on what they need to know. Be nice to your employee. Then your employee in turn should be kind to your customers. It is a simple arithmetic. All would be in the benefits of the stakeholders.
Please put it on the wall frame;” we need less politics here and more love” Companies that love employee regardless of race, gender, tribe, religion and region would always grow with ease. The reason why we see manipulative companies growing in Nigeria is because the Competition is not tough enough. They are operating on political ground at the national level. All indigenous companies that would have provide stive competition has been sold and privatized. What a country.
Dear Startup, set up your business with a good objective in mind. Have the belief that you would compete with large firms. The sky is your starting point. Do not be afraid of size. Size is the function of growth. Focus on growth always. Focus on doing the right thing. Take advantage of LinkedIn Marketing Solution, create a Company Page, LinkedIn sales optimization and so many resources that LinkedIn and the Digital Marketing world has to offer.
Go and succeed.
About me: At this stage of my career, I help startup companies to fix issues. I advise startup on Marketing and general Business management that can give them a competitive edge. Please feel free to contact me on e-mail: abiodunajala@gmail.com
Twitter: @_ajalaabiodun
Blog: https://www.thebluemotive.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajalaabiodun
Phone number/ WhatsApp: +234–7034773284
