Sweat Equity | The Nigerian Youth | Investment Gaps
This short piece is part rant and part musings about our new ‘microwave nation’ of young Nigerians, who have a dysfunctional attitude to work and personal growth. Their focus is what I have termed ‘now now success’, where little or no effort is put into work. However, results are expected every time immediately. I recently discovered the phrase ‘sweat equity’, which is defined as one’s contribution to a project or enterprise in the form of effort and toil. If sweat equity could be measured in terms of benefits and impact, both tangible and otherwise, I would be on the Fortune 500 Sweat Equity List, if one existed. I have been fortunate to work with managers who pushed and threw me into the deep end of the marketplace to either sink or swim!
Let me start by including myself (albeit just about) in the Nigerian government’s definition of a youth, which is anyone between the age of 15-40 years old; a broad definition, by many standards, especially if you are of the school of thought which believes that ‘age ain’t nothin’ but a number’.
The average Nigerian child/youth (which excludes everyone reading this on a smartphone or ‘fancy’ laptop) probably started working from a very young age in their parent’s business. Children as young as five help to ‘sell’ in their mother’s shop or to pass a wrench to a plumber father.
If you are anything like me, you didn’t intern with your mum or dad or JP Morgan. Instead, you spent your childhood doing all the usual things and continued with this false reality into university. School holidays were spent riding your bike till 4 pm, then running inside, gluing yourself to the TV and waiting for the bright lines on the screen to change to a lady who spent far too long talking about the upcoming programmes for the day, instead of just showing your favourite cartoon or show!
Arguably, most people’s first foray into the workplace is during NYSC, depending on where you ‘served’, which is a great term as many corpers spend their one year indeed serving, buying food, making tea, picking up dry cleaning or doing school runs! If you were lucky enough to serve in a ‘proper’ office, (as I did at Insight Communications as a copywriter, where I worked with experienced artists), then happy days! My focus during my NYSC year was to ‘over deliver’ and get retained, and it worked! I remained at Insight Communications until I decided I needed to go on to do my Masters Degree in Dublin. I have always worked in environments where I was either the only person of colour or the single woman and as a result, I was forced to prove myself over and over again! As a result, I have managed to successfully work with a wide range of people and organisations around the world.
The ‘microwave nation’ of young people we are raising in Nigeria today is a concern. I run a boutique-consulting firm, which I have a naïve vision of trying to model after The Google Office. Almost five years in and I have just sent a text to one of my mentors, letting him know that I am so frustrated with missed deliverables, as well as micromanaging, that I would like to take matters into my own hands, which never ends well. If you are rolling your eyes, you are apparently not a people manager of young Nigerians!
Why is it okay for young people to think that if you don’t work hard, add value and innovate you will still succeed? Why has over delivering become an illusory concept? Why do young people not understand that in the workplace you have to work in a professional manner, which includes ensuring your deliverables are met, and using all means, including making Google your new best friend, to find solutions to all the problems they may face?
Sweat Equity is my mantra for 2018. Every young person looking to remain successful and grow in the long term must ask him or herself what ‘sweat equity’, value-add, solution or innovation they bring to the workplace. Let us not forget the ‘micro-wave nation’ of young Nigerians will one day manage the country, the critical question, how do we ensure that they are equipped to do the job.
