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Experts Talk: All about Working in Africa

working in Africa, working in the African continent

When it comes to working abroad and working in a different culture, there are a whole lot of misconceptions and myths that we carry. On a Mentza discussion on Global Careers hosted by AK Achyut Menon, our recruitment expert from UHR, Nisha Kapoor along with a fellow expert from Africa Tinashe Hove talked about the nitty-gritties of working in the African continent and in the process also dispelled some myths. Below are some key pointers.

So, without further ado let us see what it means to work in the African continent!

Dispelling the Myths:

First things first, Africa is a big continent, with around fifty-four countries, all having a different culture and language. A lot of us think of Africa as a whole country, some even thinking about whole of Africa as South Africa!

Each country has a different set of customs and work culture. The differences can be seen even in the duration of work permits and what each country is seeking to build. We shall take a special look into this aspect later. Continuing on the myths and misconceptions, one more myth that surrounds the African continent is that one perceives it to be a place with poor infrastructure. The countries in Africa have not only great roads but also flyovers crisscrossing. There are rich reservoirs of mineral resources, toll-roads, solar projects to work on. What’s more, over the last few decades, many Indian telecom companies have also been making headways into the continent, all in turn building upon the infrastructure.

Now that the image of the African continent is in place, let us take a look at the opportunities one can encounter!

Opportunities and Industries:

Africa is a continent where one can work across the vertical and horizontal levels. Unlike some countries, the hierarchy is a lot more flexible and one can achieve a high post in a relatively less time, provided the right skills and competence. One can directly access the decision-makers, the owners and the managing directors, proving one’s mettle and keep growing. Again, differing from some countries, where one often finds oneself departmentalised in hierarchies and waiting for promotions, the African continent provides a large canvas with its flexible systems.

It’s a bonus if you are someone who is an expert in the industry and has had experience – African companies put a lot of importance in expertise which can be passed on to through training and experience.

What’s more, the warm and friendly nature of the locals, the multicultural workplace environment, the salaries in US dollars for expats, a respect for expertise, experience and competence, all this makes a wonderful experience. There have been candidates who were so happy working there that they wanted to keep extending their contracts!

Let us take a look at some more peculiarities exclusive to the African continent.

More About Africa:

From manufacturing, IT and non-IT, engineering, the African industrial landscape has a lot to offer. There has been a push towards the entrepreneurial spirit what with one of the youngest set of populations now seen in the continent with an economy for the future. Jobs are being created by emerging as well as established businesses and micro-businesses, all looking to develop further.

Students who are studying in the various African countries have an even greater advantage here- they can interact with their lecturers and other professionals, start networking and create a job for themselves even before a need for the job arises! The older, experienced candidates obviously have their expertise and digital networks to bank on.

Each country in the African continent has a certain need for further development- a Google search for the work-seekers permit would give us a list of the skills each country is on a lookout for. Coupled with this research about what expertise is needed particularly, and a visit to explore the culture and the place should help the individual looking to work in Africa get a sense of what it would be like living and working in this environment. And many happy candidates who were placed as heads-of-department at many of the industries in the African continent, now having risen to GM/MD levels would have a lot to talk about the importance of getting the right consultation!

How to Onboard Yourself at a New Job

onboarding yourself

The pandemic has given rise to occasions where one often finds oneself shuffling between work-from-home and being in office. Such ‘hybrid’ working conditions have given rise to many challenges, one of them being the onboarding process. New recruits might often find themselves on their own to a great extent when it comes to getting oneself familiarised with their new job and the expectations, roles that come with it. Remotely hired recruits might often find themselves feeling unfamiliar with the day-to-day company culture. Essentially, new recruits will end up onboarding themselves.

The Normal Situation:

According to a Unito blogpost, onboarding, generally, is a fairly long-term process which involves the new recruit being familiarised on an organisational, technical and social level. At an organisational level, the new employee gets to know how things work, the company culture, mission and processes. At a technical level, job expectations, goals, definitions of success are explained. At a social level, the employee undergoes a process of getting to know the company community, forge interpersonal connections and building trust.

Unlike an orientation, which is of a very short time-frame, usually a few hours or days, the onboarding process may go on for around a year, and it could start as early as the final interview.

It is true that even in the pre-pandemic situation, the responsibility to assimilate with their new workplace would be as much on the new recruit as much as the company. But now more than ever, one could find oneself bearing the greater share of this responsibility.

Fortunately, there are some tips which can go a long way if you find yourself in a situation where you have to do the onboarding yourself, entirely or to a great extent.

Some organisations don’t have a full-fledged, formally chalked out onboarding process. So, whether you are working remotely or not, it is always a good idea to have some tips handy in order to make the best of the new workplace and assimilate yourself in the new company to optimise your potential.

Onboarding on Your Own:

Drawing on from the three major aspects of onboarding mentioned earlier, there are also three major frameworks of technical, cultural and political learning you can keep in mind when it comes to beginning to onboard yourself at your new company as mentioned in this Blueprintgreen blogpost.

The key lies in knowing which questions to seek answers for. You may ask these questions when their need to be answered arrives to the relevant person, or you may keep this as a mental checklist of sorts, to make sure you are making an effort to ‘get to know’ the company.

  • The Basic Expectations: Gain insight into the fundamentals of the organisation like the clients, audience, technologies used and the everyday functions. Aim at getting an answer to questions like: Who all do I report to for various projects? How am I expected to divide my time? What systems and programs do I need access to do my work, do I have the access and knowledge for it, and who do I consult if I want to know more? What targets am I working toward and how do I know if I am doing a good job, whom should I ask? These include the technical learning aspect.

These might look like basic questions, but any kind of learning begins with asking the right questions at this basic level, and isn’t onboarding essentially a step toward learning more about your new company?

  • The Culture: Each organisation has a certain way of functioning and interacting expected out of its employees. Normal working conditions would give the new recruit an opportunity to observe people first hand, but similar opportunities lack in remote working or within those staggered office hours. And this is where asking yourself questions that follow can help you in gauging the overall attitude and character of the company, and thus manage your interactions accordingly: How does my manager want me to communicate my progress with them? How do colleagues interact with each other? Are we expected to make group or autonomous decisions? How is feedback communicated? How are new ideas received? This is the cultural aspect.
  • The Interactions and Mode of Conduct: Organisations have a certain set of structures of hierarchy and decision-making. It is necessary to know dynamics of positional and personal power. Asking questions such as these would help you approach the right individuals or departments for the right task: Who does my work involve directly and indirectly? What does it take to earn the trust of management? How are new ideas driven forward? What approach does one take if one wants to change someone’s mind? What opportunities exist to take on new responsibilities? What are the best ways to communicate with team members and stakeholders, and in what ways do they vary person-to-person? These questions will essentially help one gauge the subtle codes of conduct and interaction within fellow employees.

Starting to work in a new company can feel a little overwhelming at first, especially if you have been hired remotely or you have limited face time with your new colleagues. To add to it, limited, or no onboarding process from the company’s side can make you feel alienated and isolated even if you love your new job. These questions will provide a starting point in getting to know your new company on the various levels, and thus tailor your tasks and interactions accordingly. The important thing is to give yourself the time to acquaint yourself with the new work environment, real or virtual and keep the learning curve rising, that too at multiple levels.

Fostering Creativity at Workplace

creativity at workplace image

Quick! Think about a place where creativity would be encouraged and nurtured. Did you envision an art studio, a theatre, or maybe a child’s playroom? All those places come to mind pretty easily, but I’m willing to bet there’s one place that didn’t, and that’s the workplace.

This little excerpt from an article by allbusiness.com is a great way to start to think about creativity at workplace. We seldom associate being creative with our regular 9 to 5 jobs. In fact, we often have the opposite thought process, so much so, that the idea of a 9 to 5 job itself has become a metaphor for plain work, full of drudgery, boring, mechanical, where everyone lives for the weekend.

‘I beg to differ!’ says creativity.

Creativity is something that can, and is often used in traditional workplaces as well, with great results, once we understand the definition of creativity beyond its typical notion. Being creative doesn’t necessarily mean having the best aesthetic sense which might allow you to make pretty PPTs, or a cool, colourful workspace.

Summed up well by the article cited above, creativity at workplace implies “creative thinking and creative problem solving.” A more nuanced definition of creativity is all about thinking of various solutions, taking steps which:  

  • Involve risk taking and shaking the status quo.
  • Involve accepting the failures that come with risk, moving quickly past them by learning from them and then going right into the next solution.
  • Involve viewing constraints as a way to overcome a problem.
  • Involve finding new connections for a solution to a problem.

So, the thing is, anyone can be creative!

So, what can we do as employees and employers to foster creativity among us? The following points from an article will also give a clearer understanding of creativity and how it has been used beyond theatres and canvases.

Telling the Brain What to do:

Turns out, we have scientific research telling us the optimal neurological condition to think creatively. Neuroscientist Brigid Schulte in her book Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time tells us that we are most creative/active when our brains are ‘idle’, ‘at leisure.’ It is at these moments that our ‘default mode network’ or DMN lights up, and like ‘airport hubs’ that connect the various parts of the airports, the networks in our brain which don’t typically connect can be connected, leading to us being able to see novel links between a variety of ideas. This ability to see unlikely links between ideas is what drives creativity.  Thus, “…a stray thought, a random memory, an image can combine in novel ways to produce novel ideas.”

The way to bring the mind to this relaxed state consciously is to obviously engage in quick activities that relax your brain.

Where Else:

Another way to foster creativity while looking for solutions is to ask ‘where else?’ This will ensure you see beyond the boundaries, so as mentioned earlier, your constraints become your starting points. As the article sums up, questions such as these can help one look beyond our immediate focus area, which ultimately leads to creative problem solving:

  •  Where else has someone already solved the challenge that I’ve been tasked with?
  • Where else do we see the enthusiasm we want our clients or audience to have?
  • Where else in nature or society does the interaction I’m trying to replicate occur?

The article further gives us an example of how this was applied by a brand tasked with redesigning optimal gear for Olympic swimmers. The company asked ‘where else in nature do objects move quickly and efficient in water?’; they successfully formed a novel connection between nature and fabrics. By asking ‘where else?” they found their inspiration in nature, and thus used fabrics that resembled shark-skin patterns, which dramatically improved the swimmers’ efficiency.

This was a great example of divergent thinking; in other words, finding new connections.

Reframing:  

And finally, creativity is also about reframing tasks. Reframing something allows us to turn something supposedly bland and boring into something refreshing and interesting.

Take for example how Disney changed the experience of their guests. We know of Disneyland as a place of carnival, fun and entertainment, and it is the ultimate benchmark for any amusement park to meet. What is it about its model that makes it different from other amusements parks? Or to be more specific, what is it that Disneyland did that set the tone for most amusement parks of the future?

 When Disneyland first opened in 1955, it reframed some aspects of business, thereby redefining the entertainment and hospitality industry itself. “Customers” became “guests,” “employees” became “cast members,” “uniforms” became “costumes,” and so on. “This reframing of the park’s seemingly simple elements set an entirely different tone — one that asked employees not to work, but to entertain, and one that asked customers not to buy a product, but participate in an experience. By doing so, Disney redefined the entertainment and hospitality industry.”

This is a great example of risk-taking, shaking the status quo. The lack of a fear of failure is inherent in most these examples.

To sum it all up, what employers can do to foster creativity amongst employees beyond creating a ‘fun and creative’ stereotypical Google-like office-space is to:

  • Recognise ideas and create an atmosphere where one can freely communicate new and seemingly unconventional ideas and solutions.
  • Make it clear that negative feedback doesn’t mean that the idea needs to be discarded but that it simply needs some redirection.
  • Communicate that anyone can be creative, and creativity is not just limited to the conventional performing and fine arts.

What an employee can do to foster creativity is to:

  • Again, realise that anyone can be creative, and not be afraid to look beyond one’s traditional field boundaries.
  • Not be afraid that your idea might get rejected, and realise there’s a lot more one can think of.
  • Not to get bogged down by setbacks or seemingly negative feedback.

Stories, Setbacks and Success: All About Writing a Compelling Career Narrative

‘Stories’ dominate the way we tell others about ourselves. We select the important events of our day when someone asks us how our day was. We have a story about our career trajectory, past and future, planned in our heads, so when an interviewer asks us our plan for the next five years, we have the answer; when the interviewer asks why we left our older place of employment, or why they should hire us, we have an answer ready. We select the crucial updates from our careers and add those to the ‘stories’ in our resumes and interviews, as we have written in an earlier article, as a way of personal branding.

Storytelling in the professional world gets a whole new dimension with technology and the various online platforms: the way we write our LinkedIn introduction, the kind of posts we put up and choose to share tell one story. The website of a company, its mission statement, its brand image is the story told by the company about itself.

A few questions are likely to come up:

  • Why should we plan ahead instead of relying on our spontaneity?
  • How much should one include in the story?
  • Should one stick to the good parts only, or should one also include the setbacks?
  • Is it risky to add our setbacks in our story?  

Read on, as we attempt to answer these questions.

The Compelling Power:

As Sharon Elber writing for Workbloom points out a compelling story, or narrative will help you write a compelling resume and cover letter. Recruiters may not have much time to spend in reviewing your application materials, and hence, a powerful narrative will help in making sure that your resume and cover letter quickly convey a clear picture of your qualifications as well your overarching career goals.

Of course, it is unlikely that someone will directly ask you “what is your career story?’ in a job interview. Having a career narrative in your head will help in answering similar to it or indirect questions. Questions like:

  • Why should we hire you?
  • Why are you a good fit for this position?

It is also a great way to network as well as gaining some self-awareness about what you really want from your career. How?

Networking: As Elber points out, having a loose script of your career story prepared in your head is a great, confident way to start a conversation with new people, draw attention to your values, personal brand, ambitions in an easy-going way.

Self-awareness: Giving a narrative to your career will force you to think as to how the journey has been, and how you would want it to be in the near and distant future. This vision will in turn force you to take proactive steps rather than waiting for the next “low hanging opportunity”.

Thus, a career story can tell not just about the important events of your career so far, but can also include a vision of your dream job, and how your career so far is a series of steps towards it.

The Tricky Question:

But anyone’s career can’t possibly have everything going perfectly for them, where every step was a step towards their dream jobs. We all fail, we all suffer setbacks, we all deal with uncertain situations that lead to sometimes unpleasant changes in our life, affecting our jobs. We can find ourselves faced with questions like:

  • Is it a good idea to include the ‘bad’ parts in your story?
  • How should one include the setbacks?

Owning It up: The answer to the first one is yes. We do need to include the bad parts. It’s a matter of owning up your story as well as being honest. As one user in Mindtools’ Twitter chat mentioned about whether adding setbacks in your story increases or decreases your vulnerability, “Having your story in the open and not covering it up means some will take advantage when they can.  But you are also stronger because you already know the details.”

Inspiring others: Including the setbacks could also be a matter of inspiring others. Yolande Conradie writing for Mindtools says, “After years of working with people, I’ve learned that sharing parts of my story can be the lifeline someone else needs. Being brave and vulnerable enough to own your story, and courageous enough to change, can inspire and encourage others to do the same.”

Thus, it’s a matter of honesty as well as a way to make your story even more compelling and inspiring where you own up the setbacks.

The answer to the second question, closely linked with the first: How does one include setbacks, sudden changes, long gaps and such ‘issues’ into their narrative? Companies will need to know why and how your skills are still relevant, and why your recent lack of experience doesn’t make you any less of a team-member

Framing It: The key lies in how you frame the narrative. The gap or shift should be framed such that it appears as “a part of your journey that led you to where you are now and where you are going.” For example, did raising kids made you realise your passion for teaching? Did helping out a colleague to find a good fit for a position make you realise your talent for recruitment, and thus your decision to change directions? Such a framing which gives a sense that your setbacks too were steps that led you to some growth or new vision.

Thinking about your career in terms of a story is thus likely to help one and all gain perspective. It can enhance the quality of one’s interviews, networking and other professional interactions. Owning up your story, with all its good and bad aspects can not only make your narrative compelling and interesting, but it helps you stand out from the overly positive and unrealistic ones. It rids us from the vulnerability that comes with hiding. Any success story is likely to include successes as well as setbacks. As academician and author Bene Brown writes:

When we deny the story, it defines us. When we own the story, we can write a brave new ending.

Antifragility: Growing Through What You Go Through

We have all seen those boxes with signs saying that something ‘fragile’ is being carried, and hence to ‘handle with care.’

We have heard about being resilient and being unaffected by change.

Now, have we heard of antifragile?

Consider fragility, antifragility and robustness as a spectrum. So first, let us see fragility. We are generally aware of what ‘fragility’ or being fragile means; it implies that things/phenomena need to be handled with care. Any unnecessary interruptions, disorder, disruption or chaos is likely to destroy anything fragile. A real world example is, say, someone who follows everything to the T; even a slight change in the rulebook is likely to throw them off the guard and they are unlikely to adapt well. 

Now, robustness. One would assume the opposite of fragile would be ‘robust’, which implies the phenomenon does not get affected by any intervention, uncertainty, chaos or disorder. A robust mindset implies someone who does not get affected by any disruptions or changes in the situation; sometimes that works great as resilience, and sometimes, it could translate negatively into stubbornness or rigidity of thoughts. 

But another ‘option’ for the opposite of fragile is antifragile; it implies anything or anyone who actually works great under pressure, chaos, change or disorder. So, someone who has an antifragile mindset is not merely resilient, they actually find ways to grow and develop their skills through the uncertain chaotic situations. It’s like that trait where a pressing deadline or a stressful situation actually pushes someone to do the job much more creatively and with great results. 

Antifragility is a concept expounded by Lebanese-American mathematician, statistician and former option trader Nasssim Nicholas Taleb in his famous book ‘Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder’. In the book, Taleb lays out his theories of how to deal with an uncertain world. He draws this from the concept of Black Swan, which he defines as ‘large-scale unpredictable and irregular events of massive consequences’, in his older book of the same name.

(Large-scale unpredictable and irregular events of massive consequences. Does that not sound familiar?)

As Taleb sees it, we overestimate our ability to predict with the fancy statistical tools and all the data, and when the something uncertain actually does happen, systems tend to collapse. The solution? Develop antifragility.

Greg Wymer succinctly puts this in context of entrepreneurship:

While each specific entrepreneurial journey requires different skills and competencies, one thing they all share is the need to operate under uncertainty and ambiguity. Succeeding and staying sane throughout the chaotic entrepreneurial process necessitates an antifragile mindset –- one that “improves” as a result of this volatility.

To sum up antifragility in Taleb’s words:

“Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.”

Although the term might sound new, the concept in itself has been around us all this time, especially during the pandemic. We see how offices made the best of WFH, thinking of ways to keep the employees engaged; we see how everything that had been carried out offline, from interviews, recruitments, to meetings shifted online, and in no time developed everything into what is now called the ‘new normal’. We were not only resilient, we actually found a way to thrive under the uncertainty. That is antifragility.

Now that we know the actual word for this attitude that a lot of us developed over these months, is it possible to develop such a mindset consciously? We will delve into two ways where we can (and may or may not have used antifragility without realising), one on a psychological level and another on an entrepreneur/professional level, both being closely related.  

The Psychological Level:

Developing an antifragile mindset at the psychological and emotional level doesn’t imply quitting our certain level of emotional fragility that naturally comes with being human, nor does it mean to accept things as they are with a sense of resignation and resentment. Rather, it implies accepting the things are not the same, and that it is necessary to think of new ways of implementing new methods, rather than using the new methods in old ways. Controlling the pandemic is out of hands, but controlling how we let the changes in the situation affect us is in our control.

Entrepreneur/Professional Level:

Drawing on what Greg Wymer lists out, antifragility for entrepreneurship and/or in the professional sphere can be developed consciously by:

Maintain a bias toward learning and personal growth, instead of financial success: It all comes to down to having a growth mindset, where every step, good or bad, every endeavour, irrespective of whether it ‘reaped a reward’ or not is seen as an opportunity to learn and grow. That is a major way to thrive, no matter what the situation is.

Keep your eyes open when you’re getting punched in the face: Building on the previous point, grow from the discomfort that comes with difficult situations by paying attention to what exactly bogged you down, and finding ways to deal with it rather than focusing on the discomfort in itself.

Develop the ability to flow with randomness: Remember the concept of antifragility itself and have a perspective that the universe is conspiring you to provide learning from each situation, regardless of how pleasant or unpleasant it is.

Follow an approximate direction, not a detailed roadmap: Building further on the previous points,treat each obstacle as a new potential path forward, and think in terms of following a system rather than following a goal. To elaborate a bit on the latter, working within an antifragile, growth mindset would be the system and also the goal, allowing one to be flexible when the objective goal itself is thwarted.

The thing with the pandemic or any difficult situation is that it all comes back to a similar lesson: grow through what you go through. It all might sound repetitive, with the same tone of motivation. But an awareness about the concept of antifragility will help us harness our power to be flexibly resilient in a manner that frees us from the rigid standards of what success and growth mean.