ABR Blog

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.

                                                                                                            –Abraham Lincoln

If something has been done a particular way for 15 or 20years, it’s a pretty good sign, in these changing times, that it is being done the wrong way.   

–Elliot M. Estes

On this space I will share with you information from my informal PhD program on Success in small business.

The internet has changed everything, sorry let me rephrase that to read the internet is changing everything so fast. This is a paradigm shift so let’s welcome all those people that are prepared for this shift.

Notice I did not mention companies or countries as Friedman pointed out in his book ,The world is flat’, ‘We have moved from globalization 1.0 to globalization 2.0 and we are now at Globalization 3.0′

1.0 was about countries dominating, 2.0 was about companies dominating, 3.0 are about the individual dominating! Yes! You and I!

This is perhaps the most beautiful time in human history; it is really pregnant with all kinds of creative possibilities made possible by science and technology which now constitute the slave of man-if man is not enslaved by it.

–Jonas Salk

 

The above quote is food for thought, for us to get our most precious ‘resource’ time back from the time stealers “Television & the internet’. Hanging out as well and all the things we do to eliminate boredom

Very sad in deed is the way we use  the internet (minimally) which brings us profound  capabilities and all we can still use it for is just to send email or chat with friends.(think of what Obama did with it, as well as Seun Osewa of Nairaland)

We intend to burst a couple of myths out there about business. Maybe a definition of what business is would guide us and keep us on track. We are constantly researching and as we do that we will bring our results to this page so please watch this page.

We are going to be looking at the relationship that exists within business and the event management community.

I read some place that common sense is not so common, how true. Little things like referrals are the most powerful form of advertising and also the cheapest campaigns to run. How sad and frustrated we can get as we try to work against laws such as this one. I define a law as a thing that is true every time and everywhere. Somewhere in the biology of a woman she does this(refer good service/products) naturally. So you may be leaving money on the table by ignoring women & referrals in your business, and further spending your scarce resource on very inefficient ways of spreading word about your business.

My story about referrals may intrigue you. I remember a time I used to sell USB flash discs.This was when they had gradually began to get popular.  Brian Tracy, in one of his audio cd’s, said to meet one of your clients and ask him for referrals. I met this man, I can’t remember his name and asked him to have this flash for free. At the time this flash was sold for eight thousand naira. In exchange I asked him to give us a list of 10 of his friends from the same industry (advertising). It took a month to get to the 10 and sell to all 10 and each one bought. Each one also referred more business

This move took us to tho hundred and fifty thousand naira monthly on profits and kept up for over 6 months.

Also of note is the fact that we earn more as we know more. High earnings correlate directly with higher education -Marti Barletta

Let’s use the term education lightly, I take the term to mean to draw out from within which means whatever we want to be, we can be, so we only have to work on whatever it is we want to know or learn(self development). This is me not accepting that formal education is the only way to go to learn.

As some author I don’t remember his name pointed out: Google has democratized information.

It took a man born in the mid part of this century in Nigeria to go the university ,which used to be the repository of information for him to have advanced knowledge over his contemporaries but now the internet especially through Wikipedia and Google has made almost all information available to all women and me. So we need to take control over our education.

As we know more we can do more and as we do more we can earn more. Think about it how many people sell recharge cards around you at work or at home? To sell this cards is not exactly a rare skill & chances you will get paid well for something so many people can do is not high.

We have to constantly strive to be exceptional we need a full scale war on mediocrity, I think it is not safe to play safe (what did I just say?) I mean playing safe usually means you are spreading your options, which also means you are not able to focus & at best deliver mediocre results across a broad group of things you attempt. Think about it; Okocha plays world class football and he may know next to nothing about investments but I’m sure if he were to open up his portfolio to us he will have a very fantastic one. He surely has the means to put to work the knowledge of those whom know about investments, Dangote may know nothing about building websites yet he may earn many billions from his website monthly!

Also advances in technology has made the flow of goods around the world more efficient and cheaper which in turn means just around the corner we can get books on almost any topic from many parts of the world.

I must say we definitely don’t live in times our parents lived. What it takes to start and run a multibillion dollar company seems to be ever changing. The company facebook was started and run by a 23 year old boy! Microsoft was founded and run for a while by a young man, also of note is the example of Michael dell.

In all cases this people challenged more traditional rivals.

I quote Marti Barletta ‘The business is there where are you?’

Time magazine or Newsweek magazine, I can’t remember which one had on its front cover the man of the year. It had a very interesting ‘man of the year’.

The man of the year was YOU Yes, YOU! The man of the year was you or me or him or anyone that had the magazine in his hands was the man of the year.

This was a declaration that we now have the tools to do anything we want, we could face off governments, win elections, raise money, collaborate and so many other things only possible by the great countries and company a little time past.

The magazine put a computer monitor as the head of the man then the body of the man. With all of the powerful technology out there don’t stay in that corner like a victim, get up and go out there and achieve something.

Let me stop my musings here and I would love so much to hear from you reading this.

 

Respectfully,

Kayode Ajewole PMP

They say ‘what a man can do, a woman can do better’. I believe that statement should have been, ‘what a man can do, a woman can EQUALLY do’.

 Gender inequality is a factor commonly seen in our environment today, a factor with roots dating from tales as old as time. The struggle by women to be seen, heard, respected and given rights just as their male counterparts is a battle which cannot be won as a whole but on individual basis. I read an article from the PM NETWOWK (PMIs monthly magazine) which spoke on the need for women to focus more on leading and less on fitting in. That is another struggle on its own, fitting into an environment which we find ourselves.

As Dr Pearl Maxwell, PhD senior consultant at Advanced Management Services Inc, Canton, MA, USA says,’ the most effective leaders embrace the best of both the male and female styles of leadership’. According to this same article, Genderless leaders are community builders who promote interactive leadership and share power. For women, the ability to be an ‘interactive leader’ requires looking beyond the stereotype of ‘it is because of my gender’, and rather being pragmatic and tough in that role as a leader. While the ability to ’share power’ requires being flexible, empathic and decisive in decision making.

From my personal experience as a project manager i have found that my ability to be a good leader lies in my strength, passion and capacity as being qualified and competent to handle responsibilities. Passion and Competency from women translates directly to respect and growth personally. As a project manager my goal is to not only ensure the success of the project but to also ensure interpersonal growth in terms of creativity, knowledge, commitment, and team capacity for everyone working on the team. It is evident that women are still regarded as less competent and qualified for certain jobs or roles in an organization such as construction, engineering etc, as compared to a male counterpart. Physically this may be true, but intellectually far from it. The case is however not the same in fields such as politics as clearly women hold high positions in office in some countries. However i can only imagine that it must be a silent battle within to command the respect of male counterparts under their command and some of whom are probably older than them in age.

Being a leader is intrinsic to being a project manager and women must learn to walk the fine line between appearing strong and competent enough to lead without coming off as aggressive and authoritative in the bid to drive away stereotypes associated with their role as a leader. A male friend once said to me that when you ask a woman a question the first answer she is most likely to give is ‘i don’t know’, before she then gives thought to the question to respond properly. I have found this to be somewhat of true. As a woman I can say it is not a response out of lack of knowledge or confidence in giving the right answer but more of an expression/figure of speech which says, ‘ oh i have to give this some thought first’.

However considering the battle to be given parity in a male dominated world, women must be concise and clear in their message and be confident in speaking out when necessary.

‘’As a woman i feel there is more a requirement for me to have more professional qualifications than my male counterparts'’- Dr Pearl Maxwell. I agree with this.

A genderless leader must learn to elevate style over stereotype in order to succeed and command due respect and commendation. We must learn to speak up loud and clear and understand that we deserve to be where we want to be in our careers and personal lives. We are not asking for preferential treatment when we insist upon parity. We ask for the right to be heard, seen and respected equally.  

Chinwe Anajemba,CAPM 

 

PMI released the new PMBOK in December and announced that the PMP exam will change in line with it on the 30th of June 2009.
The changes in the PMBOK include renaming certain 30 odd processes and reducing the processes from 44 to 42. For all aspiring PMP’s, whether you have attained the required 35 contact hours from training or you are planning to do it the changes are not so important as the consequences.

The last time there was change in the editions of the PMBOK, the score required to pass the exam was actually increased by 12 marks. So while the exam didn’t necessarily get harder in itself, it was suddenly harder to pass it. Although it was subsequently reduced(3 months later), it is fair to say that a lot more people failed the exam in those three months and had to pay for the exam again. The PMI has not indicated that the same will happen in June 2009, but the fact that it’s happened before cannot be ignored.
Whenever the PMBOK Guide is updated, all the authors of exam study material update their material as well. However most resellers (smaller bookshops and sites like eBay) will still keep on selling the old material. This is not necessarily on purpose, as a lot of them will not even know the difference. If you are buying your material from ebay, amazon etc the risk is even higher as it is a case of ‘caveat emptor’: let the buyer beware. If not you could spend all your time reading a text book based on the third edition when you are sitting an exam on the 4th edition (post June 2009)

In a nutshell, history says there is a lot of attendant confusion that accompanies updating the PMBOK Guide. Considering it currently costs $550 to sit the exam as well as the cost of training and study material , it will be wise to get it done before the changeover so as to reduce the need for a resit.

While there are various exam prep material, we currently recommend and use Crosswinds material by Tony Johnson. On average, it takes 3 hrs to read through a chapter of the crosswinds textbook. It has 15 chapters. This equates to 45 hours to finish the text book. With dedication and discipline, this means you can finish the text in a month by studying for two hours a day. This is excluding weekends. Another popular product from the same author is the exam simulation CD Rom which has 3,500 exam style questions. That is about 17 practice PMP exams. You will need to commit another 45 hours to practicing the questions on this CD. That is 90 hours, which is 3 hours a day for a month or 2 hours a day for 45 days or an hour a day for 3 months. Yes, I hear you say you spend five hours a day in Traffic Lagos, the answer or risk response plan to that is the audio CD’s from crosswinds or any other reputable author. As Brian Tracy said, ‘Make your car a university on wheels’. On these audio CD’s, read by Tony Johnson himself, is most of what you need to sit and pass the exam. So if you spend 3 to 5 hours a day in traffic, then that is at least 3 hours of listening to Tony Johnson himself, if you don’t have a car, then you can play these in your ipod/mp3 player. Remember you still have the weekends to read as well. So whatever your circumstances, time will not be one of the hurdles on you way to achieving this much desired qualification. I know people who leave home at 5am so they get work by 6.00am and read till 7.30am.
Thus, if you read slower than average or ‘live in traffic’ and you start preparing now, (for those of you who have attended our classes), you will be ready to sit for the exam in March. For those of you who will attend our classes in the next two months. As long as you are disciplined with your reading, you will be able to sit the exam in April/May. We anticipate an increased demand for PMP trainig programme prior to the exam changeover in June. As such we will be starting one-on-one trainings, watch our website for more details. DISCIPLNE, or a lack of it as regards exam preparation is the main obstacle you will have to scale. And I read somewhere;
‘Discipline weights ounces while regret weighs tonnes’
See it as a sacrifice, see it as an investment, it is 3 months or less of intensive preparation to conquer the exam in its current state before it is realigned with the new PMBOK. After that you will start to reap the rewards of having the valuable initials ‘PMP’ after your name. These rewards will also grow over time.

Ayo Sanni, PMP