Uganda is
rated the most entrepreneurial nation on earth but at least 19% of the hundreds
of businesses started every day do not live to celebrate their first birthday.
Studies by
World Bank and other international agencies show that cash flow challenges the
major cause of the failure. However, looking beyond the facts and figures, we
must appreciate the ordinary reality: even businesses that last longer have
cash flow problems. How they go about the issue of having money coming in at a
slower rate than it is going out is (negative cash flow) might help us get more
actionable clues.
The same
studies state that majority of small business are started by a fraction of the 75%
of Ugandan youth majorly to make a living (as a necessity). Most of these are
first timers in business and due to shortage of resources they partner with
relatives or former classmates.
Solutions to
cash flow and other related business challenges can always be forged if there’s
an existing strong relationship between the parties involved.
In view of
the recent alliance of opposition forces that failed to choose a sole candidate
to run against the incumbent president Yoweri Museveni in the 2016 general
elections mainly due to internal disagreements, we can pick a number of lessons
on how to ruin a business partnership as fast as the bad partner wants.
Here are
four;
1.
Start
With Selfishness
The fastest
way to make a relationship is enticement with gifts, pleasantries and heavenly
promises.
In forming the alliance, members who wanted
everyone in the opposition to agree to the idea and join in faster suggested
that member parties or groups take equal shares irrespective of their ground strength.
The outcome was that the forum for democratic change could not handle being
treated as if they were equal with the rest.
This could be
quite a regular happening but if you are not familiar with it please get it
from me; there is no such thing as equal contribution in business and business
relationships. Like in other forms of human relationships, one is either a man
or a woman, each performing a different duty. Even among homosexual partners
there’s a ‘husband’ and ‘wife’, ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’.
Business
relationships successfully start when already destined to fail when the parties
resort to enticement instead of appreciating each members contribution in the
measure in which it is. If partners respect and consult with each other as they
should, the desire to put such pleasantries as equal shareholding at the start
of the relationship won’t be necessary. Our
parents are not successful in their marriages because they are equal, think
about it.
 |
| Dr. Kizza Besigye of Forum for Democratic change, Amama Mbabazi of the GoForward pressure group and Nobert Mao of Democratic party during a TDA press conference |
2.
Set Unclear
Rules And Start Bending Them
Most business
partnerships start informally, before any real terms are put on table.
Sometimes it’s the decisions that are taken from time to time that turn into
the terms of agreement to govern the conduct of business. In case a partnership
deed or articles of association are come up with, the clarity of the various
clauses in it will determine whether business works or it does not.
The
Democratic Alliance made a protocol that omitted some basic terms such as
dissolution, extension of deadlines and failure to reach consensus. As fate
would have it, the members made extensions several times without considering
the objections of some members, consensus was not reached on the position of
presidential candidate on time and the grouping was left at a stalemate. All
the time they spent in negotiations was but wasted.
Partnership
agreements if not built on clear and attainable terms can easily collapse. An
agreement that assumes the parties involved will not completely disagree on any
subject is delusional and can only help if the members want a failure in the
short run. To do this, be sure you don’t want your business partnership to last
long.
3.
Never
Give In
I always
state clearly to my new business partners that; truthfully we are not the same
and there are times we are going to have completely contrasting views but if we
want to achieve these business goals we have before us, we should be prepared
to reach a compromise.
In the TDA,
lengthy meetings were held behind closed doors with Besigye waiting and wishing
that Mbabazi would give in and back him yet Mbabazi was silently doing the
same. I want to assume that lightning would strike neither had Mbabazi or
Besigye given in and supported the other but they chose the dirtier way.
In business, in democracy, in
gaming there’s always a winner and a loser but if you lose for the sake of your
partner winning, in a way you remain part of the win.
In order to kill a partnership faster, the parties should each stick to
their positions.
4.
Feed
The Business, Ignore the people
Grow your people
and the people will grow your business is a common saying in the business
circles but very few really apply it.
The
democratic alliance (of 2015) seemed to have been so full of itself that it
gave very little if any timely attention to the psychological torture its
endless closed door meetings and propaganda machinery was putting on their
supporters. At one time Besigye and Mbabazi were literary locked in a room for
a whole day. The gentlemen behind the alliance cared so much about their
mission of getting a joint presidential candidate that they got to a point of
ignoring anything else.
Business is
not really about business it’s about the people. If a business partner suffers
burnout, loses a relative or asks for a leave and is denied or ignored
completely so as to deliver on client orders trust me that business or to the
least the partnership will fail sooner.
Wondering how
to kill the partnership, simply; concentrate on the business and ignore the
partner (s) that make up the business.
5.
Finally
you need a little more ego.
If you want
to completely kill the partnership you got one last thing to do; think of
yourself as the most important person that ever walked in that business. A
feeling of self importance that is more than normal will do you a really bad
job.
Were both men
so egoistic? Well, this is a business piece; let’s see what Andrew Mwenda has
to say.
Twitter: @StephenObeli
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