What I learnt about sustaining good governance practice while cycling alone across Africa.

Sustaining good governance practice in your African business and board is hard. It demands top to bottom tone and actions, continuous vigilance against slippage and more investment in training, systems and processes than you might think necessary at the outset. But winning with good governance long term in a challenging environment and corrupt system also requires an underpinning philosophy. I learnt the former tactics during a decade-long small business apprenticeship — running a strategy and change consulting practice and a social enterprise making hand-made paper and paper products in Lagos, Nigeria. But the philosophy I learnt while cycling alone across Africa in the early 1990s.

In 2021, having co-founded the Butterfly Coalition with Olatowun Candide-Johnson — a coalition to game change governance in Africa with women as the catalyst — I undertook research and interviews with leading C-suite women, founder CEOs and governance specialists in Nigeria. My findings confirmed the tough lessons I had learned on my own: the number one issue was that governance is often implemented too superficially, the number two issue that even those good practices embedded early on can easily be lost, that sustaining good governance practice is hard.

Here is what one interviewee told me:

“They launch a programme, it seems everyone is on board, but then six months down the line, how do you know things are still going, if it’s not followed up.”

In a way, it was comforting to hear from other entrepreneurs who had witnessed similar governance failures similar to my own. I remember the lonely weekends I spent as a CEO trying trying to stop behaviours that were damaging our quality and cost control. I wrote processes and controls, and when they were not followed, I wrote employee manuals with sanctions and rewards and developed training programmes. But I always seemed behind where the next governance issue was erupting; I was in governance “catch-up”.

Sustaining good governance requires being ahead of the game, starting out with the processes, systems, sanctions and rewards and training with which you mean to control your business long term.

Here’s another way in which good governance practice is eroded as told to me by a female business leader about her HR Department:

“They followed the process. They had him taken to disciplinary, but the disciplinary had not resulted in the expected outcome. The third warning means dismissal. This guy was on four and he was promoted.”

I may not have been guilty of promoting those who should have been disciplined, but I do remember making “exceptions” for certain employees — giving them the benefit of the doubt when they repeatedly messed up or had excuses for their performance. This flouting of governance, making “exceptions” for one individual or circumstance, inevitably renders policies, training and fine words meaningless.

Writing policies is not enough; they have to become lived and monitored behaviours with appropriate sanctions and rewards. Here is the experience of another female business leader I interviewed:

“There were people who absolutely knew the right thing to do, who knew the processes yet completely capitulated under the leadership of one individual, and in less than a year, the governance structure came tumbling down.”

This exemplifies how a leader at the top of the organization who doesn’t respect the governance processes, will completely destroy an existing governance structure quickly.

I discussed how a Board’s good governance practices can tumble so rapidly with my Butterfly Coalition co-founder and CEO of GAIA Africa, Olatowun Candide-Johnson[1].

“This is exactly why a proper board is important for every company,” she said. “Because that board not only keeps the CEO on his or her toes. But the board is also accountable. If there’s no board or if it’s just a rubber stamp board, then it’s not going to keep anyone accountable, not the board not the CEO, not anyone.

So, there is tone from the top and then I go to the bottom, which is sanctions. If you have a policy that prescribes what is a breach and you do not sanction people who are found to be wanting, or you don’t have a procedure for finding those people and applying the sanctions, then it’s really just not even worth the paper is written on.”

You also have to keep investing in training:

“You still have to train and mentor the up-and-coming people or people who don’t understand what governance is.”

Thus, vigilance, a strong board and CEO and ongoing investment in good governance is necessary. Another interviewee put the consequences of failing to stay vigilant succinctly:

“If they don’t see you doing what you wrote, then your policies are just as good as the paper you wrote it on.”

Your good governance efforts go the way of toilet paper.

Yes, that is what I learnt too well in my small Nigerian businesses. It is how I learned that “No exceptions” has to be a policy in your African business and board, and that sustaining trust in relationships demands transparent monitoring and verification; once the shadow of suspicion enters relationships, trust is shattered.

These are the tactics for sustaining good governance in your African business; but what is the philosophy?

It was touched on by another issue brought up by one of my interviewees:

“What we find in Africa, it’s not so much your own organization. It is an external thing. And even if you build strong governance in your organization, it could easily be eroded.”

This comment alluded to corruption and fraud in the environment — say a demand for payment from a customs officer to have your container released from the port. How does one respond to corruption outside one’s own apparent control? When I discussed this with Olatowun, she had a strong point of view.

“I actually think there’s only one answer and that is to do the right thing, because if you have the correct paperwork, if you follow through on everything correctly, then honestly the other side, all they can do is beg. The truth is that you can ignore that because everything is done correctly.

In fact, I was speaking to someone just the other day and they offer professional services. They counsel their clients to have patience. You have to have patience because they’re going to test you, they’re going to really push things with you, they’re going to waste your time. They’re going to try to do this, try to do that, but because you have all your papers correct, and because you have to just build in that time, in the end, they’re going to think that: “Oh, look, these guys are going to report us. It’s not worth the trouble. So, let’s just, let them go and find somebody else.”

So, it’s just doing the right thing all the time. It costs, it may cost more, but honestly, it’s the only way forward.”

I couldn’t agree more; this was the lesson that I learnt when I was cycling 14,500 kilometres alone across Africa.

When I approached the first of the seventeen country borders I would cross, immigration officials made it clear they expected a small bribe to facilitate my entry: “What do you have for me?” I had expected this — even then, I was not an inexperienced African traveller. “I bring you a gift of my friendship,” I replied to get a laugh. I also made sure that my paperwork was absolutely correct. And then their only weapon was to delay me.

What did I do about that? I learnt that once immigration officials knew I planned to stay overnight at the border, their power over me was diminished. Indeed, having shared a meal together and chatted about life at a lonely border point, these officials did become friends, and by the morning they were very happy for me to continue on my way.

Far removed from a large or small corporation, this lesson that delay is a weapon of corrupt officialdom remains relevant. Having the right paperwork and coming up with strategies to manage with those delays is an important way of staying true to your good governance principles.

Sustaining good governance practice in your African business and board is hard. It demands top to bottom tone and actions, continuous vigilance against slippage and more investment in training, systems and processes than you might think necessary at the outset. But winning with good governance long term in a challenging environment and corrupt system also requires an underpinning philosophy of correctness, patience, diplomacy, good humour and diligence.

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[1] Article derived from the findings of the 2020 Butterfly Coalition Governance Research, and a conversation between the author and Olatowun Candide-Johnson during a Butterfly Coalition webinar on this topic. Listen to our conversation here.