Detriments of Being a Damn Good Listener

Communication is very important. Human existence is based in and around communication with other people, with your environment with yourself and so on and so forth. I wasn’t always a good communicator (is that a real word?) I have and always been a good speaker and I would actually count that as one of my top five strengths. But I used to suck at actually communicating with people. I was such a narcisstic, attention-seeking, over-pampered brat that I never stopped to consider the fact that loving the sound of my voice wasn’t enough. I actually had to listen to other people as well!

Since my AIESEC days, I am now a narcissistic, attention-seeking over pampered adult that listens a bit more to what other people are saying. And I discovered that the more you listen to other people, the more they are willing to listen to you in return! Works for everyone all round.

Towards the tail-end of my employment with AIESEC in Sweden, while we were preparing the team taking over from us, Maria one of my team mates came up with an exercise that served to demonstrate how group dynamics were influenced by how comfortable members of the group felt with each other.

I got to record how many times each member of the group directed a question/comment/statement to the other members of the group. Some individuals directed general comments to well… the general group. Others directed every single statement and/or question to only one other person. Even though it was supposed to be a group discussion. There was a particular individual who had the tendency to interrupt others and wouldn’t let them finish what they were going to say. By the end of the session, no one was directing their views to him and actually pointedly ignoring him.

Even since before that exercise, I have been a bit sensitive to how those dynamics work out in any group discussion or meeting I am having. I make sure I am including everyone in general statements or questions and when I am asking a specific question of someone, I turn and give that person my seeming full attention while still indicating that I expect his/her answer to be directed at the whole group. Of course this has made me an excellent facilitator of discussions (if I do say so myself) and I would go so far as to say that the added force of my personality would have made it inevitable that I would command attention anyway. (its feel-good day!)

So anyway, I find that a lot of presenters in the tons of presentations I am obliged to attend at work seem to focus on me while giving their presentations, especially those who are new at it. I have been known to crack a joke or ask an easy or obvious question to put them at their ease. So yes you might argue that I am a very good listener.

This however backfired on my in very spectacular style recently. It was a Friday and only God Almighty knows why I volunteered to go on behalf of my team and get some updates on some new software HR was rolling out. The presentation started at 3pm when thoughts are already in the pub and it was only a matter of time before the body joined.

The presenter was obviously very new at speaking before a crowd so I asked an easy question, gave a couple of audible affirmative answers when she asked if we were following and generally put her at her ease. Now, she wasn’t doing that bad a job of it in reality but it was just the time of day, the day itself and I was very tired but I unfortunately went on auto-pilot, zoned out and followed my imagination to somewhere completely different from where my physical body was.

This was why I jerked back to the meeting room with a dramatic start at the sound of my name and to very loud laughter from everybody in the room. At first I feigned laughter assuming the presenter had said something funny but when I looked at her amused smile I started to suspect that perhaps the joke was on me…

“So do you agree Ladi” she asked me. I slowly and desperately tried to recall the last few sentences (and slides) hoping I could decipher what her question to me was. “Uhm… ehrm… it depends” I said, still flailing about wildly in my mind for what the original question was. “oh really! What does it depend on?” she asked very sweetly seemingly determined not to let me off the hook!

“Well… you see… the thing is… would you repeat the question?”. I said, finally giving up. Some of my colleagues were rolling on the floor by this time and an otherwise dull session had turned into one very merry laugh-fest. At my expense!

Apparently, the presenter asked me the question twice already and I had just given her my auto-pilot smile and nodded stupidly at her until she called my name and broke my reverie. Mortified does not begin to describe my feelings. And all this because I proved I was a good listener and tried to put the faci at ease!

Ah well… next time I will only go on semi-auto pilot!

From Eagle to Kiwi

I introduced Seun and Christine in a previous post and commented on how much adjustment you make when you commit to a relationship with someone else. Even if you are from the same provincial town and grew up as childhood friends, making the jump from single with no responsibility to shared destiny is difficult enough as it is. Never mind if the individuals happen to come from different countries and cultures!

This is the position in which my good friend Sean has found himself. On July 12, 2008 he made the commitment before God, Man and the Church to spend the rest of his days with the former Ms. Christine Cole of Auckland NZ. But if their wedding day was anything to go by, they have certainly made an auspicious start!

Seun arrived here in New Zealand some 6 years ago as an IT student and has fallen in love with the country so much he has even chosen one of the ‘locals’ as his life-mate. I had the singular honor of being his best-man on his wedding day. Seun and I went to High school together yonkers ago, lost touch and met up again when I arrived here 2 years ago. (has it been that long already?!)

The run up to his wedding was quite interesting. Because even here the difference in cultures created a few challenges. The basic premise is the same if you are a Nigerian Christian. The church service is conducted with a bridal train and dressed in western style clothing. The activity after the church service is where it diverges quite a bit. Western Style weddings usually have a cocktail for a large number of people where there is finger food, non-alcoholic drinks and a lot of small talk among guests. This is followed by a more formal meal or reception where the number of guests are smaller and is strictly by invitation.

A Nigerian wedding reception on the other hand is bit more… boisterous. You still hand out invitations and all but suffice to say… no one will be checking your invitation card at the door. And where one does not even get a formal invitation, a verbal one will suffice and gives you license to bring 2 or 3 friends along. I am imagining all the weddings I have attended in Nigeria and the word that comes to mind as a description is... Carnivale!

A wedding in Nigeria is an opportunity for singing, dancing and lots and lots of food. In a society obsessed with materialism, a wedding is also an opportunity to showcase how important you are in society. Especially with the political elite a lot of couples have to deal with their supposedly happiest day turning into a tool for their parents to court political favour…

But I digress…

Sean and Christine had to balance a lot of expectations. The small but boisterous Nigerian community in Auckland was all but ready to turn this into a carnival… which would have been, quite frankly a bit too much for some of Christine’s guests to bear! So they came to what I think was a wonderful compromise by having a quick lunch after the service for close family and friends (which still numbered about 60 guests) and then we had a much more relaxed and informal reception proper “Naija” style! Cue dancing, singing, lots to eat and yours truly as Master of Ceremonies. There were still the speeches in between the songs and dances but like I said it was a bit more informal and certainly more enjoyable. All the non-Nigerian guests certainly thought so too!

The couple also changed from the western style Tuxedo and Wedding Gown to traditional Yoruba clothes complete with ‘gele’ for the bride and ‘agbada’ for the groom. The danced in to the sonorous tunes from the vocal chords of a Nigerian student who plays the piano exquisitely and had been flown in from the South of the country specifically for the event. Seun’s big sister was the only member of his immediate family who was able to make it to the wedding and there were a few tears when she read a letter from the groom’s dad to the bride’s parents.

The catering was done by a Nigerian lady and although the menu read like a continental lunch menu, there was a decidedly African flavour to the food. And it must have been a good flavour as the food was devoured until the very last morsel!

The national Football team of Nigeria is known as the Super Eagles. The eagle is also a part of the Nigerian seal and coat of arms. New Zealanders however are known as Kiwis. The Kiwi ia a flightless bird that is near extinction and is local to these twin islands known as Aotearoa (Land of the Long White Cloud). The bride’s father welcomed Sean to the family officially during his speech and seeing as my friend also got NZ permanent residency recently, it seems he has seen fit to plant his roots squarely in this unspoiled natural beauty of a land.

As I said during MY toast to the couple, May all Seun’s and Christine’s joy be true joy and may all their pain be champagne! (It sounds much better when I say it)

PS

I don’t have pictures of the wedding just yet but will upload them as soon I get them

So Far and Yet still so short

Indiscipline. The Bane of my existence.

The theory of the four temperaments is one of my favourite for determining why people act the way they do. And Tim LaHaye the best-selling co-author of the Left Behind series wrote an absolutely fantastic book called exactly that: Why We Act The Way We Do. Anyone familiar with this theory will recognize the personality types of Rocky Choleric, Sparky Sanguine, Martin Melancholy and Phil Phlegmatic.

The theory posits that everyone is born with a pre-determined set of characteristics and personality traits that basically influences how they think, act and interact with other people. Outside influences such as upbringing, society and life’s experiences only serve to highlight or de-emphasize these characteristics.

The theory points to why siblings exposed to virtually the same home environment and experiences develop completely different individual personalities. The following descriptions are mine and serve to give an idea of the different scopes of each personality type:

Rockey Choleric – Arrogant, born leader. The end justifies the means, gets the job done
Sparky Sanguine – Happy-go-lucky undisciplined. Wants everybody AT ALL times to be happy.
Mel Melancholy – Sensitive, artistic, perfectionist. Planner par excellence
Phil Phlegmatic – Languid, no worries, the less stress the better. Just wants to be left alone.

No prizes for guessing where I fall in.

Obviously, the above are extremely simplified descriptions. Like I said a whole library of literature exists on this theory and if you want to read up on it, then click on the link above and take it from there.

No one is made up of ONLY one temperament according to LaHaye's theory. There are 16 distinct sub types made up pairing the 4 main ones together. People have a dominant one and then a secondary in varying degrees. 90/10, 80/20 and sometimes 55/45. Some individuals even manage to combine three or even all four temperament traits!

The first time I heard about this theory, I asked the person explaining it to me which he thought was my secondary temperament. This person had only seen me facilitating an AIESEC conference and within the framework of contributing to the development of mankind’s potential yaddi yaddi yadda...!

...and he said I was so thoroughly sanguine and exemplified the pure temperament traits of Sparky that it was hard for him to determine what my secondary temperament was! I of course devoured the positive attributes of the sanguine and couldnt disagree at all!

light hearted, fun loving, a people person, loves to entertain, spontaneous and confident.

Yep! Thats me all right!

However looking at the weaknesses of this personality trait definitely put a dampener on events.

Weak willed, undisciplined and unproductive at times, disorganized and seldom plan ahead.

Weakness number two is the one that is a show-stopper! I know what to do, I know how to do it, I know what it takes but to actually forgo that extra 4 hours of sleep (on top of the 6 I already got) is just sooooooooooo hard! Feelings and emotions are a huge prod to the sanguine rather than reflective thought. SO if there is a sufficient amount of emotional stimulus to be gained from the activity you betcha I will do what needs to be done!

Waking up to a job he absolutely loves is a sure-fire way to get the sanguine up in the morning. A job that offers various scopes of activity like say... Computer game graphic artist or comic-book storyboard editor or even a bit more boring, sales. Any occupation that offers the sanguine variety and experiences to stimulate his emotional centre is the one for him!

Okay I am not bad as I used to be of course. Setting priorities, forgoing brief and short-term pleasures and (shock and horror!) setting a long-term plan are pretty much par for the course these days. The only problem is that the goal-posts seem to be moving quite a lot these days again. Every aspiring writer knows for example the importance of ehrm... writing. Have I been doing so? Look at the date of my last post.

Have I been THAT busy at work? Not at all! I am earning my pay at the milk company no doubt but snowed under? Hardly!

Has there been a lack of incidents and things to write about? Of course not! I am living in the Land of the Long White Cloud and everyday is a freaking adventure!

SO why is it the hardest thing sometimes to sit down and put pen to paper? (In a manner of speaking) Ah Well... I guess thats life. As long as I recognize that there is always improvement to be made and I actually do improve thats the most important thing. I guess the day will never come that I can say, "there you go... I am no longer undisciplined" but as long as I can say I am much better than I used to be... thats the most important thing!

A big hug, kiss and warm appreciation to ex-iyawo from UI, Buki. Your email stimulated that emotional centre I was talking about and got me to dust off this blog space again. It wont be a post per month as it has been for the last 3 months!!!

At the Fair Ground for Farmers

This is going to be a short post.

I hate it when I go to the Nomadlife website and see my blog waaaaaaaay down the list of blogs. The blogs are listed according to most recently updated you see. Anyway... I thought I would put it at the top of the list (at least for a few minutes) with a picture from an agricultural fair that I attended on behalf of my Business Unit.

It was a fair for farmers who in case you dont know collectively own the biggest company in New Zealand. A cooperative that contributes... wait for it... 7% of total GDP of the New Zealand economy. Add to this fact that the farmers got a payout that ran into billions of dollars and you can imagine that the participants at the fair went to town trying to convince the farmers to part with some of that cash!

When Was the Last time You cried?

I haven’t cried in 7 years.

The Manager of my Business Unit left the company today and a female colleague was asking if I shed a tear for him. A number of people were after one of his closest friends wrote a poem and couldn’t get through reading it as she collapsed in a sea of tears.

First off… the question caught me unawares. Why would I cry that my boss’s boss’s boss (boss X3) was leaving the company??? The ones who cried were mostly female and had built up my BU from scratch with this guy into a world class centre of 130 people. They had a lot of memories, and experiences and had worked with him in good times and bad over the last 4 years. Me I only saw him when he went by my desk and made an off-the-cuff comment. (He was a bit of a wise-ass)

We went into the question of when was the last time I had a good cry. With heaving shoulders, audible bawls, free-flowing tears and puffy swollen eyes.

Not since 2001.

I had just quit school, was feeling like a failure and like I had let my parents down and I commenced to have a big fight with my brother which was witnessed by my parents. It wasn’t a physical fight but a loud shouting match which only didn’t become physical due to my brother’s restraint. My mom was understandably very upset and when I went to apologize to her later for making her listen to the nasty things I said, the sight of her frustration and her concern that my brother and I were mortal enemies for life just pushed me over the top. Weeks and weeks of self recrimination and guilt and a sense of letting everyone down came to the boil and I had a really really good cry!

It was soul-cleansing.

But since then… I haven’t had cause or reason for such. I asked my manager when the last time SHE cried was and she said just this morning. She was watching an advert about some crippled donkey and she just teared up right there and then. My colleague who asked the original question is from the UK and apparently she has a good cry when she misses her family too much. What’s that about? When I am missing my friends and family, I immediately seek out my new friends here and throw around a few jokes wherein I immediately feel better. Or I just play World Of Warcraft.

I am more apt to go around snarling and growling at people when I am depressed and feel like shit! This doesn’t happen very often anyway. Being a consummate performer at all times, all I need is an audience (of one if necessary) and I am back to my usual good spirits. Now that I think of it seven years is a very long time, more than overdue to have another soul-cleansing cry.

Movies seem to be a good primer for turning on the tear ducts.

I will admit to tearing up at certain movies but the worst is I will have unshed tears glistening in my eyes. Tears that don’t even drop. This doesn’t qualify as a cry I don’t think. But it does prove that I am not a Neanderthal and do have the capacity to be sensitive yes? One movie I ALWAYS tear up at is Con Air starring Nicholas Cage. The end of the movie when he is reunited with his wife and daughter whom he has never seen before and suddenly transforms from the gung-ho Army Ranger who saves the day into this stammering, bumbling father who is just trying to make a good impression with a daughter he has never seen before. Breaks my heart EVERY single time.

Actually now that I think about it, any scene that involves a parent with their offspring in an emotional situation is almost guaranteed to make me acquire glistening eyes heavy with unshed tears. In the new Iron Man movie when he saves the father from being taken away in the Afghan village or the old Jon Voight boxing movie “Champ” where he dies at the end and the little boy is heart-broken and keeps crying out his name, “Champ… Champ… wake up Champ”.

I should see that movie again.

First time in 16 years...

I was convinced Hilary Clinton was going to become President of the United States.

I was convinced of this even when Obama was racking up victories right left and centre and gaining a lead in delegates. My conviction did not waver when every endorsement that was announced seemed to be going the way of Barack Obama. I was still sure even when it was announced that Hilary’s campaign was in financial problems and she had to lend it 5m dollars. I was sure I was seeing the pre-cursor to a ‘game-changer’ during the last 3 weeks of Obama’s pastor and his comments on bitter voters.

I devoured reports, articles and analysis online that sought to project how Hilary Clinton could still win the Democratic nomination and I came to the conclusion that her best chance was to win the primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. A decent win in Indiana and even a squeaky one in NC would have sufficed. She didn’t do this. She lost in NC by a good margin and squeaked a 2point win in Indiana.

Lights Out. The End. Finito. Endgame.

It was always going to be hard to overturn a black candidate who had the lead in pledged delegates and popular vote. And if the voters haven’t deemed him unelectable after the last month he’s had, none of the supers would dare do it now.

I am not an American. I have not and will never vote in an American election. But hearing me and some of my Nigerian friends in New Zealand argue about the current campaign you would think we were crafting Hilary’s and Barack’s speeches and setting the tone for their individual campaigns. (I am the only Hilary supporter by the way in a group of maybe 7). Having no direct stake in this election I still cannot quite shake this feeling of disappointment I feel. It’s never easy when someone you support falls short. I was supporting Hilary from an intellectual point of view, believing she would make the better President out of the three remaining candidates.

Now IF I AM feeling disappointed, how must the ardent American supporter feel, her campaign team? How must Hilary herself feel? And yet this is a staple of a democratic contest. Someone MUST lose. And after investing so much of your time, energy, money and commitment that feeling that the majority of people don’t support you must be crushing.

And yet America has been doing this for the better part of almost 300 years.

There have always been losers and winners’, perfecting the process so losing isn’t so debilitating and instead you learn from your mistakes and focus on the next election. Al Gore took his loss in 2000 a bit badly at first but then rebounded up out of it to become THE senior figure in his party (bar Bill 42) and win an Oscar for his new found love of the environment. He could have taken his appeal even further than he did but by then it wasn’t about him anymore but about something bigger. He gave up on his attempt so the country could move on.

There needs to be selflessness when you contemplate conceding electoral defeat. This might seem obvious to people who have lived in countries with multi-party democracies but I come from a country where flawed elections are the norm and even when they are fair the loser just cannot imagine conceding and would rather scuttle the whole process so the other person doesn’t get it. (Hilary has been accused of wanting to do this so Obama can lose in November and she can run again in 2012)

So in mature democracies, your strategies focus on how to get the majority of people to support your bid rather than victory or nothing else. A victory or nothing else strategy focuses on getting into power no matter what. Actually taking the time to craft policies to get people on your side is not part of it. Projecting a wonderful personality that connects with majority of the people is out the window. Working hard to ensure those that support you actually cast a vote is not really necessary. It’s all about manipulating the process so the end result shows that you won. When you did nothing of the sort.

I wonder how, where and when Clinton will concede defeat now. Whatever happens, it’s going to be a huge event.

Bush People of Aotearoa

There is a term in my native language called “Ara-oko”.

A literal translation would be ‘person of the bush’. It is used to refer to an individual who is ignorant of the nuances of polite society or alternatively is uneducated or illiterate.

When it comes to Africa and Africans a lot of kiwis I am sorry to say are 'ara-oko'. And you can’t really blame them. This vibrant, adventure-filled island of hardy, generous and fun-loving people is so far removed from the rest of the world geographically. Today’s news is seen as happening in another world and it might as well be, with a 12 hour difference between Auckland and London. We are plodding away at our desks and jobs when the rest of the world is either deep in slumber or winding down their days.

And then the main immigrant presence here is Asian. China and India account for a significant proportion of that demographic. Singapore, Japan, Korea, Taiwan all have large communities here as well. So when a debate is raging in the body politic about the benefits (or otherwise) of immigrants, although substantially the same as what Spain and Portugal deal with from West African citizens, the face of the immigrant in question is Asian.

Perceptions about Africa are framed by images on television. Images which are almost always negative. Images of starving children, internecine wars, AIDS and HIV. There are a series of Save the Children adverts on TV that I absolutely abhor. They show the worst parts of Africa and ask people to donate a certain 'tiny' amount to 'mightily' improve the lives of the sick, poor and starving children in Africa. I do not doubt that these organizations are making some sort of effort to offer genuine help to the individuals most affected by the myriad problems affecting Africa but it irks me that this is ALL that New Zealanders see about Africa.

Physical interaction with Africans is primarily with white farmers fleeing Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe; white South Africans moving here through Rugby and business ties; and then refugees from Eastern Africa (Sudan, Somalia etc). These are the majority of the tiny proportion of Africans in New Zealand.

Kiwis then assume that any African they see falls into one of these categories. If you happen to be dark-skinned then you obviously fall into only one. Case in point. Seun my Nigerian friend who came here to study originally and is now a resident, and I entered the elevator with a kiwi guy the other day. We exchanged the usual elevator pleasantries and the very next question this 'ara-oko' asked was, “So are you guys refugees?”

You could feel the temperature drop below zero in that tiny elevator.

“What makes you say that?” I asked in my iciest tone. The poor guy turned red, mumbled something incomprehensible and looked like he saw his personal Lord and Saviour when the doors opened at his floor. Thinking it over later I regretted making him feel so uncomfortable but couldn’t get over my disappointment that his question exemplified what the average kiwi thinks.

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if I was American I would be a millionnaire. If you speak barely accented English, seem to get along with people quite easily and show more than a passing aptitude for world and current events, you MUST be American. Or grew up in Britain. Or schooled there.

I remember reading that in the 1960’s some dude in government (or was it a celebrity? I forget now) somewhere in the Western world really believed that Africans still lived in trees. In the 1960’s! So while I don’t think anyone believes that anywhere these days, a lot of people definitely still believe that all Africans live a constant guerrilla existence. Scrounging for food and always dodging bullets on the way to school. Or to the diamond fields…

While I acknowledge that for millions of people in Africa, this IS a daily reality, it is by no means the totality of the situation. Being in AIESEC and during my sojourn in Europe I got used to meeting people who had an acute understanding of the reality of Africa. Sometimes seemingly more than Africans themselves. They knew exactly what terrible things were going on; the wars being fought, the disparity in income levels and failure of leadership across the continent.

But they also knew of the efforts of the middle class. (A middle class constantly under siege but a middle class all the same made up of professionals who have stayed in their home countries and are daily trying to affect its destiny in their own little ways.) They know of the universities in Africa, under-funded and over-crowded but still valiantly turning out products to fill the manpower needs of the nation. These enlightened individuals recognized that given the right conditions and encouragement, Africans were competing and surpassing their counterparts from all over the world.

I can see the pleasant surprise in kiwi’s faces when I tell them that both my parents (teacher and journalist) had their own little library of books and that I spent many hours curled up reading Enid Blyton, CS Lweis and Charles Dickens. “You didn’t have to work after school to feed your family?” I can almost hear their sub-conscious saying.

My sweetheart Tope in looking for a job has come up against this reality as well. After contacting heaps and heaps of job agencies without any luck, we were very kindly advised by a friend to contact companies directly and try to speak to people over the phone. Apparently when they see her name and where she was from, they assumed (correctly) that she was “fresh off the boat” and assumed (incorrectly) that she couldn’t speak a word of English.

I shared the story of the Chinese girl in my office who was smitten with my Michael Jackson outfit and was convinced I was American. She seemed almost disappointed when I told her I wasn’t.

Anyway, it takes one person to change the world. Me I have set out to change a nation. I will attempt to try to share the most positive aspects of Africa in general and Nigeria in particular. There are only 4 million people here. Piece of cake.