“On a typical day, how many vehicles are on the streets in Lagos?”
The year was 1998, and I was in the Sandton, Johannesburg, South African office of world’s No 1 strategy consulting firm, McKinsey Inc. After a series of phone interviews, I was invited, on an all expenses paid trip to South Africa, for the final rounds of a job interview.
I was a senior consultant in the strategy unit of Andersen Consulting (today Accenture), and this was the height of my consulting career.
And I had prepared long and hard for this final interview. I read case interviews, revised some marketing and business books, and studied materials about McKinsey.
Yet, this question, from one of my interviewers, completely blind-sided me.
To cut long story short, I didn’t get the job.
But that question set me on a journey, a wild-goose chase. On a quest for an answer to a question that I would come to understand many years later, did not have a right or wrong answer.
But the journey (yes, still on it), more than the answer, or any answer, has been amazing.
There are many such questions that test your comfort with ambiguity and complexity. Test you ability to structure an unstructured issue and come up with a convincing logic to some ballpark figure.
Examples: How many text messages are sent in Lagos on a typical day? How many TV sets are in Lagos (forget mobile phones)? How many billboards are in Lagos? How many chickens are consumed in Lagos every week? Etc.
ENOUGH of me and McKinsey.
McKinsey Inc has released a report about the jobs outlook for Africa by 2020. They project that over 70 million new jobs well be created in Africa in the next seven years. And that by the mid 2030s, Africa will have the world’s largest workforce.
What is the implication of this for Nigeria? For your organisation, profession, etc? And for you and other African professionals.
My Guest on Business Hour this Saturday, June 22, is McKinsey co-Head for Africa Organisational Practice, Dr. Boris Ewenstein.
Date: Saturday, June 22, 2013.
Time: 12 Noon (11am GMT).
To listen Online, log on to www.radionigeriaonline.com
Warm regards.
=====================
Business Hour with Martin Udogie is broadcast on the network service of Radio Nigeria, every Saturday, at 12 Noon.
No comments:
Post a Comment