Waigwa, you are fired!

I hate to deliver this message but you have been a complete let down. When I recruited you I was convinced that you are the type of guy I needed. After the rigorous interviews, I settled on you because you seemed to know what you wanted in life. You clearly communicated in a clear and concise manner the role you were to play in my company. Look at you now, two years down the line and you look like a shadow of the exuberant young man I hired. Take this letter, hand over all company’s assets, records and files in your possession. Just hit the road and don’t you come back no more.

I hired Waigwa and spent a lot of time inducting him. Heck, I even took him to Naivasha in some posh hotel together with a few others as I attempted to sell them my vision. I took them through the history of my firm, how it grew from scratch with lots of hard work, strategy and serious money invested in it. He seemed to be very keen to perform his role and I grew some liking for him. I could count on him to deal with keeping labour records and paying casuals, procuring materials from hardware and dealing with my clients to an extent; after all delegation is a good option to take for any good manager.

That trust made me drop my guards off. This guy from some remote village from Nyeri was my right hand man and in all honesty I thought he was assisting me get closer to my vision. Crafty Waigwa must have realized that his master had gone to sleep. He could add a few names in the labour schedule (ghost workers) and his master would just pay without verifying. He could collude with the hardware guy and receive part deliveries while his master paid for the full amounts on the invoices.

One day, the master’s sixth sense was aroused. He planted some moles on the site and to his shock he was losing quite some money on labour alone. The clever master once demanded to verify some deliveries and of course there was a big difference between delivery notes and invoices. In other words Waigwa had been busted!

Then the master was called by one of his clients and to his utter shock he realized that the client had some critical information given to him by none other than Waigwa. Information the client clearly used to his advantage to corner the master. That was the stroke that broke the camel’s back. Waigwa had to be fired. He has a family to take care of but his dishonesty and lack of integrity ensured the master no option but to send him back to the hole he came from.

I am one of the most patient fellows around but business has taught me that some ruthlessness is necessary. I sometimes exercise the powers to fire.

These employees who do not buy into your dream are a representation of little foxes that destroy the vines in the vineyard. No wonder the wise man in the Bible taught us in Songs of Songs 2:15: "Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom".

Do you know what are the little foxes chewing into your dream? Better find out.

In the upcoming posts, we shall talk about some interesting business opportunities I have been seeing around. Kenya has serious opportunities.