'Making it Big': Femi Otedola's lesson that is not listed

By the time you get to lesson 18 of Femi Otedola’s account, you will have got the feeling that perhaps the apt title of the book should have been 25 Laws of Business. That, however, would have been possible, only if the writer had the leeway to borrow from other accounts and bodies of knowledge that explore ways of running a successful business and give a way forward.

Since Making it big- Lessons from a Life in Business, is an autobiography, a story of a successful entrepreneur, one of Africa’s few dollar billionaires, according to Forbes’ listings, and therefore borrows from personal experiences, lets accept its title despite laying bare - through what the writer calls 25 lessons -what could pass for laws on steering a successful business - without which anyone seeking to invest cannot win.

Apart from the lessons narrated in a friendly tone using the language of ‘is and was’- no bombastic phrases, that creates a feeling of a friend narrating their journey in entrepreneurship to another, analogized in first-hand experiences, Making it Big carries a lesson that is not listed amongst the 25.

That lesson which will interest anyone who follows modern trends in education and psychology is rather spread out in the entire book. It is weaved in Femi’s life story.

And it is as follows.

For a man whose formal schooling ended at equivalent of Kenya's Form Six without sitting for the final examination, Femi’s high-level successes confirms fresh research works by educationists and psychologists who have questioned traditional assessment of what really is intelligence. Does scoring Ds and Es at school imply that one is unintelligent? Are such individuals cut out for failure as colonial-style education claimed through-out the 20th century in Africa?

The story of Femi’s life in business puts out a good case supporting Daniel Goleman’s 1994 account Emotional Intelligence- Why it can matter more than IQ. Goleman argued that high IQ is no guarantee for success, happiness, or virtue and that emotional intelligence in-fact matters more. That is why the title of his book carries a subtitle that sends a message that EI is the unexplored element in human intelligence that society must now appreciate.

Howard Gardner in his 1983 discussion Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences- argued that people are gifted differently and intelligence cannot be assessed based on adaptability in Mathematics and Language only - academics. That our schooling left out other human abilities that are intelligences which leads innovation and growing of enterprise.

In Making it big Femi writes “….but there was something about academia and me; we were not compatible. I finished Primary school in 1974 because I repeated a class. Even when I was allowed to pass, I consistently anchored the bottom rungs of our end of term examination results…”

He adds “…. I managed to remain in school until the Lower Sixth examination was over. And then, I was finished. I never returned for my Upper Sixth”

The book is therefore an account by an E score and D during his time at school but who was greatly aware of himself and his richness of mind and heart that could not be measured at school because academics was not compatible with him. He was innovative with an uncanny ability to craft a living from the universe. That ability, as it emerges in his account, was definitely never measured by Nigeria system of education which is also Africa’s colonial- style schooling.

Femi’s account makes the reader meet a mind that one meets when they read accounts of innovators of the rennaisance period in Europe and the Industrial revolution. The intuitive and instinctive mind that smells opportunity and seeks to turn it into profit- be it profit in kind or financial.

You come across it in the introduction where he says “….all I wanted was to get involved in business. My father kept watch over me and drew close…..despite the protests and tears of my mother who could not accept that I wouldn’t be returning to school, I started working fulltime for my father’s printing operation…I became the managing director at the age of 25”

 How was, he for instance, a youngster barely 11 years able to know that asking his father’s visitors for an opportunity to cut their finger-nails could give him some pocket money for use as a pupil. Where did that thought come from?

While other children his age would be playing outside, Femi would hang around his father’s living room staring at the fingernails of the visitors and wondering whether they’d allow him to trim them at a fee. It is interesting that Femi did not just think, he acted. He asked his father’s visitors to allow him clip their fingernails. He had prepared an invoice and a receipt that he’d issue them after that little service. They'd then pay him some coins.

Told in Chapter One of the book, that anecdotal experience reveals an innovative heart which, as the book shows, led to his founding, growing and expanding business enterprises moving from one industry to another. Smelling an opportunity becomes a rule and that the size of the investment does not matter - the rule is to smell an opportunity. Without that business cannot start and grow. It also cannot recover after a misfortune.

It was such intuitiveness that led him to decide to leave school, one could see that in his exposition. He gets into his father’s printing business an because of that uncanny ability to smell business opportunities he grew his fathers investment rising to managing director. After his father’s journey in politics Femi decides to go his way launching a financial services entity loaning out money for a profit. His heart, which he rarely ignores causes him to later move into Petroleum and gas and that is where he makes his first 1billion dollars at the age of 41.

After running a successful 1.2billion dollar petroleum investment, according to Forbes, he got it again, his heart, to walk into the corporate, to now run a public limited company where he’d relinquish his previous direct involvement in daily running of his investments. Once again he gets it right- the PLC grows pushing him into philanthropy to give back to society

The story is laced with that “thing” that is never taught at school, but causes one to spot an opportunity- some of which are scary. For instance, when he sold his house to find capital to invest in a new frontier.

Writing in the first person the writer is honest to a fault, he admits his failures and does not hesitate to point out his mistakes or where he went wrong. He reveals his losses and how he recovered – once again- he shows that he does not ignore that inner voice.

The 25 lessons range from the virtue of starting small, leading from the front, believing in one self, the carefulness one needs at selecting the people to work with, through to the role of mentors, taking care of your own health and recognizing your limits,recognising the role of God and the virtue of giving.

Of the downsides of the book, the endorsements and closing sections may need a re-look.

The acknowledgements section which runs four pages would have broadened the books perspective had it included investors and business leaders from other parts of Africa. The book is published in a universal language of English, and despite being centered in Nigeria- where the writer made it big in business, the message of the book is universal.

However, the honorable individuals acknowledging Femi’s work are all Nigerian. All are Africa’s respected names no doubt; Aliko Dangote - Africa’s lead investor and employer, the richest African according to Forbes, Arunman Oteh - Chairman of Royal African Society, Dr Akiwumi Adessina -President of the African Development bank group and Prince Samuel Adedoyin. To crown it all the forward was penned by the Director General of World trade organization Ngozi Ikonjo- Iweala a former Foreign Minister of Nigeria who hails from the South East.

The book would have had a more universal feel had its acknowledgement section which opens up the book to readers, included heartfelt notes by other African investors- especially native Africans- such as South Africa’s Patrice Motsepe the first native billionaire and Zimbabwe’s Strive Masiyiwa- all acclaimed billionaires that have made it big from the sweat of their brow as Femi Otedola did.

The reader could also have benefited from an appendix explaining the use such titles as Chief and Sir before names of some individuals. While reading the book, one wonders whether the Sirs cited as was Michael Otedola, a knight of the British crown? What about the Chiefs – Chief Mashood Abiola, Chief Wahab Falahiyo- how are these titles understood in the Nigerian society?