You might be the most charismatic entrepreneur since noodles were invented, but recruiting the best talent, and retaining it for at least seven years, is a complicated task in today’s world where professionals are hopping from one company to the next. For many millennials in particular, staying four years at one company for four years is not desirable.
Who you bring into your company, can make or break its reputation. It can either be a disaster or glorious journey.
Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, uses a bus to illustrate this. Before the bus starts driving, you need to find the right people, put them in the right seats, and only then can you decide where you want to go.
When the US government was breaking up John D. Rockefeller’s company, Standard Oil, he asked that he identify certain people he would like to retain. He did this because he knew he could put together another successful company with the right people.
Recruiting the same high-minded people, that share your ambitions, can be challenging. You end up with the scenario of leaders leading leaders, which can lead to friction.
I hear many entrepreneurs saying you should hire people more intelligent than you. This should be done with caution because you might find yourself in a position where your leadership is undermined. However, you also don’t want to be working with people that are incapable.
Some employees in your company may be entrepreneurial – they’re called intrapreneurs. They need to be enabled, rather than suppressed. Give them the freedom to come up with new ideas in your company, like Alphabet, which owns Google. This is a company that is innovative by nature and has a culture of enabling such restless souls – otherwise they will resign and start their own thing.
If you are, or ever have been, an entrepreneur, you will know that finding a right match for your company can be arduous. It is for this reason that numerous hedge fund companies, like Citadel and Bridgewater Associates, still interact with new candidates and recruits.
The conundrum we face is that we don’t always keep those recruits, no matter how much we value them. It has been found that, on average, only one out of 16 employees will remain for an extended period of time at a company.
Some companies, once they have shortlisted eligible candidates, try to talk them out of wanting to be employed there. They do this to ensure that they only hire people that are passionate about working for the company. The reason for this is that it is better, and more cost effective, to lose a candidate than an employee.
Goldman Sachs has one of the most vigorous recruiting processes. They will ask candidates to come at a certain time, then when they arrive, the senior personnel from Goldman Sachs won’t be there for the appointment, or will arrive late. The candidates who leave before the manager arrives will not go further in the process; those that remain are told the moral of the experience is to learn to wait for someone who is higher than you in business hierarchy.
In your company you have three groups of employees who roughly make up these percentages, the 20%, 60% and 20%. The first 20% are the unproductive people you wish to fire at the first chance you get; the second 60% are average employees, who are  and consistent, and who form the core of any company; the final 20% are your top-notch employees, who generally over-perform. The problem with this group is that everyone wants them; competitors are continuously trying to snatch them. For this reason, they tend not to stay long at a single company, instead moving to the highest bidder in the market.
That middle group – the 60% – is who you need to nurture. They will stick with you and their loyalty will produce the best results.

Hang on  to your stars

What else could brother and sister, both professional athletes, do other than compete?
“You mean a squash match between me and her? I am in. I have been waiting for this, I have a score to settle here,” says the little brother.
“Come let’s go warm up,” says the big sister.
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“You’re the one who needs a warm-up, I am warmed. I’ve come from a practise an hour ago,” says little brother.
This was South Africa’s women squash champion Siyoli Waters and her younger brother Luvuyiso Lusaseni, a professional rugby player with the Lions Rugby Union in Johannesburg. This keen encounter at the Wanderers squash courts, in Johannesburg, was a legacy of competitive teenage days, back in East London, in the Eastern Cape.
“I was in boarding schools most of my life, whenever I came home in December I trained with friends. When he was about 11 years old, he joined in and each year he would say ‘when you come back again my arms will be bigger than yours,’… My brother plays for the Lions now, I am so proud of him. He has a good head on his shoulders,” says Waters.
“We always woke up at about 4 o’clock and go for a nice jog. It was a very friendly and fun competition. It kind of motivated me. It was inspiring to see the work that she was putting in to get where she was and where she wanted to be. At that point, I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to play, but I think she ignited my love for sport,” says Lusaseni.
Thirty-one year-old Waters was a late bloomer. In 2009, she turned professional and was ranked 279 in the world. She is now ranked 34 and number one in South Africa. This is a spot she has held since June 2013. In August, she was in Johannesburg to defend her title at the South African National Championships.
“I have achieved what I achieved, but I would love teaching others to do it with me. I would love to bring others along. It’s very clear to me, if you are trailblazing you should have other people following the trail. You cannot be on your own; then something is wrong,” says Waters.
“When it comes to accolades and family gatherings, maybe I felt a little pressure to bring something to the table,” says Lusaseni.
Standing at 1.96 meters and 110 kilograms, the 26-year-old is a lock forward. His sister stands 1.7 meters tall. Lusaseni was in the South Africa Schools rugby team in 2006 and represented his country in the IRB World Championships in 2008. Playing for the Springboks is the next step.
The two are worlds apart when it comes to sport and physique. They are one when it comes to competition.
Was there ever sibling rivalry?
“I always think of Serena and Venus Williams. Whatever the world thinks about them, those are sisters, one would win and one would lose, but because they managed their sibling rivalry, not only were they both able to be world champions, by working together they were able to rise far above the rest of the competition. Their story is fantastic, I use it often to encourage young kids not to quit,”
says Waters.
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In South Africa, professional squash is little known and sponsorship is scarce. It was only in 2013 that Waters secured a two-year sponsorship to pay her passage to international events. Before then, Waters juggled her career and coaching to pay her way in Cape Town.
“The fact that I am a champion today, I think its testimony that South African squash has been always open to transformation. As a teenager I felt like I was welcomed in squash community. That’s probably why I chose squash over tennis. In my time, multiracial schools produced a lot of black players but unfortunately they were lost in the university stages. It’s a money issue. You would rather be an accountant than a squash player.”
Waters had made peace with the fact that the sport she fell in love with will not make her a multimillionaire. But she enjoys the travel.
“I have been to every continent in the world except South America. It helped me discover that I have a love for languages though I have studied science. Squash tours are similar to tennis tours; they require monthly traveling around the world. I love playing in Malaysia; you get a sense that squash is a spectator sport. They have adopted squash as one of the major sports in the country,” she says.
Although Waters campaigned for the inclusion of squash in the Olympic Games in 2016, it remains unclear if she will ever play for her country on sport’s biggest stage. Waters missed out on the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in August. Her disappointment was huge and she is still waiting for an explanation. So is FORBES AFRICA, repeated attempts to speak to Paene Galane, a spokesperson in the sports ministry, proved fruitless.
But this does not seem to bother Waters who represents players on the South African squash committee. Since age is catching up with her, she says her focus is on slotting into the world top 20 and going to the 2020 Olympics as a coach.
“It’s important sharing what I know, especially as one of the few black squash players in the country. I need to be a role model for my sport,” says Waters.
Waters also won provincial colors in hockey, tennis and athletics at junior level, but sport is not her only talent. She met her husband in church with a song on her lips.
“It was funny that it wasn’t sport that brought us together. I was impressed by her voice in the church band. But it was later that I discovered her sports talent,” says Dave Waters, her husband who runs the Africa Soccer Development academy in Cape Town and Johannesburg.
The big arms did not help Lusaseni to settle old scores on the squash court as he lost heavily. But few would take up the challenge of a return match on the rugby field.

Sister Squash vs Brother Lion

In 2006, the Mozambican president’s youngest daughter took the leadership of the family’s company—Focus 21 Management and Development, Ltd (Gestão e Desenvolvimento, Lda). The company, which focuses on business consulting, engineering, logistics and the mining sector, is currently valued at more than $5 million.
“There is an ongoing specialized financial reassessment of assets such as buildings, land, interests in diverse areas such as agribusiness, ICT and logistics in Mozambique,” says Guebuza.
Guebuza’s involvement in the company dates back to 2001 when her father changed the company’s shareholder structure. Both her brothers, Armando Ndambi Guebuza and Mussumbuluko Armando Guebuza, also joined Focus 21.
The Guebuza family business was born almost two decades ago. In recent years, it has established partnerships with companies such as Star Times, targeting the market for cable television, and Cervejas de Moçambique (Beers of Mozambique).
At Star Times Media, in which Focus 21 holds a 15% interest, Valentina Guebuza serves as the chief executive officer. The company was launched a year ago in Mozambique with the majority shareholder being the Chinese Star Times International. With an investment of more than $88 million, the joint venture aims to become the market leader in cable television in Mozambique, a country that faces the challenge of migrating from analogue to digital by 2015.
The national and foreign press also highlights business partnerships established between Focus 21 and Mozambican state-owned enterprises, such as the Portos e Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique (Ports and Railways of Mozambique).
The professional profile of the three young entrepreneurs and their relationship with the heads of state of Mozambique and Angola must help.
During her childhood, Guebuza liked “to play with dolls and play ball” with other kids in Maputo, where she grew up. She adds that she had an education based on the principle of responsibility and helped the family with household chores, such as washing dishes and cooking. For Guebuza, the education she received from her parents was important in the development of her personality. In her interview with FORBES AFRICA she appeared to be an extremely modest person.
“Today, I understand what my parents always told us, that the family is the foundation of our stability; emotionally and professionally,” she says, adding that she always had a “very good” relationship with all her family members.
When she graduated in civil engineering, Guebuza had no idea that she would play an active role in the business world.
“I always wanted to be independent and I fought for it. In 2001, I started working in a restaurant. I also did secretarial work and when I was in my last year of university I started an internship at a consulting firm in civil engineering, where I gained practical experience in my field,” she says.
With her ingression into the leadership of Focus 21, Guebuza had to put on hold the Masters degree she was doing as she says the family business takes up all her time. She says she works “24/7”.
“I do not know if I am an enterprising person, but surely I have to bring in results to the group I manage. So I must split myself in two, losing nights thinking about solutions and projects that add value to our market and also to bring positive results for the company,” she says.
Being the youngest daughter of the president, Guebuza is a symbol of success in a society mostly made up of young people. She was born during the period in which Mozambique was no longer under Portuguese colonial rule, yet had plunged into civil war. The 1980s were particularly striking in the life of the entrepreneur, who still remembers the trips around the country under military escort as well as the numerous power outages.
Given her youth, Guebuza has been associating with organizations that attempt to promote entrepreneurship and employment among young Mozambicans. In the social field, this is one of the major topics to which she has dedicated herself. Low-cost housing for families is another one of her passions.
“I think we are a privileged generation in a way. We did not live in the time when we were oppressed. Some of us lived throughout part of the civil war period, others have no idea what those moments were all about,” she says.
In 2010, she became involved in the Business Fair, held in Maputo. The initiative’s main objective is to promote “a space where young entrepreneurs can exchange ideas and experiences”.
That same year, Guebuza received an invitation to join the New Leaders for Tomorrow forum, held by the Swiss organization Crans-Montana. From the relationships established with the organization, she joined the Africa Foundation 2.0 in 2011, which connects young African leaders from 40 nations to design strategies for integrated social development for the continent.
Another sign of media recognition that Guebuza has gathered at the international level was her participation in the last G20 meeting, held in Paris in October. Only 15 African Foundation 2.0 members were invited.
With an annual growth of 7.5%, Mozambique seems to be one of the most promising economies in Africa. The enormous agricultural potential, in parallel with natural resources such as gas or coal, have placed the watchful eyes of investors on the young African economy.
“Over the next 10 years, I see my country being given more weight in terms of decisions to be taken globally,” she says.
As a “dissatisfied” person and one who likes to live each day in an “intense” way, Guebuza believes that these are times of “great enthusiasm” for Mozambique. She is proud of the importance that her nation is beginning to gather on an international level and expects that the country’s economic success will result in the improvement of Mozambique’s social indicators.
The Next Isabel dos Santos? 
Often, journalists compare Guebuza to the Angolan entrepreneur, Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the president of Angola José Eduardo dos Santos. According to Forbes, she is worth at least $170 million and is considered to be the most powerful and richest woman in her country and among the richest in Africa. She was described by the Portuguese newspaper Público as: “…a good business woman, extremely dynamic and intelligent, also a professional and friendly.” 
Since 2008, she has held interests in telecommunications, media, retail, finance and the energy industry, both in Angola and in Portugal. Her commercial interests include oil, diamonds and shares in the Angolan cement company, Nova Cimangola

Tag: professional

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Hang on to your stars

Sister Squash vs Brother Lion

The Millionaire Princess