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I asked Max Kaizen, the beautiful and brainy woman behind Hunter Genius to participate in an interview with me. However, clever Max turned the tables on got me (willingly!) to answer her questions instead. The smaller version is at SA Rocks
Here then in all its verbosity is the full version of that interview. See you next week…..
1. What’s the most important decision you ever made? One that changed the course of your life?
The most important decision for me was to begin to make decisions and to stop procrastinating.
I was taught how by a boss of mine. He was ex SAS. His words to me were, “In the jungle of Malaysia, being able to speedily assess and make quick decisions was the difference between life and death. Right or wrong decision, at least you would be moving instead of remaining a sitting duck. Moving soldiers got more choices. It was his words “right or wrong” that impacted me. Before, I had always been too concerned at making the perfect decision every time and this led to procrastination. It was a relief to know that even the SAS could make errors of judgement. I felt a weight being lifted off my shoulders and from that instant began to hone my assessment skills. I now work in a fast moving industry. Telecoms is fast paced and a delayed decision can be the difference between millions of dollars or none. That I am still here is testament to the fact that on balance I am making a lot more sound business decisions. Thank you Roy!
2. What do you get passionate about? What moves you deeply?
I am a dedicated humanist. People move and inspire me. I am a sucker for the underdog. If I don’t help, who will? People need to know that they have talents. If nobody has ever told or tells them, then whatever skill or latent talent they have will never ever be brought to the fore. That is criminal. I can and do tell people that I know they are gifted and have a talent that is waiting for them to simply switch on.
More often than not I encounter people with low self-esteem who have turned into retiring and shy people who do hide great talents under their protective shell. This is an injustice so I encourage them to put their skills to work. Two years ago I told a young woman in my department that she has the skills and talent to lead a team with huge responsibilities and accountabilities. All she needed to do was go ahead and not be afraid to just do it. She did and does and is the most successful Team Leader in a very large department.
Part of her success is confidence in her and in me. She knows that if she cocks up there will not be any aggressive repercussions from me. We will assess what went wrong and drill down until we know why. When we do establish what happened and why, we both will have learnt something and will do our best to avoid the same error again. So she feels comfortable to go and make decisions and lead her group to meet the KRAs.
It is sad to encounter a person who has been made to think they lack skill and talent. It angers me that teachers and parents do not instill in kids the confidence to explore life and their world from a very early age and to be comfortable with themselves if they get different results to what they expect. How often do ‘failures’ as a child manifest itself in adulthood as low self-esteem and other insecurities? Parent who just give their child or children the TV remote and tell them to be quiet should be locked away. Children and adults need to know that they have talents and should be encouraged to explore.
3. Which celeb/hero/master of the universe would you do almost
anything to have as your mentor for a month?
I am not one of those who enthuses/idolises and bases my life on a single individual. I am too aware of human frailties that can shatter an allusion. For that is all it is. I do not compute how people can be so fanatical about sporting heroes, movie idols and TV personalities. I can’t. I can fully respect a successful person but idolise him for it? No way.
If I had 12 months I’d ask Gabriel Garcia Marquez in January to teach me how to taste life and to write prose where every line is a journey in humour.
In February I’ll ask Bill Clinton to teach me his interview and presentation skills
For March I will need Steve Job to teach me how to capitalise on my innovative skills
April will see me learning 121 more NLP from Dr Richard Bandler
May should catch Jim Lovell (Apollo 13 Commander) teaching me how to remain calm under extreme duress
June will catch David Kramer teaching me how to write a musical after he teaches me how to play the piano and a guitar. His and the late Taliep?s productions are just fantastic.
July will be the month that I get to be taught how to run a business by Jerry Robinson and Richard Branson
August is the time for Seth Godin to dispense his marketing principles to me
September is for Hugh Macleod to teach me how to draw cartoons on the back of business cards.
October is when I share a month learning Arctic survival skills by Sir Ranulph Fiennes and his hero Ernest Shakelton
November is reserved for Michael Gorbachev who will teach me the art of perestroika. How this man did not become president of USA is beyond me! I was hoping he’d settle in USA, become a citizen, then a senator and go on to lead the country. Oi vey!
December is when I hold a dinner party for all the above co-hosted with me by none other that great raconteur, the one and only Desmond Tutu and that master of understatement, Nelson Mandela and Young Entrepreneur 1972, Mr Cyril Ramaphosa.
I cannot think of such a dinner party without Mandela, Ramaphosa and Tutu. It?d be lively to say the least.
4. What was your most memorable job? or What would be your fantasy job/work?
As fond memories go, the job at #1 is: Lifesaver at an outdoor swimming pool in UK! Had an absolutely fantastic time for the English summer. I lived in a tent at the adjoining caravan park. Got my dinners at local pubs and girlfriends flats. Did what I love (swimming, tanning and
bird watching), was able to save up money to go on tour around Europe.
Met in a blizzard at Salzburg and fell in love with a stunning Canadian girl who broke my heart within a week of meeting! We split up at Split on the Dalmatian coast. She to return to UK, me to go on to Austria. Damn that was a difficult heart repair job
5. If you could wake up with one brand new talent tomorrow morning, what would it be?
I’d like to wake up tomorrow being able to give the most remarkable presentations you have ever been fortunate to attend. To me, the ability to present yourself to an audience and tell a story about a new venture, a charitable cause or boring business statistics in a manner that has your audience captivated and able to absorb the data is a skill to be yearned for.
6. If you could be at any one event this year, which one, why?
A Geek dinner in Cape Town?
7. Time or money no object is there a cause you would devote yourself to?
Operation Hunger. Not many people around the world realise that starvation in Africa’s richest economy (South Africa) is a very real issue. Too many of our people die from lack of food. How absolutely crazy is this? How can we let people die when we walk around with a packet or stick of biltong in our hands? Absurd. But it is not absurd. It is fact.
Operation Hunger caught my attention many years ago. I was staggered that a charity of this nature had to be established in my backyard. Ever since then it has remained my favoured charity alongside the UK?s NSPCC. Children need to be nurtured, fed and clothed and schooled and taught how to take responsibility for the mess that we leave them. We can?t leave a legacy without someone to clean it up or help it prosper. So, if kids are dieing needlessly from hunger then I need to help prevent it occurring.
8. Is there anything about new technology drives you crazy?
I cannot get enough of it. I am an early adopter and it drives me nuts when I see a gadget or a new application that I just have to have. I love my gadgets but have learned to not be too splash with the cash. Instead I now wait a while and monitor. For example I so wanted the big iPod but decided it’d be wasted on me and a waste of money so I went for the 20gb Sony instead and am so pleased I did. As far as new technology goes, I can climb the walls at the attitude some developers adopt. They assume their users will all be experienced tekkies. Wrong. I am no slouch but sometimes I cannot follow the logic of the system and get lost. We have some HR systems that are absolute junk. They look snazzy and slick but a pen and paper is quicker than their online routines. I loathe and detest using these systems. The time wasting they cause is ridiculous.
Microsoft tended to assume you would want to use this or do that in some of their applications. Wrong. Whatever focus groups they used in testing were not where I come from. I used to be dismissive of Microsoft but lately they have shown good signs of engaging.
I also find it terribly frustrating that VCs are scared to invest in technology when they learn the pitch is for development of an African based technology. I was struck dumb a few weeks ago when I learnt there was a VC who was not ’scared’ to invest in South Africa! I sarcastically asked if the VC was therefore SA’s Mark Shuttleworth but that was wasted on the dickwad in front of me.
9. 3 life-enhancing things that you haven’t yet done or experienced.
Life enhancing? Tough question. I could sit all day and think of experiences I still need to do but whether they are life enhancing is questionable.
1. I still have not had a hug from Desmond Tutu.
2. I have not bungee jumped
10. If you could wake up tomorrow anywhere in the world, where would
it be?
The International Space Station. Why? Well wouldn’t you want this once in a lifetime opportunity to experience space? I am a space addict. A junkie. I go weak at the knees if Shuttle blast off is televised live. I have been a space fan since I was knee-high to a grasshopper.
11. Is there one thing you can’t seem to say no to? Or a ridiculously
guilty pleasure you dive into occasionally?
ANZAC biscuits. Made for the Royal British Legion. Baked in Australia. Absolutely brilliant for dunking in a cup of steaming hot tea! Buttered Marie biscuits. We get them here in UK. Local brands. Yummy. Finally who can resist koeksusters? Not me.
But my secret buy that I cannot resist is DVDs. I am building my library (says he trying to assuage his guilt at the expense of it all!), so I have to keep a lookout for those special movies and new ones.
12. What’s the best piece of advice anyone has ever given you? Or, having
been flung right to the edge of your existence & yanked back - What is
the single best piece of advice you can give? (about
life/work/love/humanity.. whatever)
From my father, “Never judge a man by what he does. Judge him by who he is.”
13. Is there a film can you watch over & over without getting bored?
Oh yes indeed. So many: Ice Age1, Citizen Kane, Blazing Saddles, Life of Brian, Once Upon A Time in America, The Godfather series, Goodfellas, Bourne Identity, Ghandi, Lawrence of Arabia, Apollo 13, Reservoir Dogs……….So many more.
14. What’s the craziest dare you’ve ever gone through with? (apart
from your own natural naartjie-lobbing tendencies)
In a pub one night. I was dared to go home right there and then on the back of someone’s bike, pack the backpack and hitch to Edinburgh. I did. Got two rides. One was only a 10 mile ride the other was all the way from Oxford to Edinburgh with a cousin of the Queen. He was absolutely so funny and kind.
15. What do miss most about Africa?
I miss so many things. Like the smell, the stink of Africa and having my guts know they are home. Elsewhere on other continents ,I experience a whispering lost butterfly feeling in my tummy. But in Africa my internal compass knows I am where I should be.
Apart from the sunshine, braaivleis and Chevrolet aspects, what I miss about Africa includes:
I miss the extremes of Africa. Like the deep green and lush undergrowth juxtaposed against the barren rocky veld.
I miss the wide open spaces. The big blue cloudless skies. I miss watching the buildup to the daily highveld summer afternoon thunderstorms that dump millions of gallons of rain and hail amidst a breathtaking display of lightening and thunder. Then within 10 -20 minutes the clouds disappear, the blue sky and sun reappear alongside the smell of the wet earth. That smell is so special.
The heat melting the tar on the roads.
The smells and stench of the open air markets. The roadside butcheries where cow’s heads are sold alongside other meats. On inspection, you can see the rudimentary cutting of the flesh. A long way off the professional machine sliced supermarket pieces that are vacuum packed. At least here it is see it, smell it, touch it and buy if OK. If not, move on to the next stall and repeat. I respect the way nothing of the beast gets wasted.
My memories are not compartmentalised so at random I recollect this special picture which I hold onto from when my grandparents used to live off Greenmarket Square. I loved it when the Imam at the mosque called the faithful to prayer. It was goosebump time. It is such a special memory to me. There was a coherence happening. The sun was setting, the colours and hues of the day changed to rich magical colours just for that special time when the call went out from the Malay Quarter mosque’s minaret. I still squint my eyes at the memory of the late afternoon sun burning laserlike directly at the windows, scattering bright rays across the glass and in the middle creating a halo of bright light while the lace curtains fluttered in the breeze coming in through the open window.
In Namibia, South Africa and Uganda seeing black men holding hands as they walked and talked together is something special. To me this exemplifies the close bond between men from the same tribe that honours their community’s traditions and signifies an appropriate communication to others. Trust. But we civilised and educated ‘Europeans’ scoff at this type of intimacy as being the ultimate effete behaviour and not to be condoned. Pah! What do we know?! We programme our children to be brave and upstanding against adversity but we fail to cover the essentials – how to be human.
I miss seeing animals walking in the roads. I miss the concentrated grouping of the shacks at the impromptu (as it originally began) townships like Crossroads. Sad and bad as it is, this is a part of the African fabric that we keep in our memory banks for recall at future dates.
I miss the colours of Africa. I miss picking fruit from their trees. I miss walking barefoot. I miss the laughter. I miss being part of a huge family that endures hardships together, has fallouts, fights and kills one another, that reconciles and shares life again.
I miss the ad hoc soccer matches using stones as goals. I miss the farm shops alongside the Eastern Cape roads. Fresh pineapple juice by the litre. I miss the Transkei and the rondavels. I miss the traditional dress of the Xhosa. I miss seeing the young initiates covered in the ritual white clay walking in groups on the road between Port Elizabeth and Jeffries Bay or in the opposite direction PE and Grahamstown.
I miss having the life scared out of me by SAA everytime the plane comes in to land at East London. I do say a prayer and swear I will never fly there ever again. But I am a befokkde male and do it again and console myself by asking why should I deny myself another adrenaline rush?! Oh the wind at EL airport!
I miss the approach to Windhoek airport too. But not the 10 hour drive to town from there! Kidding. The drive is an excellent time to view the topography of my country. I cannot describe it. At primary school in Namibia, the art teacher had an Ovambo assistant named Gideon. He had a talent for art as a painter. A very good talent. My art teacher nurtured this.
Pretty soon we were seeing canvases all over the art room. His speciality was painting wild animals on the flour sacks he obtained from the bakery. They are beautiful pieces of work. As I recall he used space well and was very sparse with the oils. Whites and shades of blue predominated. Flecks of black on the Gemsbok’s faces showed up so well as a result. I wanted one of his canvasses but never got around to convincing my dad to buy one.
I miss the hospital behind the school. I used to go there after school a lot. The unit where the Ovambo patients were recuperating from their operations was my focal point. I went to a courtyard that caught the afternoon sun and this is where they sat and played their version on the stone game, talked and read and also tended to the sick animals and young pups and kittens. Many is the time I relieved them of kittens and with two or three stuffed into my blazer pockets and provisioned by the patients with a big brown paper bag of peanuts I’d go home and once again say to Mum, “Guess what?” to which she would answer, “How many?”. We kept 3 or 4 of those that I bought home. The rest were given to neighbours.
My friend and I also used to sneak into the Ovambo compound at night to watch movies with them. These men formed the labourforce for the De Beers diamond mines and were housed in a compound. I do know that they served contractual periods, went back north to Ovamboland to their wives and families, and then in time returned to the mines and money. A sad life but they were catered for in what appeared to me to be excellent accommodations. I recall there being a water-well and I was fascinated by the palm close by to it. On movie nights we’d sneak in and sit among them watching movies that fascinated the audience. Eruptions of laughter occurred many times. It was a rich tone and a happy sound. Large bags of peanuts were passed from one to the other during the show. At interval we were hidden from view until the lights went out and we two small white boys sat enjoying the company of these proud men of Namibia. We were never found out by the authorities.
I miss Africa the mother of life. I will return.
