He is one of our members and after his course on business leadership, he decided to write a book. I was at the book launch last week and his company adopted the book, making it a required reading for everyone. I want you to also get a digital copy. The book by Tiamiyu Ismail is titled “Moral Licensing Syndrome: How Your Category-Best Employees Can Endanger Your System”. It goes for N1,500. I have gotten mine already.

Overview: Human beings have a dual personality, that is the personality that conforms to rules and the personality that breaks them. Both work hand-in-hand to enable us to reach a balanced moral frame or what experts call moral equilibrium. Moral Licensing Syndrome is a condition where our rebellious personality is allowed to manifest due to our exhibition of the conformist personality in the past. Essentially, you should not bend the rules for out-performers as doing so will in the near future destroy the company. Using cases and illustrations, Ismail explains.

This book is to help employers, HR, etc to understand the nature and disposition of their employees. With the knowledge, they can improve their firms.

Contacts Ismail at WhatsApp +234 818 852 8132 for order or buy via this link. For some who cannot afford but want to read, I am paying for 10; connect with him.

Tekedia Mini-MBA for Corporates is designed for private sector institutions. We are helping companies to make their workers to become better innovators. Yes, your staff would go through a methodological process to think of solutions for the business. With our class notes, videos, live sessions, and cases, your team will have the right tools to produce that FUTURE for the business. You already have a great team, make them BETTER. Learn more.

Tekedia Mini-MBA for Corporates is a customized version of the general Tekedia Mini-MBA. It is designed for private and public institutions. It focuses on the same theme of innovation, growth, and digital execution. But unlike the 12-week general Mini-MBA, the Corporate version goes for 4, 6, 8, or 10 weeks.  There would be scheduled webinars but no physical contacts.

When you sign-up, our team will schedule a meeting with you, discuss your institutional frictions, and during our program, we will work with your organization to find solutions to those frictions. The outcome of the process has been amazing: internal innovation at scale.

Let us serve you as an Innovation & Growth Partner, and using your team, you will find a new nexus to innovate, grow and advance the mission. Learn more and contact us.

It is the most advanced Management program out, coordinated by some of the finest business operators and thought-leaders. I invite you to beat our early bird and join Tekedia Mini-MBA. Check out our full curriculum and register here.

Today, the most aggressive banking institution when it comes to growth in Africa is Access Bank Plc Nigeria, the continent’s biggest bank by customer base. The bank is acquiring anything on its path as it scales its mission across the continent. Yet, despite the high octane activities, the bank has not returned superb values to investors. Using Nigeria as a case study, FCMB returned 80%, Zenith bank (33%) and UBA (21%); Access lost 16% of its value in 2020.

In the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Access Bank is worth N325 billion; GTB remains the leader at N974 billion.  UBA is priced at 297 billion. So, two things are happening here:

• (1) the largest bank in Africa by customer base (Access Bank) has not translated the huge customer volume into a great valuation,
• (2) the largest Nigerian bank on geographical footprint (UBA) is yet to unlock great value on that playbook.

So, what can we learn from these cases on how Nigerian investors think?

Personally, I do believe that investors want to see profitability above everything in Nigeria. Your absolute revenue while great does not provide confidence to most investors; they want to see that you are making money because if you are profitable, you will live long as a business.

Another thing is cost: the most valued banks in the nation – GTBank, Zenith Bank – have superior cost-to-income ratios; those give investors confidence that management is well ahead on cost containment. Zenith Bank has a market cap of N832 billion in Lagos.

There is a big lesson here: few technology companies in Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) have done well. If you look carefully, most of those firms do not have superior profit margins. Profits provide the basis for dividends and with the share values muted for over a decade, most investors have been capturing marginal values via dividends. This is why I think modern startups may struggle in NSE as most investors expect a very low gestation period to profitability, and when companies do not deliver that, they are punished by pushing their stocks down.

The gestation period to profitability in a typical Nigerian startup is long. That long gestation is also the reason why many startups or small businesses collapse few years of founding. Typically, one way to deal with this is to raise capital, ramp up market entry to grow fast enough to attain profitability. But in our extreme volatile economy, if the timing is off by months, the company can collapse. You just run out of cash.

Access Bank has size now via customer base, Zenith Bank has profitability and GTBank has its cutting-edge technology with profitability. FCMB looks promising with the versatility in its product offering. UBA gives you the continental spread. But if you check everything, Nigerian investors are really interested in cost efficiency and profitability. If you can deliver both at the same time, your numbers will rise.