ABFL

Prologue

May I take a few moments of your valuable time to share with you what I have identified to be a huge knowledge gap with regards to the curation of African Business Founders’ Legacy. If you are an African business founder, arguably, your own valuable and unique entrepreneurship brand might be among the many that are overlooked in academia and the greater knowledge space domains.

 

Great opportunity

You can inspire thousands and thousands!

With reference to my own home country, if you are a Zimbabwean business founder or business owner manager (not necessarily having founded a business), you are very important. Obviously, there are many who draw inspiration from you! By extension this applies to every other African entrepreneur.

 

Yet, not many have a thorough understanding of your business life story. An objective argument is that, if your business experiences are adequately and professionally captured and curated, without doubt, you will inspire thousands and thousands of Zimbabweans and Africans for several generations to come. This is the primary purpose why I am writing to you. Therefore, may you please spare some moments to hear me.

 

Our historic knowledge gaps

Drawing typical examples from my own country, there is such a great vacuum in our higher education literature with regards to the documentation of our very own Zimbabwean entrepreneurs. What is predominant in our colleges and universities and quite dominant in our lecture rooms are a plethora of case studies drawing on Western business founders and entrepreneurs. Of course, having a global mindset is commendable but if this is done to the huge if not total exclusion of our very own Zimbabwean and by extension our very own African entrepreneurs, then, there is indeed a real problem that urgently needs redress.

 

Equally, not much has been documented with regards to what management and leadership entails from the perspective of managers and leaders who have been managing and leading different businesses and other organizations over the years. Please note that this is totally different from academic knowledge. It is in this context that we always talk about the theory (academic) – practice (real life practical knowledge) gap.

 

May I acknowledge and assert that, academia as represented by its professors and Drs does not have a monopoly of knowledge creation, discovery, retention, application and modification. Non-academic space through daily routines and experiences is very much a significant source of such knowledge. This is why, it is very crucial for our colleges and universities to have ongoing engagements with industry so as to establish how best to bridge the practice-theory gap.

 

Our solution

Having identified the above huge gap, which I think you will mostly agree with me that it does indeed exist; I founded the Academy of African SMEs (ASME) to among other things document the business life stories of willing African business founders and business owner managers. https://www.sbgazim.com/asme/

 

Further, I founded the Academy of African Management and Economic Research (AMER) to also among other things capture the practice knowledge with regards to management and leadership from real life experiences of managers and leaders. https://www.sbgazim.com/amer/

 

All African business founders’ business life stories will be published in our ASME Journal (https://sbgazim.com/asme/) while the African management-leadership life stories will be published in the AMER Journal (https://sbgazim.com/amer/) .

 

Is curating African Business Founders’ Business Experiences That Important?

Yes of course! I have taught in several universities here in Zimbabwe and also taught in the UK. What I have observed is that, we excessively draw examples from external economies, mostly advanced economies; for example, from the UK, USA amongst others. This of course demonstrate our global mindset. But, excessively relying on cases from advanced economies or even totally excluding local insights is a recipe for disaster.

 

Teaching entrepreneurship is a socialization process and unveils opportunities for role modelling. As such if we exclude domestic cases or crowd them out, how are our students going to draw inspiration from their own African home entrepreneurs? Entrepreneurship and indeed doing business have a context; an integral part, being the culture, the political, economic and social factors; which are all unique to a country.

 

With this in mind, our Zimbabwean entrepreneurship will benefit much more and grow significantly if our students can learn from our very own Zimbabwean business founders and by extension African entrepreneurs. The what works and what does not work in Zimbabwe, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Tunisia, Gabon …..till the 55th African state become clearly understood when local African entrepreneurs’ business life stories underpin our pedagogy and mentorship.

 

Therefore, we can ask: How can our students get this highly crucial indigenous entrepreneurship knowledge if the bulk if not all of their assignments draw on Western case studies? To cite my own home country, how many of our Zimbabwean business founders are being taught in our lectures? If you are a Zimbabwean business founder of repute, are you yourself being taught in our colleges and universities? Your own business experiences, can they not inculcate impactful knowledge and inspiration in our college and university students?

 

Similarly, if you are a Zimbabwean manager or leader of note, how much of your own understanding as a manager and leader over the years, that is your own practice knowledge, is opening up new streams of learning which confounds academic theories? By extension, every African state should pose these questions and respond objectively.

 

To respond to all these questions; I would argue that, indeed, there is so much we can learn from our local African business founders and business owner managers as well as from our numerous seasoned managers and leaders of various businesses and organizations.

 

So what?

From experience, each business founder, and this is a fact globally, has their unique objectives, motivations and set of principles. For this reason, some business founders prefer to lead what is commonly referred to as a low profile; while others are all over in media spaces. Others prefer to remain domestic while still others go regional and some international. Other business founders document their journeys but restricting this to their own website and sharing just snippets while others do not document at all. While other entrepreneurs write books still some business founders do not author any books.

 

With this in mind, I can therefore acknowledge that I do not and will never have the qualification to try and tell you or any business founder how you or they should discharge your/their entrepreneurship, neither how to construct your/their legacy nor how to manage it. I can only suggest at your/their invitation. This is how sensitive this crucial matter is. You are your own boss as an entrepreneur, business founder or business owner manager.

 

Nevertheless, may I reiterate my personal observation, which is to say that, for as long as you are an African entrepreneur or business founder or business owner manager, you are without doubt or exaggeration, valuable. Your home economy seriously needs you and you too, you need your home economy. You obviously inspire some or many.

 

Yet, I would argue; still a significant population does not have a thorough understanding of your business life story (experiences), especially if it is absent from the educational space. Globally, majority of individuals go through the education system; hence, they get to learn about different things including about business founders and business owner managers. Consequently, if your business life story is not covered or very limitedly captured within the education space, this obviously affects your impact on student population as well as the general readership. Ultimately, this in a way down plays your legacy.

 

But you could in return also rightfully argue and say ‘Having your business life story shared all over to impact others is not part of your key strategic objectives’. Remember, I said some entrepreneurs prefer a low profile. It is the same argument about growth, where by being small does not mean failure to succeed. Growth is a choice. Many entrepreneurs globally prefer to remain small and they do grow in their smallness. Of course, there are numerous small business which in their smallness do not grow in as much as there are large enterprises, which in their largeness also don’t grow. This is a topic for another day.

 

Drawing our attention back to the core issue at hand; I reiterate that there is a huge lacuna when it comes to entrepreneurship and new venture creation knowledge that draw from our very own African entrepreneurs in our local economies. Their business experiences are conspicuous by their deafening absence in our libraries and in our lecture rooms!

 

If you are a Zimbabwean business founder/entrepreneur or any other African entrepreneur; wouldn’t it be nice and in fact quite strategic and impactful, for our college and university students to learn a lot from you? Wouldn’t it be beneficial and strategic for students and the general population to draw inspiration from you by reading a carefully and professionally written business life story about you? Wouldn’t such a masterpiece available across the digital space, accessible to Africa and the entire world; indeed, contribute quite significantly to cementing your own legacy as an African entrepreneur of great repute?

 

I stand to be corrected, but I would argue that huge benefits will indeed accrue to thousands and thousands of students, SMEs, private-public and civic sector professionals and other numerous individuals.

 

Notably, you yourself will also benefit immensely from your own reflection of the business journey you have travelled so far. How you started; the various challenges along the way and how you overcame? The success you have enjoyed so far and why? Overall, you can identify what you have learnt over the years and ascertain how you can feed all this into the years ahead as you continue to plan for your strategic success in business.

 

My Invitation to you

May I therefore, kindly invite you to allow our ASME and AMER journals to document your business life story and your manager-leader experiences respectively. I do acknowledge that some African entrepreneurs already have a growing stream of literature including on platforms such as AMAZON, yet we can still further amply your legacy.

 

Similarly, you can also take the perspective of only addressing the issue of what is managing and leading in practice. This has nothing to do with academic theories and if they apply, you are not telling a story from the academic angle but a narrative from the practical angle of how you have come to understand what management and leadership is all about: What works and what does not work.

 

Of course, many African managers and leaders are highly educated; a whole lot with master degrees and others with PhDs. In this light, you can then always reflect on how your practice knowledge relates with academic theory and help us bridge the practice-theory gap.

 

To undertake this very important exercise, all we do is hold a very friendly conversation virtual or face to face or hybrid; the choice is yours. We record, analyze, process and publish in our journals.

 

To professionally consolidate the building and cementing of your legacy in entrepreneurship is obviously going to require funding. The interviewing, capturing of the audio into text, the critical analysis to give meaning to your business life story, copy editing, publishing and hosting all represent work done and of course done at a cost.

 

Importantly, all this is done so that your business life story (entrepreneurship experiences) is adequately documented and your legacy effectively cemented. You emerge as a major primary beneficiary and many will quote you and say “According to XYZ, to succeed in business you got to do a, b, c. d…; or the most effective ways of managing a small business are i. ii. iii……and so on”. In a way, through the curation of your business life story, you also unavoidably become famous or you get more famous, if you already have fame.

 

Given the gigantic task at hand our fee to curate your business legacy is pegged at USD$500. This is the same fee to curate your management-leadership practice knowledge.

 

In our view, this is quite reasonable. Objectively speaking, your business legacy is more valuable than this USD$500. A professionally curated business legacy will certainly do a lot for you and it is not far-fetched that it will strengthen your brand relevance. It will also spruce up your managerial and leadership standing. At the very least, you become the talk of most students and the generality of all those who continue to quest for knowledge about entrepreneurship, new venture creation, management and leadership. What a legacy to build and preserve!

 

Let me conclude by thanking you very much for reading this piece.

 

Now that you are aware of what curating your business life story can do for you, what are you still waiting for?

 

Get in touch with Dr Charlie today and arrange for the curation of your own business life story so you can cement your legacy amongst other African entrepreneurs.

 

Email Dr Charlie today via asme@sbgazim.com or WhatsApp +263 77 335 3800

Dr Charlie: The Small Business Doctor

ASME: Advancing African Entrepreneurship and SMEs

AMER: Advancing African Management Theory and Practice.