Let’s keep ploughing and planting for a future harvest
My father brought back an inspiring story from Italy in World War 2. As chaplain to the SA sixth division he was visiting troops in a forward position. Dug into an isolated observation post ahead of the rest of the army on one side of a valley, they stared over to the other side where their equivalents in the German army were no doubt staring anxiously back.
From time to time artillery shells would scream overhead, making them press down even further into the ground. But as they crouched and watched, an extraordinary picture emerged in the valley below. An Italian farmer hitched up his horse and began ploughing his field.
This was the season for planting. He knew that if he did not plant now, his family would not eat when the time came to harvest. So, though caught between two huge and lethal armies, he carried on with the next thing that needed doing. He might seem pathetically puny compared with the might of those armies surrounding him, yet it was only his steady ploughing and planting that in a few months’ time would provide for his family.
We do not know how devastating the Covid-19 pandemic will be to the economy, our businesses and our lives. This column focuses on entrepreneurship and I am painfully aware that small businesses are going to the wall as I write, and many gig workers have no income.
It’s a disaster. But when it ends, we need to be ready. We need to keep the rhythm of life moving, even if during lockdown that means just maintaining our personal daily disciplines to be fit for when we can contribute again. We plant today the personal seeds of future success.
The African Management Institute (AMI) will join Business Day in offering a virtual
Business Survival Bootcamp in a time of Covid-19. As I have listened to business people across the continent participating in those we have already run, I have heard many examples of entrepreneurial heroism, of people searching creatively for ways to keep “ploughing and planting”.
Some businesses were already online and now are reaping a huge harvest as they scale up to meet demand. Then there are entrepreneurs who have rapidly mastered the art of online commerce and are taking their existing businesses online. They may have taken a hit to revenue but could emerge with a new market to give them bigger businesses afterwards.
Other great entrepreneurs cannot take their existing businesses online but are discovering new products or services they can offer, shifting, for example, to manufacturing masks.
Then there are many who simply have nothing left. As in the tourism industry. We heard that 95% of tour operators in locked-down Rwanda have already closed. The sector is dead. But then the owner of a travel company in Nigeria tells us that she has switched to helping customers complete their internal Nigerian migration applications. Economic heroes are finding how to interact with customers continuously.
Most are, of course, concerned about cash flow and interim financing, how to shift online and find a market, how to keep staff paid, how to manage remotely from home, how to keep morale up. Some are already working on new business models for the future.
What’s your next constructive step? Maybe it’s to prepare for a happier future for your family as you learn to let go of all that is not essential; learn a new skill; prepare your business plan; look for someone else to encourage.
Both religion and science teach that the path to happiness is to make others happier. The harvest will come if we keep “ploughing and planting” and doing the next thing needed.
Cook, a former director of the Gordon Institute of Business Science, is cofounder and chair of the African Management Institute.