Practical ways to achieve ownership and increase productivity

OUR article for last week explored the phenomenon that nature runs her affairs in a manner that espouses ownership.

The kind ownership we are writing about here does consider what is called employee-owned companies but is not limited to it. We stretch the issue further by looking at ownership where the employees are not necessarily shareholders financially but there is a reward system and culture that puts them in a place of ownership both psychologically and reward wise.

Nature’s activities and her relationship with us is crafted that way. She is seen to be opening the doors for us human beings and other beings to come in and belong.

We used the example of procreation last week to show how we are made not only to participate in the making of human beings through our offspring, but also to feel that they belong to us and that feeling results in us not needing to even be reminded of taking care of them. We are made to feel a sense of belonging and ownership.

This makes the job of nature easy in that she just leaves very important things in the hands of human beings, and they run her errands, take care of her human beings and these little bundles of joy grow up to become part of nature’s

IT is interesting to get into some of the feared zones by some of our school leaners and practitioners.

Of course here we simplify the subject matter for our entrepreneurial businesses. Economics as a subject and practice has its critical fundamental role in the structuring and running of our various enterprises, especially our SMEs that are trying to find a perfect and profitable fit in this VUCA environment. In this edition we are starting a new journey from the basic economics up to a level where we develop our own market/business structures.

We will combine all the matters of costs, revenues, demand, supply and profitability to model our own operations. That is the same reason we are going to move in phases from general principles to models that talk our own entrepreneurial businesses. This trajectory is more than a business reengineering redemption. Since in the previous discussions we were more on revisiting business processes and systems in order to find a contemporary fit in our perfect markets. However, from the peragenda.

They become part of the business of nature and a good example of this is Jesus saying in Luke 2:49, ‘And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?’ Right there as you can see, Jesus knew that life is a business and if businesses learn from nature about how business is run they would take keen interest in nature and her way of running business.

The products nature makes via different beings belong to nature technically but the way she does it is that she invites participants to take part and do so genuinely without any schemes to manipulate or exploit any participants. The participants’ invitation is so deep that even when they face death, they still feel that when they are dead, they still own what nature had made them custodians of. A father leaves behind an inheritance for his children out of the concern that they might suffer when he is gone. That is how deep the thread of ownership is, it overlaps even to after death.

Does nature talk? Does she organize training and development sessions in the training room? Not to a large extent. Yes, parents and the elderly do pass knowledge systems to the next generaness. spective of this week’s focus we internalise business structuring through assessing our micro-business economics for entrepreneurship first as we look forward for a bigger picture. Just to inform economics in entrepreneurial business can be divided into two main components that is, micro and macroeconomics. We unpack and go deeper into the specifics as we further discuss.

To start with, it is important to classify the resources that result in effective service delivery and production by your particular type of business. There are basic economic resources that are common to any type of entrepreneurial business which we are to explore in this discussion.

But, however, some of our enterprising require uniquely specific that is from agro-business to tourism, wood manufacturing, engineering, micro-finance and so on.

This then becomes a homework for each one of our entrepreneurial operators to do a further analysis on the specific resources which are above the general/basic as required by that type of your busiployee tion but when one observes thoroughly, they note that it is more about activities. It is more about how things are done and how participants are treated.

Nature says, fine, I see a desire in you to ‘own’ another human being and I also have an agenda to replenish the earth through reproduction, and so let’s do this together. She says I am inviting you to procreate with me, so you fulfil your desire and I fulfil mine. Is that not a fair deal?

The human being or animal fully participates in all this with the sense that they own. They even have a right to name this offspring and see it grow. Nature on the other hand knows that she has her agenda for the child, and you will see the child grow away from the parent.

This is what I call the bigger picture principle.

The same principle applies to businesses if they craft their relationships with their employees in such a manner that employees participate and in the process of participating, feel that they own this although not entirely.

They are satisfied though about their level of participation. In real life, even the poor feel good about their kids, and they generally take care enthusiastically of their kids.

A parent cannot say all the kids in the world belong to them, at least at this level of relating. What they have is their own portion of ownership and they feel good about it under normal circumstances. An employee also, cannot say this is my company but if the ownership thread is crafted technically well, the emto The three main fundamental resources for an entrepreneurial business are land, labour and capital. You will agree with me that even when you are doing a virtual type of buying and selling you will also need a space as an office or another.

Meaning that land will always be part of your entrepreneurial set-up and operationalisation. Our thrust here is not about naming and listing theses resources but making them useful where they are most needed and at the lowest cost. Those in the school of business economics will refer to these as allocative and productive efficiency respectively. Land as a resource should be well calculated and managed in relation to capacity needs of your production.

Most of our SMEs are either underutilising the land they have acquired or leasing. That is a dangerous way of starting and running a business. This is because costs associated with the land in terms of rentals are fixed and will remain the same whether production is done or not. Capacity underutilisation should be well monitored from time to time so as to adjust production accordingly.

Our entrepreneurs should go further to do simple calculations of the contribution that is being done to the fixed costs from producing a single unit (Average will know that the company belongs to them. To all employees and they have portions and are happy about them.

An employer who espouses this principle will look at their organisation as a system and craft their activities in such a manner that they create the feelings they want.

Feelings that drive employees to act in a specific way. Feelings are legitimate and important. If an employee is afraid, they will act in a certain way and if they feel free and good, they will act in a certain way.

Maya Angelou put it aptly when she said, ‘People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’ They do not even have to think about it unless they are trained to do so.

Feelings are a legitimate way of judging whether employees feel a sense of belonging and ownership and certainly an important element of productivity and performance.

They cannot be ignored if an employer has a serious sense of prudence and optimum production and profit in their way of doing business.

At the centre of this seeming rigmarole, is the way activities are crafted, that is to say the way things are done.

Firstly, it about the work itself and the reward that flows out of it.

As in the nature example we gave earlier where nature invites or employs human beings and animals to participate in her business of procreation and the profits are huge.

The value of this is priceless.

Fixed Cost in production). Most of our fellow entrepreneurs will find that their profits are currently on paper but not for economic viability.

The same in relation to labour as one key resource in both service and production related businesses. There is need to strike a balance between non-human and labour intensive mechanisation. It is not only about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and systems automation that has made successful enterprising. The cost of technical repairs when you decide to use robotics in your processes against being labour intensive should be well approximated too.

Otherwise most of our enterprises will find out that the costs to wages, pension and any other labour related are comparatively low yet they have opted the absolute techno-mechanisation way. Our economics for business growth through re-engineering should be attended to without a copy and paste of what other businesses have done. Since they might not have the same orientation as that of your current enterprising.

That is why it is important not only to own a business idea but to keep it unique and healthier.

Capital is never enough for any business and that is the same reason why we have to keep on re-investing our net profits for a continued business viability. We as thriving entrepreneurs are on record of squandering working capital and over-borrowing. Remember that your sweat benefit is working capital not debt. The latter comes with high interests and even costly lawsuits when you fail

You see there where the activity has huge returns coming out.

The nature example is fascinating in that the process of making babies also has its own benefits, just the joy of copulation and the delicious feelings one gets from taking part and relating with another human being that way.

Nature is serious about this participation and ownership thing. Humans call their spouses ‘my’ spouse, honey, sweetie, babe, etc. One realises that both parties have their contribution and their reward, and that is nature and humanity. It is a fair deal, is it not?

The activity and the reward that falls out of the process will also have the element of relationships and treatment of employees coming in to influence the feelings part of this equation.

An employer must make a conscious effort to treat employees fairly. Fairness might not be equality and that is fine but what is important is that employees feel fairly treated.

This gives that sense of belonging and ownership. We belong here and this is our company, they say.

They also learn to treat each other well. This is the subject for the next article.

Bhekilizwe Bernard Ndlovu’s training is in human resources training, development and transformation, behavioural change, applied drama, personal mastery and mental fitness. He works for a Zimbabwean company as human capital executive, while also doing a PhD with Wits University where he looks at violent strikes in the South African workplace as a researcher. Ndlovu worked as a human resources manager for several blue-chip companies in Zimbabwe and still takes keen interest in the affairs of people and performance management. He can be contacted on bhekilizweb.bn@gmail.com pay back. The question here is at what level is one supposed to finance a business through borrowed capital. Most of our businesses do borrowing from the inception in the form of venture capitalisation. That can be dangerous as you might end up running other people’s business throughout your lifecycle by just paying back debts. More can be said in this area which we will detail in the future.

To close for this edition, know that the aforementioned resources are scarce at any given point in time and that is the same reason they shouldn’t be wasted. The success of a business is then measured by the fourth resource which is a combination of land, labour and capital that is “Entrepreneurship.” As an employed executive to steer a giant organisation what the investors/shareholders look for in your practice is entrepreneurship. I leave you to self-introspect as we discuss further in the coming editions.

*Dr Farai Chigora is a businessman and academic. He is the head of Business Science at the Africa University’s College of Business, Peace, Leadership and Governance. His doctoral research focused on business administration (destination marketing and branding major, Ukzn, SA). He is into agribusiness and consults for many companies in Zimbabwe and Africa. He writes in his personal capacity and can be contacted for feedback and business at

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