War Cry

I happened upon an interview with the new S African telecoms player CEO, and apparent roving TATA Group exec, Anjay Panday of Neotel on local tv here.  Whilst not blessed with any discernible amount of charisma in the slightest, he did seem to possess a requisite level of intelligence that permitted him to give insight into a couple of ways that he is getting the culture of his fledgling outfit to develop.

The monopoly power in the market (Telkom) is a disgrace to humanity (for instance, international calls to England costing 5-times more from S Africa than the other way and non-existent customer service) so you’re unlikely to meet anyone around these parts that doesn’t wish him and his team well.

He was proud of his “war cry”.  He instilled in everyone in his workforce (that through some merger had just doubled to 1,000) that “you’re not here for a 9-5 job, you’re here to make history”.  I love that.

Then the comedy Americanism, but luckily not as brainwall as it first sounds.  They say to each other “how are you Fripping along?”  where the verb (to ‘frip’) is a mnemonic from their 4 key values of Flexibility, Responsibility, Innovation and Pragmatism.

I often wonder why certain salespeople are in their jobs.  I think we’re all familiar with the notions that you’re in the right job when you’re getting paid for something you’d do for nothing and a lifetime is a long time to work merely for money.  The “making history” mantra is a cracker which can be adapted to give proper meaning to just about any sales endeavour, especially a new one.