Wanted: Outliers to drive Kenya’s new growth story

Award winners, organisers, the Business Daily, yet again —and distinguished guests, congratulations — you’ve done a great job.

As a previous 40 Under 40 awardee, I can empathise with the pride you must all be feeling today. It’s a great accomplishment.

On a more personal note, I turned 40 this year and am no longer eligible for this award, so I want to encourage you to enjoy it while you can.

Today, we stand together, as entrepreneurs, change agents, visionaries, mavericks, CEOs, as artists, as Kenyans and as temporary guests on God’s Earth. We stand together, witnessing unprecedented change across our nation.

Like all things temporary, there is always the opportunity to create lasting and permanent change. But to create change, we must know who we are. We need to know who we are when the lights go off; we need to know who we are when no one is watching.

When I started out and founded Seven Seas Technologies (SST) Group, 15 years ago, some people looked at me and mused: “That guy, Mike; he’s a real lone nut!”

I was on the dance floor by myself. It is that ‘lone nut’ who creates the movement that inspires many and makes the difference.

And, just as the speaker Derek Sivers — once a lone nut himself, who helped to change the way music was bought and sold on the web — said, the real differentiator is the first follower, not the leader at all.

As an entrepreneur, we all need followers. And as an out-and-out entrepreneur myself, I had lots of followers who I owe a great debt of gratitude to. My late SST chairman, James Gachui, is one, of course, who was my first follower on the dance floor.

Now let me come back to the unprecedented change I cited earlier.

You should feel privileged to be living in a very special moment because Kenya is changing. And you can be the change agents. Many of you already are, as you have been recognised here today. But you will know yourself this is really just the beginning of your journey.

Health care is seeing remarkable changes throughout Kenya. There are buildings shooting up everywhere all over Kenya: international headquarters for global brands in Nairobi and new retail outlets as consumption grows.

In the transport sector, there are highways and roads, airports, cities. Above all, what I want you to know is that it is people; people are central to this change.

It is the people in this room, and many more just like you, who can spot a problem or a challenge and turn it into an opportunity.

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work…” These were words spoken by a man who knew what challenge and hardship looked like, for Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, failed more than 1,000 times.

I challenge you today: find solutions to the traffic chaos that exists; postnatal deaths is just waiting to be fixed. Solve them, then seek monetary gain. After all, Kenya’s problems are Africa’s problems — there is a great opportunity to create “collective prosperity”.

Kenya, and the world, is waking up to a new story. In the new story, we live in a more interconnected world than ever before. The media coinage “globalised village”, has never been so real.

In the new story, the CEO and entrepreneur understand the interconnectedness of their business with the wananchi. In the new story, business leaders understand more deeply than ever how their actions — and inaction — as leaders, affect the kid on the street, sniffing glue.

How do the operations of my business have an impact on a society as a whole? We need to ask ourselves those big questions, with a capital “B”.

As awardees in the Top 40 Under 40, you have all recorded individual achievements, but your achievements — my achievements — are nothing if they do not impact other people. The old story of greed and individual accomplishments, is slowly dying.

I encourage you, as leaders and those driving Kenya forward, to help write this new story of collective prosperity and ensure it wins out over individual achievements.

We all need to perform a mathematical trick and find a formula by which we can make 1 + 1 = 11?  This new story is how we will create a bigger, brighter Kenya.

Kenya is changing - and you are the change agents. Who are you when the lights go out…? If we are to be the change agents we know we can be, then we must know our core virtues.

Find out if: “you can trust yourself when all men doubt you…” the late, great English poet, Kipling, once wrote.

Sometimes in life, however much we complain, what holds us back is not the external world around us, but ourselves.

Again, it is important to be sure “if you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings - and not lose the common touch…” Kipling again.

The message: However far you and your business travel, stay grounded. Stay true to your “true north”. Invest time in getting to know yourself: it may be the greatest investment you will ever make.

Whenever I think about “standing out” from the crowd, I recall Apple’s 2007 ‘Think Different’ campaign: the initiative that changed perceptions, created an unstoppable movement - and ultimately saved a business.

Some of us, for want of a better word, are a little bit “crazy”. There are people in this room who are changing the world around them — you are “change agents”.

But you may also be the five cans short of a six-pack that makes you different: like Steve Jobs and Apple, you believe you can change the world.
Ask yourself: what makes you different? Despite being a little whacky, we have to become a society of doers; we have to make stuff happen.

A little crazy

We cannot just complain and quibble and fight on social media; you have to eventually stand up and be counted.

You have been recognised today by the Business Daily because you do stuff; you get stuff done. We may have nice black-tie dinners, but this is the spark that will push you further to the next level.

As my wife Connie will tell you, from time to time, I can get to be a little “crazy”. I remind myself of it every day, as I’ve framed the words and hung them on my wall. But I know I must do; I must act.

Sometimes, to quote that famous Apple advertising campaign, “Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do…”

Kenya is changing — and you can be the change agents at the centre of that change. Nobody wants to be that “lone nut” on the dance floor.

The new story I spoke about is being written in Kenya: don’t envy, emulate. Don’t be jealous, be inspired. What’s possible for anyone, is possible for you.

Collectively, we can make it happen: we can all be storytellers of Kenya’s new story. It’s time to fly!

Mr Macharia, founder and CEO, Seven Seas Technologies Group, delivered this speech at Kenya’s Top 40 Under 40 Men gala night on Friday night. Twitter: @MikeMachariaSST