Tems

Stay Hungry, Stay Humble and God first. Independent Grind. 🇳🇬

[ỌMỌ́TÁRÁ LAWRENCE @theladymotara]

Your twenties will teach you that having plans is good, but having options is even better.

[Tems @tems_97]

Amen🙏🏾

[Pastor West @Pastor__West]

Dear Lord,

Today, put me in position to finish this year winning, recover what these last few months took out of me, breathe life into what almost died, give me another shot at what didn’t work the first time and put results behind the work I’ve been doing. Before this year closes, give me something major to thank You for. In Jesus’ name, amen🙏🏽

[Pastor West @Pastor__West]

Passing the phone to someone who is about to experience back to back testimonies from October to December🥺

[ỌMỌ́TÁRÁ LAWRENCE @theladymotara]

One day, the things stressing you now will become the story you tell about how you made it. Keep going, this chapter won’t last forever.

Happy Sunday. ❤️

[Brian Sutterer MD @BrianSuttererMD]

Growing up is realizing RedZone is the worst way to watch NFL games

[Jake Paul @jakepaul]

If I sign up for a big budget movie and make it clear I don’t want to work with a specific producer, like say a Harvey Weinstein, you can’t after the fact just try and coerce me into working with him.

That’s basically the situation Anthony Joshua is in. He’s ready to make the movie on the terms he signed up for.

[Olu Awolowo | Eni Oba nke | Okanlomo Oodua @Donendy2003]

When Ecobank took over Oceanic Bank, the Oceanic staff discovered that we were calling one another by our first names in Ecobank. Our MD Funke Osibodu was Funke but not Mrs. Osibodu. They were coming from a background that they were calling Mr. Adetunji, Oga Deji, Madam Ibru, Dr. Clever…. So, they had to adjust. So, if it is Mrs. Cecilia Ibru who is cautioning that lady, I may not have any issue with it. No issue because that is what she encouraged in the institution that she ran in Oceanic Bank. Majority of Nigerians who will be contributing on this discussion online will definitely not know this truth. They will not know because most of them were still in primary school or still crawling in the 1990s when Tony Elumelu and his other ‘cow boy bankers’ came to the corporate world at their tender ages. Elumelu became MD of Standard Trust Bank, STB in 1997 at age 34. Other guys who floated GT bank and Access Bank were also in their 30s. They could not do the work alone so they had to recruit staff into their Banks. They discovered that the experienced people that they were hiring were in their 40s, and 50s. They found it ridiculous to be calling their staff Mr. Lagbaja and Mr. Tamedu. They had a complex, giving instructions to someone older than them. To conquer the complex, they introduced the idea of calling all staff by their first names. It levelled the ground for everybody. Mr. Daramola Oladeji at 44 is now addressed as Deji, Mrs. Oluwole Olufunmilayo with 3 boys in the university at 48 was being called Funmi at work and she must answer. They were the one who came to destroy the work place ethics in order to satisfy their ego and help them manage their complex.
One good thing about it I must confess is that it makes you freer to relate with your colleagues without any age barrier to the overall benefit of the organization. In Ecobank during the general staff meeting which we call village meeting, you will hear people saying ‘Funke’, I have been raising my hand since and you have not given me chance to talk … that is the MD that that they are addressing. Even at that, if I am to travel with the MD to Abuja on the same flight and I want to ask her which airline to book, i will enter her office and say ‘Funke admin is asking me which airline should they book for our journey?’ Do you know that on that flight, I will carry her bag, as a mark of respect. If another big Oga is with us on the trip and we reach our destination and he ask ‘ Deji what are you doing, you are delaying us’; Do you know I can tell the Oga without any fear, "I am waiting for the conveyor belt to bring Funke's bag, but it has not come" meanwhile, the person i am calling Funke is the owner of the bag I am waiting to collect oooo.

I have gone this far to let you know that even in the midst of name calling, we used to give honor and regard to one another but not openly like they do in some other places. That girl knew which environment she was coming into. She knew people were being called and addressed by their first names. They were tutored along this line in the training school. Those who violated the policy were given penalized
She will do d same in an Access Bank. She will do it in GT and Ecobank and she will not be reprimanded. I had an Oga that came from Afribank of old to join us in Ecobank. When he would address our Group Head, he was always being fined N1,000 in those days. He would say ‘Excuse me, Sir’, here is a fine of N1,000. Mr. Lagbaja sir, another N1,000 fine but when he calls our Group Head by his first name, our group head will say ‘Yes, i am listening’. The other man was coming from a background where the culture was different from the new place he found himself.

Money has come; age has also come. Tony is seeing that lady as age mate of his own girls of yesteryears who have equally become ladies now. He and his friends who were underaged bankers were the promoters of this culture in the banking industry.

[ᵐᵏ🦋 @mxiine_]

that’s why your country is anyhow. if policies don’t apply to the board, how do you hold them accountable?

[timi @timipapi]

a lot of you on here have become the elders you despised btw

[Ben X @Benn_X1]

Situational awareness that is only applicable when you’re a victim is a sign of a defeated people.

You get robbed and people blame you for renting an apartment in that area even when you are living in a country with a government that is supposed to protect you.

You are sexually assaulted but everybody is focused on how you dressed and why you should not be outside past 7pm even though you were coming back from work and stuck in traffic.

A power drunk police officer extorts you and people say maybe you should not have bought a Benz since it is associated with yahoo boys.

You are out protesting and after getting tear-gassed or illegally detained, people say you should not have joined the protest when you don’t know any 'oga at the top'.

You are only supposed to use discretion when you are at the receiving end.
Even when it is clear that you’re being oppressed, you are supposed to use wisdom since the person oppressing you is a 'big man'.

Bail is free, but you need to apply wisdom.

I can go on and on. You simply cannot build a nation on injustice and inequality.
This is not how to live life!

[Oluwadunni @Oluwadunnii]

May my daily bread never need to come from a Nigerian organization in Jesus name because I cannot believe the takes I am reading. Unbelievable.

[Tems @tems_97]

@olaoluwajedalo This is the part that shocked me the most…. I have no problem with you thinking this in your head but saying it out loud is wild as a chairman of a global firm, especially as you have country offices in the so called “oyinbo” countries, which may also have “oyinbo” employees.

[Tems @tems_97]

Preach‼️

[Ayòmídé @Ayomide]

Nigerians are quite loud about the concept of ‘respect’ but I do not think we are largely a respectful people.

What we even call respect is just Plutolatory: obsessive admiration, devotion, or literal worship of money and the people who hold it,

And of course authoritarianism.

[Ben X @Benn_X1]

I have read different reactions to the issue.

The most interesting one is when people say even if the company culture is to call people by their first name, you still have to apply 'wisdom'.

So what exactly is the culture HR is promoting? Some people are above the so called culture?
Sounds to me like a culture of hypocrisy.
The type of companies that will be listed as a good place to work and from the outside everything looks fine until you meet the toxicity inside.

[Tems @tems_97]

Couldn’t have said it better…..anybody that reads this and thinks otherwise is just being delusional

[Rufybaba @Rufyb]

I am afraid, this does not fly, in my opinion.

If you deliberately establish a “first-name” culture, it should apply broadly, including to senior leadership, unless the policy explicitly carves out the board (by the way, imagine setting a culture and it is not starting from the top).

Yes, non-executive directors occupy a different governance position from employees and executive management, but their unique position within the company does not inherently exempt them from the first-name policy.

If a company says “we operate a first-name culture. Irrespective of seniority, employees address one another by their first names”, then having an unwritten exception “but obviously you don’t call a director or person xyz by their first name” undermines the philosophy behind the policy.

After all, the purpose of a first-name culture is usually to reduce unnecessary status signaling, make senior people more approachable and create a less hierarchical working environment.

If management wants the convention to be “first names for everybody below the board, formal titles for directors”, then say so.

It is highly problematic when the written or communicated policy says one thing while an invisible hierarchy says something else.

What is all these talk about “wisdom”, “culture”, etc.? If those things indeed were a big deal, why the performative stunt of “first-names policy”?

Or why is no one directing the “wisdom” yarn to TOE that the young lady is still very young, maybe inexperienced, and does not understand yet how things ideally work, and so you do not come off as conflicting what the laid-down principle is publicly?

If the irritation comes from “I am way older and way above you in status”, was that not considered before setting a policy? You all didn’t know that?

You import the form of an institution without accepting the behavioural implications that give the institution meaning. The company gets to present itself as having a flat, progressive culture without senior people actually surrendering any of the status markers associated with the old culture.

This is how we bastardise concepts and principles.

If the organisation is not comfortable with the consequences of that philosophy, there is much cleaner solution… “Simply don’t adopt the policy”.

Be hierarchical. Be formal. Require whatever title or whatever conventions you consider appropriate.

I wouldn’t call TOE by his first name too, but that’s me. But saying “we are on a first-name basis here” and then humiliating someone doing that is an inconsistency that is worse.

At the heart of it, this really speaks to a broader problem of weak institutional culture and “big-manism ” in the corporate world, where formal policies supposedly apply to everyone until they clash with status and hierarchy.

“Can you call Aliko or Femi Otedola by their first name?” Let them not implement first-name policy if it would be an issue or if the “cultural context” is that very strong (and that would be perfectly fine).

Institutions should be stronger than personalities. Let’s quit all that performative nonsense.

[Rufybaba @Rufyb]

I am afraid, this does not fly, in my opinion.

If you deliberately establish a “first-name” culture, it should apply broadly, including to senior leadership, unless the policy explicitly carves out the board (by the way, imagine setting a culture and it is not starting from the top).

Yes, non-executive directors occupy a different governance position from employees and executive management, but their unique position within the company does not inherently exempt them from the first-name policy.

If a company says “we operate a first-name culture. Irrespective of seniority, employees address one another by their first names”, then having an unwritten exception “but obviously you don’t call a director or person xyz by their first name” undermines the philosophy behind the policy.

After all, the purpose of a first-name culture is usually to reduce unnecessary status signaling, make senior people more approachable and create a less hierarchical working environment.

If management wants the convention to be “first names for everybody below the board, formal titles for directors”, then say so.

It is highly problematic when the written or communicated policy says one thing while an invisible hierarchy says something else.

What is all these talk about “wisdom”, “culture”, etc.? If those things indeed were a big deal, why the performative stunt of “first-names policy”?

Or why is no one directing the “wisdom” yarn to TOE that the young lady is still very young, maybe inexperienced, and does not understand yet how things ideally work, and so you do not come off as conflicting what the laid-down principle is publicly?

If the irritation comes from “I am way older and way above you in status”, was that not considered before setting a policy? You all didn’t know that?

You import the form of an institution without accepting the behavioural implications that give the institution meaning. The company gets to present itself as having a flat, progressive culture without senior people actually surrendering any of the status markers associated with the old culture.

This is how we bastardise concepts and principles.

If the organisation is not comfortable with the consequences of that philosophy, there is much cleaner solution… “Simply don’t adopt the policy”.

Be hierarchical. Be formal. Require whatever title or whatever conventions you consider appropriate.

I wouldn’t call TOE by his first name too, but that’s me. But saying “we are on a first-name basis here” and then humiliating someone doing that is an inconsistency that is worse.

At the heart of it, this really speaks to a broader problem of weak institutional culture and “big-manism ” in the corporate world, where formal policies supposedly apply to everyone until they clash with status and hierarchy.

“Can you call Aliko or Femi Otedola by their first name?” Let them not implement first-name policy if it would be an issue or if the “cultural context” is that very strong (and that would be perfectly fine).

Institutions should be stronger than personalities. Let’s quit all that performative nonsense.

[Tems @tems_97]

As Nigerians we are too overly sentimental and it’s clearly impeding progress. This whole TOE / UBA issue clearly proves it. You can’t be a chairman of an institution with a well defined HR policy on first name and be undermining such policy. Policy implementation starts top-down

[Oluwadunni @Oluwadunnii]

He has single-handedly damaged the already fragile culture in that organization, because now no one will follow the first-name-basis policy.

And first-name basis exists for a reason: it flattens hierarchy and makes people more comfortable speaking up regardless of title.

[Tems @tems_97]

Heavy on this!!!

[0.J @feranmii_e]

Btw I think that “Tony” babe will go far

She has balls

[Precioustome 💎 @flowergyalxx]

~ Nigerians love it when you’re timid.

[Brother Possible @BrotherPossible]

Last comment on this Tony issue:

That girl is a graduate trainee. She's just starting her career. She has made a "mistake" according to you people, but the correction on the spot there is sufficient. Oga attributed it to "geography." Oyibo thing. Some added GenZ. Generational gap. She has learned.

Whatever anyone in UBA or anywhere do to her to punish her because of that moment is pure wickedness including some of your comments here. She should not be victimized. In fact, whoever is her direct manager has the responsibility of reassuring her and the Exec needs to help her regain her confidence.

We know how to destroy things here. How to exaggerate and try to make a mountain out of a molehill, and destroy people beyond recovery. It should not be her story.

We don't know what she'll become tomorrow. She may not be a banker sef but when she succeed properly, and she tells the story of this moment, let it be that humanity won.

As you throw comments here and there, remember that this event is like something happening between a primary school student and a professor. Be kind.

Good night.