Ghanaian entrepreneurs have been advised to build competitive company cultures to accelerate the growth of their businesses.
Speaking at Citi FM/TV’s Ghana Rising Summit at the Kempinski Hotel, Management Consultant and policy specialist, Mr. Michael Kottoh urged business owners to turn their company cultures into competitive assets.
“Your culture should be a competitive asset,” he said.
He asked them not to leave the task of building good company cultures to the government but rather build their workers on important issues of work ethics, how to view opportunities and how to deal with failure.
This he said will help produce business champions thereby growing the Ghanaian economy into a major emerging market.
Michael Kottoh however noted that “if as a people, from a mindset point of view, [if] our culture is not [nurtured to become] an enabler for competitiveness, we can have the best operating environment, [and] the best entrepreneurs, [but] we are still not going to produce the champions [needed] and the economy is not going to be a major economy in emerging markets.”
Mr. Kottoh who is also a Managing Partner at Konfidandts, an international advisory firm also stated that though culture is a complex issue and cannot be achieved overnight, entrepreneurs should aspire to be role models of great company cultures.
“…Cultural change is a complex issue and it is not going to be achieved overnight but some of what must be done at the business level of businesses and entrepreneurs, in my opinion, is that we should have not just great entrepreneurs, we should also have cultural entrepreneurs.”
The Management Consultant further cautioned that “entrepreneurs and managers of businesses who don’t just have great companies, but great company cultures raise the bar” adding that such companies subsequently “become role models not just in terms of your business and companies they have built but the culture within that company.”