Last week, we enjoyed an intensive four days with of all of the entrepreneurs from the participating companies.  During the sessions, Stanford professors taught classes on Operations and Strategy, and we broke into small groups to discuss cases (e.g. how to run triage at a refuge camp and how to look out for the “bottleneck” in a production facility).  These small groups were just like Business School.  Each entrepreneur also developed his or her own ‘Business Model Canvas’ and the coaches were able to assist and guide as needed.  It was very productive and lots of fun.

Jan had a chance to organize a dinner for the ladies in the group.  Needless to say, the men were jealous!

Also, one evening, the Nigerians brought a cake and sang the Nigerian anthem as a tribute to their national holiday.

We “bookended” this interesting week with other activities as well: Right before the intensive session, we volunteered as photographers for the Accra international Marathon.  When we signed up, we didn’t realize that this would mean getting up at 4 am to be able to “shoot” the runners at the start.

We made it to the start line in the nick of time, and then drove the route in a car, taking photos out the window along the way.

In true Ghanaian style, drummers created a pulsating beat at the start and at the finish line.

By 9 am, we were pooped, so we returned to our apartment and went back to bed to get ready for the SEED session, which started at 4 pm.

After the sessions were over, we spent Saturday on a day trip to the Akosombo Dam on the Volta River.  This large dam, built in 1965, created the largest man-made lake on the planet.  It has since been passed by the lake created by the Three Gorges Dam in China and others, but it is still huge—covering 8,502 square kilometers (3,283 sq mi), which is 3.6% of Ghana’s land area!

And, on Sunday, we hosted a barbeque for a very international crowd.  We noticed that our neighbor from the Saudi embassy, Sultan, has a barbeque, so we asked him if he’d let us use the barbeque for a party, as long as he would attend!  He readily agreed and also offered the services of Hussein, his “cookerman”, who was an expert at the grill!

We originally planned to host the barbeque at the pool area, but right before the party was to begin, Sultan, our new friend, suggested the roof top deck on the top of his building.  This turned out to be a great idea, since the views were fantastic and there was a combination of shade and sun.  Ed posted a sign at the pool, and we could wave to anyone coming into the apartment complex from the 7^th floor deck.  When the party started, we had no idea how many would attend, but we ended up with over 20 people, which was a perfect number.

In attendance, were guests from many countries – Russia, India, Singapore, Ghana, US, etc.  Most had founded companies or are currently in the process of founding a company.  Interesting!

Now we’re back to work – we’re off to Nigeria tomorrow to see our companies there.  It’s nice that we’ll be able to fly together, share the driver, and stay at the hotel together.  We continue to feel blessed to have the opportunity to share this experience with so many interesting people.

Santiago, Iquique, Sao Paulo! A whirlwind week with many miles, family togetherness, and good times.

After a 28-hour door-to-door journey from Accra, we arrived at our daughter’s apartment in Santiago, where she and her boyfriend, Marcelo, welcomed us with snacks and pisco sours.  Delicious!

The next day we were refreshed and enjoyed the Spring weather in Santiago.

Jan and Marcelo had  a chance to try the local specialty — a “terremoto”(earthquake drink). It’s like a wine float!

On Monday we attended Leslie’s class on social entrepreneurship at Universidad de Desorollo, where her class of 25 students is half Chilean, half European. We enjoyed seeing her in action. Later, we took the two-hour flight up the coast to Iquique, where we had been invited to give a three hour seminar at the Universidad de Arturo Pratt on Lessons from Silicon Valley. We thought the banner in front of the auditorium was pretty cool.

On Wednesday, we delivered the presentation to an audience of 150 in English, which Leslie translated expertly into Spanish.

It was well received, and Leslie received this feedback from a student:

“I just wanna say thanks to you and your family for coming last day to Iquique, you opened my eyes and helped me to answer one of the most important questions in my life, what I want to be in the future?

Here in Chile are many talks, mostly from managers from mining companies, they always tell you how they became manager, so after the talk you and your classmates say “hey i want to be just like them, go to the same company and try to be the best” which is not bad, but they never tell you that you can create your own company starting with a great idea

So, When i went to your family talk you told me what i really want to hear in many years ago, i just want to be just like you, i want to create my own company and change the world, just like your father, your mother, your brother and you!  Thanks to you and your family, i hope to see you here in Iquique again.”

We even made the local newspaper!

That afternoon, we also presented a three-hour seminar to 12 professors from three different universities in town. Phew! We flew back to Santiago for a day, before leaving for Sao Paulo, where we celebrated Ed’s birthday during a 24 hour layover with the family who hosted him as an exchange student in 1970. As always, they welcomed us with open arms and were more than happy to throw a birthday party —complete with many relatives and friends!

We spent the night Saturday and all day Sunday traveling back to Accra (through Johannesburg) and arrived at our apartment just in time to prepare for another week with our clients. At 6:00 on Monday, Ed was on a flight to Lagos for a weeklong series of meetings.

‘Glad we don’t travel half way around the world every week! It was fun to visit South America, but it’s nice to be back  “home” in West Africa.

We are about to celebrate our two-month anniversary of living in Accra. We’re blessed with a great living situation, wonderful teammates and ambitious clients. We’re experiencing lots of new things … some good, some not so good:

 House “Fairy”: On Sunday night, we had a dinner party for seven grownups and two 18-month olds.  We made veggie pasta, salad, garlic bread, and fruit salad. The dinner was great, and the two children had lots of room to chase each other around. They even shared their pacifiers!  Both moms are Stanford grads, so this duo comes from a smart gene pool:

At the end of the evening, we realized that we had dirtied every dish and every pot we owned. We left all of these in a pile on the counter for Francis. We didn’t see him prior to leaving for the office on Monday morning, but by the time we had returned in the evening, everything was clean and put away. Now this is a service we’ll miss!

The Music: Ghanaian music is ubiquitous and wonderful. Since our last post, we attended a concert of Ghanaian Highlife with a New Zealand twist. Zohzoh, the artist, is a big personality who struts on stage in true Mick Jagger style! His band includes an incredible drummer and a brass section that fuses big band, funk, Afro, and reggae. It was so fun that we bought the CD.

Drivers: When we need to go to a client meeting, we pop into one of the three cars under contract to Stanford. We primarily use Randy as our driver. He is very conscientious and knows his way around Accra. This is very helpful since there are no addresses! Once in a while, he yells at the other drivers in Twi … but the windows are closed and they can’t hear him. It’s a good thing we’re not trying to drive here since there is definitely a knack to merging and cutting in front of the other cars.

Cabs/Ditches: Sometimes we take cabs, which are usually ok. We have to negotiate the price before getting into the car.  They are likely to start with the “obruni” (White person) price. We now know how to bargain them to a reasonable price, since we have a vague idea of how far it will be to the various locations.

One time, when Ed hailed this cab, the cab turned around to pick him up, but landed in the ditch.

These ditches are open sewers that are on the sides of most roads. Some homeowners elect to put grates on top of them (which is much appreciated). When it’s hot, the smell can be bad. For this taxi driver, Ed had to get another cab (because he had to get to his meeting), but Ed noticed that other drivers rallied to the cause and helped lift the car out of the ditch!

We have learned to pay rapt attention while walking down a street. We do not want to twist our ankle in a pothole or fall into a ditch. (We heard a story of one WHO manager who fell in and was waist-deep during the rainy season.)

Internet/Phone:  Since we have a huge task of serving six clients per coach, we depend on “always on” Internet and phone service. Over the last week, it’s been more like “always off”.  Ed was nominated to be the point person to assist the local manager with dealing with Stanford’s (complicated) Internet system (complete with firewall.)  This “opportunity” allowed Ed to have an 8-hour conference call with the US for troubleshooting!  The coaches were switched from a MTN “prepay” to a “post pay” phone plan, but as a result, we had no phones or Internet on our phones for two days. This caused quite a problem, as no one could reach us, and we couldn’t call or email anyone. We went to an interim solution with a temporary phone, but this wasn’t so good. Later we found out that the whole country was having MTN phone problems!

Elevator Landing:  Our apartment is great, but there are some things about it that make us scratch our heads and wonder, “why did they build it this way?” For example, the elevator landings are on the half floor.  This means that on the ground floor, we walk up a half of a flight to get in the elevator. Then, we push “5” for fifth floor. We get off the elevator and walk down half of a flight of stairs to get to our apartment. This is especially confusing for guests, who don’t know where to go when they get off on the 5^th floor stop. Up half a flight?  Or, down half a flight? Perhaps the builder wanted to make sure that elevator riders got at least a bit of exercise!

Cash-Only Society:  Due to the extent of credit card fraud around Ghana and Nigeria, it’s a cash based society. This means that even most plane tickets have to be purchased with cash. The last time we went to Nigeria, Jan took a wad of cash ($700) to the airport to buy the tickets. This required two trips … because during the first trip (4:00 pm), the agent said I had to pay at a bank. Then I went to the bank, which was then closed. Later I called the airport to see if our “hold for 24 hours” reservation had been cancelled, and a different agent asked me to return to the airport (with the cash) by 9 pm. So, Ed and I took a moonlight cab to the airport and bought the ticket by 9 pm. Not the most efficient use of time!

We’ve learned a new way of coping with some of the nuances brought about by life in Africa.  This was a suggestion put forth by Bill’s son.  When something is frustrating, we say “WHEEEEEEEEEEEE” in a high pitch voice. You can’t help but smile while saying this.

The adventure continues!

One of the delightful aspects of being in Ghana has been the chance to  meet  some amazing people. Here’s an example:

Why not start a University for Women in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia? Princess Lolowah al Faisal was in charge of the project her mother, Queen Effat, had started, and the need was certainly there. At 60 years old in 1999, when most of her generation were contemplating retirement, Marcia Grant  “leaned in” and moved to Saudi Arabia to help start the University.  She arrived on August 2nd.  By September 8th, 37 students were enrolled and Effat College was born.

Marcia ran the college for almost two years, and was “on again, off again” for the following two years. The remarkable Saudi woman who took over the helm, President Haifa Jamal al-Lail proceeded to start an engineering School for women and Effat University now enrolls 1500 students.

But that’s not all. Marcia spent four years pioneering the liberal arts in planning the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Aga Khan University in Karachi, Pakistan, and then two years developing the liberal arts in Forman Christian College (no relation!) in Lahore, Pakistan. She’s currently the Provost at  Ashesi University College outside of Accra, Ghana, an extraordinary new university focused on educating a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial leaders who will transform Africa.

Marcia Grant is no ordinary woman.  Higher Education in the developing world is better because of her contributions. We joined her for lunch in Accra recently and learned about her life journey.

At age 6, she moved with her family from Walnut Creek, California (right next to the town where Jan grew up) to Colombia where her father designed the American School in Bogota.  In fact, he designed it after Acalanes High School in Lafayette—Jan’s alma matter!

At age 9, now living in Mexico City, she decided that she wanted to pursue an international career.  She told her mother that she didn’t like the American School in Mexico City at that time, and switched to be the only American in a local Mexican school.

When she returned to Walnut Creek, she lamented, “will I ever get to travel internationally again?”  She became an accomplished flautist, and earned money by teaching flute lessons, washing cars, and babysitting to purchase her own custom made Powell Flute for $450.  (She still has this instrument, and it was recently appraised for over $7,000.)

At age 16, she graduated from Las Lomas High School and headed for Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.  She flew in blue linen suit, hat with veil and white gloves!  These items of clothing did not get much wear once she arrived at the college, as Swarthmore provided quite the culture shock.  There were many New Yorkers, and guys with beards. Hey, it was 1956!

One of the reasons she selected Swarthmore was that it offered a scholarship to Peru.  Of course, she applied for this and was granted the scholarship, so off she went.  During one summer, she also traveled to Africa as part of the Crossroads Africa program, where she learned construction and fell in love with Africa. She graduated from Swarthmore at age 20.

She spent two years at the Fletcher School at Tufts and received two Masters Degrees.  Then, she moved to England on a Fulbright, and then ended up in Nigeria to work on her PhD, studying the workings of the press in Nigeria. She received her doctorate from The London School of Economics.

She became a tenured Professor at Oberlin and was a member of the Faculty Council. She later worked for the State Department in various roles, including as the cultural attaché for youth programs in Paris. Her career spans many countries, continents, and leadership positions.  There are too many fascinating positions to list in this limited article. But the central thread is challenge and contribution.  This is one dynamic woman who never stops!

As an illustrious alumna, Marcia received an honorary doctorate from Swarthmore. You can read Marcia’s commencement address that she delivered in 2007 at: http://bit.ly/12SgvCL .   She focuses on “lessons learned.”  What an amazing journey.

And we spent part of our lunch pondering, “where she wants to live when she grows up.”

Wow. We’re on quite the ride!

In the last two weeks, we’ve spent four days in Lagos, Nigeria and six days in Accra and have initiated contact with ten of our twelve companies. (The remaining two are in Cote d’Ivoire, and we’re arranging our visit there later in the month to conform with the clients’ vacation schedules.) Our client companies are excited and ready to roll towards “transformation”. The journey will be long and complex, but everyone has to start somewhere.  Our goals for the past two weeks were to get to know the key issues facing the companies and start developing the vision of where they want to go.

With 20 million people (compared with a total of 24 million people in all of Ghana), Lagos is vast, congested, and swarming with a myriad of commerce. Luckily we had an excellent driver who was skillfully able to navigate the roads, including backing up in the driveway of our hotel at 8 am, when all of the hotel guests were leaving for meetings with their drivers and all wanted to back up down the driveway at the same moment.  This was not a job for the amateur.

Also, in Lagos, the business life is very competitive, and even street vendors have to differentiate themselves to get noticed.  This was the first time we’ve seen a hawker on stilts!

Nigerians are resigned to the fact that they have to “BYOP”—Bring Your Own Power.  The national electrical grid is completely unreliable, so each company has at least on generator and needs to have backups as well. (We know of one telco services provider who has seven levels of backup!) Generator power is huge hassle that presents a big, unpredictable expense for every business. The factory of one client company was without power Monday through Wednesday. They have to pay workers regardless, so they incurred three days of labor cost with no production output. They paid all the production workers double time to come in on the two-day national holiday since they were late on delivering orders and had reputation and cash flow at stake.

We’ve learned a lot lessons and we’re just six weeks in.

Leading “Design Thinking” workshops with several clients can open up new ways of approaching problems and challenges.  With materials developed by Jim Patell (of the previous post) of the Stanford d.School and GSB, we took groups from two of our clients through a crash course of Design Thinking, first working on a fun design exercise and then moving on to challenges that confront their companies.

These folks created the ideal wallet for each other (by listening to customer needs, iterating on ideas, and making a rapid prototype.)

This group was able to propose solutions to key issues facing the sales department.

This manager summarized the findings his group had about HR issues and their proposed solutions.

And, what was even more gratifying, a team in Lagos had already implemented the brainstorming concepts back at their company.  Here was the CEO at the Stanford SEED session in July:

And here she is in her conference room in Lagos, showing us the outcome of the exercise that she had done with her staff!  The goal was to learn how to improve the production flow. They had this brainstorming with the entire company, including the factory floor workers and came up with some “out of the box ideas.”

Other lessons included learning about the margin structures of various paint grades and application techniques. This paint company has lofty goals for expansion and is currently in the process of building a new factory.  But, apparently the road to the new location is abysmal; so, to really beef up production there will take some capital investment.  Jan toured the current facilities, where paint was finally being made again (since they had just spent $2,000 to repair the generator.) One thing Jan learned was the importance of putting a lab coat over her black dress BEFORE going in the paint plant where white pigment was being combined with water in the vat.

At an ecommerce company, they ‘re implementing a move of their call center in a 48-hour window during the national holiday. Since this company is on a “rocket ship” pace of growth, they don’t want any downtime for orders during this move.  So, they’re planning carefully and are confident they will be able to pull this off.

And they’re deploying their fleet of motorcycles to deliver products to people’s homes and offices. In Nigeria an ambitious ecommerce company has to take on the roles of both Amazon and UPS/FedEx.

Another company is pioneering the farming and distribution of healthful vegetables to quality conscious customers in Accra. Providing the right incentives to farmers so that they grow what customers want, when they want it, is a major challenge.

Turning to electrical contracting, the team is analyzing the bottlenecks in the supply chain for their products and services.  Getting paid on time seems to be a universal problem throughout West Africa.  Without a Dunn and Bradstreet type of service, there is no sharing of information about “deadbeat payers.”  Each company has to deal with this challenge independently.

Wearing our “dry cleaning hats”, we observed professional client service and exceptional quality control.  Ed also read in the local paper that the Nigerian Federal Government is now requiring all workers in the capital to wear “suit and tie”, instead of traditional dress.  This could be a bonanza for our client who is about to open a branch in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.

In food products , Jan used her “store check” experience (learned when she was working in consumer products right out of Business School) to visit the small shops in Nigeria to find out more about how they buy and sell their oil.

She also checked out the supermarkets to learn about how the larger stores display oils.

Ed coaches a  client building a world-class, business-to-business, software platform.  They’re dealing with the universal problems of missed deadlines, tardy features and customer pressure to customize the platform and applications for specific scenarios or integration requirements. The challenges of delivering enterprise software transcend national borders.

The past two weeks have whizzed by. It’s now Saturday night and we’re watching the sun set from our deck, sipping South African Sauvignon Blanc.  Tonight’s entertainment will be a concert of Ghanaian Highlife music, joined by another group from New Zealand (!), at the nearby Alliance Francais.  What a rich international mélange!

One of the central figures of the Stanford SEED program is Professor Jim Patell – the Herbert Hoover Professor of Public and Private Management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB). His initiative, curriculum, and involvement in designing products and services for the developing world have been pivotal to the launch of SEED. Jim has been in Accra for the last three weeks, sharing his enthusiasm for design thinking with the SEED entrepreneurs and Ghanaian high school students.

Ed and I originally met Jim at the GSB in 1977, where he taught Cost Accounting as part of the First Year core curriculum.  Ed was in his class, while Jan was in a different section, so only knew him by sight.  And what a sight.  All of the students thought he was younger than we were!  He, and another professor, Mark Wolfson, looked very young. We called them “whiz kids” since they already had PhD’s and were professors.  We also called them the “accounting guys”, but we now know that was selling them short.

So, when I tell my friends from the GSB class of ‘79 that our Accounting Professor, Jim Patell, is a renowned expert in “Design Thinking”, they are intrigued.

Chatting with Jim over lunch recently, I learned that his career has been much more than an “Accounting to Design Thinking” transformation.  In his academic life, his path has followed conscious choices, amazing mentors, and brilliant collaborators.

Jim’s higher education started out at MIT, where he studied from 1966 to 1972, during the height of the Vietnam War. He worked at MIT under contract to the Department of Defense to help fund his education.  During this tenure, he worked on the design of the Spruance Class destroyer and also worked for Dr. John Craven, who had been the Chief Scientist in the Polaris-Poseidon FBM submarine program. The years spent at MIT were a time of amazing technology development, and he received a BS in Navel Architecture and Engineering and a Masters in Ocean Engineering.  And, he studied Finance under Bob Merton, who later won the Nobel Prize in Economics in conjunction with Myron Scholes for option pricing.

After MIT, Jim had the choice of getting an MBA at Stanford or earning a PhD at Carnegie Mellon University, where Professor Bob Kaplan, “saw himself in me” (Jim’s words).  Kaplan also had an engineering degree from MIT and a PhD in Operations Research from Cornell.  As a formidable mentor, Bob convinced Jim to go to Carnegie Mellon, where he received his PhD in three years.

In 1975, at 27 years old, Jim landed a job on the faculty at the GSB.  Initially, he taught Financial Accounting and Cost Accounting as part of the First Year Core Curriculum.  According to Jim, “Accounting and Finance were closer together then”.  His research focused on empirical finance and the effects of corporate disclosures on stock and option markets.

After teaching at the GSB for 6 years, Jim and Mark Wolfson both became Visiting Professors at the University of Chicago.  During this year, Jim traveled to Africa and consulted with SAB (South African Brewing) as they were divesting their holdings in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia).  Little did Jim know that many more African adventures would be in his future.

Jim returned to Stanford and became a full professor in 1985.  He became an Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Business School and managed many innovative programs, as well as revamping the Public Management Program.  He served as Associate Dean for six years, and when left the Deans’ Office, he shifted fields from the Accounting group to the Operations and Information Technology group in the GSB.  He taught the core Operations course for seven years, developed Operations electives, and then taught the core Computer Modeling course with Jeff Moore.

In a Computer Modeling elective in the late 90’s, Jim offered two extra units for students who wanted to hone their skills on a real-world project.  He found out that non-profits were great clients for student projects.

 “I learned that when students do a project for for-profit companies, the companies say, ‘Thanks so much.  Well take it back and evaluate it.’  But when the students work for non-profits, the non-profits say, ‘Thanks so much.  We’ll begin implementing your recommendations next Wednesday.’’”

The Modeling course ran for two years, and then in 2003 Jim launched the course now entitled, “Design for Extreme Affordability (aka “Extreme”). http://extreme.stanford.edu/

This “Extreme” class, initiated by Jim, David Kelly of IDEO, and one other professor, encourages graduate students from various disciplines – Business, Engineering, Medicine, Law – to form teams to learn about the needs of the poor in the developing world and design solutions to meet their needs.  Over the last 10 years, this course has grown into a very popular magnet for grad students (who have to survive a competitive application process to get in.) And, many long-lasting solutions have come out of the course, including Embrace, a sleeping bag incubator for at risk infants in rural villages and d.Light, a solar powered lantern that allows kids to do their homework without kerosene fumes in their hut at night where there is no electricity.  Many projects have turned into successful companies, which are exploring new models of business structure and governance.  Even the tax laws in California are changing to fit the needs of these social businesses that come out of this course.

Also, the course, and collaboration between Jim, David Kelly, and others, provided the foundation for the development of the “d.School”, also known as the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford. http://dschool.stanford.edu/

Bob and Dottie King were initially introduced to Jim during an open-to-the-public final presentation of student projects from “Design for Extreme Affordability”.  They were intrigued and inspired by the students and their work.  They met Jim, and their friendship began.  The rest is history.

As in any life story, this brief synopsis doesn’t do justice to the rich and complex subject matters that Jim has mastered over his career.  But, hopefully it paints a picture of the amazing journey of a Professor who never sits still or rests on his laurels.  Constant change. Innovation. Exploring new areas.  What a privilege for us to be with him in Accra to share this part of his personal transformation.