1) What is your name, what do you do for a living and how long have you been in this profession?

I am Michael Fashina, a Corporate Strategist with an indigenous oil company. I have had over 8 years corporate experience with the last 5 veering towards Strategy, Planning, research and business development.

2)  What did you study at the university level and what made you decide to go into this profession?

I studied Chemistry for my first Degree, but I never had the privilege of pursuing that practice further, despite finishing in the top 5 percentile in my set and having an overwhelming amount of counsel to pursue a Masters degree immediately in that line. I had my first corporate experience as a Graduate Trainee in a foremost financial institution, which proved very useful in helping me harness some tacit competencies I had displayed in various forms during my university days. Some of these competencies bothered around People Management, interpersonal skills, organizational and co-ordination skills as well as communication and questioning skills (I was privileged to be the Class representative of my class, a tutorial master, the President of my department as well as the chairman of the organizing committee for the National Chemistry convention hosted in the University of Lagos, to mention a few). During my time in the bank’s training school, I was saddled also with the responsibility of class representative and I perceived that I resonated a lot with roles that involved people management and organisation of resources. This informed my decision to join the Human Capital Development unit of the Bank. I continued in my career as an HR Professional and progressed into HR Consulting with a Big-Four multi-national Professional Services firm which exposed me to proper Business/Management Consulting working with various clients across several industries/sectors. This invariably ensured my interest and skill set increasingly gyrated towards Strategy & Operations, thereby firming my decision to pursue an MBA abroad and working in my current role as a Corporate Strategist. Overall, my interest in improving people, harnessing resources to add value to lives and businesses informed my career projectile, wittingly or unwittingly.

3) What sacrifices have you made to get ahead and were they all worth it? 

To be honest, I have been graciously blessed with great friends and loved ones. However, it appeared as a daunting task initially, coming out of school as an erudite science scholar and being thrown into the wild, unforgiving corporate banking world. Invariably, I realized that applying your mind with enormous dedication and commitment can transform you to whoever you want to be, personally and professionally. Some opportunity costs vary from not keeping constantly in touch with friends, peers and loved ones, fractured relationships which overtime become mechanical (more logic and objectivity, less emotional tendencies in a bid to shield the heart from the undulating relationship landscape). Looking back in hindsight, I could have done a couple of things differently from the perspectives of relationships and friendships. An effective professional should be able to discern the trade-offs personal life and work demands and should strive to balance both in order to have a much more fulfilling life, depending on their value orientations.

4) Can you name a few Challenges you’ve encountered along the way and how you overcame them? 

You will encounter professionals who do not think highly of you, or would act in ways to ensure you question your capability. Do no fret, Self-belief is key. You do not need to know or have all the answers, just ask the right questions, apply Neuro-linguistic Programming in ensuring you positively project yourself mentally and body-language wise. Be Consistent.

Some will not always agree with anything you suggest, seek to understand their positions and then explain your position succinctly, learn fact-based case making, develop Issues based Problem Solving techniques. Remember, you do not always have to strive to be liked by everyone. Be firm and fair.

You will encounter bosses who do not resonate with your persona, perception of things, working of your mind, methodology or approach to getting things done. The fact that people do not agree to your views does not always make them wrong. Learn to view the world from other people’s lenses. Understand your boss’s personality orientation/ personality colour coding. Typically, there are tenses and terminologies that humour them or work methodologies that capture their attention, learn what they resonate with proper influencing skills, you can gain their buy-in on what your approaches are.

You may encounter challenges with presentation and trust me, your ability to present business cases can be a fore-telling of how far you might go. Humans are perceptive beings, but we so easily forget that. It is imperative that you are mindful of your body language and how you come across during presentation. Focusing on the Content is good, however words do not account for more than 7% in presentations, tone accounting for 38% while body language accounts for a whopping 58%. It is important to carryout consistent practice to hone in on your presentation skills.

5) In your opinion what skill sets do you think every Lagosian should possess to survive/ be successful in this very competitive city?

Adaptability: Lagos, as they say, is home to all and sundry. You will meet people from various orientations and backgrounds. To be successful in Lagos, you must come across as being able to understand the various settings you find yourself per-time and blend as though you were ‘the son of the soil’. You should be able to go from your high ranking Queen’s English to our renowned pidgin English lingua-franca and even a bit of ‘jagged-edge’ yoruba phrases in some instances, within seconds.

Negotiation Skills: To survive in Lagos, you will need to learn how to negotiate your way in transactions. An average Lagosian is ‘slicker than your average’ in their daily life dealings. Your ability to understand their mindsets quickly and beat them to their nuances can be key to whether you’ll buy a ‘congo of rice’ for 150 naira or 1000 naira.

Tenacity: Given the boisterous nature of the Lagos metropolis, one may be forgiven for almost always making excuses and developing very bad habits such as poor time management, tardiness, procrastination and invariably corner-cutting (the lazy man’s folly). It is essential to note that almost nothing comes easy in Lagos, hence for you to be successful, you must drive yourself to achieving whatever you set out to achieve, even in the face of challenges. Be tenacious.

6) What is your biggest achievement? 

Quite a number of achievements I must say, especially from mentoring & coaching sessions with young and budding entrepreneurs and professionals. However, I will say helping my company to transit from a downstream ‘independent’ to a foremost Local Oil Producing Company is up there too.

7) Where do you hope to see yourself in the next 5- 10 years? 

I will be a Business Leader in the Energy Sector of the Nigerian Economy, shaping and influencing policies and practices that will drive efficiency of output across the sector including alternative energy sources, invariably creating optimum output for the country’s GDP.

8) What are you most passionate about and has living in Lagos enabled you explore that passion?

I am passionate about improving lives through mentoring and motivational speeches to birth dreams in budding young talents. As humans, we are expected to be purpose driven, however, a mega-city like lagos, inspite of the opportunities that it avails us from varied demands of its teeming population; can easily make people lose focus of the big picture perspective and get sucked into a ‘hustle and bustle’ without meaning for life. and one core principle of life remains extant: if you do not take control of your life’s purpose, someone or something will control it for you. It is why you see a lot of people ‘living with the Jonses’ or not being able to extricate themselves from the ‘rat-race’. My passion and what I stand for is to infuse ‘meaning’ to life and birth a dream in that young man or woman who may have been tossed about by the vagaries of life. Many people are disconnected from their true selves and life’s purpose hence they live inauthentic lives based on environmental/societal expectations, peer pressure, social media trends. Eventually, they would have only existed without having to fully live their true identities and purpose. I help bridge this gap in lagos.

9) What do you love the most about Lagos?

The energy in Lagos is second to none across Sub-saharan Africa and I dare say, across Africa. Lagos is a land filled with plethora of opportunities with the right business platforms, technological and financial infrastructure for business entrepreneurs to flourish; with an awesome market owing to its teeming population and rising middle-class. Increasingly, consumers in lagos are becoming discerning and would demand quality from service providers and manufacturers alike. Lagos is the commercial hub for West Africa, hence, an entrepreneur of product and services in Lagos enjoys an undue advantage in terms of market reach, as items produced in this trailblazer state is increasingly gaining wide acclaim and acceptance across West Africa. This Makes Lagos the Number 1 state in Sub-Saharan Africa. Of course, you will need to recognize Good Governance Practice and implementation of Proper Succession Plan by the Lagos State Government in striving to achieve the Lagos Mega-City Masterplan.

10) Any advice for those in your line of field struggling to find their feet

Firstly, worry not. More often than not, your fears are about the expectations of other people towards you or bench-marking yourself with the achievement of others, thereby tagging yourself a failure without even trying so hard. There is a purpose for You. Recognize the desire that got you into this field in the corporate world in the first place. It is not a mistake, it is not a ‘Stumble Upon’. Every step in your life has been calculated, wittingly or unwittingly. Look back into your life and draw strength and inspiration from your best-self: times when you had exuded attributes that are directly related to what you do currently, whether it be helping skills during Boy’s Scout, Presentation skills during debates, data mining skills in that project you aced, co-ordination skills, leadership skills e.t.c. Draw your strength and inspiration from within.

Align your thought process such that the various skills or attributes you displayed in your earlier life can be perceived as attributive to why you do what you do currently. In this way, you draw purpose for your life and you see what you do as your work, rather than just a job. Also, you will need to know yourself in order to become an effective person at work and other parts of your life. Intrinsic motivation will give you happiness and satisfaction in your work which is not tied to externalities. One way to draw this motivation is: Begin with the End in Mind. What do you envision as your ideal self? You will need to not only have a vision of yourself and work but also be convinced enough to have a buy-in into your vision to pursue it accordingly.

A lot of the fights and challenges people have which make them struggle are usually from within, especially in the mind. You need to change your perception of your capabilities and mental well-being. Trust me, it take practice and learning anything is dependent on the frequency of practice, duration of practice and intensity of practice. When you feed yourself with positive thoughts about your vision, it impacts directly on your body language, which in itself accounts for 58% of the human non-verbal communication.

Overall, re-discover yourself, have proper mentors, exude the right aura and belief in yourself. Be Happy.