Working With Africans

Most African societies feature a large number of indigenous ethnic groups as well as minorities of Africans from foreign descent.

Such diversity brings about numerous challenges not only at the level of the society but also at the level of the organizations and of the businesses.

The situation varies from place to place:  in some countries and cities, indigenous ethnic groups have been dealing with one another for centuries. Elsewhere, for various motives, people have developed some negative pre-conceived ideas of other tribes. Inter-ethnic violence, wars, genocides have plagued many parts of the African continent.

Besides the visible signs of discrimination, more subtle ones are taking place on an everyday basis even in the African countries that have ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

For example, decision makers in both public services, African international organizations and African firms are often granting jobs, promotions, loans, rights and obligations on the basis of criteria that are not linked to meritocracy or sound financial situations. On the contrary, criteria such as ethnic or faith affiliation, tongue, social network, region of origin, social status… seem prevalent. It is frequent to find decision makers surrounded by colleagues and subordinates from their own tribe, from their region or even from their faith.

Looking at this situation with a Western mindset, there is something terribly wrong in favoring relatives rather than unrelated technically competent people. It may be very unproductive. It is ethically unacceptable when the country has ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

With such view of the matter, good governance should be on the agenda both at the governmental and at the firm level.

Foreign investors, multinationals, traders, executives and experts originated from Western countries bring to Africa their corporate cultures that are very strict about good governance.

 I have witnessed some of these foreign firms prescribing their African subordinates to endorse the firm values: ‘here you are not loyal to your family but to the company…’

Some human resources departments of foreign organizations attempt to gauge how indigenous job applicants would privilege the corporate values rather than their own.

With the rising presence of Indian recruitment firms on the African markets, there is a temptation to offer a non-Western view of how African organizations should be managed. This new approach makes sense since Indian organizations have displayed a similar tendency to grant jobs and promotion on the basis of non Western criteria. Their success in switching to meritocracy can be appealing to Africans who wish to steer away from the Western ways that have been imposed during colonialism and beyond.

All these attempts to change Africans in their approach to dealing with diversity are little effective!

Why?

In societies where the identity is based on the group rather than on the individual, it is legitimate to discriminate people belonging to the out-group! There are some philosophical and anthropological foundations to these discriminatory attitudes.

When foreigners impose Africans to consider wrong an act or an attitude that has always been considered right, they have no idea of the impact of their request!

On the other side, Africans who are suddenly imposed these new rules may not understand their foundation. They may feel disrespected and this adversely impacts on trust building but also in the motivation to be loyal to the organization.

Mutual understanding is critical when new values and rules apply.

Cross-cultural training helps decision-makers of human resources departments in assessing the impact of values change in their African subsidiaries and offices. It also helps them in formulating the appropriate strategies that they could implement in order to support their African staff who go through the value change process.

Cross-cultural training also helps indigenous Africans in reflecting on their current values and in envisioning the foundation of new ones. These newly developed skills foster trust, loyalty towards the organization.