If You Find Your Lane, You Will Fly (Lessons From Bukky George, C

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I met Mrs. Bukky George at a CEO networking event with MBA students organised by the Lagos Business School in 2011. I was in the first year of my MBA program and this event was organised for MBA students to network with certain CEOs and, subsequently, work with them on a specific project within their business. Lucky me, I was assigned to work with Mrs. Bukky George on her strategy project. My first impression of her was she knew exactly what she wanted and she was ready to achieve what she set her mind on. At the time, Health plus (her chain of pharmacy stores) had only 14 stores. Fast track to today, Health plus group has grown to over 60 stores nationwide. I got the opportunity to listen to her speak again at the IWOW conference in April and in this post, I'll share some key insights I got from her speech. The ability to recognize you don't know everything and the ability to know where to go when you need information are very critical skills in life and business. In her speech, she shared how she identified, quite early, certain organizations she wanted Health plus to model in terms of brand, scale and operations. and she didn't stop at just identifying and watching those companies from afar, she actually stepped out to meet with key people in those organizations who could help her bridge some of her knowledge gaps. For instance, she decided she wanted to meet the CEO of the largest pharmaceutical chain in India (Apollo Health care). So, she walked into one of their stores on one of her trips outside the country, introduced herself as the CEO of the fastest growing pharmaceutical chain in Nigeria and asked to be scheduled for a meeting with the CEO. She got an invite much later and she came prepared with questions to ask the CEO. What really struck me was the fact that, not only did she get to spend a whole day with this CEO, she was actually given the company's strategy document, as a resource, when she was leaving. Can you beat that? It pays to be bold, people. Who do you need to learn from? Who do you want to be like? Identify your knowledge gaps and go knocking for wisdom. Plan for growth and always up the ante When she shared how she gained access to top CEOs in the retail pharmaceutical industry, I realized that was why she was very open with sharing her own growth stories. It's important to note that, since it started to gain momentum, Health plus has gained a lot of competition but she's fine with it. She openly shares her strategies and vision. That's because she's always evolving and innovating her business. In her own words, "If you try to replicate our strategy, it's fine, because by the time you implement, we would have moved on from that strategy." This taught me, instead of paying attention to what everyone is doing i.e. who is copying you and who isn't, you are better off focusing on continuous innovation in your life or business. What's your next big idea? What does the future expect of you or your business? Think new, think big and think quick. Doing nothing is not an option right now. If you're in business, dig in your heels and evaluate your business. Evaluate what's profitable in this economy and spend more time producing those products or providing those services. If you're not in business yet, evaluate your big idea and work on implementing. Doing nothing is not an option.