Africa Print were Media Partners to the CEO Business Breakfast hosted by Printing SA Northern and Central Chambers at the Accolades Boutique Venue in Midrand on 7 November 2023. The event’s focus was to equip industry leaders to build sustainable businesses. The event was attended by CEO’s, MD’s, COO’s, HOD’s, Financial Directors, Managers, HR practitioners and supervisors from various sectors within the printing and packaging industry.
The event took the stance that a strong leader at the helm is fundamental to navigating and growing in a complex, ambiguous, uncertain and volatile economy. Kyocera and Canon were Diamond sponsors of the proceedings.
Printing SA’s CEO, Dr Abdool Majid Mahomed, providing the opening speech, in which he highlighted the recent ventures and future endeavours of Printing SA. ‘We had an event, for the first time this year, where we took government senior executives from various government departments on a tour of our sector, just to give them an understanding of what we do,’ said Dr Mahomed. ‘We’re working with a local department which have a lot of funding opportunities. They’ve got funds for projects, economic development and social media marketing in various sectors, so that businesses can start up, procure equipment and get going.’
The theme of the event was ‘Leadership at the Speed of Light, Managing and Energising a New Workforce in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR),’ highlighting what it takes to be at the cutting edge of technology in a rapidly evolving world. Keeping pace and adapting to constant changes requires being able to lead ‘at the speed of light’. This approach also means using data insights and intelligence to drive decision making that can ensure that organisations can consistently create business value in the long term.
The guest speaker was Musa Kalenga, CEO of Brave Group, who shared his insights, knowledge and applications with various leaders from the printing, packaging, signage and visual communications industry.
Kalenga mentioned the state of the country, the difficult landscape leaders find themselves in and the unique problems they have to solve. ‘South Africa right now is in a polycrisis. Everything that could go wrong is kind of going wrong, which means we have to solve multiple things at the same time, keep the same level of energy, and keep the same level of direction of intent,’ said Kalenga.
Kalenga addressed what it takes to excel by leading at the speed of light: ‘You have to have leadership designed upon principles that are age-old, but have evolved to understand that speed is a critical part of being successful.’
Touching on issues that leaders face in the modern working world, Kalenga elaborated upon the jarring dynamic that differences in age and generation produce in a company or office space. ‘The fundamental issue facing leadership in this modern day comes from the idea of the generational theory. We’ve got these multiple generations that have different characteristics, different understandings, and different appetites for the world of work. What’s typically happening now is that we’re mashing them up into the same organisations, and we’re asking them to be productive together. So you need to take the technical expertise and partner them with this new energy and understand it to get the next best outcome. Leadership styles have gone from controlling and directing, to now empowering and inspiring. This is a fundamental shift. So in this day and age, if you’re trying to lead these young people by controlling and directing them, guess what? You’re going to be hitting your head on a brick wall,’ said Kalenga.
Kalenga spoke to the way of the future and why ‘leading at the speed of light’ is essential for a company’s success in the technological age. He said that the workforce of the future is shaped by a short attention span and fast media, such as social platforms and gaming. ‘Looking forward to 2029 freaks me out, because everything is going to be gamified to the extent that when they (young people) interact with new challenges and things they need to do, if you don’t figure out the right way to integrate the learning process in a gamified way, it’s going to go over their heads, it’s going to be boring. It’s going to be baked into how the next generation want to work, want to be engaged, and want to interact with the world around them. They want the ability to fail, fail quickly and move on. That’s what they do every day in these games. We’ve all done it, playing Nintendo, Sega, Golden China, whatever you want to call it,’ said Kalenga.
Kalenga stated that when leading at the speed of light, it’s important that ‘purpose, culture, experiences and expression should be core to what you’re thinking about. It should be how you’re engineering the experiences in your organisation’.
Kalenga concluded with a quote from his favourite futurist, Alvin Toffler: ‘The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.’ Kalenga added that ‘When we talk about leading at the speed of light, this really is the provocation. There’s things that have worked and have worked extremely well. There’s things that we have to go back to the drawing board with entirely. And there’s things to tweak.’
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