Mastering Communication in Nigeria: Balancing Universal Principles with Local Nuances

Hello and welcome to the show. For today's question, we're going to look at effective communication tactics for the Nigerian market. So yes, it's similar to what we discussed yesterday. And so I'm going to start off by saying the very same thing that I did at yesterday's during yesterday's podcast episode, which is that effective communication is a universal tenant. It's a universal principle. So it's going to apply whether you do business in Ghana, in South Africa, in Mogadishu, in wherever.

It's just that the contextual application of how to communicate, what effective communications is, all those sorts of things are going to depend on the contextual application. So where are you, What's the culture? Are you dealing with a simple sales context? Are you dealing with a complex sales context? Those are the sorts of things that are going to determine how are you going to go about communicating. What is the most effective tool to set about communicating with people?

So let's look at some of these universal principles first of all, before we decide how they apply in the Nigerian context. First off, same thing that I've been saying time and time again on the show. When we think about communications, most people think about communications being a linear sequence. So there's me, I send an e-mail, the person receives it at the other end and then done. Communication is that simple. Actually, communication is a little bit complex and we need to think about communications in terms of a matrix.

So there's a communications matrix and there are different, what would I say? There are different things within the matrix that we ought to take into consideration when we try sending messages or we try communicating with people, whether in a personal context or in a business context. Now, for those of you who studied mass communications in school or business communications or whatever, you will find that the communications matrix I talk about over here on the podcast is unnecessarily OK.

Not unnecessarily. I simplify it for a reason. Why you say? My communications matrix is very simple, and I do that for a reason because I want people to be able to remember in a straightforward manner what we talk about over here on the podcast so that when the time comes for them to communicate effectively, people can remember the different things in the matrix without having to remember 15 elements, 20 elements, all those sorts of things.

So in my simplified communications matrix, I just pay attention to the sender. For this case, let's pretend that the sender is US, me, or you listening to the podcast. Then the next step is encoding. Encoding is the process of deciding how are you going to pass across that message? What medium are you going to use? So in my own case, me recording a podcast is me and coding a message. Then OK, we're done with sender and encoding.

The next step is going to be transmitting. Transmitting is the process of sending across the thing, across the medium. So I upload the podcast and I hit no, there's no send on podcast. What do we have? We have upload, publish, Yes. So I'll upload the podcast and then I hit publish. That is me transmitting the message that I'm trying to send. Then the next person, the next element in the matrix is receiver. Receiver is the person on the other end who is receiving the message.

Now some people stop at receiver, but there's also another process, and that is a process of decoding. Decoding is a process of the receiver trying to unpack, trying to understand, trying to break down what they have seen, what they have heard, what they have received. So decoding is also an important factor to pay attention to in the communications matrix. And then this is one that a lot of people fail to take into account, especially when people are talking about communications in very everyday, ordinary sense of the word.

And that is feedback and repetition. Because communication is not linear, is not a straight line, is not me. Create a podcast, send the link, you listen, end of story. Communication is feedback, message sent. I get some sort of feedback. And then based on the feedback that I get, I repeat the process over and over again because communications is usually about trying to get someone to do something or to try and influence something in your favour.

But there's no such thing as communications for communication sake. Nobody creates a podcast for podcast sake. And nobody sends an e-mail for e-mail sake. Nobody sends, nobody makes a phone call for phone calls sake. Even if your mom picks up the phone to say, Oh my dearly beloved son, I have not heard from V in a fortnight. I just wanted to be sure you're doing OK. How are you? How are the children? End the conversation.

That was not communications for communication sake. Your dear old mum is trying to pass across a message. The message is I care about you and the message is also please care about me back home in the village. Do not ignore your poor mother because you live in the fancy city, you and your children, and you think that that is all that there is in the world. So it doesn't matter the phone call, the e-mail, the podcast, the Netflix movie, the Netflix documentary, the National Geographic documentary, the e-mail that you send to your pastor doesn't matter.

Whatever it is, communication has a goal. And that is where feedback and reputation comes in. So you go through the whole process, you get some feedback. The feedback tells you whether you communicated successfully or not. So summary, it's not just about passing across a message because most people when they think communication, they think sender encode and transmit. So this is me. How do I come up with the perfect message?

How do I come up with the perfect e-mail, with the perfect podcast episode, with the perfect this, with the perfect that and then send and then think done. No, communication is not done. It's also about decoding. How is the person going to receive it? How will they decode it? How will they understand it? Will they understand that they're supposed to do ABC and XYZ? How is this going to move the agenda forward the departmental meeting forward the sail,

forward the political campaign forward the whatever it is you're trying to move forward? How is it going to move things forward? So that is what communications is about. Communications is not about what you intend. Most people think I intended to pass across the message so that she knows that she's an attractive woman. It's not about what you intended. It's about what was understood. If she received it and it sounded like a backhand compliment and she was offended,

then it's not about what you intended. That is what she received. So you best apologize. You don't say, oh, I'm sorry, I was trying to pay you a compliment. You know, of course you respond. Which kind of compliment in your village? Is that how they compliment people? And yes, this is something that's happened between me and my wife before. You know, I say something. I tried to pass her pay across the complaint. She's like, you know, what is that?

What kind of rubbish is that? If this is how people from Benway State compliment their wives, then you're better off not complimenting at all. So yes, I've had some of those situations and yeah, so they apply not just in the business context but also in the personal context as well. So communication is not your intent, it is what was understood and is what was received. So feedback, repetition, the most important part of the process.

So if you end up on wittingly insulting your girlfriend or your wife or your husband, take the feedback. And then repetition when it comes to the encoding stage, encoded differently or transmitted differently, either way, we're paying attention to how the person receive the message, decode the message so that we can get the right kind of feedback. And then we know that, OK, we're on course with whatever the agenda is that we're trying to pursue.

So yeah, that's it. In summer, when it comes to communications matrix, it's not what was intended, it's what was understood. Communication is not just the words, it's also the action or the reaction of the recipient. In other words, if you did not get a good reaction when you send that e-mail to your pastor or to your imam or to your wife or to your business partner, or you picked up the phone to call your daughter, you haven't spoken to your daughter in a while.

She just got into university. You picked up the phone. You wanted to show that you're a caring father. You know, all those sorts of things. If you got a bad reaction, then the communication was not good. Your intent was good. The way you pass it across was not good. Maybe she answered the phone and she was like, oh, my father is trying to police me again. So feedback, repetition, try again. And that is how we judge what good and effective communications is.

Now, another universal principle that we ought to pay attention to is active listening. Active listening, How do I define this? OK, well, active listening is the part of the communications process where you're paying attention to what is the receiver saying? What is the audience saying? If you can figure out what it is that they're saying, and yes, this is the same thing as decoding and feedback and repetition. If you can figure out exactly what it is that they're saying,

you're going to know how to respond accordingly. So you sent this thing, you send it to your business partner or you send it to the head of your department at the office. What is HOD? Head of department? What is HOD saying? What is Orga at the top saying? What is my business partner saying? What are my business clients? What are they saying? You figure that out. You can now respond accordingly when you repeat the whole process.

Then another principle that I want to stress is timeliness, or some people call this the recency principle. What the recency principle means is this. It just means people forget over time. So if you come up with a good communications tactic or strategy, but you deliver it several days late or you deliver it several weeks late or you deliver it several months late, that is bad communications. So we should be paying attention to timeliness or the recency principle.

That is contextual. It changes over time. So back in the days of the fax machine, timeliness meant one thing. Now that we're in the day, OK, no, we've gone be on the day of e-mail. So in the e-mail era, when e-mail was king, timeliness meant something else. Now I'll say we're in the era of the DM because, you know, you slide into everybody's DM, WhatsApp DM, Instagram DM, LinkedIn DM, and whatnot. So in the days of the DM,

timeliness means something else. So these are the principles that we should be paying paying attention to when we're talking about effective communication. We should be looking at the communications matrix. So that means there are lots of things to consider and communication is not a straight line. We should be thinking about active listening. I'm trying to get some feedback, figure out what's going on. And we'd also be paying attention to timeliness or the recency principle.

We should be trying to make sure that we respond at a reasonable rate, reasonable period of time. Now, with all these principles out of the way, let's now ask for some general principles. Sorry, not general principles. General. Gosh, I don't know, general guiding lights that we can use to show how we're going to, OK, let's say general considerations. Yes, in trying to apply all of this to Nigerian communications, now I'm going to hint on something that I said yesterday.

So this your first time listening to the episode, listening to the podcast, after you're done with this, listen to the episode prior and you're going to hear some more thoughts about how and whether there's a uniquely Nigerian way of doing business. So yes, indirect communications, I mentioned that yesterday. So indirect communications, if you're in Niger, join Nigeria. My recommendation, avoid confrontation and avoid overt assertiveness.

It can come off the wrong way in these in climes like this, you know, old worlds, traditional, you know, whatever kind of societies, this whole thing of rapport and blending with people and know what not it it it takes you a long way coming and being all straight to the point all let's get down to business. All you know, blah, blah blah is a little bit much in this, excuse me, in this kind of environment. So we have to do the dance the whole thing of oh, good morning,

Sir, blah, blah, blah. Oh, you went to OAU. OK, I went to OAU as well. Now what's that? OK, 1976, Sir, you're my boy. May I finished in I finished in 2021, blah, blah, blah. How is school? Who is the principal now, the student union, still a problem? What about cultism? Has cultism gone down, blah, blah, blah. You know, you have all that back and forth. So being overtly assertive about what the agenda is and everything, we have to tap that down a little bit.

So in direct communication, you dance around a bit before you get to the point. I know it can be stressful for those of us who are brought up with a modern mindset and it's something that I really experienced when my father died. So I was in the UK at the time. I was only able to get a week. Actually I didn't get a week. I got four days, four days leave. So time was not on my side. I knew I was not going to. I had to take extra days from what is it called, is it compassionate leave?

And oh, I had to bunch up a couple of leaves to get here. But you know, me and my brother, we were coming with because my brother and I, we grew up OK. My brother was born in Suleja, I was born in Makuti. But then we spend most of our lives in Lagos, in Abuja, so and then from there to the UK. So we, we think a certain way, we don't think like the old folks. So I was coming home for the burial. We were thinking let's get shit done, you know, as in it's unfortunate it has happened, but can we just move things along,

bury my father and let's get along and things. We just drag and drag and drag and meeting upon meeting upon meeting and was very frustrating to go for one meeting and to think that we're going to make progress, but the only resolution of the first meeting is that we're going to have another meeting. It was really, really, really annoying for me, but it's something that my mom had to talk me through. Like, look, relax, you guys are more modern, whatever about this whole thing, but you need to relax.

There's a lot of tension here. People are hurt. The things that people need to be to say, there are certain things that need to be expressed and like play, like play. There was one meeting that was kind of like the mother of all meetings and people erupted and set their mind and there was shouting and there was accusation and there was all kinds of things back and forth. But by the time that meeting was done, in fact, during one stage in the meeting, my mom just tapped my knee and she made that hang signal like it's time to move.

And at that point, I was able to now suggest certain things, say we should do this point of action, blah, blah, blah, and everything just started taking shape. So anyway, OK, I guess that was the wrong example to use because that's more of a personal thing and this is a business podcast. But I'm just trying to show you how indirect communications is something that we have to deal with, especially those of us who are much more modern minded when it comes to doing business over here.

Also, one moment. OK, 15 minutes. So let me bring it to a close. I'm trying to make sure that podcast episodes don't drag on for too long. So, yeah, so indirect communications, unfortunately something we have to deal with in Nigeria, of course, depends on whether in a simple context, simple sales context, the complex sales scenario, those sorts of things. Then respect for hierarchy. Also something that I mentioned yesterday, in your communications, in your e-mail,

in your phone call, in your letter writing, in your proposal writing, consider the seniority of the person, the person's position, the person's sex, the person's marital status is the person in chief. You know, consider all those things when you're sending the e-mail and all these sorts of things because you don't want to end up taking taking people off for the wrong reasons. There's something that's happened to me before.

My mom wanted me to drop off something with a business associate of hers a long time ago, back when I was a teenager and learning how to drive. And of course, then any excuse to drive was, I mean, not looking for any excuse to drive. So she's like, here, take the car keys, drive to the island, drop this thing off with this woman, this and this. And this is what we're working on. And please, when you go there, you are to address this woman as Doctor, Missus engineer.

So, so, so, so, so, so, so, so. I said, OK, yeah, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. No problem. And I took the keys. I didn't pay attention to my mom. I took the thing, drove to the island. Then I called. And when I was outside the gate, so hello, please. Is this Madam? So, so, so, so. She says yes. So OK, I'm here from Benedictal party. The message Something, something, something. OK, come in. And I come in and then I greet the woman again the same way I'll greet my other mom's friends, the whole thing of oh,

good afternoon, my lovely home, everything and whatnot. And this woman stopped me sharp in my tracks and she said, young man, I am doctor, Miss engineer something, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I said, oh, I'm sorry, man. That was my first experience of that sort of thing. It happens in this part of the world. So pay attention to hierarchy. So consider seniority, position and all those other other stuff. It might seem excessive to some of us who grew up with a much more modern mindset.

Or for some people in this part of the world, it is important that you call the person Chief Pharmacist Okoro and you don't just say, oh, Mr. Okoro, how are you or Mr. Okoro, good morning, how's the family? OK, so let me move on because I think that's simple enough. Yes. Now respect for hierarchy. Now, there's also a reverse aspect of looking at this sort of thing. It also helps in this part of the world if you show courtesy,

if you show respect, if you show politeness and if you show regard to gatekeepers, secretaries, security guards, underlings, case officers, clerks, admin officers, whatever it is you want to call them. Respecting these people will go a long way because in this part of the world, these sorts of people are ignored. You just brushed by the secretary. Hey, good morning. How are you, Sir? Is Ogar Chukudin, Tell him that Chief Chief George is here and just go all the way in and then,

you know, the secretary just passes you in. But then if you show up and you're nice to the security guards and to the secretaries and stuff like that, it goes a long way. It makes your visits a lot smoother. The number of hoops you have to jump through reduce because you've been nice to these sorts of people. And I've said time and time again on the podcast that back in my wedding photography days and my event photography days,

this is something that I took advantage of. So it didn't matter what we were covering. Even back when the vice president was going to be at, it was a British Council program. The vice president was going to be at Ventures, Ventures Incubation Park in Abuja. And I didn't, for me, I had no hassles about it 'cause I've been there a bunch of time or school with the security guards. So I just went there a day ahead and say, hey, Bros, how now?

How are you doing this VP program? I'm coming tomorrow. So I beg you guys, keep an eye out for me. You know, that sort of thing. And I showed up and I was able to get entry quite easily. So when I was doing the training for the media team in the British High Commission was one of the things that they complained about like this is the event I'm trying to get in, security is being an ass, blah, blah, blah. You know, these are the reasons why in this part of the world we don't pay attention to these sorts of people, and so they react accordingly.

So if you've been nice to a security guard, to a secretary, to a gatekeeper, to a clerk, to an admin officer, to a whatever, it doesn't have to be something complicated. Just remembering the person's name and how are the children or something, you know, you seem different. You're not trying to blow past them. So respect, politeness, flattery, whatever you want to call it in the opposite end also takes you a long way as well.

Sometimes this is the thing. Sometimes this is a solution to making sure that your file in quote You know when you're trying to do things with the civil service. Sometimes this is a solution to making sure that your file does not disappear. You haven't been nice to the people who you consider to be underlings. Your file will conveniently disappear until your attitude improves your attitude in quote. So be nice to these people.

Your file will not disappear. Your communications will go through and you will find that whenever you stop by the office and you want to see Olga, you'll be surprised that you'll be ushered in to see Olga a whole lot more than other people are. Then there's a whole thing of use of proverbs and idioms. Yeah, you can can take that into account, but as if you know the lingo enough, well, even if you're a foreigner and you try and you get it wrong, at least it will be.

At least it will be. What's the word? People find it endearing, Like, oh, OK, at least he's trying. So yeah, try. But only do this for interpersonal communications. Don't do proverbs and idioms when it comes to e-mail proposal, written reports and those sorts of things. So you can use interpersonal proverbs and idioms, you know, to build rapport. So instead of saying worst case scenario, you know, you can say last last, you know, for instance, you know that that boner boy song, yeah, last, last everybody, everybody go chop breakfast.

So last last worst case scenario is something worst case scenario, you say last, last everybody understands what you're trying to say. Then if you're talking about OK, which other one? OK, let me use which other one. OK, go collect. So when you say somebody go collect or you say the person will chop breakfast, it just means the person is going to get his just desserts. So you use all these kinds of lingo, like with Nigerians of a certain age, for instance, like my own age, if you were to say somebody was a bad guy or a bad girl, it doesn't mean that the person has done poorly, it means that the person is highly competent.

So if you say arching Irish, she's a bad girl as you forget, you know. So within a certain context, that means she's highly competent. And if you say Coonley is a bad guy, it means that he's an assassin. He's very competent, you want the job done, you give him a call. But remember, if you're going to use proverbs and idioms, all of this is not for written communications, it is not for official communications. Then translation of marketing collateral into local languages,

that is also something we need to take into account, especially for those of you that are trying to sell on behalf of national organisations or multinational organisations. And I've spoken about how there's a case study of Nine Mobile try to 9 mobile, not to what do you call them mobile national mobile carrier try to penetrate the northern market in Nigeria and how their radio campaigns for the north had to be segmented.

So the campaigns that ran in Kano were not the same that ran in Kaduna and stuff like that because of local variations in Hausa. So these are some of the things that you ought to pay attention to as well. So yeah, over 20 minutes. Let me bring it to a close. Please hold on. WhatsApp phone number is 0806466 2140. Country code is +234. Connect with me on WhatsApp because I love talking to you guys. Then also connect with me on WhatsApp.

My name is Tavishima Ayede, I'm the host of the show. You can confirm the spelling of my name and my e-mail address from the link. We're currently listening to this episode, so thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.