The Posho Mill

The Posho Mill

Outline:

This is a business owned by a married couple, born before independence of Kenya. This discussion reviews the business plan or lack of it and how the Posho mill thrives almost by luck. The Posho Mill then goes through economic tough times and there are many bizarre decisions made during that time....the owners grant more credit and they tend to hold inventory even more. The couples children, now grown are interested in reviving the Posho mill...maybe for sentimental reasons, and perhaps for profit. But somehow the US educated children, seem to be making the same intergenerational errors that their parents made...even though at first those errors are so apparent.

The vicious cycle is one of 'who moved my cheese'. Both generations do not grasp this reality and due to cultural influences are 'stuck' in a cycle.

The posho mill chugs on in the hopes of future success depending on uncontrollable environmental conditions.

The Posho Mill is a story about looking into a business with different lens and making assumptions about the direction of a business while ignoring data. Whether we now believe that the Posho Mill was once a viable business or whether it was only viable when the owners were actively employed depends on the lens of the reader.

What brought the Posho Mill business to its knees? Did the owners keep any records from which we can learn?

Avoidance of keeping records is at the root of the business failure. Assuming that the business continues to do well without any data to prove it was the beginning of the end.

The Posho Mill was indeed a hobby for it's owners that eventually landed up becoming a costly venture that began to affect family ties.

Because it was rooted in the belief that every 'season' meaning every rainly season would bring a big yield and therefore big profits, the owners kept at it wishing that was the case as the past had proved.

However due to unforeseen circumstances, that landed up not being the case and unbeknown to the owners, they were caught off-guard!

It is the 10th year since the Posho Mill made a profit. Actually, no one ever recorded a profit at the Posho mill. What they recorded was cash flow. Cash in and cash out. No one asked where the cash in came from; there were two sources of cash in - customers who came to get Posho milled, and the owner who paid the Mill maintenance. Of course Cash out went to maintenance and purchases of Posho for those customers. Sometimes there was enough cash to use to pay fees for the Mill owners; but there were no separate accounts to identify cash from the mill and cash from the owner. Somehow no one asked as long as the Mill operated. What puzzled the owners was how the Cash in suddenly dwindled - no, it came to a grinding halt, when one of the owners retired from a steady income stream.

The Posho mill opened early in the morning. There was nothing formal about its opening. Actually, the padlock was the only way one could tell whether the mill was either open or closed. There was one employee who came to "mama" every morning; after a cup of tea or üji, someone would open the padlock and the mill would be open. I sometimes opened the mill and after opening it, I would lock the padlock on the door handle and carefully place the bunch of keys on a ledge behind the door.

The year was 1980 when the Posho Mill re-opened. It had existed since the 1930's. Having been shut down for over twenty years, it was now in terrible shape; human faeces all over the place,
garbage, animal waste etc.

The new owners took one look and almost walked away from the derelict but decided to give it a shot. There were a lot of decisions to be made fast - should the posho mill run on old generators, should non-existing electricity be installed, should new posho mills be bought, what hours should the business run?

The mill was a gift from someone the family knew. Its history was as obscure as the future that the owners envisioned. Somehow the previous owner had a history that could only be described as sketchy, but that is another story. But the current state of affairs was not good. There were no books of record to help predict the future of the mill. All the owners had was hope and given the fact that wages were low, hope in the mill seemed better than no hope at all.

Neighbors and friends knew about the mill. They all believed it was a bad idea to re-open the mill but the new owners were adamant. They sought ex-employees who had an idea how to run the old machines and were lucky enough to find a couple of people that had worked there in the past.

Those employees were skeptical too but they played along since they were getting paid. Is this indicative of the Kenyan way (or perhaps the employee mentality where they just do not care? )

The idea of running a business appealed to the new business owners and although there was no business plan, there was a plan to hope that "if you build it, they (customers) will come".

How does the business kick off? Was there any fanfare? Was it so informal that no one actually noticed until someone was actually working there?

It was very informal and it took days for anyone to notice the business had even started. This would have gone on longer had it not been for the loud sound of the diesel machines.

The posho mill machines became quiet a costly burden for the owners with generators and high costs of diesel not to mention the pollution and deafening noise of the ancient machines. Something had to be done about this - the machines kept breaking down and they needed two very strong men to get them started.

The new owners embarked on importing new machines that needed electricity so they had to apply for a 3-phase grid to run these machines. Luckily one of the business owners was employed and therefore could afford to source the capital needed to get the business going.

It took a couple of years to get the mill fully functioning with brand new machines and using the newly installed electricity - it was no small feat.

Now the mill was running full force, everyone in town knew it was open and they knew the owners but there was one issue!

The owners were new to this town and no one really knew them and so they had to gain the residents trust; the way business works in this part of the world is that people buy from who they know and trust'.

The benefit though was that this was the only posho mill in town and since cornflour was one of the country's staple food, that worked to the owner's benefit.

One evening after a pretty satisfactory day, the owner was accosted by the local health inspection officer saying that they was were spider/cob web and this was a health issue - the owner was immediately hailed to the police station and the mill was shut down. Lucky for the owner, it was a drought period and food was really needed so the police chief immediately ordered the mill be re-opened but cleaned.

Other unexpected issues that the owners could have never anticipated were about to crop up!

The owner could have done nothing to prepare her for what was about to begin happening - The person running the mill was a woman in her early to mid forties and used to wear pants to work; she was relatively light skinned and small bodied and spoke to everyone very politely. Soon the women and men near the business location were jealous of her and her hard work and started to sabotage the business in many ways. Times were so trying that the owners contemplated shutting down shop; at one point licences had expired for one day and the owner was put into a jail cell!

It took a lot of heart and diligence and perseverance to keep the business going. The owners had three children in their teenage years and so the challenge was magnified because they had to spend time raising their children and starting a new business; to further the challenge, the business was located in another town about half an hour each way so that added to the family commute time. The family also had to find quality babysitters to help with raising the kids.

The business continued for many years without too much success; it would pay for it's maintenance, workers and sustain itself so the owners were 'stuck' in a state where business was not too great but just good enough to break-even or so they thought!

One day the unbelievable happened! A huge famine hit neighbouring Northern countries and AMREF had a huge deal to grind yellow corn denoted by the US to produce cornflour.

As luck would have it, the Posho Mill owners landed this deal - this was like finding an oasis in the desert - The diamond search had paid off!

With this turn of events the posho mill was catapulted to it's next level. A level that the owners could not handle. With this came other new issues that could have never have been imagined!

Would the posho mill hack it? Would they survive, would they be up to par for this new venture?

Business owners in Kenya do not usually document any strategic plans, so we will never know what the game plan was when orders to mill Posho came about? Owners tend not to document strategies to meet increased demands. One can observe this because the Posho mill did not increase its capacity.

How did the owners perform when AMREF called for service?

Meanwhile, in the city, someone else was also starting a new business, to sell fried fish and potatoes (fish and chips). The business began almost in secret, although there was discussion within the adult circles to begin a business. The model was simple; buy potatoes at the market, and fry them deep in oil.

Owner ship meant that the mother could make managerial decisions such as where the equipment was kept and hiring decisions. But once hiring decisions were made, the owner needed to get approval from the investor to reverse the decision. The investor was the husbannd to the owner.

What direction do we want the Posho Mill to take? Do we want, for example, to show how we run businesses without a biz plan and how transparency is so opaque? Do we want to discuss managerial issues with family businesses?

the human element - Addiction

I have been reading lately. That book - the world without us (Wiesman) - has somehow been validating thoughts I have had long ago. Humans are addicted to thoughts of being indestructible. We are somehow trained to believe that even though we will die, like the leaves in the fall, there will be a future either in heaven or hell.

We want to hold on to everything; if we are not holding on to some worldly possession, we are trying to hold on to thoughts of a loved one, or thoughts...and these sometimes becomes thoughts of an everlasting life.

We become gamblers - compulsive gamblers every Sabbath - in a game where we have a 50% chance that we will have an everlasting life. Every Sabbath day, we hope to increase our chance by chanting and reciting words of reinforcement, and thoughts that we hope will help maintain our peace.

But what does this have to do with reading this book by Alan Weisman? Alan works on showing us that the earth takes everything back, recycles it, changes it, but fundamentally the earth wins the game of life. We die, and our remains turn to soil, something grows as a result. That's it! The soul is an invention made up to keep our addiction to life going.

Self Entitlement

On the first day they met, he lied a little, but to cover the little lies, he had to use bigger lies. Eventually the lies could not be covered up any more. The day arrived when they would be in the water, and he had lied that he could swim. Slowly the boat sunk and everyone who could swim jumped in the water, holding out for the 50 yards swim.

He sat at the bow of the sinking ship. What lie could save him now? He sat and hoped for a miracle. The time passed, water rushed in, and he cried in desparation.

A stranger saw this and threw a miracle line to him. He saw this opportunity and in a few minutes he was on shore. Knowing that the old friends from the boat did not see this action, he thanked the stranger and promised to repay for his kindness. He promptly ran to his friends and talked about the dangerous water and the swim from the boat to shore.

"Thank God we could all swim!", exclaimed the old friends. He joined in, but never revealed the Strangers act of kindness. This was a secret. As far as the old friends were concerned, he could swim. So, as it was in the beginning, he began to weave a new yarn, but this time he was careful not to jump in the boat with them.

People can be so unkind to themselves.

Leaving Kerugoya Kutus

How does it feel to leave your home town to live in another country? Does it mean that you say good bye to your friends or family? I remember that when I left Kerugoya-Kutus, it was really without the thought of who I was leaving behind. It was careless, selfish and perhaps even with disregard to my own well being.

I did not even think about my grandmothers words. You know, she used to kiss me and beg me to hug her because it would probably be our last; everytime I saw her for about 10 years of my visiting her in Kerugoya-Kutus.

I am tempted to start describing the Kerugoya-Kutus I lived in, but I will not. Where would I start? I definately would start with the cheap mandazis in the town center and the wonderful people that smiled and said hello to me as if they knew me, and I knew them.

Leaving Kerugoya-Kutus was saying "No"to sharing life with others, others who had cared for me and others so close, my parents. Since I left, there have been so many funerals, births, and weddings: None of which I ever attended. I hear of them in the same way I hear of an election when listening to the radio.

There was the mountain with snow and trees. When I returned 5 years later, the mountain was bald -as my head had become - and the snow, gone. Then there were the neighbors whose childrens noses I would wipe; and everytime I returned, the children were progressively growing. One day, I went to visit and I could hardly tell who the young woman with a child was. It was the little baby I once held, now grown and a with a child. She looked so much like her mother, now that I was reminded who she was.

The roads had become dustier, trees gone, rivers had gone dry. Everyone blamed the President Moi for all this. How could one President who had never lived here do this? The people were in great denial and somehow seemed to blame everything that had gone wrong on someone or on God. Yes, the churches were bigger, much bigger! That must be where the money was going.

Then one day, I returned to Kerugoya-Kutus; my grandmother had died and I was serious about coming to live in Kerugoya-Kutus. I did not want to leave after the funeral. But I must have been the only one thinking this way. Everyone else came to put the body in the grave or to wonder what was going to happen to the things and the people she left behind. So, I left, again and this time I did not have the appetite to return.

Leaving with a purpose and a hope that life in the future will be better than it would be if I had stayed. It was like gambling on a stock that everyone else was buying. But wait! There is more....later.