Success lessons from Dr Chilima—Part 1

As we mourn the sudden and heart-breaking death of the country’s Vice-President Dr. Saulos Klaus Chilima and eight of his colleagues in a plane crash in Mzimba on Monday, June 10, let us take a moment to learn some lessons from this great citizen of Malawi.

We all know that he achieved a lot while young. He became the managing director (MD) of Airtel Malawi plc at 37 only and Vice-President at the age of 41 only, among many big achievements.

At his church too, the Catholic Church, he was very instrumental on many fronts and was loved by many across the country.

I had the luck of working for him as information technology director when he was MD of Airtel Malawi plc. He was my boss for three years until he joined frontline politics.

We remained friends until his death and so I have first-hand knowledge of some of the things that made him uniquely successful.

Time management: Dr. Saulos Chilima had great respect for time. There were many sides to this. First, he made very efficient and effective programmes for his actions and engagements and he mostly stuck to them. He rarely changed plans and only did so when it was necessary. He was always on time. He kept time. If you have a meeting with him for 30 minutes, it will not overflow because he has to move to the next engagement on time. However, the 30 minutes meeting would be so focused that at the end it literally sounded like one hour or even two hours.

Focus on half the things: One time, Dr. Saulos Chilima told me not to worry about things that I cannot control. That is when he introduced me to the Serenity Prayer whose printout he had on his working table in the office.

It reads: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Many times we waste time with things that we cannot change. He used to give the example of being stuck in heavy traffic. He said you cannot change that. Accept that you are stuck in the traffic. Even if you hoot so much or shout, the traffic jam will not change. Accept that you cannot change the traffic jam. He focussed on the things he can change.

He used to say the world has half things you cannot change, but there is the other half of things that you can influence and change. He believed that by focusing on just the half things that you can change, you can achieve a lot in life. Many of us waste time on things we cannot change at all.

Focus on big things: In all things he did, Dr. Chilima focused on big ticket agendas. Small things rarely mattered to him. He was a master at doing big things. On the other hand, many of us major in minor things, thereby wasting a lot of time on very small things that are not important at all. Many times, we get dragged into unimportant things.

Connecting with people of value: Dr. Chilima was very humble and approachable to everyone. He talked to everyone and connected with everyone. For his professional work, he made sure he had a powerful network of all people that delivered value. He had connections in all key sectors of the economy. He knew that human capital has no substitute. How much are you doing to grow your human capital and professional networks, especially with people that matter?

Calmness: Many of us shake and tremble easily when things go wrong. On the other hand, Dr. Chilima was a master of calmness. Even in the face of big crisis, Dr. Chilima was calm. He believed that when you are calm, you are able to think better and solve problems. If you are shaken or stressed, you will fail to solve the problem and instead you will compound it further.

Do be there next week when we share more success lessons that we can learn from the late Dr. Saulos Klaus Chilima aka SKC