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| Esv. Patrick Una, CEO, Una & Associates |
The
Chief Executive Officer of the firm, ESV Patrick Una, is an accomplished
technocrat and a Certified Professional Manager with vast industry experience
spanning three decades. Pat is an Alumnus of the Lagos Business School Owner
Manager Programme (OMP1) and holds a Masters in Business Administration,
specializing in Technology Management. He has attended Managerial and
Leadership courses in leading institutions and a Fellow of the Nigerian
Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers; Board member, Estate Surveyors and
Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria; Member, Nigerian Institute of Management
(Chartered) and Institute of Directors. He spoke on the Focus of a CEO in this
interview. Sit back and enjoy it.
How
do you feel as the pioneer and the only NIS ISO 9001:2008 Certified Estate
Surveying and Valuation firm in Nigeria?
I am humbled as a person
and I am also proud for the award because the feat bears testament to our
corporate vision, perseverance and focus to dare where others hesitate. This
significant milestone marks the beginning of internationalization of our system
and process to enhance global competitiveness and compliance with global best
practices. It is novel as it has never happened in the history of our
professional practice in Nigeria. I feel fulfilled and most importantly I give
glory to God because without Him we can achieve nothing. I’ll continue to give
God the glory for where we are today because it takes His grace to think
strategically, stay focused, and be committed. Impact of ISO certification to
your operations: ISO certification would help us meet global standards in
professional practice. It has greatly enhanced our efficiency and improved our
processes.
This has helped us
tremendously in our quest for internationalization. It is important to note
that getting certified means that Una and Associates was benchmarked against
global best practices and found to have a robust quality Management System. It
is a clear sign that we are committed to providing superior quality services
with the aim of achieving customer satisfaction. What we have done essentially
is to raise the bar in quality service delivery.
For our stakeholders and
the regulators, they‘ll have more confidence in us because we have a good
framework for corporate governance. Our vision is to be the preferred real
estate firm most admired for its exceptional service while our mission is to
consistently provide unique and high quality service to meet our customers’
expectation; when you align that with our quality policy and objective you see
us providing excellent service to meet international standards. We’ve trained
six system auditors that will ensure that the quality management system is
sustained and continual improvement in service delivery. We assure our clients
that we may not be the biggest but we will be the most committed to their
success.
Most
entrepreneurs find it difficult to build to last, what can be done to guard
against this?
Let me take you to some of
my thought on building organizations. Two books have really influenced me,
‘Good to Great’ by Jim Collins, his research showed that great companies have
greater purpose and bigger vision beyond making money and being No 1 in the
market. Unfortunately, most Nigerian entrepreneurs fall into the trap of just
making money rather than building for a purpose much bigger than them. For us,
we’ll make money while building lives. Thank God we are 16years now; we took
time to get a tenacious team because we are determined to build an all-round
quality organization. I want to create a great place to work. I have also been
inspired by the book written by Sheik Mohammed Ibn Rashid AlMaktoum, in his
book “My Vision”: Challenges in the Race for Excellence, “he said most people
talk, we do things, they plan, we achieve; they hesitate we move ahead……..” We
have put systems and processes in place to enable this organization run
seamlessly without micro managing people.
We have also started
continuous training for our team. We have a strategic plan for talent
management to develop our people within the leadership pipeline model that will
make delegation of authority very easy. On the role of mentoring in business
success: Talent management encompasses mentoring, coaching and training as it
helps employees to understand their roles because the system, process and structures
that have been put in place must be run by people. At the point of leaving
school, leadership is not taught in the university, you need to mentor, coach
and train people as they are the pivot of any organization. Human capital
development is key to a successful organization. We now have an HR manger in
house to equip the employees for the challenges ahead.
Assessment of the Industry:
The industry is growing in leaps and bounds but the major challenge of the
industry is the proliferation of small firms. Everybody wants to open an office
and sometimes they lack the leadership and managerial skills to run an
organization successfully. I believe in specialization, we should be able to
have very big firms with core areas of specialization. Our core competence is
in the area of assets/plant and machinery valuation, where we have the capacity
and expertise. My brief stint in the banking sector made me to appreciate the
importance of corporate structures and business discipline which have affected
our culture here. The ISO certification has reinforced our vision, mission and
primary objective to ensure business sustainability, continuity because
investors are interested in working with service providers that have the
ability to meet customer, statutory and regulatory requirements. In the next
Five years: Success is succeeding in succession.
We’ll keep on adding value.
We are an adaptive organization that is willing to make changes; an
organization that understands the dynamics of change. So, we are ready to learn.
We’ll continue to develop people within the leadership hierarchy, like pepsi
cola said “we put people in good jobs before they are ready” Already, we are
engaging our employee through talent management to get people who are ready to
drive this oraganisation. Employee engagement is vital to the success of any
organization; we give ownership of work to our employee and delegate authority
not just tasks. We have successfully changed the mentality of our work force by
our creed“ do the impossible, think different”.
Driving force: My
inspiration has always been the word of God. This I hold unto because it
inspires me for direction For me, everything I am and everything I’ll ever
become, yesterday, today and tomorrow , I believe I am specially blessed. I believe
I do carry an unusual grace that drives what I do. Professional practice is not
all about material acquisition, you must have passion for professionalism and
excellence. It was a strategic decision because we are in a globalised world.
The market has changed and competition has also changed. So, industry players
need to change before competition changes them. For us, we need to be globally
competitive and embrace international best practices.
What
can government do differently to enhance the growth of the Housing industry?
Government should not leave
the housing challenge to the private sector. They should create an enabling
environment for long term funding with one digit interest rate to enable the
private sector access funds to compliment government efforts. There has to be
intervention for this critical sector by the government. The essence of system,
structures and processes is to keep things on track so that the country can
flourish. For me, I see hope for the nation because the President is doing
things systematically.
I implore Nigerians that at
every level of their influence, they should stop being indisciplined. When
there’s a disciplined culture in any society, the society flourishes. Advice to
professionals: For the young professionals, they should learn the ropes. It is
not the qualification that makes you a good professional; it is on the job
training and experience. I always admonish young ones to be focused, be patient
and work hard. My sincere advice to upcoming professionals is to believe they
can do and achieve whatever they set their minds to do. They should not forget
that if there are no difficulties, there will be no success. The importance of
learning for personal development cannot be overemphasized because there is no
limit as to what one can learn. Above all, the grace of God is what will
sustain them. (Guardian)
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