The text below is from one of our own, enjoy The Road to Victoria Island, the latest book by Suraj Oyewale (better known on social media as Jarus), will no doubt hold the average reader spellbound. Starting from the title, which tests the IQ (Intelligence Quotient) of the average reader, the compendium of 213 pages gives practical guides on how to achieve success in the corporate world and beyond.
In this interview with TheCable, Jarus shares parts the secrets of his success. He acknowledges that the ideas shared in the book, which covers the entire career chain from preparation to retirement, are localised, but he says they can be replicated anywhere in the world.
A first class graduate of economics and an award-winning chartered accountant, the author bares his mind on topical issues in this interview.
Congratulations on the success of publishing this new book, how did you arrive at the title?
Interestingly, when I started writing the book, that was not the title I was contemplating. Along the line, I wanted to be more creative. I didn’t want to use something straightforward, such as “How to get and retain job in Nigeria”, “How to achieve a rewarding career in Nigeria”, “The Road to Career Success”, etc. I wanted something more captivating, more creative. I decided to use Victoria Island as a metaphor for the 9-5 career in Nigeria.
In Corporate America, Wall Street usually serves that purpose. Wall Street is regarded as corporate capital of America, just as Silicon Valley is the start-up capital of the world. When you hear Victoria Island, the first thing that should come to your mind is career, being where a good number of top companies in Nigeria have their headquarters. In fact, it’s like you have not yet arrived as a company in Nigeria if you don’t have an office in VI. So I decided to use VI as a metaphor for 9-5 career in Nigeria.
Unfortunately, many Nigerians still find it difficult to figure that out. My distribution team has had to address questions like, “Why doesn’t the book contain map of Victoria Island? Is it not a guide to the roads in Victoria Island?” One man even asked one of my guys, “Hey, I’m coming from VI, I know the way to VI”, before even checking the book. That is the tragedy of our society. People read things literally. Not even the long subtitle of the book, “A guide to climbing career ladder in corporate Nigeria”, made some people decode that Victoria Island was only used metaphorically in the short title.
There are so many books out there, what stands The Road to Victoria Island out?
I have read a number on books on careers in Nigeria and frankly, I have never come across a book that treats that subject the way I did. You only get that level of details in books focusing on Corporate America. The book is replete with examples and case studies every Ade, Ada and Adamu can relate with. The examples used here are not from GE or Apple or Microsoft, but from local organisations – the Globacoms, the Oandos, the KPMGs of this country. That’s what stands the book out. I narrated my experiences to buttress a lot of points. I also narrated experiences of friends, junior and senior colleagues, etc. I spoke with a number of executives including CEO of Accenture Nigeria, and they narrated their career journeys, how they rose to where they are today. They are all contained in the book.
Can you share some of the challenges you encountered in the process of producing this publication?
The only major challenge I had was balancing quality with affordability. It’s a book which readership cuts across different cadres in the career chain – from students preparing for post-school career to the CEO already running a company. The price a senior executive can afford, a student or a corps member may be unable to pay. Yet, quality of production is driven by cost of production, which in turns drives pricing. If I produce a book for N2000 per copy, the price cannot be less than N4000 if I factor in marketing costs and all that. While a section of the readership (the working professionals) may not have a problem paying that for the book, the young graduate may not find it affordable. At the same time, I didn’t want to compromise the quality, even while wanting to make it affordable to the young readers too. As you may know, per unit production cost drops with volume, and I only wanted to print 500 copies for start, which is small, and means higher per unit cost. At the end of the day, we settled for a publisher that was able to strike balance somewhere. That is why we are able to arrive at a selling price of N2000 only, which covers the production cost, the marketing costs and a little margin.
A prospective reader may want to know how a compendium of 213 pages will address issues that affect different categories of people: students, graduates, unemployed, professionals.
The book has 11 chapters. The first chapter deals with how to excel in academics, sharing my experiences and those of friends that made stellar grades in Nigerian schools. I started with education because that’s one area many people neglect. The journey to career success actually starts from school. I later moved to job search, where I shared proven insights on how to ace the recruitment processes. I talked extensively on passing interviews. Then I moved to workplace issues, how to achieve career success in Nigeria, how to move up the career ladder, giving examples from successful professionals in Nigeria. I also discussed management styles of some Nigerian executives in the closing chapters. So it’s a chain. Young professionals will find in it how to climb career ladder in Nigeria, unemployed graduates will find in it how to surmount the recruitment challenges, senior professionals will read what other accomplished executives like Atedo Peterside of StanbicIBTC did differently. It serves everyone irrespective of where they are in the career chain. http://www.thecable.ng/what-you-never-knew-about-victoria-island. 8 Likes 8 Shares |
