What Is A Company? – A Timely and Relevant Question in the Search for Corporate Excellence

Mutumwa Mawere, 05/01/2021

What is a company? This question may appear to be simple and stupid yet to others it is a timely and relevant one in the search for corporate excellence.

The history of corporate civilization is well established to remind us that when 2 or more gather in the name of corporate heritage matters, then enlightenment and enrichment will follow.

History does not lie. It is created by the reality lived by the people it represents.

The WhatsApp group – What Is A Company was created on 13 December 2020 as a platform to share insights, ideas, knowledge and experiences on the chosen question – what is a company?

Its second citizen was me and the third was Ms. Vimbai Chiwuswa, a member of C2C who is based in the UK, and followed by Ms. Yvonne Mwamba, also a paid up member of C2C.

A story can be told about the birth of this child called a community or association. Mr. Manyati is also a paid up member of C2C.

Prior to the creation of this group, an idea existed that the absence of a shared understanding on what a company is and is not was an important and urgent conversation that could provoke, ignite and inspire new conversations on how best to heal wider societal divisions that follow from ignorance.

In order to create a group, an individual need another one to constitute a quorum. It is fact that a group needs no more than 2 persons to give it birth.

Its character and personality is shaped and defined by its human constituent parts.

It would follow that the four founding members shared a common interest in investing time to build a community of persons who have an interest in improving their personal knowledge on this animal.

The question: What Is A Company?- was a natural consequence of the interest expressed by Ms. Chiwuswa, an senior member of C2C who joined after being inspired by my personal involvement in it as an ordinary member and not as a leader.

In response to her request for me to be her mentor, I told her that I am also a student of this corporate identity quest and as such as a student as well, I was not competent to be a mentor.

However, I told her that I would be a volunteer to participate in any organized and structured group of members seeking to improve their literacy on this question alone.

It was my hope and optimism that we would use the question to build a body of knowledge on the question as a mechanism to diversify the content of issues that inform many discourses among people who are so educated but illiterate on the properties of a company.

Imagine one day, a company did not exist and this day like 13 December 2020, somehow a new company called the Dutch East India Company (DEIC), was born as the first formal company. What could have informed the name and objects of the company?

One would soon learn that in order for this creature to be, it needed a legal framework to give it life in the form of articles and memorandum of association.

Equally, there was an idea with the Dutch and East India elements in it as history is pregnant with the facts and circumstances of this company.

However, the passage of time itself makes it uninteresting for many to learn from the history of events and how significant in the affairs of mankind beyond the creators of this idea, the inclusion of a company in the affairs of mankind was.

It enabled a new form of business organization to take root. The first company was owed by a second and then by others.

As we look back, we can celebrate the genius of the idea and its mobility in reducing the frontiers of ego to allow human beings to be part of something bigger than themselves. It allowed for diversity and succession.

As part of the factual matrix of this group’s heritage, I had challenged Vimbai to join me in provoking a C2C community of 100 persons in order to build a class that learning and networks could be built.

As anyone can see, the four of us would by doing something in the name of the group, attract others to choose to want to be part of this heritage and identity mentorship class.

I could simply have said to Vimbai go and find 99 others persons including her to make this class but I chose to be part of the challenge by being one of its parents. In choosing to be part of this, I had indirectly answered the request by Vimbai for me to be her mentor.

In this case, by being part of the problem, I believed then as I still do today that the problem that mentorship seeks to address must be known by both the people who need mentorship and those who are expected to solve it.

I told Vimbai that in order for me to be her mentor, I also needed to understand the problem statement.

What is the problem statement? A person like Vimbai from what she independently knew of me, she genuinely believed that the inclusion of me in her circle of people could accelerate her climb to where she aspires to be as a person.

The request for me to be her mentor was informed by her self-pursuit of happiness and not necessarily in my interest.

I never lived my life in order for me to be consumed worthy to be a mentor or role model to another human being and as such, I was never prepared to be a competent and qualified mentor.

In the premise, I also did not have a script to guide me in the execution of this task. It is not difficult to imagine why I was embarrassed to embrace a task without knowing what it entailed.

How many people would accept a request without knowing what it entails to be excellent in it? This explains why I am a member of the group. So when Brian joined C2C, I also told him about the corporate ILLITERACY challenge.

He agreed to take a next step and be the change sought. The group was established and exists to allow anyone who joined later to determine whether it is providing the agency or vehicle towards a shared understanding on what a company is and is not.

It would be unfair for me to be a judge on the promise and challenges but what would be fair is for me a member to be judged by what I have actually done in the name of the group.

There are many who complain that I am trigger happy to expose group conversations to the worldwide arena. Indeed, a person who wants help from me including mentorship would rarely want others to know without any regard of the cost to me.

Imagine you are the prettiest woman in a village devoid of other pretty women, you would be the busiest in chasing away suitors.

Imagine you are in a WhatsApp group and the rest of the mentors want advice from you but choose to inbox you, what then would follow? If you choose to mentor one, what would be the justification for refusing to accede to the second and third requests?

The reality is that time is finite and no single individual can deliver the promise of a happy life without the agency of others.

If one were to convert the words shared in this group into a word document, what would be your guess in terms of the percentage of the words that are related to the quest and speed to reach to the target of a circle of 100?

I am sure you and I would be shocked to know that there are people who constructively seek to divert and undermine the promise to Vimbai and others that this group would be used as a platform to allow the four founding personas to behave like meat that never suffers the burden of inviting meat to it.

If the meat is like a mini skirt, it follows that flies would be hovering around the person wearing the skirt that is short enough to arouse interest and long enough to cover the subject.

If you believe that learning has no boundaries, please join us so that we reach to the target of a class of 100.

Finally, ask not what this group can do for you but what you choose to do in the name of the group to advance your interests.

Never be part of a group and choose to sit like a cabbage in it. We are created equal to allow no one to be the reason why people should choose to associate.

Let us make problem solving the reason we choose to be part of communities in which problems occur. Be the change. You are the bank of hope and just pause to imagine what would follow if you copied this message and add your own take on it before you share it openly and widely?

Would this promote acceleration, aggregation and optimization? If yes, wait for no one to do it.

It is stories like the one from Mr. David Mushove who is in this group that inspire me daily to give up time so that literacy on what matters can be a reality and promise.

I have copied and shared with you in the belief that this conversation may provoke you to rethink about your own purpose in the group and whether your attitude on it is what is required to give it altitude.

[1/4, 5:59 PM] David Mushove: Good evening sire, I respect your person, character and initiatives Mkoma.

My father worked for Shabanie mine, ndokwatakakurira and I have first-hand information of how you transformed lives, mine included, through the employment of my father pa Shabanie when We used to say Shabanie ndibaba .

So my humble request to you boss is that this kind of conversation just ignore mofambira mberi nekuita zvimwe mabasa enyu achataura Mkoma

[1/4, 6:00 PM] mdmawere1: Thanks. Who is this?

[1/4, 6:01 PM] David Mushove: The name is Donald Mushove, a forensic expert, and poet among other things

[1/4, 6:02 PM] mdmawere1: Great. I am trying to understand your message and its import.

[1/4, 6:02 PM] mdmawere1: Are you not concerned that silence is the greatest betrayal?

[1/4, 6:03 PM] David Mushove: I followed your conversation with the other guy posted on the group but I realized that the person you are conversing with is evading what you are saying choosing to answer to otherwise unasked questions

[1/4, 6:04 PM] mdmawere1: Which person? You mean Mr. Brian Manyati.

[1/4, 6:07 PM] David Mushove: That is why I said this kind of conversation pamusoro apo Mkoma, I am in total agreement that we have to speak (I am a contributing poet, in a book called Speak available on Amazon, and have a poem titled speak in my upcoming book titled Bullfrog vibrations: the drumbeat), so I standing for speaking out, but vamwe vanhu havanzwi ivavo my way of dealing them ndovasiya

[1/4, 6:07 PM] David Mushove: Yes

[1/4, 6:08 PM] mdmawere1: Are you enjoying the group?

[1/4, 6:09 PM] David Mushove: A lot, am a student of life, so am learning a lot

[1/4, 6:09 PM] mdmawere1: Have you registered as a member?

[1/4, 6:10 PM] David Mushove: Was yet to do so, what is required of me to register Mkoma,

[1/4, 9:30 PM] mdmawere1: Hello

[1/4, 9:35 PM] David Mushove: Hie sire

[1/4, 9:36 PM] mdmawere1: I can send a link to you.

[1/4, 9:36 PM] David Mushove: Thank you please do, but I will certainly do the registration tomorrow morning

[1/4, 9:37 PM] mdmawere1: Great.

[1/4, 9:37 PM] David Mushove: Am humbled

[1/4, 10:43 PM] mdmawere1: https://zonfulenergy.com/membership/

[1/5, 5:35 AM] David Mushove: Thanks Mr Mutumwa