A dialogue with Seth Dei: about choices of study, work and life (Part I)
Veröffentlicht am 4. Juni 2015
People are like books. Some have beautiful covers but little content, some are easy company when you want to have fun, some continue to be inspiring every time you read them over. Talking with Seth Dei is like delving into an epic, wherein besides being transported by a wealth of adventure and intrigue, by following the chapters there is always something meaningful to be gleaned.
Leaders League. You achieved master degrees in three totally different domains. What is the most important lesson you have drawn from your diverse study?
Seth Dei. I went to a boarding school in the US at age16. The entire school had only 75 students and 12 teachers, so it was a quite small school, and I hadn’t known anything about it. The school came to Ghana to look for two scholarship students, and I was one of them. That was where I acquired many of my own personal values: my passion for art and writing, my general views on life and thoughts on society, all of which I was cultivating and expressing in my daily habits. During that period, I did a lot of writing: poetry, short stories, which afforded me thoughtful practice on the philosophy of life and developed my love for journalism.
I came to believe that I had a responsibility for society, not in the sense that I pretended to own such or such things, but rather as now that I consider myself more as a trustee of what I “own”, because I am holding these things on behalf of society. As long as I’m alive, I will do anything I can to help society, and will endow it with good things.
After the boarding school, I went to the Business School of Columbia University. At that time, in the 1960s, American business schools were highly influenced by new concepts such as Mathematical Economics, believing that you could solve every problem by looking at various important variables and their relations, writing an equation to solve and hence getting the answer to your problem. Graduates of Business schools were aggressive in such ways, thinking they could solve any problem.
I wasn’t comfortable with that at all because of my educational background. My former boarding school aimed to educate good human beings interested in various subjects, curious about accumulating ever more knowledge and respectful of the law. I therefore went to Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, because journalism by nature is skeptical, and journalists must listen to and weigh what others say before deciding whether or not to agree. So I went to journalism school to steep myself in a bit of skepticism and remind myself that we cannot pretend to know the solution of every problem.
Leaders League. You spent in total 14 years in the US studying and working. Have you experienced any conflicts between American culture and African culture?
S. D. No, never. When you really think about it, humanity is the same. The real basic things are the same. When I go to my village and talk to people, I feel that I could actually ask them to talk to Americans, and they would say the same thing. There are very wise people everywhere. Actually, when you travel, you learn to become a different person in different environments. Adapting oneself is easy if you keep an open mind.
Leaders League. Then what brought you back to Africa?
S. D. I always intended to come back when I went to America in 1961. In the 1960’s, Ghanaians were all excited about our independence, and a lot of people went to study abroad with the great intention of finishing and returning quickly to help build the country. But during the coup d’Etat in 1966, President Nkrumah was overthrown, and many of us couldn’t come back because we could no longer imagine what to do when we returned.
I myself didn’t come back to Ghana directly. I worked in the US for about 3 years, then an American company sent me to Cote d’Ivoire in 1975. It was from there that I then came back to Ghana and started creating my own company, investing and so on.
Leaders League. You were a pioneer returnee in Africa. Can you identify some reasons behind this recent phenomenon?
S. D. Indeed, I came back before the African economy started to develop quickly, and now you can see people coming back to the countries where the economies are doing well, like Ethiopia, Nigeria or Ghana. The Ghanaian economy is not growing that quickly now, but we have a “middle class environment” and when people return they don’t feel culturally lost, because in Ghana we now have many of the things as in the US: highways, shopping malls, cinema…
Family is also an important factor. For example, some people from important families have the heritage of the chief title of their community, which is an important and prestigious responsibility. Therefore, when people are eligible to become a chief, they come back and assume their responsibility.
Leaders League. What do you think African governments can do to attract more talent and encourage this return?
S. D. They have to do their job, that’s all (laughs). They have to make things quick and simple: encourage new corporations to set up by removing related barriers, as well as to apply favorable fiscal policies for already established companies to work by, and so on. They have to make life easier, because nobody likes too many restrictions.
Jeanne Yizhen YIN
Photo: Seth Dei, at the official inauguration of our second factory in Ghana, opened in March 1997, on the 50th anniversary of Ghana’s independence.
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Other articles of the same issue:
A dialogue with Seth Dei: about investment, art and leadership (Part II)
Throughout Jobs’ Journey
10 disruptive leaders of civil society (Part I)
Emotional intelligence: key to excellent leadership
Wisdom on inspiration
Video: Charlie Rose with Jack Ma (Source: Charlie Rose)