Be Careful of Mr. Mensah!

Be Careful of Mr. Mensah!

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Last year, I engaged on a major social activity which required I had to visit over 50 communities within the catchment area.

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Before one of such tours, several of my team members who were more familiar with the terrain warned me to be very careful of one participant who we will be meeting…. Mr. Mensah!

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On the day of the meeting, luck will elude us as we encountered some transportation challenges, so we had to arrive late for the event and after we finally made it to the location/venue, here was Mr. Mensah, sitting in the front seat!

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As customs will demand, we had to go round and shake hands with at least those in the front seats, we get to Mr Mensah, and he wouldn’t stretch his hands to greet us!

Suddenly, the words “be careful of Mr Mensah” reechoed . With no choice, we skipped him, greeted the rest, and resumed our seats.

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The opening formalities were done, and I had to take the floor to address the gathering and then the brimstone started raining down! Mr. Mensah gets up and yelled at me, throwing the meeting into some chaos! He could not understand why we were late and was angry the rest of the gathering couldn’t see the weight of lateness.

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I stood quietly, allowed him to vent out as much as he could and after a while, he resumed his seat and I took the floor again, and my first words; “Mr. Mensah, you are very right and I understand your disapproval of our lateness, we are sorry and will make sure this isn’t repeated.

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I continued with my presentation and by the end of my delivery, this man stands up and claps for me, approaches me on the high table to give me a handshake of approval!

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Whoa! What kind of a man is this man? He almost stormed me out of a meeting and suddenly is becoming the number one fan?

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We finished everything and immediately we hopped into our car , like a conducted choir, the whole team exclaimed in unison; we told you!

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I kept quite and reflected on everything: was the man right or wrong? Was it right for us to be late? Was he right telling it to our face? And a lot more of questions to myself.

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Fast forward, I had a second encounter with him and it was a very cordial one and from there we became friends, he introduced me to his wife and I have gone to visit him at his village a number of times and returned home with loads of proper “Ghanaian village gift”

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Why am I telling you this story? Because you have been told to be careful of Mr Mensah too.

Within our corporate settings, there are a lot of Mr Mensahs who will tell us the truth to our face ,who will not pretend but let us know when they are not pleased about something and when they are pleased.

The sad truth is that these people are rather called the bad ones and new team members of staff will also be told; he’s not a good person,be careful of him/her.

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My young corporate lady and man, the Mr. Mensahs are the ones you need, they are not hypocrites, they mean well for you, they don’t want you to be ordinary, they see the potential you may not even see in your own self. Their early rebukes are good for your growth, and you will appreciate them some day.

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Because of Mr. Mensah, I developed a new strategy to have a standby vehicle for all my visits, I was never late again to any of those meetings, if he had behaved like all others, I would have felt “it was fine” to be late for those meetings, but he made me know “it was not fine” and I cherish that lesson till today.

Be careful of those who tell you to “be careful” of others, they may be winning you over for their own good!

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Learn to know people for yourself by yourself, not all “bad” persons are indeed bad.

The corporate world is a whole rat race on its own, choose your “enemies” wisely!

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By the way, Mr. Mensah has invited me to a goat light soup party at his village again, who is coming with me?

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