Review :PROFESSOR JUSTICE BAWOLE

For a very long time, I have only skimmed through most books that I read because I have often made fore sense of what I read, predicted what was ahead and drew conclusions. The UT story is very different as I read every sentence of the book because I could not afford to miss what each sentence contained – the surprising, unorthodox strategies; the intuitive skills; the bravado; the persistent obstacles; the broken trusts; the never-ending disappointments from friends, and the fetishism to the desire to succeed have been mindboggling. This is a rude capture into the “kitchen” where entrepreneurship success or failure in Ghana is brewed.  

This book brings out very powerful insider struggles and perspectives of what it takes to grow a business and a brand in Ghana. Clearly, it shows the grit and fortitude required to succeed in business in Ghana and I think every budding entrepreneur, student of business administration, professor of business management, policy maker and regulator as well as motivational speaker MUST read this book. As Dean of the UGBS, I am going to recommend this as a core text for all programmes taught by my faculty and have it stocked in both our undergraduate and graduate libraries.

I am struck by a recurrent “theme” in the book. The issue of “trust” and how the lack or abundance of it; how the various characters either demonstrated or failed to demonstrate it; and how it affected the business is insightful. In an ethics deficit society such as Ghana, the consistent demonstration of how trust played a major role in how the UT story unfolded deserves critical evaluation and discussion in every business management class.