Corporate leaders and organisational development experts have urged Nigerian businesses to adopt data-driven management, structured processes and measurable performance systems to achieve long-term sustainability.

The call was made at the fourth edition of the High Impact Professional Seminar (HIPS) in Lagos, themed “Impact That Scales.” Participants warned that sensationalism, poorly measured workplace activities and informal business practices were undermining the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and larger corporate institutions across West Africa.

Njuara Njama, convener of HIPS and founder of The Talk Office, said sustainable business growth depends on strong internal structures and effective execution strategies.

She argued that discussions about entrepreneurship and startup culture often overshadow the workplace systems and employees responsible for turning business ideas into results.

“The reality is that lesser and lesser strategic conversation is happening within the workspace. Wherever you go, people are talking about starting businesses. But nobody is focusing on the workplace, on the people who are actually moving those businesses forward. To achieve impact that scales, we must stop playing the blame game between employers and employees and instead build accountability frameworks that drive real output.”

Speaking on execution intelligence, Njama, a legal practitioner, warned that workplace activity should not be mistaken for meaningful progress. She noted that professionals can spend considerable time in meetings and developing ideas without establishing clear measures of success.

To address this challenge, she outlined a four-tier framework for sustainable execution, urging organisations to replace unproductive discussions with structured activities tied to measurable outcomes.

Njama said businesses should establish formal tracking systems, document performance goals and introduce regular review mechanisms instead of relying on unwritten intentions. She also encouraged organisations to overcome perfectionism by acting with available resources, improving processes through repeated adjustments and treating operational outcomes as diagnostic data.

She said both immediate successes and unexpected setbacks should inform future strategic decisions.

The development strategist also called for more adaptable professionals in corporate environments. Rather than depending heavily on specialists with expertise in only one narrow area, she said organisations need versatile leaders with complementary skills across functions, alongside strong emotional intelligence and social agility.

Chief Executive Officer of OA Group and lead facilitator on Systems Thinking, Dr. Oludare Akinlaja, reinforced the need for structured management, urging African business owners to replace emotional and ad hoc decisions with empirical research, scientific discipline and carefully designed processes.

He warned that businesses managed through sentiment or passive optimism remain vulnerable to economic volatility, supply chain disruptions and difficulties associated with expansion.

“We are on a continent that thrives on sensationalism. We need to bring people back to saying: let’s be big on science, on data, on systems, and on processes. We cannot afford an ‘anything goes’ mindset where whatever will be, will be. Small businesses are the undisputed backbone of any economy, and when they operate with intentional, systems-based structures, their capacity to hire steadily, generate revenue, and stabilise national GDP increases exponentially.”

Akinlaja stressed that integrating systems thinking into daily operations can help businesses move beyond dependence on their owners and develop into resilient, self-sustaining institutions capable of generating consistent economic value over time.

SOURCE: The Guardian