What do you stand for? 4 Lessons from Ayi Kwei Armah’s ‘The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born’

The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born is set between 1965’s Passion Week and 25 February 1966 – the day after the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president.

The unnamed protagonist, known as the ‘man’ tries to stay ‘clean’ in the heat of corruption and rot that characterised post-independence. My interest is in what the ‘unknown man’ stood for, and what we could learn from the story.

  1. What do you; your service, product or company stands for. When your competitors wallow in unending track of beating the path of the same customers, do you change your style, product, service or delivery?
  2. What you stand for is what brought you to the market in the first place. So, do you remember what it is/was? The people you serve want that.
  3. Changing to play to the gallery is not always the best strategy. Stay to your positioning.
  4. Standing up for the reason for the long haul is not an easy task. However, it has to be done to stay meaningful.

What do you stand for?

Written by: Benjamin Yaw Manu

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