The reason why the personalities of Nigerians seem more hardwired than in many other nations may be that culturally, we are resistant to change, innovation and youth independence.

As a manager, you may be better off recruiting the right personality for each role than expecting people to change. It’s easier to teach a skill than to adjust a personality, especially if you do not have the internal capacity for mentoring or the resources for training.

There are no shortcuts to developing your staff. You must train and mentor them. That is why HR is the most important function in a growing enterprise. Once you miss the development window for middle management (usually the first 5 years of an enterprise), the gap between management and new recruits will be too wide to breach. Once the window closes, you may be forced to hire external competent staff at a stiff premium. You will pay for it.

As your company grows and you can no longer recruit & mould interns for roles, you may need to use rigorous personality tests to employ more senior people for specific functions. This will minimise costly recruitment errors. Even then, it may still be hit or miss and you might need to incorporate performance based pay to get value.