Ton Haverkort

Last week, I participated for the second time in an annual walking event in The Netherlands. This is a 4 day’s walking challenge, during which you walk 30, 40 or 50 km each day. Some 40,000 people participate, including scores from other countries. The start and finish are always on the same place in the centre of the city of Nijmegen, but the walk follows a different route each day. Those who do the 50km begin as early as 5am, while the 40km and 30km walkers start later, the last group at 7.15am.

One thing I like about living in Ethiopia is the fact that we follow a different calendar here. As a result, we are seven years younger and enjoy thirteen months of sunshine. And we also have the opportunity to celebrate holidays twice, like Christmas, Easter and New Year. Wonderful! Especially those who work in international organizations or companies will be privileged as both calendars are respected.

A manager’s job can be classified into four basic aspects: planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Effective managers create opportunities for workers and teams to perform well and feel good about it at the same time. We also see that managers work long hours, are usually very busy, are often interrupted, attend to many tasks at the same time, mostly work with other people and get their work done through communication with others.