Day 4 - First Day at the Client Site



The morning came very early for the Ghana 6 ECG team.  The bus and driver arrived at 7:00 AM to take us to the ECG site in Accra for a 9:00 AM start.

We are staying in Tema, Ghana which is about 30 kilometers from the major city of Accra.  This could sort of be likened to staying in Mississauga and having to travel into Toronto for a meeting. We were warned by our Ghanian colleagues about how bad the traffic is - but having spent a lot of time stuck on the DVP or the 401 in Toronto I admit I expected it to be a familiar experience.  I was wrong - it is far worse.

Driving in Accra is a finely honed skill and the ECG drivers that picked us up this morning have been driving professionally in the city for over 10 years.  There are several routes into the city and they gage the best route for the day based on their knowledge of the city and city events planned for the day. 

With our capable drivers at the wheel, it gave us time to enjoy the sites and sounds of Accra getting ready to start a new day.  The street vendors are already out in full force.  There is a soccer team training near one of the high schools and a track and field team running laps.  Women in both traditional Ghana garb and office wear wait at the side of the road for transportation into the city.  School children, looking neat in their school uniforms are being escorted to school. 

Traffic!

School children in uniform

Arriving in Accra just before 9:00 AM, we were met by our ECG clients and given a quick tour of their facility before being shown to the conference room which would become our project room and meeting room while in Accra.  After a round of re-introductions, the first item on the agenda for the day was to preview the executive presentation that our team had prepared the previous evening.  Given that this was our first real day on the job we had limited insights into the messages that could be expected to resonate with the ECG executives.  We ran through the 45 minute presentation and adjusted a number of slides based on the feedback our team members provided.

The Ghana 6 ECG team at the hotel - preparing our executive presentation

On this our first day, we learned that we had not left enough time on this morning's agenda for food consumption.  In North America, we are lucky if we grab a coffee on our way upstairs for a 9:00 meeting.  However, the Ghanians are a very hospitable and welcoming culture and they have gone to great lengths to make sure we are well looked after.  Our breakfast arrived at 9:00 which consisted of coffee, tea, juice, water and biscuits.  About an hour later at 10:30 our snack arrived which consisted of sausages, a donut, some fruit and various other goodies served hot in a Styrofoam container.  Shortly after 12:00 our lunch arrived which was again served hot by our hosts.  Everything was very tasty and we enjoyed it tremendously.  However, we were all a bit overwhelmed with all the attention we were getting.  We were also overwhelmed with the amount of food being served -  there was more food served that morning than I normally eat in an entire day, possibly 2 days.

Lunch is served

At 1:30 our drivers took us to the ECG head office in preparation for our 2:00 executive meeting.  Barbara from CDS met us there.  Armed with a presentation that had been hastily put together over dinner the previous night we entered the board room - to find our our audience was approximately 10 of the highest ranking executives from ECG - the managing director and all his direct reports from across the company - Director of Audit, Director of Finance, Director of Customer Service, Director of Public Relations, etc. etc  <gulp>.   Given that this was our first day on the job, no one really expected this audience especially with the limited preparation time we had.  However it was too late to turn back now.

Before calling the agenda to order, the Managing Director called everyone in the room to prayer.  Everyone stood, bowed our heads while he prayed for guidance.  Then we introduced ourselves, he formally gave us the floor and we presented. an overview of our assignment for the next 4 weeks and an introduction to Service Management concepts. 

How's that for our first day at the client site?