Day 19 - The "squished" lizard

Today we had an important meeting with our client, the Electrical Company of Ghana.  The purpose of the meeting was to have IBM facilitate a meeting between ECG's Material's Department (Procurement), their Financial Accounting department and the IT department.  This meeting was to be a first step in a roadmap involving changes to their existing purchasing processes and it was important that 3 ECG groups that have not historically worked together, could agree to work together on this initiative.

First order of challenge was setting a venue for the meeting because each of the 3 participating departments work in different sites.  Two out the four parties would need to travel to the meeting.  With the traffic situation around Accra, this would be a major sacrifice for those travelling since a one hour meeting would draw 3-4 hours of travel time.

The meeting was finally arranged to be at the ECG training centre which was very convenient for the 5 IBM team members that would be attending.  This meant that we would not have to travel since this location is walking distance to our hotel.
The Materials representatives arrived first.   This is our second meeting with this gentleman and we found the initial meeting to be quite productive.  He was an electrical engineer for many years prior to moving into Materials.  As with most Ghanaian men, he dresses in very formal business attire on a daily basis.   Today he was dressed in a designer suit.  He commands respect with his speaking voice and his formal demeanour.  His cell phone rang several times during our meeting and he excused himself each time to take an urgent call.

The other participants arrived shortly after our materials rep and the meeting began only 10 minutes late which is very acceptable in Ghana.  In all there were 9 participant including the 5 IBMers.  I kicked the meeting off with an explanation of the purpose and format of the day.  After an initial hesitance from the participants, they seemed to warm up to the ideas and process changes we were promoting and lively conversation ensued.  This was great - things were going better than I thought possible!

At one point in the meeting our Materials representative had to step out of the room with another urgent call.  Fortunately, he limited the interruption to only a few minutes and re-entered the room to take back his seat at the table.  Unfortunately, a small lizard, who presumably had chosen our meeting room as his private hiding spot prior to our arrival,  chose this same moment to attempt an escape across the floor of the meeting room.  Kristina, who witnessed the lizards plight, saw the creature make it as far as our Materials representative, just as he was lowering himself down into his chair.  The poor lizard, apparently, got himself inadvertently positioned under this gentleman's foot and the lizard's travels across the floor, came to abrupt stop.

Another delay to our meeting then ensured as our unfortunate lizard friend's remains were unceremoniously removed by the ECG housekeeping crew.  I have to say that this was a first for me.  I don't recall ever having to suspend a meeting in order that housekeeping could clean up after another lizard's untimely demise.  The interesting thing, at least for me, was that all the Ghanaians in the room seemed completely unfazed by these events.  In fact, one of the IBM participants at the back of the room did not  even realize what had transpired.

Possible cousin to our unfortunate friend
"the squished lizard"

After the meeting ended and our guest had departed (after being fed a snack in the canteen, of course), the IBM team members held a small vigilant to our
fallen lizard comrade - in lieu of a name he was affectionately coined "the squished lizard".  Only in Africa!