Idiosyncrasy credit and the Samuel Akintunde story

The world has a way of making excuses for people who do great stuff.

Hello guys,

I have been looking forward to writing this actually. I was pleasantly surprised at the response to my first post, and have been more motivated to share decent content for you guys. I did of course procrastinate, but ah well.

Sometime in 2016 (or 2017, I don’t remember), my bro Oghena shared a link with me. It was some startup looking to get Student Ambassadors in Unilag. He wasn’t particularly interested but thought I would be. He was right to think so. At that time, my whole gang was chasing opportunities right, left and center. Opportunity to intern? Yes. Volunteer? Yess. Anything to do really? Sign us uppp.

The company was building an e-commerce platform and needed people to help spread the word, onboard vendors, etc. At this point, I had been a Student Brand Ambassador for Uber and Promotions & Campaigns Manager for AIESEC Lagos so it was something I could do. I applied and got accepted. We were invited to come for a meeting with the company’s leadership team on a Friday at their office in Lekki Phase 1. The company’s founder, Mr. Samuel Akintunde (not real name) was also an Executive Director at Google (not real company) at the time.

About 8 of us had been selected for this role. We did introductions, went around the office to meet staff, and then settled into our meeting with management. They did presentations to us about the product, team, vision etc and I thought it was pretty interesting. Then they began to ask us questions about how we would go about building their brand, what changes we thought they should make and so on. After some time, it became clear that I was the only person that seemed to have a clue. The remaining ambassadors were not shy, they just really had nothing to say.

It started turning into a ‘Hameed, what do you think?’ meeting. Of course, I was glad that the little experience I had was valuable to them. In all honesty, I was probably the most useless ambassador Uber ever had. I never went on their meetups, I never commented on their group chats, and I did not make the company any money. But I had a fair understanding of Uber’s strategy and operations for student ambassadors, and so I had (Uber’s) answers to many of the problems the people in this meeting were trying to solve. And so it went on, till it was almost time for Jumah prayer. I indicated to the boss that I needed a break to go pray. It went something like this.

‘Do you really have to go?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Can you pray here? I can make my office available for you. We have an aboki that can give you mat and water too.’

‘No sir, today is Friday so I have to go to the mosque.’

‘Ohh, how long will it take?’

‘Maybe about 30 minutes sir.’

‘Okay, what if my driver takes you? Will it be faster?’

‘No sir, Lekki Central Mosque is just here. I can go on my own.’

‘Okay please be as fast as possible, we’re expecting you.’

I remember feeling very happy that day. I turned down his car x driver offer because the mosque was really just a few minutes away and parking would probably be an issue. I also needed a few minutes to myself after doing a lot of talking in the meeting. This experience has stayed with me.

You see, there is a lot of discrimination Muslims face in Nigerian workplaces just because they’re Muslim. Everything from no breaks for prayer to females not getting job offers because they wear a scarf/hijab. So being in a position where I was valued enough that they needed me to be back asap felt pretty darn good. To be candid, Samuel Akintunde did not offer me his office, then car and driver because he was a nice man (even though he is). He offered them because he needed my presence in as much of the meeting as was possible.

Adam Grant calls this phenomenon idiosyncrasy credit. It basically means the ability of an individual to deviate from a group’s expectations usually as a result of competence. Within a group, certain behaviors are expected. For example, bankers wear suits. If you attend a meeting of bankers and see a banker wearing a tee-shirt and sweatpants while everyone else is wearing suits, there’s a high likelihood he’s very very good at his job. His previously demonstrated excellence has granted him the right not to follow some of the groups traditions, without arguments or being discriminated for it.

Back to the story. In any regular meeting, a young person trying to make a good impression will likely not seek a 30+ minute excuse to leave a meeting with several more experienced (and obviously busier) people seated. But because I knew I had demonstrated my competence to the team, I could afford to deviate from tradition.

Now, the challenge for we young (especially Muslim) people is to do good work. Be great at your job. Like, really know your shit. There should be no doubts about your skill level, or the contribution you’re adding to your team. If you do this long enough, you’ll rack up enough idiosyncrasy credits to deviate from your group’s ideals when your principles or needs are in contrast with the general expectation.

The world has a way of making excuses for people who do great stuff.

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Gracias, and see you around.

Hameed