The former South African CEO who wants pain and suffering for his team

MTN’s Group Chief Technology and Information Officer, Charles Molapisi, said he often wishes his team pain and suffering.

This, he explained, is because people who have become successful are often products of pain, failure, and hardship.

Molapisi is one of the top telecommunications executives in South Africa, who served as chief executive of MTN SA and MTN Zambia.

He was also the chief information officer for MTN Nigeria and served on the boards of MTN Zambia, MTN Business Botswana, and MTN Business Kenya.

In an interview with Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh on the SMWX podcast, he said he believes in people doing hard things to build character and improve.

“My team thinks I’m funny when I say that I wish them pain and suffering, because I’m pretty much like many of us,” he said.

“I think many excellent people, people who have done very well, are products of pain, failure, and hardship.”

He said that many of the things that people eventually achieve in their lives are born out of struggle.

“My observation about life is that it’s generally hard to do big stuff and achieve major things, and that’s why there are so few people achieving a lot,” he said.

This, he explained, is why he embraces and runs toward brutal challenges, whether physical or corporate.

He explained that he has cycled through the French Alps, which pushed him to his physical limits and tested his mental strength.

He said that he also handled many high-stakes business crises and that he is attracted towards the challenges rather than rebelling or retreating from them.

“Taking just two weeks off causes you to lose 60% to 80% of your fitness. That rent is due daily, both in sport and as a corporate executive,” he said.

Charles Molapisi discusses corporate capital allocation

In the same interview, Molapisi shared his views on corporate capital allocation and its relationship to cycling.

“If you get on a bike, ride for an hour, and don’t replenish, you hit ‘the wall,’ and you go nowhere.” It doesn’t matter what you take an hour later,” he said.

“In corporates, if you shortchange your enterprise and fail to fund it when you are doing well, it will have consequences,” he said.

“Draining it of cash and migrating those resources to something trivial is going to cost you far more to repair than if you had funded it at the right time.”

“A delayed strategic choice is far costlier than a timely one, and the body is a very clear example of this.”

“If you don’t drink regularly, thinking you’ll just drink later, by the time you reach a certain point, you’re gone.”