99FM ROYAL HUSTLERS

The excellence compass

Desmond Nikanor: Senior Manager HR and Strategy, NDTC

Desmond Nikanor claims to be extra… ordinary! His peaceful childhood and stable home fostered a steady calmness that has made him a successful human resources specialist in one of the toughest industries: diamonds.

The Namibia Diamond Trading Company (NDTC) collects raw diamonds, sorts and values them before selling them on for Namibia’s benefit. This highly specialised industry requires careful management of its uniquely skilled human capital. As the HR and strategy manager at NDTC, Desmond has a responsibility to uphold a level of excellence.

“The human resources that you find [at NDTC] are highly specialised people... They use their experience, their gifting and their talent to look at a diamond and determine its value,” he tells 99FM with pride. “It’s such a niche skill, it’s almost like an art.”

Desmond has had bad leaders and good leaders and managed to learn something from all of them. His motivation and drive are internal. “I have this internal GPS,” he says. “It’s not a map, it is a compass... Very early I started [to discover] my purpose.” More recently, that purpose has come to include a young family. Now, Desmond finds it even easier to pursue excellence. “I am motivated by what it is that I need to do and in doing it excellently, well and diligently.”

His advice for others wanting to live a life of excellence and success is to focus on the inputs.

In a volatile world, what is in your control? Not promotion, validation or even opportunity. “Stick to what is in your control,” he says. “Stick to being on time. Whatever you do, do it excellently, irrespective of the outside environment. Let the output deal with itself. I have found that it always does.”

Even though working with diamonds requires skill and experience, Desmond finds it humbling. “What makes it most precious,” he says of the diamonds they work with, “is that we had nothing to do with it apart from being Namibian.” The NDTC has the mandate to manage the natural resource, and Desmond has the mandate to manage the human resources. “The NDTC relies on the skills of those people. That’s really the privilege that I have –to serve in this area.”