Nairobi, Oct. 15 -- Allan Kilavuka, for the first time in God-knows-when, no longer has an executive assistant. Setting up this interview with him stretched time into space. "It might sound trivial, but I'm struggling with my calendar," he says. Messages can go unanswered for a while, mostly because half the time he's out on his farm in Kitale, getting his nose dirty.

This is what happens when the machinery around a chief executive is switched off. The PA goes. The diary goes. You discover how much of your life other people were running.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Business Daily....