You’re running a private sector development project in Africa. A severe drought recently triggered an intense conflict that wiped out key segments of a value chain you were helping to develop. Your project is tasked with setting up an emergency rehabilitation grant program to help affected companies get back on their feet. Initial planning suggested that it would take 4-5 months, but just to be safe you told your client you’d have it all wrapped up in six.
Fast forward a bit. You’ve discovered that what most of the companies need in order to get back on their feet is seed and harvest equipment. But there’s a problem. The planting season doesn’t start for several months. If you stick to the original schedule there’s a pretty good chance that the funds will get used on more immediate personal needs, and there will be nothing left over for the planting season. In order to restore the broken links in the value chain, your grant program will need an extra two months.
Just as you are about to hit “send” on an email explaining the new 8-month timeframe to your client, you receive an urgent phone call from her. She tells you that Secretary of State Clinton will be coming to town in a few weeks to announce that the relief funds have been distributed. Before you catch enough breath to respond, she says you’ll have to accelerate the whole program and finish in five months in order to distribute the funds before the Secretary’s arrival.
Yikes, huh? Welcome to development!
How should you respond? Your first instinct might be something like the following:
Option 1: “That’s a fantastic idea--what a great opportunity for some high level exposure. It will take some hard work, but we’ll make sure to get things wrapped up ahead of schedule. I’ve done this kind of thing dozens of times so I know how to get plenty of great photo opps for the press and some great stories for the Secretary … we’ll bring tears to her eyes!”
This is what I call the “kick the can” down the road response (or to pick another kids’ game: “Hot Potato”). In a moment of desperation, this approach enables you to say yes to everyone and deal with the problems later, or better yet leave them to the next guy.
Why would anyone choose this approach? Isn’t it risky? You’ll make people happy in the short term, but it’s bound to blow up in your face once everyone realizes your program has failed… won’t it?
The sad truth is that in an industry without widely accepted standards for measuring results, decisions to “kick the can” rarely blow up in anyone’s face. Deciding whether a development program has succeeded or failed is usually more subjective than objective. Your fate is less about information than about how information gets spun, especially in the short run.
If your ultimate goal is just to survive and keep collecting a paycheck, kicking the can is your best choice because it keeps the noise down and the money flowing on schedule. It’s why just saying yes has become the default approach in so many development efforts, and why there’s usually nothing to show at the end of them.
But what if you want to keep your integrity? You might be tempted to say:
Option 2: “You have got to be kidding me - that’s unbelievable. This guarantees that all the grant money will be a total waste! I hope you remember that I’ve been skeptical of this whole grant thing since day one; remember I always said it should be a soft loan program. Good development work is slow. It takes good planning, consistent leadership, and patience. It can’t just be manipulated to fit the needs of every visiting dignitary. You people just don’t know how to get anything meaningful done!"
First, let me congratulate you for mustering the courage to stop kicking the can and do the right thing. Bravo! Enjoy the feeling while it lasts. Unfortunately the novelty will wear off as you find yourself boarding a one-way flight home. “Wait a minute!” you ask. “You mean to tell me that if I tell the truth, I’ll get tossed?”
Not exactly. The problem isn’t that you were honest with your client, it's the way you stood your ground. It’s easy to see you let frustration take over and became righteously indignant: you closed the door to working together on a solution.
In case you think getting tossed from a program for your ideals is a badge of honor, keep in mind that changes in leadership tend to kill momentum and replace it with chaos. In other words, in spite of your sacrifice, the ultimate consequence is still failure to deliver real results. In that respect, it’s no different than kicking the can.
So where does this leave us if we are serious about results?
Option 3: “Thanks for letting me know. I understand the pressure that you are under. Unfortunately, this could cause some real problems for the program. Of course we’ll follow your direction on this, but it is my job to make sure you understand how this change will affect our chances for success. I just hit ‘send’ on an email that discusses a revised timeline for the grant program based on what we’ve learned on the ground. I’m available immediately to get together and figure out what to do next.”
There are a couple great things about this response. We've resisted the knee jerk temptation to make the client happy by just saying yes. We've acknowledged a hard truth: that in this case an effective grant program needs 8 months, not 5. And, we’ve committed to making the client aware of the full ramifications of their decision. If they ultimately decide to “kick the can” to keep their management happy, they will make that decision with full knowledge of the consequences. You aren’t the integrity police, you’re their consultant - now you have done your job without closing doors.
This approach has been called “Getting Naked,” a term coined by Patrick Lencioni in the short book Getting Naked: Overcoming The Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty. The book does a great job explaining why consultants are often preoccupied trying to project confidence, authority, and perfection despite the fact that in most situations their clients would be best served by candor, modesty, and transparency. Each consultant’s approach ultimately boils down to how they deal with common fears, the most prominent being the fear of losing business.
That’s where we are right now. The development industry has developed an unhealthy obsession with keeping the noise down and the money flowing on schedule--often at the expense of real results--to keep projects going and careers on track. Ironically, this approach is precisely what threatens to put the industry out of business.
Consider the HELP Commission’s main conclusion: “A new business model for foreign aid is the main hope—and perhaps the only hope—for fixing a broken foreign aid system. The main competition for foreign assistance dollars should not be among consultants but among ideas coming from other emerging actors that are now involved in foreign aid and philanthropy.”
Don’t mistake the clear message here. The use of consultants is still a highly acceptable and praiseworthy practice in virtually all other facets of government, but in development consultant has become a four-letter word. Why? Certainly it is true that well-funded charitable institutions have made exciting progress, the private sector has started to play a significant leadership role, and new models for local partnership are compelling. But the development consultant is in danger because we have let our fear of losing business overpower our commitment to doing business well.
Rather than fight the evolution now taking place, we should use this moment as a wake up call: an opportunity to shape a new business model for development and help shepherd the industry into a new era.
We can start with this. Instead of “kicking the can” down the road to keep the chain of command happy, let’s help our clients understand the full implications of tough decisions. The next time someone tells you to finish an 8 month program in 5 months, or get a new subcontractor signed up without a clear scope of work, or plunge into a sector that is phasing out for good reason, make sure they understand the consequences. Maybe more of our clients will start to follow our lead up the chain, maybe not, but don’t let fear stop you from trying. Regardless of the outcome, you’ll know you did your job well.
The Bottom Line
If you are serious about results, stop saying yes just to stay in the game. Find a way to tell your clients the truth without shutting the door, and rest easy with your integrity and partnership intact.
- DS
Next Up: Suggestion #2 - Unplug The Blender
2 comments:
Nice job. A key point within your piece has to do with power relationships. This is especially true when you have a young PM (common in the community) who doesn't want to say "yes", and is afraid of saying "no". Nice reminder to keep integrity at the forefront of it all. It not only helps the PM, but most importantly, keeps the focus on the whole reason we're involved in this - the effected community.
Thanks John, that’s an important observation about the power relationship. It does seem extraordinarily difficult to deal effectively with the imbalance in development work. One thing I wanted to make clear in the post is that “kicking the can” is not always a bad idea. Sometimes its the best decision under the circumstances, but I don’t think it should ever be a decision that a consultant makes for their client ... I think that should be a client decision, and I’m concerned that too often these days it isn’t.
Thanks again for the feedback!
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