Do you want fries with that?

Hopefully you read my first post to this blog and thought: “Drew’s right, the development industry has lost its courage ... what can we do about it?”

If you do an internet search using the keywords “AID + Effectiveness” and then click on the first few links, there’s a good chance that before too long you’ll find yourself reading about a 1997 working paper by economists Craig Burnside and David Dollar. In that paper Burnside and Dollar make the case that there is a positive correlation between a country’s economic policies and the long run impact that foreign aid will have on that country’s GDP growth.

Well it turns out this innocuous academic working paper became the basis of a new development manifesto for the better part of a decade. It was attractive because it offered a new paradigm for thinking about one of the world’s most intractable problems: How can we turn foreign AID dollars into tangible development results? Burnside and Dollar’s findings shifted much of the industry’s focus away from thinking about what to do and how to do it and towards the question of where to spend. While I do think it was an important finding, it unfortunately served to obscure further the biggest issue that I think has always been at the heart of the industry's dismal performance. The real reason that most development programs fail is ineffective management.

Development is a thinker’s paradise. Lofty ideas and complicated theories represent the industry’s greatest attributes, and also its biggest problem. An obsession with concepts and ideas prevents most of the best ideas from actually happening. We get results by finding ways to deal effectively with all the wonderful quirks and imperfections of human beings trying to work together in foreign countries, under pressure, with competing agendas. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, our industry remains naive enough to think it can pull off extremely complicated programs, in the most extraordinary circumstances, without professionally trained management.

Now, if past experience is any guide, this is where I’ll probably lose you. For one thing, it’s tough to describe good management. It's also because good management means doing things that feel awkward and uncomfortable. I have spent hours scouring the web for tools that would make it easier to communicate the key characteristics of good management. One of the best things I’ve found so far is a metaphor of a "fast food window.”  This example vividly contrasts the difference between “order takers” and “project managers” and illustrates just how easy it is to fall into the common traps that virtually guarantee project failure for those who have not been professionally trained or mentored in project management.

The key takeaway from this is realizing how crucial it is to start thinking upfront about how to make our clients and counterparts happy at the end of a project, not just the beginning. And we need to learn to work through periods of discomfort in the beginning of projects in order to create value and impact when they are finished.

What makes this more relevant now than ever is that once again we find ourselves on the precipice of significant change. The explosion of aid funding over the past decade, and the heightened expectations and attention that came along with it, pushed our delivery system so hard that we had no choice but to finally admit it was broken.

At the time of Burnside and Dollar's finding, the United States foreign aid budget had sunk to its lowest level in nearly two decades (~ $11 billion/yr). Expectations for aid programs at that time were fairly modest in comparison and the scrutiny and pressure was nowhere near as intense. There were also enough pockets of capable management talent in place to enable the industry to muddle through, but nowhere near enough to handle what happened next. Between 1997 and 2003, the US foreign aid budget more than doubled (to ~ $25 billion/yr), and over the next six years it tripled (to ~ $36 billion/yr). In a nutshell, the industry’s courage was killed by a decade of turbocharged spending through a system ill-equipped to manage it, all at a time when a significant portion of the industry was reducing its focus on what it was doing and how it was doing it.

The industry’s failure to deliver against heightened expectations over the last decade has been a tough pill to swallow. Old habits die hard. That has made it hard for some people to see the bright side, which is that once again we have an opportunity to drive some meaningful change in an industry pursuing one of the world’s most noble causes. There’s a lot of insightful new literature out there with exciting ideas about the direction we can take the industry in the aftermath of our perfect storm. But, what’s still missing from the dialogue is a recognition of how ill-equipped the industry is from top to bottom to effectively lead and manage its projects for real results.

That’s what this blog is all about ... providing practical suggestions for those of you that want to transcend the sexy world of debating development ideas and dig into the heavy lifting of delivering real and sustainable development results. This blog will draw on my background and experience as a mainstream management consultant who made his unlikely landing in the world of development twenty years ago, and share with you a few of the key things that my experience has shown can help the industry make more of its ideas actually happen.

The Bottom Line

Our industry’s obsession with concepts and ideas has long undermined its ability to recognize how difficult it is to make even the best ideas actually happen. If we want to get serious about turning development dollars into real results, we’ve got to really learn how to manage for results and open our doors to trained management professionals.

Next up ... Suggestion #1: Get Naked

- DS

One of the few uncrowded places left

As anyone with some experience in the industry could have predicted, my first foray into development back in the summer of 1998 got off to a rocky start.

In fact, things started to go south the day that I was introduced to my new "counterparts" in the Privatization Ministry of Bosnia's Serb Republic. I had not prepared myself for the possibility that my counterparts might have absolutely no interest in the knowledge or services that my team had been contracted to provide. 

I vaguely recall my first meeting with the Minister. For the sake of simplicity, let's call him "Mr. O". My first discussion with Mr O went something like this:

"Mr. Schneider, we have serious business here, we are serious people, and we can not waste any time. When will we start cooperation with USAID Project? 

Mr. O, it is nice to meet you. I am very pleased to be here. Now perhaps I am confused, but I understand that my team has been working with you and your staff for several weeks already, drafting the laws and regulations for privatization. And, once that is finished, it is our intention to help build your IT system, conduct the training ... (here Mr. O cuts me off) 

Mr. Schneider, we are serious people, we can not waste any time. I want to know when will we start our cooperation?

As I was saying Mr. O, my team is working with your staff to draft the legal framework for your privatization and once that is completed we are planning to support the implementation of the process in many different ways, from developing the voucher transaction system, training auctioneers, reviewing company balance sheets, furnishing equipment at payment bureau sites ... (here again I am cut off)

Mr. Schneider, we are serious people and we can not waste any time. If we can not cooperate together I will ask USAID to remove you and replace you with someone who will cooperate with us.  That is all for today Mr. Schneider. (Mr. O finished while pointing at the door)"

I left that first meeting scratching my head. And I took my translator to a coffee house on the way back to the office because I wanted to try and understand what had just happened.  My translator explained that Mr. O was using the term "cooperation" as shorthand for letting him manage the project's money.  In a nutshell, he wanted to hire staff of his choosing, manage them in his office, and then have you pay for it.  Well, I didn't need anyone to tell me that this kind of arrangement was not going to fly, but I couldn't find anyone to tell me how I might break through this "cooperation" issue. Figuring it out would essentially become my on the job training.

The next few meetings with Mr. O went pretty much the same as the first. It drove me nuts. I tried everything, but no matter what I proposed, he had the same response. I think that once he realized that I wouldn't - or couldn't - really budge on what he was asking for, he just decided to have some fun with me. He'd say things like:

"Mr. Schneider, I see you are here again to waste more of my time. You know, if you were as serious as we are about this project we would already be finished. In fact, that is what I told the Prime Minister last night. I informed him that everything was fine except that the USAID project will not cooperate with us because you, Mr. Schneider, are not professional. The Prime Minister told me that he will speak to USAID and have you removed, so you should start looking for a new job Mr. Schneider."    

Well, Mr. O may have been having fun with me for a bit, but apparently after some time he did finally grow tired of me not capitulating to his wishes and did consult the Prime Minister. I found out about it when I got a phone call from my boss one morning who told me that our USAID client was coming up at the end of the week to meet with the Prime Minister to discuss urgent issues with our project. He made it sound ominous. My boss flew up the next day to spend a couple days with me ahead of the meeting - to try and preemptively sort things out. At one point he went over to the Ministry to try and meet with Mr. O and de-escalate. He got an earful of poison before getting kicked out, and concluded that a showdown was inevitable. 

Our USAID client's meeting with the Prime Minister took place on that Friday morning. Neither me or my boss were invited to attend. We sat in the office for a couple of hours waiting for news, it felt like forever. Eventually our client got back to our office, sat us down and recounted the discussion. They wanted me gone, and he did not see any other way to resolve it.  My short development career was over .... or so I thought. 

And then something unexpected happened. My boss realized that Mr. O's issue wasn't with me, it was his interest in controlling the project's funding, and replacing me would not solve that problem. By explaining this, he was able to convince our USAID client to follow up by asking the Prime Minister to direct Mr. O to develop a comprehensive and detailed work plan for completing the entire privatization and capital markets development process, and include with it a clear outline of the support he needed from USAID in the context of his plan. The Prime Minister was receptive the request. He called Mr. O into his office the next day, directed him to have a plan completed within two weeks, and offered him two choices:  

1. He could gather his staff and lead the effort himself. If he was able to do it then USAID would agree to remove me and sit down with him to negotiate direct support. If he wasn't able to do it, the Prime Minister would find a new Mr. O.  
2. He could ask me to lead the effort for him, using my staff together with his for two weeks. If I was able to do it, he would let me stay, let me manage my team, and utilize our support through the process. And if I wasn't able to do it, USAID would replace me with someone else. 

Mr. O chose option 2. The next two weeks was one of the most professionally challenging and rewarding times of my life. We nailed it.  I'll skip over the details and cut to the point. Six years later, at my going away party, Mr. O and I stood together in front of our teams and reflected on all the things we were able to accomplish working together.    

It all could have turned out much differently. Even though I was just doing my job, the easiest thing for everyone to do that day would have been to follow the path of least resistance and appease their chains of command.  They all could have just thanked me for trying, sent me packing, and brought the next lamb in to be slaughtered. And that is how tenuous things can be in development. 

But I had three key things working for me that day: 

1. I was working for an individual who could see that I was capable of creating a lot of value for the project if given the chance. 
2. I was working for an organization that had the courage to ask USAID to respond to a Prime Minister's request with a counter-request, 
3. I had a client at USAID who was willing to listen to an implementor's suggestion and push back with it in a politically charged situation. 

I survived that experience because I was surrounded by people and organizations that were not driven by fear.

The Bottom Line

While I've never been a big fan of motivational posters I'll never forget one that used to hang on the wall in my old gym. It was a picture of someone climbing up a wall of ice somewhere that looked really cold with the caption: "Be Courageous - It's One Of The Few Uncrowded Places Left". That sentiment really speaks to what has become increasingly frustrating about the development industry. Sure, the rhetoric speaks of innovation and change, but the day-to-day decisions are deeply rooted in fear of failure and/or upsetting chains of command. And this is all too often done at the expense of achieving real development results. My story above would probably have had a much different ending had it had happened today.

It is tough to work in an industry that has lost its courage when you are still driven by a commitment to delivering real results. It helps to remind yourself that it is not personal whenever fear-driven leaders or fear-based decisions impede your work. Most of our industry is going to struggle to transcend its fear-centric orientation until the incentives in the system are changed at the macro-level. If you expect people within the system to act against their own self interest, you are going to get more and more disappointed. 

When you don't expect it, you will be pleasantly surprised when you find people that do. Even in today's environment there are people in our industry that still care more about what their projects accomplish than they do about how it impact their careers. And if you really want to get serious about achieving development results, you need to learn to recognize courageous people when they are around and make the most of those opportunities. Courage in development may ultimately always be perilous, but it is also what gets extraordinary things done.

- DS