Changing directions

This by email from a friend in Vancouver: "I understand and endorse your belief that the only path into the future with a universally beneficial outcome is the spiritual one and i pray that you continue walking the one you are on. I am not optimistic that enough people will follow your example to make a measurable difference. I do think that such a path will bring something positive into the lives you touch along the way and am hopeful that all goodness does influence the future that awaits us all whether or not it is of our choosing. While the goodness of the few is necessary it is not sufficient to bring about the necessary change in direction that world is presently dedicated to."

Development Sangha - exchange with A (see original post below)

My friend “A” writes 6-7-10: My own view is that whatever the sound motivations of individuals, they will never compensate for the structural problems of official aid, notably:

a) The absence of evidence that development requires aid
b) The rewarding-failure incentives that aid creates
c) The unique non-accountability of aid-spend in donor countries
d) The over-riding commit-and-disburse incentives of the donor, matched by
e) The over-riding get-the-cash incentives of the recipient
f) The cover-up incentives shared by both donor and recipient over impact.

In short, there's a reason the aid industry is so poor - and it’s not to do with individual motivations....! (But then you'd expect me to say that kind of thing....)!

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Can't disagree my friend. But gosh! your email is so .............. encouraging!! ;-) Your "structural barrier" analysis is so essential it seems to me.

Now for me, as someone who has had this career, I need to find ongoing relevance and meaning in order to combat the fatigue that comes with being confronted by causes and results of the challenges you enumerate. (Isn't the damn thing a vicious or viscous circle?)

It would be a cop out perhaps for me to say that any of the 6 a) through f) issues are not part of my doing. Is "I am not responsible for that" something of a lie? I think it is really. If the problem is real (And I can see the truth of what you say), then I have to believe that because it has arisen due to human ignorance, that it can also be dispelled by some human wisdom. Yes - I accept that this is simply an article of faith.

So I jump into the middle of it!! Is it possible then on the one hand to include the 6 in the environment of "the truth of the way it is" and to then say: "OK. How can I work with that? What are the deeper values this work I do points to?" This is very strategic/ up-stream since it deals with over riding realities that encompass all the challenges and all the possible responses.

Highly contextual in some ways perhaps. But, being highly contextual, this approach (searching for a higher moral truth within which one can operate) is also practical. It demands that the individual tackle any of the a-f structural issues, trying to break them down into more manageable components. I salute the experience that allows you to articulate these 6 so succinctly! (of course there are a dozen PhDs in every one!) I believe there will be a way to investigate these 6 and make a contribution to shifting them aside / lessening their impact on the need for international expressions of generosity and sharing. ( I have issue a) in mind at this point.)

I am after happiness in my life and I have to find ways to make myself happy in my chosen field or find a field that is more commensurate with my inherited and acquired capabilities.

If I can aggregate the 6 challenges up into a personal contextual issue and find (with the support / council of wiser people than myself) the right thing to do, then I can move. If not I risk becoming moribund, depressed and self defeating.

Tie me done before I blow away! We need to get to the pub together!!

The Development Sangha

Last night with a friend I was revisiting and renewing a personal approach to development work that has brought me a lot of joy and, I think, contributes to handling the burn out that lurks around threatening to destroy our peace of mind. Try this:

When I reflect on the sources of funds that pay for the activities I am directing/ planning and that pay my salary, I visualize an honest hard working couple with 2-3 kids (maybe in southern Italy, in northern England, in Newfoundland or Ipnavik River, Alaska) and struggling to provide a happy and healthy environment for their children. They are ordinary people who pay taxes and make charitable contributions because they believe in some part of their hearts, that it is the right thing to do - to share a bit of what they have to assist others who face even bigger challenges in finding education, health care, fairly remunerated employment, freedom to practice their own religion, and the many basic human needs.

With whatever lies between them and the project group i work with - perhaps bureaucratic efficiencies/lack of efficiencies, conflicted policies/ clear ones, encrusted hierarchical practices/ transparent delivery systems - it comes down to me, little old me, to do the best with this. I am the focus of their trust and Love. I am a key facilitator of a team that has found its way to this place and point of time where those donations can make a difference. I am not hyperbolizing at all when i say this work has holy content and holy potential for us. We are the guardians of the best motivations at the core of the heart of the people who make the money and make the contribution. We are the priests and priestesses of a system of sharing that is motivated by that noble desire for direct heart to heart content.

That man / that woman bending over to kiss their sleeping child (maybe in southern Italy, in northern England, in Newfoundland or Ipnavik River, Alaska) is kissing us, kissing the child and family we seek to serve.

In the buddhist tradition one of the three refuges is the community of people who are on the path of practice. This is "the sangha" - a Pali word. The other two are "the awakened/ awakening one" (the buddha) and "the truth of the way it is" (the dhamma).

All those who awaken and are awakening to "the truth of the way it is" in what we call "development assistance", are part of this sangha or community. We work to become more clearly and consistently aware. We become more clearly and consistently aware, to be a better vehicle for communicating Love.

Let us help each other with thoughts, words and deeds of kindness and encouragement to awaken to our role in the Development Sangha.

What do you think?

Ashesi U - educating tomorrow's African leaders

Patrick Awuah is working with others in Ghana to transform the education of future leaders:  http://www.ted.com/talks/patrick_awuah_on_educating_leaders.html

The mission of Ashesi University College (http://www.ashesi.org/) is to educate a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial leaders in Africa; to cultivate within our students the critical thinking skills, the concern for others and the courage it will take to transform a continent..

What wonderful news!

How we handle applicants

"We will respond only if you are shortlisted" has become (almost?) the industry standard for handling applicants.  I understand why.

 

And I suspect I am close to expressing a universal feeling that I am never happy about it.

 

The reason is this.  Applying for anything requires one to put a really "best effort" into the application.  To do less than that is a tacit private admission that "I am not serious about this opportunity".  For many sincere professionals, this process of really investing oneself in that application produces a form of commitment (shall we call it "the commitment seed"?), even before the potential employer can say yes or no. Frankly, as one who has tried to offer the best of myself in my career, I see creating this seed as an important individual risk to take - always!!.   And as an experienced manager of people, I also know that this seed although invisible, is important evidence of the ability to grow commitment, making the motivated applicant a great potential asset to the Team.  I water it whenever I can.

 

You can see where this is going already.  :-)

 

As an acknowledgement of the effort taken to apply and to go beyond the industry standard method of treating applicants and the seed of commitment, I respectfully recommend to all firms and managers that they generate individual responses once they have run their selection processes.  With modern software, this can be done with a minimal set up cost and requires only a trigger to the system by a very junior staff person to send the several letters required.  Almost every marketing company generates a letter with my name in it, offering to sell me something.  International development consulting firms have that model available.

 

Nurture the seed.  Nurture the Team.  Nurture the effort.

Finding like minded people

I have worked in "international development" for 30 years and live in Thailand.  I want to cultivate networks of committed people who see that the key transformation required for reducing poverty, creating peace and solving the plethora of problems and worries that beset us (insert all previous, current and future causes), is personal transformation.

 

This does not mean you have to acquire any beliefs, views or opinions.  Nor does it mean you have to become a spiritual recluse, monk or a nun.  It means that you have start to see how your own mind is an essential player in how you create the world as it is - its problems and its joys.  Like all people who work, I have acquired certain skills and experiences that are displayed in a CV of who "I" am.  What I see in the organizations I have worked in is that they are by their nature dysfunctional because they spend no time or effort getting beyond the CV and into shared responsibility, ego-reduced relationships and ways of managing the confused feelings and conflicts that arise in the workplace.

 

If organizations are to become even slightly better at what they do (reducing poverty, improving access to education, increasing political participation, improving egalitarianism in sharing of planetary resources) they must be managed by people who appreciate and take up the challenge of being awake and facilitating the same in others who work for them and for whom they work.  In fact, this requires one to be a full time student of one's own mind in order that one is able to negotiate the desire to own and take credit for the results.  Having a practice that encourages this and rehearses one's ability to step outside the personality view, the views and opinions and the doubt thrown up by thinking is essential.

Can we do something together?  Please get in touch!!  :-)

Mindful use of financial systems...

Recently I was saddened to receive word of a former colleague and friend (called X here) whose mismanagement of funds had been revealed by an audit. This kind of event can be more common in some environments, and we can learn so much from it.  
  
I had heard from a distance about the outcome of the audit and was disappointed to hear of the rather long history of X’s dishonesty. On the positive side, this has now provided X with a wonderful opportunity to take full responsibility for her action, to make a clean breast of this and to reexamine his own standards of behavior. Far better for X that it was discovered - for her ultimate health and happiness. He cannot be spared the full consequences of her/his actions. 
  
For those of us who observe this event and the suffering and embarrassment that X is going through (and will go through), it is a wakeup call to us to apply the highest standards of honesty and transparency in our own behavior in our jobs. Whenever we are called upon to deal with other people's money, this deserves the absolutely highest level of awareness and transparency. For those who believe their honesty is above reproach, the most important reason for this is to guard against lapses in memory (e.g. "I'll write that transaction down tomorrow" - is simply courting disaster.)  

Another important reason is to take full advantage of the accounting systems so that we remove temptation from others around us who, in a moment of weakness, might succumb to temptation made available by our own lack of proper management procedure.  
  
What I'm saying is that when this kind of thing happens is not only X’s karma that is functioning. 
  
I too bear some responsibility for this situation as I was unsuccessful in my attempts to get the necessary financial documentation from the project. In that sense I have compounded the misery that X now faces, since she might have been presented with the opportunity to confess to this much earlier had I and others been successful earlier.  
  
We have a wonderful opportunity (because of the availability of so many great teachers of the Buddha's gift) to cultivate mindfulness practice and with that the insights into the shallowness of the way in which we normally experience the conventional reality. Surely, waking up is a full time job. "To take responsibility for where we find ourselves" is as appropriate at work as it is at home! 

What do you think of this?