Quality? Why?

"If it's worth doing, it's worth mediocrity!"

As a religious objective, quality has a certain beauty (Zen & the art of motorcycle maintenance; Round the bend). But what is it doing creeping into the world of Non-Government Organisations? And why does it appear to me only to be championed there by those working for Government Organisations or in academia or earning above $50,000 a year? If it was aimed at preventing fraud or other crimes then fine - but it is much more than that, indeed its proponents are sometimes adamant that it is not related to crime at all. Like I intimidated, quality looks like a metaphysical objective in disguise:

"What big indicators you have!"

"All the better to trip you with."

"What big millennium goals you have!"

"All the better to divert you with."

"What big plans you have!"

"All the better to belittle you with."

etc

Time I think, to join (or start) an anti-quality, anti-excellence, anti-best practice movement. Our slogans:

"If it's worth doing, it's worth mediocrity!"

"The excellence pestilence..."

"Best practice? When we all get your salary and choices."

NOG Spawn

"...I am becoming my own sister..."

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I'm in negotiation with one of my own staff and asking her to represent me to herself. Conflict of interest? Probably. Confusing? Certainly.

We've been in one of the countries I supervise for decades under our own name but for various reasons it's time to change. Specifically, I asked the country director to register a new, locally governed non-government organisation (NGO) - a new sister in our global network.

Knowing she will be appointed the new organisation's chief executive officer (CEO) concentrate's one's mind: for a start, I will never be able to sack her. Second, she is the only resource I have in-country to identify, recruit and motivate a group of highly credentialed Board members; but will they hold her accountable or simply approve whatever she asks for? Thirdly, she has implied that she could delay registering the organisation if I don't recognise her 'need' to be our country representative as well as the new organisation's CEO. Apparently she says, not doing so could cause too much loss of 'face' on both sides. (True or not I don't know, but one of my colleagues is deeply cynical.)

Now it's Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) time. I managed to get her to steer the Board to register themselves (and they seem excellent) without sight of an MoA (I know already the main sticking points). Our deadline approaches and I'm biting my nails in anticipation (my boss wanted me to push all the boundaries first and compromise later). At least the Board Chairman is now alongside my country director to negotiate - I've even suggested a conflict of interest if she tries to negotiate terms with me without his consent. But it can feel like I am becoming my own sister.

Have I done enough? I wonder. This is supposed to be a fledging-cum-graduation but might be turning into a failure-to-launch...

"...some of my own country teams are for some reason deliberately side-stepping our own organisational Goal and Objectives..."

I am vexed: What is an NGO's country strategy? I want to devolve decision making to our country teams; I have ensured that my regional strategy does not step on their toes, but supports what they think is necessary. But preview drafts suggest I may have made a basic mistake.

NB: some of our country programmes are independently registered local NGOs with their own governing boards. Others are implementing arms of our global organisation. Up till now, I expected that independent NGOs would exhibit some gaps in their strategy, i.e. my expectations would not exactly overlap their aspirations. But naively I had not expected the same for our own managed country programme teams (apart, perhaps, from programmes which had somehow 'missed the plot' and needed some management 'support').

Back at the main question: some country strategy drafts from some of our own managed teams not only have apparent strategy gaps, but have clearly been well thought through and participatory. In other words, some of my own country teams are for some reason side-stepping our own organisational Goal and Objectives, to some degree. What should I do?

At the moment, it looks like I will have to recognise that devolved decision making can lead to significant autonomy: if I wish to encourage this, I may need to recognise that whether we govern them or not, any country team with sufficient autonomy is liable to gaps in their country strategy. (This perhaps represents their self-referential thinking related to self-assessed measures of capacity and their balance of hope/despair.)

In my regional strategy, I am beginning to think that I must do three things: Firstly, the regional strategy should state how many gaps a particular country team strategy has (in other words I may have to add to a particular country strategy with reference to the country needs assessment and to other potential additional partners who could help fulfil 'my' country strategy). Secondly, I must consider whether my own country team leaders can represent me in designing country strategy, i.e. can they both facilitate their own team's autonomous 'country strategy', and consider the remaining gaps and how to fill them? Thirdly, a country manager (or myself) may have a broader 'shadow strategy' yet with gaps in the visible one. For example local stakeholders may unreasonably resist elements of the shadow strategy if they were made public; I may need to recognise that a sufficient strategy may actually have to have hidden elements.

But are these reasonable conclusions, I am asking myself? They make me slightly uncomfortable!

"...much of my work energy is directed to reducing the potential damage which we...could mete out whilst trying to help people."


Sorry to bore you. The first post to a blog by an absolute beginner must drive regulars crazy. Ah well...

The thing is - as a manager (male, westerner) in a non-government organisation (NGO) involved in international development, it's very hard to be real:

I once told our international marketing department director that much of my work energy is directed to reducing the potential damage we and those we 'partner' with could mete out whilst trying to help people. She was quite shocked! She hadn't visited any field programmes at that stage in her career (having just joined from the business world) and told me she thought most of my energy would be spent creating and monitoring wonderful and exciting ways of helping poor people...

Whenever I visit our donor managers I also warn them, "Don't put me in front of our supporters unless they can handle some reality." After sharing like this with the donor manager for one Western country, he thought hard for a moment and then said, "Well I guess that rules out over 95% of our supporters." It's not that I don't like public speaking - I love facilitating a large group discussion - it feels like I'm performing and I get a little bit high. But don't ask me to be publicly unreal.

At least in my current job I am usually left alone. But the questions remain. And I feel driven to share a few of them with you as they bubble up in coming posts. (Sorry... Not trying to turn you off!)

By the way, I'm reading an intriguing book by William Easterly at the moment called, 'The White Man's Burden'. In it he notes, "...there is much scope for improvement just by having the West follow the rule 'First do no harm'." (Incidentally, I have just discovered upon locating his web site, that he had previously coined the term 'De-velop-Mented' which looks suspiciously similar to my blog title! It's got some fun bits anyway and I swear: I thought mine up before seeing his!)