South Sudan Blog 1: ‘Welcome to our new country!’

by Hamish Wilson/

I stepped from the aeroplane into a thick haze of humidity. Its warmth enveloped me in greeting, rich with the scent of the wet season. Heavy, grey clouds lounged low in the sky, soon to deluge the city of Juba with its daily downpour.

‘Welcome to our new country!’ beamed the customs officer, reaching over the heads of the newly arrived throng for my travel permit. He flashed me a wide, toothy smile, appearing genuinely pleased to see me. I was not expecting this. Where was the surly glare I had experienced in Kinshasa? Where was the suffocating security of Kabul?

The world’s media was anxiously hopeful in the run up to South Sudan’s celebration of independence on July 9. Fears of violence and unease over the many problems still unresolved were all underscored by a deep incredulity that this day had actually arrived for a region wracked by war for much of the past fifty years.

I arrived just days later, and the elation was still plain to see in the customs officer’s greeting. The mood was also evident on the streets of Juba. Amidst the pools of murky water and mounds of rotting garbage, precarious wooden scaffolding encased new buildings being constructed. Gleaming solar powered street-lights flashed by as we drove past road crews busily marking lines on a newly paved road.  About me, four-wheel drives bearing logos of aid agencies and government ministries weaved and jostled their way through the pedestrians. The world’s newest capital is bursting at its seams.

Ive been dispatched as the UK’s Stabilisation Adviser, charged with continuing the work of Adrian Garside, who by all accounts was universally admired, leaving me with substantial shoes to fill. As such, I’m to oversee the £50m Sudan Recovery Fund and £10m Community Security and Small Arms Control programmes. Both were established to tackle the pervasive conflict that continues to threaten South Sudan’s stability.

Thankfully, two former Helmand comrades are to join me; Phil Weatherill and Mike McKie will be embedded within UNDP to manage the programmes across four of South Sudan’s most violent states. They will have the unenviable jobs of ensuring that roads are built, police posts established and warring communities brought together in some of the remotest parts of the country.

It’s clearly going to be a massive challenge, one fraught with dilemmas, uncertainties and setbacks. It also strikes me that ‘stabilisation’ in South Sudan wont look like stabilisation elsewhere, and that this journey can’t be constrained or configured by what failed or succeeded in other parts of the world. Whatever its course, it will certainly be one buoyed by the optimism and energy of a newly forged nation excited for its future.

Book Review: The power of labelling: How people are categorized and why it matters.

by Martin Kalungu-Banda/

Joy Moncrieffe & Rosalind Eyben (Editors) The power of labelling: How people are categorized and why it matters. Earthscan: London, 2007, ISBN: 978-1-84407-394-8, 189 pp.

As the title aptly suggests, the book investigates and offers reflections on the impact of the labels (names) and categories we ascribe to individuals or sections of society or organisations and the responses made by various actors.  In spite of the fact that both those doing the labelling and the labelled are not always aware, labels can have positive and negative effects.

Among the labels the book identifies include the following: the poor, the marginalised, sex workers, Muslim women, and target population, development, the most needy, voice of the poor, empowering the poor, the destitute, meeting basic needs, and target populations. Early on in the book, the editors present the notion that labels help us to construct our social world. By this they mean that the labels we put on people do not just help us in identifying who others are, but also to understand and make meaning of our social (political and economic) environment and how we engage with it. In the development context, for instance, labels help to “…define needs, justify interventions and to formulate solutions to perceived problems” (p.1).

The book makes three main assertions. First, that the labelling process involves relationships of power. Governments, development organisations, business, communities and families produce and use labels to influence people and issues. Second, labels are made and ‘pasted’ on others for a variety of reasons that lead to certain outcomes. Some of these outcomes are intended while others are unintended. Third, labels create relationships of who is responsible for what and to whom. While labels do help set the stage for who will give support to who, they also create conditions for conflict as people make claims to their entitlements.

The contributors to the book, in various ways and making reference to practical and historical examples, argue that development organisations, just like governments, multi-lateral and bi-lateral institutions and business organisations, can and do create labels that positively and negatively impact on people and communities. Sometimes these labels are created and popularised, not because they work for those who are labelled but because they serve those who produce the labels. This self-serving act mainly happens when a label camouflages the “voice of the powerful” for voice of “the voiceless” (p.54).

In its final chapter, the book presents how the pitfalls of labelling can be avoided. I found the following to be the key ones:

  • Awareness of the power and impact of labels: Those producing and using the labels must grow their awareness of how the labels impact on others and themselves. Lack of awareness tends to create the blind spot that prevents powerful or influential individuals and institutions from seeing, and subsequently having the positive impact they may want to have on others. Peter Senge and his co-authors in the book called Presence[1] provide techniques on how one can learn to see the whole or larger picture rather than one’s perspective only. This is especially essential for policy makers and development practitioners as labels influence the allocation of resources.
  • Acknowledgement of diversity: Labels tend to treat groups of people, communities and organisations as if they were the same. For instance, categories such as “the poor”, “Muslim women”, and “the marginalized” are not homogeneous. There are differences and degrees within those general categories. Failure to notice and respond to these differences and degrees can and does result in inappropriate policy and practical responses or inability to take advantage of existing opportunities.
  • There is more that one right answer: There are diverse ways of seeing and working with problems. Because people or institutions that produce or use labels are often also powerful, they have a tendency to see their solutions as the only way problems can be solved. Dewitt Jones in a movie[2] on creativity powerfully demonstrates through his work as a professional photographer that we work best and attain incredible results when our mind-set admits and works with the fact that there is more than one right answer to problems.
  • Policy responses and people’s own stories: Unless policy makers and development practitioners learn to listen to people own stories, solutions found are likely to be off the mark and inappropriate. This is in tandem with Margaret Wheatley’s argument that stories are still a useful ‘technology’ for identifying, understanding and seeking solutions to people’s problems[3]. People must be consulted, through genuine dialogue that goes beyond the World Bank’s 1999 consultations with stakeholders (p.59). Genuine dialogue, as Otto Scharmer argues,[4] happens when people engage in conversation having suspended their voices of judgement, cynicism and fear, and are, together, listening to what is moving through and seeking to emerge.

There are two issues that I feel could have made the book even more valuable. First, considering the power and influence of business in determining where people live; the necessities of life that people access and the types of livelihood they have; I am of the view that the book could have been richer with an article investigating how business organisations use labels to influence policies, allocation of resources and the behaviour/responses of their potential and actual customers. Second, the language in most articles could have been simpler. I struggled with the complex and tough words and phrases used in most of the articles. I guess this may be justified by the need to explain complex concepts, situations and relationships. This fact notwithstanding, simple and accessible language could have helped a wider section of people who work in government and the development sector and are in need of hearing the book’s very important message and challenges.

Martin Kalungu-Banda, Leadership & Capacity Building Adviser, Oxfam GB and Wasafiri Partner and Consultant.

[1] Peter Senge, et.al., Presence: An exploration of profound change in people, organisations, and society. New York: Currency Double Day, 2004, pp. 21-68.

[2] Everyday Creativity with Dewitt Jones, www.starthrower.com

[3] Margaret Wheatley, Turning to one another: simple conversations to restore hope to the future. San Francisco, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2002, p.3.

[4] Otto Scharmer, Theory U: Leading from the future as it emerges – the social technology of presencing. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Society for Organisational Learning, Inc., 2007, pp. 135 –142.

Politics without morality: why many African leaders are presumed to have been faithful students of Machiavelli.

by Martin Kalungu-Banda/

Introduction

I am of the view that if we thought it was human nature to lie, to take short-cuts and look out only for our own interests, we would have different criteria for choosing leaders. Equally, if we thought it was human nature to keep our word, to mean what we say, to practice honesty and integrity, respect one another’s life and property, we would also have different criteria for selecting those who govern our society and institutions. To help us reflect on whether politics has morality I have chosen to premise my sharing on the teachings of the Italian philosopher known as Niccolo Machiavelli, a famous political commentator and teacher of all times.

The second Zambian President, Frederick Chiluba, once referred to Machiavelli as “That great Italian philosopher.” That Machiavelli is famous is clearly indisputatable. Great? Many people would be very hesitant to say so. In the subsequent paragraphs, I will try to demonstrate why the Italian philosopher is certainly famous, but not great. Many politicians in Africa and elsewhere in the world are suspected to have deeply schooled themselves in the teachings of Machiavelli. It is also true that numerous business executives and other leaders have found Machiavelli’s ‘wisdom’ useful in climbing and maintaining themselves at the helm of corporate or organisational ladder.

I invite you to judge for yourselves.

Machiavelli was born in Florence, Italy, on May 3, 1469. Very few people born such long time ago would equal his influence on today’s political thought and practice. In his time, Machiavelli was counsellor and adviser to many Rulers and principalities.

Among the things that make Machiavelli relevant today are his definition of human nature and his advice to people aspiring for or already in political office. One of his many pieces of writing is the popular essay called The Prince. In this essay, which was posthumously published in 1532, he speaks bluntly about how to get power and keep it. Some commentators have said Machiavelli wrote The Prince in order to win the favours of the Ruler of his time, thereby dragging himself out of the poverty he had sank into. Others have argued that there is enough evidence to suggest that Machiavelli gained whatever favours and appointments he got because he truly knew and believed in what he taught and wrote about.

Machiavelli argued that his thoughts and writings were based on observable reality rather than the wishful thinking that he presumed many of his colleagues based their discourses on. He was of the view that Rulers must base their decisions on the world as it was and worked rather than on the world they wished existed. He thought that many leaders were doomed to failure because they refused to work with the brutal reality of the human condition and instead aspired for power or governed on the basis of a fantasy or imaginary picture of who people were and how they behaved.

I have based my reflections on the most recent translated text of The Prince by Peter Bondanella published and reissued by the Oxford University Press in 2008.

Machiavelli’s Teachings

On Human Nature:

Niccolo Machiavelli believed that Rulers would only know how to work with human beings and human society if they truly understood human nature: Who is a human being? How does he or she function? What drives or determines people’s thoughts and actions?

Machiavelli, who prided himself in being a good reader of individuals and societies, said that human beings “…are ungrateful, fickle, simulators, and deceivers, avoiders of danger, and greedy for gain.” He further stated, “Man is born naked and [miserable]. Alone among the animals, he is capable of astonishing cruelty against his fellow human beings. Yet no other creature has such an enormous desire to live and such a thirst for – and need of – the eternal and the infinite.”

For Machiavelli, therefore, the good Ruler must not fool himself with the thoughts, John Locke – an English Philosopher – later asserted, that human nature is essentially good and that people will voluntarily choose good rather than evil.  Based on his perspective of human nature, Machiavelli proceeded to give the following advice to current and future Rulers.

On the morality of Rulers:

For Machiavelli, the Ruler must concern himself with only one ‘moral value’: How to acquire power and maintain it. Consequently, what defines right and wrong actions for the Ruler or for someone aspiring for power is whether the action he takes will help him acquire and maintain power. The Ruler, “therefore, must not have any other object nor any other thought, nor must he adopt anything as his art but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only art befitting one who commands.” In other words, any action that helps a leader consolidate his hold on power must be deemed ‘morally right’ and any action that makes a Ruler less secure in his position must be considered ‘morally wrong’.

Machiavelli recognised the need for peace and order in a state. He said peace and order must be acquired and fostered, as a matter of first preference, through non-violent means. He, however, advised that in case the non-violent means did not work, the Ruler should not shy away from killing in order to bring about peace and order. He emphasised that violence as a means towards order and peace worked only if the Ruler made sure he harmed people as swiftly and with as few a number as possible.

On whether a Ruler must be generous, loved or feared:

Machiavelli said that a ‘good’ Ruler must, for as along as it helps him to maintain power, practice generosity. The aim of generosity for a Ruler is to build a good reputation for himself. Being generous would include not having a tax system that takes away too much money from the citizens. If this happened, the citizens might be angry and begin working against him. The Ruler, however, must tax people enough so that he can get sufficient resources to dispense favours that would make the citizens depend on and feel safe with him.

As much as possible, the Ruler must do those things that help him to be both loved and feared, Machiavelli said. Since being loved and being feared do not often go together, he advised Rulers to choose being feared instead of being loved. To be feared must be preferred to being loved, he thought, because people “…are less hesitant about injuring someone who makes himself loved than one who makes himself feared, …love is held together by a chain of obligations that, since men are a wretched lot, is broken on every occasion for their own self-interest; but fear is sustained by a dread of punishment that will never abandon you.”

He advised Rulers to ensure that they are feared in such a way that they are not hated. When a Ruler is hated people develop a strong urge to work against him. To achieve a position where he is feared but not hated, the Ruler must “…abstain from the property of his citizens and subjects, and from their women. If he must spill someone’s blood, he should do this when there is proper justification and manifest cause,” Machiavelli taught.

On whether the Ruler must keep his word:

It is praiseworthy to have a Ruler who keeps his word to his people. This will make him come across as a leader of integrity. “Nevertheless,” Machiavelli taught, “one sees from experience in our times that the [Rulers] who have accomplished great deeds are those who have thought little about keeping faith and who have known how cunningly to manipulate men’s minds; and in the end they have surpassed those who laid their foundation upon sincerity.” Machiavelli emphasised, a “…wise ruler, therefore, cannot and should not keep his word when such an observance would be to his disadvantage…”

His reason for advising the Ruler not to keep his word is that the citizens are a wicked lot who do not keep their word. However, he cautioned the Ruler not to blatantly and without justification abandon what promises he made to his people. The Ruler must “…know how to colour over his nature effectively, and to be a great pretender and dissembler. Men are so simple-minded and so controlled by their immediate needs that he who deceives will always find someone who will let himself be deceived.”

On how the Ruler should acquire respect or esteem:

Machiavelli said that for a Ruler to acquire respect or esteem, he must appear to have certain qualities. Key among such qualities must be mercy, faithfulness, humanity, trustworthiness, and religious. He, nevertheless, warned the Ruler not to sincerely believe in any of these qualities. He said what was important was for the Ruler to merely appear to believe in these qualities. He wrote, “I shall dare to assert this: that having them and always observing them is harmful, but appearing to observe them is useful: for instance, to appear merciful, faithful, humane, trustworthy, religious, and to be so; but with his mind disposed in such a way that, should it become necessary not to be so, he will be able and know how to change to the opposite.” Machiavelli adds that the Ruler “…should know how to enter into evil when forced by necessity.

Other things that create respect and esteem for the Ruler, according to Machiavelli, include ensuring that the Ruler’s name is associated with big projects and seemingly important national debates. The Ruler should sometimes create false but believable crises that will refocus and draw the attention of the citizens. When this happens, the citizens will be compelled to focus on the debate or ‘crisis’ instead of thinking of and plotting how to wrestle power from him. The Ruler must ensure that those that helped him to get to power are either too close to him to organise a rebellion or have been assigned to represent the country in foreign lands. Others should be locally assigned high sounding jobs but with little or no meaningful power. The citizens will quickly forget about all rivals to the Ruler and think of him as the only one capable of running the affairs of the state.

The Ruler must make sure that his name is associated only with good things. For instance, the Ruler himself must directly reward citizens who have done soothing good. He must never deputise when there is good news for the citizens. However, the Ruler must send his lieutenants if it is time to punish someone or announce some policy initiative that will somehow impact the citizens negatively. What happens in the long run is that citizens associate bad things with the Ruler’s lieutenants and good things with the Ruler himself. Such a situation guarantees the Ruler’s position and consolidates his power.

On how the Ruler can avoid flatterers

Machiavelli observed that the Ruler is always surrounded by people who are eager to tell him only the nice things that he would like to hear, regardless of how far removed from truth those things are. He advised the Ruler to ensure that he communicated to the people that they would not harm him by telling him the truth. Machiavelli, in his usual style, quickly added a rider to his counsel, “But when anyone can tell you the truth, you lose respect.”

He enjoined the Ruler to select a few wise men who would be the only ones permitted to speak truthfully to him, and they must do so only on the things he asked their advice. He said, “Apart from these, he should refuse to listen to anyone else, pursue his goals directly, and be obstinate in the decisions he has taken. Any [Ruler] who does otherwise either comes to ruin because of the flatterers, or keeps changing his mind in the face of different opinions; resulting in a low estimation of his worth… Therefore, a [Ruler] should always seek advice, but when he wants to, and not when others wish it.”

Conclusion: Politics must have morality

Human beings are by nature good:

As I conclude this article, I would like to say that while Machiavelli’s teachings have been and are being used by some Rulers, there is something that is not right about the society that Machiavelli paints in The Prince.

First, Machiavelli’s assertion that human nature is essentially evil and flawed is simply not correct. There is sufficient evidence that human beings are by nature good and well meaning. How else then do we explain the kindness we see in the world? Voluntary gestures of people looking out for one another. For instance, for most people saving a drowning child or helping an elderly person or flagging up some lost property is as natural as breathing. More often than not, human beings do not need rules to do good. Undeniably, there are people for whom defrauding another person or causing harm comes almost naturally. By and large, these cases are rare, few and far between, and they are usually symptoms of something we are not doing well as a society.

There are values Rulers should hold sacred come what may:

Machiavelli argues that the only morality for a Ruler is to maintain himself in power. Surely, there are values that we, as human beings, hold so sacred that even if it cost us our lives we would not abandon them. For instance, keeping promises, being honest and kind, and respecting other people’s right to life are some such values. If Machiavelli’s teachings were followed by societies – and we have seen what happens when societies are unfortunate to have such leaders – we would end up with the rule of the jungle. As the Ruler wantonly imposes his will and cunning ways on society, a spirit of survival of the fittest sets in. We would live in a society where life would be, in Thomas Hobbes’ words, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” And some society are, unfortunately, going through this as we speak.

The responsibility of running society is too important to be left to one or a few individuals with the state’s powers of coercion. Rulers are supposed to run state affairs in trust of the people. It is the kind of authority that should make sense only because it is derived from the will of the people rather than the dictates and vagaries of one or a few Rulers.

Power is not the end in itself:

Machiavelli presents power as if it is an end in itself. Power and authority are a means to an end – a society where everyone can realise his or her potentials.

If there is any praise that is due to Machiavelli it must be given on the basis that his writing exposed the thoughts and attitudes of some people who aspire or are already in power and yet are totally unsuitable to hold high office. He gave us the language to name the elephant in the room.

If there are African heads of state (and many leaders elsewhere) who think there can be politics without morality, may be they should think twice before enlisting themselves as students of Machiavelli.

Listening as a Key Currency in Consulting

by Martin Kalungu-Banda/

Introduction

What is the most powerful currency for a facilitator? What really makes a facilitator a true helper?

Since I began to consciously think of myself as an organisation development consultant, I have always wondered what qualities I need to possess to be considered a competent and effective helper. I tend to use the term “helper” in place of “consultant”. I feel that people who support organisations in their quest to perform or become better are in the first instance helpers. This view of who a consultant, particularly an organisation development one, is became even clearer when I read Edgar Schein’s book entitled “Helping” . In the same week I read the book, I had the fortune and privilege of meeting and spending an entire day in the presence of Schein in Central London. I could have been in his space forever.

In “Helping”, Schein truly distils invaluable gems and pearls of wisdom arising from his more than 40 years of working as an organisation development practitioner-helper and an academic at the Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT) and other prestigious institutions. With maximum ease and grace, Schein shares how his work as a helper has permeated both his professional and private life. He also shares his real life experiences that demonstrate how easy it is to be a helper, when we consciously make the decision to be one.

I have often wondered whether mastering cutting edge techniques for assessing the needs of the clients is what it takes to be an effective helper. There are times when I have considered excellence in action research and the ability to ask what Nancy Kline calls incisive questions as the main currency of an effective helper.

In my early days as a consultant, I depended on producing sleek power point slides and well-bound colourful reports for my Clients. Appearance was everything. Today, this is important, but not at the same level as the need to truly listen to my client.

Experimenting with Listening

In the middle of 2011 Liberal Seburikoko (my Wasafiri co-consultant) and I got the opportunity to do work for an organisation that needed to make some fundamental decisions about its reason for existence, structure and ways of working. During our preparation for the assignment and especially when carrying out the diagnostic phase, Liberal and I consciously decided to put into practice the notion of “undivided attention when you are listening to the client”. We listened with deep respect and without any sense of judgement. We asked questions only to access our ignorance.

For nine days we simply listened and asked questions. In between interviews with respondents Liberal and I spent time reflecting on what we had heard and learnt from the previous interview. We resisted getting into interpretation. Our focus was on ‘taking in data’.

On the tenth day, I damped all the notes we had been taking, locked myself in my hotel room to begin the process of report writing. I began to draft the report. It was extraordinary how the report came together. It was like while we were listen to respondents information was treating itself and coalescing into right places in my mind and heart. My job that day was simply to punch my laptop’s keyboard, drawing on what my inner eye had been privileged to see during our data collection process. After six hours of tapping the laptop buttons, we had a 26-page draft report.

Lessons learnt

Responding to the draft report, the chief executive of the client organisation wrote to saying, “This is truly a professional job you have done. You are experts at helping organisations”. Rather than swim in the glory that Liberal and I are expert, I have a clue of how the result came about:

1. That we listened in a non-judgemental way. We engaged our respondents in a manner that showed that we were fully present to learn from them. We simply ‘buried’ ourselves in the data we were hearing. We were genuinely interested in learning about them, their organisation and how they worked. We listened. One of my teachers, Lance Secretan, says, “The words listen and silent are the same, too, save for the order of the letters. We cannot listen clearly until we are silent. Do you silence your mental chatter, your internal critics, and your distractions so that you may listen more deeply to others and yourself? We cannot hear until we are silent, until we suspend our opinions, arguments, and judgements and deeply drink from that to which we are listening.”

2. We asked questions. These were not questions to prove how clever or knowledgeable we were as consultants. They were questions to enable us access our ignorance about the organisation and its people. We went into the assignment knowing nothing about the organisation. It was clear that all our knowledge and information was going to come from literature review and talking to people who knew different parts of the organisation much more than ourselves. With humility, we asked questions to learn. Because we were privileged to learn from diverse data sources, our knowledge grew exponentially within a very short period of time.

3. Deep respect for the client and its people. Liberal and I consciously thought about the need for respect for our client organisation and the people connected to it. They had called us in to help not because they were stupid. They asked us to help because they were aware that some of their challenges could be best resolved through the involvement of an ‘outsider’. To that extent, we – the helpers – were privileged to be asked to be in their midst so that they could get to where they wanted to be. Another way to respect the client is to practice non-judgement. “Judgement is the constant evaluation of things as right or wrong, good or bad. When you are constantly evaluating, classifying, labelling, analysing, you create a lot of turbulence in your internal dialogue. This turbulence constricts the flow of energy between you and pure potentiality. You literary squeeze the ‘gap’ between thoughts.”

4. We drew on expert knowledge. Being students of organisation development, innovation and change and management science, we tapped into this rich tapestry of information, tools and techniques. We identified the best model for doing diagnostic work. We used some of the cutting-edge techniques for collecting data from groups. Mee-Yan often says to be an effective helper in organisation development; you have to be an intellectual scavenger. It means you are immersed in searching for knowledge from diverse sources – social and human sciences – so that you have multiple lenses through which you can see human and group dynamics.

Giving feedback

During the feedback process, our aim was to play the mirror to the board. This entailed presenting the organisation back to them in the language and images they recognised. It also meant sharing about the side of the organisation they were less conscious of. Liberal and I deliberately chose the language we used to communicate the feedback. We stated what was working well in the current system. We pointed out what we had come across as less helpful behaviours and processes. In fairness, different parts of the organisation knew what was not working well but had not been noticed by the system as a whole.

We presented to the board the various possible futures we had heard from the different sections of the organisation and its network. We shared a bit of our own perspectives. After we had facilitated the feedback conversation, the board knew exactly where they wanted to take the organisation. The joy of seeing a client find answers to their own challenges was even more rewarding than the promise of a pay cheque.

Conclusion

Our work was a success because Liberal and I had listened and utterly respected our client. My mentor and one of the world’s leading experts in Organisation Development, Mee-Yan Cheung Judge, rightly calls this work as “sacred work”. It is sacred because leaders and their organisations – in trust – invite you and I as consultants to help them. If we pitch ourselves well enough, those who invite us will open themselves to us like a flower. They will share their views and feelings; their aspirations and fears. They will share their hopes. They expect us to help. Pitching ourselves well enough is the ability and commitment to build trusting relationships with those whom we work. “Trusting relationships require us to stay authentic, congruent, open and transparent. Our possession of these qualities is not so much from the use of techniques and tool kits, but the result of our deep inner work.” As Mee-Yan would say, this is life-long learning.

We help, firstly, through who we are. The value we hold and how we manifest them. Second, we help because we have learnt, through practice, how to support a client in finding solutions to their own challenges. To hold the space for the client in this manner while facing the pressure to come across as having the answers the client needs is difficult. The ability to stay comfortable with holding the space rather than pretending you have the answers the client needs is the real expertise in organisation development work.

In this example I am sharing about the answers the client was looking for came with phenomenal ease. All because we had listened. What then makes listening so important? “There is something good which comes out of the lack of listening. It means that when you do listen, really listen, to someone, the experience will be so novel and so special for them, you will have a friend for life.” Some of the respondents would say, after the interview, “I feel so relieved!” or “I feel a lot better!” or “You have given me the reason to continue standing up for what I believe.”

Listening, in my opinion, is the most valuable currency we brought to the assignment. The question is, shouldn’t this be normal and obvious to everyone? Should this not be something everyone does? People should not be paid for the obvious. I could be mistaken. May be humanity has lost the obvious – the ability to listen. This could explain why people are paying for it.

Leading like Madiba: Leadership Lessons from Nelson Mandela

by Martin Kalungu-Banda/

The world is in dire need of great leaders, ones who inspire people not through words but by serving them. The cutting edge in leadership discourse is the old fashioned idea of leadership through service. The whole human race, we could say, desperately needs these servant-leaders who really attend to others and are beacons of hope in our search for a world society where justice, fairness, care for the weaker members of our communities, and love flourish.

The call for leaders who genuinely serve their people is obvious in social and political communities. We can see it equally in the economic sphere, in business organisations or corporations. The high turnover of staff in many work places suggests that people are looking for what Lance Secretan, a Canadian guru on leadership, calls ‘soul space’[1] – an environment where they will not simply be cogs in the wheel of production but can live full and happy lives.

In my book, Leading Like Madiba: Leadership Lessons from Nelson Mandela[2], published in March 2006, I have attempted to present through stories the type of leadership that will take our world a higher ground.[3] What is so extraordinary about Mr Mandela’s style and practice of leadership is that it crosses the boundaries of culture, gender, race, religion and age. Madiba (as he is fondly referred to in his home country) has done so in a society that was once more polarized than any other – one the world expected to explode along racial and ethnic lines. That it did not was largely due to this extraordinary man and his unique leadership style. What is equally fascinating about Madiba is the fact that each person that has encountered, in one form or another, his leadership feels personally attended to and served.

Mr Mandela’s leadership transforms ordinary people, events and actions into the extraordinary. Great leadership consists in the capacity to inspire others to greatness. I use the term ‘inspire’ to mean the ability to bring out the best in the people one is entrusted to work and live with. Inspirational leadership[4], like the yeast that imperceptibly causes the dough to rise and ‘ripen’, permeates society and its institutions in such a way that everyone begins to see their own uniqueness and take up their role in society. Inspirational leadership makes all of us dig deep into the innermost parts of our being to find the very best that lies there and makes it available to others and ourselves. This, in my view, is what great leadership is all about.

The stories I have told in my book show that Mr Mandela inspires the political leader as he does the boxer and the medical doctor; the footballer as much as the pupil and the government bureaucrat; the social activist and the prisoner; a neighbour, a religious leader, a farmer; the artist, the intellectual, the worker in an oil company; the businessman, the street vendor, the widow, the orphan. Through these stories told by ordinary men and women who have been impacted by Madiba’s leadership, I am trying to invite others to reflect on, and perhaps attempt to practice, some of the key qualities of great leadership. The following are the ten key leadership lessons I have distilled from the Mandela stories.

Ten Ways to Lead like Madiba [5]

1. Cultivate a deep sense of awe for human beings:

Why? Leadership is about people, and every single person matters.

How can I learn to do this? Train yourself to treat everyone you come across with utmost respect and honour. Attend to each person as if they are the only ones that exist and matter at that moment.

2. Allow yourself to be inspired by the giftedness of other people:

Why? For you to be able to inspire other people, you must have sources of inspiration for yourself. Leaders who do not have clear sources of inspiration often fail to inspire others, their organisations and communities.

How can I learn to do this? Practice to recognise and acknowledge the giftedness of other people. Learn to appreciate the beauty of nature and human genius.

3. Grow your courage:

Why? Great Leaders have courage. Courage does not mean absence of fear.

How can I learn to do this? Learn to recognise your fears. This means facing the harsh or brutal realities of your situation and, nevertheless, choosing to follow what you think is the morally right course of action.

4. Lead by example. Where necessary, use words:

Why? Great leaders have always led by example. People get inspired by and trust those who lead by example. Those who speak very well sometimes impress people. However, those who live by what they believe in always inspire others.

How can I learn to do this? Do not ask of others what you are not ready to do yourself. At the end of each day, ask yourself how you are working to bridge the gap between your words and your actions. Aim to make the gap narrower each brand new day.

5. Create your own brand of leadership:

Why? As a leader, your name must symbolise and be associated with a set of values. This is what will make you most effective. All great leaders, while being inspired by others, did it their own way.

How can I learn to do this? On a daily basis, make an evaluation of how your values are aligned to your words and actions. Consistently try to gauge the kind of impact you have on other people. If it is positive, do what you can to grow and consolidate that. If negative, find ways to adapt or discard it. There is a leadership style and practice that can only be performed best by you. Do it your own way.

6. Practice humility:

Why? Great leaders practice humility. Humility is the ability to acknowledge one’s limitations and failings. Humility will attract people to you. Arrogance will not.

How can I learn to do this? When you make a mistake, do not shy away from admitting that you are wrong. Do not see the world through the lenses of your title in society. Simply see yourself as a human being.

7. Learn to live with the Madiba Paradox:

Why? Life is a mixture of hope and hopelessness, joy and pain, success and failure, vision and disillusionment. You as a leader have the task of helping others to live successfully with these apparent contradictions.

How can I learn to do this? Learn to live the moment. Learn to live each day as if it was your last opportunity[6]. Learn to live with the paradox of confronting each situation without losing focus on the great opportunity that lies ahead. As a leader, train yourself to be a dealer in hope[7].

8. Surprise your opponents by believing in them:

Why? There will always be people who disagree with your leadership style and what you do. Recognising and believing in the good side of everyone around you will win you friends. When you recognise the giftedness of those who consider themselves your enemies, quite often you disarm them. You win them to your side, provided this is done with honesty and goodwill. Do it for others.

How can I learn to do this? You must make effort to identify and acknowledge, privately and publicly, what is praiseworthy in those who oppose you.

9. Celebrate life:

Why? Celebrating the achievements of the individuals and groups you are leading generates inspiration and invites people to achieve even more. Achievements are not usually an end in themselves. They are often a sign that we are moving closer to the kind of life we ought to live. Achievements symbolise our hope in the attainment of a better and happier future.

How can I learn to do this? Celebrate every positive step that an individual or a group of individuals you are leading makes. As a leader, you must create and participate in the practices and ceremonies that honour the life of the people you are privileged to serve.

10. Know when and how to make yourself replaceable:

Why? Great leaders know how to move themselves from centre stage. They know when it is time to go so that their legacy lives on.

How can I learn to do this? Prepare for the time when you will leave office. Allow other people to emerge as your potential successors. Learn to be happy when those you are leading show signs that they will be better leaders than yourself. They are part of the fruits of your labour.

Conclusion

One of the greatest lessons we can learn from athletes and artists is that what see them displaying on the pitch or stage, is more often than not, a product of many years of repeated practice. They invest more time practicing than performing. It is the same for the habits that make great leaders. They are a result of years of practicing the beliefs and actions of the leaders that inspire them. Acquiring the practices, mental and spiritual discipline that will enable us truly serve others comes from choosing, on a daily basis, to make small and yet incremental improvements in the way we relate with other people[8]. This is also known as Kaizen in Japanese culture; and it means “…constant revision, upgrading and improvement of the status quo – progressing little by little…”[9] If there is anything that distinguishes Mandela from other leaders, it is the fact that he makes special effort to live by what he believes in. My guess is that this is what all of us are called to become.

[2] Secretan, HK Lance, Reclaiming HigherGround: Creating Organisations that Inspire the Soul. Ontario: Secretan Centre, Inc., pg 129.

[2] Kalungu-Banda, Martin, Leading Like Madiba: Leadership Lessons from Nelson Mandela. Cape Town: Double Story, 2006.

[3] Ibid. pg 4.

[4] Secretan, HK Lance, Inspire: What Great Leaders Do. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., pg 207.

[5] Robyn Cohen first teased out these Lessons from the book Leading Like Madiba: Leadership Lessons from Nelson Mandela in an article she published in the Mercedes Magazine (www.mercedes-benz.co.za/Introduction/magazinePC_page2.asp – 64k – Supplemental Result).

[6] Williamson, Marianne, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles. New York: Harper Perennial, 1992, pg 70.

[7] Morrell, Margot, et.al. Shackleton’s Way: Leadership Lessons from the Great Antarctic Explorer. London: Nicholas Brealey, 2003.

[8] Kouzes, M James. et.al., The Leadership Challenge. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002, pg 205.

[9] Secretan, HK Lance, The Way of the Tiger: Gentle Wisdom for Turbulent Times. Ontario: The Thaler Corporation, Inc., 1993, pg 79.

Interview with Liberal Seburikoko

by Hamish Wilson/

What led you to become a part of Wasafiri?

Four reasons led me to joining Wasafiri: firstly, I had a passion and I found people with a kindred spirit who shared that same passion. The passion was about generating action to help people living in poverty get dignified lifestyles. This meant working with a wide range of organisations both from the north and the south.

Secondly, I needed a ‘home’. I had been a full time consultant for about a year when we set up Wasafiri. At the time my work was highly demanding and involved frequent travel. I felt so lonely and missed the office environment from my previous employment where I would interact with colleagues. Wasafiri provided that sense of home and belonging for me, although virtually.

Thirdly, I had a strong desire to set up a framework where talented people could access opportunities that they would otherwise not easily have access to. I had in mind staff appointed in country who worked for international organisations but were limited by the nature of their contract. During an assignment in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with Ian Randall in 2009, I shared my dream with him. When we created Wasafiri, we agreed that one of its aspirations would be to try and provide a forum where such talented people who shared our passion would be nurtured thus enabling them to perform to the best of their abilities to make a greater impact in the world.

Finally, I joined Wasafiri to experiment with choosing what I wanted to do. Previously, I had not had much choice in life – from the country where I lived, to the courses I studied. Even at work, I would be assigned roles that I was not keen on but which were necessary for the organisations I worked for. Wasafiri provided a backing that enhanced my confidence to choose where and on what I wanted to invest my effort and energies while making a living. What a privilege to be able to decide what one wants to do – this is pretty rare in Africa!

Wasafiri is deeply committed to generating concerted action to overcome poverty and crises – can you share with us examples from your work that are in line with this?

The first example that pops to mind is when I was involved in international climate change negations. I worked with some of the best climate change scientists and policy analysts at Climate Analytics. Our work involved supporting the Least Developed Countries (LDC) and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to have a voice in climate change negotiations. Climate change is arguably one of the most frightening world crises and the most damaging in terms of impact that the poorest countries have to come to terms with. Its saddest feature is that the poorest countries, which have contributed virtually nothing to the problem, are most vulnerable to the devastating impacts of climate change with inadequate means to cope.

My role with Climate Analytics involved trying to help negotiating teams from poorer countries get access to relevant scientific information and the policy analyses they needed in order to negotiate a fair climate change deal. During the negotiation sessions, you have on the one hand countries like USA, who would have a delegation of about 50 people including seasoned scientists and veteran negotiators who would be adequately resourced for the negotiations. On the other hand, you will have a couple of negotiators at most LDC countries who have a different day job back home and seldom manage to prepare for the negotiations back in their respective capitals. They struggle to even cover the multiple meetings happening almost simultaneously let alone engage meaningfully. They really don’t have a voice in what is happening. Our role was to do the groundwork, reviewing and analysing relevant scientific literature, real time number crunching and scanning policy developments that may have an impact on climate change. We would prepare talking points, briefings, make presentations of critical themes of their choice prior to, during and after the negotiation sessions. Over the 2 years or so working with Climate Analytics, I would say that we contributed to empowering them and consequently their voice has significantly increased – although significant challenges remain.

Tell us about the proudest moment in your career

This is a hard question as I tend to be satisfied with the work I do as I give it my best shot. I will probably share the most recent experience.  Back in March 2011, there was a steering committee meeting convened by the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) where I am now working. We had prepared a 3-year work plan but the meeting needed to approve NISR’s annual work plan as well as the report for the previous quarter. The plan got approved unanimously without any challenge. This was the first time in NISR’s six years of existence that donors have not challenged its plan.

Many of the subsequent disbursements were conditional to getting that plan approved. That meant getting lots of information from other donors and getting it into a three-year plan. The plan was realistic, achievable and what brought joy to me was that many of the development partners seemed to be committed to getting more funding to fill the funding gap we had highlighted. You could see that they were generally keen to explore ways of getting additional monies – they trusted us and wanted to be part of the success story.

And when I joined NISR back in August 2010, the then Director General told me this – “Liberal, the one single thing I want you to achieve is make sure the plan is approved and adequately funded”. It gave me a deep sense of satisfaction to rise to the challenge and to succeed in meeting it in less than 6 months.

We have done many fantastic things at the NISR, which I will be blogging about in the future.

In the context of Wasafiri’s current expansion what are your highest hopes for Wasafiri?

As I said at the beginning, my hope is that Wasafiri becomes a home for talented people both in the global north and south who are passionate and committed to generating action to making lasting change against poverty in the world. We recently had a partners’ meeting and decided to focus on coaching, mentoring and supporting the new consultants we recently brought on board to make them fully ‘operational’ as Wasafiri consultants. So I am considering reducing my consultancy workload to devote more time to this.

There is something the 4 Wasafiri partners have which is quite unique – we have something that I don’t know how to describe. We are great adventurers, big risk takers, committed to international development with a free mind and spirit. I really hope the new consultants we have taken on board will catch the fire and the vision and excel at what they do.

My highest hopes are in the new Wasafiri consultants – getting them settled, networked and being discovered. Some of them are professionally experienced; others have got life experience (like my refugee life in the 1990s and how that has shaped my character). My hope is for them to find opportunities to do the best they can and be the best that they can possibly be.

 

What are your passions and interests outside of work?

I am going to be unconventional here. I am a deeply committed Christian and, strictly speaking, there is nothing like ‘work’ and ‘outside work’ for me because I work for a higher purpose. Whether it is at work or outside the work context, I am still guided by that higher purpose. So when I am not working (in the formal sense), I still pursue opportunities that either enrich my own life or other people’s. These may include a holiday, a spiritual retreat, counselling friends, socialising with people, editing someone’s CV, coaching someone for an interview, supporting a poor person if they cannot make ends meet, spending time with my wife and kids etc. This also includes challenging the status quo where I feel it is inhibiting life within my capacity of course. One aspect that inhibits life is social injustice; I am very sensitive to it. This could be in the streets, in my small community, at work, it doesn’t matter where it is, if I feel something about it, I’ll do something about it.

For example, I was riding past the Office of the President in Kigali after work. I saw a matatu (mini bus) knocking into a private car, just pushing it, the matutu then pushed past it, scratching the small car. I drove after the matatu to intercept it and hold its driver accountable. Luckily, the matatu driver had pulled into the bus stop. I pulled my car in front of the matatu. I said to the driver “You have to tell me why you just did that” The driver asked who I was, I said “You don’t need to know”. I just told them that I was a witness. The driver of the private car had come over, I said to the matatu driver that the minimum he had to do was to say ‘sorry’ to the other driver. I managed to bring them to come to a consensus, and the car driver was happy that a stranger helped. Life flowed again… it sounds weird but I felt good as I was driving home again.

I had no mandate to intervene. I am not a policeman yet it is those kinds of moments, like this small example, or the pain people (mostly the disadvantaged) may endure in being turned away from a service that they are entitled to; these are the kinds of moments that create action within me and a strong desire to do something arises.

My life’s passion is getting life flowing unhindered. This is the continuous theme out of my fixed schedule. Engaging at heart level – that is what I do, wherever I am in the world.

Ian and Liberal at the UNECA Conference Centre, Addis Ababa

Interviewer: Katie Chalcraft

Global ambitions? The rise of Australia’s ‘Civilian Corps’

by Hamish Wilson/

2009 was a bad year for natural disasters in the Asia-Pacific.

Cyclones in Burma and the Phillipines, floods in Vietnam and volcanic eruptions in Indonesia stretched the capacity and willingness of neighbouring nations to come to the aid of millions affected. Such regional goodwill was further tested by outbreaks of conflict in Papua New-Guinea, the Solomon Islands and East Timor.

A deployable civilian service?

Against this torrid backdrop, the notion of a deployable civilian ‘public-service’ was proposed by a newly elected, liberal Australian government eager to prove itself on the global stage. Its interventions in the region, often as last-minute provider of humanitarian aid and mediator of local conflicts, served to rouse popular support for a rethink of Australia’s response to such crises.

Further impetus for expanding Australia’s aid and diplomatic reach lay in a domestic economic and political climate ripened by a decade long natural-resources boom and a warming of relations across the region

Launched the same year as the militaristic sounding ‘Australian Civilian Corps’, the ACC is now a standing capacity of some 120-odd specialists in public administration and finance, law and justice, engineering, health, stabilisation and humanitarian assistance.

I was recently invited to join an elaborate Foundation Training required of all members, and learned that the Corps aims for a 500 strong cadre by 2014 to enable ‘the rapid deployment of civilian specialists to countries affected by natural disaster or conflict.’

This ambition reflects a wider interest amongst Western nations to bind foreign aid budgets to national security interests. Such trends are grounded in an increasingly popular ideology which views violence and instability as magnified by extreme poverty (Cramer, 2006) – prompting a dramatic growth in funding for so-called ‘fragile states’ such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Yemen and the like. Founded on this newly coined ‘stabilisation doctrine‘, the ACC draws heavily from the experiences of similar efforts by the UK, US, Canada and EU.

Integrating development, diplomacy and defence

This assimilation of development, diplomacy and defence policy is also reflective of a growing shift amongst Western governments toward more integrated, ‘Whole of Government’ approaches. Such trends however, risk obscuring of the distinction between international military, political and poverty reduction objectives.

Regardless, the ACC’s humble achievements to date belie its ambitions beyond simply serving as firefighter and policeman for the Asia-Pacific. Recent forays into Afghanistan, Libya and Haiti give some indication as to the depth of Australia’s determination to flex its international muscle in regions far removed from its own.

On the way, it hopes to ‘advance its reputation and influence in the international community’. Some might look to Australia’s ambitions to secure a seat on the UN Security Council next year as one spur for such ventures (lending further weight to Australia’s self-perception of itself as a ‘Middle Power’ in the region).

Seat or no seat, the birth of the ACC reflects a more prosperous, globally confident, and politically ambitious nation. That said, the test of the Australian Civilian Corps itself will lie in the impact it actually achieves in generating action to overcome crisis and conflict – beyond its own audacious rhetoric.

The nexus between Climate Change and Development

by Martin Kalungu-Banda/

Following Copenhagen, there seemed to be a feeling and perception that the world had let itself down by failing to reach the kind of international agreement and commitment that would significantly and urgently begin to tackle issues of climate change. For many people and organisations, there is a disconnect or a weak link between climate change discourse and development thinking and practice.

Mid 2010, the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN) began to think about how to strengthen the nexus between climate change and development. A consortium of organisations were convened by CDKN to try and host an event that could bring new life into the issues of Copenhagen and discover new ways of ensuring that climate change and development were complementary sides of one coin. This thinking culminated into the CDKN Change Lab Event that took place in Oxford from 3rd to 7th April 2011.

The preparation to the Change Lab Event involved setting up of a cross-sectoral group of process designers and facilitators. Wasafiri Partner Martin Kalungu-Banda was invited to lead on the key methodology to be used during the event.

The emphasis in preparation was about designing a process that would allow the 200 participants from over 70 countries, covering public, private and civil society sectors to interact and think together in order to come up with innovative ways of establishing the nexus between climate change and development. The internet was extensively used to learn from the experiences and expertise of all the participants. Guest speakers who could help the participants gain quick understanding of the some aspects of the challenge were identified and properly briefed. Weekly internet meetings were held over a period of four months in order to design and test the process for hosting and conducting the event.

The hosting environment was carefully chosen (Oxford University) because of its capacity to provide the space and atmosphere required for break-through thinking. The best practices in human interaction and systems thinking were tapped into and brought into the design. The entire process was a mix of plenary conversations; small group discussions; and individual moments of reflection. To maximise the creativity of the participants, various tools and techniques in creative processes such sculpting, drawing and painting; systems games and journaling, among others, were used.

Working in small groups created on the basis of interest and work/ organisational focus, participants came up with 26 prototypes that are going to be implemented in order to bring about the new situation where issues of climate change and development would be simultaneously worked on. Equally important were the different collaborative relationships and networks that emerged during the four-day event. These networks, it is hoped, will leverage the distinctive competencies of the various institutions and sectors that in the past had never tapped into each other’s strengths, experience and expertise.

Helmand 26: Our eyes and ears

by Hamish Wilson/

I sit with my young Afghan interpreter by the swollen Helmand river watching fish leap out of the fast moving current.

“My family thinks I work in Herat. Only my brother knows that I am here…” he tells me, as the icy water swirls past. “In this job it is safer if our friends, our relatives don’t know what we do.”

We continue talking as the sun slowly sets, and it becomes apparent to me that his concealment is common for many of the hundreds of young Afghan men hired to work across the province as translators and interpreters for those of us who don’t speak the local Pashtu.

“I cant trust anyone in this area.” he continues. “They prefer their own people. If I go out alone, then my place will be with the Taliban next week. They say we are the eyes and the ears of ISAF.”

And he is right. Without these brave youngsters, we are blind. They see all and hear all that is passed between we foreigners and the Afghans, be they government officials, local farmers or Talib sympathisers. And they are more than interpreters – they become our guides to the complex customs and ancient traditions that define every interaction. Without them we would be helpless.

Yet they are invisible. Present in every encounter, conduits for our conversations, yet otherwise silent observers to our dealings over every imaginable issue – poppy trafficking, military operations, local disputes… Our understanding of reality is shaped by these men.

His life story is etched by the milestones of war. Born at the time of the Soviet withdrawal, his family fled to Pakistan as the Taliban rose to power. They, like so many others, returned only after Coalition forces toppled the regime in 2001. He seized the opportunity to begin a degree in medicine, but the realities of a war-ruin economy forced him to defer and instead seek work. Feeding his family was a higher priority.

With a good grasp of English learned in Pakistan, he was offered work by the British military, and promptly dispatched to the increasingly volatile province of Helmand. “I wasn’t happy to come here, but my family needed the money, so I decided to try my luck.”

And in a place such as Sangin, interpreters play a dangerous game of chance. He first arrived in early 2009, just as the ‘fighting season’ was starting in earnest. Four months later, one of his colleagues was struck by an IED. Since then three more interpreters, working on the front lines with the US Marines, have been killed. But such deaths are rarely reported in the media.

I learned from him that they are well rewarded for taking such risks, lured by salaries far higher than local officials, and the dream of qualifying for a visa in the West. Many seize the opportunity, serving their time and whisking their families off to a life unreachable by most in Afghanistan. Sadly, it means that this war is draining the precious pool of educated young men who would otherwise be helping to rebuild a shattered country. Our small team alone comprises a pilot, a nurse, a business owner and an aspirant doctor, their chosen professions laid to one side as they serve as our intermediaries.

By now the dusk has arrived, bringing with it gusts chilled by the waters at our feet. My young and loyal interpreter shares his hopes of someday returning to Kabul to complete his medical degree. It will be a hard road from here and I am reminded how easy it is to overlook the sacrifice made by those who are our eyes and ears.