The Kings New Clothes

Stories from the Road

Once there was a proud king who spent much money on fine clothes so that all could see that he was indeed a man of great importance. He spared no expense to keep his reputation as someone who always wore the finest clothes and stood out at every occasion.

One day two swindlers came to the city. They said they were fine weavers and master tailors and knew how to make clothes that were beyond the imagination of ordinary men. They said the clothes they made were so soft and fine that they might have been made of spider web, that the colors they used were so extraordinary that they may have come from the feathers of a peacock and they had the amazing property that anyone who was stupid or incompetent could not see them.

The king who was always looking for something new to impress the citizens of the city was captivated and enthusiastic to have a suit of clothes made for the upcoming parade. Also he thought I will be able to tell which of my ministers and advisors are incompetent and I will be able to tell the clever people from the stupid ones.

So the king paid the tailors a large deposit and they set up their weaving looms and pretended to set to work, often working late into the night.

After a few days the king sent his most trusted Minister to see how work was progressing as the procession was less than a week away.

The minister went to the rooms where the swindlers were pretending to weave the thread for the clothes but he couldn’t see a thing. “Well” said one of the swindlers, “isn’t this the finest cloth you have ever seen?” But the old minister could still see nothing. “Goodness” he thought, “I can’t see a thing, am I stupid and unfit for my position?” So he said “This fabric is the most beautiful I have ever seen! Magnificent colors and the patterns are superb, the king will be thrilled!” The swindlers then went into detail naming the patterns and describing how the colors all fit together to create an extraordinarily effect, so that they could be sure the Minister would report all this to the King.

When the minister returned to the king he said, “Your majesty the colors are amazing, the patterns sensational and the quality of the thread beyond belief.” So the king was well satisfied and waited in expectation.

The king sent other ministers to follow the progress and each returned to the king with reports filled with words like ‘Amazing!, Excellent! Magnificent!’

The night before the procession, the weavers stayed up all night pretending to sew the garments and everyone could see they were working feverishly to finish them on time.

The day of the procession, he weavers carefully brought the imaginary clothes to the kings dressing rooms and asked him to undress. Then they carefully set about dressing the king, firstly helping him put on the imaginary trousers then shirt and waste coat and cape, saying as they did that the exquisite lightness and quality of the fabric and the care of the tailoring meant that it may feel to the king that he was wearing nothing. 

Then the swindlers stood back and admired the king, “Oh your majesty, you look wonderful, the colors are amazing, the patterns, works of art, the clothes fit you perfectly, what a luxurious outfit!” And they turned to the king’s servants who clapped and nodded enthusiastically in appreciation.

The king looked at himself in the mirror and had to pretend that he could see what apparently everyone else could see and he smiled and nodded with great appreciation.  The king’s servant picked up the imaginary train of his cloak and held it up with great ceremony so as no one would suspect that they couldn’t see anything either.

And so the king went out onto the great steps and under the canopy that had been erected, he was  surrounded by thousands of his subjects who were also waiting expectedly to see the marvelous new clothes for all had heard of the miraculous suit being made for the occasion.

While all the attention was on the king, the swindlers took the gold they had been given in many payments and all the fine silks that had been provided to them for the work with and that they had hidden away and quickly left the town without anyone noticing.

Everyone was commenting on how magnificent the king’s clothes were. For like everyone else no one wanted to appear incompetent or stupid. Then a small child came looked up, saw the king and called out, “the king is naked, he has no clothes!” And suddenly everyone knew it to be true. But the king was a proud man and he continued to march through the streets as naked as the day he was born.

This tale was made popular by  Hans Christian Andersen (1837). Andersen's source was a Spanish story recorded by Don Juan Manuel (1282-1348). The tale also has its equivalents in Sri Lanka, Turkey, India and England

Reflection

This story illustrates many things, particularly how a chosen belief system, as flawed as it may be, can survive when everyone agrees to maintain an illusion for in many cases the status quo makes more sense to the people involved than their alternatives as they see them.

Often in International Development a project does not go as well as hoped and intended. Development is a messy business and there are so many factors that can lead to outcomes that are lower than expected or circumstances which add unforeseen complexity. I have been involved in many projects where we have all realized that we need to change our activities or approaches. The place I always start, whether it is with a group in a community or a group of staff, is to ask what is working, what is not working and what would we like to do differently? Surprisingly, even though all is not going as hoped and everyone involved can talk about the problems encountered, as often as not, people say that nothing should change and we should just give things more time and redouble our existing efforts. In a sense this is, like the king, deciding to march on naked.

It seem obvious that, for us to try to make changes,  we have to admit there is something that needs changing and here the road can begin to get sticky. To admit that something needs to change means that we must in some sense admit to the at least partial failures in what we have been doing.

The king in the story had been “working with expectation” on his new outfit for some time and when faced with the choice of changing his strategy and admitting that his assumptions and faith had been in fact been stupid, and with this worst fear realized, he elected instead to continue with “the project” and march through the streets naked, even though it was obvious to all that the new clothes project was a failure. It is interesting to surmise whether on meeting the naked king in the street, any of the subjects would tell him outright the new outfit was not working. Or whether in spite of the previous disclosure of a serious problem with the plan, everyone would inadvertently conspire to maintain the illusion. And thus nothing would change.

In this story, everyone has something to lose by admitting that they made a mistake, so in a certain way it makes sense to continue with the illusion. Development psychologist and author Robert Kegan[i] calls this ‘immunity to change’. Kegan describes how often it can seem to make more sense to do what we are doing even when we are failing relative to our aspirations rather than make a personal change to better meet our stated goals or mission.

So for example, the king is proud and doesn’t want to admit that he is wrong so he decides to stick with the program and march naked, as this in some ways better meets his need to be perceived as right rather than to admit he was wrong, change his plan and adopt a new set of clothes.

Kegan describes how our hidden commitments or assumptions are very often the things that drive our behaviors and the actions we take are those that are consistent with these hidden assumptions.  In many situations the actions required to meet our lofty and genuinely held and stated beliefs would require actions that were in fact inconsistent with our hidden assumptions.

Several years ago in Africa I observed that a displaced persons camp had sprung up in the area the NGO  was working in. It transpired that even though there were hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children living in this new village of makeshift tents, in the dry scrubby hills, the NGO was not actively involved in doing anything to improve their lives or assist the children attend school or their parents access basic services. It was not through a shortage of funds; apparently nothing was being done because it was not part of the NGO’s plan for the area. The manager held an MBA and was bright and efficient and the staff teams committed to the organization and morale was high. Every morning at devotions they all read out loud  the stated values of the organization together which were pasted on the wall: “we are child focused, we are committed to the poor, we are responsive, we value people and their right to freedom, justice, peace and opportunity”. At the time I asked myself, how can it be that these staff are so sincerely committed to these values and yet are not trying to respond to this obvious need on their doorstep? I think the answer lies somewhere in this concept of ‘immunity to change’. How the ‘self-identity body’ can seek self-preservation – like an immunity reaction – and only take action when it is consistent to the hidden commitments and assumptions or operating system of the person.  So in this case I surmise that those, who could have taken responsive action,

 were working within a world view something like the following: “we will be more successful if we stick to the plan; change often involves risk and this may work against me; my manager and those above will not appreciate the additional workload and changes that being more responsive to this situation will entail; I need to show I am focused on the existing plans”. And behind this world-view is likely to be a hidden assumption something like:  “I will succeed if I don’t take risks and don’t leave myself open to blame”.  With this hidden assumption largely fixed and unrecognized, personal change and action, regardless of any espoused principles, is unlikely to take place.

This concept can apply to the group of staff who will  take 30 minutes and convincingly describe what is not working in a project, and when asked: “So what should we do? What would you like to do? “ The answer as often as not is, “let’s work for another three years doing the same things we are doing now, all we need is more time”. If the hidden assumption is, “my whole identity, standing and perhaps future livelihood and success is given to me by this community that I am working in”, then to take some steps that risk strong resistance by some vested interests in the community may mean that as much as the staff member is committed to the project’s success, his or her hidden assumption is a stronger driver than any genuinely held but inwardly inconsistent beliefs. When I say inwardly inconsistent , I mean not seeking to change a project, even though it is failing, may very well be much more aligned to the staff’s hidden assumption,  than to change the project and risk having some in the community withdraw their personal support.

I have often found myself telling this story of the proud king to groups of staff. My intention is that until we can say that the king is naked, or the project is broken and to see that we too have a role in this story, it is almost impossible to gain enthusiasm to make changes that may lead to better outcomes. The king’s foolishness was not his alone. There were many in the story of the king who could have spoken up early and the king would have jailed the swindlers and started again. The illusion of success was supported by the hidden assumptions of the Ministers who feared they actually were incompetent and whose hidden assumptions may have been, “I will succeed if I tell the king what he wants to hear and appear clever at all times.” If this was the hidden assumption or commitment, then telling the king the clothes were superb, against all evidence, made a kind of sense. Mostly, people understand our need to disclose program challenges but when it comes to getting to our own role in that, the path suddenly becomes steeper and rock strewn. One staff member in Eastern Europe said they were offended by the mental image of the naked king, another group in Timor was in tight agreement that the king should never have been a king in the first place and if he was so stupid why did the subjects follow him? And in neither case did we make much of an inroad to what we might choose to do differently and what this might mean for changes in behavior of the individual staff members involved.

I am convinced that to make real changes when a program is struggling, the place to start, is to find ways in which the key players can find a way to feel safe to explore and disclose their hidden operating assumptions. It is my view, that these hidden assumptions are both a product of personal worldviews and paradoxically foundational for them and, unless these change, the likelihood of significant program changes is small. From time to time I have seen this happen in individuals and as a result there have been astounding changes in the ways they do things and the results that take place. More often I have seen the negative consequences when, in spite of overwhelming evidence of the need for change, things continue the same and as king, we continue our naked march.

---

[i] Kegan, R. &. (2009). Immunity to Change. USA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Graphic in the public domain by Ilene Richard

The Abilene Paradox

Stories from the Road 

The Abilene Paradox

 We were sitting around playing cards. It was hot, almost 45 degrees Celsius. There was me and my wife Diana and Diana’s sister Debbie and her husband Steve. There was almost no wind outside and the air was shimmering like a mirage, the tar on the road in front, was  shiny at the edges, it was beginning to melt and  the dogs were walking in slow motion dogs as though sticking to the sidewalk. The ceiling fan in the in semi dark room living room pushed the hot air around greasy like molasses. We were visiting Debbie and Steve for the first time in several years and they were trying to make sure we had a good time.

After a card game in which Debbie and I had won, Steve said, “why don’t we go to Abilene, it won’t take us much more than an hour to get there and we can enjoy the mall and have an early dinner there at one of the restaurants”. I didn’t much feel like going anywhere; I was enjoying the cards and the lazy
Saturday afternoon. But my wife spoke up enthusiastically and said that she thought it was a great idea and would get us out of the house. Debbie agreed it would be fun. So I said, “looks like we have a plan, lets go!”. We jumped in to Steve’s old Toyota Camry and set off. The air-conditioning wasn’t working and so we had the windows down but it was still like an oven and too noisy to talk.

We got to Adeline and the Mall was full overweight Midwestern couples in leisure suits, stores selling things I can’t imagine anyone needing, there was upbeat piped music, and the whole place smelled of sugar donuts. We ended up eating at a Chinese Restaurant where the food was overpriced and all the dishes tasted much the same.

On the way back none of us had much energy for conversation in the dark on long straight roads and into a barrage of oncoming headlights. It seemed all of us couldn’t wait to be home and there was an uneasy tension in the car. Then Debbie said “You know, I didn’t enjoy that at all and I am sorry I let you all talk me into it.” Then my wife said “ Well I didn’t want to go but I wanted to support Steve who was only trying to be helpful.” And I said, “I never wanted to go but the three of you had already decided.”

Then finally Steve also spoke,   “I didn’t really want to go but I just wanted to show you all a good time, it is not often you visit and I was worried you might be bored just sitting there playing cards.”

So it turned out that we had all taken a journey of nearly 200 kilometers, in almost unbearable heat, that none of us wanted to take in the first place to reach a destination we weren’t interested in.

Reflection

I find this one of the most fascinating stories as it relates to international development. I see it occurring in groups of staff and in community groups and especially when our staff and community groups are working together. In the last case it is because whether it is actually true or not, the communities we are working with often perceive us as having a plan, money and power and a community group essentially says, “Well if you want to go to Abilene we will come with you.”

I have probably told this story to fifty different groups and whether it is to villagers sitting in a mud floored church in some remote region in Africa, or whether to a staff team in an office, it has never failed to cause laughter and exchanges of knowing looks. When I ask them about the story, group members always confirm that they have been to ‘Abilene’ many times.

In the case of international development organizations one of the dominant considerations is minimizing the risk that the donor’s money will be wasted. This has encouraged mindsets and systems where minimizing risks often seems to be more important than taking risks to make a situation better. Over many years of development there has been a push away from inspired individuals, perhaps characterized by the passionate or even slightly mad missionary, in favor of a professional and scientific approach. This can lead us to a ladder of interference that often carries within it at least one false assumption. Which means that whole ladder is flawed.

As an example, a simple form of this thinking is:

People in the developing world are poor,

If they had money they would be happier and healthier,

What they need is money,

Money will solve their problems,

Let’s raise money.

Or in a more nuanced example, we are visiting a poor village where the people have little money and their children are suffering.  We look for data, we notice there is no power, running water and primitive farming methods.

Then we look for more examples of how we think the lack of technology is trapping these villagers in poverty

With this filtered view, we start to add meaning to our data based on our own experiences and beliefs….we may think, ‘ if they had more technology their incomes would rise and they would be healthier and happier and be able to care better for their children.’

Then we draw conclusions based on our own experiences – technology is key to my personal productivity, all these people need is technology to increase their productivity and their incomes and be able to care better for their children.

We then adopt these beliefs…..if we raise more money for technology children will benefit.

Then we take action – ‘let’s start a fundraising appeal to solve the problems faced by these poor villagers so they can acquire technology and their children will be happier and healthier and have better futures.’

International development is littered with examples where a flawed ladder of inference has led to poor results.

The reason for raising this in the context of the Abilene Paradox is that in international development, we are more inclined to hire people who can fit in and be part of a team and work to a prescribed plan, based on a ladder of inference, as a team of professionals, rather proactively encouraging diverse thinking by the people who are closest to the ground in generative options for change.  It is also true that in developing countries we are inclined to hire staff who share a common “compliance” worldview.

This leaves us very vulnerable to suggesting trips to Abilene and taking communities with us. Whether it is a villager in a poor village or one of our staff, not going along with the plan can be perceived as disloyal, obstructive and hurting people who are poor.

In a village there is often a hierarchy based on clan,  wealth, age, power or politics and I have often noticed, that irrespective of the discussion, there will be one man who speaks and even though I know that many don’t agree with his opinion they will all end up supporting him. Never is this truer than when electing the head of a community group. I have spoken with all the other members of a group individually and they will all agree the person they have elected as chair is not the best person for the job yet they elected him none the less.

I have also seen staff putting forward a plan, that may well be a trip to Abilene and everyone unanimously agrees with the plan, yet the staff individually have doubts and done really have much hope that the planned results will be achieved but they feel they have no choice. And the villagers will also say that they doubt things will go as planned but if the development organization thinks that this is a good idea then they are happy to make the journey and see what happens. What transpires, is that the community group begins to show low motivation, members come late to meetings or miss them altogether. My belief is that this is because the collective group embarked on a journey that no one wanted to take, but everyone wanted to please everyone else and there didn’t seem to be a better alternative at the time, so off they all went to Abilene. 

The beginning of the Abilene trap is that staff or community members fail to clearly communicate their desires or beliefs with each other. And actually do the opposite; expressing enthusiasm for an idea thereby leading each other to misperceiving the groups shared beliefs. So it is then natural that this collective misperception will lead the group to make decisions and embark on actions that their heart is not in.

Predictably, rather than leading to strong collective action this paradox is more inclined to lead to frustration, demotivation, blame sharing, undermining, anger and disassociation with the group or process. At its core the Abilene Paradox has to do with a groups inability to manage a process of open communications, manage different points of view, and manage a way to find a shared agreement.

Underlying the Abilene Paradox can be the fantasies held by group members. The international development staff team may believe that the donor or the organization will not tolerate the longer time frames that might be required to manage a more complex agreement process or that there is no way through organizational bureaucracy or that the team is in common agreement…… except for them. The Community group may believe that the development organization has a fixed idea of what needs to happen and so try to anticipate what they think is required of them in the situation. Either group may have a collective belief in their own powerless.

In many cases what is likely to be at the core of the Paradox is each member’s fear of separation from the group, of isolation, alienation or ostracism. Members might feel that to voice their own views or feelings will be perceived as disloyal, obstructive or not being a constructive team player. In fact agreeing outwardly but disagreeing inwardly has the very effect that the individual was trying to avoid. They are now frustrated and feeling alone with a decision that they helped create!

For me the first step of “bypassing” Abilene is to understand the existence and danger of the Abilene Paradox in the first place. I believe it is vital to separate the process of gaining points of view from managing the process for finding agreement. The second step is to find ways to ensure that genuine diversity of opinions is encouraged by broadening the parameters of the discussion before becoming more focused. One way to do this is to brainstorm twenty or thirty different points of view before again narrowing by beginning to group them into “buckets” of interests. The next step is to try to describe the diversity of views the multiple realities and “truths” of the situation and  creating an environment that holds the possibility for a genuine shared way forward that avoids a trip to Abeline.

(This is a retelling of the original Abilene Paradox story Professor Jerry B. Harvey Phd, and my reflection also draws on theory from some of his writings.)

Jock Noble January 2014.

Jock Noble is the Lead or World Visions Economic Development Learning Hub for the Middle East and Eastern Europe. After a career of trying to teach turtles to fly he finally got into the water and is learning to swim with them.

© Words and pictures Jock Noble: Original pictures by the wonderfully talented Armenian Artist - Ann

Postcard from Yerevan,

Of Swans and Wolves

My fourth floor balcony in the center of Yerevan overlooks a small man-made lake. It is called Swan Lake and it is in the shape of Armenia. Up until recently the weather was mild and the lake had water in it. Sometimes the two swans swimming on it were white and at other times the two swans were black. I guess someone switched them every few days. Black swans are hot weather birds from Australia. Recently it began to get cold and I am imagining as it begins to snow, one black swan turns to the other; “what the frick was that?”

Now the lake has become an ice skating rink. The swans have gone and I watch the skaters doing ballet moves to Celine Dion’s Titanic song, loud through big speakers in the crisp air, ‘near far wherever we are, I believe that the heart does go o-on…”.

Today it is -5C, it started out this morning at -13C so it is warming up. My little electronic weather station also tells me that the humidity is -55%. What do you suppose that means?

Having a cup of tea on my balcony I noticed four council workers each carrying a life-size white plastic swan and apparently a map trying to figure out where to put them. I came out later to clear the used tea bag from the patio table and found it had frozen solid to the glass table top. That is a new experience for me.  I see the neighbor below puts bread on the table in the balcony below presumably to keep it frozen.

I have found this winter weather is fine if you dress for it. A few weeks ago I went to the outdoor market and in preparation for these days and bought a Russian fur hat. One of those hats you see people wearing in Moscow on -30 degree news reports. The Armenian man at the hat stand spoke no English and so we did miming interpretations of the various animals, he had hats made from rabbit, mink and other animals I couldn't figure out from the miming.  I wanted something a bit exotic and ended up in buying one made from Wolf fur. Thinking I might be  part of some wolf extinction story,  with passer by translating, I asked him if the wolf was a problem in Russia or if it was somehow sustainably farmed for its skin He looked at me like I was completely mad and even with translation I was not able to get any kind of coherent picture except for, a wolf is a wolf you stupid man.

When I got home I checked on the internet and sure enough wolves are a problem in Russia. Recently 400 wolves got together in a super pack and surrounded a village and villagers had to mount snowmobile patrols while they waited for the army to arrive.  Apparently there is a high bounty paid for dead wolves and in Siberia the state has extended the hunting season on wolves to be all year round and on January 15 is officially beginning a “three month battle against wolves”. Anyway I bought the hat; it looks ridiculous but better than my ears shriveling up with frost bite.

Speaking of fur I noticed many bars in Yerevan have signs that read ‘fur bar’. I never went into any of them as I thought it might be the local term for pussy bar and that is not my thing. But now I know that the Armenian script for Bar looks like fur.

I still only know four things to say in Armenian; Barev dzez  - hello, barev luys - good morning,  lav em -how are you? And my newly mastered shnorhakalutyan – thank you. 

The Saint’s Tooth

Stories from the Road

The Saint’s Tooth

Once upon a time, there was a village where the people were very poor. There were many reasons for this. The ground was hard clay and covered in small iron pebbles. In the dry season top soil became a fine dust and the hard clay on the tracks and hillsides dried and cracked. Often in the summer months the wind picked up the dust and carried it into the people’s huts and into everything they owned. The summer heat made thermals and the grey dust spiraled upwards in mini tornadoes that in the local language were called “the angry person”. And in the wet season the rain came in torrents and turned the walking tracks and roads into rivers and the dust became mud and each year more of the scarce top soil was washed away. Because the people were so poor they progressively cut down the trees on the surrounding hills to use for fuel to cook their food and boil water. The villagers grew as much corn and vegetables as they could and kept a few goats to milk for their children. In the previous year the rain came early and then stopped and the crops which had begun to shoot died and there was no time then to replant, so now there was hunger in the village. There had also been feuds and land disputes between villagers which went  back many years and the people did not trust each other and only worked together grudgingly.The chief was a wise man and realized that the people’s lives would only improve if they worked together and built an irrigation channel from the river that was over a kilometer from the village. But the people couldn't agree how to share the work and many thought that those who had land closer to the river would stop their labor once it had reached their land and so the work was never started.

One day the chief called a strong young man and said “We need a miracle if our village is to survive; I want you to go and find a holy relic and bring it back to the village so that we can pray to it and God will bless us and we will be saved.” So the young man went off with all the food he could carry in search of a holy relic to bring back to the little split logged dirt floored church.Initially the villagers were hopeful that the young man would return but several months passed and there was no sign of him and soon he was forgotten.The young man, faithful to his task traveled the county searching for a relic from a saint, but his food had long run out and he lived by scavenging what he could. Eventually in a barren place, weak from hunger, he tripped and fell. And next to where he fell there was the carcass of a dog. In desperation he pried one of the teeth loose from the dogs jaw. In a few days he returned to the village with the tooth. He told the whole village of his search and his eventual success in finding the tooth of a venerated saint. The villagers took the tooth and together built a case in which to display and venerate it in the church.

Now when the villagers came to pray at the church, they felt they were in an especially sacred place. Together they felt their village was now special as it was the home of this sacred object. Some people said that they had their prayers answered and others said that they had seen the tooth glowing in the dusky half-light of the church.The chief again called a meeting to discuss the digging of the irrigation trench. Now there was a different mood among the villagers. Seemingly there was a certain unity as they now saw themselves as the village of the saint’s tooth and blessed by God, where as previously they only thought of themselves as a poor cursed village.  Now they felt that they were unified as the only village in the area that had a relic from a genuine saint.It was not long before the chief was able to organize a team to begin work on the channel and they decided together that they would all start the trench from the furthest farmers land and work back toward the river. And within a month the trench was dug, the water flowed; the villagers built bonds of trust and friendship that had not existed before. Some said it was a miracle made possible by the tooth of the Saint but others wondered why they had not been able to work together all along.

Reflection

I have told this story numerous times when trying to generate thought and discussion as to  how when we believe that something is possible, that it often is. This is a story about the power of faith and hope and also how we create our own reality,whether we live in the cursed village or the blessed one, the future is in our hands or rather our heads. It is about the realization that we live in mystery and, in this mystery, the hope that we can make a difference in our own situation.On one memorable occasion I told it to a group of poor Muslim farmers in Senegal and they had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. I remember well my colleague at the back of the room looking up at me from her laptop and I could see she was thinking, ‘can’t wait to see you get out of this one’. As is my habit I kept digging myself a deeper hole for a while before just giving up in front of the very respectful but perplexed audience. I think what I failed to do was to make the link between their current situation as they saw it, their fate, and the possibility that a different future was possible. This required a shared belief and, based on that belief, a shared hope; what could be their Saints tooth?It is a fact that some towns or neighborhoods prosper and others in similar situations struggle socially and economically and even disappear. What is it about their faith and how this links to  hope and then action for a future which results in success? Believing in something outside ourselves is generally called faith and often it is this faith that allows us hope and in turn the motivation to work towards a different or better future. I am always encouraged by the following words by the esteemed late Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and politician Vaclav Havel.

“Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from “elsewhere.” It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem hopeless as ours do, here and now.”[1]

Jock Noble November 2013,

Jock Noble is the Lead of World Visions Economic Development Learning Hub for the Middle East and Eastern Europe. After a career of trying to teach turtles to fly he finally got into the water and is learning to swim with them.

© Words and pictures Jock Noble: Original pictures by the wonderfully talented Armenian Artist - Anna Avetisyan

---

[1] Václav Havel in Disturbing the Peace: A conversation with Karel Hvížďala, (Knopf, 1990), p. 181. Originally published 1986. Translated from the Czech by Paul Wilson. Also available in The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A citizen’s guide to hope in a time of fear by Paul Rogat Loeb, (Basic Books, 2004), p. 82.

The People of Rome

Stories from the Road

The People of Rome

There was once a traveler who was on his way to Rome, it was a long and dusty path and he had misgivings about the city. He had heard so much, traveled so far and he was nervous about how he would make his way in the new city. A days walk from Rome he reached the top of a hill from which Rome in its glory could be seen. And sitting in the shade of a rock sat an old man. He walked over to the man.

“Wise one” he said, “ I have traveled far, please tell me, what are the people in Rome like?”

The old man looked at him for a moment and said, “Where are you from brother?”

“I am from a village outside Athens sir” replied the traveler.

“And how are the people there?”

And the traveler replied “The people from my village are generous, kind and understanding, they welcome travelers and treat all men as equal”

“Well” said the old man, “You are in luck, for the people of Rome are just the same”

The following day another traveler reached the top of the mountain, looked toward Rome, noticed the old man and walked over to him and said: “Wise one, I have traveled far, please tell me, what are the people in Rome like?”

The old man looked at him for a moment and said, “Where are you from brother?”

“I am from a village outside Athens sir” replied the traveler.

“And how are the people there?”

And the traveler replied, “The people from my village are mean, unscrupulous and lack any compassion, they are suspicious of travelers and only look after their own interests.”

“Well” said the old man, “I regret to tell you that the people of Rome are just the same.”

Reflection

We often feel that a situation is bad and many times we relate this with particular events and circumstances that seem to us unique to that situation. However so many times we fail to ask ourselves if we have encountered the underlying issues before and whether it may in fact be us who is the common element. We are inclined to take our baggage with us.

I believe that wisdom is paying more attention to what is going on around us than the next person and seeing our part in this; and this includes us recognizing our part in repeating patterns. We are almost never a neutral party in anything we are a part of.

Thus for International Development we must try to see how we take our own projections into various situations, staff groups and communities. And be aware of our own inclinations to make judgments and prophesies based on our own assumptions and then to see how these tend to become self-fulfilling. Just as the travelers in the story above we tend to see our situation as being the result of others behaviors rather than the result of our own interactions with others. We expect others to be open to change and have positive mindsets when so often we fail to be genuinely open and positive ourselves. We expect others to have self-belief when we do not believe in our own power to be real catalysts for change. And we expect others to take risks and be advocate for change, when we do not take risks or challenge the authorities in our own circumstances.

Jock Noble November 2013,

Jock Noble is the Lead or World Visions Economic Development Learning Hub for the Middle East and Eastern Europe. After a career of trying to teach turtles to fly he finally got into the water and is learning to swim with them.

© Words and pictures Jock Noble: Original pictures by the wonderfully talented Armenian Artist - Anna Avetisyan

Stone Soup

Stories from the Road

Stone Soup

 Once upon a time there was a traveler who walked all day without food and arrived at dusty village; two rows of small stone and mud walled houses with broken tiled and tin roofs each side of a stony potholed dirt track. It was hot in the early afternoon and the village smelled of charcoal fires and cow dung. The villagers sat on split log benches pressed hard against the walls of the houses or squatted in the pools of shade under the few trees in the central common near the village well. The flies were thick and tried to find moisture in the corners of the kid’s eyes and mouths and around the goats that looked for the last blades of grass and weed. Into this village the hungry visitor made his way.

The first person the traveler met was a women walking with two small  children and when he approached they clutched her skirt and moved behind her peering at him around the folds of tattered fabric. The traveler said, “Mother, I am hungry, can you spare a few mouthfuls of food?” But the woman said, “We too are hungry uncle and no one here has any food to spare, I can’t even properly feed my own children.”  The traveler knocked at the door of one hut and then another but the villagers who came to the door said the same. The visitor was travel-weary, tired and hungry he took rest for a while under one of the trees.

In the cooler part of afternoon he went to where the well was and spoke in a voice loud enough to be heard through the whole village. “I see everyone is hungry, and so I am going make a big meal and feed everyone, please come and join in the feast, this evening we will all eat well today.”

The visitor asked for the biggest pot in the village and someone brought it, he asked for some fire wood and the kids collected what they could. And the man asked the children to fill the huge pot with water and he then put it on the fire. And when the water was boiling he took out a large polished stone from his bag and announced. “I will now make stone soup!”

After some time the visitor took out a spoon from his bag and took a mouthful of the steaming liquid. “Ah it is coming along well, I think it just needs a little salt, can anyone spare a little salt?” and someone brought some. And the pot bubbled and the villagers chatted amongst themselves and waited expectantly. And the visitor again tasted the liquid. “Oh wonderful” he said, “Its coming along well, all we need are one or two onions, can anyone help with two onions?” And the onions  were supplied. And so the soup bubbled and every so often the visitor would taste the broth ask for one more ingredient, one time carrots, the next potatoes, and the next some chili and the next some corn and finally a chicken. And when the soup was ready everyone had more than they could eat and there was plenty left over.

(The story of Stone Soup has no known author, is apparently some hundreds of years old and is retold in many countries in many forms, from nail soup in Scandinavia, to Axe soup in Russia)

Reflection

After telling this story I ask participants, what they think this story is about. And someone generally says , “It shows how when everyone works together there can be more than any one person working alone.” And typically everyone nods. And I ask what else? And sometimes someone will say something like “The traveler had to trust and believe that the villagers had it within them to respond, otherwise all they would have had was hot water with a rock in it and the visitor would have to run for his life. “

And that to me is the is the wonder of this story, that a visitor to a community would be prepared to risk himself or herself not based on a belief that their job was to be an expert or to own a success but to take a risk that other could be shown they have the answer. To have faith in the possibility that ignited belief in one person might be the beginning of fire and change a world. And this is unlikely to ever happen through a log frame for soup or a professional Power Point presentation, or some action learning or evidence building activity.

The shadow in the story is the voice of the skeptic, what in fact is the traveler really offering?  We all have our own answers to this but certainly he is offering his belief in people and he is trusting in peoples curiosity to take a leap of faith towards something, in this case a never before heard of soup. There is a magic in this and he is the catalyst of it. And the magic is performed through the courageous belief of the traveler. Of course he is hungry for a result and keen to meet his own objective to eat a meal. He is not a neutral player. And neither are we as development professionals. We all need each other and the leap of faith taken by the communities we work in, to succeed.

The traveler holds a vision, he cannot be sure how the soup will progress or what the community will be able, or prepared, to offer. And yet in the story, as in life, something can manifest from very little.

It is also significant that the traveler is the only one who is potentially putting his life on the line, he has more to lose than the villagers. They are only offering what they can actually spare. The traveler like the development professional is offering himself, his credibility, his future in that village, perhaps even his life; he is raising hopes with no certainty of the outcome. 

Yet by his faith alone, in himself and in the community as not being different in essence from his own character, humility and brokenness, he is able to build and generate the trust that brings about something none of the participants could have done on their own.

In the international development context, my view is that this story is more about the courage and unshakable belief needed by development professionals than it is about communities being able or obliged to work together.

Jock Noble November 2013,

Jock Noble is the Lead of World Visions Economic Development Learning Hub for the Middle East and Eastern Europe. After a career of trying to teach turtles to fly he finally got into the water and is learning to swim with them.

© Words and pictures Jock Noble: Original pictures by the wonderfully talented Armenian Artist - Anna Avetisyan

The Oracle

Stories from the Road

The Oracle

Once upon a time there was a village where the people were hungry and dissatisfied with their situations and no one knew what to do. The chief of the village summoned the strongest young man and said, “Go over the mountains, find the wise Oracle and bring her to us; she will tell us what we need to do”. So the young man set off and after much hardship and many weeks he found the Oracle and brought her back to the village.

The Oracle asked, “So I am here, what is the problem?” And the villagers replied, “Great Oracle we are hungry and unhappy!” and the Oracle asked them, “So what is the answer to your problem?” and the villages stared at each other in confusion and one brave villager replied, “We are hungry and don’t know the answer to all the problems in our village, that is why we sent for you so that you can tell us the answers.” And the Oracle asked them many questions about those things that the villagers already knew about their situation and about the challenges they were facing and the reasons, and then she said, “ You know a lot about your situation, if you can’t find the answers in what you already know then I won’t be able to help you”. And slowly she stood up, picked up her walking staff and without another word began the trek back over the mountains to her home. The villagers looked at each other in disbelief; they had expected the Oracle to give them a simple answer that would solve their problems. Wasn't she the one they had been waiting for, the one they had put their hopes on, the wise one? Some villagers were disappointed, some were discouraged and some were even angry.

Some months went by and the poor conditions in the village had not improved, so the chief consulted with the elders and they agreed, they would send for the Oracle again to seek her wisdom. They agreed also that this time when she asked if they knew the answer to their problems, half the village would say they knew the answer and the other half would say they didn’t and in this way they would elicit the answer from the Oracle to what they should do to make their lives better and more successful.

So again the young man was sent to beg the Oracle to visit and she consented and together they slowly made the journey back to the village of hungry people. And again she asked if they knew the answer to their problems. And as they had agreed, half the village said that they knew the answer and half the village said they did not know and they asked the Oracle what they should do. The Oracle thought for a moment and then said, “Those who know the answer tell those who don’t know.” And then she took her walking staff and without another word left the village.

That night the chief had a dream and the next day he called everyone together. And he said, “The Oracle did in fact give us the answer but we didn't have the ears to hear it. The answer is that the solution to our problem lies within us, because we can only respond to things we already know to be true. If they were beyond our comprehension we could not respond, so anything we can do is within our comprehension, so the answers to our problems are already with us.”

 Reflection

I have told this story many times. On one occasion I was talking with a group of staff in Vietnam about local value chain development. They had been furiously taking detailed notes and I had the strong sense that they were expectantly waiting for me to give some miracle solution for what they should do for producers in their communities. They all had a copy of the ninety page local value chain manual and they wanted copies of all available PowerPoint presentations as well.

I could feel the pressure on me to be the expert but was very aware also that the answers were not in the notes. So I stopped and said something like:

“Market development is easy, first you find out what buyers are buying, then you find out what people are producing, after that, you and the community try to figure out how the market might work better so that producers can get more for their products. And this is generally by assisting producers to buy inputs like fertilizers and better seed, to supply more of what the market is demanding and increase their bargaining power by selling collectively. And to the extent that it is possible, farmers work together and partner with other organizations with which they share common interests. Then you all work together and innovate what seems to be working so that whatever successes have emerged can be maximized and experiences are shared about what has been effective. At various times you take a step back to see what the impact has been and what can be learned and discussed for the future.”

And everyone agreed that they knew this already and that it was helpful when it was spoken so simply. And so I told the story of the Oracle above and then said:

“The answers are already with you. And the answers are in the communities you work in and you must be the Oracle to them; just as I must be the Oracle to you, the one who helps you see what you already know. And perhaps helps you fill in some of the missing pieces when you have decided what you want to do.”

 I believe there is something we all need to learn about our tendency to believe that answers lie outside ourselves or beyond our ability to find them and our tendency to believe in the power of the expert to solve problems that only we can solve.

I think as development professionals we too often fall into the trap of our own need to be useful, which quickly becomes us wanting to be the experts, to hold the answers, to want to be of more value in pitiful situations and not to disappoint the expectations of those we are working alongside.

A less obvious trap is that those we are engaging with expect us to come up with simple answers to solve their challenges and put pressure on us “just tell us what to do”. I have seen this in communities where villagers are effectively saying “just tell us what to do and we will do it, you are the expert”. But in fact, between the lines, mostly what the villagers are really saying is “you commit yourself to us, you tell us what to do and give us what you can and we will decide what we think and what we will do, and if we do what you say and it doesn't work out then it will be your fault not ours.” I have seen this tendency when working with field staff as well, “you are the expert, stop trying to facilitate us and just give us the answers!”

I see this story of the community and the Oracle as a gateway into one of the fundamental challenges of international development, namely we being the “experts” and trying to transmit new knowledge or ways of seeing things beyond the current knowledge of the community or staff that we are engaging with. We can think, “If others don’t know the solution that seems clear to us, isn’t it our responsibility to educate them and tell them what they should do? “

What I have observed is that too often we introduce new concepts and or language which becomes appropriated at the hearers own level of understanding. But then often the words or concepts lose their power, if they are just acted on as a theory that is not really understood rather than a process of applying different ways of doing things because we see our situations differently. The way we learn new ways and worldviews is typically by doing and reflecting. It is a personal journey of lived experience, not an adopted one belonging to the “expert”.

Many times I have observed international aid and relief organizations, whose collective worldview very much revolves around compliance, policies for everything, risk minimization and staff fitting into the current culture, talking about the organization’s need for entrepreneurship, creativity and risk taking. Yet the people who are talking about these things and the recruiters who vainly try to recruit new creative and entrepreneurial staff, struggle to recognize people who are creative or entrepreneurial. This is because they have no significant lived experience of these ways of seeing the world. When these recruiters come across someone who is genuinely creative or entrepreneurial, they tend to see them as unsuitable for the organization.  The recruiters have appropriated the language of innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, given it new meanings consistent with their compliance driven world views and in so doing made the words and concepts largely impotent. If creative people are recruited they tend not to be effective or not to stay with the organization, as their talents are generally not respected or they are given too little autonomy and support to be effective.

The question is whether it is really possible for us or others to conceive of things for which we have no relevant existing experience to tie the new learning into.  And if we do, then potentially we can find the wisdom in ourselves to take the next steps. In community development the following saying is often quoted “The wisdom of the local people always exceeds that of the experts.” But do we, who may be called experts, actually believe this to be true? Of course there is role for people who know more and who have more experience. But  perhaps this role is more that of a catalyst, where we can assist in opening  up possibilities and allowing others to see new opportunities, to have new dreams but leaving the answers and the action with those we walk beside. Like a wise guide on a hiking track that we know well, we point out the flora fauna and places from which best to view the landscape but the journey of those we are guiding is always their own. Here it is our job to be the Oracle and theirs to discover their own next steps. And that is what the Oracle in the story did; she came to the village with the purpose of helping the villagers to see their challenges in new ways and that they already held the answers to many of the problems they were asking her to solve.

Some of my work in Kenya’s Rift Valley is an area we call Wema , we work with communities in two areas, one is Weseges and the other Maji tamu and we have combined the two names. Weseges people are primarily Kalenjin and in Maji tamu the people are mostly Kikuyu. They are traditional rivals and at times there has been violence between them. We are meeting in a hut with a tin roof, concrete floor and split log walls. Bright light shines through spaces between the logs like halogen into the half light of the room. The windows have no glass but shutters for lock up. It is like the hut in a Wild West movie and has recently been taken over by the Waseges committee on loan from the local government and the group has renovated it. They have installed a 2 meter square blackboard at one end and the room is filled with white plastic molded chairs. The group proudly tells me they purchased the chairs from membership contributions. I am meeting with around 25 men and women who comprise management committees from the two economic empowerment groups. Normally I ask them to tell me what has happened in each of their group’s during the six or so months since I last visited.

Getting a true sense of what is happening can be awkward as the achievements for one group in some areas may overshadow the other and there is an unspoken competitiveness. This time I decided to try something different. I made a vertical chalk line on the blackboard and at one point put ‘Start’ and the other end I put “Now”. And then I asked all those present to help me plot the achievements of the last 3 years. And from their own history it emerged that they saw the first year was about dreaming what might be possible, the second year was dealt with difficulties and disappointments including many resignations within the committees and some confusion about direction. And then when we came to the third year there were so many actions and achievements that there was hardly space enough to write everything in. And I joked that is seemed like a marriage; the first year was the honey moon, the second year we realized the reality of our choices and that our choice to work together was not going to be easy, commitment and faithfulness were required not just dreaming. And the third year was when the babies came and now it was our work to nourish and build what we had created. And there was a great explosion of laughter and and little speeches by various members about the truth of this.

And I said, “Do you remember when I had first come and you said “Mzungu, tell us what we should do” and you looked at me expectantly with you notebooks out and the pens ready? "

Heads nodded and faces lit up, there were embarrassed smiles and a hum of agreement

And I asked them,

“Does anyone think now this Mzungu can tell you anything about what you should do?” And we all laughed and laughed, like it was the silliest thing in the world.

Jock Noble November 2013,

Jock Noble is the Lead of World Visions Economic Development Learning Hub for the Middle East and Eastern Europe. After a career of trying to teach turtles to fly he finally got into the water and is learning to swim with them.

© Words and pictures Jock Noble: Original pictures by the wonderfully talented Armenian Artist - Anna Avetisyan