Although it is said that humans are social animals — which presumably means that they love to talk and hang out with each other — it is rather striking how often they (ahem…we) mangle basic communication. I find the issue of poor communication, which extends all the to no communication, comes up as a problem in many of the projects I evaluate. The problem can arise between the implementer and project beneficiaries, between the funder and the implementer, between management levels at the same organization. And, of course, at times team members also have their own internal communication problems.
Poor communication can result in all sorts of unpleasant outcomes: people stop cooperating, stop doing what they’re supposed to, misunderstand or distrust each other, get frustrated, get angry. Generally, whatever the cause of the miscommunication, it leaves people unhappy. The situation is unstable; there are dynamics which are pushing it to change.
For example, on a recent evaluation I worked on (whose details I can’t divulge), the project counterparts complained that the consultants who were advising them would disappear for months at a time. They wouldn’t hear from them. They didn’t like being kept in the dark, and when they saw the recommendations the consultants produced, they weren’t very happy. There had been almost no consultation, no input. In short, bad communication.
In another evaluation, the donor organized monthly meetings so the different project leaders could share information. However, communication was reduced to presenting progress reports, which most attendees found terribly boring and not very useful. There was no substantive discussion, no back and forth.
I have also been on projects where the team leader simply would not respond to emails, leaving us in the dark.
Why does communication come up so often as an issue in one form or another? Does it not occur to people that it’s helpful to keep others informed, or to check in with them? Are people just too busy? Or perhaps, do people deliberately withhold information, whether out of an abundance of caution or in order to get some advantage? Really, it could be any of these reasons. Take your pick.
It is
inevitable that when two parties sit down to talk, to work something out, each will
have its own interests. These interests may overlap, but they rarely coincide. This
is particularly true at the policy level, when one, or both, parties are
unhappy with their current situation and want it to improve.
Is talking
really necessary? If one party decides to change a situation unilaterally,
without talking to other stakeholders, in all likelihood this would require
coercion and could lead to an unstable new status quo.
I would argue that, as a rule, it is easier, and less costly, to get the other party to agree to a change by taking their interests into account, as opposed to forcing them to comply with a new policy. It may not always be possible, and opposing interests may lead to full-blown conflict, but it is always worth the attempt.
When is the optimum time to sit down and talk?
Let me propose that a situation is ripe for parties to hold talks when things are veering out of balance, out of equilibrium, and it is in at least in one party’s interest to seek a change. Of course, both parties may be interested in talking, or it could be just the one. In the latter case, it try to might persuade, or even force, the other to engage. The broader objective of talking between stakeholders with different interests is to effect a change.
The new governments of Algeria and Sudan — which replaced those of their ousted leaders, Bouteflika and al Bashir, respectively — may be facing this choice. They will either need to be so strong and ruthless that they force the populace to give in (as many Arab Spring governments in the Middle East have done), or they will need to sit down with opposition leaders and negotiate until a new political system is put into place that everyone can live with. The more powerful the interim governments feel, and the more money and support they get, say, from sympathetic countries, the less they will feel compelled to meet with protesters to address their demands and concerns. In that case, expect the new status quo to be unstable.
Refusing to
talk to others signals that you don’t want to see a change, and/or that you
anticipate losing something as a result.
Of course, there are times when communication may be difficult or impossible, due to language or physical barriers. Although such factors may not be of primary importance, they do also illustrate the value of communication.
The Prisoner’s Dilemma –
communication and cooperation
We can consider the “prisoner’s dilemma” game to illustrate an extreme case — how the failure to communicate leads to sub-optimal outcomes. The prisoner’s dilemma presents a scenario — drawn from game theory — which is based on an inability to communicate and reveals the negative consequences that ensue. Without being able to talk to each other, two prisoners, apprehended for the same violation or crime, will struggle to cooperate. Depending upon the decisions they make, this inability to communicate, can end up hurting both of them.
The dilemma arises because, unable to talk to each other, each prisoner fears the other will betray him or her, and may make a decision which could negatively affect his release.
There are
many variations and applications of the prisoner’s dilemma, including using it for
strategies of cooperating or not cooperating in order to come out ahead in a
game, a competition (in business, for example), or a conflict, and also for
when the game is expanded beyond two parties.
While the game, and the math behind it can get complex, and quite hypothetical in terms of the different outcomes – the larger point is that if the two prisoners could communicate, it is more likely that they would cooperate on an optimal strategy for both, which is generally what it takes to identify solutions that satisfy everyone involved. (Of course, even after agreeing on a strategy, one could still betray the other). Studies have found that, indeed, the ability to communicate reduces the rate of non-cooperation (or “defection” as the academic literature puts).
What I want to draw attention to is the critical factor of communication. Of knowing vs. not knowing what another person’s intentions are. It makes it hard to come to the “right” decision, since you don’t know what the other person wants, what they are thinking. You don’t know where they stand, what they are willing to accept, where they are willing to compromise. Without being able to communicate, the optimal outcome of mutual consensus is out of reach, and both are confined, as it were, to a bad status quo, or “low level equilibrium” (a stable situation that isn’t very good for anyone) as game theorists refer to it. Communication doesn’t automatically erase distrust – the other person may not be sincere, or not keep their word – but it can reduce it.
To return to the context of development work, whether you are in the field, or operating out of headquarters, the inability to communicate with partners, stakeholders or adversaries puts you in a metaphorical prison cell, solitary confinement, only able to guess the other’s intentions. Establishing better communication, breaking out of the metaphorical prison cell, may be the best way of breaking free, and getting to a better, and more stable, equilibrium.
The year is 2016. I’m sitting on the cement floor of a
home in a village outside of Tulajpur, deep in the Indian state of Maharashtra.
I’m surrounded by more than a dozen women entrepreneurs taking part in a focus
group.
My American colleague “Lisa” and I are here conducting
a USAID evaluation, as we crisscross India to assess similar projects, along
with other team members. We’ve come to this place to ask entrepreneurs to share
their experience with an innovative program that promotes the use of cheap and
affordable solar-powered lamps, as well as other solar-powered gadgets. These savvy
women, who run small shops built into the front of their houses, are a key link
in the supply chain that helps off-the-grid rural Indians light their homes. The
focus group discussion was animated and friendly, with any cultural barriers
fading to insignificance.
Two things struck me. First, all of them had
smartphones, which they were using to snap photos of us. Normally, it is the evaluators who photograph focus group
members, so you could ask, who was observing whom? Although it was a relatively
poor village, the women in our group clearly had above-average income levels.
In 2016, only about one in six Indians owned a smartphone, and most of them were
in urban areas.
The second notable thing was the latrine situation –
there was none. When our meeting ended, Lisa asked if she could use the toilet.
She didn’t get a clear answer. After she asked again (the meeting had lasted three
hours, after all), the woman hosting the meeting then reluctantly showed Lisa an
empty room at the back of the house, which had a sink, but no running water,
and a small hole in the floor. This was not a Turkish-style squat toilet with
the ceramic footholds flanking a hole, either. Lisa said the room looked
nothing like a bathroom, and she was not about to repurpose it. When she inquired
where the women did their business, the homeowner sheepishly indicated an
empty, rubbish strewn lot next door. That
was the toilet, so to speak.
The incongruity of people leapfrogging to smart
phones, while still practicing what in development circles is called open
defecation, was striking. Although I spend a good bit of every year in
developing countries, it still took me aback. The Tulajpur women were
simultaneously stuck in the past – a noxious, undignified and unhealthy past –
and yet benefiting from a high technology “future,” one which would have seemed
like science fiction to their parents.
As this insightful article in National
Geographic on the topic of latrines and open defecation makes clear,
the problem of persuading people to build or use latrines is complex. Open
defecation is still how 1.2 billion people on the planet relieve themselves,
and almost half of those live in India. The practice comes with serious health implications
as it raises the risk of infection, disease and death, especially for children.
The issue isn’t the availability of the actual
physical object. Many latrines have been built, but remain unused. A complex
array of factors come into play: tradition (historically, of course, all of
humanity lacked toilets), to the still-extant caste system which makes it a
disgrace to clean out latrine pits for anyone but the Dalits (formerly known as
untouchables), to lack of sewerage systems, to a supposed aversion to enclosed
spaces while defecating. Getting families or villages to build just a pit
latrine – or even use one that is
built for them – remains difficult. A lot of outhouses have fallen into disuse,
or have been repurposed as storage sheds.
This is not to single out India, which has made
tremendous strides on many socio-economic indicators, such as lowering its birth
rate to 2.1 children per woman – definitely a modern phenomenon. I bring up open
defecation and smartphones as examples of how governments and donors sometimes have
very different priorities from the population. Getting people to use a toilet has
major positive health impact. Almost no one argues for “cultural sensitivity”
and just letting people get on with it in this case.
The challenge of getting rural villagers to use
toilets is not that they are living in a sort of isolated, antediluvian Eden,
in harmony with nature, as the solar lamps and cell phones, not to mention
plastic trash strewn everywhere, make clear. I would argue that it encapsulates
three problems common to many development efforts.
First, the preferences of the state do not always
coincide with those of society. To paraphrase an old saying, the state
proposes, but (wo)man disposes. There may be excellent, scientifically-grounded
economic and health reasons to pull people into the modern world, but it turns
out that people have their own preferences, or priorities, such as smartphones.
Indeed, social behavior change has become a field of study in its own right. It
is one thing to build something, but getting people to use it is another
matter.
Second, having a vested interest is a powerful motivator. As every landlord and tenant has no doubt observed, a different attitude comes into play when you own something compared with just using it. That is why many programs that build infrastructure for communities focus on “ownership” as a concept. They require communities to contribute in kind or in cash. Yet often the cost is so high that the community contribution is not more than 5 percent, or less, and that feeling of ownership is concomitantly weak.
Three, when poor countries aspire to the public goods
available in richer countries, they often end up building or buying things that
they can’t afford to use. In a lot of cases, infrastructure, from the most
basic latrines, to enormous projects such as hydroelectric dams, is being built in countries where they lack the
technical and financial resources to maintain and operate them. Funds need to
be accessed and set aside, and procedures introduced.
Unfortunately, we
didn’t get into a discussion with our focus group women on these issues. That
was not why we were there. However, I’m sure they would have given us a valid
reason for their choices, at least from their perspective.
Recently, a senior manager at a multilateral development bank told me about problems she had been having with a lead consultant on a project. He had resigned without completing the assignment, and she needed to replace him. She said she was looking for someone ‘with common sense.’ She was even willing to hire a candidate with fewer technical qualifications, as long as he or she could deliver the work and facilitate the relationship with the government. Apparently, this particular consultant had been unreliable and unpredictable. For example, on one occasion he failed to show up at a workshop he was supposed to lead, having failed to notify his client in advance. She arrived at the workshop only to learn that he had left the country without warning!
While I wouldn’t say that this type of behavior is common, it is certainly something you come across when you work in the international development field. Indeed, I have seen stranger behavior, to wit: Exhibit A: a consultant team leader who spent the first 10 minutes of nearly every meeting with partners or government officials bragging about his qualifications, yet never actually delivered anything. On top of that, he threatened to sue counterparts from other organizations who disagreed with him, and essentially went about ruining relationships with almost every key partner. Exhibit B: a consultant- engineer who determined that an entire country’s gas infrastructure was substandard based on observing a single, rusty pipe; and whose understanding of sampling boiled down to “Let’s ask our local colleague to get in touch with his friends to see what they think.” Exhibit C: a senior manager at a bilateral organization whose capricious and unpredictable behavior played havoc with an evaluation, by, among other things, changing the scope of work well after the work started, and undermining her colleagues in front of the consultants. If you’ve spent any time in the development field, you will have stories of your own to tell.
These people may have had the technical skills and looked good on their CVs, but they were difficult to work with, and had a disruptive effect on the work. They lacked soft power. In some cases, they ended up squandering months of time and hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention putting at risk the usefulness of the work.
The point I want to make, though, is that in order to do good work, non-technical skills – such as common sense, the ability to communicate with others and present themselves well, plus a commitment to doing the work – are at least as important as the other kind – such as mastery of a subject, experience in a sector, or technical abilities.
Based on my 17 years working as a consultant in international development, I would boil down the qualities you need to the following:
Knowledge
Experience
Common sense
Communication skills
Commitment
The first two I consider hard skills, and the last three soft skills. Try to cultivate each of them. Let’s take a closer look.
1. Knowledge
By knowledge I refer to the technical understanding about a subject that is gained from learning, study, and doing. It comes from formal education at university or in technical schools, training, continuing education, and staying up to date on the literature in the field. It is a core element of the specialization needed to accomplish a task, e.g. analyzing data, developing models, designing surveys, assessing a particular sector. For virtually any field you work in, there will be many courses, webinars, software programs, and training sessions, ranging in price from free to very expensive (thousands of dollars). As you assess these learning opportunities you will need to weigh the costs and benefits in terms of money and time. But this is how you invest in yourself!
2. Experience
Experience is what you get as you act in, and are acted upon, by the world. Your knowledge and assumptions are tested, and you find you have to adjust your approach to doing things. Drawing on experience enables you to make better decisions and work more efficiently. It is the whetstone against which you sharpen your theoretical knowledge. In the beginning, you will be inexperienced. If you are starting out, this is not held against you. It is normal and expected. On a team, or a consultancy, there will be a mix of more senior and more junior members. All are needed, like the cogs in a wheel, and there is a role to play for everyone .
3. Common sense
It turns out that common sense, as I discussed above, is a valuable and perhaps underrated commodity. At its most basic level it means acting as a reasonable person. It involves critical thinking. More advanced concepts of common sense could include seeing through complexity to the essence of a matter, connecting the dots, and framing and organizing information in a useful manner. Much of the time it boils down to the simple ability to reflect upon something, see what is needed, and do what is necessary to get results. Maybe this is not a satisfying explanation, but if you don’t understand the concept of common sense, this may be a problem.
4. Communication skills
The basic ability to have a conversation and get along with your colleagues and counterparts can carry you a long way in any field. People want to get a sense of who you are, whether you are trustworthy, and whether they will be able to cooperate with you. Under communication skills I would include not only to the ability speak in public and engage with colleagues and clients, but the ability to write well. This means conveying information, no matter how complicated or specialized, clearly, succinctly, and grammatically. If you want to build up your public speaking skills, I highly recommend joining a Toastmasters club near you. I have been a member of Toastmasters since 2011 and find it highly useful.
5. Commitment
Commitment to doing the work is just what it sounds like. This is probably what people in the business world refer to as “passion”, which I myself consider a wholly inappropriate quality that should be kept for the opera or the bedroom. Lucy Kellaway of the Financial Times even argues that it is dangerous in the professional field. Emotional teammates are not the most reliable or stable. No, what you want to have is a commitment to doing top quality work, to meeting deadlines, to developing new skills, to learning new things, to being there when your colleagues need you. It is part of having a good work ethic.
The portfolio approach
These five qualities form the bulk of your portfolio of skills. Consider them the tools for building a career. Good luck!
How to launch a satisfying career in international development
I am often asked how to break into the field of international development. In this post I’m going to address this question. I’m going to assume that you are interested in doing interesting work and having a satisfying career as an independent consultant. In an effort to keep things short, I’m going to zero in on the three things I consider the most critical.
Get a graduate degree in a related field
Because of the vast number of issues covered in international development, a degree in practically any field, from economics to health to statistics to law to education, will be useful. However, degrees in some fields are likely to open up more opportunities than others. This is either because they are more broadly transferrable, or because there is a lot of work in this sector. In the first category I would include anything related to economics, statistics, sociology, public policy, or international relations. In the second category, I would include agriculture, health, education, finance, water and energy. However, the farther along you are in your career, the less the specific degree matters. When I work with team members who have at least 5 to 10 years of experience, what they studied all those years ago is often more of a conversation starter than anything else.
When you are just starting out, expect to have shorter contracts and do more work that involves research. If you don’t have a lot of experience yet, being hired to do a desk review may be a common entry point. This is not a bad thing at all, however. It enables you to become familiar with and build expertise in a particular subject, while demonstrating that you are reliable and have good writing skills. (This last is important). With time, you will start working as a specialist or team leader
Be willing to travel anywhere
Travel abroad is obviously a big part of a career in this field. For some assignments, it can mean a foreign posting, for others it may involve months on end away from home. However, in many cases trips last from one to several weeks.
The more willing you are to go to less desirable places and stay there for longer periods, the better your chances of finding work. Think of it as paying your dues. I have friends who, for family reasons, were unable to take on long-term assignments in challenging countries (like Iraq or Afghanistan) and were stymied in their career goals. I have others who spent a year or more in some of the world’s least desirable countries, and it opened doors for them.
Let people know you exist
Finally, people simply need to know that you exist. From a strictly mathematical perspective, the more people in the field who come across your CV or, better yet, meet you in person, the more likely you are to find work.
So put your CV in the public realm. You have various options here. For a monthly fee, you can post your CV on Devex.com and other websites, such as Assortis (for work in Europe). Create a LinkedIn profile. Many consulting firms also ask you to upload your CV and other data onto their company websites, which they then check when trying to find consultants. Applying to specific jobs is another way of getting noticed. Even if you don’t get the assignment – a fair number of job advertisements seem to be pro-forma, with a preferred candidate already selected – many organizations will keep your CV on file and may contact you about other opportunities in the future. Of course, if you have a blog or a book out there, or have won an award in your field, you have opened up a whole new platform on which to stand and let the world know who you are.
I have found that a highly effective way of addressing this existential issue is meeting people face to face. It may appear counterintuitive in our digital age, but making that personal connection remains important. Perhaps it is related to the fact that everyone is now adept at curating their online persona; meeting people in the flesh, where self-editing is more difficult, is a more reliable gauge of character. I have found work because I happened to meet someone at a party, because I shared an office with them for a few days, or because I was introduced to them at a dinner with friends. Of course, qualifications matter, but it seems that the crucial factor was first getting a sense of the person. This informality, and serendipity, still plays a large role in moving along the career path.
There are many ways of getting out and meeting people. Here are some:
Attend events, seminars, BBLs in the international development field.
Join a professional association (I belong to the American Evaluation Association and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, among others) and attend their events and conferences
Send out emails to people working in your field (blind calls). Although many won’t respond, some will. And those that do will tend to be the kind ones who are interested in helping others.
Request informational meetings through people you know, and thus expand your circle of contacts.
Go to more parties and dinners!
If you need some tips on taking a a healthy approach to and getting the most out of networking, , I recommend the book Make Your Contacts Count.
In another post, I’ll discuss some of the keys to getting repeated work in the field.
Freedom. Independence. These are inspiring words. But do you really want those things when it comes to your work? Because that is what it means to be an independent consultant, rather than a full-time employee.
I happen to enjoy consulting. I’ve been doing international development for 16 years in this capacity. It has led to a highly satisfying and rewarding career. I have no intention of throwing in the towel. I enjoy the independence as well as the travel. (My parents once told me I was named after Nils Holgersson, the little Swedish boy who flew around the world on a goose. Perhaps another case of nominative determinism?)
But this ‘lifestyle’ isn’t for everyone. Let’s begin with reasons not to work as a consultant:
The most obvious advantages of full-time work are job security and benefits. If these are important to you, consulting won’t be up your alley. Relying on a slowly rising salary year in year out, regular bi-weekly deposits into your account – not to mention paid holidays, health insurance and other benefits –means one less source of stress in life. Even if job security isn’t what it used to be, full-time work is still far different being an independent contractor. As the latter, you often don’t know what you’ll be doing three to six months from now. And you may only have a ballpark estimate of what your annual income will be.
You need or like structure in your working life. A staff position comes with stability, interactions with the same colleagues, responsibilities more or less clearly defined. The routine and structure of the workplace appeals to many people. It’s what forces them to get out of bed in the morning. If you have a hard time managing your time or motivating yourself, then working independently could prove to be dispiriting.
You aspire to a leadership or management position. If you work within the structure of an organization, you can pursue a career track, moving up through the ranks and taking on more responsibilities as you build management and leadership skills. Working as a freelance doesn’t mean you can’t grow and take on more responsibilities. In this field, you can work either as a specialist, or a team leader, which does involve managing other consultants, budgeting, etc . On occasion, headhunters have asked me to apply for director positions at different institutions (I declined). So choosing the path of a consultant doesn’t necessarily take you out of the game. But most are simply not focused on climbing the career ladder.
You value the status that comes with your title and being part of a (well-regarded) organization or company. Let’s face it, at some level, consultants are just guns for hire.
And now, reasons consulting can be a good career choice
Consulting gives you a lot of freedom and flexibility with respect to where, what and with whom. You can work just about anywhere – from home, a café, the library, sometimes even the organization which has hired you, such as the World Bank or Inter-American Development Bank. One day here, the next day there, and then off to work in the Caribbean for a couple of weeks, where you set up your laptop by the pool or the beach. Over time, once you’ve built up your reputation, say, by producing reliable, competent and useful analysis, you can pick and choose what jobs to take on. You can say yes to work that looks interesting, and turn down other inquiries. And crucially, when you end up on assignment with a crazy, intolerable team member or manager, you can choose never to work with them again!
You like the sense of adventure and possibility that comes from not knowing where you’ll be or what you’ll be doing a few months from now. This can keep work from getting routine and dull. You’ll work with an ever-changing mix of colleagues, and make new friends and connections along the way. You will build up a large and valuable network.
You can increase your earnings. As a consultant, you face a soft earnings ceiling. Depending on how hard you work, the number of offers you get, and the rates you’re able to negotiate, you may be able to increase your annual earnings substantially. You’re not locked in. Experienced consultants can earn more than staff, even when taking the latters’ benefits into account. If you get enough contracts, and manage your projects well, there is no reason for earning less than them.
Perhaps the best reason to work as a consultant is that most of the work is substantive, i.e. it is about addressing problems ‘out there’ in the world. For example, in the field of evaluation or policy analysis, you spend most of your time working to solve questions about a program, a project or a policy. Conversely, staff at the organizations that rely on consultants like you spend a considerable amount of their time on internal reporting, business development (e.g. writing proposals), budgeting, hiring consultants, and other administrative tasks. These tasks are important, presumably, but not directly related to the problems they are trying to solve beyond the walls of the organization.
I’ve focused on differences. But to be honest, consulting vs. full-time isn’t an either-or proposition. People switch back and forth depending on their career phase, their goals, their options, etc. For some, consulting is a stepping stone to full-time work, a chance to show what they can do, and for the organization to get to know someone before offering them a position. A considerable share of World Bank staff, for example, have worked previously as consultants. For others, it is a way of leaving behind the daily grind that working for an organization entails, and taking control of their lives again.
