Learning to Trust

Imagine this, you have just been appointed as head of one of the largest (and most innovative) development agencies in the world. It's a dream job, one you have been building towards for years, and you're thinking...there is so much I can do here.

In your preparations for the role, you have learned to ask big questions. The questions that may seem simple at first but for which, you've come to know, there is no ready-made answer. Most organisations you have worked with have shied away from tackling such questions head-on, setting a bold ambition can we anyone feel nervous, even outright unprepared for the future that you envisage. In most organisations, we have come to ask smaller questions, ones for which there are known answers. It feels safe, but you know better...smaller questions do not inspire, they are unlikely to invoke curiosity in your team. Your collaboration partners won't take notice of these either.

In this midst of excitement and encroaching doubts, a crisis hits. You didn't even find an opportunity to get your feel under the table and within a week of you starting in the role, one of the world's largest humanitarian disasters hits, and your plans look rather small in comparison to what is now needed.

Everyone wants to see action, bold action that is...they scream execution and look directly at you. You're wondering - Am I in the midst of a crisis or opportunity? What an excellent place to start.

This was the exact challenge facing Rajiv Shan, an ambitious and energetic 36-years old, who has been 'given the keys' to USAID. Back in 2008, it was newly elected US President Barrack Obama who put his faith in this young fellow. It was this experience, a baptism by fire one could argue, that teaches us about moments of truth and how they engender us with fear or with trust.

You see, as much as it might seem daunting, there is a choice here to make. In Rajiv' case, he quickly realized that the scale of the challenge dwarfed the capabilities of each single entity. Even the US military, on their own, could not muster enough C-130 cargo planes to supply the 20 000 or so rescue personnel that were about to hit the ground.

Rajiv needed to build an ecosystem in response to this humanitarian crisis, help save countless lives (over 70 000 children, to be exact). He needed others to trust him and his team, to be energized by a clear mission that he would need to communicate time and again, and feel that their contributions are valued, even when some decisions don't go their way.

Rajiv, as you may have come to realize, was not facing an ordinary challenger moment. He needed to, in his words, Open the Turnstiles, for collaboration that was timely and of unprecedented scale.

Whatever the challenge you recognize as one worth pursuing, a challenge that speaks to you, that your organization can, and in fact should, respond meaningfully to, requires us to learn to trust those who are different to us. But how?

He offers three (3) acts of trust-building, to seize and build on...

1. Opening the turnstiles is a mindset: It allows you to take all the help you can get, acknowledging that while we don't have all the skills, experience or answers, to fulfil our ambition (be it to save lives or something more ordinary perhaps), if we let people in, while staying focused and clearly communicating the results that we strive for, together - we can flex not only our mindset, but theirs, as well - the mindsets held by potential partners. Opening the turnstiles, as it were, communicates urgency and willingness to trust - the trust the people will bring the best of themselves to help fulfill the mission, and the trust that what is presently unclear, could be co-created and polished by diverse teams that grow, as a result. To illustrate, he shares a critical team decision made, within a few months of this humanitarian crisis, as they realized that a US Navy ship sent to Haiti as a field hospital, came at great cost. It offered desperately needed help but was also creating what seemed like an endless dependency (sounds familiar?), rather than re-build the country's shattered hospital network. Many in the team pushed back on this proposed withdrawal of this key asset. They argued that saving every life right now was better than building for a more sustainable future, just yet. Engendering trust in USAID's emerging ecosystem did not imply wholesale agreement, on every decision. It meant trust in being heard, in one's contribution being valued, irrespective of whether the decision goes your way. It became a practice that Rajiv and his team had to employ time and again, as trust levels needed to rise, to support the country's reconstruction efforts, over several years.
2. Sharing the score with everyone: In many organisations, measurement can be an instrument of control. If my team provides the score, be it progress made, major triggers of change, even what is material to measure or not, we hold great sway on the organization's response. Yet, already in the 1940's, Peter Drucker argued that the Scientific Management principles popularized by Taylor and others, have limited value in improving productivity at scale i.e., when one focuses on a process or single production line, that is fine. Drucker argued that the primary job of any business as to create and keep a customer. This calls for entrepreneurial action, of motivating human beings to act in new and innovative ways, and so measurement becomes a feedback loop, for learning rather than control. In recent decades, Drucker's work led to methodologies such as Objectives & Key Results (OKRs) to take hold. The principle he argued for still holds true today - communicate widely, without regard to silos or organizational politics. The illusion of control is short-lived and value destroying - you never know who in your ecosystem can come through the turnstile and offer to help or co-create (even better) an innovative solution with you. With the right goal setting method and governing ecosystem interactions such as this, greater contributions are made possible.
3. Overcommunicate: Leading from the above is one of Rajiv's greatest lessons. Even when you are convinced that your message has landed well, communicate some more...a lot more. This is not to redress concerns as to your previous communications or for the sake of repetition. It is a practice that encourages collective sense-making, as collaboration partners need to interpret a complex environment, looking at the problem through your eyes. Your clarity of thinking and focus on a worthy goal helps in that re-interpretation. It takes time and showing empathy. Communicating an open-ended story, to which they were drawn in the first place can now extend into the future, and their ability to share such a powerful story, in which they are a member of the cast, perhaps even taking on a leading role, can reach outwards, to their networks. As a result, more might come through the turnstile, and make a valued contribution. Think unconventional role players here, non-traditional competitors, tech or social role players. Your turnstile can cater for them all.

A few years after the devastating Haiti earthquake, Cambridge University published an assessment of the international as well as US response. It states 'Haiti was unprecedented in its impact. The dual loss of the Haitian government and United Nations (UN) leadership [in an instant, as the earthquake took out the UN mission to the country] led to an atypical disaster response, driven by the US government and military.'

To put this in perspective, it is estimated that more than 350,000 people, about half of whom were women, were employed through the relief effort, in the first year following the earthquake. More than 2.7 million cubic meters of rubble, nearly 30% of the total created by the earthquake, were cleared. But the most enduring legacy was not a goal that was initially envisaged. It wasn't captured on the board, by Rajiv and his team. Rather, it was developed through trust-building discussions (and some heated arguments, as well).

To support Haiti in its long-term reconstruction, the team turned to Paul Farmer, a doctor who founded Partners in Health, an NGO that worked in such crises. Paul and the USAID team posed an unassuming question - What should we do next now that the relief effort began to stabilize?

The response that emerged was somewhat surprising - it wasn't more food aid or medicines. The team envisioned building a world class hospital right in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. In Rajiv's words, '[that hospital complex] is an extraordinary institution, with care and facilities that can compete with any in the United States, and a place that has done much goon on the island state.'

Sometimes, we must trust in our vision of what our line of thinking would result in, not just today, but five, ten, even fifteen years into the future. Trust is essential for doing that. Which decisions in your organization requires such a time horizon, asking of us to lead from the future rather than the past? What trust would you need to build with others, to bring such a vision into reality?

A question worth asking, Rajiv would argue. Now, as the President of the Rockefeller Foundation, he poses ever bolder questions - simple in their design, seeking impact, and above all, engendering trust, for others to come through the turnstiles and participate.

Have a good week ahead.

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