The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz Page A
Authors: Jacqueline Novogratz
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The first step in solving any problem is to identify and name it."
She looked at me and stared. Now it was her turn to take a deep breath.
After a long, palpable silence, she thanked me for being so helpful and diligent. She needed to reflect on the findings, she said. She wanted to study the report.
"Then we'll have a conversation about what to do," she added. "Why don't we plan to meet with everyone next week?" One of her colleagues walked into the room and she spoke to her for a long time in Swahili, her face guarded and stern. I knew I had done something wrong again.
Somehow, I'd returned to the same bad dream, playing the same role in a different scene.
I waited for a week with no word. Nervously, I met with the director and asked whether she'd had time to think about my report.
"I've been meaning to talk to you," she muttered, not looking at my face. "Your very good report has been lost. We can't find it anywhere. I'm so sorry after all that work you did."
In that precomputer age, I had written everything by hand except for my typed summary, which was worthless without the backup data. It had all been destroyed.
My heart dropped and I fought to hold back the tears, gripping my chair with both hands as I listened to her. "We can start over," she said in a calm voice, "but we think you will help more doing other things. Why don't we wait another week, see if we find it, and revisit our next project?"
I didn't say a word, couldn't really, at least not without betraying how much it hurt. That night as I lay in bed, I wondered why the executive director hadn't just told me I wasn't needed. I ached down to my bones.
"Maybe they didn't really want to change," I thought to myself.
Or maybe I'd been too direct, too bright and sunny for my own good. Maybe the executive director was sick of smart foreigners who thought they had all the answers. The fact remained that the organization's operations were disastrous. But again, my ability to solve the problem did little to help if the women themselves didn't want to implement a solution.
The next morning I awoke to the sounds of a Kenyan dawn. The noise was so extraordinary that I laughed aloud, thinking it was easier for me to sleep through the sounds of the New York City streets than the waking of life in this country, where birds call loudly to one another, monkeys fly from tree to tree, insects buzz amid the dewy grasses, and flowers blow perfumed kisses to the bees. The cacophony told of a wild party of seduction and courtship, of lovemaking and nourishment-a feast for the senses. The sheer beauty and sensuality of Kenya dampened the hurt of a second failure, at least for this morning.
By midday, numbness was setting in again: I felt helpless, unable to make things work. I thought I'd learned humility and this time had really felt I was bringing my skill set to the table in a way that could be useful. But the director of the organization had rejected all that I'd done. I had been unable to communicate my honest desire to help fix a broken system without judgment; or maybe the Kenyan director herself just hadn't wanted to see what needed mending. In that way, she wasn't very different from complacent bankers I'd encountered elsewhere.
I wanted to help, but that didn't matter to anyone but me. Finally, I began to see that I should have been clearer about having a mandate first and gotten real buy-in, not just a perfunctory agreement, and then brought the right people along throughout the process so there were no surprises. The question was one of leadership, of having the patience and skills to bring people with me-and I had yet to learn that fully.
I also began to reflect on how to build accountability into nonprofit organizations. Donors could convince themselves to give to nonperforming organizations based on hearing a few good stories. The world needed something better than that.
I never worked with the organization again, but about a year later, I heard through
She looked at me and stared. Now it was her turn to take a deep breath.
After a long, palpable silence, she thanked me for being so helpful and diligent. She needed to reflect on the findings, she said. She wanted to study the report.
"Then we'll have a conversation about what to do," she added. "Why don't we plan to meet with everyone next week?" One of her colleagues walked into the room and she spoke to her for a long time in Swahili, her face guarded and stern. I knew I had done something wrong again.
Somehow, I'd returned to the same bad dream, playing the same role in a different scene.
I waited for a week with no word. Nervously, I met with the director and asked whether she'd had time to think about my report.
"I've been meaning to talk to you," she muttered, not looking at my face. "Your very good report has been lost. We can't find it anywhere. I'm so sorry after all that work you did."
In that precomputer age, I had written everything by hand except for my typed summary, which was worthless without the backup data. It had all been destroyed.
My heart dropped and I fought to hold back the tears, gripping my chair with both hands as I listened to her. "We can start over," she said in a calm voice, "but we think you will help more doing other things. Why don't we wait another week, see if we find it, and revisit our next project?"
I didn't say a word, couldn't really, at least not without betraying how much it hurt. That night as I lay in bed, I wondered why the executive director hadn't just told me I wasn't needed. I ached down to my bones.
"Maybe they didn't really want to change," I thought to myself.
Or maybe I'd been too direct, too bright and sunny for my own good. Maybe the executive director was sick of smart foreigners who thought they had all the answers. The fact remained that the organization's operations were disastrous. But again, my ability to solve the problem did little to help if the women themselves didn't want to implement a solution.
The next morning I awoke to the sounds of a Kenyan dawn. The noise was so extraordinary that I laughed aloud, thinking it was easier for me to sleep through the sounds of the New York City streets than the waking of life in this country, where birds call loudly to one another, monkeys fly from tree to tree, insects buzz amid the dewy grasses, and flowers blow perfumed kisses to the bees. The cacophony told of a wild party of seduction and courtship, of lovemaking and nourishment-a feast for the senses. The sheer beauty and sensuality of Kenya dampened the hurt of a second failure, at least for this morning.
By midday, numbness was setting in again: I felt helpless, unable to make things work. I thought I'd learned humility and this time had really felt I was bringing my skill set to the table in a way that could be useful. But the director of the organization had rejected all that I'd done. I had been unable to communicate my honest desire to help fix a broken system without judgment; or maybe the Kenyan director herself just hadn't wanted to see what needed mending. In that way, she wasn't very different from complacent bankers I'd encountered elsewhere.
I wanted to help, but that didn't matter to anyone but me. Finally, I began to see that I should have been clearer about having a mandate first and gotten real buy-in, not just a perfunctory agreement, and then brought the right people along throughout the process so there were no surprises. The question was one of leadership, of having the patience and skills to bring people with me-and I had yet to learn that fully.
I also began to reflect on how to build accountability into nonprofit organizations. Donors could convince themselves to give to nonperforming organizations based on hearing a few good stories. The world needed something better than that.
I never worked with the organization again, but about a year later, I heard through
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