By David Haskell, Dreams Indeed International
Our weakness proved to be our greatest asset.
In an Egyptian village roasted by the merciless sun, civil engineer Yousry and I sat
down on shaded bamboo chairs in April 1999. A sniffing and wagging session ensued
to find out if we could work together.
I'd been asked to found Habitat for Humanity in the Middle East. Perhaps my
skepticism of its prospects in the Arab world was forgivable, given its American
profile and Jesus Christ's name in its legal charter. But I agreed to visit its
only pilot project on Arab soil.
Yousry had turned down a promotion in a premier construction firm in Cairo to join
Habitat. After days with him in garbage-recycling cities and rural squalor, I began
to understand why.
Two things struck me. First, Egypt's poverty. Inhuman. Desperate. Staggering.
It got under Yousry's skin, too. "I grew up in Cairo, but I'll never forget my
first sight of poverty. A family of ten in a two-by-three meter room. They
couldn't stand upright because they'd built a loft so everybody could sleep at the
same time. Those in the loft had it better; those below slept in beds on stilts in
ten centimeters of sewage water. The next thatch-roofed house was six-by-seven
meters, but I lost track of those living there when my count reached 23 - and the
father was blind."
And second, Yousry's solution. Risky. Audacious. Compelling.
I asked him why he'd walked away from his big career chance for this. His voice was
quiet, but steely. "I have a dream. To solve the poverty housing problem of
Egypt."
I wondered out loud, "How do you propose to do that?"
He asserted, "Over twenty million of Egypt's seventy million people suffer in
sub-human housing. In my lifetime, I'll help two million volunteers build their own
homes, and they will show the other 90% how to solve the problem without me."
But with no organization legally registered, I knew he could not hire staff. Nor
open a bank account. Nor sign a single mortgage.
I did some quick math: "Your target is 400,000 houses in 25 years. Habitat just
celebrated building 200,000 houses worldwide in 30 years. How will you double that
impact, in less time?"
His answer pinpointed the paradoxical power of weakness.
"An Egyptian proverb says, 'The basket with two handles is meant to be carried by
two.' There are over 17,000 nonprofits registered in every corner of Egypt. We'll
team up. Alone, we're weak. Competing, we'll fail. But together, we'll succeed."
I figured if I could help just this one guy achieve this dream, it'd be worth five
years. So I signed on. Habitat's traditional organization model was stopped cold
right out of the starting gate. The bureaucratic legal registration dragged on for
over four frustrating years.
That headache was a gift in disguise.
Weak, we couldn't go it alone. So we cultivated friends. And explored networks.
We assessed values alignment. And trusted volunteers. We forged collaboration.
And empowered allies.
And then we jumped to get out of their way!
The exponential curve of families housed started climbing. What began crawling at
under 30 homes/year in 1997 gained momentum until 25 strategic alliances and entire
communities of families together built over 2000 homes/year in 2007. So far, over
15,000 Egyptian families have moved into decent homes.
Dignity as God intended is now reality for those who never dared to dream.
Fully 99.7% are repaying loans on time, most from two-dollar-a-day incomes. That
rate held steady in the 2008 global economic meltdown. Egyptian villagers
faithfully paid back while the world's mightiest banks begged for mortgage crisis
bailouts.
All this on a shoe-string budget with nine staff.
I'd worked myself out of a job. And by then, I'd bumped into other dreamers like
Yousry in even harder places. Insiders with the right values. And the right
dreams.
I pondered how to strengthen them.
An intriguing
article1) http://dreamsindeed.org/news/
want-impact-networks-trump-organizations/#_edn1
caught my eye as I bid Habitat farewell in 2005, headed to Harvard to research the
keys to impact in even harder places. On arrival, I phoned Jane Wei-Skillern, a
business professor researching networks. "Could we meet? I've just lived a story
that confirms your findings."
Yousry's approach was soon published as a Harvard Business School teaching
case.
2) http://dreamsindeed.org/news/
want-impact-networks-trump-organizations/#_edn2
But Yousry is not an isolated example. Wei-Skillern and Marciano's field research
demonstrates that "networked nonprofits achieve their mission far more efficiently,
effectively, and sustainably than they could have by working
alone.
3)http://dreamsindeed.org/news/
want-impact-networks-trump-organizations/#_edn3
Among practitioners and academics alike, the insight that networks trump
organizations is gaining traction.
The findings of Stanford MBA's Brafman and Beckstrom support their striking metaphor
that likens centralized, top-down organizations to spiders (which die if beheaded) -
contrasted with adaptive networks that function as starfish (which regenerate when
cut up).
4)http://dreamsindeed.org/news/
want-impact-networks-trump-organizations/#_edn4
Similarly, social development researchers Taschereau and Bolger affirm that networks
generate synergies: "In networks, 1 + 1 >2."
5)http://dreamsindeed.org/news/
want-impact-networks-trump-organizations/#_edn5
But as Yousry and I had learned in the trenches, effective networks are anything but
haphazard. When mapping network emergence stages, practitioners Krebs and Holley
spotlight the role of "network weavers", informal and active leaders with "the
vision, the energy, and the social skills to connect to diverse individuals and
groups and start information
flowing."
6)http://dreamsindeed.org/news/
want-impact-networks-trump-organizations/#_edn6
Networking stems from a growing realization that our problems are far bigger than
any one organization. Wei-Skillern and Marciano conclude that because "most social
issues dwarf even the most well-resourced, well-managed nonprofit...it is
wrongheaded for nonprofit leaders simply to build their organizations. Instead,
they must build capacity outside of their organizations...focus[ing] on their
mission, not their organization; on trust, not control; and on being a node, not a
hub."
7)http://dreamsindeed.org/news/
want-impact-networks-trump-organizations/#_edn7
The Bridgespan Group in Boston advocates collaboration across organization lines to
build strong fields for scaled
impact.
8)http://dreamsindeed.org/news/
want-impact-networks-trump-organizations/#_edn8
Similarly, at Oxford, Hartigan promotes the "critical need to scale to theissues."
However, this requires "giving up ownership of the issue, which can be difficult
given the existence of egos, and...the reality that donors and investors drive
organizations to differentiate themselves from others doing similar work, increasing
fragmentation."
9)http://dreamsindeed.org/news/
want-impact-networks-trump-organizations/#_edn9
This preoccupation with ego is decried by Krebs and Holley: "if two or more
community development organizations start battling over turf and control of the
community then the result may be two or more competing...networks that ignore the
larger community need and just focus on the survival of their own
network."
10)http://dreamsindeed.org/news/
want-impact-networks-trump-organizations/#_edn10
Impact requires servant leaders to set aside ego to serve the common good.
Dreams InDeed is committed to serve as network weavers with visionaries in hard
places. But talk is cheap. And egos resurgent. So we've learned that we need to
live our core values - passion, humility, wisdom, faith, and integrity, as modeled
in the life of Jesus Christ - to effectively embody this role.
Like Yousry, we aim to catalyze change that multiplies far beyond the visionaries
with whom we have immediate contact. He doesn't aim to become a social
entrepreneur rock-star. He aims to see the last family on his waiting list move
into a decent home to live in dignity as God intended.
And he's getting there.
Why? He chooses to put the last, first. And the first, last. That's how the whole
becomes more than the sum of the parts.
