This may not be the politically correct answer to what is poverty reduction, but it is the right answer. Poverty reduction is teaching people who to be self sustaining. I didn't say it's making them financially capable, or securing their food supply. It isn't providing them with jobs, or giving them access to capital. All of those things are symptoms or tools. Poverty reduction begins and ends in how people think.
- Do your part, and don't rise too fast.
- The priority is respect to the leaders.
- The land will provide, and if it doesn't we will suffer together.
- It will fail anyway why should I try.
- It is better not to try than to try and fail or make a mistake.
- If I make a mistake I am letting others down.
- I can't own a business because I don't have money.
- The UN or the World Bank will help us.
- What I need is a job, and money.
- Character has nothing to do with money.
- God blesses some businesses for no apparent reason.
Are any of those mindsets true? They are not. In fact, reliance on these beliefs as fundamental basis for poverty reduction will doom any venture before it is started.
Business is about relationships. Managing these relationships means investment of time, resources, heart, and faith. Subjecting these vital components to behaviors that sabotage them make it impossible for people in developing places to create wealth.
When we started our work in Guinea-Bissau the people were wonderful. They were eager, and wonderful people. For the most part we learned they had come to rely on African charisma and story telling. When we came up with our plan to create industry, there were so few people capable to manage such a project that we thought that we should start a school. How long would it take to help people learn business? We assumed initially two years. Now after opening two trade schools and numerous businesses, after providing community business classes beyond count, and employing a system of testing, we've come to believe that it will take more like seven years. This isn't because people are stupid. It is because of the deeply ingrained mindsets the violate the creativity that is entrepreneurship.
Moreover, the mindsets above, aren't in themselves useless. Because the cultures we work in embrace these views, they become the root for incredibly powerful risk management systems.
I sat with a professor of economics at George Fox University the other day. He, a liberian by heritage, had so many fantastic questions. Most of them focused on the model we use. He told me over coffee at Peet's Coffee, that what we were doing was something he'd never heard of before.
"So you are a business?"
"No, we are a non-profit."
"But you make profit?"
"Yes, but all the profit is set aside in a designated cash account to be used as matching funds for indigenous sponsored clinics, children's homes, community schools, and scholarships to higher education."
"But you keep the money?"
"No, the money is managed by nationals comprise a board of directors."
"Are they paid?"
"No, they volunteer."
"Would you be open to doing this in Liberia?"
"Of course."
"What can I do?"
So I told him, "John, you're a professor. All we do is educate. The businesses are a lab in which new ideas are put into practice. They are the arena where people can learn the value of creativity, of problem solving, of how to employ others, and how to be the answer to their own community." The whole point is that entrepreneurship is a new grid of self-sufficiency for many people in the developing world.
Mindsets don't only plague those in the developing world. There are people wanting to make a difference in the world with their wealth whose efforts are as ineffective because of their own brand of mindsets. The diversity of the models they support are so small, that some of the most innovative and exciting efforts being done today, are almost completely ignored. We'll look at those mindsets next.
Mike
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