Daniel O'Neil

What would I do if I was in charge of the American Red Cross?

After I published my post last week on the American Red Cross (ARC), a few people have asked me what I would do if put in charge of it. Given all of the bad publicity that they have generated with their response to each major disaster, they certainly need to change their approach and to rebuild trust. The ARC plays a critical role in disaster response. They have an incredible ability to raise funds and are part of a broad international organization that has branches in nearly every country. They are perfectly placed to provide leadership on disasters all over the world.

So how do they pull themselves out of their deep hole and reestablish their leadership? I would suggest focusing on the following three areas:

1. Figure out what they are best in the world at doing and focus on it: The ARC seems to try to be all things to all people. They provide emergency kits, build shelters, feed people, finance grants, rebuild communities, and on and on. Sometimes they work through the local Red Cross, sometimes they set up their own organization and work around the local partner. Instead, I would have the ARC keep only a small number of high level experts who would implement only through the local Red Crosses and other partner organizations. The role of the ARC team members would be similar to the role of the OFDA staff. They would provide technical assistance to their partners and review grant requests. By being in the field and focused on implementation, they could help their partners be flexible in their approach. Given that the ARC is an NGO, they ought to be the most flexible of the funding organizations. By having highly trained people in the field, these experts could be trusted to guide the funding decisions.
   
   
2. Embrace Radical Transparency: Since the ARC will be subcontracting out most of the work, it will be easier for them to be very transparent. Their management costs should be around 10-20% of the donations that they receive. This would cover all of their home office costs and the costs for their field teams. The rest would be given out in grants. They can require that all funded proposals are published and have an open database that tracks the results. Financial data should only be published at the line item level (showing for example how much goes into all salaries but not showing how much an individual is paid). In this way, it will be clear not only what the ARC is doing but how their money is spread around. After all, the money being spent isn’t really the ARC’s money—it is money donated through the ARC to help the disaster victims. By having the funded proposals published, other organizations can see what is being done and better understand both how to coordinate with the implementer and how to learn from the funded approaches. This would encourage learning by doing and improve the quality of proposals over time.
   
   
3. Publish Evaluations Consistently: Because the ARC is focused on being the best in the world at what they do and on being radically transparent, it only makes sense that they conduct thorough evaluations and publish the results. Yes, these will highlight mistakes and shortcomings and will sometimes be embarrassing both for the ARC and for their partners. Implementing projects in a disaster or post-disaster environment is tough. You have to move fast which means making mistakes. But we shouldn’t be repeating the same mistakes. If the ARC committed to conducting thorough evaluations and publishing the results, the ARC could help share best practices and prevent repeated mistakes. Besides, as most politicians have learned, the best way to avoid a public scandal is to own up to your shortcomings.

The ARC ought to be a very powerful force for good and a key actor in every major disaster. Instead, their brand seems to be continually weakening. Each scandal hurts not only the ARC but every NGO who ends up painted with the same brush. 

Moving on

After 13 years, one week, and four days with the Pan American Development Foundation, I am moving on. As I left the office today, I had a powerful mixture of feelings. I am sad to say good-bye to so many good friends--people who have struggled with me as we fought to make changes in Haiti. I am sad to leave an institution that has an incredible potential to make an impact not just in Haiti, but throughout the hemisphere. Yet I am excited for the change and I know that I am leaving at the right time.

On January 7, 2000 I began directing a complicated program designed to help rebuild Haiti following the passage of Hurricane Georges. Yes, it had already been 15 months since the Hurricane had hit Haiti. But development work moves slowly. I accepted a twenty month position that grew into a 13 year career.

I loved the Hurricane Georges Reconstruction Program. We built roads, fixed irrigation systems, planted trees, distributed seeds, and helped the Haitian government to develop its community-based disaster management system--the one that is still in place today.

In 2003, I moved with my family from Haiti to the Dominican Republic to start a program to strengthen cross-border ties in the Haitian-Dominican borderlands. The Our Border Program grew into a powerful initiative that helped to increase investments in the border and improve relations between the two countries. I loved the team that we had and I loved how we were able to move between working with rural farmers in the borderlands and top officials in both countries.

Nothing matched the challenge that I faced when the earthquake hit. Less than 24 hours after the earthquake I crossed into Haiti and quickly took over managing our Haiti operations. The early days were overwhelming. Again, I had a wonderful team that pulled together despite incredible challenges and did unbelievable work. I know that I pushed them too hard, but there was so much that needed to be done.

In July 2010, I moved to Washington to oversee the Haiti program from Headquarters. This was a new challenge. I was no longer the boss and had to mediate between the needs of the field and the demands of those above me. We continued to do great work. We've created strong social networks in the most difficult neighborhoods in Port-au-Prince. These networks have in turn helped to start businesses and develop reconstruction plans. We've repaired nearly 10,000 houses and each one was inspected by a government inspector and certified by them as safely repaired. Now we are funding larger buisnesses--those with up to $1 million in revenues a year--to create new, sustainable jobs.

I'm also proud of how I have left PADF. Ever since I moved to Washington, I have tried to work myself out of a job. By helping those around me and seeking the best possible people, I have worked hard to pass off my authority (not just responsibilities) to others. As I walk away from PADF, I leave an institution in very good hands. PADF will not replace me, but I suspect that they will miss me.

It has been a wild ride for these thirteen years. Especially in the years since the earthquake, I have made a lot of painful mistakes. Yet these mistakes seem to haunt only me. I have been deeply touched by the support that I have received from my team in both Haiti and in Washington, DC.

I am also excited by this move because I am joining a wonderful new team. I brought Kit Miyamoto to Haiti the week after the earthquake. He spent an entire month volunteering his time helping Haiti to start on the right path. We partnered together to conduct a detailed assessment of the impact of the earthquake and then to repair those 10,000 houses. Miyamoto International is a purpose driven company, dedicated to making the world a better place and to saving lives. I am thrilled to join their team. My job is to open their DC office and to help them to expand beyond Haiti. Having seen the high cost that Haiti paid for poor quality construction, I have become evangelical on the importance of improving construction quality. Miyamoto International, a California-Japanese seismic engineering company, is the perfect platform for this message.

I am sad, nervous, and excited about the change. I love what I have done with PADF and am very excited as to what I could do with Miyamoto. 

How High Will You Fly?

Seth's new book The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly? pushes us to fly towards the Sun. The question isn't "How high are you allowed to fly" or "How high do you dare to fly" but "How high WILL you fly." Seth pushes us to dare to do the hard, emotional labor of creating change. In our deeply interconnected world where anyone can reach out to anyone else, we don't need to wait to be picked. We can take the initiative and create the situation that we want to create.

You can read this book one of two ways. If you read it casually, it is an easy, fun read. There are many nice little bite size chunks and many parts that don't apply to your life--"I would never stoop to putting pink slime in ground beef." Or, you can take it as a challenge. You can read it with the intent to change your life--to stop waiting to be picked and to take your own initiative.

I am a Seth Fan Boy. I've read everyone of his books. I read his blog each day. I supported this book through Kickstarter as soon as it went up. As a result of this constant bombardment of messages, I am a better person. I speak up in meetings, I dare to write this public blog, and I have become a good public speaker.

One of the things that I love about Seth is that he is quite clear on his message. If you are happy with your life or don't want to put in the hard, emotional labor to change yourself; then don't waste your time with this book. If instead you dare to reach higher--to fly towards the Sun--then Seth is a wonderful guide.

Yes, this builds on Linchpin and Poke the Box, but it is more powerful. I would encourage you to read all three, but start with The Icarus Deception.

Did Steve Jobs make Apple into a Great company?

In Issac Walterson's biography of Steve Jobs, Steve is repeatedly quoted in saying that he has strived to make Apple into an enduringly great company--one that will stand the test of time. Yet so much of Apple revolved around the cult of Steve Jobs and his "reality distortion field" that it is very hard to imagine Apple without him. So what is the chance that Apple will thrive in the post-Steve era?

In Jim Collins book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, he described the seven characteristics that companies who had made the leap from average performance ("good") to exceptional Performance ("great"). Under Steve Jobs, Apple exhibited all but one.

First who than what: Steve was fanatical about hiring the right people. Shortly after his return to Apple, he would hound someone to come to work at Apple if he taught that the person was right for the job. He was equally merciless in firing someone if he thought that the person was not performing. He always struggled to have only A players on his team.

Confront the brutal facts: Steve was brutally honest. Although he had a magical way of getting what he wanted out of a product, he never hid from failure. When products didn't work out (remember "Mobile Me"?) he wouldn't hesitate to kill it.

Hedgehog concept: Steve's greatest strength was his ability to focus like a laser on a few products. At his death, when Apple was one of the largest companies in the United States, its entire product line would fit on an average dining room table. He knew that Apple's success was tied to its ability to make a small number of truly great products.

Culture of discipline: Steve drove his team mercilessly to create the culture that he wanted. His team knew his vision and tried hard to implement it.

Technology as accelerators: Although Apple produced wonderful technologly, they never based their own business systems on cutting edge technology. They adopted web-based ordering only long after others had done it. Their best marketing was through their beautiful stores and traditional ads. They used technology, but did not follow fads.

Flywheel effect: As Apple produced one beautiful product after another, the cumulative effect of the other characteristics was clear.

He did everything right except for one thing. Although he was a Level Five leader that cared more for the company than his (quite oversized) ego, he did not prepare Apple for a successor. He did work closely with Tim Cook and hand the company over to him shortly before he died. However there is no cult of Tim Cook. Steve's hand was in everything that Apple did. The iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad could not have been built under anyone else's leadership. It took a CEO who cared passionately about quality and who had an exquisite sense of taste to make these into the masterpieces that they are. Tim Cook has a reputation for someone who gets things done, not for someone who makes great things.

In the conclusion of the biography of Steve Jobs, he is quoted as he talks about the downfall of other great companies. He claimed that companies such as Hewlett Packard fell apart when they were run by salesmen instead of product people. He said that is what happened to Apple in the 1980’s under Scully. Unfortunately, it seems that he has left Apple is just that type of hands. Bill Gates was quoted as saying that only Steve Jobs could have built a company that offered such complete integreation of software and hardware. When Steve was asked to name another company that so successfully offered the same level of complete integration, he couldn't come up with one.

Without a Steve Jobs to set the tone and vision, how could Apple continue to innovate so beautifully?After the last of Steve's products make it to market, will Apple be able to come up with a worthy sucessor to the iMac-Ipod-Iphone-Ipad family?

What do you think? Is it time to buy or sell Apple stock?

 

Steve Jobs did not wrestle with Uncertainty

The beauty of Apple's products was their singular, clear vision. Whether it is the iPhone, iPod, or Macintosh, the product was clearly designed with its purpose--Steve Job's vision of what the product should be. By contrast, Farhead Mohat's biggest complaint about his Android phone is that it seems to be designed by a committee. Although it is "the most powerful phone" on the market, people don't love it because they don't understand its purpose--and that is the beauty of Steve Jobs' leadership. He knew what he wanted and fearlessly pushed for that result. He didn't need focus groups or committees to validate his vision. He did not seem to wrestle with uncertainty. He boldly pushed forward and was right often enough.

I have been wrestling with leading through uncertainty as I read Jonathon Field's book: Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance. I have been fortunate to lead our Haiti office through a time of change as we have tried to move from being a good organization to being a great one. When I preordered the book, I was hoping for suggestions on how to be more certain that the path that I had taken was the right one. I thought the discussion would be on the importance of establishing a strong baseline and clear milestones to be able to track progress. Instead, the book talks about meditating and being comfortable with uncertainty. If I had merely read the book and put it aside, I would not have gotten much out of it.

Fortunately, the preorder deal allowed me to participate in a series of teleconferences and to listen to his interviews with two of the people highlighted in the book. What I learned surprised me. I learned that the ability to work through uncertainty--to neither run from it nor to allow yourself to be immobilized by the fear that it brings--is a rare and valuable skill. A key value that a strong leader brings to an organization is to reduce the uncertainty for the rest of the team by providing a clear vision--in effect absorbing the uncertainty so that others don't have to. After all, any path to great results cannot be a certain one or everyone else would already be walking down it.

I don't have Steve Jobs arrogance, but I find it easier to live with uncertainty knowing that not only is it critical to leading teams in new directions, but it is a service that I am providing to my team.

How do you deal with uncertainty?

The 7 Steps to Great Projects E-Book

I received a series of great comments on the Linkedin group Chief of Party Exchange to my earlier post Notes to a Newly Appointed Project Director. I reworked the earlier blog post into a free ebook: 7 Steps to Starting a Great Project. It is a six-page essay that focuses on the first seven things that a newly appointed project director should do to ensure that his or her project starts off right and hopefully ends well. It also includes short reviews of six books that every Project Director should read. What do you think? What would include in an expanded version?

Are you a Leader or a Manager?

Exclusive interview with Seth Godin from GiANT Impact on Vimeo for the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast.

There is practical, everyday management. I am not interested in that. Leadership is not practical and it is not everyday. Management and Leadership are totally different things. You think that you are being a leader, but you are probably being a manager. Seth's opening words in the video.

I love how blunt Seth is. We all aspire to be leaders, but leadership is scary. Management is following the rules--good accounting, completing the activities in the log framework, writing complete reports. A good manager can squeeze a bit more impact from a project. Management is safe--we know what we need to do and how to measure our success.

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. Peter Drucker, and Warren Bennis, as quoted in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989) by Stephen R. Covey, p. 101

The challenge with leadership is that you have to be in front. If the path was known, then a leader would not be needed. I know that I am leading when I can feel the pressure. When a coworker says, "You can't do that.", but I know that I can and think that I will succeed. When I am 100% sure of myself, I am managing. When I am pushing in a new direction and pretty sure that it will work (even if though I will act 100% sure), then I know that I am pushing the envelope.

 

Steve Farber tells this beautifully in his free audio series (available through this website) and less well in this video (skip the first seven minutes of selling--the core content start after this introduction). His point is that if you are not scared, if you are not experiencing an OS!M, you are not pushing yourself--you are not really leading.

And this is the challenge. Leading is hard work. It is scary. It is the only way to make a difference. To paraphrase the subtitle of Seth's book Tribes, Lead, because we need you to lead us. So what do you want to do, Manage or Lead?

A Little Guide to making Big Changes

Seth Godin's new book, Poke the Box, is a passionate manifesto to begin something and carry it through. It builds on his earlier work Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?--his guide to committing to making a difference--and the The ShipIt Journal--a workbook for getting a team to committing to completing a project.

As with all of Seth's recent writings, it is really a collection of short essays on why we need to continually try, embracing failure when it comes, and fighting to completion as often as possible.

Seth has given me the courage to continually fight for change--to be willing to openly question what others accepted and embrace the role of being a change agent or linchpin. My favorite quote from his earlier book was one from Steve Jobs, "Real Artists Ship." My favorite quote from this book is actually from his twitter feed, "If you don’t finish, it doesn’t really count as starting, and if you don’t start, you’re not poking."

Seth is a fascinating person to follow because he practices what he preaches. Although he has a string of bestselling books, he turned his back on the publishing business and developed his own publishing company through Amazon. He boldly writes his own rules, tries different strategies ("pokes") to see what works and embraces the risk of failure. He even openly gives away the core story of the book through a free workbook. 

This is a great book for anyone looking to be the change that they want to see in the world.

Playing in Water

 

One of my projects as a Peace Corps volunteer was to build a 12m long bridge in the mountains around Kara, Togo. We worked a couple of days a week with just volunteer labor. Some days the work went fast, others it dragged on.  On one particular day, we had the abutments and central column nearly complete. While others were working on the masonry, I became distracted by the light flow of water through the stream. It wasn’t rainy season, so the stream wasn’t wider than half a meter. I became distracted by the stream and decided to rearrange the rocks to allow the water to flow faster. As I worked on the stream, I convinced myself that this work was important because it would allow the water to flow faster and limit the flooding.

Notes to a newly appointed Project Director

Dear Newly Named Project Director,

Congratulations on your new assignment. Whether this is your first stint as a project director or if you have done it many times, this is an exciting moment. We are glad to have hired you. You have a chance to make a significant difference in this new endeavor. If it is a brand new project, then you are facing the challenge of coloring in a blank slate. If it is an ongoing project, then you have the opportunity to push it in new directions.

We expect you to do more than to keep the project on track, write reports, and balance the project's checkbook (although you must do these three perfectly!). We selected you because we need someone exceptional to make our work remarkable. To get you off on the right foot, I suggest that you start by focusing on the following challenges: