Ignorance and the Hippo

Hidden Problems

Ernesto Sirolli tells a lovely story in his book Ripples from the Zambezi.

In the 1970s he worked for an Italian NGO that provided aid for the people of Zambia.

One of their projects was to teach the Zambians about agriculture and how to cultivate food.

Ernesto tells how they arrived in a beautifully fertile valley on the banks of the Zambezi river. The climate was hot, but not dry, the soil was amazingly fertile, it was a perfect environment for growing beautiful Italian tomatoes and courgettes.

The Italian aid workers quickly set about cultivating the soil and planting their seeds.

The locals (who were clearly lazy) had absolutely no interest in joining in; so the aid workers started to pay them to help with their endeavours, and from time to time, they would show up to collect a wage, but they were at best sporadic about it.

As the months passed, the Italians’ crops flourished, the tomatoes grew to the size of footballs and the courgettes… Well I will leave that to your imagination.

The aid workers were amazed by how fertile the valley was, and even more amazed that the Africans were not remotely interested in agriculture.

“Thank God we are here,” they thought. “We will save the Zambians from starvation.”

Just as the plants were ripening and a week or so before it was time to harvest them a bloat of hippopotamuses emerged from the river and ate everything.

It was a disaster. The Italians wailed at the Zambians, “My God, why didn’t you tell us about the hippos?”  The Africans replied, “You never asked.”

Was it any wonder they weren’t interested in cultivating the valley?

The moral of Ernesto’s story is clear:

Don’t impose your solution, listen to people’s problems before you try to help them.

Something that is worth remembering before you roll out your next management panacea:

• Lean
• Business process re-engineering
• Performance management
• Outsourcing
• Big data
• Risk management
• Management by objectives
• Customer relationship management