Work Woes. Part 2.

2. Farmers (and people in general) keeping problems a secret until they are on the verge of being discovered.

I don’t know if it’s a trust thing. Or is it a culture thing to keep problems hidden (trust me, I know how it is. Saving face is huge in Chinese culture). But in any company, project, program, etc, it’s impossible to function when your own staff are keeping problems hidden from you. Last season, we estimate that only one-quarter of what was contracted to be farmed was actually planted. This isn’t even including what was planted, but was reported to be a failed harvest. Problem is, we didn’t really have a proper monitoring system set up last season, so we can only rely on the honesty of the farmers. And when there’s a huge loan to be repaid, honesty levels drop through the floor. The point is, though, that none of this was brought up until one month before we were supposed to collect the harvest. All along, for 5 months, our field staff were told that everything was going very well from the farmers. Even when my supervisors and visitors from the Bank came, the farmers still said everything is going well. No problems mentioned. Frankly, we didn’t really have any reason to not believe them before. Until this disaster harvest was revealed when we actually went out and collected.

Or that the farmers never complained that they were missing inputs from last season’s start until the end of the season. The inputs are actually bought with their own money (which has been lent by the bank), and they didn’t report that they didn’t get them. Would you just keep quiet for 6 months if the store didn’t give you what you paid for? I don’t really understand it. Maybe the farmers didn’t know how the program is supposed to work because it was the first season. Maybe the farmers thought it wasn’t a loan and just a handout so couldn’t care enough to complain (although technically they would still be losing money if it were a handout). Maybe they thought some of the leaders took the fertilizer/seeds as ‘a little something’ so they didn’t dare complain. I don’t know. Either way, the problem was kept in the dark and now we have to struggle to handle both last season’s and this season’s problems because of belated complaints.

Complaints are good! We need them on time!

I find it very often that people here would just say everything’s well, even when it’s not. Just like in Tanzania, the reply to “how are you?” “how is your work?” “how is everything going?” is always “fine.” Even with my field staff, when I phone almost every day to check on them, I have to ask very specific questions about what activity they were doing to get a picture of how it is going. If I ask “how is it in the field” the only answer would be “it is fair (fine).”

This takes asking the right questions in the right way to a new level for me. It’s not only when asking complicated questions to break them into simpler bits, or asking sensitive questions in a culturally appropriate way, or asking the same question in different ways to compare answers. It’s being cautious and digging deeper for almost anything that is reported to me. It’s to be aware that there are probably problems lurking everywhere, and my field staff know it, but aren’t reporting until the last minute. It’s also to request our staff to be cautious about what the farmers are reporting. Does it make sense? If not, ask more questions.

I’ve made it very clear that we need to be brutally honest within our team, or else the project will fail. If there are any problems, I want to hear about it immediately. Each weekly internal team meeting we have, I make sure the field advisors report about their week of activities and problems encountered first, rather than me talking. I think this is a bit against the culture, as most of the meetings with farmers that I have gone to, the field advisors talk for an hour before allowing any questions from the farmers. I’ve already seen some improvements in that when I call, the field advisors voluntarily tell me more problems than before. And during the team meetings, there is a lot more discussion about the problems we have encountered and how we can deal with them. I hope that we can continue to build this culture within the team, and hopefully eventually to the farmers.