Recently I stumbled upon a TedX video of David Damberger titled: What happens when an NGO admits failure. It is a real eye opener for NGO’s who spends money in providing infrastructure such as tube wells. What they forget to do is investing some money on maintaining such infrastructure by employing people, training them and providing a source of funding and following up. David talks about how he saw this happening and making the same mistake himself. He sees how the tube wells provided were unusable a few years later due to this issue.

A success story in this aspect is the foundation for goodness run by Kushil Gunasekara in southern Sri Lanka. A village names ‘Seenigama’ he was fostering got completely wiped out due to the Tsunami on the 26th of December 2004. He got the support of various donors, well-wishers and those who were affected and re-built the village. He made it sustainable through various activities such as running 2 BPO’s and other industries and the village is a thriving one now. They have produced 6 national players for Sri Lanka in various sports among other achievements. It is a fascinating story and you can see their details at http://www.unconditionalcompassion.org/indexc.php.

There are many parallels to this in business. Imagine those who invest in sophisticated hardware without the appropriate software, thereby not been able to get the best of the investment. Imagine those who invest on a sophisticate ERP system that has the right hardware and software, but they do not hire the right people and do not train existing people to get the best of investment. Imagine company’s spending on an effective advertising campaign but do not prepare their team to deliver the promise made by the advertising. Company’s hire the best talent, invest in the best machinery, get the best consultants to carve out a strategic business plan, set up sophisticated work places and set up expensive business support functions. But many of them do not invest in ensuring that these assets produce the best results.

David Damberger’s videos regarding the NGO issue are given below.

I like to hear your own stories where the soft-aspect was neglected to the determent of your country, company, family or yourself. I will also be happy to provide responses to any questions or practical challenges you may have in this regard. Wish you Excellence Ranjan De Silva – http://ranjandesilva.com