Be Deliberate

Training Courses and Light Bulb Moments
I have participated in two separate training courses in as many months – the first was on Building Financial Models, the other on Leading People: Designer, Teacher and Servant. Given the distinct disparity in content between the two, I was struck with the consistency in which each separate training facilitator prompted participants to “be deliberate”.

Be deliberate. The facilitators directed us to respond, and not react, to the activity, task, or responsibility that had been given to us. Within the context of building financial models, you begin with a whole set of assumptions, conditions and a desired financial objective. The idea is that in building the model you tackle the design of each condition precedent deliberately and in turn. Building towards the desired end, but allotting each specific task at hand due regard.

Similarly, as a leader your task is set out for you in an overarching vision. Your responsibility is to always be deliberate and true to that aspiration through the way that you lead the co-creators of that vision. You don’t react to issues and responsibilities, but you purposefully and deliberately respond to them within the scope of your purpose.

Struck by this principle, I went to The Word for validation.

David and Goliath – the vision and the seeming stumbling block
David was deliberate when he volunteered to fight Goliath. When King Saul offered him his royal war armour, David declined, saying that he was unfamiliar with the kit. “I am not going to war with that unfamiliar gear,’’ he seemed to say, “I’ll go to war with what I’ve tried and tested and what I know works.”

I have lost count of the times people have asked me when I am going to set up my own consultancy firm – doing what I appear to be doing so well now for my own profit, they say. I often respond with terse derision - and I am sure they think I don’t know what I am about. Yeah, like they know me more than I know myself.

I started out this race fourteen years ago and although I can’t say I started out deliberately, God has ensured that I have remained deliberate, unto the place where He is taking me.

University degrees....
During the final year of my BA degree in Economics and Politics, I sought the advice of my favourite lecturer, Dr Michael Hodd, on what to study for my Masters degree. I had thought of an advanced degree in Economics. “Oh no,” said Mike. “Development Studies. That’s what you want to do. Much more interesting.” So, just like that, I sought for and enrolled on a programme in Development Studies.

I studied with various other students who had completed voluntary or work stints with NGOs in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and who, even though Europeans, knew and understood international development issues better than me. They were so often baffled by me, the unlikely African. I had not lived in a mud hut, didn’t have a Cockney accent, and hadn’t grown up in the backstreets of east London. Well, I was equally puzzled by some of them.

and Careers Day...
I recall during that time at Careers Day there was someone from DFID and another from a UK NGO were invited to give us a talk on what is was like working in international development. The DFID personnel gave a great talk to my mind but it would appear that all my fellow students better embraced the speech of the NGO worker. When she asked by a show of hands how many people in the room wanted to work for a donor organisation, I was the only one that raised my hand. When she asked how many people who wanted to work for an NGO, I was the only one that kept my hand down.

I wanted to work with the likes of the African Development Bank, the World Bank, the European Commission, or Coopers and Lybrand’s Management Consultancy Services.

But this is a blog post on being deliberate.

My point is that I stayed true to that vision. I’ve worked with three major international organisations since then, and to all intents and purposes, I have enjoyed the journey, and I have seen progress. Each new project, each new country, each new experience added value to the next; and although times and seasons sometimes caused me to ask questions, I do very much see how everything has tied together – from the course in Development Studies to present day Public Sector Management consulting.

Briefcase Consultants
So why do I smirk when people ask me why don’t I set up my own firm doing what I do right now for my own profit? Well, I don’t want to be a briefcase consultant. I don’t want to walk the corridors of ministries touting for consultancy work from unlikely clients who may want something for something – more especially when my touting is not tied to a prestigious internationally renowned brand. They just will have a quid pro quo – trust me. Besides, it’s just not me.

Having worked with global organisations, I’ve realised a thing or two about building, maintaining and managing a regarded brand; the challenges of delivering consistently to a high quality; and the resource requirements to undertake and complete capably on assignments – people, ICT, network, finances. It’s just easier for me at this moment in time to do what I do how I do it.

Ruka Inc?
But I do have the future and a reward in sight – just like David – and that is what is driving my present toil.

It will be a future where I am using all the resources, network, knowledge and experience that God has allowed me to go through all these years to reach out in an advisory capacity to communities and institutions around me involved in smaller international development outreach projects.

I might do it through a global organisation (may be even the one I am working with now) – perhaps managing and executing their corporate social responsibility or community relations portfolio. Or I might do it through a Ruka Inc. But I have a game plan for when that must happen – and I am praying and working towards it. Me thinks that might be much more rewarding than touting for business in the corridors of the ministries in Africa. Don’t you?

Write the vision, make it plain
So often when stumbling blocks come, we are tempted to shy away from the bigger vision. That presupposes one thing: that there is a vision in the first place (Habakkuk 2). So I am learning to take time to pray for and think through my vision for my professional future, and document it – and to also take cues from others. God can speak to you through others, as He did me through Michael 15 years ago. Incidentally, Michael is also the academic reference I resorted to for the MBA course I started last October. That’s another story of stress and reward in the same breath.

Believe you me there have been times during this journey when I’ve thought I ought to have studied a different first degree. But I went along with my lot – sometimes in fretful hope that the vision will come to pass, and sometimes out a sheer frustration because all other doors where locked and it seemed that this was my lot – so there – take it or leave it.

Emotional Intelligence
What I will say is that I am realizing the importance of being true to your convictions, through thick and thin and even in the face of demise – just like David. As such, I am learning a new dance to the rhythm of life - the importance of being emotionally steady and committed to my convictions: responding and not reacting to situations so that I don’t jeopardize the personal and business relationships that are supposed to see me through the vision, and so that I don’t enter into the relationships that will block the actualisation of the vision.

So, with thanks to my two trainers, I have learnt a new dance to the rhythm of life – being deliberate.