Then a miracle happens

Miracles do occur!

My wife and I went to the annual Baha'i conference on Social and Economic Development in Orlando earlier this week.  The session on dealing with how to design and run development projects in fragile post-conflict countries, such as Iraq or Afghanistan was particularly enlightening.

Here's a picture of my summary of the recommended strategy:

In words the steps are:

1. Invest in project
2. Crash and burn
3. repeat

So, I know there are skeptics among you, who will be comparing this strategy to the company president who was asked how he could price his products below cost, and replied "Sure, we lose money on every sale, but we make it up on volume!"

Yeh,  right.

ON THE OTHER HAND, consider the following body-building strategy:

In words, the steps are

1. Go to gym
2. destroy muscles by exercise
3. repeat

So,  at first glance,   the skeptics again might ask how on earth you can possibly "build up" your muscles by going to the gym and exercising so much that you destroy them.

Here's the thing though -- that turns out to be the only way to build up muscles -- you have to destroy them in order to build them up. 

The reason is that there is something else going on, that was left off the diagram.  So, maybe the diagrams should look more like this, and match the cartoon this posting started with:

We now have these steps in our success formula:

1. go to Gym
2. Destroy muscles by exercise
3. Then a miracle occurs
4. (repeat)

The point is, it's not really "a miracle", although it certainly is amazing.   WE put out some effort to constructively use-up our muscles, and then WE take a break.    While we are taking a break,  something truly amazing happens, and our muscles are rebuilt for us, including a little bit of overbuilding, so we end up with more muscles than we had before we started.

WE, thank God,  don't need to understand molecular biochemistry, or structural engineering,  or biological pathways and the Krebs Cycle, or all that stuff.  All that stuff is done FOR US.   We just need to recognize that a process is already in place that we can simply tap into and utilize.

The whole point of the SED conference,  in my mind, the summary of it all, is that the following diagram is ALSO true, and is really just the exact same process on a larger scale:

So the steps are

1. Invest in project
2. crash and burn
3. then a miracle occurs
4. (repeat)

Again, this really only looks like a miracle, and it certainly would be a miracle if WE had to understand all the details and plan them out.  Fortunately, just like the muscle-building strategy,  WE don't need to know the details.

In particular, the point is that the local people, the indigenous population,   need to be the ones doing the investing in their own self-help project.   AND, they need to realize that this project is very similar to muscle building, or learning how to shoot baskets at the gym -- the way you "succeed" is by repeatedly failing and going back for more.

There is no other pathway.  There are no shortcuts.   There are no pills to take. There is no way to "import" infrastructure,  and simply assemble the pieces in place, like some sort of prefabricated building.

But,  despite all that,  we are correct to place our hope, and our project planning dollars,  in the fact that "then a miracle occurs."

Comment -- This insight actually has a rather profound impact on how donors and funding agencies should assess whether a project is a "success" or a "failure".