Tag Archives: Development

Ownership, Reflections, Rural development, Visioning, WPF partners

I Met Some Women

March 3, 2017 Steve Sheppard Leave a comment

I spent the week in Nicaragua last week, visiting partners and participating in a cooperative workshop. It’s a process that has become familiar to me over the past dozen years, but it is never the same. Every cooperative, every member, has a story to tell, and each is very different from the other. Some stories are sad. Some are uplifting. Some are absolutely energizing in the sheer power of their message. Such is the case of COMUSAN, the women’s communal bank cooperative in the remote village of Santa Ana.

The route to Santa Ana and our meeting is slow and difficult, even for a 4-wheel drive vehicle; the trail is little more than a wide path. The surroundings are breathtaking, with the mountains and valleys contrasting each other. At one plateau sits a tiny pre-school house, wherein the women of COMUSAN await our arrival.

They have come from all over the territory to attend this meeting of exposition, pride and gratitude. The cooperative has been guided into existence through the patience and determination of the women and ANIDES, the Nicaraguan Association for Sustainable Development. Two members of ANIDES are present, but the show belongs to the women.

What is remarkable about this gathering is not just that the women have come together for a common purpose (the communal bank), but that they have done so against such enormous odds and with such striking success. Many of the members have migrated to this region from other parts of the country, whether uprooted from past conflicts, ravages of nature or lack of economic opportunity. Their ages cover generations. None possess previous experience with banking, even as borrowers. Most have little education, many with none beyond primary grades. The men in their lives must understand that the stake in the cooperative bank belongs to the members, a sometimes difficult lesson. And yet the financials of this fledgling communal bank are positive

and growing, as the members take small and certain steps to ensure the strengthening of their bank- and the cooperative which now envelops it- for the future.

The women are understandably shy about speaking up; they don’t have many visitors here and perhaps they are overly-modest about what they have accomplished and how they feel about it. Asking for support is a humbling experience all by itself. But the presence of the 27 women, many of whom have walked a great distance to attend the meeting, is a testament to both their pride and determination to make this entity succeed, for themselves and their families.

There is a determination here, a sense that the women of COMUSAN will make this initiative work, regardless of the obstacles they may face. They are deliberate. They seek to understand the processes of their cooperative. Members of both the coop and ANIDES plan to attend the cooperative workshop to be held later in the week. A visitor can feel both the inexperience and the intensity of a collaborative effort to succeed. Indeed, one “dream” expressed during the visit is that this cooperative not only succeed unto itself, but that it might become known internationally.

Ambitious visions for a rural women’s cooperative? Perhaps. But then, all great success stories start with an unlikely dream….

Birthdays, Children, Reflections

Looking for A Cupcake

January 9, 2017 Steve Sheppard Leave a comment

My granddaughter’s first birthday was on Saturday. Much like her older brother’s first birthday, upon which I reflected a few years ago, family and friends gathered to ogle and give gifts for the little angel (for that’s exactly what she is) in a symbolic shower of love. This first year has been a joyful if sleepless time for her parents, and an absolute wonder for her grandparents, who can’t help but recall the memories of their own little girl decades ago. That memory is aided considerably by the fact that this baby looks so much like her mother, who also happens to be an identical twin. So the recollections are tripled for grandma and grandpa.

I found myself noting all the individual requirements of this little celestial. She exhibits definite preferences that must be satisfied; she points to where she wants to go and slides across a floor with ease to explore her latest interest. She is relentless in her curiosity. She demands to be fed with regularity and particularity. Her regular sleep patterns must be maintained for domestic peace; she wakes up early for her daily work. She does not do well if she is too cold. When she holds a toy, she will struggle against her brother’s compulsion to take it away; she most often does not have the power to prevail. She is quick to smile. As she is being fed, she is very cognizant of the foods which others are consuming and which are forbidden to her; I suspect that she yearns for the day when she might share in those same, enticing meals. She is adored by her family and, now, anyone else who has the chance to get close to her. She touches people. She is inquisitive about them, but not quite brave enough to move outside the comfort zone of her mother’s presence.

In these ways, she is almost exactly like her older brother at the same age. She is probably just like nearly all other 1 year-olds. Actually, she’s just like all the rest of us, who require our basic needs to be met and then hope that we might absorb at least a little bit more, so that we can become who we are meant to be. Just like other North Americans, or Europeans, or Koreans or Russians. Just like Nicaraguans.

I loved watching her reach for a cupcake. Like everyone, she deserves it….

Amazing Events, Certificate Program, Creativity, Education, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Lean

For Example

November 13, 2016 Steve Sheppard Leave a comment

During the recent Certificate Program conducted at the foot of Peñas Blancas, participants were able to study the methodologies of Lean Continuous Improvement, a practice designed to remove waste of all forms from our daily work. It’s a very precise process improvement technique, thus one that is not quickly or easily assimilated by most people. As a result, teachers of this process, which really involves transforming the way one looks at everything in a new way, frequently use examples to illustrate the concept. Our Lean leader for the week, Brian Kopas of FabCon Precast, selected examples which would be familiar to the rural Nica audience and yet demonstrative of the ideas of Lean. One example that week stood out .

The story is of a successful conference center which, among other amenities, includes on-site lodging accommodations, a beautiful setting, exercise opportunities, and a full complement of meals for their clientele. It’s an operation that has sought to constantly make improvements in the range and quality of its offerings, so an attempt to streamline kitchen operations and meal services seemed like an obvious initiative.

The kitchen staff gladly accepted the participation of several observers from outside the enterprise, to make notes of wasted time and motion, to document actions and capture the flow of work and the demands upon the staff members. Using the Lean tools of observation and measuring, together they created a pictorial snapshot of the breadth of the kitchen staff work for just one meal of the day.

The visual was shocking, to say the least: each one of the colored lines in the photograph represents the travel of one of the staff members in preparation of one meal. It turned out that the staff members were walking miles within the confines of their kitchen, and most often incurring the high mileage as a result of inefficient placement of materials or redundant movement.

The graphic example provided an immediate blueprint for improved customer service and timeliness, less strain on the staff and better care of kitchen implements and ingredients. Upon actually seeing what a morning preparation looked like, the staff members and their outside “helpers” set out to remove as much of the wasted time and energy as they could, cleaning up the process so that it looked more like that to the right.

Granted, the travel lines were not drawn in this “after” diagram, but the open spaces in the drawing were indicative of the clean-up that was possible, all in the course of a few hours of observation, discussion, modeling and decision-making. (It didn’t hurt that these particular Lean practitioners decorated their “after” diagram with flowers along the edges, either!)

The example resonated with the participants in the Certificate Program, partly because the topic- cooking and eating- are very familiar and important activities. In part, they understood because they recognized what those spaghetti-style travel lines represented in the way of excess steps and the drain that such extra movements create during the course of a day’s labors. They could identify with the notion that there is opportunity for improvement in even the most repetitive, everyday kinds of activities.

But most of all, they attendees could identify with the example because it was of their own making. Because the example described above was one of the three Lean projects actually undertaken during our week at the conference site at Peñas Blancas. The “students” grabbed the Lean concepts voraciously, asked questions about process steps, immersed themselves in the work of the kitchen at 5:00 one morning, making themselves part of the the morning’s business, quizzing the kitchen workers, empathizing with difficulties and frustrations likely never before observed. When they had applied the tools that Brian had provided, they went steps further, preparing written analysis and reasoning for proposed changes, estimating the impacts and the costs of such alterations, and even adding the beauty of those wildflowers along the border of their diagram. (I have never seen that before!) The best example of the entire week was the one that the Nicas produced themselves.

The reality of our time spent with participants on the topic of continuous improvement methodology is that they not only absorbed the ideas, but ran with them, embraced them as though they were hanging on to lifelines in a relentless storm. Even as newly-initiated to Lean, they added their own signatures to the results, thereby further underscoring the notions of continuous improvement. Indeed, I have witnessed few Kaizen projects, in my own company and of even longer duration and study, that were as exhilarating as this one.

It’s an example I intend to use in the future, with other groups of curious learners. And it’s one that will utterly dissolve any excuse that the concepts are simply too difficult for some folks to apply. What a week….

Certificate Program, Education, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Lean, Organizational Development, Rural development

The Five “Wise”

November 5, 2016 Steve Sheppard Leave a comment

During the Second Certificate Program in rural Nicaragua, held during the first week of September, participants were escorted more deeply into the worlds of open book management and Lean process improvements. Having experienced a taste of both methodologies in the First Certificate Program, conducted last year, producers expressed a desire to know more about the concepts and how to apply them. These programs are all about organizational strengthening, and these two initiatives are as important to organizational health as any strength-building efforts.

For teaching Lean, the Foundation enlisted the expertise of Brian Kopas, of Fabcon Precast in Savage, Minnesota. (Brian was an important presence at Foldcraft Co., where he honed that company’s storied strengths in continuous improvement.) Brian’s expertise and inviting demeanor won over the Nicaraguan participants thoroughly as he introduced the elements of Lean. And among those elements, Brian asked “why?” A lot.

Asking “why” is one of the core tools employed in any Lean implementation, and maybe especially so in an environment where tradition and culture play such a big role in defining activities and protocols. So Brian was quite specific in encouraging his audience to ask “why” at least five times before settling on the root cause of any problem in need of a fix. To do otherwise was to simply assume the reason for a difficulty, which can lead to missing the solution due to not knowing the real problem! “Drilling down” to the real cause of a difficulty requires discipline and patience, but leads to a much better identification of the root cause of our pain.

It’s not a usual practice for anyone, and certainly not for rural Nicaraguan producers, who have followed the habits and traditional wisdom of past generations. Think about it for a moment, as in this hypothetical sequence: your production of coffee in this cycle is down. “Why?” (Your initial observation might be that a fungus has infested part of your crop.) You might go no further in your analysis and respond by destroying your plants and starting all over again, in hopes that in the next cycle you will be luckier. Instead, Lean would have you ask “Why” has the fungus attacked. The answer this time is that the fungus affects coffee plants that have not been fully protected by proper nutrients and care. “Why?” Because there have been insufficient resources to purchase all of the necessary inputs for a successful crop. “Why?” Because the limited resources available were used for discretionary spending by each producer, rather than partially contributed to a general coop fund for a collaborative “emergency” response to threats. “Why?” Because the notion of an effectively-functioning cooperative has been lost over the years, and the organization has come to be seen as simply an access point to outside funders. After five “why’s” we might see the fungus disaster in a new light, a problem of institutional purpose and not one of plant biology.

The Certificate Program attendees became pretty good at asking the five why’s, though it’s not as easy as it may sound. As is true with most tools, it only becomes effective with practice. But over the course of our week together, participants were playfully (and effectively) asking “why” about nearly everything, a process that gradually made it clear to them the importance of the question. The hope is that the exercise becomes a habit, and then an actual tool for eliminating many of the pains of their work lives.

A treatise on the use of the “five why’s” in the Certificate Program might seem like an odd entry for a blog topic here. But in observing the impact of the tool upon the newly-introduced, it dawned on me that the process, in fact, isn’t just for the agricultural producer or factory worker or office administrator. The process of asking “why” takes us closer to the truth of whatever issue might be complicating our lives. Our human tendencies to jump to conclusions, without seeing the full extent of the issues before us, often lead us to wasteful and even dangerous end results. Seeing the true, underlying causes of our difficulties is the first step in finding solutions, to becoming truly wise.

Many rural cooperatives in Nicaragua are disintegrating. “Why?” Because they have limited access to financial and learning resources. “Why?” Because they are perceived to be poor risks for credit and education investment. “Why?” Because development agencies have little knowledge of and relationship with them. “Why?” Because the effort and cost in traveling to rural sites to listen to the peasants’ own analysis of circumstances is too great. “Why?”

Good question….

Certificate Program, Education, Lean, Open Book Management, Organizational Development, Rural development

Jesus At the Table

October 11, 2016 Steve Sheppard Leave a comment

I readily admit that I’m a person who looks forward to what’s next. I am a person of immense and continuous gratitude for what is in the present, but I’m also excited about what might be around the next bend, the next corner, the following day. And I think I became that way as an outgrowth of the realization that amazing and unexpected things are always coming our way. Stop for a moment and think about all of the happenings of the past week that we never anticipated, how they have impacted us individually or the broader world in which we live. Good or bad, those events were unknown to us last week at this time. I’m good at enjoying today; I’m great at anticipating tomorrow.

During the recent Certificate Program in Nicaragua, I absolutely loved presenting open book management materials to our rural attendees. But with each module over three days, I couldn’t help but feel anticipation for what the next module would bring, so that the participants would see the ideas building upon themselves. And on the last day of open book materials, I was already eager for them to embark on a Lean journey of continuous improvement, building upon the open book foundations being laid. (For the uninitiated, Lean is essentially the removal of waste within work processes, creating labor that is safer, faster, more productive and more efficient.) And by the end of the week, I was eagerly anticipating everyone’s return home, where they might discover application of the elements taught. But I didn’t even need to wait.

Just one day into the material on organizational Lean methodology, the waiting was over. As the day came to a close, as participants departed for recharging themselves and the Program facilitators gathered up their materials, Jesus stepped forward.

Jesus is a member of GARBO Cooperative, the host location for the Program. GARBO is frequently where we gather for workshops because they have facilities for long stays and accommodations for meals and meeting space. Jesus is therefore a frequent face at gatherings, whether as a full participant or as a curious passer-by. On this occasion, Jesus had joined us as a workshop member. He is a diminutive presence, standing perhaps a hair over five feet in height and a slender build to contribute to a boyish look belying his years. His initial shyness is vintage Nicaraguan, but it quickly dissipates in the face of a driving curiosity and friendliness. His classmates tease him by saying that visitors to GARBO always wish to take him back home, such is his charisma and boyish demeanor.

Jesus came forward to ask a series of simple Lean questions: why, he wondered, are the presenters using such a small table for their work? The table surface is much too small for the projector and materials, and the presenters have to store their copies and references in other places, either on the floor or on an adjacent table. Why not use a larger table surface, maybe with some shelving beneath the top, that would allow for easier access, less travel and a better flow of presentation? In fact, wouldn’t that idea be an example of putting Lean improvement to work?

We looked at each other in astonishment. Away from the earshot of the other participants, just a few hours into the material, at the close of a day in which we could only hope that some of the ideas of planned innovation might sink in, Jesus had come forward with an absolutely perfect application of Lean. Better still, he offered the observation to the very ones who had been encouraging the use of observation and application! His suggestions fit the definition of Lean improvements exquisitely. Maybe of greater importance, the lessons presented had clearly been received; we had no need to wait for the following days to know whether the concepts were viable to this audience.

I think our immediate joy caught Jesus off-balance. He did not anticipate that his simple observations would create such an excited reaction from his North American guests. We immediately asked him to share his insights and ideas with the entire group on the following day, as everyday examples of where to find waste and how to envision its elimination. The width of his smile at our recognition reflected his own dawning sense of achievement and acumen. Imagine the moment: the student steps forward in demonstration of his understanding by no less than coaching the teacher, and the teacher, having successfully planted a seed, witnesses its immediate germination. Plans were set in motion on the spot to create the table of Jesus’ design.

Yes, I love the anticipation of whatever’s next. Because there is good reason for great expectations from this journey we’re on. Even our moments of disappointment and disillusionment are filled with the possibilities of redemption. There is always excitement ahead, and I can hardly wait to see what is to come….

Amazing Events, Education, Personal Notes

A Little Bird Told Me

September 28, 2016 Steve Sheppard Leave a comment

Sometimes, the way things happen leaves me breathless.

At the Certificate Program conducted in rural Nicaragua during the week of September 5, I prepared for two and one-half days of presentations on the topic of open book management. I have a long history with the subject, having adopted an aggressive open book management initiative at Foldcraft Co. in the 1990’s and having spoken frequently on the topic, especially within the employee-ownership community. This should have been familiar ground for me.

But sharing OBM experiences at Foldcraft is a lot different than trying to teach the essential components over the course of a few days, especially to an audience which has heard little of the concept previously, produces crops as opposed to commercial seating, has likely received limited other education of any kind, and which does not speak or understand the English language. I confess to experiencing reservations about my ability to effectively engage and teach. Nerves, even.

I began Monday morning tentatively, feeling the group and measuring the level of its receptivity, as I always do. But my audience quickly calmed me down. I sensed their partnership in this learning event immediately, a feeling of collaboration that fed my own confidence and, in turn, their own. We took off together in ways that presenters often dream about, with interest, enthusiasm and absorption mutually fueling our energy.

This rural Nicaraguan cohort proved to be among the most interested and receptive groups with whom I have ever worked! I had quietly hoped for careful listening and signs of eagerness; what I experienced was rapt attention and ideas being internalized even as I spoke. They exhibited a hunger, perhaps giving example to the notion that “there must be a hunger before food for thought can satisfy the need.”

By Tuesday, my sense was that our learning together was becoming something special, a collaboration which had begun to feed upon itself, elevating to not just a good session for conceptual learning, but a memorable event that might, in fact, hold transformative capacities. I think we were all sensing it. And then, a little bird told me that it was so.

I had just begun reciting the tale named, “The Snowflake.” For the uninitiated, I reproduce it here:

“Tell me the weight of a snowflake,” a tiny bird asked a wild dove.

“It is nothing but a crystal, so it is nothing more than nothing,” was the answer.

“In that case, I must tell you a marvelous story,” the tiny bird said. “I sat on the branch of a fir tree, close to its trunk, when it began to snow. Not heavily, not in a raging blizzard. But just like in a dream, without a wind, without any violence. Since I did not have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the 3,741,953rd flake dropped onto the branch, nothing more than nothing as you say, the branch broke off.”

Having said that, the tiny bird flew away.

The dove, since Noah’s time an authority on the matter, thought about the story for a while, and finally said to herself, “Perhaps there is only one person’s voice lacking for change to come to the world.”

On Tuesday, I had no sooner uttered the words, “a tiny bird,” when a hummingbird suddenly flew into our meeting room through the open door and landed, stunned, upon the floor. I stopped talking. The participants went silent, watching this little creature in wonder. They looked from the bird to me, as if somehow I had orchestrated its arrival at that very moment for effect. But I was as stunned as the hummingbird and, realizing that, the class erupted in utter amazement and joy.

Yeris, a beekeeper and friend of creatures great and small, scooped up the hummingbird, cradling it as though its arrival had been a most special gift. It remained quite still in his open hands, as if willing to share the beauty and symbolism of its presence. It was then gently escorted from the room, to be administered a few drops of sugar water in order to revive its energy for flight. Yeris returned to the room with thumbs up, and within minutes the intrusion was complete.

Some in the room looked to each other to understand what had occurred. Others bore enormous smiles in realization that they had just witnessed something rather incredible. I noticed two in the group who appeared to wipe away tears. My own heart was absolutely racing. When I had sufficiently composed myself, I could only ask whether the group felt blessed in some way, to which there was universal assent. Do you believe in messages?

“The Snowflake” was intended to be but a small contribution to the week’s lessons, albeit a powerful one. Amidst days of workshop rigors, knowledge transfer and difficult exercises, the story occupied but a tiny fraction of our time. But on occasion, those fractions can become like the weight of a snowflake, significant in their importance and memorable for reminding us what we are capable of knowing and feeling….

Education, Entrepreneurship, Lean, Open Book Management, Organizational Development, Reflections, Rural development

Acts of Commitment

September 22, 2016 Steve Sheppard Leave a comment

The hiatus here over the past couple of weeks has been the result of spending time in Nicaragua, participating in the second Certificate Program for development of rural producers and their counterparts in commercialization and credit. With so much information and context to consider, reflection and writing are crowded out in favor of absorption. Seven days of presentations, applications, ideas, questions, analysis, laughter, sharing and learning (from one another) was consuming.

I’ve had ample time to sort out my various reflections about the week spent among the rural participants, and I’m sure that some of those images will show up here in the weeks to come. But as I recall the week in its entirety, there is one observation that rises to the top of mind above the others. It is the matter of commitment.

Imagine for a moment what it would require of you to leave your home and your work for six full days (eight if you count travel to and from the conference site) to attend an educational workshop. To further complicate the matter, the work that you will leave behind will not be performed by anyone else. It is time-sensitive work, agriculture, which will consider no excuse if it is not done on time. It is your only livelihood.

The conference site itself is a long way from your home, a location to which you will likely travel for hours by crowded bus. Once at the site, you will be housed in dormitory-style, rustic quarters, but the outdoor toilets are really not more than twenty-five yards away. Access to sinks and showers is shared, so the earliest risers have the best chance at access.

These are the accommodations that will be yours for an entire week as you learn materials that are quite foreign to your experience; the facilitators will be requiring you to get out of your “comfort zone” every day. Most of the instructors do not speak your language, so you will be receiving their information through translation. Furthermore, the instructors are not even from your own country, so the cultural, social and educational norms they bring are not your own. They have brought books with them, which, though translated into your language, you may or may not be able to read, given your previous educational experiences. You know few of the other participants, perhaps just the one other person from your own business.

This, then, is the context of the Certificate Program held from September 5-10 at the foot of Peñas Blancas, home of the GARBO Cooperative. Yet despite the need to come to terms with inconveniences which might keep most of us away, forty-five producers, technicians and funders attended this second gathering of organizational innovation. Their mere presence was an astonishing testament to a desire to learn and implement new ideas in a world that, at times, is changing as quickly in rural Nicaragua as anywhere else in the world. No one was present because they had to be; they participated in the 9-hour days of presentations and exercises because they had committed themselves to learning something new, to improving upon what they have practiced for generations, to becoming someone different.

Perhaps a part of that commitment stemmed from the presence of several unusual “teachers.” My own face and voice has become familiar to at least some in the audience, but I was accompanied by two new faces, friends/colleagues from the U.S. who brought a unique and valuable bundle of organizational development experiences with them. Brian Kopas is a former teammate from Foldcraft Co., the leader in our efforts for implementing Lean Manufacturing there, a continuous-improvement-by-method. one of the main hallmarks of that company’s success in recent decades. Alex Moss is President of Praxis Consulting Group, one of the truly personal and high-values consulting firms in the U.S., and an outstanding teacher of open-book management cultures and practices.

Imagine for a moment what it would require of you to donate an entire week of your life to helping complete strangers grapple with the difficulties of organizational strengthening. You will need to seek time off from your “real work” to make the journey. To further complicate matters, you will receive no monetary compensation for your time and there will be no prospects of financial gain in the future from this endeavor. You will be required to travel for a day-and-half to reach the conference site. You will be addressing an audience which does not speak your language. Your accommodations will be modest but comfortable, as long as you don’t drink the water.

There is but one motivation to compel people like Brian and Alex, as well as the participants in the Program, and that is the notion of commitment. The attendees were as committed to learning as any group I have encountered in the U.S. in over 45 years. The commitment on the part of Brian and Alex, to bring their expertise to a part of the world where it is sorely needed, is a statement of faith in stewardship and sharing, an unselfish giving that flies in the face of today’s headlines of self-centeredness.

There was a lot more going on in the Certificate Program that week; I look forward to sharing it with you. But for me, the overriding truth of the week emerged from the strength of its commitments….

Coffee, Education, Entrepreneurship, Lean, Open Book Management, Organizational Development, Ownership, Peasant Agriculture, Visioning

Of Vision and Purpose

August 14, 2016 Steve Sheppard Leave a comment

While we’re busy preparing for the second Certificate Program for rural cooperative members and managers, technicians, second-tier coop representatives and others, the focus is on methodologies. After all, we’ve spent portions of the past ten years describing organizational strengthening techniques used successfully in the U.S. in hopes that it might spark interest in the Nica countrysides. Now that rural producers have asked for greater detail about initiatives like open book management, Lean continuous improvement and organizational transparency, the workshop facilitators are eager to deliver such particulars.

As mentioned here previously, Winds of Peace will have the great good fortune to present Brian Kopas and Alex Moss, gentlemen whose organizational experiences in the fields of organizational Lean and open book management are extraordinary, and therefore of great potential application to this Nica workshop. They possess enormous knowledge and practical experiences, they have already provided materials for the introduction of their topics, they are counseling us in our respective workshop presentations and they will be huge resources for the inevitable questions and challenges that are encountered during the workshop. (Where people are intent upon learning, their questions and challenges are essential.)

But as I consider the wealth of knowledge that will be available to our audience in September, I am cognizant of another critical piece to the process of teaching and growing an audience: the vision.

Underlying all the operational processes and applications, there must be a vision, a mission, a purpose, a theme for the hard work that the attendees will encounter if they seek to bring an entirely new basket of ideas to their farms and coops. There must be a core principle that can re-direct and drive the improvements consistently, even when the newly-acquired skills might occasionally seem to become stale or seemingly inapplicable for some reason. In moments of frustration or temporary setback, that motivator can keep an organization together, to persevere and regain solid footing for the next advance in their collaborative strength-building.

Some organizations employ a vision, a stated “picture” of what the future might be like. Others prefer the idea of a mission, an intrinsically important undertaking whose outcome has the capability of delivering fundamental, positive changes. Still other groups elect to use the language of values, citing social or moral tenets that shape their beliefs and actions. But whatever words are used, the reality is the same: in order for human beings to change, to adapt, to move from their comfort zones, they universally crave a “cause,” a fundamental, personal reason to do that which is difficult to do.

In the case of the very successful Panamanian cooperative La Esperanza de los Campesinos (the Hope of the Peasants), that bedrock upon which their success has been built is in the historical presence of Fr. Hector Gallegos, whose spiritual and liberation theological teachings centered the coop members. (See “A Cooperative That Regulates Markets” by Rene Mendoza.) For a company like SRC Holdings in Springfield, Missouri, the birthplace of open book management, the bedrock was the liberation of employee thinking and intelligence through information sharing and involvement. For Winds of Peace Foundation, the bedrock has been the liberation of financial assets to address the dangerous gulf between the poor and the wealthy. Initiatives come and go, but the calling for the each of these organizations survives because of the depth of its existence. These organizations must do what they do. It is in their organizational DNA.

The coops represented in the Certificate Program will need to identify and embrace their own “calls to being. ” For some, the cause is already deeply engrained and sustaining the direction of the members. But for others, the identification might be less certain and less steadying. Maybe it has never been articulated in terms of a vision. Perhaps there are several purposes that have been embraced by the members, with no single mission emerging as the great unifier. In some cases, maybe the issue has never even come up; coop membership was simply a way to access funds for the next planting cycle. Whatever the case, every coop will require something to hold onto when the vagaries of weather and middlemen and coyotes of the marketplace interject their disruptions into plans for prosperity. What will the coops bedrock prove to be?

When Brian and Alex bring their skills to the Certificate Program, it will not be due to monetary gain (they receive none) or for notoriety (the program will take place in the deep countryside, away from media notice). They will present no political cause, no self-service nor personal advantage. They will spend more than an entire week out of their professional and personal lives because of deep-seated values that inform their senses of servant leadership and responsible stewardship. The lessons and know-how they teach may change between September and the next time they are invited to work with such an audience, but the reasons for accepting such an invitation will not. It is, after all, who they are.

Sometime during that first week of September, we’ll be interacting with some very eager Nicaraguans who know precisely who they are….