coaching for clarity and courage
“Ten striking facts about agricultural input use in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Food Policy Volume 67, February 2017, Pages 12–25. A serious, research-grounded look at actual agriculture in SSA. “Inside the Hunt for Russia’s Most Notorious Hacker,” Wired. Not a journal article but […]
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Read the call for proposals and take note of the scoring. Spend your time accordingly. If the management plan is worth five points, don’t spend two days of meetings sorting it out. Pick something good enough and move on to […]
Read More »Excerpts from emails I sent today: 1) About President Trump I think our goal is to make this a four year presidency. He can do terrible harm in four years, but less than he could do in eight, right? […]
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A lot of aid money gets spent on activities that just don’t work. Well more than half, I’d guess. But the thing is, you don’t always now which activities are the ones that won’t work. Sometimes you know in advance. […]
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I’ve spent the last two weeks as part of a multinational health sector assessment effort, and we’ve worked through interpreters the whole time. I’ve obviously worked with translators before, but never every day all day for two weeks. It’s really […]
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Career consulting isn’t like coaching. When I coach, I ask you big questions to help you figure out what you already know and believe. When I mentor, I share the stuff I know and believe. It’s a very different dynamic. […]
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You can go two ways on this (at least) and it depends on your basic skills and aptitude. The first option is acquiring some hard skills. Engineering, nursing, IT, and teaching or training are good examples. An appropriate terminal degree, […]
Read More »IDPs: Internally Displaced Persons. Like refugees, except they have left their homes but remained in their country of citizenship. NFIs: Non-food items, usually provided in a package to refugees or displaced people – things like pots and pans, clothing, soap, […]
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From a recent email to a PCV: The Peace Corps is not an international development agency, and no ethical recruiter will tell you that it is. It’s a learning experience for you, and the single best public diplomacy effort the United […]
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This is a reprint, with edits, from Blood and Milk, but I’ve always been proud of it. Done right, site visits are a useful tool. They are not as good as living and working in-country, but they’re a lot better than […]
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