The Blind Describing an Elephant: The Case for Mindful Implementation
"We have to remember that what we observe is not nature in itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning." - Werner Heisenberg, Nobel Prize Awardee in Physics (1932) There is an ancient South Asian tale of six blind persons who were asked to describe an elephant. Each person touched a different part of the elephant’s body. The one who felt a leg said an elephant is like a pillar; the one who felt the tail said an elephant is like a rope; the one who touched the trunk thought the animal is like a tree branch; the one who felt the ear stressed it is like a hand fan; touching the animal’s belly one person maintained that it is like a ball; and the last person who felt its ivory tusk said an elephant is like a pipe. An unrelenting debate ensued thereafter. For me, this tale highlights the need for constant awareness and openness to different views and approaches given our inherent limitations as individuals (despite perhaps our good intentions) to see the whole picture. The lessons of this tale can be applied to international development programs, specifically the need for development practitioners to navigate various available pathways to change. Like the blind persons in the story, each key stakeholder group would view a development issue from different perspectives and motivations. This leads to various possible solutions or combinations of solutions addressing a single or similar development challenge (the elephant in our story). The quest is to first see the whole picture and then choose a path that leads to relevant, sustainable, and meaningful change for our target beneficiary. For example, funders, governments, project designers, and implementers of development initiatives are influenced by their respective “blind spots” arising from: the questions they ask and do not ask, the stakeholders they include and exclude in consultations or implementation, the expertise they choose and not choose to assist in programs (and the experts’ own biases), the finite resources available and how these are allocated, and the preferences of those who hold power which might not necessarily be in line with the needs and priorities of program beneficiaries.
Another simple example is rolling out a community awareness activity in Country X based on previous successes of a similar activity in Country Y. Nothing wrong with this. However, we perpetuate our "blind spots" if we proceed without consulting relevant community stakeholders in Country X and without an analysis of the differences in context between Country X and Y. Are these two sites even the same? If not, why do we then expect the same results to occur?
We all need to acknowledge our own “blindness” as well as the “blindness” of all who have a stake in our development programs. I believe that program evaluators and Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) officers have a responsibility to help development stakeholders identify and acknowledge these “blind spots”. Moreover, they can facilitate a process that allows project stakeholders to consider the varying positions of different groups that have a stake in the change agenda. This can and should inform a deeper understanding of the development challenge (i.e. a more accurate description of the elephant) which can then be transformed to more effective interventions that lead to sustainable change. Practically, this means helping projects during implementation to: a) Look beyond dogmatic reporting against agreed quantitative indicators contained in M&E frameworks. b) Work with technical and field officers to gather, analyze, and use qualitative M&E data to improve implementation (e.g. stakeholders views on the intervention; unintended positive and negative effects of the intervention; whether the project is being implemented as designed; whether previously held assumptions of how activities will lead to change hold true during implementation; and the likely impact of other initiatives to the project, including how the project will respond and manage these during implementation). c) Establish a culture of continuous enquiry, learning, and adaption to a changing operating context. This means knowing why and how interventions succeeded or failed and choosing a different pathway to achieve change based on an informed analysis of updated data. This analysis is always linked to the current operating context. Mindful project implementation means being constantly in a state of awareness and action about the change process. Meanwhile, blind implementation, even for a well-designed project, means resorting to static solutions when the problem is dynamic. When we are not aware of our "blind spots", we tend to offer piecemeal solutions that are inadequate to address a bigger and much more complex development issue. This leads to irrelevant development interventions, unsustainable activities, a waste of scare resources, and failure to achieve lasting change.
