imagine suspending your job to start
working on something you care about
imagine the challenge of doing something
you have no idea about you don’t know
how it works and you have no education
or background on anything that you will
be doing how would you feel on your
first day
curious excited afraid I’m a physicist
by background about four major
management consulting firm as a business
consultant after bid more than two years
I also spend at my very renowned highly
stimulating job and started working for
Deutsche Welle one of the largest German
NGOs working in humanitarian development
and aid I had absolutely no idea about
development cooperation and no clue how
an NGO operates why would I do that the
answer is a number eight hundred million
eight hundred million people in the
world suffer from hunger and
malnutrition 800 million people do not
have sufficient or sufficiently
nutritious food 800 million that’s more
than the entire population of Europe
this makes me angry sad and it also made
me feel powerless I mean how could
anyone make a difference to that number
but maybe I could make a difference to
someone maybe I could cause some change
at the very least I wanted to try and so
my journey began for 18 months I worked
in Germany Zimbabwe India and Bangladesh
fighting for a world without hunger a
business consultant ed an NGO
the archetypical representative of
capitalism in the nonprofit world
lemonade one of these know-it-all guides
in there tight suits fancy suitcases
rationalizing away jobs staying up all
night to draw piles of slides rather
than listening to people I remember an
encounter during my first week you must
be this consultant we’ve worked with you
guys once didn’t go so well so I knew I
had to work extra hard to overcome these
judgments and stereotypes to avoid
fulfilling the cliches people were
expecting and so I was open curious
eager to learn and fully let myself into
this new and familiar NGO world and
amazingly in return people were open to
and great collaboration emerged I could
work on topics that make a difference to
people’s lives
I got to see new countries and cultures
and allowed something new every day this
was the most rewarding experience of my
life much of this was somehow to be
expected or at least hoped for
however there were also some surprising
unintended consequences of me as a
former business consultant in the
nonprofit sector at one time I was
working with the fundraising department
that has the main task of attracting
private donations for example by sending
out letters to households one should be
the question they would ask themselves
was how many donations have we won by
mailings focus around would say
nutrition in schools so one of their
team members would go through all the
lists of all the mailings look for those
with nutrition in schools and manually
some of the numbers then she would
repeat that procedure for mailings
around Lea drinking water and compare
their yield when I asked her why she
would not simply use automated tables to
do the job she said oh really
that’s a true for that I was puzzled
because to me using like automated
tables felt so natural that it did not
even occur to me that this might not be
true to others in my previous
environment both among my consulting
colleagues and at my clients
everybody was familiar with this
technique and had been trained the
skills to apply it what seemed basic and
not noteworthy to me was special in a
different environment so we sat down
together did a small training with her
and her colleagues learning learning the
required skills enabled them to ask more
meaningful questions and soon rather
than describing the numbers they
achieved they started meaningful
discussions like which fundraising
measures to extend ultimately this led
to more successful marketing and higher
donations and all of this triggered but
something completely unintended buy me
another time when I was in Zimbabwe
there was a project piloting additional
income streams for marginalised farmers
one attempt was an incubator for chicken
eggs so farmers would bring their
fertilized eggs to the incubator where
they would be kept at perfect
temperature for 20 days until the chicks
hatched the farmers would yield higher
hatching raids and the operator would
receive a small fee for the service
everybody would win the team had been
working hard for weeks together setup
right now finding a suitable operator
getting the right equipment finding
customers for the service still they
will not yet conclusive if that approach
was actually worth pursuing it should be
scaled up in the car on our way back I
did a quick back of the envelope
calculation taking into account the
price for chicks and eggs capacity of
the incubator and the equipment’s cost
insured out that it would take the
operator three years just to pay off the
initial investment not allowing for any
repairs and not getting any money from
it until then so there was no way this
was a valid business case in rural
Zimbabwe a people need fast and secure
return on their investments so now it
was clear that he
that I need to shift their focus away
from that attempt to what’s one of the
other approaches they were testing the
team had been so focused on the
technical feasibility and the
socio-cultural socio-cultural challenges
of the trial that it did not also check
the economics they simply had not
thought about it in the business way
before lagging the fundraising example
what I did see natural to me but my
colleagues did not even consider doing
this since they were from a very
different sector
what are these examples and there’s many
more of these have in common so first of
all this is not about pointing out that
NGOs are incompetent of unprofessional
I strongly believe that the opposite is
true from what I have experienced this
particular NGO is very strong and
efficient and annual independent award
to test that the people working there
are not only dedicated but also highly
skilled and experienced the marketing
team in in Germany highly talented in
motivating and engaging people the
project managers in Zimbabwe highly
experienced and are very sensitive to
what they are doing in a fragile
environment so why is it that I as an
individual with no experience in any of
their fields was able to add value
within hours I only realised this when
one colleague in Zimbabwe said to me
Benjamin
you know a lot of stuff we don’t but
most importantly you think differently
and I think he hit the nail on the head
I realize that I carry with me a
skillset and a mindset that is very
common in business context but specially
in a nonprofit environment I could add
more value by applying what I do in
another field even if it does not strike
me as special this insight got me
thinking shouldn’t this then be true for
other people as well and many of us good
at what we are doing bid in business or
academics or
Fields isn’t it sure that many of us are
not aware of that we might actually be
good at something I believe this is
great news for everyone who has ever
wondered if he or she could actually
make a difference yes you can and
there’s plenty of possibilities maybe
you will discover some new strengths
some hidden potential slumbering inside
you if you expose yourself to a
different environment like the nonprofit
sector I invite you to think about
opportunities what cause do I care about
they might already have a connection
beach in my neighborhood or amongst my
friends you don’t necessarily need to
create your job there are other ways to
get engaged and it might not even be a
large effort for you but for the cause
you could make a big difference if this
is true for individuals like you and me
what does it mean for nonprofit
organizations although in NGO staff is
comprised from a wide variety of
backgrounds I have only met very few
people with the business background most
of my colleagues had been working in the
nonprofit sector for most of their lives
they care about their cause and they are
very strong and everything that’s at the
core of their mission but sometimes this
leaves a blank spot it leaves a blank
spot for some kinds difficult
discussions like the cost-benefit ratio
of measures which are all doing
something good it leaves a blank spot
for skills like exit tricks which are
not at the core of a humanitarian worker
it leaves a blank spot for skills and
mindsets which are usually found in the
for-profit space thus I believe that
NGOs need to actively in sauce these
skills and mindsets this cannot be
achieved by attending one or two
business conferences getting this
perspective requires working with people
who breathed this different skill in my
that we can carry it into the
organization and spread it maybe NGO
should even consider deliberately
recruiting few people with an NGO
background today after my 18 months have
passed I’m back to management consulting
I’ve had a highly rewarding time and
learned a lot about the world we live in
which helps me keep things in
perspective rather they are different
ways of doing things and I learned a lot
about myself
but most importantly I could make a
difference which is all I wanted to
achieve in the first place I could even
make a difference beyond what I was
expecting and that’s the reason why I’m
back your management consultant for now
because I believe there are more things
to learn more skills to master more
thinking to be shaped and this will
allow me to make even a greater
difference in the future because one
thing I know for sure one day I’ll be
back thank you
[Applause]
working on something you care about
imagine the challenge of doing something
you have no idea about you don’t know
how it works and you have no education
or background on anything that you will
be doing how would you feel on your
first day
curious excited afraid I’m a physicist
by background about four major
management consulting firm as a business
consultant after bid more than two years
I also spend at my very renowned highly
stimulating job and started working for
Deutsche Welle one of the largest German
NGOs working in humanitarian development
and aid I had absolutely no idea about
development cooperation and no clue how
an NGO operates why would I do that the
answer is a number eight hundred million
eight hundred million people in the
world suffer from hunger and
malnutrition 800 million people do not
have sufficient or sufficiently
nutritious food 800 million that’s more
than the entire population of Europe
this makes me angry sad and it also made
me feel powerless I mean how could
anyone make a difference to that number
but maybe I could make a difference to
someone maybe I could cause some change
at the very least I wanted to try and so
my journey began for 18 months I worked
in Germany Zimbabwe India and Bangladesh
fighting for a world without hunger a
business consultant ed an NGO
the archetypical representative of
capitalism in the nonprofit world
lemonade one of these know-it-all guides
in there tight suits fancy suitcases
rationalizing away jobs staying up all
night to draw piles of slides rather
than listening to people I remember an
encounter during my first week you must
be this consultant we’ve worked with you
guys once didn’t go so well so I knew I
had to work extra hard to overcome these
judgments and stereotypes to avoid
fulfilling the cliches people were
expecting and so I was open curious
eager to learn and fully let myself into
this new and familiar NGO world and
amazingly in return people were open to
and great collaboration emerged I could
work on topics that make a difference to
people’s lives
I got to see new countries and cultures
and allowed something new every day this
was the most rewarding experience of my
life much of this was somehow to be
expected or at least hoped for
however there were also some surprising
unintended consequences of me as a
former business consultant in the
nonprofit sector at one time I was
working with the fundraising department
that has the main task of attracting
private donations for example by sending
out letters to households one should be
the question they would ask themselves
was how many donations have we won by
mailings focus around would say
nutrition in schools so one of their
team members would go through all the
lists of all the mailings look for those
with nutrition in schools and manually
some of the numbers then she would
repeat that procedure for mailings
around Lea drinking water and compare
their yield when I asked her why she
would not simply use automated tables to
do the job she said oh really
that’s a true for that I was puzzled
because to me using like automated
tables felt so natural that it did not
even occur to me that this might not be
true to others in my previous
environment both among my consulting
colleagues and at my clients
everybody was familiar with this
technique and had been trained the
skills to apply it what seemed basic and
not noteworthy to me was special in a
different environment so we sat down
together did a small training with her
and her colleagues learning learning the
required skills enabled them to ask more
meaningful questions and soon rather
than describing the numbers they
achieved they started meaningful
discussions like which fundraising
measures to extend ultimately this led
to more successful marketing and higher
donations and all of this triggered but
something completely unintended buy me
another time when I was in Zimbabwe
there was a project piloting additional
income streams for marginalised farmers
one attempt was an incubator for chicken
eggs so farmers would bring their
fertilized eggs to the incubator where
they would be kept at perfect
temperature for 20 days until the chicks
hatched the farmers would yield higher
hatching raids and the operator would
receive a small fee for the service
everybody would win the team had been
working hard for weeks together setup
right now finding a suitable operator
getting the right equipment finding
customers for the service still they
will not yet conclusive if that approach
was actually worth pursuing it should be
scaled up in the car on our way back I
did a quick back of the envelope
calculation taking into account the
price for chicks and eggs capacity of
the incubator and the equipment’s cost
insured out that it would take the
operator three years just to pay off the
initial investment not allowing for any
repairs and not getting any money from
it until then so there was no way this
was a valid business case in rural
Zimbabwe a people need fast and secure
return on their investments so now it
was clear that he
that I need to shift their focus away
from that attempt to what’s one of the
other approaches they were testing the
team had been so focused on the
technical feasibility and the
socio-cultural socio-cultural challenges
of the trial that it did not also check
the economics they simply had not
thought about it in the business way
before lagging the fundraising example
what I did see natural to me but my
colleagues did not even consider doing
this since they were from a very
different sector
what are these examples and there’s many
more of these have in common so first of
all this is not about pointing out that
NGOs are incompetent of unprofessional
I strongly believe that the opposite is
true from what I have experienced this
particular NGO is very strong and
efficient and annual independent award
to test that the people working there
are not only dedicated but also highly
skilled and experienced the marketing
team in in Germany highly talented in
motivating and engaging people the
project managers in Zimbabwe highly
experienced and are very sensitive to
what they are doing in a fragile
environment so why is it that I as an
individual with no experience in any of
their fields was able to add value
within hours I only realised this when
one colleague in Zimbabwe said to me
Benjamin
you know a lot of stuff we don’t but
most importantly you think differently
and I think he hit the nail on the head
I realize that I carry with me a
skillset and a mindset that is very
common in business context but specially
in a nonprofit environment I could add
more value by applying what I do in
another field even if it does not strike
me as special this insight got me
thinking shouldn’t this then be true for
other people as well and many of us good
at what we are doing bid in business or
academics or
Fields isn’t it sure that many of us are
not aware of that we might actually be
good at something I believe this is
great news for everyone who has ever
wondered if he or she could actually
make a difference yes you can and
there’s plenty of possibilities maybe
you will discover some new strengths
some hidden potential slumbering inside
you if you expose yourself to a
different environment like the nonprofit
sector I invite you to think about
opportunities what cause do I care about
they might already have a connection
beach in my neighborhood or amongst my
friends you don’t necessarily need to
create your job there are other ways to
get engaged and it might not even be a
large effort for you but for the cause
you could make a big difference if this
is true for individuals like you and me
what does it mean for nonprofit
organizations although in NGO staff is
comprised from a wide variety of
backgrounds I have only met very few
people with the business background most
of my colleagues had been working in the
nonprofit sector for most of their lives
they care about their cause and they are
very strong and everything that’s at the
core of their mission but sometimes this
leaves a blank spot it leaves a blank
spot for some kinds difficult
discussions like the cost-benefit ratio
of measures which are all doing
something good it leaves a blank spot
for skills like exit tricks which are
not at the core of a humanitarian worker
it leaves a blank spot for skills and
mindsets which are usually found in the
for-profit space thus I believe that
NGOs need to actively in sauce these
skills and mindsets this cannot be
achieved by attending one or two
business conferences getting this
perspective requires working with people
who breathed this different skill in my
that we can carry it into the
organization and spread it maybe NGO
should even consider deliberately
recruiting few people with an NGO
background today after my 18 months have
passed I’m back to management consulting
I’ve had a highly rewarding time and
learned a lot about the world we live in
which helps me keep things in
perspective rather they are different
ways of doing things and I learned a lot
about myself
but most importantly I could make a
difference which is all I wanted to
achieve in the first place I could even
make a difference beyond what I was
expecting and that’s the reason why I’m
back your management consultant for now
because I believe there are more things
to learn more skills to master more
thinking to be shaped and this will
allow me to make even a greater
difference in the future because one
thing I know for sure one day I’ll be
back thank you
[Applause]
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