dispatches from the new world of work

Seven Billion Experts—Waiting to Be Heard!

William Easterly wrote in the Financial Times on 29 May: "The report of the World Bank Growth Commission, led by Nobel laureate Michael Spence [former dean of the Stanford biz school—tp, you know my biases], was published last week. After two years of work by the commission of 21 world leaders, an 11-member working group, 300 academic experts, 12 workshops, 13 consultations, and a budget of $4 million, the experts' answer to the question of how to attain high growth was roughly: we do not know, but trust experts to figure it out."

You may recall my fawning review of Easterly's The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. He argues vehemently against stencils for development imposed from on high—and in favor of tailored approaches developed mainly by the locals—with the "experts" acting as counselors.

As you might then guess, I was thoroughly taken by the title of the FT article cited above:

"Trust the development experts—all seven billion of them."

Amen!

(Attached you'll find the Easterly PowerPoint, provided earlier as case #3 in a PowerPoint titled "Three Cases" of Implementation.)

Tom Peters posted this on 06/09/08.

Comments

Who would have thought that Star Trek's "Prime Directive" would emerge as such a profound concept?

Posted by John_Gregor at June 9, 2008 5:56 PM

I forgot who said it but their observation " The four most important words in any organizational are "What do you think"?" is the quickest and easiest way to get the expert advise. It definitely will solve a lot of problems and make you smarter, more efficient and more profitable...as an individual or business. Local knowledge rules!

Posted by Dave Wheeler at June 9, 2008 7:27 PM

Fantastic that so many learned and prominent people were asked and so much money was spent … to finally prove what we all knew instinctively... small is truly beautiful and local is the right (only) answer.

Posted by Trevor Gay at June 10, 2008 5:28 PM