Ripples from the Zambezi by Ernest Sirolli New Society Publishers, 1999.
This review appeared on the website http://www.ManagingWholes.com
Many people wish to strengthen their local economies, reduce dependence on multinational corporations, build community by doing things, or achieve self-fulfillment through meaningful work. Yet these results are not coming easily or economically from the top-down, programmatic, and strategic approaches typically used by governments, economic development districts, and even by community groups, nonprofits, and advocacy organizations.
As E. F. Schumacher observed in Good
Work, we cannot expect to raise the
wind that will push us to a better world.
What we can do is hoist a sail to catch the
wind when it does come. Ripples from the
Zambezi tells the gripping story of
how Ernesto Sirolli learned to catch the
wind of passionate, skillful, creative,
intelligent, and self-motivated
entrepreneursthe acknowledged powerhouse of
the economy as well as of social change.
Sirollis experiences as a volunteer
for the Italian government in Africa during the
1970s convinced him that development
schemes were anything but. After
absorbing Schumachers Small Is
Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered and
the person-centered psychology of Carl
Rogers, Sirolli put his radical,
anti-dogmatic ideas to the test in rural
Western Australia. Instead of trying to
motivate people, he made himself available
as coach and advocate for anyone who
was serious about starting or expanding a
business enterprise.
By treating economic development as a
byproduct of personal growth and
self-actualization, Sirolli was able to
make a quantum leap in the effectiveness of
business coaching, as well as create local
miracles of economic development. He
has devoted himself since to teaching
committed civic leaders how to do what he
has done.
In every community, no matter how
small, remote, or depressed, there is
somebody who is scribbling figures on a
kitchen table. If we can be available, for
free and in confidence, to help that
person go from the dream to establish an
enterprise that can sustain that person
and his or her family, we can begin to
change the economic fortunes of the entire
community.
The strategy that Sirolli teaches to
communities often involves a committed
volunteer local board, who hires an
Enterprise Facilitator who is then trained by
Sirolli. The facilitator does not initiate
projects or promote good ideas. He or she
responds to the interests and passions of
self-motivated people. Because no one
has equal passion for production,
marketing, and financial management, all of
which are necessary for business success,
and because people only do well what
they care about doing, the secret of
success and survival for a business of any size
is to find people who love to do what you
hate. The death of the entrepreneur is
solitude. The facilitator and the
board, with networking, help people form teams
to advance their idea.
This is a strategy that is always followed
in large business, but remains unusual in
small business, where most people are
still advised to write business plans
singlehandedly, and to get better at what
they hate. For example, farmers and
ranchers whose inclinations and
personalities do not lend themselves to marketing
are often told that they must learn
marketing skills to get off the commodity roller
coaster.
Sirollis ideas are not just good.
They are inspiring, inflammatory, they
resonateand they are based on 15
colorful years of failing and succeeding at
hoisting the sail in Australia, New
Zealand, Canada, and the U.S.
The underlying philosophy has to do with
empowerment rather than control. A
shift from strategic to responsive
development can only occur, Sirolli writes, if
we are capable of believing that people
are intrinsically good and that the diversity,
variety, and apparent randomness of their
passions is like the chaotic yet
ecologically sound life manifestations in
an old-growth forest.
The message is that bottom-up,
person-centered, responsive economic
development worksand if well
understood and led at the community level, it
works better than anything else. When a
community can help motivated people
succeed, the motivation spreads. The
future of every community, Sirolli writes,
lies in capturing the energy,
imagination, intelligence, and passion of its people.