Daniel Lubetzky

About two and a half years ago I was approached by Zvi Schreiber with a dream he had: to build a hi-tech joint venture between Israelis and Palestinians.  I had started joint ventures in the food industry between Palestinians and Israelis and we had a mutual friend, Alvaro Aguirre, who had encouraged Zvi (who was a very successful internet entrepreneur) to exchange notes.  I believe we spoke briefly and I tried to share a couple thoughts, but in the back of my mind I frankly was worried about his project and a bit skeptical whether he’d succeed, given all the obvious challenges during the political and economic environment, but also the prospect of cooperation in the tech space given the overall disparities between Israelis and Palestinians in high-tech skills.  After all, economics of peacemaking that PeaceWorks bases itself on require complementary comparative advantages.

Well, Zvi more than did it.  G.ho.st is a hot start-up with a hot product and great potential.  The New York Times just wrote about it.  And in Ramallah, G.ho.st is the pride of the town.  It is also winning rave reviews from Wall Street to Sillicon Valley.  And it is at the forefront of efforts where Israelis and Palestinians are cooperating on a daily basis to build a business platform and in the process build understanding.

What most excites me about this is that my pessimism was proven wrong.  So many times people have ideas and are discouraged from pursuing them.  Yes, it is healthy to have someone to question all your assumptions and to ask the tough questions.  But it is also important for people to JUST DO IT some times.  And Zvi is doing it!  Read the NYT article…

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Related to and independent of the prior posting, I’ve noticed that letting someone go in an NGO (when that is the right and necessary path) is much harder for Executive Directors than it is for CEOs of a company.  Why is this?

The most immediate reason may have to do with the culture and mission of public service that NGOs have.  Organizations want to do nice things.  Letting a person go can be done in a nice way, but it is not a nice or pleasant thing to do.

But I think this also is harder on Executive Directors because there is less inherent incentive to control costs – as the entity is not trying to maximize profits, but to maximize impact.  Executive Directors are not going to get paid more for saving the organization funds.  The money saved is not going to their pockets – and should not (or it could create perverse counter-incentives).  So why should they take the painful step of removing someone they may personally like and consider a peer or friend, even if that person may no longer be optimally serving the needs of the organization? "Optimally" is the key word here, because I doubt many Executive Directors are incompetent and irresponsible enough to not take steps that are patently warranted – i.e., when the person is just truly unsuitable for a job.  But gray areas may prompt far less managerial rigor.

You can then fast-forward and understand how, 10 and 20 years later, you end up with lethargic institutions with under-performing employees whose tasks or missions may no longer be societal priorities, but who scramble by with a sense of passive entitlement.

This is not only not good for society or for the bloated and unproductive organizations, but it is also not good for the employees whose professional growth has been stilted.

Unless they are running a program whose very objective is to generate job opportunities (with mediocre jobs and opportunities if that is the best they can achieve), heads of NGOs (and those who report to them) have a responsibility to remember they are not employment agencies, and they have a fiduciary duty to those who donated the funds to ensure these are used effectively for the stated mission.  With kindness and professionalism, they can achieve a more dynamic work environment that ultimately works best for all.

I hate the term "firing" an employee – along with today’s corporate culture of swift, cold departures that fits and imbues the term.  Today’s prevalent system for leaving a company or organization is unnecessarily inefficient and impersonal.  There are much better ways to approach this.

It is never pleasant letting a team member go, or having a team member leave, whether at a company or organization.  But some smart steps can improve the situation for both parties.

Both at PeaceWorks/KIND and at the PeaceWorks Foundation/OneVoice, I have tried to cultivate a culture where, other than cases of wilful grave misconduct, nobody is just terminated with 2 weeks notice, but rather coached to try to redress shortcomings, often succeeding in doing so. 

By inverse, team members don’t just give notice and leave within 2 weeks. Instead, if a team member feels for personal or professional growth reasons that they need to move on, we have an early and open discussion to explore it, and if it’s the final choice, we work together on a transition plan where they interview, hire, and train their replacements, while they work on their own personal transition, potentially including looking for a job in parallel.  There is an honor code in the PeaceWorks Group that team members do not search for a job under the radar, without first sharing their intent to do so with the CEO or person they report to. 

What is the upside to the team member? First of all, we often reward those who ensure a smooth and responsible transition.  More important to their professional growth, we never hold back on promotions or further areas of responsibility and growth.  The trust enables us to advance them and empower them much faster.  With both parties feeling such responsibility and partnership, it is so much easier to invest in your team without feeling threatened that a sudden departure would leave a hole in the organization.

Of course this is not a perfect system and not every team member abides by it, but in our "family" of 50-60 team members across 3 continents, it has acquired an ethos that colleagues feel strongly and proud about.

This alternative to surreptitious interviews and surprise firings requires a culture that welcomes open communications about team members’ interests and professional growth, where you not only don’t chastise but actually encourage people to openly discuss their career options with the person they report to, with that person acting as a friend and coach thinking about how to grow the team member within the organization if at all possible.

The corollary to the above is that you do a lot more organic growth and hiring from within.  Team members grow much faster, there are more opportunities for advancement, and the company or organization also grows stronger and faster.