From Aid to Maturity

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A Tale of Two Teams – The Good versus The Bad and The Ugly

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 This is a story about two very different work teams I have been part of.

One of the teams was a UN team; the other was an emergency preparedness project team in Sweden. I leave it to you to guess which team was which one.

 

Credit : Rebecca Murphey

The Bad and The Ugly Team

This team was not actually a team. Its members worked side by side. The flow of information and number of interactions were kept to a minimum.

Some of the team members did not miss an opportunity to belittle other team members. It could be about rank, experience or anything else they could come up with. Many spent a lot of time and energy on dreading the next toxic email, or spiteful comment; and subsequently, strategies for how to handle them. [Read more…]

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Sunk Cost Bias. What Is That?

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Burn money. Credit: http://taxrebate.org.uk/

Sunk cost bias is one the concepts presented in the World Development Report 2015: Mind, Society and Behaviour. Since I assume many of you do not have the time or the energy to read that report, I will try to give you an apprehensible explanation; and some reasons for why you should know.

 

In an aid context, sunk cost is when you persist with a project, despite its obvious flaws or absence of results. You, your office or your organization have invested so much money and effort into it that is hard to admit your failures. And the more you have invested, and the more you have lost, the more likely you are to head on; despite knowing that the project is beyond rescue.

Waste Aversion

Why do we humans do such a thing? Looking at it from the outside it seems rather stupid, to say the least. Especially if we claim ourselves to be well educated and “rational”? [Read more…]

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How to Find Your Inner Strength In a Bad Work Environment

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When I embarked on my mid-life career change into international aid I was full of optimism. Finally I had found what I was looking for: dedicating myself to meaningful tasks in an international and vibrant community.

Moreover, I thought I was well informed about the flaws and deficiencies of the UN system and I had received warnings about INGOs being bad employers.

I also had many years of work experience and believed I was seasoned and prepared.
I was not. [Read more…]

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