Blessed Are The Peacemakers

Great change is often a matter of small actions, constant conversation and doing the right thing. In this case, it is also the stuff of heroes.

The documentary The Secret Peacemaker, broadcast on BBC2 last night, was one of the most moving things I have seen for a long time. It was the story of a businessman called Brendan Duddy, who lives in Derry in Northern Ireland.

He isn't, by the normal ways of looking at things, anyone special. He was an ordinary man who owned a chip shop. But what he did was amazing.

A republican and a pacifist, Brendan acted as the broker to facilitate dialogue between the IRA and the British Government for more than twenty years during the 70's, 80's and early 90's, the darkest time of the Troubles.

He set up meetings at his house and elsewhere to get representatives of the IRA and the British Government together, during times when neither side could be seen to be talking to each other. He did so at immense personal risk to himself and his family. In Northern Ireland at this time, to be seen talking to a British soldier could get you shot by IRA paramilitaries paranoid about 'touts' or informers. Loyalist paramilitaries were shooting catholics seemingly at random. Being seen with militant republicans could have you thrown in jail indefinitely without trial.

There was nothing in it for Brendan, except the belief that dialogue was better than killing, and that the killing had to stop.

For twenty years, he spoke in coded messages on bugged telephone lines, drove through the dark to anonymous houses to convey messages to men who were ordering murders by the day, and kept it all secret from his friends and neighbours - everyone except his family.

He brokered meetings in his house, making cups of tea for killers and intelligence agents sitting on his sofa, being a trusted witness to conversations where the politically unthinkable was discussed and deals were done - ceasefires, doors kept open, promises made - that paved the way to the Good Friday agreement and the brittle but enduring peace that exists in Northern Ireland today.

I am sure that the story I saw had been cleaned up, sanitised and edited nicely - and that the truth is more ambiguous, murky and uncomfortable than the version broadcast. But regardless of what we learn in the future I have no doubt that this man is a hero of the highest order.

He did the right thing when it would have been easier to put his head in the sand. He risked everything he had to make things better, when there was no realistic prospect of success for years. And he did it effectively alone - not working for anyone else, not following anyone else's policy - but because he personally saw that something needed to be done and he could do it.

I grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles - and because I know how bleak those days were, I have nothing but admiration for this man who tried, in small steps over many years, to work to end them.

And, at the risk of sounding crass, I think Brendan can teach us something about change. First of all, the primary driver of peace process was conversation - dialogue between people - not 'communication' formally issued. Indeed the main time things went wrong for him was when some information was released the wrong way - announced in the House of Commons - rather than in discussion.

Secondly, if you want change to happen, it is much better to get out there and do something, rather than wait, even if you don't know every step of the journey. Brendan facilitated the dialogue, often when neither party was clear about what they were to talk about. Doing something and getting the dialogue going was critical.

And finally, change is about having a compass, not a map. Brendan was a pacifist - he wanted the killing to stop. He didn't have a great plan for peace, he just knew that if he could put the relevant people together, then the killing became less likely. It was a move in the right direction and that was the right thing to do.

Now the changes we have to face in our companies are much less mortal, are more defined and are much simpler than the things Brendan faced. But his example, I think, is something from which we can all learn.

- Mike

Beaming like a baby

Communication can kill your project.

I was at a client's project washup session (a 'post-implementation review' in the jargon) a while ago where we were to review a project to relocate a couple of call centres.

The project, to put it politely, had been going to hell in a handbasket. The client asked me to help when the project was already seriously derailed.

We got it back on course, and delivered much of what was wanted, not too late, and without doing too much damage to an already stretched budget.

Even so, very few were looking forward to the session. Three hours of reports of limited success, powerpoint presentations on 'things we should have done earlier/better/faster', flipcharts full of 'learnings for next time' - a steady stream of formal self-flagellation, almost like a Maoist re-education session. What could be more exciting :-( ?

The only person smiling was the representative from the communications ('comms') team. By luck or judgement, he went first. He presented a set of (beautifully prepared) slides showing us the comms plan, how they had delivered against it (largely on time and under budget, unlike almost every other part of the project) and then he revealed his coup de grace - the project comms team had been shortlisted for the final of a national competition run by a trade magazine. He sat down, beaming like a baby, newly fed.

His bubble was only slightly burst when John, the project manager, commented, “I wonder why the communications team keeps winning awards, while the projects they work on don’t?”

And I was struck by a blinding flash of the obvious.

Of course the communications team were winning the awards – because, for them, their job was delivery of defined communications, not the delivery of the project. When we reviewed the communications plan in the project each week, we were reviewing communications activity, not whether the communication was successful in helping the project meet its goals. Mugs and posters (not like these) and 'plenary sessions' were all very well, but very little of this directly affected what was delivered on the ground.

Suddenly other things fell into place. A key frustration during the project was that it had been very tough to brief delivery teams and stakeholders directly. The reason? We had to comply with our communications team policy that our messages 'were consistent’ and that ‘the seniors had been briefed’ before we could discuss the project with others. This in turn delayed project work as we waited for ‘communications’.

Worse, because the comms team moderated communications from the middle, and not on the ground, much of what they did communicate was too general to be relevant to those doing the work. As the project delivery teams did not understand what was needed - in terms that mattered to them - much of the work they did needed to be redone. No wonder (as we found when we completed the washup) the single biggest issue affecting the project was 'communication'.

All the communication activity in the comms plan and in our policies was actually damaging the project – because it was preventing effective communication.

The project team had abdicated responsibility for communication to the communications machine – just when we needed to be able to explain to our project people, in practical, day-to-day terms, what we needed them to do.

I have seen this behaviour before in a number of my clients and it explains a lot. The logic of giving communications to a specialist overwhelms the common sense notion of enabling folks on the ground to communicate quickly and easily with each other to get the work done.

'Communication' can fill your project’s pockets with lead weights and send it for a swim straight to the bottom.

Remember, communication is no substitute for conversation.

- Mike