The last 30 days have been a rather fantastic time for my small cadre of apprentices, the women of the Theodora Ghana project. As I think I mentioned that the economic circumstances imposed by the pandemic caused us to fast track our Theodora Ghana ladies into initial test clients much faster than we would have preferred.
This was mostly a great leap of faith. I have never done anything like this. The women certainly haven't. And in reality, most of the clients we've started test working with haven't either. Add three components with that much inexperience together and you would suspect a recipe for disaster. Instead what has happened is this incredible incubator for growth.
One of our significant concerns starting Theodora was whether women who were used to the rough and tumble world of sex trade where all parties are totally on their guard to not be taken advantage of could adjust to a standard work environment. And not just any work environment but one that was dictated by the culture they were selling into, the United States whose work culture is very different from Ghana's.
Well, it turns out we need not have worried. The women are lapping up this opportunity with thirst and enthusiasm that is mind-boggling. I won't go into each and every test I am throwing at them, but the rate of personal growth is impressive. Not just their understanding of the specific tasks I am teaching them but their understanding of broader business concepts.
I am putting teeth into our promise that this will become their business one day by bringing them into some of the most fundamental decisions we need to make to get ourselves started up. Just the last two days, we were forced to let go of one of our original six due to a lack of performance. Watching the others go through the analysis, come to the same conclusion, yet want to work out a plan for their cohort to have a second chance was impressive. Especially when you consider I told them they would have to do the work to support her comeback.
It has only been three months since we started. I can only imagine where they are going to be after a year.
2 comments:
Including them on the decision making sounds very powerful.
I am working a bit on a project that uses a shared leadership mode- in our context that means that deans, department heads and students in a group will have equal responsibilities and decision-making power- and it's quite different than anything I've done before.
I would expect some plateaus during the learning curb but yes - the sky's the limit!
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