Understanding The Theodora Project - Part Five – Introduction to Revolutionary and Transformational Potential – The Hard Work of Refining The End Deliverable

 

It is all well and good to analyze and talk about potential impact. But it is all bullshit if you don’t have a rock solid program for achieving that impact. According to the gospel of Lean Impact, that means you should be testing your service backwards, forwards, inside and out to make sure it performs as required and at the cost needed. Further, you are urged go make your tests rapid and cost effective so you can iterate and refine your offering quickly.

 

As we were doing all our ‘big picture potential impact’ analyses, we were also looking at what we had actually delivered to clients and the level of performance achieved by our participants. I summed this up in my 2021 New Year message to our participants a part of which I have copied below.

 

We can't be content or assume any of this is guaranteed.

No, we are going to have to work even harder if we want these benefits to continue. TGVA has to become a trustworthy, dependable, U.S. service business with minimum involvement from Michael. This will mean a more significant commitment from each of you individually and as a group to raise your professionalism. Of course, you will not have to do this totally by yourself. The entire Theodora Africa Project support team is there to ensure that you have the resources and tools to continue your development. And that support team is growing with new people showing interest in the program. But in the end, each of you has to make a personal commitment to the work necessary for improvement.

What are the specific things you need to be working on?

There are particular things on which I will be asking you to focus.

·       Doing your work with the highest quality.

·       This means doing things right…the first time.

·       It requires double and triple-checking your work for errors, especially little things like spelling and format accuracy.

·       Making sure that all your communication (whether verbal or written) is acceptable and clear

·       You need to hold yourself to the highest standard of response time, both internally and externally. For example, during our official work hours, everyone should be checking their email and texts. Unless there is a specific work-related issue, it should never take more than an hour to acknowledge the communication you have received, regardless of who sent it or why.

·       Do what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it. This establishes credibility, one of the most valuable assets we have as service providers.

·       Always give or set a time when you will respond to a request (whether internally or externally).

·       If you are not going to hit the time set, then communicate to the client or co-worker and give them a new estimated date.

While you are working on these, there are lots of other big things happening.

It is almost a bit unbelievable how fast things are moving in the bigger world supporting Theodora. Here are just some of them.

·       Fundraising – I set a goal of raising $40 thousand this year, with hopefully most coming during the first three months. These funds, along with what we are billing clients, would have us covering your stipends plus. It will give us plenty to invest in Ghana, so you have the right conditions to improve professionally. So far, we already have $15,000 committed, most of which has been collected. That is enough to tell our support team to move forward on the most important of the resources.

·       Getting a proper work environment – You, I, and others involved with the program have recognized that we need a physical workspace location. You need regular work hours. These will give you the proper environment to grow and thrive. I have given those responsible in Ghana the green light to make that happen. My goal is for us to be in such a space by the time I arrive in March.

·       Getting proper onsite, daily operational management – If you are to achieve the improvement I challenged you with, you need more help than I can give you from afar. You need someone who is there every day and who has the right tools to teach and guide you and the experience to create a quality work environment. I have given the green light to initiate a search for this as well. My goal is to have this person lined-up by the time I come back to Ghana.

·       Greatly expand our visibility with important U.S. organizations – We occupy a very special space. We have realized that among all those worldwide who say they are trying to keep women from having to resort to sex work, we may be the only one that is addressing that at the most basic level…providing meaningful employment and income. This is opening doors to us that we would not have imagined even two months ago. I am moving my Rotary membership to a virtual club, The Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking (www.endhtrotaryclub.org). We believe working through this club and other organizations will give us much more reach in developing the additional clients we need.

·       The year of the Test! – Last year, we didn't even know if what we proposed was remotely possible. We proved it was. Now we need to prove that we can consistently do the things necessary to be a viable business. Those are all the things on your list of improved professionalism.

·       We need to prove we can develop business without Michael – That’s a lot of pressure on those in that team. They have a goal of bringing in 30 new clients in 2021.

·       Providing you with more training – You cannot achieve the level of professionalism without more training. We are working on getting those resources available to you as soon as possible.

So that's a lot. Please read this, digest it, start getting your questions put together. We will go over it in more detail about what we need to do daily with our first Status Update Meeting of the year on 7 January.

 

Yes, there is a lot our plate for 2021. But we have the big prize we are shooting for…a business that provides a great financial future for not just these participants but many others like them. A business that helps small business in the U.S. It is worth the effort.