A Greater Challenge For IT Leaders
06/11/2008
Momentum Chairman, Peter Shields reflects on the challenge faced by 11 IT senior executives returning from West Africa.
“In general, the ICT sector is characterised by security of employment, above average incomes and access to many resources – many of the things that are traditional measures of success.
However, our original objectives in taking on this project were more to showcase the IT industry in a positive light. We ended up deeply intrigued by things we didn’t understand! On the west coast of Africa, in the rural town of Fosu, Ghana, the safe distance between our world and rural West Africa sharply narrowed.“
In partnership with Habitat for Humanity, Momentum, the ICT Federation for Northern Ireland, sent the team of senior executives to Fosu to help build a house for a retired teacher and her two daughters.
For the family, they were getting a roof over their heads and a new home but for the group from Belfast, building that house was much more than bricks and mortar as Peter Shields, Momentum’s chairman explains:
“Most of the group are already involved in things of a CSR nature but it’s so important that we were further influenced by what we saw. This was not just about building a house, it was about how we related to each other as a team, how we involved ourselves in a forgotten community and ultimately about the stewardship of our resources”.
Peter gives a clear summary of what life is like in rural West Africa.
“There is electricity in Fosu - there are lights along the side of the road, but beyond that it is fairly limited. At some houses they have purchased generators and they share a communal well. We stayed in a hostel which had cold water and we had some electricity but it frequently went out in the evenings.”
There are some fairly good schools and we were fortunate to visit two of them. One has been built by Habitat for infants and there was a high school - so there is an infrastructure in those terms. On the other hand, the house that we were building had neither electricity nor water – it was that basic level of need that we were satisfying.
We experienced some pretty strange sounds, smells and sights including a goat tethered to the roof of a minibus as it drove along the road and an Ulsterbus by the side of the road in Accra.”
But even to provide that ‘basic level’, the group worked extremely hard in challenging conditions.
“The house build itself was spot on. It worked out perfectly and the team worked really well together – in fact, we had a great time in each others company and lifelong friendships have been formed. You had 11 people working flat out and very focussed. We started at seven in the morning and most days finished at about four o’clock with the temperature somewhere between 30 and 32 degrees.
“Whenever we got there some of the walls had been built up but inside the house was about 12” of soil that had to be moved out from what was to become a three-room house. The toilet block, store and kitchen were external and we had to start them from scratch. The latrine pit was marked out as five feet wide by five feet long and it had to go down five feet. We had three people working full-time for two and a half days digging that hole. One of the team described it as being like hell”.
What the group hadn’t expected was how the local community embraced their European visitors.
“We really engaged with the community; it came round us and swallowed us up in a beautiful way. From the moment we arrived they were right there with us the whole time. We got the impression that they were absolutely delighted that people from Europe like us were interested in them. Maybe that’s not fulfilling their basic human needs but a very different need … that the world sees them, knows they’re there and respects them” said Peter.
Returning to ‘normal’ life, the group have found it quite difficult to reconcile their experiences of before and after.
“I think we came away completely confused, we thought we knew everything but the more we thought about it the more we asked. ‘What are we seeing here’? We were left wondering should they change or should we change? There was this huge question mark and everybody was struggling with it. It challenges your values and tests which ones stand up and which don’t.”
But the experience is certain to remain not only with the 11 individuals from the group, but will be passed through to others in the IT industry as a challenge to change and to maintain perspectives.
“One of the objectives I would be keen on people taking with them is that 11 people went away and that we came back with 11 different initiatives that could start as a consequence of that. I would love to see it spread wider, particularly in the IT community and the idea of corporate social responsibility being picked up - I think that’s the real challenge for us. I feel it is important to portray that positive aspect of a life within the IT sector and a big part of that is about connecting with the world outside of it”.
“Another issue is constantly challenging ourselves about the issues associated with ‘success’ and those associated with ‘significance’ – success is something that each of us in business must strive for and achieve, that’s a given.
However, there are things of a more significant nature that we mustn’t ignore in our quest for success.”
Something to think about !
Notes
Peter Shields is Chairman of Momentum, Northern Ireland’s ICT Federation and Managing Director of EG Information Consulting.
Visit www.eg-consulting.com or www.momentumni.org
For more information about Habitat for Humanity please visit: www.habitatni.co.uk
Momentum Background:
Momentum is the NI ICT Federation - we represent over 150 member companies who in turn employ over 13,000 staff within Northern Ireland.
HFH Background:
Habitat seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world, and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action. Building in over 90 countries, the average cost of a Habitat for Humanity house in the developing world is £1,235. In Northern Ireland, Habitat for Humanity support global projects by raising funds and sending Global Village volunteer teams. Habitat also works locally, bringing together thousands of volunteers to help regenerate and reconcile divided communities.
Project Team & Logistics:
Team of 11: Peter Shields (EG Information Consulting Ltd), Mike Mullan (Dale Farm), Richard Gardiner (FGS McClure Watters), Bill Surgin (Consilium Technologies), Terry Moore (Outsource Solutions), Joanne Stuart (IoD), Jackie Trainor (HfH), Martin Goss (EG Information Consulting Ltd), Mark McCusker (TextHelp), Angus Beck (Beck & Co), Simon Hunter (InvestNI).
The team raised over £62,000