McLeod Group blog by Lauchlan T. Munro, July 5, 2021
A decade ago, a few staff members at a famous human rights organization approached the organization where I worked, seeking advice on how to evaluate their work. They knew that they did meticulous and well-regarded research, that they got good media coverage and that their donors liked what they were producing. But were they actually making a difference in terms of people’s enjoyment of their human rights? They did not know.
In the end, the evaluation initiative came to nothing, not least since the head of my organization did not believe in evaluation (he called it “a racket”) and his friend the head of the human rights organization didn’t seem to either. For the human rights head, standing up for human rights was enough. He seemed to prefer pursuing a noble cause to learning how to be effective.
Promoting and defending human rights is a noble cause, as are peace, gender equality, and climate justice. But, alas, the pursuit of such a noble cause can blind an organization in several ways. First, the nobility of the cause may serve as an excuse for management to make excessive, even abusive demands on employees. In effect, employees are told to quit complaining, since we are all working for people who are so much worse off than you.
Second, the nobility of the cause can become an end in itself. In such cases, just pursuing the cause is far more important than doing so effectively, and the organization ceases to learn as a result.
Third (and worst), by proclaiming the nobility of their cause (even where the cause is dubious), organizations can cloak themselves in legitimacy and thus dupe naïve or gullible stakeholders into supporting them. Historical and contemporary examples of each type of blindness abound.
The first form of blindness, where the nobility of the cause serves to justify excessive or abusive demands made of staff has recently surfaced in Canada and elsewhere. The Nobel Women’s Initiative has recently “accepted the challenge to correct internal failures which have caused hurt and harm to people on our team”. It has committed to changing its “internal practices, policies, and culture (so that they) are better aligned with the core values of equality, justice, and peace that guide our external work”.
Reports of racism and a “toxic workplace” at Amnesty International Canada’s English section have emerged. Its former longtime Secretary General has admitted to past failings, saying that “being for human rights and against racism does not, an anti-racist make”. Complaints of bullying and workplace harassment at Amnesty International’s main office in London, UK followed a similar pattern not long ago.
The second form of blindness afflicted UNICEF some time ago as it transitioned into a “child rights organization”. The transition came with a shift away from appropriately planned and carefully implemented practical and policy initiatives towards a culture of grand gestures and endless talk. Inside the organization, those not fully on board with the new “human rights-based approach to programming” were treated with suspicion. At one point, the first form of blindness also appeared, and staff who worked for the Director who had spearheaded the transition pointedly asked her if she believed in labour rights as well as child rights. Thankfully, things improved after a change of senior leadership.
The WE family of organizations exemplifies the third form of blindness. During its annus horribilis in 2020, WE faced accusations of colonial attitudes, white saviourism, racism and shoddy treatment of employees who asked awkward questions, to say nothing of doubts about its effectiveness as a development organization. Many supporters and employees realized that things were not as they had believed and left, sometimes denouncing WE’s whole philosophy.
Organizational dynamics are always complex, especially in non-profits where markers of success are not as obvious as the profit margin in the private sector. Satisfying multiple and often contradictory demands (promote human rights, be transparent, demand high quality and timely work, respect work-life balance, be nice, be effective) is never easy or straightforward. Addressing this everyday management challenge is even more difficult in an organization inspired by a noble cause, where a saviourist ethos can slip into the mindset that staff must sacrifice themselves for that noble cause. Critical thinking about mission and effectiveness can be seen as a waste of time or, worse, as disloyalty.
Things get even more complicated when one or more forms of blindness are accompanied by other serious problems: authoritarian or inattentive leadership, with-us-or-against-us corporate cultures and messaging, racism, sexism and paternalism. This appears to have been the case at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
But the difficulties involved in managing complexity should never serve as an excuse for abusive behaviour towards staff or other stakeholders. And all organizations, but perhaps especially cause-driven organizations, must work hard to build healthy, inclusive workplaces and a learning culture. That isn’t easy, but it is possible, given the internal will and outside pressure.
As international development agencies of all kinds grapple with the fallout from #MeToo, Black Lives Matter and accusations of neocolonialism, it is incumbent on all actors to do better. Donors, whether individual, corporate or governmental, must ask hard questions about safeguarding mechanisms and workplace culture in the organizations that they fund. Boards must do a better job of detecting and correcting these management problems before they make the headlines. Regulators and standard-setting bodies need to pay attention to what goes on inside the organizations they oversee, and not just to the financial reports and the corporate messaging.
Those who run cause-driven organizations clearly have a special responsibility to walk the walk both inside and outside their organizations and show that they are open to all kinds of feedback and learning, even if it hurts. Those of us who work for, support, fund, study and criticize cause-driven organizations should support leaders who are doing a good job, and hold to account those who are not.
A somewhat imperfect former manager, Lauchlan T. Munro teaches at the University of Ottawa’s School of International Development and Global Studies. Image: Alamy.