He Who Solves the Problem, Owns the Solution

“I never realized how hard it was to help somebody and actually not hurt them. And a lot of people are out there doing things that they really believe because they have a good intention to help, are helping people, but the reality is it’s actually doing more harm than good.” -Mike McCausland

Michael McCausland, Founder and Executive Director of Sustainable Communities Worldwide, tells a story about a village in Africa where the women were walking 3 hours round trip to get water for their village.

A non-profit group came into this community and thought it would be helpful to build a well in the village so the women would not have to walk so far for a needed resource. It was a surprise to everyone when the community started to fall apart.

Why? Because those women were solving many of the village issues during their time of walking and talking. The desire to solve a problem ended up causing unintended consequences.

On today’s episode

We will hear about Mike’s journey from a career in nuclear power plants to humanitarian work in over 130 countries. James 1:27 was his call from God to make a difference in the lives of others and he quickly learned that helping people can sometimes hurt them. Sustainable Communities Worldwide shows villages and leaders around the world how to come up with their own solutions. Many of these same principles can also be accomplished in corporate settings.

What you will learn:

As a consultant, you never try to solve the problem. Instead, you help figure out the solution to the problem. “He who solves the problem, owns the solution”
What happens to a culture who has been trained to seek others to solve their problems.
The importance of community resiliency.
The importance of cause and effect relationships.
How entrepreneurs are creating business in other countries.
Transferring the concept of ownership to the workforce.

When you begin to create that dependency, people don’t try to fix their own problems. It stifles innovation. It destroys dignity, and hope, and creativity. We’ve all been given a gift by God, and we’ve been given resources by God for our own solutions, but we don’t look for them when other people give us free stuff, and we just begin to look to others for our solutions and that’s happening all over the world.Mike McCausland

Bio:

FOUNDER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of Sustainable Communities World Wide. Since 1993 Michael has been working in the international aid arena. In 2001, he was a Founder of HISG, a non-profit established to bring business practices to humanitarian aid and development. The lessons they learned about building local capacity to break the crisis of dependency led to the launch of Sustainable Communities Worldwide.