What is the most important thing in the world? According to the Maori proverb the answer is: He Tangata, He Tangata, He Tangata. It is the people, the people, the people.
As Part 1 of my ‘Farewell to the World Bank’ discusses, during my 17+ years at the World Bank I worked on a wide range of projects in a variety of countries. What connected all of this work were the incredible people I worked with. Staffed by consummate professionals with an unrivalled depth and breadth of technical skills, the World Bank is a unique organization which is personally and professionally incredibly rewarding. I can never express my thanks enough to the people I worked with—I learned so much from each of you.
My manager Motoo Konishi used to rate us on five metrics: our delivery of new projects, management of existing projects, support to the global transport practice in the Bank, external activities (e.g. participating with the Transportation Research Board), and mentoring of other—especially junior—staff. The latter were particularly important and he said that irrespective of how well we did with our technical work, if we did not mentor our colleagues—in the same way we were mentored by others—we had failed. It was an important and valued reminder of the importance of people in our careers.
This is an attempt to remember some of you—and apologies for anyone I missed as the list was incredibly long! Thanks for the journey… Read the rest of this entry »