Culture eats strategy for breakfast

We spent the day at CCA headquarters in Ottawa today learning about CCA history and cultural differences that we will encounter on our trip.  I feel for those of you who had to slog through the paragraphs yesterday, and understand that maybe you will get very bored (very quickly) doing that every day that I am able to post.  So, for you (Orange) people who would like to get through this blog quickly how about a bullet point summarization?  (It was 9 AM-5:30 PM so say yes....)

Quotes I cannot live without:
"It's a company phone, I'm sorry, I cannot give you my number."  (Katie-what to say when asked for your cell phone number in Ghana, to prevent numerous phone calls)
"You cannot be helpful if you are not realistic and pragmatic." (John Julian, CCA-when asked what to report to the Board if you observe something that could be changed.)
"Find your penguin."  (Sarah Feldberg, CCA in behaviour iceberg section of training)
And....my number one quote today that I want you to ponder....this one speaks to me:
"CULTURE eats STRATEGY for breakfast."   Peter Drucker

Some numbers for you numbers people:

• Top three loans in Ghana are disbursed for:  Education, Weddings and Funerals
• 70% of food crops in Africa are generated by women, but they own less than 10% of land
• Women make up 50% of co-operative memberships, but less than 20% are in leadership roles
• In Ghana 75% of female employees have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace
• An average interest rate on a loan: 30%.  Average interest rate on a deposit: 6%.
•  If words only account for 7% of communication I need to understand that the other 93% can be a perception I have based on a number of factors from my past that do not necessarily mean they are reality in someone else's world.

Barriers to granting credit to women:

• collateral (land) is not in their name (they work the land, but in husband's name)
• need husband's permission to open an account
• there is no loan product that specifically addresses the woman's economic activity
• women have a lower percentage of literacy in the areas we are travelling to

This was an incredible day with a group of incredible co-operative professionals, both the new coaches and the CCA staff who (although I cannot expound on it here) provided me with an epiphany when it came to what I thought my "flexibility" was.  I will always remember this day.  And thank you to CCA for a nice meal with the whole group at the Fox & Feather tonight!  

Sarah, Damalie and Anna, our CCA experts!

Heidi, Gus, Martin and me the night before departure!