The Trouble with Stakes
Last evening, during the President's health-care speech, I found myself frustrated. Why can't someone just talk to me straight!? Why can't anyone simply compare the perspectives, analyze the arguments, and explore the implications free from rhetoric, empassioned mantras, scare tactics, and tear-jerking stories. Why can't we have some kind of genuinely objective perspective? The answer's pretty simple: the genuinely objective observers don't CARE enough to do the careful analysis.
The people who care, the ones who invest time and energy and resources, are the one who have something on the line. They have a stake.
The connection from there was at once natural and surprising. So often in the non-profit and social entrepreneurship worlds, we extoll the virtues of (and even decry the absence of) objective, third-party impact assessments and evaluations. We proclaim (often quite correctly) that it is impossible for those at the heart of a venture, doing the day-to-day work, pouring their blood, sweat and tears into their programs to accurately assess their own impact and effectiveness.
The problem, of course, with these stakeholders (and any stakeholder) is that they CARE.
Essentially, we're saying that in order to provide a reliable assessment, you must not be a stakeholder in the venture. You must not care.
Admittedly, this is a bit of a hyperbole. But it seems worth looking at. If what we want from non-profit and social entrepreneurship evaluation is thorough exploration, careful analysis and strategic recommendations, can we truly rely on evaluators without a stake?
