Asociaciones: Condenadas al fracaso?

Llevo varios años como miembro de asociaciones, y con la experiencia vivida desde adentro, paso a compartir mis reflexiones:
1. Las asociaciones tienen sistemáticamente problemas de gobernabilidad. Y con gobernabilidad me refiero a que suceden situaciones tales como: nadie se hace responsable de los problemas legales por ejemplo que se suscitan, o no asumen con responsabilidad las funciones que se encargan, y menos aún rinden cuenta de sus actividades,por el sólo hecho de saberse dueño, y asumiendo que como hay varios dueños por lo menos no recaerá en ellos la culpa o alguna sanción. Esto trae como consecuencia que muchas asociaciones, me atrevería a decir que el 90% desaparezca, fracasen en el intento o en el mejor de los casos sigan existiendo pero de manera precaria, sin ningún resultado esperado.

2. Usualmente las asociaciones carecen de profesionalismo, se buscan amigos que sean buena gente para asociarse y no importa si no tienen el conocimiento, o la preparación profesional para asumir los riesgos y responsabilidades, y de esa manera se entra en un círculo vicioso que termina por desaparecer a la asociación en el corto o mediano plazo.

3. Los miembros de las asociaciones muchas veces inician con una misma visión pero si no hay un acompañamiento continuo en el tiempo,sus miembros cambian o matizan su visión y cuando hay problemas no se ponen de acuerdo y esto conlleva a crisis consecutivas y cíclicas  que deterioran el tejido social de la organización.


4. Muchas veces dentro de las asociaciones se contratan como gerentes o administradores a personas que tienen un perfil más de asistente que de estratega, y lo mantienen porque en muchos casos les dicen SI SEÑOR a todo, y no contradicen.La pregunta se cae de madura: cómo contradecir a tu jefe? a quién te paga el sueldo cada mes?...es exponerte a quedarte sin chamba, y el servilismo reemplaza al profesionalismo.

5. Las asociaciones tienen debilidades de planificación estratégica, les cuesta mucho entender los procesos organizacionales, entender el tema de gestión de recursos humanos, y subestiman capacitarse en esos temas porque los ven como pequeños y asumen que no representan una amenaza para la organización, lo cual es falso.Una organización es fuerte si sus recursos humanos están contentos y satisfechos y lo más importante si sus clientes o socios están fidelizados.

Creo que en la idiosincracia peruana, donde la informalidad, la precarización laboral y el poco profesionalismo abundan, es necesario el asesoramiento y acompañamiento profesional continuo para que las asociaciones se fortalezcan.

Associations: Doomed to failure?

I have been a member of associations for several years, and with the experience lived from within, I share my thoughts:

1.      1.The associations systematically have governance problems. And with governability I mean that situations happen such as: no one is responsible for legal problems for example that arise, or do not assume responsibly the functions that are responsible, and even less account for their activities, by the mere fact of knowing oneself as owner, and assuming that since there are several owners at least, no blame or sanction will fall on them. This has as a consequence that many associations, I would dare to say that 90% disappear, fail in the attempt or in the best of cases continue to exist but in a precarious way, without any expected result.

2.       2.  Associations usually lack professionalism, they look for friends who are good people to associate and it does not matter if they do not have the knowledge, or the professional preparation to assume the risks and responsibilities, and in that way they enter a vicious circle that ends for disappearing the association in the short or medium term.

3.       3.  The members of the associations often start with the same vision but if there is no continuous accompaniment in time, their members change or qualify their vision and when there are problems they do not agree and this leads to consecutive and cyclical crises that They deteriorate the social fabric of the organization.

4.      4.  Many times within associations are hired as managers or managers to people who have a profile more than assistant to strategist, and keep it because in many cases they say YES LORD to everything, and do not contradict. The question falls from mature: how to contradict your boss? Who pays your salary every month? ... is expose you to stay without chamba, and servility replaces professionalism.

5.     5.  The associations have weaknesses in strategic planning, they have a hard time understanding the organizational processes, understanding the subject of human resources management, and underestimate training in these subjects because they see them as small and assume that they do not represent a threat to the organization, which is false. An organization is strong if its human resources are happy and satisfied and most importantly if its clients or partners are loyal.

I believe that in the Peruvian idiosyncrasy, where informality, job insecurity and unprofessionalism abound, it is necessary to provide ongoing professional advice and accompaniment so that associations can be strengthened.

Perception VS. Reality

A few days ago I was reflecting with an expert on Governance about whether reality built perception or was the other way around. Your comments have helped me to strengthen my idea on this subject.

My opinion, which I have formed through the years that I have been working on various institutional platforms, is that the PERCEPTION builds REALITY, and I go on to explain a case:

Many years ago my cooperative had a positive financial balance and at that time the officials and managers of the time were in the comfort zone, thinking that this positive number would never change.

One day the complaints began mainly due to the slowness in responding to the credits and claims for bad attention to the partner (a fundamental issue in a cooperative, the partner owns the company, and therefore expects a differentiated treatment with regarding a bank for example), and all those complaints and claims were neglected and underestimated ..... at that time the number was positive but the perception was negative; so it did not take long for the word to spread that the cooperative was treating its partners badly, it was not the same as before, they did not value their partners, and the new reality of the cooperative with the numbers against.

When the numbers arrived in negative, the causes continued to be underestimated, since everything always pointed to the quantitative issue, to the financial issue, when in my opinion those who build reality are people, and if those people have a negative perception ... sooner or later will influence the financial issue, ... and so it happened.

What happened? Many partners retired, others no longer recommended the cooperative (taking into account that the traditional source of recommendation was always word of mouth) and others stayed behind but made it notorious for the discontent they felt and also did not ask for loans anymore as inactive partners.

And so the years went by and one of the emblematic cooperatives that just turned 60 is in financial trouble, mainly because it was fulfilled: Perception builds reality, and so it was, the disgruntled partners built the current reality, obviously together with a series of internal and external factors, but I focus on the partners because they are the owners of the cooperative and who unconsciously one day became the worst enemy of the cooperative ..... the enemy who stopped recommending, who let go, who he made bad decisions, he blamed others for his mistakes, he delegated his responsibilities to others, and so we came to this hard reality; but who continue in the struggle to get our cooperative forward, we continue day by day building a new reality, working based on the perceptions of its current partners and giving them the importance they deserve. Until the final victory always ... as  Che Guevara said.

Percepción VS. Realidad

Hace unos días reflexionaba con un experto en Gobernabilidad acerca que si la realidad construía la percepción o era al revés.Sus comentarios me han ayudado a fortalecer mi idea sobre este tema.
Mi opinión,que he formado a través de los años que tengo trabajando en varias plataformas institucionales es que la PERCEPCIÓN construye la REALIDAD, y paso a explicar un caso:
Hace muchos años mi cooperativa tenía un balance financiero positivo y en ese momento los funcionarios y directivos de la época estaban en la zona de comfort, pensando que ese número positivo nunca iba a cambiar.
Un día empezaron las quejas principalmente por la lentitud a la hora de dar respuesta los créditos y  los reclamos por la mala atención al socio(tema primordial en una cooperativa, ya el socio es dueño de la empresa, y por tanto espera un trato diferenciado con respecto a un banco por ejemplo), y todas esas quejas y reclamos fueron desatendidos y subestimados.....en ese momento el número era positivo pero la percepción era negativa; por lo que no pasó mucho tiempo para que se corra la voz de que la cooperativa estaba tratando mal a sus socios, ya no era la misma de antes, no valoraban a sus socios, y empezó a construirse la nueva realidad de la cooperativa con los números en contra.

Cuando llegaron los números en negativo,se siguieron subestimando las causas,ya que todo apuntó siempre al tema cuantitativo, al tema financiero, cuando en mi opinión quienes construyen la realidad son las personas, y si esas personas tienen una percepción negativa ...pues tarde o temprano influirá en el tema financiero,...y así sucedió.
Qué paso? Muchos socios se retiraron, otros ya no recomendaban la cooperativa(teniendo en cuenta que la tradicional fuente de recomendación fue siempre el boca a boca) y otros se quedaron pero le hacían mala fama por el descontento que sentían y además ya no solicitaban préstamos, eran como socios inactivos.

Y así pasaron los años y una de las cooperativas emblemáticas que acaba de cumplir 60 años está con problemas financieros, principalmente porque se cumplió : La percepción construye la realidad, y así fue, los socios descontentos construyeron la realidad actual, obviamente junto con una serie de factores internos y externos, pero me enfoco en los socios porque son los dueños de la cooperativa y quienes inconscientemente un día se convirtieron en el peor enemigo de la cooperativa.....el enemigo que dejó de recomendar, que dejó pasar, que tomó malas decisiones, que culpó a otros de sus errores, que delegó a otros sus responsabilidades, y así llegamos a esta realidad dura; pero quienes continuamos en la lucha por sacar a nuestra cooperativa adelante,seguimos día a día construyendo una nueva realidad,trabajando en base a las percepciones de sus actuales socios y dándoles la importancia que merecen.Hasta la victoria final siempre...como dijo el Che Guevara.

The Good Cooperative Government

From August 21 to 23 of this year, I participated on behalf of my Savings and Credit Cooperative Santa Rosa de Lima, of a quite good academic event, organized by CIDERURAL (Central of Cooperatives of Rural Development), DGRV (German Confederation of Cooperatives ) and the Ministry of Production (Perú).

The speaker was Carlos Fiore, a very cool Paraguayan, who in addition to being an expert on the subject, always put as a framework the explanations given, the ethical issue; that has a lot to do with the way people move, act, in short, LIVE; Do they live with a sense of ethics, with spirituality, trying to collaborate with the one next to them, or trying to hinder the processes? That kind of reflections were present throughout the event, and in my opinion is what we need most when we talk about corruption .

The event emphasized a lot in the topics such as: corruption of officials and partners, conflicts of interest, risk management, governability, and the ethical issue was worked from the beginning; and I confirmed what I have always thought: that Ethics is transversal and is present in all our actions, in our daily work, in our life, and it is the way we act before the problems and that it is not easy to maintain our firm principles, but it is the only option if we want to build sustainable policies in the long term.

I see lately that through the Peruvian State, and with multiple leaderships, we are advancing a few but at a firm pace for the strengthening of the Peruvian Cooperative System, and this is a collective construction that will bear fruit in the medium and long term.

El Buen Gobierno Cooperativo

Del 21 al 23 de agosto del presente año, participé en representación de mi Cooperativa de Ahorro y Crédito Santa Rosa de Lima, de un evento académico bastante bueno, organizado por CIDERURAL(Central de Cooperativas de Desarrollo Rural), DGRV(Confederación Alemana de Cooperativas) y el Ministerio de la Producción(Perú).
El ponente fue Carlos Fiore, un paraguayo muy buena onda, que además de ser experto en el tema, siempre ponía como marco de las explicaciones que daba , el tema ético; que tiene mucho que ver con la forma en que las personas se mueven, actúan, en suma, VIVEN;  viven con el sentido de la ética, con espiritualidad , tratando de colaborar con el de a lado, o tratando de obstaculizar los procesos?ese tipo de reflexiones estuvieron presentes durante todo el evento, y a mi parecer es lo que más necesitamos cuando hablamos de corrupción.

El evento enfatizó mucho en los temas como: corrupción de funcionarios y socios, conflictos de interés,gestión de riesgos, gobernabidad, y el tema ético se trabajó desde el inicio;  y confirmé lo que siempre he pensado: que la Ética es transversal y se encuentra presente en todas nuestras acciones, en nuestro quehacer cotidiano, en nuestro trabajo, y es la forma como actuamos ante los problemas y que no es  fácil mantener nuestros principios firmes, pero es la única opción si deseamos construir políticas sostenibles a largo plazo.

Veo últimamente que a través del Estado Peruano, y con liderazgos múltiples estamos avanzando de a pocos pero a paso firme para el fortalecimiento del Sistema Cooperativo Peruano, y ésta es una construcción colectiva que dará frutos a mediano y largo plazo.

Extreme experience: Forum of Social Innovation and Biodiversity

.From June 25 to 30 this year I had the privilege of being part of the group that participated in the International Forum: Social Innovation and Biodiversity in Pereira, Colombia, promoted by the British Council.

It was an extreme experience as I put in the title for several reasons that I happened to share:

1. There was a mixture between academics, local actors and leaders, where each from his experience shared his own point of view and thus enriched the learning.

2.Construction of horizontal relationships: Having as a participant an English teacher and at the same time a leader of a peasant community, and that both share the same table at lunch for example, symbolically represents the fact that there are no hierarchies, but rather relations between pairs.

3. Get to know teachers "sui generis" like Simon Best, who told me about his trips around the world, and who is an open book and from whom you can learn a lot, and how Simon so simply explained a topic sometimes complex like the Pitch, is rare to see.

4. To know people with such joy, who enjoy what they do, who do not conform, who generate changes, as is the case of Adán,  Juan Fernando, Ana Milena, Javier, Sara, Andrés, to name a few examples.

5. Visit experiences that fill your heart with hope when you see that people like those who lead the Crisol organization in Las Colonias (Pereira), may have achieved with mainly using a tool that in these modern times is in disuse: LOVE, and give us He says that what we need to transform our lives and the lives of others mainly revolves around that word, and that the rest comes in addition.

My special thanks to Sara, Andrés and Javier for organizing this magical academic adventure that I am sure has led each one of us to discover, rethink or undertake new challenges, new dreams, new projects, and from now on, the hand of this beautiful human group that inspires us to continue paddling to build a less unequal and more supportive world.

                                         "Alone we move fast, Together we will go far"