Guest Blog by Sanni Ahmed, LEG ’22
Here are some of my key ideas/learnings from this course:
- The product space complexity using the Atlas of Economic Complexity, problem driven iterative approach –PDIA – and the growth diagnostic approaches are effective tools to deconstruct and understand economic problems, but not a solution to the economic problem itself.
- Having deconstructed the economic problems, spending time and resources to properly identify the best entry point that can quickly yield desired result, can grant acceptance, legitimacy and proof-of-concept from an approving authority.
- A high bandwidth organization as a communication mechanism to foster interaction between the government entities and the private sector in understanding why a country isn’t growing, how to grow the country and who to engage, is sine-qua to addressing government bureaucracy and inefficiency.
- We learned to crawl the design space by not limiting ourselves to the current practice or external best practice and also looking and learning from the positive deviants to replicate can create innovation and invention of new ideas or solutions to our economic problems. Albeit, context is imperative.
- The friendship, bond and support for each other in the SHAKTI group will outlive the Harvard LEG program, as we now have one another’s contact details and are willing to host any group members in our respective domains.
- I started off with an ambitious goal of wanting to solve a major economic problem in my country, which in the course of the program, I discovered through the mentorship and guidance of Pablo – Our Group Teaching Assistant – not to be simple, measurable and achievable within a short time frame. As such, my big growth challenge of addressing the inadequate government revenue through diversification metamorphosed into a simple problem of addressing the epileptic power supply in my country. This new growth challenge aligns with one of my group members and as such we were able to leverage and interconnect on the similarities and differences in our governments’ approaches to solving the problem.
- The knowledge acquired in the LEG program particularly the fishbone diagram is an effective tool that I will constantly use to understand and deconstruct any problems at work and in my private life so as to identify the best entry point. This will consequently help in preventing the natural instinct of jumping into solving problems.
This is a blog series written by the alumni of the Leading Economic Growth Executive Education Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. 71 Participants successfully completed this 10-week online course in May 2022. These are their learning journey stories.