Failure is the flip side of success. In many instances it looks like there is 50 50 chance of success or failure. Yet we do not embrace failure. The organization that I am running is a result of failure. If I had not left my previous employer or rather had my previous employer not suggested termination of my contract SIVIO Institute wouldn’t exist. So I am grateful that I had to leave the old to experience the new.

I am pressure. I exert pressure on the team at times in a positive but I suspect in a negative way as well. Pressure is necessary- it helps us to discover ourselves. The end product is usually good. But at times pressure can destroy us. Pressure tends to come from either of two places- a very dark place of fear and insecurity. You feel the need to perform and to fit in. That is negative pressure. However pressure can also come from a place of healthy competition- where one wants to better themselves. The quest for self improvement based on what you have seen elsewhere. I have mostly used this pressure in building skills within the team

I have asked myself this question several times since establishing SIVIO Institute. It’s the worst question that a leader can ask him or herself at any point. Yet it happens quite often.

It sounded big from day one. Many friends asked, ‘what do you mean by this quest for an inclusive society’? I offered different explanations because maybe at that point I was not as sure as I am today about this quest. We have a very difficult past as humanity. We have fought and killed each other, sold each other to others, compelled others to work for us with no reward.

From the beginning we were keen to contribute towards a new utopia- and we framed ours as a quest for an inclusive society. There was need for elaboration on what this inclusive society would look like, a theory of change and conceptual framework. How else do you set up an institute without the a theory of change and conceptual framework?

My interest on the Zimbabwe crisis was not lost to many.

In 2015 we (myself and Tendai Chikweche) had coedited ‘Beyond the Crises: Prospects for Zimbabwe’s Transformation’. It seemed like a good moment to consider what could be done to achieve the ideas of transformation that we had introduced in the book.