A program that runs well looks like a program that was easy to run.
It almost never was. It was carried.
By Ion Despoiu. Originally posted on LinkedIn, .
Something I keep hearing in conversations with AMC leaders:
The program work isn’t hard because it’s complex. It’s hard because it’s invisible.
Running an awards or grants program is not intellectually difficult. The steps are knowable. Intake, assignment, review, advancement, announcement. None of it is rocket science.
What makes it hard is that almost none of the work is visible to anyone upstream.
The executive director sees the kickoff and the results. The board sees the winners. The client sees a program that ran smoothly.
What none of them see is the middle. The reminders chased. The reviewer who needed three follow-ups. The spreadsheet reconciled at 9pm.
That’s staff heroics. And it’s invisible right up until it fails. Then it’s the only thing anyone can see.
This is why program staff are so often underappreciated. Not because anyone undervalues them on purpose, but because the better they are at the job, the less anyone sees the job happening at all.
A program that runs well looks like a program that was easy to run.
It almost never was. It was carried.