Leading on the Frontline

17Compassion

How I learned that success sometimes means being able to accept failure in post-tsunami Thailand

It was the beginning of a roller-coaster 18 months. At the start, I visited all our Thai families at least once every two weeks, and called them every week to check they had not hit any unseen obstacles in building their businesses. Very often they were bursting to share a new success with me. I had no idea at the beginning how long I would have to stay on this bruised and battered coastline, but one thing was clear: if anything was to be achieved, my physical presence was needed. My job was to broker the right partnerships, troubleshoot problems, give encouragement when obstacles got in the way and a sympathetic shoulder to cry on when it all became too much.

Above all, I was there to help provide the daily inspiration these new entrepreneurs needed to keep going forward and not give up. After all, these were a people not only embracing the challenge of starting anew but also bowed down by grief and haunted by their experience, many of them with debilitating physical injuries. In despair, some were driven to suicide, which was an entirely new phenomenon in their community and one that was confounding local leaders and the Thai government.

My daily fieldwork took me back to my days of district nursing when I had to try to juggle my patients, figuring out my timetable according to their geographic location and busy lives. In Thailand, I quickly got to know who got up early, ...