Pamela Wyatt: Organisations Don't Change Because They're Criticised

On the Subject of Leadership · Sep 8, 2026 · 1h 3m

No organisation matches the brochure. The question is what you do about the gap — and whether you have any right to.

International development runs on a settled principle: reform must be owned by the government that enacts it, or it will not survive the funding. The outsider advises. The sovereign decides. Adaptation is the professional virtue and imposition the professional sin.

The difficulty is that the sector is also, unavoidably, in the business of changing things. My guest this week has spent a career on both sides of that contradiction — and, in the course of an hour, states a…