Making a difference

Last updated January 13, 2004.

Wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.
-- Aristotle

I want to make a difference in the world. It seems like a simple goal. When you think about what it actually means though, it is anything but simple.

This making a difference business seems mighty confusing

A difference is made in the developing world

A limousine lurches its way down a dusty road somewhere in Africa. A landrover carrying several underpaid police officers is accompanying it on its journey. Eventually the entourage turns onto the newly constructed dirt road that leads to the project. Occasionally, tree trunks, or piles of dirt, seem to have deemed it fit to grace the sides of the road. The vehicles begin their descent into the valley. Half way down, the road ends. The vehicles, having reached their destination, come to a stop. A politician gets out of the first vehicle, walks over to a small platform, and gives a speech to the assembled workers. The speech is in a language unintelligible to most Westerners, and therefore unimportant. After the speech the politician pushes a button, and much cheering takes place. The politician then returns to her car, which heads back to the capital, and is unlikely to be seen in these parts again. Simultaneous with the pushing of the button, giant turbines inside the newly constructed hydroelectric dam nearby came to life. As the water exits the dam, it irrigates the farmer's fields. The night before the farmers had all ripped up their traditional crops, and have in place planted tulip bulbs. As I witnessed in Tanzania, the irrigation enables the tulips to grow. The tulips are then flown to Amsterdam by KLM for sale to the Dutch. The money earned from the tulips is pooled by the villagers to buy a TV. With the electricity generated by the dam, the entire village is now able to gather around and finally watch the Home Shopping Network. Ah, progress!

Who made the difference?

A difference has been made. For now, let's put aside the question of whether this particular difference is a positive or negative thing. Let's simply try to understand who was responsible for making this difference. Was it the politician? After all she pressed the button that brought the dam to life. It wasn't the politician though, because she wasn't really needed. If she hadn't been there someone else would have pushed the button, and the difference would still have been made. Was it the workers? They built the dam. Without any workers, the dam clearly could not be built. Yet, the role played by individual workers is small. And even more importantly, were an individual worker to decide not to work on the dam, another worker of almost identical skill could be hired to replace them. The workers didn't really make the difference. Their labor is ultimately just another input it the construction of a dam, much like concrete. We would never think of saying 100,000 metric tons of concrete was responsible for making the difference. Although, whoever invented concrete probably did once make a significant difference to the world. The foreign contractors responsible for much of the construction of the dam, are also replaceable. As a result, they too didn't really make very much of the difference.

The decision to build the dam was taken by the Ugandan Development Commission. The members of the Ugandan Development Commission can take credit for building the dam. Had the dam not been built though, they would likely have borrowed money for a different project. They can only take credit for making a difference to the extent that their decision to build the dam where they did, created a bigger difference than any alternative project. The reminder, and majority, of the difference should be credited to the parties that provided the funding to the Ugandan Development Commission. Credit should thus be given to the Government, for providing loan guarantees, and the World Bank, for providing loans. It was only through their combined action that the dam went ahead. It doesn't seem possible to partition this credit between the Government and the World Bank, both of them had to perform their roles for the project to succeed. Thus, the politician, unlike the workers and the contractors, did play a key role in making the difference after all. At the World Bank it was the North African head that approved the loan that made the difference. Although, the extent of this difference is likely to depend on whether they have a floating budget, or as is more likely, a fixed budget that requires reigning in funding from other projects. In thinking about the benefits of the dam, we need to keep in mind that from all the good it creates, we need to subtract the costs of repaying the loans.

We could claim that it was the people that voted for the politician, the governments that appointed the World Bank board, or even the parties that organized Bretton Woods conference that created the World Bank, that made the difference. We may however now be at the point of obscurity. Voting and the establishment of the Bretton Woods institutions took place without any knowledge or consideration being given to the dam. And yet, maybe it still makes sense to see them as being what ultimately made the difference.

In this supposedly simple example, thinking about what made the difference was confusing and contradictory. To make progress we need a more rigorous framework. This will make it possible to think about the issues more clearly.

The economics of making a difference

Economists measure the world using utility functions. A utility function simply assigns to each different state of the world a numerical value denoting its relative desirability. The utility functions we consider are linear. That is, the numerical value of the difference in utility between two states of the world has meaning. A utility function thus creates a linear scale with which it is possible to measure the world.

Utility functions are a valuable concept. However, they need to be used with great care. In particular utility functions always exist within a particular frame of reference, and measurements made using a particular utility function are only valid within that frame of reference. It is important to realize that a ranking of preferences for states of the world according to one frame need not be valid in another. What this means is aggregating values measured using the UN Human Development Index creates a very poor scale for trying to make decisions intended to maximize the output of the US economy; while the GDP scale is equally inapplicable to making decisions intended to maximize individual well being. The former point is well understood, the later is sometimes missed.

Individuals have utility functions that map from the state of the world to an internal scale the individual uses for measuring, presumably, their happiness.

Let u_i'(w') = change in utility for individual i of action w'
Notation. In all of our functions there will typically be an additional unstated argument, the current state of the world, w∈W.

Utility and employment

We each seek to exercise our free will in such a way as to maximize our preferred utility function of the world. What makes this difficult is the interlinking of any action we might take with the action of others. For instance, if somebody accepts a job working as a youth counsellor, offsetting the good that might be done, is the loss of good the next best candidate would have contributed. Taking the job causes things to ripple down the line, as they in turn, displace somebody else from some other job, and so on. We consider employment for concreteness, but what we are discussing is generalizable to many other courses of action in which there are reciprocal reactions to consider.

Let g_i(w') = gross effect on utility for individual i of action w'
The meaning of "gross effect" involves some hand-waving. It is intended to capture a naive sense of the effects of the action. It fails to consider how actions taken change the actions of others and how this impacts utility.
Then u_i'("we accept job A") - u_i'("we decline job A") = g_i("self in job A") - g_i("person 2 in job A") + g_i("person 2 in job B") - g_i("person 3 in job B") + g_i("person 3 in job C") - g_i("person 4 in job C") ...

This leaves us with a difficulty. Not only is this equation potentially infinite, but nearly all the people involved, and the other jobs, are unknown. In general, it doesn't appear tractable, but we can consider several common special cases.

Orthogonal goals to everyone else

Consider the case in which employers and other candidates are optimizing utility functions that are independent of yours. In this case, the contribution to your utility of other candidates first and second choice job positions will on average cancel out. The sequence then collapses down to:

u_i'("we accept job A") - u_i'("we decline job A") = g_i("self in job A") - g_i("person n in job M")

In which job M is considered the last job in the field, and we are assuming a utility of zero for person n switching to some other field or leaving the labor market. We have a naive model in which we don't look at the possibility of additional jobs being created. The difference made here is the difference between how you might perform the job and the least worthy candidate able to enter the field.

An example of having orthogonal goals to everyone else is if you are a biology researcher, and your goal is to see science performed with as few animals killed as possible. The difference you make is the difference between the number of animals you kill, and the number killed by the researcher with the worst presentable skill level able to land a job.

Contributions made by candidates are independent of the positions they take

Suppose candidates can be expect to make the same contribution to your utility in either their first or second choice jobs. Once again things will cancel out:

u_i'("we accept job A") - u_i'("we decline job A") = g_i("self in job A") - g_i("person n in job M")

An example of this is working as a researcher on HIV/AIDS. Suppose finding a cure for HIV/AIDS is your goal in life. The nature of research is such that we can reasonably assume researchers will perform a similar amount of research in either their first or second choice positions. Thus working as a HIV/AIDS researcher you make a contribution equal to the difference between your research abilities, and the worst presentable level of research ability able to land a job.

Contributions made by jobs are independent of the candidates

Consider the situation in which each of the remaining first and second choice candidates for each position are expected to provide the same utility to your utility function. This would be the case in a field that has few differences in terms of skill. It would also be the case if your utility function is independent of that used to make the hiring decision. In this case the sequence collapses down to:

u_i'("we accept job A") - u_i'("we decline job A") = g_i("self in job A") - g_i("person 2 in job A")

The difference made becomes the difference between how you might perform the job and the next best candidate. This difference can be substantial if the difference in utility functions is based on values.

Consider the situation faced by an animal rights activist contemplating working in a slaughter house. Their utility function might place a heavy value on exposing the cruelty taking place in such an establishment, and little value on most other forms of manual labor. Taking this position would thus allow them to document and expose the cruelty taking place, in contrast to the behavior of the second best candidate.

Deciding between different jobs in same field

We can also look at the common situation of considering two different jobs in the same field, and trying to decide which job will make the bigger difference.

u_i'("we accept job A") - u_i'("we accept job X")
= (g_i("self in job A") - g_i("person 2 in job A") + g_i("person 2 in job B") - g_i("person 3 in job B") + g_i("person 3 in job C") - g_i("person 4 in job C") ...) - (g_i("self in job X") - g_i("person 2' in job X") + g_i("person 2' in job Y") - g_i("person 3' in job Y") + g_i("person 3' in job Z") - g_i("person 4' in job Z") ...)
= (g_i("self in job A") - g_i("person 2 in job A")) - (g_i("self in job X") - (g_i("person 2' in job X")) + (g_i("person 2 in job B") - g_i("person 3 in job B")) - (g_i("person 2' in job Y") - (g_i("person 3' in job Y")) + (g_i("person 3 in job C") - g_i("person 4 in job C")) - (g_i("person 3' in job Z") - g_i("person 4' in job Z")) ...

We assume the other candidates don't switch between fields. The other candidates for the job are unknown, as are the positions they might occupy apart from the two jobs we are considering. Each pair of terms represents the difference between 1st and 2nd choice candidates for a position, with alternate pairs having alternate signs. Since nothing is known about any of the candidates, or positions, we can make the reasonable assumption that on average all of the unknown terms will cancel out.

u_i'("we accept job A") - u_i'("we accept job X") = (g_i("self in job A") - g_i("person 2 in job A")) - (g_i("self in job X") - (g_i("person 2' in job X"))

Unlike the unknown terms, cancellation of the four initial terms will not occur. This is because of the knowledge we possess of ourselves. In particular, we have knowledge of how our own skill level and values stack up and influence utility, relative to those of some unknown alternative candidate. In terms of skill level we know whether our actual skill level is above or below the apparent skill level we are able to present at the interview. In terms of values, we know whether our values are different than the otherwise expected best candidate, and can estimate the impact of this on situations in which we have the autonomy to be able to make decisions concordant with our values. To maximize utility it is incumbent to take the position that provides the biggest expected difference in utility between yourself and the alternative candidate.

Consider skill. Imagine you work as a fundraiser, and your goal in life is to fight racism. You know you are not very good at fundraising, but you can readily get jobs doing fundraising. This is because you have a glowing letter of recommendation from the guru of fundraising. This is the result of having been best friends in high school. If you land a job doing fundraising for an anti-racist group, it is going to be counter productive to your aims, because some other candidate could have done a better job. Mathematically, your best option, in order to achieve your goals, would be to accept a fundraising position working for the Ku Klux Klan.

Now consider, the role played by values. Imagine you are an advertising executive, and your only goal in life is to encourage more women to study math and science. You have considerable latitude in jobs regarding the images used in advertising campaigns. In order to achieve your goals, you would want to take a position at a technology company, and then shaped by your values, project images of women as science and technology leaders. If the alternative candidate had taken this position, and you had taken a position working for a bagel manufacturer, these images would never have existed. Jobs that provide latitude in making decisions offer the possibility of creating real change, as long as your values differ from those of the typical candidate.

The job market is a market. In our simplified analysis, we have been ignoring the full implications of this. What employers are purchasing is a commodity called labor which they measure using their own particular utility function and seek to acquire at the lowest possible price. Different people may provide different quantities of labor to their employer. The employer is willing to vary the number of people hired in order to minimize labor costs. A more detailed analysis also needs to consider elasticities associated with employment in a particular field. A decision to switch fields can be expected to impact wages and indirectly the number of positions available. Hopefully these are all second order effects.

Key aspects of making a difference

We will summarize what we have learned, and include some other aspects of making a difference that should be fairly obvious.

Lessons

The following lessons are worth keeping in mind, although they don't provide direct guidance on how to make a difference:

"difference = action - inaction" - the difference you make is not all the effects you have on the world; the effective difference you make is limited to the difference between the effects of your action and the effects of your inaction
"job difference = you - some other candidate" - when taking a job, the difference you make will typically lie somewhere between, how much better you are than the next best candidate, and how much better you are than the worst employable candidate in the field
employers largely determine the impact of most jobs - the majority of the impact of most jobs is determined by the management chain of control; and ultimately is determined by the goals of those at the very top; this limits your ability to have an independent impact as an employee

Making a difference

The primary rule is:

be a principal, not an agent - to make a difference, you need to find ways when possible to act in accordance with your values, not simply as an agent for someone else's values

You are only making a difference when you are exercising your free will to make decisions that otherwise wouldn't have been made. When you are an employee, your actions are often dictated by someone else, in which case the same change would largely have happened with or without you.

Making a difference as an employee

The ability to make a difference as an employee is sometimes limited, but it is possible to make a difference by choosing the right job or field, and acting in it in the right way.

Making a difference when deciding on a job or field:

seek autonomy - seek a job or field where you are able to exercise judgment in a way that will advance your goals
find your strength - seek a job or field where skill makes a difference to what you care about, and you are significantly above average in that skill relative to other candidates
avoid your weaknesses - avoid fields where skill makes a difference to what you care about, and you are significantly below average in that skill relative to other candidates
be a contrarian - seek a job or field where by following your values you will be able to make a difference to what you care about, and your values are significantly different from others in that field

Making at difference at work:

act autonomously - take advantage of the opportunities you have to exercise judgment and take liberties where feasible in order to advance your goals
collaborate - combine with others with similar goals in order to increase your collective bargaining power
influence others - attempt to influence the behavior of coworkers and customers to advance your goals; corporations are also often responsive to employee suggestions and requests

Making a difference as a principal

The ability to make a difference as a principal is probably far greater than as an employee, and it doesn't require being independently wealthy. You act as a principal the entire time you are not working. Making a difference as a principal:

act autonomously - exercise your autonomy to advance your goals
collaborate - combine with others with similar goals to increase your collective bargaining power as principals
volunteer - this typically represent work that otherwise wouldn't get done and so the entire effort makes a difference
donate - donating money is a way of causing work to happen that reflects your goals that would probably not otherwise occur
start a non-profit or business - you then get to have other people working on your goals; but it only makes sense to do this to the extent that the existence of the non-profit or business is congruous with your goals
vote - the political process can cause actions reflecting the difference you seek
influence others - especially look for ways to change the law or shift the economics of the situation to advance your goals; influencing the government requires a lot of effort but the payoffs are enormous

Making a difference - small time

Employment over supply: Peace Corps

The Peace Corps is a US government run cultural exchange program for the college educated. The Peace Corps also claims to provide "trained men and women" to meet countries needs. Unfortunately, as anyone who has traveled in the developing world can attest, their isn't a shortage of trained individuals, only a shortage of capital with which to pay people and purchase supplies. Conspicuously absent from the Peace Corps mission statement is any mention of global poverty, or international development. To join the Peace Corps you are not required to have a high level of skill or knowledge of any particular field. This tends to confirm it is primarily a cultural exchange program.

The Peace Corps has a fixed number of positions, and they get a lot more applicants than the number of positions available. The difference you can make by joining the Peace Corps is thus at best the difference between the contribution you will make and the least qualified applicant accepted. In most cases the difference is likely to be fairly small. The one exception would be if you have a particular skill that allows you to make a much bigger contribution to your utility function than most other candidates. For instance if your utility function is to combat global poverty, and you are an expert on small scale irrigation, then a Peace Corps posting that allows you to make use your expertise could make a real difference.

Employment under supply: Priests

The US supposedly faces a priest shortage. The church is reluctant to invoke standard market based supply and demand mechanisms to correct the imbalance. They want priests to be called by God, rather than attracted by church issued stock option and collection plate futures.

In this case their isn't an alternative candidate. Consequently, if your utility function involves performing The Lord's work, a decision to become a priest offers the potential to make a huge difference.

Donation: Medicines Sans Frontiers

MSF places health care professionals in low paying positions in many countries.

Assuming they have an oversupply of qualified medical personnel, and these eligible personnel are all equally good at addressing common developing world illnesses, taking a position with MSF is, like the Peace Corps, unlikely to make a significant difference.

On the other hand, making a substantial donation to MSF is likely to make a significant difference. It enables them to take on additional personnel that they otherwise couldn't. The credit for making this difference flows to the person that made the donation, not the healthcare worker.

Volunteer: Global Service Corps

Global Service Corps places people in volunteer positions in several countries. It is a pay your own way program.

I spent a month in Tanzania doing HIV/AIDS education with them. This was too short a time to make a difference. Had it been six months though, I could have made a real difference. This is because, unlike the Peace Corps or MSF, it is work that otherwise wouldn't have occurred.

Given the cost of this program, especially the airfares, an even bigger difference could probably be made by taking the money that would be spent, and giving it to an organization specializing in HIV/AIDS education, who can then use it to recruit and deploy the best candidate.

Employment and donation

Suppose you have a skill that is highly valued by employers, but you lack skills highly valued with respect to your utility function. Then, one option that makes a lot of sense is to take a high paying job that is neutral with respect to your utility function, and to donate much of what you earn to an organization that works on what you care about. This allows you to translate the skill you don't value into being effectively highly skilled at what you care about. You will undoubtedly be able to achieve more by working in this fashion than working on the issues you care about directly.

Employment without autonomy: Chef for Meals on Wheels

If your goal is to help the poor, working as a chef for Meals on Wheels is unlikely to make a difference. This should be obvious. Your work will have the same impact as that of any other candidate.

Employment with autonomy: Newspaper editor

If your goal is to help the poor, taking a job as a newspaper editor is likely to allow you make a difference. You can use the latitude you have in deciding what to cover to increase coverage of poverty issues. This will have an impact, and this action is unlikely to have been taken by other candidates for the position.

Making a difference - medium time

Here are a few things that make a significant difference:

microcredit - empowering the poor through tiny loans
RESULTS - a political lobbying organization that leverages funds for international development
Vanguard - a robust alternative to the standard corporate mutual fund model

Each of the above was started by one or just a few people. They started small, created an organization, and discovered revenue streams that allowed them to grow. Thus, key to creating a difference at this scale would appear to be:

identify the issue you intend to work on
establish an organization - this allows the effort to grow beyond that of a single individual, and it also allows the effort to out live the founder or any other single individual
identify a revenue stream - this enables the effort to persist, and if need be grow

Making a difference - big time

The following have made an enormous difference, each saving 10's-100's of millions of lives:

green revolution - dramatically increased global crop yields
public health - hand-washing, clean water, sanitation, and surveillance manage to hold so many diseases at bay in the West
innovation - a key determinant of economic growth
smallpox eradication - smallpox was a huge global killer

For now, we will consider just the last two examples:

Innovation

Economic growth has historically largely been the result of innovation. Science and technology consequently hold huge promise for making a difference. They are also fields in which ability can make a significant difference. Consequently if you have a high level of skill in this area there is a good opportunity to make a difference by deciding on a career in science, technology, or some other form of innovation.

The difficulty with science and technology is ensuring the difference you make is positive in terms of your utility function. For instance, a lot of science and technology also has direct or indirect military applications. And if you are concerned by global poverty, a lot of technology just isn't applicable, or able to reach the poor.

Smallpox eradication

I am rapidly reaching the conclusion that the eradication of smallpox was the biggest event of the last hundred years. Far more significant than either of the world wars. At the time the international smallpox eradication program began in 1967, smallpox was killing 2 million people per year. That translates into 200 million people in a century. Things don't get much bigger than this.

Nobody was ever awarded a Nobel prize for eradicating smallpox. Most of the relatively sparse literature on smallpox eradication gives the credit to D. A. Henderson who managed the WHO eradication program. But this was simply a job. He didn't even want to head the WHO smallpox eradication program. He took the position only because he was told if he didn't, he would loose his existing position at the CDC. If D. A. Henderson hadn't taken this job, somebody else would have, and smallpox would still likely have been eradication. The person that really deserves the credit for the eradication of smallpox came earlier. That person was Viktor Zhdanov, Soviet Deputy Minister for Health. He initially proposed and championed the effort to eradicate smallpox. He got the other delegates at the 12th World Health Assembly in 1958 to agree to a WHO led smallpox eradication program. It was Viktor Zhdanov that set things in motion, and D. A. Henderson merely followed.

So, who is Viktor Zhdanov? Here I am, rapidly concluding he might be the greatest person of the last hundred years, and yet he is a nobody. He appears to have made a huge difference in the world, and yet doing a google on his name turns up next to nothing. According to google, even I, am more important than him. My hero? My role model? But who is he? Is he alive or dead? Where is he buried? Does he like to drink lots of vodka? Why hasn't anyone written a book on him? Important questions. How can I emulate somebody when I don't know anything about them?

And what if my hero lies deeper? Maybe it was someone else within the Soviet Department of Health that came up with the idea for eradicating smallpox, and they then gave the plans to Viktor Zhdanov. Perhaps my role model, and the greatest person of the last hundred years, was an employee of the Soviet Department of Health, called, say, Natasha Bibanov. I don't know her real name. How can I emulate somebody when I don't know their name? What where her goals? Did she share a similar utility function to me? Or did she propose plans to eradicate smallpox to her boss, simply so that she would be promoted and obtain one of those special blue passes that allow the party elite access to the bread shop on Wednesdays?

How frustrating, the greatest event of the last hundred years, and I am not even sure who was responsible. Nor do I know if Natasha Bibanov simply disliked eating stale bread with her borsch, or if she was driven by a deep love of humanity and poured their entire heart, soul, and passion into a daring effort to successfully save the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

I want to emulate the passionate, fictionalized, Natasha Bibanov. I want a bumper sticker on my car that reads "What would Natasha Bibanov do?". I want to learn how to identify the levers of change, and pull them. I know I won't be anywhere near as successful as she was, but I still want do what I can. So long as I make a difference, even a small one, I too will be happy to die in obscurity.

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