How Rory Stewart Restored Ancient Kabul, Bright Sparks

By JOHN TUSA, author of Bright Sparks: How Creativity and Innovation can Ignite Business Success, published by Bloomsbury Business on 28th September 2023

In 2006, Rory Stewart stood in the Afghan capital looking at a huge mound of mud, rubble, plastic bags and broken wood. Just four years later, a hundred old buildings in ancient Kabul had been restored; a national crafts institute for Afghan traditional crafts revived; a million dollars of Afghan crafts sold worldwide. How did Rory Stewart do it? The story is told in John Tusa’s book about creativity and innovation, Bright Sparks.

How Rory Stewart Restored Ancient Kabul, Bright Sparks

I visited Rory Stewart’s Kabul project four times and witnessed how he lead and transformed it. At the outset he seemed to be facing impossible odds. He did so by having a strong vision of what the project required. But vision alone was not enough. It had to show results and do so fast. A hundred Afghan labourers with spades and wheel barrows were hired to remove years of composted rubbish. Vision was to be backed by fierce practicality.

As the project developed, Rory kept it under detailed personal observation. He walked the sites every day, noting, asking, challenging, following up, a note-taking assistant at his side. His scrutiny was intense, his knowledge total. This was combined with delegation of responsibility to what was a very youthful team of colleagues. They called Rory’s approach ”permissive leadership” which allowed considerable freedom but also demanded they accept responsibility for their actions.

As a result, the team demonstrated huge personal loyalty to Rory but he was unfailing in his loyalty to them. “Extreme delegation”, as it was practised, relied on such loyalty and trust. One member described the relationship as being given an “incredible amount of space to work in” but knowing that Rory would want to know absolutely everything about what was going on. Somehow, he managed without interfering.

To call his method “huge vision and obsession with detail” contains the paradox of his leadership style.

Throughout Turquoise Mountain in Kabul was a hugely, almost insanely risky undertaking. The Kabul Mayor was opposed to it. The legal basis for the restoration was at best shaky though supported by President Karzai. Funding was deeply uncertain; on one occasion Rory considered closing it down. But he always carried the risk on his shoulders. Everyone in his team knew that. Rory told them: “If the police turn up, if the community say we can’t work here, if the mayor is coming after us, tell them to come and talk to me”.

I watched the project evolve, restored houses rise from dust and splintered wood. I saw Rory and the team interact with the local community whose home this was. He insisted on total respect for the community and its leaders. He spoke more than adequate Dari. The team were constantly aware that they were outsiders who were there to help not to instruct or command. Unlike other development organisations, Rory and the Turquoise Mountain team lived with and among the people they were working for. It is a model of hands on development that hardly any international aid agency dreams of.

Perhaps astonishingly, the entire restoration of the Murad Khane district, the creation of a national crafts institute, the revival of almost defunct traditional crafts was achieved without any kind of consultants’ plan. No money was wasted on consultancy. Practical action, results on the ground, high speed achievement were the hallmarks of the Rory Stewart approach. It required courage, determination, belief and vision.

Perhaps two secret ingredients were needed too. The involvement of an amazing collection of young volunteers, dedicated, tireless, indefatigable. If in doubt, was the lesson and the experience, trust the young.

The second ingredient was summed up by Rory Stewart himself: “You need an entrepreneur for whom this is their absolute 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week commitment and that they are prepared to put their own money, time and reputation on the line”. I can vouch that that was what Rory Stewart personally gave the Turquoise Mountain project in Kabul. That is why it succeeded. I saw him do it.

By JOHN TUSA, author of Bright Sparks: How Creativity and Innovation can Ignite Business Success, published by Bloomsbury Business on 28th September 2023

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