You dare not stir the pot too vigrously without engaging local, very local, knowledge. A case study will help you see this . . .

The Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-1998 threw SE Asia into serious instability. President (evidently-for-life) Suharto of Indonesia had governed for over three decades. But with economic turmoil felt by the masses a gutsy university professor announced that he would lead a “million man march” on the presidential palace to force change. He did everyone the favor of announcing the date many weeks ahead of time.

It was great to have that much heads up time. But it gave companies lots of time to build angst over what would happen to their staff when the country melted into anarchy.

One organization had recently managed a nail-biting crisis in Rwanda. After hesitating to order their staff to evacuate, they waited until it was too late to be done with any comfort. Their people ended up exiting in military Land Rovers mounted with heavy machine guns, fully expecting to run into deadly ambushes along the exit route. This experience made HQ staff uneasy about waiting to order the next evacuation.

Then, leading up to the last days before the march, multiple major US news channels accounced that they US Embassy in Jakarta was ordering all American citizens to evacuate the country on the day before the march. Only, that was not quite true. The embassy was ordering all its citizens within the cities of Jakarta and Surabaya to evacuate, but not those living elsewhere.

Jim was a team leader directing Americans who were living outside those cities. He received firm instructions from his company HQ in Colorado to evacuate his team.

Yet, when he and many other Americans who were bonded tightly with the culture gauged the mood where they lived and worked, it didn’t seem likely to become dangerous. It had felt dangerous, but almost inexplicably the mood on the street had settled down to an unanticipated calm.

Jim was in a bit of dilemma. He needed to be compliant with orders. But his deep local knowledge told him this was probably not the best decision from his superiors. He reflected on the fact that his boss, like him, had worked for the military in former careers. He wrote a quick communication to his boss. “Is this to be an organized or a disorganized retreat?”

I’ve never been in the military, but Jim tells me that it is the dread of every military commander to be remembered for ever calling for a disorganized retreat. After a pause, a reply came back from his HQ. “Make it an organized retreat. How long will you need?”

Jim made a bunch of calls and a lot of planning. He replied, “For an organized reteat we need two weeks.” Perhaps reluctantly, because this would put them past the flash point of the march on the presidential palace–his boss agreed.”

The night before the march a brave presidential confidant approached and convinced Suharto to do the unthinkable–to resign. To everyone’s utter shock, he did. There were very violent riots against the relatively wealthy Chinese in Jakarta, and some in Surabaya and against businesses owned by Suharto’s family. But then things calmed down.

Locals appreciated those who stuck with them through their hard time. Expats who stayed, and avoided those localized riots, were very glad they did.

Leaders at HQ made what seemed like a due diligence command decision. But they also listened to their good people on the ground. That interaction resulted in a positive result.

Once again, any decision uninfomed by first-hand, very local knowledge, is almost always a fumbled decision.