Context Is Not a Bug. It’s the System

This post is slightly out of order, it’s a day 12 (and then some) post but it fits the conversations I’ve been having lately.

While in Mombasa, I spent time at the Close the Gap Foundation, speaking with a group of Kenyan founders and entrepreneurs.

Before I spoke, there was another session being run by a new advisor who had come in to help support the founders. He had a background working with startups in Europe- helping founders and CEOs build stronger companies and management systems.

The advice he was giving made sense. At least, on paper.

But as I sat there listening, something felt off.

The First Question: Blame

One of the founders asked about a team member who wasn’t meeting deadlines. The advisor’s response was simple:

“Then it’s probably time to let them go.”

It was a logical answer.

But something about it bothered me.

So I asked a question.

“What systems do you have in place to help that person succeed? Do you assign

a task and wait until the deadline to follow up? Do you have check-ins? Milestones? Support structures?”

The founder paused.

“No. I assume they’ll get the work done.”

And that’s when I said something that I think founders everywhere (myself included) need to hear, “This is your business. No one is going to work as hard as you do. And they don’t need to. You don’t need everyone to work at your level of obsession. You need people to work at their level of capacity… with the right systems in place so they can still succeed.”

Sometimes the issue isn’t the person. Sometimes the issue is the structure.

The Second Question: Power

Later, another founder asked a harder question. She was a woman running a visual storytelling startup. She, like most female entrepreneurs, was dealing with men who refused to listen to her because she was a woman (and younger than them).

This isn’t theoretical.

In parts of Kenya, as in many places on the continent, cultural structures still position women as subordinate. So her question was simple:

How do you lead people who fundamentally don’t believe you should be leading them?

The advisor answered honestly. He said he had never faced that issue. Where he comes from, that dynamic didn’t exist.

His solution was direct, “If they won’t respect you, you let them go.”

Again, on paper, that makes sense.

But context matters.

On this continent, leadership often requires navigating relationships, communities, and cultural structures that cannot simply be erased by policy.

So I suggested something different.

“Create systems: a code of conduct, clear policies, structures that shift the conflict away from you versus them and into the system that everyone agreed to participate in.”

When the rules belong to the organisation, not the individual, leadership stops being personal. It becomes structural.

The Moral Hierarchy Problem

That moment reminded me of something I’ve seen over and over again: in entrepreneurship spaces, in sustainability conversations, even during my time sailing as the IPL (inter-port lecturer) with Semester at Sea.

There’s often an unspoken assumption that if a system isn’t working the way it does in the West, then it must be broken.

But different does not mean broken.

Context matters.

African businesses operate in environments that are structurally different: economically, culturally, socially.

When frameworks, checklists, and compliance systems are designed somewhere else and then applied here without adaptation, they often set people up to fail.

Not because they’re incapable, but because the system was never designed with their context in mind.

The Systems That Already Exist

The irony is that things here are working.

People build businesses. Communities sustain themselves. Markets function.

Whether or not Western investors arrive, whether or not external systems are imposed, life continues.

Which means something in the system works.

The real question is not how to replace these systems, it’s how to understand them.

What is already functioning?

What is already sustaining people?

What structures already exist that we simply haven’t learned how to measure?

Because the danger is assuming that everything must be replaced simply because it looks different.

The Lightbulb and the Candle

One of my favorite quotes (that I can’t seem to be able to credit) is: “The person who invented the lightbulb still used candlelight.”

Because innovation doesn’t erase context.

You still live where you live.

You still work with what exists around you.

And if you refuse to acknowledge the system you’re standing in, you’ll spend all your time trying to fix something that was never broken.

Sustainability Requires Context

This is something I keep returning to in my work: sustainability cannot exist without context.

You cannot design sustainable systems for communities you don’t understand. You cannot impose frameworks and expect them to work everywhere. And you cannot sustain something if you’re constantly telling people that the way they’ve survived for generations is wrong.

Sometimes the most sustainable thing you can do is not replace a system.

It’s to understand it.

And then build from there.

If sustainability is meant to help people build better systems, then the first rule should be simple: understand the system that already exists before you try to replace it. A system that has allowed people to survive for generations isn’t broken - it’s just a language you haven’t learned yet.