MfDR Software: Culture Change - A Tough Nut to Crack

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tsegaye Anduanbessa on November 10, 2009 at 8:06am

Dear Hannah and all,

How are you doing?

I think you are heaving the discussion one step higher. All the issues, concepts and/or challenges raised are sensitive but need to be addressed to make real difference on the ground. However, speaking of my experience, I am the only one in my organization who participates in this program, though I joined you lately. I have tried to introduce and discuss the program for my colleagues but obtained less response. I, particularly, want the top management of our company join the discussion/platform as they play pivotal role in the overall development of the company.
Just to break the silence, let me reflect on your questions.
Customers were supposed to be the external drivers for change in service delivering companies like the bank where I am working. In our particular bank, nevertheless, it is the major shareholders who dictate the change, unfavorably to the general public and the economy of the country. They influence the top and line managements, and even lower level experts, to gear the bank towards their specific interest. One may wonder what is wrong with this. But it is the lack of clear boundaries that protect these shareholders from intervening in each and every operation of the bank, which ultimately leads the bank to bankruptcy. (The concept of good governance and accountability comes here.)
As for your second question, I am afraid, I am not in a position to reflect on it, at least by now.

Longing to hear from you.

Tsegaye

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Permalink Reply by Hannah J Cooper on November 11, 2009 at 4:12pm

Dear Tsegaye,

Thank you so much for your reply. It would be great if you could get senior management from your organization to participation in this ediscussion and share their thoughts. As you know, senior management engagement is crucial for real organizational change.

I'd really like to hear from other members on their experiences, particularly with regards to the first two questions:

1. What were the external drivers for change and how did leaders communicate these change messages?

2. How was the need for change towards MfDR created in your organisation and who were the internal drivers?

Then I will share some examples and experiences of my own.

Hannah

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Permalink Reply by Hannah J Cooper on November 17, 2009 at 2:33pm

Dear Colleagues,

The following are some small tips to help address the first two questions. I’d dearly love to hear from you and experience within your organizations. Remember, if you don’t want to share your stories online- you can email me with your thoughts and questions (hjcooper12@gmail.com) and/or you can post your comments anonymously (it’s really easy – the posts come up as by Results for Africa). To learn more about posting anonymously please click here.

What do we mean when we are talking about organizational change and MfDR software? Here are a few thoughts on how to oriented our organizations towards a stronger results focus– and how to gear them up for this change:

1) Leadership is key. As our colleague, Sylvester O’bongo will tell you – he performs his rapid results program only out of the most senior office of the organization. He says that you can’t have real and meaningful change if you don’t have the highest person responsible deeply committed to the change. Personally, I’ve been in a few situations where working on results management projects where the senior leadership is very committed but that commitment doesn’t trickle down to more direct middle management. All levels have to want to change, or at least be motivated to do so. I think that change can come from both the bottom of an organization and the top. I’ve seen senior management initiatives fail because they were unable to receive buy-in from junior staff. At the same time, I know how hard it can be for junior staff to try to advocate for change and only to come up against senior management enjoys the status quo. To be honest, I am not sure what the solution is, but I think that if you can marry both senior management support for change and junior staff buy-in, then you have a recipe for success.

2) Know your organization. Before developing a strategy for results management change, it is important to assess the type of organization that you are currently in. How is it organized? What is the hierarchy? What ideas tend to succeed? Understanding your organization and its strengths and weaknesses is the first step to developing a strategy for change.

3) Share, promote, and share some more. Disseminating information is another part of organizational change. Staff have to know why the change is coming, how this responds to their needs and their concerns. They have to feel involved and consulted, and they have to understand the benefits. Create urgency around the change that you are seeking. Help staff feel involved in the process.

Before we proceed to the next points, please share your thoughts regarding these points. Is this similar to strategies that you have tried in your organizations? What worked? What didn’t? What are some elements that I have missed?

I’ve also included a link to this survey. It’s by an organization called The Austrailian Future Search Network – a not for profit organization whose mandate is to “Facilitate development and change in Australian organizations and communities…” Honestly, I don’t know much about their organization and I can’t vouch for them – but I thought that the questions that they have in their survey are good examples of the type of questions that should be asked when thinking about change within your organization. They survey provides you with a brief summary of how your organization scores (and a suggestion that you follow up with them for tools and approaches) – you don’t have to go that far – but it is useful source for questions and ideas.

I look forward to your thoughts and feedback!

Kind regards,

Hannah

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Permalink Reply by Tsegaye Anduanbessa on November 19, 2009 at 11:11am

Hi dear Hannah and all,

I strongly share the idea of Sylvester O’bongo that involving the highest person is a must to bring a difference on the ground. I have some experience with this regard. We, the lower level officers, come up with some exercises which we believe are relevant to bring about real change if well practiced. But the top managements usually envisage these exercises as some sort of turmoil to the status co.

About the issue of knowing your organization, it’s unquestionable. I even sometimes think that knowing the organization first comes first before acting on anything. You may not know whom you are really dealing with unless and otherwise you have a good knowledge in the structure/ relationships (behind the scene) among the different units and people in the organization. This especially pronounced more in private (share) companies.

Regards,


Hannah J Cooper said:

Dear Colleagues,

The following are some small tips to help address the first two questions. I’d dearly love to hear from you and experience within your organizations. Remember, if you don’t want to share your stories online- you can email me with your thoughts and questions (hjcooper12@gmail.com) and/or you can post your comments anonymously (it’s really easy – the posts come up as by Results for Africa). To learn more about posting anonymously please click here.

What do we mean when we are talking about organizational change and MfDR software? Here are a few thoughts on how to oriented our organizations towards a stronger results focus– and how to gear them up for this change:

1) Leadership is key. As our colleague, Sylvester O’bongo will tell you – he performs his rapid results program only out of the most senior office of the organization. He says that you can’t have real and meaningful change if you don’t have the highest person responsible deeply committed to the change. Personally, I’ve been in a few situations where working on results management projects where the senior leadership is very committed but that commitment doesn’t trickle down to more direct middle management. All levels have to want to change, or at least be motivated to do so. I think that change can come from both the bottom of an organization and the top. I’ve seen senior management initiatives fail because they were unable to receive buy-in from junior staff. At the same time, I know how hard it can be for junior staff to try to advocate for change and only to come up against senior management enjoys the status quo. To be honest, I am not sure what the solution is, but I think that if you can marry both senior management support for change and junior staff buy-in, then you have a recipe for success.

2) Know your organization. Before developing a strategy for results management change, it is important to assess the type of organization that you are currently in. How is it organized? What is the hierarchy? What ideas tend to succeed? Understanding your organization and its strengths and weaknesses is the first step to developing a strategy for change.

3) Share, promote, and share some more. Disseminating information is another part of organizational change. Staff have to know why the change is coming, how this responds to their needs and their concerns. They have to feel involved and consulted, and they have to understand the benefits. Create urgency around the change that you are seeking. Help staff feel involved in the process.

Before we proceed to the next points, please share your thoughts regarding these points. Is this similar to strategies that you have tried in your organizations? What worked? What didn’t? What are some elements that I have missed?

I’ve also included a link to this survey. It’s by an organization called The Austrailian Future Search Network – a not for profit organization whose mandate is to “Facilitate development and change in Australian organizations and communities…” Honestly, I don’t know much about their organization and I can’t vouch for them – but I thought that the questions that they have in their survey are good examples of the type of questions that should be asked when thinking about change within your organization. They survey provides you with a brief summary of how your organization scores (and a suggestion that you follow up with them for tools and approaches) – you don’t have to go that far – but it is useful source for questions and ideas.

I look forward to your thoughts and feedback!

Kind regards,

Hannah

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Permalink Reply by Sylvestor Obong’o on November 20, 2009 at 12:27am

Hannah,

Thanks for this discussion trail. In most organizational environment the reasons for change are not difficult to identify, since the environment we operate in is dynamic. People change- leave the organization, economic situations change, our collaborators and competitors change, so even if for no other reason, times change so we also need to change with time.

The difficulty however is managing this change. You have rightly stated, it is critical to understand the organization. I take it that understanding the organization covers both the organizational operations, structures and systems. I will however also emphasise that it is extremely critical to understand the people in the organizations and their relationships- especially power relations. There are certain organizations with relatively junior staff wielding a lot of powers. A deeper understanding of LEADERSHIP in its broadest sense is therefore critical.

Public Sector organizations, in most cases, and I emphasise most, offer a straight forward hierarchical leadership and management structure, thus once the top leadership is convinced for change, the next task is convince and drawing "followership" to support the change. One element I would like to therefore highlight is that a change leader must be decisive and firm in the chosen direction and pace of change. A Professor of Management once gave me an analogy that "When a pilot is about to land the plane, he/she commands the other staff and everybody else to take their seats ready for landing. He/she does not come on the intercom to seek for ideas from the crew and the passengers to choose on how best the plane should be brought safely to land!!

Similarly a change leader must take charge, communicate and prepare the led for the next activity in the change process. Just like a pilot has a first officer a change leader needs a first officer whom he/she is grooming. In other words a change leader is A TRANSFORMATIVE LEADER

Sylvester.

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Permalink Reply by Samer Hachem on November 25, 2009 at 12:12pm

Hi All,
I would like to share with you this paper I kept in store from a previous life. This is very much focusing on organizational change in private sector organizations, but I do believe it includes interesting lessons that can be applied to public sector and development in general, adapting them to context. In summary, this document lists errors to avoid for change to succeed:
1. Not establishing a great enough sense of urgency;
2. Not creating a powerful enough guiding coalition;
3. Lacking a vision;
4. Undercommunicating the vision by a factor of 10;
5. Not removing obstacles to the new vision;
6. Not systematically planning for and creating short term wins;
7. Declaring victory too soon;
8. Not anchoring changes in the corporation's culture.
This being said I believe there are two additional levels of complexity that make the change process a challenge in public organizations in our countries. First is the density and complexity of power relationships -individual to individual, individual to society, groups to groups, local to international, etc. Second is resources. Private companies are sometimes able to mobilize and focus means for change, while resources in development can be scarce and fragmented. To speak only of public administration, France is currently going through a process of change, but with resources that are uncomparable to any budget an African governement can dedicate to change towards MfDR. So is this a lost case? Certainly not as long as there are transformative leaders, as called by Sylvester. Also a lever in our hands for simplifying some of the power relationships lies in international agreements such as the Paris Declaration, with mutual accountability at the center. And continuous communication of achievements, even small, is key for embarking more and more people and empowering them.
Samer

Attachments:

• Kotter-LeadingChange.pdf, 33 KB

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Permalink Reply by Minyahel Desta on November 30, 2009 at 2:40am

Hello everybody,
Let me say a little on what I feel and saw around. As of me the external factors that lead to change are many in kind but from what I saw, the present status of our organization, the level of our fellow colleagues, inefficient performance of the institution and demand from customer of our service are some of the factors that drive as to change.
The institution I am in most of the time reasons for change are demand form user and peer pressure are the main driving forces. The other thing I want to give more emphasis is that how are we going to get involved our senior expert i.e. at department head level and Management at ministers and state ministers level. My view is first to convince expert at junior experts level and form a very strong group so that the group will make a pressure and convince senior expert in our case at department head level. Once the department head accept and give a green light to continue, I think it is not difficult to go to the management level because, the department head has sawn a good progress of the team of his and will convince the top management, then involving the top management by showing our before and after achievement at different level of our activities will help us in achieving our goal which is managing for result. And I think AfCoP should follow a bottom-up approach first build the capacity of National CoP then once there capacity is n great path the result we are waiting for can be clearly be seen


Betam Amesegnalewu

MINYAHEL DESTA

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Permalink Reply by Hannah J Cooper on December 1, 2009 at 4:16pm

Dear Colleagues,

Thank you so much for your replies and feedback. You raise very interesting and thoughtprovoking questions.

First I'd like to invite Samer to provide a corresponding list of key tips to ensuring change takes place (to compliment the list of errors).

Second, I'd like to pick up on this idea of Transformative Leaders. I really think that this is key, but one thing that worries me is becoming too dependent on an individual. How can we ensure that change transcends one person? How can we ensure that culture change we are looking for becomes anchored in the organization?

Third, I'd like to stick to as many practical examples as possible because I know how easy it is to discuss change in the abstract and then forget what change we required.

That being said, I'd like to open up the floor to answers for our next set of questions. They touch on Sylvester's notion of "followership" within hierarchical public sector organizations. It would also be interesting to hear from members of other types of organizations where information on MfDR was disseminated. Maybe there are some successes from civil society and the private sector that can be shared and brought into a public sector context?

B. Information and awareness:

3. To what extent was the concept and were the consequences of MfDR explained to everyone within the organisation?

4. How were staff informed about and motivated for the change towards MfDR?

Really looking forward to your thoughts on this!

Kind regards,

Hannah

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Permalink Reply by Marie-Lise HOW FOK CHEUNG on December 4, 2009 at 7:02am

Thank you Hannah and all the friends for sharing your thoughts and experiences with us.

I firmly believe that leaders should behave in ways that inspire respect and trust, and pay individual consideration to followers’ needs, and this leads to idealised influence and inspirational motivation. As Head of a Ministry, I attempt by all means to adopt a transformational leadership model. I spend time listening and taking to my staff; furthermore, I considers each one to be “unique with different views”. I think the most important responsibility of a leader is to instil in the “followers” an understanding of the vision and mission of the organization, and above all, the leader has to be attentive to people’s feelings, particularly the ones that are not expressed, as they are inexpressible.
This particular perspective was reinforced when, while on my spiritual journey, I came across an oriental parable on leadership entitled ‘The Sound of the Forest’

I make use of spiritual values as a powerful motivational instrument which gives people a higher sense of meaning in whatever they undertake.

It is worth noting that one of my objectives for the organisation where I work is to develop its capacity to adapt and change so as to become a learning organization. I believe that should the organization adopt the characteristics of a learning organization with particular emphasis on efficiency, effectiveness and transformation, its major problems would be resolved. There would be shared vision and communication would foster openness and continuous improvement. Positive outcomes will only be possible if changes are effected in an ethical way.

Nevertheless, it is to be noted that to transform an organization by adopting learning systems sounds attractive in theory and that the process to put it in practice is much more problematic. Therefore, I consider the learning organization as an ideal to strive towards rather than a set of structured activities. Difficulties do arise due to natural resistance to change on the part of employees. These hurdles can be overcome by adopting the practices of a learning organization, since the characteristics of the learning organization encompass better communication, enhanced teamwork, and more importantly a transformational leadership style which ultimately lead to strategies that inspire the commitment of one and all.

According to me, leadership is equivalent to integrity. One is meaningless without the other. I place such a high importance on ethics that I tend to be considered to be old-fashioned or outdated among my peers. Words such as accountability, corporate social responsibility and ethics are not hollow words for me, but I abide by what I preach. Performance in the Organisation has improved from the practices put into place. I feel that my ethical values serve as example to the majority of employees who embrace my vision. Leaders communicate change messages by "example"- Walk the talk.

As one of my good friends has so nicely put it in an assignment that she submitted for her MBA (July 2009, Brisbane)
• Proper communication is an important factor in motivating subordinates and solving problems. Communication channels should therefore be unlocked and kept open at all times. Listen to staff, identify issues that are of concern to them and tackle these issues. Use communication and information to overcome hurdles.
• Leadership roles entail disciplines such as building a shared vision, challenging mental models and engaging in systems thinking.
• As new learning systems are adopted, the flow will seep down to other employees down the line. It is expected that change at the top level in an organization will entail radical changes for the subordinates. The strategy is to engage employees in collaborative decision in constant dialogue and reflection (Yeo 2007).
• An organization may improve its performance if managers/ leaders paid sufficient attention to the emotional needs of their employees.
• Staff morale may be enhanced by mounting training programmes for career development. In addition to increased productivity, career development schemes have the benefits of enhancing self-esteem, self-determination and increased personal and professional development.
• Aspiring leaders should embrace empowerment practices by delegating clearly defined responsibilities to collaborators – by providing them with sufficient autonomy to ensure high-quality work results
• Also, as recognition leads to higher-quality work and more effective problem-solving skills, leaders should ensure that appropriate recognition is given to employees.
Best regards to you all
Marie-Lise

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Permalink Reply by Hannah J Cooper on December 8, 2009 at 3:09pm

Dear Marie-Lise,

Thank you for your thoughtful response! I wish that we all had leaders like you running our organizations!

I think that through this ediscussion we have identified essential qualities of leaders who instill change. I'm curious to know if members have examples of grassroots change taking place in their organizations? I know of several instances but they have been on specific items and often are short in duration.

Your views on organizational change from the bottom -up would be tremendously helpful and would round out the discussion. Please share with us below.

Thank you and kind regards,

Hannah

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Permalink Reply by Samer Hachem on December 10, 2009 at 5:23am

Dear All,

First, a big thank you to Marie-Lise, the first quality of a leader is certainly humanity and this was obvious in your inspiring contribution.

Second, to answer Hannah's call for positive tips, but also to share with all a piece of work that was completed as part of the Global Partnership on MfDR (Cluster E) work programme, please find attached the "INCENTIVES FOR AID EFFECTIVENESS - A Tool Kit for Donors" paper, produced under the leadership of UK. While this document focuses on donor organization, it provides useful insights on the various components of incentives for MfDR in particular, as well as drivers of change. This work was recently formally proposed by the Working Party on Aid Effectiveness to the OECD/DAC for considering its inclusion in peer review guidelines.

Best regards,

Samer

Attachments:

• DCD.DAC.EFF(2009)8 - Incentives for Aid Effectiveness - A Tool Kit for Donors.pdf, 672 KB

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Permalink Reply by Hannah J Cooper on December 22, 2009 at 9:57am

Dear Colleagues,

First, Samer: Thank you for sharing this document with us! I was involved in some preliminary work on this document through the Cluster E a few years ago and am very pleased to see the final output.

Second, I'd like to move our discussion along to the 3rd set of questions on Organization and Implementation:

But before that, I'd like your feedback on the ediscussion so far. I've been a little surprised by the lack of responses to this ediscussion as compared to the previous one on Back to Basics. I'd like conduct a mini mid-ediscussion evaluation. Please reply to the following questions either via replying below or sending me an email at hjcooper12@gmail.com.

1) Is this ediscussion on MfDR "Software" relevant to your needs?

2) Can you relate to the discussions that we have had to date?

3) Is the content and questions raised in the ediscussion useful?

4) Are there questions in the list at the start of the discussion that are more interesting to you than others?

5) Are there any subjects/questions that are missing from the list?

6) Any other questions or comments?

Thank you so much for your feedback! Your thoughts will help inform the ediscussion and create a better and more useful forum for all of us!

Once I have received your responses, I will adapt the ediscussion accordingly and move to the Organization and Implementation part of the discussion.

Many thanks and kindest regards for the holiday season!

Hannah

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