070. Mastering a graceful AND effective leadership exodus: Ignacio Saiz

Summary

What are some structural things that are wrong in development aid and in civil society?

Which mindsets most need to be decolonized when it comes to the relationship between global South civil society organizations (CSOs) and INGOs?

Global North-founded INGOs need to be reimagined. How, in turn, do global South-founded NGOs have to change to take over many roles that INGOs currently still fulfill? And how do they need to recalibrate their power relationships with INGOs?

In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Charles Kojo Vandyck, a development practitioner based in Ghana, a leader at the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI), and a thinker on alternatives to development and alternatives to  INGO models.

Charles’ Bio:

• Development practitioner, based in Ghana, who is on a mission to drive transformative change within civil society
• Head of the Capacity Development Unit at the West Africa Civil Society Institute (WACSI)
• Core team member, RINGO project – Reimagining International NGOs 
• Founding Member of the International Consortium on Closing Civic Space (iCon)
• Trustee of INTRAC and an Advisory Board Member of Disrupt Development
• Host of the podcast Alternative Convos, which focuses on social cohesion as well as social change in Africa. You can find Alternative Convos on Spotify

We discuss: 

• The West African Civil Society Institute (WACSI), based in Accra/Ghana, is a regional organization focused on civil society support and institutional strengthening
• RINGO project: the Reimaging the INGO project is a collaborative global project among civil society leaders to prototype new models of INGOs that shift power to the global South and equalize relationships between global South and global North NGOs as well as funders
• According to Charles, here are some of the problems with current models of development and aid architecture: a projectized approach to development;  local expertise of people is insufficiently recognized in project design; the ad-hoc and short-term nature of money flows; the presence of dependency cultures; lack of asset-based models to development (instead of  deficit-based ones)
• The policies and ways of working of INGOs have to be part of what needs to shift
• The RINGO project helps to identify areas of stuckness and develop prototypes for alternatives
• The hardest nuts to crack within the RINGO project are related to structural racism
• Global South NGOs also need to change their models: they need to invest more in talent development and succession planning, to help generational shift from founders to successors; develop their skills in intersectoral as well as intersectional approaches to development; and invest in technology skills.

Resources:

Charles’ LinkedIn Profile

Podcast Alternative Convos – on Spotify

WACSI Website

Reimagining the INGO Website

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Summary

Leadership transitions are tricky -- and potentially risky -- moments in a nonprofit's life. What are the most common pitfalls or aspects that get overlooked when nonprofits -- and outgoing leaders themselves -- tackle such leadership transitions?

What key strategies and tactics are essential to ensure a smooth leadership transition and maintain organizational stability?

What are the habits, practices, and behaviors that are most aligned with a successful exit of an Executive Director?

In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Ignacio Saiz,  who transitioned out of the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) some 2 years ago, on the right way to do this.

Ignacio’s Bio:

• Senior Advisor on Human Rights, Economic Justice, and Strategic Leadership
• Former Executive Director at the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR)
• Ignacio also held various managerial and leadership roles at Amnesty International, including Director of Policy Programs, Deputy Director for the Americas, and other roles

We discuss: 

• How planned transitions should be seen as an opportunity
• Written transition plans help in avoiding miscommunication, and in allocating clear roles and responsibilities for how to deal with the transition, while clarifying the timeline as well
• A comprehensive communication strategy is vital: outwards (towards donors/funders, peers/partners), as well as inwards (towards staff, board, advisory councils, volunteers etc.)
• Participation of staff is vital. One mechanism can be representation of 1-2 staff in the Board recruitment committee, as long as the organization is  very clear though about staff's decision rights vis-a-vis  the selection of the successor 
• Outgoing leaders often underestimate the anxiety that may occur among staff and some board members -- especially if their  tenure has been long
• Whether the outgoing leader plays any role in the organization beyond their tenure is a very tricky and highly contextualized  decision, and needs to be carefully negotiated between the outgoing and incoming leaders. Most importantly, this must be completely steered by the needs and preferences of the incoming leader.

Quotes:

• “Boards need to realize top leadership transition involves more than a recruitment”
• “Planned leadership transitions should be seen as a shared opportunity, not a cause for concern”
• “Transition takes at least two years, and has to include the transition-in period when the incoming leader needs active support”

Resources:

Ignacio’s LinkedIn Profile

Ignacio's blog post on the matter (note links at the end to two good additional resources)

YouTube video of this podcast

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Summary

What should I imagine, practically, when a team coach starts to support my team?

What does a well-known team coach find the most rewarding about working with nonprofit teams?

Can a team coach detect any differences in team behaviors or tendencies between their for-profit and nonprofit clients? 

In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Alexander Caillet, CEO and co-founder of Corentus, Inc., on all of the above questions,  including how to navigate team behaviors when it comes to organizational politics as well as decision-making. 

His answers may surprise you!

Alexander’s Bio:

·       CEO and co-founder of Corentus, Inc.

·       Adjunct professor at Georgetown University,  in its Leadership Coaching Certificate Program

·       Alexander also worked at other coaching and consulting companies

·       His education is in Organizational Psychology

We discuss: 

• Corentus’ vision: thriving, high-performing teams that result in a sustainable and harmonious future
• What differentiates Corentus’ approach to team coaching from other approaches is its blending of team coaching with team facilitation, training, and consulting 
• Alexander is one of the pioneers in the relatively new field of team coaching
• The various stages of a team coaching engagement
• Corentus has worked with a range of nonprofits: Save the Children, Oxfam, Technoserve, Syngenta Foundation, AIPP, and others.
• Alexander observes interesting differences in what pre-occupies teams in the for-profit and nonprofit space, respectively. They relate to themes such as productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness of processes, as well as decisiveness
• He also observes differences in terms of a greater focus on achieving consensus or even unanimity in the nonprofit sphere, rather than using decision-making methods such as voting, delegation, and authority with consultation.

Quotes:

“I was surprised to encounter issues of hierarchy, power, DEI, and dysfunction in the nonprofit sector, I had not expected these as much in this sector”

Resources:

Alexander’s LinkedIn Profile

Corentus Website

Corentus Email

Info on Corentus' offer on Low bono / Pro bono team coaching opportunity

YouTube video of this podcast

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Summary

What is the state of DEI in US-founded international development organisations (both for-profit and nonprofit), and how has this state changed since 2021? 

 What has been the action, as compared to the professed intentions for action?

In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Shiro Gnanaselvam, President and CEO at Social Impact, on DEI (Diversity, equity, and inclusion) trends in US Development agencies.

Shiro’s Bio:

• CEO of Social Impact, a US-based mid-size consulting company that offers MEL (Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning) services to the international development sector
• Former EVP and COO of Social Impact
• COO of AfriCare, largest and oldest African-American founded international NGO focused exclusively on the continent of Africa.
• Senior Director, Monitoring and Evaluation, Millenium Challenge Corporation

We discuss: 

• Racial and ethnic minorities remain under-represented in positions of power
• The global development sector remains predominantly white and female, including at the top
• Disability reporting shows signs of greater awareness
• Organizations have invested in establishing governance structures for DEI: policies, strategies and staff with dedicated responsibilities as well as collective staff bodies (DEI councils etc.)There are modest improvements in how diversity data are captured
• Commitment to DEI remains, but competing priorities and resource limitations are a severe impediment to progress
• There are tensions between global DEO, localization and domestic DEI that need to be resolved – but also many points of similarity

Resources:

Shiro’s LinkedIn Profile

Social Impact website

Social Impact’s blog post on overall survey results

Social Impact blog post on 7 actions the US development sector must take

YouTube video of this podcast

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Summary

What is life after leadership like?

What happens to you as a person when you leave a high-powered, highly visible role in civil society?

What happens with your sense of identity? Does this also perhaps touch on ego as well?

What offers new meaning and purpose, when we live our life-after-leadership?

In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Sam Worthington, former President and CEO at InterAction, who stepped down from a position with much positional as well as symbolic power just about a year ago. 

Sam’s Bio:

• Executive coach, board member and advocate
• Former President and CEO of InterAction – 16 years
• Former President and CEO of Plan International USA
• Executive Director at Delphi International

We discuss: 

• In the months before you leave your leadership job, expect that the extent to which your colleagues still want you to make decisions on important things will rapidly decline
• In Sam’s case, the sense of loss that was involved was not about loss of power (since he’d experienced positional power  for a few decades),  but was about loss  of the comradery that former colleagues and peers used to provide
• You can partially fill this void by offering (informal) coaching to new incoming CEOs for instance.
• Life after leadership does mean you can move more from doing to being; you can be more present now
• Sometimes leaders, once they retire, still are called to speak in global gatherings based on their reputation, their personal brand
• Our knowledge which we can still contribute now is the synthesized wisdom of decades of experience
• Sam is writing a book to look back on everything he learned, his views on the sector, and what gives him hope -- follow him on LinkedIn to stay tuned!

Quotes:

• “The transition is about having been the village chief before; now, I am no longer in the village”

• “My public persona never was my identity”

Resources:

Sam’s LinkedIn Profile

Book David Brooks, From Strength to Strength

Essay by David Brooks in The Atlantic: The New Old Age (gated)

YouTube video of this podcast

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Summary

What is scaling? And how is it different from growing?

What’s the role of partner strategies or multiplier strategies in scaling?

What are the implications of scaling in an era of decolonizing aid, localizing development, and shifting roles of nonprofits and NGOs, shifting power, authority and decision rights?

In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Amy Ragsdale, Director at Spring Impact, a consulting, coaching and training agency specializing in scaling strategiesfor mission-focused organizations, on how to navigate the big scaling quandary.

Amy’s Bio:

• Director at Spring Impact
• Senior Consultant at Capgemini Consulting 
• Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences

We discuss: 

• Spring Impact offers coaching, consulting services, and training for mission-focused organizations keen to scale their impact
• Growing the size of an organization or solution means increasing its revenue and/or impact at the same rate as adding resources to an organization. Scaling means you are impacting a societal problem at a larger scale, by increasing impact exponentially, while adding resources incrementally
• Central questions to ask: 1/ What are we scaling?; 2/ Where are we scaling?; 3/ Who will do the scaling? Who are the ‘doers’? Who are the ‘payers’?
• The following attributes of the organizational culture of social mission organizations act as enablers for scaling success: 1/openness to failure; 2/ an ability to hold our hypothesis on what works lightly; 3/ a realization that invention is not the same as innovation!
• The following leadership mindsets are enablers as well: 1/ clarity whether your org is pursuing growth or impact; 2/ staying committed to the problem (NOT the solution); 3/ being collaborative by default
• Financial sustainability models underpinning scaling strategies: examples can be government funding; earned income revenue; fee for service; advertising - and more

Quotes:

“Scaling is not the same as growing. The two are often confused. ”

“Invention is not the same as innovation! (the latter involves testing and learning)”

Resources:

Amy’s LinkedIn Profile

Website of Spring Impact

Podcast Mission to Scale

YouTube video of this podcast

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Summary

What are the vital steps a senior leader have to take as they step into a new leadership role? What to do and what to expect when you are transitioning into that new role?

And, separately, to what extent are African leadership models and frameworks  different from global North ones?  Most importantly, what could global North imprinted leadership models learn from African ones? 

In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Adama Coulibaly, Global Programs Director at Oxfam, on both these topics. He is a very experienced NGO leader, a coach, and an eloquent thinker and author on all things leadership. And he just transitioned into his new role at Oxfam, so he is here to speak from experience!

Adama’s Bio:

• A seasoned leader with nearly 30 years of experience in international development and humanitarian aid
• Global Programs Director, Oxfam International; earlier in his career he was also a Regional Director at Oxfam
•  Leadership positions as Country Director at the International Rescue Committee, Regional Director at Plan International, and Principal Adviser at UNICEF
• Certified Transformational coach, and somebody who labels himself a 'positive thinker'

We discuss: 

1. His advice to leaders who are transitioning into an organization, based on his own experience

1. What differentiates African takes on leadership models and frameworks, as distinct from global North imprinted models?

• Adama Coulibaly (nickname ‘Coul’) considers himself a born positive thinker; he learned this behavior in his youth while facing very difficult circumstances in his home country Mali
• As an adult, he learned about the field of positive thinking; and that positive thinking is good for your physical and mental health
• Coul’s advice, in a nut shell, on how to transition into a new senior leadership position:

Give yourself at least 2, if not 4 weeks between two jobs

Use your break time to learn as much about your new organization as you can

Communicate healthy boundaries immediately, otherwise, you will pay a stiff price

Build on what works; don’t feel the need to change everything or most things

Prioritize external engagement, insist on it, and commit to external engagements so that your calendar time for this is protected

• On African models of leadership: they tend to focus on the collective nature of people: the person in the context of their community (see for instance the Ubuntu model)

Quotes:

• “Positive thinking is not about utopia: I call myself a realistic positive thinker. There are a lot of negative things in the world. It is about how we balance negative and positive things”

• “If you have a weak transitioning period, you set yourself up for failure”

• “As soon as you enter the door, you have to problem solve, there is no honeymoon for senior leaders”

Resources:

Adama’s LinkedIn Profile

Positive minds, a pro bono consulting, coaching, and mentoring group (see also Coul’s blog on this site)

Coul’s blog post about leadership transition

YouTube video of this podcast&a

Summary

What should we think of when we consider organization integrity issues?

How do you distinguish between positive and negative forms of power?

How do we nurture power for organizational integrity? 

These are the fairly complex questions that we address in the podcast today.

In this NGO Soul+Strategy  episode, I interview Bhavika Patel, Senior Adviser for Equalities and Inclusion at Oxfam Great Britain, and Alex Cole-Hamilton, independent consultant and one of the founders of the Power and Integrity Initiative, on their work on positive power for organizational integrity.

Bhavika’s Bio:

• Currently the Senior Adviser for Equalities and Inclusion at Oxfam
• Brings HR, culture, and EDI (equity, diversity, and inclusion) experience,  with practical experience in understanding power in relation to EDI and organizational ways of working
• Led on HR issues in Oxfam, and has been a Talent Advisor at UNICEF
• MSC in applied positive coaching psychology

 
Alex’s Bio:

• Independent consultant, advising boards and executives on ethics and integrity risks and related decision-making frameworks
• Former head of Ethics and Compliance, Oxfam Great Britain
• Former head of Corporate Responsibility, Oxfam
• Former ethical trade project manager, The Body Shop

We discuss: 

• The Power & Integrity Initiative is focused on UK-specific agencies; it aims to complement, but not overlap, with other ongoing activities, such as the RINGO project, Pledge4Change, #ShiftThePower etc.
• Concrete examples of measures and policy areas related to organizational integrity: safeguarding, anti-racism, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), environmental sustainability practices, anti-corruption
• How is power perceived in general?  And in our sector?
• How can integrity be understood more holistically, going beyond the classical interpretation of ethics, to look at people's behavior and organizational behavior in relationship to each other?
• The initiative just went through several Labs to pilot getting to a shared understanding of what power is (not easy!); their write-up on what was learned will be published in late 2023
• Positive power as a concept comes out of the thinking on transformative power, led by Srilatha Batliwala and others at CREA. It also builds on notions of power with, power within, power for and not just power over (hierarchical or positional or coercive power)
• Even if power is used with good intention by (in)formal leaders in our sector, whether we like it or not, the impact of white-normed organizational systems and processes is not neutral

Resources:

Website of Power & Integrity

Alex’s Website

Bhavika’s LinkedIn Profile

Alex’s LinkedIn Profile

YouTube video of this podcast

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Summary

How can the feelings of people who work in organizations both facilitate and suppress change?

What makes people attach reputation and credibility to another person? And how does this relate to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and these may work out in practice?

What's the problem with think tanks from the perspective of a decolonization goal, and what has been the problem historically?

In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Ajoy Datta,  consultant, policy researcher, and coach, on decolonizing think tanks, policy research organizations, and consulting agencies.

Ajoy’s Bio:

• Independent consultant
• Over 20 years of experience in the global development and humanitarian sector
• Supports leaders, teams, organizations, and networks to collaborate, perform better, learn, innovate, and change
• Performs designing, monitoring, and evaluating work to engage with and influence policy and practice as well as strengthen decision-making systems
• Worked 12 years at the Overseas Development Institute (DI)'s research and policy unit
• Worked 3 years at the On Think Tanks (OTT) consulting group
• Started at VSO, the British volunteer agency, in Zambia

We discuss: 

• The useful role of psychodynamics in organizational development: what goes on in our minds, consciously and unconsciously, while working in organizations. Some of these feelings are suppressed and below the surface
• Decolonizing organizations means that we aim to do away with hundreds of years of Western, global North power, such as philosophical underpinnings, concepts, frameworks, assumptions, knowledge systems, and leadership profiles. 
• When organizations recruit people who are dissimilar in demographic or experiential profile from those that were thus far considered the 'norm',  the 'default' -- if their organizational culture, expectations towards staff, and org systems don’t adapt to these new profiles, tension will be the result. These people will be at higher risk of either leaving or being ‘spit out’
• The phenomenon of the glass cliff: when people with demographic profiles different from what was the norm thus far are recruited to high-risk leadership positions, and then fail. 
• What to do about all of this? 1/ Name and acknowledge what is happening. If we fear talking about it, it will never be addressed; 2/ “decriminalize bias"; 3/ create a safe container for discussion; 4/ communicate externally but also internally

Resources:

Ajoy’s LinkedIn profile

Ajoy’s Medium blog posts

Ajoy’s Website

Sample blog posts: 1, 2

YouTube video of this podcast

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Summary

How should we think about the  ‘collective journey to equitable development’ of Northern-founded NGOs, national NGOs and their funders?

What obstacles stand in the way of continuing on that journey? 

Why does Humentum argue that NGO operating models need to enable  ERA (Equitable, Resilient, and Accountable) development, and how does that need to come about?

In this NGO Soul+Strategy podcast episode, I interview Kim Kucinskas, Director for Community Strategy at Humentum, on nonprofit operations as a driver of transformation.

Kim’s Bio:

• Director, Community Strategy, Humentum
• Director, Member Engagement and Services, Huentum
• Several other roles in Humentum since 2012
• Worked in Namibia on issues related to local epidemics
• Fundraising role at the International Institute for Cooperation and Development

We discuss: 

• The pressure is building for significant change in the northern INGO sector; it’s coming from all frontiers
• There is actual strategic power in the operations model; if we change it in a significant way, big change happens in the power distribution between northern INGOs, funders, and national NGOs
• Humentum argues this in their new 3-part series of reports on ERA: how to move to an Equitable (E), Resilient (R) and Accountable (A) development sector
• But this will only happen if northern INGOs, funders, and national NGOs make significant changes in their institutional architecture, people and culture, funding, and  risk frameworks
• Institutional Architecture is one of Humentum's main building blocks towards ERA: within this, organizations have to have sufficient autonomy for the sector to be able to be equitable, resilient, and accountable
• People and Culture: who is recruited, and works where; a shift in the ‘headquarters’ concept from one that is location-based to role-based; where staff receive fair and equitable compensation, etc.
• Funding: the islands of innovation that are happening in various places need to become ‘mainland’
• Accountability, with a focus on risk management: within this, a shift from risk transfer to risk sharing is required
• Be mindful: the way in which the process of #shiftthepower is happening is actually reflective of the very ways in which power is still being held right now.

Quotes:

“There is strategic value and potential in operations; not as “back-office functions” but as drivers of transformation”

“We are at a tipping point in terms of significant NGO sector change”

Resources:

Kim’s LinkedIn profile

Kim’s Email

Humentum's ERA reports

YouTube video of this podcast

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