Having the privilege to work in Botswana and in Nepal is something that I don’t take for granted. I commit myself to the projects I am working on and do my best to become a subject matter expert about the issue we are trying to deal with. In Botswana I immersed myself in HIV/AIDS material and the statistics the government was producing, and with the influence of many TED Talks and other fabulously passionate people such as Melissa Godwalt (A Canadian living and working in Botswana who is thoughtful and with thought provoking presentations) I tried to make the issue jump out at people. In other words, used marketing and state of the art presentation techniques to slap people in the face so they would take notice.
In Botswana, this seemed to work. Change resulted, the civil society organizations started to work together in a new, trusting way and USAID and other donors started to pay more attention to the region of Ngamiland, the region with the highest infection levels in the world. Now don’t get me wrong. I am not trying to take credit for all the positive change, that would be so far from the truth. The truth is, I could not do any of the networking and change management had I not had real talent behind me.
This is what is exciting about what I do. I get to work with some incredibly talented, dedicated and capable people from all over the world and in the process smash some misconceptions about the young and those from the developing world. Kelly Lui, although not from the developing world was one of the real treasures of my time in Botswana.
She not only was great to work with, she became a good friend and hopefully future business partner or associate.
Kelly hadn’t had a great deal of experience prior to our work together, but what she lacked in experience she made up for with focus, determination and really fast typing. (I am not kidding, really fast. Break the keyboard fast.) Kelly did the lions share of work at NCONGO while I was trying to get attention for the organization and market it.
Lesson Learned: This is a best practice that I think can be adopted by many organizations: give direction and thorough vision to your staff and then get out of the way.
The next talented person I worked with was a young woman from Botswana named Charity Thite. Charity has travelled very little outside of Botswana, but has a wealth of insight and a real way of getting the work done. Charity again had little experience when she was hired but quickly was thrown into the job feet first. Sink or swim. Charity worked alongside Kelly and picked up on Kellys good work habits and did she ever learn. She was encouraged to puzzle things out for herself and when she had thought through a problem and couldn’t solve it, then come to Kelly or me. Charity with all her inexperience soon took ownership of the organization,even though her title didn’t reflect that. (Charity is so talented and capable, I am trying to find an opportunity for her in Canada or the US so she can further hone her skills.)
Lesson learned: Let some of your staff struggle so they can stretch and grow confidence in their own intuition and body of knowledge.
Finally, here in Kathmandu I am working with a young man who, similar to Charity, has taken ownership of an organization despite the lack of title. Rup Sunar is smart, technically savvy and very coachable. Rup, next to my good friend Jeff Brown, is the most coachable person I have come across. Rup listens and doesn’t give much feedback,but then thinks a concept through and puts it into action. I have been working in the last two months to try to show the organization that marketing matters. Everything we do creates a client or stakeholder experience and we must manage that carefully. Even though this is a very modest organization with little funding, the entrance, the greeting, the signage and the presentations printed send a message about the organization. Rup gets it. Thankfully, because it would be a challenging time in Nepal if the de-facto leader of the organization didn’t get it.
Tomorrow Rup and I are going to be talking about how to work a room full of people and to make friends out of new networking acquaintances. You see Rup will be heading to Delhi to the Asian Development Bank Annual General Meeting (I was to go but could not get a visa in time) and representing the PDRC. Not the little grassroots PDRC begging for money, but the PDRC “Business” that can offer insights and information helpful to all those in attendance in Delhi. He is not going to beg, but to sell the vision that this organisation can offer.
Lesson Learned: Coach in small stories and tools and stand back. Watch the implementation and offer support. And think like a business.
This is a blog written by Blair Henry, PDRC's organizational development advisor. You can read his other blogs at http://www.blairhenry.info/
No comments:
Post a Comment