Ensuring Partner Ownership and Agency PDF
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Uploaded by PleasingJadeite1531
City, University of London
Rick
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Summary
This document discusses the importance of partner ownership and agency in capacity strengthening initiatives. It explores how motives for change are crucial in successful organizational transformation and how grant makers can help cultivate partner motivation for the desired change. The document also highlights the role of leadership and personal change in organizational change, using case studies and examples.
Full Transcript
**ENSURING PARTNER OWNERSHIP AND AGENCY** Remember, like a crime, capacity strengthening is about: - Motive - Means - Opportunity This video focuses on motive. We will look at: - why motive is so critical; - how to assess motive; and - how grant-makers can use their power in a re...
**ENSURING PARTNER OWNERSHIP AND AGENCY** Remember, like a crime, capacity strengthening is about: - Motive - Means - Opportunity This video focuses on motive. We will look at: - why motive is so critical; - how to assess motive; and - how grant-makers can use their power in a responsible way, to cultivate this motive for change. **WHY MOTIVE MATTERS** Ownership by the partner is the single most important factor in the success or otherwise of any capacity strengthening initiative. It is almost impossible to over-estimate its importance. But what can a grant-maker do to help? The more they use their power to push or encourage a partner to change, the more they may encourage passive acceptance or even resistance. A funder's power can easily distort ownership of the motive for change. If the motive for change sits with the funder, then capacity strengthening becomes merely a funding hoop to jump through. Inequity persists. And the best that can be hoped for is merely cosmetic change. Let's explore motive a bit more... For any organisation or individual to change, they need the will to change. Unless people feel that the current situation can't go on and that they have to move fast, they will tend to stick with what they know. Sadly, most organisations change as little as they have to. So at the outset there must be a strong enough motive for change both from leadership and from a critical mass of staff to overcome the natural resistance. As a young consultant I was invited to undertake a review of a UN agency's training department and OD department in Geneva. I was told that if I did a good job, I would be given more opportunities. Their senior managers wanted to know whether the two departments should merge or remain separate. After conducting interviews with the key players, I recommended that both departments should be better aligned and work much more closely together, especially as they worked with the same institutions. Although I did not recommend a merger, I was still asked to change my recommendations because the two departments were happy working in parallel without any collaboration. They wanted to maintain the status quo. There was no motive for change. And when I wouldn't alter my recommendation, I was never invited back. In understanding motive, we need to look closely at leadership - including senior management and board members. What do they really think? What drives their interest in change? How much do they really want it? Meaningful change is costly. It is not simply about learning new skills and acquiring new knowledge. It also involves giving up bad habits and behaving differently. It sometimes means admitting you were wrong. Change is often painful, sensitive and personal. We often only think it's others who need to change. But leading change is not really about changing other people's behaviour. After all who is the only person you can directly change? It's you! You can only ever influence changes in others, but you can never directly control it. Change is personal -- even when we are talking about organisational systems. Any change, whether it's improving program work or strengthening monitoring systems or learning from evaluation, involves people changing. Organisations are not machines, they are human systems. They only change if people change. Yet we sometimes want our organisation to change, but are not prepared to change ourselves. In my PhD research *with NGO leaders in Africa I found that l*eadership commitment to organisational change was synonymous with their commitment to their own personal change. As experienced consultant Robert Quinn says: Unless the organisation is genuinely open and ready to change, there is little point in spending time and money imposing capacity strengthening. A few years ago some European funders asked me to help one of their partners in Zimbabwe. They said to me: "Rick, our partner is a disaster. They have been silent in the face of increasing human rights abuses. They are politically compromised. They are corrupt. They have lost credibility among their members and funding from donors. They need radical change. Can you help?" Despite the obvious challenge, I was so excited by the prospect of contributing to such a strategic organisation in Zimbabwe at such an important time. So I eagerly asked them: 'So what does the general secretary and the board think about the need for change?' They replied, 'Oh, they are completely against it. In fact, they are the root of the problem as they are in the pay of the State President.' But without any leadership openness to change, there is nothing anyone can do. With great reluctance I felt I had to turn down the opportunity. The relatively happy ending is that two years later with a new board in place, the partner asked me again to get involved -- and it turned out to be an amazing transformational experience. So we need to assess motive, particularly amongst the leadership. But as we pointed out earlier, too often capacity strengthening is something the funder suggests. Too often capacity strengthening takes place because the funder thought it a good idea, suggested it and organised it. It may even have been part of their due diligence requirements. The partner accepts the capacity strengthening to get what they really want - the money. Acquiescence is not the same as ownership. Compliance is not the same as commitment. Neither is equitable. Neither leads to meaningful and lasting change. As one funder admitted: *"It was really stupid of us to propose this capacity strengthening to the partner knowing the leadership situation. I don't blame them, I blame ourselves".* **How DO WE assess partner motive?** So how do we know if a partner is really open for change or not? In one sense, it is almost impossible to know this fully before you start. It is only with the benefit of hindsight that we can really analyse motive -- we see it much better in the rear view mirror. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't do all we can to assess motive before we start. Even if we don't know everything, we can know enough to avoid predictable disasters. A few organisations have a formal readiness to change assessment tool, but for me it's the thinking and questions that lie behind it that is more important. It worth looking at what people see as the priority needs for change. We have found it helpful to ask these sort of questions *(questions on screen, not read out?):* - What do people see is the critical issue? - Where do people see the problem? Are they seeing it 'out there' (externalising blame) or 'with us' (taking personal responsibility)? - How serious is the issue? Do people believe change is absolutely necessary? What do people think will happen if they do nothing? Is there a shared and compelling reason to change? It also helps to examine **who has the motive**: - Who says there is an opportunity or problem that needs addressing? Who is pushing for change? Where did the initiative come from? What triggered it? Who is the change champion? - Is leadership visibly committed to change? Are leaders open to their own personal change? What is the board's attitude? - What is the attitude of staff to change? Is there a critical mass of support from staff? And exploring **how strong that motive is**: - What has the organisation already tried? What have they learnt from this? - What changes are they prepared to consider? What is up for grabs? What are the untouchable sacred cows? - How confident are people that change is possible? Is the scale of change appropriate and achievable? - What time and money are they prepared to invest in the process? - What else is going on in the organisation? Is this change a priority? Do they have the space to change? If there is not a strong enough motive for change, it may be better not to start. As with my Zimbabwe experience, it may need a crisis or a change of leadership, before the organisation is able to change. To avoid wasting resources, grant-makers may have to wait until the partner feels greater necessity and urgency for change. Although we might desperately want to help a struggling grantee, if the whole leadership is resisting any change, then it will not work anyway. We have to wait until the partner has a strong enough motive of their own. Making capacity strengthening a conditionality is risky. It undermines equity. On rare occasions, in situations of high trust, it can catalyse change. But more usually, taking such a directive role undermines the partner's ownership. As they have no choice, they feel capacity strengthening has been inflicted on them. They are unlikely to take it as seriously as they should. It is usually more effective for funders to cultivate, rather than impose, and allow the partner's motive for change to grow. **How CAN GRANT MaKERS cultivate partner motive TO CHANGE?** So in the aid world of relentless project deadlines, what can grant-makers do to use their power in an equitable way, and to cultivate, and not undermine, partner ownership of capacity stregthening? First, it is about **clarifying the nature of the exercise** and highlighting that genuine capacity strengthening is not a 'due diligence' process to manage risk to the grant-maker -- but about organisational change, centred on the needs and interests of the partner themselves. Second it is about **building trust**. Unless you have earned trust, not just from your funding role, but from partners recognising your personal commitment to them, your competence and even your character. To build trust means investing time in them, getting to know them well. As one Programme Officer put it: "*It's been so helpful to carve out time in grantee check-in calls and site visits to ask about their larger organisational big picture, not just the specific project"*. There is a proverb in African which says: 'You have to earn the right to speak by listening'. Being aware of the power we bring may help make conversations more constructive. Grant-makers bring power over resources into any relationship. It's as if they can only talk through a megaphone. When Programme Officers think they are merely whispering possible suggestions and ideas, local partners might hear this as a direct, order, loud and clear. Grant-makers can encourage partners' motives for change by asking **open questions**. Taking an appreciative approach and building on partner's strengths rather than simply asking about gaps and problems, can help grantees take ownership of any issues. It may be appropriate to suggest externally **facilitated self-assessments**. As we saw previously, if a partner has the time and space to diagnose itself and prioritise its own capacity strengthening needs (usually with skilled external facilitation), this helps ensure they own any resulting process. An organisation is more likely to own something that it has decided on and designed for itself, rather than something forced on them by a funder. Grant-makers need to allow enough space for partners to make an **explicit choice themselves** to start a capacity strengthening process. I think the words of an Ethiopian church leader eloquently capture the reality of a funder's role in cultivating capacity: So what does this all mean for you? Take a moment to consider: - What power and privilege do you bring? - How might this affect how partners respond to you? - How might you overcome this?