Innovation Insurgents
Technical Area
- Life at Dexis
There’s an old joke that asks how many psychologists it takes to change a lightbulb and posits that it doesn’t matter until the light bulb wants to change. Behind the humor is a truth that applies as much to electrical fixtures as it does to people and organizations. And it is particularly relevant to the field of international development and humanitarian aid, a sector undergoing a period of uncertainty, upheaval, and a growing appetite for more adaptive, collaborative approaches.
One of the significant shifts we’ve witnessed in international development over the past decade is an evolution away from linear ‘big design up-front’ five-year plans toward more complexity-aware and adaptive management approaches that acknowledge that our work is complex and unpredictable and requires agile thinking. The World Bank’s “Doing Development Differently;” the UK Department for International Development (DFID)’s “What Good Looks Like” initiative; and the Collaborating, Learning, and Adapting (CLA) approach at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) are all promising products of this evolution.
The USAID LEARN team, which I led from late 2014 until October 2018, supports a dynamic team at USAID to socialize this CLA approach across its global missions. The program is an example of a leading US government agency investing in the resources to support a more systematic and intentional approach to organizational learning and change management. The Agency had been moving in this direction for some time when I joined, but principles of intentional, systematic, and resourced approaches to adaptive management had only recently been included in the Agency’s guidance to missions about how to implement their work. At that time, there was limited clarity about what it meant or where or how it was being done. The Agency can now point to specific examples from more than 60 offices worldwide that are using these techniques for strategic collaboration, continuous learning, and adaptive management.
Lest you think USAID LEARN is taking credit for this impressive adoption trajectory, allow me to return to my opening thesis: true organizational change – no matter how much it is written into policy and guidance – will never be sustainable unless the individuals who make up the organization truly want to change. The positive shifts we are seeing toward adaptive management behaviors at USAID are because of hundreds of advocates across its offices worldwide who are adopting these new approaches as part of their work because they see that they will help them do their jobs better. They are known as “CLA champions.”
Through USAID LEARN’s engagement with these champions, it has become abundantly clear that while the tools, resources, cases, and facilitation we provide are all important and necessary, they are not sufficient to create lasting change. What has really led these champions to adopt and integrate adaptive management into their work is the nature of today’s changing, challenging, and complex development contexts. Let me share with you a few examples of these ideas being put into action.
The examples above all reinforce the point noted so glibly above; namely, that the ability to effect change requires a desire to change, not just the capacity to make change happen. Psychologists and electricians alike will tell us that to maintain that change, there needs to be a steady and positive flow of energy to support that change. The source of this energy in organizations like USAID is the community of advocates who are adopting strategic collaboration, continuous learning, and adaptive management practices every day to improve the effectiveness of their work.
Internal advocates tell us that they realize that the organization’s tools, resources, and approaches help them be more effective, strategic, collaborative, and flexible in ways that are essential in today’s development environment. In a world where we are all being asked to be more efficient, accountable, effective, and adaptable; a time when the goal is to support the self-reliance of our stakeholders, beneficiaries, and partners; and a time when the only way to get anything done is through effective and strategic collaboration, continuous learning, and adaptive management, it is becoming abundantly clear that we need to address these challenges with a structured approach. The lightbulb wants to change, and change is coming through internal champions—the innovation insurgents—one person at a time.
Piers Bocock is the former Chief of Party for USAID’s Knowledge Management and Learning (LEARN) contract, implemented by Dexis.
The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government.