Topic: Leading Change in My Organisation

How do CSO leaders implement change within their organisations?

Ed Boswell and Daryl Conner

Leading Successful Change Amidst a Disruptive Civil Society Environment

29 August, 2017

This blog is a summary of the full report, you can find it here.

For years, senior leaders in the private sector have grappled with disruptive forces that have fundamentally reshaped not only their organizations, but their entire industries. These upheavals have created winners—often new entrants who are on the cutting edge of change within an industry—and losers—often incumbents who did not change quickly or dramatically enough to keep up. However, some incumbents did recognize the need to transform early on: they exercised creativity and courage in envisioning a dramatically different future for their organizations, and were quick and effective in executing strategic transformation. In the end, these are the organizations that succeeded in staying relevant, profitable, and, ultimately, in business.

Currently, the civil society sector – especially the international non-governmental organization (INGO) space – is experiencing similarly disruptive forces and the urgent need for transformation. Despite having made dramatic progress in reducing poverty as well as in improving health, education, and human rights for tens of millions over the past seven decades, INGOs are experiencing a set of tectonic shifts that now threaten their relevance and viability. Leaders of these institutions are concerned that the volume, velocity, and complexity of these disruptive forces are straining their organization’s capacity to adapt to them quickly and effectively. MORE

Governance & Management, Leading Change in My Organisation

Burkhard Gnärig

Seven Strategies of Transformational Leadership Part II

22 August, 2017

In so many posts this blog has documented how the civil society sector is increasingly affected by a whole range of disruptions, many of which have the potential to undermine if not destroy the work of local, national and international civil society organisations (CSOs). In order to survive and thrive in a disruptive environment CSOs will have to continuously transform themselves, adapting to fundamental changes, overcoming critical challenges and seizing new opportunities.

CSOs’ need for continuous transformation demands a very different leadership style. While traditional leaders had to stand for stability and consistency, transformational leadership has to stand for flexibility and adaptability. While traditional leaders embody continuity, transformational leaders embody change.

Over the past few years the Centre has supported many CSOs with coming to terms with disruption. In the course of our work we have identified seven key strategies used by transformational leaders. Last week we presented three of these strategies. Here you will find the remaining four: MORE

Culture, Governance & Management, Leading Change in My Organisation

Burkhard Gnärig

Seven Strategies of Transformational Leadership Part I

15 August, 2017

In so many posts this blog has documented how the civil society sector is increasingly affected by a whole range of disruptions, many of which have the potential to undermine if not destroy the work of local, national and international civil society organisations (CSOs). In order to survive and thrive in a disruptive environment CSOs will have to continuously transform themselves, adapting to fundamental changes, overcoming critical challenges and seizing new opportunities.

CSOs’ need for continuous transformation demands a very different leadership style. While traditional leaders had to stand for stability and consistency, transformational leadership has to stand for flexibility and adaptability. While traditional leaders embody continuity, transformational leaders embody change.

Over the past few years the Centre has supported many CSOs with coming to terms with disruption. In the course of our work we have identified seven key strategies used by transformational leaders. Here we will look at the first three strategies and in next week’s blog at the remaining four. MORE

Culture, Governance & Management, Leading Change in My Organisation

Åsa Månsson and Isabelle Buechner

Co-creating a movement for dynamic accountability: The Global Standard

1 August, 2017

IMG_5579%40025x-1024x683If describing, in one word, what the International Civil Society Centre does it could be “convening”. Its task is to bring people together to share experiences, mutually exchange ideas and solve shared problems. But simply describing the meaning of convening would not do the Centre justice in terms of its results – and especially not for the people and organisations that it brings together.

With the Global Standard for CSO Accountability the Centre took on its biggest international project so far. Over a period of 3 years we convened nine accountability initiatives from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. They started to work together by comparing their individual accountability codes, see where these overlap and identify gaps where their counterpart already had expertise they might not. Every initiative came with its own set of strengths and together they brought an enormous set of experiences from this field to the table. MORE

Culture, Governance & Management, Leading Change in My Organisation

Helene Wolf

Our rolling strategy helps us with managing disruption

18 July, 2017

One of the first things I did after taking on the role of Deputy Executive Director was to review the Centre’s progress against its first 5-year strategic framework that would end roughly two years later. We came to two major conclusions: firstly, we had more or less achieved our objectives, even though we still had 2 years left until the “deadline”. Secondly, we were already focusing on completely different challenges, and our working environment had changed significantly in a way no one had foreseen when writing the original strategic framework. For example, some of the activities we had started in the meantime, might not even fit with the original framework and would have to be stopped if we were to stick to our original plan seriously. MORE

Culture, Governance & Management, Leading Change in My Organisation, Uncategorized

Burkhard Gnärig

10th Anniversary of the International Civil Society Centre – Interview with Burkhard Gnärig

4 July, 2017

In the year of the organisation’s 10th anniversary, the International Civil Society Centre will use its Disrupt&Innovate blog to reflect on some of our activities and lessons learned.

Over the past decade, the Centre has been working on many areas such as disruptive change, innovation, and business models. With this focus, we have constantly aimed to implement some of the findings from our work into our organisation’s own development. By sharing some of our experiences we hope to inspire others and show how to engage and work with us.

We kick off this special anniversary blog series with an interview with the Centre’s founder Burkhard Gnärig:

Governance & Management, Leading Change in My Organisation, Transparency & Accountability, Uncategorized

Disrupt and Innovate

Insights into Innovation

27 June, 2017

In the civil society sector, it can sometimes feel like we are running just to stand still. Changes are going on around us all the time, and faster than ever before. That’s why having the people and ideas to harness those changes is crucial. Those people are called innovators. They work tirelessly to employ changes for the benefit of others, strive to break the mold and create what has never existed before. It’s as challenging as it sounds.

At the International Civil Society Centre we are lucky enough to have gathered the thoughts and experiences of several innovators at the top of their game and the forefront of their sectors. Here we present blogs from those innovators from; CIVICUS, Keystone Accountability, Save the Children, Feedback Labs, Good4Trust, Disberse, The International Civil Society Centre and UNICEF.

MORE

Business Models, Culture, Leading Change in My Organisation

Cynthia McCaffrey, James Powell and Brooke Yamakoshi

Engaging Young People in Real Time for Real Results

20 June, 2017

“When you least expect it, someone may actually listen to what you have to say.” – Maggie Kuhn.

In the world today, there are almost two billion young people between the ages of 10 and 24.

Here is an innovation…..what if we listened to them…..to young people? Many are not expecting us to listen, but they are the ones in school. They are the ones preparing for future employment and starting families.

UNICEF tried just this: engaging and listening to young people in real time in 2011.  Under the leadership of Dr. Sharad Sapra, UNICEF’s Uganda office developed and tested U-Report, an SMS tool enabling them to share their views on issues confronting them. Now available on Facebook, Twitter and Viber messengers the U-Report members, or ‘U-Reporters’, can respond to polls and submit questions to experts on a range of issues. MORE

Culture, Leading Change in My Organisation

Flora Kwong and Ben Joakim

Get on the Blockchain or Get Left Behind

13 June, 2017

Blockchain—it’s a term we often see in newsfeeds and articles but perhaps don’t really understand. We are however supposed to know that, despite its original incarnation as the cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, it’s now the hottest technological innovation relevant to all industries and sectors—including the civil society sector.

Ben Joakim, CEO and founder of Disberse, explains that Blockchain is “in essence, a database that stores immutable [i.e. unmodifiable] transactions” on a secure and distributed network, “enabling people to exchange value peer to peer securely and transparently.” In other words, it provides us with a more secure way to interact with each other on the Internet. MORE

Leading Change in My Organisation, Transparency & Accountability

Duncan Cook

Stop Killing Innovation

6 June, 2017

Running an agency means that you get the great privilege of working with a variety of organisations. The closeness of these relationships mean that you often get an insight into their innermost workings, and you’re able to see how they operate — the good, the bad and, unfortunately, the ugly.

What’s true across the board, is the drive organisations have to become more innovative and disruptive within their sector. Most organisations understand that it’s something they need to do, but the problem is that most of them are making the same mistakes and, in fact, killing innovation. MORE

Business Models, Culture, Governance & Management, Leading Change in My Organisation