NOG Spawn

"...I am becoming my own sister..."

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I'm in negotiation with one of my own staff and asking her to represent me to herself. Conflict of interest? Probably. Confusing? Certainly.

We've been in one of the countries I supervise for decades under our own name but for various reasons it's time to change. Specifically, I asked the country director to register a new, locally governed non-government organisation (NGO) - a new sister in our global network.

Knowing she will be appointed the new organisation's chief executive officer (CEO) concentrate's one's mind: for a start, I will never be able to sack her. Second, she is the only resource I have in-country to identify, recruit and motivate a group of highly credentialed Board members; but will they hold her accountable or simply approve whatever she asks for? Thirdly, she has implied that she could delay registering the organisation if I don't recognise her 'need' to be our country representative as well as the new organisation's CEO. Apparently she says, not doing so could cause too much loss of 'face' on both sides. (True or not I don't know, but one of my colleagues is deeply cynical.)

Now it's Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) time. I managed to get her to steer the Board to register themselves (and they seem excellent) without sight of an MoA (I know already the main sticking points). Our deadline approaches and I'm biting my nails in anticipation (my boss wanted me to push all the boundaries first and compromise later). At least the Board Chairman is now alongside my country director to negotiate - I've even suggested a conflict of interest if she tries to negotiate terms with me without his consent. But it can feel like I am becoming my own sister.

Have I done enough? I wonder. This is supposed to be a fledging-cum-graduation but might be turning into a failure-to-launch...

"...it's hard trying to save the world."

Sometimes I just need to switch off - do some SCUBA diving maybe; it's hard trying to save the world.

Of course, I know that's not my intent, regardless of misguided family, friends, or random hecklers. But sometimes I wonder... Why exactly do I do what I do? Why not just try and make money somewhere? The thing is, I am somewhat revulsed by the thought even though much of the development work I ultimately supervise is directed towards micro-enterprise. But is that a pathological problem? I was told so once...

Some who believe in God have asked me previously to describe my 'calling'; my parents were Christian missionaries and can describe the 'almost-voice', the 'words-coming-alive' in their Bible readings, which they say pulled them out of their comfort zones and into a mission agency.

Not me. The closest corollary for me would be a sense of being 'driven'. If those same Christians looked up words from one of their own saints: Paul, they'd find an old translation of one of his quotes describing his motivation which says something like, "...love constrains me..." I understand that the Greek word translated 'constrain' is quite a violent one (and the meaning of the English word used 500 years ago has drifted), so it should apparently now mean: "...love compels me..."

Can such a sense of drivenness be positive? I remember one particularly oppressive country where I told myself (and my wife) that two years was the limit that I could be driven by anger: I'd have to escape after that to cool down. But generally, I have not burned out though I am somewhat cooler-headed. I like to think that I am not fleeing some childhood demon - but who knows? Probably not a psychosis (not even organic), though maybe a neurosis? Anyway, it keeps me going…

“...can a strongly assertive leader really authentically empower marginalised people?”

My childhood gave me a deep rooted fear of authority figures, particularly men, but also assertive women. Maybe in reaction, I developed a drive to deliver justice and root out oppression; increasingly channelled into participatory methodologies.

Now I've a quandary: some of my peers appear to control inputs, the outcomes of which I am accountable for.

• Is this just an impression arising from my history, and revealed as paranoia?
• Are they actually just being supportive?
• What good are 'silos' in networks anyway?
• And if I want to empower, what message is read by me circumscribing and defending my own powers and roles?
• According to Belbin I'm a 'resource-investigator'. Aren't I actually cannily, if subconsciously, using my colleagues to take responsibility for aspects of my job, freeing me for other things?

But maybe I really am being treated inappropriately - disrespectfully perhaps?

• Will it help me as a leader if people see that I can't even control my own spheres of responsibility?
• What if I allow my empowering agenda to be undermined by an alternative agenda - one that at times appears to try to centralise control, whilst paying lip service to devolved responsibility?
• I took this job because I thought I could achieve more for the inclusion of socially excluded people if I had some control over policy and strategy in a significant area of interest. Am I in fact abrogating an hypothetical responsibility to use my power to empower, or is that just false reasoning and self-justifying (learning-org has an interesting summarised thread related to this)?

Either way, if I say "no" or "stop it" to colleagues, it will both irritate them and stress me; do I need either? I know I have strong support to lead firmly in my area, but can a strongly assertive leader really authentically empower marginalised people?

"Should I embrace it with open arms or run away screaming, as fast as I can?”

We manage our own projects; we also channel privately raised funds from our network of over-developed country programmes, into our under-developed country programmes. There is also a corporate desire to devolve responsibilities from headquarters out into the regional and country programmes. This is taking multiple forms: the regions are already responsible (since two years ago) to coordinate the links between under-developed country programmes in their area, and over-developed parts of our global network. Last year, country strategy was devolved into the hands of the regions (with the expectation that they would facilitate but not control country strategy development). Now, moves are afoot to devolve the majority of funding decisions to the regional offices.

Should I embrace it with open arms or run away screaming, as fast as I can? In the past, funding decisions were made by a central committee. In future, it'll be up to each region to determine its own funding approval system, but based on central guidelines. But I feel like a fox being asked to guard the farmer's chickens: I value my project management support role most; I preferred the past when the field team included the regional leadership and we all ate humble pie together when a project got rejected by the centre. In future, I could be cast in the role of the judge; how can I simultaneously advocate for and support my own project staff? I will become one of 'they' – the ones who judge and approve/reject. And what of accountability, for I shall no doubt be enormously tempted to approve projects the centre might once have rejected? Or is my perspective so badly distorted that I just can't appreciate the obvious benefits, or am seeing problems which don’t actually exist?

"...our organisation implicitly values misguided effort above well planned achievement..."

We're struggling to finalise our new global project document templates. I've endlessly argued that field staff need useful planning and management tools. In addition, I acknowledge that the organisation needs a usable funding proposal format.

In my opinion, one perpetual problem we endure is having no globally responsible Operations Manager who understands development principles alongside extensive field experience. Instead, we have allowed our financial wizards to control all globally relevant processes.

In practice it means that whilst notional effort has been put into writing a proposal template which simultaneously helps with project planning and management, in fact it improves little on the latter; or at least its marginal improvements pale into insignificance compared to the sea-change I'd prefer.

I'm left feeling that the consultant has not lifted my burden (draft version 5 but still predominantly only tinkering with our old format); now I have the prospect of designing my own project planning and management tools and selling staff the global forms simply as donor application forms: a somewhat distasteful but necessary linctus. (In fact, where we channel funds from a government donor to one of our projects, we're happy for our projects to use the donor-supplied format and simply fill in the Summary section of our own global template; I'll be sorely tempted to do the same for our own projects which utilise our maybe-to-be-designed local planning forms.)

Doubtless I will once again be labelled too pushy by colleagues. Or maybe I really am trying to push to improve too far too fast? But it seems to me that our organisation implicitly values misguided effort above well planned achievement. All rather frustrating, not least because I think our organisation lags significantly behind what COULD quite reasonably be achieved...

"...some of my own country teams are for some reason deliberately side-stepping our own organisational Goal and Objectives..."

I am vexed: What is an NGO's country strategy? I want to devolve decision making to our country teams; I have ensured that my regional strategy does not step on their toes, but supports what they think is necessary. But preview drafts suggest I may have made a basic mistake.

NB: some of our country programmes are independently registered local NGOs with their own governing boards. Others are implementing arms of our global organisation. Up till now, I expected that independent NGOs would exhibit some gaps in their strategy, i.e. my expectations would not exactly overlap their aspirations. But naively I had not expected the same for our own managed country programme teams (apart, perhaps, from programmes which had somehow 'missed the plot' and needed some management 'support').

Back at the main question: some country strategy drafts from some of our own managed teams not only have apparent strategy gaps, but have clearly been well thought through and participatory. In other words, some of my own country teams are for some reason side-stepping our own organisational Goal and Objectives, to some degree. What should I do?

At the moment, it looks like I will have to recognise that devolved decision making can lead to significant autonomy: if I wish to encourage this, I may need to recognise that whether we govern them or not, any country team with sufficient autonomy is liable to gaps in their country strategy. (This perhaps represents their self-referential thinking related to self-assessed measures of capacity and their balance of hope/despair.)

In my regional strategy, I am beginning to think that I must do three things: Firstly, the regional strategy should state how many gaps a particular country team strategy has (in other words I may have to add to a particular country strategy with reference to the country needs assessment and to other potential additional partners who could help fulfil 'my' country strategy). Secondly, I must consider whether my own country team leaders can represent me in designing country strategy, i.e. can they both facilitate their own team's autonomous 'country strategy', and consider the remaining gaps and how to fill them? Thirdly, a country manager (or myself) may have a broader 'shadow strategy' yet with gaps in the visible one. For example local stakeholders may unreasonably resist elements of the shadow strategy if they were made public; I may need to recognise that a sufficient strategy may actually have to have hidden elements.

But are these reasonable conclusions, I am asking myself? They make me slightly uncomfortable!