Latest / Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh / Leading Change in Complex Environments

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Leading Change in Complex Environments · Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh

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Hello everyone, and welcome to yet another episode of Chatting with
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the Experts TV show where I speak with amazing women from Africa, from
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the Caribbean, and in the diaspora.
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These women are professionals, and they are also successful business women,
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entrepreneurial women, and they share with me a mission which is to educate,
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empower, and inspire other women globally.
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I do this weekly and today's no exception.
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Today our topic is Leading Into Uncharted Territory, and my guest will
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be coming on shortly, says that leading into uncertain territory requires
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courage, adaptability, and vision.
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In an environment defined by uncertainty and complexity, leadership is not
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about having all the answers, but it's about navigating with vision,
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fostering trust, and resilience.
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Josephine Oguta has 25 years of strategic leadership experience in
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international development and human rights organizations, of which 19
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years she has spent specializing in leading change within global development
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organizations, designing inclusive governance frameworks that empower
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organizations to rethink their structures and policies, fostering power, balance,
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and strengthening inclusive decision making and broadening equitable
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South-South and North-South partnerships.
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She has led in organizations such as ActionAid International,
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SOS CVI CARE International, AMREF International, Help Age
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International-Kenya, amongst many others.
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Wow.
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My guests always fascinate me.
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So with that, i'd love to welcome Josephine to Chatting with the Experts.
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Welcome, Josephine.
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Thank you Paula.
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Pleasure to be with Chatting with the Experts.
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Thanks.
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Yes.
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Your bio is impressive.
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I didn't even know where to stop when reading it.
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I'm like, whoa, I've got a dynamite here on my hands.
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That's 23 years condensed in a paragraph.
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Condensed in a paragraph.
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Wow.
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Off camera I was saying to, or we were reminding each other how when
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we first met virtually, of course we meant to speak for 15 to 30 minutes.
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One hour later we had to say bye, and we still had so much to talk about.
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So, you know, when she told me that she could fit a busy calendar
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into my calendar, I grabbed it.
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And so, Josephine, thank you.
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You are welcome.
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My pleasure.
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So, you know, we are talking about Leading Into Uncharted Territory.
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In other words, providing clear direction in uncertainty, help
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us, expand on that for us, please.
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Well, I have been fortunate in my career to be hired or to serve in organizations
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that are interested in changing?
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You know, in the last, I would say two decades, most international development
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organizations have been very keen on changing how they're structured, the
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issues of neocolonialism, just balancing the power between the North and the
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South and localizing their operations.
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So I have been fortunate to help many of these international organizations
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in changing those structures.
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But many a times you find that there is a vision of what they want to become.
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But there are very little examples of who has done it.
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So it becomes very unchartered territories and all you've
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got is a vision to work with.
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I remember when I started at ActionAid International, we had a six page
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memorandum of understanding where the Northern founding organizations
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that come together and they say, we want to create a federation.
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Mm-hmm.
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And, ActionAid was operating in over 43 countries at the time, and they want to
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create a federation of equal members.
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At the time that, my goodness, that's almost 20 years ago now.
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In fact, it is exactly 20 years ago because those 2005, when I
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started off with ActionAid, and at the time when they looked at it,
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there were very few international organizations who had done that.
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Devolved their country offices to be independent entity, who then came back
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to more or less form this federation that empowered collectively, but also
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empowered them individually and therefore leading through that uncharted territory
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required building a lot of trust.
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It required the ability to explore.
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Be willing to make mistakes and quickly.
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I would say fall forward, accept when things are not working, and just
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re-engineer and move, re-engineer.
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The chair of the international board at the time would say, "we are
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building the boat while sailing".
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So you have the boat, but the full boat is not here, but we have to keep moving.
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If we stop sailing, we will drown.
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If we stop building, we will drown.
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So we have to keep just seeing what fits in and we keep
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building the boat while sailing.
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And therefore keeping a clear vision is one thing that I believe helped us
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in navigate that unchartered territory.
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Yes.
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Wow.
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So, you know, just thinking about that, building a boat while sailing
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means you have to build trust because you've gotta trust the captain,
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you've gotta trust the fellow sailors.
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You know, because you are sailing in uncharted waters.
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So how do you, I mean, how do you go about that?
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I mean, it takes courage.
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A lot of courage.
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It takes being open to change, being flexible.
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Tell us more.
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Because yeah, there's so much uncertainty in general.
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Yeah.
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Well, building trust, one thing that it takes, I would say that
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it takes a lot of courage and knowing who the stakeholders are.
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Sometimes it's easy to identify the bigger stakeholders who are loud in
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the process, and to really just hear them and believe that you are forming
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a structure that involves everyone.
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Because the louder parts of the organization may get heard more.
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But in order for you to build a system that people really trust, you
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have to be courageous enough to go into the smaller country offices.
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The smaller stakeholders whose voices maybe have been stifled throughout
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the history of the organization and hearing from them, what does
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this change really mean for them.
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What does being empowered really mean to them?
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And not only being empowered, but are they ready to take on that power and be
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different in the process of that power?
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Because one of the things that I realized was as you are working to empower the
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southern part of the organization mostly, there's usually hesitation because they
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tell you we want to be empowered, but we are fearing this power will mean that
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if we don't look enough like say Action eight uk, then we are not succeeding.
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But do we have a safe space to be empowered and to operate, to
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remain authentic to our identity?
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So building trust that this system is actually opening doors and
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it's not a cookie cutting system.
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It is authentic and there is legitimacy behind it is really important as
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you speak and you are moving forward with change because change can be
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very theoretical and superficial.
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And we know sometimes, especially in the development organization, sometimes
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the organization is implementing a change just because a donor has
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asked for it, but at the heart of the organization it isn't there.
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And if you're working in many international organizations that
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have experienced several changes that are not authentic, then
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there's usually a lot of hesitation.
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So you have to fast peel off that layer of mistrust and then communicate that
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vision and prove to them that this is authentic and they can actually own it.
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Yes.
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Building that ownership trust and ensuring that their voices are
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heard has been really important.
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Yes.
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Wow.
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Ensuring that their voices are really heard, you know, and it's not being
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influenced, as you said, by a donors.
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A donor's voice or donor's want, because, you know, sometimes what
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the donor wants is not what the people need or what the organization
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is even structured to undertake.
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Yes.
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Hmm.
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Yeah.
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And with localization actually, you find that sometimes donor needs have
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to be matched with the local needs.
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And if that's not matching, then it's impossible to have an authentic change.
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And, even those who are embracing the change cannot trust the system.
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They may do it, but there's no trust.
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I love that you stress that the donor needs have to match the localized needs.
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So how do you, as you know, you're dealing with human beings.
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How do you work around that?
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Especially as it's international, you work in a lot of international spaces.
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Yes, yes.
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How you, you know, do deal with that?
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Well, because you're moving into a space where you are asking
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organization to share power, and power is a very delicate matter.
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Yes.
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Sometimes we feel there is not enough to go round and I usually
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believe power is a very big pie.
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If you just cut it right, there's enough to go round.
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So how do you do that?
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It's first and foremost understanding where power has been imbalanced.
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Hmm.
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I genuinely addressing that and then finding out if the change
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that is being proposed is willing to address those power imbalances.
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Mm-hmm.
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Unless those power imbalances can be addressed, the change cannot be authentic.
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At the same time, those who are pushing or are willing to be empowered,
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and I would say to share the power also need to be accepting of the
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responsibility that comes with that.
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Because one thing that people forget is that when you've got power to do
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something, there's responsibility and accountability that comes with it.
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Yes.
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I remember whenever we spoke about independence, part of the
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organization becoming independent.
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Many organizations, part of the organizational country offices
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thought they could now do anything that they want, but in order to be
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part of an global ecosystem, there is more interdependence in this
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Yeah.
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Than independence and bringing out the interdependence component is earlier
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on in the conversation rather than later when people already have these
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false assumptions of what power means to them is very, very important.
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So you bring the interdependence need, we all need each other to succeed.
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What would that mean?
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What responsibility are you willing to take on?
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Which ones are imposed, which ones are legitimate?
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What that vision would look like for you?
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And also the parts of the organization that are devolving, maybe the excess
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power that they've held, finding out the implications of that, which one's a
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policy, what systems will be required, because you find usually most of the
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time the part of the organization that is devolving power has had the
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opportunity to make mistakes or to restructure for several decades.
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While if this power is being devolved to you, you are almost
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expected to hit the ground running.
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Mm-hmm.
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Hmm.
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And the question is, is there room for us to have a teething process?
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Mm-hmm.
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Is there a room to pilot before this is devolved too far?
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Is the capacity going to and systems going to be put in place and resources put in
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place before we are told we now need to be autonomous enough to raise our own funds?
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Is there going to be capacity devolved to a company, the responsibility?
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And that is a challenge because unfortunately sometimes, I've
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worked with organizations that the devolution is not purely strategy led,
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but it is resource constraint led.
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Mm-hmm.
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Where it's a strategy to do more and to have deeper impact, it
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has been a beautiful process.
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But where the headquarters are seeing the donor landscape changing and
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therefore they're devolving because they can no longer raise funds, say
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for emerging mid-income countries.
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And yet they had not invested sufficient capacity for these country offices
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to raise their own money, but they're being devolved to this responsibility.
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It has not been a very easy space.
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So, those are some of the challenges that comes with it and therefore
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change when it's at the heart of the mission and it's to expound impact,
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it's a beautiful process to work on the North-North South-South partnership,
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but where it's just as a way of now devolving responsibility because the
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donor appetite has diminished while the mission or the work is still
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relevant, it hasn't been an easy one.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I can only imagine the difficulties that arise from that.
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And that's where I guess you come into play, you know?
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Yes.
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But I believe it must take a lot of clear communication on both
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sides of letting people know.
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Okay.
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Like you said initially, that, donor needs need to match the local need.
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But then when you, you also mentioned that you know, when resources are,
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you know, restricted, then, you know, then that balance is not there.
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You know, if the donors aren't there, you still have the mission
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to be, you know, achieved.
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Yes.
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Oh, so now is that clear communication brought on?
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Is that encouraged at the onset?
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You know, like, okay, putting out all the possibilities that can happen and
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say, so if this happens, then how do you intend to, you know, work X, Y, Z?
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Oh, yes.
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Clear communication, because as you can imagine, it's a very uncertain space.
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Yeah.
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Yes, nobody knows.
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We all have a vision of what we want, but how do we get there?
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You could try one route, you try the other and it's not working.
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So you need to be very clear, first and foremost to why we are doing
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this, and transparently communicate.
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If it's due to funds that are dwindling, say it is due to dwindling resources.
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If it's mission driven, say it's for us to expand impact.
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So that, there's a system that enables you to succeed can be put in
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place and clear communication that's transparent can also be put in place.
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Now, clear communication.
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Sometimes you actually don't know what the next step looks like or would
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look like, and you yet you need to be ahead of the team at any given time.
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You need to be one step ahead.
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Mm-hmm.
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Otherwise, there's disarray.
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Now you need to know that when you are doing change, there is
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self preservation that is there.
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'cause some people like the current system and they don't see themselves
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surviving outside of the current system.
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There are those who are anxious about the new system and then there
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are those who are really excited.
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But if you level the ground by making transparent, clear communication
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available to everyone to have a conversation, leading leaders is very
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important because the leaders need to make sure that at every level where
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they are, they're communicating to all the levels of the organization.
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So making sure that every leader, whenever they go to their forum, their country
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team meetings, global meetings, they're clear about what we've done so far, where
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we are heading and some of the steps that needs to be still taken care of.
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Even if we don't know how, clarity on the what needs to get done in order
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for us to get where we are going is very important because as a leader, it
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gives you courage to defend the mission.
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But where there is so much uncertainty and yet communication is also not
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clear, people will fill in the vacuum.
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And, you know, nature oppose vacuum.
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Yes.
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People will be filling with their own assumptions, with their own fears,
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with their own anxiety or excitement.
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And you do not want 10 different narratives out there.
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So clear communication, where things are have been accomplished, what we
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are still struggling with, what we are hoping for needs to be out there.
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Yes.
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In that way, the rumors are muffled and confidence is built.
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Also, letting those who are involved in the change, take
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ownership of the messaging.
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And ask them to interpret it in their different languages.
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So that any staff, regardless of the level of their work, whether they're in
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the frontline, whether they just doing office administration, they understand
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what this change entails for them.
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Yes.
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I love that part about taking ownership of the messaging.
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You know, so that they understand what part and the impact that the
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messaging will have on, you know, the population that they're serving.
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Yes.
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That's so relevant.
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That's so needed, you know?
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Especially as you said, when things are so unpredictable.
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Yes.
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'cause it's not clear communication.
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It's not there and people jump in and you say some out of anxiety?
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Yes.
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Some out of excitement.
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It's a mixed message, isn't it?
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Yes.
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And even self preservation and yeah.
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Self preservation is there when you're changing.
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There's some people who like the current system.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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They really cannot imagine how the organization would look like
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outside of the current system.
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And remember, you're moving into unchartered territory, so you cannot
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even draw an example from within the organization to show them.
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Yes.
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Funny enough, the most recent changes I think have been slightly
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easier as opposed to when, ActionAid International will trailblazing.
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Right now you find there are more organizations that have done
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the localization in different ways, through networks, through
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federation, and therefore you can find more peer comparison.
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But I will not tell you that even if you have peer comparison, it's easier.
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Many organizations believe they are unique, so usually also communicating
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that yes, we may be unique, but we are not that different, and we can
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still borrow a leaf from a peer and then customize it to our own needs.
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But, making yourself absolutely unique as if there is nothing you can learn from the
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sector is also a narrative that has been used to more or less prevent the change.
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Mm-hmm.
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Yeah.
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So consistently saying, yes, there are others who've done it and succeeded is
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making these changes a bit easier lately.
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But, bold organization like ActionAid International, it was at the heart of
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their mission and they were willing to build the boat as they sailed.
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And it was a very exciting opportunity working with them.
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I mean, it's been almost, I would say, wow, I would say 14 years since
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I worked with ActionAid, but that change shaped the lens through which
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I see institutional transformation.
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I've done several transformations since then.
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And I would say many of them have succeeded because I know
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what authentic change looks like.
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And therefore if you have a good benchmark, it's very easy to
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know when things are not going according to authentic change.
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Yes, it was a very authentic process.
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Wow.
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So with that one, I'm just, I mean, I'm curious about the ActionAid international,
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because I know being international, there's so much in the world.
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I mean, we had the Miramar earthquake.
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We've got, you know, Ukraine war.
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We have so much going on, and it's been 14 years, as you said, since
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you worked alongside with them.
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Yes.
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Are you still in contact with people there?
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Just curious.
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Oh, yes.
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Oh yes.
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I'm still in contact with them because, I mean, as I said, it was a very
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authentic change that required you not only to be professionally involved.
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There was a lot of emotional involved investment that went into that change.
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I would, I remember the times when the CEO and I, there's a board meeting coming
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up and we need to present a structure.
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There was a time we worked two days almost back to back when we were
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shaping the federation structure.
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We had a consultant who'd done a research for us, and when
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they gave us a final paper.
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It wasn't anywhere near world we had envisaged.
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Ooh.
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And so we had to rewrite it in two days.
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Ooh.
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Yes.
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Because we knew what the organization wanted, and so we
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said, no, there is a framework here.
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Let's dig within us and populate it.
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Let's not throw away the baby with the bath water.
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What the consultant has given is a good framework.
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But it's not what we want.
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And we were able to populate it.
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And actually that is a federal structure that is currently driving ActionAid.
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Yeah.
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Over 14 years later.
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So, there was a lot of investment and yes, I've been involved with ActionAid.
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Since then, I've facilitated one of their general assembly meetings where it was,
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I mean, it was private when I left, they had like, 12 new members who had come in.
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14 in the process.
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But when I was facilitating this general assembly of members, there were like 38
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members eligible to vote in the room from six where we had, it was just a pride to
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see the international board is so diverse.
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This is an organization that started with a UK only board.
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Then the UK board started diversifying a bit and now if you look at
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their board, it's a global board.
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You know, you want someone from South America, you'll find them.
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They're North America, Europe, Africa, and it's not just Africa as one.
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They acknowledge that there are different parts of Africa, so
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you'll find East, West, North, South Africa all represented in there?
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Yes.
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So Australia, because they work across Australia.
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So, I mean it was, I would say it was a gift that I managed
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to get back into that space.
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I've worked closely with some of their national boards just because
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the moment you are empowered to have a local board, your board also needs
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to understand how to govern locally, being local and global at the same time.
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So you have almost dual citizenship.
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I've worked with some of their country offices in defining that
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space and ensuring that their local boards are strong enough.
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I would say that the other organization that I worked with that impressed
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me was World Vision International.
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World Vision.
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Yeah.
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World Vision International has a very interesting system in that their change
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was not externally driven at all.
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Hmm.
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It was internal.
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They looked at the themselves as a Christian international organization
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and they said, we are all part of one body, and every part of the body
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has its purpose and therefore the hand cannot do what the foot does.
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The eyes cannot do what the hands do, and it is important that we acknowledge
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and treasure each part of this body.
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So we are one body, one federal body, but we are a single partnership
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and they brought in members from all parts of the organization.
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Although they are federation, it's a very different kind of federalism.
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So sometimes you find a lot is still centralized, but they are
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open to empowering every part of the organization because they know the
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hands need to be the strongest hands.
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In order for the whole body to function effectively.
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The eyes need to be the best sight.
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20/20 vision.
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Yes.
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20/20 vision in order for them to have clear foresight.
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So with that principle, you find balancing the power becomes much easier for them.
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They're not struggling against external forces.
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It's internally motivated.
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So it's unique.
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They're rarely used as a benchmark, but you find because it's
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internally motivated, they actually have a very healthy federation.
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Their approach is very different.
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So many organizations that try to structure into global federations
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rarely use one vision as a benchmark.
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But I went in there and one thing I learned about was the graduation process
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of taking institution step by step and allowing them space to participate
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even while they're still growing.
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As part of their growth process.
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So that was a good five years experience there too.
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So I've gleaned from different organizations here and there.
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So I think those who I'm working with right now, yes, there is a
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treasure trove of different kinds of examples we can draw from.
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Yes.
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You know, world Vision just touched my heart because you said it's a Christian
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organization and I'm a Christian, and it just touched, you know, it's biblical.
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I mean, I think it's in First Corinthians.
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Yes, yes.
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12?
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Yes, it is.
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Yeah.
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Yes.
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It says, you know, there are many parts, but one body Yes, but one.
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Yes.
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That seems to be the principle... once you started talking about it.
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That mean I started getting very excited, just thinking, wow, I mean this is exactly
28:52
what the body of Christ stands for.
28:54
You know?
28:55
Yes, yes.
28:55
Hands cannot do what the foot is doing, but you need the strong hands, as you
28:59
said, to lift up what needs to be carried.
29:02
You need the 20/20 vision so that we can have foresight, whoa.
29:09
And if you look at it in reality, then the federal principle that
29:13
govern that body are very authentic.
29:18
Mm-hmm.
29:18
In and of themselves.
29:20
Yes, yes, yes.
29:21
So, the systems around that usually does it make that part of the body
29:26
strong enough to handle or to do the best that it's supposed to do.
29:31
So it's a very different kind of question to when you're just looking
29:34
at federalism as a political or an organizational structured theory.
29:39
Yeah, yeah.
29:40
Yeah.
29:41
Wow.
29:42
Yes.
29:43
Oh my gosh.
29:44
I could talk with you forever, but there's something,
29:46
I know.
29:48
Something you talked about because with all of this, as you say, we're still
29:51
dealing with human beings, trying to take care of human beings problems in one way.
29:54
'cause we did live in a world and it's humans who run the
29:58
world for the most part.
30:00
Yes.
30:00
In your work so far with all these international organizations, how open
30:05
are people to like falling forward, learning from and embracing their mistakes
30:11
while, you know, learning at the same time and celebrating that, you know,
30:16
we are human, you're going fail that, you know, things are gonna go wrong.
30:21
Yes.
30:21
I would say.
30:24
Theoretically you'll find that, it's written that yes, we are
30:28
willing to fail and fall forward.
30:33
And usually, how do I put this in a neat way?
30:40
You find that there is more, I'll say more grace accorded to other parts
30:47
of the organization than to others.
30:50
Mm.
30:52
And therefore you find that a mistake in one part of the organization
30:58
could be considered as, oh, that's a learning opportunity.
31:02
Mm-hmm.
31:04
Whereas a mistake in another part of the organization is you failed.
31:09
You do not deserve to get that opportunity again, and therefore, while handling this
31:16
change, balancing that tension to ensure that everybody has equal opportunity
31:21
to fall forward and to self correct is provided is usually a very big challenge.
31:29
First and foremost, there are resources involved because whatever you did,
31:33
even if it was experimental, there were resources that were invested in it.
31:37
Mm-hmm.
31:38
Time that was invested in it.
31:40
Humanitarian organizations, the mission, the frontline is an emergency.
31:44
Constantly life issues don't wait.
31:47
So with limited resources to facilitate actual institutional
31:51
change, sometimes the space for falling forward could be limited.
31:56
And if you don't ingrain it in the change process and say that there
32:01
have to be resources invested in experimenting and opportunities to learn.
32:09
It makes actually the failures less expensive when you don't accord
32:14
that opportunity to fall forward.
32:17
I don't want to call it failure because there's a lot of
32:19
learning that comes through it.
32:22
When you don't put resources into it and you just insist on staying
32:26
on a specific path, even if it's not proving to be the right path.
32:30
Mm-hmm.
32:32
It normally you say, oh, this change the direction was wrong.
32:36
We made a mistake.
32:37
What we had previously was better than what we are aspiring for.
32:41
But the reality is that no, you did not give the change the
32:46
opportunity to crystallize and to transform with the organization.
32:52
Yes, yes.
32:53
So falling forward, yes, it's a good space to create, but resources
32:59
have to be put or invested there for organizations to learn, for people,
33:05
to re-engineer, go back to the drawing board and say, what needs to change here?
33:10
What worked well, what didn't work well, and how can we forge forward?
33:15
Yes.
33:17
Josephine, this has been an incredible learning session for me, as I know it
33:21
has been for those who have joined us.
33:23
So for those who will later ask you questions yeah, they have
33:27
an opportunity to ask you all.
33:29
I mean, there's so many more questions I have for you, but
33:32
we'll leave that for the audience.
33:33
But if someone wants to get in touch with you who's watching
33:36
this recording and hasn't had the opportunity to join in the audience,
33:43
how can they get in touch with you?
33:44
Where can they find you online?
33:47
Well online, LinkedIn, I'm Josephine Oguta on LinkedIn or Josephine Oguta.
33:53
And, via email if you'd like to reach me via email, I'm on
33:56
josephine_oguta@outlook.com.
33:59
That is O-G-U-T-A at outlook.com and I'm always happy to connect any
34:07
other channel that the person who contacts me would like to get in touch.
34:11
Yes.
34:12
And I'm currently in full-time consultancies.
34:15
I usually have, well, after five years of service, I take a break, go
34:20
out, learn from other organization as I also pour into them what
34:24
I've learned from my experiences.
34:26
So I'm currently in full-time consultancy, looking at organization,
34:31
redesign, development, governance, restructuring, and I'm enjoying it so far.
34:36
Yes.
34:37
My last assignment, just having been with SOS CVI, which was an exciting,
34:42
challenging one as 75-year-old organization that was totally
34:46
transforming its governance structure.
34:48
So it was an exciting one, but successful one.
34:51
And, I'm looking forward to many more coming up.
34:55
Yes.
34:55
That's so exciting.
34:57
So exciting.
34:58
Yes.
34:59
And for those of you who enjoyed what you just heard,
35:01
who listened to Josephine Oguta.
35:04
If you'd like to be a guest just like she has been, please reach out
35:07
to me, Paula Okonneh on my website, which is chattingwiththeexperts.com.
35:13
I'm on LinkedIn as Paula Okonneh.
35:15
I also have a page there.
35:17
I have to look into that even more.
35:20
I am on Instagram and my handle there is at chat_expert_podcast.
35:29
I'm on Facebook as Paula Okonneh, and I also have a business page, which is
35:33
Chatting with the Experts on Facebook.
35:37
At last, but not least, we have a YouTube channel.
35:41
It's Chatting with the Experts.
35:43
So subscribe, visit me on LinkedIn, on all the other social media
35:49
resources, I mentioned, which is IG, Facebook, and reach out to
35:54
me and you in turn can inspire, motivate, and empower women globally.
36:01
So now, well, thank you so much again, Josephine.
36:03
This has been very, very, very interesting.
36:07
30 plus minutes hearing more about, Hmm.
36:11
Leading in uncharted territory.
36:17
Thank you.
36:18
Thank you, Paula.
36:19
It's been a pleasure.
36:21
Now we open up the floor to all those who joined us.
36:25
Thanks.