A Train-the-Trainer Workshop for NGOs

CCL hosted our first Leadership Beyond Boundaries Train-the-Trainer Program on February 11-22, 2008 in Greensboro, North Carolina. Participants from Cherokee Gives Back, CHF, IntraHealth, LEAP Africa, TISS, UWI, and World Vision traveled from Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, the Caribbean, India, and North America to attend the program.

The program was prompted by NGO client requests for facilitation training to be provided along with leadership development content and tools. For the program we used an approach known as the CCL Way, a methodology used to prepare new CCL trainers in facilitation techniques and the core concepts that form CCL's approach to leadership development. In addition, the training included orientation to assessments and coaching, and modules and exercises related to change, conflict, decision-style, and influence.

The two week pilot program provided valuable learning for both CCL and the participants. The Center plans to offer future workshops in Africa and India.

Learning to Lead

By Philomena Rego

As a social worker educated in India, I had been through a graduate program where field placement was a requirement. At the time, only a few institutions were doing internships and fieldwork but now these approaches are commonplace in colleges as a way of providing students with practical experience.

Looking back, I gained work exposure and the application of theory to practice from the fieldwork, but the experience produced little insight about myself and my ability to work with others. It was ultimately of little long-term value.

In returning to India with an eye for ways to make leadership development possible for young people, it occurs to me that these field experiences are a fertile ground for building self-awareness and team skills. For this, we can couple these programs with assessment, reflection, coaching, and feedback. This would impart students with not only practical experience in their field of study, but the critical leadership skills that they can use for a lifetime.

Employers in India have complained that fresh hires arrive with a deficit of soft skills. The value of this particular approach is that with the added leadership emphasis, we could transform a common practice into a potentially powerful and valuable action learning platform.

We’ve begun discussions with a couple of Indian colleges to work to prototype an action learning approach for students. If successful they may be a model that can be scaled across the educational landscape to help turn a new generation of learners into leaders.

Designing a Sustainable Future

At the Design with India conference I attended in Bangalore, Geetha Narayanan, the founder of Srishti asked, is the current economic model (that pits development against the environment) the only way forward for India. While the conference showcased the work of talented commercial designers, the role of design as a means to take on social challenges was very much front and center. How can we make sure that economic development doesn’t marginalize the poor or destroy the environment? In Bangalore, the pace of development is simply staggering. New shopping malls, office complexes, residential high-rises, and a commercial airport are all mushrooming, outpacing roads, power, and water supply. The growth is dynamic and creating prosperity, but not without unwanted side effects. The idea that design can make a difference is key.

Design thinking doesn’t assume that what’s gone before is what should be, or that problems are intractable. The ability to envision and enact fresh solutions is predicated on the belief that such solutions are possible in the first place. Poonam Kasturi is a designer who is building such solutions. She is created Daily Dump (http://www.dailydump.org/), an enterprise to support urban composting. Sixty percent of Bangalore’s urban waste is organic. Turning it into compost, reduces landfill and facilitates recycling of the non-organic waste, such as cardboard and plastic. Poonam’s solution is an elegant stack of earthen pots that can fit physically and aesthetically into small urban apartments. At Poonam’s design school, Srishti, alumni say what they learn that is the most important is the ability to think creatively. A broader challenge for India, is to increase the number of people who can think and create the kind of future we want.

The Center is working in India to increase the number of creative thinkers in an educational environment that has traditionally favored rote learning. In meetings with a number of educational institutions we’ve found a readiness to think about the role of creativity and leadership in preparing students for the future. We’ll have more to report on this front in the months to come.

Leadership Tools for Grassroots Trainers

One of the fronts in our exploration is the creation of leadership development tools that can be used by grassroots leadership trainers. In India we tested whether the CCL tool Visual Explorer – a set of pictures used to facilitate creative thinking and group dialogue – could be used by trainers who work with youth and community organizations. Philomena Rego observed two tests with Adrian Rosario, a leadership trainer who had only been provided Visual Explorer tool along with simple written instructions. She reports:

We used Visual Explorer with a group of 185 college and working youth in South Bombay, India. The facilitator used Visual Explorer with the framing question: where are you in the bigger picture? These youth were asked to consider where they see themselves playing a role at the present how they could become more involved in playing a leadership role. It was amazing to see them in small groups talking about their role in schools and at work and how they are able to make a difference in their own small ways. Some of these young students felt that they had the responsibility to make this world a better place for everyone.

Jeevan Dhara is an NGO based in Cheetah Camp, Mumbai. This is Asia's second largest slum. Jeevan Dhara operates pre-school classes for children, adult literacy classes and study classes. It also works on HIV/AIDS issues and drug & alcohol rehabilitation. Visual Explorer was used with the teachers of the above programs. The framing question used was "how do you see your work/role in this community?" The session was conducted in Hindi, as the teachers are mostly Muslim, and Hindi is the most understood language in Mumbai slums. The teachers enjoyed the session which was aimed at improving their ability to work together and stay committed, inspite of the difficulties. VE helped them to express themselves more freely since they were speaking about the picture they had picked. The pictures do not have any language barriers.

Another Visual Explorer session was held with a small group of Young Christian Workers in Mumbai on August 24th. This group wanted to help each other see the importance of belonging to the group and sharing their thoughts. The group felt the pictures made it easy for them to talk about themselves and what each of them contributes to make the group strong and meaningful.

The success of Visual Explorer in field tests such as this has encouraged us to pursue the development of a broader range of inexpensive tools that can be used by grassroots trainers, teachers, and community workers. These tools work best when they are simple to use and flexible in their range of application. More on Visual Explorer at: http://cclve.blogspot.com/.

Developing NGO Leaders with TISS

By Philomena Rego

India has an estimated 1.2 million NGOs. They work with the poor, exploited, and disadvantaged populations. Many NGOs serve their constituents through developing their empowerment and skills. Their own employees on the other hand do not get much by way of training. On our immersion last year we met with over 50 NGOs who expressed the need for leadership development. NGOs work in difficult environments and cant't pay people as much as corporations. The lack of development and support reduces their ability to acquire and retain talent and impedes their impact in advancing their mission. This is a critical issue as many NGOs seek to deal with complex challenges and scale up operations to serve more people.

To address the needs of NGOs in India, CCL in collaboration with TISS -- a highly-regarded university in Mumbai focused on social work, HR and other human services professions -- has begun to create a leadership development program for senior NGO executives. TISS is doing impressive work to scale up education and skills development (more on TISS in a future post). We found that we saw a common need to build NGO capacity through leadership development.

To inform program design work, in August 2007, we did a three day demonstration program led by Karen Dyer with 25 participants from various NGOs from Mumbai. The program was based on the Center's assessment, challenge and support model. We used assessment instruments, experiential activities, and rounded it up with a deep debrief. Karen also facilitated a half-day leadership program for some 20 school principals.

The NGO program will couple hard and soft skills development and be offered by TISS. As second stage will be to offer the program through other deemed universities in India (and beyond), and develop parallel offerings for government administrators and SMEs.

Leadership Development is Not Wasted on the Young

B. Muthuraman, Managing Director of Tata Steel and mastermind behind the Corus acquisition, states in an interview that soft skills constitute a major portion of a manager’s success, but are not well developed even in the best b-schools. “80 percent of good management,” he says, “is based on what I call the behavioral traits of a person – it is the mindset and attitudinal make up of a person that makes him or her a successful executive and leader.”

In India, soft skills get short shrift at educational institutions that reward students for performance on exams. As we reported earlier, the economic boom in the country needs professionals who can hit the ground running, yet companies have to spend significant time – sometimes yearlong immersions – prepping new hires for the job.

What can be done to remedy this? Muthuraman suggests that binding reflection to action may be a key to helping young people mature more quickly as leaders: “…much of the development of a human being happens through self-reflection and follow-up action. Students and executives should spend organized time with themselves – reflect on their thinking process, aspirations, strengths… ‘Reflection and action’ is the mantra for personal and professional growth.”

The Center is developing a series of offerings to accelerate and support experiential leadership development for students and young professionals. These offerings for young people have relevance not only in India, but also in many emerging economies where the talent gap is a key concern.

Enabling Young Professionals in India to Reach their Potential

By Joel Wright

This project grew out of the work of the Global Voice of Leadership (GVOL) effort at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) to examine opportunities for “democratizing leadership development”. Through this goal, CCL seeks to make leadership development available to more people. The GVOL effort is exploring two areas of relevance to this report – Young Professionals, and Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in India. Early research and conversations with Indian executives suggest that these two groups may be underserved in regards to professional and leadership development. We thus began a series of activities to answer three key questions:

1. To what extent do corporations and young professionals perceive a need for young professional leadership development?
2. Would new leadership initiatives be beneficial for young professionals, businesses and NGOs in India?
3. What are the specific needs for young professional leadership development and what strategies would be most acceptable and effective?

In an effort to understand these complexities, CCL sent a team of professionals to India and hired a leading design and innovation firm for this project.

Our Approach

When we arrived we were overwhelmed by the amazing culture, food and welcoming hospitality. The start of our visit coincided with the Ganesh Chaturthi which we learned was a festival of good omens, prosperity and luck. Perhaps a good sign for what the future would bring.

In no time we found ourselves talking with a broad spectrum of people. Our exploration took us into the educational backgrounds and developmental foundations of young professionals. We explored the choices they made as they navigated their way through schooling and into the early years of work. We spoke with educational institutions, corporate executives, HR managers, independent trainers, young professionals, NGOs and foundations that fund grants for learning, development and leadership. Each establishment provided us with a great deal of information.

Between the two projects we met with 43 organizations and about 200 people. Of the sectors visited, 42% were NGOs, 37% were corporations, and 21% were educational institutions, and training centers. (Fig. 1)

Challenge, Change and Opportunity

We heard that for young professionals, corporations, and educational institutions in India this is a time of significant change, adaptation and growth.

The overall picture that emerged from our conversations across the nation was:

· The high growth in India has generated a tremendous demand for young professionals
· Many organization are struggling to attract, develop, and retain talent
· A key factor is that the overall educational system is doing a poor job of preparing people with soft skills (versus book knowledge)
· Companies are working hard to develop training programs to address this need

We note three areas that would increase young professional staff retention, their overall development and performance, and the overall strength of the organizations.

1.) Preparation – do as much as possible to prepare young people before they land in the work world.
2.) Transition – enhance the transition into their place of employment where mentoring, coaching continued learning, training, and career guidance become a common practice.
3.) Support – continue to prepare this group to become effective team players and managers.

Preparation

“Something needs to be done about that.” This is what one corporate trainer said referring to how young professionals are not being prepared with the skills needed for the work environment. While many young professionals and leaders in organizations expressed the need for better preparation, our findings show that a piece of the problem is young professionals have false expectations about the work world. Many describe the transition as “shocking”, or “what you think of the work world is very different than the way it is”. Others elaborated by saying, “the sort of mindset you get in the MBA is that you have these theories and this is how organizations work and if you apply this you can do whatever you want. But that…just doesn’t happen…it doesn’t work…it comes down to practical human interaction”. “Practical human interaction” is one way many express the recognition and need to develop soft skills, team work and interpersonal understanding prior to the work world.

Although soft skills are seen as essential in the work world, college students in India see classes in leadership and soft skills as of little importance. “During education, even when doing teamwork exercises, I didn’t understand the importance, [there was] no context or introduction”. Additionally, it was shared that classroom based team building projects could not compare with work place team dynamics, diversity of people, and challenges.

Some schools, however, are rising to the challenge by incorporating team assignments, field work and internships into their curriculum. These institutions won much praise from employers for the quality of their graduates. While some students at top schools are beginning to receive better preparation and training, there are many more who attend more traditional schools. For them, their preparation offers very little exposure to industry, leadership development or team building. Overall, nearly everyone expressed the need for less theory and more practical experience. With this in mind, it is not surprising to hear a lead executive say “only 20% of the graduates are employable.”
Transition

While better preparation for the work world and the development of “soft skills” are one demand of the day, the next is to address the transition of young professionals (from their university and into their first few years in the work world) and the need to accelerate their learning to meet the fast paced growth taking place in India.

“In our culture…we do not emphasize identity from childhood; a child can never say that I believe this, I like this”. In fact, until the start of their careers, many young professionals describe their situation as being on a “railroad track” or “always in queue” and rarely having to make life directing decisions. A VP of HR expressed how, “self awareness is not in management institutes” and that he needs “people who can think.” As a result, this lack of self-awareness is carried into the work world leading to time and “energy that is just getting wasted here and there” until the young professional “sits back and thinks about what it is they want from a job and if they’re getting it or not.” It’s not until this happens that young professionals will align themselves with the proper position and be able to be clear about their goals and what they want from career and life.

Some young professionals talked about how their “fresher” year-long exposure program had an impact in helping them align their potential with career prospects. They explain how the program was designed to introduce them to different departments within the organization, share ideas with managers and develop relationships that would allow for future cross departmental collaborations. As a result, young professionals are able to better understand the individual departments and the organization as a whole. Moreover, they are able to observe and learn about potential career paths they might choose.

Some organizations even blend exposure experiences with international immersions. One training director describes the impact of an international experience on young professionals as, “they come back a changed person, exuding with confidence”. One young professional stated that, “I got the big picture when I visited the U.S. [Prior to that I] was just doing coding, just [doing] a piece of the puzzle. Once I saw the end product and received feedback from customers I realized I was doing something important”.

Several individuals we met who didn’t receive these immersion experiences felt neglected and more inclined to jump ship for better advancement opportunities and pay. Others, who worked hard to get ahead of the pack and be noticed, hinted that stress and pressure was taking a toll. Almost all spoke of the importance of good managers as role models and mentors who made a great difference in their lives.

Support – Coaching for Capacity

As young professionals transition into the work world, support from within the organization becomes crucial to their ongoing development and success. Many organizations are recognizing the need for a heightened developmental approach for young professionals and are designing valuable programs that enhance self-awareness, professional growth and the sustainability of both. One way organizations are beginning to do this is by institutionalizing coaching.

While ideally the immediate managers of these young professionals should play the role of a coach, many are young professionals themselves and are still learning basic managerial skills. One expressed how he was, “not experienced to facilitate difficult situations in the office” and that "initially it was difficult to disassociate personal ambition and views from the situation at hand”. Young managers are often “prepared to manage process but not people” and need to “learn how to communicate, how to get people to do their work, how to develop support, and convince/negotiate with people.” Most young professionals do not have this type of experience and thus are learning on the job.

Not only are young managers not reaching their potential, they are also not able to support those they supervise. For one VP of HR, his biggest fear is that a young manager might “kill” unidentified talent and drive them out of the organization. Because of the potential impact on the organization and the challenges young professionals face, many indicate an immense need for support and coaching.

One intriguing approach adopted by a leading business school was to pair fresh graduates with senior alumni mentors. These mentors were helpful in guiding these graduates as they encountered difficult challenges of new jobs.

Convergence of the Social and Corporate Sectors

In addition to our work with young professionals in the corporate world, we were also exploring the need for NGO leadership development. What we found was that skills learned within the social sector were applicable and highly effective in the corporate sector. This convergence of the social and corporate sector is seen by some as not only a way to give back but also a way for both sides to learn and grow. These professionals described their experiences within NGOs as life changing, challenging, and very different than the corporate world, causing them to think in different ways.

One NGO we visited specializes in recruiting students for extended assignments in rural India. Participants in these programs described the experience as powerful learning opportunities that expanded their abilities, self-awareness, and confidence.

Could the social sector be a training ground for more young professionals? Evidence from both the NGO sector and the corporate sectors, leads us to believe that both could benefit greatly from the convergence of the two.

Observations

There is little doubt that India is booming with opportunity. Those with whom we met were excited and optimistic about the challenges and changes confronting India. Most were aware of the situations connected to preparation, transition and support and were either already responding to them or were eager to help address them.

We noticed a significant role for educational institutions to do more in preparing young adults with soft skills and real-life experiences. Our sense is that colleges and universities are a critical point at which to help young professionals reach their potential and thus should be an area of focus. In addition, we observed the need to accelerate learning and experience for young professionals as they transition from educational institutions and into the workplace. It’s here where corporations need to provide more support and coaching to facilitate the development of future managers.

The Center for Creative Leadership is in the process of working to help address the leadership development needs we encountered.

Understanding NGO Leadership Development Needs in India

By Philomena Rego

Over the course of two months, we visited a range of NGOs across India: urban and rural, large and small. They included educational institutions providing professional degrees, training facilities and independent trainers providing non-formal education, grant-making organizations, community development organizations, microfinance associations, self-help groups, and organization addressing public health. These conversations with more than 100 NGO representatives touched on key challenges for the sector and the need for leadership development. The following is some of what we heard.

A Time of Challenge and Opportunity

We heard that the 1 million NGOs had a significant role to play in India. The economic growth in India has created new opportunities for disadvantaged populations but also exposes them to the threat of greater exploitation and displacement.

Many NGOs were working to ensure that India’s poor were not further marginalized and were able to take advantage of the forces of growth and globalization. In many cases, organizations had begun to leverage the talents and power of rural populations and the poor to transform their situations. We heard that the poor should not be looked at as hapless recipients of aid but as people with skills, influence, land and other resources. The approaches adopted by NGOs were participatory and inclusive of the knowledge and creativity the poor had acquired. The efforts were geared to help unlock the economic potential and collective power of these populations and make them partners in development.

The organizations we visited had almost without exception developed effective models and aspired to scale their operations to serve more people and communities. The core challenges they faced were financial and human resources for sustaining growth.

NGO Capacity

Many NGOs are having difficulty attracting educated professionals, especially those willing to work in rural areas. Trained MSWs have lucrative opportunities working abroad and it is also becoming increasing difficult to retain talent in the face of fast growth in the corporate sector. BPOs, banks and other growing sectors are able to poach employees away with offers of much higher salaries and advancement opportunities.

NGOs have adopted a couple of strategies in this regard. Some institutions have begun hiring recent graduates and providing them a year-long training with the expectation that they would stay on. Another approach is recruiting talent from rural communities and providing training to enable them to work in the field. This strategy is effective in that rural recruits are familiar with local communities and are more likely to stay on the job. The limitation, however, is that these local recruits lack confidence (to interact with government officials and funders) and managerial skills.

We heard about a degree of tension within established NGOs between older employees and educated recruits. The lack of readiness to change by senior people in the organization is a source of frustration for increasingly impatient younger employees and in some cases the key reason for their departure.

A concern is that many NGOs had not substantially enhanced their ability to embed and share leadership within the organization. In some cases founders and senior leaders hold a tight grip over shaping the course of the organization.

One large NGO that we encountered had achieved a strong culture of inclusive leadership. We found their staff to extremely engaged, satisfied, and committed – “here there are bosses but no bossism” a staff person declared. This was the result of years of dedicated effort in building an inclusive culture through the development of staff throughout the organization.

Training and Development

Many NGOs recognize the need for enhancing technical skills in the area of management. In our encounters, the need for leadership development of NGO staff was not often a priority. Organizations were committed first to the constituents they served and seemed far less focused on the development of their staff. Learning occurred primarily on the job and most training was focused on job-related skills. Few organizations appear to focus much on “self actualization” for staff. This lack of personal development, stated one educator, was a factor in the high burnout rates and stagnation present in the sector. “People need rejuvenation” observed the president of a large NGO.

In some cases there was skepticism that leadership could be developed and needed to be available for staff at large. A foundation representative stated that there needs to be better validation of the value of leadership development at lower levels. Other institutions, however, voiced the perspective that leadership development had broad value based on the premise that one could enact leadership “without being in a position of authority.” The skills identified for training included: identity development, self-confidence, motivation, perspective development, articulation of thoughts and public speaking, risk taking, team building and relationship development, conflict management, and building consensus.

With regard to training there is also the expressed tension between being able to afford time for staff to attend programs (“only people who have no work can attend training”) and the realization that self study or online programs are not adequate for learning. One individual put it this way “you can’t learn leadership from a book; it is akin to reading a menu and feeling full.”

The existing training programs we encountered were usually delivered by independent trainers and used dialogue, role play, and group exercises to help individuals assess strengths and weaknesses, and build skills and abilities. These programs were often delivered at very low cost with basic amenities and residential options to make them affordable.

A number of educational and training institutions we visited were working to do more for NGO professionals. They are planning to ramp up new offerings to provide NGO staff with ongoing professional development. Even so, these institutions admitted that it was hard to scale their operations enough to address the vast need for training in adequate measure.

Collective Capacity

The NGOs we visited had established effective models for addressing social needs and had plans for expansion. Many of the organizations, however, saw the scope of need in India to far exceed their present reach of activities. This was related to the shortage of human resources – “we need a lot more qualified people in the field” – as well as their ability to address the vast challenges alone. In many cases organizations expansion plans were linked to forming alliances with other NGO, corporate, and governmental entities.

The need for collective effort was emphasized by several people with whom we spoke. We heard that there is a critical need to work constructively with governmental agencies, corporations, and funding bodies. Embedded in this was the recognition that these entities had differing agendas that were not always seen to be in the interest of the poor. Concern was expressed about corporate social responsibility being primarily about public relations than creating change. A founder of a rural NGO also voiced dissatisfaction that large NGOs had a tendency to become big bureaucracies that simply subcontracted work and did so with short attention spans – “you can’t subcontract vision or passion.”

We nevertheless heard expressed the need for NGOs to work together more effectively to align efforts, share learning and best practices, and consolidate their power. An older NGO mentioned that with maturity they were now less concerned that partnering with another NGO would enable the other to “steal their funding.”

Some educational institutions saw a role for them to play in enhancing NGO networks and the cross-sector sharing of knowledge.

Observations

There is clearly much pressure on the NGO sector to address significant challenges in India related to deep rooted poverty and rapid change. The commitment, achievements, and vision of the people at the NGOs we met were inspirational and provide much hope.

Our sense is that leadership development –understood as enhancing the ability of individuals and organization to work together to envision and enact change – has a significant role to play in helping NGOs achieve their objectives.

We observe the need to do more to train staff to enhance skills and help them deal creatively with the immense challenge and opportunity that they must tackle. Furthermore this investment in individual employee development and growth will help enhance retention and reduce stagnation and frustration. The response by educational and training institutions to address this need is promising and must be further extended and supported by funders. At the same time, there is need to demonstrate the effectiveness and value of these investments in leadership development for funders.

At a macro-level, it appears that a broadly recognized issue is working across sectors and boundaries in alliances and networks. There appears to be interest among corporations and NGOs to engage constructively, though the scope of these activities appears limited at present.

We see that higher education in India represents a key point at which a greater exposure to and engagement with the social sector can be established. This could serve the dual purpose of helping young people build soft skills, by taking on real challenges out of the classroom, as well helping spark interest among more individuals in choosing the NGO sector as their career path.

The Center for Creative Leadership is working to explore ways in which we can be a resource for leadership development for the NGO sector in India and beyond. As our work evolves, we look forward to reconnecting with NGOs in India to develop, test, and offer tangible approaches to address these needs.