Change Ready, The CivSource Way
When we started our leadership strengthening work at CivSource Africa, one of the areas of support that we identified was that of succession and transition. Through the team’s combined experience working with civil society, we had observed that if not managed well, succession and transition moments tend to cause dire setbacks for organizations.
As a start, we conducted a study of organizations in Uganda that had undergone succession and transition. We attempted to glean lessons about what works and what doesn’t, and what CivSource Africa could do to support better succession and transition management.
What we’ve learned in the last 2 or so years of doing this work is that there is no one size fits all. Organizations and their teams come in all sorts of shapes and forms. Each transition is as unique as the organization is. Thus, when we support an organization, we literally have a keen awareness that they have their own path and are trying to figure out their journey.
The other learning for us has been how to enable organizations to be ready to be ready for change. An analogy we use is how, when a woman decides she wants to carry a child, she starts preparing her body for this journey. She may reorganize her schedule, change her diet, fortify her mineral intake, all to prepare her body for the coming change.
When we extrapolate this to organizations, we need to think about how organizations can start to prepare themselves to receive the change.
One way we are experimenting with this at CivSource Africa is through a process called Rotational CEO. It is a process by which I select one of the team members to be our CEO for an extended period (for now that’s 4 months). During this time, I step away and let a team member lead.
Prior to this stepping away, I will have formally asked the team member to take on this responsibility and I offer them enough lead time to think through this request to be our Rotational CEO. The lead time is to enable them ponder their readiness, reorganize their calendar but also contemplate the responsibility they are being asked to carry. Read more