Resurrection

 

Click here to listen to Simone talk about her experience in organising a KS week.

Early 2004, Simone Staiger returned back to work after a short hiatus following the birth of her third son. She was excited about the opportunity – joining the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) in the communications department – as it would give her some relief from her job as a full-time mom. At the same time, her confidence was at a low – she was still getting used to her new home in a country far away form her birth place and picking up a new working language.

One of her first tasks in her new position was to developed an institutional website. Intuitively, she turned to her colleagues recognising that creating and populating a website would be unsustainable on her own. She quickly nurtured a network of website focal points who together worked to build a user-friendly place to share information and news with internal staff. One lesson that Simone took away from the experience was the potential of a collaborative approach.

In January 2004, a Knowledge Sharing Project was launched in the CGIAR with the lofty goal of changing the centre’s culture to one that is oriented on sharing knowledge.

Simone was a project associate and co-organized a workshop that brought together 20 or so people across the CG to discuss what knowledge sharing meant to them and generate ideas to put forward as proposals to be accepted for project funding. It was during the workshop, that an idea popped into Simone’s head – to change the approach in running Annual Meetings at CIAT so that they would allow for more space for interactivity and engagement of ALL staff (especially those from the regions) while still working towards the meeting’s objectives.

The pilot was approved for funding and Simone was identified as the lead. She spent more than three months working full time designing an agenda and preparing for the five day event. But, these months weren’t free of challenges. Early on, Simone felt resistance towards changing the way that business was traditionally conducted at CIAT.

“I was a nothing in the institution and came up with an idea on how a very important meeting could be run better. It was clear that I was putting my hands in other people’s business.”

Simone persevered and, with the help of an external consultant and through consultations with her colleagues, she was able to get enough buy-in to move forward with an agenda based on a formula that was completely different than what staff had experienced in the past.

The agenda incorporated approaches such as open space, peer assists and a knowledge sharing fair. The event was oriented towards creating spaces for people to get to know each other and their work better in an environment that was more informal. Several elements of previous meetings remained as requested by a number of scientists who wanted to take advantage of bringing together team members face-to-face.

Reflecting back on the experience, Simone took away a number of lessons.

“Give opportunities and space to people who aren’t leaders but have ideas. And, allow them to take some risk – as is often permitted by other divisions in the organization.”

Has she seen change? Simone admits that change is coming slowly. One thing that she has noticed was that although many of her colleagues haven’t changed the way that they behave – especially in engaging partners in the work of the CG – there is a sense that they don’t feel as comfortable working with the status quo.