Seven ingredients of a strong think tank
Think tanks are civil society organisations with a particular focus on conducting research to influence policy. But within this broad definition, there is a lot of diversity. Over the years,...
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How are funders supporting development organisations to be more effective?
In my last post, I described what an organisation is and how it might be made more effective, drawing on three schools of thought. In this post, I describe what funders...
How and how well do organisations learn?
There’s a lot of emphasis on being a learning organisation nowadays. But how and how well do organisations learn in practice? Based on my experience of consulting to funding organisations...
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s organisational effectiveness …
US foundations give away billions of dollars a year to improve human development around the world. Most of the money goes to organisations, which in turn make efforts to...
The merits and drawbacks of working in a networked organisation
Until recently, I was an associate with On Think Tanks (OTT); like many other associates, I was neither a sole trader operating in a free market, nor a salaried employee...
What shapes the authority and power of leaders and their followers?
Drawing on open systems theory and unconscious group processes, I’d like to highlight four factors that shape the authority and power of leaders and followers as they...
Racism in think tanks — how and why it manifests and what we might do to address it
The Overseas Development Institute published a piece on racism in the international development sector and how to address it. However, there was very little on how...
Taking complexity seriously: helping officials to use evidence more skilfully in the Zimbabwean government
Evidence can be used as a resource by government officials (both ministers and civil servants) in an environment which is usually characterized by debate, competition...
Lacking in ‘capacity’? Why workshopping isn’t always the (whole) answer!
In the Summer of 2005, I can remember watching a report during the evening news on the state run national broadcaster in Zambia on the implementation of the first...
Are you a troublemaker?
When employees in an organisation experience difficulty, one tends to individualise the case and see those individuals as difficult and/or troublesome. But drawing on the...
Rethinking organisational development: an OTT series
The global development sector has long been fixated with how (progressive) change happens and how to facilitate it, especially amongst underserved populations. Most...
Devising, revising and evaluating strategies for funding organisations: 10 lessons from OTT’s work
with contributions from Julie LaFrance, Simon Hearn, and Enrique Mendizabal Over the last couple of years, OTT has provided services to large funders to develop,...
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