Sylvia's Journal

The workshop I am attending is finishing tomorrow. I am getting to know my Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) colleagues from Honduras, Peru, Nigeria, Kenya, Lesotho, South Africa and headquarters. They are struggling with the very difficult question of ‘how do you know whether organizational development and/or leadership & governance interventions have been effective.’ The M&E team at headquarters has to make pronouncements about the efforts in many countries, rolled up to single indicators at a high level. Our funders demand it – which makes sense – the US taxpayer (Congress) wants to know what difference the tax dollars made. But the behavior changes that turn non leaders into leaders cannot be brought about with a switch, or within project times; or, in ways that are predictable, A produces B produces C.

At an individual or organizational level, I can ask, “what do you want?” and “how would you know what you want has been achieved?” For me that is enough to determine whether the intervention(s) made a difference. But for a project that has 100s of people working on several continents, this micro view is too complex to define and too expensive to track.

I do sit in on the end-of-day reviews of the facilitation team and the revamping of each new day as an observer, but they are in charge. I have other responsibilities that are slowly filling in Thursday, a day I realized only recently was un-programmed and thus free; but no longer so. I will have another chance to practice my coaching skills and work with one of the Pretoria teams that may benefit from some reflection time.

When I get back my schedule has opened again – it was filled with two assignments that would have kept me busy through much of the Fall. But the trip to Pakistan is probably off for now due to visa delays and another has fallen through because I didn’t have any Global Fund credentials. I may have gotten my summer back after all. I know some people who will be happy about this.