Visible Footprints

A study of social networks in Kabul could without a doubt present fascinating results. With donors and organizations from approximately 37 countries, Kabul has become a hub of cultural diversity and global perspectives. In addition to the various ethnic groups residing in Afghanistan such as Hazaras, Tajiks, Pashtuns and Uzbeks, Kabul does manage to be home for a large community of internationals as illustrated by my colleagues working in civil service management and the justice sector from Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, United States, Sweden, Australia, Belgium, Korea,
Norway, Pakistan, India, New Zealand, Denmark, Finland, Scotland and Ireland – to name a few.

Although security restrictions in Kabul may prevent us from walking the streets; may limit us to a few select restaurants, shops, medical facilities and amenities or close us down entirely for 2 to 3 days at a time, networking is a thriving activity kept alive by mobile telephones and the internet. So as to support Afghanistan’s development, linking to a social network is absolutely essential for all internationals. It helps co-ordinate our work, avoid duplication, leverage development efforts and instil some continuity and progress over the years. With each international having connections to other social worlds - mostly in their home country – the connections made in Kabul also introduces us to new ideas, knowledge, opportunities and incredible possibilities.

Although perhaps unnoticeable and rarely acknowledged, the day to day interactions, the exchange of experiences, the interpretations of events, the exposure to various languages, cultural patterns, mannerisms and beliefs do have an impact on each and everyone of us – no matter how loose the network connection; no matter how brief the encounter and no matter how much we believe that this adaptability is just a temporary thing. Actually, in my opinion, I suspect that what we do to adapt broadens our thinking permanently.

Although social networks may be invisible to the eye – they do leave visible footprints.

The Fourth Estate

Journalism is said to be a critical component of a “civil society” – a term used to distinguish societies which allow for collective action around shared interests, purposes and values without threat, intimidation or retribution. Contributing to this emancipation of a society are institutions such as the Kabul University. The Faculty of Journalism (14 faculties in total) is one of the oldest at the Kabul University. Next year, it will be celebrating its 45th anniversary. Other journalism and communication departments exist at Balkh University, in northern Afghanistan, and Herat University in the western part of the country.

To summarize, we are provided with 3 newspapers written in English in Kabul:

The Kabul Times: established in 1962, was the first English language printed newspaper in Afghanistan. One of the stories in Thursday’s paper includes an announcement that Dr. Abdul Latif Jalali, one of the country’s greatest journalist, died at the age of 81 on October 13th. He was a lecturer at the Kabul University, worked on National Radio and TV as newscaster and political analyst, all in Afghanistan.

The Daily Afghanistan is the first independent English newspaper throughout the history of Afghanistan, published from Kabul and available for 10 Afs. (.25 cents CAN). The circulation of this paper is 7000 and it is distributed to 32 (out of a total of 34) provinces in Afghanistan. It is also published in Dari – a language spoken mostly in Kabul and in northern provinces and Pashto, a language spoken mostly in southern provinces. Dr. Hussain Ali Yasa is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief.

The Afghanistan Times provides Afghan World News from a comprehensive international network of journalists. The editor, Mr. Ali Ahmad Pasoon produces the only coloured newspaper in Afghanistan containing local, provincial, sector and international news and events. Thursday’s paper highlighted everything from the Global Hand Washing Day events to protect people from diarrhea and pneumonia to a seminar on Peace and Conflict Resolution in Islamic Thought to overcome the violence of war years and make a “peaceful sphere”.

Seeking Simplicity

Simplicity is essential when entering a period of change. We reduce, abbreviate, merge, categorize, breakdown, centralize, divide, codify, graph, model, synthesize and generalize – all with a view of building a common thread of understanding of where we are, where we want to go and how we will get there. Framing a change in simplicity facilitates performance.

However, there are risks to seeking simplicity:

Where we are:
Surface surfing: Seeking simplicity can result in a collection of information that muddies the waters and brings the analysis to false conclusions. To reach the quality and quantity of information required is to know how to manage tensions between simplicity and complexity.
Fear factor: Seeking simplicity often caters to information on what should be heard instead of what needs to be heard. Informants fear change or the truth and their repercussions; collectors fear scope creep and often cannot see what they can’t recognize. Ostensibly, the information collected is easy to explain but nevertheless, erroneous.


Where we want to go:
No appetite: A diet of simplicity will not nourish engagement. If there is no leadership engagement, there is no traction for change and things will stay as they are no matter how effortless the solution looks on paper. Simplicity does not replace belief in a vision.
Easy fit: Simplicity will not have built in comfort. Change pushes people outside their comfort zone no matter how simple it looks. Simplicity does not replace empathy.


How we will get there:
A frame is just a frame: Framing implementation in simplicity doesn’t mean that the implementation is simple. It will bring resistance, realignments, additional costs, skill gaps, and all that change incites within and around us. To quote from historian and philosopher, Mr. Will Durant "Change is certain; progress is not.”
Less is not more: Removing complexity does not necessarily bring about an under expenditure. The costs of any change are not regulated by complexity but rather by “readiness” to change.

A Successful Walk

Thanks so much for your support! We had a wonderful day! I am certain that it will make a great difference to those who have fallen victim to this disease or who might in the future...

In Canada, one in 70 women will get ovarian cancer. Each year 2400 Canadian women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and 1700 die of the disease annually, making it the most fatal gynecologic cancer. Even though the statistics surrounding the disease are bleak, the good news is that when diagnosed in the early stages, the long-term survival rate is up to 90%. Funds raised through the Winners Walk of Hope will go to supporting women living with ovarian cancer and their families, educating well women about the disease and funding ovarian cancer research.

If you would like more information about Ovarian Cancer Canada please visit www.ovariancanada.org or for more information on the Winners Walk of Hope please visit www.winnerswalkofhope.ca Thanks again for your support.





Your donation to the Winners Walk of Hope on my behalf is greatly appreciated!

Diane

HRSB Concepts Inc. Announces New Website

Dear Colleagues,

I am very pleased to announce the new HRSB Concepts Inc. website which was officially launched August 1, 2008. The website has a new modern look with simplified navigation, a collaborative software for clients, a time zone world map, a photo gallery, updated links, a featured book every month and of course a matching theme for the weekly blog.

The site also provides a sign up to a quarterly newsletter which will feature topical subjects of interest to clients and colleagues to complement resources and tools available on the website. The first issue is scheduled to be released September 1, 2008. Featured articles, photos and tools will continue to be added. Plans are to include articles written in French in early 2009.

This bold, freshly designed site (www.hrsbconcepts.com) provides information about specialized consulting services in strategy and accountability, performance management and employee development, integrated business and workforce planning, recruitment and retention and succession planning.

One of the main features of the new Web site is a secure collaborative software available to HRSB Concepts clients called Basecamp http://www.basecamphq.com/index which offers a novel approach to project collaboration. Projects can be supported by charts, graphs, stats, or reports, and a series of tools tailored to improve the communication between people working together on a project – no matter where they are located.

I hope that you will visit our website regularly and that you and your colleagues will find it a useful workspace and reference point.

Winners Walk of Hope

This year HRSB Concepts Inc. is participating in the Winners Walk of Hope, a remarkable event designed to create a sense of community for women living with ovarian cancer and their family and friends.

All funds raised through this event support Ovarian Cancer Canada's mission to: support women and their families touched by ovarian cancer, educate well women and healthcare professionals and to fund ovarian cancer research. It's a day filled with hope and support, creating a greater awareness around ovarian cancer. To date, the Winners Walk of Hope has raised over $3million.

For more information on Ovarian Cancer Canada's many programs, please visit www.ovariancanada.org Secure online donations can be made with your credit card and an official charitable tax receipt will be sent to you by email within five minutes! You can make an online donation now:

http://my.e2rm.com/personalPage.aspx?SID=1902194

For more information about the Winners Walk of Hope, or to join us on Sunday September 7, 2008 at 9am, please visit www.winnerswalkofhope.ca

Thank you for your generous support!

Diane

New Orientations in HR

There is much talk about organizational alignment and the need to cascade strategic goals down the hierarchy. However, there is still limited attention given to reverse cascading: an alignment led by individual employees. Practices that focus on the development of operational standards or far reaching strategic objectives is no longer enough – especially as recruitment and retention become more and more of a priority. Innovative human resources practices that recognize the needs of individuals to stimulate superior performance are gaining importance.

This new orientation does not necessarily have people climb ladders to manage their career or deal with steps to calculate their salary, but rather provides a very different reference point that seeks to redefine the relationship between the individual and their workplace. Recently I came across a couple of novel human resources practices that did just that:

The North Broward Hospital District information services department came up with a compensation system for their information technology business unit that replaced their ladder with a personal dashboard. It is called career banding. Individuals within the career band groups are paid according to their competencies in a number of areas such as technical skills, problem solving skills and people skills as opposed to a set of position-based factors attached to narrowly set pay scales and steps.

The Finnish company, Nokia, maker of cell phones has engineered a way to design meaningful and fulfilling jobs by setting up highly "modular" structures so that instead of moving people around, they move teams around, thereby capitalizing on working relationships that have proven to be working well for its members – and in so doing reduce the amount of anxiety associated with difficult projects.

There are many more such breakthroughs and I’ll try to highlight some of them in future blogs. In the interim, if you have a few you would like to share please feel free to contact me or attach a comment to this blog.

A Tribute to Hadi

Every once and a while you get to know people that mark your path. They inspire you, change you, share interests with you or bring hope where little exists. Such is Hadi. Barely 25 years old and fully bilingual (Dari and English speaking), he is not only my driver in Kabul but he is also the person I count on for identifying when car and radio repairs are needed; where best to go for medicine and other supplies; how best to get to a destination and avoid bottlenecks - but mostly for taking daily precautions for my safe passage while travelling on the city roads of Kabul.

Six days a week we set off to various work locations – and we talk. Conversations with Hadi connect me with life in Kabul and the effects are like drops of water on a dusty counter top. He explains historical events and cultural norms, he gives me a few more Dari words for me to practice, he informs me of National Holidays and local Afghan news and events; helps me plan my daily travel needs and at times, even supplies me with a scarf to cover my head when mine is still at the guesthouse.

It is also during this time that he often shares with me little tidbits of information that sparkle my day. Here’s a bit of Afghan folklore according to Hadi.

1. If you cough while drinking – someone is thinking of you
2. If your right eye twitches – you will get good news or someone from far away will come and visit
3. If your left eye twitches – you will get bad news
4. If there is a tickle in the palm of your hand – you will receive riches

...and riches are indeed made up of people who mark your path.

The 3 C's

Once more I have come to the end of an assignment in Kabul. To cap it off, I thought I would share with you what I call the 3 C’s of civil service reform: Change management, Capacity building and Cultural dynamics.

Change Management is comprised of approaches, processes and techniques most commonly referred to as change management “tools” that facilitate the acceptance and integration of new ways of doing things. These tools might help create new structures, competencies, processing systems, policies and leadership within a civil service; they may either create traction for change, mobilize for change, reduce resistance to change, and even keep the change long enough to see it improve over time. The management of change is not a “one size fits all” therefore it is important to explore the wide array of “tools” available to organizations to ease their change effort. I would like to recommend a change management book written by one of my favorite authors, Lynda Gratton. The title of her book is: “Hot Spots: Why Some Companies Buzz with Energy and Innovation - and Others Don't”.
Similar ideas also exist in W. Chan Kin and Renee Mauborgne’s “Tipping Point Leadership”.

Capacity Building: Yes, the knotty capacity building makes its way at the top of reform work priorities. Here, it refers to the institutional and individual development that must occur to improve or alter results produced by a civil service. Let me emphasize that it is not just about “training”. Too often we see resources and time dedicated to this activity without any effort put into establishing the framework within which individuals will practice what they have learned. Developing a capacity building strategy must take into consideration everything that needs to be changed in order to bring about different results. This strategy should make reference to the systems, performance goals and indicators, the operational processes, the policies, templates, methods of communication, relationships… and the form they should take to produce desired results.

Cultural Dynamics: We all have a pair of lens through which we see our world and changing the colour of these lenses can be an incredible process of concessions, negotiations and assimilation within individuals and across groups. Bringing changes to a workplace often challenges beliefs and values held by a “culture”. Cultures are everywhere. There are national cultures, ethnic cultures, organizational cultures, regional cultures and generational cultures – all of which have their own set of values and beliefs. They may have the potential to move mountains or build walls. Learning how to work with diversity to plan and build a reform can make a great deal of difference.

To explore the world of cultural diversity, here are a couple of my favourites:
Riding The Waves of Culture: Understanding Diversity in Global Business by Fons Trompenaars

International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior by Nancy J. Adler

As well here is a great website produced by Citizenship and Immigration Canada
http://www.cp-pc.ca/english/index.html

A Silky Connection

Once the threat of cold weather is decidedly over and the picnic season is well underway, the mulberries make their apparition in Afghanistan; falling from attractive mulberry trees to adorn the ground with a pearl white, lace pink or dark purple hue. According to local experts, the mulberry is a primary fruit crop, originally brought to Afghanistan to support a highly specialized silk industry.

As it turns out, the sole food source of the silkworm is the leaves from the drought resistant mulberry tree. The silkworm cannot survive without the mulberry tree, producing an intimate connection and finest example of one species’ complete dependence on another for its existence. In Afghanistan, it also provides an example of how a society can benefit from such symbiotic arrangements.

While delicious fresh or dried mulberries are sold at the local bazaars in Kabul, the delicate work of collecting cocoons from the mulberry tree and producing silk by hand continues in cities such as Herat situated in the northwest part of the country. According to Wikipedia, mulberry silk is the finest and the most valuable variety of silk.

Photos from left to right: Afghan picnic summer 2006; Safi the Chef at Justice Sector Guesthouse June.08; Dish of mulberry June.08; silk scarf woven by master silk weavers in Kabul using ancient silk route traditions and purchased at the Zardozi shop, Kabul, Afghanistan.