Aid for Aid Workers: Recent Episodes
Torrey Peace | Uniting Aid Workers to Discover Better Ways of Leading
This show tailored to leaders in international development provides aid workers with advice, lessons learned and inspirational ideas from peers in our field who have experiences to share or are just “doing things differently.” Whether you are a Country Manager with years of experience or a Project Manager in a new leadership position, host Torrey Peace navigates the challenges common to aid workers that are unique to our field, such as time management in an unpredictable environment, leading and unifying teams from diverse cultural backgrounds, different perspectives on community development or how to do it all while maintaining our own physical health and important relationships, with time for travel and adventure! If you are interested in joining a global network of aid professionals please visit aidforaidworkers.com and click on the Join Us page.
Of course as leaders our teams will do what we ask. After all, we are supervising them! But what happens to all those initiatives you spent so hard working on after you're gone? Will they continue on, or will they fall apart without your oversight?
In today's episode I discuss how to know if your team is really following you, and what to do if they aren't. This can mean the difference between leaving behind a lasting impact versus a trail of unadopted initiatives. And if things fall apart once we leave, then what's the point of "leading" to begin with?
Although there are a lot of changes recently due to COVID-19 and the way we work, a trend that has been going on for some time now is the shift of traditionally expat filled positions becoming "nationalized".
Today my guest Joachim Schwartz from the Civil Society Academy speaks of his experience on how the INGO Welthungerhlife has made this transition, and what he's learned along the way.
In this episode you'll discover:
- Trends from the past and into the future regarding staffing structures and development
- Practical ways you as a leader can empower your team
- Advice on what to prioritize when considering nationalization of staff
- Importance of breaking up some of the many layers in development work
- How to mirror what we practice in the community within our teams
Contacts and resources mentioned:
- Joachim Schwartz - joachim@civilsocietyacademy.org
- https://www.civilsocietyacademy.org
- Welthungerhlife
- PRADAN
Today's episode is a bit different. I thought I would share my experience after having COVID-19 back in early April. Since then I have mostly recovered, but I wanted to share some things that are not being said in the mainstream media, and that I wish I had known previously.
I am not a doctor nor do I have a medical background. I am not recommending a "cure" or one way to overcome COVID. I am only sharing my experience and some things I have observed that should be more broadly known and also some things that have helped me cope during this time.
I hope you and your loved ones never have to experience COVID, but if you do, I hope this will help you.
Resource:
COVID-19 Support Group
Have you ever noticed a voice in your head that is really good at filling in the blanks? I promise you have one. I know mine has gotten really good at telling me what someone else is thinking, or what they mean when they say something. And sometimes it is right - but a lot of times, it's not.
Filling in gaps with our own assumptions and understanding of the world can lead us into trouble. Especially in the international development field, where we are not only filtering what someone is saying, but we add a few extra filters based on our cultural background and linguistic as well.
So it goes without saying (or filling in blanks) that the less we make these "guesses", the better! In this episode I share how you can become more aware of how you fill in the blanks and what to do about it.
Have you ever been frustrated with team members who won't bring up a problem until the last minute? What about those who won't tell you when they are not clear on what you just spent an hour explaining, which you find out when they don't turn in the revised budget you asked for? These are just a few of the scenarios which can result from cultural misunderstandings, and can lead to blocks in communication, strained relationships and poor performance.
It is surprising how little we acknowledge cross cultural differences as a potential barrier in our working relationships, especially in international development!
The good news is in today's episode Henry Zinglersen, who has over 20 years' experience working across cultures in an effort to bridge cultural gaps in multinational organizations and nonprofits, shares some best practices that can help you become more united culturally as a team.
In this episode Henry shares:
- Different cultural dimensions which leaders should be aware of that may influence our roles
- How to become more cross culturally self-aware
- How you can know the quality of the relationship you have with your team
- Different ways to bridge cultural gaps
- How to bring up culture as an issue in miscommunication to your supervisor
- Why some cultures don't always follow the rules
You can reach Henry here:
Henry Zinglersen, President
MindLab Global Solutions
Copenhagen, Denmark
Phone/WhatsApp: +4522113300
Email: hz@mlgs.com
Resources Mentioned:
- Successful Global Collaboration Cross Cultural Interaction
- Successful Cross-Cultural Collaboration
- Recommended Reading List
In this episode I provide five habits you can easily practice to become a better leader in international development. You'll learn how to incorporate these habits into your work week, and how they can help you become healthier, more motivated in addition to getting better results from those you lead.
We all do it sometimes. Despite great intentions of getting those important things done on our to do list, we find more interesting things to do. And that means we leave that proposal, or budget realignment or whatever it is for the last minute. This in turn results in stress, anxiety and maybe even poorer quality work.
In this episode you'll learn five easy ways you can stop procrastinating and start holding yourself accountable. Many of these things I have used in the past with success, and I am sure they will work for you as well. So say good bye to those stressful last minute late nights and weekend work, and set up a system that works for you.
Resources mentioned:
How a Mastermind Gave Me Valuable Leadership Support
The way we communicate can have a tremendous impact in our work and life. Our communication style can deepen relationships and influence others to join our vision as leaders, or can isolate and create misunderstandings. The good news is being aware of a few simple differences can allow us to communicate for the better, whether it's with our supervisor, our team, donors or even our family.
In this episode Farnoosh Brock of Prolific Living shares some effective ways you can immediately improve your communication with others. Farnoosh is a coach, speaker and author since 2011, and has a solid understanding of how to communicate to build relationships.
Resources mentioned:
Taking Flight!: Master the DISC Styles to Transform Your Career, Your Relationships...Your Life
The Chameleon: Life-Changing Wisdom for Anyone Who Has a Personality or Knows Someone Who Does
Farnoosh's email: farnoosh@prolificliving.com
Farnoosh's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fbahram/
It's a new challenge many leaders are facing in the time of COVID - how do I lead a remote team? My guest today Matt Ellingson has 26 years' experience in aid work, and currently is the Director of Humanitarian Affairs for Food for the Hungry. Matt has been managing remote teams in complex humanitarian emergencies for about six years, and shares with us some of his lessons learned.
In this episode we cover:
- The most important thing you need when managing a remote team
- How often to communicate and what tools to use
- How to build trust with a team you've never met
- Why self-awareness in remote management is important
- His advice to his former self when he first started managing teams remotely
As aid workers we all have our stories about reaching, and perhaps surpassing, our breaking point. You know, the time when you lost it and started yelling at your team, or you slammed a door harder than you had meant to, or you find yourself sick with some parasite whose name you cannot pronounce.
My guest today, Lia Hulit, shares some ways to make wellbeing more sustainable, or how to be proactive about maintaining wellbeing so we don't get to the point we are ready to eat that gallon of questionable ice cream.
Lia Hulit is a life and career coach who helps stuck and frustrated individuals build meaningful careers and align with their purpose. Her blend of encouragement combined with focused strategy and practical tools ensures positive outcomes for people motivated to transform their work lives, get unstuck, and start making a bigger impact in the world.
You can connect with her on:
- Website: www.LiaHulit.com
- Instagram: @puravidaperspective
- Facebook @liahulitcoaching
What are we not seeing as leaders that may be impacting our teams and their performance?
Tips to take the overwhelm out of choosing a course that will accelerate your professional growth.
Time is hard to come by - so make the most of it with this method when developing your direct reports.
If you are in a leadership role, during a crisis you are responsible for communicating effectively with your team.
The secret to how one humanitarian manages to get things done and have a life outside work.
You wouldn’t break an important commitment with your supervisor. So why do we break commitments to ourselves?
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Whether it is directly, or through a performance evaluation or a 360 Feedback review, receiving negative feedback can be discouraging. In this episode you'll learn how to know what feedback is worth your time, and then how to act upon it in a way your team and supervisor will appreciate.
Related episode: How to Use Difficult Feedback for Positive Personal Growth
There’s no point in creating a team vision if you don’t keep it top of mind - here are some proven ways you can do that.
What helped me to become excited about the information I was consuming rather than consumed by it.
Four tips to create a task management system that works for you and not the other way around.
Three tips to make your donor relationships stronger so you’re more likely to win that next proposal.
Three ways you can make sure your organization is seen as unique and contributing to community development.
"Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth." -- Marcus Aurelius
How coaching resulted in more proactivity, being able to navigate a coworker’s interpersonal conflict and streamlining a career transition.
Three types of coaching conversations that lead to higher performance and the mindset needed to have them.
What you may be doing wrong when coaching your reports and how you can make it right.
Coaching is becoming more recognized in international development as a powerful leadership methodology that when used properly will help your direct reports develop professionally, realize their goals and become the best version of themselves.
First impressions matter….especially for new team members!
Making sure a new team member's first day goes well and they have a great impression of your organization is very important. But how often do we rush through this process or overlook just how much impact a good or bad experience can have?
What you don’t know could hurt you.
There can be a variety of reasons in our work in international development that we end up with someone on our team who knows everything, or at least they think they do. It could be that culturally it is not appropriate to question them as an elder or someone who has worked with the organization a long time, for example.
“To love ourselves and support each other in the process of becoming real is perhaps the greatest single act of daring greatly.” - Brene Brown
A five year study by Google on highly effective teams found that by far the most important characteristic of a successful team is to feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable. So how can we create an environment in which our teams feel safe enough to be vulnerable and in which we can have open and sometimes difficult conversations?
The first job of a leader - at work or at home - is to inspire trust." - Stephen M.R. Covey
Every day we have the opportunity to either strengthen or weaken trust with others through our actions and words. There will be times when we act in a way which breaks down trust, whether intentionally or without knowing it. However if you have enough deposits in your "trust bank account" from previous efforts, it can go a long way in terms of mending your relationship or at least making it easier to repair.
Five steps to create a more healthy work environment for all by managing negative peers.
We've all worked with that person. The one that spreads rumors about others or the organization or even about you. I have worked with my share of difficult people, and it can really take a toll on your motivation level and make it stressful to engage with that person.
Is gossip damaging your team culture? Here are some ways to minimize it!
Office gossip can be very damaging to a team and organization, not to mention the reputation of yourself and others! Gossip can lead to low staff morale, feelings of mistrust, and even problems with staff retention. It is therefore essential that we understand how to recognize gossip, what it is and why it happens. In this episode I share this as well as five ways you can turn the toxicity created by gossip into an opportunity to reinforce a culture of trust, open communication and respect with your team.
A five step process to make it easy for you to delegate to your direct reports
Effective delegation can mean the difference between feeling confident and supported versus anxious and overwhelmed. If done well, effective delegation can motivate your direct reports and free up your time to focus on other things. In other words, it is worth knowing how to delegate well. In this episode I provide different levels of delegation and also a five step process for you to be an effective delegator, as well as some special tips for our aid worker context. Please share with someone you think would find this episode useful!
What to do when your staff are the reason you feel the need to constantly follow-up.
Are you a micro manager? Maybe you just feel like you have to follow up a lot with certain staff on your team. It's not always easy to tell when the need to constantly follow up and sometimes complete tasks for others is because of something you are doing or maybe because this person is not able to fill the role they were hired for.
No one wants a Micro Manager.
No one wants to be a micro manager, and no one wants to be managed by one either. On the part of the manager it is normally accompanied by stress and anxiety that something will not get done. From a direct report’s perspective, being micro managed can feel like you are not trusted and not competent. There are a variety of reasons why one may micro manage in international development, and it could be that you are not even aware you are doing it. Maybe you like things done your way, or your direct report is not able to handle the task given, or perhaps you are miscommunicating how to get something done which then leads to not getting the results you want.
How to eat your way to better performance.
“Even a thing that seems small to you can be a big deal to someone else.” - Claire Charamnac
“ It is important as a leader to decide which parts of your own cultural identity are worth introducing and which of the local culture are worth adapting.” - Johan Romare
More lessons learned around maintaining your health, long distance relationships and habits to develop.
My mastermind groups have given me advice, confidence and motivation to perform at my best.
How to lead by being pleasant but still be strong.
“Money is not everything - money is a noun - it is people that make things happen.” - Virginia da Graca
“As humans we have potential for good, and we have potential for bad - and one of the things that good leaders do is cultivate environments that nurture the good and encourage positive interactions.”- Tony Castleman
Reflections on what I would have done differently as a leader if I could start again.
“How can a manager not take on more monkeys and if they do, how can they eventually give them back [to their direct reports]?” - Helen Henderson
Six Tips to Overcoming Common Obstacles to Eating Well During Field Visits
"It is about being aware that when we put together a high quality plan, when we start implementing the programs we cannot be sure in advance what is going to happen." - Guy Sharrock
"What We Choose To Focus on and What We Choose To Ignore - Plays on Defining the Quality of Our Life." - Cal Newport, author of Deep Work
"When I first started (these productivity tips) I felt like I had to overhaul how I managed email and time, but it really didn't take that much to get started." - Lauren Pelascini
"International Organisations that have closed boundaries and control the entire delivery chain - this is an outdated way of thinking." - Sean Lowrie , Director of START Network
"There is no "sense" of community engagement. Either a community is meaningfully engaged or they are not." - Deb Cummins
“Wherever you are and whatever you are doing there is nothing preventing you from redefining how the humanitarian sector works." - Saul Guerrero
Ratna Fitriani shares how you can walk your talk when it comes to gender equality and social inclusion beyond the project level.