Camille has worked with FLGR for over ten years and has had the privilege of seeing their work develop. As the Foundation moves towards self- sufficiency, it wanted to do more fee-based consulting to help both their mission and their balance sheet. This year Executive Director Ginka Kapitanova asked what Camille might recommend to them for assessing reforms needed in municipalities. Camille suggested our PSG process called Action Planning, a process that first identifies (through interviews, focus groups, and review of strategic documents) key opportunities for transformation. Then, an action retreat is held to help the organization’s leaders turn those promising ideas into workable solutions. (For more, see below).
Ginka convinced USAID to underwrite Camille’s work to teach a group of Foundation staff how to do Action Planning. This wasn’t classroom training; it was going to be real time learning! Ginka went on to convince the mayor of Troyan that he should lead the way in Bulgaria and be the first city to try this. Ginka and her staff met with city leaders in advance, answering their questions and gathering documents.
The action planning work occurred over a concentrated single week’s time. The Monday Camille arrived she met with eight Foundation staff members for a daylong training session on “how to do” Action Planning. On Tuesday and Wednesday they all went to Troyan, a two-hour drive from the capital of Sofia. During those two days Camille and the Foundation staff conducted over 40 interviews. (For the interviews and retreat, Camille had a translator. Camille got so mad after one of the interviews with a prominent Communist party leader that the team had to tell her what she always said to them: “smile!” What had angered her was the smugness of this leader in the face of corruption and mediocre service to citizens.)
Everyone was exhausted from the intense interviewing when they met in Sofia to sort out the results on Thursday. In their Learning session at the end of this project, several of them identified this day as a “turning point”. Camille was not sure they could pull it off. It was an ambitious schedule—even for her. She was also very aware of how much they trusted her. They’ve known her for many years and have willingly experimented with all kinds of new ideas. But here, their reputation with an important city was on the line.
During the all day session Thursday, they first summarized findings, then worked on strategic opportunities. All work still had to be translated back into Bulgarian. About 6 pm, Camille realized that she could not do much more to help and that they would never finish if they did not switch languages soon. So she left. That was the turning point. The Foundation staff stayed several more hours, and in the process, took on Action Planning as their process, not PSG’s. They produced a power point presentation that summarized their findings and identified Strategic Opportunities.
All involved left the next morning very early for the drive back to Troyan. The retreat on Friday and Saturday was well attended; the mayor made appropriate opening comments and then the room fell silent. Now it was time for each of the Foundation team members to present the findings. It is hard to overestimate how different and difficult this is for Bulgarians. They have a lifetime of not challenging the party line—literally. So, there were no questions for any presentation. But, you could hear a pin drop. It was like the whole room was holding its breath, thinking, “I cannot believe they are saying that”. When they broke up into small groups to discuss the findings, the room exploded in energy. After an hour, all participants gave high ratings to the team for having assessed the situation correctly.
The Foundation team was encouraged by the first presentations and did another good job presenting the strategic opportunities. The weighted voting on the Strategic Opportunities (they had a supply of dots!) made visible the notion of all participants being in this together; rank was not the determining factor here. The Strategic Opportunities small group discussions were also very lively.
Having been warned of the mayor’s practice of tight control, Ginka and Camille met with him while the small groups were working on the Strategic Opportunities that had been chosen as most important. They spent two hours working with him to identify a transition structure — a leadership team and teams for each of the strategic opportunities identified. It was tough, but he agreed to broaden the implementation process to encourage teamwork, an opportunity that the interviews had shown was much needed. They even drafted a Team Charter for the Leadership Team. The first day had gone very well.
The second day, Saturday morning, started off with the mayor lecturing the group on how disappointed he was with the draft action plans from the day before. You could hear the energy leave the room. The Action Plans were considered by most people to be in good shape. When presented to the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and President of the City Council, however, the mayor was full of petty criticisms. Ginka was facilitating the session and kept it on track masterfully. Then the mayor announced the transition structure and the room was stunned. Unknown to Camille and the Foundation team, he had put all the old hands on the teams, even some people who were not at the retreat. It sounded to the audience that it would be business as usual and nothing would change. All left depressed.
In other times, this would have been the end of it. But, this time the story was not over. Over the weekend, Ginka called the mayor and told him the reaction to his announcements and strongly advised changing the team membership to add those at the retreat who were really interested. Even more unconventional, the mayor also got calls from several of his staff who were at the retreat and a request for a meeting with a group of them—a HIGHLY unusual move. After consideration, he changed his decision.
Once back in the States, Camille received this note from Ginka: “Everything in Troyan is going very well. The first meetings of the teams went well and workshop participants are involved. I attended the meeting of the core team and everybody was very enthusiastic. The Mayor is pleased with the process and the teams will meet every week. My FLGR team is pleased and excited as well. I will do Action Planning again in September/ October in another city.”
I couldn’t wait to share and celebrate this work with others. The receptivity, capability and courage shown by the Foundation staff and the leaders of Troyan are an inspiration for us here in America. Cheers to our friends in Bulgaria – and to my partner Camille.
Appendix A
Action Planning for Change: A Practical Process for Transformation
Action Planning for Change is a well-defined, three-step process for building a framework for change within an organization or community:
• Institutional Assessment. First, an experienced team from PSG conducts a thorough, in-depth assessment (a process both unusually comprehensive and focused on identifying opportunities for strategic change). We interview employees, customers, and stakeholders, and review key documents such as budgets, strategic plans, and policy directives. The assessment asks questions covering a variety of issues, including decisionmaking autonomy, leadership, mission alignment, consumer orientation, technical capabilities, organizational culture, and external relations.
• Planning Retreat. Second, PSG convenes decisionmakers within the organization (in a session ranging from a two-day retreat to a half-day design lab). PSG presents data from the assessment, and then facilitates the development of a plan for change, helping decisionmakers identify key opportunities and find creative solutions to overcome barriers.
• Action Plan. Together, the decisionmakers in the organization and PSG prepare a more specific outline for action that can be used to discuss and guide the process of change within the organization and with outside stakeholders.
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