Systems Change for Impact

What was at stake?
An internationally recognised global charity had become increasingly aware of the dissipation in its efforts in its fight against poverty. It sought alignment of ambition, resources and action to ensure the best possible chances of success with its programmes.

What did we do?
The 18-month programme aimed to build a truly shared understanding of what it meant to be ‘one organisation’ by bringing the whole system together in a series of three Learning Summits, each with 50 leaders from across their global leadership team. Smaller interventions aimed to embed the learning and sustain the change. The three Summits in turn led the leaders to:

• Face the challenges of the sector and the organisation, confirm their roles as leaders of the organisation (rather than simply leaders in the organisation
• Become a linked ‘system’ thinking as one, rather than as a collection of functions
• Integrate their new ways of leadership into ‘business as usual’
• Shift towards a ‘one organisation’ mindset and behaviour set
• Distribute their leadership across the organisation
• Deepen their understanding of stakeholder need by engaging them in a dialogue between sessions

What was the outcome?
A significantly more aligned organisation, with more effective resource allocation and greater economy of effort and more energy behind their corporate ambitions to fight poverty.