Don’t Cut Culture Out of CLA

What does it mean to build a culture of continual learning within a global development program? While the concept of “culture” might not be the first thing one thinks of when visualizing the Collaborating, Learning and Adapting (CLA) Framework, it is nonetheless critical. Without a culture of openness and a willingness to learn from failures, CLA is unlikely to occur. What enables CLA in the program cycle is the culture of a project or team, along with their processes and resources.

So, how do we promote a culture that is conducive to CLA? In Bangladesh, one activity found that translating CLA jargon into plain language allowed the whole team to understand and engage in discussions. In Laos, another project reflected on the fact that it is rude to ask questions in their culture and used a virtual whiteboard so that staff could ask questions anonymously. In Honduras, the more established staff mentored new team members on CLA to demonstrate their openness to learning.

Meanwhile, in Ghana, similar efforts within an ACDI/VOCA-led activity involved a three-day teambuilding workshop—the first of its kind for the activity. What the team found was that culture does not happen by accident; it is built and rebuilt with intention over time.

Culture Pain Points

The Feed the Future Ghana Market Systems and Resilience Activity, funded by USAID and implemented by ACDI/VOCA, faced a handful of workplace culture challenges. For one, the Activity is spread throughout four offices in Tamale, Accra, Wa, and Bolga, with most of its 55 team members based in Tamale in northern Ghana.

Technical leads often are not in the same office as technical specialists who interact regularly with participants on the ground, leading to a disconnect. Technical staff felt they were not included in key decisions related to implementing program activities. Staff also tended to work in silos. Working so independently to meet targets in their own technical areas inhibited collaboration. The teambuilding workshop was an opportunity to establish new levels of trust, dialogue, and open communication. In fact, it brought together staff who rarely met in person, including not only technical staff, but also operational staff, such as finance, IT, and office managers.

Behavioral Self-Assessment Tools

Rather than conducting a formal CLA assessment, the Chief of Party and senior management drew upon their knowledge of the CLA Framework, particularly the “Enabling Conditions” on the right side of the framework, including “culture.” They decided to conduct a DiSC assessment to encourage openness and increased dialogue among the team. DiSC is a tool that gives a quick, intuitive way of understanding ourselves and others as we fall into four styles or tendencies: dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness.

Each team member took the DiSC assessment to better understand their own communication styles and ways of working as well as those of their colleagues. Interestingly, most of the team fell under one of the four styles that places a high priority on accuracy, highlighting the importance of transparency around decision-making within the team. Even the exercise of taking the test itself and sharing the results planted seeds for a cultural shift toward openness to hearing different perspectives, which is a key concept of the CLA Maturity Matrix.

“[DiSC] helps you do an introspective assessment of yourselves first,” said the Activity’s operations manager. “If you are able to do that, it helps you to understand the kind of personality styles your team members and other colleagues have. So, this could also, in a way, help you relate and coordinate very well with them.”

Modeling a CLA-Friendly Culture

The team also reflected upon “caricatures” of common behaviors they witnessed among colleagues and partners. They used these caricatures to identify ways team members behaved both positively and negatively, without pointing any fingers at individuals. Arriving at a consensus, they identified the ideal behaviors they would like to see more of among the team. Aligning with the CLA Framework, the team modeled those behaviors of using networks to exchange information, asking questions, sharing unpopular opinions without fear, and exploring novel ideas.

A Culture of CLA at Every Staff Level

Following the workshop, staff committed to increasing their collaboration, no matter the technical area or level of staff seniority. They also made CLA-related goals for the remainder of the project life cycle. These commitments and goals will be revisited on a quarterly basis to hold each other accountable. They even practiced giving customized advice to colleagues that will help lead to a more successful team. Each step was a building block toward a culture of continuous learning and improvement.

“The impact of the teambuilding exercise is going to be enormous on [the Activity’s] achievements in the coming years, as it has opened us up to the understanding of the attitudes, characteristics, and behaviors of the individuals in the team and how we can leverage on each other to archive great results,” said the Activity’s market systems team lead. “I wish this had happened earlier than now, but, as they say, better late than never.’’

Without an intentional investment in CLA, it often won’t happen organically. Culture-building takes continuous effort but can have big payoffs. The Activity team in Ghana looks forward to using the CLA Maturity Matrix in the future to gauge progress along the continuum.

The Feed the Future Ghana Market Systems and Resilience Activity, funded by USAID and implemented by ACDI/VOCA, is a five-year activity that aims to strengthen commercial relationships between market actors, improve the rural entrepreneurship ecosystem to enable greater market participation, particularly for women and youth, expand the availability of agribusiness services, and link targeted policy initiatives to improved local economic governance. Learn more.