Building State Capability Podcast - Building State Capability at Harvard University

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**Building State Capability Podcast – Building State Capability at Harvard University**

The Building State Capability (BSC) program researches strategies and tactics to build the capability of public organizations to implement policies and programs.

BSC has developed the Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) approach, a process of facilitated emergence which focuses on problems (not solutions) and follows a step by step process (not a rigid plan) that allows for flexible learning and adaptation. PDIA is a learning by doing approach that helps organizations develop the capability to solve complex problems while they are actually solving such problems.

Latest Episodes:

LTC 4: Lessons in Crisis Communications and Response Apr 07, 2020

Show notes

Learn more about Peter Harrington: https://www.opml.co.uk/people/peter-harrington

Read our Public Leadership through Crisis blog series: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/public-leadership-through-crisis

LTC 3: Lessons from Leading Through the Ebola Crisis Apr 03, 2020

Show notes

Learn more about Tolbert G. Nyenswah, MPH: https://www.jhsph.edu/faculty/directory/profile/2734/tolbert-g-nyenswah

Read our Public Leadership through Crisis blog series: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/public-leadership-through-crisis

LTC 2: Applying Lessons from Experience to COVID-19 Mar 28, 2020

Show notes

In this BSC podcast, Shruti Mehrotra shares her lessons learned from working on political, economic, and humanitarian crises with Professor Matt Andrews. Read more in this blog post: https://buildingstatecapability.com/2020/03/25/public-leadership-through-crisis-10-lessons-from-experience/ You can also read our Public Leadership through Crisis blog series: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/public-leadership-through-crisis

LTC 1: A Virtual Discussion with Prof. Matt Andrews (March 27, 2020) Mar 27, 2020

Show notes

Read BSC's Public Leadership Through Crisis blog series: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/public-leadership-through-crisis

Listen to Prof. Matt Andrews podcast with Shruti Mehrotra of Open Society Foundation on Applying Lessons from Experience to COVID19: https://harvardbsc.simplecast.com/episodes/applying-lessons-from-experience-to-covid-19

Read Peter Harrington's blog post on Coronavirus and behaviour: Why leaders need better ‘risk communication’: https://buildingstatecapability.com/2020/03/23/coronavirus-and-behaviour-why-leaders-need-better-risk-communication/

Read Peter Harrington's blog post on Seeing Pandemics as Complex Adaptive Problems: https://buildingstatecapability.com/2020/03/20/seeing-pandemics-as-complex-adaptive-problems/

Episode 10: Managing Difficult Conversations Effectively Mar 20, 2020

Show notes

Learn about our Implementing Public Policy Executive Education course and apply today: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/ipp

Find more information on the Harvard Project on Negotiation: https://www.pon.harvard.edu/.

About Prof. Robert Wilkinson: Robert Wilkinson teaches courses on negotiation and leadership, specializing in team and group dynamics. He is on the faculty at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and was previously a faculty member of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Rob successfully supports numerous Fortune 500 companies, major government agencies, international organizations, and charities, helping them to build their negotiation, leadership and team management skills, and to increase their overall effectiveness. He has more than 25 years of experience, in over 50 countries, across the public, private and not-profit sectors.

Non-profit and public sector clients include the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Wildlife Fund, National Urban League, US Postal Service, CARE International, the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the White House, where he trained Presidential Appointees in negotiation, management and leadership.

Corporate clients include companies such as Deloitte, Chevron, IBM, Merck, Fidelity Investments, ExxonMobil, Johnson & Johnson, Bank of America, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thermo Fisher Scientific and many others.

Previously, Rob worked overseas for 15 years, on a variety of international negotiation projects. This included spending three years in Rwanda working with Hutu and Tutsi communities, two years working with the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Angola, and 18 months in Laos, consulting on a variety of community development programs. He began his overseas work in Nicaragua, in both Sandinista and Contra areas. His most recent publication is a teaching case based on his work supporting a negotiating team in the Paris Climate Accords.

Rob earned his Masters of Science (MS) from Stanford University, and Bachelors of Science (BS) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Case reference: https://case.hks.harvard.edu/negotiating-toward-the-paris-accords-wwf-the-role-of-forests-in-the-2015-climate-agreement/

Audio Policy Paper 2 - Public Policy Failure: ‘How Often?’ and ‘What is Failure, Anyway’? Mar 13, 2020

Show notes

Read the Public Policy Failure: ‘How Often?’ and ‘What is Failure, Anyway’? working paper: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/publications/public-policy-failure

Learn more about Building State Capability: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/

Apply for our Implementing Public Policy Executive Education course: https://go.hks.harvard.edu/l/378242/2020-01-27/899ky

Audio Policy Paper 1 - How Cities Erode Gender Inequality: A New Theory and Evidence from Cambodia Feb 10, 2020

Show notes

In this BSC Audio Policy Paper, Dr. Alice Evans, Lecturer at King's College London and BSC Faculty Associate reads her paper "How Cities Erode Gender Inequality: A New Theory and Evidence from Cambodia". To read the paper: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu/publications/how-cities-erode-gender-inequality-new-theory-and-evidence-cambodia To learn more about BSC: https://bsc.cid.harvard.edu

Episode 9: Building Effective Teams Jan 17, 2020

Show notes

To learn more about the Implementing Public Policy executive education course, visit www.hks.harvard.edu/EE/IPP.

About Prof. Monica Higgins: Monica Higgins joined the Harvard faculty in 1995 and is the Kathleen McCartney Professor of Education Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) where her research and teaching focus on the areas of leadership development and organizational change. Prior to joining HGSE, she spent eleven years as a member of the faculty at Harvard Business School in the Organizational Behavior Unit. Her book, Career Imprints: Creating Leaders Across an Industry, (2005) focuses on the leadership development of executives in the biotechnology industry. In education, she studies the effectiveness of senior leadership teams in large urban school districts across the United States and the conditions that enhance organizational learning in public school systems. As a long-time member of the Public Education Leadership Project, a joint initiative between HBS and HGSE, Higgins co-authored a book in 2015 with her colleagues on managing central office-school relationships called, Achieving Coherence in District Improvement; this book is based upon their work with large urban districts over a ten-year time period.

Higgins also works with entrepreneurial education organizations to help them navigate the constraints and opportunities they face in the education reform movement. Central to this work is HGSE’s Scaling for Impact initiative, which she leads. Here, along with colleagues from HGSE, HBS, and HKS, she is engaged in research and teaching that focus on helping entrepreneurial teams both within and outside of traditional district structures scale their work for even greater social impact. Her latest research in this area focuses on sources of funding and strategic opportunities for nonprofit education organizations.

She served as an appointee for Education Secretary Arne Duncan of the Obama Administration from 2009-2016 and currently sits on several boards in the nonprofit education field. At Harvard, Higgins teaches in the areas of leadership and organizational change, entrepreneurship, teams, and strategic human resources management. She has also taught in leadership programs for The Broad Foundation and for New Leaders for New Schools. Additionally, she teaches in and is on the faculty board of the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative.

Before academia, Higgins held marketing and organizational consulting positions at American Express Travel Related Services, BankBoston, Bain & Company, and Harbridge House. Higgins earned her A.B. in policy studies with a focus in organizational behavior from Dartmouth College, her M.B.A. from the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration, her M.A. in psychology from Harvard University, and her Ph.D. in organizational behavior jointly from the Harvard Business School and the Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

To learn more about the conditions that enable teams to do great work, please see: https://6teamconditions.com/

PDIA in Practice 12: Thinking Big and Small Dec 25, 2019

Show notes

Part 12: Thinking big and small

Welcome to Part 12 of the Practice of PDIA: Building Capability by Delivering Results Podcast series. This 12 part series, based on a video series used for our PDIA online course, will walk you through the PDIA or Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation approach to solving complex development problems. More than 1,500 development practitioners in 90 countries have used the PDIA approach.

Many development challenges are complex and yet there is pressure to scale up the solutions. In today’s podcast, Professor Matt Andrews will discuss how we think about scale.

Matt, can you share with our listeners how you think about scale and sustainability in PDIA?

The myth of scale and sustainability.

Thanks Matt. This is the final episode of this podcast series and I was wondering if you wanted to share some final thoughts about PDIA.

PDIA: Hard but Worthwhile.

Thank you for listening to Part 12, the final episode of the Practice of PDIA: Podcast series. To learn more about PDIA, download our toolkit at bsc.cid.harvard.edu.

PDIA in Practice 11: Designing and Learning from Your Iteration Dec 19, 2019

Show notes

Part 11: Designing and learning from your iteration

Welcome to Part 11 of the Practice of PDIA: Building Capability by Delivering Results Podcast series. This 12 part series, based on a video series used for our PDIA online course, will walk you through the PDIA or Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation approach to solving complex development problems. More than 1,500 development practitioners in 90 countries have used the PDIA approach.

We believe that the answers to complex problems do exist but they must emerge through active iteration, experimentation and learning. In today’s podcast, Professor Matt Andrews will discuss the PDIA principle of iteration.

Matt, can you share with our listeners how iteration can help build both legitimacy as well as functionality.

Learn Iterate Adapt

Could you walk us through the process of an iteration? What is it and how does it work?

Iteration is Research in Action.

Thanks Matt. Can you explain the process of designing the first iteration?

Designing your First Iteration.

Thank you for listening to Part 11 of the Practice of PDIA: Podcast series. Tune in to listen to Part 12 where we will discuss how we think about scale. To learn more about iteration in PDIA, download our toolkit at bsc.cid.harvard.edu.

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