From climate change and urbanisation to resource scarcity and geopolitical shifts, our world is experiencing disruptive change that impacts how development work is planned and delivered. At the same time, this development practice is also increasingly impacted by ‘internal disruptors’ such as the emergence of new donor nations, a growth in crowdsourcing and the rise of social enterprise. How can donors, including the UK Department for International Development (DFID), prepare themselves for the disrupted future ahead? They could arguably start by learning from Southern NGOs — many of which already manage disruption in the here and now and are invaluable in building agency and achieving lasting change. These slides summarise the findings from an IIED project to collate and share learning from 23 NGO leaders across Africa, Asia and Latin America on how to manage disruptive change.

1. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
Author name
Date
November 2015
Learning for DFID from Southern
NGO leaders
Managing disruptive
change in an uncertain
world

2. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
The backdrop
• Many drivers of disruption will affect how SDGs are
implemented
demographic and geopolitical shifts, climate change, urbanisation, resource
scarcity, technological transformation
• Internal development disruptors also change
development practice
disintermediation, new donor nations, blurring of ‘civil society’ and ‘private sector’
ways of working, online giving, changing regulatory space for civil society, rise of
social enterprise
• DFID and others are preparing for disrupted futures
• Southern NGOs are key implementers for the SDGs,
but little is known about how they view or manage
disruptive change

3. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
The project
Collating and sharing learning from
Southern NGO leaders about how to
manage disruptive change
May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Literature
review
Workshop
with IIED
donors and
partners
23 interviews across
Africa, Asia, Latin
America
written outputs, DFID and INGO
engagement, learning exchange
Agreement to focus
on Southern NGOs

4. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
The project
Why focus on Southern NGOs?
• the SDG commitment to ‘leave
no one behind’ demands
effective organisational
capacities to adapt and innovate
• Local and national NGOs
are invaluable in building
agency and achieving
lasting change
• Southern NGOs are closer
to the places where
development disruption bites
• Southern NGOs already
manage disruption in the
here-and-now

5. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
What is disruptive change?
Interviewees suggest disruption means many things:
•Disruption is life!... At moments of ‘stuck-ness’, disruption brings the energy to move again.
•Our organisation has grown from something very small to something very large, all in the
context of wars, conflicts, earthquakes, and changing donor priorities, government policies and
spaces for civil society. This is an incredibly turbulent environment.
•Our reality is one of ‘consistently trying to overcome uncertainty’. The reality of the change
process has been to learn to manage uncertainty on an ongoing basis.
Turbulence, uncertainty,
a fact of life
•The idea of a shock assumes a steady state earlier, and that after a shock there is a return to
the initial condition. [Conversely] the layman’s definition of disruptive change is ‘life will not be
the same again’.
“Life will never be the
same again”
•The first thing you think is always negative, but there are pluses and minuses.
•‘Disruptive change’ has a negative connotation. [But] …disruption might not be bad because
[your organisation] can thrive on other peoples’ sorrow or misery. And there is also a positive
dimension when disruption benefits everyone.
Positive as well as
negative
•There is a risk that external priorities are somehow submerging the internal. There are
stronger, if not bigger, issues … that create more disruption. The relationship with government
is the major disruption which we manage: particularly with change towards ‘loved’ and ‘unloved’
NGOs.
Externally or internally
driven
“
“
“
“
”
”
”
”

6. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
How to respond?
Interviewees say responses to disruptive change can be:
Adaptive, reactive Proactive, innovativeor
Adaptation is dancing to somebody else’s music. Innovation is composing and playing your
own music — and having the others dance to it.
“
Some organisations … are successful because they can survive through the adaptive
capacity of capturing the mood: climate change is a good example. Any new fashion will force
us to adapt: for some in a positive way; for others in a way that is too opportunistic for our
mandates or missions to survive.
The typical kind of change in developing countries is reactive, and it happens when some
event occurs in the environment and the system or NGO reacts… But it’s essential to think of
innovation which comes from within. And innovation can also be disruptive.
“
“
”
”
”

7. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
So what?
The many meanings of disruption matter because, in
Southern NGO contexts:
‘Mega disruptors’
like climate change
are often obscured
by disruption as a
daily ‘fact of life’.
Addressing
disruption-readiness
here and now is a
vital stepping stone to
‘future-fitness’.
How disruption is framed
internally can affect how it
is addressed at an
organisational level (Harvard
Business Review, 2002).
so
If DFID takes a
‘disruption’ theme further,
it should consider how to
frame it to enable
alignment with the
adaptive and innovative
outcomes needed.
so
Reactive NGOs can effectively
deliver changing donor, INGO,
and government priorities. They
can appear very resourceful. But
they may lack capacity to
develop organisational systems
and innovation to chart their own
futures in a disrupted world.
DFID could reflect further on
what blends of policy,
partnership and financial
support are most likely to deliver
adaptation that is ‘disruption-
ready’ and rich in innovation
potential.
so

8. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
So what for DFID?
DFID may not be able to tackle systemic drivers of disruptive
change. But it can consciously aim to anticipate disruption in
ways that:
• lead the way among bilateral donors
• with potential positive spillovers for development-conscious businesses,
NGOs, and wider ODA practice
• stimulate learning on organisational responses
• both within DFID and in other development organisations
• invest in ‘disruption entrepreneurs’
• in civil society and the private sector: people and organisations with scalable
ideas that embrace disruption and could accelerate implementation of the
SDGs

9. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
Learnings for DFID
Our work reveals four kinds of learning for DFID as:
A positive
development
disruptor
An enabler of
effective disruptive
change
management
A development actor
facing disruption
itself
A disruptor of
Southern NGOs
Supporting
others
Direct
agency
Embracing disruption
Adapting to disruption

10. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
DFID as a positive
development disruptor
Where DFID disrupts the status quo in
ways that advance implementation of
the SDGs.
Many Southern NGOs also see themselves
as disruptive innovators. DFID can strengthen
Southern NGO-led disruptive innovation, and
take inspiration from existing practice.

11. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
DFID as a positive
development disruptor
Insights from our interviewees:
We wanted to embrace a new movement of start-ups creating technology for the poor, and to
create a connection to areas that need them. The fact that unusual suspects are joining this
area is really disruptive.
“
”I feel that there is a vast field of innovators; people with courage and capacities who are
showing the way and can help us move forward, and use disruption not as something to fight
against, but as a stepping stone for the transformation that is needed.
If you want to be disruptive, you need not to take the world as it is, but leave more windows
open to the world as it should be. What that means at an organisational level is that you need
to be very open to breaking stereotypes.
Most innovation is at the grassroots, in smaller NGOs. They can deliver, but they are not
aware of… opportunities [to work with the private sector].
“
”“
”“
”

12. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
DFID as a positive
development disruptor
Implications for DFID:
A focus on disruptive innovation
shifts ODA geographies.
Supporting disruptive innovation
may demand new delivery models,
a shift in risk appetite, and an
ability to spot ‘disruption
innovators’.
We want international cooperation agencies to be open to innovative
organisations that bring something different… looking at us based on
usefulness, not geopolitics.
Donors seem to want innovative solutions, but they won’t finance things
until you have proof of concept. There must be greater coherence here.
It becomes very hard to have innovation in how you deliver services
because the system tends to take you to proven and traditional ways of
doing things.
Grassroots disruptive innovators
may need DFID’s support to broker
the connections between their
innovation capacities to
development outcomes.
“
”
”
“

13. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
DFID as an enabler of
change management
Where DFID enables Southern NGOs
to manage disruptive change effectively.
Southern NGOs with experience of disruptive
change management have lots of insights into
what makes for effective disruptive change
management.

14. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
DFID as an enabler of
change management
Four broad categories of insights from our interviewees:
Skills and capabilities
• getting beyond survival, building skills
Leadership and governance
• ‘distributed leadership’, engaging the board
Culture and learning
• working on cultural alignment, continual commitment to learning
Funding and coalitions
• securing resources for organisational development, applying
coalitions to disruptive change management

15. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
DFID as an enabler of
change management
Skills and capabilities
NGOs with strong
innovation capabilities
may deliver better
development outcomes
than those in ‘reactive’
mode.
DFID’s civil society support could
lead the way in building
understanding and a Southern
NGO community of practice on
‘disruption-ready’ innovation.
I don’t think reactive disruption management can lead
to innovation.… It’s the survival mode in which NGOs
and many organisations live in the developing world...
[S]urvival is different to development.
“
”
Effective organisational
change processes
support and diversify
internal skills to deliver
desired outcomes.
‘Disruption-ready’ decision
making on internal skills and
competences demands strategic
reflection and organisational
learning, with implications for
donor support.
If you let people pursue their passions and interests,
they will always leave something.
Our management approach is different from the one
you see in business school literature. We focus on
people with the skills and traits of leaders, who can take
decisions on their own in the field at any time.
“We’re writing a new strategic plan; and part of my
thinking is that we need to re-think the kinds of skills
and people you bring into your governance model.
“
”

16. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
DFID as an enabler of
change management
Leadership and governance
Leadership behaviours
and styles have great
impact on how
organisations
experience disruptive
change management.
Do ‘distributed leadership’
models deliver more effective
disruption management? If so,
there are implications for DFID
itself, as well as for how DFID
supports Southern NGOs.
Our leadership style is ‘distributed’: everything is based
on personal responsibility; each one of us is a leader
one way or another.. We had a funding shortfall twice
where we stayed more than fifteen months without
resources. And still people came to work.
With new leadership, we are very decentralised. Most
operational decisions are taken in the field, which builds
confidence and ownership in local managers.
“
”
Boards can be
invaluable in supporting
effective disruptive
change management.
How much does DFID know
about how boards work in the
NGOs it supports? Is there a
case for supporting boards’
enhanced ‘effective change
governance’ capacity, through
grants or information resources?
To confront changes in the external environment, many
NGOs are.. changing the composition of their boards.
By the time we got the subcontract, we were told it
could not be used to cover the cost of salaries for the
previous six months…The board said they would make
personal contributions to cover the shortfall.
“
”

17. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
DFID as an enabler of
change management
Culture and learning
Organisational culture
can predispose NGOs
to positive or negative
outcomes from
disruptive change.
If ‘disruption-readiness’ is
important, DFID could look at
links between organisational
culture and development
outcomes, and pilot support for
strengthening ‘disruption-ready’
or ‘disruption-embracing’ culture.
It’s the culture of busy-ness that’s the problem. You
never stop to reflect, and there’s a tendency to think
that the bigger we are, the more successful we’ll be…
One thing we really wanted to embed is a culture of
always identifying opportunities and areas for
improvement. Also a culture of ‘action’ rather than talk.
We [have] an online culture page
[www.kopernik.ngo/page/our-culture]… We still discuss
it every quarter... We go through the culture [statement],
and assess whether we’re living up to it.
“
”Learning is a key
resource. At first blush,
there appears to be a
strong correlation
between effective
disruptive change
management, internal
mechanisms for
learning, and rapid
feedback from
mistakes.
Many NGOs struggle with short-
termism in their operations.
Supporting organisational
learning is vital, and DFID can
step up its role in this. But many
learning models are already in
use, and these offer a resource
for donors and other NGOs?
Every year, boards should have a meeting for horizon
scanning, or for a consultant to come in and talk about
patterns in the external environment.
In our organisation, for 22 years, we dedicated a week
of each month to learning. This was our ‘home week’.
At every staff meeting we have an agenda item on
‘what we have learnt’ which creates space for all levels
of learning-- we keep track of this in a learning journal.
“
”

18. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
DFID as an enabler of
change management
Funding and coalitions
Effective organisational
development and
change management
must be funded.
Effective organisational
development (OD) approaches
minimise the disruptive impacts
of change, positive or negative.
Could DFID better integrate
funding for it into project-based
support as well as strategic
funding? Flexible OD funding is
in short supply, and can be hard
to access.
Projects, in many ways, kill organisations. They make
us lose our strategic focus.
You just can’t fund organisational jumps through project
funding. MacArthur is one of our key donors, and gave
us a grant to strengthen our organisation, to do a new
website and produce a strategic plan. Without this
support, we wouldn’t have a coherent strategy.
“
”
International networks
and coalitions could
play an enhanced role
in enabling peer
support and learning for
management of
disruptive change.
The international network or alliance can enable each
[member] to handle [potentially disruptive issues] more
effectively in their national setting.
There is no way you can deal with [climate change]
only in the South if you are not connected to the same
approach in the North.
“
”
DFID could consider supporting
a peer-to-peer support network
on managing disruptive change.
Or it could integrate a ‘change
management learning’
component within grants to
existing relevant networks.

19. Managing disruptive change
November 2015DFID as an organisation
facing change itself
Where DFID acts to manage the
disruption change it faces itself.
DFID can potentially take inspiration from
things that Southern NGOs are doing well.

20. Managing disruptive change
November 2015DFID as an organisation
facing change itself
Insights from our interviewees:
Southern NGOs are diversifying
their skills in response to disruption
in the operating environment (but
gaps remain, e.g. in natural and
physical science for climate
mitigation and adaptation).
In a typical screening in development agencies, you look at the number
of years of experience, and you weigh them and so on. To us that’s not
really the point. The person should be really driven and motivated to
make a difference. It’s hard to judge that by looking at CVs. So our
policy is to ask for a one-minute video first, about why [the candidate is]
the best for the job. We get a sense for what kind of person they are;
what kind of drive [they have]. That’s the first thing. Without that, it’s
hard to run an organisation at the forefront of disruptive change.
“
”
Distributed leadership models in
some Southern NGOs appear to
deliver strong staff commitment,
experimentation, and resilience in
the face of disruption.
We try to be as open as possible so that people don’t have fear. Fear is
a real block for creating change and learning.
“
”

21. Managing disruptive change
November 2015DFID as an organisation
facing change itself
Implications for DFID
As a development actor preparing for
disruption, DFID can learn from inspirational
examples of organisational practices in
Southern NGOs.
What would it take for DFID to integrate
learning from Southern NGO change
management and disruptive innovation into its
processes?

22. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
DFID as disruptor of
Southern NGOs
Where DFID causes negative disruptive
change for Southern NGOs.
Southern NGOs have practical insights into how
donors can minimise and avoid negative disruption
out of their own operating practices.

23. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
DFID as disruptor of
Southern NGOs
Two broad categories of insights from our
interviewees:
Policy change
• changes in funding policies and priorities
Tendering and consortiums
• terms of reference and proposal evaluation criteria

24. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
DFID as disruptor of
Southern NGOs
Policy change
Southern NGOs respect
donors’ need to change
policies. But sudden
change can destroy the
social and institutional
capital on which effective
development interventions
are built, and hamper
efforts to chart a
consistent strategic
course. A change in donor policy is understandable... but
changing the geographic focus is really hard for
national NGOs to adjust to.
Impacts can be particularly
hard on ‘locally embedded’
NGOs with the strongest
community links.
“
”
To what extent could grant
agreements and terms of
reference for contracts be
‘disruption-mitigated’ through
provisions on advance
notification, simple impact
assessment tools, or use of
‘sunset and sunrise clause’
approaches to donor changes of
direction?
“

25. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
DFID as disruptor of
Southern NGOs
Tendering and consortiums
Consortia can lead to
compromises that
undermine long-term
strategies.
In a consortium, you need a common
understanding. That means that some part of the
consortium may have to compromise. The
compromise might be somewhere in the middle –
or it might be dictated by the bigger agencies
(because it can be easier to change the 30% than
the 70%). But if we compromise on our approach,
we also compromise on our long-term strategy.
Criteria can be
exclusionary, to the
detriment of marginalised
groups.
“ ”
Could DFID carry out a Southern
NGO-centred ‘disruption impact
assessment’ of tendering and
consortia requirements, with a
view to making adjustments in
terms of reference and proposal
evaluation criteria?
“
Mandating consortia.. gives an unfair disadvantage
to local NGOs. For example, one requirement in a
recent situation was to have a UK regulated bank
account. That limits who can submit proposals to
like-minded agencies. If it’s always the same ones
getting the grants, it doesn’t open the way to
innovation
”They wanted to make it more sophisticated so they
introduced a literacy requirement, which nearly
completely excluded women.
Terms of reference can
favour ‘the same’ groups
and stifle innovation.
”
“
“

26. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
Learnings for DFID
Across all areas, our interviewees felt that:
• Donors often focus too much on governments
• DFID should more visibly support and advocate for
the role of civil society in international development
• Funding is not the only answer: advocacy and who
DFID engages with are also important

27. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
Learnings for DFID
What can individual DFID teams do to support the agency play
a leading role among donors in crafting best practice ‘disruption-
readiness’?
Civil society
Innovation
and adaptive
programming
Learning
Interviewees suggested
pathways for more effective
grant-making and funding
through support for
‘disruption-readiness’
(including via intermediaries
such as INGOs); and stressed
the importance of policy
engagement on the operating
space for civil society
Many Southern NGOs already see
innovation as a means to greater
local ownership of regional or
national development pathways.
Our interviewees gave many
insights into the organisational and
cultural accelerators and blockers
of adaptive programming and
innovation, such as empowered
staff, or fear
Continual learning processes
emerged as a key resource for
effective management of
disruption, with implications
for DFID itself as well as
support to Southern NGOs

28. Managing disruptive change
November 2015
Learnings for DFID
What can individual DFID teams do to support the agency play
a leading role among donors in crafting best practice ‘disruption-
readiness’?
Evaluation
‘Mega-disruptors’
climate change,
urbanisation, migration,
demographic change
Business
models and
operations
Interviewees hinted at routes to
more effective evaluation of
development outcomes by
focusing on ‘disruption-
readiness’. Adaptive
programming with more
frequent quick-fire monitoring,
learning and evaluation can give
insights for anticipatory
disruptive change management
Interviewees gave specific insights
into Southern NGO engagement
with donor climate change
agendas, and ways to build trust
and capacity for effective action.
As a whole, they offer multiple
insights into leveraging ‘disruption-
readiness’ here and now as a way
of effectively managing change
driven by ‘mega-disruptors’
Interviewees suggested how
to use tendering, consortia,
and terms of references (for
grants) to improve local
ownership of development
outcomes. They also pointed
to the implications of risk and
innovation appetite for
effective disruptive change
management