1. The New Network Leader American Leadership Forum Palo Alto, CA
Friday, October 20, 2017
Jane Wei-Skillern
UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

2. Today’s Agenda
10-10:40 Guide Dogs for the Blind Association (GDBA) case discussion 10:40-12:00 Network Leadership presentation and Q&A 12:00-12:45 Lunch Break 12:45-1:35 Break out groups and large group discussion 1:35-1:45 Closing
Ok! So, let’s get to work. Marty, his team, and I have planned a full morning, start with a roadmap of what we plan to cover.
1) Guide dogs Case:
2) Wrap up case, Presentation on networks
3) Break
4) Small Group Discussion
5) Q and A

3. CLICK: Volunteer someone to summarize the case:
Guide dogs, worlds’ largest trainer and breeder of guide dogs as profiled in this case offers a powerful example of a nonprofit network. The case walks through a series of different change initiatives that involve partnerships with a range of organizations, private, public sector, and nonprofit.
ADDRESS CYNICISM: I’m guessing that while many of you may have found GDBA to be an interesting case, some of you are still wondering
1)whether or not these changes make sense for GDBA? What are the benefits and is it worth the effort and the COSTS
2) Perhaps most importantly, are they particular to GD case, or more broadly relevant to you as leaders in your own organizations and respective fields?

4. Let’s jump right in to the Guide dogs case
Let’s jump right in to the Guide dogs case. Before we get started with analysis, quick show of hands, to get a sense of how many people had a chance to read and prepare for the case discussion? Don’t worry, for those of you who did not raise your hands, I’ll be sure to cold call you to make sure that you don’t feel left out as we discuss the case. In all seriousness, I will make an effort to provide some more background as we discuss to ensure that you can still follow our discussion.
Those of you who did do the reading and prep work may have been wondering why do I have to do so much work for this session, why spend so much time on one case in our session today?
WHY cases? Do a deep analysis of a case collectively can take you out of your day to day roles, challenges, expose you to new ways of working, and provide opportunity to reflect on lessons that are relevant for our own work.
Old Proverb aptly captures the underlying reason why cases are used in vast majority of MBA classrooms and executive education programs: Tell me I will forget, show me I may remember, involve me and I will understand. Our goal is for you to leave today’s session with a deep understanding of a networked mindset, so that you can immediately begin to apply the approach to your current work.

5. Guide Dogs Case Agenda GDBA’s overall performance
Analysis of partnership initiatives
Hotels/Holidays
Guide Dogs Mobility Service (GDMS)
Umbrella organization
Reflections and general lessons that are relevant to your work
These are precisely some of the issues we will address in the next hour or so.
First a road map of what we will cover as we discuss the case.
GDBA overall performance
Detailed analysis of specific partnership initiatives
Hotels/holidays
Guide dogs mobility service
Umbrella organization
Lessons and how this relates to your work
VIDEO

6. Government Partnerships
Hotel/Holiday Partnerships
Sector Level Umbrella
. Rather than abandon, sought out former competitors, identify trusted peers, and handed over mgt, control, and profits in the program and invested more than 10 MN dollars to improve the quality of facilities and ops. Ultimately took off under new partners, began to turn a healthy profit. GDBAs partners owed nothing except maintain quality services as determined by a third party evaluator
Govt: partnered with local govts had legal responsibility for services such as mobility training, independent living skills, communication, but like most govts budget shortfalls led to severely limited services being offered. GD offered to pay for the mobility component, in return for 1:1 matching for other services for VI. Gov’t could choose who to subcontract with. If not, GD, GD offered to provide TA to peer org’n. Govts contractually committed to fund programs to match GD commitment, increased volume of services, and built capacity in the field. Within 5 years of these partnerships, GDBA more than doubled number of clients without scaling up its own ops, UK govt created 150 MN foundation to support other charities to build capacity to bid for and win govt contracts, thereby building broader capacity in the field and more services
Umbrella:
Based on trust that was built, credibility, umbrella org’n created with other leading VI charities: brought eye care service users and providers together for the first time. Unified plan for all issues related to vision. Orgn’ helps coordinate efforts, share cost of ops, and foster new collabs

7. GDBA Lessons?
Also researching writing new cases for my MBA elective SE course, came across a few cases of organizations that achieved tremendous gains in mission impact, not through growth of the organization, but thru investing and supporting external networks. ENTER GDBA.

8. Today’s Agenda
10-10:40 Guide Dogs for the Blind Association (GDBA) case discussion 10:40-12:00 Network Leadership presentation and Q&A 12:00-12:45 Lunch Break 12:45-1:35 Break out groups and large group discussion 1:35-1:45 Closing
Ok! So, let’s get to work. Marty, his team, and I have planned a full morning, start with a roadmap of what we plan to cover.
1) Guide dogs Case:
2) Wrap up case, Presentation on networks
3) Break
4) Small Group Discussion
5) Q and A

9. Please stand up and stay standing if you’re currently involved in collaborations…
2)Stand up if you are either currently involved in, or funding collaborations of some form, perhaps not as risky as what’s pictured ;) now pls stay standing

10. Please sit down if your collaborations feel like…
3)Sit down, if going terribly and you’re wondering on a daily basis what you’ve gotten yourself into.

11. Please sit down if your collaborations feel like…
4)Sit down, if going alright, but still room for improvement,

12. If you’re still standing…
(likely few, if any standing) Those still standing, going phenomenally well, wondering why you didn’t do this sooner? This is how your collaborations leave everyone feeling. My work is done, invite these folks up to share their secrets to success ;)
GAP: In all seriousness, we know all too well, and we just saw firsthand that there is often a gap between the concept of networks/collaboration and the reality of implementation. Share some more background on my research and what I have found are the keys to successful collaboration

13. First, some background how I got into this topic
SLIDE 4 HBS : How I got started with this idea, not sitting alone in ivory tower. Didn’t start with networks at all. Started at HBS as new junior faculty in social enterprise at HBS. Pursue my longtime dream to make a difference in the world by support social sector leaders in their work. Having earned my doctorate at a business school, I was not an expert in the nonprofit field, social entrepreneurship. Trying to find my own footing as a researcher, so I did a lot of listening, learning from everyone I met… how can I do research that adds value to practitioners? What are practitioners asking for help on?
Context, early 2000s, excitement about .com innovators moving into SE, innovation, then naturally, need for growth and scale. Foundations and new donors seeking to scale these innovations, it was assumed that this was the path to achieving greatest impact in the social sphere. A lot of talent, effort focused on offering technical solutions to various organizational challenges, performance measurement tools, how to build nonprofit brands, structures for managing multisite, multinational nonprofits. How to run NPs more like businesses, and help them get to scale.
At the same time, had the opportunity to teach in HBS exec ed programs, where I met CEOs and directors from some of the country’s leading nonprofits, the red cross, TNC, habitat. These were organizations had already succeeded at the growth game, huge organizations, big budgets, far flung organizational units, and struggled with many internal challenges of how to get field to listen to HQ, how to get field staff to learn from each other, how to get people out of their silos.
Juxtaposition of the two types of organizations posed interesting ?, on the one hand, all of these small organizations struggling to grow to scale, here these large organizations that had succeeded were struggling, too. Even the largest most successful organizations still only making a dent in the problems they were trying to solve. It was not clear that organizational growth was the path to social impact that everyone should follow?

14. Geraldine Peacock, GDBA CEO 1997-2004
“It was less important which organization was providing services, or in turn which organization got credit or recognition for doing so…as long as services were being provided to the visually impaired at a high quality on a sustainable basis.”
Geraldine Peacock, GDBA CEO
As we just discussed, what's remarkable about the Guide Dogs example is that rather than grow her organization larger to deliver on her mission, Peacock sought to create networks with a range of organizations to jointly serve the mission. She saw that there were already others out there doing the same jobs equally or better, so she invested in them, committing financial resources, organizational capacity to build the FIELD to serve the mission.
Transition: I became fascinated by these examples of social sector leaders that had grown their impact dramatically by worrying less about solely building their own institutions, and instead investing in their external networks to serve a common vision. Wanted to find more examples to learn from.

15. Like finding a needle in a haystack…
Surprisingly hard to find. These aren’t superstar social entrepreneurs/organizations that were likely to become household names.
Want to find leaders who have worked tirelessly with a singleminded focus on their missions, but not necessarily building big organizations
, leaders who are better at being humble than self promotion,
work well with trusted peers,
advanced the field ahead of their own organizations.
As I was struggling to find additional examples to better define this approach and find high impact examples, out of the blue, got a call from David Haskell, the former regional director of HFHI middle east and north Africa. He had just arrived for a master’s degree at KSG across the river. Had read an article about a seminar I had given awhile back at HBS on networks and had an example from his own work that might be of interest.

16. Yousry Makar, is the ND of HFH in Egypt
Yousry Makar, is the ND of HFH in Egypt. Man with glasses, pictured here in the background, a newly-accepted HFH family, in their current mudbrick home, which was to be razed and rebuilt with HFH loan.
YM Background: A civil engineer by training, brings decades of experience in the housing sector, both in the private and nonprofit sectors.
Interesting story as to how YM became ND, He had just been promoted to become partner in his commercial construction firm building multimillion dollar highrises in Cairo when he was recruited to become ND of HFHE. Before making his decision to take the promotion, or take on the HFHE leadership role, he sought to learn more about poverty housing situation in Egypt.

17. Take you on a tour of what he saw
Take you on a tour of what he saw. Saw village after village of basic mud brick homes.

18. Typical home had dirt floors and no running water, or electricity,

19. Roofs thatched with sugar cane, corn stalks, other scrap materials from the farm that often become infested with rodents, other pests

20. Habitat for Humanity International
Mission: To eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world
World’s largest housing nonprofit
100 countries, 2000 affiliate offices worldwide
Built 400,000 houses from
By now some of you may be wondering, How is this relevant to my own work as a nonprofit leader?
Egypt is a world away, entirely different environment;
HFHI is one of the most well recognized nonprofit brands, has every advantage that is not typically available to most nonprofit organizations
Among the 10 largest nonprofits, Brand valuation $1.8 BN, equavalent to starbucks

21. To eliminate poverty housing in Egypt
HFHE Mission:
To eliminate poverty housing in Egypt
HFHE Challenges:
Tremendous need
Limited resources
Low brand recognition
Competition
Universal Dilemma: Lofty mission, severely limited resources relative to scale of mission
While it is true, HFHE worked under the auspices of HFHI, In 1998 when YM started faced quite a different reality.
20 MN of 70 MN people in Egypt live in poverty housing
250K budget, no paid staff
HFH not est. in Egypt, Christian organization in muslim country, not legally registered, could not operate independently in Egypt
16K-17K NGOs in Egypt, competition for financial and human resources
Now, is this starting to resemble any of your own organizational challenges?
Universal dilemma, lofty mission, severely limited resources.
similar set of challenges nonprofit leaders face, huge problem, limited resources capacity,
A rational approach might be to reduce ambitions, but…

22. HFH Egypt
“We have an Egyptian proverb that I used in my methodology, which is that the basket that has two handles should be carried by two people. So I put this proverb in my mind and this is how I began to think to address this problem [of poverty housing in Egypt]” Yousry Makar, 2006 National Director, HFHI Egypt
HFHI Egypt sought to achieve rapid sustained, scalable mission impact with severely limited resources
This mindset led to thinking about his work in a very innovative way

23. Organization Strategy vs. Network Strategy
housing
education
economic
development
Networks
healthcare
Organization: Try to mobilize resources, recruit staff/volunteers, develop scale up programs, grow organization to address the poverty housing problem as best it can, traditional HFHI model of establishing affiliates from the ground up. Even under the best of circumstances, only incremental gains on problem.
Slum example.
Network: Instead, focused on the goal of eliminating poverty housing, what else involved? Development depends upon all of these factors improving. Addressing one, inadequate to solving problem.
HFHE bypassed traditional HFHI model and worked exclusively by building a network with existing local NGOs /CDOs to deliver on HFHE’s mission. Instead of pursuing organizational mission through organization only, worked through a network of 15 partnerships with complementary, competing nonprofits.

24. HFH Egypt: Unprecedented Impact
Efficiency:
-Quick ramp up, 600+ houses in first year, lower cost, now over 2000 per year. unheard of. Typical for international programs to take several years to begin houses numbering in the double digits
-house numbers, but multiplier effects
Effectiveness:
-Implementing partners bring their resources/expertise to Homeowner selection and collection Peer pressure: repayments dipped, new applicants rejected. One applicant learned on Thurs, Friday prayers, by Saturday, most of the loans had been repaid. Contrast to HFHI run programs, wealthy, american NGO, why repay?
-synergies: MF skills, enable housing programs to succeed. Building boom, creates new economic opportunities, building materials, electrical supplies.
-comprehensive community development: Community take ownership and initiative in own development process. HFHE helped give us a name and allowed us to realize we were good partners. Instead of passive beneficiaries, local NGOs assess community needs, proactive/create new development programs and seek funding to address community needs.
Contrast to typical international NGOs, project based, Water examplle,
Sustainable: 3 partners phasing out, sustainable; some have developed program to serve poorest of the poor, others working with neighboring communities to share their expertise
Efficiency: Fastest scale up, Highest ROI
Effectiveness: Highest repayment rates, program synergies
Sustainability: Complementary programs, exit
strategy

25. Networks can be vastly different but are fundamentally the same…
You’ve seen firsthand two of the cases that I have studied over the years. I’ve spent the last decade researching, writing, and teaching about these types of cases
What is remarkable is that regardless of the issue, whether climate change, international development, education, housing,, large or small, these organizations demonstrate a common approach. This approach runs counter to what is typically incentivized and rewarded in philanthropy
Successful networks have 4 very basic principles that are practiced by all participants in the network.

26. Four Network Principles
Mission, not organization: Advancing the mission takes priority over advancing the organization. Leaders adopt strategies and tactics to achieve the mission, not solely to stimulate organizational growth.
Trust, not control. Trust and shared values are far more important than formal control mechanisms such as contracts or accountability systems.
Humility, not brand. Organizations work alongside their peers as equals and willingly take a backseat when their partners are in a better position to lead.
Node, not hub. Those who embrace the network mindset see their organizations as one part of a larger web of activity directed toward a cause, not as the hub of the action.

27. Mindset Shift from Organization to Network
Don’t worry, not time to get your eyes examined. Juxtapose two slides to illustrate a point. The slide on the left show HFHI’s traditional model. HFHI at center, others potential collaborators, organizations such as government, corporations, other NPs engage to the extent that they fit within HFHI’s model. Slide on the right, the way HFHE works, the issue, poverty housing, is at the center and the actors mobilize and engage without necessarily following a dominant organization or model. The participants work as peers, their resources and expertise are all viewed as equally important to addressing the issue. These diagrams are actually from 2006 planning documents from HFHI when it sought to bring some of HFHE’s approach into organization more widely. These two slides illustrate nicely the mindset shift required from being a hub to a node.
Static Role as Hub
Dynamic Role as Node
Graphics courtesy of Marty Kooistra

28. Four Network Principles
1)Mission not organization
2)Trust not control
3)Humility not brand
4)Node not hub
-Build organization,to serve mission will be served if organization is successful. SN focus on supporting the entire value chain, role organization and others play, evaluate all partnership activities by mission impact, even before short term organizational gains.
- FR on behalf of a peer/partner organization because they know that the
success of their partnersin turn fuels their own success
-Quality way to ensure quality is to exercise control, for example funders often offer rewards and punishments for the right behavior/. SN can’t be dictated from top down, Network members recognize mutual dependence, and invest their respective resources and competencies to achieve shared vision. In many respects, HFHE was playing the role of the funder, 95% of capital, but did not try to control everything,.
Partners could do a better job of program implementation, higher repayment
rates, customizing loan size for homeowner. HFHE sought to learn from them.
-Build NP brand, gain recognition for work. SN build a reservoir of goodwill that motivates all network partners to continue to invest. Without fear of being exploited E.g., YM 6000 house celebration, It’s not habitat. The community is doing it. We’re only providing the support.. Prime fundraising opportunhity, for HFHE
-Not brightest star, but support the constellation of which they are a part. Next slide

29. Questions?

30. Four Network Principles
Mission, not organization: Advancing the mission takes priority over advancing the organization. Leaders adopt strategies and tactics to achieve the mission, not solely to stimulate organizational growth.
Trust, not control. Trust and shared values are far more important than formal control mechanisms such as contracts or accountability systems.
Humility, not brand. Organizations work alongside their peers as equals and willingly take a backseat when their partners are in a better position to lead.
Node, not hub. Those who embrace the network mindset see their organizations as one part of a larger web of activity directed toward a cause, not as the hub of the action.

31. Is this the same as collective impact?
NETWORK LEADERSHIP
Strategy, structure and systems
Values, Relationships, Culture
Funder driven, top down
Organic, bottom up
New collaborations
Build on existing relationships in the community

32. Networks at Work
Reflecting on what impact you/your organizations are trying to achieve, what are some of the issues/concerns that you have about building networks to achieve your goals?
Have you seen/experienced examples of these network principles effectively put into practice?

33. How can networks help you to achieve your goals?
In current context, network principles are neither intuitive nor routinely rewarded, yet in Gdogs, HFHE, and in every other strategic network that I have studied, the leaders live and breathe these principles in all of their network interactions.
Not a structure, strategy, a technological fix, a mindset, a leadership approach, cultural shift. Involves significant changes in behavior, invest resources without expectation of direct return, give up control and share recognition.
Networks are the single most powerful tool for achieving transformational social change.
There is no limit to what a man can do who does not care who gains the credit for it. .
How can networks help you to achieve your goals?

34. A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.
-Lao Tze
ancient Chinese philosopher, 5-6th century BC

35. Interested in learning more?
Find: more articles, case studies, and resources at newnetworkleader.org
Contact:
Thank you!