Part 2: Keep Your Flock Together

You have assembled your team. You are ambitious, competent, and dedicated. You are working towards a common goal. And you have established clear and precise indicators that can show your progress.

Now you are ready to make a solid impact on a social problem. Your task is to take on the role of a good shepherd. This does not mean that your collaborators are to be compared to a flock of mute sheep. But systemic change is a complex and prolonged process that challenges even the most tightly-knit team.

In part 2 of our series for system-changing funders, you will find a five-step guide to help you keep your specially selected flock together.

1: Design Your Common Purpose

The first step is familiar to those who have already read the first guide article in the series. The same goes for step two. We include them here for completeness but in a brief version. You can find the detailed version here.

In short, your common purpose consists of a result and an indicator. The result is your overall goal, and the indicator is the metric that shows you if you are on the right track.

Multiple results and indicators can guide the same system-changing strategies and programs. But start cautiously: Define one result and a maximum of three indicators that show if the goal is achieved.

2: Find Relevant Performance Measures for Each Partner

A performance measure answers one of the following three questions about a program or activity:

• How much did we do?
• How well did we do it?
• Is anyone or anything better off?

Each member of your team has their own strengths and therefore also their own role to play in the systems-change strategy. It is your task to ensure that all your collaborators measure whether they are fulfilling their specific roles.

A partner’s role may consist of a singular or multiple programs or services.

Therefore, they should measure how much they do, how well they do it, and what change they create for the group of people you are working for.

We also touched on this in the first guide. And you can look forward to guide number three, where we will further expand on performance measurement.

3: Implement a Unified Data Management System

Ensure that all program partners use the same data reporting IT system and framework to manage data.

A shared IT system will create a centralized hub for your data, allowing you to identify patterns more easily and make better investment decisions.

A shared data reporting framework will ensure everyone is speaking the same language when it comes to data. Why is using a shared (or unified) data system better than using multiple?

• If your data is kept in multiple systems, you will never know what the latest version is.
• It is difficult to build capacity if you do not have a common way of reporting data.
• It is impossible to understand data from different partners if everyone reports data differently.

The best IT systems provide you with consistency, presentation, and ease of use. Ease of use is incredibly important. You do not want people to hate the system, for then they will do everything to avoid using it, and your progress will stall.

The system should also make it possible to link action plans to each performance measure.

Under each specific measurement, your partners should be able to tell what they have done and how their actions are connected to your overall goal. This is important so that you do not have to search for actions every time a question arises.

Once you have chosen the right system, make it mandatory for everyone to use it. IT systems are a significant investment, so get the most out of them by training all partners in their use.

Investing in shared data collection tools for partners may also be helpful, especially if they are using manual methods like paper-based surveys or forms. 

Not all data collection and reporting tools are designed to work well together. Be sure to do your research and find systems that “speak” to each other and easily share data and information.

4: Hold 1×4 Meetings Annually

Hold an annual meeting with each of the partners you fund. Adam Luecking calls these meetings 1×4 meetings because you meet with 1 partner 1 time a year for 1 hour to discuss progress on 1 performance measure.

Each one-hour conversation should consist of two parts. The first part should focus on reviewing the result and the indicator that the partner contributes to.

During this discussion, you should examine what the partner plans to contribute to the overall strategy — and, importantly, how. It is about ensuring that the partner has a clear plan that aligns with the support you and your organization can provide.

The second part of the conversation should include a review of at least one of the grantee’s performance measures.

In short, your conversation will include the following:

• The status of the data
• The analysis of the data (or the story behind the data)
• The partners who have a role in improving the data
• Ideas for improving the data
• The resulting action plan

Keep meetings precise and time-bound. And ensure they are meaningful—for both you and the partner. No one wants irrelevant or unnecessary meetings. If possible, you can integrate these conversations into already planned meetings to avoid overloading your partners’ calendars more than necessary.

At the end of the meeting, you should ensure that you have a shared answer to the following question: “What specific actions will the partner take from now until your next annual meeting?”

This will give you something to start with at the next meeting. Many of these conversations will likely also indicate things you should do yourself.

Be mindful that these meetings are designed around supporting your partners rather than punishing them for not reaching their goals.

5: Make Your Investment Decisions

At this point, you have the knowledge you need to decide how to invest your money.

You have a strong team, everyone knows the goal, clear indicators are set, you have a unified IT system to manage data, and you have an overview of what the individual players on your team are doing and how it contributes to your common goal.

Now it is your responsibility to make the decisions that will bring you to the finish line. Some of them will break with established patterns. And it will not necessarily be popular.

But do not hold back. Habits, patterns, and routines can be straitjackets that stand in the way of the necessary. Therefore, there will be sacred cows that must be sacrificed on the journey. And often, you will find that these sacrifices, while painful, can free up time, energy, and resources for what creates measurable results.

Remember, when making your choices, that systemic change is not a predictable, linear process. There will always be some on your team who, for one reason or another, do not perform as well as you have hoped.

But it may be a temporary condition influenced by external events. So always make sure to have in-depth, curious conversations with your partners and give them space to tell the story behind the numbers. It could be the key to a sudden leap forward.

In the next part of our series on systemic change, we dive into performance measurement and look at, among other things, how to avoid being misled by the data you collect.

And remember, you can meet Adam Luecking in Copenhagen on September 18. Read more here.