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While writing this paper we have discussed the subject at various
times with Ed Edwards, Bud Harkavy, Howard Swearer, and a few others,
but the results, for better or worse, are our own and the concurrence of
these helpful people cannot be assumed.
Enclosed are four extra copies of the paper for Messrs
Fredericks, Harkavy, Swearer, and Wilhelm if you agree this would
be appropriate. We hope that
the paper can be circulated to all members of the International
Division's professional staff.
The
Foundation's Organization for Overseas Development:
A Few Observations and Suggestions
For several weeks we have been discussing between ourselves
various alternatives to the way the international Division is organized.
We began with the vexing
question of the content of the program officer's job, but we hope and
believe that we have come up with suggestions that would increase the
Foundation's contribution to development, as well as give the
Foundation's New York staff a more challenging environment in which to
work.
It is generally recognized that the Foundation's greatest
advantage is its flexibility. In overseas development, stakes are high
and the Foundation is relatively small. It plays an important role only
by being a little faster, a little more imaginative and less inhibited
than other assistance agencies, and by employing better-qualified and
better-informed people. The Foundation's record is good, but partly
because the league is slow.
We are real championship class in only a few fields.
The population field is one of the favored few. There
the foundation exercises genuine leadership. We have a solid
sense of strategy. We know what has been tried, what worked and who did
it, what failed and -- sometimes – why. We are in
contact with every important institution in the population field.
In basic agricultural production research we are in a similar
position, once removed.
We are closely wired to the four basic research institutes. A generous
share of the credit for their success goes to the Rockefeller
Foundation, but the important thing for this discussion is that through
them we know the state of the art, we are
influential in shaping the pattern of future research and action
programs.
Our position on
the agricultural economics front in Latin America is similarly advanced.
These three successes illustrate varying operational paths to
positions of leadership
in development. In other directions, where our investments are also substantial,
our light is dimmer.
For example, in
many countries manpower planning was pioneered by the Foundation, yet we
still meet fresh requests in that field almost as if starting anew. We
have no historical sense of what has been tried
around the world, even by ourselves, nor a clear strategy for
what needs trying next. Nor are we acquainted with the latest research.
We have pockets of competence in someone else's pants.
As an institution, we don't have a coherent sense of strategy
about economic planning
or development administration either. Although several of the staff are very
knowledgeable on these subjects, they are as likely as not to be
assigned overseas or in
New York to positions that don't permit them to keep current.
But this is only one way of looking at the record. One could just
as well ask how well we have done in India, East Africa or Brazil as how
well we have done in population, agriculture or manpower planning.
Indeed, since our field work is organized geographically, the latter
inquiry may be more natural to us and answers could be found In annual
reports and budget documents. Representatives are familiar with all
external assistance in their countries and they have clear ideas on the
Foundation's priorities over the next few years.
The country-by-country view of external assistance has served the
Foundation well. As the pressure on our resources increases, however,
the problem-centered approach in our examples above could also be used
to increase our efficiency of allocation. In our opinion, achieving the
proper balance between them is the heart of our organizational problem.
As shorthand, we can speak of a geographical orientation and a functional
one. (Functional is
a poor word. We have tried and rejected others: substantive,
disciplinary, problem-oriented.)
Our
nearly exclusive*
dependence on the geographical approach has had a predictable result. We
have strong, coherent country and regional programs, but we lack
coherent functional programs.
*
The Population Office is an exception. The Office of Latin America and
the Caribbean may be too. We do not know enough about Latin America or
the functional organization of that
staff to be sure.
This phenomenon has been recognized. The creation of
program advisor positions in New York was a serious attempt to
make a functional focus available in the regions. The experiment is only
a qualified success, in our opinion. The critical mass needed to give
coherence to a functional approach is not obtained by our present
careful placement of a few disciplinarians at points in the regional
operation. Our program advisors in New York are gifted men, but they are
attached uncomfortably to a geographical framework that does not offer
them the problem-oriented milieu in which they could work most
effectively. Working together on problems, not exclusively and
independently on regional matters, would make this group more useful to
the Foundation.
We agree that field operations require a geographical orientation
and would not suggest that our field or regional offices be scrapped or
diminished in authority. We do not advocate the Rockefeller pattern of
New York-based specialists who make occasional forays to distant lands,
each with his narrow portfolio. But
what could the Foundation
reasonably expect to gain from a dual staffing pattern, a pattern of
functional staffs taking the lead in their fields and serving the needs
of the geographically oriented field
and regional offices?
Let it be clear at the threshold that the functional staffs we
have in mind are not narrowly disciplinary in nature. We are not
contrasting generalists with specialists.
We do not see that distinction as operationally useful. In the
Foundation, all of us
are expected to operate professionally in the development field. Some
may work in a geographically oriented harness and some in a
functionally oriented one. Some will be more suited by training,
experience or inclination for one rather than the other, but it would
not be at all unusual for a person to be qualified for both. And we do
not envision that highly specialized disciplinarians would be sought for
functional staffs, at least not exclusively or primarily. These staffs
would be problem-oriented, not academically oriented.
We conceive of a group concentrating on rural and urban
development; one on economic planning and development administration;
one on human resources, combining training, education, child
development, manpower; and one on the ecological impact of development
activities. The population office would continue as is and would have
links with the human resources group. (Each of the groups would
establish links with other divisions of the Foundation where there is a
mutual interest.)
The functional orientation could produce the following benefits:
1.
Research strategy
When Watson was a boy, molecular biologists knew that the Nobel
Prize awaited the men who could discover the structure of the DNA molecule.
That was the next
critical question that had to be answered for their science to advance.
As The Double Helix so vividly
describes, the race was tight among three teams of scientists right down
to the finish.
In the social sciences the shout of "Eureka" is less
often heard. Frontiers of
knowledge are fuzzier. Frequently, critical problems are not neatly
confined to single disciplines. The Foundation, however, is peculiarly
well placed to keep up with the latest work on a problem, to gather
research from different disciplines, to synthesize, to help define the
frontier, ask the key questions, and judiciously grease the wheels of
progress. The Foundation's greatest comparative advantage may be in
developing its competence to deal with these opportunities, but in our
present organization there is little chance for strategic thinking about
problem-centered research.
2.
Action strategy
We now have a mechanism for designing the Foundation's posture
vis-a-vis a given country. Functional staffs would enable us to fashion
a strategy for dealing with problems on a broader basis. It is
not enough to know that the Foundation has a role to play in
rural development in Pakistan; we need also to know how what we might do
there relates to what we are doing elsewhere in rural development. This
type of strategic
planning would also relate projects to research results in a beneficial
way.
3.
Project selection
Although the representative is fully able to rank project
priorities in his area, he is in no position to rank those in his area
against those in another.
The program officer is normally prevented by a similar geographical
focus from advising the
head on inter-country priorities. Only the head and the vice-president's
staff have the breadth of view to make inter-country and, in the latter
case, inter-regional comparisons, but they cannot be expected to have
the time to do so systematically. Functional staffs could give the heads
and the vice-president sets of functional priorities to consider along
with the priorities set by representatives. This could provide a
stronger basis for allocation of budgets than seems available now.
All field projects
would continue to be shaped in the field with full awareness of local
conditions, but the grasp that functional staffs would have on research
strategies would commend them to the regional offices and
representatives as advisors on
project mix.
4.
Information
The functional staffs could ensure that regional offices and
representatives and their staffs are better supplied with current
information about problem areas. (The information work of our population
office is a good example.) Better
interchange of the Foundation’s field experience could also be
stimulated through internal
papers and meetings on problems.
5.
Recruitment
We would be less likely to mistake the sophisticate for the real
thing, would have additional ways of checking out candidates, and would
have a far greater range of
possible leads, if people professionally acquainted with the
problem areas in which we
seek candidates were regular participants in the search. Moreover, functional staffs of top quality would be likely to draw a flow of
equally superior candidates. Program officers and manpower
services would still have crucial roles to play in recruitment, but they
could turn to the functional staffs for leads and quality control.
6.
Institutional memory
Our present memory is haphazard. There is no ready record of our
accomplishments in the many fields in which we work, nor of our
failures. Functional staffs could take on much of the work for which
consultants and program advisors in the field
are now employed, and could brief those still needed much more
effectively than we can now.
7.
Functional resource base
Increasingly we are impressed
with the need to
build resource bases along functional lines. Area studies programs may
justify support, but seldom because of their direct usefulness to
development work abroad. On the other hand, there are frequently good
reasons why functional strengths (for example, in education planning and
agricultural economics) should be supported for work in more than one
country or region.
The
overall resource base question is complex but we have no doubt that
functional staffs would be of great value in designing increasing
numbers of our resource
base grants.
8.
The Foundation as a
resource base
Experienced project specialists and program advisors often make
the best consultants other field offices could hope to find.
At the moment this
valuable interchange is likely to occur only when the representative or
head has personal knowledge of the work of an individual.
9. Project
performance evaluation
The representative's staff does not normally
have comparative experience to draw upon in evaluating project
performance. Functional staffs should not undertake to evaluate each
project that is terminated, but a selection of notable successes and
failures could usefully be studied by these groups, with the objective
of drawing guidelines for future actions.
10.
Impact
The concentration of
knowledge represented on the functional staffs could serve to heighten
the impact of the Foundation on other donor organizations. Just as those
now thinking seriously about agricultural economics in Latin America are
likely to seek Lowell Hardin's wisdom and experience, so should the
functional staffs come to represent knowledge about the frontiers in their various
problem areas.
11.
Lateral communication in the Foundation
Functional staffs would link
not only the regional offices, but domestic divisions as well.
We think this list
of benefits is worth
breaking through program management budget ceilings to achieve if
necessary, but we do not assume that it is. By asking several members of
the New York staff to serve on task forces for the next year, we should
be able to accomplish the following objectives in each of the functional
fields suggested above:
- Review
the literature;
- Become
familiar with relevant Foundation projects both current and planned;
- Design
a research strategy;
- Design
an appropriate organizational pattern;
- Present
a budget for research and organization;
- Work
out appropriate functional staff and regional office relationships;
and
- Make
contact with the original thinkers in the field.
Work on these task forces would probably require extra hours, but
we believe many staff members would be sufficiently challenged to
participate willingly. We would hope that some staff time during regular
working hours would be available for task force efforts, and
that program advisors would be encouraged to devote at least half
time. The task forces would, of course, need to coordinate their work
with representatives and program advisors in the field.
We hesitate to
anticipate the findings of these task forces,
but in support of the idea that they should be appointed, we have
sketched out below a staffing pattern that
they might recommend:
- Reorganization
of regional offices, each to include only two senior program
officers (or deputies), one to be responsible to the head for
operations, and the other for program and budget planning,
and resource base
grants. Assistant
program officers, normally skimmed from
training associate
and program assistant ranks, would handle the
more routine work of the desks with the aid of non-professional
administrative assistants.
- Establishment
of division-level functional staffs, each to be headed by a
program-advisor-in-charge and staffed by program advisors, assistant
program advisors, research and administrative assistants. Each staff
would have a limited number of senior positions, making them roughly
equivalent in size to the regional offices. The regional heads would
be senior to the program-advisors-in-charge because the functional
staffs are meant to service the regions.
- Specialists
would typically not be hired for either the regional offices or
the functional staffs. Knowledge of the Foundation itself is a key to an effective service
role, as the population staff ably demonstrates. Senior functional
staff positions, and senior regional office positions, would
be rotational slots for overseas representatives.
- For
purposes of discussion, we have attached a schematic pattern showing
ways in which a person might move from New York to field office
and vice versa.
It might appear that our minds are made up about how the task
forces should come out
after a year's study. This is emphatically not the case. We believe
strongly that the organizational pattern of the Division is of vital
interest to each of us who works in it, and that radical changes such as
those proposed should be thoroughly discussed by all of us before they
are made.
Draft
Follow-up:
January 30, 1970
On January 5 we submitted to Messrs. Bell and Sutton suggestions
about the organization of the International Division, some of which could have
implications for the Foundation as
a whole. We would like
to respond to your memorandum of January 8 by adding only one
recommendation to those already expressed.
We suggest that a task force of three or four staff members be appointed
to study the structures of successful modern organizations, discuss with
the officers and staff the Foundation's own strengths and weaknesses and recommend, after
six months or so, organizational changes which seem appropriate. Modern
management techniques hold clues to improvement, but we believe they can
be applied best by the Foundation staff, not by outside management
consultants.
Our hypothesis is that the Foundation is not as hot a bed of creativity
as our conservative
critics believe, or our clients might wish, and that more vitality could
be infused into the organization by rethinking the processes by which we
set priorities, and
reshaping our uses of staff.
Processes
Major changes in the Foundation's program priorities have tended
to result only from rather cataclysmic events such as the installation of new management, or
the convening of a full-scale review
such as preceded the last
decade. Once new goals are selected, or old ones reaffirmed, the
structure of the Foundation is altered to reflect them. The
familiar dynamics of
organization then take over to ensure that, in
time, the chosen programs become in
effect barriers to new claims on the
budget. People
responsible for programs that affect
important work overseas, or in universities,
ghettos, or theaters, are naturally obliged to try to secure as
much money as they can for those purposes, and it is bound to be
inadequate. Given a limited budget,
competing claims must to some extent be resisted, and those without
vested defenders have the least
chance of all. There is thus a tendency in the Foundation to be as
imaginative as possible in the pursuit of accepted goals.
Program objectives ought not to change with the seasons, and to
us it seems wise that priorities have not been altered frequently. At
the same time, we think
that a continuous process of new program exploration is required to
ensure the timely identification of new social problems. The Foundation is
now well equipped to deal with
the problems of the
sixties that will long be with
us, but no one is charged with
defining our agenda for the seventies.
We regard your memorandum to be a step in this direction but
suggest that the systematic exploration of future program priorities
requires time and effort not normally
available to program officers with heavy continuing
responsibilities. A small staff with a rotating membership could be
oriented toward the programs of the future, but the task force we are
proposing should consider alternatives. We are attracted
by the notion that a man
with an idea worthy of
further investigation might be detached from operating responsibilities
in order to pursue it, but rather than recommend
grafting a new unit to the present structure we suggest a broader
review of the vital
processes of the Foundation.
Some thoughts on
another important process, that of evaluating project proposals, can be found in our
earlier paper.
Staff
The most effective staffing pattern for any organization depends upon
the quality of the staff and the degree of initiative and
imagination required of them. It is hard to conceive of a purposeful
group with as talented a staff as the Foundation's, or with a purpose so
demanding of all the intellectual resources they can bring to bear. Yet the
staffing pattern is essentially hierarchical.
It is striking that the rising corporate giants of the computer
age are new companies, not the old-line organizations that began with
vast advantages of funds and manpower. Industrial psychologists are
writing excited pieces about the ways in which companies like 3M and Texas Industries achieve phenomenal growth
through the controlled ferment of
their versatile staffs. NASA,
too, has succeeded notably in linking diverse groups of highly
trained men to problems never before solved. These aren't
plastic models of the
ideal Foundation pattern, but the suspicion lingers that these
people may know something about human organization that we do not, and
structural fluidity seems to typify their
efforts.
We have been impressed, in our limited reading about this new
breed of organization, by the recurrence of several themes. One is the
frequent use of impermanent staff structures, or task forces, to
accomplish particular tasks. In NASA, for example, impermanent groups command the major budgets,
and the permanent support
staffs such as engineering services must compete with outside
contractors for their share.
Organizational charts, with tidy boxes connected by lines of
authority upward and down, are often found to be inadequate to describe
the new patterns. In one as-yet unpublished article, the components of
the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston are shown as clusters of
satellites swirling around the central directorate and
held together by "creative tension.”
As
might be anticipated, this is called the Solar
Organizational System.
It would be equally awkward to arrange boxes for Arthur D.
Little, Inc. Each
professional staff member at ADL is expected to be in charge of at least
one project in a year,
an activity he will often have originated. It
is his task to budget the
project and to staff it with an appropriate blend of skills from the
professional staff or, if necessary, from outside. Each staff member has
his own billing rate, so the project leader must decide how many hours
of each he will need and
can afford. The project leader
must himself be available to work
on the projects of others,
and quite commonly he may
find himself working on one project for someone who works for him
on another.
In one way or another, these organizations are all able to
respect and reward performance, rather than rank, status or seniority;
and to shift human and material
resources quickly in response to needs or opportunities. In a rapidly
changing world, experience may command a low premium.
They also seem adept in combining individual strengths on teams well equipped
for particular purposes.
Any effective management system must do this to some
extent, but the flexibility the modern organizations have in making
short term or part time
assignments of special skills sets them somewhat apart. That
"synergy" has become
a new cliche illustrates the importance
with which this process is viewed.
Relating these novelties to the
Foundation would be no simple task. We
lack the convenient
method of keeping score that the profit and loss statement provides, and
our objectives are not as precise as a landing on the moon. Still,
we seem to suffer from some
of the maladies the new designs
mean to overcome. Like any
organization, we have people who
are better at articulating a problem
than solving it,
others better at initiating
programs than running them, others better at administering
projects than thinking them up, yet most of our jobs are designed for
rounded generalists.
The proposed task force would seek better ways to combine the talents
available in the Foundation, and to release the creative energies of the
staff.
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