J.33_Organizational_Development_Option.docx

Attachment J.33 Organizational Development Option (Proposed for Insertion in New Solicitations) USAID/Uganda has been among USAID’s leaders in building a culture of collaborating, learning and adapting (CLA). Central to these efforts has been its “Mission of Leaders” initiative (MOL) through which it has created a supportive enabling environment for CLA. MOL recognizes that all staff members have a leadership role to play, no matter their functions or positions; and features the following interventions to continuously strengthen Mission-wide skills in communications, collaboration and organizational effectiveness:

· Leadership Charter: The Leadership Charter defines and encourages the behaviors that Mission staff collaboratively identified as foundational to creating a Mission of Leaders.

· Personality Profiling: Through personality profiling, the Mission strengthens individuals’ awareness of their own and their colleagues’ work styles and to use the heightened awareness to engage more constructively and productively with those colleagues. Personality profiling is done using Insights Discovery,TM tools. Information on Insights DiscoveryTM can be found at https://www.insights.com/

· Organizational Diagnostics: The Mission conducts periodic “temperature checks” and follow-up workshops to assess the perceived quality of organizational effectiveness and to identify and discuss how best to approach organizational issues and opportunities.

· Leadership, Coaching and other Training: The Mission supports various types of training and coaching to bolster skills, foster a leadership mindset and strengthen internal cohesion.

MOL has broad buy-in among Mission staff and the behaviors highlighted in the Leadership Charter have been absorbed into the Mission’s DNA. The effort has led to more open, more effective cross-mission engagement; greater accountability between managers and staff; and a healthier institutional ecosystem overall.

The Mission is convinced that it can amplify the impact of its development assistance by extending its MOL culture to its implementing partners. In this regard, the contractor/cooporator/grantee has the option to increase the amount of its award by .5 percent by submitting and winning USAID’s approval for a proposal describing organizational development activities conducted on behalf of its USAID-supported Uganda-based operations. The option may be exercised anytime within the first third of the life-of the-award. Proposals must:

· Indicate the awardee’s organizational development objectives. Objectives may target organizational development topics that are: internal to the awardee; relevant to awardee relationships with USAID; and/or relevant to awardee relationships with one or more external partners relevant to the USAID-funded activity being implemented, such as another implementing partner with which the awarding is seeking to achieve programmatic integration or a Ugandan counterpart whose participation in USAID-supported activities is critical to activity success. For objectives that involve external actors, awardees must include as an attachment to the proposal: (i) a one page description of respective roles and responsibilities; and (i) a letter indicating that the external actor is prepared to assume the responsibilities indicated in the description of roles and responsibilities.

· Indicate the awardee’s organizational development objectives and how progress toward objectives will be measured and reported on. Indicators should measure the extent to which the immediate objective is being achieved as well as the impact which the organizational effort is having on the awardee’s ability to achieve its development objectives.

· Demonstrate consistency with USAID’s approach. Consistency is critical given USAID’s desire to create a shared culture between its self and its implementing partners as well as among its implementing partners. The expectation is that communications, collaboration and the overall effectiveness of USAID assistance will be increasingly fortified as the shared culture takes hold. Consistency in approach does not necessarily mean consistency in outcomes. For instance, implementing partners may decide to develop Leadership Charters. Consistency with USAID’s approach would mean developing the Leadership Charters in participatory ways engaging staff at all levels. It would not mean ending up with the same Leadership Charter. Should implementing partners choose to propose personality profiling activities, USAID would prefer (will require?) them to use the Insights Discovery,TM tools in order to promulgate a common language.

· Indicate any awardee contributions to organizational development efforts. USAID is interested in financial and human capital investments its implementing partners are making in organization development. No financial contributions are required for the awardee to exercise the option. Human capital investments will be unavoidable.

· Indicate a timeline and an itemized budget for proposed organizational development activities.

Proposals longer than pages should not be submitted without USAID approval.

Participating awardees are obliged to participate in USAID focus groups and other fora to help USAID determine the extent to which organizational development activities improve the quality and/or extent of development results. Such fora will be kept to a minimum.