Publications – Management, Leadership, and Decision Sciences (MLD) at the Harvard Kennedy School

MLD-103M: PDIA in Action: Development Through Facilitated Emergence with Matthew Andrews

July 14, 2023July 14, 2023 Greg Dorchak

Many development experts use plan and control methods to introduce new policy solutions into complex settings. Too often these results end up in in failure. Effective leaders in the challenging development context should be using more flexible facilitated emergence methods instead, but often they do not know what these methods involve. MLD-103M: PDIA in Action: Development Through Facilitated Emergence taught by Matthew Andrews, Edward S. Mason Senior Lecturer in International Development, is a Spring module course that introduces students to a new approach to doing facilitated emergence, Problem Driven Iterative Adaptation (PDIA) in the development context. Students will learn how to facilitate discussions about problems and potential solutions, to engage with teams, and to facilitate an iterative learning process. MLD-103M is a complementary course to MLD-102: Getting Things Done: Management in a Development Context also taught by Matthew Andrews, although MLD-102 is not a pre-requisite.

To learn more, view this general introduction to PDIA. Check out the PDIA Toolkit from the Building State Capability program.

and Watch Matt explain more about the model, and read his related blogpost. Listen to a podcast introducing his co-authored 2017 book which explains the origins of and ideas behind the PDIA model. Download the book itself here.

MLD-103M will be offered at Harvard Kennedy School in the Spring semester. If you have questions about this course, or any other in the MLD curriculum, email Greg Dorchak, MLD Area Administrator.

2017 MLD Area Newsletter

September 29, 2017August 19, 2020 Greg Dorchak

The 2017 MLD Area Newsletter is now available. Catch up now on the latest work from MLD Area faculty and read our feature on the newly launched Social Innovation and Change Initiative.
(Click on the front page below to view the whole newsletter)

Dealing with Dysfunction: Innovative Problem Solving in the Public Sector – A Book Talk with author Jorrit de Jong – April 12, 2017

April 10, 2017April 10, 2017 Greg Dorchak

Join us for a discussion on April 12th with Jorrit de Jong, Lecturer in Public Policy and Management at HKS, Faculty Director of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, and author of “Dealing with Dysfunction: Innovative Problem Solving in the Public Sector” (Brookings University Press).
Julie Boatright Wilson, Harry Kahn Senior Lecturer in Social Policy, HKS, and Matt R. Andrews, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, HKS, will provide responses. Tony Saich, director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation and Daewoo Professor of International Affairs, will moderate.

About Dealing with Dysfunction

How can we intervene in the systemic bureaucratic dysfunction that beleaguers the public sector? De Jong examines the roots of this dysfunction and presents a novel approach to solving it. Drawing from academic literature on bureaucracy and problem solving in the public sector, and the clinical work of the Kafka Brigade — a social enterprise based in the Netherlands dedicated to diagnosing and remedying bureaucratic dysfunction in practice, this study reveals the shortcomings of conventional approaches to bureaucratic reform. The usual methods have failed to diagnose problems, distinguish symptoms, or identify root causes in a comprehensive or satisfactory way. They have also failed to engage clients, professionals, and midlevel managers in understanding and addressing the dysfunction that plagues them. This book offers conceptual frameworks, theoretical insights, and practical lessons for dealing with the problem. It sets a course for rigorous public problem solving to create governments that can be more effective, efficient, equitable, and responsive to social concerns.

De Jong argues that successfully remedying bureaucratic dysfunction depends on employing diagnostics capable of distinguishing and dissecting various kinds of dysfunction. The “Anna Karenina principle” applies here: all well-functioning bureaucracies are alike; every dysfunctional bureaucracy is dysfunctional in its own way. The author also asserts that the worst dysfunction occurs when multiple organizations share responsibility for a problem, but no single organization is primarily responsible for solving it. This points to a need for creating and reinforcing distributed problem-solving capacity focused on deep (cross-)organizational learning and revised accountability structures. Our best approach to dealing with dysfunction may therefore not be top-down regulatory reform, but rather relentless bottom-up and cross-boundary leadership and innovation. Using fourteen clinical cases of bureaucratic dysfunction investigated by the Kafka Brigade, the author demonstrates how a proper process for identifying, defining, diagnosing, and remedying the problem can produce better outcomes.

Date:

Wednesday, April 12, 2017, 4:15pm to 5:30pm

Location:

Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Suite 200N, 124 Mt Auburn Street, Cambridge

Williams’s New Book Offers Guidance for Boundary Spanning Leaders

June 19, 2016June 16, 2016 Greg Dorchak

Leaders today—whether in corporations or associations, nonprofits or nations—face massive, messy, multidimensional problems. No one person or group can possibly solve them—they require the broadest possible cooperation. However, in his recent book Leadership for a Fractured World (2015, Berrett-Koehler Publishers), HKS MLD Area scholar Dean Williams argues that our leadership models are still essentially tribal: individuals with formal authority leading in the interest of their own group. Williams goes on to outline an approach that enables leaders to transcend internal and external boundaries and help people to collaborate, even people over whom they technically have no power.

Drawing on what he’s learned from years of working in countries and organizations around the world, Williams shows leaders how to approach the delicate and creative work of boundary spanning, whether those boundaries are cultural, organizational, political, geographic, religious, or structural. Sometimes leaders themselves have to be the ones who cross the boundaries between groups. Other times, a leader’s job is to build relational bridges between divided groups or even to completely break down the boundaries that block collaborative problem solving. By thinking about power and authority in a different way, leaders will become genuine change agents, able to heal wounds, resolve conflicts, and bring a fractured world together.

The book features a forward by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.