Your risk assessment is comprehensive and obviously doesn’t cover every eventuality.  You expect delays and unexpected events at this dynamic stage of the project.  Despite following guidelines it may be that risks associated with poor stakeholder relations were understated now faced with many conflicts, delays, and misunderstanding you realise that the procedure to support stakeholder engagement should be inclusive and continuous.

Your approach doesn’t seem to be working. People, the government, the communities, suppliers, employees have raised expectations and rumours and misunderstandings about the company’s intentions are beginning to circulate. People are emotional you simply haven’t built sufficient relationship capital with these groups so there is a lack of trust and respect and low literacy levels place limits on methods of communication. Community relations staff actively visit and consult with communities and several unofficial parties seem to have become involved in liaising with communities, farmers, landowners and other stakeholders affected by the business of your company compensation is being discussed by those not authorized to have those conversations and grievances are coming at you from many directions.

Now forced to react and defend your company’s reputation is an uphill battle, perception has become reality and field based staff are having an increasing problem when trying to engage allies and intermediaries who do not wish to damage their credibility by associating with your company.

 Foresight!

Organisations who avoid the scenario described above realise that stakeholder engagement must be closely managed at each stage of the project; they take a long-term view with a strategy that includes allocation of resources and responsibilities supported by clear objectives. The “stake” that individuals or groups has in a project or investment will vary and of course the scale of activity is in direct correlation to the size and potential impact of your project, whether you are liaising with a small rural community, government representatives, tribal or religious leaders, remember stakeholders are people who are both directly and indirectly affected by your activities and who have the ability to influence outcomes both positively and negatively.

 The IFC have a comprehensive good practice handbook to enable you to plan your stakeholder engagement strategy the handbook describes the components of eight essential activities described below:

• Stakeholder identification and analysis – remember some stakeholders are determined by regulatory requirements, others are indirectly affected, and because your project is evolving, stakeholders and their interests will change over time.

• Information disclosure – ensuring transparency and making information accessible to affected groups and individuals is essential. Ask stakeholders what information they need and want and how that information should be delivered before making assumptions.

• Stakeholder Consultation – Consultation is a two-way process and therefore an opportunity for you to learn, listening to stakeholders can provide valuable information, clarify issues and help to avoid expensive mistakes and misunderstandings. Think about who needs to be consulted, over what topics, and for what purpose? Getting clear answers for these questions up front will save you time, reduce costs, and help keep expectations in check.

• Negotiate – while consultation is about the exchange of views, negotiation is about agreeing on specifics. Negotiation reduces risk by providing parties with the additional clarity, predictability, and security of a signed agreement.

• Manage Grievances – it is essential to ensure your grievance procedure is fair, accessible and transparent. The procedure must encompass the end to end process from how the grievance was received to what steps were taken to investigate and review, through to available appeal mechanisms. Put the procedure in writing and make sure it is followed for each grievance.

• Stakeholder Involvement in Monitoring – the participation of project-affected stakeholders in monitoring environmental and social impacts and mitigation can be a regulatory requirement. It is also good practice. Participatory activities could involve stakeholders in accompanying experts during observations, or scientific samplings

• Reporting to Stakeholders – An effective feedback mechanism is essential Determine what information needs to be reported to which stakeholders, by what method and how frequently

• Management Functions – The article above describes the consequences of failing to incorporate stakeholder engagement activities into each phase of the project cycle.  This is usually best achieved by giving a senior manager overall responsibility for stakeholder engagement and identifying the specific competencies required of those involved in stakeholder engagement.

  Download the IFC guide here: http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/enviro.nsf/attachmentsbytitle/p_stakeholderengagement_full/$file/ifc_stakeholderengagement.pdf

Good People … Old Habits

People, like the fleas, establish habits very quickly. They think, act and respond in the same way over and over and over again and once learned through repetition which really doesn’t take very long at all, human beings habituate and then automate those habits, behaviours and beliefs.

 But what if we lift the lid?

A smart manager had an idea, “what if we lift the lid” Surely then under those new conditions people will respond and realise that yesterdays old habits are not appropriate in this new environment. So, the lid was removed, nothing changed, the fleas continued to jump to a height just below that of the container lid no further. They were stuck in a state of constraint even though the lid was removed.

Is it Employee development or are you running a flea circus?

• Managers, how many of your employees resemble those fleas?
• Do they operate in a comfort zone, doing just what they have to do to get by?
• Have some been promoted beyond their level of competency and do nothing to raise their performance?
• Who is content to stay in the jar?
• Who could take giant leaps forward?
  

 How have you contributed to employee containment?

Containment keeps us trapped in the limitations of yesterday, we cling to old habits like fleas cling to a dog. Our environment has become limiting we are afraid of hurting ourselves on the lids of our reality. Containment breeds statements like can’t, won’t, shouldn’t, mustn’t….and so we don’t!

For managers who demonstrate no understanding of what it takes to get people to want to change, failure is the most likely outcome The effort required to aim and achieve higher standards of performance is freely given by employees who can see the perceived gain. People need to understand what excellent performance looks like in their role at work. They also need to be involved in establishing their own targets. Allowing employee to come up with their own strategy and goals creates ownership and what they aspire to might surprise you – Managers often impose targets that limit the employee’s real potential.

 The New Flea in the Jar

Take a moment to review, what the standards of performance are TODAY for employees in your department, what competencies are required to help you to deliver your goals, or strategy, what new habits need to be encouraged. What is your role in encouraging those new habits?

Time to put a new higher performing flea in the jar,

 The End…..what happened next?

A new flea that had not been in the container was introduced into the jar and out it jumped  it was only at that moment that the other fleas realised that the container was open and with a variety of giant leaps and small steps they followed…..Lift the lid on your performance management activity.

AIM HIGHER

Spectrain design competency based learning solutions that enable you to take GIANT LEAPS FORWARD: http://www.spectrain.co.uk

It would be irresponsible to recycle a set of slides, a workbook or learning aids without checking their suitability in this region.

Visual Media

Although we cannot generalise about Middle Eastern cultures there are some similarities in the rules for appropriateness of eye contact. Middle Eastern Muslim cultures have traditions connected to religious laws about appropriateness regarding eye contact between the sexes. Only a brief moment of eye contact would be permitted between a man and a woman, if at all. Avoid media that shows prolonged eye contact between the sexes. Notice, the eyes on some TV programmes are often pixleated.

Female western consultants should also be aware that their appearance is different and this can attract male attention in the form of eye contact, however, returning that eye contact, can be considered the same as saying, “Yes, I’m interested!”

The Islamic culture is very conservative. Showing any skin other than the face, hands or feet can be considered sexually arousing, carefully select images that demonstrate respect for your audience’s preferences. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking sophisticated places such as Dubai will be more conservative, while Dubai is quite liberal your delegates will be diverse and have have different values views and standards.

There can also be issues with images of animals, although many people keep and dogs, they are kept outside because they are considered dirty, an image of a fish is related to Christianity, Images of pigs may be offensive due to references in the Quran about the flesh of swine and prohibition of pork consumption in Islamic law.

Design of Instructional Materials

Culture also plays a role in the visual design and layout of instructional materials. Choice of language, the use of signs and symbols and the layout all affect how a learner interprets and uses instructional materials.

When designing culturally appropriate materials take into account layout, images, symbols, colour and sound in order to fully acknowledge cultural influences Design in the western world is based on reading from left to right, Societies that read from right to left may be at a disadvantage when faced with western design, leave plenty of margin space for notes on both the left and right of the page, and be aware that symbols are not universally understood, for example using arrows ► meaning next or go to the next page , are not universal, the thumbs up sign can have negative connotations. Do check that phrases and metaphors are meaningful for global readers; the phrase “everyman for himself” may be considered highly offensive in a collectivist culture where belonging to a formal or informal group is important.

Recently I have been working with a large retailer who is setting up an expansive operation in the Middle East, while coaching the store managers who will relocate to various countries it became apparent that they had overlooked the country of origin on product ranges that are made in Israel. Using images of products that have Israeli associations should be avoided.

Use of Online Content

 Internet Access in the Middle-East can be different from the western world because It’s filtered, blocking access to various parts of the Internet based on political, religious, economic or cultural values. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, flickr, and YouTube have caught the attention of the cyber police, who have the authority to block or filter content from these sites.

A study by the research group Open Net Initiative on internet content control claims the countries that practice the highest amount of political filtering are, Iran, Bahrain, Syria and Tunisia, while “social filters” can mainly be found in the Gulf and include Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

If you plan to use content from the internet be aware:

•  Social networking video sites/pages may be blocked
•  Websites visited today, may be blocked tomorrow
•  Your travel website could be blocked because of forbidden content in the form of images
•  Websites updates show only after a while due to local evaluation of content
•  Main stream websites are self censored and deliver different content locally
•  Filtering makes internet access slow
•  Some Google search phrases are blocked
•  Skype services can be blocked by regulators if considered a threat to national security

Spectrain provide training materials, articles, competency frameworks and events across the Middle East. Our designs are sensitive to the culture and the development needs of learners. See what our clients say here:

Images:

Creativebits.org

hargopal.com

The lawyer is thinking that Lebanese people are so dumb that he could get one over on them, easily.

So the lawyer asks if the Lebanese would like to play a fun game.

The Lebanese tailor is tired and just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines, and tries to catch a few winks.

The lawyer persists, and says that the game is a lot of fun. I ask you a question, and if you don’t know the answer, you pay me only $5; you ask me one, and if I don’t know the answer, I will pay you $500, he says.

This catches the Lebanese tailor’s attention and so to keep the lawyer quiet, he agrees to play the game.

The lawyer asks the first question. ‘What’s the distance from The Earth to the Moon?’ The Lebanese doesn’t say a word, reaches in his pocket, pulls out a five-dollar bill, and hands it to the lawyer.

Now, it’s the Lebanese tailors turn. He asks the lawyer,

‘What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down with four?’

The lawyer uses his laptop and searches all references he could find on the Net. He sends e-mails to all the smart friends he knows, all to no avail. After one hour of searching he finally gives up. He wakes up the Lebanese tailor and hands him $500. The tailor pockets the $500 and goes right back to sleep.

The lawyer is going nuts not knowing the answer, so he wakes the Lebanese gentleman up and asks, ‘Well, so what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?

The Lebanese reaches in his pocket, hands the lawyer $5 and goes back to sleep.

The wise man doesn’t give the right answers, he poses the right questions.
Claude Levi-Strauss

Good, Better Best -  Spectrain Never Let it rest Until Your Best is Better and Your Better is Best!

The beekeepers worked for a company called YemBees Ltd.  The company’s customers loved its honey and the business aimed to produce more honey than it had the previous year.  As a result, each beekeeper was told to produce more honey at the same quality.

With different ideas about how to do this, the beekeepers designed different approaches to improve the performance of their hives.

YemBees – Beekeeper 1

 The first beekeeper established a bee performance management approach that measured how many flowers each bee visited.   At considerable cost to the beekeeper as an extensive measurement system was created to count the flowers each bee visited.

The beekeeper provided feedback to each bee at midseason on his individual performance, but the bees were never told about the hive’s goal to produce more honey so that YemBees Ltd could increase honey sales.

 The beekeeper created incentives, special awards for the bees who visited the most flowers.

YemBees – Beekeeper 2

The second beekeeper also established a bee performance management system, but this approach communicated to each bee the goals of the hive—to produce more honey.

This beekeeper and his bees measured two aspects of their performance: the amount of nectar each bee brought back to the hive and the amount of honey the hive produced.

The performance of each bee and the hive’s overall performance were charted and posted on the hive’s bulletin board for all bees to see.

The beekeeper created a few awards for the bees that gathered the most nectar, but he also established a hive incentive program that rewarded each bee in the hive based on the hive’s production of honey—the more honey produced the more recognition each bee would receive.  

YemBees – PERFORMANCE  – Prediction

What  do you think might have happened to each hive at the end of the season when the Queen Bee would report back to each Beekeeper ?

YemBees Beekeeper 1 at the end of the season

The first beekeeper found that his hive had indeed increased the number of flowers visited, but the amount of honey produced by the hive had dropped.

The Queen Bee reported that because the bees were so busy trying to visit as many flowers as possible, they limited the amount of nectar they would carry so they could fly faster.

 Also, because the bees felt they were competing against each other for awards (because only the top performers were recognized), they would not share valuable information with each other like the location of the flower-filled fields they’d spotted on the way back to the hive that could have helped improve the performance of all the bees.  After all was said and done, one of the high-performing bees told the beekeeper that if he’d been told that the real goal was to make more honey rather than to visit more flowers, he would have done his work completely differently.

As the beekeeper handed out the awards to individual bees, unhappy buzzing was heard in the background.

YemBees Beekeeper 2 at the end of the season

The second beekeeper, however, had very different results.

Because each bee in his hive was focused on the hive’s goal of producing more honey, the bees had concentrated their efforts on

gathering more nectar to produce more honey than ever before.

 The bees worked together to determine the highest nectar-yielding flowers and to create quicker processes for depositing the nectar they’d gathered.

They also worked together to help increase the amount of nectar gathered by the poor performers.

The Queen Bee of this hive reported that the poor performers either improved their performance or transferred to another hive. 

Because the hive had reached its goal, the beekeeper awarded each bee his portion of the hive incentive payment.

The beekeeper was also surprised to hear a loud, happy buzz and a jubilant flapping of wings as he rewarded the individual high performing bees with special recognition.

THE MORAL OF THIS STORY IS: 

Design your systems carefully because they will affect the behaviour of your staff

Measuring and recognizing accomplishments rather than activities—and providing feedback to your “worker bees“— can often improve the results of the hive

Is your team a hive of activity? If you want to develop busy bees take a look at our  Managing Others Courses

A story provided by Adrian Nixon: Adapted from “A Handbook for Measuring Employee Performance”, Office of Personnel Management, U.S. Government, September 2001.