Building Capacity that is responsive to change
Building trust and relationships
While personnel transitions are inevitable, we can help mitigate the effects of individuals leaving by investing time and resources to cultivate trust and relationships—both as individuals and as organizations or agencies.
Change happens at the speed of trust, and the strength, depth, and quality of how we relate to one another is incredibly important. Intentionally building that trust and focusing on the connections between stakeholders decreases the reliance on any one person, which in turn lessens the amount of information lost when transitions do occur.
The IDC is by no means the first to say that relationships and trust are important. However, what has been apparent to us as we’ve been doing this work is that relationships are more than a means to an end. They should be viewed as a goal—not just a tool—because transforming the system means transforming the relationships of the people within the system.
trying new things and iterating TOWARDS success
No matter how much forethought goes into an innovation or improvement strategy, its implementation will reveal unforeseen challenges. This is especially true given that the context in which these innovation strategies are being enacted is constantly changing. We get into trouble when we attempt to go to scale and attach significant stakes to initiatives before we discover what those challenges are.
To avoid this requires more than a single pilot. An integrated strategy is the result of multiple iterations and trials, each carried out with an eye toward understanding the experience of the individuals involved. Progress toward achieving equity and improvement will come more quickly through repeated trials and adjustments.
Working in this iterative way means shifting our mindsets to be more experimental. In addition, we will need to be more comfortable dealing with the inherent ambiguity that comes from working with a more emergent process
