Marie Stopes International Case Studies

Leadership Coaching

The Organisation

Marie Stopes International (MSI) is a global partnership of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) whose vision is "Children by Choice not by Chance". MSI's centres in the UK and partners in the developing world work closely with governments, health professionals, other non-government organisations and local communities to design and deliver innovative and high-quality programmes of sexual and reproductive health care that are culturally appropriate and responsive to local needs.

The Need

MSI provide leadership development training as part of an ongoing programme of capacity building across the organisation. In addition external coaching is provided to help leaders embed their learning and make the personal changes needed to develop their confidence and capability. In this case a UK Day Unit Manager was looking for coaching support to explore new approaches in order to build a more effective team, manage her workload better and establish more positive working relationships.

What We Did

Jacqueline worked with the Day Unit Manager to identify areas for development and establish clear goals for the coaching. Jacqueline used an assessment tool that looked at various aspects of the Day Unit Manager's life and helped her to focus on those areas that would have the most impact. She also showed the Day Unit Manager a tool to help her visualise what success would look like and to get a clearer picture of the changes she wanted to make both at work and in her personal life. During the course of four sessions (three 2-hour meetings and one 1-hour telephone call) Jacqueline helped the Day Unit Manager to develop new ways of approaching situations, apply the learning to real events and celebrate her successes.

Benefits

The Day Unit Manager feels that she has developed:

A deeper understanding of herself
A greater range of influencing styles and an understanding of when these are best usedIncreased team member participation in change
An effective and positive approach to managing demands on her time
Getting more of the outcomes she wants
A more positive way of communicating with colleagues and improved working relationships.

The Day Unit Manager commented "Coaching has given me the time and space to look at myself and think more deeply, It has been an exceptionally positive experience and given me scope to build on what I have learned."

Organisational Baseline Survey with Marie Stopes International

The Organisation

Marie Stopes International (MSI) is a global partnership of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) whose vision is “Children by Choice not by Chance”. MSI Partners in the developing world work closely with governments, health professionals, other non-government organisations and local communities to design and deliver innovative and high-quality programmes of sexual and reproductive health care that are culturally appropriate and responsive to local needs.

The Need

MSI has embarked upon a 5-year organisational development programme, “Services for Contraception and Abortion Launched and Expanded” (SCALE), funded by a private U.S. Foundation. MSI wanted to ensure its resources for organisational development, programme strategies and implementation during the SCALE programme were appropriately targeted and to demonstrate how MSI is currently functioning as a multi-national entity in providing leadership and support to Partners (MSI affiliates) across the global MSI Partnership. They identified a need to:

Establish an organisational baseline for MSI, including the development of recommendations for organisational development and transformation;
Assess the monitoring and evaluation function of MSI relative to the SCALE objectives and make recommendations for its development;
Assess external perceptions of MSI’s strengths and weaknesses.

What We Did

MSI, through Options Consultancy Services Ltd (Options), commissioned a team consisting of Jacqueline Hill from J Hill Associates and Josselyn Neukom, a reproductive health monitoring and evaluation specialist from the US, to carry out a baseline analysis. Jacqueline ran a workshop with Dana Hovig, MSI’s Chief Executive and a project team of support staff in London to envisage what MSI will look and feel like following 5 years of successful SCALE implementation. The visioning workshop also identified the key stakeholders for SCALE, their level of involvement in the baseline, and the overseas MSI Partners that would participate in the baseline. Jacqueline and Josselyn then used the 5 year vision to develop a detailed set of objectives and measures against which the MSI of today could be measured (the baseline), followed by visit and interview protocols to gather baseline information from both internal and external stakeholders firstly in London and subsequently in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. Following a further week in London confirming their findings, Jacqueline and Josselyn drafted a report of their findings against each of the baseline objectives and measures along with recommendations for change.

Benefits

MSI now has a clearer vision of its aims and ambitions for the SCALE programme along with a better understanding of the actions needed to achieve them. The process was as participative as possible within the time and budgetary constraints and the consultant’s report not only detailed findings and recommendations but also outlined the process used and learning gained so that MSI can develop similar analyses in the future. The use of external consultants ensured a level of confidentiality and challenge unlikely to be achieved using internal resources alone. Jacqueline and Josselyn were also able to bring their experience of working with other organisations. The next step is for MSI to prioritise the recommendations and develop an implementation plan.

Dana Hovig, Chief Executive of MSI commented “I found Jacqueline and Josselyn outstanding professionals – responsive, client and results-oriented, and pragmatic in their recommendations. The organisational assessment will be useful as MSI moves forward, improves, and evolves. I would hire them again when the right consultant opportunity comes up….as I’m sure it will.”

Strategic Planning & Stakeholder Surveys at Marie Stopes International

The Organisation

For over 30 years, Marie Stopes International (MSI) has applied modern business methods to the social goal of enabling low-income women and couples to have “Children by Choice, not Chance”. MSI Partners in the developing world work closely with governments, health professionals, other non-government organisations and local communities to design and deliver innovative and high-quality programmes of sexual and reproductive health care that are culturally appropriate and responsive to local needs.

The Need

A baseline Organisational Assessment was carried out in early 2007 during which the contributing Programme Directors (PDs) suggested that the development of an overall MSI strategic plan would provide them with more effective direction than operational targets alone, and would facilitate local decision-making and flexibility in what are often difficult circumstances. A global MSI Strategic Plan was needed to consolidate the thinking on MSI’s future through 2011 and provide the clarity of direction needed for sustainable growth across the partnership. The project was to produce MSI’s first global strategic plan and through the process:

Explain the purpose and importance of a partnership-wide strategic plan to gain the support and contribution of internal stakeholders
Carry out an analysis of the external environment including an External Stakeholder Assessment
Set the stage for a more in-depth Strategic Planning exercise to be carried out for the next strategic planning timeframe beyond 2011.

What We Did

A strategic planning team was created including Michael Holsher, MSI’s Director of External Relations and Resource Development, whose role was to represent the process at Senior Management Team level and take key decisions; and Stefanie Wallach, MSI’s Strategic Projects Manager, who was the main point of contact at MSI for the process including establishing and coordinating working groups, communicating progress to the MSI Partnership, and providing initial review and feedback on outputs. Jacqueline Hill of J Hill Associates provided templates and examples for the strategic plan, an external point of view and challenge, and advised on tools, techniques and processes. A large part of Jacqueline’s role was skills and knowledge transfer to enable MSI to develop the next strategic plan independently.

MSI had already carried out a number of partnership-wide activities in previous years that had contributed to the then current strategic thinking, including Partnership retreats and a Strategic Priorities paper from the Chief Executive, Dana Hovig. So the first stage was to identify what already existed and which gaps needed to be filled by the strategic planning process. Using the templates and examples provided by Jacqueline, the team developed a proposed approach for the strategic planning process and its outputs. From this Jacqueline put together a skeleton strategic plan and the team set about filling in the gaps.

We did this in the following ways:

A global internal stakeholder survey that asked for feedback on what additional information staff and managers required in order to turn the Strategic Priorities into reality
A global external stakeholder assessment survey with telephone interviews conducted with 16 key international stakeholders and e-mail surveys sent to over 200 external stakeholders identified by PDs and Support Offices
Identifying the four key dilemma/questions facing the organisation e.g. how to be financially self sufficient whilst delivering affordable services to the poorest people.

The outputs from these activities and the skeleton strategic plan were presented to senior managers across the Partnership at Africa and Latin America, and Asia retreats in Tanzania and Nepal. The presentations were followed by rich discussions that resulted in concurrence on some issues and the need for further analysis of others. Following the retreats the Strategic Planning Working Group further analysed the survey results, the outcomes of the retreat discussions and conducted desk research to provide content for the first draft of the Strategic Plan. During this process Jacqueline ensured that MSI took increasing ownership for the development of the strategic plan and her role evolved into providing occasional advice and support to the internal team as they brought the strategic plan ever closer to a document that was clear, accepted by all and used internally as a guide to decision making.

The strategic plan was launched and distributed at a global workshop in Istanbul in October 2009.

Benefits

The strategic plan built on existing thinking, documents and questions and the process made the most of existing forums and international meetings.
The strategic plan was developed in a modular format that facilitated the creation of different extracts for different audiences.
The strategic plan was developed with wide participation internally, ensuring clarity of and buy-in to the results and staff motivated to implement it.
The external consultation provided the basis for a radical rethink of MSI’s approach to the outside world, which has resulted in an increased profile and influence.
J Hill Associates provided:

The infrastructure for the internal and external stakeholder surveys including the interviewing, analysis and reporting, thus ensuring confidentiality and independence of conclusions and recommendations.

Templates, tools, and techniques for the strategic planning process and a mentoring approach that transferred skills and knowledge.

An independent view and informed challenge based on their work with MSI on the original baseline survey.

Stefanie Wallach, MSI’s Strategic Projects Manager commented:

“The reaction internally to the strategic plan has been positive and we feel good about the final result. People are using it and referring to it which I think is always a good sign, e.g. providing to new starters and referring to it to look at where we need to focus in 2010 to reach the targets. Thanks (Jacqueline) for your contributions and for all your efforts to keep a-not-very focussed group on-track as we found our way through MSI’s first ever global strategic planning process.”

Michael Holscher, MSI's Director External Relations and Resource Development added:

"Jacqueline came into a complex situation and provided much needed clarity. She coached and mentored the project team, transferring skills, knowledge and confidence."

Marie Stopes International can be found at: www.mariestopes.org

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