Guest blog written by Joshua Higginbotham Coming into the course, I felt overconfident in my own policy-making abilities. Now, I realize that I don’t know as much as I thought I did, and that’s a good thing! My assumptions about the course were that it would be like any other professional development experience, the cliché…Continue Reading Don’t be Afraid to Change
Public Leadership Through Crisis 16: Empowering work and learning, even if things seem chaotic
written by Matt Andrews The last few blog posts have offered various lessons from practice – in Liberia’s 2014 Ebola crisis and Bahrain’s current Covid-19 crisis. I offered these lessons at this point partly because they provide excellent applied narratives on the importance of adopting fast, flat and flexible organizing structures when faced with crises….Continue Reading Public Leadership Through Crisis 16: Empowering work and learning, even if things seem chaotic
Public Leadership Through Crisis 15: The COVID-19 Crisis in Bahrain
written by Matt Andrews Hamad Almalki is the Undersecretary for National Economy at Bahrain’s Ministry of Finance and National Economy. He is a graduate of the Edward S. Mason mid-career Masters in Public Administration program at the Harvard Kennedy School. My Zoom interview captures Hamad’s reflections (as of April 3) on Bahrain’s response to the…Continue Reading Public Leadership Through Crisis 15: The COVID-19 Crisis in Bahrain
Public Leadership Through Crisis 14: Lessons on Crisis Communication from Liberia’s Ebola epidemic
written by Matt Andrews Peter Harrington is an alumni of the Harvard Kennedy School, and a former fellow with the Building State Capability program (BSC). In 2014, Peter worked with the Africa Governance Initiative helping Liberia’s government deal with its Ebola epidemic. He assisted in an area called ‘Social Mobilization’; an area of the organizational…Continue Reading Public Leadership Through Crisis 14: Lessons on Crisis Communication from Liberia’s Ebola epidemic
PDIA Helped Me Find My Way and My Voice
Guest blog written by Yasmine Robinson At first I was not sure how PDIA would be applicable to what I do as an urban planner, but as I listened to Matt’s first lecture about why policies fail, lightning struck. Over the years I had witnessed the adoption of many policies that were not successful for…Continue Reading PDIA Helped Me Find My Way and My Voice
Public Leadership Through Crisis 13: Tolbert Nyenswah on leading through Liberia’s Ebola epidemic
written by Matt Andrews Tolbert Nyenswah is a Senior Research Associate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2014 he was the head of the Liberian Incident Management System (IMS), leading the operational aspects of the government’s response to the Ebola epidemic. Following this, he led the establishment of Liberia’s First National…Continue Reading Public Leadership Through Crisis 13: Tolbert Nyenswah on leading through Liberia’s Ebola epidemic
Remember the Sherpas!
Guest blog written by Marco Mastellari When I came in to the course, I thought to myself that what I really wanted to learn was a predesigned structure or framework, if you will, that would allow me and my colleagues down in Panama to approach policy problems in an organized way, or pre-structured format. This…Continue Reading Remember the Sherpas!
Public Leadership Through Crisis 11: Reorganizing to address the crisis
written by Matt Andrews I was on a call two days ago with a former student who is now deeply involved in his country’s Covid-19 crisis response. He said something like the following: “Our government is not set up to respond to this; there are multiple challenges coming at us all at once, requiring multiple…Continue Reading Public Leadership Through Crisis 11: Reorganizing to address the crisis
Engage with the People in the Place
Guest blog written by Julia Martin “PDIA is about engaging with the people in the place.” If I think back to the last few months, this line from Matt’s blog strikes a chord. Coming into the course, I really had a serious case of the “not enoughs” – not enough experience, not enough expertise, not…Continue Reading Engage with the People in the Place
Coronavirus and behaviour: Why leaders need better ‘risk communication’
Guest blog written by Peter Harrington Last week I wrote a post on how the Coronavirus pandemic, like Ebola, needs to be understood as a complex adaptive problem which requires mass learning to solve. In this post I want to focus in on one area of that learning – the behaviour change required to stop transmission,…Continue Reading Coronavirus and behaviour: Why leaders need better ‘risk communication’