Acumen Bootcamp - 8th Week Reflection

Part 0, 1, 2, 3 , 4, 5 , 6 and 7 of Acumen virtual bootcamp series can be found here. This is last part of the Acumen Bootcamp series

I had completed all sessions of the bootcamp. And, the interaction with people helped me to define what is leadership. Leadership is an influence. Leadership is born when competence meets character, practical skills meet moral imagination and urgency meets action. I would recommend people to article: Crucibles of Leadership

The last session was reflection exercise by the participants and moderators on the whole 8 week journey. I was introduced to rich network of social-sector leaders from across the world a.k.a Community of Social Innovators. The decline of what sociologists call ‘secondary associations’, where people come together to search and inquire, is one of the processes of atomisation which lead to people being isolated and facing this mass of information alone. I hope a new association can help to navigate me complex and gradually painstaking journey of social change. There is Acumen Academy also, a school dedicated for social change. The goal is to learn and escape from becoming prisoner of my own rhetoric, which makes it even more difficult to adapt new realities.

Feedback: The internal reflection as a leader and a person was the fulcrum of the course. Yet, more time could have been devoted to adaptive leadership in my opinion. The crucible experience was a trial and a test, a point of deep self-reflection that forced participants to question who we are and what mattered to us. Four hours per week is a minuscule time in comparison to the time that is wasted throughout the week. That may be called as a lack of rigor in the whole 8 week sessions. Investment of at-least 8-10 Hours per week would have better returns for fellows and moderators. Thanks to my peers for profound discussions and especially Abbas for moderating interactive session

Asia Landscape - Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on agricultural value chains

VCB-N has launched a series of Webinars on the COVID crises to offer a platform for learning and exchange about the current situation. This is the summary of the webinar on impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on agricultural value chains by VCB Network.
Speakers:

1. Mr. Barua Kaushik, Country Director IFAD Cambodia & Mr. Fabrizio Bresciani, Regional Economist IFAD Rome - IFAD perspectives
2. Anirban Bhowmik, Country Director, Swisscontact, Bangladesh – the smallholder farmers and the informal sector perspectives in Bangladesh
3. Mr. Andrew Wilson, Regional Coordinator Market Systems, HELVETAS – The market perspective
4. Prof. Liu Yonggong, China Agricultural University (CAU)- The market perspective from China

Summary:

1. The COVID crisis does negatively impact households in three inter-connected areas i) food security ii) income and iii) investment ability. In rural areas, the down-fall of prices has diminished the investment ability thus working capital of smallholder farmers which will again affect the production thus income and broader food security in the mid-term. The decreased ability to invest in next season’s crops is further deteriorated by the insecurity about next season’s markets. Farmers are falling back on local food systems and traditional production and solidarity mechanisms to deal with the crisis.

2. IFAD is using Rural Poor Stimulus Facility having 4 main pillar: i) safeguarding access to inputs and basic access for production purposes ii) facilitating access to markets incl. support to logistics, storage etc. iii) targeted funds to assure access to services mainly through existing programmes and iv) funds to develop / disseminate digital services / tools to farmers. This will help actors to overcome both Income shocks and Asset shocks.

3. Upstream actors like traders and retailers saw their income flow diminishing with falling business volumes and are short of liquidity which hampers their ability to pre-finance inputs for smallholders. Ability to extend credit line to farmers will be reduced for next season as traders are getting hit.

4. Food production chain especially fish will face big trouble in Bangladesh. April and May are the peak season of stocking of fish and many smallholders are not going to stock due to poor transport, price and availability of inputs. Hatcheries are only able to supply at least 50% of their total production and struggling to keep these all fish fry in their limited area.

5. International value chains for non-perishables like the trade in food ingredients are less affected by the logistical complications. As their exists a 6 weeks lag between shipment and retail at destination markets the real impact on trade volumes is still unclear.

6. “Stress reveals the cracks” : Structural weakness of agriculture value chain related to access to finance along the chain (production and forward market linkages) has been exposed in the current food systems.

7. Policy Narrative- Fiscal and Non fiscal: Non fiscal interventions must focus on production support with timely supply of seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. Fiscal support must be given to the farmers to manage their debt and allow them to invest in future production cycles.

8. Technology based entrepreneurs are not enough and form minuscule part of supply chain. Investments should be balanced along the VC (farm-level, storage, processing, logistics, and market access) to avoid bottlenecks which can be a "time bomb" for commodity prices, and farmers' income in the end.

9. Responses at company level should typically include software (adapted procedures, regulations) as well as hard-ware (protective gear etc.).

10. Responses as applied in China might be difficult to duplicate in other countries that lack the mechanisms for direct support to producers or financial reserves to apply similar support measures.

Acumen Bootcamp - 7th Week Reflection

Part 0, 1, 2, 3 , 4 , 5 and 6 of Acumen virtual bootcamp series can be found here.

The topic of 7th session was on Adaptive Leadership. All organizations wants individuals to be invested in the rat race. This always shows better return of investment on the salary.  And we are also engaged in the dance of email, instant messages and meetings. But Reflecting in the midst of action is an age -old wisdom and really difficult to achieve.  The crux of the session was on reflection amid action and vice-versa.

The Practice of Adaptive Leadership Book by Alexander Grashow, Marty Linsky, and Ronald Heifetz was referred for detailed reading.  The best part in the summarized reading was ours Illusion of the Broken System: There is a myth that drives many change initiatives into the ground: that initiatives into the ground: that organization needs to change because it is broken. The reality is that any social system (including an organization) is the way it because people in that system (at least those individuals in that system (at least those individuals and factions with the most leverage) want and factions with the most leverage) want it that way. In sense, on the whole, it that way. In sense, on the whole, the system is working fine, even though it may appear to be “dysfunctional” in some respects to members, and outside observers, and even though it faces danger just over the horizon.

Adaptive leadership requires helping people to gain a clear perspective in midst of action and uncertainty; making sense of complex, often conflicting, signs and data; and sifting through what is most important, and shifting through what is most important, what is at stake, who will support and what is at stake, who will support and who will will resist change.

This transformation is based on “mapping the system” of stakeholders surrounding the challenge mobilizing key stakeholders. A leader has to mobilize resource, goals and transform the organization. Our focus is less about the “problem” and more about other people’s relationship to the problem, and how to engage them in narrowing the gap. This profound shift is done by leveraging leadership capital for excellence into pragmatic steps for the stakeholders.

The stakeholders are spread in the factions like yourself, authority, allies, opposition, causalities and troublemakers with each having their respective Values, Loyalties and Losses. The opinion inside an organization is different and conflict of interest has to be replaced into confluence of interest.

As an adaptive leader, I had not practiced much of the courageous belief in how things should be in the face of persistent problem. I can articulate ‘the gap’ that is a leadership challenge in the development sector. Its about the decay of grant based work and move towards building a service based model. I will use the tool to analyze the problem and relationship of stakeholders in my organization. Hoping the process to be a fascinating reflection on the ways individuals perceive their own experiences but how men and women in particular might forecast the scenario. In the end, I will develop some capability of adjusting to the requirements of different perspectives and transformation agenda.