Session 3. - Strategies for bureaucratic effectiveness

Rationale:

An important goal for Volunteers is to become bureaucratically effective. This means to function productively with minimum frustrations within the constraints and limitations of the bureaucracy in which they are working.

This session stresses examination of the participant's personal style of approaching bureaucracies and some of the conflicts that their style might have caused in the past. Since Volunteers need to constantly be examining the situations around them as well as their own behavior, this session is designed to help begin and continue that process.

Total Time: Approximately 2 hours 20-25 minutes plus additional 15 minute break

Objectives:

1. To define the term "bureaucratic effectiveness", and to discuss the need for being bureaucratically effective as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

2. To examine personal styles of dealing with the bureaucracy and the appropriateness of continuing or altering those styles.

3. To continue to develop personal strategies for dealing with bureaucracies.

Trainer Preparation for Session

1. Brief other trainers on their roles, responsibilities and expected outcomes of the session.

2. Prepare necessary newsprint

Materials

- chalkboard

- blank newsprint (or locally available materials)

- masking tape

- markers

Prepared Newsprint

- Goals of session (Step 3)

- Task on Bureaucratic Ineffectiveness (Step 4a)

- Newsprint of Formal and Informal Dominant Features of a Bureaucracy (use the one from Session #2) (Step 4c)

- Task for explaining bureaucratic ineffectiveness in pairs (Step 4d)

- Checklist for common responses (Step 4f)

- Task for Action Planning (Step 4h)

Handouts

- Action Planning Form for Bureaucratic Effectiveness (Step 6a)

Procedures

[3 minutes]

Opening Statement & Goals

1a. Remind participants that they already spent time looking at the makeup of bureaucracies in terms of characteristics and structure. Talk about the need for personal strategies within the bureaucracy. Mention something to the effect that "We've completed the first step toward reducing frustrations in working in the bureaucracy by examining our understanding of characteristics and structure. The nest step is to took at how we, as individuals, can utilize this information to be more effective. Additionally, we all have acquired certain patterns of behavior based on what we have been taught, what we have experienced, our attitudes, feelings and emotions. We now need to each examine those patterns to see how they might be appropriate or inappropriate for working within the host country bureaucracies. We will also begin to develop specific strategies 60a being more bureaucratically effective."

1b. State that the overall goal of this session is to look at ways to apply what we have worked on so far about bureaucracies and come up with strategies for increasing the Volunteer's bureaucratic effectiveness as it has been defined here. Read the session goals from prepared newsprint.

[2 minutes]

2a. Definitions of Bureaucratic Effectiveness

[5 minutes]

Tell participants that before going any further you want to share some definitions of bureaucratic effectiveness. Using prepared newsprint read the following definitions or others you may want to add.

SAMPLE NEWSPRINT

A Volunteer who is bureaucratically effective: - can work within the boundaries of a system and produce/generate results. - can support the overall goals & purpose of the bureaucracy rather than use it for personal gain or need. - has the ability to adopt new strategies as old ones prove ineffective or inappropriate - has the ability to work with others to encourage new activities or approaches (helping host country counterparts increase their effectiveness). - etc.

 

2b. Ask participants if they can add to the fiat of definitions and/or provide specific examples of when they have seen or experienced bureaucratic effectiveness.

[3-5 minutes]

3a. Personal Patterns

[5 minutes]

Explain that the fires step in the session will be to examine personal patterns in working with a bureaucracy and then to develop strategies. Mention that "our goal id to try to become more bureaucratically effective. One way to approach how to be effective is to look at the exact opposite... ineffectiveness. Bureaucratic ineffectiveness is what often causes us to feel frustrated and not get things done."

Tell participants "There are situations when all of us feel bureaucratically ineffective (and appropriately so). Ask them to take a few minutes to reflect on situations where they have experienced themselves as being bureaucratically ineffective and to describe the feelings coming from that situation by completing the sentence

"I fell bureaucratically ineffective when..."

Some examples you can give to help people complete the sentence are

"I feel bureaucratically ineffective when I make promises beyond my ability to deliver and people in the organization get disappointed."

"I feel bureaucratically ineffective when I am impatient and need something done today although I know every task takes more time here".

"I feel bureaucratically ineffective when I let someone else in the organization mate me angry, and I get verbal although I know anger is not dealt with positively in this culture.

3b. Tell participants to spend a few minutes to complete and write down the sentence

[5 minutes]

"I feel bureaucratically ineffective when.....

3c. Ask 5-6 people to each share their sentences. Ask others if theirs are similar.

[5 minutes]

3d. After participants have identified some of their feelings ask them what generalizations* or observations they might come to by looking at their feelings. Some observations they might make are that some feelings seem to be more common than Others. "Anger seems to be a common experience for us." Or "Control of our feelings is something we share." - Other observations might involve: "Even though we all work in different situations, we seem to have common reactions." "So much of what we experience seems to result from caring too much, or getting too involved in the outcome of the situation."

* See glossary

It is helpful to give the participants an opportunity to see if they can gain some understanding about their feelings and to gain some common links to others. The importance here is that often our feelings are "normal" reactions to a complex situation or event.

4a. Tell participants that it would be useful to ace if by describing situations of bureaucratic ineffectiveness it would be possible to identify some structures or elements in a bureaucracy that might provoke ineffectiveness. You might say "what I would like to ask is that each of you describe in two or three paragraphs a situation in which you have been bureaucratically ineffective. I will ask a partner then to work with you to see if any of the characteristics we tooted at in the last session might be involved in the situation."

[3 minutes]

Use the following newsprint to explain task:

SAMPLE

Newsprint/Blackboard to Explain Task

Identify a situation in a host country bureaucracy in which you were bureaucratically ineffective. Write 1-2 paragraphs that describe the situation and some of the dilemmas.

 

4b. Participants write paragraphs on their situations.

[15 minutes]

4c. As the participants finish writing their paragraphs, review the 5 characteristics of a bureaucracy. (Mission, rewards/incentives, authority/status, relationships, norms/values). Use the handout on "Dominant Characteristics of a Bureaucracy" from Session 2, Step 5. Or you can use the same newsprint you used in Session 2.

[3 minutes]

4d. As they finish writing their paragraphs, ask participants to pair up with one other person. Use the following prepared newsprint to explain that the task is done in rounds.*

[5 minutes]

*See glossary

SAMPLE NEWSPRINT

	Person A	Person B
Round 1	-Explains situation and dilemma -Discusses partner's opinions to see if they can gain agreement.	- ask questions - paraphrases gives his/her opinion which characteristics of the bureaucracy that caused difficulty
Round 2	- ask questions - paraphrases - gives his/her opinion which characteristics of the bureaucracy that caused difficulty	- explains situation and dilemma - discusses partner's opinions to see if they can gain agreement

 

Explain that the task is in Rounds. Each person in the pair takes the letter A or B. Person A listens to person B's situation and gives his/her opinion about which characteristics of the bureaucracy in which s/he had difficulty. For instance, if person B talks about how s/he could not get a response from the chief doctor at the hospital regarding treatment of people in his! her village, then person A might ask some questions and then give his/her opinion that the dilemma was caused by chain-of-command or relationship problems. After person B's situation has been discussed, Round 2 begins and person A then explains his/her situation to person B who then helps identify the areas of difficulty.

[5 minutes]

4e. Participants work on task in pairs.

[20 minutes]

4f. When they complete their work in pairs, ask participants to come back to one large group. The purpose of this step is to identify common patterns the Volunteers have in dealing with characteristics of the bureaucracy. Have this newsprint prepared so that common responses can be checked.

[5 minutes]

Sample Newsprint

Checklist
	Mission
	Norms/Values
	Relationships
	Rewards/Incentive
	Leadership/Authority

 

Ask participants to come up to the chart and check off the characteristics which they feel caused them difficulty in the situations they discussed.

Your completed newsprint may look like this:

Check list
	Mission 111
	Norms 1111 1111 1111
	Relationships 11
	Rewards/Incentives 11
	Leadership/Authority Amp 1111 1111 1111 111

 

4g. Diagnosis of Personal Patterns

[20 minutes]

After all checks are made, look at how l they appear.

Ask participants:

1. What common threads or shared patterns . if any, do we have here?

2. What conclusions can we draw that the results of this exercise might demonstrate about North Americans and their relationships to bureaucracies in general?

3. What do these patterns say about host country bureaucracies in general? In terms of cultural problems?

4. How are these types of problems unique to Peace Corps Volunteers because of their roles?

5. BREAK - mention that after the break, more emphasis will be put on strategies to cope with some of these problems or difficulties.

[15 minutes]

6a. Action Planning

[5 minutes]

Remind participants that before the break they compared problem areas in dealing with bureaucracies.

State that "many of there problems or difficulties are due to attitudes or lack of skills. For instance, someone who consistently has difficulty with authority might have the attitude that authority should be challenged. On the other hand, they may simply lack knowledge or the best way to appropriately approach someone in authority in another culture. The next step, then, is to look at patterns and determine if the difficulties have been a knowledge/skill on an attitude/value problem."

Ask participants to work individually to design a plan of action for dealing with the characteristics of the bureaucracy that they identified as causing them the most difficulty. Use this prepared newsprint to explain this portion of the task.

ACTION PLANNING 1. Review areas of difficulty. 2. Decide whether they were/are knowledge/skill or attitude/value problems . 3. Decide which skills need to be acquired and which attitudes need to be reviewed. 4. Choose 1-2 skills/attitudes to work on and determine some ACTION steps you will take to work on these areas. Complete the Action Plan Form. 5. Be prepared to present your plan.

 

Distribute "Action Planning Forms for Bureaucratic Effectiveness"

6b. Participants work on task individually.

[15 minutes]

6c. Ask participants to meet in their original pairs to share their plans of action and receive feedback. Task is to:

[15 minutes]

- listen to the other person's plan of action

- comment on feasibility

- make suggestions for improvement

7. Summary & Closure

[20 minutes]

When pairs have finished re-working both strategies, ask the following questions of the total group:

- Would several persons share an area of difficulty and some of the action steps you plan to take which you think may be important for the rest of the group to know about?

- Are there some areas of difficulty that some of you worked with which you still feel unresolved about?

- Do you see some ways you might be able to work with your counterparts to increase your bureaucratic effectiveness?

- If, as a group, you were advising new Peace Corps Volunteers on how to be bureaucratically effective, what 5 skills or attitudes would you see as most important?

As you close the session, mention that

• In this session on bureaucratic effectiveness, we have:

• talked about the frustrations of being a PCV working in a bureaucracy

• tooted at how bureaucracies evolve and why they exist

• identified the dominant features of a bureaucracy

• compared North American bureaucracies to those in this country

• determined what it means to be bureaucratically effective

• examined personal patterns and/or difficulties in working within bureaucracies

• begun plans of action for acquiring skills to make you more bureaucratically effective.

Stress that these plans of action are important. The analysis of the bureaucracy, seeing what we need to do to fit in, making training happen in a culturally sensitive way is a constant task. The experiences in these sessions should establish a foundation. It is up to the individual Volunteers to continue the process.

END SESSION

Action Plan for Bureaucratic Effectiveness
Area of Difficulty	Skill I need to acquire to make me more effective	Attitude I need to change to make me more effective	Action Steps I will take to improve area of difficulty