Ariana Almeida made the brave leap from lawyer to aid worker in 2007 with her move from Lisbon to London and soon after, with her husband, to Timor-Leste. By 2010 Ariana had co-founded a social enterprise/NGO called Empreza Diak that empowers rural communities through sustainable livelihoods.

When her husband Filipe received an opportunity to go to Harvard to get his Masters in Public Administration, Ariana also received the benefit of taking courses with people from around the globe. She did not realize at the time how much impact these courses would have in terms of changing her perspective about how development works and the way most INGO’s and Donors operate.

One of these courses was called Developing People, which talks about human development from a more holistic perspective, rather than the traditional way of thinking “can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. This means looking beyond just learning knowledge and technical skills but also learning how to see the world differently and in a way which allows us to make better decisions and change our behavior to what we would like it to be. We may apply this not only to ourselves but when thinking about our staff or communities with which we work. In this episode she explains:

- How our patterns of thought influence our behavior

- How the Immunity to Change Map can help us change our behavior

- The difference between horizontal versus vertical development

- Her struggle with understanding if Empreza Diak is having the impact they would like to make

- Using mindfulness and visualization at community level to encourage people to talk about what they really need

- Different levels of vertical development and how decision making and outlook varies at each level

- Practical ways of advancing from one level to another in vertical development

- Why creating “holding environment” is important (environment or network where you can reflect and process your ideas with people you trust)

- Why it is important to do reflection soon after an event happens rather than waiting

(I tried the Immunity to Change map with my goal to focus more on coaching staff and less on providing solutions to problems they can resolve themselves. I found it interesting in terms of thinking through assumptions we have that may or may not be true, which makes you question your reason for not changing your behavior. I will couple this with journaling for a few weeks and let you know how it goes.....)

For full list of resources and Torrey's Immunity to Change Map, please visit

http://www.aidforaidworkers.com/podcast/achieve-the-change-you-want

When it comes to wellbeing, I have certainly not always had the best record. I remember when I first arrived in my post in Timor outside of the capital. Because I was living in a hotel and eating out at restaurants for all my meals, this compounded with learning a new culture and adapting to a new environment began to wear away at my mental and physical health. I began to get unusually tired, and one day it all culminated when I looked in the mirror and noticed my tongue had turned green! Given I had not eaten or drank anything remotely that color, I knew something had to change. Sometimes we try to ignore these signs that we are at a breaking point, and we keep pushing ourselves. And as leaders it is our responsibility to help others recognize when they might be at their breaking point, or even better yet creating an environment where this is not even a concern.

So why do we push ourselves to the limit? And what can we do as leaders to create an environment where our staff can express themselves when they need help? Today we explore this and more with my guest Dr Matt Bloom, Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame who is studying wellbeing of aid workers globally. Dr Bloom shares some of the findings from his research on wellbeing in aid work, as well as providing some advice on what you can do to positively impact your team’s wellbeing.

Here are some of the topics and resources covered:

- Why international staff tend to have higher rates of burnout

- Why female staff may also be more susceptible to burnout

- How culture and environment impacts wellbeing

- How quality of social support can be directly related to someone’s wellbeing

- Three ways leaders can influence the wellbeing of their staff

- Importance of vulnerability in a leader

Go to aidforaidworkers.com to find the resources listed in the podcast!

Lorraine Bramwell, former Country Representative of South Sudan, shares her struggles, successes and emotional turmoil during the sudden outbreak of Civil War in December 2013.

Everyone has one or more moments in their life they will never forget where they were or what they were doing when an unexpected event took place.  For me it was a typical hot sticky evening in South Sudan, with a broken generator in the hundred degree heat.  I remember getting up in the night to douse my hair with water to cool down enough to get to sleep, and lying back down hearing fireworks (or maybe gun shots?) through my open window.  The next morning we discovered indeed those gun shots overnight signified the government splitting in two and the country tumbled into a Civil War.  As things escalated and we sought how to adjust to this new reality, it was an emotional time period and one which was especially stressful for our national staff, most of whom fled with only their families to hide from the onslaught that followed.

Looking back on this time period, I am curious how I would have handled managing a country program of over 400 staff during this time, and how to keep everyone united despite all the chaos.  In order to explore what she experienced and what she was thinking during this time, I asked Lorraine Bramwell, the Country Representative at the time, to share her lessons learned.  In the interview Lorraine is very honest about her thoughts and feelings, as well as what she learned which made an impact and that which maybe could have been done differently.  It is always easy to reflect back and think what we could have done or would have if we were in the leadership position, but in a situation like this you will really not know unless you are in the middle of it.  That said, it is to our advantage as leaders to learn from others who have been in difficult situations that we may never experience but heaven forbid if we should, we at least have some ideas on how to handle them.

Security is a tricky area in our line of work - finding the balance between keeping everyone safe but also serving people in potentially risk prone areas with little infrastructure. We tend to not prioritize it if we are in more stable countries where there is less conflict or chance of a natural disaster, even though aid workers are more likely to be in a car accident than be victim of a man-made attack.

So whose responsibility is it to keep you and your staff safe? Although everyone is responsible for his/her security, it is ultimately the leaders of an organization that are responsible for creating a security culture, according to this episode’s guest, Security Advisor Maurice McQuillan. Maurice has 14 years experience working in insecure environments in aid work, and has spent a lot of time advising leaders in minimizing risk.

In this episode Maurice has some great advice for leaders in aid work on how you can integrate security into your work and keep your team safe including:

- Why people break the rules

- How to motivate staff to understand and follow security guidelines

- How to mitigate risk versus reacting to it

- Useful tools to use to map security risk

- How to gauge a staff’s perception of risk

- Why hiring the right people is so important

- How to best support your staff in making decisions around security

- Why managers should manage security

Some tools and resources mentioned in this episode (find links at www.aidforaidworkers.com) include:

- Security Risk Analysis Tool

- IRM Risk Culture Framework

- EISF Guidelines

Do you have any questions for Maurice? Please, leave them in the comments section!

www.aidforaidworkers.com

A former aid worker shares his experience in recruiting people for organizational cultural fit and less based on the traditional interview process.