AMP Health Leadership Lab: “Embracing Change”

Livingstone, Zambia

26 - 31 January 2020

In January, AMP Health hosted its sixth Leadership Lab in Livingstone, Zambia. Leadership Lab is an annual convening that brings together all AMP Health partner programs for intensive and immersive leadership & management training and serves as a platform for sharing best practices across countries and teams.

This Lab brought together 50 people from seven different government health program teams in Ghana, Malawi, Sierra Leone, and Zambia, along with AMP Health staff and partners, for four days of learning, skill building, and collaboration. Klara Michal, AMP Health’s incoming Chief Learning Officer, facilitated the interactive sessions throughout the week alongside Xavier Op de Laak, AMP Health’s Monitoring, Evaluation, & Learning (MEL) Specialist.

AMP Health Leadership Lab Participants

This year’s Lab theme was “Embracing Change”, a topic that all teams had identified as a priority area, and which served as a thread to connect the week’s sessions. In previous Leadership Labs, AMP Health has received feedback that while participants appreciate the exposure to a wide array of tools and approaches, attempting to cover too much material in too little time can leave participants feeling exhausted and overwhelmed. AMP Health responded to that valuable feedback through the use of a single narrative arc built around the theme of embracing change, tying the lessons learned during Lab to the real challenges faced by the often quickly growing and constantly evolving teams in attendance. The issue of managing change is also essential if these teams are to capitalize on the innovations and increased investments that are flowing into health programs as governments look for ways to accelerate achievement of the Astana Declaration on Primary Health Care (PHC) and Universal Health Coverage (UHC). This Lab format allowed teams to take a deeper dive into the material and tools covered, and to get a strong grasp on fewer, foundational concepts, rather than a surface-level familiarity with many.

Leadership Lab kicked off with a Welcome Dinner on the evening of Sunday, 26 January, bringing together all of the participants to hear welcome remarks from Dr. Andrew Silumesii, Director of Public Health, Zambia Ministry of Health, and Dr. Robert Newman, AMP Health’s Director. The first day of training started early the next morning with an introduction to “Change Buddies,” pairs of buddies who worked together throughout the week to practice and digest the change model presented. Each pair was purposefully arranged based on the buddies’ roles in their teams, and to encourage sharing across countries.

Beginning on Monday morning and continuing throughout the week, participants focused on practicing and implementing Kurt Lewin’s 3-Stage model of change: Unfreeze, Change, Refreeze through non-didactic paired and group exercises, discussions, team presentations, role plays, and simulations. This practice began with the sharing of stories of successful change in the health system by two Team Leads from Ghana and Zambia. The morning culminated in the creation of a “change” wall, where participants applied sticky notes to help break down successful steps between the “unfreeze,” “change,” and “refreeze” stages of the model.

The second day of Lab began with a focus on the first step of change: Unfreeze. The teams practiced openness to change through paired exercises, and participated in a group exercise around strategically gaining the buy-in of key stakeholders for change. Participants continued to work on “unfreezing” themselves, their habits, and their teammates throughout the day, as they went through exercises related to the importance of celebrating short-term wins, removing obstacles to change, and identifying how a change has led to improved outcomes or greater impact. The day finished with an analysis of Fisher’s Personal Transition Curve, which maps out the emotions commonly felt when experiencing large change, what can be expected over time, and ways to navigate those emotions.

Over the first two days of Lab, teams also participated in two linked simulations, where groups of nine people with assigned roles first deliberated on how to address problems with a vaccine rollout that was in progress and going poorly, and then jumped nine months backwards in time to work on planning the rollout more smoothly from the start. Participants were intentionally assigned to roles unfamiliar to them, which encouraged exploration of new stakeholder relationships, biases, and viewpoints, and an understanding of what motivates others.

The third day of Lab began with a session on building better personal habits, which are critical to both personal and professional change. Participants spent the morning diving deeply into the steps required to break and change bad habits, and cement new ones, practicing within small groups and with their change buddies. They finished the day discussing the final step of change, “Refreeze,” through several exercises regarding creating a change-friendly environment and ensuring that the change “sticks.”

Throughout the week, each team gave a short presentation on progress made on their Focus Workstream projects that had been implemented over the past year. Focus Workstreams are priority areas of work which the teams identify and to which they deliberately apply leadership & management learnings, tools, and approaches. Teams focused on everything from the successful planning and launch of a market health clinic (including budgeting, getting buy-in of stakeholders, and executing on the complex event plan), to utilizing a newly developed national community health strategy to consistently drive funding and coordination of efforts towards a clearly stated goal.

Dr. Sylvia Chila Simwanza introducing the Zambia Community Health team’s Focus Workstream presentation

Dachaga Oswald, member of the Ghana team, presenting on the team’s Focus Workstream

Dr. Lynda Farma, Deputy Program Manager of the Sierra Leone EPI team, introducing the team’s Focus Workstream presentation

Since Lab, all teams have safely returned to their countries and resumed their critical work of improving their health systems and driving towards full Primary Health Care coverage for their peoples. Over the next year, participants will continue work side-by-side with their MPs on their L&M journey, engage with their change buddies, take part in AMP Health in-country leadership & management training sessions, and leverage the distance-learning platform to continue to develop and enhance their leadership & management skills and capabilities. Team leads and MPs will also participate in the AMP Health Leadership Refresher planned for July in Johannesburg.

“Leadership Lab got everyone thinking about the importance of good leadership and management as a means of improving team performance and outcomes.

— Leadership Lab Participant, Sierra Leone Ministry of Health & Sanitation

“I learned that change starts with me and that I can’t change others without changing myself. I learned how to change myself, internalize that change, and make it stick such that it becomes visible to the team and they can emulate it.

— Leadership Lab Participant, Sierra Leone Ministry of Health & Sanitation