Case Studies
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Case Study Example
about the ClientA large nonprofit policy advocacy network with more than 500 staff hired Stamey Street as an advisor and thought partner to help them develop a cohesive equity strategy. For this case study, we worked with the communications team to help them develop a more equitable, functional, and sustainable decision-making practice.
Organizational Behaviors:
Building Equity Into Internal Processes
The Situation
Our task was to conduct a racial equity training for an education-based nonprofit and facilitate a staff discussion about its application. During pre-session planning, our consultant team recognized underlying tensions between leadership and staff. We also understood that some of those tensions were racial in nature. Our firm always practices productive pairing when facilitating meetings. In short, we build teams based on our client's needs, the context of the conversation, and the skills needed in the room. For this engagement, we put together a cross-racial team that could speak to the tensions we were seeing in the planning process.
The Adaptive Challenge
The client’s challenge was in three main areas. First, the whole team needed to understand why their current way of working put Black staff in a difficult position. Secondly, the team needed to adopt new ways of working. This team worked in a fast-paced public policy context, so they often made decisions quickly. The good thing about this team was that they wanted to work better together, and they had a lot of respect for each other.
The Solution
Our team approached the engagement using the following strategies:
We didn’t dive into processes with this group right away. Instead, we spent time with the team to better understand their objectives and how they worked.
We mapped a communication decision in real time.
We noted the challenges with the existing process.
We guided the team to build a new process that was more equitable and effective.
The Results & Lessons Learned
Once we mapped a real decision, it became clear that their process was overly complicated. Redundancies became clear. We also found areas where we could establish clear decision rights. One of the biggest takeaways was that staff needed to build their internal capacity to frame issues, along with strategies for using inclusive language. After that process review, our team worked with them to rework their process. We also worked with them to create a language style guide for the team to use for framing issues.
The guide resulted from discussions and ultimately agreements the team made about how they wanted to talk about their work. Because the team’s work was fast-paced, they needed to agree on as much as possible before important decisions. The guide eliminated the need for conversations every time the team engaged with the media. The trust the team built while creating the guide created buy-in for its use, as well as the new decision rights. Lastly, we created criteria for when the team needed to come together for important conversations when big decisions were needed.
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