Celebrating Our First Year!

It has been a year since I founded Nexus Evaluation, and it has been amazing to have contracts in all three different areas in our portfolio – some highlights:

• Nexus had an 8-month contract with the UK Evaluation Society to lead events and training. During that time, we created a strategy and implementation plan that diversified the portfolio of professional courses on offer, increasing the value for its members and revenue streams for the organisation.
• Paul Hamlyn Foundation hired us to evaluate the first five years of the Backbone Fund – an innovative mechanism that provides unrestricted funding to infrastructure and sector-critical organisations in the UK. The evaluation focused on systemic change, social justice and diversity, equity and inclusiveness (DEI) issues. We used a systems approach, outcomes harvesting and produced audio-visual content for some stories of change.
• Mongabay, an international NGO that increases transparency and accountability around nature and planetary issues, hired us to develop their new strategy 2023-2030 and implementation plan. We are using an inclusive and diverse approach that is evidence-based and rooted in organisational design and change.

There was also much to learn, here are three main takeaways:

1. Rethinking independence and being flexible

I had to think hard about the “independence” aspect of what we do. A big tenet of how many of us had been trained and worked for years is that independence is key to what we do. Yet it can get in the way and is rarely needed if you know how to both constructively challenge and support your clients. Indeed, the role of independence was criticised most recently by Professor Ruth Boaden – keynote speaker at the UK Evaluation Society 2022 Annual conference.

When a client takes a consultant’s independence to its literal sense, they avoid partnering with you to ensure that findings and recommendations are relevant, owned and lived once the consultancy effort ends. On the other hand, when a consultant hides behind the independence curtain, it stops listening and assumes one person can make sense of a whole on its own – yet this is rarely the case and goes against the latest push for diverse and inclusive systems view and practice. Finding the right balance for the right situation can be tricky but what I found useful is to always keep in mind the impact we want to have, to listen carefully to both clients and my consultants, to follow my instincts and to offer genuine compromises.

2. Developing good partnerships, both when it comes to clients and colleagues, is the key to success.

I have had the privilege of exploring plenty of opportunities for collaboration with other consulting organisations, clients and colleagues around the world. As such, it has been great to know they value my knowledge, experience and how I work. But developing good partnerships has been key to success, and I suspect it will continue to play a key role going forward.

In some cases, I had to make the difficult choice of not working with someone due to power dynamics and behaviours that were not conducive to effective and respectful working relationships, nor did they align with my values or ways of working. In doing so, I had more time to nurture great partnerships that deliver real impact and, in many cases, also resulted in new friendships!

3. Triple learning has been essential to my leadership journey and to how we work

It has been easy to create spaces with the team of consultants I work with, we have pause and reflection sessions at key stages throughout the project – sometimes as a group and sometimes as 1-1s conversations, as needed.

But the real effort is to be genuinely open to candid feedback and challenge and for it to make a difference in how I think, feel and operate as needed. The latter has gone a long way in building trusting relationships and safe spaces but also in managing difficult conversations.

I have also tried to bring that practice to my clients and have to give full credit for their ability to engage with what I have to say and be willing to change things as needed. And here is where it goes full cycle, as I don’t think I would have been able to do that without having a partnership and nurturing approach towards relationships (previous section).

It is exciting to start the second year with a whole set of new clients, and I look forward to more learnings and partnerships!