Maliasili Reader

For busy leaders and teams, taking a pause to step back from the day-to-day for reflection can feel like a luxury. But it’s often from this vantage point where you can see more clearly, and be better positioned to make plans and priorities for the year ahead.  

We asked Cara Scott, one of Maliasili’s most experienced facilitators, to create a step-by-step guide that you and your team can use to reflect on the last year, and create a plan for success in 2025. Cara has included facilitation tips for each step to help make your discussions lively, inclusive, and fun. 

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Don’t let time or money constraints prevent you from marking the year-end in a celebratory way. One of the most inspiring things you can do as a leader is help your team celebrate your accomplishments - big or small.

We reached out to our team and the conservation leaders in our network to share ideas they’ve tried, wanted to try, or seen others do for celebrating success. Here’s a list we’re confident has something for everyone!

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The end of the year is a natural time to celebrate hard work and achievements. Yet, one task often fills people with a bit of dread: the annual performance review. For many, it can feel reminiscent of getting a report card in school, with high stakes, as team members discover if they’ll receive a raise, a promotion, or even constructive feedback on areas for improvement.

In our latest Reader, our Head of People and Culture, James Kiogora, shares clear, actionable steps to transform the year-end review into an open, engaging, and productive conversation that team members will find meaningful and motivating rather than something they’d rather avoid.

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Communications and fundraising are deeply intertwined. In this Reader, we want to make this connection clear and strong while providing ways you can put this into practice.

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There is an increasing call for a shift in funder thinking, allowing more autonomy to local teams in decision-making and placing trust in them to decide the best use of resources at any given time. In this Reader, three leaders - Tiana Andriamanana, Patrick Kimani, and Andrew Stein - representing different organizations and geographies share their experiences and make a case for the importance of flexible and unrestricted funding.

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In this Reader, Maliasili's Resson Kantai Duff and Monicah Mbiba are joined by Dr. Oliver Nsengimana from the Rwanda Wildlife Conservation Association, one of Maliasili’s East African partners. They discuss their experiences and share insights about speaking on national and international platforms about issues they are passionate about. The three of them answer questions honestly and in a relatable way, providing valuable insights that will help you, no matter what stage you are in your public speaking journey, to improve your skills.

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Times have changed, which means the traditional style of interviewing and recruiting may no longer work as well as it used to. As the professional landscape evolves, so must our approaches to finding and bringing on new talent in the conservation and environmental space. 

In this Reader, our Deputy Director for People and Culture, James Kiogora, provides easy-to-implement tips to ensure your interviewing and recruiting processes are successful, respectful, and reflect your organizational values. 

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We give a lot of time and attention to the hard stuff—having tricky discussions, giving difficult feedback, or surfacing and working through conflict. There are a plethora of tools and great advice for managing these. But with so much emphasis on the trickier discussions, we often forget about the importance of making the time to have another kind of conversation that is just as critical: those that are optimistic and affirming. This Reader dives into these, and how they can go a long way to help you foster positive relationships, improve morale, inspire and encourage your team and lead to even greater success.

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For many, conflict at the workplace (or anywhere else in life, really) is a negative and scary experience. We are wary of it, even though we know that it is unavoidable. In this Reader, our Deputy Director of People and Culture, James Kiogora, and our Chief Portfolio Officer, Karine Nuulimba, share useful insights on how they regularly manage conflict and reach a resolution. 

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In the conservation and environmental sector, our work depends on people. And people are emotional beings who require support, connection, and relationships. Yet, we often overlook this critical part of our work as leaders and instead focus on what we consider strategic. In this Reader, discover the components of emotional intelligence, and how it can help us to be better leaders with real-life scenarios as examples.

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Culture is dynamic and is both an individual and shared experience between team members. Creating a healthy culture - building, shaping and adapting it - requires consistent, long-term effort and intention. In our experience, there are some building blocks that make the foundation for building a healthy organizational culture. In this Reader, some of our team members explore some of these blocks, which are often interconnected and influence each other.

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Organizational culture shapes how people behave, collaborate, and ultimately function as a team. It is the key to keeping teams engaged and productive, as well as attracting top talent to the organization. A thriving organizational culture unites people and keeps them aligned. In this Reader, some of our key portfolio team members reflect on this critical aspect of organizational dynamics, providing examples and scenarios of how culture manifests.

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Finding the right balance between professional responsibilities and personal well-being is crucial in our fast-paced and demanding work environments. Setting goals for your year should not just include what you want to achieve in the office. At Maliasili, we understand the significance of having personal goals alongside our work objectives, recognizing their equal importance. As we kick off the first Reader of 2024, we're excited to share examples of these goals with you, aiming to inspire and encourage you to contemplate your own personal and professional aspirations!

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At the African Community Conservation Forum we convened two months ago, there was an essential session on building diverse and inclusive organizations. This Reader spotlights the different strategies a diverse group of conservation leaders identified to move from talk to action.

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Many leaders struggle to understand where to start or how to properly invest in their teams. This Reader explores that and provides practical tips on how to get it done.

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Conservation success cannot be achieved by a singular organization or individual. It requires partnerships and collaborations at various levels and with diverse organizations. This Reader highlights what causes partnerships to fail, and most importantly, top tips on how to make them succeed.

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Conservation contains a complex web of power dynamics. They often go unspoken yet they significantly influence the success or failure of conservation organizations and initiatives. In this Reader, we delve into the multifaceted ways power shows up within organizations, and amongst various stakeholders. We also explore how African conservation leaders and organizations can use power to do better. 

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This Reader explores the African philosophies of Ubuntu and the lessons it has for conservation and environmental organizations.

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Change is inevitable when organizations grow. At Maliasili, we love using a simple framework to help us and our partners understand and manage the change process: the four rooms of change. These rooms - contentment, denial, confusion, and renewal -  can help individuals and teams go through change more comfortably and clearly, making it less painful or scary. It can make change more exciting.

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Retreats and gatherings are important because they allow team members to strengthen their bond, improve collaboration, learn from each other, and cultivate a positive work culture. Maliasili recently held our annual retreat, so we used that opportunity to source some advice and tips from our team on running an effective gathering. 

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