This is a CTP of initiative: Arche Noah (Austria)
The CTP consist of management processes of consolidation in and around AN. It is based on the need to constantly renew and build up continuous rethinking and recreation of activities, while sticking to the original principles of AN. The basis of this consolidation was an initial change in the financial situation of the organisation: AN managed to get rid of dependence on state support. The CTP happened in a period when the whole gardening and seed sector of AN started really growing: “There was enough place for a lot of players.” Several internal and external processes constituted this CTP. From late '80s to early '90s AN had the tradition of the 1st of May when “we have those plant markets and 3000-4000-5000-6000 and finally 10000 people come one day to the spot: we need the road, the fire department, the police to help us manage parking lots, and it was always terrible”. The CTP in this process was when AN decided to consolidate this activity by opening a few days earlier and organise markets in other cities so people don't have to come on just one day. “That gives some kind of wideness and still 7000 people are coming on the 1st of May because it is a big party and everybody has to show up who is in this branch and business and sells or exchanges plants”. The main insight behind the CTP is a need to consolidate the operation and to recreate the activity so that “we could keep it in a manageable size and could really scale it up on other outlet points. So we began to have big market in Vienna in the botanic garden, and also 10000 people attending there. So finally it is really growing.” Another element of the CTP is linked to the consolidation of the seedbank and its operations. The main insight behind this move was that “conservation is not just putting seed into the seedbank and keep it”. AN started to rethink seed conversation, which they extended also the “co-development of the seed with farmers that is I think a very important innovation we did. We had hundred farmers who reproduce our seeds on different places, on different climates. So the seeds are changing, every time they are changing to the climate and this kind of weather.” Thus the CTP is about consolidation of the seed conservation activities: rethinking conservation as “a form of development and change, not only keeping”. The CTP is about how AN found innovative ways to rethink its core activities. As the interviewee summarized, “this is really big change from the founding idea. Because the founding idea was that we collect it, we put it in the box and we keep it as it is. That's really changed, it's a living knowledge”.
Essentially several circumstances and diverse group of stakeholders contributed to this CTP to happen. The interviewee perceived that AN can shape seed diversity through adaptation to real needs and therefore consolidated how “we act with partners, how we act with farmers”. This also implied a wider understanding of seed diversity and the initial mission of the initiative: “Seed is a developing organism and it is not something that stays like this and nothing changes. And we have news coming up, like climate-change, climate-adaption, which is important for seeds, like in Hungary or the Eastern part of Austria we have a much drier climate and depends what seeds we need maybe on a long run. That's more of a new issue and with this wide understanding of diversity gives us really the way how to deal with this. An external input mentioned by the interviewee comes right from the heart of AN activities: “we experienced in our seedbank that if a seed is out and we harvest the seed, and give it out for two year-three years and then the seed comes back and it is not really the same seed. The question is what is it then? Is it the old seed we had three years ago, or is it a new seed? I think that's also a thing we experienced it inside and we have important debates outside and I think this was brought back together. I think it is external as it was not so impacted from the board side, it's more impacted from the employee side and managing directors communicating to the board. This analogy with the seed also gave the idea for AN to consolidate processes of organisation, development, rewrite mission statement. “I think in this case we reflected on this in very clear way and that led us into this direction.”
Several earlier events pushed for this CTP to happen. From the start AN had to face internal and external pressures for consolidating its activities and find stability within its organisational comfort zone while constantly adapting to its own operational context. One example mentioned by the interviewee is about how early activities and small recognitions managed to base the later consolidation and successes. “In the beginning of 1990ies we started with chefs to taste salads, different veggies and introduce these to the kitchens. It was very important much before fundraising to create the idea in the world of chefs and kitchens and work on highly recommended papers out there that seed diversity is something interesting. Now it helps us a lot to start from a very different level. So this was a very much acknowledged or respected and from this base we started all other activities.” Another example of a related event happened in the period during the EU seed campaign which required that the board members invest much of their time in the meetings which pressed for finding a work-life balance and consolidate the management: “I can hear my wife and daughters and say you are always engaged in somewhere else. Because it is not only this organisation. But all the other board members have the same situation, that sometimes the partner, the children and the job, they need more time from you and you have to decide where you are. And that's hard. We have a voluntary plot, maybe there would be a smart change of making a voluntary plot if you pay them. But I don't think it is much difference because it is still time consuming. So you cannot make the living out of being in the board, so you have to run other business, but if you have any money out of it, this is not much. So that's one of those things we are facing.”
The CTP involved some contestation about the composition and the tasks of the board. As the interviewee puts this the main challenge was “how to handle work board in a good way. That is still critical, not easy to solve.” Many board members reached the point where they found their tasks became more than they expected and too time-consuming with too many policy meeting that they could not afford. It was the core team of AN involved in this and it has been overcome by separating the management tasks from the substantial tasks. “We try to reduce it now and say just the report and all the manager things we delegate. So sometimes it is also more interesting to talk about manageable things but we shouldn't do it. Another aspect of the same challenge is how to hand over board membership to “someone who is just coming from outside. So how to develop the next generation for board, that’s not a very easy issue.” Several organisational level discussions were involved with the CTP but these did not lead to harsh disputes. “There were critics inside the board, saying we could make much bigger impact - let's say we will pay 1000 outlets and not just 10 outlets.” Similar contestations have been overcome by leaning back to the main mission of AN: “we are kind of forward-looking innovation-based association and the aim is not the widest roll-out. The wide roll-out organic seeds have a corporation behind.”
At the time when it occurred the need to consolidate core activities has not been fully foreseen or regarded as critical or urgent issue, but more like a longer term need to transform and adapt. With regard to the conservation approach, “The founding idea was more like keeping seed in the box. And this was really a common process within the whole organization so I would say within the employees, within the board and within the let's say hundred farmer-gardener group around us we set these developments, and we don't just say we now do another way, it really is a development and now we can form it, but it formed for 10 years or something – I would say, where we end up now and being more modern, more understanding of diversity and of conservation.” Later when the results of the consolidated activities became clearer and these issues have been digested and reflected by the board, it was considered as a turning point. Also the interviewee implied that it is not a fully closed process: “still there are possibilities how to improve, e.g .how to take care of seed health, but I am not an expert on this … surely there is a lot more to do in all fronts”.
Clearly the main lessons for this CTP are linked to the management point of view. The most important learning on the initiative level was that activities and management processes of AN need constant renewal, rethinking and recreation. in line with the original principles of the initiative. The growth of the organisation and the activities that reach ever higher levels induced unexpected internal and external processes. Core activities (events, infrastructures, management processes) that always had the potential to increase required to be kept in a manageable size. The initiative identified innovative ways to rethink such activities and still keep the founding idea. This the CTP presented important management lessons for the organisation and also informed later practice, e.g. the operations and the tasks of the board.
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