Changing think tanks from within: Experiences from think tank intrapreneurs

Organised by the Think Tank Lab

Speakers: Sarah Bressan (GPPI and the ‘Better Think Tanking’ initiative), Claire Luzia Leifert (DGAP and the Think Tank Lab), Annapoorna Ravichander (PAC India), and Chiara Rosselli (Open European Dialogue, the German Marshall Fund of the United States)

Summary

Many of us sense that think tanks need to rethink the way they operate to leverage their potential and add value to the democratic policy process. In this session we focused on what can be done to change think tanks from within, even if you are not the director of a think tank. The speakers shared their entrepreneurship strategies and lessons learned for change management out of three foreign policy think tanks of different size and age. We discussed how we can change the way we work with policymakers, how we can make our organisations more diverse, how an innovation unit can help to modernise a traditional think tank, and how a new initiative, the Think Tank Lab, wants to foster the co-creative advancement of the German think tank landscape by building a community of practice, a training programme, and a toolbox for thinktankers.

From the chatbox

Question posed to participants: What would you like to change in your organisation? What is blocking you from being more entrepreneurial in their organisations?

Responses

I would like to better connect the ‘public good’ work we do with our consulting work. Time to think it through is blocking me.

Stop doing things because they have always been done this way — We need to ask, what is really useful? How does something relate to our overall mission?

Time and space to reflect and exchange. It is difficult as there is a sense of urgency because of both attacks on public policies that think tanks deal with and the attacks and the pressure on civil society. It is difficult to understand that this is a marathon.

One thing that I believe is blocking many young think tankers (at least it was blocking me in my first years) is that seniority is valued much more than out-of-the-box thinking. The

German think tank landscape is dominated by this thinking (even though there are exceptions). It helped me to find other young researchers as partners in crime to push for change in my institution back then. And it is great to see that the wind is slowly changing (this conference being an expression of it).

Change is incremental right, not implemented draconian drastic measures overnight?

When we think about bringing about change in policy we think hard about our audiences. We try to get into their shoes. Do you think we take the same care when our audience in internal?

A bit of advice from John Schwartz- ‘(…) produce video and audio content as standard every time you produce a report, hold an event or just want to explain something. Make sure the charts on your website are all interactive and the underlying data is downloadable. Talk about your work in a thread on Twitter rather than just posting a link and expecting clicks. Try out a data story, a photo story, an illustrated scrolling interactive story. Collaborate with film-makers, artists, poets’.

At ODI we had an innovation fund — it was a small amount to work on small projects. But are these connected to the rest of the business model? Or are these projects ‘isolated’ from what the organisation does?

The think tankers are used to discussing what is ‘rational’ and not that much emotions and unconscious processes which are evolving within the organisation.

We had (or still have?) an innovation fund at ECDPM, point is being overwhelmed with requests that there’s no time to tap into it.

Interesting Poorva, we’ve got to make time though? There are very fast ways to put together a 3 page project proposal — again — I find that the processes are key.

There’s a tendency to think that ‘government want to do x’ in many projects designed by development partners. But we should be critically asking if that’s really the case (the famous political-economy question).

An elephant in the room: money. For most think tanks, ‘thinking outside a project’ to change the ‘how’ is overhead. It is a cost. Intrapreneurs need very clear visions of how that change will look like and the effect it will have on the organisation — and the experiences of everyone in it. Do you have any examples of this?

Sometimes power structures are there, and sometimes they are imagined: How many colleagues think that ‘our stakeholders don’t want to do new things’!

From first hand lesson at ODI: be patient (work with new staff — induct them into new ways of doing), have ‘political’ support, work with champions and early adopters, have a vision & show ‘how it could be’, work with the grain (not against it — even if some will lose), bring in the right skills, build the evidence base to support the change (thinktankers like evidence), find comparators …. it took ODI a good 5–6 years go from ‘research and then a bit of comms’ to ‘research and comms together’.

I agree with Annapoorna on dialogues — in my work with policymakers and dialogue that is what we do — we LISTEN. But in the process of driving change internally I admit I think we need a pinch more of advocacy!

For instance, the LSE Impact in Social Sciences blog offers examples of how others in academia are trying things. It helps to show the more academic thinktankers that ‘it can be done’.

Another question to you all here: How could the organisation you are in incentivise you to take more risks and make a change?

Diversity can help. If think tanks begin to hire people from different background they will inevitably challenge how things are done. This could be bringing researchers with a different disciple from the norm, younger staff, staff from other socio-economic backgrounds — it may also involve making boards more diverse with members who may be leaders in other think tanks!

What are good practices can you share that allow people in the organisation step up and share different ideas?

References and resources

But are there organisations that have limits in how much they can change? Or how fast they can change? This might be useful.

In this video, Sonja Jalfin suggests that sometimes it’s as simple as giving the ‘microphone’ to others in the organisation.

More on think tanks and change

From think tank to change hub
Keynote by Anne-Marie Slaughter, CEO of New America

How do think tanks react to or foster change?
Read the OTT Annual Review 2020–2021