Cross-Cultural Collaboration: A Case Study of Developing a Leadership Program in Morocco

• In Event: Interactive Roundtable Discussions
  In Interactive Roundtable: Leadership Development Interactive Roundtable Discussions

Short Description

Minnesota and Morocco are worlds apart, but the need to strengthen the economic potential in rural Morocco brought faculty together from two countries to co-design a leadership cohort program for 22 men and women. Discussion will focus on strategies for developing trust, and the curriculum, outcomes, and challenges with cross-cultural collaboration.

Detailed Abstract

Morocco, like in many countries, agricultural development relies on strengthening the economic potential of its rural regions. Recent government programs in Morocco have given special attention to encouraging the formation of local cooperatives. However, small rural producers lack the leadership skills and strategic planning capabilities to know how to accomplish this feat.
The National School of Agriculture in Meknes and the University of Minnesota have a long-time relationship with a graduate student exchange program. As a result, Morocco’s Ministry of Agriculture contacted U of M to assist in their challenge to develop rural leaders.

The Morocco Rural Leadership Program was designed to provide leadership skill training while taking into consideration the context of small, rural Moroccan cooperatives. The program was conducted in three week-long sessions implemented over a nine month period. The work plan used a three-tiered process. The first tier involved University of Minnesota Extension staff working together to prepare working drafts of training activities to present to a team of four faculty from the National School of Agriculture. The second tier included a training-of-trainer component of the Moroccan professors, including virtual and in-person working sessions. The third tier focused on the Moroccan faculty applying the leadership components with a cohort of 22 farmers - 10 women and 12 men - all of whom were serving as leaders and members of an agricultural cooperative or association. The cohort attended the three sessions and were given assignments between the sessions to apply a strategic planning process in leading their cooperative or association. Members learned and practiced a number of tools, including group decision-making, preparing and facilitating a meeting agenda, creating a shared vision and developing action steps to lead them to succeed in reaching that vision.

Results and Outcomes: Three methods were used to evaluate the impact of the leadership program: 1) Changes in networks among the farmers, showing an increase of 53 total connections to 138 or an average of 3.1 to 8.1 per farmer, 2) pre and post assessments measured the leadership competencies of the farmers, revealing a significant increase in 11 of 12 competencies, and 3) qualitative data was gathered on the farmers’ commitment to actions following each session and at the conclusion of the cohort program.

In addition, long-term evaluation of the program’s impact and farmers’ actions is being gathered a year later in February 2016. These results will be shared during the roundtable discussion.
In conclusion, the Morocco Rural Leadership Program design developed a cohort of trainers and a cohort of decision makers with common responsibilities to govern, manage and operate strong associations and affiliated enterprises. Strong and effective associations will improve productivity, decrease production loss and increase rural household incomes in Morocco.
Equally as important, the program is an example of a successful cross-cultural collaboration. The same strategies that were implemented in the Morocco Rural Leadership Program will easily be modified by faculty of University of Minnesota to work in multiple cultures around the globe as well as with local diverse audiences.

The presenter of this roundtable will illicit discussion around the key learnings from the case study and invite sharing of best strategies for cross-cultural collaboration in developing a leadership cohort program.
• Building trust is critical for success. How do you do this with another culture half way around the world?
• How can technology help or hinder the building of trust and the development process of a leadership program?
• Program design and pre-planning is crucial. What roles, expectations, assumptions and clarification for overall direction and program success should be explicit?
• Are there universal adult learning principles and pedagogy that can/should be used in leadership development?

Participant

• Catherine Rasmussen, University of Minnesota