Reinventing an Organization to Do More With Less
6/2/202628 min
What does it take to manage a complex global institution when change is constant and resources are scarce? For Kelly T. Clements, Deputy High Commissioner at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), it’s about building resilient teams, partnering across sectors, and balancing operational efficiency with humanity. In her more than a decade with the agency, Clements has helped steer key reforms in challenging circumstances, and she shares lessons for both public and private sector leaders about how to modernize systems, decentralize decision-making, and embrace innovation.
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First 90 secondsAdi Ignatius· Host0:00
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Alison Beard· Host0:19
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Adi Ignatius· Host0:55
And I'm Adi Ignatius, and this is the HBR Idea Cast.
Alison Beard· Host0:59
Adi, we talk a lot about how hard change is and the latest research on how to do it successfully. Today, though, we're speaking to a leader who has done it in practice at a large, complex, multi-stakeholder organization that you would think is especially resistant to change.
Adi Ignatius· Host1:21
Yeah. There's probably nothing more fundamentally threatening than change. It, it disrupts our comfort zones, it challenges our assumptions about what makes us successful,