“What the eyes have seen, the heart cannot forget” – African Proverb “A picture is worth a thousand words.” – Proverb attributed a variety of cultures and languages. Visualizing, or having a picture of something, is powerful because it can take an abstract concept and convey it in a way that is tangible and easily [more…]

This blog post originally appeared on MSH’s “Global Health Impact Blog” on November 2, 2016 Strong, well-functioning health systems need strong leadership, management, and governance. Over the next couple of weeks, leading up to conversations that MSH is hosting at the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research next month in Vancouver, we will be sharing [more…]

The question here is “how do we put the available resources to the best practical use to achieve results?” We can use human, natural, financial and infrastructure resources in our daily work, but can we use them effectively and efficiently? This is what we mean by the word “utilize.” Obviously, the highest type of efficiency [more…]

Team means Together Everyone Achieves More! – Author Unknown If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. – African proverb From earliest times, family groups, tribes, and communities resulted in the survival of the human race. With the development and increasing sophistication of the brain, our ancestors [more…]

The why doesn’t seem to be the issue. Anyone who has worked in the field and managed sick children knows that tuberculosis (TB) is a probable cause of disease in children presenting with signs of common childhood illness (cough, fever, malnutrition) and agrees that TB indeed affects maternal and child health. The why was also [more…]

Imagine for a moment that you are in a hot air balloon gliding soundlessly through the sky at about 1000 meters up in the air. If you look down, what do you see? There are certain things that stand out – a tall building, waterways, forests, traffic, and may be people. This is what scanning [more…]

“PhD in Leadership, Short Course: Make a careful list of all things done to you that you abhorred. Don’t do them to others, ever. Make another list of things done for you that you loved. Do them for others, always.” Dee Hock, founder and former CEO of the Visa credit card association. In definitions and [more…]

From September 7 to 9, I was fortunate to participate as technical discussant, in a LeaderNet online seminar: Where is TB in maternal and child health? The seminar was moderated by Rudi Thetard (MSH) and Anne Detjen (UNICEF), with Karen Waltensperger (Save the Children) and Jon Rohde (MSH) also participating as technical discussants. We had [more…]

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” – Albert Einstein Many people in leadership roles believe [more…]

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States, 1953-1961 Why in the world would we start with such a quotation? Aren’t plans important? Let’s see. Planning is defined as setting a direction, strategies, tasks and schedules to accomplish [more…]