1. Introduction
Module 2 has deepened my comprehension of effective
strategic leadership within the Department of Surface Transport, building upon
the reflective principles established in Module 1, which highlighted integrity,
ethical decision-making, and adaptive leadership as key themes. Module 1 helped
me deal with moral dilemmas, figure out how to deal with paradoxes, and move
from making decisions based on rules to thinking in a more flexible way. Module
2 has pushed me to think more about the future, expand my mental models, and
understand how leadership choices affect systems on a large scale.
The knowledge areas of systems thinking, future-back
strategy, Herrmann Whole Brain Thinking, complexity leadership, creative
problem solving, and customer journey mapping all sent the same message:
strategic leadership isn't just about making better decisions today; it's also
about making better systems for tomorrow.
This reflective writing
explains how I plan to use these ideas in my leadership practice, especially
when it comes to making strategic changes in Bhutan's road sector. I also list
specific, measurable goals, deadlines, and possible problems. I know that
making a lasting difference requires planning, discipline, and hard work.
2. Systems Thinking and Minimizing Unintended
Consequences
One of the most important things I learned in Module 2
is that infrastructure decisions should be seen as part of a bigger system, not
just as separate technical choices. In the past, I put a lot of effort into
making sure that projects had good quality, stayed on budget, and finished on
time. I didn't fully understand how design standards, community expectations,
maintenance budgets, and environmental resilience all worked together.
Systems thinking revealed how well-intended decisions
can produce unintended negative consequences. For example:
- Increasing
road lengths while staying within a set budget can unintentionally make
them less durable over time.
- If you
don't think about drainage or slope stabilization enough, you may have to
do maintenance work over and over again, which will hurt public trust.
- Overemphasis
on construction targets can overshadow the transformational potential of
preventative maintenance.
Dedication and a result that can be measured:
- By June
2026, I intend to develop a System Mapping Framework for Road Planning and
Decision-Making, capturing linkages among geotechnical, financial, social,
and environmental variables and send each engineer from Regional Offices
and Divisions at RIM for the Design Thinking training. The proposal was
already discussed with the department and RIM.
- By
December 2026, I aim to pilot this system map in at least two regional
offices, evaluating its effectiveness in predicting downstream
implications.
Possible Problems:
- Resistance
from teams accustomed to linear planning methods.
- Difficulty
in gathering multi-disciplinary data for mapping.
- Limited
tools or software resources.
To deal with these problems, we
will need to build our capacity, hold collaborative workshops, and implement
things step by step.
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| The Goling Bypass Highway |
3. Envisioning the Future and Applying
Future-Back Strategic Management
Learning to think from the future backward instead of
just projecting current trends forward may have been the most important change.
The infrastructure sector in Bhutan often works in a reactive way, fixing roads
after they break, changing plans when budgets are cut, or changing plans when
political priorities change. Thinking about the future makes you more
proactive.
I developed a 10-year aspiration for Bhutan’s road
sector:
“By 2035, Bhutan will operate a resilient, climate-adaptive, and digitally
enabled road network with predictable maintenance cycles, reduced disruption
days, and 30% optimized life-cycle costs.”
The future-back strategy made
me set goals that I needed to reach this vision, like:
- introducing digital asset
management tools,
- making research and
development stronger for materials that can handle climate change,
- institutionalizing maintenance
culture, and
- making project planning better
with data and foresight.
Promise and a way to measure success:
- By December
2025, write and give the Department a 2035 Future-Back Road Sector
Strategy (Strategic Transformation Roadmap, which I am currently working
on) that includes climate resilience, digital systems, and building human
capacity.
Challenges anticipated:
- Getting
different groups of people to agree on a long-term vision when funding is
only available for a short time.
- Changes
in politics or budget problems can cause deviations.
This necessitates continuous
communication, evidence-based persuasion, and organized stakeholder
involvement.
4. Identifying and Replacing the “Used Future”
One important idea from Module 2 was the "used
future," which is when old ways of doing things that no longer work but
keep going because people are used to them. I thought a lot about parts of our
department where used futures are still around:
- Overreliance
on traditional construction materials even when climate-resilient
alternatives exist.
- Annual
budgeting patterns that only last for a short time and make it hard to
manage assets over the long term.
- Prioritizing
road length over performance as the dominant political and technical
metric.
- Monitoring
and evaluation systems that still use paper, even though there are digital
tools available.
Commitment and a way to measure success:
- By 2027,
get rid of at least three practices that are currently in use through
policy proposals, advocacy, and pilot projects.
- Use
lifecycle budgeting, performance-based metrics, and digital workflows
instead.
Potential challenges:
- Institutional
inertia.
- How
people think new technologies are risky.
- Need for
support at higher levels of policy.
Recognizing used futures, on
the other hand, makes it clear what needs to change.
5. Being the leader in Complexity
Module 2 made it clear that the road infrastructure
sector is naturally complicated because of geography, climate change, political
expectations, community needs, and tight budgets. To lead in such a complicated
situation, you need to be humble, willing to try new things, and open to solutions
that aren't perfect but are getting better.
Applying complexity leadership:
- I will
support safe-to-fail experiments, like trying out new ways to mix pavement
or drain water on small pilot sites.
- I will
stop trying to control all the variables and instead learn from patterns
that come up.
- I will
encourage adaptive monitoring instead of linear planning. This means
changing what you do based on feedback in real time.
Specific milestone:
- By 2026,
should have pilot at least three safe-to-fail projects up and running. Use
the Probe–Sense–Respond model to see how well they can be scaled.
Possible Problems:
- Fear of
failure among teams.
- It's hard
to set aside resources for experimental work.
It will be very important to create a safe and open
learning environment.
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| Another section of Goling Bypass Highway |
6. Herrmann Whole Brain Thinking
Another useful thing I learned was how to understand
my own cognitive preferences and those of my coworkers. My initial inclinations
are situated in the Analytical (Blue) and Practical (Green) quadrants. They are
useful for making engineering decisions, but they stifle creativity and
human-centered ways of doing things.
Module 2 stressed the importance of using the Red
(Relational) and Yellow (Experimental) quadrants on purpose in order to be a
balanced leader. These insights will change the way I talk to people, lead, and
work with others.
My commitments:
- When
planning meetings for a project, make sure that all four quadrants are
covered: data analysis, operational planning, creative ideation, and
people implications.
- By 2027,
each regional office should hold at least one HBDI team workshop to
improve collaboration between brains.
Key challenges:
- Some
people on the team might think that cognitive diversity isn't important
for engineering.
- To keep
people on board, you need to show them real value.
7. Iterative Creative Problem Solving
The iterative design thinking model—define, empathize,
ideate, prototype, test—directly helps me solve hard problems with
infrastructure. I now see the value of cycles of experimentation and
improvement instead of jumping straight to technical solutions.
Improving drainage in areas that get a lot of rain is
a good example. In the past, the usual way to do things was to give out a
standard design. I want to do the following with iterative problem solving:
- map
drainage issues with communities,
- think of
several options,
- prototype
small sections of innovative channels or culverts,
- improve
based on feedback from the monsoon, and
- scale up
only after validation.
Commitment:
- By the
middle of 2026, the Department should have a 5-step iterative
problem-solving process in place, starting with pilot areas that are prone
to landslides and surface failures.
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| Zalamchu Bridge on Thimphu - Trashigang Highway |
8. Problem Formulation and Finding Root Cause
Module 2 stressed that poorly framed problems lead to
solutions that don't work or cost too much. I went back to problems that kept
coming up, like roads that broke down too soon, using tools like the 5 Whys and
Fishbone Diagrams. Root cause analysis revealed deeper systemic contributors
instead of just blaming them on "poor contractor performance."
- insufficient
design investigations,
- weak site
supervision,
- not
taking into account extreme weather,
- not
enough time between maintenance cycles.
A goal that can be acted on:
- By January
2027, all major failures must have mandatory Root Cause Analysis (RCA)
protocols and standardized reporting templates.
Problem:
- People
might first think that RCA is about finding faults. To lessen this, I plan
to make RCA a tool for learning instead of a way to blame people.
9. Brainstorming Methods for Creative Problem
Solving
Module 2 taught structured brainstorming methods like
SCAMPER, brainwriting, and reverse brainstorming. These tools will be very
useful for coming up with other ways to solve problems with road design,
maintenance, and safety.
To make creative brainstorming a part of the culture:
- Project
teams will apply at least one structured brainstorming method during the
conceptualization of every major project by 2026.
- A digital
idea board (Miro) will be tested for sharing new ideas across
regions.
Challenges:
- Brainstorming
sessions may not happen because of time limits.
- Teams
might stick with ideas they already know.
Over time, regular help will make creative thinking
normal.
10. Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) and figuring
out what User Wants
Customer Journey Mapping was one of the most
eye-opening tools from Module 2. It shows how real people, like road users,
local communities, contractors, and maintenance crews, have used the service.
Through CJM, I recognized that users judge road
performance based on:
- safety
during monsoon seasons,
- comfort
while riding,
- travel
time reliability,
- availability
of information on blockages or diversions,
- quick
restoration after landslides.
This realization has led me to believe that
engineering excellence is not sufficient; we must design the entire road
experience.
Commitments:
- Starting
in 2026, do at least four CJM exercises a year, focusing on roads and
routes that get a lot of traffic and complaints.
- Integrate
these insights into design briefs and maintenance plans.
Anticipated challenges:
- Engineering
teams may initially find CJM “too qualitative.”
- Sometimes,
users' expectations are higher than what resources are available.
It will be very important to communicate clearly and
make sure everyone is on the same page.
11. Integrating Module 2 Learnings with Module 1
Values
It's clear that Module 1 and Module 2 are connected:
- Module 1
taught me how to be an honest, ethical, and flexible leader.
- Module 2
gave me the tools I needed to change systems, think about the future, and
plan interventions that would have an effect.
Ethical leadership tells us why
we do what we do. Strategic leadership decides what we do. They work together
to make lasting change.
While I use systems thinking, complexity leadership, and customer-centric
approaches, I will stay true to the RIGHT framework and the moral values I
learned in Module 1.
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| Picture of ongoing construction of recently completed Khuru Khuenphen bridge |
12. Conclusion
Module 2 has strengthened my determination to improve
Bhutan's road infrastructure decision-making by moving it beyond just following
the rules and into a place of foresight, creativity, moral responsibility, and
design that puts the user first. I now understand that leadership for strategic
impact requires both analytical rigor and human sensitivity, whether it's using
systems thinking to reduce unintended consequences, coming up with a strategy
for the future from 2035, getting rid of used futures, experimenting with
complexity, or understanding user journeys.
Each of my commitments has a clear outcome and deadline, which means they are
real steps toward making these principles a part of my work. I also recognize
the real-world problems that make things harder, like institutional inertia,
limited data, time constraints, and cognitive biases. But the core of strategic
leadership is not the lack of problems; it's the ability to deal with them with
clarity, bravery, and flexibility.
As I continue on this path to becoming a better leader, I want to do more than
just build roads. I want to build systems that are strong, cultures that are
creative, and leadership styles that are moral and ready for the future. This
way, I help Bhutan reach its national goal of building infrastructure that is
sustainable, works well, and puts the needs of citizens first.
Submitted by: Sangay Duba
Executive Engineer
20150105089
Cohort 22
