How to find the right balance between advising and implementing?

For a junior advisor it may take some time to find their role and to build trust as capacity development advisor while working with older colleagues. One way of building this trust relationship is working with an organisation and 'doing things' and taking on implementing tasks. For instance, you may be asked to write proposals, lead meetings and organize trainings, but when you want to advice and work with others colleagues, they may have other priorities.

So how to build trust and show your added value as a capacity development advisor? One strategy may be to start with the implementing task and slowly try to shift towards a more advisory role. Another strategy may be to develop a partnership with the director, or the management team of an organisation.

Related to this is the situation where an advisor is working with one NGO, it is hard to keep enough distance to stay in an advisory role working with one organization. For instance, after a training, you don't want to stay idle for 3 weeks. A solution in this situation may be to create your own projects to keep you busy and be clear that you are implementor within that project, and advisor towards the organisation.