Networks here & there…. networks everywhere!

A few more years and NGO’s working on individual development projects might have become obsolete. Just take a quick look in any NGO’s strategic plan and you will notice that ‘Networks’ and ‘Strategic Alliances’ and ‘Linking and Learning’ are presented as today’s development answers.  Although it would be interesting to scrutinize this assumption, also I have come to accept that networks are an appropriate way to tackle societal issues in a rapidly changing world. Currently I am supporting the NGO where I work in setting up a network on land rights and in our most recent round of discussion I asked my Junior Expert colleagues around the globe for some tips & tricks.

Considering that most of us in the discussion deals in one way or another with networks, confirmed it is in fact a current development fashion. But as one of us rightly pointed out  ’In general I think the word 'network' in the context of development projects is a container concept that is easily used and often not understood…. there is a limitless amount of varieties in the range of formal - informal, size, type of members, goals’. Even in our small group the diversity in the forms and objectives of the networks we deal with was large, varying from group of 'community journalists' to a global network of actors dedicated to the Christian mission of ‘doing good’.  But despite differences from our discussion it is possible to pinpoint several factors that any kind of network requires for effective and sustainable functioning. Now please let me present, in the name of ‘sharing and learning’, my impressions of the virtual discussions I had with my colleague 'development advisors'. 

Core elements & conditions to start a network

First remarkable thing in the discussion was that the main question itself created counter questions. As some of us suggested it is better ‘not to talk about setting up a network’ as networks should ideally evolve naturally when several people feel the urge to link up and cooperate around an issue. It is therefore preferable to take existing relations as a starting point and to expand slowly to other stakeholders and different levels. But what if these relations do not yet exists while you see the added value of exchange and cooperation? In such situation people could be brought together through events and joint actions to examine the potential to evolve as a network. When doing so the facilitator plays a key role to link and ’to create opportunities for a joint discovery path’ before getting people on board. This implies that she or he must study the people, their institutions, their interests and power relations, to plan and prepare the joint events carefully and to give follow up to the outcomes of these events. Once people are on board it is time to define focused objectives, to discuss different contributions and to align expectations. At this initial stage it is crucial that the facilitator ensures there is time and space to answer questions like; what kind of network do we want to become; formal or informal? To what extent do we want to cooperate? Do we consider for instance exchange of knowledge as sufficient or should we take a step further by joining forces in research, lobby and advocacy? If so, which topics and through which activities? What institutional rules and regulations are needed for proper functioning? How do we fund network activities and what financial mechanisms? While coordinating the dialogue on these questions, the facilitator should ensure progress and prevent that members end up in endless discussions. Especially the importance of starting to undertake actions, both at the initial phase as afterwards, can not be overstated because ‘for every network’s sustainability it is crucial to combine learning with action to have continuous results and the added value….People are only willing to invest time and resources if they see visible results.

  

It has been concluded many times before, hence it is not surprising that also in our experience proper coordination and leadership proves to be indispensable. Everyone will be interested, but nothing happens if no one takes the lead. Leadership could be either in the form of an institutionalized secretary, a project unit, steering committee, working group or simply an assigned person….. to take initiative, coordinate and to connect to existing larger initiatives and potential funds.

Above all, we all clearly agreed that at the core of any successful network lie passion, chemistry and openness . In general what I notice here is that a network (and any kind of cooperation) really functions around personal relationships, instead of institutional common interest. Beyond the curtain of organizations and institutional interests lie the people, who can make it or break it. In a way you could say that the passion people share to fight for a common cause is the heart, and cordial relations the heartbeat of a network. Without a heart and heartbeat your network will not sustain life.


Author:  Leyla Ozay,  e-mail.  l.ozay@hotmail.com 

Young Professional about virtual exchange

Since 2006, ICCOenKerkinActie and Togetthere enable Young Professionals (YPs) working on development to exchange experiences about their work. The YPs work for local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as capacity development advisor. Most of them work in isolation and have limited possibility to meet colleagues face-to-face to share experiences.

Each year two discussion rounds, taking five weeks each, are organised virtually where the YPs share experiences about how to strengthen the operations of their partner organisations. The group is using a peer-to-peer coachingsmodel. Most YPs participate two rounds. Just before starting a discussion round, the YPs are asked by an online survey to share the topics which keep them awake at night or have a high degree of urgency for them. Some of the selected topics deal with: "How to make my work sustainable?" "How to create local ownership for what I am contributing?", or "How to position myself as professional in a different cultural context?"

After this survey, key individuals, who are willing to take a leadership role in the exchange of topics related to their work, meet via Skype with the online facilitator to elaborate the objectives and facilitation process. The role of the online facilitator is to design the online process based on the wishes and needs of the group as expressed in the survey. So far, D-groups and Skype have been used as the most effective and popular social media for exchange.

A discussion round takes average around 5 weeks. Case studies or key questions, introduced by the YPs, are mostly used as a basis for discussion. At the end of each discussion, one of the participants writes a note which is published at this blogpost 'Everything you always wanted to know about capacity development'. Literature is collected by asking people for links to interesting websited or publications. These references and benchmarks are documented at a virtual platform at ICCO-Cad wiki. In this way, the group builds a share memory.

Recently one of the Young Professionals shared her experiences by a video interview. View the video:

Music on video:

Song: Una Mañana: Musicians: Omar Meza & Fernando Rey, for more information contact: e-mail. yoshihatsukatana@gmail.com

Some comments which were shared by other YPs in evaluations last year:

"The way you experience the discussions and what you get out of it is of course different for each.....When I think back of the discussion I am not able to reproduce all the contents directly, but the first thing I recall is that feeling that the (pre)discussions were good moments to take a step back, to reflect and to share experiences."

"Just being able to share is valuable in itself. It helped me to concretely formulate my questions and issues I encounter."

Energy levels at work

Recently our discussion group of Young Professional capacity development advisors discussed the topic: How do you deal with the situation if you and your collegues have a low energy level at work?

The case was brought up because I am working for an organisation that has been going through a few months of uncertainty and restructuring. A relatively long period for me, as I am only working for this organisation for six months in total. In this period of uncertainty and management change there was not much room for new initiatives. Furthermore, many of my colleagues had and still have difficulties to motivate themselves for their work. An exception is the new director who is doing his best to transform the organisation into a successful and profitable organisation. This situation had quite a big impact on my own energy level.

This case raised the question how to deal with a situation of uncertainty at work and an absence of collective energy to go for it and build a successful organisation? The main question was how to turn this around to increase your own energy and the energy of others. This article does not provide the answer, as that is probably nonexistent, but will give some suggestions and insights into the topic.

A local market in Africa.

The group came up with the following suggestions:

· A crisis could be an opportunity to change something, a time when you can start developing and implementing new things. Dare to take the initiative.

· Try to discuss the passive atmosphere with other people in the organisation to see what can be done to overcome it.

· Do creative things to get new energy, for example to make a video that benefits the organisation in some way.

· Show people where you are working on, instead of just talking about it. If you want people to start acting and implementing new policies or events, you have to start organising. If not, nothing will happen by itself.

· Accept the situation as it is if you are not in the position to change the culture of the organisation. Enjoy, try to do other things that give you energy and accept that your work activities might be different from your initial plans.

· Sometimes it is better to focus on the things you can do, in the time you are still working there.

Young Professionals work with local organisations in challenging circumstances

Since the Discussion Group meeting on the topic the energy level in the organisation as well as my own motivation started to improve slightly. There are two important reasons for this:

The beginning of a turnaround

The motto of the new director is very clear. Everyone gets a chance to learn and adapt to the new line of management. He is prepared to help everyone and listen to everyone's questions and suggestions. However, those who are not willing to change and work hard to reach a successful organisation risk losing their job. He achieves this by rewarding those who achieve good results and clearly communicating the way he would like to see things happening. The positive effect is that performance goes up. The side effect is that there is some feeling of fear against him.

A mental change

Personally, I started to realise I should focus on the things I can do and accept, although it is very unfortunate, that there were two months in which I could not move forward as quickly as I had hoped for. Since we have overcome the ‘crisis’ now the moment seems to be there to implement new things and this seems to work quite well and gives energy! The new director is very open to any initiative to improve current processes and activities.

Maintaining your own energy levels

Before starting my job here in Africa I thought I was mentally prepared for a different working atmosphere. I had never imagined that it would hit me as hard as it did. I do believe the organisational struggles made that it hit me harder than it would have done otherwise, but still, apparently I was not prepared well enough for it.

Besides the points already mentioned, I think the following is important to keep in mind to keep yourself motivated and obtain energy from your work:

· Start by working with some people who seem to be interested. From here others might also realise your added value and start to open up.

· Show people in what way you can make a difference and make people’s work easier by not waiting too long to start implementing your ideas and projects. Often it takes too long to wait for a decision, if a start has already been made the decision is likely to follow automatically.

· Be patient and do not worry too much you will not be successful, eventually things will start happening in most cases.

A story from a Young Professional working in Africa

The way to interdependence and open communication

or
Are we a burden to our local colleagues instead of a support?


During the last virtual meeting between several Young Professionals working abroad, a new interesting topic came up, addressing the fear of overburdening our local colleagues, that all of us seem to recognize somehow.


Where does that feeling come from?
We tend to feel very responsible for the progress and results of our labour, taking initiative where we can – always keeping in mind the need for sustainability. We are not here to create dependence, in fact, we want the contrary – we would like the local people to do their work on their own, maybe inspired by us.

At the same time we might see lack of structure, of communication, of financial possibilities – so we take an observing, analysing, suggesting, interfering and sometimes resolving role.
Maybe this gets to a point when we feel guilty of repeating the needs for regular meetings, a more structural approach of activities, better communication between the organization members and so on. When our advices are not taken into account, we might feel that we have crossed the line of being an inspiration to being an irritation; overburdening our colleagues.
How do I find out if this really happens – or is it just in my head? How can I handle the situation if a colleague really feels that I'm a burden?

Be connected, young people in Honduras

Some ideas of my junior colleagues all over the world were the following:

* Make things explicit: Ask what people expect from you and even ask whether they feel as if you are a burden to them. You might find out that it is only your feeling, yet others don't really see it that way.
* Do not give up on being an inspiration: Keep on observing and asking questions openly, instead of giving advice directly – try to connect to the priorities of the organization and contribute explicitly.
* It is useful to do an evaluation and ask people what they remembered most during a certain period of time, for example in the last year. How do they look back on your contributions?

Time for reflection and evaluation


* Let go, if asking questions does not work. You've tried and shown your initiative.
* Trust your own observations and analysis to see what your main contributions can be. When you find these, and people see its value, the feeling of being a burden might get less.
* It is not necessarily bad to play the “policeman” and to keep reminding your colleagues about agreements you made. They might even appreciate it, especially on a long term scale.
* Make a point of working in the weekend: Even just stating the importance of having some personal time for relaxation or private activities, might eventually lead to a reflection of your colleagues.

I personally would aggregate the question to ourselves, if we ever feel that someone is a burden to us – and under which circumstances. If it is that way, we should address this feeling and talk about it openly with our colleagues. Maybe this could clarify any mutual feelings or assumptions and generally relax the working atmosphere, especially because in most of the cases I think that the feelings would be based on assumptions and personal preoccupations instead of real conflicts.
In my time here in Honduras, I sometimes had the idea of being a burden to my colleagues with all the activities I wanted to evolve around, through and with them – while they had hardly time to settle down at night, with all the work they had to deal with.

In the end, not all the activities written in my plan could be carried out as they were proposed, but I showed my intentions repeatedly, which seemed to be very appreciated by the direction and members of Arte Acción. While first I was the one apologizing for asking over and over again for attention, now they apologize for not having dedicated all the time and space needed in order to accomplish with all the established goals in our plan.

I have come to the end of my time here and I feel that all people who have taken active part in my intervention, including myself, did the best they can. In the end, everyone realizes that the idea is to work together – in a constant “interdepence” - being conscious that through open communication and relying on each other, we can create a small change within this society.

Johanna Pohlman
Young Professional Togetthere

Lasting change or passing fancy?

On how to make your work more sustainable

Working as a temporary advisor at a local organization can turn you into a manic depressive in a way. You will have your high highs and very low lows. Sometimes you feel elated because you see people have changed their way of working after you gave a training. But expect to also be disappointed when two months later they seem to have slipped back into old patterns.

Most local organizations are overloaded with work. At the Indonesian human rights organization I work for, more than seventy percent of the work (that's my guess) happens ad hoc. The Minister of Law and Justice says something about a law he would like to have revised, my colleagues immideatly respond. A video comes out of military officers torturing a group of Papuan prisoners, the office phones will not stop ringing for hours. Journalists, other organizations and international NGO's will all want to know what KontraS' opinion is.

My colleagues feel that they don't have time for monitoring and evaluation. Even though I know that it's an investment in the future, I can often relate to them. American management guru Stephen Covey speaks of the difference between urgent and important work. Important being the bigger projects, the in-depth analysis, and self-reflection, while the urgent comprises emails and telephone calls. In my case the challenge is to ensure the important is not always swallowed up by the urgent. How do make the lessons you taught stick? How do you make sure that the change will last?

A group of capacity builders working all over the world, came up with the following eleven tips for making your work sustainable. Very importantly: be realistic and don't let it get you down if big change doesn't happen right away. Instead, celebrate the small successes. They are more important than you may realize!

1. Give positive feedback to your colleagues, so that they gain confidence - in themselves but also in you. This is also a way of building trust. You let them know that you are not here to change everything, you are here to help improve things based on what's are already going smoothly.

2. Break the lessons you want to teach up into small bite-size bits. Do exercises during trainings which people will easily remember or refer to. For example, I use the happy horse analogy for discussing the chain of results in planning, monitoring and evaluation. Now in meetings, my colleagues will refer to “the horse is happy” when we discuss our overall goals.

3. Work with motivated people and those who are open to learn. Help the people that come to you for advise and involve them in your trainings or work. Let them for instance pick methods and share ownership of the work you're trying to do.

4. Don't forget that making your work sustainable takes time. Try to see it as an investment and give yourself time to build trust. Also, plan ample time to go from knowledge sharing to other's actually doing their work differently than before.

5. Convince people of the benefit of your intervention. Make it clear why you are there. First you have to show things and then make people part of the experience.

6. Build in a monitoring system together with your colleagues, to monitor the change process and have a learning process together.

7. Focus on the people, not the systems. Even when your goal is to strengthen the organizational capacity of an organization, start by working with some people you see are interested. By helping them develop the skills, on the long term organisational changes will occur.

8. Work with a counterpart in your work, so that that person is able to adapt new ways of working in the organisation.

9. Try to check if the right conditions are there (such as funds for printing the handbook you wrote), and include these conditions into your plans.

10. Plan for a return visit, several months or years after you have completed your placement. It gives you the opportunity to review the work you have done and give suggestions for improving it.

11. Plan a meeting (at least 6 months before your placement ends) where you remind your colleagues and supervisors that you are leaving. Ask them what they want to have in place or accomplished as a sustainable result before you leave.

Too busy to plan: Is PME capacity building at a human rights organization possible?

Life at an Indonesian human rights NGO is hectic. Every day there are new cases or new political developments to respond to. I'm calling it 'life at an Indonesian NGO' instead of 'work', because working here actually means living here. Practically, this means that most of my colleagues spend lots of time at work and little time at home. It means that they don't take the holidays they're entitled to or that if they do, people sometimes regard them as being not that committed.

And there I came: THE advisor on Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation (in short, PME). I was going to change this workaholic mentality (or diminish the workload) and help KontraS plan better. They would learn to work even more effectively and report about the outcomes in more detail. Starting in November 2009, I had the assumption that it would take me a few months to understand the way of working and that I would be able to implement a large body of PME changes fairly easily. Within two months, I analyzed the situation, wrote recommendations and a work plan to go with it. This was going to be an easy ride! Not only I myself had high expectations of my stay here, the staff also seemed to think my presence would miraculously bring beneficial change.

Amis Boersma, explaining a PME game.....

Work one on one with the ones who want to learn more
It was around my fourth month that reality began to kick in: change doesn't happen overnight and it certainly doesn't happen miraculously. Of course, I had read the articles on the topic, even took a course in change management. But it hadn't hit me yet that the theories actually made sense. People are reluctant to change. They are too busy with doing the important work they do to try new things. It's like the parable about the man chopping trees down in the wood with a saw. He doesn't want to stop to sharpen his saw, because he's too busy chopping...

Doing workshops together

So, there was a challenge. Even though I am a very open and outgoing person, I have a fervent dislike for anything that has a potential for conflict. So my initital tendency was not to push or insist. Instead I focused on other areas where I could be helpful – which luckily are many. However, this technique didn't help improve PME very much.

When people feel there are big changes ahead, which they cannot oversee, they tend to hold back. What to do when dealing with resistance? Mostly due to many discussions with my coach and my fellow capacity builders around the world, we came up with a set of recommendations which I am implementing now. One is to not come with a big set of changes, but with small changes, one at a time. Give many short workshops on a wide array of topics. Teach people how to write a proposal or analyze the organization together from different perspectives.

Work one on one with people that are interested to learn more. Help them writing proposals or reports. Not only this, but work on anything else that people need help with as long as it's not too far from the scope of your task. Setting an example or showing different ways of working is also a form of capacity building, I believe.

Make it fun!
As I teach English every Wednesday, I have created 'free' time with some of my colleagues (the class is open to all staff). I use the classes sometimes to discuss issues related to PME, such as cultural differences when it comes to experiencing time and planning. We've talked about leadership, learning and working towards a goal. The class gives a platform to talk about PME without having to call it that.

Gaming is fun.......

Make it fun! Over the past months, I have done a quiz on PME, where the winners got a prize (Dutch cookies). We wrote a 'recipe' for cooking the KontraS way - trying to find out what are the ingredients for successful work and what preparations make them so typical for KontraS. Also, I am working with a creative artist to make a PME manual that explains in a more accessible way what it is about. The price winners!

Very important is not to expect too much from your own intervention. Create small goals and take small steps. And most of all, cherish the small successes you achieve.


Amis Boersma
Young Professional ICCO - Togetthere

How to involve colleagues more in my work and my capacity development intervention?"

Young Professionals discuss experiences and challenges in an online Discussion Group.

Young Professionals are sent all over the world to work with ICCO partners. Although our job descriptions may be different, we all have in common that we are supposed to work on ‘capacity building’. We are supposed to bring knowledge and skills to the organisations we work with, and make sure that the people in the organisation take over your knowledge and are able to use it on their own as soon as we leave. The golden rule is: “When you leave they should be able to do it themselves”. But how to involve your colleagues in what you are doing, and to make sure that you are not working alone, is a challenge for many. Therefore, this theme was chosen in the latest D-group discussion round for Young Professionals. Seven Young Professionals, who are working and living in different parts of the world, exchanged their experiences and discussed the challenges they are facing. Many Young Professionals find it a challenge to directly involve their colleagues in their work. Some feel they are working on their own little ‘island’, others have the feeling that their capacity is just seen as a “cheap pair of extra hands” by the organisation they are working for. Often this goes hand in hand with an unclear demand for capacity building from the partner organisation. As a Young Professional you have to dig and dig further to find out what the actual need for capacity development is. As a result, young professionals experience that they have to define their own roles and tasks, instead of being able to answer directly to a task formulated by the partner organisation. Often, a partner organisation is not clearly communicating to a young professional what they expect from him/her. Therefore, young professional have to take the initiative to get things done, with little involvement from colleagues.

Different expectations from a capacity development intervention
From my own experience as a starter in Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation in Zimbabwe, I can truly relate to these challenges. Before I left, I found my job description very clear, and I thought it was obvious what the partner organisation was expecting from my capacity building intervention. But short after my arrival I found out that my job description might be very clear on paper, but that in practise the demand from the partner organisation, and from the colleagues is am working with in particular, was not very well defined. On the question “what do you want me to do in the coming six months and what are your expectations?” I did not get a clear answer. In the day to day work, I often felt that I was creating my own job, based on what I think was important, instead of working with involved colleagues on fulfilling their needs for capacity building.
During the D-Group discussion wit fellow Young Professionals, we found that prior to this situation/challenge is often the process in which the initial proposal for capacity building by a young professional is written. You find that often a proposal is written by a director or manager, without direct participation of all staff within the organisation. This may lead to little support base for the posting. A conclusion of the D-Group discussion is that most of the time, the parties involved (partner organisation, Togetthere, staff inside the PO, other stakeholders) have different expectations of the capacity development intervention. It takes a lot of effort and time for a young professional to find out what the exact expectations are and to find a balance between all these different expectations. It takes an average of 4 to 6 months to get to know the partner organisation, and your role and tasks in the organisation. It takes time to build trust with your colleagues. In the beginning they might be very much focussed on their own work, and it takes time for them to make time for you as a young professional.

Ways to involve your colleagues
During the discussion round, many ideas where shared on how to involve your colleagues. Most importantly, it is to build a good trust relationship with them. Approach your colleagues in an informal way (during tea breaks, in an informal setting), get to know them, find out about their needs and expectation and start building from there. Moreover, you have to build a good relationship with your supervisor, and get clear about his/her expectations and your expectations from the start. Plan moments of reflections and evaluation with him/her, so that you will keep on the right track and prevent losing sight of what is expected of you. In some cases you have to be very assertive to ensure that your supervisor, as well as other staff, make time for you and take you seriously. From my own experience I think it is very important to be this assertive, and take initiative from the beginning. If you don’t, you get lost, and it is too late to get back on track with the people you are working with.

Adjust ambitions to the situation
Personally, I think the most important conclusion and advice coming out the four week discussion round, is a very obvious and common shared one. Most of the time young professionals have very high ambitions and goals they would like to accomplish with the partner organisation. In all cases it is relevant to lower you ambitions and work with the situation that is there. Even when you think you have already lowered your ambitions and expectations, take it one step further. Especially is you are working for a short period of time (6 months), you can only succeed if your ambitions are in line with the situation on the ground. And usually, you can accomplish a lot less than what you intended in the first place, before you get on a plane to a tropic destination. But nevertheless, your work is always appreciated, and you have to keep in mind that a significant part of your intervention is your own learning experience, which brings a further in future jobs and/or capacity building interventions.

Lara van Kouterik

Young Professional Capacity development - Zimbabwe

Happy Capacity Building - 2008

Three advisors from the ICCO Capacity Assessment & Development group, Dirkje Jansen, Marleen Willemsen and Simon Koolwijk share their successes on capacity development in 2008.

Capacity development in Honduras

Empowered girls in Guatemala

This article has been compiled and written by Dirkje Jansen and can be found at the ICCO-cad wiki site (case studies) or you can read the article by double clicking at Happy Capacity Building 2008.

Transact analysis in Macedonia

Sustainable development in times of crisis: coaching and/or advising?

Introduction
The time that work in the international development sector could rely on merely ‘good intentions’ is far in the past already. What we want today is professional, result-oriented support. And, highly important: support needs to be sustainable.

Young Professionals supported by ICCO are working all over the world, trying to build up sustainable changes with ICCO counterparts within a period of 1,5 to 2 years. This task is not always easy. The organisations we work with often have problems that need to be solved urgently and there’s always a lot of work to do. Short-term tasks, being a stand-in for a colleague and crisis management are daily business. Being an advisor within such an organisation, it is sometimes difficult to escape from this daily business and to dedicate time and energy to long-term planning and capacity development. Several advisors feel the tension caused by this situation. You want to help, and therefore feel you can’t refuse assistance in reaching short-term objectives. But at the same time you know that you might be able to contribute more when working to serve more strategic goals. All are wondering what we could do to turn our work into a more sustainable support. How could we lift our support to a higher level of capacity development?

To find out more about this question, we analysed a case of one of the advisors.

Case
This case concerns a company that exports products of small-scale farmers in a developing country in Latin America. The company works with a local ngo, a partner of ICCO. The ngo gives the farmers seed credit, trains them to comply with quality and safety regulations for international markets, etc. The company links the farmers to supermarkets in Europe and the US.

Mini-squash, one of the export products

This concept worked well from the start in 1999 until the year 2005. The company was unique (first exporting vegetables), the market position was positive and the company was collaborating well with the ngo, which was doing very well at the time. In 2005, hurricane Stan and the strong rainfall afterwards destroyed the production of many farmers. Around the same time, a US client of the company only paid half the prices that were agreed upon. Because the company reacted slowly, the working capital was ‘eaten’ quickly. As a result, the company plunged into a crisis, without working capital and with many debts.

Snow peas, another export product

To solve problems, the director of the company reduced the fixed team to a very small team. He arranged small amounts of credit with several organizations and suppliers to be able to restart business. He changed marketing strategies. Since a convincing restart was not made, a junior advisor quality management and marketing was contracted through ICCO. In practice she was expected to save the company, in all areas, all departments. Until now, she reached several objectives; for example certifying farmers and the packing plant according to an international trading standard. Many things have been learned so far and colleagues are open for changes. Still, she feels that on a daily basis, she spends a lot of time on crisis management where she might in fact spend time more strategically working on long-term goals.
Learning questions: How can we, in a crisis situation, come to a higher level of capacity development?How can we make a sustainable difference that will stay when we leave?

Case Analysis
The advisor has tried several times to organize sessions on longer term planning, but it was cancelled each time: a sign that it apparently wasn’t a priority, or that the company and management team was not (yet) receptive for this level of planning.

Yellow summer squash, a popular export article

When looking a bit closer at the case we identified main problems that inhibit sustainable development.

1. Lack of money and working capital, which makes it very difficult to restart business.
2. There are many factors in the process that seem to be difficult to control and that come up unexpectedly. That’s why everybody is always working under high pressure.
3. Quick rotation of personnel. Therefore tacit knowledge is lost every once in a while.
Two necessities were identified in this case.
A: Help the business to survive (related to problem 1 and 2) and
B: Sustainable capacity building (related to problem 2 and 3).
The advisor is revising and controlling processes and communication very much, most of her time serving necessity A. Her help is often requested in this area. But, being busy with that, she doesn’t come to work at necessity B, which she thinks would be more important.
In the D-group this was recognised. Also, ICCO advises not to get trapped in a situation in which you are executing too much yourself, instead of being an advisor. Some advisors feel pressured by this.

Theoretical analysis: 3 coaching techniques
In this section, 3 theories are presented that could help advisors to get insight about the situation of the organization and to come to a higher level of capacity building.
1) Demoralisation or distortion of resilience
The company seems to have come in a phase of demoralisation[1]. Demoralisation is a situation of not being able to oversee the real problem and to make strategies to overcome this problem or to find ways to live with it. It’s thinking in terms of obstacles rather than in terms of goals. Demoralisation often occurs when there’s a misbalance between the carrying capacity and the burden. When the burden is heavier than the carrying capacity, the resilience of the company will come in danger like an elastic band that is overstretched.

The article warns coaches not to get trapped in the flow of the organization. Amongst others: advisors often tend to take over the problem, find solutions for the problem owner and execute things themselves.

What can we do about this? Define and limit the problem together. In this way we can make the burden clearer and so, lighter. At the same time the organisation must be coached to strengthen the carrying capacity. In this way a new balance can be found and the resilience healed.

2) Transactional analysis
Another theory that could be used to analyse a problem situation is the transactional analysis[2], a theory that could help to heal what went wrong in the past. It analyses relationships between people and identifies different roles that a person or organization can take. All fall back on the parent-ego position, the adult-ego position and the child-ego position, which are commonly present in any person, all at the same time. The theory can show insight in how a person behaves and could help to change problematic behaviour.

3) How to get the right person in the driver’s seat?
We discussed another theory: the ‘driver seat’ concept. It can be wondered who is in the drivers seat in this case. Who is finally taking charge? Coaching techniques using this model could help to guide colleagues to get them to take responsibility and avoid creating a dependency relation.

What elements of these theories are relevant for this case?
Demoralisation
In the case of the advisor, there is an opportunity to analyse the company situation with her colleagues using the demoralization theory as an example. What is the current burden and what is the carrying capacity? How are these related to each other? Is it quite an equal balance, or did it lose its resilience already?

This could show insight in the situation of the company and make a good start to find strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats that play a role in getting the organization in balance again. From this SWOT the advisor could start making strategies. Resulting in an action plan where the advisor could give her colleagues back responsibilities.

Processing

Transactional analysis
TA is developed by the Canadian Psychiatrist Eric Berne, MD (1910 – 1970). The transactional analysis theory might be applied on organizations as well. The company acts like it is still too much in its impulsive child-phase while it should already be more in an adult phase. Analyzing behaviour of the organization and identifying its patterns and positions could help the advisor to show it to the organization and to reflect on its own attitude. Which position is dominant and which one do we want it to be?

The article explains several tools that can be used to help a person to change behaviour. These tools might help the advisor to analyse and help the company to change it practices.

Driver’s seat theory
The advisor does not feel she is too much in the driver’s seat, but maybe spending too much time supervising the driver being next to her. Instead of that, she feels that she could improve the vehicle itself on the long run. What could she change within herself to….
- get her colleagues more in the drivers seat / letting them drive alone
- dedicate more time to sustainable long-term development?
One of the advisors referred to the problem of quick rotation of personnel, which she experienced herself as well. It is a risk that other driving people might leave the organization. She experienced that to avoid that the knowledge gained in the process is lost when personnel changes, an advisor can do a lot in writing. Writing manuals about themes related to work could be a concrete solution.

Transport of the vegetables

One of the advisors coaches advised not to worry too much about this theme: there are many ways too learn and teach. By doing things yourself and showing it to colleagues, or doing things together with colleagues, you can set an example. You can learn together and when you’ll leave, people can do it without you. This is also capacity development. So driving together can help the organisation to make people drive for themselves when you leave.
Furthermore, the writer of this article notices that we should not forget that there's a difference between coaching and advising. Where a coach takes distance, makes the ‘client’ reflect on his situation and guides him to change behaviour without doing things and picking up responsibilities, an advisor can be a person internal to the organization who collaborates in the daily work and can set an example. We should not forget that we are probably more advisors than coaches.

Conclusion: How to get to sustainable development?
In many organisations we can see people working hard and everything seems to be important and urgent. Things might work out differently (or better) if there would be some long-term structural changes, but sometimes, although everybody seems to see the need of it, in the end there is a lack of time and everybody just keeps on working the way they do, especially on short-term basis. But making this change isn't always easy, 1) because of this lack of time and 2) because you as an advisor have fit into and become adapted to the same system in which everything is urgent and important.

Taking some distance, letting things go and starting to wonder who is actually in the drivers seat can help the advisor to get a clearer picture of the situation.

Letting the people drive themselves, while you are close to the driver or work on the improvement of the vehicle, are important basics for sustainable development that stays when you leave.

Several tools from demoralisation theory and transactional analysis are available to analyse an organization and to start working on change on a higher level. Letting the organization reflect on its behaviour, identifying parent-ego, adult-ego and child-ego positions could help advisors to create self-awareness in the organization in the first place. Making the balance of the organizations’ burden and its carrying capacity could be a start to work on strategic change using the existing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Finally, there's a difference between coaching and advising. We should be aware that we are more advisors than coaches and therefore shouldn’t regret too much that we also participate in the execution of daily work. Also through giving an example in the daily processes we can work on capacity development.

[1] Nederlandse Academie voor psychotherapie (2006) Demoralisatie en weerstand en het draaglast/kracht model

How to redefine capacity building goals in a small organization?

'As junior advisor I work fulltime for a small African NGO to build the capacity of the organization. The organization is led by its founder and employs one secretary and two local interns. Various development organizations from the US, Germany and the Netherlands support the organization financially. I have a good relationship with the staff and I have many opportunities to strengthen the organization. Unfortunately the director seems less interested in some of the initiatives. Should I continue to improve the skills of the staff in their daily administrative tasks - which is a little frustrating- or should I renegotiate my tasks to include more capacity development activities?'

Originally the placement was intended to build capacity in the area of finances, human resources and IT. The director however, felt that it is too much involvement in management issues, and prefered that the advisor assisted the secretarial staff in daily tasks. The director had different expectations of the placement. The advisor lowered his goals, but still sees opportunities that he'd love to work on.

First of all, it is important to search for openings to introduce capacity building directions. The director appreciates the assistance in writing proposals, and administrative tasks. Is it possible to acknowledge and use these kind of openings to be involved in further capacity building of the organization? It might be good to gruadually propose other activities or ideas, activities that contribute more towards structural capacity development of the organization. Take your time to build the relationship and create a 'safe' atmosphere. Gain respect and influence without positional power, but as an advisor. Build a constructive advisory relationship.

Secondly, an understaffed office doesn't have much time to discuss basic development question, preoccupied with problems and activities as it is. So you have to create time and be creative in proposing ideas to management. Find a time that is convenient for an exchange. Then share what you see as more important than urgent challenges to work on. Don't assume there is no time, but ask for it. Furthermore a director may be quite lonely and might appreciate a person to talk to about professional decisions.

How to make sure that your ideas are accepted? Ask difficult or nasty questions if need be. Risking confrontations with management is tricky and depends on your own advisory style. But if something is very important to discuss, it might be worth it. Continue building the relationship and trust with the director as that may change his attitude in the long run. It is a matter of trial and error to see what works. One school of management theory is the 'normative decision model'. This theories states that management styles may be stable, but you can take decisions to choose another style when the situation calls for such a style. You can stimulate the director to see situations in a certain way, point out the real situations and adapt the management style accordingly. It is important not to see it as a change in leadership style. Direct feedback on leadership (which may be the only style he knows) may cause resistence. Furthermore organizations have the right to develop in 'their own way'.

Some concrete strategies to successfully introduce ideas:

• Try to enter the 'gossip' circuit and listen carefully to the frustrations. Try to link capacity building interventions to these frustrations.
• Try to incorporate 'hobbies' in the proposals. For instance, if a manager is very interested in ICT, include an ICT component in a capacity building intervention.
• Use informal talks, eg. in the car driving back from an even, on Friday afternoon, walking home together, etc. to introduce ideas and build a personal relationship.
• Use formal staff meetings to inform everyone of your opinion and your work. In the end, you may be able to change the meeting culture a litte.
• Use the room to manouvre that you have as an external advisor.

A danger of developing capacity building proposals for the organization, is that the proposal may be adopted, but without any critical reflection or ownership. To prevent this, it is good to try and let others in the organization take the lead and responsibility and remain in the advisor's position. Now what to do when a deadline is nearby and nobody takes enough responsibility?

Regarding the placement procedure: it is important that the advisory placement has a good start with clarity on the capacity development goals. And it is worthwhile to work fulltime with a small NGO as an advisor? It might be better for keeping the right advisory distance to work with a small group of 3-5 organizations.

Finally: capacity building is a slow process and you have to set your expectations accordingly, you can't change an organization entirely with a year or two. You have to go for small steps and be satisfied with small improvements.