Behaviour and facilitating change
29 June 2010
The discourse on the practice of facilitating capacity development (CD) is mainly about knowledge, skills, methods and tools. Yet, the outcomes of interventions depend to a large extent on the way the people involved relate to each other. Especially for CD practitioners as facilitators of change, the ability to relate to clients in an appropriate way is crucial for successful outcomes.
Although no one will deny that behavioural aspects can have very real impacts on CD practice, they are rarely addressed because they are elusive, difficult to manage and very personal. Yet in other sectors such as education and health, behaviour is a significant component of training. It is high time that Capacity.org addresses questions such as what aspects of behaviour are relevant in CD practice? Is it possible to change behaviour, and if so, how?
In the feature article, Ingrid Richter describes practitioners who are champions in facilitating change. They invariably demonstrate a high level of personal mastery that enables them to be very effective. Is their exemplary behaviour something that can be acquired through training? She believes it is possible, but not through training as if it involved learning a simple set of techniques. Exceptional CD practitioners demonstrate behaviours, practices, skills and ways of being that are aligned and authentic. Acquiring personal mastery means attending to the quality of doing, as well as of being.
This analysis is supported by experiences in several countries. Mohan Dhamorathan explains how in India the managers of the Integrated Community Development (ICD) believed that the behaviour of facilitators was crucial. But after 12 years experimenting with behavioural change, they decided that training alone did not work, and that the focus should be on the practitioner’s intentions. No matter how much training deals with behaviour, their underlying intentions will always shine through the layer of techniques they have acquired. Genuine intentions are the cornerstone of any trusting relationship, but there is no quick-fix solution.
Leng Chhay describes an example of organisational capacity development in Cambodia where the facilitators’ intentions were first and foremost to understand the clients’ needs. They emphasised listening and putting the clients at ease. It still took about six months to gain the clients’ trust to the extent that they were prepared to share the real issues that needed to be addressed in their organisations.
Jan Morgan, based on anecdotal evidence from AusAID advisers and their counterparts in Papua New Guinea, also mentions that it takes six months to build trusting relationships. In order to support the process of building such relationships, AusAID has developed a training programme for advisers and counterparts, where the approach is not to teach behaviour as a preparation for practice and in isolation. Rather, both parties engage in building relationships and reflect on their behaviour and attitudes as part of the programme.
All of these authors suggest that practitioners can acquire desired behaviour, but only if it is understood to be linked to intentions and the inner self. But for every practitioner, no matter how experienced, every situation is different, and adopting behaviour that will encourage capacity development will always be a challenge. Doug Reeler and Sue Soal propose that mutual transparency should be the guiding principle.
Unequal relationships can often lead to patterns of behaviour that drive partners apart and lead to conflict. Typical examples are North–South partnerships, where Northern donors provide CD support to Southern recipients. In issue 37 of Capacity.org, Chris Mowles described a partnership where the Northern NGO took over the initiative because European staff were not prepared to work for local managers. The situation and initiatives of Southern staff were ignored. Although the relationship eventually improved, very few capacities had been developed. Tensions in such partnerships are not uncommon, according to the representatives of 36 NGOs from the North and South who met in Moshi, Tanzania, in 2009. Hilde van der Vegt, Mosi Kisare and Jacqueline Verhagen describe how the Moshi dialogue helped the participants to gain insights into how to build more effective capacity development relationships.
Guest columnist Jenny Pearson laments the behaviour of Northern donors who attempt to solve other people’s problems based on unexamined (often wrong) assumptions. Such arrogant behaviour can be very harmful to the capacities that are already in place.
Is it possible to support capacity development within donor–recipient relationships? Are the roles of facilitators and those holding the purse strings intrinsically incompatible? Not necessarily, Alan Fowler believes, but it is certainly a difficult combination of roles that requires a healthy mix of negotiating skills and, on both sides, an understanding of the psychology of the relationship between giver and receiver.
