Building trust, changing behaviour

A new approach

The traditional approach to CD depends heavily on training, but training by itself is often ineffective. In this project, the VBNK team wanted to try something new, so we opted for a combination of training, facilitation and coaching. We wanted to avoid a frequent problem in CD whereby the practitioner adopts a style of facilitation that is based on inaccurate assessments of the needs of participants.

We also wanted to avoid ‘comfortable ways of learning’ whereby facilitators focus on meeting the learners’ wishes rather than on tackling the real issues and challenges they face. Comfortable ways of learning mean that learners may persuade the facilitators to make life easy or comfortable for them, such as by answering their questions right away instead of asking them to think for themselves, or by offering printed handouts that they do not necessarily read.

A better approach is to use ’effective ways of learning’ that focus on approaches and processes that best address the challenges (learning needs) of the learners. These can include methods that require learners to think or take an active role in their own learning. Effective ways of learning require the facilitator to be responsive to and analytical of the learner’s needs, in particular by clarifying what needs are to be addressed through the CD intervention. To our knowledge, this was the first time that organisational CD had been conducted in Cambodia using such approaches. The project participants – the learners – did not always appreciate these ways of learning, however.

Building trust

We were aware that for this approach to succeed, a relationship based on trust between the facilitators and learners was essential. The team believed that we would not be effective in facilitating the partner organisations’ CD unless the learners expressed their real needs in terms of areas for improvement (weaknesses). But at the start of the project this was difficult because a relationship of trust had not yet been established. When we conducted organisational assessments to try to identify their learning needs, the participants were unwilling to express their weaknesses or areas where improvements were needed. They were worried that those weaknesses could be reported to the donors who were supporting this project, which might result in funding cuts.

In Cambodian culture, people are very reluctant to identify their weaknesses to others, since they may be seen as weak. That would create an unsafe space where they would risk losing face. Staff members are especially reluctant to admit weaknesses to the boss, as they fear being criticised.

In order to build trust, we introduced many informal activities, including social and team-building activities, to explore attitudes to learning and relationships. The team members listened to the learners’ problems and concerns, and explored possible solutions with them. We explained to them that the relationship was equal, with no hierarchical or power status issues, and that we wanted to support their development, not report their weaknesses to the donor. We behaved as ‘facilitators’ rather than as teachers or instructors, and expressed our desire and willingness to work with them to improve the capacities of their organisations.

The team also encouraged reflection. Rather than rush ahead with the intervention, for example, we first tried to deal with important factors such as the learners’ fears and concerns, and to discuss traditional learning approaches and cultural issues. We believe that these are preconditions for success in our work.

The rewards of trust

After about six months, the team’s open and professional approach resulted in the learners developing some level of trust with us. They started to become more open and share with us their weaknesses and challenges they faced, allowing us to work with them to identify their real learning needs.

Among the many challenges they identified, the main ones concerned the leadership and boards of their organisations. The leadership had not provided sufficient direction, there were different interpretations of organisational values, different views on how organisations can learn and improve, etc. These were all seen as contributing to the poor performance of their organisations. Other leadership issues included the reluctance to delegate or to empower middle managers to take more responsibility, the lack of opportunities for staff development, etc.

The benefit of creating trust in the relationship is that it overcomes the tendency of learners to say only good and positive things, which negate any need for improvement. By behaving in a way that creates a safe space, facilitators can help learners to become more confident and provide constructive feedback that can be used for future improvement. This requires facilitators to:

• Be patient. In this case, it took six months before the learners felt secure enough to share their real learning needs.

• Listen to learners. By listening in a respectful manner, facilitators can help to clarify issues in depth and to negotiate learning needs and possible responses. This ensures that both participants and facilitators understand the issues in the same way, and can then formulate a learning agreement with clear objectives and indicators of success.

• Challenge learners. Once a trustful relationship is established, it is possible to challenge learners’ behaviours that are unhelpful to achieving their learning objectives. These include personal attitudes, cultural barriers and perceived traditional CD approaches.

As an example, during workshops the participants work together in small groups. One group completed the work in three minutes and asked the facilitator to give them a reward. The team reflected on this and decided not to reward them, but to recognise the other groups who took time to think and came up with better-quality outputs from the discussion. In this way, we encouraged the participants to think and play a more active role, rather than reward them for giving the answers right away, as is normal in more traditional teaching practice. We were able to challenge them in this way because of the trustful relationship we had built together. We observed that they accepted our challenges, and we could make further challenges as part of this new way of learning.

• Practice what you preach. Practitioners need to demonstrate good practice themselves if they are to influence learners to change. For example, I have seen trainers who teach people about time management, but who have overlapping schedules or cannot meet deadlines. They provide poor role models that discourage learners from making efforts to improve their own time management. Learners watch such behaviour closely and will place little value on what they are told if practitioners fail to practice it themselves.

It is widely recognised that role models are important in facilitating behavioural change in individuals. Rick James of INTRAC, for example, indicates that people are inspired to change by seeing the example of others. In capacity development, particularly in the Cambodian context, the behaviour of role models is crucial. Cambodian learners often have a tendency to ‘wait and see’ before being willing to change their behaviour. This means that practitioners must be able to do so themselves. As Nelson Mandela said, ‘You can never have an impact on society if you have not changed yourself.’