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The High Road Practice at the Centre From the Community Development Resource Association's Annual Report 1999/2000

 

I have trodden the winepress alone, and I know

That it is hard to be really useful, resigning

The things that men count for happiness, seeking

The good deeds that lead to obscurity, accepting

With equal face those that bring ignominy,

The applause of all or the love of none.

All men are ready to invest their money

But most expect dividends.

I say to you: Make perfect your will.

I say: take no thought of the harvest,

But only of proper sowing.

TS Eliot
from Choruses from 'The Rock'

 

LANDSCAPE

At the CDRA, our job is to assist other organisations ­ largely NGOs ­ to improve their capacities to undertake their chosen work more effectively. Our service is explicitly not a neutral delivery of "technical assistance". Indeed we pride ourselves on offering an approach that is value-driven, avowedly human-centred and concerned largely with capacity to work developmentally. Over the years, and partly in response to the challenge to do so, we have worked at articulating precisely what we mean by these guiding principles, and also, at uncovering what they mean for our actual practice and that of our clients.

Out of this exploration, a guiding approach has emerged, informed by the repeated lesson drawn from practice ­ both our own and what we have observed ­ that development as an outcome is inextricably linked to the processes used in its delivery.

This indivisibility of process and product; of cause and effect, gives rise to two, related, imperatives. First, to "get" development, we have to work in a particular way, that is, developmentally. There is no alternative. It cannot be undertaken through the means and processes of any other discipline. Development pursued through teaching may result in education, and development pursued through engineering may result in roads, but neither education nor roads are necessarily development. This suggests that development work must itself be a particular terrain of enquiry, practice and learning, and one of the tasks of those presuming to work in development is therefore to deepen their understanding of what the development process is, and how they can work with it more and more effectively.

The second point concerns the pressing problem of efficiency and effectiveness. If realisation of the aim of development necessarily requires that development work, something particular, be performed, then it follows that working developmentally is the most efficient and effective way of achieving development. If this is avoided, and all sorts of other elaborate processes undertaken without facing the central task of working developmentally, our endeavours are doomed to failure, or at least mediocre compromise. The sad result of this widespread mistake is that the very noble end of development comes to be questioned, rather than the short sighted and avoidant means by which it is pursued. Again, the only way to achieve development is to practise it. This is as much an issue of principle as it is simple good sense, and should contain a guiding directive for those most concerned with "getting the job done" or spending funds responsibly. Surely, the old adage ­ if a job is worth doing, it's worth doing properly ­ applies here.

In our Annual Report last year, we elaborated on our view of the development process and the way in which this could inform the approach of those wishing to practice developmentally. This elaboration grew out of our own reflection on practise and observation of the key features of a developmental approach, present in varied and diverse situations and sectors.

In it we argued that development is not, in the first instance, about changing the conditions in which people live, rather, that it is "intervention into the development processes of people themselves". This, so that they may develop their own capacities to exert authority over their own lives and futures, including (as is often the case) changing the conditions in which they live. We observed that this is the primary focus of those concerned with what is often called human-centred development. However, we also observed that despite this broad statement of intent, there is a general difficulty that people have in articulating what they do, and indeed, a difficulty in doing it, and that this inability to translate intention into coherent and focused practice is one of the greatest inadequacies of those working in development.

Starting with an appreciation of the development process itself we framed an approach to working developmentally that could inform the use of specific methodologies and techniques. Broadly speaking, we suggested that all people, and the groups, organisations and communities that they create and live through are in a constant state of development. Often those processes of development become stuck, or waylaid, and this tends to manifest in blocked relationships, unequal power distributions and inability to exert authority and make choices. Inability to live or function as an agent of one's own development.

A developmental approach involves, over time and through relationship, working with, and intervening into, these stuck development processes. Facilitated transformation ­ perhaps the centre of development practice ­ is best achieved when grounded in an established relationship of warmth and trust, and a deep understanding (shared by client and practitioner) of each particular situation being faced. This transformation includes both acceptance of the present situation as well as a resolution of what the future requires, and its outcome calls for ongoing support as implementation is tested and the new situation emerges.

While offering a framework for understanding the development process and guidelines for the intervention process, we acknowledged that this approach could not be implemented in a linear or formulaic fashion. The key was to develop a way of seeing that truly recognised and accepted that the social world is indeed not governed by the physical laws of cause and effect, that all too often we are working with processes that are invisible, yet undeniably real. The terrain within which development work happens, "is not a world of discrete objects, but a world of relationships between objects". There is therefore no substitute for an approach to development work that is simultaneously focused on the general objective being pursued, and responsive to each set of circumstances and the particular web of relationships out of which they arise.

Recognising the real complexity of the social world involves more than a sensitive nod in the right direction before proceeding with business as usual. In any event, the elaborate qualifications regarding just how complex social development is are fairly standard preambles to stories from the field, given by fieldworkers, researchers, policy makers and even managers of development efforts. However, the elaborate descriptions of the complexity with which we work often come as a list of constraints and "inhibiting factors" to what would otherwise be excellent projects, or worse still, apologetic explanations for why things didn't go as planned.

Rather, recognition and acceptance implies profound changes for the way in which development work is organised and undertaken. Working with the real currents of human organisation, motivation, history and endeavour requires a fundamentally different orientation from when we try to work in spite of it all. It may be that the qualifications, constraints and inhibiting factors are really whispered evocations of the real stuff of development, too often relegated to the sidelines. Seen in this way, the more we embrace and work directly with those very things that so often seem to get in the way of our intended paths, the more our efforts approximate to effective development work.

Some of the profound changes needed to develop our organisational and institutional capacities to conduct effective development work include:

• Formulation and testing of methodologies ­ for example, for fieldworkers, managers, consultants, donors, trainers and researchers ­ that incorporate and pursue a developmental approach.
• Creation of opportunities and spaces to develop and hone, in an ongoing way, new ways of seeing, and faculties that allow those working in development to truly apprehend the situations they encounter, in their full complexity.
• To deepen, in practitioners, their ability to facilitate the processes of others such that they are equipped to see their situations and use such insight to move beyond.
• To explore the implications of working developmentally for the ways in which we organise ourselves, take decisions, report and manage, and to act on such exploration decisively and appropriately.
• To work at devising ways of measuring developmental impact that seek to recognise shifts in relationship and power, not just transfer of (material and intellectual) resources.

Feedback on that Annual Report suggested that for many working in the development sector, from those setting policy to those working in the field, our attempts at articulating an approach to seeing development and acting developmentally resonated with experience, and with a desire to take things further, to work really developmentally.

Naturally, new questions accompany the sense of something ringing true. Arising out of a recognition of the "what" of development (and the constraints and opportunities generated by that), questions reflecting a real grappling with the "how" come to occupy centre stage. A developmental approach requires of us certain ways of seeing and of being in the world. What does that specifically imply for the ways in which we organise and manage ourselves, the ways in which we plan, monitor and evaluate our work and the ways in which we engage with the ever present demands and pressures of the imperfect world in which we all live?

In this year's Annual Report we address ourselves to some of these questions, sharing our own emerging thoughts and learning. While developmental practice may appear an ideal approach, for many it remains just that. The messy reality of a world less concerned with quality than with quantity, a world that relegates recognition of the invisible to the realm of after-hours activities is intolerant of the very human processes needed to work developmentally. And so, we shrug our shoulders and "get real", buying into the very terms that must be challenged if human development work is to become an effective and credible field of endeavour.

Even closer to home, while many of us may believe that development work could be made more effective, the organisations for which we work seem to militate against even slight improvements in practice. In many so-called development organisations, there are practitioners who know deep inside of them what needs to be done. But they are unable to take this certainty further, trapped by their own structural and cultural constraints, feeling like victims, not unlike the people they are expected to help may often feel.

It is only in the field that the reality of development and the enormous human effort that it requires is made apparent, with feedback and results tangible and often immediately so, particularly in the realm of relationship between practitioner and client.

Yet this part of development work, what is self-evidently the central part, is all too often made invisible, sidelined to the margins, and the key to successful interventions remains a secret, often even from the organisations claiming to aspire to such success. This is not mere rhetoric. In one extremely successful development initiative, the Director of the supporting NGO said, "There is a miracle taking place here. I don't understand it, but it's taken us completely by surprise." This remark does pay tribute to people's capacity to flourish under bewilderingly adverse circumstances. But it says little about the NGO's own capacity to understand the very circumstances and processes into which it intervenes, and illustrates how individual success in individual field situations does not translate directly into conscious organisational achievement that can be learnt from for future practice.

It is clearly not enough for individuals to have a good sense of what it takes to practise developmentally. Concerted commitment on the part of institutions and organisations involved in the endeavour is needed to deepen and support developmental practice. This year, we pursue those features of organisation that best support a developmental practice.

We share our observations drawn from a practice which, over the years, has worked with hundreds of organisations, almost all of which are in some way involved with the development endeavour. We have often worked with these organisations in reviewing their past work and assisted in the task of drawing learning from past practice in order to improve on the future; we have accompanied many through deep crises of identity and long periods of being lost in the internal dynamics of the office, the field a distant reality beyond the horizon. We have also been privileged to witness many, many instances of success. Our own path has often mirrored that of our clients, and our ongoing struggle to frame and maintain a developmental organisation that supports our practice has been an invaluable source of learning.

There are not many organisations working in development that take as their sole task the facilitation of processes of development. While human development ­ also called empowerment, capacity, sustainability ­ is a guiding principle and long-term goal of many development organisations, day-to-day organisational life is primarily concerned with the delivery of some form of product, or specialised service. This is true for a range of institutions in the sector, including NGOs, donors and government departments.

That said, for those that aspire to work seriously at putting their guiding principle into practice, and begin to take steps to meet the long-term goal of human development, there are particular ways of working. These apply not just to the manner in which individual practitioners work, but also to the way in which the organisation itself functions. In effect, organisations that best support developmental practice are themselves developmental organisations.

The features of organisation that best support a developmental practice emerge in four distinct spheres of organisational activity. The first, in the sphere of practice itself, puts practice at the centre of organisational activity through ensuring space for continuous individual and organisational learning. The second, in the sphere of strategy, links strategy and practice, ensuring that the strategic development of the organisation is firmly rooted in learning from practice. Together, the features in these two spheres make up the processes and activities that constitute a learning organisation.

Features in the third sphere ­ that of organisational support and systems ­ reflect an organisation that works in support of practice, rather than in service of procedure, and identifies roles for the support systems in organisations beyond service delivery in the field, and into supporting learning within the organisation. Finally, and as a sphere in its own right as well as a quality that permeates the whole organisation, are those features in the leadership of the organisation that best support developmental practice. Central is the role of continuously holding the organisation on a path of learning, through integrating and maintaining a living vision of what it means to pursue development, both inside of the organisation and beyond.

WALKING

Practice is not simply everything that the organisation and its individual staff members do. Rather, an organisation's practice consists of those "doing" activities in the world that are specifically geared towards achieving its strategic objectives through the exercising ­ practising ­ of its particular discipline and associated methodologies.

A doctor may run a business, manage staff and attend the functions of pharmaceutical companies, yet when she is tending to the medical needs of her patients, that is when she is conducting her practice. Reading of current medical journals and attending seminars on innovations in the field (including those organised by pharmaceutical companies) are all done towards development of that practice. similarly with development organisations there is a core process ­ the organisational practice ­ in support of which all other organisational work takes place. The particular forms that this practice might take differ according to what the organisation's core purpose is. Fieldwork is clearly a core process for many organisations working in development. Grant-making is another, and research still another. In addition to the methodological features of these core processes, there is very often a sectoral focus, for example, women, land or human rights, which is also incorporated and requires further expertise.

Where the organisation aspires to a developmental practice, further features are present. One, referred to earlier in our overview of a developmental approach, involves the particular way in which methodology is undertaken and expertise exercised. Recognition of one's intervention as a part of an ongoing development process, and commitment to working with that process engenders certain opportunities and constraints in the practices of individuals in the field. Effective development practice ­ a particular disciplined intervention methodology ­ draws more on the ability to read and respond appropriately to each moment and situation as it arises, and less on trained responses and fixed frameworks.

Improving the ability to work developmentally is an ongoing task, and integral to the very success, or failure, of that practice in the field. Organisations that best support developmental practice place that practice at the centre of their internal organisational processes, and reflect an orientation towards continuous reflection on practice and learning.

Placing practice at the centre requires time. Where organisations neglect learning, or provide learning opportunities only for more "input", skills "acquisition" and individual capacity building (as if individuals can be custom-built to fit their job descriptions), the organisation's core purpose is undermined. This is particularly, although not exclusively, so for those organisations whose work is almost unique to the development sector ­ and here fieldwork and grant-making spring to mind. Where on earth can people develop real competence in these areas of work if not on the job? Yet much organisational prioritising suggests that we assume people pick the work up as they go along, or perhaps even, that it is in some way innate to certain individuals (and this particularly so for fieldwork).

In actual fact, and at best (in organisations with a drive to quality and with effective recruitment strategies), failure to learn from and develop practice results in an organisation in which each person develops their own unique approach, each getting the job done as best they can, putting in what they are best able to and getting out what they most need. For the recipients of these do-it-yourself practices, the relationships are recognised for what they are ­ lucky chance encounters with a few thoughtful individuals in a sea of mediocrity, and as much as possible is gained out of the relationships, for as long as they last.

This is often the case with donor organisations. It is not unheard of for field officers of regional "desks" not to meet, ever. Policy and guidelines are received from above, and each person proceeds to implement them, as if the manner of implementation is a commonly understood "given". Some "desks" never draw collective lessons about practice or strategy, and so the contribution that such learning could make to improved practice in that region, or of the organisation as a whole, is lost. In effect, this non-system encourages practices that are entirely determined by the preferences and motivations of each individual.

At worst (in organisations with little appeal for job seekers and with little attention to quality), this results in an organisation characterised by a sense of fraudulence and obsfucation. No one really knows what they are doing, yet the stakes are too high to admit it to anyone else, or even to yourself. So practitioners come to actively perpetuate the already established set-up of keeping practice out of the organisation, in order that their own bewilderment remains unmasked.

Where field-staff have not had the opportunity to come together and make sense of their individual experiences and where they are under pressure to deliver, irrespective of the conditions they face on the ground, resistance to naming their practice tends to grow. Very often, the only protection they have is to oppose "professionalisation". The fear is that specific standards and criteria for performance will only make it harder for them to reconcile the idealised and systematised standards of the office with the unpredictable and messy reality of the field.

Our experience has shown that this makes even straightforward training of the field-staff of organisations working in development an extremely complex task. The challenge is to work with people's caution and resistance to revealing their practice, and help them overcome their lingering sense of fraudulence, through cultivating their ability to see and name the substance of development work. Only then can a vision for meaningful and valid developmental practice begin to emerge. However, without organisational recognition of, and support for, this vision, it soon recedes and practice flounders in its return to obscurity.

Floating in the middle of these two extremes is the drive to leave out what cannot be easily grasped or understood. In these organisations, and this is probably the vast majority of organisations working in development, what can be conveyed fairly directly and uniformly becomes the standard. Thus it is only the observable, the quantifiable, that is seen as part of the practice, and it is only development of this (often through the invention of "time-saving" systems) that is given any attention.

This phenomenon has been exacerbated by the plethora of personnel and information management systems flooding the NGO market. A bureaucratic principle ­ one that takes its own processes, for their own sake, terribly seriously ­ emerges, in which performance is judged by an individual's ability to go by the book, to follow procedures, to obey the dictates of the administration of the organisation. In the absence of a vibrant professionality that brings the life of the community being served and work done with it into the heart of the organisational life, it is understandable, perhaps, that procedural compliance becomes valued. It might even be argued that some form of professionality is better than none, and compared to the absence of common standards described above, this does at least offer an element of control.

Yet in these organisations (typically large government and donor bureaucracies and, increasingly, NGOs that aspire to meet this measure), while practitioners may still recognise development where they see it, this observation has little voice within the organisation. Instead, the life is squeezed out, a sombre formality takes hold, and even less space for (ad hoc) developmental work exists than in those of the two extremes described above.

A reliable indicator of non-existent practice, or at least practice that is not visible or present at the heart of the organisation, is when an organisation's staff shows a marked absence of engrossment in their work. In these organisations, many staff members find great meaning in the inter-personal of the office and get deeply involved in corridor gossip. Those with greater intellectual aspirations find refuge in the making and sustaining of differing ideological factions, political camps or theoretical perspectives. Whichever course is pursued, they are both, in essence, the same ­ characterised as they are by a lack of seriousness with regard to the work, the core process, of the organisation.

Organisations that support developmental practice have, in the first place, a notion of what that practice is. This is different from strategy, which is concerned with the reading of the environment, making of choices and setting of objectives, review and evaluation. An organisation's practice concerns the particular discipline that it offers, its methodology, the way in which it pursues its work in the world. The essence of developmental practice lies at the interface between practitioner and client. It is what happens between practitioner and client. In an organisation that best supports developmental practice, practitioners are firmly rooted in both a clear understanding of the purpose of their work, as well as an understanding of the work itself.

These organisations with a developmental practice create regular space for experience from the field to be shared, understood and learnt from. Focus is largely (although not exclusively) on methodological practice, insight and learning, as opposed to content or context. Lessons from the field in development practice suggest that it is almost invariably the "how" of development that causes the "what" of delivery to go awry. It is not the particular resources or services that are at fault when things go wrong it is almost always the way in which things are done.

It is precisely the fact of development practice's status as an inexact science that demands it be given regular time for learning. There are no textbook answers to how to deal with difficult situations, as each difficult situation presents its own unique challenges. Building a developmental practice involves building people's inner capacity to deal with each new unknown that they are confronted with.

There are many ways of surfacing and supporting this practice, the case study method (either tabling something that has been resolved, or sharing of a current problem) being central. Here, practitioners come together regularly to share case studies and to engage in the process of drawing lessons from the case that inform their general approach to practice.

Another is when practitioners table overviews of their practice and learning in the period between meetings. Peer review of reports and proposals offers a valuable platform for learning, as does the establishment of a mentorship system within the organisation. In multi-disciplinary organisations, or those with multiple strategies, practice is supported through ensuring two forms of meeting around practice occur. The one is task (or project) oriented, and this works at harnessing organisational resources towards achieving short-term strategic objectives. The other might be called "discipline" oriented and it addresses itself to the longer-term processes of evolving a thread of practice that runs through all tasks or projects. Both staff development and induction programmes are drawn from the learning of these processes, and contribute to their further development.

While conclusions out of all of these explorations are more of the tone of resolved insight, rather than binding injunctions to any particular form of action, it is through a wide variety of such focused and attentive learning processes that an organisational practice is evolved.

The tone of these gatherings and meetings is crucial. It is easy to speak of "mutual support and learning", yet the investment required to deepen trust and relationships within a team of practitioners cannot be underestimated, and goes beyond team building that is recreational time-out.

This building of trust is a process in its own right, and initial attempts at creating learning spaces are often met with suspicion or even hostility. People are being asked to bring their practices ­ what they have done in the field directly with the people whom they serve ­ to colleagues. This is one of the hardest things to do, as practice cannot be undone in the same way that a position can be retreated from in the course of an argument. Once you have revealed what you have done, you are constrained to acknowledge it, and all its consequences. This deserves recognition and respect, and requires deep trust amongst colleagues. It is little wonder that usually the best learning from practice happens amongst trusted colleagues in the corridors.

Over time, and as trust develops, so does the ability of individuals to distance themselves, and their subjective defences and responses, from their practice and to come to see it from the outside, in. As this confidence grows, so does the ability to engage with increasing rigour and robustness, in ever deepening approaches to developing vibrant and healthy organisational practice.

MAPPING

While effective practice does require that practitioners have some understanding of organisational strategy it is the element of assessment, or evaluation, that provides the necessary connection between strategy and practice. Strategy concerns the thinking and anticipating aspect of organisation and is concerned with plotting the focus of its work, the objectives to which it contributes and the making of choices with respect to intended outcomes. It also concerns assessment of what has been achieved and restrategising in light of this.

In many organisations ­ from large bureaucratic organisations to small NGOs ­ there is a split between those who decide on strategy and those who implement it. Despite the stated commitment of many in development to a "bottom-up" approach, and despite the many development missions to promote the voices of the marginalised from the bottom-up, the very organisations promoting just these strategies all too often practice a top-down approach in their own workings. This is not just a problem of principle gone awry, not just, or even primarily, that those implementing do not have a full say in what they implement. Rather, it is a very practical problem of point of view.

In organisations where strategy is separated from practice, the considerations informing strategic decisions, choices made and shifts undertaken tend to be those most visible to the decision makers. And where decisions are not informed by real practice ­ and learning from practice ­ they become informed by other contingencies: organisational survival, political profile, internal power struggles and preferences. These are also important considerations, but without the perspective of practice, the potential for strategy to extend a truly developmental approach, even to achieve anything at all is diminished.

It is not uncommon in such organisations for the marketing of the organisation to occur in terms of models and strategies that those in the field will tell you do not work. This happens more often than we might be comfortable admitting.

This is partly due to weaknesses in their feedback mechanisms and information gathering systems; weaknesses that are actively perpetuated through conventional management approaches. Without a mechanism inside of the organisation that informs itself honestly and rigorously of what is working and what is not working, it is conceivable that those setting strategy have no idea of what is happening in the field and no idea whether their strategies are of any real value at all.

However, feedback mechanisms go only some of the way. In many organisations, a wilful blindness on the part of those in control seems to take hold, particularly when feedback from the field suggests that approaches and strategies may not be working. We have encountered several instances of management's enthusiastic commitment to their model overriding concrete evidence that it does not work. The reasons for this blindness are varied and complex. However there is no doubt that such inability to hear, or see, what comes from the field is in equal measure cause, consequence and indicator of organisations that do not pay adequate attention to learning from practice in their strategising processes.

Often, it is the sadly abused training intervention that falls most short. Training ­ still widely equated with capacity building ­ has long been the preferred intervention for achieving the enormously complex task of community development, and this despite the evidence that training courses simply cannot deliver on all the "outcomes" that community development entails. More recently, it has come to be used as a means of generating entrepreneurial ability, even drive, in the poorest and most marginalised of communities.

There are organisations and programmes that, with the best of intentions, aim to contribute towards income generation in communities. They aim to achieve this through training people in how to set up a business, and how to produce a product. Yet time and time again, feedback from the field suggests that the training intervention alone, or even as the primary intervention, cannot suffice in the pursuit of community and entrepreneurial development. Yet it is packageable, quantifiable, and, crucially, remains in the control of those delivering it. And for as long as the major measure of effectiveness remains at the level of "numbers reached", the mismatch between intended and actual impact will continue to be perpetuated.

Organisations that best support developmental practice ensure that their perspectives truly take account of learning and measurement from the field. Ongoing strategy review and formulation is informed, in the first instance, by practice review and learning. In these organisations, practising developmentally is itself the fulfilment of a strategic objective, and therefore, improved practice is an indicator of strategic success. Furthermore, those elements of practice review that engage with the context in which work is taking place and the effects of that work ­ its real outcomes, not just quantities and accounts of activities "conducted" ­ offer key data towards effective monitoring of implementation of strategy, as well as review of strategy.

This suggests an approach to strategy that is rooted in a deep and common understanding of what is really being sought through the practice of the organisation.

It is often said that development ­ human development ­ is difficult, even impossible, to measure and for that reason other, related, indicators of success are sought. This is simply not true. In a developmental approach, practitioners intervene into complex development processes; they do not bring them into being. Through whatever resources, projects, or services they bring, they aim to effect change in the power relations of their beneficiaries. These shifts do not come about as a result of the efficient delivery of the resource or service, but through the developmental process employed.

Where a shift in relationship becomes the aim of practice, and its measure, neat deliverables and packages cease to occupy centre stage. Instead, measurement comes to be seen as beginning with the ability to make developmental assessments. This involves analysing and understanding each situation being intervened into as a living, dynamic, changing process with a rich history, a present reality and a future potential. A central component of this assessment includes qualitative and descriptive pictures of the formative relationships surrounding the subject of the intervention. These descriptions form the baseline against which development is measured. The developmental practitioner is able to isolate and describe different types of relationship by cultivating and using a "relationship vocabulary". As development practitioners develop the art of describing relationships before and after their intervention, as they learn to tell the stories of change, so their ability to do so with greater precision grows.

The organisation that best supports developmental practice is receptive to these measures and descriptions and makes central use of them in the course of strategising. It is difficult to represent the shifts described above in numbers, percentages, graphs or tables, and for this reason the narrative form is a central component of measuring the impact of developmental interventions. Out of various accounts, a picture emerges that isolates the central themes ­ both in practice and in impact in the field. It is these pictures of the essence of developmental practice that inform further work on practice as well as the next steps in organisational strategy.

Seen from the point of view of measurement or evaluation, it is clear that a perspective from the field in strategy review and formulation is central to building effective organisational strategy. And because these assessments of practice and its effects can only be offered by the practitioners concerned, some form of practitioner involvement in strategy formulation is crucial. While strategy does also address itself to questions of organisational survival and relevance, practitioner perspectives contribute a deep appreciation of its efficacy and impact (this gained through regular review and learning ­ not through external audits which are too infrequent and, often, disappointing in the value they offer for money). Sound strategy towards developmental impact requires just this level of understanding.

In these organisations, learning out of practice moves seamlessly to review of strategy, from "how are we doing" to "what are we doing", checking these conclusions out against the test of relevance in light of an environmental understanding and viability in light of available resources.

While annual strategic planning offers an appropriate time-span for regular organisational reviews, it is the cultivation of a strategic approach grounded in practice that informs these processes.

Conventional monitoring and evaluation processes emphasise standardisation, accounts of activities and quantification. Conventional strategic planning

involves massive awakening of organisational energy (often not too successfully), generally to go through the tired motions of a SWOT analysis. Both of these processes come to be seen as a bit of a charade, with the predominant feeling characterising them being one of boredom. Such involvement is obviously counter-productive and not supportive of developmental practice. For many committed practitioners, these activities become annoying distractions from what they see as their real tasks in the field.

In organisations that best support developmental practice, strategic involvement occurs through the cultivation of an entire approach to work and review so that clarity regarding the organisation's mission and objectives is continuously sought out and established. In this very process of seeking clarity it is also established further, and so practitioners come to contribute meaningfully, formatively, to the ongoing development of the organisation's strategy. When it comes to evaluation, it is the combined reflection and assessment of practitioners, built throughout the year's work, that constitute a living picture of how well the organisation has done.

Both the processes of strategy formulation and evaluation, like the learning processes described above, take time and require quality meetings, based on real, conversational exchange and joint exploration. Out of these meetings pictures come to life, meanings of objectives or assessments are grasped, and a sense of one's contribution to the organisational whole is secured. From these meetings, reports can be written, accounts submitted and forms filled in. Without them, the arduous tasks of reporting and accounting remain just that, separate from development work itself.

ACCOMPANYING

The support and systems in organisations that best support developmental practice are characterised by features that work in support of purpose and practice, not against it, and not in service of their own logic, which is the prevailing problem.

The first concerns certain elements of organisational life, some of which have been referred to above, which tend to be seen as bureaucratic or experienced as burdensome, even extraneous to the real work of the organisation. In an organisation that best supports developmental practice, these elements, through their incorporation into the ongoing learning and strategising of the organisation, come to be a part of its substantial work. These activities that become incorporated into the heart of organisational functioning include monitoring and evaluation, strategic planning, submission of regular work reports, continuous assessment of staff and team functioning, elements of supervision, team building and information flow regarding movements of staff members and areas of work activity.

While the above sections stressed the time that it takes to work continuously on practice and strategy, much of this time is gained through releasing practitioners from this variety of disparate tasks and activities that often appear unconnected to each other, or to the central work of the organisation.

In developmental organisations, the number of reports produced for control purposes also diminishes. A clear understanding of what is being sought in the field translates into appropriate means of measuring and recording this. A great deal of this measurement and generation of "data" comes out in the course of regular practice and strategy review. Where reports are required, they are generated with greater ease and accuracy, as the issues being reported on are conscious and alive for those doing the writing.

These organisations are unlike many that spend dedicated time and functions researching and then "cleaning-up", even re-writing, their reports. In these organisations, the necessary information needed for reporting is unavailable

because it has not been surfaced in the course of ordinary organisational learning and review. Arduous processes of research are then required to complete reports, often leading to enormous resistance from practitioners, a by-product of which is tension between administrators and field-staff as (poor quality) information is dragged out of the reluctant practitioner.

In other organisations, it is not uncommon to hear senior people observe that they have become adept at "telling the donors want they want to hear". There is no doubt that serious attention is required to do justice to the important task of accounting for funds received and spent. But equally, there is no doubt that as long as the aid-chain demands that ill-fitting systems for monitoring developmental work be used, such reporting will consume time unnecessarily. When reporting involves generating data that would otherwise not be needed, it is at best a poor use of organisational time, and at worst a process of fabrication that bears little resemblance to the work of the organisation, and this irrespective of the actual quality and impact of the organisation's work.

While the learning and strategising processes described in the sections above give meaning and purpose to many organisational activities, they do not cover all of them. Key here is supervision and performance appraisal. The learning spaces in organisation serve to hold practitioners accountable for their practice and learning, and are an invaluable means of ensuring self- and peer-assessment. However, the emphasis in these is always on learning, and where they become trials of accountability, they lose their developmental impact, ensuring that the process of learning shuts down as people retreat and withdraw their practice from scrutiny. Similarly for mentoring systems. A one-to-one relationship with a mentor around development of practice is helpful in maintaining and deepening a developmental approach. However, while supervision can contain elements of mentoring, it is rare that mentoring sessions can double as supervision sessions.

Organisations that best support developmental practice also offer a counter-balance to their open and exploratory learning processes in the form of clear supervision and performance appraisal systems that offer an opportunity for performance to be assessed against clear boundaries. The difference in these organisations is that the basis of the assessment is understood as being against individual objectives and goals that have been set arising out of team processes of learning and strategising. Practitioners are actively involved in setting and meeting the objectives of their jobs, which are themselves drawn from clear, common and strategic objectives, rather than having to "perform" against absolute standards, the generation and protection of which they are not a part.

More practically, supervision and performance appraisal also take less time and emotional energy in organisations geared towards supporting developmental practice. In light of the many other opportunities for reporting, accounting and learning, formal supervision can happen less frequently than the standard monthly or quarterly cycle. As with other reports, preparation for these meetings is also less onerous as much of the information and insight required to make them really useful are already "visible" in the organisational life through being surfaced in the various learning spaces built around practice.

The meeting systems in such organisations are also organised in support of practice. Many a time practitioners are not a part of key decision making (and unable to inform it) because they are in the field when meetings are held. Whatever the meeting cycle ­ weekly, monthly, even three-monthly ­ in organisations that support developmental practice, meetings tend to correspond with the rhythms of practice, not those of the office. This demands a certain discipline from practitioners, which also emerges as a coherent practice is built. Obviously administrative and systemic requirements cannot be built around the demands of each, individual practitioner. Instead, as the practice as a whole emerges and takes on a life within the organisation, so the organisation builds itself, and its systems around that.

Such a shift in perspective requires strong administrative and managerial support to the systems of the organisation. It requires the competence to integrate information and learning into the record keeping and reporting systems of the organisation. This applies also to the financial management systems of the organisation. Where systems are geared towards support of practice, the emphasis is on development of systems that can capture and provide information which is relevant to the work of the organisation, rather than on the work of the organisation adapting itself to the demands of these systems. The check always is on whether organisational systems and procedures support or hinder the two primary processes: direct contact in the field and learning towards improved practice and strategy.

In the area of financial management this is particularly important as systems for financial control tend to mutate easily into systems for control (and limiting) of practitioners' work and the organisation's strategy. This is particularly so in the present climate of increasingly rigid and prescribed reporting requirements and complex bookkeeping systems that accompany them.

It is not uncommon in organisations working in development for the demands of the financial management system, and its timing, to determine what can and can't be done in the field. There are also many organisations, in our experience, that expend greater energy on dealing with entrenched warfare between their administrative and field systems (often experienced as inter-personal) than they do at looking at what is happening in the field, or even at developing systems that offer appropriate support to the field. In these cases, the administrative systems become the immovable force in the organisations, around which all else coheres ­ a bizarre end-point to reach for those organisations that blithely claim to be vision-driven.

In organisations that best support developmental practice, the requirement is for greater financial acumen and ability to think strategically about finances, translating the requirements of its strategy and practice into appropriate systems of resourcing, supporting and accounting, rather than the other way around. Such an approach requires good understanding of the role that financial, administrative and managerial systems can play inside of organisations, and an ability to integrate the necessary logic of support systems into the flexible, responsive and ever-changing nature of developmental practice. Paradoxically, this implies that while developmental organisations may emphasise practice and strategy over systems, they require greater systemic competence in the organisation, not less.

CHOOSING

The features of a developmental organisation described thus far evoke an organisation characterised by conceptual engagement, conversation, learning, an absence of fear and an impulse to action. Development of this quality of organisation requires a form of leadership that sees the leader, or leaders, of an organisation also as development practitioner within their own organisation. The leader of the developmental organisation sees as their task, the maintenance and development of the organisation as a living "whole". This is an ongoing process, based on acceptance of the fact that the cultivation and development of meaning, purpose and understanding is continuous, not achieved through a once-off event.

One of the ways in which organisations lose touch with their practice is when the leadership becomes entirely focused on organisational survival and staff management, neglecting practice and engagement with practice. In developmental organisations, leaders are actively involved in the processes of learning from and deepening practice, and in integrating this into subsequent strategising. Having leadership closely involved with issues from the field points again to the need for strong managerial and administrative competence in the organisation that works in close collaboration with the leadership. It is only when the technical aspects of organisational life are dealt with by dedicated functions ­ specialist disciplines in their own right ­ that the leadership of the organisation is freed to work closely with the areas of practice and strategy implementation.

Organisational climate ­ the feel of the organisation ­ is an important indicator to the leader of the organisation's practice and impact in the field. All too often, awareness of and responsibility for the quality of the work environment is given over completely to the person responsible for human resources, where things are generally dealt with at the level of individual attitude, competence and performance. Alternatively, leaders are brought to face climate issues only when they become a problem, when the office environment becomes too difficult to work in.

The leader of a developmental organisation is in close touch with thinking, relating and doing aspects of the whole organisation as well as the individuals who make it up. Is there clarity and understanding? Is there trust and mutual respect in the team? Are people adequately supported? Is there motivation to get the job done? Adequate skills? Where the answers to the questions are negative, this is an important indicator that the organisation is not working well in support of a developmental practice, and that this must be compromising developmental work in the field.

A major task of the leader in such an organisation involves a constant integrating function. The reality of work in development is that it is increasingly project-based and so time-bound. The challenge is to help bring a developmental approach ­ essentially open-ended, the anti-thesis of an outcomes orientation ­ to projects, to ensure that they are framed in such a way that they protect the space to work developmentally while addressing "deliverables". This involves insinuating the language of developmental practice into the very frameworks that set the terms for development work, and is a key leadership function, not a simple task of writing proposals and filling in forms.

Without this intervention ­ this creation and protection of the space to practice developmentally ­ the forms through which developmental work is administered can become so stifling that they limit its potential altogether. In this regard, inappropriate planning and reporting systems are not just time-consuming and frustrating. They can actively undermine the potential for an organisation to work developmentally at all. Leaders that see engagement with these frameworks as a technicality, a mere formality, expose their organisations to an approach to development that is itself merely technical and formal.

Another integrating function involves constant building of meaning and understanding across departments and projects. The pressure to implement projects within their specified time frames generates a kind of tunnel vision in those involved. While its positive effect has been one of undeniable increase in people's accountability for the "deliverables" of their work, in a project-based approach, this work veers constantly towards being seen only as outcomes, and less as process, as practice, as the way of doing things. Even as the frameworks in which development work is undertaken separate means and ends, product and process, so the task of the developmental leader is to draw focus back to the universal developmental task being undertaken within specific projects.

This calls for an organisational approach, even in the face of fragmenting organisational life and forces that constantly draw the attention of the practitioner away from the overall organisational purpose and into their part of that whole. Creating and persistently holding the spaces within the organisation for the building of coherent practice across departments and the formulation of organisational strategy is primarily a leadership function. Without these spaces, there is no developmental work, and the organisation becomes simply an implementer of piece-meal projects, a delivery vehicle, less and less capable of achieving anything greater than accurate compliance with the minutiae of various binding agreements and plans.

All of the above roles and qualities of the leader rest on a premise ­ one that runs throughout this description of the developmental organisation. Simply put, it is that an organisation that is geared towards supporting developmental practice has chosen to do so. Its way of working in the world and its way of functioning internally are integral parts of its identity. Building a developmental internal environment is a matter of conscious choice ­ not a modus operandi that is fallen into, by chance ­ and its maintenance depends on the actions of those who lead it, deliberately extending the preference into lived practices, in the field and in the organisation.

This is not a simple choice between equally neutral approaches. In the current development environment, to build such an organisation entails an act of partisanship that stands in direct opposition to what is implicitly demanded through current approaches to administering development. Such an approach to organisation involves not, in the first instance, implementation of a set of new (perhaps more palatable) organisational principles. Rather, the developmental organisation arises out of a vibrant vision for development itself, and a clear and sober understanding of what it takes to work developmentally at all. This requires vision and courageous acts of authorship from those leading such an initiative.

In this point lies the final role for the leadership of organisations that best support developmental practice ­ that of challenging the terms under which they work, when they are clearly unworkable seen from the point of view of a developmental approach. It is easy to allow a collusion to settle around exactly what we tell the donors, and what we don't tell (this often with the understanding of many field-staff of donors, who are themselves involved in complex rituals to protect spaces for developmental practice). However, clarity of purpose and a deep appreciation of the developmental task being undertaken can, and should, translate into concerted advocacy. While the avowed task of the development sector is to enable human-centred development, presently much of what happens in the sector, in the name of development, is profoundly anti-developmental.

Those organisations that manage to craft a developmental approach through the many obstacles and constraints generated by the development sector itself, have a responsibility to tackle some of those constraints. Where there are lessons from the ground, from the bottom-up, these can begin to inform the thinking of the sector as a whole, in order that the dominant approach to development not be given free rein, but that it be confronted with what actually works. Taking up this fight is also the task of the leader of a developmental organisation.

The description here of the kind of organisation that best supports developmental practice offers an account of the organisational journey that, surely, is the choice of the high road. Realisation of a developmental practice is obviously no easy thing, and requires a deep commitment to make the rhetoric of human centred development a reality, manifesting in the practices of organisations working in development, and, ultimately, in the quality of life of the people we serve.

Realising this vision is not made easier by the environment in which we work. The easier path is to abandon development to the lofty heights of principle and to tread the low road, measuring through quantity, managing the processes of others without looking at self, abandoning a vision of best practice, and focusing our practical work simply on the visible and the material. Walking the high road is a lonely struggle, the results of which are shown unevenly, imperfectly and often, are rolled back as we fall into bad habits, lose sight of our purpose, and give in to pressure. But achievement lies not in approximating to yet another blueprint for organisational success. Rather it is found in the very striving to deepen developmental practice, and to build around it, the organisations that best support it.

 

About the Community Development Resource Association (CDRA)

The Community Development Resource Association (CDRA) was  established in 1987 as a non-profit, non-governmental organisation (NGO) to build the capacity of organisations and individuals engaged in development and social transformation. We are based in Cape Town, South Africa and work mostly in Southern and East Africa.

Email: vernon@cdra.org.za
Webpage: http://www.cdra.org.za
P.O. Box 221, Woodstock, 7915, South Africa
Telephone: -27 -21 462 3902
Fax: -27 -21 462 3918