Organisational Learning Discussion Paper - Are you looking for one ...

• Good inter-personal communication skills such as active listening,
sensitivity to others’ needs and culture, demonstrating respect and building trust.
• Using different levels of thinking to move up the knowledge hierarchy (see
Table 2) e.g. the ability to analyse the outputs from monitoring and use these to
identify trends or problems that require action.
• Ability to work in teams and take different roles in the team as required. At
times this may mean being able and willing to take a leadership role based on
knowledge and skills rather than status.
• Humility to recognise the need to look to others for answers to questions. This
should extend to those who might make useful contributions rather than simply
the status of the person and recognising the value of local knowledge.
• Networking and relationship building i.e. to develop their own networks and
make use of and contribute to other networks – both formal and informal.
• Basic facilitation skills to help colleagues to use their time together
effectively.
Experience from Practice 4: WWF UK – Developing Facilitation Skills
WWF UK implemented a training programme to develop an internal network of facilitators
skilled in helping their colleagues to use meetings and workshops more effectively by
clarifying the purpose of the meeting, designing a suitable process to achieve the purpose
and facilitating the meeting itself. The facilitators have also received specific training to
facilitate learning workshops. This has had very positive outcomes for both the
organisation and the individuals concerned.
These competences are very different to the technical knowledge and skills that
specific jobs require but there is evidence that these generic learning and
communication competences are essential requirements for working in NGOs. A key
challenge for NGOs is how to develop individual learning plans to ensure that every
member of staff is given the opportunity to develop these competences.
The use of individual competence frameworks such as those developed by the
SPHERE Project 24 when linked to performance appraisal and staff development
programmes can be a powerful way of recognising the importance of building
individual competences. Individual development plans can use the ‘A to E’ framework
(Wright 2004) for developing competence:
A Aware (‘I know what this is’)
B Basic (‘I can do this with support’)
C Competent (‘I can do this well in my own job’)
D Distinguished (‘Others look to me for input on this’)
E Expert (‘I write/speak on this externally’)
It is important to ensure that individuals are not put under pressure to move to
‘Expert’ status in every area of competence.
24 For more information visit www.sphereproject.org
Praxis Paper 3: Organisational Learning in NGOs by Bruce Britton
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