To date, we have unpacked the purpose of organisational learning. Part 1 described why it is important to think about programmatic and organisational learning for international development. Part 2 outlined different ways of approaching learning. Part 3 got us started with a more practical approach to learning by building a learning agenda and Part 4 discussed how the collected knowledge can be shared. In Part 5 we forged a connection between knowledge and action.
In Part 6 we connect culture and community in action that fosters a culture of learning.
“The world will not be inherited by the strongest, it will be inherited by those most able to change.” Charles Darwin
While change is the only constant in life, in our organisations, culture is the home of change. In our work as humanitarians, being able to clearly see and understand the changes being experienced by our teams is how we effectively navigate the ebb and flow of shifting realities.
In essence, the Theory of Change goes hand in hand with theory of culture – of which there is no shortage from Schein's Model of Organizational Culture to Senge's Learning Organization and Geert Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions Theory, among many others. As international development practitioners, we have a world full of frameworks for understanding, assessing, and shaping organisational culture. We need those but when our mandate is development, what we ultimately need is to sharpen the theoretical smarts – taking them from word to deed to enable us to build cultures that are all about community.
There are four strong links between culture and community:
- Cultural sensitivity and contextual clarity: Culture shapes the beliefs, and behaviours of people and their broader communities. In the development sector, understanding and respecting cultural diversity are essential for sustainable collaboration. By being informed on cultural sensitivity and contextual understanding, we can align with local norms and priorities for culturally correct support.
- Community ownership and development engagement: As people who are dedicated to helping through development, our priorities need to be right. While we engage in the communities in which we serve, we are their guests. They are the owners of their spaces, from their challenges to their opportunities. As the NGO sector, we need to earn our invitation to cooperation. What we offer is service through solutions of shared support and experience.
- Cultural innovation and community adaptation: When we connect with a community through a culture of service, we open up options for innovation and adaptation in the international development sector. By embracing diverse perspectives and approaches, development practitioners can tap into local knowledge systems and traditional practices that have evolved over generations. This enables the co-creation of solutions that are rooted in cultural context, responsive to local needs, and sustainable over the long term.
- Cultural diplomacy and cross-cultural exchange: The learning process is the facilitator of making culture and community work in sync. The result is not only cross-cultural exchange but better cross-cultural understanding, which goes a long way to supporting international cooperation, peacebuilding, and conflict resolution efforts.
How to connect culture to community
By building Propel to collect, collate and consider critical learning of an organisation, we have seen first-hand how to gather and make sense of organisational memory – and how to make learning the active ingredient in shaping culture to make it community.
We have walked alongside progressive Pilot Partners on this journey. Learning together how to optimise outcomes, not through rose coloured glasses but with in-field realism of grit and determination in view. The progressive part is that many of these NGO’s learning stories have made it into their strategic conversations around the opportunities and challenges, thereby informing decision-making for more exponential impact.
Here are three steps that have been invaluable to this collaboration:
Step 1: Understand that culture has an intellectual aspect to it. It requires us to make sense of our micro and macro-experiences through knowledge, but we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. The knowledge exists. What we must do is to keep on learning while keeping these models close by for when the challenge presents itself.
When it comes to fostering culture that aligns to a community, the socio-technical theory is one that we keep close to us. This view recognises the interdependence between social and technical aspects of organisations in shaping culture. It is referenced by the Leeds University Business School as follows:
“Socio-technical theory has at its core the idea that the design and performance of any organisational system can only be understood and improved if both ‘social’ and ‘technical’ aspects are brought together and treated as interdependent parts of a complex system. Organisational change programmes often fail because they are too focused on one aspect of the system, commonly technology, and fail to analyse and understand the complex interdependencies that exist.”
Step 2: Consider that culture is functional in how it enables impact. It calls for us to manage the trust and investment placed in our sector with transparency. It is also a space for uncanny innovation through collaboration and by plugging into next generation technologies.
An example of this is the collaboration between Propel and Terre des Hommes (TdH) Burundi. This NGO focuses on uplifting children. It has delivered 20+ million health check-ups for young ones, provision of healthcare support for over 5.5 million mothers and children, and healthcare training for 13 100 people – and that's just in healthcare. The organisation further actively supports safe migration and access to justice for kids and young people.
The collaboration began in March 2023 and today, this is some of the feedback:
"Propel has transformed our approach to continuous learning and project management at TdH Burundi. It allows for phased learning, adapting to individual paces and encouraging reflection beyond project execution. This has invigorated our work process, making learning and sharing insights simpler and more meaningful. Now, with the supportive backdrop of our team and leadership, TdH Burundi navigates our projects with newfound ease and insight. Propel has instilled in us a culture of simplification, innovation, motivation, eagerness to learn, and commitment, marking a significant milestone in our journey of improvement." Mylène Ntamatungiro – Head of the Technical Unit TdH Burundi
One major advancement has been TdH Burundi's effort to align identified topics not only within their own framework but also with the pillars of the NGO’s broader Global Theory of Change, particularly on issues such as migration. This alignment ensures that learnings and best practices can be shared beyond the country office, contributing to the broader confederation's knowledge base.
By tagging learning questions with topics that resonate with the Global Theory of Change, TdH Burundi facilitates its search, filter, and reuse of past learnings efficiently. Its use of the Propel system in this way streamlines reporting as well as promotes global consistency and strategic coherence across its international projects. As a result, the Burundi team ensures that local learnings contribute to the organisation's mission-critical objectives on a global scale.
Step 3: Feel that culture is emotional as a driver of social connection. This asks that we, as people who are all about the people and their communities, give those people agency. Empowerment is of no value as a buzzword. In fact, just talking about empowerment disempowers the concept. It must be active to be effective and it must be nothing less than 100% authentic. When the motives driving the development revolve purely for the beneficiaries – the impact will be on point.
Sneak-peak for inspiration: At Propel, our focus is to offer a collaborative platform on which everyone can contribute and explore knowledge equally. We understand that to embed learning in an organisation requires a shift towards a culture of learning. This shift calls on two aspects: on the one hand, it needs awareness, understanding and space for learning. On the other hand, it requires a technical solution to make learning possible. With Propel we offer the clear solution to the second point, but also contribute to the first. The solution makes learning easy and knowledge accessible and fun to explore.
Our goal with Propel is to get users to enjoy learning and exploring the knowledge that is available to them.
Through the features in Propel, we intend to make it as easy as possible for organisations to close the feedback loop between the time needed for learning and the value it adds to their work. As a result, Propel supports teams and organisations to more easily and effectively embed learning into their work and make learning a standard, integrated part of how they go about development and humanitarian projects.
Additional resources to check out:
Propel learning in your organisation: stay tuned for more tips & tricks for learning.