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SUMMING UP


What all of the foregoing means, in essence, is that although one may have an explanatory and sensible model of what constitutes organisational health, competence and capacity, there are three aspects of organisational reality which confound simplistic attempts to impose this model on specific organisational situations. The first is that, while every organisation may share similar features, nevertheless each organisation is unique, both in itself and in terms of its stage of development, and this uniqueness demands unique, singular and specifically different responses. Second, while the model may adequately describe the elements of organisational capacity and even the order of their acquisition, it cannot predict or determine organisational change processes, which are complex, ambiguous and often contradictory. And organisational change, rather than a static model describing organisational elements, is the essence of the capacity-building game. Third, the interplay between individual and organisational capacity introduces a further element of complexity which attests to the unique eccentricity of every organisation.

In other words, being equipped with a perspective on how organisations function, while it is a prerequisite for effective capacity building, is no substitute for direct observation of the particular organisational realities into which capacity-building strategies and initiatives intervene. One needs the intelligence, acuity, mobility and penetrating perception to be able to "read" the particular nature of a specific situation if one hopes to be effective in organisational capacity building. It is all too easy to presume, to make judgments, to impose one's understanding, to compare one organisational situation with another. It is all too easy to base one's interventions on a theoretical model rather than on an accurate assessment of the situation at hand. It is all too easy to design general capacity-building interventions in the office rather than specific and individual interventions based on observations in the field. It is all too easy to design general capacity-building interventions for mass delivery rather than individually specific and nuanced interventions. General "capacity-building" interventions-programmes, courses, mass-based delivery vehicles-are easy to manage, easy to quantify, to raise funds for, to fund, to control. But they are all inadequate. Genuine, and effective, capacity building is something other.

There are too few development organisations, too few development practitioners, too few donors, who take the time to read specific situations in order to design appropriate and necessarily transitory-necessarily because the organisation being worked on will develop beyond a particular intervention as a result of the effectiveness of that intervention-interventions based on an intelligent reading. The radical nature of the paradigm shift we are suggesting here is that development practitioners are normally trained to deliver interventions-or packages or programmes-rather than to read the developmental phase at which a particular organisation may be and then to devise a response which may be appropriate to that organisation at that particular time and to nothing else.

The ability to read an organisational situation requires a background theory with respect to capacity-which we have begun to outline above-but it also requires an understanding of development, the ability to observe closely without judgement, sensitivity, empathy, an ability to penetrate to the essence of a situation, to separate tangents from essence, the ability to create an atmosphere of trust out of which an organisation may yield up the secrets which it will normally hold back (even from itself) in defensive reaction, the ability to really hear and listen and see, the ability to resist the short sharp expert response which is usually more gratifying to the practitioner than to the organisation; and then, out of an accurate reading, to bring (or arrange for) the appropriate response.

This is a paradigm shift, a radically different approach, a far cry from the normal delivery mechanisms of development practitioners, organisations and donors. It is in reaction to this complexity that we all too often build simplistic notions of organisational capacity, and engage in simplistic delivery of piecemeal capacity building interventions-training, training the trainers, limited strategic planning (often dominated by particular planning packages), structural adjustments, expert advice, input of material resources. All of these interventions have their place, but not in and of themselves. Where they are appropriate, it will be as part of a wider organisation development process. And it is this process which should be our primary concern.

Shifting to a process perspective, to a focus on the whole rather than the parts, to a recognition of the relationships between the parts, to an appreciation of the seminal role of the invisible elements at the top of the organisational hierarchy of complexity, to an apprehension of the fields which structure and form organisations, requires a new way of thinking and seeing. Understanding the governing factors of organisational capacity, and learning to perceive them, is one component of capacity building. Another is an appreciation of how organisations develop over time. An understanding of organisational capacity, an understanding of the development process through which organisations move, and an ability to work with ambiguity and contradiction, are necessary in order to engage in effective capacity building.

In short, the simplistic, largely technical approaches of most Northern organisations and donors are irrelevant, misguided and wasteful. We may wish for easy solutions, but there are no short cuts. Yet neither need we lament the absence of understanding and proven practice around capacity building. Those who are serious about capacity building, who are intellectually honest and who approach their practice with a certain rigour and discipline, will recognise that effective capacity-building approaches conform with what is observable-if we are prepared to look-and even with "common sense". The fact that they are demanding, challenging and strategically complex does not provide anyone with the excuse to opt for ways which clearly have little effect. It does mean, though, that we have to pay more respect to the complexity of development work than we have hitherto.

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