Moving Beyond Habitual Actions

While recognising that complexity can help organisations to respond appropriately, there is a tendency to base these actions on the habits of the past. This may be because there is a natural reticence to move beyond what is comfortable and familiar but also because ‘when any of us acts in a state of fear or anxiety our actions are likely to revert to what is most habitual: our most instinctual behaviours dominate, ultimately reducing us to the “fight-or-flight” programming’46. Collective actions are no different’47. Therefore, as conditions in the world change dramatically, many organisations find comfort in continuing to take the same kind of actions as usual. These reactions can cause us to discount interpretations and options that are different from those we know and trust, thus limiting the capacity of organisations to move towards a future that may be different from the past.
Taking ‘quick fix’ actions can also lead to ‘unintended side effects and new problems, leading to more quick fixes and more side effects’48 while never creating the results that were anticipated. This is like addressing the symptom of a problem without ever looking for a deeper cause or fundamental solution, as is illustrated in the experiences of a human rights organisation in Malawi (see text box overleaf). However, it needs to be recognised that there can be a tension between promoting innovation and maintaining the status quo. Encouraging organisations to experiment and do things differently can be overwhelming when faced with a constant struggle simply to carry out basic activities. This may be especially true for
Recognising complexity can help organisations to respond appropriately. However there is a tendency to base these actions on the habits of the past.
small organisations with unstable funding sources and those in countries where the civil society sector is relatively weak.
                     Moving Forward – a Human Rights Organisation in Malawi49
A Human Rights Organisation (HRO) was established in 1993 to help the people of Malawi to ‘know, claim and defend their rights’. In 2000 the HRO observed that they were not making as much impact in their target area as they had in the past and that the confidence and number of their donors had decreased drastically.
The director hired a consultant to help the organisation to ‘move forward’. The consultant facilitated a process to help the HRO to develop a ‘world picture’ or an image of what the organisation would look like in five years time. He encouraged the HRO to contrast the environment (political, economic, socio-cultural and technological) within which it was operating in 1993 with the current context. This led to discussion about the implications of changes in the environment for the work of the organisation and for its future. This analysis led the HRO to discover that:
􀂃 The real problems that needed to be addressed were not in the urban areas where their efforts were concentrated but in rural areas
􀂃 The information dissemination projects being implemented were no longer as important as before because many people knew about human rights. The challenge now was to translate their knowledge into practice
􀂃 They were working in too large a geographical area to make any significant impact
As a result of these discoveries the HRO:
􀂃 Changed its target area to concentrate on rural areas
􀂃 Moved beyond information dissemination projects to projects aimed at changing behaviour
􀂃 Reduced its geographical scope and concentrated on a few communities
The consultant helped the HRO to develop a ‘monitoring and learning system’ to enable the organisation to ‘detect changes in its task and internal environment and respond in time with the world picture as a benchmark’. Using the system they regularly made adjustments as soon as they detected or anticipated any changes in their environment. By 2002 the HRO regained the confidence of its donors and obtained enough funding for five years. The human rights situation improved in the communities in which they were working. Widows whose property had been ‘grabbed’ were able to get it back. Youth groups helped girls to avoid being forced into early marriages. Many other human rights NGOs came to the communities in question on ‘learning visits’.