Field experience of an organizational advisor
Jeroen Stol has been with MHS as an organizational consultant for nearly a year. During this period he has learned a lot about building and strengthening the capacity of a counterpart organization. In his experience, knowledge of the local context organization and interests are essential to promote capacity building. This applies both for the interests of the surroundings of the organization and for the personal interests of people within the organization.
Jeroen Stol describes his approach to consulting organizations:
'My organizational approach is to intervene as little as possible. I facilitate and advise. My role is to keep bringing more matters to the attention of board members and the local coordinator. This requires changes within the organization, such as clearly distributing the duties of the board members, appointing a chairman and a co-chairman, as well as a secretary and an assistant secretary. In the event that the former steps down, for whatever reason, continuity and knowledge will nonetheless be preserved within the organization. Another example is rotating half the board members every year, rather than all board members every two years.'
'The stakeholder dynamics in Mutare are so complex that setting change in motion requires being embedded in the local structure without becoming part of it. I am convinced that the same holds true for projects in other countries.'
'At the first workshops that I held to understand the motivations of sports trainers who are involved in the sports project and are in effect the driving forces, I asked why MHS exists. What purpose does the organization serve? The top 3 answers indicated that earning a living was the primary objective. I had not expected such answers. In time, I have come to accept this, as it is perfectly logical and legitimate. Without the sports project, they have nothing. This changed my perspective, since the interests turned out to be entirely different from what I had expected.'
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