Organisational learning and NGOs – creating the motive, means and opportunity. Praxis Paper No. 3

Learning covers all our efforts to absorb, understand and respond to the
world around us. Learning is social. Learning happens on the job every
day. Learning is the essential process in expanding the capabilities of
people and organisations … Learning is not just about knowledge. It is
about skills, insights, beliefs, values, attitudes, habits, feelings, wisdom,
shared understandings and self awareness.1


Learning is a developmental process that integrates thinking and doing. It provides a
link between the past and the future, requiring us to look for meaning in our actions
and giving purpose to our thoughts. Learning enriches what we do as individuals and
collectively, and is central to organisational effectiveness, to developing the quality of
our work and to organisational adaptability, innovation and sustainability.

No-one would deny the importance of learning to our development as individuals and
yet we often find it difficult to apply our understanding of learning to our work
together in NGOs. In some ways the importance of learning to NGOs seems obvious
and yet we are surrounded by evidence of how organisations find it difficult to
translate understanding into practical action.

This Praxis Paper provides a summary of current thinking on organisational learning
and knowledge management drawing on examples gathered from interviews –
mainly with Northern NGO staff – and from an extensive review of the literature. In
the Paper we examine the different contexts within which NGOs work and explore
why learning is important for NGO effectiveness and organisational health. We
explore why it seems that many organisations consider ‘learning as a crime rather
than a behaviour we are trying to encourage’2
and, in continuing this analogy,
examine the importance of providing the motive, means and
opportunity for organisational learning. This is supported with
practical examples of how Northern NGOs are putting
organisational learning into practice. Using a model for
understanding strategy development, we examine the
importance of combining a planned approach to organisational
learning with creating the conditions necessary for ‘emergent’
learning. The paper concludes with an indication of the
challenges that need to be addressed if organisational learning
is to be put into practice effectively in the NGO sector across different cultures and
contexts.