Perhaps “learning by doing” is generally more effective than trying to improve skills via ‘free-floating’ workshops or other activities, and EA orgs are better at understanding this.
Perhaps low staff retention rates make some EA orgs reluctant to invest into the development of their staff because they worry they won’t internalize the benefits.
Perhaps EA is culturally too arrogant, i.e. too indiscriminately convinced that it can do better than the rest of the world (which may in fact be true for, say, identifying high-impact donation targets—but this doesn’t necessarily generalize).
Perhaps there is a cultural difference I’m not aware of. (The student org I mentioned was German, EA’s culture is more influenced by the US/UK/international.)
Perhaps professional development is valuable as an organizational function primarily in contexts where staff aren’t intrinsically motivated to self-improve, and perhaps EAs tend to have that intrinsic motivation anyway.
Some other hypotheses for what’s going on:
Perhaps “learning by doing” is generally more effective than trying to improve skills via ‘free-floating’ workshops or other activities, and EA orgs are better at understanding this.
Perhaps low staff retention rates make some EA orgs reluctant to invest into the development of their staff because they worry they won’t internalize the benefits.
Perhaps EA is culturally too arrogant, i.e. too indiscriminately convinced that it can do better than the rest of the world (which may in fact be true for, say, identifying high-impact donation targets—but this doesn’t necessarily generalize).
Perhaps there is a cultural difference I’m not aware of. (The student org I mentioned was German, EA’s culture is more influenced by the US/UK/international.)
Perhaps professional development is valuable as an organizational function primarily in contexts where staff aren’t intrinsically motivated to self-improve, and perhaps EAs tend to have that intrinsic motivation anyway.