ClimateSmartAdvisors (CSA) are often expected to contribute to sustainability transitions in agriculture, while their daily work is rooted in trust and responsiveness to farmers’ immediate questions and concerns. This sometimes leads to a tension: focusing on farmers’ current priorities helps build trust but may leave longer-term climate challenges unaddressed. A key question is how advisors and coaches can work with this tension in a constructive way.
The Trust-Transformation Matrix is a practical reflection tool developed from learning in the ClimateSmartAdvisors network. It enables advisors to explore their position, roles and choices by positioning themselves along two axes with the guiding questions:
• X-axe Orientation: Is my advice mainly oriented towards farmers’ priorities, or towards policy/project objectives?
• Y-axe Advisory role: Do I mainly act as a neutral service provider, or as a driver of change?
Together, these questions create four quadrants with recognisable advisory orientations that Climate Smart Advisors navigate in practice. In a Community of Practice (CoP), the matrix can be used as a shared reflection canvas. Advisors can position their role in a recent advisory interaction in the matrix, explain why this position made sense in their context, and explore what alternative positions might have been possible. The aim is not to define a ‘right’ role, but to learn from differences in experience and strategy.
For CoP coaches, the matrix offers a simple structure to facilitate dialogue and peer learning around doubts, tensions and trade-offs in climate advisory work. Working with this tool may help advisors become more aware of how they balance trust and change, develop language to articulate uncertainties, and expand their advisory repertoire by exploring alternative advisory orientations. The key insight is that trust and transformation are not opposing goals, but aspects of the dynamic field that Climate Smart Advisors need to navigate.
Klimaatadviseurs krijgen vaak een voortrekkersrol toebedeeld in duurzaamheidstransities in de landbouw, terwijl hun dagelijkse werk draait om vertrouwen en aansluiting bij de directe vragen en zorgen van boeren. Dit kan leiden tot een spanningsveld: focussen op huidige prioriteiten helpt vertrouwen op te bouwen, maar kan betekenen dat langere termijn klimaat- en systeemvraagstukken blijven liggen. De vraag is hoe adviseurs en coaches hier constructief mee kunnen omgaan.
De Vertrouwen-Verandering Matrix is een praktisch reflectiemiddel, ontwikkeld op basis van de ervaringen in het Climate Smart Advisors netwerk. De matrix helpt adviseurs om hun positie, rol en keuzes te onderzoeken aan de hand van twee kernvragen:
• X-as Gerichtheid: Is mijn advies vooral gericht op de prioriteiten van boeren, of meer op beleids- en projectdoelen?
• Y-as Adviseursrol: Treed ik vooral op als neutrale serviceprovider, of als aanjager van verandering?
Samen vormen deze vragen vier kwadranten met herkenbare oriëntaties waarin adviseurs zich in de praktijk bewegen. In een Community of Practice kan de matrix dienen als gezamenlijk reflectiekader. Adviseurs plaatsen een recente adviespraktijk in de matrix, lichten toe waarom zij die positie kiezen, en verkennen de voor- en nadelen van die positie en welke andere posities mogelijk waren. Het doel is niet om één ‘juiste’ rol vast te stellen, maar om te leren van verschillen in ervaringen en strategieën.
Voor CoP-coaches biedt de matrix een eenvoudige structuur om dialoog en onderling leren te faciliteren rond twijfels, spanningen en afwegingen in klimaatadvies. Het werken met de matrix helpt adviseurs bewuster om te gaan met de balans tussen vertrouwen en verandering, geeft taal om onzekerheden te bespreken en kan hun handelingsrepertoire vergroten. Het centrale inzicht is dat vertrouwen en transformatie geen tegenpolen zijn, maar aspecten van een dynamisch veld dat klimaatadviseurs moeten navigeren om een passende invulling te geven aan hun rol als klimaatadviseur in hun eigen context.
The Trust -Transformation Matrix can be used in different ways within Communities of Practice, training settings or individual reflection. The key is that hesitation and doubt is not taken as signs of resistance, but as a fruitful starting point for trust-building and learning in climate advisory capacity development. Below are several practical entry points to work with the matrix, depending on the learning goals and context.
1. Explore experience per quadrant
Advisors reflect on concrete situations in which they acted from each of the four quadrants. By unpacking the situation, actions taken and underlying attitudes, the matrix helps to make implicit advisory choices visible and discussable.
2. Identify your natural tendency
Participants explore which quadrant they naturally gravitate towards in their advisory work. This supports reflection on personal preferences, associated strengths, and also enables the advisor to freely explore blind spots and unseen opportunities.
3. Explore your discomfort zone
The matrix can be used to identify quadrants that feel unfamiliar or uncomfortable. This opens conversations about new roles, discomfort, learning potential and the conditions needed to stretch into other advisory orientations in a safe and meaningful way.
4. Reflect on flexibility and learning
Rather than fixing roles, the matrix supports dialogue on when different positions may be appropriate or helpful. This foster learning about flexibility, situational judgement and adaptability in climate advisory practice.
Facilitating conditions include a trusted learning environment, use of real-life cases, and explicit attention to context. The matrix works best when used as a reflective and dialogical tool, not as an assessment or normative framework. Its main value lies in supporting awareness, shared language and learning across differences in advisory practice.
