DISCLAIMER: Dear Progressive friends, I have not sold out! I still believe in economic justice and I remain painfully aware of the racialized outcomes of poverty.
I feel like part of my mission in life is to expand the lens with which we look at our quest for social transformation. One of the points I keep harping on is the point that happiness matters. And this is why a recent David Brooks column caught my attention. Read More
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Working closely with the Berkana Institute, Gibrán and Marianne had the privilege of facilitating the Barr Fellows learning journey to Chiapas, Mexico. Here they are at the conclusion of their journey, getting ready to enter the Church of San Juan Chamula, which actually is a Mayan Temple that the people consider to be the very center of the Universe.
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|Photo by Robert Nyman|http://www.flickr.com/photos/robertnyman/189668104|
On Wednesday, IISC hosted an impressive group of network building practitioners to discuss what we have collectively learned and have yet to discover about building networks for social change. Melinda and I tweeted ourselves silly with participants’ insights (which you can find by searching hashtag #NTWK). While there is still so much to sort through and have sink in, one of our small group break out sessions got me thinking about how we can preach the potential of networks without turning folk away. As we talked, some pieces began to fall into place in part with the help of the work of Chip and Dan Heath.
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|Photo by futureshape|http://www.flickr.com/photos/futureshape/2037704163|
(In the spirit of April Fool’s)
A town is hit by a fire that catches in the church district one evening. As the fire spreads, so does word among the members of the neighboring congregations. Before long, people have assembled in front of their respective houses of worship and are deciding what to rescue from inside. A roving reporter goes from group to group to see how they’re responding. She notes that the Catholics have already salvaged the communion cup. Moving to the Episcopal Church, she witnesses a man emerging from smoke to cheers as he hoists the Book of Common Prayer. The reporter heads next to the Unitarians, and as she approaches cannot see a particular object among the group assembled in the street. Observing the expressions on peoples’ faces, she becomes alarmed that someone may still be inside the church, which is on the verge of collapsing. As she gets closer she hears the group in heated debate about who should be on the ad hoc committee to make the final decision about what to rescue . . .
Leave a commentToday, IISC and friends will be spending the day digging into how to advance the use of networks for social change. We’ll post about it afterward – but if you want to check out the conversation as we go, follow #NTWK on twitter. See you there!
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Why will I be selected to be a part of Seth Godin’s nano-MBA? Because it was made for me! Because the very essence of my job is to produce interactions that organizations care deeply about and because this is how change happens – there is a reason we are called the Interaction Institute for Social Change.
I’m doing this because my job is to help organizational leaders understand how to transcend organizational constraints. Because we are experimenting with ways to liberate the passion and the energy that are over-abundant in the social sector. Because the sector’s infrastructure has calcified and has become a constraint – and we are here to unlock it, and to set that energy free. Read More
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|Photo by jaycross|http://www.flickr.com/photos/jaycross/247126875|
“How do we help people move toward authentic inquiry when their default is aggressive inquisition?” This question was offered up in a tweet by Larry Dressler a week ago and presaged my planned post today. My departure was going to be a return to the work of Marcial Losada mentioned in a previous post, which shows that optimal group performance is attributed in part to members striking a balance between asking questions and promoting their own points of view. Low performing groups tend to get caught up in self-absorbed advocacy. “Aggressive inquisition” can simply be a form of advocacy, intended to attack and tear down other ideas. This is not the spirit Losada is talking about. And yet, it can be challenging for some to avoid simply campaigning for their own proposals.
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|Photo by Dazzie D|http://www.flickr.com/photos/dazzied/427180864/|
At the 2008 White Privilege Conference, I went to a workshop on Critical Liberation Theory, led by Barbara Love, Keri DeJong, Christopher Hughbanks, Joanna Kent Katz and Teeomm Williams.? I was re-reading the piece they gave out at that workshop, talking about the ways that we can each take daily actions toward liberation.? This, they suggested, requires first clearly articulating our own theory of liberation, through which we can then build a praxis of liberation – daily work that brings us in the direction of liberation itself.? They talked of the need to know fully where you’re coming from (understanding oppression), but to look forward toward liberation. Otherwise, they described it as if one were leaving on a car trip from Massachusetts to drive to California while looking out the back window instead of looking at the road ahead.
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|Photo by Kevin Dooley|http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/4046734044/|
If you have been paying any attention to the national political scene, you know that in these days of no compromise everything seems to balance on the mathematics of the US Senate. Given the latest equation, it was no small deal to learn that Senator Evan Bayh will not be running for re-election. About a month ago he wrote a New York Times opinion piece that has been on my mind since then – Why I’m Leaving the Senate.
The piece is worth reading in full, but here is the part that inspired this post:
Any improvement must begin by changing the personal chemistry among senators. More interaction in a non-adversarial atmosphere would help… It shouldn’t take a constitutional crisis or an attack on the nation to create honest dialogue in the Senate. Let’s start with a simple proposal: why not have a monthly lunch of all 100 senators?
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|Photo by dixieroadrash|http://www.flickr.com/photos/dixieroadrash/2514971744/|
I believe New Years Day ought to be celebrated on the first day of spring. It just doesn’t seem right to start a ‘new’ year in the dead of winter as we do. In fact, prior to 1752 (more or less), most European countries (and their respective colonies) celebrated New Years Day on or about March 25th rather than January 1st. Thus, until New Years Day was shifted to January 1st, one went to bed on March 24th in one year and awoke the next day on March 25th in the next year. Pretty crazy, eh?
That the New Year used to be marked on March 25th makes total sense for a number of reasons, most obviously because the spring is the beginning of the planting season. It is a time to sow the fields and start again.
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|Photo by MontyPython|http://www.flickr.com/photos/montypython/3853109452/|
Last week a few of us here at IISC had the privilege of reconnecting with Peter Forbes and Ginny McGinn of the Center for Whole Communities. The focus of our two day summit was the development of a training to help people implement Whole Measures, CWC’s holistic framework for thinking about social, community, and organizational change. Rooted in narrative, Whole Measures has its own interesting story.
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I had the great fortune of attending the Kirwan Institute‘s conference – Transforming Race: Crisis and Opportunity in the Age of Obama – in Columbus, Ohio last week. Among many great sessions – including two by Cynthia Silva Parker and Melinda Weekes of IISC – was a track about “Race Talk”– the importance of talking explicitly about race.