Image Description: Illustration of a person standing with their hands on their hips in front of multiple brightly colored doors floating in a dark, star-filled space. Curving pink pathways weave between the doors. By Adriandra Karuniawan via Unsplash.
In our last blog, we explored the importance of clarifying your North Star: the purpose, values, and vision that anchor your organization in times of uncertainty. That clarity is essential. But clarity alone is not enough.
When predictions are shaky and change is constant, nonprofit leaders are navigating conditions that feel more complex than ever:
Shifting funding and political landscapes
Increasing demand for services
Workforce burnout and capacity constraints
Rapid political, social, and technological change
Traditional strategic planning, built on stability and predictability, no longer meets this moment. This is why we are seeing organizations shift toward strategic direction-setting: an approach where the direction is clear, but the path remains flexible
Within strategic direction setting:
North Star = Direction (what stays constant)
Scenario Planning = Conditions (what may change)
Strategies = How we move (what adapts)
And within this approach, scenario planning is a critical practice. But the question remains: How do we stay purposeful when the conditions around us are constantly shifting?
Why Scenario Planning Matters
In times of uncertainty, our ability to radically imagine multiple futures becomes essential. Not only to stay grounded and hopeful, but also to prepare for changing conditions while holding onto our North Star.
Scenario planning is one of the most useful tools for doing exactly that.
Our colleagues at Building Movement Project, in their 2026 Brief on Solidarity: Lessons from a Year of Crisis and Change, noted that organizations can no longer afford to treat scenario planning as an occasional exercise. Increasingly, it is becoming a necessary practice for preparing, protecting, and adapting in these times.
At its core, scenario planning is the process of imagining and exploring multiple potential futures based on a range of uncertainties. Organizations often try to plan for one expected future, but in times of uncertainty, it is more useful to prepare for multiple possible futures while staying grounded in your core purpose, values, and North Star.
Scenario planning helps us imagine and shape the future we want, rather than only reacting to the future we get.
Ask: What do we know, what can we imagine, and what remains uncertain? How can we hold the future lightly as we plan and move with purpose?
This is what makes scenario planning for multiple futures such a powerful component of strategic direction setting. It helps organizations maintain both clarity and flexibility.
Making Scenario Planning Real
Scenario planning does not require predicting the future perfectly. Instead, it invites organizations to reflect on a range of possible conditions and consider how they might respond while staying grounded in their values, purpose, and North Star.
This can look like:
Identifying the external forces most likely to shape your work
Exploring a few plausible future scenarios
Reflecting on what opportunities, risks, and decisions each scenario raises
Identifying strategies and priorities that would remain important across multiple futures
Organizations might ask:
What happens if funding decreases significantly?
What if community needs increase faster than capacity?
What political, technological, or social shifts could affect our strategy?
What remains essential no matter the conditions?
The goal is not to predict exactly what will happen. The goal is to build readiness, adaptability, and shared understanding so organizations can move with greater clarity.
What Scenario Planning Makes Possible
The scenario planning process provides organizations with an opportunity to:
Stay Grounded in your North Star across different possible futures. This process clarifies what is core to your organization’s purpose and what cannot be compromised, even when strategies need to shift.
Move from Prediction to Preparation. In moments like these, with shifting conditions, scenario planning helps provide clear direction while remaining flexible to changing circumstances. Instead of trying to predict exactly what will happen, organizations can focus on building readiness and flexibility for changing conditions.
Strengthen Decision-Making by reflecting on what decision makes sense across multiple futures and conditions. This leads to resilient long-term decisions, rather than reacting only to immediate pressures.
Build Organizational Nimbleness & Emergence. By anticipating change and responding early, organizations can become more adaptive, identify risks sooner, and better recognize emerging opportunities.
Deepen Strategic Thinking & Collaboration across the organization. Scenario planning encourages organizations to move beyond timelines, tasks, and fixed long-term plans to reflect on current realities, risks, opportunities, possibilities, and strategic actions. In doing so, organizations strengthen their capacity for shared sense-making, collaborative leadership, and collective action.
No matter the scenarios you explore. We don’t need to have all aspects certain to move forward. You need clarity of purpose and readiness to adapt.
Image Description: Abstract illustration of two black silhouetted hands reaching upward from the bottom center. The background is divided by a winding blue river-like shape. On the left side, a beige field is scattered with small red hearts; on the right, a similar beige field is dotted with blue raindrop shapes. By Sara Oliveira via Unsplash.
In a recent conversation with a group of people about my passion for and interest in “energy systems science,” I briefly mentioned Richard Barrett, who has done a lot of work on organizational values over the years. In a recent Substack post, he talked about a vital “flow” that is lacking from many organizations – love.
This is something we bring up a lot in our work with partners. Love is one facet of our collaborative change lens (see image below), and vital for collaborative efforts to ensure long-term human and socio-ecological thriving.
IISC Collaborative Change Lens
The late Chilean systems biologist Humberto Maturana has written how critical love is to human systems. In fact, he has gone so far as to say that it is the only emotion that significantly increases human intelligence. Clinical psychologist Barbara Frederickson at the University of North Carolina has also looked at how love can do everything from increase our peripheral vision to reduce our biases when it comes to people who appear different from us on the surface of things.
But back to Barrett’s post – at one point he states:
“Most systems were not designed for the level of complexity they now face. Love, as capacity, was never built explicitly into their architecture. This work begins not with slogans, but with attention. With noticing where presence withdraws under pressure. With asking what becomes unsayable — and why.”
Here he is alluding to the second of four pillars of energy systems science – “resilient structures” – which supports the first pillar – “regenerative flows.” These structures can be tangible and intangible, including structures of agreements and cultural norms, policies and procedures, physical design and layout of a space, and institutional structures for distributing resources.
Clearly, what we are seeing and feeling in this country and around the globe is evidence of structures that have not let love, in all of its forms (see image above from Roman Krznaric’s book, The Wonderbox: Curious Histories of How to Live) getting to certain people and places. And because everything is connected, this impacts other people and places (there really is no “other,” or outside).
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
This was recently conveyed to me in a different way by partners we support in Oklahoma around cultural renewal in the state. One person said, “People need to understand that what happens here in Oklahoma is not just about Oklahoma.” I have heard similar sentiments expressed by those with whom we work in the Mississippi Delta and in California’s San Joaquin Valley.
Looking at the state of our world, I am moved to ask this:
If love truly does make us more intelligent (and we at IISC think and feel that it does), not to mention more safe, secure and satisfied, what will it take to make the work of creating structures that support its flow that much more important?
Image description: A bold 2D illustration of a woman with dark brown skin and blue hair cradling a blue Earth and leaves amidst the night sky. By Yeti Iglesias via Unsplash+.
In times of great change and uncertainty, where can we turn for guidance for how to navigate? Well, it turns out there is a lot of wisdom that we can all tap into that comes in many different forms. And we don’t really need to stretch that far to access it. How do I know this? Because we have asked.
One of my favorite group check-in questions over the past month has been:
“Who (or what) is one important teacher you have had in your life, and what is one important teaching you have received from that teacher?”
People have really loved this question, both conjuring up beloved teachers in many different forms – formal teachers, family members, friends, mentors, pets, a favorite tree, a powerful experience – as well as sharing with and hearing from one others.
This is a taste of what came up in answer to the question over the past couple of weeks, which people agreed provided some solid grounding for them:
Stand in integrity.
Trust your gut/intuition.
Remember your purpose.
Always save a place for joy.
Honor the intelligence of your body.
Don’t let the knuckleheads get you down.
Be as clear as you can in your communication with others.
Sometimes you have to break big things down into smaller pieces.
Show you care by overcoming challenges and showing up.
Remember to laugh and take your mistakes lightly.
Remember the power of pausing and reflecting.
Remember there is always more to the story.
Don’t try to win the game … change it.
Forgive, both yourself and others.
In the end, love wins.
What about you? Who is a teacher you would lift up and a teaching from them that might be helpful to remember now and perhaps to share with others?
This Black History Month is a harder one than most. It’s a marker of a terrible moment when our president is calling for an end to racial justice and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) programs. His actions are fueling the resurgence of white nationalism and scaring institutions to backtrack on their equity work. The stakes are high: hostile workplaces, preferences for jobs and opportunities to the elite, and an erasure of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color history. And this doesn’t have to happen on our watch. There is much we can and must do together to ensure these next four years don’t set America back for decades. There’s a lot of faulty information and fear out there. We don’t have to settle for it.
This month and beyond, we need to tap into the strength and love of Black history to move forward boldly. Below are ways we can do this.
1. Support civil rights and civil liberties legal organizations.
Civil rights and liberties organizations are already filing lawsuits to stop the implementation of orders that attempt to dismantle racial justice, DEIA, LGBTQ+ rights, and immigrant protections. Many executive orders signed by past administrations, including the current one, have been knocked down, in part or in full because they violated the US Constitution and civil rights laws from Title VII to the Americans with Disability Act. We can stand against discrimination and unfair practices. We can support the organizations fighting in the courts. Organizations run by Black leaders and legal institutions such as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights, the Protecting DEI Coalition, and organizations like ACLUs around the country are pivotal to the strategy to challenge racist and discriminatory policies.
2. Remember your power and independence if you’re not in the federal government.
The administration’s most recent policies apply most directly to the federal government, although there are attempts to influence the private sector and others to follow suit. If you don’t receive or if you reject federal funding and contracts, and you are a non-profit, a charitable foundation, or a private company or business, you can use this opportunity to hold the line. Unless Congress or your state passes new laws, continue to move forward with your racial justice and equity work and don’t look back. Even when laws are passed, check in with your networks to understand the actual implications. For example, if certain words are targeted, you can still do critical anti-oppression work. Here is an example from leaders in climate justice about how to remain conscious of disparate impacts in your policy and legislative work. Let’s also support the organizations and brave leaders who are standing up to protect federal employees and civil rights in federal agencies.
3. Amplify and advance your racial justice work.
Consider all the benefits it has brought you. At IISC, as we partner with organizations and cities to build out racially just and equitable practices, we’ve seen firsthand how they become better institutions and agencies as a whole. They seed new ideas, improve outcomes for people and communities, recruit and retain collaborative leaders, and center humane workplace practices that benefit all. In fact, in the report, Blocking the Backlash: The Positive Impact of DEI in Nonprofit Organizations, nonprofit workers were most positive about the workplace when their organizations employed five or more diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies. And we know that employee morale just makes good economic and common sense.
If you pause your racial justice and equity work, you can expect to be left behind by organizations who will benefit from diverse approaches, to lose your best employees if they don’t feel valued or respected, and to be exposed to lawsuits from employees who experience discrimination. We must show what happens if we don’t advance racial justice and equity work. If we see trends toward toxic workplaces, violence, and poorer health, employment, and educational outcomes, let the media and our communities know about it.
4. Stand up and be visible and bring in new allies.
Recently, I was on a call with 3,500 Black women leaders around the country fighting for civil rights and justice. They are clear that we are too quiet at this moment. We must make the time and muster the confidence to contact those who can influence change quickly: policymakers, companies we do business with, social media organizations, and media outlets that have rolled back their equity and democracy commitments. We can protest in our streets, neighborhoods, and workplaces. We can put a spotlight on what’s wrong and remind our country of the benefits of inclusion, shared power, and repair. We can ask for help from other leaders and organizations if we get attacked. Let’s keep expanding our movements by identifying new allies who share our values. Let’s be proactive and reach for people who have not yet joined us. For example, think about veterans, parents, rural communities, working-class communities, labor unions, and faith-based communities who share our values.
5. Move into leadership everywhere you are.
If you are a BIPOC or white leader, or leader of any background, who understands what it means to create a better workplace and institution by investing in racial justice and equity, we need you to stand up against the backlash and push forward the broader vision of collective wellbeing. The movement for racial justice has never been a single-issue movement. Racial justice is immigrant justice, gender justice, trans justice, and economic justice. Fight for all and stand together. Join the ranks of leaders in communities and institutions of all kinds who are pursuing justice. Run for school board and other municipal-level positions, or state and federal office. Become board chair of an organization or company. Seek support from those in similar positions so you can build coalitions and protect one another if attacks come your way. Gain allies and champions and do the work that you know is necessary to defend hard-fought victories, protect the most vulnerable people in our communities, and build toward a bold future in which we all thrive.
We have a lifetime to stand tall and powerful against assaults on our communities and to build a better and enduring future. Even though damage will be done over the next four years, let’s remember that the struggle for civil and human rights is as old as the country itself. Some of our civil rights laws have been around for sixty years while others have been in place since the first Reconstruction Era. For the past fifty years and more we’ve seen the power of working for justice by developing and implementing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies and practices.
You can’t take away what has been learned, built, and integrated into our minds, hearts, and structures that easily. The muscle has been developed and the space has been claimed. We don’t have to comply. We can be courageous in collaboration as we continue working together to build the future we all need and want.
Need support in this moment? We’ve got you. See Resources in the Age of 47, our living document filled with tools for action, resilience, and justice. Updated weekly—share it with your networks!
The movement for justice is a marathon, not a sprint. In every meeting I attended on January 21, I asked folks how they spent January 20. Almost everyone said they avoided or minimized news and social media, in favor of focusing on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and other activities that fed their souls. I did too. Here are a few of my highlights.
An MLK Day celebration in Watertown, MA featured a 45-minute table discussion instead of a typical keynote speaker. The emphasis was on neighbors discussing important issues, including how they relate to Dr. King’s Fundamental Philosophy of Nonviolence. Those discussions were facilitated by middle school students trained in Kingian nonviolence principles and practices. It was a beautiful reminder of the power of King’s philosophy and the power of adults following the lead of young people.
Get in the Way, a documentary about the late Congressman and former chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, John Lewis, inspired me to find ways to get into good and necessary trouble.
The interfaith service, For Such A Time as This: A Prophetic Response to America’s Defining Moment featured faith leaders from many traditions, including Bishop William Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. It grounded me in my deepest values and source of strength.
Jon Batiste’s Beethoven Blues washed over me, creating a sense of buoyancy and peace.
A visit to my mother-in-law reminded me of how precious life and family are, and what a gift it is to be able to confront this moment with a clear mind.
The next day, I read the inauguration speech, doing my best to apply Prophetic Listening Guidelines offered by Repairers of the Breach to my reading. While I feel the weight of this moment, I am also feeling informed but not overwhelmed by information and opinion. I’m ready to pay close attention while guarding against a constant flow of frustration. I’m also feeling fortified by my faith and my confidence that as friends, colleagues, movement comrades, family, church members, and neighbors begin to discern what is needed from us in this moment, we will find ways to meet this moment together with the grace, strength, humility, and wisdom it requires.
In the weeks following the election, I was on the road all over the country, gathering with thousands of leaders, organizers, and funders. When I got on the plane to Washington, DC on the day after the election, I felt a power I didn’t know I had—to look straight into the face of my worst fears for our country and greet it with power and resolve.
The memory of Harriet Tubman jumped into my body. I felt ten-feet taller and engulfed in a heavy cloak of protection. Harriet brought enslaved Africans to freedom in Canada through an elaborate system of travel, shelter, and care. Harriet could easily have brought her family to Canada and stopped there, but she repeatedly came back to the United States and carried hundreds of others to freedom. Her unyielding bravery reminds us that the fight for justice isn’t a singular act but a lifetime commitment to freedom for all. Her legacy fuels my determination and our collective mission at IISC to keep returning for those still seeking liberation.
She was not done. I am not done. IISC is not done.
What I learned from my days in DC and in subsequent convenings and conversations is that we have a duty to work for justice—for ourselves and for others, unequivocally. Come January and the inauguration, we will enter a strong era of oppression and suppression. Rest assured IISC will not let any human or system of hate stop the work for justice. We will work to significantly expand human connection and collaboration so that no oppression or its deep shards of pain and injustice can stand.
At IISC, we know this country has the potential to reset in the right direction. Doing so will require us to be facilitative leaders—people who create the conditions for everyone to lead, to forge new pathways, to reach for and love “the other,” and to create enduring and bold networks that together are big enough and resilient enough to take on any fight that comes its way.
We’re so excited to launch new offerings to support you. Our staff and members of our “Dream Lab” will roll out a new interactive learning session in 2025 on network leadership, a training on shared leadership, a new program to amplify and protect the leadership of women of color who are leading organizations and brave movements, and more. These resources are designed to prepare you for this next chapter in America’s story.
Go back to your communities and expand who will be on the side of love and liberation so that we can reach our North Star. Change what you can control—make your workplace more humane, join actions of resistance, talk with people who others won’t talk with, and collaborate instead of competing out of fear.
Powerlessness is pernicious. But it can’t stand up to the strength of connection, collaboration, and interaction. And the persistence of love, the greatest force for change.
No matter the election results or the winning candidate, one thing is certain: the work of collaboration and racial justice will define our future.
After a long and intense period of division and disconnection, we will climb out of the mire and isolation to keep fighting. We cannot rely on any party or candidate—even those we support—to fully solve our problems or meet our needs. It will be our vision, ideas, and collaborative actions after the election that reshape the direction of our country and set a path forward.
We know that racial justice is a driving force for the humane treatment of all people and that our collective efforts for social change have always paved the way for a better America. At IISC, we’re committed to equipping leaders and communities with the tools for facilitative leadership, racial justice, collaboration, and authentic human connection to harness this transformative power for lasting impact.
Leaders will be tired after the election.
Nonprofits are on the edge of financial or internal crisis and will need creative ways to endure.
It will be the dynamic networks of hundreds and thousands of leaders, organizations, and community members that will come together to move us further, faster. Resilient networks of social change agents and organizations are our best hope to accelerate cross-sectoral, cross-issue, and multi-strategy solutions to our most urgent challenges.
IISC will be there every step of the way – to stand firm for racial justice, support leaders, help nonprofits pivot, and build vast and vibrant networks.
We Will Not Waver.
At IISC, our work intensifies after Election Day, fueling a movement of love and liberation that transcends any election cycle.
We are all more prepared for what lies ahead than we realize—the good, the beautiful, the difficult, and the ugly. Trust in the proven practices of transformational collaboration and the generations of action taken to protect our planet, relationships, and dignity. With creativity and courage as our guide, we will, no matter what, move forward.
“Find a river, that flows to the sea put your feet in the water, carry you home.”
-The Mitchell Twins, from the song “Find a River”
Last week I had the opportunity to hear a talk given by Kari Kastango, who is the first person known to have swum the length of the Connecticut River. She was the perfect kick-off speaker at a gathering of Rivershed protectors in my home region who are looking to grow and strengthen their efforts through what amounts to a network of networks. To me, Kastango’s talk set a wonderful foundation for this collaborative work, highlighting the importance of being in deeper relationship with the river itself, and taking guidance from this connection.
Kastango began her talk by saying that she was influenced from an early age by extreme athletes who tested the limits of human capacity. This led her to participate in various endurance events, such as “iron man” contests, and eventually to the idea of swimming the entire length of the Connecticut River. She shared that when she made the commitment she initially thought the river was around 200 miles in length. She then learned it was 410 miles. Her response – “Double the fun!” – was an affirmation of what has been coming through loud and clear for some months now – We can do hard things and sometimes the best thing to do is to run towards the danger.
As further illustration of this point, Kastango talked about how one summer she chose a couple days to swim a particularly challenging length of the river that fell between two hurricanes. With torrential downpours having stirred the waters into considerable turbulence, she learned that she should not fight the currents, but respect them, giving time to get a sense of the flows, and to go with those. The teaching that came through to me is that – even in what may feel like chaos and threatening conditions – a more coherent pattern can become evident if we are both patient and flexible.
Kastango also talked about how over time she became more observant, not simply of the waters and the sky, but other “kin” moving in and around the waters. Birds and other critters who are more familiar with certain environments and conditions have much to teach us if we choose to listen/watch/sense. Lesson – there is much wisdom to be learned from those who are indigenous to a place or land/waterscape, both human and more-than-human.
Another point I took away from Kastango’s talk was when she shared about getting toward the end of her swim. As she approached the Long Island Sound she said she could feel the pull of the larger waters. “It was like they were calling me home,” she said with a smile on her face. At that point she could relax more and let the waters carry her towards the sea. From this I heard that there can be a pull underlying our efforts to create change, or navigate challenge, and that this force actually wants to guide us to a “better” place, a place of greater belonging, beyond any of our efforts to force or even imagine.
Though she wrapped up her swim a year ago, Kastango said that after all those months and miles, she still feels the river in her. She still is in relationship with those waters. And that is why she tells her story – that others might develop that kind of special connection, that we not forget our more-than-human kin, and that more of us work to protect the rivers and other waterways that are (in the words of an Indigenous teacher) “the elixir of life.”
For those who live in and/or love the Connecticut River Watershed and want to learn more about the efforts to connect and protect, go to this link. And for some fun facts about Kari Kastango’s swim, go to this link.
Note to readers: This blog is based on IISC’s internal exploration of shared leadership in our organization, our work with clients, and conversations with leadership practitioners in the Knowledge Share Group, a partnership of capacity and infrastructure building organizations around the country. I particularly want to thank Miriam Messinger, Sara Oaklander, Cynthia Silva Parker, and Jasmine Williams of IISC , as well as Shannon Ellis of CompassPoint, for their ideas which sharpened this blog post.
What is shared leadership in nonprofits and philanthropy? And why are some organizations turning to different leadership models to sustain their organization’s work, forge transformative collaboration, and generate powerful intergenerational models of running organizations? IISC and many of our peers in the Knowledge Share Group1 believe that shared leadership is a better model for the future of the nonprofit sector.
Why Shared Leadership?
Leadership and organizational models that rely on the one executive leader or the senior leadership team for success are not serving our organizations and communities. Leadership concentrated in the hands of a few leaves an organization vulnerable to a number of pitfalls: uninformed decision-making, deep inequities, limited perspectives in strategic direction setting, underutilized and disempowered staff, disruptive executive transitions, and exhaustion for leaders who hold too much responsibility.
We believe executive directors and other senior staff have a choice. They can continue to hold concentrated power and make decisions independently, or they can embrace shared leadership for collective action and responsibility. It is the latter that enables us to most fully live our missions and expand democracy. We must do everything we can to support leadership in all the places it exists in our organizations.
What is Shared Leadership?
Shared leadership is an evolving concept and practice. It’s one of the most compelling options social justice communities are experimenting with to heal our relationships with traditional manifestations of power, authority, and dominance. Based on IISC’s experience and learnings from the Knowledge Share Group, I define shared leadership as the ethos, structures, processes, practices, and behaviors that promote the equitable distribution and decentralization of information, roles, authority, decision-making, and labor.
What are the Key Features of Shared Leadership?
Nonprofits are essentially a network of people, programs, and ideas working together for transformative social outcomes. Shared leadership fuels that network, with more people generating and carrying out ideas for greater impact, and doing so in more equitable ways.
There are are five key features of shared leadership:
All people in the organization are viewed and operate as leaders, mutually accountable to a set of values and practices that are in service of collective goals. They make major decisions together and trust others for the rest.
They are mindful of and attend to the needs of the whole organization and how their work impacts the whole. And they take note of critical organizational gaps and see to it that they are filled. They build redundancies in roles and create back-up plans in the event someone is unavailable to work.
Shared leadership moves away from the notion that the solo leader or executive team has carte blanche to develop and implement solutions to problems in an organization. And instead moves toward a model that centers decentralization and multiracial and multigenerational leadership, with decision-making and problem-solving shared across the organization. It fosters what we teach at IISC –Facilitative Leadership, which is an intentional practice of creating the conditions for transformational collaboration in which people do their best work together to achieve optimal results.
Shared leadership assumes that power2 is not finite and can be meaningfully shared. It requires a shift in heartset and mindset from “it’s about me” to “it’s about us,” and from “power over” to “power with.” It dismantles concentrations of power and dominance, and prevents extraction, while creating environments where trust-building, transparency, and creative autonomy are cultivated and can flourish.
Shared leadership doesn’t necessarily mean an end to executive roles or hierarchy or even the creation of a completely flat organizational structure. Organizations can implement the values and practices of shared leadership within a myriad of different organizational models and structures. The key is that senior leaders and managers are not in a dominant position where they control the fate of the organization or its employees. They are instead part of the ecosystem with information and decision-making flowing across the organization.
What is IISC’s Evolving Shared Leadership Model?
At IISC, we are about to implement a network-based team model, and we are experimenting along the way, building off of our longstanding commitment and internal practices of collaboration and distributed leadership. We believe it will enable us to harness the leadership, creativity, and ideas of all of us who work for IISC.
In our model, we are experimenting with what we call shared and equitable leadership. We will have a single president and multiple teams convened by hosts and supported by facilitators that will make decisions for their areas, while other teams will provide cross-functional input and expertise to ensure the teams are connected around strategy. Ad hoc teams – each with a unique and time-bound task – are also part of this model.
A center-holding group with membership from the various teams will weave the domains of activity and ensure people have what they need and are empowered to make change in their domains. This group will also have a host and facilitator and will include the president of IISC, and it will shift in membership as the organization’s needs change and members rotate. The group will include people with different roles and tenures in the organization, not based on their seniority or executive functions.
BIPOC and next generation leaders will be prioritized to ensure that we don’t replicate the negative attributes of white dominant culture or rely on time in the organization as a proxy for knowledge and influence. The model assumes healthy redundancies so if people shift in and out of the organization, take on different roles, or attend to health or personal crises, we will be resilient and not fall off course from our goals. The distinction between part-time and full-time staff will only be the hours they work, not how much influence they have over the organization.
This model will initially take time to implement and decision-making may be slower at the start as people learn to trust each other and move into formation. Most people are accustomed to traditional hierarchy and know instinctively how to operate in that kind of system. It can be hard for people familiar with holding positional power to adjust to letting go of making decisions, especially when they may disagree with those decisions. And for people newer to decision-making, it takes time to build confidence and skills, and to accept accountability for the impacts of those decisions. Patience is needed and power struggles and mistakes will invariably happen. Staff need information, tools, and experience to get their feet planted and take initiative. And once they do, we expect creativity and problem solving to expand and positively impact the organization.
In my case, as president of IISC, I am already experiencing the benefits of this new approach as we pilot some aspects of it. Fewer people are coming to me for answers or expecting me to make decisions. Generative conflict is surfaced and negotiated at individual and team levels and rarely comes through to me to resolve. I’m less fatigued and more inspired. I can more fully focus on what I believe are my essential roles of strategy, partnership-building, board development, fundraising, and program work. I am now more of a coach, offering questions for people to explore and occasional wisdom for those who are really stuck.
But there are tough realities to face as we experiment with parts of the model. We cannot always keep up with the flow of decisions that are needed or handle the bigger ones quickly. In the end, though, I am already finding that the quality of our decisions are better. And when we face tougher times, either organizationally or financially, we tend to find ourselves reverting to old habits of command and control. We have to remember to snap ourselves out of old practice and reprioritize our values and return to our new model. And in the end, we’re becoming a more dynamic and responsible organization because of shared and equitable leadership.
Do You Want to Try on Shared Leadership?
Shared leadership can lead to more effective organizations as diverse minds and expertise are applied to solving problems. It can achieve more balance in the lives of people as decision-making, responsibilities, and burdens are shared across the organization.
Shared leadership rocks the boat. For many of us, it’s not what we’re used to. And it liberates people to act on their visions and solutions which improves organizational performance and cracks impenetrable systems of oppression that we live and work under.
What would it look like to try shared leadership practices and experiments in your organization or institution? Where are you having success with shared leadership? Please comment.
The Knowledge Share Group is a partnership of capacity and infrastructure building organizations in the United States. The groups include Change Elemental, CompassPoint, Crossroads Antiracism Organizing & Training, Interaction Institute for Social Change, ProInspire, and Rockwood Leadership Institute.↩︎
James Shelton III at the PolicyLink Equity Summit 2018 defined power simply and clearly as “power is the ability to create, limit or make choices for oneself or others.” ↩︎
As the fall season is soon to begin, I am about to mark the beginning of my (to this point) seven year journey since re-entering the “workforce” after experiencing clinical burnout and proceeding with an intentional rhythm aimed at more balance. This has entailed gradual, focused, and caring support from a range of healers as layers upon layers have sloughed off, revealing deeper wounds and cries for attention.
“The function of freedom is to free someone else.”
All this said, as I feel that much “lighter” and learn-ed in my process, I am reflecting on seven steps that have been and will continue to be core to this journey, including the work that my colleagues and I do to help weave the more beautiful world we know is possible.
🌀 Re-cognize: bring awareness to the realities of dis-ease and dis-association
🌀 Re-lax: breathe into this awareness, let what bubbles up come up; keep breathing
🌀 Re-lease: let go of what may have served and no longer does and that which never did
🌀 Re-claim: start inviting back those parts/aspects that have been ostracized and ignored
🌀 Re-member: embrace more and more of our underlying, essential and limitless identity
🌀 Re-surge: allow what has been regathered to both guide and deepen trust in our core
🌀 Re-cycle: this process is not linear but more of a spiral that can encompass others
*******
*******
And as the poets often capture it better than anyone, I will end with this from Danna Faulds:
This post picks up where Part 1 left off. To read that post, go to this link.
In a recent conversation with a cherished elder, we got to talking about these times and the story of the caterpillar changing into the butterfly. In her usual no-nonsense way, she shared that she often hears people talking about the cocoon, and maybe something about the “imaginal cells” that get to work in the cocoon to create the beautiful butterfly form (so cool!). “What I don’t necessarily hear is that whole thing about destruction of the caterpillar body – it basically gets pulverized and turns into goo!” This followed by laughter (she laughs a lot). Right, the goo. Not a lot of talk about the goo, about the dis-integration of the previous body that is necessary for the new body to organize.
I have caught myself doing this, banging my head against the question “What is the next (and better) form of family, community, organization, institution, society, etc.?” without allowing for the necessary meltdown of old forms. A version of this old adage just came to mind – “Can you be patient enough to let the mud settle?” Sometimes. Hopefully a little more each day. As I spend a fair amount of time working with social change networks, I am trying to remind people I work with (and myself) that the work of “network weaving” is not simply about always reaching out, always bringing in more and supporting more growth, but also about stepping back, seeing what is, perhaps doing some pruning. And remember to exhale.
The other thing that I try to remember is that if what we are moving through is really and truly “transformation,” not just some superficial rearrangement of the furniture, then it is going to be very hard to imagine not just what “the other side” will look like, but how I will feel inside of that new reality. I find that I can be prone to feelings of “fluttery-ness” these days, and if I don’t take care to listen more closely, I might assume that I am feeling nervous/anxious about the current state of the world. Of course sometimes I am (for example, when I wake to several days here in Western Massachusetts feeling as if I am in the Caribbean, weather-wise). Other times, when I slow down enough to actually interrogate the fluttery sensation, I realize that it can also be akin to the excitement I have felt when getting to the top of a tall rollercoaster and anticipating that moment of release. And I wonder…is that what the butterfly feels when it emerges from the cocoon, and when it takes its first flight? Just how does it go about adjusting to its new embodied reality?
Several years ago, I read the book The Net and the Butterfly, which is full of examples and suggestions of methods for opening ourselves to “the new.” A core point of the authors, Olivia Fox Cabane and Judah Pollack, is that in order to access new ways of being and doing, we do not have to be artistic geniuses or spiritual adepts. What we do need are ways to make the time and space to peacefully pay attention and notice differently, allowing insight and novelty to emerge on their own.
The common theme underlying the practices that the authors explore is supporting so-called neuroplasticity, our brains’ remarkable ability to rearrange neural pathways for new possibilities. Neuroplasticity happens on its own, to a certain extent, but is reduced by practiced habits and routines – i.e. staying stuck in ruts. This happens as we age and get too comfortable with or protective of the familiar. So in order to encourage an openness to new pathways, what can we do?
Stop trying to figure it out. Simply grinding on a situation or challenge or sitting in fear and frustration can prevent “solutions” from showing up. Give your mind a rest – take a shower/bath, take a walk, relax and breathe, or engage in relatively mindless activity (wash dishes, bounce a ball).
Try on new perspectives.Looking at the world differently can help us to see possibilities we had not observed from our usual vantage points. Read literature from different and unfamiliar disciplines. Talk to someone who sees the world differently (culturally, politically, professionally). Study a different language. Take a different route to work or for your daily walk. Lie down on the ground and look up and around, or climb a tree to literally get a different perspective on things.
Open up to different sounds, tastes and sensations. Intentionally seeking out and paying attention to unusual sensations can also strengthen our flexibility, adaptability, and openness to novelty. Research shows, for example, that by using our non-dominant hand to perform daily routines (brushing teeth, brushing hair, drinking from a cup) we can strengthen neuroplasticity. The key is to really pay attention to what we notice.
Learn from the intelligence and wonder of our more than human kin. Much more is being written about biomimicry and the wisdom of following the larger living world’s innate capacities for resilience and regeneration. And the power of awe is in some ways hard to beat in terms of its ability to crack us open. Check out this website for inspired ideas from our broader family or look at the writings of Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Tristan Gooley and others that can help us read the patterns of living systems.
Be as full bodied as you can be, remembering we are bigger than our bodies give us credit for.As Richard Rohr writes, “To finally surrender ourselves to [transformation], we need to have three spaces opened within us – and all at the same time: our opinionated head, our closed-down heart, and our defensive and defended body. That is the work of spirituality.”
Lastly, I want to return to what I started with in Part 1 – listen/feel music.A philosopher once said, “The world without music would be wrong,” (or something close to that). I certainly find that the right song at the right time can create a kind of full-bodied resonance that is incredibly “regenerative” of my entire being and brings the world alive around me. I offer one more favorite here through an excerpt and invitation to watch the full video below:
I don’t wanna be someone who walks away so easily I’m here to stay and make the difference that I can make Our differences they do a lot to teach us how to use the tools and gifts We got yeah we got a lot at stake And in the end you’re still my friend at least we did intend For us to work we didn’t break, we didn’t burn We had to learn, how to bend without the world caving in I had to learn what I got, and what I’m not And who I am
I won’t give up on us Even if the skies get rough I’m giving you all my love I’m still looking up
What are you finding helps you to stay grounded and navigate these transformative times?
“Transformation is a process and, for survivors, it’s a process with ups and downs, flashbacks and panic attacks. But as [regeneration] confirms, it’s the better way.”
As I’ve been coming more and more into “the second half of life,“ I have found that I pay more attention, or perhaps I pay attention differently and to different things. One particular area I’ve noticed is song lyrics. Music that I may have previously enjoyed for the beats or melodies, I now find I am also appreciating for the timeliness and depth of the words. One example is one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite artists – “The Wood Song” by the Indigo Girls. I remember driving on a country road in my late 20s with windows rolled down and the radio cranked feeling the lift from both the rushing air and the rising chorus. In a more recent listen, these particular words grabbed me:
“Sometimes I ask to sneak a closer look Skip to the final chapter of the book And then maybe steer us clear from some of the pain it took To get us where we are this far But the question drowns in it’s futility And even I have got to laugh at me No one gets to miss the storm of what will be Just holding on for the ride”
Ah yes, how many times do I catch myself wanting to know “What comes next?” This could be for my own healing process, our family, “the work,” this country, the world as we know it. I suppose that curiosity is understandable/natural, and it can certainly be a trap when it keeps taking me out of the present moment. Also when it becomes a ploy to try and circumvent dis-comfort, noting here that the root of that word means to “not be coming with or connected to strength.” To feel uncertain and out of my zone of confidence and strong suit can of course be disorienting (anyone else out there having sensations of sloshiness?). Well, that really is the point, as the Indigo Girls sing later in that song.
“The wood is tired and the wood is old We’ll make it fine if the weather holds But if the weather holds we’ll have missed the point That’s where I need to go“
The point is to be present with whatever is, including the hardships of life and the turmoils of the soul. I don’t have to like it, and in fact many times have/will not, but should try not to immediately evade or skip over what’s hard and what hurts. To riff on a line from a country song, if you want to miss the pain then you’ll have to miss the dance.
*******
There is a poem I come back to every now and again, from David Wagoner, called “Lost”:
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to Wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows Where you are. You must let it find you.
You must let it find you. What is the “it”? The here and now. Not the “over there” or “next.” The present moment, as liminal and shaky as it may feel. And it certainly can feel shaky, at least in my experience and from what I am hearing and learning from others with whom I have been working.
When I do manage to settle and tune in to where and how I am, to where and how others are, and what guidance there might be from that powerful stranger, here is some of what I am hearing …
Take it easy.
Take good care.
Take care of endings.
Take care of beginnings.
Take care of one another.
Breathe … and remember to exhale …
Let things, “all the things,” bubble up; let them pass.
Lean in, engage; lean back, relax; repeat.
Stay curious.
Be humble.
Be kind.
Be.
Over and over, I am hearing and feeling these messages. And in moments of more extreme discomfort and pain, there is the reminder that “healing often hurts.” To recover you might have to do more uncovering, peel back more layers. Before you reweave you might have to unravel, maybe get rid of some of those dangling threads. To do differently or better, as my colleague Kellly Bates has beautifully written, you just might have to come undone …
