|Photo by James Cridland|http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamescridland/613445810|
Picking up from yesterday’s post, the question I left off with was how do change agents identify and work with patterns in complex human systems where control and predictability are elusive. This is where Holladay and Quade offer up Glenda Eoyang’s CDE Model. This model names three different conditions that change agents can analyze and work with to shift constraints within a system so that it can achieve more optimal fit with (and thrive in) its environment. Below are an explanation of these conditions and examples of what can be done to either tighten or decrease constraints in the direction of more organized or unorganized surrounds. Read More
This video of Seth Godin’s funny Gel Conference talk about why so many things are broken around us has, from my perspective, many truths and considerable wisdom to it. One thing that has become clear from the last few years’ worth of meeting and working with community groups and social change advocates is that it’s time for more of us to step up and name what’s broken. From our antiquated and alienating public participation processes (see this link for a list of 21st century engagement techniques) to mind-numbing soul-sucking meetings to our siloed and overly simplistic ways of seeing and approaching complex and systemic problems, we know we can and must do so much better. So say it with me – “It’s broken.” This isn’t about complaining or assigning blame (because that would be broken too), it’s about getting curious about the brokenness and creative about reassembling the pieces into something that better supports our collective humanity. And, to follow Mr. Godin’s lead, why not have a sense of humor about it?
This video of Seth Godin’s funny Gel Conference talk about why so many things are broken around us has, from my perspective, many truths and considerable wisdom to it. One thing that has become clear from the last few years’ worth of meeting and working with community groups and social change advocates is that it’s time for more of us to step up and name what’s broken. From our antiquated and alienating public participation processes (see this link for a list of 21st century engagement techniques) to mind-numbing soul-sucking meetings to our siloed and overly simplistic ways of seeing and approaching complex and systemic problems, we know we can and must do so much better. So say it with me – “It’s broken.” This isn’t about complaining or assigning blame (because that would be broken too), it’s about getting curious about the brokenness and creative about reassembling the pieces into something that better supports our collective humanity. And, to follow Mr. Godin’s lead, why not have a sense of humor about it?
|Photo by kevindooley|http://www.flickr.com/photos/pagedooley/1875348372|
I was recently sorting through some of my thoughts and feelings about complexity and social change when I arrived at a question to gnaw on – What is the difference between taking an “emergent” versus a “quantum” approach to complex problems? We are told that complexity does not lend itself to existing, linear, cause-and-effect responses. The multiplicity of factors contributing to complexity make it difficult for traditional kinds of expertise to grasp. So what is one (or many) to do? Read More
I was alerted to this slide show by the Leadership Learning Community, for which I am most grateful. I appreciate how it brings together considerations of complexity and living systems for organizational leaders.
By way of summary, here are the 11 “enabling rules” that the presentation highlights for leadership to work in better alignment (and sustainably) with dynamic systems: Read More
This past week marked the release of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations’ newest action learning guide – Do Nothing About Me Without Me: An Action Guide for Engaging Stakeholders. IISC is pr0ud to be a co-publisher of and contributor to the publication, which builds on our work with GEO staff facilitating Engage for Results. Essentially this seminar walks foundation staff through a series of strategic questions and tools for engaging grantees, community members, and other stakeholders in their grantmaking. Worth highlighting here is what GEO and IISC identify as being core to the case for funders doing more to involve others in their work: Read More
|Photo by joi|http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/2941559903|
Our colleagues at Interaction Associates have done some wonderful work on the importance of trust in the workplace and what leaders can do to cultivate this, especially under uncertain circumstances the likes of which seem to be omnipresent these days. More recently, former IBMer Irving Wladawsky-Berger has taken this conversation to a new level in a post that looks at trust as “the most important operational resource in our society.” In our increasingly complex, interconnected, and distributed world, he says, one’s reputation as an individual or institution is foundational to what we might call success. This observation contributes to his sense that we are in the midst of a values-based generational transition as potentially profound as the sixties.
Without rehashing the entire post here (I encourage you to read it in its entirety by going to this link), I want to point out some of the more interesting parts and ask what folk engaged in the social sectors and social change work think Read More
|Photo by nathanborror|http://www.flickr.com/photos/sketch22/3054286601/
With the dust now fairly settled from President Obama’s first State of the Union Address, I feel like it’s safe to offer a few comments here without being labeled an aspiring pundit. IISC friend and fellow network-phile Bill Traynor of Lawrence CommunityWorks captured some of my own feelings initially – impressed by the speech, on board . . . for now. Coming into that evening I was concerned about what I had been picking up as a big push of the “Obama brand”, leading me to ask along with Naomi Klein whether the man in the Oval Office is more about symbolic gesture than substantive change. Suffice to say that I don’t have the behind-the-scenes knowledge to confidently declare how much is actually getting done. But to the extent that anything in front of the curtain matters, and we know at least some of it does, I came away with some real adaptive leadership lessons from the SOTU Address.
If you don’t have four minutes, make them! Here is one of the simplest explanations of the Cynefin framework and it is one of the most useful ways to understand the shift that we must make in the social sector. I start most of my client work by arguing that the problem we are facing in the sector is that our system has been developed to address complex problems as if they were complicated. For example, our urban public schools are trying to teach many kids who might be facing hunger, trauma, violence, lack of documentation and a myriad other social ills, but we are spending our time arguing about curricula and standardized tests.
|Photo by victoriapeckham|http://www.flickr.com/photos/victoriapeckham/164175205/|
In this post I take a look at the overlap and differences between three leadership approaches to which we here at IISC regularly turn in light of our bent towards social change and beliefs about the world in which we live.
“What does Twitter do to our relationship with Creation?” This was the final question in a wonderful conversation the other day with Liz Parsons, Co-Director of Contextual Education at the Boston University School of Theology. Our free-ranging dialogue ended on this note as we were exploring potential win-win formats for field placements for BU students at social change agencies. What would be in it for the agencies? Stating my belief that many students bring with them more natural collaborative inclinations and social media savvy than “seasoned’ social change leaders, I posited this as a value proposition inherent in members of the younger generation. Which got us firmly down the Twitter path . . .
When Liz’s provocative question popped, my mind split. On the one hand, I could see the case being made that Twitter and other Web 2.0 tools provide an additional and unhelpful buffer between us and the world. Too much reliance on the technology can, as essayist Bill Holm writes, “separate and deracinate us from nature and one another” removing “any sense of from-ness or connection.” The question looms whether we need any more mediation of our experience when so much suffering seemingly stems from disconnection. In a follow-up message, Liz mentioned that when her husband purchased a laptop, it came with an ongoing slide show of nature photos. “As if we have to be reminded,” she wrote, taking the words out of my mouth.
One of the core models of IISC’s practice (for both our training and consulting work) is something we call the R-P-R Triangle, which basically makes the case that success in collaborative efforts is a multi-dimensional affair, not solely defined by “results” (goal or task accomplished), but also by “process” (the way or spirit in which work is carried out) and “relationship” (the quality of the connections between the people engaged in the work). Our Executive Director, Marianne Hughes, has called this “the spine of collaboration,” suggesting that if we are not thinking in terms of all dimensions, we are not really serious about seeking win-win solutions with others. And indeed experience really proves that these dimensions are intimately linked and dependent upon one another when diverse stakeholders come together to realize a shared vision.
A twist was given to this triangle the other day when a Facilitative Leadership workshop participant said he was struggling, not because he did not find value in this notion of “multiple dimensions of success,” but because of his concern that even in this model, process and relationships might appear to be subservient, or the “so that,” to results. He went on to say that he is part of an organization/community in which relationships are really paramount. They are an end in and of themselves and in a way synonymous with results. How then, do we account for this in this model he wondered. Read More
