“It’s hard to make a difference when everyone is tangled up in the rigging of procedural formality and blanketed in fog.”
-Roberta’s Rules of Order
With all of the snow days we’ve had so far in 2011, you’ll understand if I begin this post from a “when things don’t go according to plan” mindset. We’ve all taken our lumps in doing collaborative work, even with the best laid plans and best intentions in place. I’ve had the opportunity to do a little reflecting (in between tours of duty shoveling) on what has made for more successful and less successful collaborative endeavors, and here are some of the important lessons I’ve learned when things have not gone as well as had been hoped for: Read More
|Image from cambodia4kidsorg|http://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/2296887265|
I’ve been working with a couple of organizations and initiatives lately as they discuss enhancing their strategies for stakeholder engagement. Throughout all of this work is the emerging awareness that we are in the midst of a paradigm shift in our field with respect to what engagement means and looks like. This, of course, has been captured by many writers and thinkers who have been looking closely at what social media is enabling (see, for example, Clay Shirky’s work, the Working Wikkily blog, or the writings of Beth Kanter and Allison Fine). And at the same time there is a realization that this is not just about technology, but a return to some of what we’ve forgotten as well as a step towards something new. Read More
Picking up from my post the other day (“Pauses for the Cause”) about the process learnings of our recent IISC retreat, I wanted to focus a bit on the content take-aways. As I previously mentioned, the reason for our coming together as a staff was to revisit and dive into the roots of our collaborative practice: networks, equity/power/inclusion, and “the love that does justice.” It wasn’t long before we were wondering whether these are not more appropriately called the lenses through which we look as we go about our collaborative capacity building and change work. And it did not take long after that for us to question whether the labels we have selected for these lenses are the appropriate ones. I want to spend the rest of this post looking at where our conversation took us with respect to love, in particular.
What’s love got to do with it? That was not exactly our guiding question, but we got there eventually through some of our struggles to reach shared understanding and agreement about what we mean when we say “the love that does justice.” Our facilitator engaged us in writing on stickies short phrases and sentences that explained what it means to integrate this into our practice. The activity yielded a plethora of multi-colored squares that we then organized into themes. Here is what emerged, categorically speaking: Read More
Last week, IISC staff took a step back to consider what we had been referring to as the roots out of which our collaborative capacity building work grows (we have since wondered whether these may be more appropriately cast as “lenses,” but more on that at another time), and to come to some agreement about what is core to our practice in these imperfectly titled areas:
networks
equity/power/inclusion
“the love that does justice”
We were guided in our conversations by the talented Mistinguette Smith, with whom I have had the pleasure of partnering in delivering our joint work with the Center for Whole Communities – Whole Measures: Transforming Communities by Measuring What Matters Most. Anyone who is able to handle a group of facilitators has certainly earned her stripes, and if that person can teach those “process experts” new tricks, well now you’ve really got our attention. Ms. Smith, we are listening! Read More
“Let’s all keep an open mind” How many times have you heard that one? How often has it worked? Keeping an open mind is not as easy as following a ground rule once it has been stated, specially not in a culture where we are rewarded for being right – for knowing. Read More
Just coming off the second public offering of Whole Measures: Transforming Communities by Measuring What Matters Most, IISC’s joint venture with the Center for Whole Communities. I have to say, the workshop experience keeps getting better and better. More is yet to come (next stop, New Jersey in March), and I wanted to offer these words as a way of summarizing our evolving co-creation.
What we talk about is what we see,
so must convene conversations that matter.
What we see is what we measure,
so we must see the whole (system).
What we measure is what gets done,
so we must measure what matters.
What must be done cannot be done alone,
so we must design and facilitate collaborative processes.
We cannot do any of this by transaction or command and control,
I had the pleasure of meeting Jennifer Sertl on the twittersphere. Together with Koby Huberman, they have written a book that seems to touch on many of the aspects of this paradigm shift that I spend some much time writing about. It looks like in writing Strategy, Leadership and the Soul Sertl and Huberman are articulating a series of powerful responses to the changes our organizations are experiencing. I see a lot of alignment between the principles outlined in this 3 minute video and the work we do here at IISC. We are moving forward, see what you think.
|Photo by marcomagrini|http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcomagrini/698692268|
“We don’t talk about what we see,
we see only what we can talk about.”
– Fred Kofman
This week I’ve been rereading Donella Meadows’ Thinking in Systemsand really savoring it. Each time I look at it, I pick up something new, not just about systems thinking but about life in general. I’ve been focused primarily on Meadows’ chapter “Living in a World of Systems,” which considers how we can work with complex systems while acknowledging that even when we understand them better, we cannot predict or control them. One of her suggestions is that we learn to pay attention to what is important, not just what is quantifiable. This is not a question of throwing out what we can quantify as being somehow overly reductionist. Rather, it is a matter of not giving up on what we cannot measure and making quantity more important than quality. How important this is for our social change work! Read More
Malcolm Gladwell has certainly whipped up something of a firestorm, at least among social media and network enthusiasts. In a sense, his timing couldn’t be better as this very morning IISC staff gathers with some very bright and committed network building thinkers and consultants to take our ongoing conversation about networks for social change the next step, with some practical application in our collective sights. I expect, and hope, that some of the energetic on-line conversation Gladwell has inspired in our community will continue during this in-person gathering.
Malcolm Gladwell has certainly whipped up something of a firestorm, at least among social media and network enthusiasts. In a sense, his timing couldn’t be better as this very morning IISC staff gathers with some very bright and committed network building thinkers and consultants to take our ongoing conversation about networks for social change the next step, with some practical application in our collective sights. I expect, and hope, that some of the energetic on-line conversation Gladwell has inspired in our community will continue during this in-person gathering.
Malcolm Gladwell has certainly whipped up something of a firestorm, at least among social media and network enthusiasts. In a sense, his timing couldn’t be better as this very morning IISC staff gathers with some very bright and committed network building thinkers and consultants to take our ongoing conversation about networks for social change the next step, with some practical application in our collective sights. I expect, and hope, that some of the energetic on-line conversation Gladwell has inspired in our community will continue during this in-person gathering.
|Photo by Vincepal|http://www.flickr.com/photos/vincepal/2806832762|
I recently did work with an organization that had approached us with an interest in designing a retreat during which staff would consider options for embracing climate action and environmental organizing strategies as part of their efforts moving forward. In one of our early planning calls, I asked how this new direction made sense given where the organization had historically focused its resources (affordable housing, open space advocacy, community beautification), and the response was a very thoughtful, “That’s a good question.” Furthermore, I asked if there was anything they were planning on letting go of. Again, pregnant pause and . . . “That’s a good question.” And so began a very fruitful conversation, the upshot of which was an opening segment of the retreat that focused on developing a coherent frame for the organization that could more easily and sensibly integrate climate and environmental work. Read More
Last week, IISC staff took a step back to consider what we had been referring to as the roots out of which our collaborative capacity building work grows (we have since wondered whether these may be more appropriately cast as “lenses,” but more on that at another time), and to come to some agreement about what is core to our practice in these imperfectly titled areas:
