Keep Calm
Tag Archive: trust
Networks and Power
I am just coming from a convening of the Northern New England Networks Community of Practice in Crawford Notch, New Hampshire. The theme of the gathering was “Power and Networks,” and very timely in that a few network building initiatives with which I am working are reaching a fever pitch in terms of working out issues of power and privilege. Borrowing from something my IISC colleague Cynthia Silva Parker has said in the past, while power is always at the table, now it’s on the table! And I wanted to share some of the gleanings from the overall session. Read More
3 CommentsWhat is Strategy
Photo provided by Alex Pelayo. Check out the rest of his amazing portfolio here!
This post is Part II in a series on Strategic Planning and Emergence.
It doesn’t make much sense to look at strategic planning without taking a look at what we mean by strategy. There doesn’t seem to be a clear consensus on what people mean when they use the word strategy. I like the way Thomas Rice, IISC’s founding board chair, talks about it here. Thomas stresses that strategy is about how you choose to deploy scarce resources in order to achieve your goals.
3 CommentsStrategy, Planning, Emergence
Photo provided by Alex Pelayo. Check out the rest of his amazing portfolio here!
I spend a lot of time figuring out how to work with emergence. You don’t plan emergence, you create the conditions for emergence. But how does that fit with strategy? How do you do strategic planning in a world that is too complex for straight lines and long timelines?
6 CommentsNetworks Building: No Small Change
|Photo by Paul Downey|http://www.flickr.com/photos/psd/3003392453|
In the past few weeks, I have heard some interesting and divergent comments about networks as they relate to social change. In one case, someone in philanthropy declared that the “network experiment” was over and it was “back to funding individual organizations.” In another case, I heard tremendous enthusiasm expressed relating to the “paramount importance of building trust and relationships” for change to happen. To the first – “No!” To the second – “Yes, and . . .”. We are still in the midst to waking up to the reality and potential of networks in our lives, present company very much included. Here is some of what we are seeing and hearing with respect to where network approaches and tools, at their best and very much with our intention, can take us. Read More
9 CommentsIts going to be Alright
Great Leaders Great Network
Being part of the design and facilitation team for the Barr Fellows Network has been some of the most rewarding work I get to do. It is rewarding because it is beautiful and because it works. I have witnessed lives change, approaches to leadership transformed. And I am getting to witness the effect of this work upon the city that I love. I hope you have the 90 seconds it will take for you to enjoy this video. You can read the original post here.
Leave a commentNetwork Balancing Acts
While doing some research on network evaluation techniques, I stumbled on a very helpful and interesting resource entitled “Network Evaluation: Cultivating Healthy Networks for Social Change” by Eli Malinsky and Chad Lubelsky (respectively for the Centre for Social Innovation and the Canada Millenium Scholarship Foundation). While it dates back to 2008 (5 years seeming like eons these days), the paper does a nice job of raising some of the inherent and necessary tensions and balancing acts of engaging in “net work.” I lifted a number of quotes from the paper as a preface to some thoughts about network value, which I laid out according to a framework that I developed (see above) using the work of Peter Plastrik and Madeleine Taylor in their seminal “Net Gains: A Handbook for Network Builders Seeking Social Change.”
Change is Hard
“Change is hard because people don’t only think on the surface level. Deep down people have mental maps of reality — embedded sets of assumptions, narratives and terms that organize thinking… People almost never change their underlying narratives or unconscious frameworks…”
This is David Brooks, focusing on the woes of a Republican Party that is struggling to reinvent itself. But the fact applies to all sorts of change.
Leave a commentA Decision Made
I made a decision not to worry.
Ever.
I began to understand that
it was a habit of my mind.
My heart doesn’t worry,
my body doesn’t worry,
only my head does.
I chose to establish a new habit
of consideration and trust—
trust that people are
tremendously resilient
and that the universe
could operate without
my constant nagging
interference.
~ Akaya Windwood
Leave a commentClinton on Creative Networks
I keep making references to Steven Johnson’s book, Future Perfect. That’s because I find it to be one of the best articulations of what has become possible in this networked world. I am seduced by the idea of peer progressivism.
I have long held the hypothesis that those of us who have committed our lives to social transformation should be able to find a significant competitive advantage in a world of networks. Our ethos should be one of sharing, one of working together, one of catalyzing our collective power. Our values resonate with what is possible today. But the time to step into this opportunity is right now – right as it is emerging.
Leave a commentOPEN Summit
I’ve been on a whirlwind. And it began with my facilitation of OPEN Summit. The first ever leadership gathering of the world’s leading Online Progressive Engagement Networks. Think MoveOn.org as replicated in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, Germany and Papua New Guinea. The great (and unbelievably sweet) Ben Brandzel had been dreaming this up for years!
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