"Come From the Heart"

By Curtis Ogden

Remember this old song? I don’t. But I heard Garnet Rogers doing a version the other day on WUMB. The timing was quite something, as I was in the car on my way to the office and my return from parental leave, trying to hold on to the reality of my situation. And it’s been on my mind as I get ready to embrace and ease into another transition (just remember, 40 is the new 30). Click here to listen to Guy Clark’s version.

When I was a young man my daddy told me
A lesson he learned, it was a long time ago
If you want to have someone to hold onto
You're gonna have to learn to let go

You got to sing like you don't need the money
Love like you'll never get hurt
You got to dance like nobody's watchin'
It's gotta come from the heart if you want it to work

Now here is the one thing that I keep forgetting
When everything is falling apart
In life as in love, what I need to remember
There's such a thing as trying too hard

You got to sing like you don't need the money
Love like you'll never get hurt
You got to dance like nobody's watchin'
It's gotta come from the heart if you want it to work

The words are simple, but their implications are profound. It seems so counter-intuitive to what may be a programmed survival instinct in our species, but letting go may be exactly where we need to go on many fronts. What about you, aspiring change agents? Anything you need to loosen your group on?

Democratized Creativity

By Melinda Weekes

“We have handed over the tools of creation.”

“We have democratized creativity to an extent that would have been unthinkable years ago.”

– James Boyle

Duke Law Professor and founder of Creative Commons, James Boyle, gives a talk at Google Zeitgeist 2008 on the subject of “Copyright and Openness”.

Boyle advocates that, given our penchant for closed, centralized, ways of handling content, we need re-wire ourselves towards open, decentralized forms and norms when dealing with creative content.

Gend Leonard takes this theoretical framework and makes it practical it in his talk, “Getting Attention 2.0”. Presented to the Scottish Audience Development Forum in October 2008, Leonard outlines several savvy tactics artists [and all content creators] can use to share their content for free, while cultivating big numbers of loyal listeners/followers....while still making money.

Artists And Audiences In A Connected World Gerd Leonhard Futurist

View more documents from Gerd Leonhard.

Viewing these presentations conjured in me a yearning for a past professional love: the fields of entertainment law and intellectual property. In fact, an urge overtook me that hadn’t felt in years: the urge to research case law. I found a recent copyright infringement suit brought by a training/consultant firm against some of its former trainers who had started their own training operation and had developed a training manual with content that is the subject of the suit. In a future post, I’ll break down the very interesting judicial analysis here and elsewhere that bring to bear directly on some of the issues we face as an organization, as creators, and as a sector, but for now, I ask:

• What are your fears as it relates to this push towards openness, opensource and creative common licenses?
• What do you think you (as an individual) or we (training orgs, NPOs) would actually be doing differently if copyright ownership, say, of our training materials, were not an issue in our work?

Im going out on a limb here to say that its my belief that I think our organizational perceptions of barriers we face (to product development, open source licensing, economic viability) exceed the reality. To sort this out, I’m motivated to put on my legal eagle hat in earnest to assess the gap been common perception and our business reality. In this way, your thoughts will provide me with a better sense of what we’re feeling, what we know, and what we want. I’ll use them as the starting points for my inquiry and adventure into an area of past (and just revived!) passion.

Prove of Improve?

By Curtis Ogden

Last week I had the privilege of co-delivering a workshop on collaboration and effective teams to this year’s crop of New Leaders for New Schools Residents as part of their Summer Foundations experience. These principals-to-be give one hope for the future of urban education in this country.

Prior to our two days of delivery, I heard Jeff Howard of the Efficacy Institute deliver a presentation to the Residents on the difference between what he called a “performance orientation” and a “learning orientation.” Howard’s claim is that schools often fail when they overemphasize student and staff performance at the expense of learning, and his message to the future school leaders was that they needed to think hard about what is most important as a long-term goal for the people in their building.

Among other things, shifting from a performance to a learning orientation means shifting from:

 a focus on the outcome to a focus on the process to an outcome;
 the belief that error indicates failure and limitation to seeing it as a valuable feedback mechanism for improvement;
 seeing uncertainty as threatening to welcoming it as a challenge;
 seeing the role of authority as that of judge to seeing it as one of being a guide.

Howard also suggests that a performance orientation can often be accompanied by the unfortunate tendency to see talent as given rather than ultimately developed.

I would dare say that it is not only our schools that suffer from an overemphasis on performance. Many organizations seem to fall victim (in practice) to the belief that leaders are born, success is purely predicated upon outcomes, and that tight control is the best way of operating. Not so surprising if this is the way we are being educated. What happens to learning and innovation under these conditions? If we are busy trying to prove ourselves, does this ultimately come at the expense of improving our communities and world?

Mind Over Laundry

By Curtis Ogden

In her analysis of leverage points to intervene in a system, the late Donella Meadows highlighted mindsets as one of the most fundamental levels on which to focus if one is hoping to make deep and long-lasting change. The case for this is well made in a recent article in Mass Audubon’s Sanctuary Magazine.

Katherine Scott writes in “The Wind in the Wash” about the lost art of the clothesline in America, largely obscured by the now ubiquitous clothes dryer. In this day and age, notes Scott, many children haven’t the remotest idea of what a clothespin is. She is not simply waxing nostalgic, but making an important point about the way we think.

Today clothes dryers can account for upwards of a third of household energy use in the United States, and are therefore significant producers of carbon emissions. Scott remarks that in many other countries around the world, air drying is the more common practice. In Australia and New Zealand, for example, some 90% of households air out their laundry. This is not a matter of whether one lives in warm weather or not; clothes dry effectively in cold weather, as is attested to by year round air drying around Europe.

While technology is advancing to make more efficient clothes dryers, nothing holds a candle to air drying. It’s cheaper (no purchasing or maintenance costs for a machine), less toxic (no exposure to synthetic softeners), easier on clothes, and safer (no risk of fire through the ignition of lint). So what’s up? Turns out that throughout the US, there are numerous community ordinances that prohibit the outdoor hanging of clothes. Doing so is in some cases viewed as “a flag of poverty” that lowers real estate values. So clearly there is something in the way we think that keeps us dependent upon our dryers. While some might point to the issue of convenience, it seems that this too is rooted in our perceptions, in our mindsets about how much we have to do, how productive we have to be, and what one may or may not derive from a practice as mundane or perhaps sublime as ceremoniously hanging garments to blow in the wind.

Check out some hopeful developments on this front in Vermont . . .

This I Believe

By Curtis Ogden

In the 1950s journalist Edward R. Murrow hosted a radio program called This I Believe, in which he invited people from all walks of life to share their personal philosophies. Fifty years later, Dan Gediman revived the show on National Public Radio with the goal of “encouraging people to begin the . . . difficult task of developing respect for beliefs different from their own.” The result has been a growing movement of communities and schools jumping at the opportunity to invite citizens and students to articulate their core beliefs and values, and to align their lives accordingly. For a taste (actually a glimpse and/or listen), check out this link.

In the second published book of collected personal philosophies, This I Believe II. Gedimen includes an invitation to and guidelines for those who care to try their hand at articulating what they fundamentally believe, stating that the “transformative” benefits are not always readily apparent until doing so. I find his guidance for essay writing to be particularly helpful, touching on ways that we (or perhaps I should say “I”) might more powerfully express myself and connect with others in the process:

Tell a story: Be specific. Take your belief out of the ether and ground it in the events of your life. Consider moments when belief was formed or tested or changed. Think of your own experience, work, and family, and tell of the things you know that no one else does.

Be brief: Your statement should be between 350 and 500 words. The shorter length forces you to focus on the belief that is central to your life.

Be affirmative: Say what you do believe, not what you don't believe. Avoid speaking in the editorial "we." Make your essay about you; speak in the first person. Avoid preaching or editorializing.

Be personal: Write in words and phrases that are comfortable for you to speak. Read your essay aloud to yourself several times, and each time edit it and simplify it until you find the words, tone, and story that truly echo your belief and the way you speak.

Seems to me that these are great guidelines for our work helping groups and organizations discover and express their core identity, define their higher purpose, and collectively live out their values. And you?

Our Bodies Carry Our History With Us

By Melinda Weekes



One of the benefits Ive experienced in our social change work as process experts and professional facilitators, is the exposure we get to have in various fields of social change work. Since last October, my colleague Andrea and I have had the pleasure of consulting with an amazing collaborative of stakeholders, the Springfield Health Equity Initiative, who have determined to build a plan to reduce the incidence of diabetes in the black and brown neighborhoods in the city of Springfield, MA. Even more boldly, these dedicated and thoughtful leaders have also chosen to take up an analysis for their work that incorporates how systemic, government sanctioned, racial discrimination has played a direct role in creating the egregious disparities in health outcomes we see today among black and brown folk in the U.S., and regardless of class.

I have learned so much. About diabetes. About social determinants of health. About the inextricable link between personal wealth and personal health. Its made me, personally, look with more intentionality to my own family history, health maintenance, and sadly, about how it is that I too carry in my own mind, body and spirit the affects of stress, strain, pain and struggle that is due to reacting to and surviving though racism, racist practices and its ugly remnants. Whats bad is that I dont know what its like to not live in this reality. What's worse is that while I am conscious of occasions and senarious that make for my racism-stress, there is that which does not even register with my head or heart, yet still takes up residence in my body in some way, shape or form. Such reflection has made for a poignant and sobering personal subtext to the inspiring and pioneering work of the fine and committed souls we've met who refuse to relent to daunting statistics and blatant injustices that plague their -- our -- families, neighbors, children, and communities. And, of course, there is also the context of the national political conversation around finally get universal health care, and the recent activity in our own state that jeopardizes healthcare coverage for low-income legal immigrants.

In graduate school, I took a class, Vocal Performance for the Stage, with a dynamo of an instructor, who also taught us that our bodies really do store every single emotion and psychological bruise of our past. I recalled how amazed I was at that idea when I heard the similar statement made by one of the expert in this video: "Our bodies carry our history with us". She was making the same point my instructor was making in voice class,, but emphasizing the social-histories we also carry within us.

Sure, I've made goals with Fall-due dates designed to help me stave off the hypertension that runs in my family (D.A.S.H. diet, lose 10 lbs., exercise 3x week). But Im wondering, for all of us: whats the anecdote for unwanted history that somehow resides in our bodies? Do answers about history lie in the notion of power of re-story, and narrative...re- incarnating?. I think of the violence perpetrated upon black bodies through slavery. I think of the dehumanizing body images and stereotypes perpetuated about black folk ever since.

So, I ask, in the context of considering processes for social transformation, while we often engage in processes to re-imagine and re-vision the future, what might be the healing, revolutionary, psycho-social justice work of re-membering our bodies? Of deconstructing or defeating past hurts, injustices, infractions...if that is even possible?

I know....a blog isnt supposed to be this deep.

But then again, the work of social transformation wouldnt have to be so deeply messy if the injustices we seek to transform and transcend were not themselves so vile, unpleasant, de-humanizing, perverted.

What do you think? How best do you perform your body work? Your body work related to social justice? Your body work related to undoing racism? What does/might it entail? How do you assess what parts need tending? What is the mind-body-spirit connection strategy that is directly targeted to combat injustice? Is this work for all, or just work for some?

Daddy's Back

By Curtis Ogden

Next week I return to work after three blissful weeks of parental leave. Well, perhaps I should say three very full weeks (I’m not sure that nights with little sleep and days filled with constantly changing diapers constitute bliss). I am forever grateful to the Interaction Institute for Social Change for having such a humane parental leave policy, for a father no less. This is certainly not the standard in this country.

The flip side of my gratitude is the sadness that comes from needing to leave my two infant girls, and to leave my wife with her hands full. It is certainly much more than a full time job to raise three children, and considerably more to do it well. And I am sad to think of all the parents in this country who do not have anything approaching the kind of benefit we have at IISC, and hopeful that efforts to enact some kind of federal legislation will be successful.

In recent interviews with candidates to be a “mother’s helper” to support my wife Emily once I am back at work, we talked with a Brazilian woman who looked at Em mid-way through our conversation and said, “You American women are my heroes. You try to do everything. It’s too much.” That said a lot. We certainly seem to value productivity in this country, at times at the expense of our own health and that of our children. Often during conversations I’ve had with people of retirement age (meaning my parents’ generation) they will comment that they cannot imagine trying to raise kids in this day and age - it’s too expensive, the expectations are too high, we know/think too much about what could possibly go wrong. Above all, there is a common sentiment that there just seems to be less regard for the job of parenting. About this I feel the greatest sadness of all, and a resolve to do what I can to shift things.

As I get ready to get back in the saddle, I know I will be a different man when I return, a parent for the second (and third) time, and someone who now more than ever knows that the priority for me is family. And so I am committed to carrying the spirits of my little girls with me, to guide me in the work that needs to be done and that supports my family in the fullest way. And I am eager to hear suggestions and reactions from others about how to strike the balance. What is the connection between our efforts to make social change and a parent/child/family (however that might be defined)-supportive culture?

Design for a Living World

By Curtis Ogden

"Ecological design competence means maximizing resource and energy efficiency, taking advantage of the free services of nature, recycling wastes, making ecologically smarter things, and educating ecologically smarter people. It means incorporating intelligence about how nature works . . . into the way we think, design, build, and live." -David Orr

The Nature Conservancy's “Design for a Living World” Exhibition, which recently opened (May 14th) at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, features ten designers exploring the relationship between the natural world and the products we use. Each designer was asked to develop new uses for sustainably grown and harvested materials and the results are quite beautiful in a number of different ways.



I find the idea of designing for a living (or livable) world to be a powerful invitation for those of us engaged in creating experiences to bring out the best in others (innovation, collaboration). I hear the call to be mindful and respectful of the cultural and ecological contexts in which I find myself, to work with (not against) the surrounding social/natural environment, and to think in restorative (as opposed to extractive) ways. As David Orr, environmental philosopher and author of The Nature of Design, suggests, sustainable design is all about creating harmony between intentions and “the genius of particular places” (we might add particular people). The standard for Orr is not so much efficiency or productivity, but health. So here’s to ours, fellow designers.

Generation G

By Curtis Ogden

In the final chapter of What Would Google Do?, Jeff Jarvis makes a provocative statement about the future and promise of a networked world. Many of the points Jarvis makes appear to turn things on their head, at least compared to the way that many of us might first react to developments in our ever more densely connected and information-rich world.

A few things to ponder:

1. This current generation is growing up with an ability to stay in touch with nearly everyone they meet throughout their entire lives. Whereas those of us who grew up pre-Facebook may have lost track of old childhood friends and college buddies, this generation has the possibility of always being more directly in touch with the different chapters of their lives. Scary? This seems profound to me, and yet I don’t really know exactly how. What might this do to the very nature of relationship?

2. The flip side of TMI (too much information) is greater transparency. Young people are putting so much more of themselves and their lives out for public consideration. Often this gets construed as risky and/or a kind of exhibitionism. However, if more people are playing the same game, then perhaps the rules will enforce greater overall acceptance and safety of full and liberating self-expression. Jarvis quotes author David Weinberger (who was quoted by blogger Lisa Williams - and so it goes in a twitterific world) - “An age of transparency must be an age of forgiveness.” Wow.

3. And what about all of that apparently inane information that people share about their bunions or the mold growing on the bathroom tile? Well, how about the benefit of “ambient intimacy” (Jarvis quoting blogger Leisa Reichelt, swapping the small details of our daily lives? This may just help us to develop stronger relationships as we come to know more about people who would otherwise be just acquaintances, or grease the wheels for the next time we physically see one another or talk by phone (less catch up time).

Throughout these and multiple other points, Jarvis seems to be suggesting that more integrated lives and more widespread trust are a result of living in the Google age. Given that collaboration thrives on trust, and that collaboration may be our saving grace as a species (see Charles Darwin and my post “The Group Effect," shouldn’t we all be striving to be fully exposed and (wireless) card carrying members of Generation G?

Heart and Soul

By Curtis Ogden

"The destiny of the world is determined less by the battles that are lost and won than by the stories it loves and believes in."

—Harold Goddard

As current President and CEO of the Orton Family Foundation Bill Roper tells the story, a couple of decades ago Lyman Orton, proprietor of the Vermont Country Store, was involved in local town planning efforts in Weston, Vermont. In the 1980s, at a time when the state was experiencing a building boom due to the rise of second home ownership, Weston and other small towns found themselves struggling to preserve their unique character while continuing to grow and embrace change. The local town planning commission in Weston, of which Orton was a member, discovered that it was ill equipped to address existing zoning restrictions and bylaws, which left town members powerless around policies that affected land use in their community. The frustration of this experience spurred the creation of the Orton Family Foundation, which began supporting small towns by providing resources, including user-friendly GIS mapping and visualization tools, to citizens to help them envision and ultimately have a say in their communities’ future.


Under Bill Roper’s leadership, the Orton Family Foundation places a particular emphasis on helping towns identify and protect the essence of their community through the collection of shared stories. Like all of the work of the Foundation, efforts have been made to make planning accessible to non-planner types. To this end, language is everything. Roper and his staff avoid jargon by asking residents simply (but profoundly) to identify the "heart and soul" of their community. As they say on their website, “Traditional quantitative approaches use important data about demographic and economic shifts, traffic counts and infrastructure needs, but frequently fail to account for the particular ways people relate to their physical surroundings and ignore or discount the intangibles—shared values, beliefs and quirky customs—that make community. . . . Furthermore, a collection of quantifiable attributes without an understanding of shared values and a sense of purpose does not motivate citizens to show up and make tough, consistent decisions.” In other words, when it comes downs to it, it’s about people.


Time and again, this revelation comes up in various policy debates where experts come together and more often than not leave out the people who are most impacted by (and who have much to offer) their decisions. We know the devastating impact this can have, and yet it continues. In a recent blog post, Dave Snowden rails against obsessions with outcomes measurement when it comes to government efforts to reform social services in the UK, saying that they continue to look for fail safe, quantifiable, and expert-driven solutions to problems that are much too complex to lend themselves to expertly engineered solutions. He makes a case for greater involvement of the system (including everyday citizens) and the use of narrative to understand the dynamics of and ways of working with the system. With the Orton Foundation example, we might add the importance of using language that invites broader and deeper engagement. This is about creating space for people to share their own experiences and perspectives, allowing not only for the relevance of these stories, but their power to shape something new.

How might we do more of this in our work, to make room not just for the sharing of facts and figures, but stories? And what are the stories we are telling ourselves that are shaping our worlds?

The Group Effect

By Curtis Ogden

I keep returning to the cover article of the New York Times Magazine of a few weeks ago entitled “Why Isn’t the Brain Green?” Other than being a fascinating piece on what might prevent people from getting into a more environmentally sustainable mindset (and therefore sustained sustainable behavior), it makes a very strong case for collaboration as a smart (and potentially species saving) decision-making process.

Author Jon Gertner has spent considerable time with behavioral economists, looking at the limits of individual decision-making when it comes to long-term trade-offs. For example, researchers at the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University have pointed to the shortcomings of two different ways individuals process risk: (1) an analytical approach that seems to have less tolerance for delayed benefits and (2) an emotional approach that is restricted by one’s lack of experience with certain phenomena (such as rising sea levels). Both approaches disincline individuals from making choices that have short-term costs (reduced consumption, paying a carbon tax) but may ultimately be better for the planet. Hence, say some decision scientists, the tragedy of the commons - the overgrazing of land, the depletion of fisheries, the amassing of CO₂ in the atmosphere.

Just when Gertner is ready to say, “We’re screwed,” he points to other research that suggests that an answer to our individual failings on the front of risk assessment may lie in our associational tendencies and community-based intelligence. For instance, Michel Handgraaf has conducted studies in Amsterdam that show that when people make decisions as a group, their conversations gravitate more to considerations of “we” and delayed benefits. Similarly, anthropologist Ben Orlove at UC-Davis has studied farmers in Uganda and observed that when they listened to rainy season radio broadcasts in groups, rather than as individuals, they engaged in discussions that led to consensus decisions that made better use of forecasts - collectively altering planting dates or using more drought resistant seeds.

In other words, it may behoove us all to collaborate more, and with a twist. Evidence suggests that it is best to begin thinking through decisions in groups, rather than weighing them as individuals and then coming together. This just might get us more quickly to the “group effect,” to a collective identity and ability to think and act long-term. As Jon Gertner puts it, “What if the information for decisions, especially environmental ones, is first considered in a group setting before members take it up individually?”

What if? Why not? How to? What say you?

Without Form, and Void

By Melinda Weekes

During my first year of seminary, I took a Practice of Ministry class in which a series of guest lecturers came to share of their practical experiences from several years in the pastorate. One speaker, whose words I will never forget, was the Rev. Conly Hughes, Jr. of Boston’s Concord Baptist Church. His words of wisdom for a group of neophytes were to illuminate the importance of the pastor’s “ministry of presence”, coupled with her “ministry of absence”. He shared that while it is vital for any conscientious pastor to shepherd in such a way as to be visibly attentive to the day to day, mundane, core issues affecting a community of faith, it is also key that the pastor keeps watch so that her consistency of “presence” does not overwhelm, overpower, nor overbear in a way that stifles the leadership of others, hampers the community’s exercise of agency or which, frankly, allows her to be taken for granted by the people. (At least that’s how I remember the insights I gained from Rev. Hughes’ wise words).

Fast forward: a few years ago, when upon familiarizing myself with Interaction Associates’/Institute’s facilitation methodology, I came across the principle of “Balancing Form and Void”: Creating "Form" is providing participants with a framework or approach for moving toward achieving the desired outcomes. Creating "Void" means stepping back and allowing for open space in the room, both verbally and physically. I immediately noticed the reference to the Biblical text, which comes from the first Creation narrative in the Book of Genesis:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was[a] on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (NKJV)

As is often the case for me with what I believe to be a Living Text, I gleaned a new insight into its meaning, informed by these pastoral and facilitation contexts: Void – or open space, if you will – as a precursor for even God’s most creative, most productive, most awesome works to…(yep, the “E”-word): emerge.

And so, whether it’s the virtues and vices of “presence”/“absence” in ministry, or the balancing act of any good facilitator vis a vis the “form” and “void” of group processes, I am thinking a lot these days about what this has to do with leadership effectiveness, blind spots (i.e., our ability to discern between what the moment/season/organizational growth cycle calls for), and its connection to organizational possibility, potential, and re-creation.

Co-creators, please --- enLighten my world.

The Other Side of Complexity

By Curtis Ogden

Last week I had the privilege of working with my colleague Daryl Campbell in offering IISC’s Pathway to Change workshop for the first time to the general public. Overall it was a very positive experience, and seemed to confirm our suspicions that the course is timely given the growing demand and desire for working collaboratively. That said, as we were wrapping up we heard a few comments that are not so unfamiliar. “This is wonderful, it’s just what we need, and it’s a lot!” “There’s so much to absorb. I need time to sort it out.” There were a few suggestions to slow down the pace next time, or to space out the days to give time for both absorption and application. At the same time, people recognized that the three consecutive days had a certain power and punch to them, both with respect to connecting content and creating community in the room.

Sitting with this conundrum, it occurred to me that it just may be unavoidable. As we like to say, it’s important to meet complexity with complexity. What we were addressing in the room was the need to work with complex social and environmental issues by bringing more people and ideas to the table, with a variety of tools at one’s disposal. Indeed, it is a lot to take in and apply. And the point certainly is not to overwhelm folk, but rather to help them eventually reach what our colleague Cynthia Parker calls “the simplicity the other side of complexity.” In other words, there is necessary work and wrestling to be done before reaching mastery.

That said, I made an effort in the workshop before we closed to offer some consoling words. Underlying all of the various concepts and tools we discussed, there seem to be a few core ideas for guiding one’s work as an effective collaborative leader/change agent:

1. Awareness – Everything we talked about pointed to the need to be attentive to the various situations we face as well as our own interior condition. Being aware of what circumstances might call for and not acting on impulse are critical steps in helping to ensure that we are more “in tune” with reality.

2. Intention – Another theme that emerges is the importance of acting with some forethought, being plan-full in light of the unique situations in which we find ourselves. The basic idea is that we act as an extension of our awareness.

3. Balance – Collaboration is not about working with everyone all the time or only working through consensus. It comes down to balance – knowing when to make more unilateral decisions and when to be more inclusive; holding results, process, and relationship in dynamic tension as dimensions of collaborative success. Problems arise not so much when we make a wrong call (which we can correct) but when we make the same call over and over again.

4. Wisdom – It is important to remember that the models we teach are based on practice. Somewhere, someone was doing something effectively and the models capture this success. In a sense, there is something very intuitive about what we teach, and so as important as learning the skills may be, there is also work to be done around getting in touch with our inner knowing, and grounding all of our actions in an ethic of service, authenticity and love.

Where is the Wildness?

By Curtis Ogden

“Shhh! What was that?!” I barely heard my wife over my concentrated efforts to keep my marshmallow from falling into the fire. “Curtis! Did you hear that? Something’s out there!” I looked in Em’s silhouetted direction and saw that she, my daughter Annabel, and my mother-in-law were all peering into the darkness and at the bushes on the edge of the pond. “What is it, Daddy?” Annabel asked. I got to my feet, grabbed a flashlight and slowly walked towards the now clearly audible rustling, my daughter right behind me. “There it is!” I heard someone say. I saw it too. I gradually moved the light onto the shadow moving across our line of view, and had the glint of two beady eyes return the beam. Annabel’s hands clenched my calf. “A porcupine!” A very big slow moving porcupine. After a few seconds’ stare-down, the creature turned and went lumbering into the woods and out of view. “That was cool!” cried Annabel, still clutching my leg.

Cool indeed. An adrenaline rush, a mystery uncovered, a dramatic stand-off. Everything any child, or adult, might want on an excursion to the woods. Our weekend in Vermont was filled with moments of exciting encounter like that, from having tussling and territorial woodpeckers dart over our heads, to finding crayfish under rocks, to hearing and deciphering the distant whistle of a black bear; much of this done in bare feet (or sandals), with dirt under our fingernails. I find our forays into the wilderness to be liberating and invigorating, and as much about wildness as wilderness. In the North Country I feel certain veils drop, inhibitions lift, and an inner aliveness bubble up. I see this palpably in my daughter, and it makes me long for more of this in my life overall.

Wildness is something that often gets cast as chaotic and “uncultured." And yet I know from experience that it can be a gateway to something wonderful and powerful. I think about those times when, as a trainer or speaker, I have been unleashed, more uncontrolled and less measured, when unbridled passion took hold. I think about the impact that this has had on me and those around me. As scary as it can be to let go, these moments have given me a glimpse of something profound and true that may be overlooked in a more buttoned up existence. And so I’ve been thinking about bringing more Vermont to Cambridge.

What would it mean to be wild in the work we do? What would this look like and what might it achieve? For a humorous peek at a possible answer, check out professor and nature writer David Gessner’s “transformative” performance . . .

The Golden Hour

By Curtis Ogden

Last week Melinda and I had one of those experiences where everything seemed to come together. We were in Farmington, Connecticut with grantees of the Graustein Memorial Fund’s Discovery Initiative, training them in collaborative leadership techniques for their community-based work around improving early childhood education and care. For starters, the group was remarkable. The chemistry of those that came together from around the state was what any trainer or participant dreams of, and the shared passion for and commitment to their work was nothing short of inspiring. Beyond that, Melinda and I just seemed to be on our game, pulling from a wide range of tools with a well-coordinated readiness to go as deep as the group seemed willing to go. Collectively we created a space that filled gradually with rich learning, self-revelation, strong connection, and things that are still difficult to articulate. It was the kind of session that people left saying, quite literally, “I am different than when I arrived.”

Later as Melinda and I were driving back home on Friday evening, still savoring those three days, we turned a corner on the Mass Pike, and the city of Boston leapt up to greet us. It was around 7:30, the end of a beautiful clear spring day, and the sun was in such a position that it illuminated everything in a rosy hue and accentuated every nook and cranny, making buildings seem almost more than three dimensional. I have always loved that time of day, when the world becomes softer and more vibrant. Come to find out from Melinda that there is actually a name for this in photographic circles - “the golden hour” - the first and last hour of sunlight during which the sun’s rays travel obliquely through the atmosphere, lending indirect radiance and enhanced color to whatever they touch.

Reflecting back on our time in Farmington, I find this concept of the golden hour to be an apt lens through which to view our experience. I walk into most trainings wanting to create a space where people can “go deep” beyond simple skills acquisition. Of course, this does not always happen, or to the degree that I wished. And yet I know I can’t force the issue. To me there is power in coming at the less tangible (i.e. softer) aspects of collaboration and leadership obliquely. By leading with and offering practical skills, and then grounding this offering in a demonstrated quality of presence, trainers create fertile space for depth, should participants choose to go there. Shining the light too directly on emotional or spiritual elements can risk overexposure (to run with this photographic metaphor) and having folk turn away. In my experience, subtlety is often the key to helping bring out radiance from and accentuating the presence of others. This is in a sense keeping with the quote attributed to St. Francis that suggests that the most powerful sermons are spoken in deed not words, through example and not exhortation.

And I am curious to hear others' thoughts and experiences. What have been the keys to your “golden hours”?

Decentralization and Human Development

I have been a zealous (some would say over-zealous!) proponent of networks and the application of network theory to the work of social change. I have been pushing and working for a radical rethink of our very approach to social transformation. I believe we have to move away from a model that is organization-centric into a mission-based model that maximizes the potential of decentralization. My vision calls for an approach that creates the conditions for the emergence of ideas, opportunities and formations that we could not have been imagined through our visioning and strategic planning efforts.

I am still a believer, and I’m probably still a zealot, I still see the ways in which an unbelievable wealth of passion, conviction, dedication and self motivation is wasted away, trapped by organizational structures that constrain this energy rather than liberate it. However, I have also been delving into a multiplicity of frameworks and studies addressing human development and it is increasingly evident that we are all at different stages of development. Being an adult does not always mean one has advanced through every stage of development and so not everyone can work with the same layers of complexity.

Now, I am clearly aware that I’m delving into dangerous territory, and I have no intention of getting into “who decides who is how developed,” but I will be bold enough to agree with the proposition that human beings evolve through a set of developmental stages, that these stages allow us to deal with greater and greater levels of complexity, and that we are not all at the same developmental stage. This is an important insight for someone working to shift organizational structures. It is possible that the more idealized decentralized models we are looking at might actually be making an idealized assumption about the developmental levels of the human beings involved.

However, rather than pulling back from this push forward along the paradigm shift, I think that what is important is that we understand that such developmental dynamics are always at play. Accounting for this layer of complexity does not mean that we move away from facilitating decentralized, self-organizing systems, it means than in fomenting this next phase of social movement we also seek to create the conditions for developmental progress among the human beings involved. Our job is not to assume that some people just can’t shift, but to understand how certain organizational parameters can support our evolution while liberating our will to create change.

When Theory Met Practice

By Curtis Ogden

A colleague and I recently met with staff of a client organization to discuss their interest in crafting a regional “partnership” strategy. Leading up the meeting there had been some discussion with folk about what it would mean to bring a network lens to their work, to perhaps approach this as a “network building” opportunity. Needless to say we were excited and came ready to dive deeply into the conversation.

My colleague and I decided it would be best to “start where the people are” and hear what their interest was in a partnership approach, how this had come about, and how they saw it as different than what they had been doing up until now. There was some very interesting discussion about the need and desire to break out of silos, change from being project-focused to creating more of a coordinated continuum of services, and develop stronger relationships among stakeholders in each of the regions in question.

Then the time came to pop the question – “What about networks? How do these fit into your work?” I was invited to say a few general comments about network theory and network building and how this might be different than general collaboration/partnerships/coalition building. On the heels of my brief presentation, there ensued commentary that is coming to be a bit of a refrain. “I still don’t understand how network building is different than what we are trying to do in terms of partnering.” “I’m not sure how we fit our work into that theory.” In some instances, there was palpable consternation expressed along with these comments – “Frankly, that just makes it all the more confusing for me.”

Okay, I said, let’s stop right there. If we are working too hard to fit our efforts into network theory or bending our brains too much to understand how networks are different than other kinds of collaboration, then we may not be headed in a very productive direction. I decided to add simply that partnerships have a lot in common with networks, that they may in fact be networks of a sort. The only caution is that partnerships can be overly deterministic in terms of who is in and who is out and how things get done, which might not move the needle as much as we hoped. If network theory can offer anything, it is the suggestion that we not make our partnerships too much like business as usual with the usual suspects. It might be of some benefit to hold space open for new ideas to emerge and make efforts to reach out to those to whom we might not otherwise engage.

To these comments, all heads around the table nodded. Brows unfurrowed. And we moved on. With each of these kinds of conversations I realize that we are all truly where we are. I am also reminded that practice often makes a more powerful lead than theory. The two must, of course, dance together, but the real star is what we make happen in the world. So I say, let’s not wait until we get it right, because there is no such thing. Let’s just remain open as we go, because there’s life in that.

"Pre-Planning" or "Readiness"

We were in a learning session the other day and I was amused when I heard Marianne Hughes, our Executive Director at the Interaction Institute for Social Change, refer to “back when it was still ok to talk about planning…” I appreciated her currency in the field, as well as the decades of experience she is able to bring to the table. Marianne was talking about how important it was to apply a “pre-planning phase” to any organizational change process. What I specially appreciated was her call for an equivalent moment in group process as we are coming to understand it today, what she called a “readiness” phase.

What is important here is that as paradigms shift we are not just playing around with language but we are actually learning to look at the world with an entirely different lens. I forget who it was that said “strategic planning is obsolete, what we need is strategic thinking.” This to me is a lot like what Marianne was saying, understanding the state of a group that is clamoring for change is not exactly pre-planning, it is actually testing for readiness. When I hear “pre-planning” I get right into linear thinking, and it feels like linear thinking is actually a limitation for groups that want to deal with complexity.

“Readiness” on the other hand seems to be testing for something else. In my experience, testing for readiness must include the skillful probing into a group’s interest or capacity to engage an “adaptive challenge.” And here I’m using the language of Ron Heifetz and Marty Linsky who skillfully make the distinction between technical problems and those challenges that demand a shift at the level of values, beliefs and assumptions. It seems to me that a “pre-planning phase” can serve to solve a technical problem, but an adaptive challenge demands organizational readiness.

One of my key learning edge questions is found somewhere around here. I have a core interest in helping people and groups of people shift out of what I call the “dominant-and-dying paradigm” into what I see as the “emergent paradigm.” I am passionate about this specifically because the dominant paradigm has calcified while this emergent paradigm seems to have potentially liberating attributes. Certainly there is much more to explore here, but I’m currently highlighting a key question – how do we test for readiness?

How do we know a group is ready to make a shift at the level of values, beliefs and assumptions?

And if a group is not ready, is there any way we can help?

Any ideas?

What's Hope Got to Do With It?

By Curtis Ogden

Former (and first) President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel tells a little story that may provide a little guidance in these times. In 1989, only a few months before he completed an incredible journey from prisoner to president of his country, Havel found himself in a dire situation. The dissident poet and playwright turned politician, who had risked his life numerous times in the fight against communism, was walking with a friend in the countryside outside of Prague. In the near total darkness, he suddenly fell into a hole, a deep pit surrounded by cement walls - a sewer. Disoriented and covered in muck, Havel tried to move but this only made him sink more deeply. His friend above was joined by a number of people who gathered around the rim of the hole and tried frantically to rescue Havel. It was only after someone managed to find and lower a long ladder, nearly thirty minutes later, that Havel was saved from an untimely and messy ending.

From this freak accident, Havel climbed not just to dry land, but to the presidency, a truly amazing turn of events. Having lived through a number of seemingly hopeless circumstances, Havel continues to be a profoundly hopeful man. He sees hope as a state of mind that most often does not reflect the state of the world. Hope for him emerges out of the muck of absurdity, cruelty, and suffering, and reaches not for the solid ground of what is certain, but for what is meaningful, for what fundamentally makes sense. Hope, in his view, is not the same as optimism. It’s not the belief that something will ultimately work out, but that it feels true in a very essential way, beyond what is relayed in headlines, opinion polls, and prognostications.

Obviously we are now faced with circumstances that demand some faith on all of our parts. With the uncertainty of a volatile economy and a swirl of other forces, there is plenty to be pessimistic about. And if we consider Havel’s story, the antidote is not to be optimistic in the sense of desperately looking for something that tells us everything will be alright or return to being as it was. Rather, the more powerful response comes from within and attaches itself to what most deeply motivates us, what tastes most like truth. Peter Forbes of the Center for Whole Communities has said that, “New culture is formed by people who are not afraid of being insecure.” That may be the promise of this slowdown, if we can quiet the chatter, avoid panic and attune ourselves to what is waiting to grow out of the cracks in the foundation. The question is, in following those roots, how deep are we willing to go?

T'shaka goes All-Star

My work with www.thegatheringforjustice.org is about as inspiring as work can get. I am working with a bold and committed Design Team that has been carefully crafting the next leadership convening of the organization – the purpose: decentralize to build movement. During our last Design Team meeting my thoughts were particularly provoked by one of T’shaka’s (http://www.burnsinstitute.org/) sports analogies.

People have fun with sports, they look forward to the game, their aim is to excel, and they are celebrated for their work. By comparison, this work for social change too often feels like a drag to those who devote their life to it, meetings are more of a pain, we tend to hate on our teammates and mediocrity is often the norm.

Now, T’shaka is not into the “touchy feely” stuff, his structural analysis is as sharp as it gets, and he is consistently concerned with what it is the work looks like when the “rubber hits the road.” But even from this perspective T’shaka was able to name the importance of an attitudinal shift and how important it is for us to check how it is we approach the work. Underfunded and overworked, raging at injustice and at structures that keep us stuck (from policy to the 501(c)3), it is understandably challenging to keep our spirits up, even when our commitment is strong.

“How do we go all-star?” he asks. How do we make sure that a meeting is good by virtue of our being there? How do we honor ourselves for the work that we do? And how do we work to excel?

I am passionate about my work, it certainly is my life’s purpose, and I want to be the best at it. Most of my work is about re-inventing our work, about reimagining how we are do this social transformation thing, about creating spaces that are life-giving and not depleting, about unlocking the sense of purpose that got us on this track in the first place.

This is probably the reason why I am noticing more and more that my networks in both the physical and virtual worlds are self-organized in such a way that people are more able to transcend our organizational constraints. More and more of us are coming together to serve our purpose, support one another and excel at the work of reinventing the work. We have all-stars coming up, and my friend T’shaka is one of them – we mean to play a whole new game.

My Twitter Top 10

By Curtis Ogden

While I have not yet gotten to the point in the relationship where I am comfortable using the word “love,” there is plenty for me to like about Twitter. And so to the ever growing number of top 10 lists and reasons to tweet, here is my contribution:

1. Twitter raises the fine art of followership to the level of leadership.
2. In following some of my favorite thinkers and writers, I have come to see these folk as real people and in ways that make them (and their ideas) more accessible.
3. It is a great way to find great ideas in unexpected places.
4. It is a wonderful medium for quickly checking resonance with an idea.
5. It forces me to be succinct and focus on the nugget of value I want to convey.
6. It forces others to be succinct and focus on the nugget of value they want to convey.
7. It is easy to connect people and ideas, bridging boundaries and jumping networks.
8. The links, oh, the links.
9. It is a cool tool for starting conversations, or continuing them, before and after a physical convening.
10. It speaks to the power of collaboration, and “the survival of the knittest” (thank you, Melinda Weekes).

Holding On

By Curtis Ogden

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

~ William Stafford ~

Over the past couple of days, while co-offering IISC’s The Masterful Trainer course to a group of remarkable and committed individuals in the social sectors, I was struck time and time again by the endless growth opportunities that training provides the trainer (or at least this trainer). While this came up explicitly a few times in group conversation, there was another private one raging inside my head.

The older I get, the more room there seems to be for self-doubt and second guessing. I recall the interview I read a few years back with the musician Sting, in which he said that while on the one hand with age he gets more nuanced and accomplished in his craft, on the other hand the less confident he becomes. This can seem quite counterintuitive, at least given some of the myths that swirl around out there about the correlation between wisdom and experience. Of course, you don’t have to read much spiritual or psychological literature to realize that wisdom is not an absence of fear or doubt, but rather a full embrace of these, along with an ability to avoid being pulled under.

Intellectually I get this. Feeling it, actually entering into the fray, is another thing all together. Indeed, the challenges can appear formidable. As your awareness grows of the seemingly endless number of routes to take in creating an experience for others, how do you make choices, remain steadfast enough in your selection not to waver, and then be open to adjusting when and if you realize another route is better? How do you enter a space understanding that participants may project things onto you that have nothing to do with you or the moment you collectively inhabit, without shrinking or calling them out? How do you pay close enough attention to body language and facial expressions as indications of participant needs without taking them personally and becoming distracted? How can you do any and all of this while remembering who you are and remaining true to yourself?

How do you locate and hold onto that elusive, seemingly delicate, yet abiding thread?

That is the work.

Values Stimulus

By Curtis Ogden

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of hearing and talking with Juan Williams, the accomplished journalist, writer, and producer. The opportunity arose because my father-in-law helps to organize a Celebrated Speaker Series in Vero Beach, Florida for which Mr. Williams was the scheduled presenter while my wife, daughter and I were on our annual spring break pilgrimage south.

During his talk, Williams engaged the audience in an exercise where he invited us to imagine a somewhat flustered eighty-something African-American man bursting into the conference hall claiming to be Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The self-proclaimed Dr. King comes to find a seat next to you (or me) and starts a lively conversation about what is going on, or has been going on since he was last seen in public. Having helped us to work through our disbelief that this man is who he said he is, Williams went on to illustrate a conversation with this visitor about all of the advances that had occurred since King's (supposed) assassination on the front of race. Much to be celebrated here, acknowledges the good Reverend Doctor. Then the conversation turns to poverty, including mention of the fact that today's poverty rate in the US is the same that it was in King's day, and outrageously high for children of color. On next to violence, to television (with King flipping through hundreds of available cable channels), to pop culture, to single parent households. What started as a celebratory conversation about progress, ends with Dr. King completely distraught and in tears over the depths to which this country has apparently stooped.

Williams' talk was very effective in both content and delivery in challenging any complacency that we listeners might have had about progress in this country, and indeed around the world, on the fronts of race, poverty, peace making, and community building. During the car ride to drop him off at the airport, I asked Williams, based on all that he has seen and heard in his travels, what he saw as the major challenge moving forward. His simple answer was, "We have to move to shared values." He made it clear that he was not talking about liberal or conservative values - after all, he splits his time between NPR and FOX. It really comes down to grounding ourselves in some deeper human truths and commitments that have lost their grip in our world.

A few weeks later I heard a sermon by one of my favorite preachers, the Reverend Roger Paine of the First Parish in Lincoln, that featured the research of Dr. Jonathan Haight at the University of Virginia. Dr. Haight, a psychologist, has done research on the nature and source of moral values, and claims that there are five moral rules that are shared around the globe - care, fairness, loyalty, respect for authority, and sanctity (note the mixture of what might be considered liberal and conservative values). Haight claims that these values have historically served the function of promoting common good over and against selfishness. Clearly these values, if they are ingrained, have been overridden by other forces - rampant individualism, greed, addiction to titillation, and an overwhelming lack of responsibility. It seems that there has been a dramatic disconnect or distancing from our deeper roots, and that we are in the midst of a clear wake-up call to remember who we are and what is in our best interest.

Visions of Dr. King, our genes, and a global financial crisis (oh my); all reminding us that in the end we can't get something for nothing, or perhaps that we get what we pay for. So what will bring us fully back to our senses? A depression, through which we will have no choice but to turn to one another? A global environmental catastrophe? A messianic return of some kind? Or perhaps a new story that we start telling ourselves now and share widely that deep down we know the way forward is not the way we have been living. That nature, including our own, has a wisdom that merits much closer attention.

To the talk about and rush to build our financial foundation, I repeat (reTweet?) these welcome words of Roger Paine - "The stimulus package I propose is the re-claiming of our character, as individuals and as a nation."

Earth Holders

By Curtis Ogden

Last week I came across this passage in Thich Nhat Hanh's The World We Have.

"The Lotus Sutra mentions the name of a special bodhisattva - Dharanimdhara, or Earth Holder - as someone who preserves and protects the Earth. Earth Holder is the energy that is holding us together as an organism. She is a kind of engineer or architect whose task is to create space for us to live in, to build bridges for us to cross from one side to the other, to construct roads so that we can go to the people we love. Her task is to further communication between human beings and the other species and to protect the environment. . . . Although Earth Holder Bodhisattva is mentioned in the Lotus Sutra, she doesn't have a chapter of her own. We should recognize this bodhisattva in order to collaborate with her. We should all help to create a new chapter for her . . . ."

I really like this image of Dharanimdhara as a guide and goal for leadership geared towards the sustainable future we are being called to bring to life. There are interesting connections here to both the leadership approach that IISC has embodied since its inception, as well as the consulting approach that we and kindred spirits promote. Often, in acting as collaborative consultants, we are asked to "hold the center," to provide a reassuring centripetal force to balance out centrifugal tendencies that can arise due to conflict, impatience, skepticism, fatigue, and other forces. We do this not simply through connective facilitation, but the careful design of spaces that encourage people to come together, stay together, create together. We are, in Peter Block's language, "social architects." Or in David Orr's lexicon, we are "designers for life." Our essential task is to construct gatherings that tap the generative, generous, and ingenious energies of those who are involved.

When we link this to the spirit of Dharanimdhara, there is a clear call for a more synergistic approach to leadership, for fitting the way we lead to larger contexts (both cultural and biological), with a mind not simply for being productive or efficient, but ultimately healthy. The root of the word health is "whole." How can we move forward in our daily actions in a spirit of wholeness, of holding the whole, so that we do not wreak irreparable havoc upon the planet and ourselves?

We are seeing the development and application of new tools that will certainly help us in gaining a deeper appreciation of and sensitivity to the big picture - network mapping, systems analysis, Web 2.0 gizmos. These are great intellectual aids. But are these enough to inspire action? Ultimately it seems that the trigger will come from something beyond the intellect - a more visceral, intuitive place. Wisdom. For that we require direct (not virtual) experience, time to listen, space to reconnect. Perhaps this is the hidden blessing of our economic slowdown. As we are given this chance to take a collective breath, how are we responding?

Collaborate?

By Curtis Ogden

Collaboration. We keep hearing the word in these troubled times, even in the echoes of history. I just stumbled across this quote from Charles Darwin - "In the long history of humankind, those who learn to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed." All well and good, but what on Earth does it mean to collaborate?

At a recent training with some of Boston's brightest nonprofit leaders, my colleague and I heard once again the call to collaborate. One person spoke up and said, "We always say this, but if you look at our track record of collaboration, it is dismal. Do we really want to do this? Do we even know what we are talking about?" I came away thinking that while people may have a general (and rightful) sense that they need to work better together, they are uncertain and halting about how they should proceed.

Clearly collaboration has numerous forms and potential outcomes. Perhaps it is best to work backwards. What is it that we are attempting to do by collaborating? Build community/relationships? Be more efficient? Come up with better solutions to the complex problems we face? Become engines of innovation? Achieve greater scale and reach? Mitigate risk? Depending upon our desired outcome(s) there can be very different ways of proceeding. To build community . . . create opportunities, media, and ample time for people to connect, share, get to know one another, find common ground. To be more efficient, focus on more structured processes to build agreements and ways of strategically and creatively sharing resources (whether that is back office functions or swapping services). To address complexity, create open space, foster dissent, or decentralize participants electronically to then post and build upon ideas in a centralized workplace in pursuit of the very best solution. To innovate, make sure to bring cognitively diverse thinkers together. To extend reach, think carefully about how to bring together and knit networks with known hubs/connectors. To mitigate risk, be transparent and intentional about who you bring together, how you bring them together, and what you intend to accomplish.

Of course, there is much overlap between these goals and processes, and yet we also see much confusion about what works best in what situations. Overall, it seems we would all be well served by being more nuanced about what we mean by and expect of collaboration. The conversation continues . . .

The Corporation

By Curtis Ogden

The other night I watched The Corporation, a film that I had both been wanting to watch and avoiding. It certainly delivered as a powerful, provocative, and disturbing piece. I was left with many feelings and ultimately with the renewed awareness of the risk we run of blindly serving the institutions we create to serve us.

In the film, we are shown an extreme in the relentless pursuit of profit and market share that usurps virtually every other drive. Originally charters were granted to corporations by government provided that these companies met certain guidelines. Since then some of these creations, not unlike Frankenstein, have taken on a life of their own, overturned restrictions, and overthrown their masters. At their extreme, these growth-obsessed bodies are nothing short of cancers that seek to overtake every other organism in their midst. And they are clever, ever so clever, at co-opting the minds and skills of talented and otherwise decent people to serve their needs, convincing them that “moving product” is more important than protecting basic life support systems or preventing them from seeing the consequences of their actions.

To be clear, we are all susceptible to such shortsightedness, and collectively we can ill afford to fall asleep at the wheel. Media and marketing are so pervasive that we require extraordinary resolve and intention to listen to our own truths and those of the aching environment. Contrary to the misguided messages that are conveyed to us about patriotism and productivity, this may be our greatest act of courage -- to create a viable new story of what it means to be a good citizen (and a good steward) and to uphold the intrinsic value of life in the face of forces that only want to see it become a commodity.

It is a careful balance to strike between creating organizations to further our goals and potential without allowing these structures to constrain or subvert us. And we are certainly not immune to the risks in the nonprofit sector, where there are countless examples of mistaking organizational development for mission realization. What is it then that calls us back to ourselves, our original intents, and to the larger picture? How do we keep ourselves accountable? Perhaps a good starting place is to attempt to stay connected, keep ourselves open, and remember that we are characters in stories of our own making.

Nonprofits 2.0

By Curtis Ogden

The management guru Gary Hamel has written (The Future of Management) that the big challenge for modern day corporations is to reinvent management systems so that they inspire human beings to bring all of their capabilities to work every day. He makes this statement after citing the results of a survey of over 80,000 employees of large and medium-sized companies in 16 countries that show that the vast majority of workers are less than fully engaged in their work. Eighty-five percent of those surveyed are giving less of themselves than they could. We are not simply talking time here. It is not a question of whether people are logging 40, 60 or 80 hours a week. It comes down to more important questions of passion, creativity, and initiative, and whether these are present in the workplace.

The problem, says Hamel, is that leaders continue to put too much of an emphasis on obedience and diligence, which are largely relics of the industrial economy. In the fast-paced and increasingly decentralized world in which we live we are called to shift our emphasis to creating organizations that are highly adaptable and fully human. Yet in companies there is just too much management and too little freedom, too much hierarchy and too little community, too much command and too little purpose. To shift this picture, Hamel encourages leaders and managers to consider a more life giving metaphor and embrace the following:

 Relentless experimentation
 Greater diversity of data, viewpoints, and opinions
 Focus on strategic efficiency, not simply operational efficiency (not just doing things right, but doing the right things right)
 More voices in shaping policy and strategy
 Dissenting voices
 Distributed leadership
 Focus on higher purpose
 Room for the expression of personal/individual goals
 Space for the collision of new ideas
 Rewards for eccentricity

Hello, management 2.0!

So one question is how this applies to our (the nonprofit) sector. Certainly it seems that the focus on higher purpose and the expression of personal goals have had a long standing place in mission-driven organizations and initiatives. But what about the rest? To what extent do we focus on and emphasize creativity, diversity of ideas and input, dissent, and shared leadership? Do we think that these have a place in or further our work? It is hard to imagine that they do not. Back in 1924, Mary Parker Follett was writing (Creative Experience) about the importance of servant leadership, diversity, and self-organization in light of her work with community centers in Roxbury. Have we gotten away from our roots? Are we, like many companies, guilty of becoming too focused on control and organization? Have we mistaken the raft for the shore?

Coming Down to Earth

By Curtis Ogden

I am intrigued by the conversations taking place at the national level about our current economic crisis, and in particular speculation that what we have to do is dismantle some of these mammoth and infected financial institutions and make them more manageable. In other words, there is a sense that our institutions have become too big and complex for their and our good, that they have gotten away from us, and are not immediately relevant to our lives. With the loss of that connection come a loss of accountability, of responsiveness, and of effectiveness.

I find an interesting parallel in some of the conversations about how best to address global problems such as climate change and biodiversity conservation. There are those who see global approaches to such issues as missing the essential point. For example, the effort to focus on those biodiversity hot spots around the globe where one might get the most bang for one’s buck, while making sense, also risk overlooking some of the more local solutions. Something about the notion of global strategies takes the issues out of our hands, leaving some with a sense of disconnection from what we are talking about. And what we are talking about is as common as dirt and fundamental as the air we breathe and water we drink.

Essentially, all politics, economics, and conservation is local. The ecologist Chris Uhl has written that, “As mundane as it may sound, for many of us the land at our doorstep provides the starting point for developing an affection for the earth, which is a necessary foundation for living respectfully within the confines of our planet.” Which is to say that connection is crucial. Lack of connection is what allows one human being to sell a risky mortgage to a vulnerable and unsuspecting other. It is what allows us to salt away our life support systems and sources of well-being. So as the conversations continue at the national and global level, I keep my ears tuned for those that bring us back to our senses about the confines in which we live, what we can realistically manage and the local relevance of our actions.

Back to the Knitting

By Curtis Ogden

While offering a training to a group of health care reformers in Maine last month, I was struck by how powerful some of the fundamental tools of Facilitative Leadership were to many of the participants, including the fundamentals of listening as an ally (as opposed to listening as an adversary) and the basic architecture of building agreements. As I listened to an accomplished lawyer speak to the simple elegance of open-narrow-close framework, I felt renewed appreciation for the power of what we teach at IISC and IA.

In recent months there has been a real push within our organization to innovate, to tap more creative ideas and ways of doing things (applying network theory, creating more emergent spaces, using Web 2.0 tools). At times I have thought of this as being about moving away from what we have traditionally practiced and taught at IISC. Admittedly, there have been times when I have wanted something more.

Certainly there is more. There are other techniques, other tools for helping people to work together effectively. And it is also true that no matter the tool, there are certain core practices and principles that serve anyone and everyone well when working towards a shared goal - bringing a clear collaborative intent to one’s work, being transparent, checking for understanding, surfacing and honoring dissent, striving for a diversity of input, seeking to understand before being understood.

As we move forward I am gaining a better understanding of the need to remain grounded in these core (and perhaps timeless) practices, and also to be more precise about the intent of any given collaborative endeavor so as to choose the best tools for the job.

A Taste of King's Truth

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

In a world of hyper-marketing and overabundant information we can tend to become immune to the power of words – this is probably a good defense mechanism, something to protect ourselves against the myriad corporate claims on our psyche. But sometimes words speak such truths, and challenge us in such ways, that we can actually evolve by honestly contemplating them.

I relate to Reverend King as a prophet, a truth teller of our age, and this recognition invites me to welcome his words as I do scriptures, or the words of my master. The yogic tradition speaks of something called “caitanya,” the idea that the words of an awakened being actually carry his or her intention, and that the intention of such a soul is so loaded with love and with truth that it can transcend time and space, it is this intention that pierces our own hearts and in turn helps us wake up.

When the Interaction Institute for Social Change selected this quote and underlined it with a bold, multicolored “HOPE,” I felt we were making a similar claim. There is something mightily subversive in King’s refusal to accept the chains of injustice as if they were a matter of course, as if they were a historic and inevitable fact of human nature. Reverend King’s words stir our soul not because they are a sweet dream fantasy, but it is because they resonate with our deepest truths.

Our humanity has witnessed moments of brotherhood and peace, and we shall see them again – but these moments demand our belief if we are to call them into being. The truth that Reverend King can speak of, is a truth that he has seen, it is a truth that holds a light so factual and a resonance so vibrant that it can stand bare and unarmed, self luminous and self sustained.

His call is uncompromising, it is a call for unconditional love and nothing less than unconditional love. In a world where the profit motive has so wildly expanded as to dig a hole in our own souls, as markets try to define who and how we are, as they attempt to shape our likes and dislikes, as they tag our garments, taint our food, and claim our children and our friends, as they show up in every corner of our living space, in the psychic violence of such a world, it is only unconditional love that can take us all the way, because it’s the only type of love can not be bought or sold.

Keeping Our Eyes on the (Right) Ball

By Curtis Ogden

In an article in the most recent issue of The Nonprofit Quarterly, Margaret Wheatley speaks to the need for greater trust in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors in order to move through the current challenging financial times as well as to address the complex social and environmental problems we collectively face (see “An Era of Powerful Possibility”). She writes that accountability measures prescribed by funders have often tended to place undue onus on nonprofit leadership and demand excessive reporting and unrealistic measurement systems from staff. In essence, she says that we have had our eyes on the wrong ball.

Instead, what the times indicate if anything is that we need to shift our attention to our own flawed thinking. What we suffer from most profoundly at this point in time is an acute case of uncertainty. What got us into this mess? What does the future hold? What should we be doing now? Our resulting and understandable anxiety can tend to push us into a mad search for answers, and even push us backwards to what we perceive having worked in the past, or worked in a particular situation. The unfortunate part of this reaction is that we can end up concocting or transferring simple or simplistic responses to complicated or complex situations, which inclines us towards mechanistic, overly controlled, expert-driven and ultimately irrelevant and damaging approaches.

A good example of this is the documented case of genetically engineered food in developing countries, intended to alleviate malnutrition. While perhaps well intentioned (and with respect to some parties there are questions about underlying virtue), this approach has not had an impact because it has applied a simple solution to a complex situation. As conservation biologist David Ehrenfeld has written (Becoming Good Ancestors), many people are hungry not because their rice lacks beta carotene, but because they lack a diverse diet. They are suffering from a lack of biodiversity, loss of traditional sustainable know-how and practice, and economic systems with perverse incentives. The blind drive towards genetically engineered mono-cropping not only misses the point, but can make matters worse for both people and planet.

So what are we to do? First of all, recognize that many if not most of the problems we face are systemic and complex in nature. They are both bigger than us and include us. This just might inspire a deeper sense of not only realism, but also humility and responsibility. From here we might recognize the deep call to reach out, to bridge boundaries, to get curious, to listen, to bring our experience and knowledge to the table with an abiding desire to be of service . . . and trust. We must trust one another, whether community member or funder or politician or “expert.” This would seem to be a core lesson from Obama’s strategy and ultimate victory. Trust is the basis of building effective networks. It is also a key lever in overcoming fear and triggering the kind of creativity we so desperately need. Perhaps our most important challenge is to apply this ethic of trust to the natural world, from which many of us are so alienated to the point of fear. If we do not successfully reacquaint ourselves with our very life support system, trust its wisdom, and listen to the warnings and important lessons it has to impart, well . . . then pass me that bowl of rice.

On Dave Brooks, Faith and Trust and Social Change

Wow! The secret is out! And it’s in the New York Times! David Brooks is breaking it down; Newtonian physics is not the end of the story. The industrial paradigm has broken down, we live in An Economy of Faith and Trust (this is the title of the piece!). Brooks boldly calls out the fantasy of control that we keep hoping will solve our problems, the ideas of “input to output” that dominate how we think about the world are being called into question. We have to shift from the complicated to the complex. (See David Snowden of Cognitive Edge, there are problems that are complicated where input to output is measured, and there are problems that are complex where you just can’t account for all the inputs – so what does that say about output?)

David Brooks applies similar logic to our economy and goes even further by saying “we must account for faith and trust.” There are lessons to be learned here for those of us who work for social change. “There is no outside” say Hardt & Negri and the Buddha, and so we are all in this mix, we are all influenced by the idea of homo-economicus and the paradigm that makes it possible. The social sector was born out of the same Newtonian paradigm that hopes to measure all inputs and outputs – and we are still seduced by it.

In the last 40 years alone, what was once a living and breathing organic movement became so institutionalized that we started to believe that it would be a business mindset of supposedly rigorous measures that would finally set us free. Today as the entire financial system breaks down the best we can do is look backwards and say that the forefathers of movement were right, capitalism will undo its own self – but what do we have to offer that is new? And what have we forgotten along the way?

The truth is that we lack as much faith and trust as the rest of them, fighting for grants, hoarding ideas and constraining ourselves. “People seek relationships more than money,” this is David Brooks in the New York Times, neither revolutionary nor new age, and if they get it why can’t we? This is what we have to be radical about, we have to drop the stuff and meetings that are overloading us, let them die with the dying while we seriously intensify our relationships to each other – connect in non-meeting space, get personal, get deep, get authentic, realize that we all want the same thing!

If you want to make people act like machines and steal most of their labor from them you build an oppressive organization, and this is what we’ve inherited oppressive organizations – system wide, the whole thing! Foundations, advocacy groups, service organizations, intermediaries, most coalitions and faith-based groups – all in the same paradigm. But when people are self-motivated, when they want to do something together, and the technology is there to do it, then we just have to cut the whole thing loose, not hold it back with our hopes for control.

By God we are the ones with heart, we have the competitive advantage on this one, we are the ones that want to go radical and this crisis is our chance. I think of my Rockwood year-long cohort and the economy of love that has now evolved among us – what else can we do with that? I think of the Boston non-meetings, of the effort to keep it real here at the Interaction Institute for Social Change, of the Gathering for Justice and it’s leaders telling me that they had built relationships together, that they have love and they have trust and they want to work with those. This, my friends is the raw material for movement, a paradigm shifts only as we step into the new – movement is not an election, it is social transformation. Let’s go!