Creating the Future!

Focusing on What Matters

Hildy — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:47:40 +0000

Do organizations spend too much time focusing on internal management issues? According to Jan Masaoka, Editor-in-Chief of the online magazine Blue Avocado, the answer is “yes.”

In my latest podcast for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Jan shares her observation that organizations focus way too much on management, and not enough on the needs and aspirations of the communities they work with.

If you think that is heresy coming from the former Executive Director of a nonprofit resource center whose job is to teach organizations precisely those management skills, you will want to catch this interview!

You can listen to the interview streaming online, or download it to your MP3 player and listen on the way to work (or as you’re working out).

Stream here from the Chronicle’s site.
Download here from iTunes.

Once you’ve listened, please join the discussion that is in progress at LinkedIn – looking more deeply at the issue of where exactly organizations are being encouraged to focus. (If you have not already joined the Making Change group at LinkedIn, you can join the group AND the conversation at this link.) The discussion is appropriately labeled Focusing on What Matters.

So what do you think? Is the focus on management in this sector appropriate or disproportionate? Too much, too little, just right?

I can’t wait to hear what you think after listening to this terrific interview.

Social Entrepreneurship: What’s the Difference?

Hildy — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 22:42:13 +0000

If you have heard the term “Social Entrepreneur” but can’t exactly define what that means, you are not alone. I spent some time today on Twitter, trying to find the difference between a “social entrepreneur organization” and a plain old organization – the kind we all know in our communities. I came up empty-handed.

Alison Rapping posted a similar request several months ago, asking, “What Really Is a Social Entrepreneur?” She shared some great links to definitions and lots of ideas. But she, too, found no definitive answer in the responses at her post.

I know many individuals who consider their organizations to be social entrepreneurial ventures. Like other organizations, those social ventures have board problems and funding problems. They see themselves in competition with other organizations doing similar work.

And so aside from the fact that they consider their approaches to be innovative, plus the fact that they are not opposed to using business methods to generate revenues (with confessedly varying degrees of success), I am struggling to find what the difference is between a social entrepreneur venture and every other organization working to create a better world.

My wondering comes from a practical place. I am in the middle of exploring and planning the development of Creating the Future as an organization. (I will be sharing my thinking here as soon as those thoughts are coherent enough to write down!)

The goal of that plan is to help those working to create a humane, vibrant, equitable world reach for their potential to make that change happen.

A pre-requisite to helping people reach for their potential is to meet them wherever they are along that path.

And a pre-requisite to meeting them where they are is to understand where they are and where they perceive themselves to be.

So for us, this is not an academic question. To be able to help Social Entrepreneurs reach their highest potential to create an amazing future for our world, we need to understand what they mean when they call themselves Social Entrepreneurs. We need to know what difference they believe that makes for their work.

So if you consider your work to be that of a social entrepreneur rather than a “regular old nonprofit organization,” could you share what it is that creates that distinction?

What does your board talk about that is different from what other boards talk about?
How is the work you do different on a daily basis than what others do?
Spending time at your organization, what would I experience that is different? What would stand out or make me take notice? What would I feel or see or hear that would make me say, “Oh I get it – this is indeed different from an organization that is not a social enterprise!” ?
What results are you achieving that others are not achieving?
What change is happening because of the way your work is being done, that would not otherwise be able to be achieved?

I look forward to learning from this conversation. Thoughts, anyone?

Anger, Social Change and a Major “Aha”

Hildy — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 01:04:54 +0000

Last week, an incident involving Rush Limbaugh, Robert Egger, a YouTube video and a small hew and cry led to my blog question asking, “Where, if at all, is the place for anger in social change?”

The responses were so rich – I encourage you to read them in their entirety here.

Several things became clear in that discussion:

The belief that anger comes from fear, from pain, from both. The experience that “suppressing anger can be debilitating,” as Martin indicated in his comment.
The belief that we have the capacity to move beyond that fear and pain, acting in ways that do not give in to the anger.
The desire for a different / more effective way of being with each other. Jeff Mowatt talked about it as a “mandate for acting with compassion.” Kesha talked about “a shifting concern for one’s community over one’s self.” Marcia White talked about our ability to make “choices that create growth and happiness.” Others responded similarly – the wish and the determination that a different way of being become the norm.

Individuals Go Where Systems Lead Them
As I discuss in the opening chapters of The Pollyanna Principles, our assumptions and expectations of “reality” are rooted in thousands of years of culture that tell us that “living joyfully together” is impossible. (You can read those chapters for free online here.)

Our history tells us that we will likely find reasons to do battle – by words or by swords – and that true “peace” (i.e. not just the absence of war) is a pipe dream. Across generations, we then hand down those assumptions about how people can be counted on to act.

Assumptions about what we admire and celebrate – the warrior, the savior, the hero, the individual beating the odds
Assumptions about winners and losers, about weakness and strength
Assumptions about scarcity vs. abundance, about possibility vs. inevitability

All those assumptions, and the expectations that arise from those assumptions – including and especially those related to anger, frustration, fear, pain – are rooted in stories we have told for millennia.

From those assumptions and expectations, we also hand down ways for dealing with the inevitable conflict we assume will come our way. While we are encouraged to hope for the best (all the dreams you noted in #3 above), our conflict-driven culture gives us systems and tools and approaches for responding when (not if) the worst happens.

As a result, our everyday responses – as individuals, as communities, as nations – are rooted in those thousand-year-old assumptions. How we respond when an Al Qaida attacks. How we respond when a BP floods the gulf with oil.

And yes, how we respond when a blowhard-for-hire calls us lazy idiots.

Social Change?
I confess that my own questions about the place for anger in social change are rooted in all those cultural assumptions as well. And yet I also know that deep in my questions was my own mind trying to wrap itself around the why’s and how’s.

I know in my bones that every action we take is creating the future. I know in my bones that we can aim our work at proactively creating the world we want vs. living and working in response to what we don’t like about the world.

And yet my experience of the world, as seen through the lens of my culture, simultaneously tells me that social change and anger go hand in hand.

And that’s when it hit me. Re-reading the discussion and then re-reading my own question, I realized that social change is indeed about anger, because social change is about reacting to what we don’t like about the world. Just look at the words themselves:

Social Change.
Changing the World.

What is change if not reaction – change FROM something? The words to which we aspire and bring our best work – changing the world – they are a statement of reaction to what we can no longer tolerate. Social change is a reaction to pain and frustration, to inequity, injustice. No wonder we see anger as a force for such change!

Talk about an “aha!”

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with infinite choices and infinite possibilities to create the future we want. Our work doesn’t have to be solely about reacting to circumstances – poverty, war, social ills. We can aim at the world we want, the culture we want. We can work to create a world that is humane and joyful and healthy and vibrant.

It is possible, simply because it is not impossible.

As you watch the video below, consider that maybe that’s the answer (I am thinking as I’m typing – always dangerous, the keyboard equivalent of thinking aloud…). Maybe social change IS about anger, frustration, rebellion against the status quo.

And maybe the thing that is more powerful is the thing that moves beyond that anger – work and words that are not about what we are changing FROM but – as the video notes – what we are moving TOWARDS.

Social Aspiration
Social Dreaming
Social Vision
Social Possibility

And wow does that ever raise more questions to explore!

If you are viewing this in your email or a reader that doesn’t show video, this link will take you to the website where you can watch the video. Link to site here.

What Place Anger?

Hildy — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:58:39 +0000

The video I posted yesterday, wherein Robert Egger hands Rush Limbaugh his head on a plate, has drawn two very different responses. (Update: The original video is here – video at yesterday’s site has been updated to exclude the “offensive” portions.)

One response is, “Yes, right on! And I love the ending!”

The other, diametrically opposed, is, “You had me until the end. Hold your anger, Robert. Take the high road.”

Those of you who are regular readers here have watched me walk that same line – the line between gentle encouragement and downright indignation. Like Robert, I have received the same comments when my normally understanding side is overpowered by my “righteous indignation” side.

Watching the response to Robert’s video, both here at the blog and especially in social media circles, I cannot help but wonder:

What is the place for anger in creating social change?
Does social change require a bit of poking and prodding around the edges? Is it inherently about the balance and blend of anger and higher ground?
Isn’t anger part of who we are as humans? Isn’t it something we all feel at times? Would that not make it ok to express that? Or is it always about reaching for the high road?
If our highest potential for compassionate, joyful living is reached by walking the talk of that potential, what is the highest potential for what we do with our anger?
Is there a place for periodic explosion, for someone to express what we are all feeling, and then, as Robert does every day, get on with the very real work of making change from the higher ground? Does social change need a provocateur to balance what my friend Renata Rafferty calls “The Tyranny of the Nice”?

In the U.S. over the past 2 years, we have seen the result of anger from a place of fear. What of anger from a place of aspiration? Is such a thing even possible?

Because I myself am a provocateur, I wrestle with this in my own writing and speaking. I know that my own anger tends to arise not from fear, but from my own personal intolerance for the intolerance of others. (Yes, I know, I’m working on that. Just ‘fessing up to my own demons here!)

And so I cannot help but wonder:
What place does anger have in creating social change?

“Nonprofits” Standing Tall

Hildy — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 21:37:11 +0000

Last week, Rush Limbaugh broadened his hateful message to include those of us working throughout the Community Benefit Sector.

During his August 12 broadcast, Rush Limbaugh said that nonprofit employees are “lazy idiots” and “rapists in terms of finance and the economy.”

I have been waiting for a rebuttal, knowing I could count on one from my friend and colleague, Robert Egger – founder of the DC Central Kitchen and in-your-face advocate for the work this sector does.

Robert did not disappoint. If you are looking for someone to help cheer you on as you do your work today, I promise Robert will get your blood pumping. (Update: Video has been updated from the one originally posted. See the comments for details.)

I am now even more proud that I asked Robert to be the first guest for my podcast at the Chronicle. To listen to his views on the power this sector has to change the world, you can grab that here at iTunes. (Click on the entry called “Making a Difference” from 5/5/10.)

Thank you, Robert – for your enthusiastic advocacy for every single person working to build a better world!

Monday Morning Rock Out

Hildy — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:37:35 +0000

This is a special Rock Out. Not that they’re not all special, but this week is a bit different.

First, this week is the mid-point of my semi-sabbatical. I wish I could say I’ve holed up doing nothing but writing and exploring. But having decided to do this only 2 weeks prior to doing it, I couldn’t magically make all my work vanish.

So yes, I am spending hours every day writing & reading & thinking & exploring.

I am also tying up loose ends for our corporate taxes. And working on a project for a coaching client. And planning a new consultants workshop we’ll be doing in Los Angeles next month.

So that’s the first special thing this week – seeing that I can incorporate into my worklife huge swaths of time for writing and thinking and being. That all it takes is my intending to do so – holding myself accountable.

WOW! Suddenly it is the first day of my sabbatical all over again, because every day can be the first day of my sabbatical! Every day I can get my “real work” done while giving myself loads more time to do the REAL “real work.”

I feel empowered. I feel energized. All while preparing our taxes. Wow. This is the first day of my life.

If you are viewing this in your email or a reader that doesn’t show video, this link will take you to the website where you can watch the video. Link to site here.

The other reason this week’s Rock Out is special is this: This week is my birthday.

In my early twenties, I realized I could make my birthday last a full week simply by adding these words to everything I wanted to do: “You have to – it’s my birthday.”

Ice cream sodas for lunch, afternoons at Larchmont Park, evenings at Rye Playland, nights in a divey local bar. My friends indulged a full week of playtime, birthed by the words. “You have to – it’s my birthday.”

It’s been 30 years since I’ve felt my birthday in every cell of my being. Suddenly, though, at age 53, every day feels like the first day of my life.

So let’s celebrate!

First, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you to celebrate by helping us build Creating the Future. Whether it’s 53¢ or $53 or $53,000 (a girl can dream…) – please click on the button in the right-hand column, to help support this movement for being the change we want to see.

But that doesn’t hold a (birthday) candle to what I really want.

What I really want is that you consider the things you wish you had time to do. And right now, hold yourself accountable for doing them – starting today. Because this is the first day of your life, too.

So do it now. You have to – it’s my birthday.

Have a great Monday, and a great week, all!

Photo: Me & my Aunt Gul

4 Steps to Move from “Doing” to “Being”

Hildy — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 22:26:33 +0000

It is hard to get through a whole day anymore without seeing Gandhi’s words: “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”

Ask folks why they admire the quote, and you are likely to hear warm words about the work they are doing to create a better world.

But Gandhi did not say, “Do great things to change the world.” His instructions were clear; it is not about what we do to create change; it is about being that change.

Ugh! We know the “doing” part backwards and forwards – the skills, the tools, the techniques. But what exactly does it mean to be the change we want to see?

Being is a state that affects all our work, creating context for all our decisions and actions. Whether we are talking about a board, an ED, a consultant, a funder – when our work stems from “being the change we want to see in the world,” the “doing” falls into place alongside that reason for being.

So how can one move from “doing the work” to “being a catalyst for change?” I hope the following 4 steps encourage you to begin right now.

1: Slow Down and Be
It sounds flip, but the best way to practice being is by being. Slow down. Pay attention.

If you think you are too busy to take time for that, keep this in mind: “Paying attention doesn’t take extra time; it actually gives you more time.” *

Step 1 is therefore to slow down and just be.

Spend two full minutes (set a timer) paying careful attention. Notice what is really going on around you with beginner’s mind.

Notice your work environment, your surroundings. What pictures are on your desk? (When was the last time you looked at them?)

Notice your co-workers. What are they doing? How do they feel about that? How do they talk about their work? Is it joyful or rushed? Is that talk focused on the community or on the piles on their desks?

Breathe it all in. And then breathe it all out again.

2: Aim
“We accomplish what we hold ourselves accountable for.” This very first of The Pollyanna Principles is because it is all about aiming.

Question #1:
What are you holding yourself / your organization accountable for accomplishing? And accomplishing for whom?

Make a list. What are you holding yourself accountable for accomplishing each day? Each week? Each month?

Question #2:
Look at your answers to Question 1. Are those results about the change you want to see in your community? Or are they about accomplishing the means to those ends (perhaps ensuring the bills can be paid)?

What does your list reveal about the primary focus of your work? Where have you been aiming?

Question #3:
To begin seeing the forest AND the trees – the day-to-day within the context of the change you want to see in the world, consider the items on your list, asking:

If I accomplish this task, what will it make possible? For whom?

Once you have an answer, ask the same question about the answer. Then ask again.

Keep asking, “What will that make possible? For whom?” until you reach the very highest ultimate result you want to hold yourself accountable for creating.

And here’s a hint: If you are being the change you want to see in the world, the ultimate result will not be for your organization. It will be for the community you want to effect.

3: Practice
The steps so far will no doubt create “aha” moments for you. But aha moments on their own are worthless. It is only when those “aha’s” become everyday reality that change begins to happen. And the path to that transformation is simply a matter of practice.

Isn’t that something? We are all encouraged to take course after course in Nonprofit Management, focusing on tools and techniques and – well – doing. Yet it is that slow incorporation of our aha moments into the very cells of our being that will transform ourselves and our organizations into catalysts for change.

(As an aside, if you have been frustrated that despite installing “best practices” into an orgainzation, little has changed, you can begin to see now why that is.)

The following is just one of many ways to practice with your “aha’s.” (If you have others, I hope you will share them in the comments!)

Look at your to do list for this week.

For each item on that list, ask, “What could accomplishing this task make possible for our community?”

Then list 1 or 2 things you will do to infuse each item with your new-found accountability for community results.

Task: Write a report
What might you add to that report, to infuse it with accountability for community change?

Task: Meet with the accountant about the 990
How might you infuse that visit – or the 990 itself – with accountability for community change?

The more you ask the question, the more creative your responses will become. It could be what you talk about. It could be who you talk with. It could be the route you take to an appointment. It could be anything!

Ask that question as a routine part of making your to-do list, being as conscious as possible to be accountable inside that task. (Note that when it comes to words like accountable and conscious, there is no “do.” There is only being accountable, being conscious.)

4: Celebrate

At the end of your work day, take a moment to breathe in the day.

What stood out for you today?
What brought you joy?
What are you grateful for? (Extra points if you can be grateful for what may have been painful!)
What can you celebrate?

This simple practice will move your focus away from everything you failed to get done today (I know I am not alone with that list!). It will move you one last time from a focus on “doing” to a focus on being joyful, appreciative for the things that matter most.

From there, sleep well. And greet tomorrow committed to being the change you want to see in the world.

* Gratitude to Genine Lentine for her article in the July 2010 issue of Shambala Sun Magazine, quoted above
* Photo Info: Fifth Avenue, as seen through the Lalique windows at Henri Bendel. NYC 2009

Building a Program by Engaging Community

Hildy — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 00:09:22 +0000

On August 1, I embarked on a month of “semi-sabbatical,” writing and exploring and planning and reading. I say “semi-sabbatical” because I only decided mid-July that the time was right. So there are still some tasks to be done, some projects with timelines that won’t allow me to simply abandon ship. This post is about one of those efforts.

As part of this time of exploration, we were blessed to spend two days planning with one of the most brilliant minds and beautiful spirits we know, Christine Egger. The time flew, as the conversations built idea upon thought upon brainstorm upon wisdom.

As we reverse engineered our vision for the future we want to create, we found more and more clarity about the work we will be doing to achieve that vision.

Our vision is that our world is a healthy, vibrant, resilient and humane place to live – where people are being and doing from the richest and most joyful sense of our humanity.

Reverse engineering, we identified the pre-conditions to that joyful world. Asking “What needs to be in place for that to happen?” it became clear that our mission (the work we will do to achieve that vision) is the same as our tagline has been for years:

Making visionary social change practical and doable. And then making those approaches the standard for all social change / “nonprofit” work.

As we continued to ask, “What needs to be in place for that to happen?” it became clear that there need to be as many ways as possible for people to access these approaches. It needs to be as easy as possible for individuals already doing some form of “nonprofit” work to re-align that work to simultaneously create a better world. And that means it has to be easy for folks to first learn about this work and then to join in whatever ways suit their own needs right now.

That means our developing additional pieces to our curriculum. Soon that will include classes for funders and others in the community benefit world.

For now, though, we are excited to be expanding the curriculum for consultants. (Why consultants? Because for every consultant we teach, 10 or 20 or more organizations are then learning and adopting these approaches and ways of thinking.)

Building a Program Together
On September 23rd in Los Angeles, Dimitri and I will introduce a new workshop – a 3 hour facilitated session for consultants and coaches to organizations working to better our world. Its working title is “Intro to Consulting that Creates the Future.”

For several reasons, we will be developing that workshop here online.

1) We committed to make all major decisions openly. And what decision could be more important than crafting a new program?

2) We teach that the most effective programs are built with the individuals who will use them, rather than for those individuals. It would be silly for us not to take our own advice!

3) We know from our “name change” discussion that there are people learning from how we engage these conversations. If our developing this program together gives you ideas about how to use Community Engagement to build your own programs, that would be the best definition of “demonstration project” we could imagine.

And so that leads to my questions. As we move forward in developing this workshop,

What is the highest potential outcome for a 3-hour workshop, Consulting that Creates the Future?
What could be different after the workshop is done – for the participants, for their clients, for their communities?
What results could we aim to achieve for participating consultants? For their clients? For their communities?

Looking forward to our building this program together!!

Human Nature?

Hildy — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 07:05:20 +0000

As I’ve been settling into 6 weeks of writing and thinking and being, this chapter from The Pollyanna Principles has been almost haunting me. And I’m thinking perhaps the best way to purge it is to share it here and invite conversation, to see just why this thought is following me.

*********

Our Animal Nature
As we consider the parts of our past that have led to our present, we must also consider the very meat of what makes us human.

Consider the phrase “Human Nature.” Do we invoke that phrase when we are talking glowingly about our brethren? Hardly. We use the phrase to focus on our greed, our fear, our selfishness – all the things we dislike about being members of this species.

In reality, though, virtually every one of the traits we “chalk up to human nature” is not what distinguishes us as humans at all. Those “human nature” traits are those we share with many, if not most or all, of our animal brethren.

Animals other than humans steal, kill, cheat, and deceive. Animals other than humans are greedy, fearful, thinking of their own survival above all else. Animals compete, they are violent.

When animals feel threatened, their immediate choices are either to run away or to fight back. As humans, our culture suggests one of those approaches evidences valor and courage, while the other is evidence of cowardice. But in truth, either of those reactions is one my dog might also show. If threatened, she might run away, or she might bare her teeth. No valor, no cowardice; just being a dog.

That is not “human nature.” That is part of our animal nature.

Neuroscientists have found physiological / chemical sources for many of the reactions we have come to call “human nature.” The rush of adrenaline, the virtually immediate reactions that allow us to respond physically to danger without having to think about it first – those fight-or-flee response mechanisms are part of the physical composition of our species, the organs and chemicals that are our physical being. We do not have to learn that; it is in us from before the time we were born.

Our species’ long history of the survival reactions we call “human nature,” therefore, are not just cultural. They are physiologically and chemically hard-wired into our being from a time before we were even human. That means overriding those physical reactions – aiming at something beyond our fears – requires something special; it requires that we make a concerted effort to use logic, and to exercise free will.

Our Human Nature is Our Potential
If our “negative” traits are not what set us apart as humans, what exactly is our human nature? What do we have that other animals do not?

Our “humanity” is a bundle of traits that combine to create our unique potential. While some other species may exhibit one or more of these behaviors, there is no other species that has all this and then some.

• A sense that we are part of something bigger than just our own selves and our own families / tribes
• The ability to comprehend that each of us is one life among a vast whole of billions of people we cannot see, but whom we acknowledge and understand are there
• The capacity to consciously de-program our instincts and re-program new instincts – free will
• An almost tangible sense of connectedness to something we cannot see or touch
• The ability to imagine things that do not currently exist – to invent, to create something from nothing but our imaginations
• The ability to express all these more ethereal capacities through language, through art, through music, through various means that allow us to transmit to other humans that which one cannot touch / taste / smell / see / hear
• The ability to envision the future, to envision what is possible
• The capacity for self-awareness, to strive for self-betterment. The ability to be conscious that we are conscious!
• The combined capacity for empathy, compassion, logic and reason, imagination – and joy at experiencing any or all of those

The human part of our nature provides a choice beyond fight-or-flee – a choice my dog cannot make. My dog is incapable of facing her attacker and choosing to neither run nor fight back, but to instead engage. Sweet as she is, she cannot appeal to her attacker’s higher faculties, to learn why he is attacking, and to try to find a better way.

That is the human part of our nature. That is what defines our humanity. Our human nature is all about our potential. Through that uniquely human nature, we have the power to create the future of our world.

***************

So what do you think? What does this make possible? And what will it take to activate all that potential?

You can read the entire first 4 chapters of The Pollyanna Principles here.

Arizona’s Possibilities

Hildy — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:54:40 +0000

Last night, one of our Immersion Course grads – the ever brilliant Alison Rapping – posted this at Facebook:

Imagine what would be possible if we took all of the energy being put into SB1070 and invested it in building civic engagement, energizing our economy, creating innovative new industries, and enhancing our sense of Arizona pride?

This wonderful imagining does not have to be a pipe dream. As my partner, Dimitri, has always said, “We all make everything up. Everything around us was made up by someone, at some point.” And what that means is that we can create a different path. We can make it up now. Our state – our home – does not have to be this way.

Creating the future we want requires just 3 steps:

Identify the future we want (not the future we “don’t want – the problems to solve – but the future we DO want)
Identify the pre-conditions to that desired future – the immediate pre-cursor conditions to reverse engineer that future. And then the pre-cursor conditions to those conditions. And so on. We will reverse engineer the future we want until actionable steps appear as first steps along the path.
Take those actions!

From the discussion that ensued at Alison’s post, I offered to bring that conversation here, so we could explore it together. I am happy to facilitate this conversation because I don’t see this as an intellectual exercise but the first steps in our taking back our state. Because this is my home. And I’m tired of tweeting 140 characters repeating the phrase, “I don’t want to live here anymore.”

So if you live in Arizona, let’s dive into Step 1. What would Arizona look like if it were the place you would want to grow up, raise kids, grow old?

What would Arizona look like if it were a healthy, vibrant, resilient, humane place to love for…

• a child?
• a teenager?
• a young adult / someone of college-age?
• a mom / dad raising a family?
• a working person?
• a business owner?
• a retired person?
• an elderly person?
• a healthy person and a sick person?
• a new immigrant to our state / country?
• and everyone else?

What would the Arizona of our dreams look like for all of us?