How An Offers & Needs Market Helps Build Sustainable Practice

June 13, 2013 by 1 Comment
Print Friendly

pink and yellow post it note with 'OFFER' and 'NEED' written on them

The irony of the modern market is that it can get a spare part from across the world, but a neighbour still might not know that the mechanic with the skills to fix the car is right next door – Donnie Maclurcan

So often, people working on sustainability in different organisations or communities are facing the same challenges. Sometimes, we’ve got people to turn to for support or advice – sometimes, or on some issues, we haven’t.

What if we could know how to connect with that support?

Running an ‘Offers and Needs’ Market is a way of discovering what kinds of support you might be able to provide to others, and what kinds you might need. And even though it doesn’t sound green (or perhaps because it doesn’t sound green!) it can also help build a culture of sustainability.

What is an Offers & Needs Market?

This is a simple participatory process which can quickly unearth hidden or latent resources, ideas, connections and match them with those who could benefit from them.

I took this idea, mentioned to me by my Post Growth Institute colleague, Donnie Maclurcan, and adapted it for a session I ran at work, which attracted participants from a variety of sectors, including business and industry, local and State government, nonprofits and tertiary education.

This process, like asset-mapping, is a way to ‘bootstrap’ communities by focusing on what passions, skills, resources, connections etc the group already has among itself. Reflecting back to people what they can already do is a positive way to short-circuit the ‘we-don’t-have-any-resources’ narrative and the all too common starting position of ‘what is the problem?’ and then (if you can even get out of talking about problems and who is to blame for them) going on to diagnose what needs ‘fixing’.

By the end of the session, we had already discovered a local business had a regular incoming supply of pallets that were not needed, and a number of people were after pallets to create furniture, or to help build the University of Adelaide HUB’s Edible Garden. Match!

How Can I Run an Offers & Needs Market?

'Offers' sign in green with participants' Offers written on green post it notes stuck underneath

'Needs' sign in yellow with participants' Needs written on yellow post it notes stuck underneath

This can be very, very simple and doesn’t require a lot of preparation. Here’s how I ran it:

1. Give participants two different coloured lots of Post-It notes – make it clear which colour is for Offers, and which is for Needs. You can easily make up simple signs that you can place on tables or put up for reference.

2. Starting with Offers (the positive, what people have to give), participants write down any kinds of support they think they can offer (what they’ve learned, what wisdom, insight, practical support or help they could offer to others), along with their preferred contact details. Give people as long as you sense they need, but somewhere between 5-10 minutes is a good rule of thumb.

For example: I can offer an ear of support; I can offer advice on how to talk to senior management; I have a surplus of eggs.

3. Switch to Needs – what are they working on, seeking, what kind of support do they require right now that someone else in this group might be able to help with? Give people 5-10 minutes to write down their Needs.

For example: I need help with how to engage with staff; I need ideas for sharing information; I need someone who knows about web development.

Participants can choose to make as many offers or needs as they like (or none, but encourage them to make at least one). 

4. Ensure participants are aware that the making of an offer or expressing of a need means that it comes with implicit permission to contact, or be contacted about it. If there is something people don’t want to be contacted about, don’t write it down.

5. Before participants stick their Offers and Needs up on the wall, go around the room and invite people to introduce themselves and ‘pitch’ one of their offers or needs aloud to the group in 1-2 sentences. Reassure participants that if they would rather opt out of this right now, they can simply say ‘pass’. There should be no discussion or clarification during this process, as it will slow things down.

4. Ask participants to come forward and post their Offers and Needs on the wall, where they can be left there for the duration of the event for others to view.

5. Explain to participants that the notes will be collated into a spreadsheet, and shared with the group (could be emailed, or you might use Google Docs or Dropbox – you’ll need to sign up for a free Google or DropBox account if you don’t already have one).

Tips for Running an Offers & Needs Market

  • Instead of using Post-It notes, the market can be run differently by giving participants an ‘Offers’ and ‘Needs’ sheet and getting everyone to read out all of their offers and needs – then it is up to each participant to note who they might like to speak to or connect with after. A bit like ‘Offers and Needs’ Bingo!
  • If your situation and budget allows, creating a social atmosphere with some coffee or nibbles helps people to start talking and introduce themselves – it then it becomes more like a party than a ‘work’shop.
  • With a group of 40-50, allow about 15 minutes to both think of, and write down, ‘offers’ and ‘needs’. Then allow another 15-20 minutes for each person to tell the others their name, organisation (if applicable) and to pitch one of their offers or needs aloud so that the whole group hears. This needs to be a speedy process, so the pitch should be 20 seconds, or one sentence eg. ‘my name is Sharon, I blog at Cruxcatalyst, and I can offer articles that help support the communication efforts of change agents.’
  • If the group is bigger, or if you wish to get people to verbally announce all of their offers and needs, allow more time. People can and will breach the 15-20 second limit, so factor this in too!
  • I’ve been trying to work out a more efficient way to collate the information than typing up dozens of Post-It Notes and entering them into an Excel spreadsheet (believe me, if you have a big group of 100-200, you will want to think about this, or find someone to delegate this task to!), but without losing the physical, visual impact of writing down contributions and then placing them for others to view during the session. The latter is also low-tech and hands-on – actually writing things down gives words more power than if they stay in your head.
  • If anyone has any great ideas about the Post-It Notes (or any other suggestions or experiences with this process), please let me know! Otherwise watch this space – when I figure something out, I’ll write an addendum to this piece.

How an Offers and Needs Market Supports Sustainability

This kind of approach helps support sustainable practice in your organisation or community for several reasons:

  • it reduces consumption of resources by making the most of existing assets – if people can access what they need, they don’t need to buy it
  • it reduces waste - if someone else’s ‘waste’ can become another’s ‘resource’ (as per the pallets), it means less materials going to waste
  • it can deliver cost savings both a reduction in consumption and waste
  • it builds and enhances connections and relationships which are essential for any change process - knowing who is doing what, who has access to what, and who knows who are vital for getting things done

An Offers and Needs Market helps people save money, meet their needs, be helpful to others as well as contributing to sustainability goals of reuse and consuming less.

But perhaps most importantly, it could be an effective way to reach beyond ‘Pioneer’ frames to those who are not engaged with ‘green’ or ‘sustainability’ by tapping into what people need in their lives right now.

If you’d like to get Cruxcatalyst via email, click here to subscribe to this blog.

If you liked this post, please consider sharing it using the buttons below or to the left of this post.

Filed Under: Changemaker's Toolkit Tagged With: , , , ,

Leadership on the Line: Responses to Leadership Challenges

June 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Print Friendly

leadership on the line book cover

This is the second of a two-part post on this book.

Following on from the first part of this review of Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading, this week we examine the authors’ suggested responses and approaches for leaders facing challenges.

Get On The Balcony

The authors use the metaphor of ‘going up on the balcony’, as if to overlook a ballroom floor full of dancers, which enables a different perspective than being among the dancers.

While it is important to ‘become the witness’ – the observer of yourself and your role in a situation, as well as observing others – it’s also important to then get back on the floor again to take action and be a participant.

The authors suggest techniques for avoiding blind spots and traps (ie. missing perspectives), including finding out where people are at by being curious about their views, and starting where they are, not where you are.

Think Politically

Work out who are your allies (people who are with you); who are your opponents (people who are against you, or appear to be against you – but do you understand why?) and those who are uncommitted (may be wary, or may be waiting to be convinced).

Do some market segmentation on the field of players to help you understand their motivations and connections – draw up a matrix and list who you think are your allies, potential supporters, resisters etc are, then think about the following questions in relation to each:

  • Who They Are – what work are they doing/where are they at, how does it connect to the situation at hand?
  • Perception – how do you want this group to see and respond to this issue?
  • Alignments, Clashes – where might this group see the issue aligning with theirs – or not?
  • Engagement Story – what’s in it for this group, what’s the benefit?

Partnerships can be important, as it is easier for your opposition to push you aside if you are on your own, and partnerships can strengthen the credibility of an initiative by bringing in a diversity of viewpoints. However, the flip side is that partners might push their ideas, requiring you to compromise your own, thereby slowing you down and diluting your leadership.

The authors make a critical point in noting:

Partners who are members of the faction for whom the change is most difficult can make a huge difference…Know their existing alliances and loyalties so that you realise how far you are asking them to stretch if they are to collaborate with you.

Don’t discount the value of partners whose perspectives differ from yours – if you can find some common ground and collaborate effectively, these partners can be more powerful in effecting a shift than those already allied.

Further along the spectrum of difference, the book advises working as closely with opponents as with supporters:

Opponents have the most to lose by your success, your allies the least; for opponents to change will cost them in terms of disloyalty to their own constituency; for allies it may cost nothing…

Pay close attention to those who will be most affected by the change you are proposing – your opponents are the ones most in need of your compassion.

Orchestrate the Conflict

Bugs Bunny as Leopold, the conductor

Conflict is typically seen as something to be avoided, or a source of disturbance or danger. Yet it is through conflict – with those who think differently or hold different values – that we can learn and even be transformed through having our own experiences and assumptions challenged.

Leadership requires working with difference and conflict in a way that can simultaneously harness the energy this generates, and diminish its destructive potential.

Changing the status quo generates tension and produces heat by surfacing hidden conflicts and challenging organisational culture. It’s a deep and natural human impulse to seek order and calm, and organizations and communities can only tolerate so much distress before recoiling.

The authors speak of ‘controlling the temperature’ and ‘setting the pace’ as being about knowing how much, and how quickly, an organisation or community can tolerate change.

The ‘heat’ needs to be high enough to get people to pay attention, or there is no distress and incentive for change. It’s also essential to turn the heat down when necessary, when tension becomes counterproductive or to allow people to focus on the task in front of them.

Even people who like a proposed change will need time to prepare and adjust. By spacing out the change over a longer period, it helps people to adapt. The authors note that ‘…change involves loss, and people can sustain only so much loss at any one time.’

Acknowledging people’s fears, breaking the change down into parts (eg. timeframes, roles, so that the change is framed like a more familiar technical problem), temporarily bearing more of the responsibility, using humour and fun can all help people cope with the scale and speed of change.

Celebrating shared successes, and regular reminders about the positive vision being worked towards can help make the pain of change feel worthwhile as well as diminishing the pressure for keeping the status quo. People who are focused on ‘what could be’ are less likely to be caught up in what will be ‘let go’ as a result of the change.

Orchestrate the conflict, don’t become it.

Give The Work Back

How many of you have found yourselves in the situation where, by virtue of your job title or reputation, you have become the ‘sustainability’ or ‘environment’ person in your organisation?

In many cases, such people see themselves and/or are seen by others as carrying the majority (or total amount) of the responsibility for effecting change. This conveniently absolves others in the organisation from taking on their share of the responsibility.

You gain credibility and authority in your career by demonstrating your capacity to take other people’s problems off their shoulders and give them back solutions…all of this is a virtue, until you find yourself facing adaptive pressures for which you cannot deliver solutions…the situation calls for mobilizing the work of others rather than knowing the way yourself…When you fulfil people’s expectations, they will call you admirable and courageous, and this is flattering. But challenging their expectations of you requires even more courage.

For a long time, I carried with me an ethos of service – to ‘fix’ other people’s questions, demands, needs. It is difficult for ‘people pleasers’ like myself to understand that service can also mean helping people to develop their own capacities, which they will not do if they have someone to troubleshoot for them. There is an art to knowing how to help, but not help too much.

In addition, if you take on the issue, you can become identified with it and then the way to get rid of the issue is to get rid of you! Taking on the problems of others means taking on the risk.

You stay alive in the practice of leadership by reducing the extent to which you become the target of people’s frustrations. The best way to stay out of range is to think constantly about giving the work back to the people who need to take responsibility.

Anyone who has ever gritted their teeth when yet another committee has been formed, or more research called for, or another meeting arranged in lieu of decisive action will recognise the symptoms of ‘work avoidance’, which arise from not wanting to confront difficult or painful change:

…denial, scapegoating, reorganising, passing the buck (setting up another committee), finding an external enemy, blaming authority, character assassination. These mechanisms reduce the level of distress in an organization or community by deflecting attention from the tough issues and shifting responsibility away from the people who need to change.

Leaders must take the work off of their own shoulders, and place the work where it belongs.

One way of giving the work back is to make observations – statements that reflect back to people their behaviour or describe current conditions (effectively, shifting the group ‘onto the balcony’).

You can follow an observation with a question - such as ‘what’s really going on here’, or ‘what is the real issue that is preventing a resolution?’

Be aware: if you incorporate your understanding of events into the question, it becomes a loaded question which may be seen as you attempting to manipulate the group into assuming your interpretation is true, and starting the discussion from this point.

You can follow an observation with an interpretation – not a question, but offering your interpretation of events.

Be aware: people generally do not like their statements or actions interpreted by others. Offer the interpretation, then listen for the way the group responds.

Hold Steady

By its very nature, adaptive change work generates ‘heat’ and resistance, creating danger for leaders. Perhaps the hardest kind of heat is when it is coming from friends and allies, who may want things calmed down rather than stirred up, as ‘heat’ is expected from your opposition.

Learning how to stomach hostility and anger is a difficult but essential ability for the change agent:

The people you challenge will test your steadiness and judge your worthiness by your response to their anger…receiving people’s anger without becoming personally defensive generates trust. Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi…Mohammed, Jesus, Moses – all gained extraordinary credibility and moral authority by receiving anger with grace. Receiving anger is a sacred task, because it tests us in our most sensitive places. It demands that we remain true to a purpose beyond ourselves, and stand by people compassionately, even when they unleash demons. Taking the heat with grace communicates respect for the pains of change.

Silence and stillness are both ways of keeping your cool when things are turbulent. Learn to identify, and know how to handle, different ego states.

Often, leaders will be thinking and acting ahead of the group they are leading. But be careful not to get too far ahead, and try to push an issue before it has ‘ripened’ or you may find that both you and the issue are sidelined.

Wait until the issue is ripe – when there is a widespread urgency to deal with it - or ripen it yourself.

Factors that determine whether an issue becomes ripe include:

  • what other concerns are people engaged with?
  • how deeply are people affected by the problem?
  • how much do people need to learn?
  • what are the senior authority figures saying about the issue?

There is a relationship between the level of knowledge and attention about an issue, and it’s level of ‘ripeness’. The authors point out that a crisis can change the level of both very quickly (eg. tragedies generate the urgency to tackle issues), and that sometimes creating a crisis is the only way to shift the focus to the issue so that it can ripen.

Authority figures are important, because they can command and direct people’s attention – however, be mindful of the position your authority figures are in when engaging with them:

Those who have authority put it at risk by seeking to raise unripe issues. They may not move out the front to take a stand; they may need to help other people to ripen an issue to leave their hands free to orchestrate the conflict…For people exercising leadership without or beyond their authority, ripening an issue becomes more difficult, requiring more dramatic and therefore riskier steps.

In terms of directing attention, a useful observation by the authors is that people may see routine mechanisms for getting attention as being about routine (and therefore ignorable) problems.

How can you change your engagement strategies to maximise attention, and ‘interrupt’ the business-as-usual frequency? If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always had – so what can you do differently? The recent example of how the University of Adelaide took what could have been a routine process of deciding on loan funding and turned it into an event is one way.

There is so much of value in Leadership on the Line that two blog posts cannot do it justice. A useful snapshot summary of the book can be found in this slideshare presentation, however I would strongly recommend getting hold of a copy of the book and taking on board the wisdom captured within it.

If you’d like to get Cruxcatalyst via email, click here to subscribe to this blog.

If you liked this post, please consider sharing it using the buttons below or to the left of this post.

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

‘How on Earth?’ – A Book for a New Economy

May 30, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Print Friendly

Special Announcement

screenshot from indiegogo campaign vid with headshots of Post Growth's research & writing team

Many of you will be aware that in addition to my work here on Cruxcatalyst, I’m also a co-founder of the Post Growth Institute, a catalyst for exploring and inspiring paths to creating global prosperity and wellbeing without needing economic growth to make it happen.

I’m excited to share that, as part of my work with Post Growth, we’ve just launched a crowdfunding campaign to support development of a world-changing book we’re writing about an economics beyond growth.

I decided to share this on Cruxcatalyst firstly to let those following my blog know more about my involvement in this space and the ideas we’re working with, but also because aside from its campaign purpose, it is a live example of sustainability communication – how the pitch text and video have been crafted, the key messages and how the information is being disseminated.

Notice how both the pitch video and text uses an assets approach up front – what could be (desired state), what is already working. This is particularly important in sustainability communications, where people have been typically exposed to problems-based approaches or those that invoke guilt or fear.

What on Earth is this project?

How on Earth? Flourishing in a Not-for-Profit World by 2050 will be the world’s first book to explore the prospect of not-for-profit enterprise becoming the central model of local, national and international business, by 2050.

Watch the 2 minute pitch video below to get an overview.

If you are able to contribute to this campaign, it would be so much appreciated by me – the funding will support two of my Post Growth colleagues to do the writing. As little as $25 will get you an electronic copy of the book.

Sharing this with your networks would also be a huge help to this team of volunteers who’ve worked hard at building a track record in this area since 2010.

You can find out more, and become a backer for this project, here: http://bit.ly/how-on-earth.

An excerpt from the Indiegogo campaign pitch page is reproduced below. The campaign runs until 27 June.

Why on Earth are we doing this?

Imagine waking up in a world where you feel good about going to work, no matter the nature of your job. You feel positive and motivated, knowing that your work provides you with a livelihood that also contributes to the wellbeing of others in a way that respects the ecological limits of a finite planet.

How on Earth could that be possible?

Welcome to a not-for-profit world, where businesses can still make profits, but any profits are always reinvested for social or organizational benefit, rather than being accumulated privately by individuals.

This world emerged because, around 2013, a large number of people came to the realization that any economic system that centralizes wealth and power is, ultimately, socially and ecologically unsustainable.

People were fed up with excessive executive salaries, a financial sector divorced from the real world, corporations with more say than people, endless spin from politicians and entrepreneurs about the latest technological ‘solution’, and the trappings of mindless consumption.

After the Occupy movement subsided, protesters even started to question whether being fed up was worthwhile.

Then a real alternative emerged. A not-for-profit economy changed the game by decentralizing wealth and power, while maintaining incentives for innovation and increasing people’s desire for meaningful work.

This scenario of a not-for-profit world is closer to the present reality than you might think. Across numerous countries, the economic contribution of the not-for-profit sector has been on the rise since the late 1990s.

In Canada, for example, not-for-profit institutions now contribute 8% of the country’s gross domestic product. This is possible because not-for-profit does not mean ‘no-profit’ or ‘can’t make a profit’. Not-for-profit actually means not for private profit or not for the primary purpose of making a profit. Not-for-profits can make as much or as little money as they want, they just cannot provide payouts to private individuals from any surplus.

Many not-for-profits now understand that generating their own income allows them to fund the good work they do (as opposed to the traditional approach that depends on grants and philanthropy).

Take, for example, BRAC the world’s biggest not-for-profit organization. Since 1972, BRAC has supported over 100 million people through its social development services, but almost 80% of its revenue comes from its own commercial enterprises, including a large-scale dairy and a retail chain of handicraft stores, all of which are run according to a holistic vision of sustainable business.

More importantly, not-for-profit enterprises could regularly out-compete equivalent ‘for-profit’ businesses in the near future, based on a combination of factors, such as:

  • not-for-profit enterprises better utilizing the benefits of the communications revolution on reduced organizational costs;
  • an increasing awareness of the tax concessions and free support available solely for not-for-profits;
  • the trend in consumer markets toward supporting ethical businesses and products;
  • the ability of not-for-profit enterprises to survive and even thrive during years of downturn, given that their sustainability does not rely on making profits, and that profit margins will continue to get smaller as resource constraints impact business costs.

How on Earth are we making this happen?

For a sneak preview of how this book will accelerate the explosive idea of a not-for-profit economy to a point where it becomes unstoppable, see this talk by the book’s lead author, Dr Donnie Maclurcan, at the Environmental Professionals Forum.

To date we’ve penned 20% of the book’s ideas, and plan to publish the final manuscript by December 2013. Chapter titles include:

1. The Power of ‘Not-for-Profit’
2. The Smart Shift to Not-for-Profit
3. Not-for-Profit 2.0: From Charity to Enterprise in a Digital Era
4. A Not-for-Profit Eco-nomics
5. Prosperity Beyond Growth is Common Cents
6. How on Earth: Accelerating the Trend to a Not-For-Profit World

The ideas behind the book have already influenced the creation of new businesses, such as Joostice, and other businesses continue to report that they have been inspired to shift from a ‘for-profit’ to a ‘not-for-profit’ structure.

Our team is working hard to crunch data, getting out and about to workshop the ideas, and researching all we can find in associated books and journals. We are looking at work like Tim Jackson’s writing on prosperity without growth, Peter Victor’s modeling of a zero-growth economy in Canada, the foundational thinking of Herman Daly and others on ecological economics, Roo Rogers and Rachel Botsman’s insights on the rise of collaborative consumption, Michel Bauwen’s theories on peer-to-peer production, Marcin Jakubowski’s work in open source community manufacturing, Dan Pink’s observations on purpose-based motivation, Gar Alperovitz’s commentary on co-operatives, Michael Shuman’s research on community economies, and Jenny Cameron and Katherine Gibson’s writing on asset-based approaches to economics.

With enough funds, we also plan to launch a supportive web platform for the book (www.howonearth.us) that will provide information on how to start, scale and sustain not-for-profit enterprises in countries around the world, as well as showcasing businesses that are making the shift to a not-for-profit structure.

How on Earth can you help?

We need your help to bring this pioneering idea to the world. There are three ways you can show your support and get involved:

1. Contribute financially

Please see http://bit.ly/how-on-earth for the pledge levels, and the perks (rewards) for each.

2. Share the campaign with others

Please share this campaign as widely as possible. There are share tools under the video at the top of the Indiegogo page which make this easy, or you can use the following examples:

Twitter: Crowdfunding campaign seeks to outline an economics beyond growth: bit.ly/how-on-earth#postgrowth pls RT

Facebook: Check out the Post Growth Institute’s campaign to outline a not-for-profit economics beyond growth: http://bit.ly/how-on-earth

3. Share your expertise

We welcome any offers of help with this project. What’s your passion? Research? Promotions? Publishing or web development? Find out more about how you can get involved here.

Who on Earth are we?

The Post Growth Institute is an international group with volunteer co-directors in Australia, Canada, Greece and the United States. Our team has extensive experience spanning economics, banking, international aid, community development, engineering and sustainability. Two of us have already produced three books with commercial publishers, including the award winning Green Washed: Why We Can’t Buy Our Way to a Green Planet.

Collaborating via typed Skype meetings since 2010, our projects include:

- Free Money Day: An annual global event where people hand out their own money to strangers, asking people to pass half on, in order to inspire economies based on sharing;

- The (En)Rich List: A parody of the Forbes Rich list, showcasing 100 inspirational people who have made enriching contributions to truly sustainable futures; and

- The Post Growth Challenge: A competition offering $100, consultancy and promotional support for the best world(view) changing idea for deep sustainability.

Our work makes a real difference. Free Money Day has so far touched the lives of people in 200 locations and 31 countries worldwide, including Nigeria, Thailand, Argentina, Russia and New Zealand. The (En)Rich List earned us the Best Non-profit Business award from Treehugger, and the Post Growth Challenge launched the exciting, distributed manufacturing initiative Helioforge.

On a self-funded, shoestring budget we’ve managed to get substantial international coverage for our work, including articles in the Huffington Post, Treehugger, and Fast Company as well as the personal support of Stephen Fry, Noam Chomsky and Vicki Robin.

Now we need your support to take things to the next level!

Please connect with us via:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/postgrowth
Twitter: www.twitter.com/postgrowth
Website: www.postgrowth.org
Newsletter http://postgrowth.org/join/
Email: info@postgrowth.org

If you’d like to get Cruxcatalyst via email, click here to subscribe to this blog.

If you liked this post, please consider sharing it using the buttons below or to the left of this post.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Leadership on the Line: The Heart of Danger, The Faces of Danger

May 23, 2013 by 1 Comment
Print Friendly

leadership on the line book cover

This is the first of a two-part post on this book.

Do you consider yourself a leader? If you’re intent on creating change, you already are!

One of the most useful books I’ve read that has helped my work is Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through The Dangers of Leading by Martin Linsky and Ronald A. Heifetz of the John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. It was recommended to me by a colleague who had participated in the Governor’s Leadership Foundation.

What makes this book worth a spot on the change agent’s bookshelf is best summed up in a review by President Emeritus of Harvard University, Derek C. Bok:

This is not a conventional book about how to inspire and lead a large organization. It is a much more ambitious work that describes the personal challenges and tactical problems that arise in trying to exert a constructive influence in all kinds of organizational settings.

Leaders are typically engaged in adaptive rather than technical challenges – technical challenges are where there are known solutions and processes, and where people’s routines and behaviours need to change. But adaptive challenge is where there are no ‘known’ ways to resolve complex issues, and when change in hearts and minds is needed. The authors caution leaders about being pressured into treating adaptive challenges as technical.

Leadership on the Line provides insights into why change-work and leadership creates challenging professional and personal situations in ‘The Heart of Danger’, and the varying ways in which the forces of resistance will attempt to neutralise efforts for change in ‘The Face of Danger’. It then sets out five challenges for adaptive leadership, and also approaches and techniques for self-care.

The Heart of Danger

When we are seeking to create change, we are often in the position where we must tell people what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear. When we are pushing people to question long-held values, beliefs or habits, this makes us appear dangerous to people.

How do people typically respond to danger? Fight or flight. Possibly more familiar to leaders in this day and age as resist or avoid!

People do not fight change per se – they want to avoid perceived loss. We expect our leaders to be the heroes and have ready answers, rather than raising questions that go to the heart of how we think and behave. We expect our leaders to protect us from the pains of change.

Yet as Linsky and Heifetz point out, the chances of successful change depends on people internalising the change, not being sheltered from it or having it resolved for them.

The dangers of exercising leadership derive from the nature of the problems for which leadership is necessary. Adaptive change stimulates resistance because it challenges people’s habits, beliefs, and values. It asks them to take a loss, experience uncertainty, and even express disloyalty to people and cultures. Because adaptive change forces people to question and perhaps redefine aspects of their identity, it also challenges their sense of competence. Loss, disloyalty, and feeling incompetent: That’s a lot to ask. No wonder people resist.

Effective leadership lies in the capacity to deliver disturbing news and raise difficult questions in a way – and at a rate – that people can absorb, prodding them to take up the message rather than ignoring it, or killing the messenger.

The Face of Danger 

man in suit holding a black face mask over his face, having just taken off a similar white face mask

There are many different manifestations of danger that may present themselves to the change agent. The objective of these manifestations, which appear in a range of guises, is to neutralise those who are exercising leadership in order to preserve the status quo.

According to Linsky and Heifetz, the ‘masks’ danger can present itself in are:

  • Marginalisation

Leaders should endeavour to orchestrate conflict – that is, managing the range of different interests – rather than embodying it. The authors warn that becoming the embodiment of an issue under your authority is dangerous, as it ties not only a leader’s success, but very survival, to that issue.

  • Diversion

Been promoted unexpectedly? Had some enjoyable or important tasks handed to you? Finding yourself lost in others’ demands? Take pause and consider whether this is a tactic to divert you from addressing an uncomfortable issue.

  • Attack

An attack on the person with the message wastes the currency of leadership – attention. Linsky and Heifetz note that no one criticises when you have good news or rewards, they do so when they don’t like the message:

The spectacle of attack…creates a drama and moves people away from underlying issues…By personally responding to attackers, leaders are colluding with the attacker in distracting the public from the real target.

Hence it is critical for change agents to be aware of ego states, and know how to handle personal attacks.

  • Seduce

This mask is about losing your sense of purpose, and happens when your guard is down, when defence mechanisms are lowered by the nature of the approach. It can emerge from those opposing you, or from within your own supporter base – for example, are you finding you are keeping those close happy at the expense of a broader group?

These masks are intended to neuter the disturbance created by change leaders, maintain what is familiar, and protect people from the pain of change.

Leadership requires the ability to recognise the manifestations of danger, and also the skills to respond effectively to them.

In part two of this post next week, we’ll examine Linsky and Heifetz’s responses to leadership challenges.

If you’d like to get Cruxcatalyst via email, click here to subscribe to this blog.

If you liked this post, please consider sharing it using the buttons below or to the left of this post.

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Changemaker Profile – Dana Pearlman

May 16, 2013 by Leave a Comment
Print Friendly

This is the fourth in a series of Changemaker Profiles, which introduces the work of changemakers I know and admire, and offers insights into their approaches to communication and change work.

Dana Pearlman is co-founder of the Global Leadership Lab, bringing together systemic change-makers to transform our world towards a thriving ecosystem through leadership, community and project/venture acceleration. She is co-author and publisher of The Lotus: A Practice Guide for Authentic Leadership Towards Sustainability. Please see Dana’s longer bio at the end of this post.

headshot of dana pearlman

1. Tell us about the work you are involved with:

In modern society, we have become fragmented and disconnected from many aspects of our true selves, disconnected from one another and from our deep human need for community and from our planet. My work is about reconnecting people to their true selves, to their values, to one another and to our greater global community.

I host conversations that matter and design and deliver learning experiences that enable transformation at the individual and collective levels.  My work aims to support capacity building in change-makers to help them become more effective in their work through collaborative and authentic leadership development as well as venture acceleration that aims to change the world for the better.

Oftentimes, world-changing ventures do not get the support they need to make an impact. We are building an ecosystem of systemic change-makers to support these ventures and giving them the attention they need to thrive.

2. What motivated you to be doing this work?

A number of years ago I went through a period of great discontent. I was no longer satisfied with my career and life path. I felt called to do something much more meaningful and I needed to be part of the healing of our planet.

I ended up attending an amazing graduate program in Sweden, and obtained a masters degree in strategic leadership towards sustainability. I actually ignored the fact that the word leadership was in the title, and while attending the program realized the huge global deficit in the kind of leadership that is needed in our world is also at the root of our current modern day challenges.

The success of an intervention depends on the interior condition of the intervenor.

Bill O’Brien (from the book Theory U by Otto Scharmer)

During the Swedish program my colleagues and I had a webinar with Otto Scharmer and he shared this quote. This sent a few of us into an exploration of what is the ideal interior state of the intervener?

We began speaking to a myriad of leaders working in transformational spaces and encountered a massive leverage point for change: Leaders that are authentic, and use their personal learning experiences enable vulnerability in those around them, it is these encounters that enable change. This simple yet profound realization is game changing. If you create spaces of meaning and vulnerability, healing will take place.

During this exploration we also synthesized 9 capacities authentic leaders find essential in their work (these include: being present, compassion, personal power, suspension and letting go, intention aligned with higher purpose, whole self awareness, whole system awareness, having a sense of humor and holding paradoxes, ambiguities and multiple world views).

Further, we explored the practices that enable the development of these capacities, such as yoga, meditation, dialogue, peer learning. aikido and many other practices. There is a freely downloadable guidebook here.

3. What is the most rewarding aspect of your work?

It is all rewarding. Even the struggles. The human experience is a complex, juicy and relentless journey and in my work I am constantly being invited to deepen my own self-awareness in order to hold space for others to do likewise. I am reminded daily of the profound beauty that exists when I am able to be present with another human being and that when I really take the time to listen to another person there is an entire new universe to understand and connect to.

The work I get to participate in in our world vastly surpasses what I could have ever hoped for.

4. What do you feel is your biggest communication challenge?

I work in human complexity. When one thing is out of alignment (in ourselves or in our relationships) it blocks movement and transformation is stunted. At any given moment, a plethora of human dynamics are at play between our relationships to ourselves, and with one another.

I am constantly building capacity in myself to recognize these blocks and to address them compassionately and fearlessly. On some days better than others!

The key is to express yourself and be with those that invite this!

5. How do you handle a situation when you find yourself in conflict with someone about your work or ideas?

The pattern is typically to react. However, the goal is to navigate these moments with grace and a heightened sense of awareness. The practice is to notice the arising reaction and to take a breath. Recognize what is happening in the present moment and really focus in on hearing their perspective, or taking some space until I am able to really hear them.

In this work, it is not about agreeing with one another, it is about the willingness to listen to another human being for the simple fact that they are a human being and deserve to be heard and recognized. That is where real transformation occurs, when we can deeply care enough to listen. That is where social trust unfolds and begins to heal ourselves and our planet. It is in these small gestures of caring for another that healing occurs.

6. What’s your best piece of advice for change-makers and activists?

Rule number 6. Don’t take yourself, others and the world so f%#$ing seriously. When we were researching authentic leaders, the capacity that was essential for this kind of work was having a sense of humor. Without lightheartedness we will forget to enjoy the journey of deeply caring for our planet. Remember to take time for yourself, to reflect and remember why you are doing this work and to source your work from your deepest values and cares.

Oh, and if you don’t already have your tribe, find them! We need to be around each other doing this work!

Dana Pearlman designs and facilitates action learning experiences. Her academic background is in clinical psychology and strategic leadership towards sustainability. She uses participatory facilitation processes, frameworks and powerful questions to enable deeper wisdom at the individual, team, community and collective levels. Her sweet spot is at the intersection of authentic leadership, tapping into other ways of knowing (beyond cognition) the world, collective healing and community building in order to accelerate the profound transformation that is needed in our world. She co-authored and published: The Lotus: A practice guide for Authentic Leadership towards Sustainability. Dana is also co-creating a start up, the Global Leadership Lab, that is bringing together systemic change-makers to transform our world towards a thriving ecosystem through leadership, community and project/venture acceleration, working with ventures that will impact 1 billion people or more. 

If you’d like to get Cruxcatalyst via email, click here to subscribe to this blog.

If you liked this post, please consider sharing it using the buttons below or to the left of this post.

Filed Under: Communication, Leadership Tagged With: , , , , ,
«Older Posts