A Handbook For Leading Effective Social Change 2c6k5b

The Art of Change ™ A Handbook for Leading Effective Social Change

Ken Hubbell

Copyright © 2012 by Ken Hubbell. 117695-HUBB ISBN: Softcover 978-1-4797-5102-0 Ebook 978-1-4797-5103-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Xlibris LLC 1-888-795-4274 www.Xlibris.com

The book was catalyzed by the contributions from a handful of wonderful consultants and colleagues who shaped so much of what I know and practice:

•Chanda Camden •Gary Hubbell (and contributors at his GHC Conversations) •Dianne Williams •Joyce Williams •Freeman McKindra •Freddye Petett •Gloria Dickerson •Claudette Romious

For over 20 years, I’ve been privileged to work and learn with colleagues at MDC, Inc. (Durham, NC). Without my wonderful family in Little Rock, I would not have experienced the power of love, faith, and collaboration that animates my life and enriches this little book.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction The principles for practicing the Art of Change TM Addressing the tough, wicked social problems--the real art of change making Rehearsing the future while staying mindful in the present moment A Reflective Leadership Notebook Your Leadership Resilience Dashboard and tips to address your urgent challenges How to lead social change and stay well

Introduction

Change happens and it influences all levels of life. It is the essential nature of life, so we encounter it in ourselves, in teams and organizations, in communities and nature all around us. Often, our orientation toward it is dismissive. Often we tend to hope it doesn’t disrupt our plans, expectations, or assumptions. This produces a management approach that is largely negatively reactive to change. We tend to favor a strong focus on risk reduction. A more reasonable approach is to expect everything to be about change. Manage with and for change, building an attitude of alignment and adaptability. Expect it, let go of your natural resistance (or insecurity) and try to appreciate it. This can position you to lead more calmly. It will help you see--and create--new openings for more positive social change.

For just about every challenge there are already numerous books. They are full of good ideas, simple tips, useful tools, helpful references to other resources, and even findings derived from solid research. I have a set that have been profoundly helpful, and I have incorporated many good concepts and ideas into my own consulting and coaching. This is not another one of those kinds of books. Instead, it is aimed at framing the simple “truths” that animate the tools. It is about the “way” of social change or impact. I tried to make it the smallest book possible on such a complex topic.

In my first twenty years of community change work, I think I helped advance positive change in the social sector. Working collaboratively with over 60 different clients produced exceptional seasoning and perspective on the Art of Change tm. Through these very different opportunities, I learned how leaders work through strategic challenges to collaborate, innovate, and sustain important strategies.

This handbook is a collection of the things that I wished I would have known in

advance. It is written for leaders working in philanthropy, in social serving institutions, in grassroots groups, and in nonprofit organizations engaged in community building. It is also for students on the path of community development, public service, community health or social work. I hope it helps others be effective and comionate change agents. The illustrations and images (iPhone photos from my Breathing Spaces online blog at http://kenhubbell.tumblr.com) were created to enhance the content.

The principles for practicing the Art of Change TM

The most important principles to understand and practice lasting change fit into one simple picture. Together, they represent a reinforcing wheel of leadership capacities that produce resilience and the adaptive capacity to lead social change in the face of any challenge. On the next page, this is illustrated as facets of a mandala (a holistic picture representing the universe in Buddhist tradition or a symbol representing the self and inner harmony in Jungian psychology). The mandala links the core principles of organic change processes with the primary traits of conscious leaders. Each one matters and each one depends on the interplay that creates the whole. The ideas are summarized in the section that follows. While there are surely other powerful principles, these ten are critical for discerning the right path and most reciprocal approach.

Building a Path to Resilience

Here, the key principles for generating resilience and the adaptive capacity to lead social change for long term collective impact are ed in a wheel. This integrated structure better illustrates the path to resilience requires practice in all ten aspects.

Principle #1: Aim for Resilience at all levels All of your leadership development, strategic learning, and strategy or program execution should be framed as stages in the evolution of resilience for your group, organization, or community. Thinking beyond short-term efforts is necessary. It isn’t realistic to try to prepare for full security and permanence. The world is guaranteed to continue changing around us. Expanding the fiber of true resilience will help you weather shocks, emergencies, and new threats. Resilience helps you restore teams, organizations, or places. Ecologists define resilience as the capacity of a system to experience disturbance and still maintain its ongoing functions and controls.¹ I like to add another definition that infuses creativity alongside the adaptive qualities that are typically thought of as resilience. Business thinkers in the Netherlands defined resilience as the capability to self-renew over time through innovation.² So, adapting to disturbance and continually being able to renew through innovation is a more useful definition. This means knowing what should be preserved (and why) and what must evolve or be discarded. It also requires you to invest in foresight, in stretching your boundaries of learning and caring, in the ability to perceive trends, and in rigorous examinations of your assumptions about your business and how it is adding real value to the world.

Principle #2: Uphold the Vision so you don’t get lost in the Mission. Effective social change requires integrative thinking and coherent behavior. It rarely makes a lasting impact if the work and mission of any organization isn’t connected deeply with a simple set of clear values and a well-articulated vision of the changed world you are committed to creating. Many organizations carry out their missions, yet can’t move the needle on the social change they wish to see. Many also create visions for their organization, but don’t purposely describe the future conditions beyond the boundaries of the organization they hope will follow if their organizations grow to be world class or highly effective. Take time to answer and discuss the “so what” or “to what ends” questions. Be sure to see if your programs are making a visible down payment on the preferred future vision. Pay attention to how an organization’s behaviors showcase its professed core values.

Principle #3: Your intention and attention do matter To promote lasting outcomes, we have to move beyond technique and tools. We need great execution and efficiency that takes advantage of the best technologies. But, we have to pay attention to what truly matters so we shine a light for good. This means we have to work in the realm of belief, spirit, and love. For sure, this requires us to be mindful of our own internal contradictions between what we claim, hold in our thoughts, and what we do. We have to be willing to perceive our own blind spots. We have to be willing to see our point of view as just one of many possible viewpoints. This practice requires honest selfreflection and continued mindfulness for individuals. For groups to discover new ways to work and invent together, they must forge a real sense of shared purpose and maintain sincere attention to the most essential questions they face as organizations. This tends to be a slow, deliberate process. It requires a fusion of individual and collective leadership development.

Principle #4: Be impeccable and aim for integrity Successful social change requires authentic leaders with the courage and determination to discern the full picture and take “right action” and accept responsibility for the outcomes. Living out the kind of core values we espouse in the social change field actually requires personal and collective impeccability and integrity in our words and in our actions. Actualizing this in real life requires honest reflection, self-examination (individually and organizationally) and open dialogue. To unfold a life of integrity or to or sustain an organization grounded in integrity requires constancy and a willingness to “walk your talk” year after year. To make a real difference in the lives of other people or creatures often requires us to suspend our own self-focus. I would offer that one visible “product” of this kind of outward-focused presence may be “active comion.” Over time, I believe you could witness this in yourself and others. And when active comion is present, the energy and hopefulness of a group is boundless. When we aim to work collectively in service of others or the wider community, we have to get our own house in order so we don’t get captured by our own hype or deliver what turn out to be false promises.

Principle #5: Accept Interdependence The social problems we’re attacking are complex. Frequently, it is quite difficult to map the causes and appreciate the constant interactions that shape an issue as it unfolds or its context evolves. Such interdependence makes it hard to determine optimum strategies or to be confident that you can identify the best leverage points. No single organization or group can really make significant impacts while working in fragmented programmatic ways. This principle suggests the benefits that result from widespread collaboration, continuous learning from mistakes and unexpected occurrences, and taking a long-view of the issue. It is helpful to know what you don’t know, and to remain humble and hopeful. We have to find a balance between overpromising (“blowing smoke”) and irrelevancy to make a real difference through our work.

Principle #6: Pay attention to Relationships Life unfolds through all these constant interactions with others, with our environment, and with our habits of thought. Our organizations and institutions are constantly shaped by interrelationships (with community, customers, partners, boards, etc.). It is through relationships that we shape reality. It is the stew of social action at every level. When these are mutually ing and respectful, progress is easier: it creates energy or spacious possibilities. Collaboration is great example of mutual relationships harnessed for social change. It is more and more necessary and important in the field of social action to make honest collaboration central. When there is a real lack of appreciation for others or friction, distrust or inequality, people and communities suffer, our effectiveness is reduced, and the work becomes a grind.

Principle #7: you’re dealing with living systems Neighborhoods, communities, regions, habitats, and organizations are each unique forms of living systems. Living systems keep changing. They have energy, momentum, “will,” systems, and often traditions and trajectories that can’t be easily shifted by a new program—no matter how comprehensive or well-intentioned. When one component or variable changes in a living system, it alters relationships throughout the system in a dynamic fashion. Systems have an integrity and wholeness; they are interconnected and have a purpose or function. To affect something in a living system, it is best to identify leverage points and seek to learn from the changing patterns of the system over time, not merely through short snapshots. We can’t force or expect a system to behave on our or in our timeframe no matter what kind of pressure is being applied by our organization, our leaders, or our funders. Living systems require change agents to be constant learners because we rarely can be sure that we know enough about the system’s components, relationships, and time horizons to predict success or outcomes from our interventions. We have to be respectful, humble, and open to the consequences of our actions.

Principle #8: Most organizations and places go through cycles and are continually adapting Cycles are natural features in any living system. From biorhythms in individuals, to tides or seasons in nature, “life-cycles” in organizations, and elective cycles in government, the work of social action confronts us with cycles. If you map the history of a community, it is possible to see recurring leadership patterns or recurring social challenges that continue because the deep causes or behaviors are still embedded in the culture. The most intriguing observation on living systems from social scientists and ecologists is that adaptive cycles are built into the nature of every living system. They operate for lengths of time harnessing potential around some efficiencies or standards but eventually become vulnerable and are disrupted. The disruption breaks open the system to some changes and innovations, which alter the way the system is functioning, and some new ideas or ways of behaving become more prominent—and the cycle repeats.³ These cycles seem to work in pulses and spasms of change, not in gradual stages. Thus, continuous adaptation to change is the essence of most non-mechanical systems. We have to learn how to work with the change instead of managing against it—or hoping it will unfold exactly like last year or, even better, never happen. This is typical for too many strategic initiatives and programs! By investing more in developing untapped potential, connecting more pieces of the entire system, and strengthening natural resilience through continuous learning, change agents can help human or natural communities move optimally through adaptive cycles. This shortens the disturbance or imbalance and hastens renewal or rebirth. If we’re not doing this, we’ll be reactive, or becoming redundant. If we are practicing adaptive responses, we can take the learning and spiral up the impact from our work.

Included here are a series of sketches applying Gunderson and Holling’s theories of adaptive cycles in living systems to the recent United States economic cycle. With just a basic appreciation, it is possible to better comprehend the slow, disturbing nature of the release and reorganization of the country’s social and economic foundation. The authors, who are ecologists, use exploitation in this framework to suggest that the newest ideas, products, or approaches win out and reduce the environment for other competing forms. The front loop usually conforms to a long period of stable, consolidation. This could represent the period after the 2001 technology bubble and terror attacks that eventually spawned the overheated housing market and period of overleveraging that collapsed in the recession of 2008.

Common Features and Characteristics of the Adaptive Cycle in Organizations

In these sketches, the adaptive cycle is applied to the periodic cycles of performance, disturbance, and innovation or reorganization that most organizations encounter as they plan or implement social change. Note the suggestions that organizational habits of thinking—making untested assumptions and falling back on yesterday’s logic to solve unfolding challenges are “baked into” the typical response to change. Leaders have to learn and unlearn in order to avoid the ruts of old thinking. Leadership and management guru Peter Drucker once suggested that the biggest threat when faced with mounting turbulence is to confront it with yesterday’s logic.

Principle #9: Recognize and expect resistance and delay We can’t design the perfect solution, intervention or program. We must expect that there will be some kind of pushback or resistance. This is natural. There is always push and pull. It leads to learning, fine-tuning, and respectful engagement in our operating environment. is key to the way of social change. It is very difficult to accept and understand that there are other perspectives and viewpoints. Rather than finding yourself surprised that there are myriad reactions to your ideas or efforts, try assuming that this is really the nature of things. Be thankful for the : it is showing you what you need to know and what might have to be changed. Fighting against the little stuff is unwise; responding to the big stuff with more wisdom, more determination, or more flexibility is part of practicing change and truly shaping your vision into reality. All systems also have built-in delays; most things require real time to complete or unwind. For instance, it takes about a generation to grow a skilled worker or a solid tree, so you have to consider that you’ll have to adjust your efforts many times to respond to natural delays and cycles.

Principle #10: Unleash potential and untapped ideas A good deal of the change we are trying to trigger in organizations or communities is very complex and long-term. On many fronts, previous efforts have made good but incremental progress. As a result, there is a body of solid or promising practices available on many dimensions of organizational or community change, and collective impact. But, despite this body of successful practice, we haven’t fully resolved many of the root social problems in our world. Serious inequities, disparities, and insidious structural “isms” are being compounded by mounting natural challenges around water, energy, food, and economic opportunity as globalization continues reshaping wages, markets, and industries. Taking our work deeper and making the best of it adaptive and lasting will require more potential and new ideas that are yet untapped. We are surrounded by potential in people in our organizations and communities that we need to engage in new ways to address our social challenges. This requires a new appreciation for adaptation, collaboration, experimentation and rapid learning. It depends on including new people in the mix with the opportunity and power to collaborate respectfully and creatively. We have to engage experts and stakeholders. We have to be more willing to unlearn and to be disturbed from our typical certainties in order to promote more breakthrough processes.

In summary, practicing the art of change actually requires patient practice and conscious awareness of your life and actions as you live it out one day at a time. Over time, this practice generates great learning, which allows you to bring into formation good works that really serve people. In the next section, I’ll describe a few approaches to change making that will help you make a positive difference.

Lasting Social Change is Animated by a Powerful Connection to Your Soul

Developing an authentic relationship to change is nurtured through unleashing your soul’s energy and potential. With practice, you can unfold your unique life in service of the world. As you work with others in community, organization, institution, and larger systems, the key challenge is to unleash energy in others. Then, we can courageously respond to the world’s toughest problems. In this illustration, the power of an individual’s ion and authentic commitment to positive change is amplified when combined respectfully with others.

Addressing tough, wicked social problems--the real art of change making

We have to work on multiple levels to address the tough social problems. We have to look from the outside in and from the inside out. We have to work at the intersection of these dimensions and be able to identify when we need a technical or known solution and when we need an experimental or adaptive solution. For many of us, working on “wicked” social problems requires a new vantage point and a new set of leadership capacities. It requires a level of resilience in us and in the organizations or collaborations in which we do our work. Establishing that true resilience requires intentional learning and continual practice. It takes seasoning, and it happens in real time.

“In 1973, two social scientists, Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, defined a class of problems they call wicked problems. Wicked problems are messy, ill-defined, more complex than we fully grasp, and open to multiple interpretations based on one’s point of view. They are problems such as poverty, obesity, where to put a new highway—or how to make sure people have adequate health care.

They are the opposite of “tame problems,” which can be crisply defined, completely understood, and fixed through technical solutions. Tame problems are not necessarily simple—they include putting a man on the moon or devising a cure for diabetes. They are, however, solvable. Solutions to tame problems either work or they don’t. Solutions to wicked problems, by contrast, are only better or worse. Trade-offs are unavoidable. Unanticipated complications and benefits are both common. And opportunities to learn by trial and error are limited. You can’t try a new highway over here and over there; you put it where you put it. But new issues will arise. Adjustments will be required. No solution to a wicked problem is ever permanent or wholly satisfying, which leaves every solution open to easy polemical attack.”⁴

Developing a truly resilient organization—one capable of self-renewal through continuous innovation--is a difficult process. The purpose, ion, vision and unique value or services it contributes to the world must be clear and timely. Navigating the changing context of your market or ecosystem requires discipline, discernment, and some luck. There are important questions that leaders of organizations can use to take their pulse and shape a path to resilience and health.

We use questions to provoke discernment. Things are too complex to form one perfect approach; even if that was possible, the situation would just keep changing. So, framing your social change leadership around learning from living, observing, making sense and asking questions is a good way to live in uncertainty. This is the daily “art of change.” There are examples to guide you in the Reflective Leadership Notebook that begins on page 22.

Leadership is a continual journey to identify and manifest your purpose in your work and life so it adds real value for others. It requires: •embracing creative tension and ambiguity;

•looking “underneath the surface” of things;

•integrating multiple dimensions and worldviews—from personal to community;

•perceiving and understanding whole systems and the key leverage points for positive change; and

•taking responsibility for our role and impact on these systems—and on people.

Leadership involves action from individuals acting in different roles and capacities to close gaps between their shared values and reality. ⁵

Rehearse the future while staying mindful in the present moment

In the next 20 years, the social sector will likely be altered in unimaginable ways by the confluence of disruptive social, ecological, and technological forces. Change agents will have to face and answer for their organizations some additional powerful questions. A few of these are arrayed in the adjacent illustration as a widening “cone of uncertainty” enveloping a linear band of challenges that seem more certain to shape the operating environments for social change in the West (adapted from good work by futurist Paul Saffo). How well your organization and its leaders and their communities respond to these dynamics will have profound impacts on our work and our world. Maintaining your organization’s adaptive capabilities will be critical in evolving the appropriate response to the driving forces that underlie the dynamic possibilities in the diagram.

An Integrated Framework –a guide to help you take the pulse and chart your leadership direction

Here is a useful structure to gain insight to craft strategy for your organization or group and shape a leadership development process to carry out the strategy. The following Reflective Leadership Notebook is built upon this integrated framework, so you’ll have a chance to work with this framework.

A Reflective Leadership Notebook

If our social change work unfolds in the tension between the very significant effects illustrated on the Paths to the Future illustration, then it truly is up to us to chart a direction for our work that opens to new opportunity while anticipating some of the likely unknowns and resulting risk. We’re obviously dealing with complex, whole systems. It can seem overwhelming to determine where to start, what to fix, and what to learn.

You can re-frame this complex picture by taking stock in a series of SIX stages (as illustrated below). The following section of the Handbook is designed as a reflective notebook with guiding questions to help you illuminate the most critical strategic or leadership issues for you in your current context. At the end of the notebook, you’ll find a summary Dashboard. This is a simple tool to capture the current change and learning agenda. Working through the issues on your Dashboard can your path to resilience and health.

The impacts of the national context

Obviously, we are all being affected by the broad, national context, where social, political, environmental, demographic, and technological forces are colliding in an increasingly global world. Ongoing wars, worries about pandemics and cyber-security, and the behavior and future of the global finance and planetary ecosystems are triggering changes in industries, communities, and organizations. When multiple forces interact they amplify the impact that might be possible from a single force. There are a number of good questions an organization might use to identify coming possibilities, tensions, or lingering uncertainties embedded in the national context.

KEY QUESTIONS

What are the current drivers that will shape our decision-making in the next 6-12 months?

What convergence of events could seriously disrupt our organization and business?

Where are the biggest risks and unusual opportunities for us in this broad external context over the coming 3 years?

How will our organization respond to changing federal or international program guidelines and allocations?

Is our core business still viable and sustainable and will our current strategies work in a constrained economy?

How should we respond if market fluctuations, rising deficits, or budget cuts crimp investments in programs that affect our constituents?

Where will we secure new or partners?

Can we plan for any stability in cost and access for utilities and fuel?

Will health care changes shift any elements of our operations in the next 3-5 years?

Will changes in weather systems or climate—or pending climate policy-- alter our plans?

How will we be affected by continued political partisanship?

What current practice do we need to release or discontinue because it has outlived its usefulness?

What will success “look like” and what key data will we be using to evaluate our progress?

The impacts of changes in regional-state systems

Changes at the regional and state level are also reshaping our business environment. Like the larger, national issues, many of these shifts are slowmoving and longer-term impacts that may eventually alter the situation for our organizations and communities. We may not be able to anticipate how some changes will play out over the next few years. Other elements of this environment may be more volatile and must be considered as fairly urgent and turbulent for the immediate future.

KEY QUESTIONS

What will the level of economic activity look and feel like for the next year in our region? Which industries or sectors will gain strength and which will face continued hard times?

How will the side effects of the globalized economy continue rippling out through state and municipal governments? How will we be affected?

How would we shape the debate about the future of our field or our community/region?

Who is thinking ahead and promoting innovation in the civic arena? What is on the horizon that we should watch or challenge?

What political challenges or changes are in store for the region?

Are we engaged in the right conversations about the region’s future workforce? Is the region promoting the most relevant learning and training system?

How will the newest federal and state education frameworks affect our state,

community? What might be different for our constituents or partners?

Will any health issues or policies impact our organization or customers in the next year? How should we plan for this?

What major public infrastructure efforts (highway, water, education, safety, etc.) are likely to affect us?

Is the region’s current social safety net effective and sustainable? Will this impact us in any way in the next few years?

What blind spots could get in the way of our ability to perceive new opportunity?

The current pulse of our own organization and its ability to respond to external changes

It’s fair to assume that every organization will be affected by the turbulent economic and social environment. Some ideas and procedures are no longer successful or necessary for the organization to achieve real impact. In some cases, to achieve sustained social impact your organization will have to drop some behaviors, assumptions, or programs so it can achieve excellence and manage its core contributions to society. In other cases, many groups are entering into your territory with different rules and expectations. These questions will help you assess the ability of your organization to respond to the external changes that were identified in the previous sections

KEY QUESTIONS

Do we still have a clear, coherent strategy—a set of congruent responses to the challenging environment—that set us apart and achieves impact?

Does our business idea still work in the current environment or does it need refinement?

Is our current strategic plan based on assumptions that have recently been turned upside down? Is it flexible enough to provide direction?

What are our basic approaches for understanding and anticipating the future? How well are these working?

What are the biggest uncertainties the organization will face in the next three years?

What have we learned recently about our impact and value to our core customers? Do we have an effective results framework in place?

Has our view of our competition changed?

Are our core goals and objectives still realistic? Are they in alignment with our mission and values?

Is our current resource engine/model resilient enough to preserve our entire set of programs or products?

How well does our organization manage its current work? Are we as effective as we intended?

How well has our workforce weathered the economic and business cycles, and how strong is our talent and our supply of energy and imagination?

How effective and secure are our financial and data systems?

How strong are our technological competencies? Are we investing in people so they can create new products and ideas utilizing the most powerful and appropriate technology?

What are the big frames and messages about our work that we communicate?

What is the story that we feel most effectively shines a positive light on our organization?

What communication tools, competencies, or resources will we need in the next year to remain effective, relevant, and competitive?

What additional facilities or infrastructure changes are on the horizon? What could this mean for our work?

The strength of our leadership fabric

An organization’s ability to push through barriers or renew itself is heavily dependent on the belief systems and tacit assumptions of its people. Such creative intangibles are important assets in any resilient organization. As you continue checking the pulse of the organization, you could consider questions like these.

KEY QUESTIONS

What are the prevailing mindsets about the future inside our organization? In what ways have the tone, outlook, and expectations shifted in the last few years? What do you think this suggests for our sustainability?

How will we be affected by various social and technological tools? Which ones must we adopt? Are there any new tools or applications that our team could invent?

Do we have a strategic point of view about environmental issues and green methods or processes? Have we developed an assessment of their impact on our organization in the immediate future?

How strongly connected and committed are the of the leadership team, the board, the organization?

Is our whole organization, staff and board in sync and ready for the shifts that must be made?

What have we learned about the pace of change in our business? What events might change or intensify the pace of change and affect our work in the next year? What will this demand from us?

What are our blind spots that may prevent a transformation in our thinking or in our work?

Where is the untapped potential in the organization, and what will be required to unleash it?

What is the most important conversation about our organization that we really must make a top priority?

How well our people are navigating the current situation

People are at the center of every organization and institution. The ways that people respond to rules, relationships, challenges, uncertainties, and opportunities shape the capacity for true resilience in nearly every organization. You can begin assessing the heartbeat of your organization with these questions. They should provide a clearer perspective of the current situation and identify areas that require fresh thinking and continued learning.

KEY QUESTIONS

Are we following through on current commitments to the work of change in our organization?

Have individuals accepted personal responsibility for important outcomes?

How would we describe our organizational culture?

Are our core values alive in the organization? Are we walking our own talk?

Is there a positive spirit in the organization? Where are we shining a light or casting a shadow as we lead?

Is active comion and goodwill present in our work and across the organization?

Can we identify a love for people being expressed in our work and actions? Are we nurturing the development of balanced, healthy people who can make sense of the world?

How well are we stimulating innovation across our organization? How do we measure this?

Do we have a clear eye on tomorrow’s leaders on the staff and board? How effective is our leader development process?

What fuels inspiration in our organization? How is this encouraged and incorporated into the work and culture?

What is our dream for what is possible in the organization and in our community? Do we still have a common, shared vision that pulls people positively toward the future?

What is your personal leadership journey?

As a change agent, you also have your own personal leadership journey. There are a few basic questions you can use to guide your own development. Honest work addressing these types of questions can help you free yourself from conceptual limitations and sustain your personal authenticity.

KEY QUESTIONS

What are your current commitments to the work of change in your organization (or community) and in other areas of your life?

How or where have you accepted personal responsibility for the primary outcomes of your big actions?

How do you bring your personal values into this work? What are your continuing challenges as you carry on the work of change and leadership in your community?

Where are your core values and beliefs about life?

How do you want to be treated?

Where are you shining a light or casting a shadow in your leadership activities? Where are you encouraging and empowering others and where does your ambition or ego interfere and create a shadow over people or groups?

How do you bring your life’s purpose into the everyday work of leadership?

How well are you living: is there a spaciousness and clarity to your general state of mind?

How do you manage uncertainty and ambiguity as they affect your leadership efforts?

What is your own dream for what is possible in your community and in your organization?

How do you inspire others? What fuels your own inspiration?

Is the spirit of “goodwill” present in your work?

How can you recognize the assets and gifts of people around you?

Collecting and Organizing your Emerging Dashboard.

Take some space to summarize and synthesize what is standing out for the organization and for you as the individual leader after spending time with the four sets of questions. Note that the personal leadership learning agenda dashboard follows.

Review the organizational strategy challenges and identify the driving national or global forces that will shape your future operating environment. Consider your current blind spots, habits, and advantages. Determine the range of implications or opportunities that may emerge. Then, winnow these down and capture them on the Dashboard Organizational Strategy Circle on the following page.

Follow a similar process of synthesis for the regional or state-level challenges. Be sure to include at least a couple current “blind spots” for the organization— these could be prevailing assumptions, habitual frameworks or practices that shape the way you respond to outside forces or opportunities. Try to stay aware of emergent trends that may be peripheral to your usual “radar screens.” The top issues should fit into the lower Dashboard circle in the left column on page 36.

The Dashboard includes three circular gauges for internal organizational challenges. Operational Capacity should cover the big challenges to the core logic of your current business model, your capacity to respond to your environment as it changes, and opportunities to leverage your unique strengths and competitive advantages.

The Creative Intangibles gauge should include the emerging priorities around the

organization’s capacity for fresh thinking, reading the changing environment or business climate for peripheral disturbances, issues bubbling up for leadership, and new opportunities.

The Adaptive Capacity gauge captures the key issues related to people, culture, and the alignment of the key facets of your organization. Make sure you touched on areas where new learning and change mastery may be required in order to maintain relevance or sustain lasting impact.

Then, on page 37, summarize your Personal Learning and Practice challenges that you aim to address in order to be more effective, authentic and true to your soul.

SUMMARY: YOUR ORGANIZATION’S LEADERSHIP RESILIENCE DASHBOARD.

Learning from Your Dashboard: Tips for Addressing Your Urgent Challenges Now what do I do about this stuff that surfaced on my dashboard? As a result of your guided reflections, you identified a smaller set of priority opportunities for you and/or your organization. You may already have a good sense of the most effective ways to dive in and take action or develop some new practices. There will be useful resources and tools listed on pages 45-48 that will provide extensive detail to address many of your emerging challenges on the resilience dashboards. The table below summarizes a few likely challenges that could be generated by the strategic reflection with a few approaches that could give you initial direction to address your priorities. Your particular issues or challenges may require more detailed examination, new learning, or assistance from outside consultants.

Organizational Resilience Challenges/Opportunities

Strategy needs to be retooled or clarified to address possible disruptions or to improve organi

Developing a clearer “triple bottom line” approach to expand conservation and “green” practi Organizational drift and weak execution is limiting real impact

Challenges emerging around the culture of collaboration or the organization’s innovation capa

Insufficient alignment within the organization or challenges engaging the board or key comm

Organizational Resilience Challenges/Opportunities

Responding to technology to increase investors, to expand participation in programs or volun

Getting the right people on board, building a next generation leadership group, or fine tuning Personal Resilience Challenges/Opportunities

You are trying to stretch your skill sets, perhaps in trend-spotting, succession or sustainability

You identified some blind spots or unfinished personal development. This might include stres

How to lead important social change and stay well As I suggested previously, taking responsibility for your own individual growth and self-mastery is where the work of leadership begins and ends. We have to learn our way to good leadership --to be whole people capable of making meaningful change in the world . This requires your unique personal leadership balancing act: closing the gap between a compelling vision and a current reality with serious embedded social and systemic challenges while providing the right amount of caring, creative disturbance, coaching, and execution. These dynamics surely shape your situation, but how you respond, what you take personally, and how you relate to the challenges are up to you.

There are a few tips that can help you develop leadership well-being:

Cultivate a heart that can welcome all of life. Show loving kindness, and lift up the basic goodness in people. This will nurture your own reserves of energy and empathy.

Stay mindful of the basic drivers or values that shape effective social change. You can fill in your own--mine are: believe in and work for goodness, justice, opportunity, and fairness. It helps to keep this front and center every day.

Learn to flow with the unanticipated consequences. You can’t perfectly plan social change; something unexpected will always push against your expectations. So, build more room for shifts into your plans and try harder to really learn from the you’re getting instead of resisting it.

Change is possibility…. We cannot control it, but perhaps we can learn to ride it,

like a surfer on a wave or a bird on a thermal; to use its power to take us where we want to go. This enables us to live with uncertainty, yet act with confidence.

Dewitt Jones, National Geographic photographer, from Focus Your Vision

Get beyond your personal clichés. We each have our 10 favorite answers and preferences. Unfortunately, we tend to apply them to the world as truths; they become our own defaults and sometimes clichés. It takes real effort to let go of these and settle into your authentic self. It is this authentic self that the world needs from you. To do this, be intentional about letting go of your self-absorption and attachment to always being right. The poet David Whyte provides a powerful reminder: “The first step to preserving the soul in our individual lives is to it that the world has a soul also, and is somehow participating with us in our work and destiny. That there is a sacred otherness to the world that is breathtakingly helpful simply because it is not us; it is not defined by our human worries and preoccupations, and it never will be.”⁷

Do whatever it takes to nurture fresh thinking. I always incorporate drawing, modeling with clay or plastic blocks and toys, and movie or music snippets to help people innovate. Meditation or nature walks can spark insights. It is important to find your own practice, then actually invest in it so you can reperceive situations and reinvent your solutions. Take a course, watch TED videos (www.ted.com/talks ), read material from your own periphery, go rafting, etc. Do whatever it takes to disturb your normal habits of thinking and problem solving.

Practice silence and connect to spirit. Many hard social problems will require a level of deeper insight from us to really create lasting impact. You’ll have to tap a source of love and untapped potential that embraces both the spiritual and the strategic. Guard against recycling faddish techniques or yesterday’s approaches because they seem quicker (or in vogue with your funding sources).

Connect to or build a community of caring colleagues. It is easy to lose your balance as a leader and do too much. Find a community of seekers and

learners about social or community vitality and the conversation. There are many national networks providing nurturing and creative environments that help change agents thrive. Here are a couple of examples: Center for Courage and Renewal (www.courageandrenewal.org) that has extensive opportunities to bring change agents in touch with the soul of social change work. Authentic Leadership in Action (www.aliainstitute.org ) infuses mindfulness practice with systems learning and creative exploration through annual retreats and extensive online tools and links to change communities worldwide.

To embed these practices into your group work, you can incorporate them into guidelines, or touchstones for collaboration and learning. On page 43, I include a commitment to Receptive Leadership that is a model for communicating an intentional approach to deep leadership. On page 45, I included 26 good resources that can be a bookshelf to your own art of change. These have proven to be the central core for learning about leading change; I keep returning to them for inspiration.

As you practice, you can continue your evolution of the way of change, captured so nicely by Ursula LeGuin in her interpretation of an ancient poem about the art of living:

So in myself I see what self is, In my household I see what family is, In my town I see what community is, In my nation I see what a country is, In the world I see what is under heaven.*⁸

Catalyzing the Future: A Promise of Receptive Leadership Our Hilton Head Affirmation

The future dawns.

We prepare by turning to wonder.

We understand that we are part of a current that began long before our arrival and will continue long after we depart. We do not control its course—so we must learn to flow with it.

We believe that world-changers are self-changers first. We lead not mainly by leaps, but by small steps. The way may be uncertain, but the ground we share is hallowed. All we need is here, and it’s all important. The greatest promise exists in the smallest seed. We belong to each other. We can feed each other.

We feel an energy around and that we don’t necessarily understand and can’t quite articulate—but which we can increase and extend by our presence.

We recognize that power emerges from spirit, from intention.

United by a sense of responsibility, and a desire to improve the landscape, we commit ourselves to dropping old baggage, opening fresh eyes, and finding new

ways to examine, reflect, and shift.

Further, we pledge to:

•Take the long view, adopting an unfettered vantage point from which to see the horizon. •Round the square tables, holding safe spaces where all are seen and heard. •Listen attentively and well, inviting and welcoming disparate voices. •Observe and discern wisely, knowing that some of our best teachers are least like ourselves. •Perceive that there is no such thing as failure. •Be worthy of trust, deeply reflective and authentic, flexible, humble, and grateful. •Remind others of their dignity and hold their stories tenderly. •Laugh heartily and often, especially at ourselves. •Act nobly—with care, comion, respect, and grace. •Plant seeds, confident that they will germinate and blossom in their own time. •Become a liberating force, unlocking barriers to ion and unleashing the vitalizing power of creativity and courage. •Go gently down the stream, leaving only love in our wake.

Created in collaboration with 15 other participants at Conversation 2011Learning From the Future: The personal, organizational, community, and societal interrelationships that will most deeply shape the practice and promise of philanthropy in 2030. Used with permission from Gary Hubbell Consulting (www.garyhubbellconsulting.com/ghc-conversations/ghc-conversation-2011 )

The 26 Best Resources for Leading Social Change: where to turn for inspiration and details

These books have served me well in helping people deal honestly with change and work consciously to close opportunity gaps and solve tough social and community problems. This bookshelf can help you find ideas, concepts, tools, and methodologies to attack the most pressing challenges on your dashboard— personal, organizational, or in community.

Reframing Organizations, by Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal Great framework for organizations and teams to deal with power, politics, culture, group and individual dynamics.

The Sixth Sense: Accelerating Organizational Learning with Scenarios, by Kees van der Heijden (and others) Great tool for describing strategy and how to shape it to adapt to the business environment. A step-by-step scenario building manual.

The Art of the Long View, by Peter Schwartz Plain speaking on the power and process of rehearsing the future through scenarios. It will transform your learning agenda.

Solving Tough Problems: An Open Way of Talking, Listening, and Creating New Realities, by Adam Kahane Reminiscences about a life of facilitating breakthroughs in contentious environments with diverse groups through scenario storytelling. As Nelson

Mandela offers in an appreciation of this work, it lays out “a way to work together to solve the problems we have created.”

The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, by Peter Senge, Art Kleiner (and others) A great guide for learning about change with strong tools for diagnosing systemic challenges and leading innovation

The Change Handbook, by Peggy Holman, Tom Devane, Steven Cady (and other contributors) A valuable, huge collection of useful methods to help groups learn, talk, and forward action; includes practical suggestions for employing them in your situation.

Systems Thinking Basics, by Virginia Anderson and Lauren Johnson Simple guides to understanding how human and organizational systems work and simple ways for drawing them in order to help people learn where to find leverage for change. Contains great tips for writing stories, drawing behavior over time charts and causality diagrams. Thinking in Systems, by Donella Meadows The best orientation to systems dynamics written with kindness and humility. This book will open your mind and your heart with its wise counsel and tips for seeing into the daily dance we are engaged in with living systems.

Panarchy: Understanding Transformation in Human and Natural Systems, by Lance Gunderson and C. S. Holling A fine resource for understanding the ways and rules of nature and ecology and

how these are instructive to human systems at all levels. A long, rather academic book, but it is an illuminating study of interdependence. The scenarios for human and economic impacts on the natural world near the end of the book are insightful.

Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges, by C. Otto Scharmer Another big book full of fantastic insights and great diagrams on the new frontier of consciousness and collective action aimed at the planet’s biggest social challenges.

Perseverance, by Margaret Wheatley A soulful book on leading change featuring practical mantras built around the architecture of a powerful Hopi poem on leadership. Margaret Wheatley’s books are must reads for change agents.

Leadership on the Line, by Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky Tactical insights on implementing leadership that challenges tough social and political realities. The clear distinctions between technical solutions and adaptive learning are incredibly useful frames for rethinking your viewpoints on social change. Includes powerful advice on protecting yourself during the pressures of change-making.

Ten Things to Do in a Conceptual Emergency, by the International Futures Forum Along with Good to Great and the Social Sector, the best little book of wisdom you’ll ever find about working with people to solve difficult challenges in our world. This compiles the insights from a collective group of accomplished futurists.

Good to Great and the Social Sector, by Jim Collins A short, extremely useful tool for clarifying strategy and articulating direction for any social change organization. If you take the advice, you can sustain an effective organization that makes a good impact on society and one that provides meaning for its .

Appreciative Inquiry Handbook for Leaders of Change, by David Cooperrider and Diana Whitney An accessible, optimistic four-part approach to strategic thinking and planning that is based on people’s visions and assets. The Art of Powerful Questions: Catalyzing Insight, Innovation, and Action, by Eric Vogt, Juanita Brown, and David Isaacs Incredibly useful guide to framing questions that provoke new thinking and impactful action.

Leadership from the Inside Out—Becoming a Leader for Life, by Kevin Cashman A great guide to the inner dimension of leadership development that is built around eight interrelated aspects of learning and mastery. This is an excellent resource for developing an honest learning agenda to eventually lead to an authentic life where your soul and role are in a good balance.

Leading from Within: Poetry that Sustains the Courage to Lead, by Sam Intrator and Megan Scribner This is a collection of poems that can help you open up deep and honest leadership conversations with others about hope, fear, and possibility.

A Hidden Wholeness, by Parker Palmer Palmer brings the essential focus on the important place of soul and spirit in the journey of leading change. All of his books will teach you about what he calls “the grace of great things.”

Facilitating Community Change, by Tyler Norris (and others) With great visual thinking graphics and tools from the Grove Consulting team, this is the best step-by-step guide to successful community building.

The Collaboration Handbook, by Michael Winer and Karen Ray A highly illustrated and easy to apply guide to the four phases of collaboration. This is an essential building block of collective impact.

The Abundant Community: Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods, by John McKnight and Peter Block This book lifts up the heart and soul of community building: the gifts of people, place, and culture. It reinforces the essential social value of a meaningful life in a place where you belong and where you shape its reality and destiny.

Visual Meetings: How Graphics, Sticky Notes & Idea Mapping can Transform Group Productivity, by David Sibbet A useful toolbox for facilitating brainstorming, creative thinking, and action planning with groups of people. Sibbet makes it clear and easy so almost anyone can start doing graphic planning.

Masterful Coaching, by Robert Hargrove The best resource for learning how to coach groups of people to more strategic collective work. The focus on transforming people’s mental models, like Senge’s Fifth Discipline, targets a powerful aspect of opening a process for fresh thinking and aligned group behavior. It has excellent graphics and diagrams to convey learning concepts.

The Nonprofit Strategy Revolution—Real Time Strategic Planning in a RapidResponse World, by David LaPiana A very practical strategic planning guide with clear questions, great diagrams, and a sequential process that would enable any group to do good strategic analysis and planning.

Governance as Leadership, Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards, by Richard Chait, William Ryan, and Barbara Taylor Presents a fresh, clear model for reforming leadership in the social sector with a blend of strategy and big picture thinking aligned with ability. Provides excellent questions for facilitators, executive, and boards.

About the Author

Ken Hubbell is Founder and President of Ken Hubbell & Associates (www.kenhubbell.com), a consulting firm based in Little Rock, Arkansas. Established in 1992, Ken Hubbell and Associates specializes in coaching, strategic thinking and planning, and facilitating collaboration. His clients include foundations, nonprofit organizations, city governments, state and federal agencies, educational institutions and select private companies. As a consultant, Ken collaborated with more than 60 clients across the world to produce successful, resilient and meaningful programs and initiatives and some wonderful examples of social change. Ken’s work has strengthened numerous individuals, organizations, and communities in the United States and southern Africa.

Born in Port Huron, Michigan, Ken earned an art degree at Syracuse University and worked in New York City as a designer and consultant before establishing his home in Little Rock in 1977. Ken is co-author of A Field Guide to Community Coaching (2011) and author of “Always a Simple Feast: Social Life in the Delta,” from the University of Arkansas Press publication, The Arkansas Delta, Land of Paradox, edited by Jeannie Whayne and Willard B. Gatewood (1993).

Endnotes 1 C. S. Holling, Stephen R. Carpenter, William A. Brock, Lance Gunderson, “Discoveries for Sustainable Futures,” in Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, Island Press, Washington, DC, 2002; p 399 2 Patrick Reinmoeller and Nicole van Bardwijk, “The Link Between Diversity and Resilience,” MIT Sloan Management Journal, Summer 2005, Vol. 46 No. 4, p. 60 3 Lance H. Gunderson and C. S. Holling, co-editors, Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, Island Press, Washington, 2002, p.34-51, 192 4 Atul Gawande, “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” The New Yorker, retrieved June 29, 2012 from www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012/ 5 Ronald Heifetz: Leadership Without Easy Answers, Belknap Press, Cambridge, MA, 1994, page 20. 6 International Futures Forum, Ten Things to Do in a Conceptual Emergency, St. Andrews, Scotland, 2003, page 6. 7 David Whyte, The Heart Aroused: Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America, Currency-Doubleday, New York, 2002 Kindle edition. 8 Ursula LeGuin, Lao Tzu Tao Te Ching: A Book About the Way and the Power of the Way, Shambhala Publications, Boston, 1997, page 69.