communicating vision and value

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Communicating Vision and Value

Todd Hoskins

January 31, 2012

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Today’s Speaker

Todd HoskinsFounder

Canopy Gap

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Cheri J Weissman, CJW Consulting & Services, Inc.Assisting with chat questions: April Hunt, Nonprofit Webinars

Community Workshop

Communicating Vision & Value

Todd Hoskins

January 31, 2012

What we are exploring today . . .

• The limitations of strategic thinking

• Explore the relationships between vision, mission, strategy, and tactics

• Being a more dynamic organization

• Tools for adaptive communications internally and externally

About Todd

• Corporate technology for 8 years

• Grad school psychology• Startup technology for 3 years• Thrivability Strategist for 3

years

• “Engagement Architect”• Knowledge of networks• Adaptive systems• Human behavior• Provide structure and

process

• Consult and Coach• Social change agents• Education• Non-profits• Technology

The communications triangle: sharp and linear

The downside of linear business thinking

Mission

• Limitations of language (Cannot capture intangible value)

• Restricted “vision” (Exclusionary blinders)

Strategy

• The world is increasingly complex, and changing fast

• Rigidity – sticking to the plan – can be deadly

• Who gets to build the strategy?

Tactics

• Constituents can sense behavior-influencing attempts

• “Campaigns” or being “targeted” feel disingenuous

Organizations as Living Systems

A complex system is a system composed of interconnected parts that as a

whole exhibit one or more properties (behavior among the possible properties)

not obvious from the properties of the individual parts.

Even the US military is undergoing massive change from a command and

control organization to a lightweight, leaderful, and adaptive system.

The complex system inside us

vs.

Getting to Vision

For the newly sighted, vision is pure sensation unencumbered by meaning.

- Annie Dillard from “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”

Hit the targetConsistencyOn message

WeaveAllow discrepancyDiscover themes

Tools for Envisioning

• Nature / getting out of cubicles

• Designing environments for serendipity

• Open dialogue

• Free association

• Active listening to all constituents

• Images & sounds

• Word / phrase clouds

Both/and: Strategy and Agility

X 100

• Plan more frequently• Let all constituents

participate• Stories > Messages

• Prototype• Iterate• Structure the chaos

How can we create value continuously?

Value is something we perceive, and although we try to

fix value in linear terms and control it through logic and

strategy, it‟s increasingly apparent that „value‟ has

dimensions beyond the fixed world of form and logic. To

understand value and the intelligence encoded in it, we

need to develop our innate capacity for going beyond

logic and form, a limitless capacity to learn and know

and create using „intangible intelligence‟.

- Marti Spiegelman

• Value cannot be fully measured – it’s

multidimensional

• Value is co-created : “Ideas are networks”

• Authentic organizations are comprised of authentic

people freely moving towards and around a shared

vision

• People are drawn to people living fully, and

organizations that are helping people live fully

What does this mean for marketing?

What does this mean for your web presence?

What does this mean for social media?

Moving from rules to guideposts and guardrails

Push

• Announcements

• Special offers

• Feel good / look good

• Brand-building

• Targeted

• Safe

• Robotic

Pull

• Explorations

• Invitations for help

• Authentic

• Community-building

• Diverse

• Experimental

• Human

Some sample questions

• What is inspiring us?

• What are we learning?

• What big questions are we asking?

• Who do we admire?

• Where are we falling short?

• What possibilities are emerging?

• What stories need to be amplified?

• What is valuable to us?

• What are we grateful for?

• What help is needed in our community?

Polarity Management

Action

Yang

Logic

Planning

Tradition

Analytics

Doing

Privacy

Understanding

Yin

Intuition

Adapting

Original

Sensing

Being

Transparency

Resources

Working in Systems

• Paul Krafel’s Upward Spiral video

– http://solseed.org/The_Upward_Spiral

• Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows

– http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H-Meadows/dp/1603580557

Envisioning

• David Bohm, Dialogue Exercises

– http://www.visualexplorer.org/downloads/Mediated_dialogue_Palus&Drath.pdf

• Wordle for phrase visualization

• Pinterest for imagery

• Marti Spiegelman, Visionary Skills

– http://www.entheosacademy.com/courses/Visionary-Skills

Feel free to contact me:

Todd Hoskins - @toddhoskins - todd@canopygap.com

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