webinar | supporting movement and network leadership: creating space for emergent learning
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Supporting Movement and Network Leadership: Creating Space for Emergent Learning With Robin Katcher, Management Assistance Group May 15, 2014TRANSCRIPT
MAY| 2014
@leadershipera #leadershipnet
Supporting Movement and Network Leadership: Creating Space for Emergent LearningWith Robin Katcher, Management Assistance Group
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Supporting Movement and Network Leadership:Creating Space for Emergent LearningPresenter: Robin Katcher, Management Assistance GroupDate: 5/15/14 at 11:00 am Pacific Time
TODAY’S PRESENTER
Supporting Movement & Network Leadership: Creating Space for Emergent Learning
Presentation by Robin Katcher
For Leadership Learning CommunityMay 15, 2014
Network Leadership Innovation Lab: A Co- Creation Story
Honesty Inspiration• Heard social justice leaders sayo Organization is stronger &
constituents/causes worse offo Too often fighting short-term, small
scale, defensive battleso Isolated, siloed and in competition o Not enough power to wino Need to work differently
Saw Experimentation with Movement Networks
• multi-organizational: link independent organizations and activists to one another
• movement oriented: intentionally contribute to a broader social movement
• focused on the long term: in it for the long haul beyond a single- issue campaign
• porous: more flexible boundaries
Main purpose is to advance a movement agenda and build power NOT only serve members
Promising & Challenging
For leaders at different levels:Individual: dealing with complexity, dynamism and constant changeOrganization: traditional approaches to organization development don’t fitMovement network: reaching scope and scale and inherently challenging
Holding Systems Within System
Cross Movement
Movement
Network
Organization
Individual
Inherently Complex Context
Cynefin Framework by David Snowden
Operating in Complexity• “Standard” approaches to leadership
development & capacity building falter– “Heroic” leader mismatch to reality of shared,
dynamic leadership– Rooted in a “deficit model” -- pre-existing list of
favorable traits, diagnoses & address deficits, train, post-test
– Reliance on expert knowing rather than emergent learning
– Rigid boundaries and structure limit adaptability• Process of Lab shaped by nature of subject
How To Cultivate Emergent Practice & Learning?
• Gather existing wisdom • Co-create with social justice leaders who are
at the cutting edge of the work– Catalyzing movement networks – Running their own organizations– Committed to learning and growth– Work in across a range of movements and bring
diverse perspective
Co-Creation of Design
Network Leadership Innovation Lab Design
Advisors Input30 academics,
thought leaders, practioners
Design Team7 social justice
leaders
Funders Input 45 in dialogue
sessions
Lab Co-Creators
May Boeve and Phil Aroneanu, 350.org Tracy Sturdivant*, State VoicesSarita Gupta* and Erica Smiley, Jobs with JusticeVincent Pan* and Jenny Lam, Chinese for Affirmative ActionEveline Shen* and Moira Bowman, Forward TogetherGustavo Torres* and Virginia Kase, CASA de MarylandDana Kaplan and Jolon McNeil, Juvenile Justice Project of LouisianaKierra Johnson* and Mari Schimmer, CHOICE USARea Carey* and Darlene Nipper, National Gay and Lesbian Task Forcewith Robin Katcher, Elissa Perry and Mark Leach, Management Assistance Group
“I don’t want to be part of another leadership program that I had no part in designing.” Eveline
Shen
We need “a pace to think deeply about our … work – sometimes in ways that are counter to
conventional wisdom.” Vincent Pan
“I don’t want to be the rat in the maze, I want to be the scientist.” Gustavo Torres
Big Design Team Aha’s • Need a second key leader & move away from solo
heroic leader• No impact if we don’t examine the conditions that
support/inhibit success within individuals, organizations and movement ecosystems
• Shift to focus on forward thinking, innovation and not making sense of or codifying past experience
• Use Action Learning Projects & increase stipends• Mix of participants matter – new additions vetted
by Design Team• Co-create goals, guiding principles, agendas
Develop Guiding Principles
• Strength- Based• Centered• Embodied• Includes & Transcends• Emergence & Experimental• Diverse
Lab Goals/Intentions
• Create vibrant space to learn, inspire and innovate.
• Deepen our shared understanding of what it takes to succeed and how the current ecosystem enables or inhibits success.
• Share emergent learning that can influence the field to be
more hospitable to movement networks.
• 3 face to face convenings; 2 days each– Agenda draft reviewed by subset of participants– Highly adaptive/flexible– Theory mini presentations; follow demand– Practical applications
• Flexible individual coaching for executive directors; 9-12 sessions
• Peer coaching for groupings of key leaders; facilitated at start; then self organized
Program Elements Goal 1Learn, Inspire, Innovate
• Create Action Learning Projects with goal to identify & explore a learning question
• $15,000 stipends for each organization• Opportunity to partner/collaborate• 5 Action Learning Projects– Leadership Development Academy– Expanding Scope to Increase Influence– Multi-issue Emergency Response– Alternatives to Foundations for Resourcing the Work– Deepening Organizational Relationships Across Issues for
Sustained & Inclusive Movement
Program Elements Goal 2Explore & Experiment
Capture emergent learning & dialogue with key audiences (justice leaders, funders, capacity building practioners)• Publications: 3 case stories, Creating Culture: Promising
Practices of Movement Network Leaders, Toward Complex Adaptive Philanthropy, National Training Labs Textbook, Handbook of Action Research, Shared Leadership? , Boards?
• Workshops: GEO, Creating Space, Just Giving, Whitman Institute, Bay Area Justice Funders Network, Foundation Staff & Board, Creating Change, CFED
• Gathering: Lab Participants and small group of trusted funders
• Online: webinars, twitter, facebook, blogs
Program Elements Goal Three: Influence the Field
Program Elements Goal 3Influence the Field
Useful Frames & Analogies
• Complexity• Movement
Waves• Leadership
Spectrum• Coach’s Stance• Complexity of
Mind• Ecosystems• Values/Spirit
What are we learning about leadership in successful movement networks?
Leading inMovement Networks Is Not
• all about problem solving – tensions are rarely resolved; instead, coping with and balancing seemingly intractable tensions
• all about the leader – not a single heroic individual; leadership is broadly shared; managing complexity and tensions becomes everyone’s job
• all about structure – structures change and adapt with startling frequency; highly stable structures may be impediments to network growth and to the intersectoral alliances
Foundational Task Build Trust
• Invest in relationships • Model personal integrity • Value what each network member brings• Ensure transparency & accountability • Clear, straightforward, accessible
communications (authentic story telling)• Begin with a trusted group
Foundational Task Embrace Change
• Constantly make meaning of the changing context, constituency needs, emergent opportunities and challenges
• Willing to try new things, and risk failure • Ability to learn from mistakes • Continual rethink; reshape network structures • Open to learning • Remain calm and unflappable in crises
Dealing Constructively with Conflict in the Network
Accommodating or Surfacing healthy smoothing disagreement
• Identify and name conflicts • Facilitate difficult conversations and
interventions • Model assertiveness without escalating tension
Balancing Organizational & Network Goals/Priorities
Organizational Network or Interests Movement Interests
• Maintain deep commitment to movement building • Enlarge sense of organization’s constituencies• Collaborative fundraising, negotiate with funders to
reduce competition for funds • Ensure network is not funded at expense of members• See long term implications of supporting network for
movement and own organization
Building/Sharing Leadership within the Network
Leaders’ control, Involvement, buy-in, autonomy building leadership
capacity of others
• Share power, cultivate leadership at every level • Non-attachment to ego• Need to step up and take responsibility, yet be
comfortable sharing power and credit
Consolidating & Distributing Power
Leveraging power Ensuring leadership, amassed engagement & growth of
marginalized players
• Bridge between power brokers and smaller, grassroots, POC and other marginalized groups
• Leverage power of larger groups/movements in support of grassroots
• Understand how power flows within and outside the network and make power dynamics discussable
Balancing Short-term & Long-term Goals
Forging tactical Building long-term alliances/pursuing relationships and short-term wins major transformations
• Articulate the vision • Keep eyes on the prize • Combine long-term vision with short-term
benchmarks and concrete “wins”
What Becomes Second Nature: Creating Culture
• Modeling effective attitudes and practices.• Setting up flexible structures.• Getting the right staff and growing their leadership.• Creating opportunities for self- and collective
reflection.• Being relentlessly explicit about values, principles,
and practices.• Encouraging self-care.
Our Emergent Questions on the Innovation Lab Model
• How do we build on what we learned here and support leadership development at different stages of development?
• How do we develop internal teams within organizations and networks able to hold and work with this level of complexity?
• How do we sustain leaders in the work?• What are the theoretic frames that are most helpful and
how to bring them to ground?• How do we share learning in ways that create more
favorable conditions?• How can we best evaluate and improve this model?
Questions to All of You
• Where are you challenged to meet the needs your leaders are facing? How are you responding?
• How are you building concepts of network leadership into your work? What is working well and what is challenging?
• What do you most need to help you incorporate concepts of network leadership?
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