INTRODUCTION TO ENGAGMENT ORGANIZING Our Stories as a Tool for Change
OBJECTIVES: •Think critically about organizing, leadership, and relational power • Understand the basics of interdependent leadership in contrast to other leadership models •Overview the 5 organizing practices of interdependent leadership: Story, Relationships, Structure, Strategy and Action
ORGANIZING IS:
Identifying leaders and coordinating them in leadership teams, Building community and commitment around that leadership, Building power from the resources of that community, 111111111111111.1 Using that power strategically to make concrete change in the world.
WHAT IS LEADERSHIP?
"Leaders are those who take responsibility for enabling others to achieve shared purpose in the face of uncertainty"
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In order to launch a new campaign, or strengthen an existing one, your job as an organizer is to identify and recruit others to work with you to build a campaign powerful enough to win change.
But what type of leader should you be, and what are you looking for in others? Sometimes we think the leader is the person everyone goes to, like this "I'm the leader!" approach.
But what does it feel like to be the "leader" in the middle? What does it feel like to be the arrow that can't get through? "I'm The Leader" What happens if the "leader" in the middle drops out?
Sometimes we go to the other extreme and think we don't need a "leader." We can all lead, because "we're all leaders!"
Sometimes this works. But who's responsible for coordinating • everyone? And who's responsible for pushing the whole group forward when you can't reach a decision? Who takes ultimate responsibility for the outcome?
Organizers are those who ultimately are held accountable for meeting campaign goals. However, organizers are also responsible for coordinating and enabling others to take "We're All Leaders"
leadership. This requires delegating responsibility (rather than tasks), holding others accountable for carrying out that responsibility, and supporting them in their work.
Remember, we don't yet have Fall the leadership we need in order to win the change we want to see. An organizer's job is to reach out and develop leaders in your community who can help you recruit and coordinate others. They may not be people others usually see as leaders, but they are people committed to change, willing to invite others to join them in the hard work of moving a campaign forward.
These leaders will be the backbone of your local campaign. You must be able to trust them to delegate responsibility to other dedicated, reliable people, and to follow through on commitments. You may be the leader in the middle, or part of a leadership team in the middle, guiding others' efforts and being held accountable for outcomes, but you will be deeply reliant on your relationships with others for success.
WHAT IS POWER?
Organizing is about turning the resources we have into the power we need to win the change we want. So what is power?
Richard Emerson argues that power is not a thing, an attribute, a quality, a characteristic or a trait -- it is a relationship. Power is the influence you have if my interest in your resources is greater that your interest in my resources: you have power over me if I need you more than you need me.
Ws interests In Relational Power Chart A's resources Ads POWER
7 You can uncover the power relations by asking, and getting the answers to, four questions to "help track down the power":
• What are YOUR interests? What change do you want? • Who holds the decision-making power or resources you need to meet your interests? • What are THEIR interests? • How do THEY need YOU? What resources do you hold which other actors need to meet their own interests?
Our power comes from relationships with people. When we organize to build power we do so with the belief that the same people who need change can organize their own resources into the power they need to create change. Marshall Ganz says, "The unique role of organizing is to enable the people who need or want the change to be the authors of the change, because that addresses the causes of the problem (powerlessness in one form or another), not only the problem."
So organizing is not only a commitment to identify more leaders, but also a commitment to engage those leaders in a particular type of fight: in nonviolent action to build the power to create the change we need in our lives. Organizing power begins with the choice and commitment made by the first person who wants to make something happen. Without this commitment, there are no resources with which to begin. Commitment is only observable through action. The work of organizers begins with their acceptance of their responsibility to challenge others to join them in action.
WHAT IS CHANGE?
Change is not inherently good or bad—it's a break in routine that sends us in a new direction. We all have regular routines in our daily lives. However, sometimes those routines are inherently problematic, like sending our kids to schools that aren't good enough for them, or working for less pay than we deserve, or putting deadly chemicals in our air and water.
It takes motivation, focused application of resources, and mobilization of others to break these routines and forge a new path forward. The purpose of organizing is to build that focus, the collective resources, and the community to make change.
The challenge of making change is to always measure its concrete impact in our lives. At the end of our campaign have we only changed policy or opinion? Or have we actually improved our schools, do we actually have safer workplaces, do we really have cleaner air, soil and water? And do we have new capacity within our community to win further change?
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WHICH ORGANIZING AND LEADERSHIP PRACTICES LEAD TO CHANGE?
Building power requires (earning the craft of organizing. The five practices of organizing Story listed below create change in individuals, in Building how groups operate, and in how the world Structure looks, feels, and is. As leaders, we can use POWER these key practices to enable others in our Relationships organizations to act together with clear purpose, active participation, understanding and initiative, and accomplish shared goals towards creating the measurable change we seek.
1. Creating Shared Story Organizing is rooted in shared values expressed as public narrative. Public narrative is how we communicate our values through stories, bringing alive the motivation that is a necessary pre- condition for changing the world. Through public narrative, we tell the story of why we are called to leadership. Public Narrative has three elements:
"Story of Self" illustratest the values that move YOU to act—what calls you to leadership. "Story of Us" illustrates the values and shared expediences embedded in our community calling us to collective action "Story of Now" illustrates the urgent challenges to those values and clarifies why action must be taken NOW (not tomorrow, not the next day). The Story of Now also paints a picture of the hopeful vision of what we can achieve together and invites others to join us in taking specific action towards that vision immediately.
2, Creating Shared Relational Commitment Organizing is based on relationships and creating mutual commitments to work together. It is the process of association—not simply aggregation—that makes a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Through association we can learn to recast our individual interests as common interests, allowing us to envision objectives that we can use our combined resources to achieve. And because it makes us more likely to act to assert those interests, relationship building goes far beyond delivering a message, extracting a contribution, or soliciting a vote. Relationships built as a result of one-to-one and small group meetings create the foundation for local campaign teams, and they are rooted in commitments people make to each other, not simply l.7 cormmitmentideacommitment to Stricturean idea tasks ,issue or . .., , task, II tt. s A team leadership structure leads to effective local organizing that integrates local action with broader regional or national purpose. Volunteer efforts often . develop reliable, consistent, and creative localb leaders. structured learship team encourage stability, motivation, creativity, and accountability- and use volunteer time, skills, and effort effectively. They create the structure within which energized volnteers can accomplish
!." '!?,, • Yy .; challenging work. Effective teams strive to achieve three criteria of effectiveness: meeting the change objectives of those they serve, learning how to be more effective at meeting outcomes over time, and enhancing the learning and growth of individuals on the team. Team members work to put in place five conditions that will lead to effectiveness: real team (bounded, stable and interdependent), engaging direction, enabling roles, clear ground rules, and a diverse team with the skills and talents needed to do the work.
4. Creating Shared Strategy Although based on broad values, effective organizing campaigns learn to focus on a clear strategic objective, a way to turn those values into action and to unleash creative deliberation (for example elect a President; desegregate buses in Montgomery, Alabama; getto 100% clean electricity). Statewide campaigns locate responsibility for statewide strategy at the top (or at the center), but are able to "chunk out" strategic objectives in time (deadlines) and space (local areas) as a campaign, allowing significant local responsibility for figuring out how to achieve those objectives. Responsibility for strategizing local objectives empowers, motivates and invests local teams. This dual structure allows the movement as a whole to be relentlessly well oriented and fosters the personal motivation of volunteers to be fully engaged.
5. Creating Shared Measurable Action Organizing outcomes must be clear, measurable, and specific if progress is to be evaluated, accountability practiced, and strategy adapted based on experience. Such measures include: volunteers recruited, money raised, people at a meeting, voters contacted, pledge cards signed, laws passed, etc. Although electoral campaigns enjoy the advantage of very clear outcome measures, any effective organizing drive must come up with the equivalent. Regular reporting of progress to goal creates opportunity for feedback, learning, and adaptation. Training is provided for all skills (holding house meetings, phone banking, canvassing, etc) to carry out the program. New media may help enable reporting, feedback, and coordination. Transparency exists as to how individuals, groups, and the campaign as a whole are doing on progress to goal.
Have you ever been part of an organization or "disorganization" described by the words on the left? The difference between that and the organization described on the right is not any particular issue, any particular demographic or any particular geography. It's about the practice of leadership from the inside out. This training is structured around teaching these practices, and supporting you in practicing them.
DISORGANIZATION INTERDEPENDENT LEADERSHIP CREATES ORGANIZATION
Drift Shared Story Purpose
Passive Shared Relational Commitment Participation
Confused Shared Structure Understanding
Reactive Shared Strategy Initiative
Inaction Shared Measurable Action Change
10 United We Dream Campaign Plan Template
Name:
Campaign or Program:
How to use this document
The process of drafting a campaign plan is intentionally repetitive, Every time you review and refine your campaign plan you will get clearer and more prepared to launch. You will revise this plan over and over based on input and coaching from your leadership team and others. When your campaign launches you should continue to revise your plan as you collect new data and new learning along the way.
1) Campaign Organizing Statement I am organizing (WHO? - my people) to do (WHAT? - our goal/purpose) by (HOW? — our tactics), in order to (WHY? - motivating vision) and by (WHEN? — timeline).
11 COACHING GUIDE
PUBLIC NARRATIVE COACHING GUIDE
REFLECTIVE LEADERSHIP & COACHING "How do I enable others to find purpose in the face of challenge?" 12 OBJECTIVES: By the end of this training, you • Learn a simple diagnostic framework and a 5-step process for coaching others in organizing efforts • Practice the coaching process through role-plays and reflective discussion • Learn to build a culture of coaching into your teams
Why is coaching an important organizing practice?
Leadership in organizing is about enabling others to achieve purpose in the face of uncertainty. Coaching, put simply, is the act of enabling others.
Organizing campaigns are rich with challenges and learning opportunities, but sometimes we are fish in our own water and we cannot see the challenges we are swimming in. Coaching in organizing helps to alleviate this problem. Coaching helps individuals to overcome motivational, strategic, and informational challenges that might otherwise hinder the progress of the individual, and or the team, and thus the campaign or training.
What is coaching in organizing?
Coaching is a direct intervention in an individual or team's work process to help them improve their effectiveness.
Coaching is a leadership practice that is useful in a variety of contexts in organizing campaigns and trainings. Some examples of when coaching skills are necessary:
— Preparing trainers to get over the performance anxiety that most of us feel when we present in front of a room of 100 people
— Facilitating the learning of two participants struggling with the steps of a 1:1 during a Building Relationships breakout session at a training
— Helping a trainer hone the skills of debriefing answers from the audience
— Helping an organizer overcome motivational challenges with volunteer teams in the field
— Assisting a leadership team in creating strategy for their organizing campaign
Coaching is useful whenever we are working to enable others to build their own capacity to act, and though the contexts vary, the process is very similar throughout.
Effective Coaching Is Effective Coaching Is Not
-Showing up and being present to another - Being so prepared that you figure out all the person's experience and listening, with both answers for the coachee before you even hear
13 your head and heart or observe their challenges
- Helping the coachee explore and make sense - False praising of the coachee or only focusing of their challenges and successes and what on their strengths because you do not want they learned from it all not to hurt their feelings
- Helping the coachee to find solutions to - Solely criticizing the coachee for their challenges weaknesses
- Asking questions that both support and - Telling the coachee what to do challenge the person you are coaching.
How do I practice coaching in organizing?
Good coaching requires learning how to identify a person's or team's strengths and weaknesses in order to find ways to help them mobilize their strengths to overcome their weaknesses. People often know what they "should" do, but a fresh set of eyes is helpful in diagnosing the specific challenges they're facing and initiating a brainstorm of solutions to maneuver through them. There are three basic practices of coaching:
Basic Practices of Coaching: — Motivational (heart) coaching is aimed at enhancing effort.
— Strategic (head) coaching is aimed at helping the team or individual plan, evaluate, or think about its strategic or structural approach.
— Skills-based (hands) coaching is aimed at helping the team or individual execute with skill (and learn from execution).
The first part of effective coaching is diagnosing which coaching practice is most needed in any given moment. For example, if an organizer is struggling with strategy but you try using motivational coaching, it is likely to frustrate them further.
As is true for the other practices of leadership, coaching is a practice that only gets honed by DOING, and then reflecting on what works and what doesn't. Following this simple, 5 step coaching process can help you dive in and begin your coaching practice:
14 5 Step Coaching Process
1. Inquire &/or Observe - What do I see and hear? When you are observing a person's actions in the field or someone comes to you for help, your first inclination may be to draw conclusions from the initial observations you make. As a coach, you need to take time to dig deeper. Are you seeing all the angles here? What information is missing? Think about the "who, what, why, how, where, when" questions.
- Motivational (heart): Is the individual struggling because s/he is not putting forth enough effort? Is she not trying hard enough because she's embarrassed? Is he quitting too soon because of frustration or fear? - Strategic (head): Is the individual struggling because the goals are not achievable? Or because they're not thinking creatively enough about how to use the resources they have to meet goals? Or because the overall strategy doesn't make sense and needs to be clarified or adapted to their situation? - Skills-based (hands): Is the individual struggling because of not being able to muster the behavioral skill to execute effectively? Does he not have the skill in his repertoire? Is he getting interference from other habits and behaviors (like someone well-versed in marketing speak may think that skill set is a substitute for authentic story-telling skills)? Is there something you could model, or that this person that just needs more help practicing and debriefing?
15 2. Diagnose & 3. Intervene: Which form of coaching does this require? How will I intervene?
If your diagnosis is that the If your diagnosis is that the if your diagnosis is that the individual needs to put in more individual is not understanding individual lacks execution skill, intense effort, choose a the focal practice adequately, or choose an educational motivational intervention, — for thinking about it appropriately, intervention — for example: example: choose a strategic intervention — for example: o Asking good questions about Encouragement and how the individual is thinking o Model the behavior and invite enthusiasm—you can do it! about the key leadership the coachee to imitate you or Helping the individual practice work side by side with you to understand and confront fear, - "Why did you choose to get the "feel" of the activity embarrassment, or other do this and not that?" • Break it down into smaller emotions that get in the way of - Based on where you are parts and invite the individual the willingness to try harder or now what resources could to try one at a time persist in the face of setback you draw on to take this o Practice, feedback, repeat Incentivizing, rewarding and story/team/strategy to the o Offer three or four different praising courage next level? practice exercises and observe Modeling courage and o Offering your assertions about which ones "take" for that emotional maturity in your what you are observing and person own behavior, confessing fear how you think the individual o Repetition, repetition, and explaining how you move might fruitfully think about the repetition toward it rather than away practice differently o What else? Kick in the pants (offered with - "When you stop at that love) angry point in the story, I What else? think you may be forgetting that your listeners need a reason to hope in order to be called to action." Offering the opportunity for silent reflection and self- diagnosis - "Why don't you take a moment to think through what you believe is working and not working and let's talk about that?
16 4. Action: How can I allow the coachee to develop their leadership skills? What action will they take that would allow them to move forward? - Avoid the urge to do it for them. - Allow the coachee to try the intervention. - Observe them in action and note observations for your debrief.
5. Check-in and Debrief: What do I ask the coachee to help them reflect on their experience? - What went well? - What are you challenged by? - What are some possible solutions? - What are your goals/next steps? - Schedule periodic check-ins to support your coachee in integrating this new or revised solution into their regular practice. - Find out from the coachee how the situation has changed.
—1 Assess whether the diagnosis and intervention was successful. Celebrate success!
17 WORKSHEET: REFLECT ON COACHING
How does this way of COACHING compare with other types of COACHING you have experienced?
What is most challenging and most new or interesting about this way of supporting others' development?
How could this type of coaching be used to help you support other organizers (volunteer and staff) in the field? What are some of the practices that you will use in your campaign?
18 COACHING PUBLIC NARRATIVE
What is Coaching and Why Do We Need It?
Coaching is a way to support an individual or team in improving their effectiveness at any given task. In the context of public narrative, it means coaching for the effective articulation of values through story, linking a story of self, us and now; and increasing the likelihood these values can be translated into action.
A good narrative coach is: A good narrative coach is not: Someone who creates a respectful A therapist. Public narrative sessions can be environment and supports sharing of key therapeutic but it is not your job to be a moments of our lives in a way that is deep and counselor but guide and individual or group to trusting the key learnings of strategic storytelling Re-teaches concepts of public narrative One who gives general comments, judges concepts briefly as needed content and is chit-chatty. Helps individuals dive deep into the practice One who tries to tell your story for you and 'fall off the bike' Models listening, asking good & relevant One who avoids critical feedback because they questions, synthesizes and creates teaching don't want to hurt your feelings moments Willing to interrupt to ensure that learning happens in a group or individual setting. This means confronting uncomfortable situations where you feel rude but need to get the conversation back on track
General tips on narrative: - When you hear the story- decide if you are coaching the storyteller or facilitating the group to coach? If you decide to coach start by saying "I am going to model coaching- and I am going to especially focus on x" - This is not a communication skills exercise- it is not about public speaking skills. It's about "the glow from within, not the gloss from without." - This is not a trauma/therapy session- the point is not to direct stories to private intimate details but to support public narrative for organizing - Because the `us' is different with every group a person shares a public narrative with, no one ever tells the same linked story of self-us-now twice. That's why this is not about polishing a script but rather about developing a leadership skill.
19 Three Coaching Challenges: Motivational, Educational, Strategic Challenges
• Motivational: challenge of effort/heart. The practitioner is inhibited by fear, needs more courage to take risks, needs to work at developing competence more persistently, etc.
• Informational: challenge of knowledge and skills/hands. The practitioner doesn't know what makes a "good story", what is meant by "self, us, and now", the role of choice points, etc.
• Strategic: challenge of strategy/head. The practitioner has a hard time putting these tools to work in this particular context (as in the "story of us" for example), has a hard time choosing which stories to tell to achieve what kind of effect, etc.
5 Step Coaching Process Coaching involves a five stage process beginning with observation of what's going on, diagnosing the nature of the problem, intervening strategically, debriefing the coachee's understanding of the intervention, and monitoring subsequent performance.
1. Observe: What do I See and Hear?
Begin by listening very carefully, observing body language, and asking very focused probing questions to satisfy yourself that you "get" the problem. It may take time to get the facts straight. But if you don't get the problem, you can't help solve it. Don't be shy about asking specific "stubborn" questions. This process can help the coachee articulate just what the problem is in a way they may not have before. So it's not only "getting information."
20 Look for the key components of Narrative:
SELF US NOW What are the experiences What are the experiences Why is it urgent to respond to and values that call you to and values of the "us" or the challenge? Where is the assume leadership in people in the room that hope? What do you want to call mission? Does the will call them to join you on the people here to join you in storyteller share an in action on mission? Do doing? What is the outcome? Do authentic experience? Do you feel the US in the you know why the storyteller you 'get' them? Did you narrative? Did you hear a cares about this? Did you hear a hear a challenge, choice challenge, choice and challenge, choice and outcome? and outcome? outcome?
2. Diagnose: Which one of the three dimensions is the student struggling with?
o Motivational (effort/heart) Is the individual struggling because s/he is not putting forth enough effort? Is she not trying hard enough because she's embarrassed? Is he quitting too soon because of frustration or fear? Are they afraid of making themselves vulnerable? Is the relevant experience too painful? Do they not really care about the "now"? Do they have a hard time feeling their "us" is real?
o Informational (knowledge and skills/hands) Is the individual struggling because of not being able to understand the skills necessary for narrative? Is he getting interference from other habits and behaviors (e.g., someone well-versed in marketing speak may not know how to tell an authentic story)? Certain thing just need more practice? Are they clear about the challenge, choice, outcome structure? Do they understand the difference between a story of us, a story of self, and a story of now.
o Strategic (performance strategy/head) Is the individual struggling because of not thinking about or approaching the task appropriately? Does she understand the principles underlying that leadership practice (e.g. why a reason for hope is a key part of a story of self)? Is he forgetting or misinterpreting key elements of the task? Where might that misinterpretation come from, given your knowledge of the individual?
3. Intervene
Interventions are "correctional" or "developmental". Correctional interventions involve showing, telling, teaching the person how to do it. . . . and are most useful with informational challenges. Developmental interventions usually take the form of questions. . . and are most useful in encouraging the person to locate their sources of motivation or to figure out how to solve the problem.
21 If your diagnosis is that the individual If your diagnosis is that the if your diagnosis is that the individual needs to put in more intense effort, individual is not understanding lacks execution skill, choose an choose a motivational intervention, — the focal practice adequately, or educational intervention — for for example: thinking about it appropriately, example: choose a strategic intervention — for example: • Model the behavior and invite • Work through a specific example • Encourage and exhortation—you the coachee to imitate you to with the person, asking can do it! get the "feel" of the activity questions to guide the strategic • Offer a kick in the pants (with • Focus on specifics. Focus on process. Then reflect on the love) choice points, etc. process itself, asking them to • Help the person understand and • Break it down into small parts describe how it worked? confront his or her fear, and invite the individual to try • Ask good questions about how embarrassment, or other one at a time the individual is thinking about emotions that may get in the • Offer three or four different the practice ("Why did you way of their ability to risk acting, practice exercises and observe choose that tactic?") persevering, trying new things. which ones "take" for that • Offer your observations, asking Communicate with empathy, person. how the person might think hope, and affirmation of the • Suggest others with whom the about it differently ("At that coachee's self-worth. Reward and person can practice. point, were there other options? praise courage • Suggest ways to figure out What might they have been? • Model courage and emotional where to find the missing Why did you choose the one you maturity in your own behavior, information. did?) confess fear and explain how you • Offer feedback on what you are move toward it rather than away hearing, asking if that describes from it. the situation, at the same time, offering possible reframing of it. • Use silent reflection and self- diagnosis ("Why don't you take a moment to think through what you believe is working and not working and let's talk about that?).
4. Debrief: Ensure information was communicated clearly.
Helpful Debrief Questions 1. What are your main takeaways from this session? 2. What did you learn about your narrative today? 3. What will you do next to modify your narrative? 4. When can we check-in to see how this is progressing?
22 How to Coach Story of Self?
The purpose of sharing our story of self is for us to connect on values. To understand why people are called to leadership and to organizing. By focusing on the challenge and the choice and the outcome we are communicating that we own our lives and we exercise choice. The story is not supposed to reflect our heroism or show that we are unique human beings but rather the opposite- that we are human like everyone else, vulnerable and despite the challenge we exercise choice. We have hope and we share our source of hope to inspire action. Finally, the story of Self is the story of a choice — everyone (when they think about it) has thousands of choices they could tell a story of, so the key is selecting one that (succinctly) reveals why they are called to leadership for this particular issue. It doesn't have to be dramatic but it does have to reveal the values they hold and want to put into action.
Asking questions vs. giving direct feedback
Asking Questions to Elicit Feedback Giving Direct Feedback • What in that story resonated for you? • Ask the teller to identify the challenge, • What were the particularly vivid images or choice and outcome. details that you remember? • Identify particularly strong choice points. • What were you still curious about? Was there • Ask questions about the intended audience a gap? and the desired action or response. • Did you hear a challenge? What was the • Ask questions to connect the dots. choice? What was the outcome? • Identify themes and ask for confirmation. • What kind of emotions did you feel when you • Identify particularly strong images or visuals heard the story — motivate to action or inhibit that worked. action? • Indicate where you saw evidence of the • What would you have liked more of? kinds of emotions that motivate people to • What were the choice points? take action or fall into inaction.
Common Challenges in Story of Self: 1. No challenge, choice, outcome 2. "I don't have a story" (usually means 'a story I think is good enough') 3. Gives resume 4. Issue focused — like a speech on a topic (not personal) 5. Good story, but not public narrative 6. Someone becomes emotional 7. Vague feedback 8. Story sceptic (this does not fit this culture)
23 COACHING A GOOD STORY WHAT TO DO IF YOUR STORYTELLER States that he/she doesn't HAVE a story — Avoids telling his/her OWN story — ask for everyone has a story! Work to find one by gently more direct experience of self, rather than a asking questions — what matters to this person, story of another person. why? When did that happen? Why.., get them into their story using questions. The challenge doesn't have to be tragic —just an important choice in their life. Avoids telling a PERSONAL story — shift focus back Is lost in the abstract — try to minimize abstract to personal away from "general problems" etc. theory and focus on specifics of self, us and the now through stories of key moments and choices Unwinds a long biography —reminder that the Now Settles into rant mode — the challenges are is the lens or focus point he/she should use to help great and anger and emotions can spill over — identify good elements of Self and Us story. Try to ask for teller to limit description of the pick one choice point only. challenge and work to include hope. Trust one specific moment to paint a vivid picture!
How to Coach Story of US?
The purpose of sharing our story of us is to create a community from the group in the room and from your small group. By focusing on the values that are in common among them and by focusing on the challenge and the choice and the outcome that joins them together, this community starts taking shape. This story draws on shared experiences (very often quoting stories of self shared earlier) to reveal shared values. As such, it is told in the past tense, like the story of Self. Importantly, it communicates also why we are hopeful and powerful together. It sets the ground for calling people to action in the story of now. Because it focuses on the common values it transcends issue silos. So instead of saying we connect on ending suffering vs. we connect on finding ways to cut costs — we facilitate a story of us that says we come together around the values of human dignity and stewardship of resources. The particulars of how we work on that and achieve it is for the story of now and the strategy.
Common Questions: - Who is the us you want us to develop a story about? It is a challenge for the participants- they ask things like: do you mean us in this small group, us in the big group, us in at work, or should I imagine I am using narrative to recruit and the us is the targeted recruits?
- Is this story about the past or the present? It is challenging for the participants to know whether it is a value based us (especially when the group just came together in this workshop) or if it is an experiential based us where they can go to the history of their relationships and draw on it. In the second case the challenge, choice and outcome of the story is often in the past. Of course they can say and now our challenge is...and our choice is....and this way they are preparing the ground for the story of now. If it is a value us then it can go either way. The story could be 1. Clear from our stories we faced the same challenge which is X in A's story and Y in
24 B's story and we had similar choices which are this or that and we chose and the outcome was X and why.
Common Challenges: (1) Restates story of self (2) Not us in the room (3) Can't find any specific shared experiences of us or shared values those experiences reveal (4) Bad dynamics: no us, but everyone says there is. "I relate to that because I also grew up in a city." (5) No challenge, choice, or outcome
How to Coach Story of Now?
Purpose of story of now: - To create urgency and to articulate the specific action I'm calling others to take now. - To contrast what would happen if I act AND if I don't act - To instill hope that the action I am being asked to take will make a meaningful contribution to bringing about change.
Common Challenges: (1) The ask is vague or abstract: "let's all do what we can to improve the quality of services in the NHS" (2) The ask is not a collective action: "let's commit as individuals to doing what we can to improve quality for each patient" (3) The ask is a laundry list of possible actions: "here are 53 things you could do to improve services" (4) The ask is not achievable by group: "we need more Government funding for the NHS" (5) There is no hope in the story of now: "things are really bad so we need to act" (6) There is no vision of what the world would be like if we chose to act (7) The story of now is not connected to the story of self and us
25 KEY TIPS FOR STORY COACHING
Good opening prompts from coach to group Chris Lawrence-Pietroni & Zac Wiltette 1 July 2010 • What resonated? • How could the relevant part of • What image will you remember the story be clearer? tomorrow from this story? • What stays with you? Why? What in the story was hard to • What sharp details brought the follow? story to life?
Specific prompts from coach to group • VALUES: What specific values does this story point to? How? • LINKING: What were the thread/s that tied the stories of SELF-US-NOW together? • IF OVER TIME: What's essential to keep? What can afford to go? • IF UNDER TIME: What would you like to hear more about? What was missing?
SPECIFIC TO STORY OF SELF SPECIFIC TO STORY OF US SPECIFIC TO STORY OF NOW Drawing out the story
When did you hear a story of self? When did you hear a story of us? When did you hear a story of now? At what pointis did you understand At what point/s did you feel At what point/s did you feel ready to the values that motivate her/him included? act? and why?
How did the story reveal why s/he is How did the story specifically reveal How did the story create hope? called to leadership in this? to us our shared values? Challenge, choice, outcome What challenge did s/he face? What did s/he specifically show us What urgent challenge did s/he we faced as a challenge? paint a picture of?
What choice did s/he make? And What shared experiences did s/he What specific commitment did s/he what did that reveal about her/his name? What choice did s/he show ask us to join her/him in? What is values? us that we made? the first thing s/he asking us to do?
What was the outcome of that What was the outcome of that What was the nightmare hopeful- choice? choice? vision that s/he made us see? Areas for improvement What are you left curious about? Who is her/his us/s? What urgency did the story make you feel? (urgent need, urgent opportunity)
What would have made the choice What would have made the shared What would have made the urgency more vivid? experiences more vivid? more vivid? Questions for the teller
Why do you care about [your What evidence do you have that we What do you want us to do about calling]? value [your calling]? [your calling]?
Is what you're hearing echoed back from the group what you intended to communicate with your story? Key tips
▪ Focus on the choice point/s • When there is ISN'T a story a of self/us/now: "Did you hear a story • Show, don't tell. of self/us/now?" and "How could it have been a story of • Glow, not gloss. self/us/now?"
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26 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We welcome your suggestions for improving this guide further for future trainings. We also welcome you to use it and adapt it for your own trainings, subject to the restrictions below. This workshop guide has been developed over the course of many trainings by Liz Pallatto, Joy Cushman, Jake Waxman, Devon Anderson, Rachel Anderson, Adam Yalowitz, Kate Hilton, Lenore Palladino, New Organizing Institute staff, MoveOn Organizers, Center for Community Change staff, Jose Luis Marantes, Carlos Saavedra, Sean Thomas-Breitfeld, Shuya Ohno, Celina Barrios-Ponce, Petra Falcon, Michele Rudy, Hope Wood, Kristen Dore, Vicki Kaplan, and many others. Coaching as a Leadership Practice module is adapted from the working paper, 'Toward a framework for coaching,' by Ruth Wageman, Harvard University, 2009.
RESTRICTIONS OF USE
The following work [this workshop guide] is provided to you pursuant to the following terms and conditions. Your acceptance of the work constitutes your acceptance of these terms:
• You may reproduce and distribute the work to others for free, but you may not sell the work to others. • You may not remove the legends from the work that provide attribution as to source (i.e., "originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University"). • You may modify the work, provided that the attribution legends remain on the work, and provided further that you send any significant modifications or updates to marshall [email protected] or Marshall Ganz, Hauser Center, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 • You hereby grant an irrevocable, royalty-free license to Marshall Ganz and New Organizing Institute, and their successors, heirs, licensees and assigns, to reproduce, distribute and modify the work as modified by you. • You shall include a copy of these restrictions with all copies of the work that you distribute and you shall inform everyone to whom you distribute the work that they are subject to the restrictions and obligations set forth herein.
If you have any questions about these terms, please contact marshal ganz@harvarcLedu or Marshall Ganz, Hauser Center, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA 02138.
27 PUBLIC NARRATIVE OVERVIEW & STORY OF SELF
•4. -. . . • 28 PUBLIC NARRATIVE OVERVIEW & STORY OF SELF Our Stories as a Tool for Change
OBJECTIVES: • Learn the basics of how public narrative works: values, emotion & story structure • Learn criteria for an effective story of self and coach others on improving their storytelling • Practice and get coaching on your own story of self
EACH OF US HAS A COMPELLING STORY TO TELL
Each of us has a story that can move others to action. As you learn this skill, you will be learning to tell a story about yourself, the community you organize with, and your strategy that motivates others to join you in creating change. In addition, you will gain practice in listening, and coaching others to tell a good story.
PUBLIC NARRATIVE IS A PRACTICE OF LEADERSHIP
Leadership is about accepting responsibility for enabling others to achieve shared purpose in the face of uncertainty. Narrative is how we learn to make choices and construct our identities and purpose—as individuals, as communities and organizations, and as nations.
What does public narrative have to do with this definition of leadership? You can't ask others to follow you if they don't understand what your intentions are, and why you are called to lead.
THE HEAD & THE HEART
There are two ways we understand the world: through our head (strategy & analysis) and through our heart (story & motivation). To enable others to achieve shared purpose, public leaders must employ BOTH the head and the heart of their constituency in order to mobilize others to act on behalf of shared values. In other words, they engage people in interpreting why they should change their world (their motivation) and how they can act to change it (their strategy). Public narrative is the "why"—the art of translating values into action through stories.
29 VALUES INSPIRE ACTION THROUGH EMOTION
We don't think our values; we feel our values. Often we don't realize what we value in the world until we hear a story or witness an injustice that stirs emotions within us. Emotions inform us of what we value in ourselves, in others, and in the world, and they enable us to express the motivational content of our values to others. Because stories allow us to express our values not as abstract principles, but as lived experience, they have the power to move others to action.
SOME EMOTIONS INHIBIT ACTION, OTHERS MOTIVATE ACTION
Public leaders often encounter individuals or groups where mindful action is inhibited by inertia, apathy, fear, isolation, and self-doubt. The job of a leader is not to tell people to stop feeling this way but rather use storytelling to move people from feelings of stagnation to feelings of motivation - urgency, anger, hope, solidarity, and YCMAD (you can make a difference). The language of emotion is the language of movement—they actually share the same root word. Stories mobilize emotions of action to overcome emotions that inhibit us from mindful action.
PUBLIC NARRATIVE COMBINES A STORY OF SELF, US AND NOW
STORY OF SELF
By telling a "story of self" you can communicate the values that move you to lead. Public leaders face the challenge of enabling others to "get" the values that move them to lead. Effective communication of motivating values can establish grounds for trust, empathy, and understanding. In its absence, people will infer our motivations, often in ways that can be very counterproductive. Telling our story of self can help establish firm ground for leadership, collaboration and discovering common purpose.
30 Every one of us has a compelling story of self to tell. We all have people in our lives (parents, grandparents, teachers, friends, colleagues) or characters we love, whose stories influence our own values. And we all have story of story of made choices in response to our own challenges that self now shape our life's path—confrontations with pain, moments call to leadership strategy & action of hope, calls to action. PURPOSE
The key focus is on our choices, those moments in our story of lives when our values moved us to act in the face of us challenge. When did you first care about being heard? shared values shared experience When did you feel you had to act? Why did you feel you could act? What were the circumstances, the place, the colors, sounds? What did it look like? The power in your Public NaNarrtive story of self is to reveal something of those moments that were deeply meaningful to you in shaping your life—not your deepest private secrets, but the events that shaped your public life. Learning to tell a good story of self demands the courage of introspection, and of sharing some of what you find.
STORY OF US
By telling a "story of us" you can communicate values that can inspire others to act together by identifying with each other, not only with you.
Just as with a story of self, key choice points in the life of a community—its founding, crises it has faced, or other events that everyone remembers—are moments that express the values shared. Consider stories that members of your group have shared, especially those that held similar meaning for all of you. The key is to focus on telling a specific story about specific people at a specific time that can remind everyone call to everyone's attention — values that you share. Telling a good story of us requires the courage of empathy —to consider the experience of others deeply enough to take a chance at articulating that experience.
STORY OF NOW
By telling a "story of now" you can communicate an urgent challenge we are called upon to face, the hope that we can face it and the hopeful outcome we can create together, and the choice we must make to act now.
A story of now requires telling stories that bring the urgency of the challenge alive: urgency because of a need for change that cannot be denied, urgency because of a moment of opportunity that may not return. A story of now also offers hope—not make-believe hope, but real, plausible hope, often grounded in what others are already achieving, grounded in the courage of others' actions, and in the strategic vision of what we can achieve together. At the intersection of the urgency and the promise of hope is a choice that must be made — to act, or not to act, to act in this way, or in that. Telling a good story of now requires the courage of imagination, or as Walter Brueggemann named it, a prophetic imagination, in which you call attention both to the pain of the world and also to the possibility for a better future.
31 STORY STRUCTURE: CHALLENGE, CHOICE, OUTCOME
Every human story has a plot. A plot begins with a challenge that confronts a character with an urgent need to pay attention, to make a choice for which s/he is unprepared. The choice yields an outcome, and the outcome teaches a moral.
A good story allows the listener to empathetically identify with the character and "feel" the moral. We hear "about" someone's courage; we are also inspired by it.
The story of the character and his or her choices encourages listeners to think about their own values and challenges, and inspires them with new ways of thinking about how to make choices in their own lives.
Incorporating Challenge, Choice, and Outcome in Your Own Story
There are some key questions you need to answer as you consider the choices you have made in your life and the path you have taken that brought you to this point in time as a leader. Once you identify the specific relevant choice, dig deeper by answering the following questions.
Challenge: Why did you feel it was a challenge? What was so challenging about it? Why was it your challenge? Choice: Why did you make the choice you did? Where did you get the courage (or not)? Where did you get the hope (or not)? Did your parents or grandparents' life stories teach you in any way how to act in that moment? How did it feel?
Outcome: How did the outcome feel? Why did it feel that way? What did it teach you? What do you want to teach us? How do you want us to feel?
A word about challenge. Sometimes people see the word challenge and think it means describing the worst misfortunes of our lives. Sometimes those are the moments that most shaped us. But keep in mind that a struggle might also be one of your own choosing — a high mountain you decided to climb as much as a valley you managed to climb out of. Many things may have been a challenge to you and can be the source of a good story to inspire others.
32 VIDEO REVIEW STORY OF SELF, US, AND NOW
We'll be watching a story of Self, Us and Now. While you watch it, think about the elements of SELF — US — NOW that you hear in this story.
SELF US NOW • What experiences and • Who is the "us" that the • What urgent challenge does values call this person to speaker identifies? this speaker identify? leadership? • What are the common • How does he or she make • What choice points does values the speaker that challenge real? the speaker include to appeals to? How? • What gives us real hope show, rather than tell us • What challenges and that we can do something? his or her values? hopes does this "us" or • What is the first step that community share? each person can take to be part of the solution?
1. What was the speaker's purpose in telling these stories? What was s/he moving people to do?
2. What values did this story convey? How? By telling or showing?
3. What details or images in particular reflected those values?
4. What were the challenges, choices and outcomes in each part of his story? What morals do the outcomes teach?
33 SAMPLE STORY OF SELF: Lilian Molina
As told at Powershift 2011: a gathering of 10,000 U.S. climate activists.
Greetings. My name is Lilian Maria Molina and I am the Environmental Justice Director at Energy Action Coalition. I am part Mayas-Chorti, Lenca and Palestinian, was born in Honduras, Central America and moved to the United States at the age of 5 with my mother. For the first couple years my mom and I would take an hour-long ride on a two-floor train; I would always rush to the top floor, look out the window, and envision what I would do at our destination. I would imagine the cartoons I would watch, salivate over the Kudos and Pringles I would be able to eat, and think about all the great toys I would play with. Then one day, as I was playing with a fully equipped Barbie Mansion, my mom reached over and handed me a bottle of Windex and paper towels; at that moment I realized that our hour-long train ride wasn't a field trip, it was a commute to work. My mom and I were there to clean houses not to play.
From that moment on I started to notice that things looked very different in different parts of town. I wondered why some families lived in three floor homes, while I lived in a one-bedroom basement apartment with two families. I wondered why the park equipment in my neighborhood was always broken, but was fancy and new on the other side of town. I wondered if people in the neighborhood where my mom and I cleaned houses had to worry about La Migra coming to their jobs or their homes. I wondered if the kids at these houses ever had to miss school to translate for their parents. I wondered why the police didn't arrest kids around these houses for standing on the corner but my friends back in the neighborhood were arrested all the time. I slowly started to understand that these were two separate worlds.
As I got older, I would refuse to take the hour-long train ride with my mom, instead I would hang out with my friends in the neighborhood. When I was 12, my mom noticed that I was starting to get involved in some risky activities. She decided to send me to Honduras for the summer to spend time with Mi Abuelita (grandma). That summer Mi Abuelita, a Natural Healer and Master Gardener, helped me connect to my ancestral roots and taught me how to love nature through gardening. I learned about all the different plants that she used to help heal people and deliver babies - it was an eye-opening experience. That summer I also realized that some of the people that looked like my family and I wore suits to work and lived in houses rather than apartments.
When I came back to the U.S, I returned to hanging out with my friends; but when I was 16, I decided I was done watching my friends get beat up, get beat by the cops, or arrested. My friends and I started hosting different activities to keep our friends from joining street gangs. Throughout high school we organized different events, from parties, to walkouts to bring awareness to the violence in our communities. Around this time I remembered how the garden that Mi Abuelita introduced me to helped me to heal, and started wondering if a garden in our community could have the same impact for other young people. I got super excited and started looking for plots of land around the school. But in my search I learned that most of the land in Little Village was contaminated with industrial pollution. I thought to myself, "You have to be kidding me, on top of all of the issues I was aware of, our land is also polluted? We have poor education, gang violence, police brutality, immigration raids, militarization of schools and we also have contamination in our community? What the heck else could be wrong?" I learned that what my community was experiencing is called Environmental Racism and what we need is Environmental Justice before we can plant gardens here in Little Village...and that is what brought me to the work that I am doing now.
Now I am here at Power Shift with Front-line Community Members and our Allies, working with the leadership of front-line communities and helping them create a trans-local movement to oppose corporate power is where there is strategic need for youth leadership SMALL GROUP WORK AGENDA
GOALS
• Practice telling your Story of Self and get coaching • Learn to draw out and coach the stories of others
AGENDA Total time: 60 min
3. Gather in your team. Choose a timekeeper. Do quick introductions (name and 5 min. hometown). Articulate group agreements for how you'll work together during in your small groups. (For example, stick to time, listen carefully, give honest feedback)
2. Take some time as individuals to silently develop your "Story of Self." 5 min. Use the worksheet that follows.
If you finish early, look at the "Coaching Tips" to prepare to coach others' stories
3. As a team go around the group and tell your story one by one. 50 min
For each person: -2 minutes to tell his/her story -3 minutes to get coaching from the group. Make sure everyone in your group has an opportunity to give coaching.
*Make sure your timekeeper cuts you off. This encourages focus and makes sure everyone has a chance to tell their story. Remember, the purpose here isn't to tell a perfect story, it's to practice narrative as part of the work of leadership.
35 WORKSHEET DEVELOPING YOUR STORY OF SELF
Before you decide what part of your story to tell, think about these questions:
o What will 1 be calling on others to do? o What values move me to take action and might also inspire others to similar action? a What stories can I tell from my own life about specific people or events that would show (rather than tell) how I learned or acted on those values?
What are the experiences in your life that have shaped the values that call you to leadership in this campaign?
FAMILY & CHILDHOOD LIFE CHOICES ORGANIZING EXPERIENCES Parents/Family School First Experience of organizing Growing Up Career Connection to key books or Your Community Partner/Family people Role Models Hobbies/Interests/Talents Role Models School Faith Overcoming Challenge
Think about the challenge, choice and outcome in your story. The outcome might be what you learned, in addition to what happened. A story doesn't have to be dramatic to be effective!
Try drawing pictures here instead of words. Powerful stories leave your listeners with detailed images in their minds that shape their understanding of you and your calling.
CHALLENGE I CHOICE 1 OUTCOME
36
COACHING TIPS: STORY OF SELF
Remember to balance both positive and constructively critical coaching. The purpose of coaching is to listen to the way stories are told and think of ways that the storytelling could be improved.
DON'T simply offer vague "feel good" comments. ("That was a really great story!") DO coach each other on the following points:
• THE CHALLENGE: What were the specific challenges the storyteller faced? Did the storyteller paint a vivid picture of those challenges?
"When you described , I got a clear picture of the challenge." "I understood the challenge to be . Is that what you intended?"
• THE CHOICE: Was there a clear choice that was made in response to each challenge? How did the choice make you feel? (Hopeful? Angry?) "To me, the choice you made was , and it made me feel "It would be helpful if you focused on the moment you made a choice."
• THE OUTCOME: What was the specific outcome that resulted from each choice? What does that outcome teach us? "I understood the outcome was , and it teaches me . But how does it relate to your work now?"
• THE VALUES: Could you identify what this person's values are and where they came from? How? How did the story make you feel?
"Your story made me feel because "It's clear from your story that you value ; but it could be even clearer if you told a story about where that value comes from."
• DETAILS: Were there sections of the story that had especially good details or images (e.g. sights, sounds, smells, or emotions of the moment)?
"The image of really helped me identify with what you were feeling." "Try telling more details about so we can imagine what you were experiencing."
37 Coaching Your Team's "Story of Self" As you hear each other's stories, keeping track of the details of each person's story will help you to provide coaching and remember details about people on your team later. Use the grid below to track your team's stories in words or images.
NAME VALUES CHALLENGE CHOICE OUTCOME
38 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Readings: • Jerome Bruner, "Two Modes of Thought", Chapter 2 in Actual Minds, Possible Worlds (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), p.11 — 25. • Martha Nussbaum, "Emotions and Judgments of Value", Chapter 1 in Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), (pp. 19-33).
• George Marcus, The Sentimental Citizen: Emotion in Democratic Politics, (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2002), Chapter 4, "Becoming Reacquainted with Emotion" (pp.49-78)
39 BUILDING A CULTURE OF COMMITMENT BUILDING A CULTURE OF COMMIMTMENT "How do you create a culture of commitment in our scaled campaign?"
OBJECTIVES: • Learn how to build relationships to develop leadership, community, and power • Practice building intentional relationships and developing commitment through the skill of one- to-one organizing and coaching conversations • Identify common values and interests, challenges and successes, and unique skills and resources
on your team
RELATIONSHIPS BUILD COMMITMENT, THE GLUE OF AN ORGANIZATION
Leadership begins with understanding yourself: your values, your motivation, and your story. But leadership is about enabling others to achieve purpose in the face of uncertainty. The foundation of this kind of leadership is the relationships we build with others, most especially, others with whom we can share leadership.
Identifying, Recruiting, and Developing Leadership: We build relationships with potential collaborators to explore values, learn about resources, discern common purpose, and find others with whom leadership responsibility can be shared on a leadership team.
Building Community: Leaders, in turn, reach out to and recruit others, form relationships with them, expand the circle of support, grow more resources that they can organize, and recruit people who can, in turn, become leaders themselves.
Turning Community Resources into Power: Relationship building doesn't end when action starts. Commitment is one of your greatest resources in organizing, particularly when your campaign starts to come up against competition, internal conflict, or external obstacles. Commitment is developed and sustained through relationships, which must be constantly, intentionally nurtured. The more that volunteers or members find purpose in the intentional community you are building, the more they will commit resources that you may never have known they had.
41 COERCION OR COMMITMENT? As organizers and leaders we have an important choice to make about how we lead our organizations and campaigns. Will the glue that holds our campaign together be a command and control model fueled by coercion and accountability alone? Or will the glue be voluntary commitment to our cause and to each other? If we decide that our long-term power and potential for growth comes more from voluntary commitment, then we need to invest significant time and intentionality in building the relationships that generate that commitment to each other and to the goals that bring us together. That requires having transparent, open and mindful interaction, not closed, reactive or manipulating conversations.
42 SO WHAT ARE RELATIONSHIPS?
Relationships are rooted in shared values We can identify values that we share by learning each other's stories, especially 'choice points' in our life journeys. The key is asking "why?" to understand the choices we've made separately and together. Those choices, made real through action, reveal our values.
Relationships grow out of exchanges Your resources can address my interests; my resources can address your interests. The key is identifying our interests and resources. This means that relationships are driven as much by difference as by commonality. Our common purpose may be as narrow as supporting each other in pursuit of our individual interests, providing they are not in conflict. Or we may discover a broader purpose on which to work together. Organizing relationships are not simply transactional. We're not simply looking for someone to meet our "ask" at the end of a one-to- one meeting or campus meeting. We're looking for leaders to join with us in long-term relationships of learning, growth and action. We're working to build relational commitment.
Relationships are created by commitment An exchange becomes a relationship only when each party commits a portion of their most valuable resource to it: time. A commitment of time to the relationship gives it a future. And because we can all learn, grow, and change, the purposes that led us to form the relationship may change as well, offering possibilities for enriched exchange. In fact the relationship itself may become a valued resource — what Robert Putnam calls "social capital."
Relationships generate shared learning and growth Like any human relationship, organizing relationships require constant attention and work. When nurtured over time, relationships become an important source of continual learning and development for the individuals and communities that make up your campaign or organization. They are also our primary source for sustaining motivation and inspiration.
Sometimes simply knowing that we are not fighting alone gives us the energy to continue the work. For example, the relationship between Cesar Chavez and his mentor, Fred Ross, Sr. was a long-term relationship built through one-to-ones and shared action. Their relationship helped spawn the United Farm Workers' movement and provided a source of learning and growth, not just for them as individuals, but also for the movement.
43 HOW DO WE BUILD RELATIONSHIPS?
We build relationships for organizing the same way we build relationships in other parts of our lives, striving always to do so in an intentional and transparent way. Here are some of the relational tactics we can use to constantly grow our campaigns and organizations.
One-to-Ones One to one meetings are good for identifying leaders and recruiting them into leadership teams Regular one to ones are also critical for building and sustaining strong relationships in which both partners grow and learn together over time.
House Meetings You can use house meetings or dorm meetings to build community and commitment around the core leadership team. Once we have a team of leaders who are committed, that leadership has to reach out to engage their community deeply, and sometimes to create new community where it doesn't yet exist. In a house or dorm meeting campaign, leaders recruit and engage their own social networks in building a broader, deeper community of others willing to commit to create change together right where they live. House meetings were a key part of how Cesar Chavez built the Farm Workers movement, and it's how many candidates running for office for the first time build their base of support and leadership.
Organizational Meetings Organizational meetings help us launch a new idea or a plan, strategize around a problem, invite new members to our effort or get community members recommitted to our cause and our campaign. Organizational meetings are like house meetings, but may take place at work, in our places of worship, at community centers, or anywhere where you can gather people of common cause together in one place.
Team Meetings Another way to build and sustain relationships is in team meetings. Often when groups of people who are working together have constant confusion, lack of communication and conflict, it's because they are not spending enough time connecting with each other as people, trying to understand each other's interests and finding ways to learn together. Team meetings are important for decision-making, strategizing and accountability, but also for maintaining strong committed relationships among leaders.
44 BUILDING INTENTIONAL RELATIONSHIPS: THE ONE-TO-ONE MEETING
One of the best ways to initiate intentional relationships is by use of the one-to-one meeting, a technique developed and refined by organizers over many years.
Before the one-to-one: We have to get another person's attention to conduct a one on one meeting. Don't be coy. Be as up front as you can be about what your interest is in the meeting, but that first, you'd like take a few moments to get better acquainted. For example, "I'm helping to build a Planned Parenthood team on campus where our goal is to get free contraception for all students. Would you like to meet with me to get to know each other and see how you can help us win?"
There must be a purpose or a goal in setting up a one on one meeting. It could range from, "I'm starting a new network and thought you might be interested" to "I'm struggling with a problem and I think you could help" or "1 know you have an interest in X so I'd like to discuss that with you." Be transparent about your purpose.
During the one-to-one:
-CONNECTION— Most of the one on one is devoted to exploration by sharing stories and asking probing questions to learn the other person's values, purposes, and resources. It is also important to share your own values, purposes, and resources so that it can be a two way street.
We exchange resources in the meeting such as information, support, and insight. This creates the foundation for future exchanges.
->CONTEXT— Explain why the work you are asking them to engage in is important (build off your story of us & now later in this manual). Be specific about the challenges we face, but also the opportunities and hopes. Instead of making statements, ask questions that help the person locate their own sense of anger and hope around the challenge.
->CHOICE— After exchange of ideas and information happens and both parties are clear about intentions there needs to be a choice. During a one to one you have to make a choice to move
45
forward with the relationship or not, and commit to further exchange of knowledge and resources in the future or not. This should be a specific conversation during your one to one.
->COMMITMENT— If you choose to continue building a relationship, a successful one to one meeting ends with a clear commitment, most likely to meet again and to engage in action together. By scheduling a specific time for this meeting or action together, you make it a real commitment. The goal of the one to one is not just to get someone to make a pledge, to give money, to commit a vote. It's to build commitment to continuing the relationship in service of a shared purpose and desire for change.
-->CATAPULT—Make a plan of action together. Explore your individual resources and how you can each bring those resources to bear in this relationship and on behalf of the campaign you're preparing together. You can ask for recommendations for other people to have one to ones with, or even ask this person if they will do one-to-ones with their own friends, family and neighbors etc.
One-to-One Dos and Don'ts
DO DON'T Schedule a time to have this conversation Be unclear about purpose and length of conversation (usually 30 - 60 minutes) Ask questions and plan to listen Try to persuade rather than listen
Follow the steps of the conversation above Chit chat about private interests
Share experiences and deep motivations Skip stories to "get to the point"
Share a vision that articulates a shared set of interests Miss the opportunity to share ideas about how things for change can change
Be clear about the 'when and what' of your next step End the conversation without a clear plan for the together next steps
46
SMALL GROUP WORK PRACTICING ONE-TO-ONES
GOALS • Practice the art of the one-to-one conversation by using probing questions to understand each other's values, purpose, challenges and hopes in the context of your shared purpose in being here today learning about building to scale. • Make a concrete commitment to each other to continue the relationship—how will you take action together toward this commitment this week? • Uncover your team and constituency's common values, challenges, hopes, and shared interests. If time, identify and draw out each other's unique skills and resources.
AGENDA Total Time: 25 min
1. Break into pairs. (1 Round) 20 min
• Use the the 1:1 worksheet to guide your questions. • One person initiates the conversation: Ask Questions (GO DEEP!) and share some of your own story too. • After 10 minutes switch roles and let your partner drive the conversation more. • Listen carefully and write these down for later: -Your common values (the things you care about and have a motivated commitment to - like education, family) -Your shared interests (the real-world expression of your values - like good schools in our neighborhood, clean air in my community) -Your skills, hopes and concerns about your work and campaign (the things you bring to this learning relationship) Make a specific commitment to each other and the leadership team.
2. Reflection questions (5 minutes): • What did you learn about the common values & interests that motivate you to act? • What did you learn about what skills and resources each of you bring to this team? • Our Common Values & Interests Our Specific Skills & Resources
47 PRACTICE RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
ONE-TO-ONE PRACTICE (40 min) Choose a partner you don't know (or would like to know more about). Learn about why they have been called to do this work and what they are challenged by and excited about within the work. Probe with "why?" questions to get to choice points and specific experiences that shaped her life. Share your story. Listen to your partner's story for the motivations and the resources she could bring to this learning community (leadership skills, a following, action skills, etc.). Be specific. Below are some areas you might explore together, but this is not a scripted conversation. Be present. Close by making a concrete commitment to each other.
Avoid talking about issues like reproductive health care, education, or the economy in an abstract and detached way. Talk about why YOU in particular care about a issue based on your own life experiences or the specific experiences of people you care about. What values were you taught that make you care about this? How were you taught those values?
Hope: What motivates you to Story: What's your family act to organize now? What's story? What in your life your vision of how things could brought you here today? be different if we learn together this week?
Challenges: What keeps you Leadership Qualities: What from action? What do you skills do you have? What do fear? What would you want you want to improve in our to learn? What are our leadership? learning challenges?
What values do we share? What interests can we act on together? What skills, hopes and concerns do we each bring to this work? ***How can we keep building this learning relationship this week?***
48 WORKSHEET Relationship-Building as Phase One of a Campaign
In our campaigns we will be facing powerful opposition from those whose interests diverge from our own and who are comfortable with the status quo. Rather than launching right into a struggle, we need to first begin building the power we need in order to win. Where does that power come from? It comes from the resources and relationships that we will build in our community in the next few months — from personal relationships that exist already, and from new relationships that you develop intentionally through your work.
In many campaigns, your first job as an organizer will be to build your own local leadership team that will be responsible for building a local base for your campaign, and for developing the campaign strategy together with your coaching and support. Who are the types of people you'd want to start building relationships with now in order to have a strong, diverse leadership team? With whom could you hold one-to-one meetings in the coming week to begin building out your leadership team? Remember as you build this list that you can't borrow other's relationships. You'll need to be proactive in building this leadership team yourself.
Brainstorm 10 people with whom you'd like to build a stronger public relationship, people with whom you suspect you share values that motivate you to act for change. This could be the pastor of the church in your community, a nurse who works at the local hospital, or a student you met recently on campus. Remember, we're not only thinking about people who already see themselves as leaders; rather, our job as organizers is to develop new leadership from those who have the greatest interest in change. So it may be the church greeter with whom you want to build a relationship, in addition to the pastor.
Name Phone Number Date, Time, Location of 1:1 Meeting Scheduled
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49 STRUCTURE: BUILDING INTERDEPENDENT TEAMS STRUCTURE: BUILDING INTERDEPENDENT TEAMS "How can we work together interdependently to achieve shared purpose?"
OBJECTIVES: • Understand the core conditions of successful leadership teams • Begin practicing building and refining those conditions in your leadership team: developing a shared purpose, clarifying team roles and responsibilities, creating shared norms and practices of coordination
WHY DO ORGANIZING TEAMS MATTER?
The most effective leaders have always created teams to work with them and to lead with them. Take for example Moses, Aaron and Miriam in the story of Exodus, or Jesus and the twelve disciples in the New Testament, or Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, Rosa Parks, Jo Ann Robinson and E.D. Nixon during the Montgomery Bus Boycott or Alice Paul and Lucy Burns in their fight for women's suffrage.
Leadership teams offer a structural model for working together that fosters interdependent leadership, where individuals can work toward goals together, with each person taking leadership on part of the team's activity. At their best leadership teams recognize and put to productive use the unique talents of the individuals who make up the team.
WHY DOES TEAM STRUCTURE MATTER?
Team structures create strategic capacity—the ability to strategize creatively together in ways that produce more vibrant, engaging strategy than any individual could create alone. Movements are not built on command and control authority structures. But they can also be ineffective beyond the local level if there is no structure for coordination and no venue for creating shared purpose.
Strong movement structures enable local decision-making and strategizing by local leadership teams that are supported by regional or national leadership teams who provide strategic focus, common purpose and shared resources—our snowflake model of interdependent leadership. At every level, leadership teams require a clear mission with clear goals and the ability to strategize creatively together about how to carry out their mission and meet their goals. This structure creates multiple points of entry for leaders at local, regional, national and international levels, and multiple opportunities to learn and to exercise leadership.
51 Leadership teams provide a foundation from which an organization can expand its reach. Once a team is formed, systems can be created to establish a rhythm of regular meetings, clear decisions and visible accountability, increasing the organization's effectiveness. An organization of 500 people is not created by one person alone. It is built by finding people willing and able to commit to helping build it, and creating relationships and a solid, transparent structure from which it can be built.
WHY DON'T PEOPLE ALWAYS WORK IN TEAMS?
We have all been part of teams that have not worked well. They fall into factions, they alienate each other, or all the work falls on one person. So many of us come to the conclusion: I'll just do it on my own; I hate meetings, just tell me what to do; I don't want any responsibility; just give me stamps to lick. There's just one problem: we can't become powerful enough to do what we need to do if we can't work together to build campaigns and take action.
The challenge is to create conditions for our leadership teams that are more likely to generate successful collaboration and strategic action. When groups of people come together, conflict is always present. Effective teams are structured to channel that conflict in productive ways, allowing the team to achieve the goals it needs to win.
52 FIVE CONDITIONS FOR TEAM SUCCESS
Strong teams are deliberate about setting up conditions for success from the very beginning. Ruth Wageman and her colleagues at Harvard have studied leadership teams in many settings and have found that strong teams share 5 conditions for success:
Your team is made of diverse people. A highly effective team is made up of people from different economic backgrounds, race, ethnicity, political ideology, skills, and opinions. When there is diversity amongst your team members it can inspire robust conversation during decision-making, pushing your team to better thought-out outcomes. A good team will have a diversity of identities, experiences and opinions, ensuring that everyone is bringing the most possible to the table.
Your shared purpose is clear and it points you in an engaging direction. The work you have to do is readily understood, it's challenging, it matters to your constituency and you know why it matters. Team members should be able to articulate for others the "purpose" of your team. This is a brief statement that includes who the team is, what they do together and how they plan to do it.
Your team is stable, with clear boundaries. You can name the people on it, and they meet regularly. It's not a different, random group of people every time. Highly effective teams have 4 - 8 members. Membership of the team remains constant long enough that the team learns to work together better and better; each member is fully committed to be on the team and commits consistent time and effort to it.
53 WON.= Your team works interdependently. Everyone should have a roughly equal share of the work based on the unique skills & resources they bring to the team, understanding that each part is necessary to adequately reach the ultimate goal. Thus, the success or failure of one Clear will have an effect on all. One way to encourage interdependence is to have clear roles based on the work that the team needs to do to Roles succeed. Interdependent teamwork includes: making decisions together, coordinating work together, serving as a consultative team, and sharing information. Good teams will coordinate and help each other accomplish collective goals. Good team members will communicate well when they need assistance. No one is carrying out activity in a silo that is secretive to others.
Your team has explicit expectations. Your team sets clear expectations, or ground rules, for how to govern yourselves in your work together. How will you manage meetings, regularly communicate, make decisions, and maintain commitments? And, most importantly, how will you correct violations of your shared ground rules so they remain real and help you work as a team?
Teams with explicit shared expectations of each other have a much higher likelihood of achieving the results they are aiming for. Some team expectations are operational such as "how often will we meet?" "How will we share and store documents?" "Communicate with others outside the team?" Others address expectations for member interaction with each other. Initial group ground rules guide your team in its early stages as members learn how to work together as a team. They are set by the team, not one person, and can be refined through regular group review of how well the team is doing.
Without being explicit about creating these ground rules, you will find that habitual ways of interacting will form on their own, and it will be much more difficult for your team to address those habits that are not helpful to your team's effectiveness.
THREE CRITERIA TO MEASURE YOUR TEAM'S EFFECTIVENESS
• ACTION: The action work of your team matches the goals you need to meet in order to win on your campaign.
• CAPACITY: The team is engaging others outside the team in action. The team's capacity is growing, as you work better together over time.
• LEARNING: Teamwork supports individual growth and learning.
In short, the team is meeting the campaign's interests by achieving goals, growing the community of people and resources it will take to meet the goals, and meeting each participant's interests by giving them opportunities and support to learn and develop. *Note: If your team isn't meeting these criteria, return to the foundational blocks to re- evaluate and refocus.
54 SMALL GROUP WORK BUILDING YOUR TEAM
GOALS • Develop your team purpose • Identify the shared norms you will adhere to as a team • Review leadership roles and then discuss the roles relative to the talents of your team members • Create a team name, chant and coordination schedule
AGENDA TOTAL TIME: 90 MIN
1. Gather and review agenda. Choose a timekeeper for this session. Review your shared 5 min interests from your work on building relationships.
2. Develop your Shared Purpose. Use the worksheet that follows to guide your efforts. Be 25 min patient with this process. We find that teams can develop real coherence through the repetition, which surfaces divergence and alignment on the team.
3. Decide on Shared Expectations , Community Agreements or Ground Rules. Use the 15 min worksheet, "Developing Shared Team Expectations" to guide your work. *Be sure to revisit these agreements regularly so the team can self correct when necessary.
4. Review Team Roles. Select roles for your team's work and brainstorm who might be 20 min able to fill the roles and complete your team. Consider running tests for leadership roles so you know you have the right person for each role (for example a test for being the phone bank captain could be to lead a phone bank with 5 people that contacts— actually talks with-150 voters.)
5. Create a team name and chant. Decide on a regular meeting time. 10 Min
If extra time, discuss key learnings: What did you learn about how to structure and 5-10 min run a good team? What worked? What didn't? i
55 WORKSHEET DEVELOPING A TEAM PURPOSE
SHARED PURPOSE (25 minutes total)
-)Part 1: Individual Work: Silently brainstorm and craft a sentence to clarify your own thinking about your team's purpose (5 minutes)
Example of a shared purpose sentence:
We are organizing college students across Boston to launch a campaign for a 100% safe, free contraception for people on our campuses, by recruiting others, building campus leadership teams, gathering petitions and organizing our campaign kickoff.
• In the first column, write down whom your team serves: Who is your constituency? What are the people like and what are their interests? What will engage them? Be specific.
• In the second column, based on the work you did on common interests and values in the previous session; write down the interests and objectives that are unique to your team. Be specific to what your team is trying to achieve.
• In the third column, write down the kinds of activities that your team could engage in to fulfill its purpose by serving this community? What is the unique work that your team could do? Be specific!
We are organizing to by (who - constituency) (what —outcome) (how - list the specific activities that your team would undertake to achieve your goal.)
-Part 2: Team Work: Ask each person to read their sentence to the group. Record shared words that resonates with you below (10 minutes)
56 As each person reads his or her sentence the facilitator notes the key words under the three parts of your purpose statement: 1) We are organizing whom? 2) To do what? 3) By what means? Note specific words that spark your curiosity, or that give you energy. When you are done, circle the words that seem to resonate most strongly with your team.
We are organizing to do by (who - constituency) (what —outcome) (how - list the specific activities that your team would undertake to achieve your goal.)
-Part 3: Individual Work: In light of what you learned from the last two rounds, write a new sentence that you think can articulate a shared purpose, using some of the key words and themes you heard from others (5 minutes)
Our team's shared purpose is to
->Part 4: Team Work (5 minutes) We will read our sentences again and choose — or combine - one that best articulates the shared sense of our team. This does not have to be the perfect sentence today. In fact, you may want to revisit it at your next team meeting after everyone has had a chance to reflect on it.
57 WORKSHEET DEVELOPING SHARED TEAM AGREEMENTS
COMMUNITY AGREEMENTS/GROUNDRULES (15-20 minutes) Review the sample community agreements or ground rules below. Add, subtract or modify to create your own shared expectations for your team. Be sure to include expectations on each theme below and how you will self-correct if the expectation is broken. (If you don't self correct the new norm will be breaking the norms.)
*The list below is just a SAMPLE; feel free to come up with your own for your group.
Discussion and Decision-making: How we will discuss options and reach decisions as a team to ensure vigorous input and debate? Always Do Never Do Engage in open, honest debate Engage in personal attacks Ask clarifying questions Fail to listen to what others say Balance advocacy with inquiry or curiosity Jump to conclusions Debate until time is up and then take a vote
Meeting Management: How will we manage meetings to respect each other's time? Always Do Never Do Start on time; stay on time Come to meetings unprepared Be fully present throughout the meeting Answer cell phones or do email
Accountability: How we will delegate responsibilities for actions and activities? How will we follow through on commitments?
Always Do Never Do Clarify understanding Assume you have agreement Provide follow-up on action items Assume tasks are getting done Ask for/offer support when there is a need Commit to a task that you know you Weekly check-in won't do
How will you "self correct" if your shared ground rules are not followed? (Try something fun, not just punitive. Do a dance? Share a secret? Put money in the celebration pot? The purpose here is to have a way for your team to stay on track on positive, not to punish people.)
i
58 WORKSHEET DEVELOPING TEAM ROLES
UNDERSTANDING TEAM ROLES:
Your Leadership Team (20-25 min.):
Think about your campaign and what role each member of your team plays in it. These are sample roles for an electoral campaign. Depending on the goal of your campaign you might develop different roles, depending on what work needs to get done.
Fill in the chart below, and be specific. Think about why this is a good role for you and what skills you bring to it. What experience and talents does each member of your team have and what do they want to learn? Add to the list other members of your campaign leadership team who aren't here at the moment and note their roles, responsibilities, and talents.
Role Responsibilities What are the Team member characteristics of a name & Related person who would fit Skills/Talents this role? Team Coordinator Coordinate the work of the leadership team. Prepare for meetings, give support and coaching to the team.
T - Recruitment Coordinate and track your team's effort Coordinator to recruit supporters to your campaign work.
Volunteer Coordinate and manage your team's Coordinator volunteers (training, deployment, and debriefing, evaluating work of volunteers with them). Logistics Lead the team in creating a plan for Coordinator team actions. Coordinate logistics for team actions. Help generate resources necessary. Voter Contact Coordinate regular phone banks and Coordinator door to door canvasses to meet your voter registration and voter contact goals.
Chief Storyteller Coordinate all communication about your campaign and actions. Send e- mails to list-serves, create a Facebook page and utilize all social media and news media to spread the message. Data Coordinator Coordinate and support your team in accurately reporting progress to goals and tracking all contact information in an organized database.
59 TEAM ROSTER
NAME PHONE EMAIL ADDRESS
When and how will you coordinate with each other on a regular (weekly, or daily) schedule?
DATE:
TIME:
PLACE:
TEAM NAME & TEAM CHANT (10 minutes) The best teams have a team spirit. Create a name and chant that can reflect your team's purpose and spirit!
60 SAMPLE TEAM STRUCTURES
To effectively build the capacity of your campaign, every volunteer team needs to have a clear turf with goals of their own and clear roles and responsibilities. There are two ways to structure teams: the first by geographic turf, the second by functional roles.
CoordinatorPhone Bank TEAM 1: Each member leads one precinct and knows exactly what goal she is responsible for. The Team Coordinator's role is to help team members work together to maximize learning, solidarity and progress to goal for all precincts combined. This structure ensures that you're reaching deep into all corners of your community, not just the easiest places.
TEAM 2: Role-based volunteer leadership acknowledges that volunteers have different skills and makes the most of those skills. All members are working together to reach a goal for the whole campus. This team can make progress in every area of campus even if there's not volunteer leadership in every precinct. Also, these are the roles necessary for running Get Out The Vote staging locations, so volunteers trained and practiced in these roles can be good staging location leaders.
61 MOTIVATING YOUR CAMPAIGN: STORY OF US & NOW
THE STORY OF OUR COMMUNITY & OUR CAMPAIGN
62 MOTIVATING YOUR CAMPAIGN: STORY OF US & NOW The Story of Our Community & Our Campaign
OBJECTIVES: • Learn how to tell the story of our community in a way that reflects our shared values, hope, and experiences. • Learn to tell a story that motivates others to join us in a specific action NOW! • Learn to coach others to tell effective Stories of Us and Now.
PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER
You've practiced telling your own story, you've built relationships together and from that developed a leadership team, and you've created a strategy and developed a plan for action. The next step is to motivate others to join you in action!
STORY OF US AND NOW
A story of self tells people who you are and why you are called to do the work that you are doing. On its own, the story of self is Invites others to join insufficient to set the stage for collective your community Invites others to take action. Since organizing is about building ACTION! power with others for shared action, your public narrative also needs to tell a story of the community you're forming together, and a story of the action you are asking others to join you in taking now.
THE CHARACTER: WHO IS THE US?
The Character in the Story of Us and Now is the community or organization you are building. Our story of self is interwoven with stories we share with others through the communities and organizations we are a part of, which have stories of their own. These include stories of our family, community, faith tradition, school, profession, movements, organizations, nations, and perhaps, world. It is through these shared stories that we establish the identities and express the values of the communities in which we participate (family, faith, nation) and of the new communities we are forming (new social movements, new organizations, new neighborhoods).
63 Telling a Story of Us requires learning how to put into narrative form the specific experiences that the "us" in the room share with each other. Telling a Story of Us is a way to engage a community in acting together, based on values that we share. When we tell stories that reflect in detail the challenges we have faced, how we responded, and the hope we created in the things we have done together, we begin to build new community and new organization around values rather than just issues or interests alone.
STORIES HELP MOVE OTHERS TO ACTiON BY BUILDING NEW COMMUNITY
Often after we've heard others' Stories of Self and we've started building relationships together, we discover that we face similar challenges that are rooted in very deep systems of power inequality. Learning to tell these Stories of Us is a way to join our stories together and acknowledge those shared challenges and the roots of the problem and sources of hope as a community. However a good Story of Us doesn't just convey the root of our challenges, but also lifts up our heroes and stories of even small successes. Those stories give us hope that, if we come together and take action as a community, we can uproot some of the underlying causes of our suffering.
When you tell a powerful Story of Us and Now, and ask others to make a specific choice to join you in action, you are beginning to build new power together from the community around you to address the challenges in your lives.
THE CHALLENGE, CHOICE AND OUTCOME
Remember the story structure we introduced in telling your Story of Self? Just like in your Story of Self, your Story of Us and Now has a clear challenge, choice and outcome. The story describes an urgent challenge facing your community, a hopeful vision of what life could be, and a specific choice others can make that will move us towards that vision...NOW.
What's the strategic choice we are asking others to make?
What will the world look like if we make this change?
Challenge (The "NIGHTMARE"): What urgent challenges does your community—your Us—face now (make the challenges real with specific stories, images, and details, not statistics or generalizations). Why haven't these challenges been resolved yet? Is there anyone who has a stake in keeping things the way they are?
The Hopeful Outcome (THE "DREAM"): What's your vivid, detailed image of the change you could create in your community if you take action together now? What makes that hope plausible? Perhaps stories of people organizing to take action together elsewhere? Or hopeful outcomes you've already achieved together as a community in the past? 64
The Choice (The "CREDIBLE PATH"): What's the strategic choice you're asking others to make right now, this minute, to join you in action? This specific choice should be informed by the theory of change and tactics you developed in your strategy.
A Story of Us and Now is urgent; it requires dropping other things and paying attention; it is rooted in the values you've discovered you share through relationship building. The choice we're called on to make is a choice to commit to strategic action now. Leaders who only describe problems, but fail to identify a way to act and bring others together to address the problem aren't very good leaders. If you are called to address a real challenge, a challenge so urgent you have motivated us to face it as well, then you also have a responsibility to invite us to join you in action that has some chance of success—not certain success, but plausible success. A Story of Us and Now is not simply a call to make a choice to act -- it is a call to hopeful collective action—action with a clear strategy behind it that helps us see how we can make a difference if we act together.
LINKING SELF, US AND NOW
As Rabbi Hillel's words suggest, to stand If I am not for myself; who will be for me? for yourself is the first step, but insufficient on its own. You must also find or create a community to stand with, When I am only for myself, what am 1? and that community must begin acting now. To combine the stories of Self, Us If not now, when? and Now, you have to find the link between why you are called to this --Rabbi HMO, 1st century Jerusalem sage mission, why we as a community are called to this mission, and what our PirkeAvo mission calls on us to do now.
Each time you tell your story you will adapt it — to make yourself clearer, to adjust to a different audience, to locate yourself in a different context.
STORYTELLING TAKES PRACTICE
Our goal during this session is not to leave with a final script of your public narrative that you will use over and over again during your campaign. The goal is to help you learn a process by which you can generate an authentic narrative over and over and over again, when, where, and how you need to in order to motivate yourself and others to specific, strategic action.
65 SMALL GROUP WORK: STORY OF US AND NOW PRACTICE
GOALS • Learn how to integrate a story about the community and team you've been building with an urgent call to action that will inspire your audience to join your community in making change. • Practice telling a Story of Us & Now. • Coach others' stories by listening carefully, offering coaching, and asking questions.
AGENDA TOTAL TIME: 60 min. , 1. Gather in your team. Nominate 1 person to be a timekeeper. 5 min
2. Take some time as a group to brainstorm the Story of Us with the 10 min worksheet that follows.
3. Take some time as individuals to silently develop your Story of US & NOW. 10 min
4. Go around the group and tell your story one by one. 25 min
6 minutes for each person: • 3 minutes to tell their Story of US & NOW • 3 minutes to get coaching from the group
5. • Select someone to share up front. That person has 10 minutes to •10 min revise their story with the feedback provided i
66 WORKSHEET: STORY OF US AND NOW
The purpose of the Story of US & NOW is to create a sense of community and invite your audience to join your community in taking action right now.
Use these questions to help you put together your Story of US & NOW.
US: What experiences together have had the greatest impact on you and your team? What have you seen and heard and experienced that demonstrates your community's values and commitment (like people's stories, ways we have stuck together, moments of courage, etc.)? What stories could we tell about this community would inspire others to join us? What makes you believe in this community?
CHALLENGE: What specific stories reveal the challenge we face as a community now? Use vivid images and recount real experiences, not statistics and generalizations.
HOPEFUL OUTCOME: What's our dream for a better future? What would it look like? Smell like? Sound like? What makes that hope plausible? How do we know that we can make change? Have we done it before? Or have others in other places or times done it?
CHOICE: What specific choice are we asking others to join us in making now? (Draw on your strategy—what's the plan? What's the first step?)
Try drawing pictures here instead of words. Powerful stories leave your listeners with images in their minds that shape their understanding of you and your calling.
US I CHALLENGE 1 CHOICE I OUTCOME
67 COACHING TIPS: STORY OF US AND NOW
Remember to start with positive feedback FIRST and then move into what could be improved. Focus on asking questions instead of giving advice. The purpose is to coach, not judge or criticize; listen fully to offer ways that the storytelling could be improved.
Coaching Questions
1. US: How did the storyteller make the "Us" real? Who is the "Us" in the story"? Was it clear what values are shared by "Us" and what unites the "Us"? How was this made clear? What brought this to life in the story?
2. CHALLENGE: What were the specific challenges described in the story? How were those challenges made most vivid? What details, images, and emotions would make the challenges even more real?
3. HOPE I OUTCOME: What specific outcome did the story point to? What details and images made that hopeful outcome real? What specific images, values, and emotions most inspired hope?
4. CHOICE: Was there a clear choice? What specific action did they ask you to choose to join them in now? Was there urgency (does it need to be done now or can it wait a year)? How did they show that making the choice would make a difference?
5. Were there sections of the story that had especially good details or images (e.g. sights, sounds, smells or emotions)? How did those details make you feel as a listener?
6. What were you left wondering? What questions do they need to answer? What suggestions do you have for specific improvements?
68
WORKSHEET: COACHING YOUR TEAMMATES' STORIES OF US & NOW
Record Comments and Questions from Your Team Members On Your Story Here:
Coaching Your Team's "Story of Us & Now" As you hear each other's stories, keeping track of the details of each person's story will help you to provide coaching and remember details about people on your team later. Use the grid below to track your team's stories.
WHAT'S THE WHAT ARE OUR VALUES? WHAT IS THE WHAT'S MY NAME HOPEFUL HOW DO I KNOW? CHALLENGE? CHOICE? OUTCOME?
69 I
A STORY OF US (and NOW!): TIM HARLIN-MARKS, SIERRA STUDENT COALITION
Tim was a Lead Trainer at Power Shift 2011 and told this story at the first training for trainers.
've spent the past two years working in environmental nonprofits and during that time that I've spent a fair share of ?arty Saturday mornings in bland conference rooms full of flip chart paper and middle-aged, middle-class, white people nearing earth tones and talking quietly about their vacations.
\nd then I arrive in Washington, DC and I come to this room, Ind I look around and think this looks unlike any community of environmentalists I've ever been a part of. But I realize there's I reason for that — and the reason is that we're not environmentalists. We're not, let's face it, we're not, because we know environmentalists. We're people from disparate regions, and movements, and backgrounds—who give a damn.
We pay attention enough to know that the difficult realities of our time are placing people from all ways of life at risk. But while many of us went to elementary schools or places that celebrated Black History Month, put up bulletin boards in December with pictures of Menorahs next to Crosses, we still haven't been taught to work together. We still haven't been taught to see our struggles as common.
We come with different stories, different needs, many of us speak different languages, yet the prospect of climate disaster, climate and environmental disaster compels all of us to work together. We dream of a future without borders, without vast class differences, where we may all live full, long lives, in happy, healthy communities. And this may sound daunting, and it is, but I do not think it's impossible. Anybody who walked in here on Friday into a room scattered with you's and l's and stuck around long enough to be present in this room that's brimming with US knows that it's not only possible but it's absolutely necessary...
Necessary that we learn and buy into the skills of grassroots organizing and power building, and we go out into communities across the U.S. and we train others. We teach them how to build power in their communities, we invite them to join us in Washington DC and build a movement of more than 10,000 people. We'll take this back to our communities, we'll run grassroots campaigns, and we'll build a future that we want to live in, that we want our children, our grandchildren, and their children to live in.
Will you join me?
70 ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Videos: • Obama Campaign, South Carolina House Meeting Video. July, . 2007. d • Christopher, Susan. 2007. Story Of Us, Camp Obama, Burbank, CA, July 2007. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-WEM-taoG8 • NOl Video Resource Center: http://noitoolbox.mirocommunity.org/category/story-of-now
Readings:
1. George Marcus The Sentimental Citizen: Emotion in Democratic Politics, (University Park: Penn State University Press. 2002). Chapter 4 "Becoming Reacquainted with Emotion" (pp.49-78)
? Martha Nussbaum, "Emotions and Judgements of Value." Chapter 1 in Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. (pp. 19-33)..
71 CHOOSING A STRATEGIC CAMPAIGN GOAL CHOOSING A STRATEGIC CAMPAIGN GOAL
OBJECTIVES: • Practice group decision making to choose a strategic focus or goal for your campaign • Learn a set of movement building criteria for choosing a strategic goal
The first question in strategizing is who are our people? The next is what is our purpose? Creating our purpose requires choosing a strategic, motivational goal. You've explored the external world so you have some sense of the actors and their interests and resources, which should also give you some sense of the opportunities and challenges. The next step is to choose one single strategic goal to which you can fully commit. This is only partly an analytical challenge, and much more an emotional challenge—to choose one goal and have the courage and resolve to stick with it until it's achieved.
The art of choosing a strategic, motivational goal is the art of turning problems into solutions. It's the art of asking yourself, "What concrete solutions could we create in the world that would begin to solve the challenges we face?" No one strategic goal can solve everything, so there is no use waiting or hoping for it. Focused, winning campaigns that create real, tangible change in the world have the discipline to choose a single goal and focus all resources and organizing strategically on achieving that goal. (What would have happened if the Montgomery Bus Boycott leaders chose to desegregate buses and schools and department stores and restaurants? They only built power relative to key decision makers by focusing their resources and effort on one goal—desegregating buses.)
Here are some criteria for a movement-building strategic goal—one that builds leadership and power: 1) It's concrete. The goal will result in visible, significant change in your constituents' daily lives. If you win, your constituents will be able to live their lives with newfound dignity and agency. This is the difference between "our goal is to win reproductive justice" and "our goal is to ensure that every student has access to free, round the clock contraception on our campus." The first is our ideal future; the second is something that can be achieved by a specific decision about resource allocation. This criteria matters most. Without it, it will be very difficult to motivate your constituency to action or sustain them to protect what they win. 2) It has the makings of a good story. The goal requires you to take on bigger-than-life characters your constituents may otherwise be afraid of or feel powerless around. A good strategic goal isn't something you can win tomorrow—it's something that will require a struggle and a shift in power. (Think David and Goliath.) 3) It leverages your resources. It builds off your constituency's strengths, experience and resources, but is outside the strengths, experience and resources of your opponent. 4) It requires distributed leadership. It provides multiple local targets or points of entry and organization. It forces you to train new people for leadership because you can't do all the work alone or with the people you already have. 5) It's contagious. There are other places in your state, in our country, or in the world, who could be inspired by your campaign and take on their own version of your Goliath.
73 SMALL GROUP WORK CHOOSING A STRATEGIC, MOTIVATIONAL CAMPAIGN GOAL
OBJECTIVES: • Work interdependently with your leadership team to refine your strategic, motivational, focused campaign goal. • Practice group decision-making.
AGENDA TOTAL TIME: 60 min.
1 Review the agenda and decision-making process. Pick a timekeeper. 5 min.
Note that for this breakout we have suggested a decision making process. When you have more time you can use the worksheets that follow to adapt and revise your decision making process. Remember, there's no perfect process—it's simply choosing a process and agreeing to it that matters.
2 Review the criteria for a strong organizing goal on the previous page and 10 min. reflect on them. Really use the full 8 minutes to get your head around these criteria.
Remember most importantly a goal creates concrete change in your constituent's lives
3 Open your process. Brainstorm a list together of all possible strategic goals. 20 min. Go bananas—anything's possible here! (Use experimental language, like "What if . .. ?" or "Can you imagine?" Say "yes and!" to others' ideas instead of "no, but!")
- , 4 Narrow your process based on the criteria provided. Which possible goals 15 min. best meet the criteria on the previous page? Eliminate those that don't meet the criteria. Combine any very similar goals to shorten your list. Advocate for why one goal is more strategic and motivational than another
5 Close. Call a vote. 10 min.
Choose a strategic, motivational goal to use for the sake of this workshop to practice strategizing. You can try this exercise again and again, but there's value in choosing one goal and playing it all the way out through the strategizing process. Remember there are no perfect goals. Just goals that help you build power and win something concrete in your constituents' lives.
74 WORKSHEET: CHOOSING YOUR MOTIVATIONAL GOAL
75 GROUP DECISION MAKING TOOLS
The purpose of this section is to share some tools for collective decision-making that enable everyone's voice to be heard and valued in allocating your collective gift. Such a process acknowledges the differences between members of a community and seeks to harness these differences to produce as creative an outcome as possible.
There are two parts to group decision making:
1. Identify Criteria for a good outcome (for example, the criteria we gave you for a strategic, motivational goal)
2. Agreeing before you get into any discussion about what your decision making process will be. A good decision making process has three separate steps: a. Opening b. Narrowing based on your outcome criteria c. Closing
Groups often become dysfunctional in the decision-making process when they try to do all three things at one (e.g. some people are brainstorming while others are simultaneously trying to narrow while others are trying to make a decision and move forward). You will now decide what your group decision making process will be.
PHASE: GENERATING Tool Goal What to Do or ALTERNATIVES Say Narrow Opening => To get discussion "Ok, we've Propose Something started. identified a problem To offer a straw man area here. Would OPEN — Generating as a basis of exploring anyone like to offer Alternatives an issue area. a proposal? After we talk about it a bit, we may need to recycle back to clarify the problem." Mid-Size Opening => To give each person a "Let's go around the Make a List chance to engage (in a table once, and get small group). each person's To develop an initial favorite idea" map of an issue area. To have a small list for starting discussion. Wide Opening => To enable the group's "Let's take 10 Brainstorm creativity. minutes to catch To open a wide range any ideas we have - of thinking even if they are off To collect and build a the wall. lot of ideas
76 Use a combination of the methods below to evaluate and narrow alternatives. It is very helpful, in this stage, to keep referring the group back to the agreed-upon criteria and invite participants to advocate for particular choices based on the criteria that whole group agreed to in stage 2.
PHASE: NARROW Tool I Goal What to Do or Say ALTERNATIVES
Combine duplicate or Take out the "We have a long list here. overlapping redundancy. Let's see if we can shorten NARROW proposals it by combining similar or overlapping items, but without losing any ideas. Do you see any candidates for this?" Find the Top Choices (N/3) To focus the group's "Ok, let's see which of attention on the these ideas we want to Use a dot poll for choices it thinks are spend more time with. choices, allowing most important, but There are 11 in our list, so each participant to not necessarily ready please spend 4 votes have (number of to decide upon. among them" choices/3) dots to vote with.
Advocate To bring out the "We are considering strengths and dropping some of the reasoning behind proposals that didn't each proposal. receive many of your votes. Encourage Before we do that, would participants to refer anyone like to explain why to group's own we might want to consider criteria when making them further?" their case.
Consider asking people who did not support a proposal to advocate for it based on your group's criteria. (This can help break down rigid thinking and open up new possibilities.)
77 Often the decision becomes pretty clear once the group has worked through the evaluation and narrowing of criteria. Facilitators select from the tools listed below to enable the group to reach its final decision. If it is helpful, during this phase, keep reminding the group of its common goal and common criteria.
Phase: Reaching a Decision Tool Goal What to Do or Say Negative Poll / To verify that you "Does anyone not agree that Eliminate have agreement on a we can take this item off the decision. list" CLOSE May focus on "Is their anyone who is not eliminating those ok with combining items C that received no and F?" advocacy or clearly do not meet the agreed-to criteria Build Up/Eliminate > To gain agreement "What do you really need to on a proposal by have from option C that we drawing acceptable could pull into option A so elements from other that it works for you?" proposals. "Bob is having trouble with the timeline on option B. Is there some way we can address his concerns?" Straw Poll To see how close the "So, who is comfortable with group is to the proposal as developed so agreement on a far? Show thumbs up, down, decision. or sideways."
To focus on problem areas of a proposal. "I see some thumbs down. Let's find out about those." Both/And To avoid win/lose "Is the yet some way to decisions. support both proposals?"
To get the best of multiple proposals.
78 INTRODUCTION TO STRATEGIZING, POWER & TARGETS INTRO TO STRATEGIZING, POWER & TARGETS
WHAT IS STRATEGY? Building relationships and teams is the way we begin to organize our resources and shared interest into Strategy is turning t e the power we need to organize. Strategy is the way we decide to focus and deploy that power. have into e power you need to In order to create change in the world we need to in the you want actually get into action. But in order for that action to mean something it needs to be guided by a clear, compelling strategy that lays out a believable path to change. That doesn't mean the path will be easy or certain, but it has to make sense to you and your people.
The work of strategy and the purpose of the upcoming strategizing modules is figuring out how to turn what you have into what you need to get what you want; how to turn the resources you have into the power you need to achieve a specific, measurable goal.
Here are some key definitions to guide our work together.
GOAL = The specific change you want to win.
STRATEGY = Your theory of change. Your plan for how to use the resources you have to build the power you need win the change you want.
TACTICS = Immediate action steps to implement and test your strategy.
The basics of goal/strategy/tactics are common to many experiences in our every day lives. For example, in sports the specific , strategic goal is to win a game. Each team will develop a strategy (or theory of how to win) based on the strengths of the team and the weaknesses of their opponent. Then each team will test their theory by getting into action on the field in tactical maneuvers. Then what do they do every few minutes? They huddle, evaluate how well or how poorly their tactics are working, and they adjust their strategy. Campaigning requires the same spirit of theorize, act, reflect.
The only difference is that in our organizing work we aren't starting on a level playing field. So our strategy isn't just about playing the game, but also about how to build the power we need to even get on the playing field in the first place with people who make big decisions that influence our lives.
80 4 STRATEGIZING QUESTIONS
We can build a campaign organizing strategy around four core questions:
Who are our people? What is our purpose? Where is our power? What is our path?
The next four modules all tackle one of these questions.
1. Strategy starts with PEOPLE: First we'll answer the question "Who are my people?" getting clear that our strategy has to start with our people—our constituency. It needs to be grounded in our resources and interests, which are uncovered through relationship building. We also need to understand the other people or actors relevant to this campaign, including opponents, decision makers and competitors.
2. Strategy is focused with PURPOSE: Finding our purpose requires choosing a strategic and motivational goal. A strong goal is one that is concrete, specific, and will make a real, tangible, observable difference in your constituent's lives. For example, desegregate Montgomery buses, or win the vote for women. It is not something abstract like "end patriarchy" as worthy as that ambition is. A strategic goal is concrete. It's something we will win or lose.
3. Strategy becomes real through POWER: Since power is not an inherent quality, but a relationship between people, we'll ask, "Where is our power in relation to others?" We'll look closely at the map of actors from question 1 and ask who are the people who could create the change we want? And how do they need us? The specific ways in which they need us and our resources is their weakness and our strength, and that's where the seed of our strategy lies. We'll articulate that strategy as a theory of change for how to turn your resources into the power you need to achieve your goal.
4. Finally, our strategy comes alive with the PATH: We'll develop a campaign timeline and first tactics, which will clarify the choice you are asking others to join you in making.
You'll notice that we are going back and forth between zooming out to develop general principles and theories, and zooming into the specifics of who, what, when, where, how. It's this dance between general and specific that brings strategy to life. A strategist is able to inhabit both domains and understands that without specifics (specific names, specific times, specific numbers), strategy cannot turn into much more than hot air.
CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE STRATEGIZING
Strategizing is a natural process, something we do every day as we travel from home to work, or look in the refrigerator and try to figure out how to make a meal from random foods, or figure out how to juggle multiple responsibilities, or make plans for how we want our own lives to unfold. So why does it sometimes feel so difficult when we start organizing?
81 We've all at some point been in bad strategizing sessions that drag on forever, where one person dominates, or where we circulate the same old bad ideas we've always tried. Effective strategizing is a practice, a capacity we can build up in ourselves and in others by paying attention to what it feels like in the moment.
Here are criteria we can use to evaluate our strategizing process and improve over time. Strategy is motivated We .strategize in response to an urgent challenge, a unique opportunity to turn our vision for change into specific goals. We commit to the goal first, then we figure out how we will get there. Commitment to the goal cannot be conditional on figuring out exactly the right path to get there, or we'll never get started. Goal first, then strategy.
Take the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 for example - what challenge did the boycott leadership respond to? What was their motivating vision? What specific goal did they commit to and remain committed to until the end? How did Rosa Parks demonstrate her motivation and commitment? How did others respond? What goal for change motivates you? Without deep commitment to your motivating goal from Day 1, no strategy will succeed.
Strategy is creatively resourceful Strategy is creative and dynamic, not habitual. If you've committed to a motivating goal that requires a change in the status quo, then status quo strategies and tactics won't work for you. Strategy is a theory or hypothesis of how we can turn what we have (resources) into what we need (power) to get what we want (our goals). This means strategy is by necessity unique to our specific resources and our specific goal. Challenging the status quo requires making up for our lack of resources by using the resources we do have intentionally, enabling creative resourcefulness.
In the bus boycott the leadership turned the resources of their constituency--a simple bus fare-- into power by mobilizing that resource collectively. When they were getting on the bus every day they were just giving that power away. But by aggregating it and withdrawing it, they shifted the balance of power.
Remember, power is nearly always dependent on the participation of the powerless. We participate by giving those who have power over us our votes or our money or our consent. Disrupting that participation by creatively re-organizing those resources can get the attention of decision makers and shift the balance of power.
82 Strategy is flexible Strategy is a verb (something we do), not a noun (something we have). As we work toward our goal we learn from our successes and failures to adapt our tactics to become more and more effective over time. Strategizing is an ongoing process we engage in on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis, not just something we create once then follow for years. Strategy is a theory about how to use your resources to meet goals. It requires that you constantly test your theory by trying new tactics, evaluating as you go.
Think about all the times the leaders of the Montgomery Bus Boycott were tested in the course of their year-long campaign. They could have given up at any point but instead they organized more mass rallies, their own community taxi service, marches to the police station, and so on, always turning individual challenge into collective solidarity and power.
Strategy is collaborative Effective strategies are not created by a super smart person in a room alone. The best campaign strategies are created by a team of collaborators. Strategy is most dynamic when the group responsible for strategy brings diverse experience, background and resources to the table. Think about the strategic team in the Montgomery Bus Boycott: Rosa Parks with her training in direct action and her background in the NAACP, E D Nixon with his background in union organizing and his relationships with others who had tried bus boycotts in the South, Martin Luther King, Jr., with his connection to the Black churches, his eloquence, and his relationship with allies and supporters in the North, and Joann Robinson and her relationship with the local college and Black women leaders in Montgomery.
So who is responsible for strategizing in your campaign? How can you increase the diversity, and in turn the capacity of a group to strategize creatively? Does your strategy team deliberate well? (Is there clear space created for open, creative brainstorming as part of the strategic process, before decisions are made?) Can your strategy team move quickly? (Is there a norm for making decisions in a way that includes everyone and also responds to the urgency of time?) Next time you feel stuck strategizing, go back to these criteria to figure out where you're stuck!
83 POWER SHIFT
Mapping Relationships
The first question an organizer asks is not "what is my issue" but "who are my people?" Organizing begins with people whose values and interests are at stake. Why are they at stake? Where does the challenge come from? What change is needed to meet that challenge? What resources can your people commit to achieving this change? How can they turn these resources into power they need to succeed? The first step is to identify the people whom you are organizing, your constituency. The second step is to define goals on behalf of which you are organizing, the change in the world you hope to make. The third step is to devise a strategy to transform resources your constituency has into the power it needs to achieve its goals. This may change as your project unfolds. The future is uncertain and unknown. But unless you develop a map of where you want to go and how you hope to get there, your journey will not begin.
Here's a map we can use to start mapping relationships. Since campaign strategizing is a lot like playing a board game or sports, we'll lay our map out like that, with those most interested in change on one side, those most interested in the status quo on the other side, and room for people and resources that aren't yet decided or committed in the middle.
Since relationships are dynamic and always changing, the people represented on your map should be able to move around over time. Your objective is to organize as many people and resources on your side as possible until you have the power to win the change you want.
SIDELINES GRE N I ATEST ST ST E AT E TER US INTEREST NG IN
QUO HA ST C
ATE E IN GR
SIDELINES
84 CONSTITUENCY
The first question is "who are my people?" Or who is my community or constituency? Constituents are people who have a need to organize, who can contribute leadership, can commit resources, and can become a new source of power. It makes a big difference whether we think of people with whom we work as constituents, clients, or customers. Constituents (from the Latin for "stand together") associate on behalf of common interests, commit resources to acting on those interests, and have a voice in deciding how to act. Clients (from the Latin for "one who leans on another") have an interest in services others provide, do not contribute resources to a common effort, nor do they have a voice in decisions. Customers (a term derived from trade) have an interest in goods or services that a seller can provide in exchange for resources in which he or she has an interest.
Clients and Customers are external to organizations that serve them. Constituents are the heart of their organization. Constituents "join" organizations to become its "members" just as citizens become "members" of a democracy. Voters are constituents of an elected official. Workers who are employed by particular employers may be constituents of a union. People with environmental concerns are constituents of environmental organizations. We who care about reproductive justice are constituents of Planned Parenthood.
Drawing on economist Albert Hirschman's framing of alternative responses to a need for change as exit, voice, and loyalty, constituents influence their associations through voice: making themselves heard through internal means. Customers and clients can only assert influence through exit, taking their resources elsewhere.' The organizer's job is to turn a community — people who share common values or interests — into a constituency — people who can act on behalf of those values or interests together. It is only through action that we can build shared power through our combined resources.
LEADERSHIP
Although your constituency is the focus of your work, your goal as an organizer is to build up leadership from within that constituency —the people with whom you will work to organize everyone else. Their work, like your own, is to "accept responsibility for enabling others to achieve purpose in the face of uncertainty." They facilitate the work members of their constituency must do to achieve their shared goals, represent their constituency to others, and are accountable to their constituency. Leaders of large — or small - bureaucratic organizations may have little relationship with clients or customers. Leaders of civic associations, on the other hand, can only become leaders based on relationships with constituents - club officers, union stewards, members of a parish council, dorm captains, etc. Full time or part time people who do the day-to-day work of the organization may also serve as leaders, whether volunteer or paid-- full time local chapter presidents, union presidents, chairs of mission committees, and the people who pass out leaflets on behalf of a candidate. Most organizations have a formal governing "body" that decides policy, chooses staff, and may or may not be involved in day-to- day activities. In bureaucratic organizations, the governing body may be self-selected, selected
1 Albert Hirschman, (1970), Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, (Cambridge, Harvard University Press), p.16. 85 by outside groups, or by financial providers - but rarely include leaders drawn from among their clients. In organizing, constituents choose their leaders.
Your work with these leaders is to enable them to learn the five organizing practices you are learning: relationship building, story telling, structuring teams, strategizing, and action. By developing their leadership you, as an organizer, not only can "get to scale." You are creating new power and capacity for action within your constituency. This is a critical difference between organizing and other forms of problem solving. To the extent powerlessness is responsible for the challenges your constituents face, developing the leadership to create new organization creates power where there had been none - thus getting at a root cause of the problem that needs to be solved.
When mapping leaders, be very specific—what are their names? Where do they live? What institutions are they a part of?
OPPOSITION
In pursuing their interests, constituents may find themselves to be in conflict with interests of other individuals or organizations. An employers' interest in maximizing profit, for example, may conflict with an employees' interest in earning a comfortable wage. A tobacco company's interests may conflict not only with those of anti-smoking groups, but of the public in general. A street gang's interests may conflict with those of a church youth group. The interests of a Republican Congressional candidate conflict with those of the Democratic candidate in the same district. At times, however, opposition may not be immediately obvious, and may emerge only in the course of a campaign.
Be very specific about mapping your opponents. What are their names? What positions do they hold in what specific organizations? In organizing we're not looking to fight "The Man." We're looking to move specific decision makers to change their individual or institutional choices to create the change we want.
SUPPORTERS
People whose interests are not directly or obviously affected may find it in their interest to back an organization's work with their time, money and skill. Although they may not be part of the constituency, they may lead in allied organizations. For example, faith organizations and foundations provided a great deal of support for the civil rights movement. Who are your specific allies or supporters?
COMPETITION AND COLLABORATORS
These are individuals or organizations with whom we may share some interests, but not others. They may target the same constituency, the same sources of support, or face the same opposition. Two unions trying to organize the same workforce may compete or collaborate. Two community groups trying to serve the same constituency may compete or collaborate in their fundraising. Two reproductive rights groups on the same campus or in the same city may compete or collaborate on their campaigns. 86 Where do the organizers fit in? Organizers play leadership roles in the organizations they work with. They may be elected by constituents or appointed by a governing board. Their primary focus, however, is building the organization itself by developing more leaders.
87 SMALL GROUP WORK MAPPING ACTORS, INTERESTS, AND RESOURCES GOALS: • Develop a list of actors relevant to your local campaign, in the region, in the nation, and maybe even the world, and identify their interests and resources. • Create a visual map of those actors (how you would group them, how they might relate to each other?). This is a living document you will use to develop your campaign strategy.
AGENDA TOTAL TIME: 55 min. • 1. Gather in your team. Choose a timekeeper. 2 min.
2. Start with yourselves. Put your names on yellow post-it notes. What are your 8 min. individual and team interests and resources? Use what you learned from building relationships to fill this out.
3. Make a list of the other actors involved in your efforts, at local, state, and 25 min. national levels by name or specific position wherever possible. Include the following:
a. Who might be members of your constituency? b. Who might be your opposition? c. Who might be your allies? d. Who might be competitors and collaborators? e. Who might play other key decision-making roles, depending on how they are mobilized (courts, press, voters, etc.)
As you list these actors, also write down their primary interest and their resources.
Put each actor on a post-it note, and, following the model on the next page, create a map on flipchart showing the actors' relationships to each other.
, . 4. Step back and look at your map of actors, interests and resources. Think of it like a 15 min. board game. Who has the greatest interest in change? Who has the greatest interest in the status quo?
Who are the best "characters" for your strategy? (Individual people who will capture the imagination and attention of your constituents and others.)
Who is on the sidelines who could be organized to join your cause?
What else do you notice about your map?
88 them thatsupportingyouroppositionreallyisn'tthebestuseoftheirresources. sidelines toengagetheminyourstruggle,orhowmoveothersthebyshowing of campaignstrategyisfiguringouthowtobringparticularpeopleorconstituenciesoffthe Here's asamplemapforyouractors.Notethatthere'sroompeopleonthesidelines—part WORKSHEET MAPPING RELATIONSHIPS
LD GREATESTIN TEREST IN UI
THEORY OF CHANGE THEORY OF CHANGE
"Turning What We've Got Into What We Need To Win!"
OBJECTIVES: • Practice analyzing power as a relationship, not a thing or quantity that can be owned. • Practice creating a power-based strategy — a theory of change 4:
Once you are clear about the strategic goal you want to achieve, the next question in strategizing is to ask, "Where is our Power?" What's our theory or our strategy to build the power we need to win? All of us make assumptions about how change happens, but we can strategize more effectively if we make our assumptions explicit. For example, some people hold an Information Theory of Change—they believe that if other people have more information about the problem that will eventually change things. Others hold a Legal Theory of Change, believing that using the courts, or changing laws is the most efficient, effective way to win change. Others operate on a Cultural Theory of Change—believing if the culture in general becomes more accepting of new ideas by seeing them represented in cultural venues, change can happen. Others use a Market Theory of Change, building supply or demand to shift market dynamics.
But if we achieve a policy, program or campaign outcome without creating new sources of power, and new capacity for further campaigns, it's unlikely our success will "stick," let alone serve as a foundation for achieving further goals. As organizers we believe that if we win change by any means, but have not changed the underlying power dynamics, then we will continue to suffer the symptoms of a deeper problem of inequality. In effect, our first organizing question when developing strategies for change is always "how are relationships of power working in this context?" Then "how can we proactively organize our resources to shift those relationships of power so that we can win the change we want—and have more capacity to win more over time?"
UNDERSTANDING POWER
Strategy is about turning the resources we have into the power we need to win the change we want. Think about that for a second. Strategy is simply turning our resources into power and then using that power effectively. So strategy is empowering—it's based on using what we have effectively, not focusing only on what we don't have.
Power is not a "thing." It's a relationship, like a see-saw. Sometimes other people have what we need, and sometimes we have what they need. Both sides have resources. Whoever has more organized and desirable resources in a given moment has more power in that moment. When someone needs less from you than you need from them, then they have power over you. However, if you can figure out how they need you, or what you have that they want, then you can shift the balance of power in your relationship.
THERE ARE TWO BASIC TYPES OF POWER: POWER WITH AND POWER OVER
91 POWER OVER
Sometimes others hold power over decisions or resources that we need in order to create change in our lives. If someone or some group has power over us it means they think they don't need us or our resources to get what they want. So the work of organizing is figuring out how to grow our own resources, or shrink theirs, so that we have equal need of each other and can negotiate change together.
POWER WITH
Sometimes we can create the change we need just by organizing our resources with others, creating power with them. For example, we might pool resources to create a cooperative day care, or a community credit union, or a volunteer service bank.
92 CHANGING POWER OVER When have to engage with those vho have power over us in order to create change we ask ourselves four basic questions.
What change do we want? 2. Who has the resources create that change?
What resources do have 3. What do they want? that they want or need?
Strategy Question: 5 What's our theory of change? How could we organize our resources to give us enough leverage to get what we want?
93 CASE STUDY: UNITED FARM WORKERS
Here's how Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers answered the questions on the previous page when they built a movement to organize California Farm Workers.
1. What change do we want? Fair working conditions, better wages
2. Who has the resources to create that change? Farm bosses (growers), and elected officials
3. What do they want? Farmers want to sell their grapes, and elected officials want votes.
4. What resources do we have that they want? Our labor, our votes, and the money our consumer allies spend on grapes.
5. What's our theory of change? How could we organize our resources to give us enough leverage to get what we want? We can make the boss negotiate by going on strike. If that isn't enough, we can organize a national boycott of grapes in every major city so that our bosses feel economic pressure to negotiate a contract with us. We can also register ourselves and our allies to vote and turn out to vote so that elected officials can join us in putting pressure on our bosses and also change the laws that govern our work.
PUSH PULL
What are some specific times that you've seen What are some specific times that you've seen others organize to their resources to push into others gain power by organizing to pull their a relationship of power? For example, an resources away? For example, strikes or extended sit-in, or getting out the vote? boycotts, or withdrawing all their money from one bank at the same time?
94 CREATING A THEORY OF CHANGE
GOAL • Develop a Strategy (or a Theory of Change) about how to organize your resources to build the power you need to win the change (the strategic campaign goal) you want.
AGENDA TOTAL TIME: 60 min.
NOTE: BE SPECIFIC WHEN ANSWERING THESE QUESTIONS! Imagine if the Farm Workers had said, "let's boycott all fruit" instead of "let's boycott grapes." Or imagine if Martin Luther King had said to the Black community in Montgomery, "don't go shopping or take the buses or go to school tomorrow" instead of making a choice and saying "everyone, don't take the buses!" The skill of organizing is making hard choices that focus lots of people on the same goal and strategy.
1. Review Agenda & Goals, Choose a timekeeper and note taker. Read through the 5 min worksheet together.
2. Each person — use the "Defining Theory of Change" WKST to work through the process of 20 min drafting your theory of change, choose a master tactic, and begin to outline volunteer goals.
3. As a small group, go around and coach each theory of change (5 min per person). 25 min
Do you actually believe the people in your answer to Question 2 will feel your power if you act on this theory? Will your strategy only last for one day? Or do you have a way to keep your power organized over time until the people in Question 2 negotiate or work with you as equals?
1 4. Each person — revise your theory of change based on group feedback. 10 min
95 DEFINING A THEORY OF CHANGE
▪ Question 1: What change do we want? What is our strategic goal? How will we know if we've won or not? (It needs to be something we can see or touch that makes our lives better.)
---> Question 2: Who has the resources to create the change we want? What are their names, what organizations do they work in or lead in, what titles or roles do they have? What resources do they have? Money? People? Decision-making authority?
--> Question 3: What do THOSE people want—the ones with the decision makers? What do they care about? Winning an election? Keeping their position? Making profit? Etc.
- Question 4: What resources do WE have that THEY want (the people in Question 2)? How do they NEED us? What specific resources do we have (maybe ones that we give away without thinking about it every day) that the decision maker in 02 wants? Votes? Donations? Money from us paying our bills? Compliance? Be very specific about where those resources are and how much we have.
96 ---> Question 5: What is our Strategy—our Theory of Change—about how to shift the power relationship? What's our hypothesis about how to organize our resources to affect our decision makers' interests? What would make the person you identified in Question 2 come to the table to negotiate with you? At what point will they actually FEEL your power? When it looks like they couldn't get re-elected without your votes? Or they'd lose money if you convince others not to frequent their business?
Also, what are the volunteer team goals you will need to set in order to win on this strategy?
A hypothesis is an If/Then statement. IF we do this, THEN we predict that will happen.
TIP: Try to use a "What if..." formulation and take note of where there is real energy for a particular approach
If I Then
Step back and look at your theory of change. Do you actually believe the people in your answer to Question 2 will feel your power if you act on this theory? Will your strategy only last for one day? Or do you have a way to keep your power organized over time until the people in Question 2 negotiate or work with you as equals?
97 WORKBOOK
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
1 MOTIVATING YOUR WORK: STORY OF SELF
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
2 SMALL GROUP WORK AGENDA
GOALS
• Practice telling your Story of Self and get constructive feedback • Learn to draw out and coach the stories of others
STORY OF SELF BREAKOUT AGENDA Total time: 60 min
Total time: 60 min
1. Gather in your team. Choose a timekeeper. Do quick introductions (name and ' 5 min. hometown). Articulate group agreements for how you'll work together during in your small groups. (For example, stick to time, listen carefully, give honest feedback)
2. Take some time as individuals to silently develop your "Story of Self." 5 min. Use the worksheet that follows.
If you finish early, look at the "Coaching Tips" to prepare to coach others' stories
3. Peer Coaching - Pair Up and Share 2 Min Story — 3 min of Direct Coaching 10 Min Model public narrative coaching refer to your guide for model questions (Pg. x)
4. Take some time to work in the feedback and refine your story (Good to Great) 5 Min
5. As a team go around the group and tell your story one by one. 35 min
For each person: -2 minutes to tell his/her story -3 minutes to get coaching from the group. Make sure everyone in your group has an opportunity to give coaching.
*Make sure your timekeeper cuts you off. This encourages focus and makes sure everyone has a chance to tell their story. Remember, the purpose here isn't to tell a perfect story, it's to practice narrative as part of the work of leadership.
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
3 BUILDING COMMITMENT THROUGH 1:1'S
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
4 SMALL GROUP WORK PRACTICING ONE-TO-ONES
GOALS • Practice the art of the one-to-one conversation by using probing questions to understand each other's values, purpose, challenges and hopes in the context of your shared purpose in being here today — learning about building to scale. • Make a concrete commitment to each other to continue the relationship
AGENDA Total Time: 45 min
1. Gather in your team. Choose a timekeeper. 5 min Clarify the purpose of today's 1-1s. Review the agenda below. Read through the 1:1 worksheet.
2. Break into pairs. Practice a having a REAL One-to-One. 15 min First person initiates: Probing questions (GO DEEP!) and share your stories. • Listen carefully and write these down for later: -Your common vahues (the things you care about and have a motivated commitment to - like education, family) -Your shared interests (the real-world expression of your values - like good schools in our neighborhood, clean air in my community) -Your skihhs, hopes and concerns about your work and campaign (the things you bring to this learning relationship) Make a specific commitment to each other and the leadership team. Be mindful of all the steps of a 1-1: -Connection: explore your common values, interests, skills and resources -Context: situate your conversation in the larger context of your campaign -Choice: make a choice to move forward in the relationship -Commitment: make a specific commitment to each other for future action -Catapult: make a plan of action
3. Switch partners for second 1-1 15 min If you initiated last time, allow the other person to initiate in this round
4. Reflection questions (5 minutes): 5 Min What did you learn about the common values & interests that motivate you to act? What did you learn about what skills and resources each of you bring to this team?
5. Brainstorm the people you want to have 1:15 with when you go to the field 5 Min Fill out the worksheet
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
5 STRUCTURE: BUILDING A CULTURE OF COMMITMENT & TEAMWORK
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
6 SMALL GROUP WORK BUILDING YOUR TEAM
GOALS • Choose your Team scenario • Define how you will make decisions? • Develop your team purpose for the training • Move from Task to Responsibilities to Ownership • Create roles that would work with your team's purpose in this training • Create a team name and chant
AGENDA TOTAL TIME: 80 MIN
1. Gather and review agenda. Choose a timekeeper for this session. 5 min
2. Choose Your Adventure: 5min • Local Team in Tampa, FL working on local enforcement campaign • Statewide leadership team in to drive a defense campaign on multiple anti- immigrant bills in Mississippi
3. Decide on how we make decisions? 5 Min • Consensus • Majority Vote • Thumbs Up/Side/Block(1x in life) 4. Develop your Shared Purpose. Use the worksheet that follows to guide your efforts. Be 25 min patient with this process. We find that teams can develop real coherence through the repetition, which surfaces divergence and alignment on the team.
4. Task to Responsibility — Group brain dump all the tasks needed to move this campaign 20 Min forward in no particular order. (Ex. Contact with press, write social media post, message, calls to leaders for turnout, order tortillas and cafecito for meetings... etc.
5. Create team roles. 10 min Come up with team roles that would make sense for your team's work.
Create a team name and chant. 10 min
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
7 WORKSHEET DEVELOPING A TEAM PURPOSE
SHARED PURPOSE (25 minutes' total)
-)Part I: Individual Work: Silently brainstorm and craft a sentence to clarify your own thinking about your team's purpose (5 minutes)
Example of a shared purpose sentence:
We are organizing college students across Boston to launch a campaign for a 100% safe, free contraception for people on our campuses, by recruiting others, building campus leadership teams, gathering petitions and organizing our campaign kickoff.
• In the first column, write down whom your team serves: Who is your constituency? What are the people like and what are their interests? What will engage them? Be specific.
• In the second column, based on the work you did on common interests and values in the previous session; write down the interests and objectives that are unique to your team. Be specific to what your team is trying to achieve.
• In the third column, write down the kinds of activities that your team could engage in to fulfill its purpose by serving this community? What is the unique work that your team could do? Be specific!
We are organizing to by (who - constituency) (what —outcome) (how - list the specific activities that your team would undertake to achieve your goal.) are organizing
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing. -> Part 2: Team Work: Ask each person to read their sentence to the group. Record shared words that resonates with you below (10 minutes)
As each person reads his or her sentence the facilitator notes the key words under the three parts of your purpose statement: 1) We are organizing whom? 2) To do what? 3) By what means? Note specific words that spark your curiosity, or that give you energy. When you are done, circle the words that seem to resonate most strongly with your team.
We are organizing to do by (who - constituency) (what —outcome) (how - list the specific activities that your team would undertake to achieve your goal.)
•
-Part 3: Individual Work: In light of what you learned from the last two rounds, write a new sentence that you think can articulate a shared purpose, using some of the key words and themes you heard from others (5 minutes)
Our team's shared purpose is to
->Part 4: Team Work (5 minutes) We will read our sentences again and choose — or combine — one that best articulates the shared sense of our team. This does not have to be the perfect sentence today. In fact, you may want to revisit it at your next team meeting after everyone has had a chance to reflect on it.
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
9 WORKSHEET DEVELOPING TEAM ROLES
UNDERSTANDING TEAM ROLES:
Your Leadership Team (20-25 min.):
Think about your campaign and what role each member of your team plays in it. These are sample roles. Depending on the goal of your campaign you might develop different roles, depending on what work needs to get done.
Role Responsibilities What are the Team member characteristics of a name & Related person who would fit Skills/Talents this role? Team Coordinator Coordinate the work of the leadership team. Prepare for meetings, give support and coaching to the team.
Recruitment Coordinate and track your team's effort Coordinator to recruit supporters to your campaign work.
TEAM NAME & TEAM CHANT (10 minutes) The best teams have a team spirit. Create a name and chant that can reflect your team's purpose and spirit!
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
10 MOTIVATING YOUR CAMPAIGN: STORY OF US & NOW
THE STORY OF OUR COMMUNITY & OUR CAMPAIGN
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
11 SMALL GROUP WORK: STORY OF US AND NOW PRACTICE
GOALS • Learn how to integrate a story about the community and team you've been building with an urgent call to action that will inspire your audience to join your community in making change. • Practice telling a Story of Us & Now. • Coach others' stories by listening carefully, offering coaching, and asking questions.
AGENDA TOTAL TIME: 60 min.
1. Gather in your team. Nominate 1 person to be a timekeeper. 5 min
2. Take some time as a group to brainstorm the Story of Us with the 10 min worksheet that follows.
3. Take some time as individuals to silently develop your Story of US & NOW. 10 min
4. Go around the group and tell your story one by one. 25 min
6 minutes for each person: • 3 minutes to tell their Story of US & NOW • 3 minutes to get coaching from the group
5. • Select someone to share up front. That person has 10 minutes to 10 min revise their story with the feedback provided
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
12 CHOOSING A STRATEGIC CAMPAIGN GOAL
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
13 SMALL GROUP WORK CHOOSING A STRATEGIC, MOTIVATIONAL CAMPAIGN GOAL
OBJECTIVES: • Work interdependently with your leadership team to refine your strategic, motivational, focused campaign goal. • Practice group decision-making.
AGENDA TOTAL TIME: 60 min.
1 Review the agenda and decision-making process. Pick a timekeeper. 5 min.
Note that for this breakout we have suggested a decision making process. When you have more time you can use the worksheets that follow to adapt and revise your decision making process. Remember, there's no perfect process—it's simply choosing a process and agreeing to it that matters.
2 Review the criteria for a strong organizing goal on the previous page and 10 min. reflect on them. Really use the full 8 minutes to get your head around these criteria.
Remember most importantly a goal creates concrete change in your constituent's lives
3 Open your process. Brainstorm a list together of all possible strategic goals. 20 min. Go bananas—anything's possible here! (Use experimental language, like "What if. .. ?" or "Can you imagine?" Say "yes and!" to others' ideas instead of "no, but!")
4 Narrow your process based on the criteria provided. Which possible goals 15 min. best meet the criteria on the previous page? Eliminate those that don't meet the criteria. Combine any very similar goals to shorten your list. Advocate for why one goal is more strategic and motivational than another
5 Close. Call a vote. 10 min.
Choose a strategic, motivational goal to use for the sake of this workshop to practice strategizing. You can try this exercise again and again, but there's value in choosing one goal and playing it all the way out through the strategizing process. Remember there are no perfect goals. Just goals that help you build power and win something concrete in your constituents' lives.
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
14 WORKSHEET: CHOOSING YOUR MOTIVATIONAL GOAL
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
15 USING OUR POWER:
THEORY OF CHANGE
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
16 CREATING A THEORY OF CHANGE
GOAL • Develop a Strategy (or a Theory of Change) about how to organize your resources to build the power you need to win the change (the strategic campaign goal) you want. AGENDA TOTAL TIME: 75 min. NOTE: BE SPECIFIC WHEN ANSWERING THESE QUESTIONS! Imagine if the Farm Workers had said, "let's boycott all fruit" instead of "let's boycott grapes." Or imagine if Martin Luther King had said to the Black community in Montgomery, "don't go shopping or take the buses or go to school tomorrow" instead of making a choice and saying "everyone, don't take the buses!" The skill of organizing is making hard choices that focus lots of people on the same goal and strategy.
1. Review Agenda & Goals, choose a timekeeper and note taker. Read through the 5 min worksheet together. 2. Make a list of the other actors involved in your efforts, at local, state, and national levels 20 min. by name or specific position wherever possible. Include the following:
a. Who might be members of your constituency? b. Who might be your opposition? c. Who might be your allies? d. Who might be competitors and collaborators? e. Who might play other key decision-making roles, depending on how they are mobilized (courts, press, voters, etc.)
As you list these actors, also write down their primary interest and their resources.
Put each actor on a post-it note, and, following the model on the next page, create a map on flipchart showing the actors' relationships to each other.
3. Each person — use the "Defining Theory of Change" WKST to work through the process 20 min of drafting your theory of change, choose a master tactic, and begin to outline volunteer goals.
4. As a small group, go around and coach each theory of change (5 min per person). 25 min
Do you actually believe the people in your answer to Question 2 will feel your power if you act on this theory? Will your strategy only last for one day? Or do you have a way to keep your power organized over time until the people in Question 2 negotiate or work with you as equals?
4. Each person — revise your theory of change based on group feedback. 10 min
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
17 WORKSHEET MAPPING RELATIONSHIPS
Here's a sample map for your actors. Note that there's room for people on the sidelines—part of campaign strategy is figuring out how to bring particular people or constituencies off the sidelines to engage them in your struggle, or how to move others to the sidelines by showing them that supporting your opposition really isn't the best use of their resources.
SIDELINES G REAT GE EST INT ERE T IN CHAN ST RES
ACTION IN ST TE AT ST IN US TE EA QUO GR
SIDELINES
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing.
18 DEFINING A THEORY OF CHANGE
---> Question 1: What change do we want? What is our strategic goal? How will we know if we've won or not? (It needs to be something we can see or touch that makes our lives better.)
4 Question 2: Who has the resources to create the change we want? What are their names, what organizations do they work in or lead in, what titles or roles do they have? What resources do they have? Money? People? Decision-making authority?
4 Question 1 What do THOSE people want—the ones with the decision makers? What do they care about? Winning an election? Keeping their position? Making profit? Etc.
-Question 4: What resources do WE have that THEY want (the people in Question 2)? How do they NEED us?
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the NEA Center for Organizing,
19 What specific resources do we have (maybe ones that we give away without thinking about it every day) that the decision maker in Q2 wants? Votes? Donations? Money from us paying our bills? Compliance? Be very specific about where those resources are and how much we have.
—> Question 5: What is our Strategy—our Theory of Change—about how to shift the power relationship? What's our hypothesis about how to organize our resources to affect our decision makers' interests? What would make the person you identified in Question 2 come to the table to negotiate with you? At what point will they actually FEEL your power? When it looks like they couldn't get re-elected without your votes? Or they'd lose money if you convince others not to frequent their business?
Also, what are the volunteer team goals you will need to set in order to win on this strategy?
A hypothesis is an If/Then statement. IF we do this, THEN we predict that will happen.
TIP: Try to use a "What if..." formulation and take note of where there is real energy for a particular approach
If I Then
Step back and look at your theory of change. Do you actually believe the people in your answer to Question 2 will feelyour power if you act on this theory? Will your strategy only last for one day? Or do you have a way to keep your power organized over time until the people in Question 2 negotiate or work with you as equals?
Originally adapted from the works of Marshall Ganz of Harvard University Modified by The New Organizing Institute and the IKEA Center for Organizing.
20 ACTION PLANNING Guide Campaign What are you trying to achieve in your campaign? SMART Goal
Campaign How will this action help you reach your goal? Strategy
Action How will you measure success for this action? What campaign objective(s) will Objectives be met with this action?
Action Target Who can give you want you want? At what location(s)? or Point of Intervention
Target Demand
Action Audience Tactic 1
Tactic 2
Campaign Summary
Key Messages Target:
Audience:
Contributed by Nadine Bhoch BEAUTIFUL TROUBLE Visuals:
Action expectations/deliverables: consider- participants/mobilization, media hits, online actions, fundraising skill building, etc Category I Deliverables
Scenario Plan: consider beginning, middle, end; What is the Story? Chants, permits, hand outs, props?
Tasks and Timeline: include: Outreach, Research, Scouting, Materials Media Plan, Online Action, Social Media Plan, permits Task Person Responsible Due Date
Contributed by Nadine Bhoch BEAUTIFULTROUBLE Task Person Responsible Due Date
Day of Campaign Activities: Scenario: Roles On-sight: consider issue expert/campaigner, action coordinator, media liaison, photog, video, social media,activists, support, legal observers,medic,security, traffic, peacekeepers, scouts, sound system, police liaison, access, translation, etc Role Responsibilities Name
Roles Off-sight: consider- office media, legal, jail support,outreach, etc.. Role Responsibilities Name
Obstacles: Considerations: Plan B, C, D.... alternative closing scenarios
Contributed by Nadine Bloch BEAUTIFUL TROUBLE Legal/Potential Charges:
include materials, travel, food, equipment, training, phone bill, etc.. biII, etc.. Item Estimate Actual
.
Total
Post Action Follow Up: Debrief/ Celebration , DATE: Campaign next steps
Plan to follow up with activists/participants/grassroots:
Legal /Health Follow up:
Contributed by Nadine Bhoch BEAUTIFUL Budget:TROUBLE Action Star Target: BEAUTIFUL Who or what is the political target of our action? Why? If they a tool for planning and evaluating actions have the power to concede to our demands, how is our action designed to pressure them? Will our action cost them something (or threaten to cost something}? Will it put them in a decision dilemma where we win no matter which way they respond? beautifultrouble.org
Building &Tending the Group: Points of Intervention: Will the action build our group's capacity? In what arena are we intervening — the point of Will it generate new interest and help plug new production (e.g. a workplace), destruction (e.g. an oil people in? How can we use the planning process to pipeline), consumption (e.g. a store), decision (e.g. the build more group members' leadership and skills? statehouse), or assumption (e.g. dominant beliefs Are we adequately supporting each other as we and narratives)? make sacrifices and take risks together?
Action Logic: Spectrum of Allies: Does the action itself tell the story How will our action activate passive allies, and convey our intended message? Will win over currently on-the-fence potential passersby intuitively "get it" without allies, and isolate our opposition? Which us having to say anything at all? specific constituencies do we want to prioritize?
Values & Common Ground: Audience: Are we connecting with people's values—especially Who is our priority audience and what message the values of our intended audience—and appealing to do we want to send them? What kind of presentation their commonsense? What kinds of popular images and and tone (e.g. solemn, jubilant, angry, etc.) will symbols are we including in our action and messaging? Story: be most effective? How are we strategically narrating and framing the conflict? Is there a villain in our story? Are we putting forward our own sympathetic characters as protagonists? Are we foreshadowing our desired outcome?
—contributed by Jonathan Matthew Smucker 198 METHODS OF NONVIOLENT ACTION
The Methods of Nonviolent Protest and Persuasion The Methods of Social Noncooperation Formal Statements Ostracism of Persons 1. Public speeches 55. Social boycott 2. Letters of opposition or support 56. Selective social boycott 3. Declarations by organizations and institutions 57. Lysistratic nonaction 4. Signed public statements 58. Excommunication 5. Declarations of indictment and intention 59. Interdict 6. Group or mass petitions Noncooperation with Social Events, Customs, and Communications with a Wider Audience Institutions 7. Slogans, caricatures, and symbols 60. Suspension of social and sports activities 8. Banners, posters, and displayed communications 61. Boycott of social affairs 9. Leaflets, pamphlets, and books 62. Student strike 10. Newspapers and journals 63. Social disobedience 11.Records, radio, and television 64. Withdrawal from social institutions 12. Skywriting and earthwriting Withdrawal from the Social System Group Representations 65. Stay-at-home 13. Deputations 66. Total personal noncooperation 14. Mock awards 67. "Flight" of workers 15. Group lobbying 68. Sanctuary 16. Picketing 69. Collective disappearance 17.Mock elections 70. Protest emigration (hijrat) Symbolic Public Acts The Methods of Economic Noncooperation: 18. Displays of flags and symbolic colors Economic Boycotts 19. Wearing of symbols 20. Prayer and worship Actions by Consumers 21. Delivering symbolic objects 71. Consumers' boycott 22. Protest disrobings 72. Nonconsumption of boycotted goods 23. Destruction of own property 73. Policy of austerity 24. Symbolic lights 74. Rent withholding Refusal to rent 25. Displays of portraits 75. 26. Paint as protest 76. National consumers' boycott International consumers' boycott 27. New signs and names 77. 28. Symbolic sounds Action by Workers and Producers 29. Symbolic reclamations 78. Workmen's boycott 30. Rude gestures 79. Producers' boycott Pressures on Individuals • Action by Middlemen 31. "Haunting" officials 80. Suppliers' and handlers' boycott 32. Taunting officials Action by Owners and Management 33. Fraternization 81. Traders' boycott 34. Vigils 82. Refusal to let or sell property Drama and Music 83. Lockout 35. Humorous skits and pranks 84. Refusal of industrial assistance 36. Performances of plays and music 85. Merchants' "general strike" 37. Singing Action by Holders of Financial Resources Processions 86. Withdrawal of bank deposits 38. Marches 87. Refusal to pay fees, dues, and assessments 39. Parades 88. Refusal to pay debts or interest 40. Religious processions 89. Severance of funds and credit 41. Pilgrimages 90. Revenue refusal 42. Motorcades 91. Refusal of a government's money Honoring the Dead Action by Governments 43. Political mourning 92. Domestic embargo 44. Mock funerals 93. Blacklisting of traders 45. Demonstrative funerals 94. International sellers' embargo 46. Homage at burial places 95. International buyers' embargo Public Assemblies 96. International trade embargo 47. Assemblies of protest or support The Methods of Economic Noncooperation: The 48. Protest meetings Strike 560 Harrison Ave Camouflaged meetings of protest 49. Symbolic Strikes Suite 402 50. Teach-ins Boston, MA 02118 97. Protest strike USA Withdrawal and Renunciation 98. Quickie walkout (lightning strike) 51. Walk-outs tel: 617.247.4882 Agricultural Strikes Silence fax 617.247.4035 52. 99. Peasant strike Renouncing honors [email protected] 53. 100. Farm Workers' strike www.aeinstein.org 54. Turning one's back Strikes by Special Groups The Methods of Nonviolent Intervention 101.Refusal of impressed labor Psychological Intervention 102. Prisoners' strike 158. Self-exposure to the elements 103.Craft strike 159. The fast 104. Professional strike a. Fast of moral pressure Ordinary Industrial Strikes b. Hunger strike 105. Establishment strike c. Satyagrahic fast 106. Industry strike 160. Reverse trial 107.Sympathetic strike 161. Nonviolent harassment Restricted Strikes Physical Intervention 108. Detailed Strike 162. Sit-in 109. Bumper strike 163. Stand-in 110.Slowdown strike 164. Ride-in 111.Working-to-rule strike 165. Wade-in 112.Reporting "sick" (sick-in) 166. Mill-in 113.Strike by resignation 167. Pray-in 114.Limited strike 168. Nonviolent raids 115.Selective strike 169. Nonviolent air raids Multi-Industry Strikes 170. Nonviolent invasion 116.Generalized strike 171. Nonviolent interjection 117.General strike 172. Nonviolent obstruction 173. Nonviolent occupation Combination of Strikes and Economic Closures 118.Hartal Social Intervention 119.Economic shutdown 174. Establishing new social patterns 175. Overloading of facilities The Methods of Political Noncooperation 176. Stall-in Rejection of Authority 177. Speak-in 120. Withholding or withdrawal of allegiance 178. Guerrilla theater 121.Refusal of public support 179. Alternative social institutions 122. Literature and speeches advocating resistance 180. Alternative communication system Citizens' Noncooperation with Government Economic Intervention 123.Boycott of legislative bodies 181. Reverse Strike 124. Boycott of elections 182. Stay-in Strike 125.Boycott of government employment and positions 183. Nonviolent land seizure 126.Boycott of government depts., agencies, and other bodies 184. Defiance of Blockades 127.Withdrawal from government educational institutions 185. Politically Motivated Counterfeiting 128.Boycott of government-supported organizations 186. Preclusive Purchasing 129. Refusal of assistance to enforcement agents 187. Seizure of assets 130.Removal of own signs and placemarks 188. Dumping 131.Refusal to accept appointed officials 189. Selective patronage 132.Refusal to dissolve existing institutions 190. Alternative markets Citizens' Alternatives to Obedience 191. Alternative transportation systems 133.Reluctant and slow compliance 192. Alternative economic institutions 134. Nonobedience in absence of direct supervision Political Intervention 135.Popular nonobedience 193. Overloading of administrative systems 136. Disguised disobedience 194. Disclosing identities of secret agents 137.Refusal of an assemblage or meeting to disperse 195. Seeking imprisonment 138.Sit-down 196. Civil disobedience of "neutral" laws 139.Noncooperation with conscription and deportation 197. Work-on without collaboration 140.Hiding, escape, and false identities 198. Dual sovereignty and parallel government 141.Civil disobedience of "illegitimate" laws Action by Government Personnel 142.Selective refusal of assistance by government aides 143. Blocking of ines of command and information 144. Stalling and obstruction 145.General administrative noncooperation 146.Judicial noncooperation 147.Deliberate inefficiency and selective noncooperation by enforcement agents Far too often people struggling for democratic rights 148. Mutiny and justice are not aware of the full range of methods Domestic Governmental Action of nonviolent action. Wise strategy, attention to the 149.Quasi-legal evasions and delays dynamics of nonviolent struggle, and careful selection of 150.Noncooperation by constituent governmental units methods can increase a group's chances of success. International Governmental Action 151.Changes in diplomatic and other representations 152.Delay and cancellation of diplomatic events Gene Sharp's researched and catalogued these 198 153.Withholding of diplomatic recognition methods and provided a rich selection of historical 154.Severance of diplomatic relations examples in his seminal work, The Politics of Nonviolent 155.Withdrawal from international organizations Action (3 Vols.) Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973. 156.Refusal of membership in international bodies 157.Expulsion from international organizations to POINTS OF INTERVENTION WORKSHEET This exercise is intended to help grassroots activists identify points of intervention in both physical and cultural/idea space where they can take action in order to make change. Points of intervention are places in a system, be it a physical system (chain of production, political decision making) or a conceptual system (ideology, cultural assumption etc.) where action can be taken to effectively interrupt the system. The first four points are physical locations in a system while the final point—assumption— is in the story of the system you are targeting. This can often be layered on top of one of the first four physical points through a "refraining action" or sometimes a point of assumption might be an entirely different location (symbolic site, location of anniversary, a previously invisible part of the system etc.) In the first column identify where the point exists in your campaign and in the second explore ideas for how to stage some form of intervention at that point. What type of action could you do? How would it help reframe the issue? These are just five general points of intervention perhaps there are other points in the system you are confronting? This exercise is intended to encourage holistic strategic analysis.. Be creative!
THE POINTS OF INTERVENTION IDENTIFY THE POINT INTERVENTION IDEAS
Point of Production Factory, crop lands. The realm of strikes, picket lines, crop-sits, etc.
Point of Destruction Resource extraction such as logging, mines, etc. Point of toxic discharge, etc. Realm of road blockades, tree-sits, etc.
Point of Consumption Chain stores, supermarkets. Places were customers can be reached. The realm of consumer boycotts and markets campaigns.
Point of Decision Corporate HO. Slumlord's office. Location of targeted decision-maker.
Point of Assumption What is the assumption we're Challenging underlying beliefs/control challenging? mythologies such as: environment must be sacrificed for jobs, or poor people are lazy. Could also be actions tied to cultural moments such as anniversaries or pop culture trends. Or prefigurative actions that actualize alternatives, like transforming an empty lot into a garden, turning a government office into a day care center, etc.
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