In this issue we profile CCI 2012 thought-leader Meg Wheatley's seminal article on pioneering leaders; explore the link between collective impact and shared measurement systems and highlight new resources to build collaboration capacity. Adam Kahane's insights about the dynamics of power and love and their role in social transformation are also considered. Tamarack's Learning Community members are invited to join John McKnight and Peter Block in an exclusive conversation for community-builders and finally, we share a story of how a friendship tradition and recipe are being passed to a new generation.
Happy Spring!
~ Paul Born
In this Issue...
Featured Articles
I cannot think of a paper that has more influenced Tamarack's work than Meg Wheatley's article Supporting Pioneering Leaders. In the paper Meg writes, "So the need for new leaders is urgent. We need new leadership in communities everywhere. We need leaders who know how to nourish and rely on the innate creativity, freedom, generosity, and caring of people. We need leaders who are life-affirming rather than life-destroying. Unless we quickly figure out how to nurture and support this new leadership, we can't hope for peaceful change. We will, instead, be confronted by increasing anarchy and societal meltdowns. Thus, new leadership becomes a central and pressing challenge of our time". Read more on Meg's insights about how new leadership can grow rapidly through the use of communities of practice.
This paper came out in 2002, the founding year of Tamarack, and it could not have been more timely. The full title of the article - Supporting Pioneering Leaders as Communities of Practice: How to Rapidly Develop New Leaders in Great Numbers - provided a vision for us and challenged us to consider how we might be part of this movement. Communities of Practice are the foundation of our theory of change and this article, which articulates the importance of such communities, is the seminal paper we share with everyone that attends the Communities Collaborating Institute. Learn more about Meg Wheatley who is a keynote at Tamarack's 2012 CCI: Innovating Together this year.
Communities of Practice
Meg writes, "Traditional approaches to leadership development are woefully inadequate to meet (community innovators) learning needs…. Communities of practice demonstrate that it is natural for people to seek out those who have knowledge and experience that they need. As people find each other and exchange ideas, good relationships develop and a community forms. This community becomes a rich marketplace where knowledge and experience are shared. It also becomes an incubator where new knowledge, skills, and competencies develop."
Meg goes on to describe a hunger for this new leadership describing these pioneers as eager learners, willing to try new approaches, hungry for methods and ideas that will work. Does this describe you? If so, we invite you to learn more...
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It may surprise you, but here is another article on collective impact. Since Kania and Kramer's articles (2011, 2012) on this topic appeared in the Stanford Social Innovation Review they have created significant and enduring buzz among community builders and champions of change.
While the concept and practice of collective impact are not new - groups such as the Aspen Institute, Tamarack Institute, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Jay Conner's Community Collaboratory have watched and reported on these grassroots efforts for some time - these authors' skillful research and communication of the approach has made a significant contribution to the field.
The idea behind collective impact is simple. In order to create large scale and durable improvements on complex issues, such as high school graduation rates, crime or mental health, organizations have to abandon individual agendas and activities in favour of a collective approach that emphasizes orchestrated and concurrent action on all dimensions of the challenge. Kania and Kramer's research has led them to conclude that successful collective impact efforts have three preconditions that must be in place prior to their launch (e.g. urgency for change, adequate financial resources, influential champions) and five basic conditions for supporting and sustaining such efforts once they are underway (e.g. a common agenda, continuous communication, shared measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, and a backbone organization). If you have not yet read these articles, it's high time you did.
The Importance of Shared Measurement Systems
Getting the participants of a collective impact initiative to gather data and measure results using a common set of community and program level indicators is an important condition for a successful venture. The benefits of doing so are simple. Shared measurement systems encourage local organizations to align their efforts on shared outcomes, enable them to collectively track and evaluate their collective progress (or lack of) and offer organizations opportunities to benchmark their results against - and learn from - their peers. In some cases, the consistent use of shared measurement systems may even lead to improvements in the quality and credibility of the data and - eventually - reduce the overall costs of collecting and reporting data.
Kania's and Kramer's favourite example of a shared measurement system is the one used by the members of Strive, an educational partnership of over 300 agencies, schools, philanthropies and business in Cincinnati. Strive organizations collectively track over fifty indicators that measure progress student over fifteen milestones. These are organized around a continuum that begins with birth and ends with the completion of post-secondary education. The Strive partners call this a Student Roadmap to Success. This process is supported by skilled facilitators, a web-based data-system, and adequate financial resources.
Strive is only one example. The grantees in the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Jobs Initiative have developed a sophisticated system to track and report on the types of employment, income and job retention achieved in their career development programs (Abt Associates). Many advocates of Results-Based Accountability, an approach similar to shared measurement systems popularized by Mark Friedman, focus on programs and services in the area of childhood development and protection (Friedman 2006). There are other examples of mechanisms for shared data and reporting in the areas of criminal justice, mental health and homelessness.
Local experimentation with shared measurement systems is sufficiently far along that distinct models are emerging. Kramer and his colleagues (2009) have identified at least three:
- Shared Measurement Platforms - allow local organizations to voluntarily choose from a set of shared measures using web-based tools to collect, analyze and report on their performance outcomes.
- Comparative Performance Systems - require all participants within a field to report on the same measures, using identical definitions and methodologies.
- Adaptive Learning Systems - complement shared measurement systems with a systematic and facilitated process of evaluation, learning and planning.
Each of the models has a unique set of strengths and weaknesses and each of them requires a particular set of enabling conditions in order to operate. Together, they provide communities with several options about what kind of shared measurement system they want to create.
Tricky Business
Not surprisingly, establishing and using effective shared measurement systems is easier said than done. Even the most committed and talented group run up against a host of challenges that thwart their best efforts to overcome a pattern of disjoined measurement systems.
One is getting diverse organizations tackling complex issues, targeting slightly different groups and employing different strategies and activities to agree on a set of indicators that are shared and adequately reflect the important nuances of their work. This can be a lengthy process. I recently heard of a talented and hardworking network of planners, researchers, administrators and agencies in the metropolitan Toronto area that have been spinning their wheels on this very task for more than two years now, with little to show for their efforts.
The struggle to agree on common indicators is amplified by the silo nature of funder and policy organizations which typically demand that their grantees or contractors track and report on data according to their own narrowly defined target groups and guidelines. My colleague, Paul Born, painfully recollects writing over 230 reports for a score of different funders when he was the Executive Director of a large employment and small business agency. This is not only inefficient and exhausting for agencies, but is nearly impossible for them to align these fragmented systems at the point of service delivery. If funders of collective impact initiatives are serious about local organizations tracking and reporting shared data, they need to align their funding, administrative and data requirements with other funders.
Shared measurement systems can also be expensive. It takes time and energy to gather and submit data. Robust web-based systems that analyze data and offer sensible reports don't come cheap. Making sure that collective impact groups spend the time required to make sense of and use the data they laboured to collect requires quality technical assistance and facilitation. The pioneering efforts of the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund to create a mechanism for shared measurement and reporting of social purpose enterprises in San Francisco ran into the many millions of dollars.
Finally, despite the continued bravado about the rigor of quantifiable measures, the fact is that many activities and results of community change efforts cannot be quantified. As Einstein argued not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that is counted really count.. The participants of the Annie E. Casey Foundation supported Jobs Initiative used both types of feedback to help them plan, monitor and evaluate their efforts to dramatically improve the number of vulnerable youth securing good paying and durable jobs by reshaping regional labour markets, rather than developing individual programs. How else would they capture shifts in how public transportation planners and workforce development officials worked together to ensure that newly trained workers could easily get to their jobs across the city or the quiet (but transformational) decision by a local trades college to change a 75 year old practice and begin recruiting and training African Americans? Serious participants of collective impact initiatives - and the researchers and evaluators that support them - require both hard and soft data to provide timely, rich and context sensitive feedback on their work.
Believe it or not, these are but a few of the challenges to creating shared measurements systems. It's no wonder then that for every successful shared measurement initiative out there, there are probably many more that remain unfinished, are poorly used or simply not worth the investment.
But - and it's a big but - the benefits for developing workable shared measurements systems appear to significantly outweigh the costs and challenges of doing so. The contribution that such systems make to robust efforts such as Cincinnati's Strive or Calgary's Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness is evident. Similarly, many collective impact efforts stall, stagnate and even implode in part because their participants (a) can't agree on which community level activities and outcomes are important to target and track; (b) fail to devise a way to measure and report them; and, (c) prove unwilling or unable to use the feedback to inform their thinking and planning.
It ain't easy work, but anyone serious about collective impact will be equally serious about experimenting with and developing shared measurement systems.
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Ideas We're Following...
Collaborating across organizations requires both patience and determination. Rather than just diving in to collaborative work, there are many important steps to be followed to ensure partnering success. These include building your collaborative to fit the context of the community and the problem that is being addressed; investing in and building the partner relationships; managing the collaborative process; delivering successful results; and, evaluating outcomes.
The Partnering Initiative is a specialist programme of the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) in the UK that seeks to develop tools, resources and platforms for transformational social change. Its website has a number of useful resources for organizations currently engaged in or considering a role in a collaborative effort including The Partnering Tool Book and Talking the Walk: A Communication Manual for Partnership Practitioners.
Perhaps the most useful advice to consider is your role as a collaborative partner. Do you or your organization have the available time, interest, resources, stamina and patience to engage in a collaborative effort? Collaboration for community change often takes longer as many partners are engaged with different ideas and challenges. Do you feel that the risk is going to be worth the reward? Too often collaborative efforts fail because the partners have not intentionally considered their role as a partner and their contributions to the successful achievement of outcomes.
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I admit I was more than a little intrigued as I dialed in to the recent Tamarack tele-learning seminar with Adam Kahane. In all the years that I have worked in the field of social change, I can't remember ever explicitly discussing the role of love in such processes and I was curious about what I might learn. As a renowned leader of social change processes across the globe, including the Mont Fleur Project that involved a diverse group of South African leaders in transitioning their country to democracy, it is clear that Adam has reflected deeply on the dynamics that underpin social transformations: power and love.
Inspired by the work of theologian Paul Tillich, Adam defines power as "the drive of every living thing to realize itself" and love as "the drive to unite the separated." He emphasized that each of these two drives has both a negative and positive dimension and then shared that he believes that a key element of social change work is the ability to work with both these drives. In Adam's vast experience, the dynamics of power and love are apparent in a very common difficulty that emerges when working with groups: the tendency to polarize between the "power people" who think that issues of love have no place in professional contexts and the "love people" who view all use of power as a negative.
Within the context of collaborative work, Adam offers three images to illustrate working with power and love: falling, stumbling and walking together. He arrived at these images while reflecting on how to work with dilemmas. Wisdom suggests that to effectively reconcile the tension of a dilemma one must alternate between the two elements - in this case power and love. For Adam, this evoked the image of walking. Building on this image, falling happens when we choose to work with one dimension over the other. Stumbling results when we are better at working with one element than the other. We learn to walk, or to walk together, when we strengthen the element of the dilemma that we are "weaker" at working with.
There are a host of important skills that support effective collaboration however, in Adam's view, there is one core skill that is essential and yet not well understood. That is the skill of "reading the dynamics of power and love" and then developing a practice of rebalancing between them. While that feels like an ambitious challenge, I believe that Adam Kahane's work provides compelling insights and a clarity that begins to map out the journey.
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On May 3-4, 2012, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Tamarack Learning Community has been invited to be part of Connecting4Community: a very special community with Peter Block, John McKnight, and Walter Brueggemann. Together, these three will challenge our thinking and stimulate conversations that are bound to result in insight and learning as well as connections and collaborations that we can't predict or imagine. The evening's intent is two-fold:
- For Community builders from all over the world to be in community with each other; and,
- For all of us to continue to develop the body of knowledge that is growing around the field of community studies.
Internationally known author and consultant Peter Block has worked with John McKnight for years. Together they authored The Abundant Community. Peter and John both have recently become scholars of the work of Walter Brueggemann. Walter is an advocate and practitioner of rhetorical criticism. A renowned Old Testament scholar, he has authored more than 58 books.
In addition to making connections and discovering unimagined opportunities, this event promises community-builders a wonderful opportunity to be inspired by the wisdom of true greatness. It is literally impossible to be in the presence of thinkers like John, Peter, and Walter and not be moved, motivated and made wiser! Details of this event are available at www.connecting4community.com including registration. Please act fast as space is limited.
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Not long ago, a neighbour stopped by for a cup of tea and a quick chat and left behind a "starter" of Amish Friendship Bread along with a simple set of instructions to follow over the next 10 days to ready it for baking. Just as I was trying to figure out what needed to be done, my daughter, Gabriella, stepped up and announced that she wanted to take this on and I quickly agreed. (Who would ever say no to a twelve-year-old volunteering to take responsibility?)
After ten days of tending the starter, Gabriella pulled out the recipe and set to work baking two delicious loaves of sweet bread. As delicious as the bread, was Gabriella's look of pride as she received complements and praise from her brothers, her dad and I on her new-found culinary talent.
Later that night, Gabriella told me she had decided to share the three new "starter" bags left from her initial batch with friends from school so that they could start learning to bake on their own too. And so, a new generation of bakers is introduced to this wonderful tradition of sharing bread in friendship.
Amish Friendship Bread Recipe
(It is very important to use plastic or wooden utensils and plastic or glass containers when making this. Do not use metal at all!)
Day 1 - receive the starter (the recipe for the starter is below)
Day 2 - stir
Day 3 - stir
Day 4 - stir
Day 5 - Add 1 cup each: flour, sugar and milk.
Day 6 - stir
Day 7 - stir
Day 8 - stir
Day 9 - stir
Day 10 - Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Divide into 4 containers, with 1 cup each for three of your friends and 1 cup for your own loaves. Give friends the instructions for Day 1 through Day 10 and the following recipe for baking the bread.
After removing the 3 cups of batter, combine the remaining cup of Amish Friendship Bread starter with the following ingredients in a large bowl:
- 2/3 cup oil
- 3 eggs
- ½ tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 to 1 ½ tsp. cinnamon
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups flour
- 1 ¼ tsp. baking powder
- ½ tsp. baking soda
Using a fork beat by hand until well blended. You can add 1 cup raisins and 1 cup nuts (optional). Grease two loaf pans with butter, sprinkle with sugar instead of flour. Bake at 325o for 45 minutes to 1 hour (individual oven temperatures vary). Cool 10 minutes, remove from pans. Makes two loaves.
For Butterscotch Bread: To the basic recipe add 1 (5.1 oz) box of butterscotch pudding, an additional 1/2 cup milk, and 1 cup of butterscotch chips and omit the cinnamon.
For Cherry Bread: When making the basic recipe, substitute almond extract for vanilla. Omit the cinnamon. Before baking, stir in 1 cup dried cherries
For Carrot Bread: Increase the cinnamon in the basic recipe to 1 Tablespoon. Use a a bundt pan instead of a loaf pan. Add to the basic recipe the following ingredients:
- 3 medium carrots shredded
- ½ cup raisins
- ½ cup chunky homestyle applesauce
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon cloves
- ½ cup chopped walnuts
Amish Friendship Bread Starter
This is the Amish Friendship Bread Starter Recipe that you'll need to make the Amish Friendship Bread (above). It is very important to use plastic or wooden utensils and plastic or glass containers when making this. Do not use metal at all!
Ingredients:
1 pkg. active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (110 degrees F)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
1 cup warm milk (110 degrees F)
Directions:
- In a small bowl, dissolve the yeast in warm water for about 10 minutes. Stir well.
- In a 2 quart glass or plastic container, combine 1 cup sifted flour and 1 cup sugar. Mix thoroughly or the flour will get lumpy when you add the milk.
- Slowly stir in warm milk and dissolved yeast mixture. Loosely cover the mixture with a lid or plastic wrap. The mixture will get bubbly. Consider this Day 1 of the cycle, or the day you receive the starter.
For the next 10 days handle starter according to the instructions above for Amish Friendship Bread.
Related links:
- Re-Imaging Community - Michael Jones More >>
- The ART of Hope - Derek Cook More >>
- Community with Those You Do Not Know - Derek Alton More >>
Resources
- Mapping Communities with a Free Online Tool More >>
- Community of Practice Design Guide More >>
- Circle: Step-by-Step More >>
Podcasts
- Collaboration in a Chaotic World - Meg Wheatley More >>
- The Abundant Community - John McKnight & Peter Block More >>
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