Trust's Memory

Collaborations within complex systems can only move at the speed of trust as no single entity has the authority to control others within the system.

When trust is absent stakeholders only pretend to be willing to work together the same way execs pretend to pay attention to the presentation while scrolling through their email on their iphone.

Recently a wise man shared two truisms about trust:

• Trust has no memory; it must be earned every day.
• Broken trust is never forgotten.

This is why we can never put enough time into the hard, often tedious work of building trust among diverse stakeholders. Yes, we all want to "get things done" but moving fast requires us to go slow and to wisely use that time to build trust.

Meeting Global Demand & Creating Local Demand

One of the more disturbing possible explanations for widening economic inequity is that innovation in the global economy is reducing demand for labor. If -- and I emphasize the word if -- this is the case, this poses an unprecedented challenge for the economic development community.

Economic development efforts today are almost entirely designed around improving a community's ability to meet global demand for goods and services. Entrepreneurial assistance programs are designed to assist start-up businesses serving global markets. Business attraction efforts target companies that are growing because of increased global demand for their products. Business retention and expansion efforts are focused on helping companies innovate and address the ever-changing demands of global markets.

But if all of that effort to help companies meet global demand actually results in fewer people working, what is the civic justification for these efforts?

If what we are seeing in the post-Great Recession economy is a global reduction in demand for labor the mantra of traditional economic development efforts could no longer be "jobs, jobs, jobs." No governor is going to seek re-election touting the growth in their state's economy if that growth resulted in fewer jobs.

Such a dramatic shift in global economics would require economic developers accustomed to helping companies meet global demand to help entrepreneurs create local demand. Perhaps the best example of this is the burgeoning local foods sector. Much of the food market is globalized -- we buy berries from Chile and chicken from China. But as plenty of communities have demonstrated, there is growing demand for local foods -- everything from farmer's markets to local restaurants that rely on locally-sourced food. The entrepreneurs propelling these efforts aren't trying to meet global market demand, they are striving to create local demand. And this local demand is -- relatively speaking -- labor intensive.

What's exciting is there is growing evidence that despite the globalization of our economy, entrepreneurs are able to create local demand. And these entrepreneurs are deserving of assistance from economic development organizations. While no more food is being consumed in a no-growth region like Northeast Ohio, more food is being produced by local labor -- whether that is by farmers affiliated with the Countryside Conservancy or the plethora of new businesses surrounding the West Side Market in Ohio City. Obviously the question is how much of the global economy can be shifted to a local economy and would that shift result in more vibrant communities? Advocates of locally-sourced clothing, furniture and even cars will tell you that huge chunks of our economy can be shifted from the global to local markets.

The good news for economic developers is that the strategies to meet global demand and to create local demand aren't mutually exclusive. The most resilient communities will find ways to support strategies that increase local demand, in addition to maximizing the value generated by helping companies meet global demand.

New Forms Needed

This is an exciting time to be engaged in rethinking the role of funders and non-profits in catalyzing sustained positive community change. Dynamic thinkers and doers are raising provocative ideas and making strong cases for a revolution.

If you haven't yet read NPC's Tris Lumley's call for transformation in the social sector on the SSIR blog check it out now. He may have been a little over the top on this one, but I respect him for declaring:

Overall, there is a lack of meaningful accountability among funders to those they claim to help.

And there's this recent post from Jeff Bradach at The Bridgespan Group, who explains why scaling up and collective impact are better viewed as a mash up than as competing concepts. He adds to the growing chorus calling for more support for the capacity to collaborate and coordinate:

The program-centric perspective espoused by much of the social sector often undervalues the role played by organizations engaged in field-building work.

With all of this good thinking going on why am I writing about forms? Here's why. If foundations and other grant makers want to explore these ideas they need to accommodate them within their business practices. The Monitor Institute captured this very well in their Catalyzing Networks for Social Change report issued last year:

Basic grantmaking structures and mechanics, such as siloed program areas static application requirements, inhibit working ... with networks.

How does an organization that is providing what FSG would call "backbone functions" and Monitor would call "network cultivation" fill out a grant application that only wants to know how many individuals will be served by the grant?

Yet, that is exactly what such organizations are being asked to do -- even by foundations that have embraced collaboration, networks, systems change etc. While foundations are increasingly embracing new ways to catalyze change, many haven't yet designed new forms to accommodate this new way of thinking. This might prompt a cynic to wonder whether this new approach will be just a passing fad. Once the forms have changed, we'll know this new thinking will stick.

Design to Build Trust

One of the key tenants of collective impact is there needs to be capacity to facilitate the act of collaboration. The consulting firm FSG refers to this as "backbone" capacity, and often that capacity resides within an organization.

Today while working with leaders in Lorain County who are forging a collaboration to create more economic opportunity for single moms I was asked a very good question: How do you design an effective backbone?

In some of its early collective impact work, FSG described six different kinds of backbone organizations and noted that there are a multitude of designs that can be used to perform the key functions required to facilitate collaborations. While the FSG descriptions are helpful, I found myself giving a much simpler (and perhaps overly simplistic) answer: Design to build trust.

Stakeholders involved in a collaboration need to trust that:

• Their peers won't take advantage of them for participating in the collaboration.
• Funders will value the work they do within the collaboration.
• The "backbone" will create value for their organization.
• The collaboration process will empower them to do things that they cannot do on their own.

If the design and behavior of the backbone generates suspicion and doubt, participation in the collaboration will be reluctant and limited. Distrust results in coblaboration, not collaboration.

How to design a backbone that will build trust varies from collaboration to collaboration. But one sage piece of advice I've picked up is this: Trust is first built through one-on-one relationships more than it is in group settings. The servant leader at the helm of a backbone must take the time to understand the perspectives and priorities of each of the key players within the collaboration. That understanding is difficult to develop in group settings. Organizations participating in a new collaboration often see themselves as competitors for funding with the others at the collaboration table. Or they may not even know some of the stakeholders at the table. (Does the librarian know the workforce development director?) Neither competitors nor strangers are eager to share in large gatherings.

An effective backbone needs to be designed so it has the time required to build trust one-on-one with stakeholders long before it is expected to start producing results; and more importantly it needs a leader who can build that trust.

A Backbone of What?

The other morning one of the my favorite philanthropists asked a critical question rarely heard within the numerous collaborations that I am part of: "What exactly are you a backbone of?"

As I noted earlier, the popularity of the collective impact framework has resulted in many organizations asserting to be a backbone -- i.e. they perform key functions to facilitate the type of collaboration necessary to achieve sustained positive change within complex systems.

Backbone functions are indeed essential to moving from coblaboration to collaboration. But being a backbone is neither easy nor glamorous. And it is only possible to be an effective backbone if there is agreement on the boundaries and functions of the system being served by the backbone. Backbones need to know what they are the backbone of.

Defining the boundaries of a complex system is -- obviously -- complex. Systems consist of diverse stakeholders from multiple sectors performing a multitude of inter-connected functions. For example, the boundaries of an education system could involve everything from pre-natal health care to senior citizen classes. Anyone want to sign up to try to be a backbone for that expansive and complex a system? And while many education backbones use the term "cradle to career," rarely do they try to build a common agenda around functions that are generally considered part of the "workforce system."

The overlapping nature of complex systems can overwhelm stakeholders who are trying to organize themselves to develop the conditions required to achieve collective impact. Clearly defining the boundaries of the system being served by a backbone dramatically increases the chances of success.  

Many of the Strive initiatives that attract a lot of well-deserved attention narrowly define the education system by drawing boundaries that involve just a few school districts, not all of the districts within a community. The Summit Education Initiative is more ambitious, acting as a backbone for 15 school districts within a very diverse county and many more pre-school programs.

What Strive and SEI have in common are very clear boundaries of the systems they serve and the functions performed within those boundaries.

Most systems don't have the relatively clear boundaries of school districts. For example, where would one draw the boundaries of the system that supports entrepreneurship within an economy? Or how about the boundaries of a workforce system where more than 25% of residents cross a county line on their way to work every morning?

A map can help stakeholders visualize the boundaries and functions of the system to be served by the backbone. Stakeholders should be continuously engaged in drawing the map, defining the functions included and identifying the organizations that perform those functions. As the map is built (it's never static), stakeholders can begin to identify the limits of their influence and begin to draw boundaries and eliminate certain functions.

Backbones need such a map to know what they are the backbone of.

Building the Will for Collaboration

This post is the third in a three part series exploring the question, “Can collaboration be learned?”   This is an edited email exchange between Alison Gold of Living Cities, Curtis Ogden of the Interaction Institute for Social Change, and myself.  When we last left off, Alison had posed a series of questions about identifying and cultivating the will to collaborate.

On January 27, 2014 12:33 PM, "Curtis Ogden" wrote:

Alison, I really like your questions and feel like they would be great to take to a wider audience.  I will say that I am profoundly influenced by Carol Sanford’s  mentoring in all of this, and the belief that personal development is key to evolving our will, moving from a more self-centered perspective to “other” perspective, to understanding the symbiotic nature of different levels of systems. 

I think that some of what we at IISC have seen and helped develop as skillful and deeply rooted “Facilitative Leadership” is indicative of an evolved will that balances agency with external considering.  Facilitative Leadership includes the following:

• Embodying authenticity (being real)
• Accepting “others as legitimate others” (Humberto Maturana’s definition of love)
• Demonstrating concern for equity and fairness, not just as moral imperatives, but as keys to survival
• Curiosity, receptivity, and flexibility
• The ability to see patterns
• Recognizing and engaging power dynamics while leveraging privilege for collective benefit
• Cultivating individual, organizational, larger systemic/network development
• Creating conditions for people to be their best value-adding selves

On Jan 27, 2014 1:29 PM, “Chris Thompson” wrote:

This is very helpful perspective and echoes a lot of the work of Paul Born of the Tamarack Institute, who is one of the leading advocates of Collective Impact. His book Community Conversations is invaluable in this area.  More specifically, I believe that there are signs that key stakeholders indeed have the “will” to collaborate at the collective impact level. Organizations that have the will:

• Value data more than opinions.
• Focus on creating value not protecting turf.
• Assume shared responsibility for sustaining the capacity to collaborate rather than insisting it is someone else’s responsibility.

On January 28, 2014 9:18 AM, “Curtis Ogden” wrote:

Thanks, Chris.  For what it’s worth, I came across this Vaclav Havel quote today, and it seems relevant to this notion of building will around collaboration:

"By perceiving ourselves as part of the river, we take responsibility for the river as a whole."

Tell us your experiences. Do you think we “take responsibility for the river as a whole?” Share your thoughts with us at: Alison Gold @AKGold11, Chris Thompson @ccarsonthompson, Curtis Ogden @curtisogden, or leave a comment below.

Community Ethic and Collaboration

Alison Gold, Curtis Ogden and I continued our e-mail conversation on can collaboration be learned. I am intrigued by Curtis' framing of what it takes to collaborate. See yesterday's initial post.

And readers of this blog won't be surprised that I found a way to bring Aldo Leopold into this conversation.

A big thank you to Alison for getting this whole effort off the ground and keeping it going.

*****

From: Alison Gold
Date: Thursday, January 23, 2014 9:17 AMTo: Curtis Ogden, Chris Thompson
 Subject: Re: Can Collaboration Be Learned

All of this begs the question, how do you know when the will is there? Or isn’t? We seem to keep getting back to this point …

>>On Jan 23, 2014, at 9:27 AM, "Curtis Ogden" wrote:

I think that will can come down to two basic factors – having a strong “internal locus of control,” guided by and balanced with "external considering."

A strong internal locus of control demonstrates some sense of responsibility and agency regarding one's self and situation. That is, we do not feel like we are total victims of circumstance, we don't immediately default to blaming others (in word and deed).

Of course, this can be overdone, tipping into ego-centrism, which is where external considering comes in. It is what Peter Drucker often preached in terms of "leading beyond the walls." It is a demonstrated sense of responsibility to and embeddedness in the next larger system of which one is apart, an understanding that the degree to which we are whole, it is in service of the next whole. This is the reality of living systems; we earn our keep by being of value to the larger body/ecosystem.

I actually like the direction this conversation is heading, because I think developing indicators for this is akin to what I am talking about with some colleagues regarding measuring "network mindset" and being a "responsible human."

>>On Jan 23, 2014, at 9:35 AM, "Alison Gold" wrote:

I’ve actually been playing around with an idea related to this at Living Cities. Mine has been less about the individual, which I’m excited to learn more about and exchange ideas and ask questions about, but more about how you can get a community in a productive zone of urgency to take on a problem.

>> On Jan 23, 2014, at 8:43 PM, "Chris Thompson" wrote:

I do want to chime in on two issues you’ve both raised.

Developing the skill, attitude and will of collaborative leaders is indeed critical. I am working with two community-based leadership programs on this very issue. Many communities have leadership programs that are designed to help existing/emerging civic, corporate, non-profit leaders expand their networks and enhance their understanding of key issues within their communities. Rarely do the programs work to enhance the leadership development of the participants, and more rarer yet do they work on the skill, attitude and will issues Curtis raises. If our communities are going to enhance their ability to address the complex challenges and opportunities they face, we believe leadership programs should focus on promoting collaborative leadership skills and attitudes—which are significantly different from organizational leadership skills and attitudes.

I look forward to borrowing from Curtis as the two leadership programs I’m working with refine their thinking and shape their efforts, and if we’re successful we can embed those skills into Alison’s community-based approach.

And now to the issue of being a responsible human. The “will” for this work, as Curtis noted is rooted in “a worldview that helps us to viscerally understand how we are interconnected, why we must do the work together, how we suffer and can get in our own way when we do not.” This is a worldview that helps us be a responsible human.

This visceral understanding is what the great Aldo Leopold wrote about in his classic work on complex systems, ecology and man’s interaction with nature – A Sand County Almanac. I first read the book in high school biology and have reread it many times since but only relatively recently realized Aldo’s wisdom applies not only to man’s interaction with the complex ecosystem he lovingly called “the land,” but also the complex systems that I work in every day.

The visceral understanding Curtis is describing is what Aldo referred to as an “ethic.” His land ethic described man’s responsibility to cherish the land rather than consume it. Curtis is describing what I might call a “community ethic” or a “systems ethic.” Curtis’ world view, as Aldo writes, is “a product of social evolution because nothing so important as an ethic is ever 'written'… It evolves in the minds of a thinking community.”

Aldo also described a corollary to the “profit motive” that he called the “community motive.” While the profit motive isn’t a major driver within the civic/nonprofit space where we work it isn’t a huge stretch to say that the desire of individual nonprofits to attract funding for their “isolated impact” projects is similar to the individual corporation’s “profit motive.” Understanding that we can only achieve the sustained positive change we seek by working together shifts us toward a “community motive.”

To close, I will adapt one last Aldo quote. He wrote:

“Acts of conservation without the requisite desire and skills are futile. To create these desires and skills and the community motive is the task of education.”

In our context, I’d modify the quote to:

“Acts of collaboration for collective impact without the requisite desire and skills are futile. To create these desires and skills and the community motive is the task of people like Alison, Curtis, Chris and all of the other advocates for sustained positive change in the communities we care about.”

>>On Jan 24, 2014, at 11:09 AM, "Alison Gold" wrote:

Curtis, I’m really loving your frame on will-skill-attitude. I feel like the work that I’ve been focusing on about cross-sector collaboration has been largely focused on skill with a bit of attitude. In part, because my own experiences staffing collaborations, and my current organization which funds them, in some ways assumes that the “will” is there. But, increasingly that assumption is the kicker. It’s the difference between the collaborations that have impact, and ones that meet to meet (I love when Chris refers to this as coblaboration.) And, here’s the thing, I have a lot of questions about the will piece and making it practical.

• 
  
• How do you know if will is present? Is it a Justice Potter Stewart “I know it when I see it” thing? And if so, could you share what you’ve seen that are some indicators of will (or lack thereof)?
• 
  
• And also, what do you do if the will isn’t present? Can it be cultivated? Or is an effort better off calling it quits? If it can be cultivated, how have you or others gone about doing it?

Eager to hear your thoughts.

*****