Organizing – Leading Differently

Cutting an Issue Out of a Social Problem

What is the difference between a problem and an issue?

A “social problem” is a condition that negatively affects large numbers of people created as a result of public or private policies, or through practices embedded in social structures. The scale, and complex nature of these problems make them seemingly too big to take on. What can organized groups of people seeking to create change do to address social issues such as, poverty, climate change, or racism? You need to strategically “cut” a realistically manageable and winnable issue out of the problem.

Choosing the Issue

In 1991, Midwest Academy published a very useful field manual titled, Organizing for Social Change. The book’s “Checklist for Choosing an Issue,” provides some helpful guidance for narrowing the focus of a campaign for change. The authors list these sixteen criteria for choosing an issue:

It must result in a real improvement in people’s lives.
It must give people a sense of their own power.
It must alter the relations of power.
It must be worthwhile.
It must be winnable.
It must be widely felt.
It must be deeply felt.
It must be easy to understand.
It must have a clear target.
It must have a clear time frame that works for you.
It must be non-divisive.
It must build leadership.
It must set your organization up for the next campaign.
It must have a pocketbook angle.
It must raise money.
It must be consistent with your values and vision.

Your issue should have most of these, though it may not always be important to find a pocketbook angle, or to raise money. It is probably also impossible to avoid some internal divisiveness. This is why a leader must develop some basic conflict resolution skills.

Don’t get overwhelmed by the scale of a problem. Identify small, winnable issues that will contribute to a greater goal. Your work will complement that of others doing work on related issues. Build on your successes. No problem is too big to overcome.

More Information

Action Plans for Social Change

“A goal without a plan is just a wish.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Creating change is a multifaceted endeavor. There are deeply rooted issues, diverse groups of stakeholders, and many moving parts. In fact, the thought of wrapping our collective arms around an enormous problem, and replacing it with something good seems too overwhelming for most people. The path to success for too many people appears to be unattainable. That is why it helps to have an action plan.

The popular, “Model for Managing Complex Change” credited to Dr. Mary Lippitt, and popularized by Dr. Timothy Knoster, suggests that there are six elements necessary to effectively create change. Those elements are: vision, consensus, skills, incentives, resources and an action plan. (You can see a good general overview of the model written by Sergio Caredda, here.) All of these elements are discussed to varying degrees elsewhere on this site. Right now, I want to focus on the idea of an action plan.

What is an Action Plan?

An action plan essentially answers the important who, what, when, where, and how questions around coordinated activities that bring you closer to your goals. The plan also addresses questions related to logistics, coordination, communication, and resources. If you’re looking for some pretty good “how to” instructions for community-centered action plans, I’d suggest the action plan section on the Community Tool Box website.

Action plans recognize and target specific problems. They implement strategies that must be informed by the people who are most adversely affected by the status quo, and they help to create the awareness, and the conditions for a readiness and willingness to change.

The most effective plans recognize that minds have to change before policies can change. Some of those minds are opposed to your vision, and some are undecided, or simply ambivalent (See the post, “Change Happens at the Center”). So do your homework because as Neil de Grasse Tyson writes, “How strongly you feel about an issue is not itself a measure of the strength of your argument.”

Scale

Scale is perhaps the most important consideration in planning actions intended to create social change. The smaller the scale, the easier it is to create a more detailed plan. For example, a plan to get a local council to remove discriminatory policies, is easier than creating a single plan to eliminate all institutionalized racism. The latter requires thousands of smaller plans with a shared vision. Social movements are comprised of countless small actions undertaken with a common goal in mind.

Contingency Plans

Good planning also recognizes that things don’t always happen exactly as they are planned. Just because one part of a plan didn’t go as expected, does not mean that all is lost. It is always useful to do some sort of scenario planning to create options where you might encounter unanticipated events. When you are assessing potential “if this, then that” situations, you are weighing the risks and rewards of certain actions. Consider the implications of individual points of breakdown in your plan. Making contingency planning part of your action plan can keep you moving forward.

“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” -– Abraham Lincoln

The Sum of a Community’s Parts

This post focuses on civic engagement and Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD). For more information on leading change through ABCD see these posts:

Asset-Focused Leadership

Asset-Focused Leadership Part II: the Importance of Associations

One of the most appealing aspects of Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) as a change strategy, is that people’s contributions to the overall effort are not ranked or graded. ABCD is not a competitive endeavor. If “asset” is defined narrowly to refer only to financial assets, then assets are a scarce resource, and solutions to the challenges we face become commodities. However, recognizing the value of assets such as diversity, relationships, social and cultural literacy, and underappreciated human ingenuity, transforms our pursuits into inspiring models of collaboration. This capacity centered approach to community building becomes a great way to ensure that a community is greater than the sum of its parts.

There is no mathematical formula that tells you when a community achieves this ‘greater than’ status. It is not marketing that makes it so. You can’t simply claim it, but it does have measurable indicators. A strong, vibrant community combines among other things, a strong sense of place, the promise of social and economic opportunity, and general agreement on quality of life measures. These are all attributes that complement people’s self-interests. People are always more likely to act where they can see a return on the investment of their time.

So how can we embark on a conscious effort to achieve such a community? How do we leverage all of these hidden assets so that individuals and groups contribute more than their usual ‘part’?

Not all of the community’s positive activity is deliberately communal, or coordinated. Many good things happen without any urging or direction. Individuals contribute to the quality of life in their community in a variety of ways. Many of these actions require very little time, and go unnoticed by most people. Someone may pick up a piece of trash laying on the ground and put it in a garbage can. They might stop a child, or a pet from running out into a street. These are all things that take seconds to do, and people do them without being asked.

Then there is the type of civic engagement that is a little more public. The realities of modern life suggest that there are far more people who will engage in short, easy positive actions because they are just that, short and easy. The longer the time commitment that is expected, and the more people are expected to be “out of their comfort zone,” the fewer the number of people will be involved. But sometimes deeper, more deliberate and focused community engagement is required in order to make a greater impact.

How then do we encourage deeper civic engagement? The simplest answer is that you identify the things that people like to do, or are good at, and find opportunities for them to do more of those things for the benefit of the community. This is one of the fundamental tenets of ABCD.

Another quick path to deeper community engagement is a friendly invitation from someone a person knows and trusts. That’s right, just ask.

There are people in communities with fairly large circles of acquaintances. They seem to know everybody. They are connectors. Their conversations often include phrases such as, “Do you know X? The two of you should meet.” These connectors, whether deliberately or not, are often creating an invitation to actions with a higher profile, and carry a greater time commitment. They might include things such as volunteering at community events, or helping to raise money for some cause. The fact is that anyone can be a connector, regardless of their perceived circle of influence. People enjoy doing things with people like, and with whom they share common interests. Just ask.

An often forgotten, but especially important strategy to make your community greater than the sum of its parts, is to look to the community’s marginalized people. Nursing home residents, homeless people, homebound people, and countless others all have knowledge, wisdom, gifts, skills and talents to contribute to a community. Usually, however, nobody bothers to speak to them, or even acknowledge their presence in the community. You don’t know what they are capable of unless you talk to them face to face. Make life more fulfilling for these residents, and you’ll see life get exponentially better for all community members.

Let’s review. What are some strategies we might use to engage residents in an effort to improve your community’s quality of life?

People will act when their self-interests are served.
People will do the things they enjoy doing. They will also do things they enjoy a little less, as long as they’re doing them with people they like being around.
People will act when someone they trust and respect asks them to act.
EVERYBODY has something to contribute to the quality of life in a community.

Community Outreach vs Community Engagement

“The organizer dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community.”
– Saul Alinsky

community outreach vs community engagement

Here are a few quick thoughts on these differences as they relate to leading social change.

There is a role for both outreach, and for engagement when organizing for change.
Community engagement should happen early, and often. Its goal is organizing to act in support of achieving your desired change.
Community outreach is a function of communicating to engaged partners, or gathering information or data from them.
Outreach defines the community (audience) it is intended to reach.
Engagement can create self-defined communities (affinity groups).
Community engagement is formative. It thrives on both diversity, and inclusion.

Read more about this distinction at buildthefield.org.

You Can Deliver Messages that Inspire People to Act

“I’m not the best person at putting words together. I can’t give you the melody. But I might inspire somebody.”
– Meek Mill

(This article is a companion piece to my post “The Role of Storytelling in Leading for Change.” Check it out for more tips on effective storytelling.)

You can inspire people to act by your own actions, by your art, by your numbers, or by your words. Even if you are not the world’s greatest orator, or even an experienced public speaker, your message can be dramatic. Your goals conflict with the status quo; and where there is conflict, there is drama.

Tie your message to a vision of a preferred future. Give an example of the way things are. Then describe the way they could be. Repeat this pattern with one or two more examples. Then talk about how the desired future is achievable, but only with the commitment of people in the room.

Give people real examples, preferably about people you know, or have met. Personal stories about your own experiences can have the greatest impact.

We are inspired by stories of successful collective action. We are reminded that our experiences are not isolated. We are reminded that people have each other’s backs.

We are also inspired by stories of people with empathy for others. Stories about courage inspire us, particularly those about people who have fought, or are fighting oppression.

Inspiring stories do not need to be polished, or well-rehearsed. If they are honest, passionate, and if they move you; they will move another person — or even a thousand other people.

You don’t try to fight the man by becoming the man

“The trouble with organizing a thing is that pretty soon folks get to paying more attention to the organization than to what they’re organized for.”

– Laura Ingalls Wilder

org chart

Organizing to create change doesn’t require creating your own little officialdom. It is too easy to lose your sense of purpose when you’re concentrating a great deal of energy on organizational charts and chains of command.

Big picture, strategy meetings don’t require pure democracy. Having every allied person vote on every little question that emerges, creates a hole that you may never climb out of. The average person committed to your cause is not a professional meeting-goer. When they do meet, they have an expectation that the next step is going to be actions that move you closer to your goal, not just closer to the next meeting.

If you are so rigidly organized that your main concern becomes creating a single group with an identical message, and speaking in one voice, then you’ll lose the creativity and the unique approaches that come from diversity. Your one voice can not tell the stories that will resonate with all people. Embrace the value of others’ experiences and wisdom.

People feel less free to discover and use their own power if they always feel like they need permission. One of the most powerful things you can do is to help people understand that they don’t need permission to do the right thing.

You don’t try to fight ‘the man’ by becoming ‘the man.’ Give up ideas of authority, and you’ll actually find more power.

One-to-One Relational Meetings

“The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.”
– William Hazlitt

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If you want to organize people to create change, few things are more important as one-to-one relational meetings. One-to-ones are at the heart of community organizing. They are also at the heart of leadership.

These conversations are not about converting the person, or running through a list of intrusive, personal questions. One-to-ones are about establishing a professional relationship with someone, and sharing stories as a way to understand their personal interests, motivations, and how your common interests and values might engage them to act in support of the change you are both interested in trying to create. This mix of personal, sometimes intimate knowledge leading to public, professional action holds unique value.

If I ask you to tell me a piece of your life story as part of one of these conversations, my goal is not personal friendship (though that could always happen as a result of professional familiarity). The intended outcomes of one-to-ones are:

to form a basic relationships across a community (community of place, or community of interest);
to understand common self-interests as well as a person’s passions;
To understand not only what they believe, or want, but why they hold those beliefs and desires;
and to gain insight on how that person’s unique talents and insights might be leveraged to support your common goals.

Conversation logistics and strategies

Email, or ideally phone the person you want to talk to. Introduce yourself. Explain what you are doing and how their name came up as someone you would want to speak with. Ask them for 30-45 minutes of their time. Make it clear that you are not selling anything, and that you are interested in their thoughts and ideas. Do as much homework as you can to understand what you think their interests may be — like you might if you were going to a job interview.

Arrive on time. Enter having thought about the questions you want to ask, but do not arrive with a pen and paper in hand. This isn’t a survey. You can make notes after you leave. There is no script. Listen closely. Keep the conversation relaxed. Let the other person’s interests guide your inquiry. They should do more talking than you.

Ask the person about their interest in your issue of concern. Listen for indicators of how the issue is personal to them. When they express concerns that they you also share, ask them to explain their views further, then try to build on those shared values.

As you near the end of your conversation ask about their interest in committing to a specific action. Don’t be too pushy. If they can’t commit to anything immediately, find a way to keep the door open for further exploration at a later time. If they can commit to some action, ask them how you can be of assistance. Follow up later and thank them for their commitment.

If the conversation is moving in the direction that you had hoped it would, here are some examples of the type of questions you might want to ask:

Have you been involved in this issue? If so, how?
Are there things related to this issue that you wish you knew more about?
What in your mind is an ideal outcome on this issue.
In what ways do you think you could best contribute to the effort?
Can you recommend anyone else I should talk to?

There are numerous resources online related to engaging in one-to-one conversations. Here are a few.

New York City Organizing Support Center
Shriver Center
Regional Center for Healthy Communities (video example one-on-one with introduction)
Ernesto Cortes on Relational Meetings (video)

Building Local Coalitions

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At the community level, some change requires only a few dedicated people to be achieved. More frequently, however, the scale or complexity of a particular issue requires locking arms with additional individuals and groups to effectively make change happen.
Building a coalition does not necessarily mean creating one huge meta organization. A coalition can be a loosely knit association of groups with a common interest in addressing an issue. The coalition can be a temporary mechanism for work on a specific problem, or it can serve as a model for people who would like to work collaboratively on related issues.

The most successful coalitions contain not only the “usual suspects,” but also seek out like minded allies who fall into the “strange bedfellows” category. Adding voices representing interests outside of your narrow sphere of influence is often critical. Avoid putting people in narrowly defined boxes (all churches, all businesses, all millennials, etc.). If for example, your opponent on a certain issue says that the policy they support is ‘good for business,’ having business people who can argue why that is not necessarily true will deliver your message to an audience that might otherwise simply ignore you, because they don’t believe that you understand their reality.

Coalitions can be effective when the issue in question has a need for urgent attention. This is how public policies often changed before the idea of bipartisan support became a mythical concept at the national political level. At the local level, however, the concept can still be quite practical.

One on the greatest benefits of coalitions is that they give many people who might otherwise be marginalized, a taste of the power that can come from collective civic engagement. Multiple people can be leaders within a coalition without being expected to lead the coalition. Coalitions are always a valuable opportunity for learning, growth, and leadership development.

With all of its potential benefits, it is also important to point out that forming a coalition is not always the best option. Beware when one organization says that it is “leading a coalition.” A coalition will only work when the collaborative leadership that comes from trusted relationships are it its core. A coalition is collaborative work, not one organization using the support of other groups only as a means to gain buy-in for its own agenda (see this post for more on collaboration).

Ultimately, potential coalition members will ask themselves, “what’s in it for us, and what is it going to cost?” They may come to the conclusion that the costs of collaboration outweigh the benefits to their group. But for those who see that the benefits outweigh the costs, the commitment can result in outcomes they could never have achieved on their own.

For more details on coalition building visit the following resources:

Valuing Diversity and Fighting Oppression

op·pres·sion

o-PRESH-un

noun

prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control

We sometimes think about social change movements as people coming together and speaking with one voice to demand action. Consistent expressions of common values, and a shared vision, however, can and should come in many flavors. We should not let a desire for a strong, homogeneous voice to come at the cost of the knowledge and wisdom found in diverse perspectives and stories of our allies.

Having said that, it is important to recognize that historically, people with the same adversary have often seen their alliances disintegrate due to infighting over what the late writer and civil rights activist, Audre Lorde referred to as “hierarchies of oppression.” Spending time arguing over whose situation is more oppressive only serves to strengthen the position of the oppressor. Injustice is injustice. Discrimination is discrimination.

Lorde’s, “There is no Hierarchy of Oppressions,” like Sojourner Truth’s, “Ain’t I a Woman?” decades earlier, reminds us that compartmentalizing people does not necessarily shed light on their situation. We can identify with many groups simultaneously. Injustice is injustice. Discrimination is discrimination.

It does not minimize my pain to recognize the pain of another. Both of our stories are important, and it is through sharing those stories that we will realize our common values, and goals. Injustice is injustice. Discrimination is discrimination.

“I have learned that oppression and the intolerance of difference come in all shapes and sizes and colors and sexualities; and that among those of us who share the goals of liberation and a workable future for our children, there can be no hierarchies of oppression.” – Audre Lorde, “There is no Hierarchy of Oppressions“

Revealing the Invisible

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“I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.”

– Ralph Ellison

When it comes to people being invisible, there are a couple of types of invisibility to consider. Both kinds represent significant challenges in the process of trying to effect social change.

First, there are people, or groups of people that are deliberately unrecognized. They often have few financial resources, are generally of poorer health, have less social capital, and are often considered by much more privileged people, as being less important.

The second group of “invisible” people, or groups of people are deliberately hidden. These are people of wealth and influence, whose activities allow them to rig social and political systems under the radar of most people.

The deliberately unrecognized, the unheard, and the unseen, are often at the heart of changes we are trying to create. It is important to amplify their voices, and to shed light on their realities. Awareness, education, and advocacy are key strategic goals. For example, if your city doesn’t have homeless people on street corners, and in parks, officials may deny that homelessness is something they need to be concerned about. Only by hearing the stories of people who are couch hopping, sleeping under bridges, or in cars, can you reveal the true extent of your community’s lack of affordable housing.

It is important to understand that the “invisible” are not simply needy, or victims. Giving voice to the invisible serves to uncover potential strategic approaches and assets. They are the people who often know the best solutions to overcoming the challenges that they face. Any social change effort should seek to leverage people at the margins; not as sad examples, but as full partners in planning the future.

“The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.”

– Woodrow Wilson

Revealing the invisible may not only expose unfairness and inequality, but it can also uncover something on the other end of the privilege spectrum – the so-called, power behind the throne that is working in opposition to your goals. This influence is usually purchased with large amounts of money.

These influencers are usually very careful to not actually break any laws, despite the fact that their actions may be ethically abhorrent. You may never come close to matching their financial clout, but exposing their role can, however, be beneficial. This is because the money trail points to real self-interests, as opposed to those being touted in your opposition’s misleading rhetoric. In some cases, it may be possible to boycott the source of the influencer’s income, or at least send some bad publicity their way.

Ultimately, it will probably be more effective to spend more time on revealing the realities of the deliberately unrecognized, than on exposing the deliberately hidden. That is where there is more untapped power; and it is the kind of power that money can’t buy.

Leadership and the Dunning–Kruger Effect

“Useful men, who do useful things, don’t mind being treated as useless. But the useless always judge themselves as being important and hide all their incompetence behind authority.” – Paulo Coelho

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In 1999, a couple of psychologists from Cornell University, named Kruger and Dunning, published some research findings* which essentially said that there is a tendency for unskilled individuals to overestimate their own ability, and a tendency for experts to underestimate their own ability. This incorrect self-assessment of competence became known as the Dunning–Kruger Effect. When organizing to effect change, this tendency creates unique challenges.

Over-Estimators

If someone has assumed a leadership role, the failure to recognize their own lack of skill, as well as the extent of that inadequacy, is a potential recipe for disaster. This is doubly problematic as the researchers also found that over-estimators also fail to accurately gauge skill in others.

I have written previously about emotional intelligence, and how people can develop their capacity for it. Similarly, I believe that people can train themselves to more realistically assess their abilities in a variety of skills. The fact that under-performance is accompanied by tangible evidence in the end, means that there is incentive for people to seek honest, realistic self-assessment.

Under-Estimators

The real tragedy lies with the under-estimators. Undervaluing your own abilities isn’t just sad and unfortunate on a personal level. It has an impact on group morale, commitment, productivity, and ultimately, success.

One strategy to overcome this challenge would be to use appreciative inquiry, or one-to-one conversations, to map the assets of individuals. People sometimes forget about skills and talents that they have, and require others help to uncover those assets.

If you have examples of how an individual’s over-, or under-estimating their own abilities has played out in you work, please share them in the comments below.

*Kruger, Justin; Dunning, David (1999). “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

The Fear of Being Called a Radical

“Seen from the point of view of a lie, the truth is often touted as radical.”

― Mango Wodzak, Destination Eden

One of the realities of organizing people to create social change, is the fact that there are people who would like to see change, but fear being seen as a “radical” for publicly calling for fundamentally different policies from the status quo. That fear is real, and should not be dismissed as a simple lack of commitment. The courage to act is situational.

The reluctance to be perceived as an agitator comes in part, from the branding by the media of extremism and zealotry, as ‘radical.’ It’s right-wing radicalism, and left-wing radicalism, and radical Islam . . . if somebody wants an idea to wear a black hat, they call it radical.

In reality, however, almost all change seems radical at some point. The American Revolution was instigated by radicals. A century ago, in the U.S., the idea that woman should be able to vote was considered radical. Civil rights leaders are considered radicals for insisting that we shouldn’t deny basic human rights to people based on arbitrary, human constructs such as race. Transformative change requires certain realities to be radically different.

“RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.”

― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary

Radicalism and zealotry do not inescapably go hand-in-hand. Some of the zealot’s actions (irrational violence for example) often defy logic, and frequently serve to actually undermine their own stated objectives. Rational radicalism is strategic. It is guided by logic and evidence. As Saul Alinsky said in his book, Rules for Radicals: “Radicals must be resilient, adaptable to shifting political circumstances, and sensitive enough to the process of action and reaction to avoid being trapped by their own tactics and forced to travel a road not of their choosing. In short, radicals must have a degree of control over the flow of events.”

When we look back at human rights leaders, suffragists, and the participants of great social movements in our history, we find “radical” people advocating for the militant notion that the humane thing, the fair thing, the moral thing, the ethical thing to do, was something for which they were proud to be labeled as “radical.”