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February 5 - April 11, 2022
Based in the science of emergence, it’s relational, adaptive, fractal, interdependent, decentralized, transformative. I’m applying it in facilitation and organizational development work. It unleashes more of the power of each person.
Gar Alperovitz’s
Oya Amakisi once shared with me the words of General Baker, a Detroit labor organizer and leader, who said, “You keep asking how do we get the people here? I say, what will we do when they get here?”
The politics were radical and the actions historic, but there wasn’t a sense of community ownership or engagement in the work—which meant that at a fundamental level the power dynamic wasn’t changing. The communities still come to rely on someone else to change their situation.
Because we are not investing in a shared network of resources, it is easy to let structural and ideological particularities create deep splits throughout the non-profit sphere, rendering much of our work useless.
in the direct action realm, it’s not unusual to see time and energy poured into actions that are more interesting/funny/creative than they are compelling to those we are trying to reach and/or life-changing to the communities taking action.
One indicator that things are off is when impacted communities and people of color get involved and they are put in the role of “performing the action,” for example, having their photos taken, being spokespeople, or being asked to endorse or represent work they don’t get to lead, etc., while most of the background organizing is still dominated by the folks who aren’t impacted and won’t be around long term to sustain the campaign or to be held accountable.
In a successful Ruckus action, the visions and solutions are deeper and more compelling than the injustice. (We are calling for a movement-wide shift away from action that isn’t grounded in a vision of deep systemic change, as that ultimately is a misuse of our time and energy.)
Impacted leadership (the leadership of communities directly impacted by economic and environmental injustice); Privileged support (the intentional support for impacted leadership from communities/people that can identify their privilege and want to see a rebalancing of power); Feminine leadership (not just women leaders, but leaders who shift our understanding of how power can be held).
We have experienced what it’s like to release any assumption that one person has all the skills needed to lead and support the work. That release—a huge relief to me personally—allowed us to begin to really weave together our strengths, rather than facing the limitations of relying on one leader to hold the vision, coordination, fundraising, and programmatic work of the group. It has allowed us to face our own personal limitations with transparency and curiosity, noting where we want to grow and not being afraid to ask for feedback.
“To avenge the suffering of my ancestors, to earn the respect of future generations, and to be transformed in the service of the work.”
The land speaks to me of a much longer time frame than the one my body understands. It reminds me that ours are generational fights that are passed down like legacy. The earth, in the way that it spins under our feet, changing while no one is looking, reminds me both that what we win today can be gone tomorrow, and what we lose today can be won tomorrow. The only constant is change. That is nature’s greatest lesson to me—that change is inevitable, and time is unfathomable. It means I can keep going, when all seems to fail and fall around me. Nature is the source of my faith.”
Intentional adaptation is the heart of emergent strategy. How we live and grow and stay purposeful in the face of constant change actually does determine both the quality of our lives, and the impact that we can have when we move into action together.
Often this is because we aren’t clear or committed about our dream destination, so instead of moving towards anything in particular, we are in nonstop reaction. A first question to ask ourselves is, how do we practice increasing our ease with what is? Change happens. Change is definitely going to happen, no matter what we plan or expect or hope for or set in place. We will adapt to that change, or we will become irrelevant.
This is the process of changing while staying in touch with our deeper purpose and longing.
In movement work, I have been facilitating groups to shift from a culture of strategic planning to one of strategic intentions—what are our intentions, informed by our vision? What do we need to be and do to bring our vision to pass? How do we bring those intentions to life throughout every change, in every aspect of our work?
The clearer you are as a group about where you’re going, the more you can relax into collaborative innovation around how to get there. You can relax into decentralization, and you want to.
Adaptation reduces exhaustion. No one bears the burden alone of figuring out the next move and muscling towards it.
There is an efficiency at play—is something not working? Stop. Change. If something is working, keep doing it—learning and innovating as you go.
What is easy is sustainable. Birds coast when they can.
How do we make it feel like coasting?-
As an individual, get really good at being intentional with where you put your energy, letting go as quickly as you can of things that aren’t part of your visionary life’s work. Then you can give your all, from a well-resourced place, when the storm comes, or for those last crucial miles.
So I put on Alabama Shakes. I put “Over My Head”
I am wondering where I have agency, where I am moving and where I am being moved. I keep making decisions and declarations about my life, and then that larger force deftly, elegantly adjusts me on my path.
Instability has become a defining feature of our times. In many ways, this instability is the new landscape of social struggle. It is useful to classify the economic and ecological disruptions that make up this “new normal” of instability into two groups: shocks and slides. Shocks present themselves as acute moments of disruption. These are, for example, market crashes, huge disasters and uprisings. Slides, on the other hand, are incremental by nature. They can be catastrophic, but they are not experienced as acute. Sea level rise is a slide. Rising unemployment is a slide. The rising costs of
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One of our key roles, as social movements, must be to harness the shocks and direct the slides—all towards achieving the systemic, cultural and psychic shifts we need to navigate the changes with the greatest equity, resilience and ecological restoration possible.
On Day 1, name these practices, gathered and/or developed over many months for this experiment, to the overflowing room: less prep, more presence low ego, high impact building alignment, not selling ideas relationship is the measure of our strength this will be as amazing as you are trust your own work and each other
leadership of women is non-negotiable and shifts the results, particularly in the funding world.
all change is not systems change or even political change. sometimes positive change upholds the status quo. we are not here to feel good all the time, but to do good.
remind participants that change happens at a pace relevant for the people involved—we are not ahead of or behind each other, we are in a million experiments. participants move between labs but invite them to notice if they are shifting away from something that is their responsibility.
relax under pressure! there is no form of freaking out that will make this job less challenging.
Ha!
Most of us are socialized towards independence—pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, working on our own to develop, to survive, to win at life.
The idea of interdependence is that we can meet each other’s needs in a variety of ways, that we can truly lean on others and they can lean on us. It means we have to decentralize our idea of where solutions and decisions happen, where ideas come from.
I have begun to wonder how it looks to practice complexity as a sacred path, as interdependence. Of course, whenever I think things like this, I turn to Grace Lee Boggs and find that she was there ahead of me—on the wall of her home is a sign: “Organizing is to the community what spiritual practice is to the individual.” Being a part of movements is complex work, it requires a faith.
Generosity here means giving of what you have without strings or expectations attached. Vulnerability means showing your needs.
Being seen is actually non-negotiable,
interdependence requires being seen, as much as possible, as your true self. Meaning that your capacity and need are transparent.
The easier “being wrong” is for you (the faster you can release your viewpoint), the quicker you can adapt to changing circumstances.
Adapting allows you to know and name current needs and capacity, to be in relationship in real time, as opposed to any cycle of wishing and/or resenting what others do or don’t give you.
Just at least consider that the place where you are wrong might be the most fertile ground for connecting with and receiving others.
And in a beautiful twist, being soft in your rightness, as opposed to smashing people with your brilliance, can open others up to whatever wisdom you’ve accumulated.
I’m learning that interdependence is not about the equality of offers in real time.
In an interdependent movement, with decentralized innovation and leadership—how do we respond to the gift and curse of the charismatic leader?
Lifting people up based on personality replicates the dynamics of power and hierarchy that movements claim to be dismantling.
If you are in a leadership position, make sure you have a circle of people who can tell you the truth, and to whom you can speak the truth. Bring others into shared leadership with you, and/or collaborate with other formations so you don’t get too enamored of your singular vision.
“Life is a matter of a miracle that is collected over time by moments, flabbergasted to be in each other’s presence.” —Timothy “Speed” Levitch, “Waking Life”
I have been in movement spaces for a long time, and we have a way of doing things that is so steeped in critique that I have often wondered if we would strangle movement before it could blossom.
This movement is instead making it as easy as possible to enter, no matter what passion brought you to the square.
no task is menial),
We are all learning what it means to be somebodies who shape the future, to operate at the scale of transformation.
Emergent strategy is adaptive and interdependent.
