If creating the world we want means getting people to change what they currently do, how can we get people to change?

That’s a question we hear a lot when we tell people what we’re doing at Creating the Future. We share that we are building a movement for making visionary community results the norm in social change work, rather than the exception. And the standard response is, “That sounds great. But how will you get people to change their ways?”

Consultants and funders and people involved in capacity building work all seem to live with the same frustrations. How do we get people to change?

Here’s what we’ve found about “getting people to change.”

People will change their habits if they are inspired to change.

People won’t change because you tell them to. They won’t change because it’s best practice or because that’s what other groups are doing. They won’t change if you scare them into doing it (they may DO something differently, but they won’t change how they feel about it, which I can guarantee will rear its head somewhere else, when you least expect it…).

But people will move mountains if they are inspired to do so.

So if we want to change norms, change culture, change habits, the recipe is simple:

1. Meet people where they are, with what they think they need.
2. Open the window just a crack, so they can see what’s possible beyond their comfort zone. Create the environment that inspires them and gives them the confidence to take that small step.
3. And for those early adopters who are absolutely ready to take huge leaps forward, provide the means for them to do so as well.

Think about your mission from the top down and from the bottom up. From the people who can’t wait to make massive changes, and the people who believe they just need a little tweak.

Whether it’s about eating one more helping of vegetables a day or changing food policy; about quitting smoking or banning smoking; about learning 3 new consulting tricks or transforming your practice…

How can you meet people where they are, with compassion and wisdom, and then inspire them to just take that next small step into what is possible?

An answer that has consumed my focus lately is one that doesn’t receive a lot of discussion. I hope that will soon change.

It is the fact that in this sector, everyone is an expert. Or at least that’s what we expect to be.

Most organizations that put themselves out there as “solving a problem” consider themselves experts at their work – or if they don’t, they are soon encouraged to do so. Environmental experts and human service experts and historic preservation experts and music experts.

Then there are the funders and consultants and nonprofit resource centers – all vying for who is the smartest person in the room.

And of course, while board members are not experts at the mission, they are frequently recruited for other expertise.

Experts experts everywhere.

What conditions does that assumption of expertise create in this sector? Here’s just a bit of what we’ve found.

1) An expert has the answers, and therefore takes that posture. The expert gives advice, prescribes solutions.

2) The recipient of that advice may or may not want the advice, even if they have asked for it. (Have you ever noticed how often you yourself ask for advice and then bristle when it is given? Have you ever noticed how often someone will ask YOU for advice, and when you give it, they will argue with you about why it wouldn’t work for them? Have you ever noticed how often you say or think, “Well if you didn’t want my advice, why did you ask for it?”)

3) Each of us has wisdom and experience and ideas of our own, that can be tapped to create possibilities.

4) None of us likes someone else telling us what to do. Yes, even if we have asked them for it. Just because we have confessed our weakness (hard to do) and asked for help (hard to do) doesn’t mean we will be happy about the answer!

5) This sector’s modus operandi – experts upon experts – has unwittingly created a situation of pervasive defensiveness. Walls go up. Questions go unasked. Learning and possibility stop.  Rather than “all of us working together,” we unwittingly create “us” and “them.”

The end result of this Culture of Experts is that it becomes hard to learn, easy to fail, impossible to achieve the results our communities deserve. Operating in a Culture of Experts actually makes us more vulnerable to being whipsawed by circumstances, as we sometimes have more of a stake in being right than making a difference.

Success in the Community Benefit arena doesn’t come from being the smartest and the fastest and the best. Yes, you may become the best funded organization, or the consultant with the most clients. But success in the Community Benefit world is about – well – Community Benefit! And none of us can do that on our own.

It is clear that this sector’s potential can only be reached if we link arms together to create the healthy, vibrant communities we all want. To accomplish that, many of the systems we rely upon in this sector will need to shift, from competitive systems that keep us apart to systems that encourage and nurture interconnectedness and interdependence.

And I am beginning to wonder if the assumption of expertise isn’t one of the pre-conditions to changing those systems.

After all, our assumptions and expectations guide our actions, and our actions guide our results. Without a change in assumptions, systems will not change. With so many systems (fundraising, governance, planning, etc.) continually failing to create the change we all know is possible, how many of those failures are at least in part the result of experts believing they know best for others?

Which leads me to the bigger questions:

What would it take for us to give up this notion that we funders and consultants and organizations are smarter than those with whom we are working to effect change?

What would it take for us to rejoice in learning together as equals?

What would it take for “leaders” and “experts” to be those who bring out the leadership and expertise in everyone else?

And how might we change the systems we use for doing our work, to reflect that shared wisdom, that shared learning, that shared leadership?

And it is indeed magical. After last week, I cannot help but see magic in everything around me!

Last week, in a small room papered with wisdom and passion, six of us shared our dreams for the future we want to create. We laughed and we cried and we learned. In between, as those who have taken our class know, we ate and ate some more, nourishing our bodies as we nourished our spirits.

One cannot experience our immersion course without realizing in your bones that every one of our dreams for the future of this planet is realistic, practical, doable. As I closed my eyes to sleep this weekend, I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve; the power we have to turn our dreams into reality overtook me at every turn, making me want to dance, to play, to dream…

If you are reading this in an email reader and the video does not appear, click here to see it.

Every one of these classes feels like it is a dream. For five days, we explore what it takes to create an environment where changemakers can reach for their highest potential.

Governance consultants and program evaluators, fundraising consultants and strategists – they transform before their own eyes (and ours), finding gifts that have been there all along, waiting quietly to spring into action to create the world we all want.

We do our best to model the fact that creating visionary community change is practical and doable.

That working from humility – knowing the wisdom is in the room, and learning how to listen for that wisdom – is practical and doable.

That learning to replace judgment with compassion (and learning the extent to which we do, in fact, judge) is practical and doable.

That kindness can rule not only our work, but our lives.

And that if we consultants can learn what it takes to catalyze change, our clients can learn it, and their communities can learn it – the true meaning of all of us modeling the change we want to see.

“My dreams are bursting at the seams,” says the song. Today, still high from a week where we watched “consultants” grow into their role as “visionary changemakers,” my dreams are indeed bursting at the seams.

And everywhere I look, I see ten million fireflies lighting up the world.

Have a great “lit up” Monday and a great week, all!

With love and admiration to Kim, Tesse, Debbie, Kesha and Dimitri.

For a beautiful a capella version of this song, click here.

The “continuum” is a critical component to the work we are doing at Creating the Future. If we are seeking to engage everyone doing social change work in the very highest potential of that work, that requires asking questions such as, “How do we help bring out that potential in board members? In EDs? In consultants? In funders?”

The answer lies, in part, with meeting people where they are, and then extending a hand to encourage and inspire them to reach for the potential they have had all along and simply have not known was there.

Clearly if we are going to meet people where they are, we need to understand where they are (duh!), hence my living inside these continuums (continua?) for the past month. Wherever people are along the path, we want to be able to meet them and extend that hand.

All of which leads me to a question:
What conditions do you think need to be in place for a professional in any area (ED, funder, consultant, university professor…) to seek the next level of their potential?

I’m not talking about seeking a promotion or other external validation. I’m talking about seeking something inside ourselves. Stretching, reaching, transforming. What makes someone want to take first a baby step into a new way of thinking and being? What conditions need to be in place for them to move from “thinking about it” to “trying it” to “deciding to dive in?”

If you have ever made a conscious choice to reach for the next level of what is possible inside yourself – reaching for your own next level of potential – what conditions led to that choice?

For those who have been through our classes, what conditions led first to your wanting to be there, and then to your choosing to do so? Most people who come through our classes are already doing well in their work – what conditions led to your being ok with shaking that up?

And if you have never sought the next level of your own potential (or do not think you have done so), I am curious about that as well.

As I am considering what it takes for someone to buck the trends and reach for what is lying dormant within them, waiting to be born, I would love your thoughts about what conditions need to be in place for someone to be ready to look inside and go for it.

Thanks, one and all!

On August 1, I embarked on a month of “semi-sabbatical,” writing and exploring and planning and reading.  I say “semi-sabbatical” because I only decided mid-July that the time was right.  So there are still some tasks to be done, some projects with timelines that won’t allow me to simply abandon ship.  This post is about one of those efforts.

]]> http://hildygottlieb.com/2010/08/09/building-a-program-by-engaging-community/feed/ 10 http://hildygottlieb.com/2010/06/24/coaching-vs-consulting/ http://hildygottlieb.com/2010/06/24/coaching-vs-consulting/#comments Fri, 25 Jun 2010 04:23:13 +0000 Hildy http://hildygottlieb.com/?p=2635 An interesting discussion ensued on Facebook the other day.  As I pondered a blog post that has been brewing in my mind, I asked,

“Coaches: I’m working on a list of the ways coaching is different from consulting. Any ideas / thoughts?”

I was not prepared for 18 responses, some contradicting others, all of which stemmed from the individual experience of the coach, consultant or client who was answering.

“Coaching builds learning environments; consulting claims knowledge.”
“Coaching is about guiding the person, Consulting is about guiding or managing the process.”
“Coaching is from the sidelines. Consulting might be very much in the trenches…actually doing some of the work.”
“No, consultants don’t do the work – that’s a contract laborer.”
“Coaching is telling somewhat to do, helping them do it.  Consulting is working with them to find out what to do and how to do it.”
“Consulting is about the work. Coaching is about the “person doing the work.”
“Coaching creates an environment to create new information, where the client comes up with their own processes and answers. Consulting synthesizes and frames information back to the client, where the client can then choose next courses of action.”

And while this has all certainly got my brain going in many different directions, adding fuel to my own initial impressions about the difference, I am no closer to a definitive answer.

Is consulting different from coaching? If so, what is the difference?  Coaches and consultants and clients – what has been your experience?

]]> http://hildygottlieb.com/2010/06/24/coaching-vs-consulting/feed/ 19 http://hildygottlieb.com/2010/06/06/one-tip-and-only-one-for-fixing-dysfunctional-boards/ http://hildygottlieb.com/2010/06/06/one-tip-and-only-one-for-fixing-dysfunctional-boards/#comments Sun, 06 Jun 2010 20:53:06 +0000 Hildy http://hildygottlieb.com/?p=2420 I confess that sometimes even this Pollyanna gets fed up.

I don’t get fed up with the same things as most people in this field, though. I get fed up with blame and intolerance. I get fed up with pointing fingers at symptoms, focusing and refocusing on addressing those symptoms, drilling deeper and deeper, unpacking and re-packing – and never addressing the cause of those symptoms because “That would be too hard” or because “That touchy feely big-picture stuff is not practical.”

And while this could be said about the issues our communities face (poverty, illiteracy, crime), nothing makes me as crazy as the amount of symptoms-centered blame that is leveled at boards.

We so accept that level of blame that we don’t even realize how much it has seeped into the everyday assumptions and language of the nonprofit world (and I mean nonprofit – this is deficit thinking, pure as can be).

Dysfunctional Boards
Broken boards
Boards Behaving Badly

Lists of the things Boards should do
Laments about boards not doing the lists of things they should do

Holier-than-thou “experts” talking about boards as if they were errant children needing time out
They won’t
They refuse
They’ll never change

We accept this blame-ridden conversation as the norm.  And I am fed up with that as well.

If every board in the world is a candidate for board development work, we don’t have a board problem. We have a system problem.

We have created a governance system that is impossible to do well, spiraling with minutiae and detail and shoulds and prescriptions and legalese.  We have told boards their job is to lead. And when they try to consider the big picture (which is what leadership is about) they are told, “No, your job is first and foremost to pay attention to the dollars – to legal and operational oversight.”

They join the board because they want to make a difference. We tell them it is not their job to talk about making a difference. Their job is to talk about balance sheets and personnel issues.

They get bored. They stop attending. Or worse, they do the adult equivalent of bored kids shooting spitballs – they nitpick. They micromanage. They do the million and one “acting out” things we blame them for.

Then we consultants get paid big bucks to please-oh-please fix those symptoms.

We train them. We give them manuals and worksheets and agendas.  We teach them to recruit board members – good ones this time – people who will attend, participate. We help them create policies with consequences for failing to attend these meetings that are so horrifically boring that being kicked off is almost a relief.

Except we still have board members who want to make a difference, who still have no opportunity to help make that difference, on or now off the board.

Consultants and other experts blame out of frustration.

There is a path out of that frustration.  And unless you have tried it, please don’t give me your opinion of why you don’t think it will work. Because my 10 years of experience doing precisely this tell me it is the only thing that does work.

Ask them why they don’t attend.
Ask them why they are disengaged.

Then make their meetings interesting.
Make their meetings meaningful.
Make their meetings about things that matter.

Make the first and largest part of their meetings
about creating the future of their community,
and the last and smallest portion
about monitoring the organization’s activity last month.

Give them a report of the past
Give them time for generative discussion about the future.

And then go buy more chairs for your board room. Because they’re going to start showing up.

Yesterday’s chat was about finding great clients. At the end of the chat, as folks shared their Key Learnings, I was struck by how applicable those observations would be to any relationship – not just finding great consulting clients.

Here is what folks shared there:

• Great clients start with our own mindset and approach.
• Clients as partners.
• Relationships with clients are relationships. Date the ones with potential!
• If we are authentic in sharing who we are and what we have to offer, great clients will find us
• You can “attract” great clients, but you also still have to go where they are. We will still meet and talk about vision/values.

The discussion considered the fact that “great” clients are really only great because there is a fit between our own strengths, our own passion, our own values and goals as consultants.

So what might happen if we substituted the word “donor” for client in all those observations above?  Does the same hold true?

• Great donors start with the organization’s own mindset and approach (Yes!)
• Donors as partners (Yes!)
• Relationships with donors are relationships. Date the ones with potential (Oh yes!)
• If we are authentic in sharing who we are and what we have to offer, great donors will find us (Yes again)
• You can “attract” great donors, but you also still have to go where they are. We will still meet and talk about vision/values. (Yup.)

Try it with the word employees. Or board members.

I cannot help but smile that when it comes to relationships that matter, the truth is the truth is the truth.  Has this been your experience with donors / clients / employees as well?

]]> http://hildygottlieb.com/2010/04/28/finding-great-clients-or-donors-or/feed/ 0 http://hildygottlieb.com/2010/04/01/community-driven-consulting-hits-new-zealand/ http://hildygottlieb.com/2010/04/01/community-driven-consulting-hits-new-zealand/#comments Thu, 01 Apr 2010 19:10:04 +0000 Hildy http://hildygottlieb.com/?p=1792

(Part 2: Community-Driven Tour 2010 in New Zealand. To read these posts from the beginning, head here.)

The Class
Consultant Class #8 in New Zealand.  Ten brilliant minds, all part of UNITEC’s Graduate Diploma in Not-for-Profit Management, spent 5 days re-training their brains to focus on potential and possibility (vs. problem-solving).  We learned from their brilliance, as we do in every class.

Here, though, we were also learning a new culture. We began and ended each day with a Maori blessing. We learned different expressions, different manners. We were reminded of our early days in Indian Country, where we had to get past our assumptions of sameness to find the uniqueness that might stymie us if we weren’t conscious of it.

New Zealand is known for sheep and wool, and so it was no surprise to find that just about everyone here knits. It was fun, though, to have almost the whole class knitting almost the whole time – beanies for babies living in poverty.  On the wall next to the flip chart sheets about vision and values were the knitting instructions for infant vs. toddler hats.

As happens in every class, the nurturing environment took over from Day 1.  People felt safe to explore together, to not have to be the expert, to be vulnerable. As seasoned consultants, it is rare to find a place where we can experiment, where we can feel safe to try something we haven’t done before while being honest about how insecure we feel “building the plane while we’re flying it.”  This is one of the blessings in each class we teach – the space for that vulnerable exploration. Not feeling the need to be the expert, our classes allow consultants to test things out, to confess their own concerns, their fears.  When you live by your wits and your wisdom, having such a safe place is a gift more precious than gold.

And wow did this group practice. There was barely a day when anyone sat out the opportunity to practice new approaches to facilitating social change. They imagined upcoming planning sessions with foundations and international development organizations and huge faith-based programs. They listed the assets and mapped the degrees of separation of small grassroots disability groups and national healthcare facilities.  At every turn we were in another community, often in another country.

Then they focused inward, reconsidering the content in some of UNITEC’s core classes, working through sticky issues, finding new ways to think about everything.  In each case, the setting allowed for exploration and discovery. In each case, things clicked into place, allowing participants to pre-think together. It was a gift to be part of their learning process, and to simultaneously learn from their wisdom.

At the end of the last day of class, our students returned the gift and then some, handing us a basket filled with goodies.  A book about the poet Rainer Rilke (into which I have been diving every night before bed). A set of coasters shaped to represent the Koru – the unfurling fern frond that is a common cultural symbol around the country, representing rebirth and possibility.

While we shouldn’t have been surprised, we were indeed surprised to find a newly-knitted hat for Dimitri and a newly-knitted cowl for me. It turns out we were among the “babies” they had been knitting for all week long.

And then they sang for us.

Aly had rushed home during lunch to grab her ukelele, and together the group sang to honor us with a traditional Maori blessing, Te Aroha. They then went beyond that tradition, to sing something from our own home – a tune so thoughtfully chosen to represent not just America, but specifically our home in the American West. Yes, the group we had taught all week about busting out of traditional ways of thinking – that group sang us Don’t Fence Me In.

Auckland
All this happened in Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand. Our hotel, the Waldorf St. Martin  (actually a “serviced apartment” that was high on amazing facilities and low-to-the-point-of-surly on service…) was a 5-minute walk from the classroom. Ok, it was 5 minutes downhill to the classroom, and about 15 minutes back up the hill.

The hills are just one of the many facts of life in Auckland. Another is the fact that women are almost more into shoes in Auckland than in NYC. It is one thing to consider walking the flat pavement of NY in gorgeous shoes; it is quite another to see women walking the hills of Auckland in fabulously sexy 4″ heels. But I digress…

Our apartment was on the 17th floor, and we took every opportunity to sit on the balcony and shoot – the full moon, the changing colors of the light on the Auckland Museum, the bay, the clouds, the sunrise.

The coffee shop next door  – Sierra Cafe – became our lifeline.  I confess to filling a buy-10-get-1-free card in the time we were there. New Zealanders drink their coffee strong – espresso is the rule, not the exception. Any attempts to wean myself off caffeine in 2010 went out the window by Day 2.  At Sierra Cafe, though, great coffee was matched by great pastries. I hold their white brownie and their cranberry / white chocolate muffin almost entirely responsible for the 6 pounds I gained on this trip.

Each night after an exhilarating and yet exhausting day of teaching, Dimitri and I would walk up and down the hills in search of dinner. One cannot find better food anywhere, and tons of it.  We ate Thai and Korean and Chinese. We ate wonderful French crepes. We even ate at the Brooklyn Bar – breakfast served any time.

Our class was over on Sunday night. By Wednesday, we had moved to the Waipuna Resort, 15 minutes outside downtown Auckland, where thanks to the persistence of Garth, Margy-Jean and Aly, I was to keynote the National Not-for-Profit Conference.

To read the next post in this series – Learning from Maori Culture - click here.

Photo Credits: HG & DP (fern is from a postcard)

We were also honored last week, when 2 Immersion Course veterans, Randa Cleaves and Bonnie Koenig – each seasoned consultants with decades of experience – spent an hour answering questions about the course and the difference it has made in their lives.

We have turned that Q&A into a podcast, and you can hear it here. While I am taken away from the blog with this week’s amazing group of change agents, I hope the podcast will encourage you to push the envelope of your own potential to be the change you want to see.