In developing our plans for the next 12-24 months, we started with that vision of a peaceful, vibrant world and reverse engineered the cause-and-effect conditions that would ultimately lead to that vision.  The following are among the immediate conditions we want our work to create:

* There must be ample proof that it is not only possible but practical (and simple) for “nonprofit” Community Benefit organizations to create visionary community transformation
* There must also be proof that functioning according to The Pollyanna Principles is a practical way for organizations to do their work.
* Social Change agents must be able to easily learn about and engage with the principles that undergird visionary community improvement. They must be aware that there are more effective options than “the way we’ve always done it.”
* Those who are ready to take the step of transforming their work must have access to teachers and mentors who can help them do so.
* Individuals who are on the path to creating transformation must have a place to learn together and support each other in their work.

To create these conditions, we have three major goals (and a lot of smaller goals / objectives) for the next 12-24 months. Those three include
• A Demonstration Project
• Expand Education Programs
• Engage and Expand the Conversation re: Creating Visionary Community Results

Demonstration Project: The Community-Driven Institute!
Over the last 2 years, we have kept an eye out for demonstration projects that could provide evidence of the results that happen when work is rooted in The Pollyanna Principles. The more we sought such projects, though, the more it has become clear that the first demonstration project is the Institute itself!

As the Institute separates from its nurturing incubator in our consulting firm (ReSolve, Inc.), we will be doing the kinds of things every organization does in the beginning – building a board, applying for tax exempt status.  We will also be doing the kinds of things strong organizations do throughout their whole lives – ongoing learning and exploring about effective governance, building sustainability (financial and otherwise), and all the rest of what it takes to run the day-to-day of a community benefit organization.

The difference at the Community-Driven Institute is that we will be basing that work as consciously as possible on The Pollyanna Principles, determining at every turn what it means to walk that talk.

For example, what does it mean to build open, transparent, engaged governance?  To recruit transparently? To build bylaws by engaging the wisdom of others? To make choices and operate by engaging transparently?  To develop resources and form collaborations transparently?

How do we ensure our vision and values are infused in every action and decision, large and small, this new organization will make?

Over the next several years then, we will be exploring all our organizational infrastructure choices and actions openly, here on the blog and elsewhere. We will begin in the next week or so, engaging conversation about the decision-points we encounter in filing for our tax exemption – asking for advice and wisdom from the very people who will be not only benefiting from our work, but some of whose taxes will, in part, be supporting our work!

Similarly, we will engage conversation about how to build the board, about how to fund the Institute’s work (currently it is being supported entirely by Dimitri and me – certainly not a plan for sustainability in the long term OR the short term!). We will engage dialogue about changing the name of the Institute – a huge effort in the next few months, as the current name doesn’t come close to describing the work we are doing to engage this sector in creating the future of the world.

Being our own demonstration project infuses every action we take, no matter how seemingly “internal” or “unrelated to the mission” with the knowledge that those actions indeed have consequences for our mission.  In reality, that is already true for each and every organization in each and every community. We are just vowing to be as conscious as possible and to transparently engage beyond our “4 walls” as much as possible about how our vision and values influence that seemingly “non-mission” work.

If our being a case study helps others learn what it looks like in practice to aim all our work at the difference we want to make in the world, it will be well worth the effort.

Expanded Education Projects
With our classes for consultants and MSO leaders already underway, we will be expanding the Institute’s learning opportunities to other leverage points in the system. Over the next year, those points will include:

• Consultants. We will continue to teach consultants and MSO leaders. Teaching the sector’s “Johnny Appleseeds” continues to be the fastest way to spread the mission.

• Social Entrepreneurs. This year we will be developing an immersion course for social entrepreneurs, one of the fastest growing areas of this sector’s work.  Social entrepreneurs are passionate about creating visionary change, often employing innovative methods for program delivery.  However, in most cases they are using the same infrastructure systems for governance, planning, and resource development that have proven to preclude the very change they want to create!  As a result, most social entrepreneurs are quietly struggling -  frustrated at what it takes to run an organization, frustrated that their ideas are not immediately springboarding into incredible community results, and all the while thinking they should know better.

• On-the-Ground Learning Communities. As word of the Institute’s work spreads, and as more people read The Pollyanna Principles and want to put that work into practice, it is becoming clear there is a need for supportive learning communities – not just virtually, but on the ground.  These learning communities will convene and leverage the passion of otherwise disparate individuals, who believe they are alone in their belief that visionary change is not only possible, but practical and happening. By convening and supporting these groups of passionate community leaders, can you imagine what they will accomplish?

Engage Broader Dialogue / Change the Conversation in the Sector

I’ll be honest: the old drumbeat of blame and shoulds has become almost unbearable. The battle cries for more rules, more regulation.  Huge publicity for competitive prizes coming at the same time as huge outcries about the need for collaboration. More checklists and standards and rankings of things that create no impact in communities but create stronger, more competitive, individual walled organizations.  The myth that if we have effective organizations we will necessarily have great communities…

It is time that a new conversation become the pervasive conversation. The conversation about what is possible for our communities and how practical it is to achieve it. Conversations about how to build upon our interconnectedness, how to identify and build upon our assets and strengths. Conversations about the vibrant healthy world we are creating, and the vibrant healthy aspects of the world we are part of right now.

The goal of igniting and keeping a fire under a new conversation will include ongoing discussion at this blog, as well as the development of other blogs. It will include social media. It will include speaking engagements and writing in mainstream publications.

And it will include encouraging other bloggers and speakers and writers to also aim at what is positive and affirming and working well in this sector full of individuals who care passionately about our world. (Because if it’s just us, we will not get very far!)

The goal will also include a new means for engaging the dialogue – a new website for the CDI is clearly long overdue.

But beyond that, we are extending a challenge to the world, to ensure that every group working to “change the world” has the web presence it needs to do so.  In our minds, one cannot separate the dialogue from the tools for dialogue, as those who don’t have the tools will continue to be excluded from the conversation.

And so we will simultaneously be
• Re-working our own CDI website to include considerably more avenues for conversation;
• Engaging that conversation elsewhere both online and off-line;
• Carrying the torch for an open source platform to ensure every group in the world has easy access to creating an engaged web presence.

*****

That’s it for our 2010-2012 goals.  For each of these goals, you will hear more soon.  For now, we hope you will share your thoughts about all or part of what we are presenting here.  And we look forward to having you be part of this amazing journey.

So hold onto your hats, kids. The fun is just getting started!

The work we did in 2008 made all we accomplished in 2009 possible.  It was 2008 when we developed and taught “Creating the Future of Your Community” as a graduate level university class.  That was also the year we gathered experts from across the US and Canada to help us develop the Consultants Curriculum at the Institute.  It was 2008 when we traveled the breadth of the continent to spread the mission that creating visionary community change is not just possible – it is practical and doable. (In one trip alone we put 9,000 miles on the car in 3 months across + 20 states and 1 Canadian province).  And let’s not forget that 2008 was the year I wrote (and rewrote 3 complete times) The Pollyanna Principles.

We didn’t think anything could top what we accomplished in 2008. Boy were we wrong!  Herewith, the WOW List from 2009.

Goal #1 and Results
Goal #1: Raise awareness that creating visionary community and global change is not just possible, but practical and doable.  Use every means available (convening, teaching, writing, social media) to engage those who are ready to begin walking the path to creating visionary social change.

Accomplishments:
The list of accomplishments on this goal is so long, we got tired just typing it all!

We published The Pollyanna Principles!

Simultaneously launched the book and the Community-Driven Institute
• Teleclass “Introduction to Community-Driven Consulting attended by 50 people
• Interviews / Reviews in over a dozen online & print publications, including a “life-changing” review at CharityChannel
• Created Facebook page for the book
• Created Facebook group for CDI
• Created a Wikipedia page for the book
• Great launch discussion at Facebook
• +100 people attended launch event in Prescott

Produced the video Introduction to the Pollyanna Principles: Viewed in 10 minute segments by almost 3,600 people on YouTube. Another + 400 people viewed the full-length video on Blip TV.

Arranged 6 week tour of New Zealand / Australia, including conference keynote, University lecture, week-long consultant immersion course, and community-based workshops (March & April 2010).

National School Boards Association
• Keynoted awards lunch at NSBA annual conference. Topic: “School Districts as Catalysts for Community Success”
• Article in American School Boards Journal: “School Districts as Catalysts for Community Success”
• MORE than makes up for the plagiarism event that led to all this!!!

Social Media successes
• Spearheaded, developed and facilitating monthly Twitter chat for consultants to Community Benefit organizations (#NPCons).
• Developed #NPCons website for that chat.
• Initiation and ongoing facilitation of the CDI discussion group at Facebook.
• Doubled blog visits from EOY 2008 to EOY 2009. Twitter followers grew from 79 in December 2008 to almost 2700 and cited as “highly influential” in December 2009. Other social media stats similarly significant (Facebook, LinkedIn, web visits at www.CommunityDriven.org, etc.)

Built incredible relationships with individuals throughout the sector / around the world, to engage dialogue / build the message. Those relationships led to:
• Facilitated 2 week-long online discussions on behalf of Skoll Foundation – one on Boards as Leaders and another on Issue Fatigue
• Facilitated 2 live online discussions for the Chronicle of Philanthropy – one on Doing More With Less in Hard Times (technically December of 2008 – and man did I hate that title!) and another on Board Recruitment
• Quoted as governance expert in New York Times

Engaged dialogue at home in Tucson!
One of the nice things about building the Institute this year was that we got to spend more time in Tucson than we normally do (and 2010 will immediately have us back on the road!).  Here is some of what we accomplished here at home this year:
• 65 people attended governance workshop – in the desert in the middle of summer!!
• Produced DVD from that workshop, for use in Consultant Immersion Course
• Produced YouTube clips from that workshop – total viewings: almost 600 in 2 months
• Developed and facilitating monthly Boards & Governance Learning Community in Tucson
• Participating in ongoing local discussions re: building an MSO in Tucson
• Facilitated discussions for Tucson Pima Arts Council re: “What Can We Accomplish Together that We Can’t Accomplish Individually?”

Goal #2 and Results
Goal #2: Use demonstration projects to prove that visionary change is both possible and practical.

Accomplishments:
We spent much of 2009 discussing possible demonstration projects.

In some cases, we began and/or continued work in areas with the potential to grow into demonstration projects. The two most salient were community foundations with great potential for changing the modus operandi of how we fund community change:
• Consulting on vision-based strategy and organizational sustainability for Dalia Association, the Palestinian Community Foundation.
• Facilitation of vision and values discussions with Nebraska Community Foundation

Exploratory discussions also grew from other work, most notably the keynote and article written for the National School Boards Association.  (Project: How might Community-Driven Governance apply to the work of an elected body, where each individual believes he/she was elected to uphold his/her own vision/values rather than work towards shared vision/values?)

Lastly, the project that received most of our attention was one about which I blogged back in November – building Community-Driven Management Support Organizations. Towards that end, our January 2010 immersion course is exclusively for leaders in MSO’s. We have had numerous conversations with leaders of state associations of “nonprofit organizations” and with MSO leaders around the world. And we traveled to discuss the possibility of developing a Community-Driven MSO in cities such as Pittsburgh and in Lincoln, Nebraska.

As you will see in tomorrow’s installment, building Community-Driven Management Support Organizations will likely be the demonstration project we develop in our next plan.

Goal #3 and Results
Goal #3: Develop curriculum and teach those who are ready to apply this immediately to their work, creating ongoing supportive learning communities as part of that process.

Accomplishments:
Wow did we ever accomplish this goal!  In 2008, a group of top consultants from across the US and Canada spent 5 days with us, helping to develop the first curriculum for the Institute – the immersion course for consultants.  In 2009, we accomplished the following:

• Developed / refined syllabus, scheduled & coordinated back-end and taught 4 classes.
• Developed the role of “Seasoned Participant” as part of the ongoing path to embodying the Pollyanna Principles in a consultant’s work
• Post-session monthly conference calls: well-attended, generative, insightful, energizing.
• Created a video showing the power of the Consultants curriculum.
• Consultant results in their own communities have been remarkable. (Many are documented in the video. Evaluation metrics are being developed now to document and report these results, especially compared to the conditions we intend those courses to affect.)
• Developed a blog specifically for Community-Driven Consulting
• Discussions / planning for other phases of the curriculum, specifically pathways for moving beyond “doing” this work, where consultants transform to think and “be” as Catalysts for Social Change
• Consultants course has been consistently attended by consultants with 20 and 30 years of experience, seeking to transform their work from “consulting” to “catalyzing community change.” In each case, the most seasoned of consultants talk about being “transformed” by the classes, with the transformation changing not just their consulting, but often everything about the way they live their lives.

In addition to the powerful results of the immersion courses, we have begun bringing Community-Driven curricula to college level “Nonprofit Management” courses.  In 2009, we began working with Professor Angela Eikenberry at the University of Nebraska Omaha, to develop a syllabus that moves beyond simply using The Pollyanna Principles as text, and instead actually models the principles in the very structure of the course.

Lastly, in 2009 we began an effort to engage Nonprofit Technology leaders to explore the development of an open source interface to address all the web needs of any organization.  The goal is to ensure that technology for creating websites and blogs, online classrooms and libraries, online communities and forums, and any other online education and engagement need – would be available for FREE for ALL organizations EVERYWHERE.  (While individual components may already be available, they are not easily integrated without tech savvy that is sorely lacking in the majority of organizations. This not only severely limits their success in engaging those who can help their mission; it limits their ability to participate in supportive learning communities and online education experiences.)

That’s it for our goals and results for 2009.

In 2010, the Community-Driven Institute will move out of the nest we created through our consulting firm, and spread its wings as its own tax exempt organization. And when that happens, we can barely imagine the possibilities that lie ahead.

We know in the core of our being that the only thing stopping this sector from changing the world is that current systems preclude that change.  Our goal as we move forward in developing the Institute is therefore simple: change those systems and aim this sector at its highest potential – making our world a healthy, vibrant, resilient, humane, peaceful place for all of us.

Unless something is physically impossible, it is possible. Join us tomorrow as we share what we will be doing in 2010 to turn the “possible” into the “practical” and “doable” and “achievable.”

Developing the Institute has taught us (and continues to teach us) that we can accomplish vastly more if we are transparent in the work we do – even the internal work of planning.

And so this week, we will share with you our plans, and ask for your guidance as we start to immediately move those plans forward.

First, though, we want to share with you last year’s plan – both the plan and the results. We share this for a number of reasons. First, we want to be clear that we practice what we teach.  The plan you will see unfold in the next several days is no different from any we have facilitated over the years.

In addition, we want to show yet another case study of what such a plan looks like in action. You can see that this is a plan for aiming the work of this whole sector at what is possible, rather than aiming our work at what is wrong.

And lastly, we are excited to share the incredible results such a vision-based plan created and is continuing to create.

The Plan

When we created our first Impact Plan back in 2007, we used the same reverse engineered approach we teach.  We started with the end result in mind, and worked backwards to develop our 2-year goals.

The ultimate vision was the same one we all want – a peaceful, healthy, compassionate, resilient, vibrant world.

After reverse engineering the cause-and-effect conditions that would ultimately lead to that vision, the following are among the most immediate conditions that would need to be put into place:

• Social Change agents must be able to easily learn about and engage with the principles that undergird visionary community improvement.
• There must be ample proof that it is not only possible but practical (and simple) for “nonprofit” Community Benefit organizations to create visionary community transformation
• There must also be proof that functioning according to The Pollyanna Principles is practical for organizations as well.
• Those who are ready to take the step of transforming their work must have access to teachers and mentors who can help them do so.
• Individuals who are on the path to creating transformation must have a place to learn together and support each other in their work.

As we worked this plan 2 years ago, back at the end of 2007, we established the following 2-year goals as our first steps in establishing those conditions throughout the Community Benefit Sector.

#1: Raise awareness that creating visionary community and global change is not just possible, but practical and doable.  Accomplish this by convening, teaching, writing, and engaging those who are ready – by telling stories of what had already been accomplished, and urging others to accomplish similar results as their own proof.

#2: Use demonstration projects to prove that visionary change is both possible and practical.

#3: Develop curriculum and teach those who are ready to apply this immediately to their work, creating ongoing supportive learning communities as part of that process.

The results of that plan have been beyond anything we could have imagined.  I’ll share those results with you tomorrow, to lay the groundwork for the plans we have drafted for 2010 and beyond. (Update: That post is online here.)

We look foward to your being part of this adventure, because that is just what this is – an adventure in the world of what is not only possible for our communities, but what is practical and achievable.  See you tomorrow!

Readers here dedicate much of their lives to making a difference, whether as their full time employment or their seemingly full time volunteering.   So that is my gift to you – 3 guaranteed steps to making that difference and changing the world.

No, I’m not exaggerating or outright lying (or even delusional).  If you follow these three steps, you will make a difference, guaranteed.

Step 1) Believe it is possible.
Yes, it sounds simple.  But if you don’t believe with every fiber of your being that you can make a visionary difference in your community – well, then you can’t.

Unless something is physically impossible, it is possible. Believe in your bones that you can make your community a healthy, vibrant, humane, resilient place to live, and you can.

Once you believe it is possible, the next step is to…

Step 2) Aim at what is possible.
Aiming is about planning. As you create your annual plans (or even your weekly plans), ask, “What do we want to be different in the community we serve, because of the work we are doing?”  Create plans that aim directly at making that difference.

Most “strategic” plans are actually reactive – reacting to either internal or external circumstances.  “Our community is having X problem. What can we do to help?”

Instead of reacting, aim your plans at where you want to be. Then reverse engineer what it will take to achieve that. Create your annual goals from that reverse engineered process.

With those goals in place, the last step is to…

Step 3) Use systems that help you achieve what is possible.
In addition to refocusing your planning systems, make sure all the rest of your organizational systems are aiming you at what’s possible.

Are your board systems focusing all the board’s work on the difference your board members want to make in the community? Or are you using board systems that ignore “making a difference,” focusing mostly on means (money, HR, etc.) over ends?

Do your resource development systems build upon the strengths of others already doing similar work to you? Or do those systems reinforce that those groups are your “competition?”

Do your program evaluation systems measure the degree to which you are changing conditions in your community?  Or do they measure whatever you think the funder will approve?

If your systems are not helping you achieve the difference you want to make in your community, get new systems.  Really.

That’s all there is to it.

• Believe it is possible to create the future you want for your community.
• Aim everything you’ve got at making that difference.
• And make sure you are using systems that support you in making that difference (rather than fighting you at every step).

It is possible to create a healthy, vibrant, resilient, humane, peaceful world, simply because it is not impossible.  So that is my gift to you – steps for moving beyond “possible” and on towards “practical and doable.”

Your gift to the rest of us will be putting those steps into motion, and creating the world we all want.

For detail about systems aimed at making a difference, read The Pollyanna Principles.

Photo credit: NASA

If we want to create a healthy, vibrant, compassionate, resilient future for our communities and our world, strength-based work is not enough.

I know that’s stepping on a lot of toes, but hear me out.

Strength-based / asset-based work is seen in various places.  It is seen in community engagement efforts, to engage folks in solving their own problems.  It is seen in the counterbalance of “Yes, we did a needs assessment because the funder wanted it, but we also did an asset map to assess our strengths.” It is seen in the battle cry to not just look at clients and communities as a pile of needs, but a pile of strengths to address those needs.

All this is good stuff.  Heck, I even included the need for building on our strengths as Pollyanna Principle #5! As Jody Kretzmann of the Asset-Based Community Development Institute says when he speaks about a glass being half empty or half full, “When we consider only needs, we are considering only the useless part of the glass.”

That said, there is a gap that focusing on strengths cannot fill. When we use strengths to solve people’s problems – to help stabilize a homeless family or to eliminate crime from a neighborhood – our best possible outcome is that we will eliminate that problem.

And while yes, we indeed want to solve those problems, when all we do is fix what’s not working, we are limiting our potential. We are failing to reach for what is possible, because what is possible goes beyond just eliminating harmful circumstances. What is possible is – well – everything we can dream of!

We Accomplish What We Hold Ourselves Accountable For
and
We are Creating the Future, Right Now, Whether We Do So Consciously or Not

As the first two of the Pollyanna Principles note, creating visionary change in our communities and our world requires that we hold ourselves accountable for aiming at positive, powerful, visionary end results.

And that’s why strength-based work is not enough.  Strength-based work focuses on the means we use – tapping on the strengths every individual and every community has to create its own future.  But strength-based work towards marginal goals will still only take us so far.

The key is in the future we hold ourselves accountable for creating, for an individual client, for a community, for the world.

If we hold ourselves primarily accountable for getting homeless people back on their feet, that is where we will aim our strengths. And that is what we will continue to accomplish, over and over again.

If, however, we hold ourselves primarily accountable for creating an equitable society where not only does homelessness not exist, but everyone has the opportunity to reach for their own highest potential, then that is where we will aim our strengths. And along the way to that end goal, we will indeed get homeless individuals back on their feet.

I cannot guarantee we will achieve the equitable society imaged in the second example.  But I can guarantee that if we do not aim for it, we will absolutely not attain it. We will continue to fight poverty, fight drug use, fight terrorism – fight whatever sadness it is our mission to fight.

Try This
Question 1: Today, for every need you identify (in a client, in your organization, in your community, in your country, in our world), ask this question:

What is the best possible outcome here? For whom?

Question 2: Just by asking that question, what might change about your approach to the work you do?

If you have not already taken the first step in aiming at what is possible – for your clients, your organization, your community AND for yourself – The Pollyanna Principles can take you there.

This is an organization with the potential to accomplish such incredible work – the community could be an astoundingly different place, simply because this organization exists.  Their mission is unlike any other organization in town.  And they have considerable strengths to build upon.

And yet the organization’s leaders have all but squandered its considerable strengths.  They have done mediocre work because the work could easily get funded.  And they have so completely ignored the difference they could make in the community, that now their only hope is a group of past leaders who are gathering to determine the organization’s fate.

My advice to my colleague was simple: Blow it up and start over. Or at least assume that is what you have done as you do your planning.

When we plan to save an existing organization, we dive right into problem-solving tactics. How can we ensure it survives financially? How will we find better board members?  What programs are salvageable? And etc.

However, when we plan as if we had blown it up and started over, we invite the opportunity to ask very different questions.

• If the organization didn’t exist, and we were starting from scratch, what success would we be aiming at? What would the community look like if we were 100% successful?

• What conditions would the organization be seeking to change in our community?

• What kinds of programs might we build to begin changing those conditions?

• Who should we engage as we ask and answer these questions?  Whose lives could be affected by the work we are considering?

• How would we know if we were successful at changing those conditions?  What might be good indicators?

• Who else is doing similar work? Who could we partner with to make this happen?

From there, we can identify the strengths upon which we can rebuild.  From there, we can identify the values we want to always uphold as we do our work.  From there, we can engage others in the quest to build a better community by rebuilding the organization.

Creating concrete plans to achieve our highest potential for impact is something each of us can do with everything we are working on, whether or not your work is in disarray.

• Organizations that are not falling apart can create concrete plans to reach for their own highest potential – the highest level of success they can imagine creating in their communities.

• The same goes for us as individuals.  We, too, can envision our own highest potential and create concrete plans to work toward that success.

And the secret to all this? In the end, we don’t need to blow it up at all!  Just aim at what is possible, identify the strengths that can help you get there, and start walking.

The Evidence

We’ve established that Problem-Solving solves neither complex organizational problems nor complex social problems.  And we’ve posited that the only thing that CAN solve such problems is to look beyond the problem – beyond “zero” – to a positive state, and to work backwards to create the path that will lead to that affirmative state.

Having a visionary, positive, idealistic end goal is not touchy-feely mumbo-jumbo. It is as simple and practical as math – aiming for something positive beyond zero, rather than aiming at or below zero.

So here’s some proof.

First, Examples of Real Vision-Based, Reverse-Engineered Plans
To see what the reverse engineering process looks like in action, check out this community-wide plan to ensure families are financially secure.

Second, A Wonderful Video
In the very first words she speaks in this video, Nelsa Curbelo says, “My work is to promote peace.”

She does that work on streets where gangs are the rule – where goals might more likely be to “end gang violence” and such.

Indeed, gang violence is being reduced. As the video notes, “rival gangs have formed truces, turned in their weapons and have started working together to rebuild the community.” They have solved the problem on the way to something powerful, something affirmative, something whole.

Quoting from the video, the words sound as if they had come straight from The Pollyanna Principles:

“The opposite of violence isn’t non-violence; it’s power. When one has moral power, power of conviction, the power to do good, one doesn’t need violence.

“There is a power, which is not a power over other people, or an authoritarian power… the power of service… the power to build life.

“Flowers don’t grow from diamonds, they grow in the mud. From these kids who are considered the scum of humanity, the mud, the best things can be born. A different world is born when they are the change-makers.

Which Brings Us to The Pollyanna Principles
The Pollyanna Principles contains three full case studies showing how practical vision-based planning is. It shares stories of results. And it shares an inside look at the steps to getting beyond zero.

And in the Shameless Plug Department, if you buy the book and the DVD, you’ll get a discount you can’t get anywhere else!

I hope this series has inspired you to try a different approach to planning next time. No more problem-solving. No more miring ourselves in what is not working about today.  Let’s tether our plans to the future we DO want to create, and start walking the path to creating that future.

Many thanks to Pam Fox Rollin and the Global Women’s Leadership Network for the heads-up about Nelsa Curbelo’s work in Ecuador.

Photo Credit: Dimitri Petropolis

This is Part 2 of this post. If you have not read Part 1, you will find that here.

Reverse Engineering the Future We DO Want
There is something that DOES work to solve the large, systemic problems our organizations and our communities face today. And that is to aim our efforts out beyond “zero” – out beyond just solving our problems – and to instead solve those problems as one among many steps towards creating something positive.

What works is to aim at the positive, affirming future we want to create, and then reverse engineer that future.

Rather than tethering our efforts to what we do NOT like about today, reverse engineering begins by tethering our plans to the future we DO want. The process then consciously considers the cause-and-effect steps that will work backwards to create the path to that future.

This is not about predicting possible scenarios or aiming at pie-in-the-sky fantasies. It is instead about asking the most realistic of questions: “What has to happen (cause) for X to be the result (effect)? And what has to happen before that can happen? And what before that?”

Along the way, we will link arms with anyone who wants the same thing we want – some who share our organization’s mission, and some who are seemingly far outside its scope. We will consider all the different cause-and-effect steps we can think of. And when something unforeseen intervenes, we will continue to keep walking in the direction of our dream.

There are so many benefits to vision-based planning, the most obvious being that those plans actually work!  However the part that always brings me the greatest joy as a facilitator is that unlike problem-solving plans, vision-based planning starts at the point where everyone agrees.

That is just the opposite of problem-solving plans!  Because those plans begin with today, they start with everything we bring to the table right then – our fears, our baggage, our turf issues, our political postures and positions, our sense of scarcity. With all those personal hurdles to get past before we can even consider finding points of agreement, is it any wonder that planning sessions can become contentious?

However, when we begin the discussion at the future we want to create, we are beginning at the point where we all agree.  We all want vibrant, healthy, resilient, compassionate places to live. Anyone imagining such a future does so with a smile.

From that place of agreement, as we step backwards through all the cause-and-effect preconditions to that future, we continue to agree.  By the time we arrive at a point of disagreement, our expectation is that we will find a win-win path to our common goal.

As I noted in the video, we reverse engineer everything we do in our lives, from getting to the airport on time, to figuring out what time we have to leave the office to get our kids to soccer.

It is time, then, that we in the Community Benefit Sector stop seeking to narrowly fix our organizations and our world. It is time we stop seeking to end poverty and disease (and organizational dysfunction).

It is time we start aiming at creating an equitable, peaceful world.

Once we do that, we will find a thousand inter-related ways to end suffering along the way.

(Part 3 concludes this series with examples of what this approach looks like in action – complete with a video! You can find that here.)

Reverse engineering the future is simple and comprehensive. Learn more in The Pollyanna Principles.

The War on Drugs. The War on Poverty. The War on Illegal Immigration.

Fixing a dysfunctional board. Team-building to boost employee morale.

What do all these things have in common?

If you answered, “None of them have solved the problem,” you would be right.  Decades of fighting drugs, poverty, illegal immigration; decades of trying to fix “the problem with boards,” or any other organizational problem – if these problems had been solved, we wouldn’t still be hearing about new efforts to fix them!

Yes, an individual user has gotten off drugs. An individual organization has become financially solid. An individual single mom has raised herself and her family out of poverty.  But overall, the problems these initiatives have sought to solve are all still with us, leading the most jaded among us to just give up.

“Boards will never change.”
“The poor will always be among us.”
“Employees anymore just don’t care.”

Problem-Solving Doesn’t Solve Problems
There are many reasons problem-solving does not solve large systemic problems.

For one thing, what we call “problem-solving” is really symptom-solving.  Drug use is not the end problem but a symptom of something larger.  The same is true of illegal immigration, of employee morale.

Yet we continue to problem-solve narrowly, sometimes myopically.  We take problems out of the larger context that created them, addressing them in a vacuum that ignores all the interdependent and interconnected issues that create and maintain that problem.

Sometimes we create these narrow “solutions” because they are all we can wrap our minds around.  Or because the rest is outside our mission.  Or because there is no funding or political will to do more than that.

And sometimes those narrow solutions spring from well-intentioned “Eureka” moments by folks who truly believe they have found the answer.  (The latest poverty-fighting example being micro-lending.)

By definition, problem-solving is reactive. As we move forward in those reactive plans, new circumstances arise for which we did not plan.  We then react to those circumstances, often entirely scrapping the old plans to fit this new information.

It should therefore be no surprise that the law of unintended consequences seems to negate virtually every problem-solving step we take. As we try to predict what might happen, things change before our eyes. When we throw up our arms and decide to just do something – because doing “something”has to be better than doing nothing – that “something” fails to hit the mark.

And the cycle of “things will never change” and “we’ll never be able to do enough” continues.

The Problem with Problem-Solving
The real problem for those of us doing Community Benefit work, though, is that we aim at problem-solving as if it were the holy grail.  The ultimate, almost whispered Pollyanna-ish goal is to dare to dream of ending poverty, ending disease, ending misery and suffering.

And while those dreams are admirable, they are zero-sum dreams.

Grade school math tells us that eliminating a negative does not achieve something positive.  -1+1 does not equal a positive number; it equals zero.

Ending poverty. Ending hunger. Ending homelessness.
Ending drug use. Ending illegal immigration.
Ending board apathy. Getting boards to stop micromanaging. Finally meeting our budget.

When we are problem-solving, the best result we are aiming for is zero.

BUT wait, there’s more!

Because we assume we will never reach our ultimate goal (ending poverty), we create incremental plans, hoping to “increase our ability to meet the demand for food boxes by 50% over the next year.”

The result, then, is that problem-solving is a reactive, incremental approach that at best aims at zero as its final goal, and more often aims below zero as its best possible outcome.

So – now that we know what doesn’t work, what will work?  Find out in Part 2!

As we prepare for next week’s official launch of The Pollyanna Principles, I’ve been using the Possibility Journal I started last week to address every task on my to do list and every meeting in my schedule. While it has been insanely busy getting ready for the launch, that one step has made every task more joyful than I could have imagined. Every task has resulted in something beyond any of our expectations.

As I have wondered what it is that has created those off-the-charts results, I am realizing that focusing on possibility is just plain practical. Why practical? It addresses a question so simple I smacked myself in the head for not realizing it sooner:

If the devil is in the details, why is that where we start most conversations?

Isn’t that something? The details – solutions to today’s problems as well as the baggage we bring to those discussions – that is the point at which we all disagree, the point at which our fears kick in, the point at which we are thinking about how this will affect ME and MY ORGANIZATION and MY CLIENTS.

On the other hand, our desires for what is possible in the future are where we all agree.

We all want our communities to be safe and thriving. We all want our own lives to be safe and thriving. We want life to be healthy, vibrant, robust, humane.

That is what my Possibility Journal did for me. By addressing each task by asking, “What is possible here?” I was skipping right past “the devil” and heading FIRST to the point where we all agree.

From there, it was easy to walk backwards and ask, “If this is what is possible, how can we achieve it?” And the answers were not only uplifting and energizing; they solved the problem along the way to achieving that positive result.

Story
Nick came into my office yesterday, saying, “Susan just called. She says she needs to be talked down. And man does she ever sound like it! You’d better call her fast!”

Susan is the first Executive Director in an organization that started as a family’s philanthropic endeavor and grew beyond what the family alone could do. The board is a typical founders board – all family, with all the control issues (and fear issues) that so often brings. Susan has been in her position a total of 5 months. The board is livid that she is projecting a $200,000 shortfall in the first draft of next year’s budget. They immediately assume that $200,000 will have to come out of their pockets, as that is what has always happened in the past.

The board is therefore doing what boards so often do when they’re scared, and what is especially common in founder-driven organizations; they are blaming Susan for the shortfall, and micromanaging her to death. (By the way, if you’re having micromanagement issues, this article will help. It’s called, “Why Boards Micromanage and How to Get Them to Stop.”)

I let Susan rant for a bit, and then I asked, “Susan, what is possible here?”

It was as if a breeze had blown the clouds out of the sky. Susan barely took 5 seconds to reply. “What’s possible?” Pause. “I guess what’s possible is I raise the $200,000!”

From there, we could talk more calmly about the real issues. We discussed that it wasn’t really the $200,000 – that it was the board’s issues of fear and control, and that those absolutely needed to be dealt with. We talked about what was possible there, too – that it was possible to help the board from a place of compassion for their predicament, rather than seeing the board members as multi-headed demons hell-bent on devouring Susan’s soul. And we talked about the fact that if Susan could raise the $200,000 as a first step, the board would be in a much safer place to consider other things.

By the time we got off the phone, Susan was planning how she could engage the community’s support for her work. She had already sketched out a plan to raise not just the dollars, but all sorts of support. The whole call lasted 15 minutes.

We really do all want the same thing. We all want what is possible. When we start our conversations at that assumption – that place of agreement, that place of success – we have a way better chance of creating details that avoid the devil altogether.

This will apply to money and micromanagement. It will apply to anything else. So what problems have been making you crazy? If you want to share them here, perhaps we can begin finding what is possible for those as well!

For a step-by-step guide to building a Board that reaches for what is possible, click here.