The question that arose early in our time together was this: “How can we support each other’s work in as integrated a fashion as possible?”

The wording of the question itself is important. Much of what both our groups are working on is about blurring the lines that divide us all – divide people from each other in survival fears, divide businesses from each other in competitive win/lose fears, divide the community benefit world from the business world from the government world from communities themselves…

Pollyanna Principles #3 notes that “Everyone and everything is interconnected and interdependent, whether we acknowledge that or not.”  As we strive to put all 6 of the Pollyanna Principles into action in everything we do, the wording of the question we colleagues have been asking has even more meaning.

What does integrated, whole, connected support look like among and between individual organizations, people, communities, nations?

As I sat with that question this morning, Peter Block’s book The Answer to How is Yes jumped to mind as I asked this question aloud to the dog:

What if the most affirming, forward-moving answer to “How will we do X?” is, “What would our values look like in action regarding X?”

How can we end poverty? How can we create equitable healthcare in the US? How can our organization collaborate more meaningful with others? How can we balance our organization’s budget with funding cuts again this year?

Could it be that it is that simple – that the path will become clear if we simply ask, “What would our values look like in action regarding poverty, healthcare, collaboration, budget decisions?”

I’m not asking this rhetorically – I would really like to experiment with this, to see what we might all learn together and from each other’s experiments.

So will you give it a try and report back what you find?  If there’s a problem you’ve been wrestling with, will you see what happens if you ask that question?  And then please note in the comments here the results, good or bad.  I promise to do the same.

Photo Info: The Truth Is Closer Than It May Appear (shot by Hildy in Southern Illinois)

]]> http://hildygottlieb.com/2011/05/25/what-will-our-values-look-like-in-action/feed/ 4 http://hildygottlieb.com/2010/08/24/anger-social-change-and-a-major-%e2%80%9caha%e2%80%9d/ http://hildygottlieb.com/2010/08/24/anger-social-change-and-a-major-%e2%80%9caha%e2%80%9d/#comments Wed, 25 Aug 2010 01:04:54 +0000 Hildy http://hildygottlieb.com/?p=3189 Last week, an incident involving Rush Limbaugh, Robert Egger, a YouTube video and a small hew and cry led to my blog question asking, “Where, if at all, is the place for anger in social change?”

The responses were so rich – I encourage you to read them in their entirety here.

Several things became clear in that discussion:

1. The belief that anger comes from fear, from pain, from both. The experience that “suppressing anger can be debilitating,” as Martin indicated in his comment.
2. The belief that we have the capacity to move beyond that fear and pain, acting in ways that do not give in to the anger.
3. The desire for a different / more effective way of being with each other. Jeff Mowatt talked about it as a “mandate for acting with compassion.” Kesha talked about “a shifting concern for one’s community over one’s self.” Marcia White talked about our ability to make “choices that create growth and happiness.” Others responded similarly – the wish and the determination that a different way of being become the norm.

Individuals Go Where Systems Lead Them
As I discuss in the opening chapters of The Pollyanna Principles, our assumptions and expectations of “reality” are rooted in thousands of years of culture that tell us that “living joyfully together” is impossible. (You can read those chapters for free online here.)

Our history tells us that we will likely find reasons to do battle – by words or by swords – and that true “peace” (i.e. not just the absence of war) is a pipe dream. Across generations, we then hand down those assumptions about how people can be counted on to act.

• Assumptions about what we admire and celebrate – the warrior, the savior, the hero, the individual beating the odds
• Assumptions about winners and losers, about weakness and strength
• Assumptions about scarcity vs. abundance, about possibility vs. inevitability

All those assumptions, and the expectations that arise from those assumptions – including and especially those related to anger, frustration, fear, pain – are rooted in stories we have told for millennia.

From those assumptions and expectations, we also hand down ways for dealing with the inevitable conflict we assume will come our way.  While we are encouraged to hope for the best (all the dreams you noted in #3 above), our conflict-driven culture gives us systems and tools and approaches for responding when (not if) the worst happens.

As a result, our everyday responses – as individuals, as communities, as nations – are rooted in those thousand-year-old assumptions. How we respond when an Al Qaida attacks. How we respond when a BP floods the gulf with oil.

And yes, how we respond when a blowhard-for-hire calls us lazy idiots.

Social Change?
I confess that my own questions about the place for anger in social change are rooted in all those cultural assumptions as well.  And yet I also know that deep in my questions was my own mind trying to wrap itself around the why’s and how’s.

I know in my bones that every action we take is creating the future. I know in my bones that we can aim our work at proactively creating the world we want vs. living and working in response to what we don’t like about the world.

And yet my experience of the world, as seen through the lens of my culture, simultaneously tells me that social change and anger go hand in hand.

And that’s when it hit me. Re-reading the discussion and then re-reading my own question, I realized that social change is indeed about anger, because social change is about reacting to what we don’t like about the world.  Just look at the words themselves:

Social Change.
Changing the World.

What is change if not reaction – change FROM something?  The words to which we aspire and bring our best work – changing the world – they are a statement of reaction to what we can no longer tolerate.  Social change is a reaction to pain and frustration, to inequity, injustice.  No wonder we see anger as a force for such change!

Talk about an “aha!”

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with infinite choices and infinite possibilities to create the future we want. Our work doesn’t have to be solely about reacting to circumstances – poverty, war, social ills. We can aim at the world we want, the culture we want. We can work to create a world that is humane and joyful and healthy and vibrant.

It is possible, simply because it is not impossible.

As you watch the video below, consider that maybe that’s the answer (I am thinking as I’m typing – always dangerous, the keyboard equivalent of thinking aloud…). Maybe social change IS about anger, frustration, rebellion against the status quo.

And maybe the thing that is more powerful is the thing that moves beyond that anger – work and words that are not about what we are changing FROM but – as the video notes – what we are moving TOWARDS.

Social Aspiration
Social Dreaming
Social Vision
Social Possibility

And wow does that ever raise more questions to explore!

If you are viewing this in your email or a reader that doesn’t show video, this link will take you to the website where you can watch the video. Link to site here.

*********

Our Animal Nature
As we consider the parts of our past that have led to our present, we must also consider the very meat of what makes us human.

Consider the phrase “Human Nature.” Do we invoke that phrase when we are talking glowingly about our brethren? Hardly. We use the phrase to focus on our greed, our fear, our selfishness – all the things we dislike about being members of this species.

In reality, though, virtually every one of the traits we “chalk up to human nature” is not what distinguishes us as humans at all. Those “human nature” traits are those we share with many, if not most or all, of our animal brethren.

Animals other than humans steal, kill, cheat, and deceive. Animals other than humans are greedy, fearful, thinking of their own survival above all else. Animals compete, they are violent.

When animals feel threatened, their immediate choices are either to run away or to fight back. As humans, our culture suggests one of those approaches evidences valor and courage, while the other is evidence of cowardice. But in truth, either of those reactions is one my dog might also show. If threatened, she might run away, or she might bare her teeth. No valor, no cowardice; just being a dog.

That is not “human nature.” That is part of our animal nature.

Neuroscientists have found physiological / chemical sources for many of the reactions we have come to call “human nature.” The rush of adrenaline, the virtually immediate reactions that allow us to respond physically to danger without having to think about it first – those fight-or-flee response mechanisms are part of the physical composition of our species, the organs and chemicals that are our physical being. We do not have to learn that; it is in us from before the time we were born.

Our species’ long history of the survival reactions we call “human nature,” therefore, are not just cultural. They are physiologically and chemically hard-wired into our being from a time before we were even human. That means overriding those physical reactions – aiming at something beyond our fears – requires something special; it requires that we make a concerted effort to use logic, and to exercise free will.

Our Human Nature is Our Potential
If our “negative” traits are not what set us apart as humans, what exactly is our human nature? What do we have that other animals do not?

Our “humanity” is a bundle of traits that combine to create our unique potential. While some other species may exhibit one or more of these behaviors, there is no other species that has all this and then some.

• A sense that we are part of something bigger than just our own selves and our own families / tribes
• The ability to comprehend that each of us is one life among a vast whole of billions of people we cannot see, but whom we acknowledge and understand are there
• The capacity to consciously de-program our instincts and re-program new instincts – free will
• An almost tangible sense of connectedness to something we cannot see or touch
• The ability to imagine things that do not currently exist – to invent, to create something from nothing but our imaginations
• The ability to express all these more ethereal capacities through language, through art, through music, through various means that allow us to transmit to other humans that which one cannot touch / taste / smell / see / hear
• The ability to envision the future, to envision what is possible
• The capacity for self-awareness, to strive for self-betterment. The ability to be conscious that we are conscious!
• The combined capacity for empathy, compassion, logic and reason, imagination – and joy at experiencing any or all of those

The human part of our nature provides a choice beyond fight-or-flee – a choice my dog cannot make. My dog is incapable of facing her attacker and choosing to neither run nor fight back, but to instead engage. Sweet as she is, she cannot appeal to her attacker’s higher faculties, to learn why he is attacking, and to try to find a better way.

That is the human part of our nature. That is what defines our humanity. Our human nature is all about our potential. Through that uniquely human nature, we have the power to create the future of our world.

***************

So what do you think? What does this make possible? And what will it take to activate all that potential?

You can read the entire first 4 chapters of The Pollyanna Principles here.

]]> http://hildygottlieb.com/2010/08/03/human-nature/feed/ 4 http://hildygottlieb.com/2010/05/23/monday-morning-rock-out-53/ http://hildygottlieb.com/2010/05/23/monday-morning-rock-out-53/#comments Mon, 24 May 2010 02:05:12 +0000 Hildy http://hildygottlieb.com/?p=2407 It’s Monday – the start of the week when you will create the future of your community!

Who are we kidding? EVERY week we are creating the future of our community. Every day. Every minute.

That’s because we are creating the future right now, whether we do so consciously or not.

So what future are you creating for your community?

Are you trying to solve problems - addressing what you do NOT like about your community? Or are you aiming at creating the future you DO want?  Are you aiming at eliminating something negative or creating something positive?

Or are you altogether ignoring the future, just trying to get through the pile on your desk?

Look up! Look around you! You don’t have to be whipsawed by circumstances. You don’t have to just focus on what you don’t like about your community.

You can create the future you want for your community, right now.  That future will include eliminating what you don’t want, but it will also include so much more.

It starts by identifying the future you want.  And then going for it with everything you’ve got.

Because we are creating the future right now, whether we do so consciously or not.

(And if you want to get started, the two links above will help you make HUGE leaps forward!)

Have a great Monday, and a great week, all!

Many thanks to Liam Black for sharing this week’s video at Twitter.

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!

We received a frustrated email earlier this week, from the leader of a community organization. The Community-Driven message was so clearly articulated that the note could have easily been penned by one of the graduates of our Community-Driven Consulting course.

“I have been frustrated with providing the services that we provide, although they are good programs that clearly benefit the participants. The frustration stems from the fact that the programs may be good, but they will not fundamentally change the conditions that exist in our community.”

“I want a model that empowers people to change the future and not just be victims of their past. We need to challenge people to question many basic assumptions that influence the behavior that needs to change for there to be a realignment in the values in our community.  What questions will challenge the very framework people exist within?  Even an asset based approach does not challenge what we believe we are capable of achieving and does not force us to reinvent systems that weren’t designed to empower us.”

The key, as this frustrated organizational leader clearly presents, is not about what we “do.” The key is first and foremost about the thinking that goes into the doing.

From The Pollyanna Principles:

“Moving beyond the path we have been walking, and consciously choosing to take a different road, can be compared to any major life change.  In our personal lives, we can either lose weight by trying a fad diet, or we can instead focus on living a healthy life for the long term.  For a true life change to occur, we need to change our thoughts.  From those changed thoughts, we then need to change our habits.

“But the thinking comes first.

“When we change our actions without first changing our thoughts, we flit from fad diet to fad diet.  When we change our assumptions and expectations, though, we not only lose weight; we become healthy overall.

“To date, as community organizations have tried to accomplish more, they have leaned toward the fad diet end of the spectrum: the latest fundraising or governance fad, the latest planning fad.  Not surprisingly, like dieting, our organizations have not grown more healthy, and neither have our communities.

“Here is what we know about creating lasting behavioral change:

Buddha said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts.”

So what is your own organization thinking?  What thoughts, assumptions, expectations are guiding your own work?  Are you expecting to work towards your community’s highest potential?  And if not, what will it take for today to be the day you take that first step – changing your assumptions and expectations, to begin creating the future of your community?

Read The Pollyanna Principles and change your thinking (and your doing) right now – because your community is counting on you!

]]> http://hildygottlieb.com/2009/08/26/reaching-for-a-communitys-highest-potential/feed/ 0 http://hildygottlieb.com/2009/07/15/will-more-regulation-help-this-sector-succeed/ http://hildygottlieb.com/2009/07/15/will-more-regulation-help-this-sector-succeed/#comments Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:17:04 +0000 Hildy http://hildygottlieb.com/?p=978 This morning, I started to respond to a post at the blog of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy – an organization I have recently come to know and respect.

The response got so long that I thought I would instead post it here.

The questions raised by NCRP board member Gary Snyder were multiple. Here are just a few:

• Why is the IRS monitoring and giving training programs to charities when there is a large network of organizations (IS, Board Source, state associations, more) that are doing the same?
• Is the IRS being “helpful” and “watchful” going to eliminate the taint on charitable sector?
• Where are the efforts to instill confidence to a sector that has diminishing trust by donors?
• Has the vast amount of money spent on board training shown any benefit?

Herewith, my response to Gary:

*****

Gary:
Several thoughts arise in considering your own thoughtful questions. I offer these in no particular order.

First, clearly there are forces concerned about this sector’s performance. However, rather than aim their considerable talents at results-focused questions (“How can we ensure we are achieving more significant improvement in communities?”) they are aiming at a handful of easily quantifiable contributing factors. Money. Conflict of interest. Etc.

Second, the “powers that be” tend to have a patronizing attitude towards this sector, believing we are all “cute little well-meaning do-gooders” who cannot be trusted to create strong, accountable systems. It is analogous to having a machine shop with faulty systems that preclude great productivity, where the machinists know precisely what it would take to fix the problem, but instead the owners keep blaming the machinists for the lack of productivity.

Individuals go where systems lead them.  Systems in this sector are not set up to create visionary improvement in our communities.  Organizational planning doesn’t aim at creating significant community change, governance clearly doesn’t aim towards it, and competitive funding systems create a “competing for scarce resources” culture (and then complain that everyone is competing!).

The only answer we have found that actually works in this round-robin is to stop blaming (and from that blame, aiming all our fix-it power at) the handful of symptoms that happens to be easy to see. The answer instead lies in aiming at the future we do want for our world, and reverse engineering what this sector would need to be to achieve that.

Until we stop randomly trying to treat the sector’s symptoms, we are doomed to be asking the same questions you raise, over and over, while communities still show little sign of improving.

*****

So what is the answer? It begins by understanding the systems that led us to this point – the cause and effect that got us here.  The history of that cause-and-effect can be found in the Introduction to The Pollyanna Principles.

The answer lies in making the change-the-world difference we committed to make. You can bet if this sector was creating visionary and rapid change in our world, there would be less impetus on the part of powers-that-be to wonder just what it is folks are doing with “all that money.”

And how does that address the “accountability and transparency” issue? Easy. We cannot create significant change if we are standing on the roof throwing dollar bills to the wind. We can only create such change if we are accountably watching over the means – the money, the policies, the etc. and the etc.

If we aim our accountability at risk management compliance, will we even remember to look up and see the reason we are doing this work in the first place? Or is it more likely we will just always find more things we are scared might go wrong?

If, however, we aim our accountability at the visionary change that drives us to do this work in the first place, we will use effective and solid means towards that end.  We will be accountable for the money on the way to being accountable for creating change.

The answers, as Gary Snyder suggests, are right here in the room.

How can we re-aim this sector’s systems towards accountability for end results AND accountability for the means? Find out in The Pollyanna Principles.

]]> http://hildygottlieb.com/2009/07/15/will-more-regulation-help-this-sector-succeed/feed/ 2 http://hildygottlieb.com/2009/07/07/pollyanna-meets-wikipedia/ http://hildygottlieb.com/2009/07/07/pollyanna-meets-wikipedia/#comments Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:31:41 +0000 Hildy http://hildygottlieb.com/?p=942 We all know that old quip, “It must be true – I read it in the paper.”

If there is anywhere that line definitely applies, it is at Wikipedia!

And so we are asking for your help.

At Wikipedia right now, you can find a great first stab at an article about The Pollyanna Principles. The principles are there, and a bit about governance based on those principles.

But there is nothing about planning. There is nothing about all the approaches to building and sustaining strong programs. And there is nothing about leveraging all those approaches to create strong communities.

Fortunately, Wikipedia is open for anyone to edit. And so we are inviting the world to take a stab at making that article as accurate as possible!

If you’ve read the book, if you’ve seen the video, if you’ve heard me speak about these topics – please help us make that Wikipedia page the best it can be.

Remember: Wikipedia is open to the public, for anyone to edit.  Signing up is as easy as signing up for Facebook.  From there, you can edit anything you know a lot about.

And if there is one thing readers here know a lot about, it is The Pollyanna Principles!

So please help us make the Wikipedia article about The Pollyanna Principles as accurate as possible. Then we will know with certainty that if folks read it at Wikipedia, “it must be true!”

Thanks, all!

If you have not yet read The Pollyanna Principles, you can get a copy here.

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.

I’ve been sharing a lot about Pollyanna Principled Consulting and our Immersion Courses these days, mostly because I am as immersed in them as the students are!

So I thought intead of hearing how excited I have been about these courses, I would share a note I received from one of the students in our April class.  Gayle Valeriote is the manager of training and consultation for the Volunteer Centre of Guelph / Wellington, in Guelph, Ontario, Canada.  Gayle has been putting her learning into action from the moment she left Tucson last month.  In reading her note, I hope you are as excited about what is possible as we were to receive it!

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To put it succinctly, I’M IN HEAVEN.  If I was a baseball player, I just pitched a no-hitter.  If I was a hockey player, I just got a hat trick.  I am a golfer, and it’s like I imagine a hole in one could be.  (Sorry, that exhausts the limit of my sports knowledge…   ).