There is a lot of talk these days about the difference between thinking of ourselves as consumers vs. citizens.

And while we may sense that this difference is a pretty big deal, no one I know is able to immediately put their finger on what that difference actually means. What would change in how we live our day-to-day lives if we were to see ourselves as citizens first and foremost? What would change if our view of being a consumer was seen through the lens of being a citizen?

What’s the Difference?
Growing up in an economy so dependent upon personal consumption, most people I know have little difficulty describing what it means to relate to the world as a consumer. People talk about expectations of exchange and quid pro quo. They talk about transactional relationships, a sense of entitlement and WIIFM.

Almost every time I ask about what it means to be a citizen, though, my friends become quiet. They take a moment or two to collect their thoughts. (This alone is interesting – my friends skew towards the socially conscious and articulate end of the spectrum. When such individuals can far more easily define what it means to be a consumer than what it means to be a citizen, that is telling, in and of itself.)

The word “citizen” has its roots in the word “city” – an inhabitant of a city, a member of a community. Being a citizen isn’t about doing something (consuming); it is about being something. We don’t “do” citizen; we BE citizens.

As a member of a community, being a citizen means being part of something bigger than oneself. We may have a choice about whether or not we consume, but we have no choice about affected by the communities that surround us. Whether we want to acknowledge it or not, everything and everyone is interconnected, interdependent.*

Through the lens of the consumer, there is only one way to participate – to buy stuff.

As citizens, there are infinite ways to participate. And while one of those ways is indeed to buy stuff, we can participate as citizens not just with our money, but with all that we have – our money, our time, our possessions, our relationships.

As citizens, we can also participate with what we do – our work, our play, our interactions with others. And we can participate simply in how we be – open or closed, kind or miserly, judgmental or tolerant.

When we are participating as citizens, we are not “buying healthcare,” but making sure everyone in our community is healthy, because if there is sickness, it is bad for everyone, including me.

When we are participating as citizens, we are not “giving back by donating / volunteering” (i.e. I get, therefore I give), but participating in how our community functions, in all the critical ways required of a 21st century community.

When we are participating as citizens, we are not demanding that others be actively engaged while we slack off. Participating as a member of my community means being the community I want to see, to the best of my ability, in everything I do.

The difference between choosing to see ourselves as citizens first vs. consumers first – the choice between participating and engaging vs. consuming – will make the difference in creating a healthy, vibrant community.

But perhaps even more applicable to how we live our day-to-day lives is the fact that one of those lenses will fill up each day with a bit more joy, while the other will fill those days with a sense of scarcity and longing. And that’s because participating and engaging with family and neighbors and friends is not something to do while we’re waiting for the big reward. It is what makes life itself the reward, right here now.

And you can’t buy that.

* “Everything and everyone is interconnected and interdependent, whether we acknowledge that or not” is Principle #3 from The Pollyanna Principles.

“I’m going to play devil’s advocate for a moment.”

The conversation stopped. The room tensed up. The person to whom that line was delivered immediately got defensive, trying to maintain polite composure in a room full of people.

That devil’s advocate was my friend Joe, and after everyone had gone back to niceties, Joe told me the response had surprised him. “I just wanted to explore another possibility,” he told me. He never realized that an expression that seemed simply idiomatic to him – a segue of thought – had thwarted him before he even began.

Language is a reflection of our culture, a culture handed down over the many millenia of humans being humans. We think of culture as current, but I often imagine going back hundreds of thousands of years and seeing kernels of those behaviors even in Neanderthals. While some of our behaviors are indeed biologically induced, a great deal of what we take for granted as “just the way things are” is nothing but a story we tell ourselves.  

And from that story comes our language.

Which means that we can tell ourselves a different story – a more effective story. And that there is no reason that story can’t start by our using different language.

Imagine the difference if Joe had said precisely what he told me: “I want to explore another possibility.” Or, “I’m not seeing what you’re seeing. Can I share what I’m seeing, so we can explore this together?”

Which leads me to wonder…

What is happening with language that moves us along together vs. tearing us apart? What assumptions undergird language that creates win-win – language that assumes that just because I am obviously brilliant, the person to whom I am speaking might ALSO be brilliant?

“When our communication supports compassionate giving and receiving, happiness replaces violence and grieving.” Marshall Rosenberg, founder of the Center for NonViolent Communication

So then what does such language look like? What are its characteristics?

And is it possible that in settings that create tension and turf and mistrust, that changing our language might change – well – everything?

The path in our lives will twist and turn, but the future does not have to look like the past. We can create the future we want. It just takes asking two simple questions…  

As you head into staff meetings or board meetings, community meetings or partner meetings – or as you simply plan out what you want to accomplish this week – ask those two simple questions. Start walking the path to create the future you want.

And then please let us know what happens!

I’ve stopped thinking of myself as an optimist. That will surprise those who know my work, but there it is.

I am prompted to share this because of a thoughtful-as-always post by Jean Russell, wherein she reflects on the power of positive thinking.

To which I will share that I also no longer believe in the power of positive thinking.

Here is what I DO believe: I believe in the power of PRACTICAL thinking. And from that, I am neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I am simply a pragmatist.

Focusing on how badly life sucks is simply impractical for moving forward to create anything of use. That’s not a positive or negative statement. It’s neither optimistic nor pessimistic. It’s just practical.

The only practical way to move forward is to move forward. So we can label that as “positive” or “optimistic” or “Pollyanna.”  Or we can simply say, “I’m moving forward. The train is leaving the station. Want to come along?”

Unless something is physically impossible, it is possible.

We can either move forward or stand still.

That’s not about optimism. It’s not about positive thinking. It’s just reality – practical, pragmatic reality.

I’m moving forward. Want to come along?

It is becoming clear to me that, while seemingly noble, questions of blurring the lines are the wrong question.  Why? Because the question assumes there are, in fact, lines – that there are entities and organizations, corporations and social enterprises and traditional “nonprofits,” and that we need to tear down those walls.

It is the wrong question because, when we study and attempt to answer it, we actually reinforce the notion that we are all separate from each other.

A More Effective Question
What if instead of seeing a community filled with the artificial constructs of entities and organizations and businesses, each behind their own walls, we saw the whole interwoven fabric of the community? What if we saw each of the threads of that fabric not as legally separate entities, but as individual people, bringing together their dreams and aspirations, their talents and gifts, their access to “stuff” – all towards creating the greater whole?

Because of the brilliance of each of the strands in that interwoven fabric, our community knows about health and art and dogs.

Our community dreams of being healthy, vibrant, resilient.

Our community has desks and computers and storefronts and parks and cars.

Not mine. Not my organization’s or my business’s. Our collective whole has all of this.

We are not organizations. We are people. As people, we are all interconnected and interdependent, whether we acknowledge that or not. None of us is independent of the rest of us.

We are a whole with individual parts that constantly affect the whole and each other – cells in a larger body. We may be independently alive, but we are relatively worthless without each other. When small groups of us go off alone together from our own cancerous self interest, our fate is either to be stamped out by radiation – an outside force that is stronger than us – or we kill the very host that keeps us alive.

And like cells in a body, we are powerful only when acting in concert towards what is in ALL of our best interests – making sure the collective whole is healthy, resilient, at peace.

People. Together.

Which leads us to questions that can move us forward, instead of the well-intentioned yet ultimately unproductive question about blurring lines.

• What does it make possible when we stop seeing the labels and the walls, and start seeing our collective ability to live well together?
• What does it make possible when we stop having conversations about what social entrepreneurs and traditional nonprofits and corporations can learn from each other, and we START having conversations about the things we all care about as people who will only thrive when all of us thrive together?
• What is it we can accomplish together that none of us individual cells can accomplish on our own?
• And what favorable conditions can we create in our communities, that would make such coming together an inevitable result?

When we start asking these questions, what we will find is that the walls don’t have to be scaled, the lines don’t have to be blurred – because they don’t really exist.

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/2011/01/09/tucson-in-healing-and-kindness/ http://hildygottlieb.com/2011/01/09/tucson-in-healing-and-kindness/#comments Mon, 10 Jan 2011 05:00:38 +0000 Hildy http://hildygottlieb.com/?p=4047 It’s been a hard few days. It doesn’t promise to get easier any time soon.

The nation has mourned at our sides, and that is appreciated more than you can know. Each phone call and email, each DM and Facebook message means the world.

And yet each of us mourns alone. The pain is overwhelming. Barely an hour passes without my eyes brimming over.

The post immediately preceding this one – my New Years post – notes that the overwhelming majority of each of our days is filled with kindness. Even in the horror of this weekend’s shootings, that still remains the case.

It is that kindness that has made the past few days bearable. As everyone I encounter falls somewhere between numb and grieving, there is a sense of solemnity, of gentleness – and yes, of kindness.

Shock-spawned words of anger and blame have quickly become words of reflection, of caution. And in all that, I realize that I have quietly and almost entirely unbeknownst to my very self, taken a vow of kindness.

What started as my immediate response to the news has grown quickly into a commitment, as I find I have vowed to ask, “What is kindness?” in every situation I encounter.

I have vowed to sit in practice with that question as if I were an 8 year old practicing her multiplication tables.  The easy part is being kind to those who are also being kind.  The real practice, though, is learning to be kind to those who make us feel boldly justified in being UNkind – the people we all encounter throughout each of our days, who we feel deserve blame, justice, retribution.

When it comes to those with whom I disagree, what is kindness?

When it comes to someone who may be treating me horribly, abusing me, treating me angrily – what is kindness?

When it comes to the pain felt by the young man who, clearly in more pain than I can imagine, perpetrated Saturday’s horrific act of violence – what is kindness?

In such situations, I have no idea what the answers will be. Sometimes kindness means being stern, walking the tough line of discipline. Sometimes it means separating ourselves from a situation. Sometimes it means finding alternatives to rebelling from the place of our own anger and pain.

Will I know the path of kindness when that path feels like a stretch? Will I take that path, or will I succumb to the only-humanness each of us feels, as we protect ourselves from the things that cause us fear?

There is one thing I do know for certain. And that is that the first steps towards building a world where kindness is our reflex will begin with each of us. In The Pollyanna Principles, I wrote, “Being the change we want to see means walking the talk of our values.” As happens so often, “walking the talk” means taking actual steps.

Which is what each of us can do, right now. We can each vow, right now, to explore, to practice, to learn what it would take to ask that single question, as many times as we can throughout the day – and to find our way to the answer.

In this moment, and in the next and the one after – with everyone I encounter, and everyone whose image passes through my mind – what is kindness?

With love and sadness to all who are mourning, not just here in Tucson, but everywhere…

My friend John Haydon’s recent post really has me thinking. The post was titled Why you should delete the mission statement on your website. Please read it (John is SO smart!)

John’s post comes at a good time for me, as we are thinking about our own mission statement for Creating the Future. (Like our name had been for years – the Community-Driven Institute – our current mission statement is a placeholder…)

When I teach the difference between Mission and Vision, I have always shared an easy formula for a mission statement.

“To accomplish our vision, we do _____ for ______ people in the _____ region.”

Lately, though, we are re-thinking that. If in plain English we see a mission as something we set out to accomplish, that is very different than merely a statement of what we do.

A statement of what we do lacks movement, lacks will, lacks force. It assumes that we are providing an ongoing service.

And that’s when it hits me. This is another remnant from the business world!

The business world has given us the definition of Vision Statement as “the picture of the future of the organization.” That is fine if you are a business with the goal of self-perpetuation, but not so much if your reason for being is to create a better community. So for years, we have insisted that the vision for a Community Benefit Organization is for the future of the community, not the organization.

Now it is occurring to me that using the Mission Statement as a statement of what we do to get closer to the vision is simply another piece of that. If your organization’s vision is self-perpetuation, then yes, the mission is to keep doing that.

But that is not the definition of an organization that is reaching its potential to change conditions and create the future of our communities. It is the definition of a service provider!

To simultaneously provide service AND change conditions in our communities, an organization’s mission must be about accomplishing something! We must be able to use the word the way plain English suggests. Not “What will you do?” but What will you accomplish? For whom? What will you be changing? What will be better? And yes, by when?

Mission is about what you will accomplish for your community in the short term!

For Creating the Future, we are focusing on “Our mission for the next 5-10 years.”  That mission is to have the way this sector does its work ALL be aligned behind improving community conditions.  Governance, planning, program development, funding – we intend to see it all change, to align behind our potential to change the world. And we intend to accomplish that in 5 years.

And so our mission is not to DO the work of programs, but to actually accomplish some visible change! To see things be different in this sector. Dramatically different. In 5-10 years.  From there, we will develop programs that will accomplish that mission.

So maybe, John, we need a fourth statement.
• Vision Statement – What will the community be like when you are 100% successful?
• Mission Statement – What community conditions will you change in the short term, to take steps towards making that vision a reality?
• Values Statement – What beliefs and assumptions will guide your work? How will your decisions and actions model your vision and values to the others?

And lastly,
• Program Statement – What services are you providing / actions are you taking to accomplish that short-term mission?

And now I’m getting excited at what this simple change of language makes possible. What would change in your organization if your mission were about the community changes you intended to see become reality in 5 years?

I am giggling at the possibilities!!!

A month ago, I posted about the solace and meaning we can find in each other – not just in those with whom we agree, but in all of us, living and being on this planet together.

Today those thoughts feel even more pertinent than they felt a month ago.

And so, begging your indulgence, I am re-posting those thoughts here, but adding a gift at the end – a video that I hope will help you find connection in this election week, when the media is doing its best to convince us that connection is rare.  Because it is not rare. It is, in fact, all around us.

October 1, 2010

Summer is lingering far too long here in the Arizona desert.  So every day, I check the newspaper forecast to see when we will finally see autumn.

Today’s paper told me that in several days, there is a 5% chance of rain.  And I found myself throwing down the paper in total exasperation.  ”Really?” I said aloud to the dog, “A 5% chance it will rain?”

Translated to a more useful forecast, there is a 95% chance things will be sunny and clear. Yet as they do every day, the weather prognosticators focused their limited newspaper ink not on what was likely, but on what was unlikely.

What does that have to do with building a world where we naturally and reflexively treat all beings with kindness?  Everything.

Kindness is the norm. Kindness surrounds us everywhere and all the time.

UNkindness is the exception.  Despite what we see on the news, people are not overwhelmingly horrible to each other. If they were, life would be unlivable.  (And in fact, in those rare places where UNkindness is the norm, life is, in fact, unlivable.)

And yet we believe that exception is the norm.

That belief no doubt stems from our fears of how horrible that exception can be and often is.  But that doesn’t make it true.

Our deeply held belief that unkindness is the norm influences everything about the lives we lead, the work we do, the laws we pass.  Our assumptions guide our actions.

Studies may find that we are, at our core, empathic beings.  Given our deeply held beliefs that that is not true, we choose to ignore those studies. We look instead for signs that reinforce our beliefs that deep down we are all greedy, fear-driven, ego-centric beings who will, left to our own devices, act badly.

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

There is a 95% chance it will be sunny today. There is a better-than-even chance that you will find kindness all around you today.

What would it make possible – in our work, in our nations, in our politics, in our lives – if that kindness was what we conditioned ourselves to expect?

As you go about your work and your life this week, what would it make possible if you faced the people around you with humility, with grace? If you smiled as you let them go ahead of you, literally and figuratively?

“You go, then I’ll go.” I am awed by the possibility that simple act can bring.

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

The video at the original post from October 1 includes a talk by Jeremy Rifkin, sharing studies to back up the observation that we are, in fact, empathic beings. You can see that here.

I was preparing a pre-reading list for a client – the list of readings and video clips that allow our precious face-to-face time to be more meaningful.  This workshop will be about engagement, and so I flipped through the books I’ve written on those subjects, to cite pages for them to read.

I’ve been wanting to update FriendRaising for a while now. In January, the book will be 5 years old, and we’ve learned a lot since then!  And so while I was double checking the page numbers for the reading assignment, I started reading.

It’s such an odd thing to read something I wrote 5 years ago and haven’t really read since then.  I found myself enjoying the book as if someone else had written it (something you don’t have the privilege to do when you are in the 487th rewrite, awaiting a publishing date).

And then I came to this section. It stopped me. I read every word. I teared up – my own writing and I teared up. And I realized that what I have learned in 5 years is that I believe this even more now.

So I thought I would share that section with you here.  It is a section that comes at the beginning of the book, as Strategy #6.  The strategy is labeled “Know the Rules of Friendship.”

My hope is that you will bookmark this post. And that the next time you hear someone talking about “raising friends for your organization” as simply a prerequisite mechanism to asking for money, that you will send this to them. Enjoy!

My mom is 81 years old. Her best friend passed away a few years ago. Eileen and my mom had been friends for almost 60 years.

They met in their late teens, working as secretaries in New York City’s garment district in the early 1940′s. Meeting at the elevator, they realized they were both walking to the same subway. From the subway, they realized they were both getting off at 183rd Street. They were both young and cute and sassy, ending the day laughing on the way home. They were neighbors, and they became friends.

They married within a few years of each other, both finding men who would be by their sides until parted by death. It had never occurred to them that their husbands would not get along, but in fact that is what happened. It never occurred to them that they would move to what might as well be different parts of the universe – suburbs at opposing ends of the city, with a 2 hour drive if there was no traffic. But that is what happened as well.

Yet they remained as close as if they still lived within blocks of each other.

When Eileen was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in her late 20′s, and through the ups and downs of the years she battled her illness, Eileen and my mom were together. When my mother lost her first child early in her marriage, and then later, through the sudden loss of the husband she adored, Eileen and my mom were together. Through the all-consuming days of raising their families, the distance between them, the trials of their lives – Eileen and my mom were together.

After my dad died, my mom made the hardest decision of her life – to move 3,000 miles from the place she had called home for 65 years, to the desert in Tucson to be near my family. And within just a few years, finding it more and more difficult to maneuver her wheelchair in the snow and slush, Eileen and her husband moved 2 blocks away from my mom.

After all those years, they were once again neighbors and friends.

To the end, they could talk about anything. To the end, they understood each other. They trusted each other, depended on each other, were generous and kind to each other, protective and accepting of each other, of their kids and grandkids. And to the end, they continued to laugh – Eileen, so debilitated by 45 years of her illness, and my mom, nearing 80 years old herself. When they were together, they remained as cute and sassy as those days when they had first met, talking about boys and giggling on the way home from work.

That is friendship.

That is what this book is about.

Friendship is about kindness and generosity and compassion. It is about reciprocity, about that 2-way street of dependability, trust, nurturing. It is about feeling protective, wanting to ensure no harm comes to your friend.

Friendship is not about what we get, but what we give. It is about gratitude, graciously giving thanks for the gift of that friendship.

Friendship is about the third entity that is created when we are together – not “me” and “you”, but the “us” that is more powerful than simply 2 individuals coming together.

Friendship rejoices when there are reasons to celebrate – both the big things and the little things (especially the little things). And friendship feels real pain when one of those friends is suffering.

Friends know each other better than anyone else in the world. When spouses are also friends, when parents and children are also friends, outsiders can tell just by watching them together. There is joy surrounding them.

Friendship can grow slowly and consistently over time, or it can hit you between the eyes the moment you meet, as if you have known each other all your lives. We cannot force it either way, but fast or slow, when it is right, we both know it.

Friends share advice, wisdom, and yes, gossip. Friends trust that what their friend says is true. They acknowledge each others’ flaws and do not let foolish things get in the way of their friendship.

Long term friends find joy in watching each other change and grow over time.

It is not surprising the producers of the television show “Friends” chose the theme song they did, because if there is any theme that sums up friendship, it is those words: “I’ll be there for you.”

That is what this book is about. When you engage with members of your community in real friendship – not that euphemism for wanting their money, but true friendship – your community will never let your mission die. And that is because your friends will be part of that “us” you have created – that thing that is bigger than each of you separately could ever be – the us of a community working together to build a better place to live.

You will no longer be just neighbors. You will be real friends.

There are more excerpts from the book online here. Please read them, and then pick up the phone, call a friend of your organization – a real friend – and thank them for always being there for you.