Items tagged "Social Justice":
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Lewin’s Influence on Leadership
This recorded talk is the first of a four part series from a great evening I had a few weeks ago at a forum pulled together by the Lewin Center for Research and Social Justice. About 25 individuals came together at the home of Lennox Joseph, Ph.D. to hear a talk given by Earl Braxton, Ph.D. and facilitated by Brenda Jones, Ph.D. The food, the company, and the conversation was just what I needed as I moved into the New Year.
Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, and was the first person to use the term group dynamics. His work has a wide ranging impact on everything from psychology to social justice movements. For instance, Michael Jacoby Brown, in his book points out that the field of community organizing draws heavily on Lewin’s work, “who revolutionized the theory and practices of building groups…and had a wide interest in racial and ethnic justice.”
In this first installment, you will hear Earl talking about Lewin’s interest in unions, understanding systems and systemic change approaches, and field theory. Earl then touches on organizations in trauma, an issue he has written about and says is sometimes kept “quiet.” Influenced by Lewin, Earl sees these broken systems not in terms of their fallacies and dysfunction, but rather as entities with a temporary wound.
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- # of plays:
- 6
- date:
- Mar 4, 2012 (a Sunday)
- time:
- 12:00:00 (2 months ago)
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Balancing Participatory and Directive Management In Community Based Organizations
One of the reasons I started studying organization structures, org psychology, and general organization development was to find more lenses that helped me explain my own experience in the groups I was a part of. Polarity Management is one of those gems that has help tremendously in that effort.This article takes up the question of whether community based organizations should use participatory or directive management practices. That has been one of the most prevailing issues in every organization I’ve belonged to from Universities to Community Organizing Groups. The article I’ve written here introduces the concept of polarity management to understand this common dilemma.
Comments from readers:
“I just finished reading for the third time, BREATHE! I am totally using it in my presentation tomorrow at the Young Women of Color and Trans Leadership Symposium. Just what I needed.” - Adriann Barboa, Young Women United, Albquerque
“Yay polarity management! I can’t wait to put this to use!” - Radha Patel, United Nations Population Fund, New York City
“I think the article hits on a great issue CBO’s face on a regular basis. Damn, if only we would have known this earlier.” - Ray Padilla, High School Teacher, Las Cruces
Over the years there have been competing trends in community based organizations, and particularly in community organizing groups. One trend has called for participatory management. This approach is in response to legitimate concerns over the downsides of directive management, which include autocratic decision-making, the inability to tap the wisdom and leadership of members and staff, and abuse of power.
The other trend has called for a “strong hand” and directive management. This has been a response to equally legitimate arguments in organizations that have become unable to manage themselves and have become immobilized…
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- date:
- Mar 3, 2012 (a Saturday)
- time:
- 12:00:00 (2 months ago)
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]Who Defines the Ending?
Election Season: Reflections on Change in a Democracy
In this interview Ann Caton, partner at Potomac Group, talks about the dynamics and impact that the health care debate caused. What she shares can help us understand the continued ripple effects that are still playing out today. She discusses the pitfalls in how the health care debate was approached in terms of process and communication. In 3.5 minutes, she succinctly covers issues that are alive in today’s current events, and certainly in the dynamics of an approaching election season. There is a juicy piece near 2min 15sec.
It would take a systems level thinker like Ann to bring together the theoretical “transitions” model from William Bridges (which developed around individual and organizational level change) and combine it with large scale societal change and a political process that is still unfolding around health care.In “transition” language, the Obama administration missed the first two phases needed in a change effort like this: ending and neutral zone. Instead, they went straight for the 3rd stage: new beginning.
Ann’s analysis to this national level change process is equally applicable to change efforts in our own organizations. Namely, that people believe new efforts start with beginnings, but they don’t. There start with endings.
You might ask, how do new effort start with endings?What Ann tells us, is that “change” and “transition” are different. If we don’t understand the difference, we’re really missing the boat. “Change” describes the situation or event - moving to a new site, the new reporting system or database, hiring a new manger, or in this case, launching a new healthcare system. “Transition,” however, refers to the psychological process that takes place and can be triggered by these events. It’s the process of internalizing and coming to terms with the new situation.
Transition takes place in a 3-phase process that people go through as they internalize and come to terms with a new situation:
1) Ending – letting go of old ways & old identity
2) Neutral zone – the old is gone but the new isn’t fully operational
3) New beginning – people develop new identity, experience new energy & sense of purposeWe need leaders on the political stage and in our organizations who not only identify the necessary changes that need to take place, but also how to manage transitions. Even if we support the change, we might have difficulty with the transition process. This is where good leaders and managers can play a role.
Ann points out that the Obama administration skipped the first two steps and as a result opened the door to the opposition to define what had ended, in this case the narrative was that “our America” had ended. The process was open to this kind of backlash, that could be anticipated and tapped to provide energy for a stronger outcome if there could be an operationalized understanding of the transition process.
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- # of plays:
- 1
- date:
- Mar 8, 2011 (a Tuesday)
- time:
- 4:30:25 (1 year ago)
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3 Common Myths in Managing Social Justice Groups
Ann Caton, partner at Potomac Group and Adriann Barboa, of Young Women United, teamed up to present “The Dream and the Drama: Ups and Downs of Alternative Organizational Structures” at the Sister Song conference here in DC.This workshop created an all too rare space for 20 women from various organizations around the country to talk about the dynamics taking place inside of their organizations. There are few places where grassroots groups are able to discuss these issues and receive support in addressing them. Ann and Adriann presented best practices from Young Women United, a polarity management model on “participatory and directive management,” and frameworks for understanding the exploration of alternative structures.
As a part of this workshop, Ann shared a new paper on three common myths in managing social justice groups. Read her paper:
3 Common Myths in Managing Social Justice Groups:
“Most social justice practitioners take on the work of organizational management not by choice but by necessity. We make our way by luck and instinct, trial and error, and seldom pause to share what we’ve learned. For our collective consideration, I offer here three myths that I often find - and that I once subscribed to fully - in the management of social justice groups.”
1. Conflict is unbearable
Organizers and activists can look like an angry bunch - interrupting meetings, blocking traffic, picketing people’s homes. In our efforts to win victories for our communities, we are apt to defy social convention and spark conflict on purpose, in public y con gusto. Outside the walls of our organizations, we are warriors. Inside those walls…eh, not so much.
It’s a given that every organization has it’s own unique culture…READ THE FULL ARTICLE.
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- date:
- Dec 18, 2009 (a Friday)
- time:
- 9:47:00 (2 years ago)
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Female Genital Mutilation: Community-based change approaches
A friend of mine, Radha Patel, sent me an email this week about a consulting project she’s doing with the UN and an online symposium where she posed a question about the connection between female genital mutilation (FGM) and culture.
The following are some of my thoughts that I shared with her on how a local community can use a culturally-based or community-based change approach to stop the practice of FGM…
…There is a model that might support this called “positive deviance.” In essence, it’s a social change model that looks for people in a system that are “deviating” from the norm in some “positive” way. It’s been used in hospitals to reduce HIV infections, in schools to reduce drop out rates, and even in Egypt to form 12 “FGM free” communities.
What I like about the approach is that it looks for people at the margins of a system that are already expressing beneficial or desired behaviors or actions (so in this case, it would be finding men and women, old and young, within communities where FGM is the norm, but are not participating in FGM practices). Using a positive deviance approach, you would seek to build a learning community (in this case, presumably with both community leaders and other support groups like the UN).
It’s a strength-based approach (rather than a problem-based approach). For those who are familiar with Appreciative Inquiry or Popular Education work, it’s similar in some ways. This positive deviance change process says, “hey, there are individuals within this community who face the same issues (resources, culture, etc.) as others, but they are doing something different.” You look to see what they are doing differently and find ways to support that.
Sometimes change processes are focused on just those at the top (those who have positions of authority, access to resources, or formal leadership positions). It’s important to include them. It’s also important to include those who are marginalized. It’s those at the margins who are working with less and have come up with creative adjustments to get something done with less.
When to use a Positive Deviance approach:- When a problem requires behavioral changes or social change
- When it’s a seemingly intractable problem
- When there is a presence of a positive deviant(s)
- When there is leadership and positive deviant champions
The process discovers ideas that are already out there. It enables people to act today. It creates culturally appropriate solutions.
The challenges to this approach lie in scaling up. It’s labor and time intensive. It requires comfort with uncertainty, and for practitioners to be facilitators instead of experts.
Positive Deviance comes from the research of Marian Zeitlin and was experimented with and further developed by Jerry Sternin and Monique Sternin at Tufts University.Tags
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- date:
- Dec 9, 2009 (a Wednesday)
- time:
- 4:28:00 (2 years ago)
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Interview With Libero Della Piana: Trends in Tech Impacting Gov. & Community Groups While in NYC talking to prospective clients, I took a break to have lunch with Libero and tour his office before jumping on the train to head back to DC. It was the first time I had seen him in maybe 10 years. I asked Libero to talk about open source and how these trends are impacting government and community groups. Libero has been working for a number a years on technology and it’s impact to culture, politics, and the building of movements. Check out Libero’s twitter page here: Libero’s Twitter Page.
Libero suggests that those interested in learning more on this topic read David Bollier book called Viral Spiral. The book is available in stores or free online. The publisher and author agreed to sell hardcopies and give it for free using a creative commons license. Download the book: Viral Spiral.
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- # of plays:
- 17
- date:
- Oct 31, 2009 (a Saturday)
- time:
- 4:59:00 (2 years ago)
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SOS Survey Launched
The “bottom-line” for grassroots community organizing and social justice groups have been taking a pounding. Since the tech bubble busted around 2001, it’s been a slow slide down. Soon after that bust, there was a shift in funding to electoral campaigns. As this trend continued, the economy went south and there has been even less money that foundations are willing to part with. These community organizing groups are the on the front lines of the fight for civil rights, environmental justice, and economic prosperity for people of color, low-income folks, LGBTQ peoples, and others. They develop and support community leadership and sustain pressure for change during, arguably, the more important times between election cycles.Many groups in this latest economic crises have either closed up shop or moved to subsistence level operations, focusing almost entirely on their core programs and unable to invest internally to strengthen their organizations.
The needs of their constituents have gone up, while their capacity has gone down. General support funding or project support for the internal health and well-being has become more rare than than a Ford Pinto.
The National Organizers Alliance and the Data Center have teamed up to help reverse this trend. They are collecting the data and the stories of how the economic crises has been impacting these groups. This is a vital survey and unique. It’s the only survey of it’s kind.
If you are a community organizing or social justice group, take the time to participate. It’s focus is on the field and gathering the information that will help to validate, enlighten, and ultimately support it….
“The Sustaining Organizing Study has launched a survey this week and is looking for local, regional and national organizations engaged in community organizing or resource/intermediary organizations that support organizing work to take the 30 question survey that will explore their programs, the impact of the economy on their organizing work and their experience of fundraising. The survey is part of a one year project that began with a literature review (see previous entry) and is now moving to primary documentation of organizations’ experience through surveys and interviews. The goal is to gather 250 surveys over the next four months. The following is a link to the survey.”
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- posted by:
- patrickod-blog
- date:
- Oct 29, 2009 (a Thursday)
- time:
- 9:44:00 (2 years ago)
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