7 agreements for productive conversations during difficult times


Trust, partnership and movement-building

Check out this great article by Jodie Tonita on the role of trust in movements for social change. She explains why trust is key for effective collaboration, and how to intentionally cultivate trust among individuals and organizations. http://bit.ly/yes-trust


Facilitating an organizational vision: Guided Visualizations


Facilitating an organizational vision: Collage






Most of us working on social change are experts at criticism. The problem is when it becomes an unconscious habit in individuals and across entire teams. “Yes! And…” is a classic, fun improv theatre exercise that interrupts this “culture of critique” and helps groups become more adept at embracing new, creative ideas.


The Culture of Critique




When critique gets in the way of social change




Practicing the “Yes! And…” exercise


  6. Debrief as a large group







Michael: [eyes widening] Yes! And….



Applying “Yes! And…” over time




Facilitating an organizational vision: The Hot Pen Technique






14 Questions to ask when facilitating an organizational vision

iStock_000015298832XSmallLast month a good friend called me up in a bit of a panic. “I’m chairing another citizen’s meeting next week”, she said, “but I’m afraid it’s going to go like all the others: we’re going to generate a big laundry list of tactics, drink a lot of bad coffee, eat too many cookies and go home feeling dissatisfied. And bloated. We’re thinking too small. We need a vision!” So we talked about the different ways she could lead her folks into bolder, more inspiring territory through a visioning process.

There are many ways to facilitate a group of people through a visioning process. Most of them are rich, often profound and always creative. The essential process is about marrying imagination and strategy – taking intuitive, creative and informed leaps into a possible, aspirational future.

One of the most powerful approaches is a “guided visualization”. I have led dozens of groups through guided visualizations as part of a visioning process over the past decade. Inspired by Inc. magazine’s list of “14 questions you need to ask when crafting a vision for your businesses success”, here’s the list that I implicitly use. These can be adjusted for individuals, small business or non-profits. In practice, I develop a script tailored to the unique needs and assets of each client group, but it usually contains these elements.

  1. Time frame… 3-5 years? 10 years? Collins and Porras, in Built to Last, recommend 10-30 years. Notions of “purpose” and “core ideology” are more long-term; visions change relatively more quickly to reflect the changing internal and external dynamics of organizations.
  2. Stories….. Start with a specific time and place, specific characters, and a setting… Where are you, in your mind’s eye? Put yourself in the picture! As I described in an earlier post about stories, scan your senses: lights, temperature, movement of the air, sound, smells… Who is there? What’s happening? This will get you into the story in a deeply personal way, unleashing more of your own creative, imaginative power.
  3. Major accomplishments: What are you most proud of? Get emotional, personal and specific. What are your top 1-3 major accomplishments or “big wins”? Imagine there was a feature article about your success. What did the headlines say? What difference did this make in the world?
  4. Breakthroughs: In the past X years, what is the most significant breakthrough that launched the organization into a whole new level of wild success? How? What happened? Who helped make it happen? What was different?
  5. People you serve: Whose lives is your work touching? Who are you serving? How exactly are they engaging with you? Zero in on one or two ‘representative’ individuals… Why are they choosing to engage with your messages, services or products? What’s in it for them?
  6. Allies: Are there new or unusual allies that contributed to your success as an organization? As an individual?
  7. Your niche: Notice other groups similar to your own… How is yours specifically unique and different?
  8. No-go zones: What are some services or approaches that your organization does NOT offer or do?
  9. Internal collaboration: How are people working together internally? What is the feeling/tone of that work? How are teams working with one another ‘across silos’? What’s new and different? Why is it working so well? What are the specific structures and practices that are making this new level of collaboration so successful?
  10. People in the organization: Who is working in the organization – what do they look like, demographically? What is the collective culture like? What practices or group norms do you notice?
  11. Leadership: Who is leading the organization? How are they leading? What’s it like? Is it different? If so, how?
  12. Resources: What kind of abundance is the organization enjoying? What does that look like, specifically?
  13. Geographic scope: Where are you working, and not working – are there specific communities? Regions? How focused are you?
  14. What else… What else do you notice that’s different, or the same, in this successful, deeply satisfying future?

Afterword: So I whipped up a script based pretty well on all these questions and emailed it off to my friend, and she used it to lead the group through a closed-eye visualization process. She did an amazing job – it was by all accounts a fantastic success. After the visualization, she helped everyone share their individual insights and arrive at a few core themes that resonated for the whole group. They left feeling energized, inspired, and aligned around a whole new level of collective work. And it’s entirely possible that they didn’t scarf down quite so many cookies.

Organizational visions: More case studies of great vision statements


Slow Food Denver

– Canadian Blood Services

Boys and Girls Club of Martin County, USA

– ForestEthics


Typical Not-For-Profit Vision Statements


Here’s a typical (hypothetical) example:

“Our vision is for a world without hunger.”




Here are several other classic, real-world examples:

“A hunger-free America

“A world without… [insert disease here]”

“A sustainable world for future generations”




4-Part framework for a powerful organizational vision

Way back in September 1996, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras wrote a seminal article in HBR about successful organizational visions, and followed that with the now-classic book, Built to Last. Their ideas on visioning galvanized a wave of enthusiasm across the whole organizational development sector that continues to this day. I still absolutely love the clarity and power of their framework, and continue to use it often to inform my own organizational consulting practice. It goes like this:

      1. Purpose: An organizational vision is grounded in a deep sense of purpose. Purpose is essentially permanent; it could easily ensure for 50 or more years. Purpose is never achieved – it is an overall direction. Yet it is still clear. An organization with a strong, clear purpose would literally walk away from markets, customers or (in the case of non-profits), funders, rather than compromise its purpose.
      2. Values: Like purpose, core values are enduring. They don’t change, even during market shifts. What are the principles that guide your organization’s choices and behaviours? I’ve worked with several organizations that begin with long virtual “shopping lists” of core values (several have had 14 or more). But once we explore what the values might mean in terms of actual behaviours and decision-making, the lists get much shorter; Collins and Porras suggest that no more than 3-5 is ideal. Would your organization be willing to walk away from a foundation grant or major project if it meant compromising a particular core value? Take “transparency” as a core value. How is it reflected in practice? Budgeting, for example, could be completely open and transparent. That’s the case with Zingerman’s Delis; they are one of the few organizations in the world to use Open Book Finance. Staff are involved at every level of budgeting, from forecasting to implementation and tracking. Out of respect for privacy, individual salaries the only data not shared with staff.
      3. BHAG: what is your Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal? In the 1960s, NASA’s was to “put a man on the moon.” Once they accomplished that, the BHAG needed to change. BHAGS are bold and somewhat long-term, but they are not permanent – they are concrete, major milestones achieved while on the path of purpose.
      4. Vivid narrative description: Finally, what’s the story of your preferred future? John Kotter, author of Leading Change, suggests that the vision should vivid, repeatable, and possible to convey in no more than 5 minutes.