Rethinking protests / institutional power in the next half century
Had a great, albeit brief, conversation at the bar last night and it was provocative*. We started talking about protests in the next century. The overarching question we discussed was, "Will protests occur in the next 40-60 years? How will the nature of protesting institutional actors change in the next half century?"
Here's a proposition:
Let's say institutions in the world, traditional ones, are losing power and centralized influence. Here's an example: State and Local Government. To deliver public value, cities and states aren't capable of "going it alone" nearly as much as they used to. They partner with not-for-profit organizations, private sector orgs, and ordinary citizens to enact their public mission. In a way, State and Local Governments aren't fully responsible for the services they provide because lots of organizations are working together to provide them and State and Local Governments don't have total control of the outcomes they intend to achieve.
This is one example, and there are more in the private sector.
During our conversation, we debated this point - are contemporary institutions really losing power and centralized influence? A counterpoint (I'm paraphrasing someone else's ideas - forgive me if it's not clear...It's me losing things in translation) to what I've said above is that corporations are consolidating power and becoming more monopolistic. If anything, old-school corporations are being replaced by newer ones but power is still concentrated within traditional institutions.
So that's one question to discuss - are traditional institutions losing power and centralized influence? Reasonable people could disagree on this.
Let's assume for a moment that the answer to that questions is, "yes." If so, what becomes of protesting? Here's the rub - if institutions are losing power and centralized influence, it becomes harder and harder to identify who is most responsible for a social injustice. When that's the case and you have a grievance, who do you take it to? If you want to protest, who's front-yard do you make a ruckus in?
So that's the second question - Assuming a world where centralized influence is corroding, who do you raise grievances to? How will protests change in the next half century?
*I'd like to shout out to NA, MN, and RP, we were all talking about this together. Any good ideas expressed above are probably theirs. :-)
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So, I'll punt on the first question, because I happen to think the answer is "yes." But let me do more than raise a question - let me take a stab at thinking about it. I think protests become less common. I think that citizens will more likely work directly with institutions to shape them and change them. If there's no face-man to smear, my logic goes, why not find someone to work with and change it.
Or, you could create your own alternative. Instead of spending time and energy protesting, you could build something better. This is much more possible than before because it's easier to communicate and collaborate AND barriers to entry for lots of seemingly impenetrable institutions are falling.
In my (perhaps idealistic) view, we'll spend less time antagonizing and more time collaborating. I don't only think we will, I think we should. If protesting isn't going to work, at least in the way that it used to, we can't afford to just let social problems fester - we've gotta do something about them. The best part is, we can...in ways that we've never seen before in human history.
So here's a wacky idea (that I need to develop further) though...I've been sitting on it for awhile. Why don't we more readily accept that central institutions may not exist in the future, in the way that we think of them. This is problematic because we should have someone who is responsible for addressing grievances, probably government. Someone, or some group, has to be responsible.
So what if we did this. Let's jump on board with a collaborative mindset and built cross-sector teams focused around "missions" right from the get go. One institution - likely government - becomes the point guard on the team and everyone is transparently responsible for delivering the public value the group sets out to do in their mission. Instead of organizing government by functional area with ongoing responsibilities, why not make it more challenge-specific? That way you cut through red tape because the team has a clear focus, and you suddenly have a place to go with grievances. It's a win-win.
There's a cool paper/video that is in line with this idea, sort of, it's super legit if you're a management/gov nerd.
http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Industries/US-federal-government/federal-focus/govlab/5a1516d4c2390310VgnVCM3000001c56f00aRCRD.htm
Here's a proposition:
Let's say institutions in the world, traditional ones, are losing power and centralized influence. Here's an example: State and Local Government. To deliver public value, cities and states aren't capable of "going it alone" nearly as much as they used to. They partner with not-for-profit organizations, private sector orgs, and ordinary citizens to enact their public mission. In a way, State and Local Governments aren't fully responsible for the services they provide because lots of organizations are working together to provide them and State and Local Governments don't have total control of the outcomes they intend to achieve.
This is one example, and there are more in the private sector.
During our conversation, we debated this point - are contemporary institutions really losing power and centralized influence? A counterpoint (I'm paraphrasing someone else's ideas - forgive me if it's not clear...It's me losing things in translation) to what I've said above is that corporations are consolidating power and becoming more monopolistic. If anything, old-school corporations are being replaced by newer ones but power is still concentrated within traditional institutions.
So that's one question to discuss - are traditional institutions losing power and centralized influence? Reasonable people could disagree on this.
Let's assume for a moment that the answer to that questions is, "yes." If so, what becomes of protesting? Here's the rub - if institutions are losing power and centralized influence, it becomes harder and harder to identify who is most responsible for a social injustice. When that's the case and you have a grievance, who do you take it to? If you want to protest, who's front-yard do you make a ruckus in?
So that's the second question - Assuming a world where centralized influence is corroding, who do you raise grievances to? How will protests change in the next half century?
*I'd like to shout out to NA, MN, and RP, we were all talking about this together. Any good ideas expressed above are probably theirs. :-)
---
So, I'll punt on the first question, because I happen to think the answer is "yes." But let me do more than raise a question - let me take a stab at thinking about it. I think protests become less common. I think that citizens will more likely work directly with institutions to shape them and change them. If there's no face-man to smear, my logic goes, why not find someone to work with and change it.
Or, you could create your own alternative. Instead of spending time and energy protesting, you could build something better. This is much more possible than before because it's easier to communicate and collaborate AND barriers to entry for lots of seemingly impenetrable institutions are falling.
In my (perhaps idealistic) view, we'll spend less time antagonizing and more time collaborating. I don't only think we will, I think we should. If protesting isn't going to work, at least in the way that it used to, we can't afford to just let social problems fester - we've gotta do something about them. The best part is, we can...in ways that we've never seen before in human history.
So here's a wacky idea (that I need to develop further) though...I've been sitting on it for awhile. Why don't we more readily accept that central institutions may not exist in the future, in the way that we think of them. This is problematic because we should have someone who is responsible for addressing grievances, probably government. Someone, or some group, has to be responsible.
So what if we did this. Let's jump on board with a collaborative mindset and built cross-sector teams focused around "missions" right from the get go. One institution - likely government - becomes the point guard on the team and everyone is transparently responsible for delivering the public value the group sets out to do in their mission. Instead of organizing government by functional area with ongoing responsibilities, why not make it more challenge-specific? That way you cut through red tape because the team has a clear focus, and you suddenly have a place to go with grievances. It's a win-win.
There's a cool paper/video that is in line with this idea, sort of, it's super legit if you're a management/gov nerd.
http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Industries/US-federal-government/federal-focus/govlab/5a1516d4c2390310VgnVCM3000001c56f00aRCRD.htm
Getting real about the EM
If you're a Detroiter (unless you've been living under a rock) you surely heard that Kevyn Orr was named Detroit's Emergency Manager by Governor Snyder.
Let's be clear here. This is not a win. A win would've been sound municipal governance and never being in this mess in the first place. Deservedly, many critics chastise this decision because it's undemocratic (because it strips power from elected officials and transfers it to a non-elected one). It probably is undemocratic. For those who hold that point of view, this is probably the worst possible outcome. I'm not one that makes this argument, but I respect it as legitimate.
For those (like me) who readily distinguish between management concerns and civic ones - and agree with the appointment of an Emergency Manager - this shouldn't be thought of as a day to celebrate. The appointment of an EM is merely the best option amidst a smattering of horrible choices. It's not a good outcome, it's has and always will be a terrible outcome - an EM is what you appoint when you have no options left.
If you're actually excited and pleased that an Emergency Manager has been appointed in Detroit, I think you should reconsider your point of view. See past the rhetoric and power-grabbing and look at the big picture here. An Emergency Manager is not "great". At best, it's less terrible than everything else. At worst, it just sucks.
PS - I'm hoping this post breeds some pragmatic, rather than superficial, discussion about the EM.
Detroit, at this moment
This is a pretty simple idea, so I'll keep this one punchy.
Check it.
What's happening in Detroit is not revitalization, at least not the one we need. What we have now is plutocrats making big investments which are either irrational, huge aribtrage opportunities or both. Buying our way into resurgence is expensive and unsustainable.
Rather, we need true transformation - where we reimagine and retool our institutions to be better...to prevent us from getting into another mess in the first place. We need to rethink how we live, how we learn, how we run government, how we do business, how we teach, how we eat, how we move, etc. By doing that, we'll create an environment where citizens can thrive, hopefully, if we get it right and create systems that can adapt to a rapidly changing world.
This period where plutocrats reign is very necessary though. By making big investments, these folks are giving institutional reformers the time and space to do their work. It's absolutely essential, but it's not an endgame. The important part of all this is actually transforming institutions, not seeing the stabilization we're currently experiencing.
This point in history is merely the overture, we need to get our act together for when the curtain comes up and the real show starts.
If I'm wrong, tell me how. If I'm not, spread the word. If people don't understand this distinction and behave accordingly, we're probably headed for failure.
Chronicling Disruption
If you're a scholar of world history, I'd be curious if you agree with this interpretation of how things went down throughout modern civilization.
For whatever reason, I was thinking about how people and institutions derived their influence and power. It seems like it shook out like this, generally speaking. I suppose as well that I'm basing this off of what happened in Western Eurpoe
First, it seems like religious institutions held power and individuals derived power from being part of the church. Then, monarchs sort of rebelled and usurped power away from them with claims of nobility and military might. Then, there was massive political reform (e.g., Magna Carta) and those who controlled politics had power. Then, the industrial revolution happened and those who controlled industry had power. Then (today), it seems, that those who control information have power.
So, to quickly summarize, it seems like the progression of power centers went kind of like this (obviously, it's not this simple...I'm merely looking at the macro picture here).
Religious -> Royalty -> Political -> Economic -> Information (today)
Let's say for a second I'm at least in the right ballpark. One of the natural questions to ask is, what's next? What types of institutions will disrupt the 'information power center'?
Will it be social and those who are able to be trusted socially will have power? Will it be virtue and those who have a noble, moral sense of purpose will have power? Will institutions devolve in such a way that there will no longer be a locus of power whose prevailing influence controls society?
If I had to guess, I think it'd go like this:
Information -> Social -> Virtue. Why? Because I'm optimistic that virtue - and being good - is what really drives people, when you're able to cut away all the BS in life. If it's the case that it's the core of human motivation, it's probably also at the core of what makes individuals and institutions powerful.
Another relevant question is why did disruption happen this way? My guess is that different groups of people yearned for better prospects in life so the counter-culture with the edge to cause a disruption went after it and toppled the previous standard-bearer of power. They disrupted because they could, it seems.
Also notice that the lag time in shifting to new power centers seems to be compressing - power centers seem to be toppling faster and faster.
Trying to get specific on civic engagement and communication
I've had this psuedo working paper on my hard drive for awhile...just some thinking about civic engagement and how to hopefully get a bit more specific about doing it. Views are my own.
-NT
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-NT
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Engaging citizens in government seems like it'd be a funny venture because it's unlike engagement anywhere in the private sector (on the face, at least). You have to connect with people who are outside the walls of your organizations because citizens don't work for the government...making them sort of like customers. At the same time, citizens elect many leaders (or elect people who are appointed / confirmed by elected leaders) which kind of makes them like shareholders. Beyond that, when examining the values of our constitutional, democratic, republic, we are a country "by the people and for the people" implying that we are indeed a part of government to some degree, akin to employees.
Which makes engagement interesting: how do you (you meaning any type of political actor, which is confusing in itself) engage a constituent, who is a quasi-customer|employee|shareholder?
Well, let's apply some tricks from the strategic change playbook: let's understand the audiences, the message and topics to engage people in, and engagement vehicles. For now, let's assume government is one entity and simply look at this situation as a one to many relationship, instead of a many to many relationship (i.e., there's one "government actor" and many different flavors of constituents).
As we go, I'll call out the action steps that would be required in truly developing a well thought out constituent engagement strategy.
The Audiences
Basically, this part is simple but really difficult to do. Understand who needs to be communicated with and what influences each of these groups. The short answer is that everybody needs to be communicated with about everything. That's obviously not good enough because there's not enough time or money in the history of the world to do that, so let's break it down.
So, who needs to be communicated with? Well, pretty much everybody needs to be to some degree, but to get started how to make meaningful distinctions between constituent groups. In companies this is easy, one usually breaks down an employee populace into a few categories: role/function, location, and level. When speaking about constituents though, it's not so easy.
Action Item #1 - first, figure out how to make meaningful distinctions between constituents
I'm not some sort of political operative, but it's pretty plain to see how constituent groups are broken down today: race, geography, income-level, gender, and maybe some interest groups (conservationists, evangelicals, trial lawyers, etc.).
The trouble with this is there are a lot of different hats people wear and it's not always easy to see how folks' different identities intersect. This is absolutely important to do, however, because it's really important to target messages based on who you're talking to.
Something that may be interesting to do is to create "personality profiles" which combine some of these identities / affinities into some clusters. I'm guessing there's probably data to do this, or ways to have people choose which of their identities mean more to them than others (in fact, I know there are, for reasons I can't discuss on this blog).
Maybe there's a "soccer mom" profile, or a "suburban small business owner" profile that can be clustered. Maybe there are about 50 other clusters that could be made. Obviously, there would be a lot of clusters but that's okay...we're talking about segmenting a nation of 330 million people. And, having fifty clusters is much simpler than having combinations of characteristics across several different dimensions.
There are probably lots of ways to group constituents, I won't really get into the best ways to do that.
Action Item #2 - next, determine what makes each group tick
This is one of the easy ones, really listen to and learn about each constituent group. What makes them tick? What influences them? How does their day run? What do they like and dislike? What's their culture. Once the audiences are identified you really have to understand them. This takes research and interaction.
The Message
Another important consideration to think about is what constituents need to be engaged in...meaning what do you have to communicate with them? This consideration slices two ways. First, what is the message/topic that constituents need to be engaged in. Second, how engaged does each group have to be at the end of it?
Action Item #3 - Determine what each constituent needs to know about | be engaged in.
This is a really important step, because it's never the case (I've never seen this circumstance, at least) that everyone needs to know a lot about everything. Providing information that's not relevant fatigues audiences and also causes confusion. Moreover, once you determine what each constituent group needs to know it's a lot easier to craft a clear message because you're suddenly aware of who your audience is and how they might conceptualize things in their mind*.
Now, in public affairs, this is very complicated because there are many different topics and actions required of constituents. Moreover, to even index constituents with particular messages, you need to determine all the messages that are out there and which ones are really important to communicate. In other words, one has to figure out the entirety of what they want to say and what's really important and what isn't.
Action Item #4 - next, determine to what degree each constituent needs to be engaged
Constituents are not all created equally when it comes to communication. Obviously all constituents are important, but they all have different abilities to influence the outcome of a specific policy or program. And quite frankly, each constituent probably doesn't want to be completely engaged in everything. So, another step to take is determine the degree to which each constituent group needs to be communicated with.
Some constituents may need to be really engaged and supportive of something, whereas others may just need to be aware. Some may need to have operational knowledge of something where as some need to be so well versed that they becomes spokespeople about the issue. Maps this out.
The vehicles
The last step (yes this really is and should be the last step) is to determine the vehicles with which you can communicate with constituents. Once you've done that, use all your knowledge to determine which vehicles should be used to communicate certain messages to which constituent group.
This is really important to be the last step, because without good data and thought behind it it's probably going to be very difficult to prioritize and sequence communications vehicles effectively. Doing all this analysis on the front-end makes it a lot easier to target messages.
Action Item #5 - List out all the vehicles you could possible use to communicate with people
Here, start with existing vehicles. There are probably lots of them: emails, mail, advertisements, twitter, facebook, townhalls, door knocking campaigns, church events, phone calls, text messages, a street team, etc. There are lots. Then, imagine new vehicles - maybe it's a bake sale, maybe it's a talent show...who knows. Your imagination is the limit to this.
One thing to note about communications vehicles is that it's super important to have vehicles which work in two directions - speaking and listening.
Action Item #6 - Match vehicles to each constituent groups and messages
Laying out your plan is the last step before execution. Match up each constituent and message to the best communication vehicle to communicate that message. When possible bundle messages and groups together (when they need the same message from the same vehicle). That will minimize work for the communicator and the constituent.
Conclusion
When I started writing this post, I thought that it would be wildly different to think about communicating with constituents than it is with employees. It's not. The same planning and execution process exists. But it is different in that it's much, much more complicated. Which makes it all the more important to think through an engagement strategy for your constituency.
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*- Also, this sort of goes without saying (and is the post for another message), but it's really important to craft a clear message that explains “why.” There are some thoughts about that here: http://theciviccommons.com/conversations/community-narrative-the-deep-infrastructure-of-civic-engagement
Reframing Bradford Frost's, 'The State of Our City Is Fragile'
This HuffPost post, written by Detroit Revitalization Fellow Bradford Frost, has been circulating around facebook / the blogosphere in the past few days.
Let me start by saying Frost's playbook of focusing on fundamentals (i.e. city services), building community, and standing up to solve challenges is on point, and in my opinion more or less correct*. I'd continue by saying that Bradford seems like a cool dude and I think it'd be super fun to grab a beer with him and others who hold his viewpoint and discuss, especially because it's clear that he's passionate and has a well informed perspective.
And now, to something more critical (sorry, I always feel a little bit guilty about laying it on thickly).
You'll notice, perhaps, that Frost's post is framed (notice the use of the word "you") to speak directly to city leaders. It's a call to action of the political and cultural players in the city asking them to do something, and live up to their responsibilities as civic leaders. This is reasonable, but I think it's the wrong frame.
What I think is more appropriate, accurate, effective, and important is to point the finger squarely back at ourselves. Solving these problems is not the express responsibility of the city and it's leaders (Moreover, I think trying to "fix the problem" is the wrong way of thinking about our situation...it's about shaping, not fixing, but more to come on that later). We are the city and we are it's leaders. To punt on our responsibilities as citizens, and downplay our own agency as members of this community is a miss. I think it'll lead to worse outcomes, and it's an inaccurate (and destructive) narrative to communicate to people who are yearning to be part of solutions to community problems. I also think we need to affirm the fact that we have agency instead of throwing our hands up, mailing in our agency, and expecting "the city" to solve all our problems.
It's actually quite the opposite in Detroit. Because our institutions are weak and distributed, citizens have an uncommon amount of latitude (and I'd say responsibility to create something remarkable and impactful. For a city our size, the amount of opportunity for entrepreneurship and intrapraneurship we have is unprecedented. We have a lot of influence as citizens in Detroit. We need to believe it, and embrace the civic responsibility that comes with it, not rebuke our "leaders" and sit on our hands.
Absolutely, city leaders have an important, and powerful role to play in reinventing Detroit - but it won't happen because of that small group of people alone. It will happen because of all of us, city leaders included - we all have a role to play. We need more people shouting this from the tops of every skyscraper in the city, exclaiming that we all have agency to improve this city and that we need to participate to make it happen.
We and the city are one in the same, the city is not our leaders alone. Yes, leadership matters (at least for now) but we all have something to bring to the table and we all have to bring that to the table to make this city work, in my opinion.
That's the most important role of leaders, creating narratives and opportunities which unlock the potential and agency of Detroit's citizens to live out what they bring to the table - large or small.
I agree with Frost's impassioned plea:
As unsexy as it is, the tone and substance of the work ahead must show our grit and determination to achieve these three aims. We must channel all of our energy on these tasks to meaningfully reset Detroit's lurching and fitful progress so it may meaningfully emerge into a city built for growth, prosperity and an inclusive future.
I just think relegating this work to the realm of "city leaders" is impractical, inaccurate, and dangerous. Let's do this. To borrow from the University of Michigan Men's Basketball Team: "We [all] on."
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*That being said, it's one thing to identify the issues as fundamentals, building community, and standing up to solve challenges. It's another thing to have ideas on how to actually do those things. If I was probing Frost in person, that's what I would lead with. That'd actually be a good future post...talking about how to actually do that stuff.
The words that matter
A few weeks ago I did a quick poll on facebook. I asked in a status update, "An experiment: what are the most powerful words in the English language? I'll explain my angle in a ex-post blog entry." This is that ex-post blog entry.
Here's a summary of what people said:
Them
Us
Love (x2)
You
Repudiate
Quintessence
Yes
No
Profound
Frat <-- This was a good joke, sort of indicates the power of humor, actually
Hello
Goodbye
Hate
Trust
Redemption
Rape
Fag
N-word
C*nt
It doesn't take outrageous vernacular to have power. In fact, many of the words on this list are surprisingly simple. They are words that create in-groups and out-groups. Words that elicit primary emotion and common understanding of the world we live in. They are words about the human condition, or reflections of the human condition (e.g., take "frat" for example...humor is part of our humanity).
There are also words that have jarring connotation and are by their nature incendiary. This is what SB pointed out when he posted his words on my wall. "I think the negative words tend to carry a lot more power than the positive ones," he said. I don't think these are truly the most powerful words (in an enduring sense, they certainly are at the point of use).
One of my former colleagues (really, he was my "bosses boss" haha), John Hagel, is making a presentation at this year's SxSW about moving from story to narrative. I happen to think we crave narrative because it helps us create our own meaning in our own lives. If we did a study of story communication versus narrative communication, I think we would find the language to be different. A story is much more needing of powerful, emotional, connotative words because you have to control the perspective of your audience.
On the other hand, I think narrative requires the sort of simple ideas and language that most folks listed above. These words help the shepherd of the narrative include other people, and give them the building blocks to create their own meaning in their own words.
Think about President Obama's first election campaign. His narrative device was simple, and conveyed an idea that others could build upon, create meaning with, and act upon - "Yes we can."
I don't think we need crazy powerful words to change the world, if we're after creating narratives that others can participate in. The most powerful words, I think, are the simplest ones that help ourselves and others get to the unfettered noble truth of the aspirational, virtuous idea we are trying to rally around.
That was kind of long, so here's the punch line. I think the most powerful words, truly powerful words, are the simplest ones that get to the essence of who we are as humans, because those words help everyone think clearly enough to create their own stories and beliefs. Not the words that project meaning onto others' beliefs.
I don't think we want the words of stories, I think we want more agency than to be the subject of a story that's told unto us. I think we want narratives, the language of their discourse, and the freedom they provide to make meaning in our own lives. Maybe humanity wasn't fully ready to embrace narrative (but maybe we were) before, but I think we certainly are ready now. And now, it's possible.
---
Thanks for the fodder for discussion, all.
Here's a summary of what people said:
Them
Us
Love (x2)
You
Repudiate
Quintessence
Yes
No
Profound
Frat <-- This was a good joke, sort of indicates the power of humor, actually
Hello
Goodbye
Hate
Trust
Redemption
Rape
Fag
N-word
C*nt
It doesn't take outrageous vernacular to have power. In fact, many of the words on this list are surprisingly simple. They are words that create in-groups and out-groups. Words that elicit primary emotion and common understanding of the world we live in. They are words about the human condition, or reflections of the human condition (e.g., take "frat" for example...humor is part of our humanity).
There are also words that have jarring connotation and are by their nature incendiary. This is what SB pointed out when he posted his words on my wall. "I think the negative words tend to carry a lot more power than the positive ones," he said. I don't think these are truly the most powerful words (in an enduring sense, they certainly are at the point of use).
One of my former colleagues (really, he was my "bosses boss" haha), John Hagel, is making a presentation at this year's SxSW about moving from story to narrative. I happen to think we crave narrative because it helps us create our own meaning in our own lives. If we did a study of story communication versus narrative communication, I think we would find the language to be different. A story is much more needing of powerful, emotional, connotative words because you have to control the perspective of your audience.
On the other hand, I think narrative requires the sort of simple ideas and language that most folks listed above. These words help the shepherd of the narrative include other people, and give them the building blocks to create their own meaning in their own words.
Think about President Obama's first election campaign. His narrative device was simple, and conveyed an idea that others could build upon, create meaning with, and act upon - "Yes we can."
I don't think we need crazy powerful words to change the world, if we're after creating narratives that others can participate in. The most powerful words, I think, are the simplest ones that help ourselves and others get to the unfettered noble truth of the aspirational, virtuous idea we are trying to rally around.
That was kind of long, so here's the punch line. I think the most powerful words, truly powerful words, are the simplest ones that get to the essence of who we are as humans, because those words help everyone think clearly enough to create their own stories and beliefs. Not the words that project meaning onto others' beliefs.
I don't think we want the words of stories, I think we want more agency than to be the subject of a story that's told unto us. I think we want narratives, the language of their discourse, and the freedom they provide to make meaning in our own lives. Maybe humanity wasn't fully ready to embrace narrative (but maybe we were) before, but I think we certainly are ready now. And now, it's possible.
---
Thanks for the fodder for discussion, all.
The Time Problem - Part 2 (Observations)
Context
A few weeks ago, I started a post investigating some data I pulled from the American Time Use Survey and some other sources. At the time, I just laid out the context. Before I lay out some observations, I'd like to qualify this post (even though it weakens the persuasiveness of this post) by offering that this is pretty back of the envelope data. Despite that, however, it's still interesting and does have some explanatory power.
Anyway, here are some observations. Here's the data. Apologies that my write up is pretty fast.
Observations
For this post, I set out to try to understand what the deal is with people's time and why it seems like everyone is short of it. Time, it seems, is a critical resource in making communities stronger and in my real-life observation...everyone seems over committed.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to access data about time use that precedes 2003. This is limiting, but I was able to find a study with an abstract suggesting that Americans' time use hasn't changed that much over the past several decades.
As far as volunteering time goes, it's increased modestly (about 11%) from 2003 to 2011. At the same time, volunteering seems counter-cyclical to the economy - when the economy is under stress, volunteering time seems to increase. Similarly, average volunteer hours per capita increased about 8% from 2003 to 2001 - from 51.1 hours per year to 55.1 hours per year. So overall, volunteer hours have increased a bit, but that figure could be tied to the country's economic health. Also, this data cuts across the entire population and there could be huge disparities between different demographic groups (e.g., employed vs. unemployed, old vs. young, etc.).
Before this next part, note that US GDP increased 35% from 2003-2011 and the US population increased 7% from 2003 to 2011.
While the US GDP grew 35%, reported revenue of all not-for-profits (as reported on form 990s) clearly outpaced US GDP growth and increased 62% from 2003 to 2011. I wonder if these revenues are driven by government grants or donations from private citizens, I couldn't find the data.
The number of not-for-profit organization also increased during that period - overall, there were 15% more not-for-profits in 2001 than 2003 and there was a 99% increase in the number of not-for-profits with revenues less than $100,000. Controlling for population, not-for-profit revenue per capita increased 51% and revenues per not-for-profit increased 41% from 2003 to 2011.
Here's one more stat. The total number of hours volunteered by Americans divided by the number of not-for-profits in the US has be surprisingly stagnant. It's only increased by 1% from 2003 to 2011.
Conclusions
I think it's pretty strange that revenues have exploded in the sector and so have organizations, but, Americans use of time hasn't really change that much. Moreover, it seems that if the sector doesn't have a reputation for impact (which obviously varies from organization to organization)...why aren't our volunteer hours per organization focusing more...why aren't we trying to improve the organizations we already have?
It almost seems like volunteering is supply-driven, rather than demand driven, which is to say it's dictated by the number for not-for-profits that exist, rather than by the amount that citizens want to volunteer. Which is wild. Wouldn't we want growth in the sector to be mirrored by organizations increasing their brand profile to the point where more people want to spend more time volunteering for the same number of organizations? Especially because the value of a volunteer per year (assuming an average of 50 hours volunteered per year and a $10/hr value of time) is about $500.
If you look at the average hours volunteer per not-for-profit divided the average volunteer hours per person, the amount of people volunteering with each not-for-profit is about 200. Combining this with the value of an individual volunteer (which is conservative because $10 isn't even close to the hourly rate of a skills-based volunteer) shows that volunteers are big boons to any organization.
Anyway, this data could be useful when determining some baselines for determining whether an organization is paying too much to manage a volunteer (given their value).
Overall, I don't know that this really gets at the time problem, save for saying that not-for-profits haven't really improved (at the macro level) in engaging volunteers. ROA for volunteers (which is the amount of hours divided by assets, which in this case I'd say is the number of not-for-profits) is stagnant. It's declining if you look at assets as NFP revenues. Improving this volunteer ROA could yield huge benefits for not-for-profit organizations, that could actually be measured financially.
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What do y'all think? Why have revenues exploded whereas volunteer hours haven't? Are volunteer hours even important?
That's actually a very relevant question - does it matter if volunteer hours aren't growing as fast as revenue? My intuition says that buying social sector activity is probably a bad thing (because the social capital created by connections and engagement probably has immeasurable benefits).
Any other datasets which would be good to mash up?
A few weeks ago, I started a post investigating some data I pulled from the American Time Use Survey and some other sources. At the time, I just laid out the context. Before I lay out some observations, I'd like to qualify this post (even though it weakens the persuasiveness of this post) by offering that this is pretty back of the envelope data. Despite that, however, it's still interesting and does have some explanatory power.
Anyway, here are some observations. Here's the data. Apologies that my write up is pretty fast.
Observations
For this post, I set out to try to understand what the deal is with people's time and why it seems like everyone is short of it. Time, it seems, is a critical resource in making communities stronger and in my real-life observation...everyone seems over committed.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to access data about time use that precedes 2003. This is limiting, but I was able to find a study with an abstract suggesting that Americans' time use hasn't changed that much over the past several decades.
As far as volunteering time goes, it's increased modestly (about 11%) from 2003 to 2011. At the same time, volunteering seems counter-cyclical to the economy - when the economy is under stress, volunteering time seems to increase. Similarly, average volunteer hours per capita increased about 8% from 2003 to 2001 - from 51.1 hours per year to 55.1 hours per year. So overall, volunteer hours have increased a bit, but that figure could be tied to the country's economic health. Also, this data cuts across the entire population and there could be huge disparities between different demographic groups (e.g., employed vs. unemployed, old vs. young, etc.).
Before this next part, note that US GDP increased 35% from 2003-2011 and the US population increased 7% from 2003 to 2011.
While the US GDP grew 35%, reported revenue of all not-for-profits (as reported on form 990s) clearly outpaced US GDP growth and increased 62% from 2003 to 2011. I wonder if these revenues are driven by government grants or donations from private citizens, I couldn't find the data.
The number of not-for-profit organization also increased during that period - overall, there were 15% more not-for-profits in 2001 than 2003 and there was a 99% increase in the number of not-for-profits with revenues less than $100,000. Controlling for population, not-for-profit revenue per capita increased 51% and revenues per not-for-profit increased 41% from 2003 to 2011.
Here's one more stat. The total number of hours volunteered by Americans divided by the number of not-for-profits in the US has be surprisingly stagnant. It's only increased by 1% from 2003 to 2011.
Conclusions
I think it's pretty strange that revenues have exploded in the sector and so have organizations, but, Americans use of time hasn't really change that much. Moreover, it seems that if the sector doesn't have a reputation for impact (which obviously varies from organization to organization)...why aren't our volunteer hours per organization focusing more...why aren't we trying to improve the organizations we already have?
It almost seems like volunteering is supply-driven, rather than demand driven, which is to say it's dictated by the number for not-for-profits that exist, rather than by the amount that citizens want to volunteer. Which is wild. Wouldn't we want growth in the sector to be mirrored by organizations increasing their brand profile to the point where more people want to spend more time volunteering for the same number of organizations? Especially because the value of a volunteer per year (assuming an average of 50 hours volunteered per year and a $10/hr value of time) is about $500.
If you look at the average hours volunteer per not-for-profit divided the average volunteer hours per person, the amount of people volunteering with each not-for-profit is about 200. Combining this with the value of an individual volunteer (which is conservative because $10 isn't even close to the hourly rate of a skills-based volunteer) shows that volunteers are big boons to any organization.
Anyway, this data could be useful when determining some baselines for determining whether an organization is paying too much to manage a volunteer (given their value).
Overall, I don't know that this really gets at the time problem, save for saying that not-for-profits haven't really improved (at the macro level) in engaging volunteers. ROA for volunteers (which is the amount of hours divided by assets, which in this case I'd say is the number of not-for-profits) is stagnant. It's declining if you look at assets as NFP revenues. Improving this volunteer ROA could yield huge benefits for not-for-profit organizations, that could actually be measured financially.
---
What do y'all think? Why have revenues exploded whereas volunteer hours haven't? Are volunteer hours even important?
That's actually a very relevant question - does it matter if volunteer hours aren't growing as fast as revenue? My intuition says that buying social sector activity is probably a bad thing (because the social capital created by connections and engagement probably has immeasurable benefits).
Any other datasets which would be good to mash up?
Where bureaucracies have led us / Introducing #Stoos
I've recently come across the Stoos movement, a group of management thinkers from across disciplines who are trying to save the organizational world from itself (not joking). I happen to agree with their point of view, so I'll be publishing a bit over the next few month in the spirit of their work. Check out:
http://www.stoosnetwork.org/
https://twitter.com/stoosconnect
Anyway, back to the post.
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A lot of the time, I get really upset when I think about the world the Baby Boomers are leaving us. Here's some of the laundry list of messed up things manifesting in the institutional world right now:
http://www.stoosnetwork.org/
https://twitter.com/stoosconnect
Anyway, back to the post.
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A lot of the time, I get really upset when I think about the world the Baby Boomers are leaving us. Here's some of the laundry list of messed up things manifesting in the institutional world right now:
- Crumbling infrastructure
- Sovereign Debt
- Unbridled financial system
- Vulnerable Social Security
- Exorbitant Healthcare Spending
- Unprecedented partisanship and inability to pass pragmatic policies
- Growing income and social inequality
- Climate change
- US K-12 Education is the nation's most under performing asset
And the list goes on.
The way I see it, is that these issues are able to be influenced. We can make headway. We're not doomed, necessarily.
Again, we're not doomed...but I don't think bureaucracies will get us to where we need to be, however. Those are the structures that made huge gains in the 20th century, but also left us with a load of messy problems. "Flat" organizations won't help us either. Flat organizations are the worst kind of bureaucracy (because it's a bureaucracy parading around as if it is not a bureaucracy).
Don't get me wrong, bureaucracies aren't inherently bad. They're just ill-equipped to do what we need in the organizational world, now. There are fewer and fewer problems, in my humble opinion, that require standardized results and gains from economies of scale (which is what bureaucracies are awesome at). I'd venture the opposite, we have more and more problems that require non-standard results.
If we follow this assertion to its end, we need to think about organizations in a radically different way. Bureaucracies, and all that comes with them, shouldn't be our frame of reference of what an organization is. We need something different. This will be hard, because we swim in bureaucracies and probably don't even realize how beholden we are to thinking about organizations through the lens of bureaucracy.
I have an alternate point of view and so do the other Stoos thinkers. Over the next few months I'll try to start articulating this viewpoint of a "new organizational world." Kind of a book preview, but that's getting ahead of myself.
The Time Problem - Part 1 (Data)
So, I'm too geeked about this data to write a full post before sharing, so I figured I'd split this post up into a few parts.
Here's the context:
I've been really fascinated by "The Time Problem" (my words, nothing official) in civic engagement. It seems like time is a limiting factor for a lot of people when it comes to citizens participating in their communities. So, I wanted to investigate this to see how we use time and how we use time is changing.
Thankfully, the American Time Use Study has some of this data. I also wanted to run some calculations to try to account for the effects of changes in the number of non-profits, population, GDP, etc., so I built a few other datasets into my spreadsheet.
Anyway, I figured I'd share the dataset before writing a post with observations. You can find it here: http://bit.ly/Wu7KZO. It's currently editable so please note your changes if you make any. Also, apologies in advance, I didn't name my calculations / variables terribly clearly but if you follow the formulas you should be able to figure out what's going on.
Full disclosure: there datasets are definitely imperfect (GDP is not Real GDP, the NFP count data isn't pulled from the same months each year, it's not a large dataset etc.). That being said, I only wanted to look at trends and am doing the best I can with the dog food I have. I think it will be interesting, regardless...I'm already starting to see some interesting stuff in the data.
In the next post - hopefully later this week - I'll talk more about my hypothesis, the data, and some observations.
Probably should have done some work this evening instead of be a huge nerd. Woops.
Here's the context:
I've been really fascinated by "The Time Problem" (my words, nothing official) in civic engagement. It seems like time is a limiting factor for a lot of people when it comes to citizens participating in their communities. So, I wanted to investigate this to see how we use time and how we use time is changing.
Thankfully, the American Time Use Study has some of this data. I also wanted to run some calculations to try to account for the effects of changes in the number of non-profits, population, GDP, etc., so I built a few other datasets into my spreadsheet.
Anyway, I figured I'd share the dataset before writing a post with observations. You can find it here: http://bit.ly/Wu7KZO. It's currently editable so please note your changes if you make any. Also, apologies in advance, I didn't name my calculations / variables terribly clearly but if you follow the formulas you should be able to figure out what's going on.
Full disclosure: there datasets are definitely imperfect (GDP is not Real GDP, the NFP count data isn't pulled from the same months each year, it's not a large dataset etc.). That being said, I only wanted to look at trends and am doing the best I can with the dog food I have. I think it will be interesting, regardless...I'm already starting to see some interesting stuff in the data.
In the next post - hopefully later this week - I'll talk more about my hypothesis, the data, and some observations.
Probably should have done some work this evening instead of be a huge nerd. Woops.
Essays #2
A few months ago, I posted one of my graduate school essays in an effort to be more open about my thoughts and feelings - and connect more with others. Now that I'm done applying, I wanted to post a few more essays which reveal some things about me which I normally shy away from talking about.
I feel so lucky to have applied because the process of reflecting to write these essays was incredibly therapeutic to me and have helped me understand who I am and what I value much better than I ever have before.
Here are three things to consume. This will be my last post about this topic on Civic Yuppie, but I'm planning to do more reflection about all this stuff on Scraps.
1 - This is a multimedia essay that I never submitted. It was optional and instead of a video, I submitted a short essay instead. Ever wonder why I have an Orange Juice obsession? Here's the story. This is only a draft cut; I never made it professional grade because I never submitted the essay.
Here are the other two pieces. I invite your remarks:
What matters most to you, and why?
More than anything, spending time and having deep relationships with other people makes me happy. For example, I love hosting people – whether it’s cooking them dinner or meeting up before a night on the town. I love being part of great teams; the feeling of doing something extraordinary with other people exceeds the measure of any extrinsic reward. Speaking personally, I hope with all my heart that I’ll be blessed enough to be a good husband, father, and citizen someday and that I’ll have deep, committed relationships in each of those realms [Author's note: I almost wrote an essay about the notion of wanting to be a good husband, father, and citizen (It's a really powerful hierarchy of identity in my life). I didn't work because it wasn't "deep" enough and the essay never flowed correctly.]
Because deep relationships are my greatest source of happiness, telling the truth is far and away what matters most to me. I don’t think deep relationships – let alone any relationship – can exist without trust. Trust can only exist between people, I think, when all parties tell the truth and act honestly. As I see it, telling the truth is the magic ingredient that unlocks the possibility of having deep relationships at all.
Even though I’ve always had a sense of why deep relationships and the truth are important to me, I finally understood how the ideas connected while on a trip to Thailand in August of 2011. On the trip, two friends and I visited a Buddhist Temple and we talked for a few hours with a group of Buddhist monks. We immediately started asking them about Buddhist philosophy and our conversation, fortunately for me, quickly turned to the subject of happiness.
The monks drew a link between happiness and permanence. Their view was that only “permanent” things, the pinnacle of which is a relationship with God, can lead to happiness. This is because impermanent things, like wealth and fame, are always fleeting. One can never feel secure – or happy, ultimately – by impermanent things because they must constantly be maintained and the longevity of impermanent things is never guaranteed. I’ve realized that this is why I’ve come to find happiness in deep relationships with other people – next to a relationship with God, they’re probably the only things in life that even have a chance of being permanent.
This gives truth tremendous importance in my life because it is the anchor to which my greatest source of happiness, deep relationships with others, is tied. Truth is the foundation from which everything that matters to me is built. To me, truth is a prerequisite for deep relationships and thus a prerequisite for happiness itself.
In addition to underpinning my individual happiness, telling the truth guides my thinking on how to rebuild communities and institutions, which is what I hope to do in Detroit over the course of my adult life. In my experience, communities and institutions – whether it is families, companies, or cities – crumble when people do not, or are compelled not to tell the truth.
I don’t think it’s possible to rebuild institutions without designing systems which support and encourage honesty or think it’s reasonable to expect institutions to function effectively if individuals act dishonestly. In my hometown, Detroit, this hypothesis has been disturbingly accurate; over the course of decades, dishonest behavior has triggered everything from the crippling of city finances to the fueling of racial tensions between Detroit and its suburbs.
But even beyond its implications to my happiness and my aspirations to rebuild institutions, telling the truth matters to me because it makes me feel like I’m respecting the gift of life. I’ve come to value my life a lot because of the many examples of beauty, suffering, loss, and joy I’ve witnessed or experienced as I’ve come of age. By this I don’t even mean that I’ve come to value the opportunities I’ve had because I was born into a middle class family in the United States of America, instead of abject poverty. More simply, I mean that I value the fact that I’ve woken up every day for over 25 years and can take a deep breath as I emerge from underneath my bedcovers. That’s a privilege I appreciate and I think that trying to live as a man of character – which starts with honesty, I believe – is something that honors that privilege.
What do you want to do – REALLY – and why [School Name]?
In our world today we’re trying to solve 21stcentury problems which are complex and fast-changing, with 20thcentury institutions which are siloed and slow and it’s not working. In particular, if Detroit’s institutions are not rebuilt, I worry that all of the City’s resurgence and revitalization will evaporate and that another generation of Detroiters will be lost in the shadows of economic, political, and social decline.
Quite simply, I am determined to prevent that from happening – I intend to build institutions and communities which unleash human potential rather than perpetuate human suffering. In my career, and civic life, what I want to do (REALLY) is rebuild Detroit’s institutions so that they are enduring and meet the City’s needs in the coming century. More specifically, because Detroit struggles to address cross-sector issues – like talent development and homelessness – I want to create new models for solving cross-sector problems and engaging citizens. Moreover, rebuilding Detroit’s institutions is something I feel a duty to do because too few young Detroiters understand that it’s necessary.
Detroit is the first city being rebuilt in a world of constant disruption, so I don’t just see transforming Detroit’s institutions as a regional matter, either. I consider Detroit to be a testing ground for the next wave of community redevelopment which will occur in coming decades. In addition to serving Detroit, I want to make a broader impact in the world by reforming institutions in Detroit and helping others adapt and adopt our models elsewhere.
After thinking about the audacity of wanting to do something like rebuild the institutions of a major American city, I’ve realized that the most critical thing I need to develop further – more than any set of business skills – is my passion, courage, and confidence. I know I can learn what’s necessary to accomplish my goal to rebuild Detroit’s institutions, so long as I have the motivation, tenacity, and fortitude to go after something so difficult. That is why I want to attend the [School Name] – in my view it’s a place which cultivates passion, courage, and confidence in its students and helps them get a management education as part of that that larger, more important aim.
I noticed this ethos most clearly when visiting the [School Name] for a prospective student day. I was grabbing a bite to eat at an outdoor buffet and I started chatting with a student passing through on her way to the library. The first question she asked me was what I was passionate about and interested in, making it very clear to me that passion is truly what drives [School Name] students. This theme extended to all the people I met and all the programs I heard about, like “[Program #1]” and “[Program #2]”. Passion, I think, is part of the [School Name]'s DNA. That is exactly the type of community I want to be part of, want to contribute to, and feel like I need to be part of to have a fighter’s chance of rebuilding Detroit’s institutions.
Everything that happens after
Don't let my scampering of election-related disillusionment on social media fool you, I care deeply about our nation and about public service. But now that the election is over, I'd like to weigh in on the election and plead for follow-through and pragmatism. For persistence, inclusivity, tenacity, and grit.
This is a yelp for governance.
Without going on a tirade on why I'm incredibly disillusioned by elections and the electoral process, let me tell you why I think governance matters more. Let me start by painting a picture.
There are people in our country who are suffering. They are hungry, broke, ill, or worse. There are people in the shadows of the shadows who are voiceless or who are voiceless in practice, because they're spending all their time trying to survive and physically cannot participate in the affairs of our republic.
There are also people who aren't suffering. I'm lucky enough to consider myself one of them. Our lives certainly aren't perfect (as those of you who read my other, more personally introspective blog can probably attest to) but we're doing well. We can eat food consistently. We have a roof over our heads, consistently. We can spend time, energy, and money toward leisure activities. We are in decent health or at least have access to health care.
Finally, there are people in our country who are on the cusp of suffering and not suffering. Some folks will fall backwards and suffer, and others will move toward health and prosperity.
Governance affects all these groups. For those suffering, governance provides needed relief to help them simply survive and also can provide a path upward. For those who are not suffering, governance has more than likely aided their station and opportunity in life. For those that are on the cusp, the difference between bad governance and good governance can mean the difference between good and awful life outcomes in the short and long term. For us all, governance affects our well being and happiness.
Elections, by contrast, don't actually tangibly help people. Elections don't feed the hungry and they don't defend our border from threats foreign and domestic. Elections certainly have the potential to nourish our hope and belief in America but they don't do anything in the real world. They are a fleeting sort of moment, they don't keep the lights on.
We can't tap out after the elections because elections don't help people. They are are event which sets the stage to help people.
Let me cut to the chase. The election was important, but now it's over and it's time to refocus on good governance. What really matters and makes a material difference in people's lives are not elections, but everything that happens after.
This is a yelp for governance.
Without going on a tirade on why I'm incredibly disillusioned by elections and the electoral process, let me tell you why I think governance matters more. Let me start by painting a picture.
There are people in our country who are suffering. They are hungry, broke, ill, or worse. There are people in the shadows of the shadows who are voiceless or who are voiceless in practice, because they're spending all their time trying to survive and physically cannot participate in the affairs of our republic.
There are also people who aren't suffering. I'm lucky enough to consider myself one of them. Our lives certainly aren't perfect (as those of you who read my other, more personally introspective blog can probably attest to) but we're doing well. We can eat food consistently. We have a roof over our heads, consistently. We can spend time, energy, and money toward leisure activities. We are in decent health or at least have access to health care.
Finally, there are people in our country who are on the cusp of suffering and not suffering. Some folks will fall backwards and suffer, and others will move toward health and prosperity.
Governance affects all these groups. For those suffering, governance provides needed relief to help them simply survive and also can provide a path upward. For those who are not suffering, governance has more than likely aided their station and opportunity in life. For those that are on the cusp, the difference between bad governance and good governance can mean the difference between good and awful life outcomes in the short and long term. For us all, governance affects our well being and happiness.
Elections, by contrast, don't actually tangibly help people. Elections don't feed the hungry and they don't defend our border from threats foreign and domestic. Elections certainly have the potential to nourish our hope and belief in America but they don't do anything in the real world. They are a fleeting sort of moment, they don't keep the lights on.
We can't tap out after the elections because elections don't help people. They are are event which sets the stage to help people.
Let me cut to the chase. The election was important, but now it's over and it's time to refocus on good governance. What really matters and makes a material difference in people's lives are not elections, but everything that happens after.
Community Narrative - The Deep Infrastructure of Civic Engagement
I posted this up on Civic Commons but wanted to cross-post here, for tracking purposes. I really think there's something to this idea. I'd appreciate any feedback you have, if the topic piques your interest.
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New idea to explore, thoughts? | Community Narrative - The deep infrastructure of civic engagement http://theciviccommons.com/conversations/community-narrative-the-deep-infrastructure-of-civic-engagement via @civiccommons
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New idea to explore, thoughts? | Community Narrative - The deep infrastructure of civic engagement http://theciviccommons.com/conversations/community-narrative-the-deep-infrastructure-of-civic-engagement via @civiccommons
A (mini) Detroit Manifesto
The motto for the City of Detroit - Speramus Meliora Resurget Cineribus - means, "we hope for better things, it will rise from the ashes." This motto was coined after a June 1805 fire burned the city to the ground. Now, curiously enough, the motto fits the precarious predicament that the City is in as well as the undying optimism of its residents.
Detroit is on the leading edge of the social and economic shifts that will disrupt our country and perhaps our world. It is a city being rebuilt in a new mold - it uses a blueprint without powerful central institutions, a pioneering new industry, or social homogeneity. In my humble opinion, it’s the first city being rebuilt in a new world of constant disruption.
For that reason, I think it's an incredible opportunity to visit Detroit, a metropolis in flux, to learn about the deep shifts occurring here and how they are manifesting in the lives of everyday people. By visiting Detroit, one can get an intimate look at an amazing and interesting city, but also get a glimpse of what's to come elsewhere.
I firmly believe that when America looks in the mirror, it sees its reflection as Detroit. Consequently, I think Detroit's story is one that is frighteningly important, not just because the City's revitalization is critical to residents for its own sake, but because our collective fates are tied up in what Detroit represents: a new world where shi[f]t has already happened.
Detroit: Transformation or Revitalization?
I'm working on a grad school essay, and I got to thinking about the words we, meaning Detroiters and Michiganders, use to characterize the turnaround efforts in the City of Detroit.
More often than not, we talk about "revitalizing" Detroit. To me, this means refreshing and returning Detroit to the state it once was. It's re-energizing what's already there. It's not changing what's there, per se, it's just "bringing back" Detroit.
I think there's something off about this frame.
As far as I'm concerned, Detroit - and other cities across the country and world - have outdated institutional frameworks. The way organizations and governments run is built for an older world. To put it bluntly, the institutions in Detroit are built for a time without digital infrastructure and ubiquitous internet connectivity. Instead of being built for a world that's constantly changing, current institutions are built for a world that changes slowly.
Rather than claiming that it's a story of revitalization, I think we should characterize Detroit as a story of transformation. Why? Because we need a transformation, not a revitalization. The workings of institutions in Detroit, and again, other cities too, has to fundamentally change. Of course, I could be wrong about this...but I dare you to try convincing me. (I think about institutions all, day, every day and consequently have sharp, thought-out arguments and a fierce, cavalier, even bulldog-ish attitude about the subject).
Now, transformation doesn't have to mean wiping out the people, culture, and community sovereignty that exists in Detroit. I mean this in a technical sense (literally, transformation doesn't have to wipe out culture, there are other ways to go about it) and I also think it would be a tragedy if elites in the city used transformation as an excuse to wash over the character and spirit Detroit currently possesses.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I think Detroit needs to be a transformation rather than a revitalization and I think we should use language that reflects that.
More often than not, we talk about "revitalizing" Detroit. To me, this means refreshing and returning Detroit to the state it once was. It's re-energizing what's already there. It's not changing what's there, per se, it's just "bringing back" Detroit.
I think there's something off about this frame.
As far as I'm concerned, Detroit - and other cities across the country and world - have outdated institutional frameworks. The way organizations and governments run is built for an older world. To put it bluntly, the institutions in Detroit are built for a time without digital infrastructure and ubiquitous internet connectivity. Instead of being built for a world that's constantly changing, current institutions are built for a world that changes slowly.
Rather than claiming that it's a story of revitalization, I think we should characterize Detroit as a story of transformation. Why? Because we need a transformation, not a revitalization. The workings of institutions in Detroit, and again, other cities too, has to fundamentally change. Of course, I could be wrong about this...but I dare you to try convincing me. (I think about institutions all, day, every day and consequently have sharp, thought-out arguments and a fierce, cavalier, even bulldog-ish attitude about the subject).
Now, transformation doesn't have to mean wiping out the people, culture, and community sovereignty that exists in Detroit. I mean this in a technical sense (literally, transformation doesn't have to wipe out culture, there are other ways to go about it) and I also think it would be a tragedy if elites in the city used transformation as an excuse to wash over the character and spirit Detroit currently possesses.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I think Detroit needs to be a transformation rather than a revitalization and I think we should use language that reflects that.
Leading in the public and private sectors - challenges
I had a very interesting (and serendipitious) conversation with a colleague of a friend/colleague on the way to the train station today. After a few other topics, we got to talking about the importance of vision vs. execution in the public sector which got us talking about the importance of results-driven leadership in the public sector. Moreover, he was commenting on how sometimes what it takes is to keep your eye on the goal and even drop a few "screw you"s if you have to and just get something done.
Over the course of the conversation he triggered in my mind a fairly interesting model for what leaders/organizations have to go through with any decision they make. It's simple, but that's a good thing.
Step 1 - Visioning: here you have to decide what the organization is going to do and why
Step 2 - Scoping: here, you figure out who in the organization (or country) is going to do it and/or buy-into it
Step 3 - Executing: here, you have to decide how to get people to actually act on the vision
So, I think there are some interesting observations here and implications for business and public/social sector organizations -
Visioning - this is hard no matter what. In the public sector it's especially hard because the vision involves large, large numbers of unique people. In the private sector it's hard because your vision has to turn a profit. These are very different problems, but both are compelling.
Scoping - this becomes easier if you can limit the scope of people that are included in the issue because you can cut people out of the benefits or decision making process. It's kind of "Jobs-ian" view as my friend said...you can say "screw you" to people who just don't get things done and cut those people out of the rewards. Unfortunately, in the public sector/social sector it's hard to do this because the cost of excluding people from the activity / reward has real human costs and moral implications.
Executing - things "get done" voluntarily or involuntarily. In the public sector almost nothing is fully involuntarily. Even taxes are something you can avoid for awhile. In the private sector many organizations have the luxury of getting people to do things involuntarily, in the public sector a lot more inspiration and persuasion is required. The tough part for private sector is, the ability to force people to do things is corroding - eventually (and this is happening already) probably all employees (or at least a whole heap of them) will have leverage over their employers. As a result, "force" won't really work because those employees (e.g., members of the creative class) will just go elsewhere. (Credit where credit is due, John Hagel, John Seeley Brown, Lang Davison and others publish about...the original idea is not mine).
Now, what are the implications?
1. I think this framework helps to understand why leadership in the public/social sector is so hard: each step (visioning, scoping, and executing) involves a lot of people that the leader doesn't really have control over.
2. If it's getting harder and harder to "force" people to do things, the private sector will probably have to learn how to get people to do things without forcing them. That's hard.
3. I sometimes struggle to see the "visioning" of public sector organizations, namely government. It seems like that a lot of the time politicans focus on policy outcomes (a la execution phase) rather than the broader vision of what we're doing and why. Maybe that's why our outcomes often seem to go awry...they're not informed by the dynamics which occur at the system level, which is to say they're not informed by a comprehensive vision.
4. There are three real competencies here that leaders and organizations seem like they need to master, especially in a world where it's hard to force people to do stuff: crafting an insipring vision which people want to buy into, how to really connect with large and diverse groups of people to understand their needs, and figuring out how to get people to do stuff without being able to use force.
5. In addition to number four, you actually have to communicate this stuff, too, so that's a fourth competency.
Anyway, just some musings. Anyone have any thoughts? Am I whack? Is this helpful?