10 Tips for Being a More Affective Agent of Change

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10 Tips for Being a More Affective Agent of Change
by Mark Steiner (adapted from his August 4 Louisville Sustainability Forum Presentation)
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The hard work of creating a sustainable world can leave us burned out, overwhelmed, frazzled, and sometimes downright angry. Maintaining our energy and keeping our heart and mind on the big picture can be a significant challenge. Along my journey I have encountered and explored a variety of tools and perspectives that I believe can help us meet that challenge, can help us sharpen our focus, increase our energy, strengthen our vision and maintain our sanity as we work to create a just and sustainable world.

All of these tools and perspectives have a qualities that are rooted in connection and care. They bring to our efforts as activists a centeredness in heart and soul, in what the Dali Lama refers to as loving kindness. Some may call it respect, or doing the right thing by each other, or more recently - sacred activism. By whatever name, these tools and perspectives have the capacity to make doing the hard work of creating a sustainable world not just tolerable but downright satisfying. What matters I believe is that these ideas can greatly increase our capacity to change the world.

#1 Work for What You Want

Experience and observation illustrate that working for what we want is more sustainable than working against what we don't want. If we constantly attend to battles, we become embattled. If we have the tendency of reacting to all the injustice primarily out of anger we run the risk of becoming a stereotypical angry activist. (and who really wants to spend our free time with a bunch of angry activists?).

An excellent example of working for what you want is Kentuckians For The Commonwealth's "I Love Mountains Day". While the goal here may be to stop Mountain Top Removal Mining, the message and focus is in the rallying cry of "I Love Mountains". Its pretty hard to argue against this simple and powerful message - one rooted in care and compassion rather than anger and indignation (both of which have their place but may make poor foundations for affective action).

The core of this perspective is affirmed in the following quotes:

"The first principle is that the motivation underlying our activism for social change must be transformed from anger and despair to compassion and love. This is a major challenge for the environmental movement, for example. This is not to deny the legitimacy of noble anger or outrage at injustice of any kind. Rather, we seek to work for love, rather than against evil."   Will Keepin, executive director Satyana Institute

"A positive future can never emerge from the mind of anger and despair." The Dalai Lama

"We cannot solve today's problems using the same mindset that created them." Albert Einstein

I have found that we benefit from coming from a new mindset, one centered in the peace, justice and sustainability we wish to see in the world


#2 Work Together

Don't Go it Alone! It takes a village . We are, for the most part, communal creatures and can be most affective when we work together, when we move beyond networking into the deeper realms of collaboration, into sharing wisdom, talents and resources, into building community and making friends.

Margaret Wheatley hit the nail on the head when she wrote that "Relationships is all there is". The more relationships we develop, the more connections we make, the greater the possibilities. In this process we create more paths to our common goals as well as a greater likelihood of success.

While seeking to work together, to invoke the power of the village, a game changing question to ask and respond to is Wheatley's "Who else should be in this conversation."

#3 Honor Diversity

This is an important and common concept often related to race, ethnicity, gender, and region or zipcode. However, we also benefit when we honor everyone's unique gifts and perspectives thus allowing us to tap into the larger wisdom of the group.

Another form of diversity worthy of recognition are the different forms that the work of sustainability takes. Joanna Macy describes them as 1) Holding Actions (direct activism, lobbying, etc), 2) New Forms (the creation of sustainable and just alternatives) and 3) Shifts in Consciousness (the development of the perspectives and understandings required to live sustainably). While there is a tendency, in our culture, to focus on Holding Actions, each of these unique forms make significant, necessary and honorable contributions to the creation of a better world.

#4 Nurture and Honor Your Fellow Travelers

Taking care of each other is among the greatest of human capacities. When traveling the journey of creating a better world together this is essential. One of the most significant ways we can honor and nurture each other is through the development of the kind of compassionate communication skills advocated by Marshall Rosenberg in his classic book Non-Violent Communication: A Language of Life. By really listening to each other and focusing on the needs behind the words we can transform the quality of our interactions. By speaking from the heart and focusing on making a connection rather than being "right" we enter into new realms of possibilities.

In addition, we can tap into the power of gratitude, recognition and appreciation by frequently and publicly expressing our thanks for the efforts of those around us - in print, at events and one on one. We can further extend our nurturance by working to build the capacity of our fellow travelers by supporting the development and emergence of their unique talents. In serving our fellow travelers, we serve the movement.

#5 Have Great Meetings

Nothing saps an organization or projects energy like bad meetings. We've all seen poorly facilitated meetings digress into chaos, hard feelings and on occasion the collapse of the initiative. As such our greatest investment could well be in the development of good meeting facilitation skills.

There are plenty of great tools available to us which can be utilized in all kinds of meetings and settings to see that these gatherings are positive, affective and sustainable, we need only tap into them. By committing to speak from the heart-mind, to listening with intention and focus, to including all the voices, in short by running our meetings in ways that honor all, we can have great meetings most all of the time.

Great examples of social technology that can help along the way include: concensus process, talking sticks, listening circles, the fishbowl, world cafe, and open space technology.

Another and essential way to have great meetings is to dare to have fun. Seriously, a little levity can go along way!

#6 Discover and Work From Common Ground

We can usually find common ground with just about anybody.   Most all of us want healthy futures for our children. Most of us are struggling in some way. Most of us want to participate in something larger than ourselves. We all rely on Earth to be sustained.

Our common ground is where the ground of change is most fertile. Seek it out. With our Allies working from common ground increases the possibility of healthy and affective collaboration. With our adversaries finding common ground makes a conversation, makes being heard, makes finding solutions more possible.

Finding common ground with our adversaries invites us to resist the temptation to demonize them. It invites us to acknowledge that we are all a part of the problem, that we are all the ones for which "they" are drilling. blasting, and bulldozing.

#7 Tell Great Stories

We are deeply narrative creatures. We love and respond to story in profound ways. I have found that by sharing both large and small stories of courage, connection and success we perpetuate more courage, connection and success.

Social activist and historian Howard Zinn author of The Peoples History of the United States put it this way. "An optimist isn't necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places--and there are so many--where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction."

#8 Let Go of Outcomes, Expectations and Rigid Agendas

We benefit when we don't limit what success might look like. A narrow idea of success makes it harder to find satisfaction and harder to change the world, especially if there is only one particular result that represents success.

When we release rigid agendas we allow the possible to emerge. By being willing to let go of what we know, by being willing to try something beyond what has worked in the past, we allow at least the possibility for something larger to emerge. Read Otto Scharmer's Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges for more on this concept.

In his essay Principles of Spiritual Leadership Will Keepin speaks of The importance of non-attachment to outcome. "To the extent that we are attached to the results of our work, we rise and fall with our success and failures, which is a path to burnout. Failures are inevitable, and successes are not the deepest purpose of our work. This requires a deepening of faith in the intrinsic value of our work-beyond the concrete results."

Meanwhile, we can take heart in contributing to the necessary critical mass, to helping us reach the tipping point, to contributing to a better tomorrow even though we may not know what that better tomorrow looks like.

#9 Remember Self Care is a Priority

In order to care for others, in order to care for the world, we must first care for ourselves. We need to make sure our oxygen mask is firmly secured and operational prior to offering to help another with theirs.

In order to function as the best agent for change that we can be we must first meet our basic needs for deep sleep, healthy food, community and rejuvenating recreation. To be highly affective we must be willing to do the inner work of understanding ourselves so that we may have some chance of understanding others. When we take care of ourselves, we care for the world.

#10 Have a Sense of Humor About It All

One of the greatest tools for sustainability is to have a sense of humor about Everything. Possibly most importantly is a willingness and ability to laugh at yourself - even more that you laugh at others. Laughter disarms and relaxes people. It makes quick bonds and releases tension. A strong (and kind) sense of humor will lower your blood pressure, lengthen your life and it will draw people to you. Its a key to sustainability

This essay represents quick introductions to just ten of the many tools and perspectives that can help make our work of creating a better world sustainable. At the same time experience tells me that if we were to focus and work with even just one or two of these ten concepts we would be moving ever closer to the creation of a better present and a better future for ourselves, our community and the world.