by Rebecca Margiotta | Jul 14, 2018 | Becky Update
Last week I wrote an opinion piece on my thoughts about how we could prevent gun violence for the Lily, a woman-focused publication of the Washington Post. Everytown for Gun Safety had asked me to serve on a Veterans Advisory Council and I was happy to do my part for the team.
Later in the week I was going through my facebook feed and I was taken aback by the hostility and aggression that complete strangers were directing at me in the comments of a post that I had made public by request. People with NRA logos as their profile pictures called me some pretty nasty names, questioned my integrity, and questioned my military service. My favorite – brought to my attention by my dear friend, Mike Shore, accused me of being a “gun-fag mental masturbator.”
You know. Just another day at the office.
The other day I saw a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. that said, “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
I think he’s got a good point, but today I want to talk about the fear doing so brings up for you as a change leader. Let’s break it down in slow motion.
Imagine me sitting on my couch, late at night, absent-mindedly scrolling through my facebook feed. Oh, there’s a comment on my post. Let’s see [click]….wait – what?!?
When I read the mean and hateful things people were saying about me, my heart raced immediately. A brief wave of nausea roll through me. I noticed my brain kicking into fight or flight mode. The back of my neck tingled and my vision narrowed to focus in even more closely.
All this in an instant, from words written by complete strangers.
I am imagining maybe you’ve been there, too. That in your work to create change in the world, you’ve taken a position that’s unpopular or unsafe, and felt the full heat of the status-quo monger push-back.
In a future weekly email, we’ll hear from a guest contributor who is a communications expert their expertise on what to do in these social media situations. And there are better and worse responses. But the key word here is responses. Not reactions.
I knew that night sitting on my couch that the very first thing I needed to do was to come home to myself. Months before I had asked my friend and mentor, Katie Hendricks, her advice for staying present and connected when it feels like the whole world is falling apart. Her words of wisdom stuck with me: First, you must come home to yourself. Breathe. Move. Wiggle. Put your hand on your heart. Talk to yourself with kind words. Whatever it takes to return fully to your presence, because when fight or flight kicks in, Elvis has left the building. (I added the Elvis part there, but you get the gist). You have to be here – be present – to create change.
Then, once you’re back fully connected with yourself and inhabiting your own body, look up and see who else is present and make an energetic connection with them. Those of us who are conscious and present and awake and committed to creating positive change – everyone on this mailing list – we need one another now more than ever.
Then respond. But not before.
It took me three days to respond. Three days for trolls with pretty much zero friends/audience to network ride on my social media friends/audience and spread their hate. Ultimately I decided to delete their comments – they are not entitled to my “platform” so to speak. The point I want to make here is it’s partially about what you decide to do, but don’t decide that until you are back inhabiting your body fully. Easier said than done.
I offer to you Donella Meadows’ words from her prophetic article “Leverage Points for Systems Change” (if you haven’t already read it, please bring this short, powerful piece to the top of your reading list):
“So how do you change paradigms? …You don’t waste time with the reactionaries; rather you work with active change agents and with the vast middle ground of people who are open-minded.”
It is my greatest pleasure in life to work with active change agents through the Billions Institute. I wish each of you a wonderful week and I invite you to bring your awareness to a few things, as our own awareness into our own experience as change leaders is a good part of the work:
Is your conscience telling you that perhaps now is the time to take a position on an issue, even if it is unpopular or unsafe to do so?
When you get scared in your day to day work to create change, do you have reliable ways to come home to yourself? To connect with others? Then respond?
Are you working with active change agents and with the middle ground of people who are open-minded? What else might you like to do with them/us?
This is all part of the work for large-scale change and I encourage you to have fun with it, because friends don’t let friends lead large-scale change alone. I’d love to hear your answers to any of those questions – just hit “reply” and let me know!
Becky
Shift Results is hiring a Project Manager.
Sandy Hook Promise is on a California hiring spree.
July 10th – 13th: Skid Row School for Large-Scale Change in Los Angeles. Deadline for registration is June 19th and we have a few more spots. These are the last available spots for 2018. We’ll be announcing 2019 dates soon!
by Rebecca Margiotta | Jun 28, 2018 | Becky Update
So…we decided to go ahead and drive to Tornillo, Texas, for the rally this past weekend. On our eleven hour road trip, I received text messages from Voto Latino who was behind the rally. That’s to be expected. I also received texts from the Movement for Black Lives Matter (to take action on behalf of the separated families). And from the Sierra Club (to take action on behalf of the separated families).
The rally itself was not large by the big city standards I’m accustomed to in Los Angeles. Maybe a couple hundred people. I was thankful for my sunglasses because my eyes welled up with tears each time we chanted, “The people, united, can not be divided!” and “Free the Children Now!”
Then I noticed three or four really big Human Rights Campaign flags from HRC – a LGBT civil rights organization. I saw many young people with #March for Our Lives t-shirts. Then I noticed a very old woman in a wheelchair who was a holocaust survivor.
A Native American woman joined in the protest as well. Several times she reminded anyone within earshot that taking children away is nothing new for the US government, and that all of us – immigrants included – are on stolen land. Point accepted.
After the rally was over, Christine and I walked 100 yards to the actual border. Twenty or so people were there, peering through the gate blocked by security guards to bear witness to the tents where the children are being held. We noticed a familiar face because she’s on MSNBC news – and it was her organization’s rally – in Maria Teresa Kumar. She seemed pretty approachable so we said hi and thanked her for her leadership on this issue. I asked her if she minded that the HRC flags were so big – did they overshadow Voto Latino? Here’s what she said:
“Absolutely not – I’m so glad they were here. We wanted them to come. They’re starting with the immigrant families kids but they’ve told us their plans. They’re coming after all of us. First the kids. Then they want to take away citizenship from naturalized citizens. Then women’s rights. Then LGBT rights. So we all need to stand by one another and not allow that to happen.”
Who is “they?” I asked.
“Pence, Kelly, and Miller.”
We exchanged hugs and well wishes. Christine and I headed back home to our own kids who were safe and sound the entire time. But what Maria Teresa said stayed with me. And I am still getting texts from all those groups to continue to stay engaged and involved until all the families are back together again.
Recently one of our fellows, Nicole Hockley, Managing Director of Sandy Hook Promise said this:“I do not believe in coincidences – I believe the fabric of life works hard to keep people connected for the right purpose, at the right time.”
For me personally, I go back again and again to MLK’s quote: “In a real sense, all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” My friend Heather Hackman once said to me, “That’s not just a nice quote. It’s the key to avoiding extinction of the human race.”
I’m reminded of another fellow, Eunice Nichols, Director of Encore.org’s Generation to Generation Campaign and how she routinely reaches out across sectors and issue areas to deliberately weave together the fabric of life.
Sometimes when we’re leading large-scale change, it’s easy to get sucked into our own silos and issue areas. That’s completely understandable because there’s just so much to do. Sometimes it’s even tempting to throw others under the bus to advance our own cause. I can’t tell you how many times when I was working on street homelessness, I was asked, “yeah, but what aboutfamily homelessness?” As if it ever has to be an either/or. I think in many cases, the answer is a both/and. Don’t be afraid to reject the premise of the question, ok??
This week – with all that is going on that is truly breaking my heart, including the latest shooting in Annapolis just today – I am going to keep Nicole Hockley’s words front and center. How can I be part of actively weaving together the fabric of life? How can I come out of my silo and reach out to others? Because we are all in this together.
Becky
p.s. While I was writing this, I received an email from Maria Teresa Kumar that the tent city in Tornillo will shut down by July 13th.
I want to bring your awesome aims into our sessions on…aims. My intention is to print them out on laminated 3×5 cards and have them in the room as inspiring sample aims for folks to see.
Please take a minute to share your aims with me here and we’ll be sure you inspire the folks who are following in your foot steps. Thank you!
We have one remaining spot for an alumni who wants to join our two-year fellowship this September 25th – 27th, and two spots for folks who’d want to start Feb 5th – 7th, 2019. More info an application here.
by Rebecca Margiotta | Jun 21, 2018 | Becky Update
I’m not gonna lie, y’all. It’s been a rough week. I received a letter in the mail that had a not-so-thinly-veiled death threat in response to my piece for the Lily. We took all the necessary precautions, but it took my attention off my creativity for a bit there.
But that’s nothing compared to the distress I feel about what is taking place at our borders right now. The weight of the harm that is being intentionally inflicted weighs heavy on my conscience and my heart. I am assuming it does on yours, too.
Coupla thoughts.
1. I’m reminded of something I read that Paul Farmer said to his biographer, captured in one of my favorite books, Mountains Beyond Mountains. In response to the many people who somewhat patronizingly praised him for doing good works, he said, “I’m not doing good things, I’m un-doing bad things. ”
We turned to one of our alum, Melissa Rodgers, Director of Programs for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center and she shared this list of six concrete actions people can take to un-do bad things.
Here are the actions we are taking:
a. The Billions Institute made a 4x matching contribution all employee donations to any of the causes listed here.
b. I just got off the phone with my wife, Christine, as we are close to making a decision about what actions we will take this weekend. The two questions we asked ourselves were, “What are the best good things might we help do more of, and what the worst bad things we might help stop?” We are leaning toward up and driving to Tornillo, Texas, for the protest this Sunday and are weighing which of our actions might have the most impact. I’ll let you know what we decide, and I’m curious how you are navigating the events this week.
c. Hugging our very young children and shielding them from even knowing that this is taking place for now. Note to policy-makers: if you wouldn’t want your children to know what you’re doing could happen to them, maybe that’s a bad idea.
Which leads me to my second thought:
2. Resilience.
I am lucky enough to call Jim Guy, Founder of the Headington Institute, my friend. Their mission is to equip humanitarian and first-responders with everything they need to cope with the trauma they will witness in the course of performing their duties. He’s thinking seriously about spread/scale for his organization so I asked him, “Exactly what is it that people can do to be more resilient in the face of trauma?” [Those of you familiar with our model know what I was getting at: what’s your turkey sandwich, my friend?]
He said, “Oh, that’s easy. We know that for sure.” [How I wish everyone knew the answer to the question as clearly as he did!] Here’s what he said, “It’s four things, and you need all four:
1. You have to have one person who you could call in the middle of the night and they won’t hang up on you. Just one.
2. You have to exercise every single day. It doesn’t matter what you do, or how much of it you do, or how difficult it is, but every single day.
3. You have to have confidence that you are well-trained, and that’s a combo both of how well-trained you actually are but also that you believe that you’re well trained.
4. You have to have a sense of purpose and meaning in your life that’s bigger than yourself. It doesn’t matter what you believe – just that you’re connected to some sense of life being bigger than just you.
So there it is, folks. Easier said than done, but when I think about what all of us who aspire to make the world a better place are up against on a daily basis, as we un-do bad things together, I thought some pointers on resilience might be helpful.
Please let us know what you and your organization are doing if you’d like to share.
Meanwhile, Keep Ya Head Up.
Becky
StriveTogether is hiring a Vice President of People, Values and Culture
We have one remaining spot for an alumni who wants to join our two-year fellowship this September 25th – 27th, and two spots for folks who’d want to start Feb 5th – 7th, 2019. More info an application here.
by Rebecca Margiotta | Jun 7, 2018 | Becky Update
Earlier this week I participated in a visioning and strategic planning session for a non-profit whose work and founder I respect a lot. You know the drill: a handful of folks around a conference table for the day, dreaming big dreams and thinking big. I really like this kind of thing, especially when someone else has to do all the work that we dream up!
I offered my best questions to try to bring forth what the leader most wanted to contribute in the world, questions like:
What gets you up in the morning, even after doing this work for 20 years?
Of all the things your company does, what has the highest leverage for doing the most good?
Who on the planet is least likely to be able to take advantage of what you have to offer? Have you prioritized a way to get this to them?
What’s your Endgame? a la Gugalev and Stern
How many people are currently benefiting from your intervention? How many possibly could?
This is just how my brain works. If you can answer these questions, I am 100% confident we can craft a viable scaling plan for you, and that you’ll be able to find the money to make it a reality. But let’s start with you, what matters most, and facing into the data.
I’ve found our approach is pretty much 180 degrees the exact opposite of how most non-profit strategic planning goes down. What’s more typical is to do a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) Analysis and to do something along the lines of a 10 year strategic plan.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say SWOT Analyses and 10 Year Plans of any kind can take you off track from scaling for impact. Here’s a couple of reasons why:
SWOTs and 10 year plans are generally geared toward institutional preservation versus creating change in the world. Impact first, organization follows, not the other way around.
Threats. What are you talking about “threats?” Anything that tees up a conversation about competition in the non-profit sector is going down the wrong track. We don’t have time for competition. A good idea is a good idea. Period.
You’ll get sucked into the vortex of “what are the funders funding now? – and let’s do more of that” which will take you away from what you should be focusing on: doing your thing. Prioritize doing what needs to be done and find philanthropists who share your values and interests. Don’t chase their money to do their thing. Shine doing your thing and bring them onto the team with you.
10 years is a long, long time. I’m not at all opposed to long-term visions – those are awesome. But way too much can happen between now and 2028 for anything I put in a plan now to be relevant then. Auspos and Cabaj make the point somewhere in this 100 page piece, Complexity and Community Change, that given complexity and emergence and all the things that can change, over-planning is absurd. I agree with them and that’s why we recommend folks work in 18 to 36 month increments. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
I’m not saying there isn’t a time and place for 10 Year Plans and SWOT Analyses, I’m just saying I haven’t yet seen anything incredibly magical come from them, other than consultants making some good money and glitzy leave-behind booklets with sparkly pie charts that end up in recycling bins. So yeah, maybe not so awesome. Save your money.
Here are some folks who are kicking ass and taking names in large-scale change, and to the best of my knowledge, though I could be wrong, they’ve done this without a 10 year plan:
- The Share Your Learning campaign has a mission is to transform education by giving more students the opportunity to share their learning with an audience beyond the classroom so they can communicate, collaborate, and contribute. By June of 2020, they hope to have 5,000,000 students publicly sharing their learning. They set an interim goal to reach 1,000,000 students by August, and on Thursday, May 31st, they hit 1,000,000 students early! You can read more about their work in this hot off the proverbial presses Edutopia article! I asked what they attribute their accelerated success to and Billions Institute Fellow Michelle Clark said, “We lean into Many Ways to Many. We try a LOT of things!”
- Kate Hurley and her colleagues with the Million Cats Campaign achieved their aim of preventing the unnecessary euthanization of 1,000,000 cats early and are already onto their next initiative, If you’ve adopted a cat from a shelter, there’s a good chance it’s one of theirs!
- Nina Simon of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History has launched the “Of, By, & For All” Campaign to engage 200 organizations serving 10 million community members by the end of 2020. This is one to watch!
- Sonoma County Office of Education’s Project E3 is actively engaging teams of superintendents, principals, teachers, and para-professionals in identifying and spreading practices that improve equity, empathy, and engagement in their schools.
- Community Solutions’ Built for Zero Campaign is finishing the job that the 100k Homes Campaign started. Nine communities in the United States have achieved “functional zero” on homelessness, with many more on their heels. By the way, great write-up of why it’s working from our friends at the Solutions Journalism Network.
Billions Institute Fellow Eunice Nichols: The Encore Public Voices Fellowship will provide a diverse group of 20 leaders of all ages an unparalleled opportunity to develop their thinking and writing on the topic of purpose and engagement in the second half of life. Fellows – a mix of community leaders, activists, writers, educators, corporate executives and more – will receive the expert support they need to inform and influence the public debate on this critical topic, as we become a nation of more older people than younger ones. At least half of the cohort will consist of people of color. This effort is a collaboration among Encore.org, The OpEd Project and Ann MacDougall. Deadline: June 22. For details and to apply, go tobit.ly/encorepublicvoices.
From The Bridgespan Group via Zoe Stemm-Calderon: The Audacious Project, which is dedicated to funding ideas with the potential to create change at thrilling scale, is launching now. They are now accepting applications for the next round until June 10th. I know this is approaching quickly, but the application is not too intense, especially for a leader with a big dream!
From Penny Carver with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: Call for applications for this year’s Spotlight on Quality in Continuous Improvement, designed to recognize quality in the application of improvement principles, methods, and tools to significant problems in education.
by Rebecca Margiotta | Jun 2, 2018 | Becky Update
Last night at a quasi-structured dinner party in the Bay Area, I was asked to name someone who has deeply influenced the person I am today. Immediately my mind leapt to some fantastic teachers, healers, and mentors. The list is long and I am filled with gratitude for every one of them. But I wanted to pick just one for my two minutes of sharing. I went with Heather Hackman, a white woman who has devoted her life to helping her fellow white people center their lives in racial and social justice. She has profoundly influenced my thinking about what large-scale change is and how/why to go about it.
A few weeks ago she said to me, “Becky, what it all comes down to is this: are you willing to work for liberation?” I’d like to pay her gift forward by asking you the same question: Are you willing to work for liberation, and what does liberation mean for you?
My answer was/is a full-body yes, I am willing to work for liberation. What that looks like in word and deed is a work in progress, and something I’m willing to share about here. While the Billions Institute specializes in helping folks design and lead large-scale change, if we’re not advancing liberation, what is the point of any of this at all?
One of the things we teach large-scale change leaders to do is explore their “genius,” a concept I learned from two more teachers of mine, Gay & Kathlyn Hendricks. The gist of genius is what do you love to do, that you’re really great at? And do more of that as you’re leading transformation in the world.
When we teach Genius at the Skid Row School, I witness our participants struggling with the fear that spending time in their genius is selfish or indulgent or frivolous. They’re up against a firmly embedded unconscious belief that for work to be valuable it has to be “hard,” or for transformation to happen, there needs to be a “struggle.”
But as we create a context where maybe your genius is exactly what the world needs of you, I always feel the room get almost giddy with excitement. “You mean I could do the things I love to do, that don’t even feel like work to me, and make the world a better place?”
Not only do I believe that to be true, I believe if you do not do that, and if you do not intentionally create the space for your team members to do that as well, you and your colleagues will eventually grow resentful and burn out.
I believe we have a responsibility as leaders of large-scale change to create contexts that bring out the best in everyone around us, and for that to spread throughout our extended networks.
I see stepping into our genius as directly tied to working for liberation. I know that I personally have experienced a tremendous boost of freedom and the joy each time I let go of doing something that is not in my genius and replace it with more contribution from my genius. And every single time this increases my impact for the better and the bottom line of the Billions Institute.
I could stop there, but it would only be half the story.
The other day I was catching up with a graduate of the Skid Row School who is a Latino man. I have tremendous respect and affection for him and have seen his unique genius in action. Like me, one aspect of his genius is that he is at his best when he is spontaneous and taking risks.
He told me about an experience he had had recently where he decided to bring his genius for risk-taking and spontaneity to his work. You’ll have to trust me that what he did was pure genius and I don’t want to go into details to protect his privacy. But as he was showing up in his genius – something he tried to do that I get KUDOS for doing almost daily – he was told, “that’s not how we do it here. You’re not meeting our expectations.”
He jokingly said to me, “easy for you, Becky, to be in your genius.” And I appreciated his gentle ribbing, but like Heather’s question, “Are you willing to work for liberation?” his comment stayed with me for days to come.
I don’t have pat easy answers to this, but I do sense that all of us who are invested in facilitating big change might be leaving genius untapped by expecting – demanding – that it show up in ways that are deemed “appropriate” for work settings. Who decides what is “appropriate?” And what are we all losing (white people, too?) by accepting those norms as “good?” If these questions interest you deeply, I recommend starting with Tema Okun’s piece on “White Supremacy Culture.”
I asked one of our fellows, Michelle Molitor with The Equity Lab about the difference experiences people may have in expressing their genius depending on their race, and what advice she might offer to people of color who get push-back like my friend. She advised people first to assess the situation and the power dynamics thoughtfully, and not to give up the power that you have. She quoted Alice Walker, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” The question is how will you choose to use the power you have?
She reminded me of the foundational practices of our fellowship program: notice what is happening, experience the sensations and emotions it brings forth in you, express in a way that matches your experience, and take action that is aligned with your essence and advances your purpose. If you assess that it is unsafe for you to speak directly, consider seeking the support of a white ally.
Another fellow, Lindsay Hill, Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Raikes Foundation, joined our conversation and chimed in with the long-term effects of this kind of dynamic on people of color. In an oppressive work environment, the choice can sadly be to forget their genius and conform (which happens often and results in less genius being expressed – a true loss for all of us!) or to leave and try to find an organization who will accept them how they are.
Lindsay’s comments reminded me of my very first conversation with Heather Hackman. The Billions Institute had been invited by the Raikes Foundation to do some work supporting grantees advancing racial equity in education. I was eager to jump in, but realized I had little training or background in diversity, equity, or inclusion. I also looked around at my entirely white team at the Billions Institute and felt this wave of shame and embarrassment. Heather asked how she could help me. In perhaps the most awkwardly formed question ever, somehow I spit it out that our company was all white and we had the opportunity to hire some more people and I knew we had to do something different, but I wasn’t sure what. I mean, I was awkward.
Heather stopped me in my tracks. “Hold up. Hold up. Hold up. You’re asking the wrong question. What you’re really asking is ‘how can I keep on doing things how I’ve always done them, but bring on some Native Americans or people of color so it looks better to the outside world, but not change on the inside.” I hadn’t really thought about it that way until she said that, but guilty as charged! That’s when I leaned in and got really curious. “Well what do I do instead?”
Heather’s response stayed with me and I’ll share with you here: “Unless you inherently change your approach, adopt a holistic lens with which you look at yourself, your business, your mission, the work you do, then you might attract some Native Americans and people of color to work for you, but they will have to leave too much of themselves out in the parking lot to be able to put up with your whiteness so they’ll either stay and be miserable or they’ll leave.”
If you know me at all, you know I love a good challenge. Mission accepted! With that deeply loving provocation, Heather invited me into one of the most important and exciting learning journeys of my life to date.
Working for liberation – for me right now, today – means both supporting change leaders in identifying their genius, and pointing to the injustice that sometimes people are given less latitude to contribute in their genius because of the color of the skin or because the overall work culture is unconsciously oppressive.
I wonder if there are any remaining ways that I am blind to people’s genius because I want to see it on my own terms, terms that are invariably informed by my socialization as a white person in a white dominant culture. I don’t want to miss out on anybody’s genius, not for a second! There’s too much at stake for any of us to leave any parts of ourselves in the parking lot each day.
I commit – and re-commit – to working for liberation for all human beings. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this too, so please respond directly if you’d like.
– Becky
After we wrapped up the training today, Joe and I were able to say hi to two dear friends and advisors, Stanford Professors Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao (Huggy is rockin’ the sunglasses). They’re the authors of Scaling-Up Excellence, a book we both love and recommend often.
They’ve just launched Season Two of the FRICTION podcast on May 30th.
FRICITON is part organizational design, part therapy.
This season features
- Eric Reis of Lean Start Up fame
- Michael Arena who is Chief Talent Officer at General Motors
- Annie and Craig Stoll who founded and run the Delfina Restaurant Group in the SF Bay area
- and Bob’s cousin Sheri Singer who produced 37 made-for-TV movies, including Halloweentown
I will definitely be listening in!
