The instructor replied, “Only stop an evacuation to take a patient’s vitals if the results could change your evacuation plan. Otherwise you are just delaying the evacuation.”

Tonight I was talking with somebody who works on tech issues with nonprofits, and he talked about how managers often request reports because they like to know things, not so they can make decisions based on the data.

When you ask staff or volunteers to put time into inputting, exporting, or reporting data, you are taking their time away from other activities. It’s like interrupting an evacuation to take someone’s vitals. Sometimes it’s necessary, but you should know why you are doing it.

In an evacuation, there are times it makes sense to monitor an evacuee. You may find out they are in too poor of condition to carry them out and that you need to call in an airlift.

In a nonprofit, there are times that it makes sense to spend a lot of time on reports. You may need to adjust your direct mail program to improve member retention.

But sometimes managers, board members, or committee members will ask for reports without any idea how the data will be used, and we’ve all heard the stories of these reports that have been painstakingly created only to sit on the shelf unread.

So, before you ask someone to create a report for you, ask yourself if this information might “change the evacuation plan,” or are you just, “delaying the evacuation.”

The recent Friends Committee on National Legislation newsletter has a great article starting on page 5 about how communication with Congress works, what the role of different methods is, and how things fit together.

It’s a great piece based on real data and feedback from members of Congress and their staffs. It is neither starry-eyed nor is it hopeless.

Here are 2 key points:

It is very important for citizens to personalize the messages that they send to Members. Congressional staff members have revealed in our research that they place more weight on communications that convey how a piece of legislation will affect their constituents. While you might wholeheartedly agree with the suggested text that FCNL provides for you, take the time to tell the Member why the issue is so important to you, personally. It’s not uncommon to then see Senators and Representatives go down to the Senate or House floor and say, “I received a letter from one of my constituents who told me how this legislation would devastate her small business.” Those are the letters that persuade Members.

And,

Our research with Members and congressional staff shows that if a Member has not already arrived at a firm position on an issue, the most effective way to persuade her or him is through a face to face meeting.

It’s just a 2-page article, the whole thing is worth a quick read.

I loved the book, and I remembered seeing a copy on my grandma’s bookshelf. So one day, I tried to strike up a conversation with her about it.

That didn’t go too far.

I don’t remember her exact words, but the essence was that she doesn’t like books that point out the faults in our country’s history, and the conversation stopped there.

All too often the way we discuss American history in the United States leads us to the same place my grandma and I came to: a conversational dead-end. Either the conversation doesn’t go any farther (as it did with my grandma and me), or it goes forward with both sides having closed their ears, minds, and hearts as they open their mouths to shout their views.

This failure to engage other perspectives paralyzes us to be able to confront issues of economic vitality, race relations, the role of the U.S. military, or other important issues of the day.

The polarization of history

There is a polarization in the teaching of history. On the right, American History is a self-important, jingoistic ode to the greatness, glory, and grandeur of the United States. The U.S. is portrayed as a nation that has been an unblemished beacon of goodness in the world. This noble history stands against an endless siege of internal sedition and external threats.

On the left, American history is a litany of abuses, injustices, and exploitations. It is a nation founded to protect the wealth and status of white Protestant land-owning men, and its entire history is a catalog of wrongs against people of color, women, workers, Jews, American Indians, and other nations to defend the interests of the elites. In the face of this bulwark of oppression, a consistent counter-current pushes for liberation for the oppresses. Sometimes this counter-current succeeds, sometimes it is co-opted, but these efforts can never fully redeem the nation from its tainted history and belligerent present.

Truth lies somewhere in the middle (as it so often does), and most people’s views of history also fall somewhere between the extreme positions I’ve laid out.

Polarization and the Cyclops

With only an eye to the good or the bad of American history you can become a cyclops. Cyclopses were powerful creatures in mythology, but they were also monstors.

Adherents to both polarized positions are like cyclopses, the mythical monsters of The Odessey that had only one eye.

Physically we need two eyes to have good depth perception. With only an eye for the good or the bad parts of the American legacy, these polarized positions cannot see the fullness and depth of our country’s past.

And let us remember, while the cyclopses of mythology were huge and powerful (just like contemporary ideologues  can be), they were also monsters capable of extreme cruelty.

Going beyond polarization to keep the conversation open

The problem with both narratives is that they shut out conversation with other views and the ability to learn from each other and work together for a better future.

My grandma’s reaction to Lies My Teacher Told Me shows how the critical perspective of the left’s narrative seems anti-American and just focused on attacking the country. Likewise, the “America can do no wrong”  jingoism of the right’s narrative comes off as dishonest to those whose past ancestors have been done wrong by the United States, as well as those whose current communities don’t fully share in the promise of America.

An honest study of American history will acknowledge both the liberation and oppression in our history. Only a complete history is broad enough to include those whose hearts stir with the words, “liberty and justice for all,” as well as those whose hearts burn with the question, “when will my community see our liberty and justice?”

A Lesson from the Bible

One of the things I deeply love about the Bible is that it is make up of people who are always making mistakes–and who nevertheless are faithful to a higher calling. Noah got stupid drunk after he left the ark. Moses was a murderer, as was King David. Rebekah counseled Jacob to lie to his father and steal his brother’s blessing. The apostles are almost laughable in how often they get things wrong.

Part of the message of the Bible is that we do not need to be afraid to confront our mistakes and the mistakes of our ancestors.  We should take that kind of approach to the study of history.

A lesson from psychology

I’ve blogged before about research that shows that training programs that evaluate mistakes are more successful than those that only highlight successes.

Personally, we need to acknowledge both our successes and our failures to learn and grow. So too as a nation do we need to learn from and face the good and the bad in our history

I’m not calling for an end to conflict over history

When I say that we need to acknowledge the good and the bad, I’m not saying that we stop arguing over what those are. I have no illusions that the right and the left will agree whether or not the Vietnam War was a just war to stop Soviet aggression or an unjust war to prop up a corrupt and oppressive government. What I am saying is that in the debate, both the right and the left should be open to acknowledging that the government could have done good or bad things.

Why I think this is so important

I was recently assigned to serve the Racial and Economic Justice task force at Interfaith Council for Peace and Justice, and I’ve been doing a lot of reading to catch up.

I’ve been reading Courageous Conversations About Race as we look at how we can support efforts to close the achievement gap in local schools, and I’ve been reading Uprooting Racism as part of our upcoming Racial Justice Book Group.

Courageous Conversations quotes and article by Julian Weissglass discussing causes for the achievement gap which says:

“White people lack informatnio about the history and nature of the oppression that people of color have endured. They learn little, for example, about the genocide of indigenous people, the kidnapping and slavery of Africans and the oppression of their descendants, the military seizure of the southwestern U.S. territory from Mexico, or the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II…. Given the lack of information and the spread of misinformation, it is not surprising that white peopel do not always understand the feelings of native Americans, African Americans, Mexican Americans, or Asian Americans.”

I agree with Weissglass’s point, and experiences like the one I had with my grandmother lead me to ask the question, “how can we create the setting in which white educators and conservative Americans will be willing to look at the mistakes in our history?”

Paul Kivel’s  Uprooting Racism does an excellent job to set the stage to make it possible for white Americans to explore issues of race and racism, and part of his strategy to do that is to avoid the blame game. He writes, “This book is not about whether you are a racist or not, or whether all white people are racist or not.” That is, he evades the temptation to put the discussion in cyclops terms that only see good or bad, that can only either indict or defend.

I believe a similar approach will help discussing the history of race or other difficult issues in American history.

This approach does not give the same self-satisfied sense of moral superiority that a polarized position does. But I’m willing to give up a bit of smugness for a better chance of connecting with people; opening ears, minds, and hearts; changing people’s perspectives (perhaps even my own); and thereby changing the world.

“Schools are not alywas ready to become places for healthy adult learning. In fact, a significant challenge to improving schools is that some educators are poised not to learn, but rather to posture as though they ‘know it all.’” Glen Singleton and Curtis Linton, Courageous Conversations About Race

Just as educators sometimes give up learning to rest on the easy comfort of the conceit that they already know all there is about how best to teach, sometimes organizers give up striving to be effective to rest on the easy conceit that they know all there is about how to make change.

Often I see this break down by generational lines. Sixties-era activists will talk about consciousness-raising, marching, and rallies. Millenial activists will talk about Facebook, social media, and social entrepreneurship.

The truth is, social change is hard. It’s complex. And we work for it in an always-changing environment against established interests that are always adapting to our tactics.

The only way we can achieve real change is to always be changing, to be learning, and to be adapting.

That means giving up any prejudice that we always march or that marches never work; that Facebook will mobilize people or that Facebook is a cop-out to substitute for “real organizing.”

And let me tell you a secret: the only way you will learn is if you consistantly argue, question, debate, and explore with people who have a different perspective than you. People who are older, people who are younger, people who are more secular, more religious, more scientific, more artsy, of a different race, with different skills, from a different country, they all have something to teach you about what makes change.

Listen to them.

Listen to your self.

Keep learning.

Keep adapting.

Because the powers that be certainly are.

“Caterina Fake, one of the founders of Flickr, siad she’d leanred from the early days taht ‘you have to greet the first ten thousand users personally.’” — Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody

Whether it’s online or face-to-face, organizing is all about relationships.

You can’t automate relationships. You can’t outsource them. They have to be made on a one-on-one basis over time; again and again; by the tens, hundreds, and thousands.

“Open source ecosystem is a profound threat, not because the open source eecosystem is outsucceeding commercial efforts but because it is outfailing them.” -Clay Shirky Here Comes Everybody

For all we’re about change, sometimes community organizers can be very afraid of it.

We stick to the same marches, the same chants, the same fundraisers. We do what we’ve seen work in the past.

But if we’re going to be about change, we should be willing to try it for ourselves, even if that means trying out tactics that flop.

Be bold. Try new things. Be willing to fail your way into success.

–Clay Shirky

How does the Internet change the way we cook up social change?

In Here Comes Everybody:

But a capaign can go to far. In this case, too far is when people believe that believing is enough, without factoring in the differences between the passionate few who run the campaign and the barely interested many who actually vote. –Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody, referring to the 2004 Howard Dean campaign

In my wife’s work with the GetDowntown program, she hears avid bicycle commuters suggest ways to get non-cyclists to bike to work. She hears from avid walkers about how to get non-walkers to give up their cars for a good pair of shoes.

In my work, I hear from deeply committed environmentalists about how to get indifferent people to lower their carbon footprint. I hear passionate peace activists tell me how we should get the apathetic public to care.

This input is valuable, and many good ideas come from it, but what these true believers forget, and what I often forget, is that the “barely interested many” aren’t approaching our issues from the same perspective we are, and what motivates us may not motivate them. To reach the “barely interested many,” you have to set aside your interests to see what it is that they are interested in, meet them where they are, and help them take the next step.

It can be fun to connect with the people who already agree with and to talk the shared language of what already motivates you, and there is a place for that in sustaining a movement, but it is not enough.

If you are going to change the world, you can’t just talk to people who already agree with you. You can’t just speak the language of what motivates people like you. You need to reach out, talk to new people in their own language. That’s why they call it outreach.

compassion and empathy are more than feel-good skills, they make you a better leader.

Susan Cramm has an excellent post on the Harvard Business Review blog how to lead with more compassion. The 5 ways are:

1. Assume the best in others;
2. Understand what makes them tick;
3. Serve their needs;
4. Accept responsibility;
5. Assume the best intentions.

I’ve said before that  empathy is the core of organizing (and fundraising, and media relations, and volunteer management, and marketing, etc.). These five practices are strong ways to build your empathy and compassion and become a better community organizer.

The Center for Participatory Change did a study of this phenomena, and one of the things I found striking is that participants would mention their neighbors, their church, and grassroots groups as proving support, but they rarely mentioned nonprofits in general.

There are two lessons here for community organizers:

1. Recognize that the communities you work with are already organizing themselves. There may not be an office or letterhead, but there are relationships and structures that support the community.
2. Your job as an organizer is to work with and support these existing structures, NOT to replace them.

“The old model for coordination group action required convincing people who care a little to care more, so they would be roused to adt. What Hanni and Streeting did instead was to lower the hurdles to doing something in the first place, so that people who cared a little could participate a little, while being effective in the aggregate.” –Clay Shirky

How does the Internet change the way we cook up social change?

In Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, Clay Shirky describes the new recipe for community organizing.

Here’s an embellished version of the old recipe:

1. Take 1 organizer
2. Add to community of people who care a little
3. Agitate to make a few of the people care more
4. Get the people who care more to take a major action
5. Repeat as needed

And here’s an embellished version of the new recipe for social change, according to Shiky:

1. Take disaffected citizen
2. Create a social media platform to air grievence and identify other disaffected citizens who care a little
3. Get many of the people who care a little to take a little action
4. Repeat as needed

Okay, obviously these are both oversimplifications, but let’s run with them.

Strengths of the “old recipe”

• Process of education and agitation to “make people care more” builds political awareness and social conscience;
• Person-to-person contact builds community;
• Actively builds leadership;
• Big actions that require a major commitment can be transformational (e.g. the Selma to Montgomery marches).

Weaknesses of the “old recipe”

• reliance on highly-committed people leave out many people;
• requires a lot of work to pull off, so only a few people can initiate

Strengths of the “new recipe”

• includes people who have limited commitment or other factors that limit participation
• lowers barriers to initiate so more people can cook up the new recipe

Weaknesses of the “new recipe”

• How much to a million emails really mean?
• Do the low expectations limit political education?
• Forwarding to a friend is not leadership development

Toward an integration of the old and the new recipes for community organizing

As I’ve already said, both the “old” and the “new” recipes are over-simplifications. Both old-school and Internet-era community organizing educate participants and include people along a spectrum of involvement levels. Here are ways to make the most of both:

• Remember the “ladder of engagement“: This old-school concept applies as well in the Internet-age. Basically, you need people who will give a lot of time, talent, and treasure to your cause, and you find them by inviting them in with low-effort activities. The people who are really excited about your petition are people who are good candidates to help circulate that petition. (just be sure to identify easy-to-do first steps and make sure you follow through).
• Build political consciousness: This concept is out-of-favor with in the current “it’s the action that counts” focus in community organizing, but I believe that we plant the seed of opposing the next was in giving a sound anti-war analysis of the current war. Help people put their current actions in a context that will help set them up for a lifetime of positive social engagement.
• Identify meaningful actions: I talk to a lot of people who are burned out on emailing and writing their member of Congress because they feel they do not make a difference. I think these are worthwhile, but they are not sufficient. Whether your ask is big or small, make sure it is meaningful, and mix it up a bit to get the most out of it.