Network Strategies For Your Network
The following video is about 20 minutes long and provides a short overview of network strategies. It was done for the Food Policy Network State Networks, who graciously agreed to let me share it.
The video emphasizes the importance of being part of networks of networks and of catalyzing self-organizing to move us to a more experimental, learning and viral space. Increasingly I’m seeing networks of networks and self-organizing as the key factors needed to shift systems.
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Designing Meetings that Do More
Imagine leaving a meeting feeling naturally inspired, energized by new ideas, with enhanced goodwill toward your colleagues, and a shared sense of alignment and clarity for where to go next. In a highly-functioning group, ideas and experiences cross-pollinate, perspectives broaden, assumptions shift, and something new emerges that no one could have discovered alone. Sadly, many people spend a lot of time in meetings, which are boring, routine, frustrating, and do not access the ideas and perspectives of every one in the room.
Here are some of the needs I often hear expressed by people in organizations and those working on positive social change:
- Our work is to ‘siloed’ – people are not aware of what others are doing.
- Insights or lessons learned are not well communicated so others make the same mistakes or reinvent the wheel
- We spent all this time to come up with a plan and now that we are rolling it out, people are resisting and objecting to it – we need better messaging.
- How do we convince people to act? To change? To adopt our goals?
In a world of pressing demands and complex challenges, where people want to have impact, take action, and get outcomes, what gets overlooked is the process of how we get there. The how is all about how people are engaged, brought together in meetings, and how they participate, learn, and think and work together. As Atul Guwande, a surgeon and writer says, “Human interaction is the key force in overcoming resistance and speeding change.”
In over 25 years of work in organizations and collaborative initiatives focused on environmental and social change, I have come to realize that meetings hold more potential than we typically access. I have been blessed to discover some great teachers and had the opportunity to learn, experience and practice new ways of working and organizing meetings to achieve multiple benefits (see end of this blog for credits.) We can design meetings to do more.
Design starts with intent, which means becoming aware of the world view and assumptions that inform our choices. I’ve always been inspired by how one quote or question can shed light on and shift my assumptions and intentions. Here I’d like to share the quotes that inspire how I design meetings:
“Are you lighting a candle or filling a bucket?”
There is a tendency to highly script every minute and fill a meeting or workshop with speakers and presentations, squeezing in a bit of Q&A with the participants. If our aim is to spark people’s motivation, willingness to engage and take action, getting the balance right of presentations with conversation is key.
“It’s a far superior strategy to get all the minds working on what needs to change, rather than to convince each person to do what we think is best.” -Fran Peavey
Inviting a group to consider well-framed strategic questions is a great the way to get all minds working on what needs to change. This engagement, when well designed, is what leads to better thinking overall and an experience of participation and contribution. When people help shape a strategy or plan, there is less need for “messaging” and convincing.
“Nothing about us without us.”
This slogan from South African disability activists is a good reminder to have people in the conversation who are closest to the situations being discussed. Aryanna Pressley, who is the running for Congress from Massachusetts, said it well: “The people closest to the pain should be closest to the power.”
“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” - Albert Einstein
An effective practice for meeting design is to have a design team work ahead of time to consider and distill the most important relevant questions to be considered by the group. As this blog shares, this strategic clarity and investment before the meeting “sets the table” for productive conversations.
“Social learning networks enable better and faster knowledge feedback loops, essential for innovation and creativity…social learning is how we share implicit knowledge and get work done.” – Harold Jarche
Combining a good question with meeting methods that get people talking in small groups and then mixing and cross-pollinating those conversations enables us to access the ‘collective intelligence’ of a group. Methods such as World Café, 1-2-4-All, and Open Space allow many voices to be heard and inform the group’s understanding and development of consensus, as I have written about in other blogs.
On October 11th, I will be hosting a workshop called Designing Meetings that Do More, which will explore more of these ideas. Hope you will join us!
Credits go to (among others):
Art of Hosting, Liberating Structures, World Café, Fran Peavey and strategic questions, Tom Atlee and the Co-Intelligence Institute, Harold Jarche, Time to Think, National Council on Dialogue and Deliberation.
Originally published on October 3, 2018 at New Directions Collaborative
Systems Thinking and Networks
Last fall, I heard about an online educational portal called Plus Acumen, which advertises itself as the “world’s school for social change” and offers several free classes. Many of their offerings are geared towards providing practical and accessible tools that people involved in nonprofits, community groups, and networks can use to improve their efforts.
After looking through the course catalogue, I found and enrolled in a class called Systems Practice, led by Rob Ricigliano of The Omidyar Group. The class was insightful, and lead students through an intuitive series of exercises exploring systems through creating a framing question, identifying forces, creating a systems map using Kumu, and crafting a strategy rooted in leverage points.
Throughout the class, I gained a general framework to use to better understand how systems work, and tools that can improve the work I do.
I highly recommend this class to others interested in systems thinking and social change, as it is being offered again for free this fall starting October 9th.
Classes like this are important for advancing the practice of networks by integrating a holistic way of thinking about systems change with tools and strategies that networks can use to be more effective. As more networks blend systems thinking into their core strategies, the possibilities of accelerating transformational change expand, and areas for new tools, practices, and collaborations become clear.
If you’re interested in these items, I’d suggest taking the course, convening a team of people to enroll in the class with you, and share your learnings along the way, as well as ways you are integrating this into your network’s strategy.
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Network Trust Assessment
Trust in Networks is Fundamental to Social Change
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Trust is a core principle – in Chaos Theory, we’d call trust within human systems a powerful ‘Strange Attractor.’ [ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
The purpose of a Change Network is to amplify the flow of knowledge, information, resources, skills, and assets throughout all parts of the network – especially to where they can do the most good. To put everything we can contribute, collectively, into the shifts we’re trying to make – so that change is faster, more meaningful & relevant, and spreads further.
And as one who struggles greatly with trust – it’s glaringly obvious – without trust, nothing significant moves. It’s that simple, and abundantly clear.
But whenever the word comes up in community-work, I cringe a little. Especially in groups with different cultures and privilege gaps. Because what, really, are people espousing?
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What do we mean when we say ‘trust’?
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What IS it we’re trying to create together? And who gets to decide?
In her ‘Network Weaver’s Handbook‘ June Holley says:
"'We must trust each other for this to work' is a dangerous statement. Dangerous because it too often implies that trust is easily or instantly developed. Actually, we have little awareness of how authentic trust is built."
In fact, I’m a little afraid of saying what comes next – so this constitutes a small act of trust that I’ll be forgiven for writing what can’t help but come across as snarky, judgmental, condescending – tho it’s meant more as a contribution – some clues about where to start when things aren’t moving along as hoped-for.
But in my mostly-white, well-educated, middle-class, do-gooder, some-brand-of-spiritual, conflict-averse, organizational-consultant-filled ‘Minnesota nice’ universe, I often feel like the operating definition of trust is stiflingly narrow, superficial, insensitive and – ultimately dominating and destructive. I trust that’s no-one’s intention, but intentions are rarely enough.
I’ve often felt like I’m being told or seen others being told: ‘never challenge me’, ‘never create a conflict I have to sit in the middle of’ and ‘never do anything I wouldn’t do, because that frightens me.’
In other words – Trust as ‘no overt challenge to anyone’s (especially the speaker’s) cherished beliefs & behaviors.’ (or even, ‘trust’ as the tool for shutting out what anyone who is different is trying to contribute, ‘trust’ as the reframing of ‘intended contribution’ to ‘attack’). The rare exceptions make the norm more glaring.
I’m exaggerating (just a little ) and maybe it’s just my own trust issues filter, but what I often hear when the topic of trust comes up – is ‘YOU need to trust ME (precisely as I am behaving in this moment, even if it’s not what you find trust-worthy, and without discussion of said behavior). Or else it’s ‘I CANNOT trust YOU unless YOU be different than you are (and don’t bother explaining or clarifying yourself, because my mild manner proves my rightness & you are broken, crazy, mean, not spiritual enough’).
I almost never hear ‘How can I earn YOUR trust?’ or ‘How are MY social norms excluding, devaluing, controlling YOU?’ I never hear ‘I DON’T KNOW HOW to trust what’s going on, but I don’t want to shut it down – I want help understanding it so I can learn to react to this sort of situation differently.” (all of these, I notice, require real vulnerability. . . )
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Presuming upon trust is hazardous
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My own (admittedly still sometimes hyper-vigilant) gut often says ‘in this context Trust means ‘don’t push members of the dominant culture out of their comfort zones’.
The dominants are usually the only ones who feel safe enough to express when & what they don’t trust. For everyone else, just showing up as ‘different’ is uncomfortable enough. Expressing mistrust of dominant norms – I can attest – is hazardous – and that perceived call to safeguard privileged comfort zones just pushes the mistrust further below the surface – making it that much harder to correlate with more mundane problems and that much harder to heal.
As a person who grew up in poverty & chaos – expecting to trust, deep down, still feels like a privilege & a luxury to me. I envy (and occasionally resent) people with stable lives, trustworthy families & trustworthy friends – people who feel safe in community & actually believe others will support them when needed. They have a beautiful Ease the rest of us lack. My years of working on my own trust-worthiness and trust issues has taught me to recognize both the presence and the absence of that Ease in others. And to mourn the amount of time I’ve engaged in the world without it.
To me, trust is rare, super-hard-won and precious, whether I’m earning it or bestowing it. A most fragile gift we are lucky to share (though luck has nothing to do with it).
Trust is not something we can demand from one another. It’s not something we can decide to feel because it’s expected of us. We can TRY to feel it, we can PRETEND that we feel it – and what a mess THAT creates!!
Trust is also absolutely NOT an effective tool for controlling others, or for keeping ourselves safe. But, too often, that seems either it’s unconscious purpose or it’s unintended consequence.
Because of the rarity of trust in my own life (in both directions, I freely admit), I may know some things about trust that those who take it for granted can’t know. It’s a reality I’ve had to study, struggle with, learn to apprehend & to value. Which is why I can say, with conviction – that beautiful Ease people have when they trust, not only is it palpable & lovely – it makes all sorts of magic possible.
I’ve lived in enough of both trust & not-trust to know this – trust is what makes transformation possible. It helps things fall into place. It creates a flow of value and met-needs so much greater than anything we can create without it.
But within a broader culture of separation & domination & exploitation – trust is hard to muster, it takes work.
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Approaching trust with humility
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So when we’re aiming to build change networks, I think we’d all benefit from a far more patient & nuanced understanding of Trust. As something emergent, not manufactured. And understanding that especially, especially, especially when we belong to the dominant culture of any given context, or wherever we have rank or privilege, there are more layers to it than we can perceive on our own.
Let’s learn – from scratch and not from what we were raised with – how to earn it from one another and/or how to give it to one another- knowing there is no direct path or single route, that for every small group and ‘two-sie’ it’s different, and that, especially for those who have historically been excluded, it’s asking a lot).
Let’s learn to recognize its presence, and not accidentally spoil the trust we’ve been given.
Let’s also learn to recognize the lack of trust and to honor its absence – because that lack comes from real stuff. We can’t pooh-poo away mistrust with platitudes & empty promises, and until we can see where Trust isn’t, we can’t begin to revive it.
Of course, there are more elements to network weaving and more elements to social change. But when we lose track of or trivialize this foundation, all those other elements are going to be less effective.
[ap_spacing spacing_height="25px"]Trust makes it’s own, often uncomfortable, demands
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This post was meant to be a single brief paragraph introducing some thoughts on kinds of trust that we can learn to work on. I guess my own trust issues needed to be heard from before they were ready to let me be more pragmatic.
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Originally Published by Christine Capra on October 12, 2015 at GreaterthantheSum.com
Trust In Networks
Trust in networks is different than trust in organizations or coalitions where it is essential to spend time building trust among everyone because the relationships are likely to be long-term.
However, networks often have hundreds or even thousands of participants and it is not possible for everyone to know everyone else in the network, let alone have the time to build deep relationships. People in self-organizing networks are often involved in a number of collaborative projects at any one time, but these projects are often of short duration with little time to build deep trust, and after the end of the project they may not work with those individuals again.
For this reason, people in networks need to learn how to build swift trust. Swift trust, explored by Debra Meyerson and colleagues, means that the participants of a collaborative project interact as if trust were present.
Several things make establishing swift trust easier. First, when a few of the collaborators have had previous experience working together, they can set the tone or standard of trustworthiness that others buy into. For example, they can model openness, appreciation and other qualities that help everyone be more trustworthy.
Another key to swift trust is the communications ecosystem and values. By agreeing to be transparent and make all their work easy to observe and be accessed by others, it’s easy for all participants to see that others are doing the work they said they would do. That’s why it’s so important to use tools like google docs and set up task and timeline spreadsheets, a place for meeting notes and a budget and expense spreadsheet. Slack is another tool that helps people see what others are doing.
Another essential ingredient of swift trust is taking time to clarify roles in the project based on specific expertise. For example, I am in a collaborative project where one person is responsible for developing content, another for the tech aspects of the virtual sessions, and other for the communications. This doesn’t mean that each person does all the work in their area - in fact, we often work together on content - but one person is responsible for moving that part forward. The clearer the roles are to everyone, the less conflict is likely to occur.
As in any situation, it’s always important to take time to help people know each other: even if the group is working virtually, it’s easy to set up breakout rooms in zoom.us where smaller groups or dyads can share about themselves. If the project has a convener, it’s helpful for them to state values such as “We are all unique, and each of us has quirks or things about ourselves that can affect our work. For example, one person has a child with a chronic illness; another person may be very introverted. We need to get to know people so that we know about these things and realize the parent may be called away from work to care for the child and we need to make sure the introverted person has space to talk.”
Having skills in dealing with a person when they do not do what they have agreed to do is essential. People quickly become more reliable if small infractions are dealt with immediately and directly (often through a one on one conversation).
If someone proves to be difficult to work with or untrustworthy, they will find that they are not included in future network collaborations. This is a powerful incentive for most people to contribute as positively as they can. Word of mouth that occurs in the network means that effective contributors will find they are frequently sought after for projects.
Undergirding swift trust is a set of network values and understandings - things such as openness, transparency, acceptance of difference. Network weavers can help ensure that most network participants are aware of these values.
On Friday we will offer a free Trust Assessment that network weavers can use to increase network participants awareness of these critical elements of trust. [ap_spacing spacing_height="30px"]
How To Increase Participation Through Increased Engagement
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A new free resource is available in the Resources section of Network Weaver.
Many people ask me "How do I get people to participate more in our network?" This simple worksheet offers tips that you can quickly implement to get network participants interacting with each other. We have found that is one of the best strategies for getting them to invest more time in the network.[ap_spacing spacing_height="25px"]
Criteria For A Design Process Emerging From Network Values
[ap_spacing spacing_height="35px"]Co-Design Series Part 3[ap_spacing spacing_height="28px"]
First, we wanted to make sure our definition of co-design fit our list of network values.
[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]1) The co-design process needs to create an alternative to the inevitable unequal power found in a conventional design process. Participants must be peers with the designers not just subjects of inquiry. Designers must recognize, honor, and center the true expertise needed to design the product - that of the participant/user. Participants should have equal weight in designing and determining the end products that the design process creates. Ask, Does everyone feel like their expertise, experiences, and contexts are valued?
Cea and Rimington describe 5 ways to equalize power in a design process:
- define the problem at hand with the others involved
- trust all players with full information about the big picture of the project and the constraints
- support authentic leadership roles and structures for participants
- create an environment that incentivized decentralization of creative input and power
- encourage fluid roles.
[ap_spacing spacing_height="28px"]2) To underscore trust and promote deep learning, we think the design process should develop long-term relationships between designers and users. This moves everyone involved from transactional relationships to those that can be transformative. For this to happen, we cultivate relationships that support vulnerability and truth-telling. Furthermore, these deeper, more honest and peer like relationships will strengthen the overall network: any codesign process is a network building process. Ask, “Do people feel comfortable sharing their true opinions of the process and product?”
[ap_spacing spacing_height="28px"]3) Next the process must have maximum engagement of the participants who will be impacted by the product or who are interested in the design process to develop the product. This suggests moving beyond focus groups to having more rigorous, regular feedback on prototypes; literacy needs to be developed in everyone to understand contexts, technical terms, and experiences. People need to have opportunities to engage in different venues (one-on-ones, small groups, full group convenings). Ask, "Are people excited to engage?”
[ap_spacing spacing_height="28px"]4) The process must value difference and diversity of perspectives. This means that many different kinds of people - young and old, people from different backgrounds - are included. This is critical because it is diversity that leads us to question our assumptions and think differently about design. We like the term productive conflict. Ask, “How can differences let us see a new way of looking at things?”
[ap_spacing spacing_height="28px"]5) Everyone involved in the process needs to understand that the product development process is iterative. Any design is in perpetual beta. We need to be continually involved in gathering feedback and using it to transform the products that we co-create. Ask, “Is there energy for continued conversations about the product or process?”
[ap_spacing spacing_height="28px"]6) In most cases, the initial design team will involve a limited number of participants of the network - even if it uses participative processes. However, part of the design process needs to be strategizing how each design participant can introduce and share the product with others in their network so that the product goes viral. Ask, “Does everyone in the network have a chance to try out the new product to determine usefulness?"
[ap_spacing spacing_height="28px"]7) The design process is also an opportunity for participants to learn how to conduct co-design processes in their organizations and local networks. Ask, “Does the design process provide time to help participants integrate co-design into all network processes?”[ap_spacing spacing_height="28px"]
Read Part 1 of the Co-Design Series HERE
Read Part 2 of the Co-Design Series HERE
25 Behaviors That Support Strong Network Culture
[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]“Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.”
E.M. Forster, from Howard’s End
[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]This is an excerpt from the final post in a series of five focused on networks for change in education and learning that have appeared on the Education Week and Next Generation Learning Challenges websites.
In this series on network design and network thinking, I explored the power and promise of networks as residing in how connection and flow contribute to life, liveliness and learning. See, especially, Connection is Fundamental.
In Why Linking Matters, I looked at how certain networks can more optimally create what are known as “network effects,” including small world reach, rapid dissemination, resilience, and adaptation.
I also noted, in Structure Matters in particular, that living systems–including classrooms, schools, school districts, and communities–are rooted in patterns of connection and flow. That’s why shifts in connections–between people, groups, and institutions–as well as flows of various kinds of resources can equate with systemic change, and ideally they can lead to greater health (in other words, equity, prosperity, sustainability).
Networks can also deliver myriad benefits to individual participants, including: inspiration; mutual support; learning and skill development; greater access to information, funding, and other resources; greater systemic or contextual awareness; breaking out of isolation and being a part of something larger; amplification of one’s voice and efforts; and new partnerships and joint projects.
It’s also true, however, that not every network or network activity creates all of these effects and outcomes. The last two posts looked at two factors that contribute to whether networks are able to deliver robust value to individual participants and the whole, including network structure and what form leadership takes. Networks are by no means a panacea to social and environmental issues and can easily replicate and exacerbate social inequities and environmentally extractive practice. So values certainly have a place, as does paying close attention to dynamics of power and privilege.
It is also the case that individual and collective behavior on a day-to-day basis have a lot to say about what networks are able to create.
The following is a list of 25 behaviors for you to consider as part of your network practice as an educator:
- Weave connections and close triangles to create more intricacy in the network. Closing triangles means introducing people to one another, as opposed to networking for one’s own self, essentially a mesh or distributed structure rather than a hub-and-spoke structure.[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
- Create connections across boundaries/dimensions of difference. Invite and promote diversity in the network, which can contribute to resilience and innovation.[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
- Promote and pay attention to equity throughout the network. Equity here includes ensuring everyone has access to the resources and opportunities that can improve the quality of life and learning. Equity impact assessments are one helpful tool on this front.[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
- Name and work with power dynamics and unearned privilege in the direction of equity.
- Be aware of how implicit bias impacts your thinking and actions in the network. Become familiar with and practice de-biasing strategies.[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
- Think, learn, and work out loud, in the company of others or through virtual means. This contributes to the abundance of resources and learning in the network.[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
- Don’t hoard or be a bottleneck. Keep information and other resources flowing in the network.[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
- Identify and articulate your own needs and share them with others. Making requests can bring a network to life as people generally like to be helpful![ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
- Stay curious and ask questions; inquire of others to draw out common values, explicit and tacit knowledge, and other assets.[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
- Make ongoing generous offers to others, including services, information, connections.
For behaviors 11-25, see this link.
“… Keep reaching out, keep bringing in./This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,/for every gardener knows that after the digging, after/the planting, after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.”
Marge Piercy, from “The Seven of Pentacles”
Originally published on May 17, 2018 at Interaction Institute for Social Social Change.
The Promise of Co-Design
[ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]Co-Design Series Part 2[ap_spacing spacing_height="28px"]
THE WHY[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
Co-design is a process that guides a group of people through various iterations of coming together to create something. This something might be a product, an activity, a project or a service. In fact, much of what is happening in networks is collaborative invention rather than traditional decision-making. Most decision-making in networks is done in collaborative projects as they are experimenting and creating something new. [ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
Co-Design Is [ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
- POWERFUL. Co-design is a way of working together that assumes we all have something to contribute. The process distributes power to participants, utilizing each individual’s unique perspectives, expertise, and skills to create something new. [ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
- COLLABORATIVE. Co-design employs processes that bring together many perspectives and capacity levels of participants. The processes are flexible, encourage collaboration, and incorporate reflection, and can change over time as the group’s goals change and adapt.[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
- TRANSFORMATIVE. Co-design and the culture change it requires can help us toward our bigger goals of social transformation, as we create new ways of engaging with each other and our own communities.
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THE WHAT[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
To get a deeper sense of what co-design is, here are three definitions:
The co-design approach enables a wide range of people to make a creative contribution in the formulation and solution of a problem. … Facilitators provide ways for people to engage with each other as well as providing ways to communicate, be creative, share insights and test out new ideas. John Chisholm -- Senior Research Associate, Design Management, Lancaster University.
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Participatory Design (PD) refers to the activity of designers and people not trained in design working together in the design and development process. In the practice of PD, the people who are being served by design are no longer seen simply as users, consumers or customers. Instead, they are seen as the experts in understanding their own ways of living and working. Elizabeth B–N. Sanders
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Our definition: Co-design is a participatory, reflective, and adaptive process used to design and create. By centering participants as experts, it decentralizes decision-making and power, facilitating the transformative power of small groups.
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THE HOW[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
When utilizing co-design as a process, we are guided by the following principles as distinguished from conventional design processes:
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Guiding Principles |
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Conventional design |
Co-design |
Decision-making power |
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| One person or a small group makes the majority of strategic decisions | Many people are engaged at many levels of a hierarchy (or across a network) in strategic decision-making |
Leadership and experts |
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| A top-down, expert-led approach is utilized which offers limited opportunities for collaboration | Co-design honors participants as the true experts in their fields, creating many opportunities for collaboration throughout the design process |
Structure |
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| Rigid structures (eg. a strategic plan) are used that lock the work and/or process in place after a decision is made | Co-design utilizes flexible formations that allow both the content of the work and the process to change over time |
Flexible engagement |
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| Creates systems that maintain individuals at consistent levels of engagement with the work; individuals tend to be highly involved in design or not at all | Allows for individuals to participate at varying levels that may change over time; for example an individual may participate in the design group weekly, join monthly steering committee calls, or give feedback once in awhile |
Reflection, learning, and adaptation |
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| Lacks reflection points or reflection is not used to inform growth and adaptation of the work | Reflection is a built-in, frequent process used to adapt strategies and priorities over the lifespan of the project |
Cultural shift |
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| Promotes a dominant culture that disregards or actively excludes some voices and perspectives | Co-design opens us to new ways of working together by establishing a process that allows multiple individuals to take ownership and step into leadership roles |
Product versus process |
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| Focuses on the end product and how individuals might interact with it | Co-design centers process (rather than end product) as a way to engage and continue engaging |
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IN SUM[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
Conventional design, decision-making, and creation processes focus power in one individual or a small group, creating a system that is less conducive to innovation and hinders emergence of new leaders.
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We believe the process of co-design shifts these power dynamics, empowering participants to have ownership over the process and product. Because of this, we believe co-design can help networks respond to emergence, become more innovative, and foster transformation at both the individual and network level.
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Almost every aspect of network action, operations and governance can benefit by using co-design processes. For example, when people are self-organizing collaborative projects, they can co-design what they are doing. When a network is articulating its purpose, it can do so through a co-design process asking network participants to work in small groups to generate what they would like to see in the purpose statement. When networks are planning a convening, they can do like Leadership Learning Community (LLC) has done and invite anyone who wants to be part of virtual sessions to co-design the gathering.
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Inherent in co-design is the idea that all individuals have perspective, experience, and expertise to bring to the table. This means we’d also love to hear your perspective on co-design! Have you seen co-design techniques used in your network? How could you envision co-design supporting your small group?
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Read Part 1 of the Co-Design Series HERE