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.
Do you suspect your network has trust problems ? This simple survey, when taken by participants in your network, can pinpoint the nature of your trust challenges. It might be that people are not sharing transparently about what they are doing or it may be that they are not coming through on what they said they would do. Once you can pinpoint major areas of mistrust, your network can talk about those areas and develop strategies to increase trust. [ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
Just hand out the survey, or move it to a web platform such as google forms or survey monkey, then aggregate the results, present them to the network and discuss the results.
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?
"'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
“Relationship is the fundamental truth of this world of appearance,”
– Tagore[ap_spacing spacing_height="10px"]
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Over the past several years of supporting networks for social change, we at IISC have been constantly evolving our understanding of what is new and different when we call something a network, as opposed to a coalition, collaborative or alliance. On the surface, much can look the same, and one might also say that coalitions, collaboratives and alliances are simply different forms of networks. While this is true, it is also the case that not every collaborative form maximizes network effects, including small world reach, rapid dissemination, adaptability, resilience and system change. In this regard, experience shows that a big difference maker is when participants in a network (or an organization, for that matter) embrace new ways of seeing, thinking, and doing. The following revised list continues to evolve as our own practice and understanding does, and it speaks to a number of network principles to guide thinking and action: [ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]
1. Adaptability instead of control
Thinking in terms of networks means leading with an interest in adaptation over time. Given the complexity of the situations we are often called to help address, it is difficult for any actor or “leader” to know exactly what must be done, much less keep a diverse and decentralized social structure moving in lockstep. Iterative design and adaptive strategy serve us better. [ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]
2. Contribution before credentials
You may have heard the story about the custodial staff person in a shoe company who anonymously submitted his idea for a new shoe design during a company-wide contest, and won. Or the homeschooled teenager who contributed tremendously helpful information on nitrogen pollution to an open and crowdsourced call for research. “Expertise” and seniority can serve as a bottle neck and buzz kill in many organizations, where ego gets in the way of excellence and vital experience. If we are looking for new and better thinking, it should not matter from whence it comes. [ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]
“Your generosity is more important than your perfection.”
-Seth Godin
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[ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]3. Giving first, not taking
You’ll see it when you create it. Often people are drawn to networks by the promise of abundance, but stand back and wait for something to happen. The key to generativity is generosity, to being first to make a humble offering – of ideas, truth, courage, attention and other resources. The fear of having an already scarce pie became further divided is fulfilled by the failure to give, to give freely and fully of our experience, gifts and excess capacities. For more on the importance of giving, see Adam Grant’s work.[ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]
4. Resilience and redundancy instead of rock stardom
You see it on sports teams all the time. When the star player goes down, if the team is built around said star, so goes the team. Resilient networks are built upon redundancy of function and a richness of interconnections, so that if one node goes away, the network can adjust and continue its work[ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]
5. Diversity and divergence rather than the usual suspects and forced agreement
New thinking comes from the meeting of different fields, experience, and perspectives. Preaching to the choir gets us the same old (and tired) hymn. Furthermore, innovation is not a result of dictating or choosing from what is, but expanding options, moving from convergent (and what often passes for strategic) thinking to “design thinking.” And network action is not simply about everyone having to engage in one big effort, but cooperation and parallel play[ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]
6. Intricacy and flow not bottlenecks and hoarding
Networks are key to supporting life and liveliness – life is after all a network. A constant threat to aliveness is rigidity, hoarding and exclusion. Economically we are seeing plenty of evidence of this, pushing us towards what Jane Jacobs once called socio-economic “necrosis.” With hyper-concentration of resources, patterns of exclusion and growing inequality, we see the entire system put at risk. The antidote is robust, diversified local networks that are connected to other such networks, which are collectively able to move resources of many kinds fluidly from and to all parts of the social body.[ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]
Keep reaching out, keep interconnecting, keep things flowing.
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[ap_spacing spacing_height="30px"]7. Self-organization and emergence rather than permission and the pursuit of perfection
As with any complex living system, when a group of people comes together, we cannot always know what it is that they will create. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Vying for the predictable means short-changing ourselves of new possibilities, one of the great promises of networks. Furthermore, network effects and change stem from many different experiments rather than looking for the single best answer. [ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]
8. Shift focus from core to the periphery
As living entities, networks are defined by the nature and quality of their edges. The core of the network tends to be made up of those who are most connected to others in the network, as well as interested in and engaged in the work (albeit in some cases through exclusionary dynamics of power and privilege). Those on the edge, or periphery, may be less connected and engaged, and also bring considerable strength, to the extent that they provide lessons about adaptation, a willingness and ability to play in different spaces, and have connections to other important domains. In many cases, there is strength in following the lead of the margins. As Ceasar McDowell says:[ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]
“If you take a tent and you stake it far out at the margins … the middle is always covered. And the further out you stake it the stronger the structure you get. And why is that? Because in our systems and our social systems the people at the margins are actually living with the failures of the systems. And they are creating adaptive solutions to them. So when we design to take care of them we build stronger systems for everyone.” [ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]
[ap_spacing spacing_height="30px"]9. From working in isolation to working with others and/or out loud
I recently spoke to a leader of an amazing organization in Pennsylvania who was bemoaning the situation where a number of his newer staff thought that “getting the job done” meant paying attention to the tasks on their list and working on them in an independent and efficient way. What they were not doing was involving others, communicating about what they were working on, where they were in their process and what they were learning as a result. One network mantra I have heard is “Never work alone.”Or to put a more positive spin on it, “Work in good company.”Why? Because our thinking and ideas are made better by others. Furthermore, sharing our work is crucial since communication is the lifeblood of networks (and networked organizations) if they are to be intelligently adaptive and resilient to changing and challenging times. Even it we are physically alone, we can show and share our work in helpful ways, to ourselves and others, using virtual tools. [ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]
10. From “Who’s the Leader?” to “We’re the Leaders!”
Leadership can be a confusing and fraught concept. In certain quarters there is still glorification of and deference given to heroic individuals, with little recognition of the interdependent nature of, well, everything! The late Mila N. Baker made the case that the individualized and command-and-control leadership lexicon is grossly insufficient for our changing, complex, and interconnected world. She promoted the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) IT architectures as models for thinking about leadership and how people organize themselves. In P2P arrangements, everyone becomes a generative and recipient node in a network, and has easy access to other nodes. This embodiment of leadership is stymied by rigid hierarchies, fixed positional authority and purely transactional mindsets (without regard to underlying and authentic relationships). Flipping this script means seeking arrangements where everyone leads and follows, trust and reciprocity are fundamental values and thriving is linked to connection. [ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]
What might the integration of these principles do to the way you lead and do your work? What opportunities and outcomes might be created? [ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]
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"]
It would be great if you would share any activities you have done to engage network participants in the comments section below.Then we will add them to the handout, which we will continually revise![ap_spacing spacing_height="30px"]
I have a number of ‘network friends’ – people I know, online & by video & phone, whom I’ve not yet met in the flesh. People who for one reason or another, reached out to me, or I reached out to them, knowing by our online presence & by our shared connections to others that we had something to learn together.
In this growing field of ‘Network Weaving’, it’s easy to connect quickly & begin to share work, ideas, resources and to bond in a real way, with people we’d normally consider strangers.
One of the women I’ve connected to in this way just shared something with me that she’s been working on. A beautiful contribution to our field that she’s been toiling away on so long she’s lost track, a little bit, of the value & beauty in it. As I affirmed & appreciated her efforts via email, she reflected me back to myself in a way I aspire to, but, honestly, I DO NOT know what causes her to see me in that way. She sees the me I’d like to be, but don’t identify as self.
As I began to write a reply email, saying that I’m honored by how she sees me, even tho I cannot see myself the way she does, this struck me:
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When we connect & share & trust & honor, we begin to see the strengths, beauty, & potential in one another that we can’t entirely see in ourselves. And when we voice those things we see in one another, we help bring them into being even more.
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Her words made me feel SEEN, recognized. Which inspires and en-courages me to be more of what she saw, even if I’m not entirely sure what allowed her to see it.
No doubt this seems elementary to good parents & teachers (I mean, as a parent, that power to bring out the best in my son by simply reflecting him back to himself was awe-inspiring) – but there was a new epiphany in it, for me, today.
So – here’s the part that was striking in the moment – what we see in each other, and call out in one another – becomes the very source of transformation. A greater belief in our gifts increases our ability, willingness & desire to give of them. Seeing one another’s gifts brings about more of those gifts. Feeling valued and recognized also increases our willingness to collaborate, our openness to others, our ability to journey together into the unknown.
System change & saving the world are hard work that many people want to be part of. But over and over, we hear how people are just below their breaking points, stretched to their limits, overwhelmed with how much effort it takes just to maintain. They can’t take on even one more small commitment. But when the efforts that align with our passions or express our deepest selves are met with affirmation & encouragement, what we do becomes a little less effortful, we regain energy faster, we contribute again sooner and more. Recognizing & affirming each other, in a change network, can be one of those small shifts that bring about huge changes.
As a traumatized hyper-vigilant welfare brat, I’ve usually been highly suspicious of compliments or kind words, and have spent much of my life pushing them away.
But lately I’ve been learning, in very tangible ways, how our piling on sincere appreciation & authentic recognition of one another not only heals & encourages at the individual level, it fuels collective transformational ripple effects.
[ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]For Mary Roscoe for inspiring this reflection and for Michael Bischoff, for seeing the true me into being.
[ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]Originally published May 16th, 2016 by Christine Capra at GreaterThanTheSum.com
Those of us who work with change networks could sometimes do a better job of clarifying the distinction between 'networking' and 'network weaving'. Leaving that distinction un-articulated and merely implied inclines those who are new to the discussion to default their hearing to the generic-mainstream meaning of 'networking'. It leaves much of what is important and different about network weaving either un-said, un-heard, mis-understood, or suspect.
Now don't get me wrong - generic 'networking' is indisputably important. Contrasting something to it doesn't mean devaluing it.
And in reality, there's a world of overlap. Either can merge into becoming the other. You could personally be doing one, in the context of the other. And what you think you're looking at depends on where you fit in the network. There isn’t a bright line. My pretense at precise distinction is merely for the sake of nudging us a little further along the spectrum of what's possible.
Because - there's more power and potential in a social network than we've been taught & have grown accustomed to recognizing. And it's hard to access that 'more', if our words limit our imagination. So this is as much about what we're IMAGINING we're doing while we're doing it, as it is about precisely WHAT we're doing.
For those of us who don't resonate to Harvey McKay's 'Swim With the Sharks' and that ilk - the default, mainstream meaning of 'networking' can be a big turn-off . We've come to understand it as a specific, often self-serving, not-necessarily-authentic, social butterflying kind of activity. To many of us 'networking' is a popularity contest - best left to smarmy salesmen, politicians, corporate CEOs & lobbyists. We get a little queasy just contemplating joining those ranks. And no amount of rosy pep-talk convinces us. For introverts and those who value authenticity ‘Networking’ fires up the wrong imaginings.
But beyond being a potential turn-off, the common usage of the word falls short of the vision and purpose behind network weaving. 'Networking' tells the social butterflies they've arrived (an assessment the rest of us can’t agree with), while it leaves much of a network's deeper potential impact and generativity untapped.
We need different words to signal that we're leaving the default meaning behind and talking about something more. And we have them, we just need to use them.
[ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]A DIFFERENCE RECOGNIZED BY SOCIAL NETWORK SCIENTISTS
Social network scientists have some technical terms that can help us explore this distinction. Terms for different ways of focusing on, or 'scoping' a network for analysis. They are 'ego-networks', 'socio-networks', 'open-networks', and 'eco-networks'.*
I'll say more about 'ego-networks' and 'eco-networks' in a moment, but for the curious, I'll just say this about the other two:
A 'socio-network' is a 'network in a box'. It has clearly-defined, solid boundaries - such as “everyone who works at Company X”, “or everyone who goes to School A” - it only looks at the relationships existing within that boundary - no-one else is relevant. An 'open-network' is what it sounds like - there are no boundaries. The internet is an open network. Twitter is an open network, Facebook is an open network - anyone can open an account and anyone can be connected to anyone. There is no limit to who might be included in a network map of an open network. In theory, it includes the entire human race (or even further). *From Understanding Social Networks: Theories, concepts and findings by Charles Kadushin
[ap_spacing spacing_height="20px"]NETWORKING IS TO NETWORK WEAVING WHAT EGO-CENTRIC IS TO ECO-CENTRIC
For our discussion here, the more interesting technical terms are 'ego-network' and 'eco-network', which fit the distinction I'm trying to make almost perfectly. So let's dig in:
An Ego-Network revolves around a core person - it is defined by direct relationships to that central person and doesn't include indirect (2nd degree) relationships or persons unknown to the core person. Sounds a lot like what we get from 'networking', right? It's all about 'me'.
[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]What's an Ego-Network?
On a network map it looks like a hub with spokes. The relevant connections are to the single node at the center.
In our society, an ego network is generally connected around support of the core person in some way - important career contacts; the politicians a lobbyist cultivates; the network of family, friends and caregivers around someone with a severe illness, or something like the child support network I was gifted with as a young single mom, made up of sage advisors, friends who babysat regularly (or with whom I swapped regular babysitting) so I could work, friends who would drop everything to come get the kid if I had an emergency, and the kid's dad who gave me big chunks of time off. In that case, the connection to me (and the kid) was what was relevant - whether or not any of them knew one another didn't really matter. There was no larger purpose than helping me out or enjoying my kid.
This is the type of network that 'networking' tries to build and leverage. It is often based on direct reciprocity (I scratch your back, you scratch mine), is personally maintained (I work to maintain the relationship - stay in touch, send gifts, etc.), and often requires a direct match between my needs & yours - if there’s no direct match, there’s no relationship. (i.e. if you can’t help me raise my kid, I have far less reason to sustain our relationship, given my limited time and energy). And it's often homophilic ('like attracting to like') or relatively homogenous. My kid-network consisted entirely of older-moms, current-moms, wanna-be moms & one dad.
And because of their relative homogeneity, ego-Networks can easily become echo-chambers.
If the hub of an ego-network goes away the network falls apart. In an ego-network, the person is the purpose, and without that person, the connections are gone. My marriage (wonderful as it is), ended a lovely phase of networked connectedness in my life, because the purpose of our interactions (my need for help with child-raising) ended and the network drifted apart.
[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]Eco-Networks Fit Between Socio-networks & Open Networks
An Eco-Network is a relative newcomer to the network-science labelling game. I don't even know where I got the term from. It's not in the book I pulled the others from, which is what I'd expected. I know I've come across it in a few places over the course of my network reading but haven't been able to re-find them - so if anyone reading this can find them, please share with us!
In any case, an eco-network sits somewhere between a socio-network and an open-network. A socio-network (the 'network in a box') generally has a centrally defined, narrow purpose (think 'mission statement' or 'avoiding organizational bankruptcy'); a clear & precise definition of inclusion (think 'everyone on our payroll' or 'the roll-call list'); a relatively centralized & hierarchical command system; and officially-sanctioned & controlled information and resource flows (balanced by secret, un-sanctioned information flows). Whereas an open network is unbounded, random, directionless and incoherent (think Twitter, FaceBook, Instagram).
So we could think of an eco-network as skirting the boundary between rigid pseudo-control and a free-for-all. In my mind, an eco-network is the social equivalent of that strange attractor within a system that generates ordered patterns out of chaos. To me, an eco-network has the potential to generate a collective path from our current world - a world presently oscillating between destructive authoritarian rigidity and chaotic collapse - to a new world, built on an evolved understanding of order/structure, connection, and thriving.
[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]What IS an Eco-Network?
But what does all that MEAN, practically speaking?
Well, it helps to think about ecosystems. For one thing, both eco-networks and ecosystems only thrive with ample diversity.
For another - in both cases, flows of resources (whether money, information, skills, trust and shared inspiration or nutrients, shared environmental context, water and sunshine) are complexly reciprocal, as opposed to transactional. In a forest ecosystem, no-one barters with the squirrel to get it to poop out worm & fungi food. And in exchange for the squirrel poop, worms & fungi don't break the elements down fine enough so that plant roots can absorb them because because the trees or the pooping animals pay them to - they do it because that's what they do, it's part of their organic process. The trees & other plants only grow if there are adequate nutrients and water - and when they do, they create food some of the animals need to survive (and poop out), some of which become food for other animals, and it all requires water, water retention, healthy soil - and so on. There is an organically-driven flow of value, based on adequate diversity, that is not directly transactional.
There is no need for direct transactions because each community member's survival depends on the in-flows (food, etc.) and out-flows (poop, etc.) of all the members. Transactions are too small a dynamic to support the complexity and adaptivity of an ecosystem.
The ecosystem forms an interdependent network of a huge variety of life forms, moving a broad range of nutrients freely through a complex system of flows that sustains the whole thing. Pull out too many parts, or just block up too many of the flows from one component to another and the whole thing collapses. And when I say ‘flows’ here, I mean ‘connection’/’relationship’. You could have all the pieces of the system/network, but if they weren’t able to interact, you wouldn’t have a network, let alone a living system.
In an ecosystem, there is also no 'boss', no centralized command & control. The whole thing works because of how the community fits together, not because someone designed it that way. A social eco-network is similar. There may be players with larger impacts and greater input into direction, but that doesn't mean they master-mind and control the whole thing.
Another thing a social eco-network and a ecosystem have in common is boundaries. They may be fuzzy, but they are real and discernable. For instance, there is diversity, but the diversity isn't infinite (like it could be in an open network) and it certainly isn't random. Whales don't occupy forests, butterflies don't do arctics, polar bears don't co-exist well within rainforests.
With ecosystems the boundary is environmental, the community members all thrive within a similar environment. With an eco-network, the boundary is purpose. And the boundary is what holds the community together.
[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]The Point of an Eco-Network
So - ultimately - the main distinction between an ego-network and an eco-network is this - the eco-network exists to support a purpose, not a person or an organization. It supports a broad purpose that is greater than any of the individuals involved, but which benefits all the individuals involved. It's also a purpose which can't be served nearly as effectively by individuals (or individual organizations) acting on their own, without the diverse & reciprocal flows of support and information that characterizes an ecosystem.
The glue, then, is not ONLY strong personal bonds (as in an ego-network) - tho it won't ever work without a lot of them - it is ALSO an intention that is larger than the personal bonds. It is an intention to be one part of a larger, purposeful, whole. An intention to help develop that whole and the individuals within it in ways that are generative for oneself as well as for the larger purpose.
An eco-network, then, has: a purpose; diverse membership; complex reciprocity; multiple 'centers' with multiple roles; and a robust and free flow of information, resources, capacity and care to where they are needed most. A flow that both includes and transcends the bonds of personal connection, and that emerge from the interactions.
Far from being a popularity contest, an eco-network is a puzzle we can do together. It’s a fun but serious game of learning about fits and flows - about how to amplify the impact of what each member has to offer. It’s a dance between the individual and the collective, an ever-shifting experiment with order emerging from chaos.
[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]But So What?
Why do I think any of this matters?
I believe it matters because our imaginations matter. All of our actions and behaviors are driven by and reflect our deepest beliefs and values - and these are all gestated in the womb of our imaginations. What we can't imagine, we can't create. And the only way we ever create something new, for which there is no current model, is if we imagine it first. I believe it matters that we pull our imaginations a step past what we already know, do & envision - into a higher level of generative capacity - in a way that affirms and includes everyone, not just the social butterflies.
And I believe that if we tease out a clearer understanding of the values and intent of network weaving, if we tempt our imaginations into this fresh, promising new territory, we go further to affirm and generate the kind of world we want to live in together. We affirm that weaving an impactful and resilient change network:
Is not a contest - it's more about discerning the right network for ourselves (so we don't end up like a polar bear in a rainforest), finding our natural place, supporting the flow of nutrients where they need to go, expressing our unique contribution & helping others do all of that as well. Means supporting others, whether they're able to support us or not, serves the overall purpose we’re all trying to promote. Requires a lot of different roles, as well as understanding and appreciating the roles that are different from our own. Means going beyond developing our own personal relationships, and helping others develop relationships that enhance maximum flow of value throughout the network. Requires recognizing and acting on the recognition that there is a limit to how much can be accomplished in a transactional context, and that system change is built on an abundance of relationships across differences. Stimulating this kind of understanding & imagination requires many tools & approaches - Mapping is the tool Tim & I personally contribute to the puzzle. Powerful, adaptive eco-networks are the shift we're trying to support.
What contributions are you interested in making & to which greater purpose? Please join the conversation in the comments section below.
We are now offering two network worksheets at no cost.
The first is the Network Weaver Checklist, revised from the NW Handbook version and in an easy to print pdf format. [ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]This checklist is great to give to people in your network at a face-to-face gathering. Have them spend 5 or so minutes to take the survey. Then have a chart paper (or 2-3 if the group is large). Using a marker, make a line down the center of the the paper and then one horizontally across from side to side. Mark the upper left quadrant with Connector, the upper right quadrant with Facilitator, the lower left quadrant with Project Coordinator, and the final quadrant with Guardian. Then have people put a red dot in the quadrant where they got the most 4s and 5s, and a green dot in the quadrant they would like to learn more about or do more.
Have them pair up with another person and talk about what they learned about themselves as a network weaver and what they would like to learn.
Then have the whole group notice the quadrant(s) where it is strong, and the quadrant(s) where there aren’t many people currently working. Notice which quadrant has lots of green dots - the network may want to do some explicit organizing of training in this are.
To download the Network Weaver Checklist:CLICK HERE
The other free worksheet, Questions for Deep Reflection, is a set of 20 questions that you can use for reflection in your network project follow-up. This list of questions is designed to help you observe what worked and where you might improve.[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]
[ap_spacing spacing_height="15px"]To download Question for Deep Reflection: CLICK HERE.
We will be adding new free items each week and will let you know when they are available through our e-newsletter. To sign up for the e-newsletter click on the button below.
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"]
