Relationship courage: Stepping in vs. stepping away
When I first had to supervise staff, I couldn't have started out more backwards because...
I didn't want to do supervision.
I wanted staff to...
Manage themselves.
Like, just do your work so I don't ever have to deal with personnel issues.
What put me in that mood? Past jobs...
I remembered seeing lots of conflict and I didn't like any of it. For example, a supervisor who made a perfectly innocent comment to a staff person who took major offense and blew up all over her and bullied her behind it for the next two months. I didn't ever want that to happen to me.
I remembered supervisors who staff gossiped about mercilessly. But I wanted everybody to like me.
I remembered supervisors who were not good at setting limits so their staff did a lot of goofing off and not much work. And I knew I was not very good at setting limits.
I remembered, too, stellar supervisors who I loved working for, but I didn't understand what they were doing that made them so effective. I figured it was something about their personalities and I wasn't very much like them.
So no wonder I wasn't eager to become a supervisor. And when it came to doing the tough correction conversations, I was just plain scared.
But I didn't like being scared, so I came up with a way to protect myself, which was my...
Wizard of Oz strategy.
I would put on my best professional persona, adopt a cool attitude verging on cold, and keep the staff at arm's length. I imagined myself hiding behind the Wizard's curtain out of the line of fire where nothing could touch me while I calmly managed by remote control.
And you can immediately see the problem...
When I stepped back and away from the staff person, she felt disregarded, maybe even abandoned.
Instead of using our working relationship to build a stronger alliance, I stepped away from the relationship. So it looked like I didn't care, which wasn't true. I was just afraid.
And this also meant...
I was bringing the fear to the party. Sure I put on my neutral face and used my reasonable voice, but jeez, what was I thinking?
The staff person knew this was going to be a corrective conversation. Her antennae were up. She was reading me carefully—me, not my scripted words. And what she read in me was my fear, so instead of reassuring her I was putting her in a state of alarm.
And now neither one of us was at our best and now both of us were much more susceptible to getting triggered and having the conversation go of the rails.
In trying to protect myself I made things worse.
Stepping in
But I also remember some very different conversations.
I'm thinking, for example, of Bryony. She was the shyest person on staff, not much of a presence, except for when she did her teen workshops, and then wow!
She engaged the teens. She held their attention. She got them thinking. Their eyes lit up. And afterward, they lined up to talk with her.
And there was one other time she came alive—when she was telling stories about people she knew. She was a remarkable observer of personal detail and a hilarious story teller. But she had an edge to her stories. You didn't want her to ever pick you as her subject.
Well, she was our representative to the regional coalition and the day after one of their meetings the grapevine was buzzing. Gossip being gossip, it all got back to us in vivid detail, the replays of the stories she told about some of our staff. And it wasn't just edgy stuff, it was just plain mean.
It was my job to correct her. I was so not looking forward to this. I figured that if I handled it badly and upset her, I would be featured in future stories as payback.
Which was not an unreasonable assumption since I had been one of the people she skewered at the regional meeting. My feelings were especially hurt because I liked Bryony a lot. I admired her. After her mother died, she had been shuffled through seven foster homes between the ages of 13 and 19, and now here she was at 20, in spite of all the disruption and losses in her life, doing such very good work.
I was hurt but I was also mad at Bryony. Not just about her trashing me. I was mad that I had to have this conversation.
What I really wanted to do was pretend we hadn't heard the gossip and ignore the whole thing.
But I had to meet with her and handle it. As I walked into the room here's what I saw...
A talented young woman with a very good heart who was in trouble. She had hurt five people who I knew mattered to her.
And my next thought was...
She needs my help.
Right there was the advocacy stance, though I didn't know then what it was and wouldn't for a long time to come. But unconsciously I shifted into...
Caring about her and taking a stand for her, instead of correcting her.
And a conversation that I expected to be chilly warmed up...
Rich: We heard what you said about us at the coalition meeting. You hurt our feelings.
Bryony: I didn't mean for that to happen.
Rich: What did you mean to have happen?
Bryony: I was just doing the thing I do.
Rich: Telling stories?
Bryony: Yes. People like me when I do that.
Rich: Not the people who get talked about. We don't like when you do that.
Bryony: Oh.
Rich: What happened when you were at that meeting?
Bryony: I forgot.
Rich: Forgot?
Bryony: Who you are and what you mean to me.
Rich: Forgot, really?
Bryony: Yes, really. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I wish I could take it all back.
Rich: I believe you mean that and that's good to hear, but help me understand. What were you thinking?
Bryony: I was just seeing those people respond to me and the more they responded the further I went. I know this is something I've got to stop.
Rich: What would help you stop?
Bryony: I have no idea.
Rich: You know, all of a sudden it strikes me that I've never heard you gossip about the kids. Not once.
Bryony: Oh, God, no, I wouldn't do that!
Rich: Why?
Bryony: Because they're kids. They're too vulnerable. They don't need that.
Rich: But adults...
Bryony: I don't know. They're different. I don't get it. Something gets started in me and it feels so good that I don't stop.
Rich: What's it like for you when you're the center of attention like that?
Bryony: Well, I want that. I'm sorry, but that's true.
Rich: There's nothing wrong with wanting attention.
Bryony: But it doesn't last. Driving home I kind of crashed into this sadness. A lot like emptiness.
Rich: Oh.
Bryony: You don't need to hear about my problems.
Rich: Only if you want to tell me. See, I'm just as sure as I can be that you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.
Bryony: No, I really, really don't. It's just that apart from when I tell stories, I'm such a nobody.
Rich: What about when you're doing workshops with the teens?
Bryony: Oh, I didn't think about that. Yes, then I matter. That's something new. Just since I started working here.
Rich: And what's it like for you after a workshop? Sadness? Emptiness?
Bryony: No, I feel calm. I feel good. And that stays with me.
Rich: So what are we going to do about the story telling?
Bryony: I don't know, something. Talking with you right now I don't feel proud of it.
Rich: What about learning how to do positive stories, appreciative stories?
Bryony: No, I think I need to stay away from stories for now. I think they're poison for me. I think I need to focus on other ways of being with people. But I don't know if I can do it. When the story telling gets a grip on me it just takes over.
Rich: Look, I don't have an easy answer for you. I wish I did, but I don't. But I would like to work with you on this if you want. I really want you to come out the other side of this.
Bryony: I'd appreciate that. But I just have this sense that it's not going to be easy.
Rich: That's okay. You're important to us. We want you to stay here with us for a long time. So I'm willing to work with you on this.
Bryony: Thank you for not hating me.
Rich: My feelings were really hurt, but that's because you matter to me.
Bryony: Oh.
Rich: Now what about the others?
Bryony: I need to apologize. That'll be embarrassing, but I need to do it. I'll go around and talk to each of them today. But...
Rich: What?
Bryony: What if I do it again? And then again. I don't have this thing under control.
Rich: Yeh, that's a hard one. What I can think of is to tell people that you're sorry and you're working on it and you're committed to getting it solved but it might take some time. Everyone here knows what a good heart you have.
Bryony: They do? God, that's a relief to hear. You know when I apologize I'm going to ask them to tell me in detail how they felt when they heard what I said about them. I want to hear them out. Maybe that'll help drive it home to me how wrong this is.
Rich: Okay, but I want to make sure you're not doing some kind of self-punishment thing, because I don't see how that could help.
Bryony: Oh, no, I'm not thinking of it like that. I think I need to get into their world and get a feel for what it's like to be somebody I talk about. Maybe something like empathy.
Rich: Oh, that sounds good. I guess I'm thinking right now that I want us to focus on positive ways you can get attention, the kind that lasts.
Bryony: Okay. But what about the coalition meetings? Do you want to take me off that assignment?
Rich: Actually, no. Not yet. What if we try this. Next time you go up there, when you arrive, give me a call. We'll talk for a few minutes about why you like the people here in order to help you remember who we are to you. And then before you hit the road to drive back, call again to check in. Bookend the meeting. Would that help you stay anchored so you won't be tempted to tell stories?
Bryony: If you're willing, I'd like to try that. It just might work. And that would be a good step forward if it did...
I wish I had known back then what I know now. I could have been much more helpful to Bryony. But I'm so thankful that in my naivete I did that one right thing, I claimed the relationship, not even understanding what I was doing, but that's...
What allowed Bryony to stay engaged with me.
And that's what allowed us to have many more conversations as we ever so slowly figured things out together.
Start with heart
These days when someone new to supervising calls me for help, it's definitely a walk down memory lane...
Ruth: Four staff, that's all I've got, but I'm not ready for it. I haven't had any training. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just winging it. I'm scared I might make a mistake I can't fix.
Rich: Tell me what's good about being scared.
Ruth: I guess it means I'm taking this seriously.
Rich: And...
Ruth: It means I'm really motivated to do this well. I've got a great ED. I love how she works with me and I want to give that same experience to my staff.
Rich: Forget for a moment about the management thing. Focus in on your four staff just as people. See them just as they are. Take them one by one, and tell me what you're noticing, like...
What talents and strengths do you see in them?
Where do you think their growing edges are?
What blind spots might they have?
If you were their advocate, how would you work with them?
Ruth: Okay, here goes...
Danny does good work, but I keep feeling like he's coasting, like there's a whole lot more to him that we're not seeing yet. I want to talk with him and discover what that is and see if he's willing to challenge himself to take a big leap forward.
Delia is dynamite with the kids, but doesn't know how good she is. She's timid where she deserves to be confident. Which is my issue, too, so if she's willing, I'd love to help her push through.
Don is achievement-oriented and self-sufficient and I've never known anyone quite like him. I'm so glad to have him on my team but he puzzles me. I don't know what to give him. Oh, but I could just ask him. I could ask him to teach me what he needs from me so I can be his ally.
And then there's JJ, and, oy.
Rich: Oy?
Ruth: She's the one I think about all the time. She's a whiz at the website, database, and IT stuff, but she's got this one thing she does that's a dealbreaker for me. She can take anything and give it a hurtful twist.
In staff meeting, Delia told us about a breakthrough with one of her teens, and JJ, deadpan, said, "It's about time."
Don's numbers hit the all time record for our department and JJ, pawing the air, said, "Down big fella."
Danny's dad died and he was teary in the staff meeting. JJ rolled her eyes and said, "Oprah time."
Rich: What are you noticing about yourself right now?
Ruth: I get jazzed when I talk about my three D's, but when I think about JJ the joy is gone.
Rich: Let's focus on the D's first. Listen back to how you talked about them.
Ruth: It was easy to talk about them. I like talking about them. I'm looking forward to working with them. I know I have a lot to learn, but I really want them to do well. That would be the sign of me doing good as a supervisor.
Rich: So what would you say matters most right now?
Ruth: That I care about them. But is that enough? There's so much I don't know.
Rich: I don't think it's enough. But if you were given this choice: either you care a lot about your staff or you know a lot about personnel management, which would you choose?
Ruth: Caring.
Rich: And why?
Ruth: Because that's what makes everything else work.
Rich: What do you mean?
Ruth: Why would they listen to me if I don't care about them?
Rich: For a paycheck?
Ruth: Oh, no, that's not enough. That feels so cold. I couldn't supervise people who were there just for the check. I wouldn't do that to myself.
Rich: So what if we said that you already have the most important part of being a supervisor?
Ruth: That can't be true.
Rich: I'm not asking you to brag about yourself, but just be as accurate as you can and tell me how much you care about your 3D's?
Ruth: A lot.
Rich: And do they know you care?
Ruth: Oh, yes. I'm very expressive. I let people know all the time how much I like them. I like doing that.
Rich: So how's your relationship with the 3D's right now as you're starting out?
Ruth: It's already strong.
Rich: And that means...
Ruth: There's an excellent chance they'll stick with me as I go through my learning curve. Oh, that feels so much better. But then I think about JJ and she eclipses everything.
Rich: So if you were JJ's champion what would you want for her?
Ruth: What I want for the others. It kills me to see her wrecking relationships she could be enjoying. She wanders around in her own world, a lonely soul as far as I can tell, and I don't want it to be like that for her.
This thing she does is so destructive, but it's just one thing. But maybe it's too big to fix in the workplace. But what if it's not? But then what if I try and I fail and that only makes things worse?
Rich: How much pressure do you feel to fix JJ?
Ruth: A Venti of pressure.
Rich: And what do you want your relationship with JJ to be?
Ruth: I want to be on her side, but only if she wants me to be on her side, only if she decides to let me be on her side. I don't want to carry her. I don't believe in that.
Rich: So what will you say to her?
Ruth: I'll say,
"JJ, I want you to succeed here. But I want you to know I'm not like the former supervisor. I won't let you slide. Your put downs have to stop. And I don't mean you can get away with cutting back to 50%. I mean you have to stop 100%.
"Here's who I am as a supervisor. I want each of my staff to do well in their work and be happy. I want a team where people back each other up instead of knocking each other down. That's me and that's not going to change. And I want you to know that.
"And I want you to know that I see you doing really good work. I want to keep you here. But not if you do put downs. And really, I can't see anything those put downs are giving you. I only see you losing behind them. Want to talk about it? I really want you to stay here and be happy."
Rich: You haven't read any books about supervision? You haven't been to any trainings?
Ruth: No.
Rich: Did you hear that stand you just took?
Ruth: I suppose so. No, I did, I really did hear it.
Rich: And do you know that you don't have to do this alone, dealing with JJ?
Ruth: I've been thinking I had to.
Rich: You get to ask your ED for advice and support. You get to call in an HR consultant if things get tough with JJ. You get to call in a personnel lawyer. You don't have to let this burden you.
Just because you're a supervisor doesn't mean you have to be an HR expert. Learn the basics, but then call on the professionals when you need them. In fact, I recommend calling on them at the first sign of trouble.
Ruth: Like a nurse practitioner.
Rich: Yes.
Ruth: It helps to think of it like that. And uh-oh.
Rich: Uh-oh.
Ruth: Really uh-oh. Wow, all of a sudden this whole thing has flipped over.
Rich: Meaning...
Ruth: Suddenly, JJ feels easy and the others feel hard.
Rich: Hard?
Ruth: Much more challenging.
Rich: What are you seeing?
Ruth: It's like the 3D's are out on a much bigger playing field. There's so much more possibility for them. And that means there's so much more for me to learn in order to support them. But it's like JJ is standing on a tiny, scrunched up patch of ground with no wiggle room and nowhere to go.
Rich: So what about this question of caring vs. knowledge?
Ruth: There's so much more I want to learn and I can't wait to learn it. Oh, I see where I want this to go.
My grandmother is my biggest fan and my most intense supporter. She was there for me when I was a kid. And then all through my teen years when I was going through big changes that I didn't feel at all ready for.
She still wants to know everything that's going on with me and I love telling her, because I always feel smarter when I'm talking with her and I figure things out in the process.
Rich: So with the 3D's...
Ruth: I want to be there for them like my grandma is for me. I keep going through changes and taking on new challenges and growing, and she keeps tracking me. She stays right with me. And that's very, very big. And I want to learn how to do that with my staff. I want to be the kind of supervisor in whose presence they keep moving forward.
Rich: So here you are a brand new supervisor and what would you say you need?
Ruth: I need to care about my staff because that's me. And I've already got that in spades. That's not a problem.
I need help when I get scared or don't know what to do. And I've got that in my ED, and if I need more help, like you said, I can go get it.
I need staff who want to be on my team and will let me care about them. I've mostly got that. Three out of four plus an iffy maybe.
I need time to learn all the things I'm anxious to learn. So I guess I can give myself permission to pace myself.
Rich: And what matters is...
Ruth: Not that I'm a masterful supervisor in my first month of doing the job, but that I'm on the right track. And I can see that I really am on the right track.
Rich: And that means...
Ruth: From now on, I get to enjoy the trip.
Supervision can be super daunting. Look that the standard personnel handbooks. Giant volumes with hundreds of pages packed with rules and regulations and strategies and warnings. And where do you even begin?
When I'm working with a new supervisor, I recommend this...
Start with your heart and let it lead you forward.
And when I'm working with veteran supervisors who have achieved mastery and know all the do's and don't's, I recommend still, in every supervision conversation, to...
Start with your heart and let it lead you forward.
Tending and befriending
When psychologists and anthropologists talk about the human response to fear, they usually talk about...
Fight or flight.
You attack the threat or you run away from it. And those are useful strategies as far as they go, but human beings are more complex than that.
Peter Levine, in his book on trauma, Waking the Tiger, adds a third strategy:
Freeze.
Animals under trauma conditions sometimes freeze up. Everything comes to a stop while they wait for the danger to pass. People can freeze up, too, when a situation is more frightening or painful than they can handle.
But there's also a fourth response to fear, something quite different...
Tending and befriending.
We could also call it...
Caring and connecting.
Shelley Taylor's book, The Tending Instinct, is not about supervising per se, but it's one of my favorite books to recommend to supervisors at any level of experience.
She says when you're stressed by someone, or afraid of them, or they're opposing you, often the best strategy is to..
Step into the relationship, and
Use it to resolve the problem.
For example, she cites a study showing that women often make better police officers than men in that when they're confronted with a difficult individual, instead of resorting to command and control as their first strategy, they use their tending instinct to try to make a connection and defuse the situation.
And men who decide to use that same instinct can be just as effective.
Of course, there are times when the first three strategies are necessary...
Sometimes you have no choice but to fight to defend yourself.
Sometimes your smartest move is to get away from danger as fast as you can.
Sometimes you're overwhelmed by an event and your body shuts you down as a means of self-protection and you don't really have any choice about it.
But notice that those three strategies—fight, flight, and freeze—are all...
Non-relational strategies.
Whereas tending and befriending uses...
The power of relationship.
And in the workplace, especially in a social change organization, don't we want to try the relational strategy first?
This doesn't mean that you won't enforce your standards of behavior. It doesn't mean that you won't move immediately to correction or firing when that's called for.
But it means that you start with tending and befriending. You give that a chance. A serious chance.
And this same strategy is the one to use if you want to champion a staff person. Say he's doing really good but you know he could be doing really great and you want to call him to that next level of performance...
Tending and befriending inspires people to give you their best.
Top performers don't need correction or even supervision really. As I explain on my page on the principles of the advocacy stand, what they need is...
A witness.
A champion.
Company.
What about when there's trouble with a staff person, though? Here's how the strategies apply...
Fight—You go after the person. You threaten them. You control them. You judge them. You shame them. All of which will likely trigger a counter-reaction and then you're in a battle.
Flight—You avoid the staff person because you don't want to have a fight. But now that person has a free hand and their behavior gets worse and worse while you get madder and madder and then the blow up finally comes and, again, you're in a fight. Youcan't really run away from the problem forever, because you and that staff person are there every day working in the same organization together.
Freeze—You shut down so much so that the typical blow up never comes. The organization operates in perpetual distress but everyone suffers in silence and the staff who act out are never confronted and nothing ever changes and you never develop your leadership talents.
Tend and befriend—You step into the relationship as an advocate for the staff person. You advocate for them getting on the team and getting with the mission. You neither avoid the issue and nor start a fight.
You call the question. You ask them to make a decision. You hope they'll pull up their socks and behave in a way that works for the organization. But they're perfectly free to decide not to.
In which case, the best thing for them is to leave, because why should they stay and live under battle conditions? That's not good for anybody. And you won't tolerate it anyway, so that's not even an option.
Tending and befriending is a stand you take for that particular staff person in the context of taking a stand for the rest of the staff and yourself and the mission. Again, it's relational.
That one step of courage
Courage is an awfully big word. We use it to describe those utterly inspiring moments when someone reaches far beyond herself, perhaps in the face of danger, to do something remarkable, perhaps something life-saving or life-changing.
But on this page, I want to talk about...
Ordinary courage.
The kind that's accessible to you every day. The kind that's gutsy but not beyond you.
It has the power to deepen relationships and make them work and make them last. It gives you the strength to...
Take just that one next step into relationship.
This is the...
Daily practice of courage.
It's not spectacular in and of itself. It's a simple workaday commitment to keeping your working relationships strong. And the more you practice it, the better you get at it, and thus the more ordinary it becomes.
Yet it has the power to turn your organization into something extraordinary.
It can give you breakthrough moments with your staff, not because you're trying for them directly, but because your constant attention to relationship keeps adding up and allows special things happen.
When you're stepping into danger, risking loss, risking sacrifice, that's the big kind of courage. But the ordinary courage I'm talking about is what I call nurturing courage. Yes, you're doing something that takes moxie, but...
You're stepping into possibility, not danger.
Let me add a caveat, though. There are days when you just don't have it in you to take that next step...
Maybe you didn't sleep well the night before and it's all you can do to get through the day.
Maybe you're exhausted from too many weeks in a row of too much work and you don't have the bandwith to deal with staff issues right now.
Maybe you're too mad at the staff person and you need some time out to get some distance and pull yourself together before you're ready for a forthright conversation.
If you're having an off day, you get to take the day off from courage.
That's the way I see it and I hope you'll give yourself that permission. The word courage comes from the Latin root cor, meaning heart. It's a matter of heart. It's not a should or a duty.
And we can only do what's in us to do. We can only take that next step that's in us, stretch ourselves that much. And when we need to rest, we rest.
I'm saying this not to lower anyone's ambitions, but as a way of saying please treat yourself with care and kindness.
Managing staff is a serious challenge. For many of us, it can take a long time to develop mastery. So instead of putting yourself down for what you are not yet able to do, please...
Take the steps you're capable of today, knowing that if you take those steps today that will make you more capable tomorrow.
If you're just starting out as a supervisor, please don't burden yourself with the expectation of perfection right out of the gate.
And if you're a veteran supervisor, if you're someone who keeps taking on bigger and bigger challenges and you keep calling on your staff to play a bigger and bigger game, then...
You'll never outgrow your need for courage.
What makes the Advocacy Stand work, and work in all kinds of situations, is this sweet, persistent, daily touch of courage. And a little bit of it can make a very big difference...
When a staff person feels that you're genuinely on her side, you can make mistakes and still the relationship can hold.
You don't want to make mistakes, you want to make as few as possible, but...
If someone feels it in her bones that you're doing your very best to stand with her and by her and for her, she will likely give you a whole lot more room to be human.
When you demonstrate that you care about her, she just might care about you in return.
Why relationships matter so much.
Let's look at the role of relationship courage in the bigger picture. Here's how I see the story of social change...
We build...
Effective teams,
To power...
Effective organizations,
Which we bring together in...
Effective coalitions,
In order to build...
Effective movements,
Which then move significant numbers of people to make a significant difference in how power works in our society so it stops hurting people and killing the planet.
And what does this chain of events depend on? It all starts with our ability to create...
Sustaining relationships.
Sustaining in both senses of the word...
Nurturing and enduring.
This perspective—starting with relationships—makes sense to me because...
Social change is social.
It's about people coming together in an effort to make a better tomorrow.
And this is why it seems to me that relationship building is actually the core of our work, rather than the services we provide. Services are an essential part of social change. They're one very important way we demonstrate how things could be different.
But they are not enough in and of themselves.
Social change cannot live by services alone.
Our society is mass producing suffering and destruction faster than all our services, even if we doubled or tripled them, could possibly keep up with. If we want significant change, we have to think bigger and reach deeper.
At core, any society is a network of relationships—power relationships—whether that power is personal and direct or mediated through institutions. And it's those relationships that need to change if we want to change the nature of our society.
A new take on mission.
The relationship perspective, instead of making things simpler, makes them more complex, but also richer. For example, the question of mission. What if we looked at it like this...
The Triple Mission of Social Change
Our primary mission
Building sustaining relationships
within our organizations,
and then building them across the divisions
that set people against each other.
Our meta mission
Changing in fundamental ways how power works
so it stops hurting people and killing the planet.
Our issue mission
The particular issue or strategy we pursue
as a specific means of igniting change.
This gives us three resonant missions, each bringing vitality to the work, and each making the other two stronger.
And there are more advantages:
Strengthening staff culture
Instead of putting the issue first, it's clear that in a triple-mission nonprofit that relationships come first. So it will never be okay for a staff person to be a jerk and then defend himself by saying, "You can't discipline me because I'm meeting all my job objectives."
In fact, I go so far as to recommend putting the Primary Mission in every job description, listing it as the first item. There are lots of ways to write it out, and it's best if you take the time to find the particular words that work for you and your nonprofit, but here's one example...
"We have a happy and healthy workplace because we put relationships first. So we consider it part of everyone's job description to support each other and advocate for each other and boost morale. This is the key requirement for being part of our team. And it's why we don't ever tolerate relational aggression.
"We believe: The stronger our team, the more effective our work."
Creating common ground
Picture two nonprofits, each with their own separate issue as their mission and that's it. Now they meet up for the first time. They might have to dig to find connection.
Now picture two nonprofits both of which have the triple mission. The first time they meet up they already share two of their three missions. This gives them immediate common ground and lots to talk about.
And when it comes time to build a coalition, that work might be easier for organizations sharing the triple mission.
Bridging divisions
The Primary Mission above has two parts to it: first building your own team, and then building bridges beyond your team. And that second part is our toughest relationship challenge and, so I believe, the key to the future of humankind. Really, I think it's that big.
We're a social species. We live in groups. We identify with our groups. We identify with our groups against other groups. That's built in to us.
This drive to form groups gives us a place to call home and it sets us to fighting with each other, so it's both...
The source of our sweetest solace and the source of our gravest danger.
Thirty some years ago, I heard Bernice Johnson Reagon give a talk about fear and politics. Here's what I remember her saying...
We all need a home base. We each need a group of people with whom we can find support and harmony and ease.
But if all we do is hang out in safe spaces with people like ourselves, progress will not happen, not the kind we're hoping for.
This means we have to work in coalition.
So far, so good. Then she said...
But working in coalition will just about kill you.
Where someone else might have given us comfortable platitudes, she gave us the shock of truth. She had been deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement, so she knew what she was talking about.
Of course, coalition is a word that covers quite a range. We call it a coalition when a loose network of organizations that hardly know each other meet in the state capitol twice a year to do lobbying.
But on this page I'm talking about the serious kind of coalition where...
You commit to each other.
Weave your work togther.
Find yourselves deeply nourished by each other.
And stay present, even through the hard parts, not because you should, but because these kindred spiritsof yours mean so much to you.
We humans are a relentlessly competitive species, which causes us no end of trouble, but we're also, relentlessly...
An alliance building species.
And while our talent for coming together gives us hope, still the hard truth is...
It's far easier to break an alliance than to build one.
So it matters that we put bridging divisions right up there at the top of our list.
The loneliness of nonprofits
Just like leaders can be...
Lonely at the top,
Nonprofits can be...
Lonely in their silos.
And wouldn't it be fun to get out more and make new friends and be part of something bigger? And then something even bigger than that.
But...
What if it's all you can do to keep your own organization running? What if you have no bandwith to do coalition work?
If that's what it's like for you, please...
Don't beat yourself up. Most nonprofits are under-resourced and therefore malnourished. So you're not alone. This is not just your problem. It's a sector problem. Ironically, it's the kind of problem we would be better able to solve if we had the bandwith to work on it together, like in a coalition.
And please...
Don't hammer yourself with shoulds, like:
"I should do coalition work because it's so important. And even though I have no time and I'm exhausted and I'm not sleeping well, I have to force myself to do it, because I should."
Coalitions born of shoulds are not happy places. They don't give coalition building a good name. They're vulnerable to internal distress and disintegration. And they are not the least bit scary to the powers that be.
Finally, please...
Honor what you're doing instead of stressing about what you're not doing.
When, within your own nonprofit, you create a top performing team where people are heartfelt advocates for each other...
That's a blessing for your staff and their families. It makes their lives so much happier.
And if your staff is at their best...
Their work will be at its best which will be a blessing for your community.
And as you and your staff master the art of building sustainable working relationships...
You can inspire and mentor other organizations who want to do the same.
You can take comfort, too, knowing that, from the triple mission perspective...
Mastering relationships is the most important work you can do.
And it's this mastery more than anything else that will make your organization...
Coalition ready.
Imagine two nonprofits deciding to work together...
Both are exhausted, running on empty, and torn apart internally by relational aggression.
Then imagine...
Two nonproifts playing at the top of their game. Staff are working hard, but they're happy and their relationships are strong and healthy.
It's no contest which pair is most likely to succeed if they decide to work together.
Two people, each drowning in their own life, are not relationship ready. And two nonprofits, each drowning, are not ready to be part of a serious, committed coalition.
On my homepage and elsewhere I talk about the three leadership operating systems, and how they determine the happiness, or unhappiness, of individual leaders and nonprofits. It's also true that...
Coalitions can be sacrificial, sustainable, or soaring.
And that will determine their happiness and their effectiveness. Sacrificial organizations are likely to make sacrificial coalitions. Soaring organizations have the best chance to create stellar coalitions.
I understand why people might think that coalitions are much more trouble than they're worth, but I'll bet it's because the coalitions they're thinking about are based on sacrifice.
How about if instead we look at what the best ones have to offer and how about if we re-imagine what coalitions could be?
And what if our coalition could give us...
An expanding network of kindred spirits,
Strength when we're up against tough odds, and
A happy answer to the loneliness of nonprofits.
And...
What if the group that's our coalition today, challenging us and stretching us, becomes our comforting home base tomorrow?
And from there we stretch some more to build an even broader coalition.
Saying yes to coalition means saying no to division
Whenever an ED calls me and asks...
"How do I manage difficult staff?"
I have one word for her...
"Don't."
Then I say...
"Please don't do that to yourself."
And then ask her...
"Because do you really want to manage difficult people?"
No one has ever said yes.
But lots of leaders still feel like they should be able to work some kind of magic with difficult people.
Now, when I use the word "difficult," I'm not thinking about temperament or personality quirks. Or about people with great attitude who are putting their hearts into the work but still have things to learn personally or professionally.
And I think it's fine for someone to be a character as long as they have character.
"Difficult," the way I'm using it here, means a person who...
Gossips.
Spreads rumors.
Routinely hurts people's feelings.
Has mostly forgotten about the mission.
Never gets much work done.
Is driven to act out personal dramas
Takes delight in opposing you and fighting with you and your staff.
Can you afford to have even one such person in your nonprofit?
Think about how hard you work to raise money for your mission. Then think about how it feels to hand over a paycheck to someone who is hurting you and your staff.
There are, in fact, people who are more interested in running their own game than carrying out the mission. There are, in fact, people who are...
Dedicated to being unmanageable.
And when you try to manage an unmanageable person...
You're committing yourself to an oppositional relationship.
You're committing yourself to an impossible struggle that can turn into a war of attrition.
And the odds are against you because it's so much easier to act out than to control acting out. You can put a stop acting out only if you're ready to take a stand and call the question. But if you're trying to live with acting out and manage it on a continuing basis, well, please, please don't.
When you tolerate oppositional relationships with even one staff person, you're giving permission for the staff culture to turn oppositional, and if that happens, you''ll have no end of trouble.
I don't see any way we can make social change happen out in the world, if within our organizations we are adversaries toward each other.
And this might seem like a contradictory thing to say following the previous section where I was so intense about our need to build coalitions. But what I'm arguing for here is that we make a distinction....
People with personality or cultural differences can create a coalition together only if they want to coalesce. Even under the best circumstances coalition building is a challenge, but it won't happen if people don't have a compelling desire to come together to begin with. And it certainly won't happen if people are proud ot be unmanageable.
One thing I love about the concept of mission discipline (which I talk about on my sustainability page), is that very different people who are committed to the same mission can find common ground.
A compelling mission can unite the full spectrum of different kinds of people.
On the other hand, it's just true that there are...
People who are into creating and exacerbating divisions. As I said, this is a very human thing to do. They like to control the rest of the staff by setting them against each other. They like to cause emotional uproar. They do these things because they think there's some advantage in it for themselves.
There are people who use strategies of relational aggression to get by in life. They may be unhappy doing this, it may be a terrible childhood that's set them up for this, but nonetheless they attack others in both blatant and subtle ways and don't know how to stop themselves.
Such people are simply not good candidates for team building or coalition building. They have other work they need to do first, serious personal changes they need to go through, before they will be ready.
We don't have to hate them or demonize them. We can understand them and even feel empathy for them. But understanding and empathizing does not mean we have to bring them into our inner circle. We can reach out to them if we want, but out there, not in here.
Advocacy for people does not mean that we have no boundaries or that we don't set limits...
We get to protect what we care about,
And who we care about.
Nonprofit leaders often feel pressure to be super nice and eternally understanding and to never say no to anyone about anything. But if you're a yes to everything without qualification, you'll end up sacrificing your core.
I call the Advocacy Stand a stand, because I believe that...
If you want to say a big yes—to team building and coalition building,
Then you have to say a big no—to people dedicated to divisiveness.
Difference is different than division
When we treat each other not just with respect, but with active advocacy...
It's quite possible to have a great working relationship with someone you don't even particularly like on a personal level.
I learned this lesson first on the dance floor.
One night many years ago I asked a woman I'd never met before to dance. The music was intense. A thirteen-piece salsa band was happily blaring a few feet from us. We were perfectly in synch from the first step. I wasn't leading, she wasn't following, we were in it together, intuition guiding us, making dance chemistry. It was so delicious. And, as you can tell, unforgettable.
Then the song was over and we stepped off the dance floor and found we didn't have a single thing to say to each other.
Rather than sad, I find this encouraging, that people with very different personalities can still do great dancing—or great work together. That it's possible to have mission chemistry without personal chemistry. I think that says good things about the possibilities for alliance building and social change.
Of course it's more fun when a personal connection blossoms and we want as often as we can get it. Still it's good to know it's not necessary.
Core opposition, though, is a different kind of difference. If one person wants to practice relational aggression while the other person wants to build relationships, that won't work. Nothing can make that work.
Because relational aggression is anti-relationship. It destroys relationships.
Many times a nonprofit leader has said to me...
I'm conflict averse.
As if that's a failing.
So I tell them, "Me, too." Because what's the opposite? Conflict happy? I don't want to be that. I don't want to spend my days in a roiling stew of conflict.
I remember Paul Hawken talking about entrepreneurs who start their own businesses. They have a reputation for being risk takers. But Hawken says it's actually not like that.
They're willing to take one key serious risk for something they care about. If they've always wanted to open a gelatto shop, they open it. They take that risk because it's worth it to them.
And then they do everything they can to reduce every other risk, because there's no special virtue to risk in and of itself.
What about social change work? We're willing to come into conflict with those people who don't want us to succeed. We do our best to face the conflicts that we have to face.
But apart from that, we want to reduce conflict as much as we can because there's no special virtue to conflict in and of itself.
And that's especially true inside our organizations where conflict can destroy our teams.
So instead of suffering conflict, we master the art of having vigorous, rock-and-roll, idea-generating debates with each other, where we're debating in concert, opposing each other's ideas maybe, but with appreciation for each other and in service of moving forward together.
That's so different from the destructive debates that happen when people not only oppose each other's ideas, but each other.
I applaud leaders who are conflict averse. Especially if we're going by the dictionary definition of conflict which includes words like: fight, battle, war, antagonism, incompatibility, attack and counterattack.
We don't have to put up with destructive conflict or any other kind of relational aggression at home in our nonprofits where we want tending and befriending to reign supreme.
The pleasure of demonstrating social change inside our own organizations.
It seems to me that...
If we want to do something special in the world,
We have to be something special in our own organizations.
I don't think we can do effective social change work using the cultural norms or the personnel system of the status quo. We need something better and deserve something better.
Look how many people in this country...
Hate their work,
Are exploited at work, or
Are bored to death by their work.
Look at how many people stay in their jobs only because they need the paycheck.
Look how fundamentally conflictual so many workplaces are, and how, given that context, managers resort to...
Pressure,
Put downs,
Threats, and
Shaming.
And other command-and-control, non-relational, actually anti-relational strategies. In other words, to manage perpetual underlying conflict, they resort to...
An adversarial system of management.
But we have our precious nonprofits, our little laboratories, where we can experiment with...
The advocacy system.
Discovering what it can do. Showing the world what it can do. And how much more effective it can be. And how much more fun.
The classic sacrificial burnout of nonprofit leaders is not all that appealing to the general public. It's not a good advertisement for social change work. Not good for recruitment.
But if people see us thriving even in the face of the most challenging work, because we are dedicated advocates for each other, they just might be tempted to come join us.
Taking a stand for messy
Ever feel the pressure to be the perfect manager? Personally, I don't think trying for perfection is a good goal for imperfect beings like us.
So instead I urge you to...
Take a stand for messy working relationships.
While you...
Take a stand against relational aggression.
It matters that we know that aggression and messy are very different things. Aggression hurts people. So we rule it out.
Messy, however, we can live with. Some days we find it charming, some days we find it exasperating, but it's who we are. We're Homo M. Sapiens. Messy is our middle name.
We're not an easy species. Every day we come to work with our talents and strengths, but we also bring our...
Limitations,
Inexperience,
Personality twists, and
Blind spots.
And sometimes we bring...
The leftovers of our childhood histories,
Or the distractions of our current life crises.
And that's if you take us one by one. But put us in a group and try turning us into a team and you find yourself dealing with mind-boggling complexity because...
Teams are made up of relationships not just people.
For example, if you have five staff including yourself, that means the number of relationships you're dealing with is 10. With ten staff, the number of relationships doesn't double, it leaps up to 45. And with 15, you've got 105 relationships taking place within your team.
Of course some relationships are stronger and more active than others, but still, you can see how quickly the challenge grows.
So...
It matters that everyone does their part to make the team work.
It's much too big a challenge for one leader to manage by herself. Especially since she's got her own stuff and her own blind spots to deal with, too.
And just because a relationship is messy doesn't mean it can't be supportive and sustainable and satisfying. And this is why advocacy matters.
Taking each other to heart brings grace to our working relationships and it's really okay if it's...
A messy kind of grace.
Adventure
Whenever I see nonprofits torn apart by personality battles or coalitions split into warring factions, I can't help but think that the greatest source of pain in our social change world is...
Relationships gone wrong.
And when I see nonprofits or coalitions that are a little too quiet, I start thinking that our greatest source of ennui is...
Relationships gone flat.
And if these things are true then...
It's in the area of relationships that we can make the most progress.
I know not everyone is going to agree with me on this, but I do believe it. And I believe this perspective adds deeper meaning to leaderhip. And...
A deeper sense of adventure.
Because despite everything we know about building relationships and then teams and then coalitions and then movements...
There's even more that we still don't know.
And that means there's a whole lot of room for discovery.
I understand why so many personnel books have so many warnings and so many rules. It's not that the warnings are not justified, but I worry about how we take them. I don't want to see the dangers dominate us or shrink us.
Every team is made up of its own collection of personalities, strengths, talents, callings, struggles, and challenges. So every team is unique.
Which means every team gets to create its own story.
And that can be a story of pain or boredom, or
A story of discovery and delight.
And why suffer or why play it safe when you can play at the top of your game?
It's true that most top teams have core principles in common with each other, but beyond that they can be so very different. Each of them, following their own path, is learning different things about what makes working relationships work. And they can share these learnings with the rest of the movement. Then all their efforts to excel will have a far bigger meaning. And what's not to love about that?
And what's not to love about...
Leading out on the frontier of discovery,
Out where it's our future at stake?
A final thought
Social change is social, it just is, and that means...
We need each other.
Social change is hard, it just is, which means...
We need each other.
And when we commit ourselves to social change, we deserve to have partners who care about us, we just do, because this is where so much of the joy of the work comes from, and so, again, this means...
We need each other.
The other pages in the staff constellation:
Take your staff to the top of their game
The relationship principles of the Advocacy Stand
Staff development: Championing vs. correction
© 2010 Rich Snowdon
