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Leading Change Introductory Leadership Workshop

Powershift 2009 Workshop Guide

Friday, February 27, 2009

Marshall Ganz, Harvard Kennedy School of Government http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty ‐staff ‐directory/marshall ‐ganz

Sponsored by the New Organizing Institute – www.neworganizing.com Materials adapted for this workshop by Liz Pallatto and Joy Cushman

http://www.neworganizing.com/

http://www.neworganizing.com/



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LEADING CHANGE

INTRODUCTORY LEADERSHIP TRAINING

AGENDA & TABLE OF CONTENTS

TIME SESSION VENUE PAGE #

10:00 AM REGISTRATION Large Group

10:45 AM WELCOME Large Group p. 4

SESSION 1: ORGANIZING AND LEADERSHIP p. 7

11:00 ‐11:30 AM Introduction to Organizing and leadership Large Group p. 8

SESSION 2: STRUCTURING LEADERSHIP & LEARNING TEAMS p. 12

11:30 ‐11:50 AM Introduction to Leadership Teams Large Group p.13

11:50 ‐12:30 PM Team work: Mission, Norms, Roles Small Learning Teams p. 15

12:30 ‐12:45 PM Break

SESSION 3: INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC NARRATIVE & STORY OF SELF p. 22

12:45 ‐1:30 PM Introduction to Public Narrative & Story of Self Large Group p. 23

1:30 ‐2:25 PM Team work: Practice Story of Self Small Learning Teams p. 29

2:25 ‐2:45 PM Debrief Stories of Self & Learning Team Practice Large Group

2:45 ‐3:00 PM Break



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SESSION 4: STORY OF US p. 33

3:00 ‐3:20 PM Introduction to Story of Us Large Group p. 34

3:20 ‐4:10 PM Team work: Practice Story of Us Small Learning Teams p. 34

4:10 ‐4:30 PM Debrief Stories of Us & Learning Team Practice Large Group

SESSION 5: STORY OF NOW AND STRATEGY p. 38

4:30 ‐5:00 PM Introduction to Story of Now and Strategy Large Group p. 39

5:00 ‐5:50 PM Team work: Practice Story of Now Small Learning Teams p. 43

5:50 ‐6:10 PM Debrief Stories of Now & Learning Team Practice

Large Group

WRAP UP AND CELEBRATION

6:10 ‐6:25 Key Learnings, Evaluation Large & small groups

6:25 ‐6:30 Celebration Large Group



WELCOME &

OVERVIEW

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WORKSHOP OVERVIEW

Good organizing requires the investment of our hearts (motivation), our heads (strategy) and our hands

and feet

(action).

These

skills

of

motivation,

strategizing

and

structuring

collective

action

can

be

taught

and learned, and are critical leadership skills for campaign development and movement building.

Public Narrative

Often as leaders we focus exclusively on action, assuming that a good idea and constant action will motivate people to join us. But what happens when we just focus on action? Over time people get burnt out, and we seem to lose our power just when we need it most. That’s because for most people

the motivation to make the real commitments and sacrifices necessary to win a big campaign doesn’t

come from

good

ideas,

it

comes

when

our

values

and

emotions

move

us— motivate

us—to

act.

Stories

move us to act because they tap into our values (rather than just issues) and create in us emotions that move us from inaction to action—emotions of hope, anger, urgency, solidarity, a sense that we can make a difference.

Public Narrative is a leadership skill — the skill of telling stories that motivate other people to get up and

join us in action. This training teaches the skill of public narrative in three parts:

Story of Self: who am I and why am I called to this work?

Story of Us: who are we as a community and why is it we in particular who have responsibility to act?

Story of Now: what are we called to do now? What challenges do we face? What’s the story of our strategy and what hope is there that our action could make a difference?

Strategy

As we will discover when we get to the Story of Now, motivation isn’t enough to win anything if the

action it produces is random and uncoordinated. Our challenge as organizers is to create a strategy that

will focus many people’s actions in the same direction to create scale and momentum. A good strategy turns challenges into opportunities, and turns motivation into strategic collective action—action that will produce a clear, measurable, and consequential outcome.

In order to help you with your story of now and basic organizing skills, this training includes an

introduction to strategy skills. Looking at past movements and campaigns, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the Farmworkers movement and the Obama Campaign, we will begin to look at the

relationship between goals, outcomes and tactics, and how to create concrete action steps that will

move you closer to your goal when these action steps are taken collectively with others.

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Structure

Movements are built by engaging many, many people in meaningful targeted action. But that can only happen if there is a very clear structure that keeps people coordinated and moving in the same

direction. One standard building block of campaign structure is the leadership team. Leadership teams

can exist at all levels—national, regional, local. The challenge is that it isn’t easy to create teams that work well together and produce concrete outcomes together.

This training will provide a basic introduction to leadership teams including tactics you can use to create

stable, functioning leadership teams. In this training you will be put together into a learning group that can be begin to act as a team – to take on roles, to build relationships, to share stories and learn

together the best way to refine your stories to truly engage people in action that brings about change.

After you leave this workshop, we hope that you will continue to work with those you meet here as a

learning team, focusing on using public narrative to engage others and build a movement around climate change.

WORKSHOP GOAL

• To help build the capacity of the environmental movement to win climate change by equipping youth leaders in the movement with key organizing skills in public narrative, strategizing and campaign structure.

WORKSHOP OUTCOMES

• Lead 300 young environmental leaders in creating their own public narratives to help them motivate others to action.

• Build the capacity of Energy Action and Power Shift by structuring workshop participants in 50

learning teams to work together during the training, and who may continue learning and training others in organizing skills together when they return home.

• Help workshop participants apply the skills they learn in this workshop to the specific next steps of the Power Shift/Energy Action campaign to win climate change.



SESSION 1:

ORGANIZING AND LEADERSHIP

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BUILDING A CAMPAIGN – LEADING A MOVEMENT

Organizing requires three things:

1) Leaders who recruit and develop other leaders and coordinate them in leadership teams

2) Building relationships, community and commitment around that leadership

3) Building power from the resources of that community and using that power strategically to achieve clear goals and outcomes

What is Leadership?

Leaders are those who do the work of helping others to achieve purpose in the face of uncertainty

One of your jobs as an environmental organizer is to identify and recruit volunteer leaders to work with you to build a campaign to win climate change. But what type of leader should you be, and what are

you looking for in others? Sometimes we think the leader is the person everyone goes to, like this:

But what does it feel like to be the “leader” in the middle? What does it feel like to be the arrow that can’t get through? What happens if the “leader” in the middle drops out?

Sometimes we go to the other extreme and think we don’t need a “leader,” because we can all lead which looks like this:

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Sometimes this works. But who’s responsible for coordinating everyone? And who’s responsible for

pushing the whole group forward when you can’t reach a decision? Who takes ultimate responsibility

for the outcome?

Organizers are those who can ultimately be held accountable for meeting campaign goals. However,

organizers are also responsible for coordinating and empowering others to take leadership, which requires delegating responsibility (rather than tasks) and holding others accountable for carrying out

that responsibility.

Remember, we don’t yet have all the volunteers and leaders we need in order to win climate change. A good organizer’s job is to reach out and find leaders in your community who can help you recruit and

coordinate others well. These leaders will be the backbone of your local campaign and you must be able to trust them to delegate responsibility to other dedicated reliable people, and to follow through on

commitments. You may be the leader in the middle, or part of a leadership team in the middle, guiding

volunteer efforts and being held accountable for outcomes, but you will be deeply reliant on your relationships with others for success.

DISORGANIZATION LEADERSHIP ORGANIZATION

Divided Build Relationships Community

Confused Interpret Understanding

Passive

Motivate

Participation

Reactive Strategize Initiative

Inaction Mobilize Action

Drift Accept Responsibility Purpose

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KEY ORGANIZING AND LEADERSHIP PRACTICES

Shared Values Narrative:

Organizing is rooted in shared values expressed as public narrative . Stories help to bring alive motivation that is rooted in values, highlighting each person’s own calling, our calling as a people, and the urgent challenges to that calling we must face. Values based organizing ‐ in contrast to issue based

organizing ‐ invites people to escape their “issue silos” and come together so that their diversity

becomes an asset, rather than an obstacle. And because values are experienced emotionally, people can access the moral resources – the courage, hope, and solidarity ‐ that it takes to risk learning new things, exploring new ways. Each person who learns how to tell their own story, a practice that enhances their

own efficacy, creates trust and solidarity within their campaign, equipping them to engage others far

more effectively.

Shared Relational Commitment:

Organizing is based on relationships creating mutual commitments to work together. It is the process of

association – not simply aggregation ‐ that makes a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Though

association we can learn to recast our individual interests as common interests, an objective we can use our combined resources to achieve. And because we are more likely to act to assert those interests, relationship building goes far beyond delivering a message, extracting a contribution, or soliciting a vote. Relationships built as a result of one on one meetings and small group meetings create the foundation

of local campaign teams, rooted in commitments people made to each other, not simply an idea, task,

or issue – relationships create a source of new “social capital.”

Shared Organizational Structure

A team leadership structure leads to effective local organizing that integrates local action with national

purpose. Volunteer efforts often flounder due to a failure to develop reliable, consistent, and creative

individual local leaders. Structured leadership teams encourage stability, motivation, creativity, and

accountability – and use volunteer time, skills, and effort for effectively. They create the structure within which real work can actually be accomplished by energized volunteers. Teams strive to achieve three

criteria of effectiveness – meeting the standards of those they serve, learning how to be more effective

at meeting outcomes over time and enhancing the learning and growth of individuals on the team.

Team members work to put in place five conditions that will lead to effectiveness – real team, (bounded,

stable and interdependent), engaging direction (clear, consequential and challenging), enabling structure (work that is interdependent), clear group norms, and a diverse team with the skills and

talents needed to do the work.

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Shared Strategic Objectives

Although based on broad values, effective organizing campaigns learn to focus on a clear strategic objective, a way to turn those values into action ; e.g., elect Barack Obama President; desegregate buses

in Montgomery, Alabama; establish a nuclear freeze; etc. National campaigns locate responsibility for

national strategy at the top (or at the center), but are able to “chunk out’ strategic objectives in time (deadlines) and space (local areas) as a campaign, allowing significant local responsibility for figuring out

how to achieve those objectives. Responsibility for strategizing local objectives empowers, motivates and invests local teams. This dual structure allows the movement as a whole to be relentlessly well

oriented and the personal motivation of volunteers to be fully engaged.

Shared Measurable Action

Organizing outcomes must be clear, measurable, and specific if progress is to be evaluated,

accountability practiced, and strategy adapted based on experience. Such measures include volunteers recruited, money raised, people at a meeting, voters contacted, pledge cards signed, laws passed, etc.

Although electoral campaigns enjoy the advantage of very clear outcome measures, any effective organizing drive must come up with the equivalent. Regular reporting of progress to goal creates

opportunity for feedback, learning, and adaptation. Training is provided for all skills (e.g., holding house meetings, door knocking, etc.) to carry out the program. New media may help enable reporting,

feedback, coordination. Transparency exists as to how individuals, groups, and the campaign as a whole

are doing on progress to goal.

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SESSION 2:

STRUCTURING

LEADERSHIP TEAMS



Campaign Structure:

Leadership and Learning Teams

Why do organizing teams matter?

During this training you will be working in learning teams to coach and support each other, to hold each

other accountable to meeting the goals set out in each session, and to plan your next steps together if you want to continue learning and teaching others organizing skills as a team.

The most effective leaders have always created teams to work with them and to lead with them. Take

for example Moses, Aaron and Miriam in the story of Exodus, or Jesus and the twelve disciples in the New Testament, or Martin Luther King, Ralph Abernathy, Rosa Parks, Jo Ann Robinson and E D Nixon

during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Even Barack Obama in his campaign had a leadership team

working with him—his Campaign Manager, Deputy Campaign Manager, Communications Director, Political Director, Field Director and others.

Leadership teams offer a structural model for working together that fosters interdependent leadership,

where individuals can work toward an outcome together, with each person taking leadership on part of

the team’s activity. At their best leadership teams recognize and put to productive use the unique talents of the individuals who make up the team.

Team structures also help create strategic capacity—the ability to strategize creatively together in ways

that produce more vibrant, engaging strategy than any individual could create alone. In the Obama campaign, the field structure created multiple layers of leadership teams to engage people creatively and strategically at all levels of the campaign. Each state had a state leadership team that coordinated

regional leadership teams (of Regional Directors and Organizers), which coordinated local neighborhood leadership teams of volunteer leaders. At every level the people on leadership teams had a clear mission and the ability to strategize creatively together about how to carry out their mission. This

structure created multiple points of entry for volunteers, and multiple opportunities to learn and exercise leadership.

So why don’t people always work in teams?

We have all been part of volunteer teams that have not worked well. They fall into factions, they

alienate each other, or all the work falls on one person. Some aim to keep the pond small so they can feel like big fish. So many of us come to the conclusion: I’ll just do it on my own; I hate meetings, just

tell me what to do; I don’t want any responsibility; just give me stamps to lick. There’s just one problem:

we can’t become powerful enough to do what we need to do if we can’t even work together to build

campaigns we can take action on.

The challenge is to create conditions for our leadership teams that are more likely to generate successful

collaboration and strategic action.

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The criteria for team effectiveness

A great deal of research on teams in the Obama campaign and other organizations has shown that three things help to make a team more effective:

1. The output of your team matches the goals you need to meet to win on your campaign. 2. The team is learning over time how to work together better. 3. Team work supports individual growth and learning.

In short, the team is meeting the campaign’s interests by meeting goals, while at the same time meeting

each participant’s interests by giving them room to learn and grow.

The conditions than can get your team off to a good start

Your team is stable, with clear boundaries . You can name the people on it and they meet regularly. It’s not a different, random group of people every time.

Your mission points you in an engaging direction . The work you have to do is clear, it’s challenging, it

matters to the campaign you’re working on and you know why it matters.

Your team works interdependently. Everyone should have a roughly equal share of the work,

understanding that each part is necessary to adequately reach the ultimate goal. Thus, the success or

failure of one will have an effect on all. One way to encourage interdependence is to have clear roles based on the work that the team needs to do to succeed.

Good teams will coordinate and help each other. Good team members will communicate well when

they need assistance. No one is carrying out activity in a silo that’s secretive to others. A good team will have a diversity of identities, experiences and opinions, ensuring that everyone is bringing the most

possible to the table.

You have clear norms. Your team sets clear expectations for how you will respect and empower each

other during your work together.

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Team Work: Starting and Building Your Team

Goal

The purpose of this exercise is to help you (1) Articulate your team’s purpose; (2) choose

leadership roles for today based on the talents of your team’s members and (3) identify the

norms you will adhere to as a learning team.

Agenda

TOTAL TIME: 40 min.

1. Gather and review agenda. Choose a timekeeper for this session 5 min

2. Establish Your Team Purpose (See worksheet below) 10 min

3. Review Team Roles 5 min

4. Decide on Team Roles 10 min

5. Decide on Collaborative Norms 10 min

6. Choose a Team Name



Team Exercise One: Shared Purpose

AGENDA: (10 min.)

Fill in the blanks in the team purpose area on the worksheet. First, write down the interests your team shares. Then fill in the geographic area that you are working and include a brief description of the

people you serve in your area. What kinds of people live in your turf? What are their interests? What

will engage them?

Examples of a team’s shared interest:

• We share an interest in uniting young people and older people in the campaign for climate change.

• We share an interest in training more young people in organizing skills to build our movement • We share an interest in creating meaningful local ways for people to get involved in the climate

change movement.

We have a shared interest in

______________________ . Our team will provide leadership to

organize our constituency in

____________________________.

The community we will serve is

(briefly describe your community's characteristics).

We will engage the people in our community

by:

Recruiting others to join us, Learning together and coaching each

other in

organizing

skills,

Training other young people in

organizing skills

We will do this by inspiring our constituency,

implementing, evaluating and refining strategy, and coordinating action.

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Story of Self Trainer/Coach

‐Put extra effort in learning how to create a story of self

‐Coach your teammates on story of self

‐Prepare the story of self part of your team’s training on public narrative so you can teach this skill when you return home.

‐Are willing to invest effort in learning how to tell a good story of self

‐Enjoy storytelling

‐Can tell vivid, detailed stories that

are carefully selected

‐Are interested in people—who they

are, where they come from, how they became who they are

‐Can listen carefully and ask thoughtful questions of others

‐Ramble

‐Try to tell your whole biography whentelling a story of self (have trouble beiselective)

‐Are not willing or able to invest time listening carefully to those you are coaching and asking careful, probativequestions of them

Story of Us Trainer/Coach

‐Put extra effort in learning how to create a story of us

‐Coach your teammates on story of us

‐Prepare the story of us part of your team’s training on public narrative so you can teach this skill when you return home.

‐Are willing to invest effort in understanding how to tell a good

story of us

‐Are curious about community stories and willing to spend time developing them—asking questions about how a community was founded, who its heroes are, what outcomes it has achieved together, what its hopes are

‐Enjoy storytelling

‐Can listen carefully and ask

thoughtful questions

of

others

‐Have patience

‐Get frustrated easily. (Story of us taka while to learn well.)

‐Believe that we are trying to motivateeveryone in the world to action with u(which dilutes the meaning of our community and our responsibility)

‐Try to make the community you’re moving to action too broad without

boundaries so that it loses meaning anidentity

Story of Now Trainer/Coach

‐Put extra effort in learning how to create a story of now

‐Coach your teammates on story of now

‐Prepare the story of now part of your team’s training on public

narrative if

you

teach

this

skill

when you return home.

‐Are willing to invest effort in understanding how to tell a good

story of now

‐ Feel urgency

‐Can help others choose strategic action. You understand that scale is

built by

asking

1,000

people

to

do

the

same single meaningful thing (like not

taking the segregated bus) rather than giving 1,000 people a laundry list of actions to choose from.

‐ Can listen carefully and ask thoughtful questions of others

‐Tend to try to do everything. You’re reluctant to make strategic choices about what to do— and what not to do

‐Are not very creative about action—you stick to the same old tactics that everyone has always used.

‐Struggle

to

imagine

in

vivid

detail

whaa different future could look like if we

all act together.

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Strategy Coach

‐Work with the Story of Now Coach to help your team and others to create meaningful, strategic action plans.

‐Help your team stay creative and flexible as you plan your activities together. Think outside the box.

‐Creatively turn challenges or obstacles into opportunities.

‐Feel urgency

‐Understand strategic action

‐Understand the difference between goals, outcomes and tactics.

‐Think outside the box

‐Have the ability to engage others in a

creative discussion about next steps that doesn’t take old tactics for granted

‐Struggle to think outside the box

‐Are reluctant to push a group throughhard decision making processes to agreement on an action plan

‐Tend to organize tactic after tactic, action after action, without a feasibleplan for how these tactics will add up create the outcomes you need in ordeto meet your goal

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How we will respect each other while still giving constructive feedback:

What we will always do:

How we will self correct if the norm is broken:

How we will communicate and coordinate after the training :

What we will always do:

How we will self correct if the norm is broken:



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SESSION 3:

INTRO TO PUBLIC NARRATIVE

AND

STORY OF SELF



Introduction to Public Narrative

Public narrative is a practice of leadership

Public narrative is the “why” of organizing—the art of translating values into action through stories. It is an iterative discussion process through which individuals, communities, and nations construct their

identity, make choices, and inspire action.

Each of us has a compelling story to tell

Each of us has a story that can move others. As you learn this skill of public narrative, you will be able to tell a compelling story that includes elements that identify yourself, your audience and your strategy

to others. In addition, you will gain practice in hearing and coaching others to tell a good story.

Why Use Public Narrative? Two Ways of Knowing or Interpreting

Public leaders employ both the “head” and the “heart” in order to mobilize others to act effectively on behalf of shared values. In other words, they engage people in interpreting why they should change

their world – their motivation – and how they can act to change it – their strategy.

Many leaders are often good at the analysis side of public speaking – and focus on presenting a good argument or strategy. Alternately, other leaders tell their personal story – but it is often a tale of heartbreak that educates us about the challenge but doesn’t highlight the choices and the potential for hopeful outcomes.

This public narrative work is an effort to tell a story that involves the head and heart AND moves people

to use their hands and feet in action.

Analysis(HOW)HEAD

Narrative(WHY)HEART

Story Tellingof Experience

Affective

Pathos

MOTIVATION

CriticalDeliberation

on Experience

Cognitive

Logos

STRATEGY

SharedUnderstanding Action

HANDS

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The key to public narrative is understanding that values inspire action through emotion. Emotions inform us of what we value in ourselves, in others, and in the world, and enable us to express the motivational content of our values to others. In other words, because we experience values

emotionally, they are what actually move us to act; it is not just the idea that we ought to act. Because

stories allow us to express our values not as abstract principles, but as lived experience, they have the power to move others too.

Some emotions inhibit action, but other emotions facilitate action. Action is inhibited by inertia, fear, self ‐doubt, isolation, and apathy. Action is facilitated by urgency,

hope, YCMAD (you can make a difference), solidarity, and anger. Stories mobilize emotions that urge us

to take action and help us overcome emotions that inhibit us from action.

EMOTIONAL BARRIERS TO ACTION

Apathy

Self ‐Doubt

Isolation Fear

Inertia ACTION

VALUES

EMOTIONAL CALLS TO ACTION

Apathy

Self ‐DoubtIsolation

Fear

Inertia

Hope

Urgency

Anger

Solidarity

YCMAD

ACTION

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Public narrative combines a story of self, a story of us, and a story of now. The process of creating your public narrative is fluid and iterative and can start at any place. Once you

develop your story of self, story of us, and story of now, you’ll probably want to go back to the beginning

to clarify the links between them.

Story of Now

Strategy Action

Call to Leadership

Story of Us

Shared Values Shared Ex erience

Story of Self

A “story of self” tells why we have been called to serve.

The story of self expresses the values or experiences that call each person to take leadership on climate

change. The key focus is on choice points, moments in our lives when values are formed because of a

need to choose in the face of great uncertainty. When did you first care about being heard, learn that you were concerned about climate change, wanted to protect the planet, wanted to ensure clean air,

clean water for yourself and others, learn to love nature or appreciate being outdoors? Why? When did you feel you had to do something about it? Why did you feel you could? What were the circumstances?

What specific choice did you make?

A “story of us” communicates the values and experiences that a community, organization, campaign

or movement shares and what capacity or resources that community of “us” has to accomplish its

goals. Just as with a person, the key is choice points in the life of the community and/or those moments that

express the values, experiences, past challenges and resources of the community or “us” that will take action. For example, tying a current effort to win a campaign to a past campus campaign victory and

describing the effort it took to win, the people who worked hard to make it happen, their capabilities, their values, etc. is a story of us.

A “story of now” communicates the urgent challenge we are called upon to face now and calls us to action.

The story of now articulates the urgent challenge in specific detail. It also includes a description of the

path we can take to achieve goals relative to the mission – the unique strategy or set of ideas that will help us to overcome the challenge we face and succeed. The story of now includes an ask that

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summons the audience to a specific action they can do to achieve our collective mission. Finally, the story lays out in detail a vision for the potential outcome we could achieve if our strategy succeeds.

Linking Self, Us, Now

You are looking for the link between these three stories, the place where they overlap, to help explain

why you are called to this work of climate change, why we are called to act with you, and why we are called to act now. This means being very selective about the story you tell—for example not trying to

tell your whole biography when you tell your story of self.

SELF

USNOW

The Three Key Elements of Public Narrative Structure

Challenge – Choice – Outcome

A plot begins with an unexpected challenge that confronts a character with an urgent need to pay

attention, to make a choice, a choice for which s/he is unprepared. The choice yields an outcome ‐‐ and the outcome teaches a moral.

PLOT

CHARACTER

MORAL

Challenge

Outcome

NARRATIVE STRUCTUREBecause we can empathetically identify with the character, we

can “feel” the moral. We not only hear “about” someone’s

courage; we can also be inspired by it.

The story of the character and their effort to engage around

values engages the listener in their own challenge, choice, and outcome relative to the story.

Each story should include the challenge, the choice and the outcome. It’s not enough to say – I was scared. You need to say – I was very scared, I needed to decide, and when I did, I learned – it was possible.

Choice

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Incorporating Challenge, Choice, and Outcome in Your Own Story

There are some key questions you need to answer as you consider the choices you have made in your life and the path you have taken that brought you to this point in time as a leader. Once you identify the specific relevant choice point, perhaps your decision to choose an environmental career, dig deeper by answering the following questions.

Challenge : Why did you feel it was a challenge? What was so challenging about it? Why was it your challenge?

Choice : Why did you make the choice you did? Where did you get the courage (or not)? Where did you get the hope (or not)? How did it feel?

Outcome: How did the outcome feel? Why did it feel that way? What did it teach you? What do you want to teach us? How do you want us to feel?

A word about challenge. Sometimes people see the word challenge and think that they need to describe the misfortunes of their lives. Keep in mind that a struggle might be one of your own choosing – a high mountain you decided to climb as much as a hole you managed to climb out of. Any number of things may have been a challenge to you and be the source of a good story to inspire others.

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ACTIVITY – VIDEO REVIEW Barack Obama Speech – 2004 Convention

We will watch this video as a model for a public narrative that includes examples of self , us and now as well as an appeal to emotions. As you watch the video – think about the elements of SELF – US – NOW that you hear in his story. Listen as well for the challenge, choice and outcome in each of the three areas.

SELF US NOW

What are his experiences and values that call him to take leadership to

elect John Kerry?

What is his reason for believing in the

capacity of the people he is speaking

to create change? What shared

values and experiences does he

appeal to?

Why is it urgent to change? What is

his strategy to overcome the

challenge? What is the first step

that each person can take to be part of the solution?

1. Do you think he did a good job of telling his story? What worked? What could have been more clear?

2. What are some of the specific details in his story that you remember?

3. What values did he talk about in his story?

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Team Work: Practicing Story of Self

GOALS

The teamwork you’re asked to do here is to coach each other in how to tell your story of self. One goal is for you to begin learning how to tell your personal story of why you are called to organize to help win climate change.

Another goal is to begin learning how to coach others’ stories by listening carefully, offering feedback, asking questions, etc. In this way you can develop leadership in others, as well as yourself. Be prepared to take some risks, and support your team members as they step out on the limb themselves!

A final goal is to practice working as part of a team. As you work together, think about the dynamics in your team. Practice your norms and help your other team members take leadership on their chosen roles.

Agenda

TOTAL TIME: 55 min.

1. Gather in your team. Timekeeper begins keeping time. 5 min

2. Take time as individuals to silently develop your “story of self” using the worksheet on the next page.

5 min

3. Tell your story to your team members and respond to each other—each person takes 2 min. to tell their stories and the group has 3. min to offer feedback. Story of Self Coach leads the team in giving feedback to each storyteller.

NOTE: You have just 2 minutes to tell your story. Stick to this limit. Make sure your timekeeper cuts you off. This encourages focus and makes sure everyone has a chance.

40 min

4. Choose your most able story teller to tell their story before the larger group. Give them pointers to prep again to tell their story a third time.

5 min



WORKSHEET “STORY OF SELF”

What are the experiences and values that call you to take leadership on climate and clean energy?

If you’re having trouble getting started, here are some key elements and types of experiences that may have contributed to your current choice to take leadership as a community organizer on climate change

and clean energy.

FAMILY & CHILDHOOD

Parents/Family Growing Up Experiences Your Community Role Models School

LIFE CHOICES

School Career Partner/Family Hobbies/Interests/Talents Experiences – Finding Passion Overcoming Challenge

ORGANIZER/ENVIRO EXPERIENCE

Role Models Your First Experience of Organizing Your First Awareness of the Environment A Key moment in nature Your current experience in Power Shift

Focus on one key story—one event, or one place or one important relationship. Take some time to think

about the elements of your story in the context of the challenge, choice and outcome. In this case, the

outcome might also be the thing you learned, in addition to what actually happened.

Remember, the purpose of story of self is to begin to create common ground with your audience by

telling a story that reflects the values that brought you here to work on climate change and where those values come from. So choose a story of self that reflects values you will later call on in your stories of us

and now.

CHALLENGE

What was the specific challenge you faced?

CHOICE

What was the specific choice you made?

OUTCOME

What happened as a result of your choice? What hope can it

give us?

30



PREPARING TO COACH OTHERS ON THEIR STORIES

Coaching Checklist

DO

Say what works first in the story, focusing on specifics.

Identify both the CHALLENGE and the HOPE in the story.

Clarify choice points, the moment when one thing happened instead of another.

Connect the dots in the narrative, helping to illuminate how someone got from here to there.

Look for themes.

Ask questions about the intended audience and the desired action or response.

DON’T

Offer vague abstract "feel good" comments, unless you’ve established the context .

What does the story teller learn from “you did a great job”, as opposed to, “the way you described your moment of choice made me feel very hopeful because. . . . “

Make value judgments about the story teller’s voice or the validity of the point they want to make .

The key here is that a person find ways to express themselves in their own voice –word choice, humor, metaphor, etc. Of course they need to know if choices they’ve made communicate what they want to communicate.

Think about what you’re going to say about your story while someone else is saying theirs. You should

allow yourself to take a risk with your story by diving in. Focus on others stories so you can help them with their efforts and then you can get the same sort of help from them.

Underestimate the power of someone’s story. If it doesn’t “work” for you, think about why it doesn’t,

and more importantly, why it would for someone else.

31



32

Record Feedback/Comments from Your Team Members On Your Story Here:

Coaching Your Team's “Story of Self”

As you hear each other's stories, keeping track of the details of each person’s story will help you to

provide feedback and remember details about people on your team later. Use the grid below to track your team's stories.

Name Challenge Choice Outcome Notes/Themes



33

SESSION 4:

STORY OF US



34

Team Work: Practicing Story of Us

GOALS

The teamwork you’re asked to do here is to coach each other in how to tell your story of us. One goal is for you to begin learning how to tell your community’s story of why you in particular have the capacity to help address climate change.

Another goal is to begin learning how to coach others’ stories by listening carefully, offering feedback, asking questions, etc. In this way you can develop leadership in others, as well as yourself. Be prepared to take some risks, and support your team members as they step out on the limb themselves!

A final goal is to practice working as part of a team. As you work together, think about the dynamics in your team. Practice your norms and help your other team members take leadership on their chosen roles.

Agenda

TOTAL TIME: 50 min.


2. Take time as individuals to silently develop your “story of us” using the worksheet on the next 2 pages.

5 min

3. Tell your story to your team members and respond to each other—each person takes 2 min. to tell their stories and the group has 3. min to offer feedback.

Story of Us Coach leads the team in giving feedback to each storyteller.

NOTE: You have just 2 minutes to tell your story. Stick to

this limit. Make sure your timekeeper cuts you off. This encourages focus and makes sure everyone has a chance.

35 min


5 min



WORKSHEET “STORY OF US”

Remember, the purpose of the story of us is to create a sense of community among individuals who may or may not yet see themselves as a community and to give them hope that they can make a difference.

Your goal here is to tell a story that evokes our shared values as your audience, and shows why we in

particular are called to take responsibility for action now.

Your story of us may be a story of what we’ve already done together, challenges we’ve already faced and outcomes we’ve achieved. Or it may be a story of some of our shared heroes, challenges they faced

and outcomes they’ve achieved. Hearing how we’ve met challenges in the past gives us hope that we

can face

new

challenges

together.

Brainstorm all the stories you know of about your audience and their collective story and experience.

Your story of us may change each time you are talking to a different group of people.

Who is your audience/community that you will be speaking to? (In this case your learning team at

the training, young environmentalists)

What are some stories of this audience that give you an indication of their shared purpose and the goals of this group? What are their values?

What are some shared stories that give you a sense of the strengths and capacities of your

audience/community?

What are some stories of your youth environmental community ‐‐ your audience ‐‐ that give you the

belief that together they could work together to join you in creating real tangible change in the world?

35



Now choose one of the stories you brainstormed above to flesh out in vivid detail.

CHALLENGE

What was the challenge we

faced?

CHOICE

What specific choice did we

make? What action did we

take?

OUTCOME

What happened as a result of

our choice? What hope can it

give us?

36



37

Record Feedback/Comments from Your Team Members On Your Story Here:

Coaching Your Team's “Story of Us”

As you hear each other's stories, keeping track of the details of each person’s story will help you to provide feedback and remember details about people on your team later. Use the grid below to track

your team's stories.




38

SESSION 5:

STORY OF NOW

AND

STRATEGY



Story of Now

Remember the third part of a public narrative. Do you remember how Barack Obama, in his 2004

Democratic convention speech, got very specific about the fact that there was “more work to do”? Do you

remember how he explained the challenges? Was it with statistics? Or was it with specific people, facing their own challenges, their own choice points. Do you remember how gave us a sense of hope, that we could do something about these challenges? And then, he wound up with calling on us to make the choice to join the campaign to elect the Democratic nominee, President. He identified a very specific action he

was asking us all to choose to take—to go vote for John Kerry.

This should sound familiar. There’s a challenge, but instead of being in the past, it’s in the present. There’s hope, but instead of something that happened in the past, it’s in the future. And there’s a choice, but instead of being a choice we once made, it’s a choice we must make now. And that’s why it’s a “story of

now”.

Linking Your Story of Now to Story of Self and Story of Us

Now we know why you’ve been called to a particular mission, we know something of who it is you want to

call upon to join you in that mission, so what action does that mission require of us right here, right now, in this place?

A “story of now” is urgent, it requires dropping other things and paying attention, it is rooted in the values you celebrated in your story of self and us, and requires action.

The Elements of a Story of Now The strategy – your plan to achieve your goal.

A strategic “hopeful” choice that each person in your audience can make

A specific ask for each person that involves a commitment of time, resources before they leave.

A vivid description of what collectively can be achieved if we take action together.

Why It Matters

The choice we’re called on to make is a choice to take strategic action now. Leaders who only describe problems, but fail to identify action that their community can take to address the problem aren’t very

good leaders. If you are called to address a real challenge, a challenge so urgent you have motivated us

to face it as well, then you also have a responsibility to invite us to join you in action that has some chance of success. A ‘story of now” is not simply a call to make a choice to act – it is a call to “hopeful” action.

39



What is Strategy?

The story of now is a story of strategy—how my action, added up with other people’s action could, with a

reasonable amount of hope, be expected to achieve a clear outcome that would help us meet our goal.

The challenge of strategy is building toward key peaks of collective action that aren’t random, and don’t

just happen and dissolve into nothingness afterwards. The challenge is identifying actions that will help to

build capacity and momentum that can launch your campaign toward the next peak, and the next peak, until you have enough power to win the change you seek.

Often when working on our story of now we realize we really don’t have a clear, actionable or motivating

strategy. Working on story of now can be a way to re ‐evaluate our strategy and to engage others in

strategizing with us.

Strategy is motivated.

We strategize in response to urgent challenges or unusual opportunities to turn our goals into specific

outcomes. Consider the Montgomery Bus Boycott – to what challenge did Dr. King respond? What was his

motivating goal? Was his goal just to desegregate the Montgomery Bus system, or was it to make progress toward a bigger goal of achieving civil rights, freedom and equality? How did he turn a large goal into an achievable but meaningful outcome?

Strategy is intentional.

Strategy is a theory of how we can turn what we have (resources) into what we need (power) to get what we want (outcomes). It is a hypothesis that we can use certain tactics to achieve specific outcomes. What clear outcome was Dr. King trying to achieve in the Montgomery Bus Boycott? How could African ‐

Americans in Montgomery reasonably believe that the action they were being asked to take could make a

difference? What clear outcome were they trying to achieve? How would they know if they had met it?40



3. Which Tactics will you use? Why these and not others? Criteria include:

Will it influence the outcome you’re hoping to achieve? How?

Will it use your resources creatively? How?

Will it create organizational capacity? How?

Will it develop leadership? How?

4. When will you use them? Consider the dynamics of campaigns, which tactics will you use when, what

will be the sequence, how can you make the most of momentum, etc.?

As you work on developing your strategy as part of figuring out your story of now, remember that strategy

is not something done by an individual alone in a secretive dark corner somewhere. Strategy is best

created in a strategic team. It is very important to think about who serves on your strategy team, how it

works, and

how

well.

Does

your

team

have

a clear

common

purpose?

Do

you

deliberate

well

together?

Do you operate with consistent norms? Is it clear who’s on the team? Is your team’s authority to

strategize clear?

As you continue to create your strategy in the face of new challenges and opportunities, your story of now

will become clearer and more focused.

42



43

Team Work: Practicing Story of Now

GOALS

The teamwork you’re asked to do here is to coach each other in how to tell your story of now. The goal of this team work session is to focus on outcomes you could work together to achieve to advance your common interests. Which urgent challenges or opportunities do you have to face? What could you achieve if you could face them together? What are some possible outcomes? What might be some of the tactics you could use? How might you continue to strategize together?

As you work together as a learning team, continue to think about the dynamics in your team. Practice your norms and help your other team members take leadership on their chosen roles.

Agenda

TOTAL TIME: 50 min.


2. Take time as individuals to silently develop your “story of now”

using the worksheet on the next 2 pages. 5 min

3. Tell your story to your team members and respond to each other—each person takes 2 min. to tell their stories and the group has 3. min to offer feedback.

Story of Now Coach leads the team in giving feedback to each storyteller.

NOTE: You have just 2 minutes to tell your story. Stick to this limit. Make sure your timekeeper cuts you off. This encourages focus and makes sure everyone has a chance.

35 min


5 min



WORKSHEET STORY OF NOW

Use these questions to help you to put together your story of now. You should draw on your own current work on climate change, and if possible Energy Action & Power Shift’s Campaign strategy to fill in the answers to the questions below.

Take a moment to reflect here on your challenge. What makes it urgent to you and your audience? Why

must you collectively take action now? Once you have identified that, you then need to lay down your strategy – what you think you can do together to confront the challenge. Most importantly, what is the

action step that people can take to join you in collective action towards a solution.

Why is it urgent to take on climate challenge now? What makes it urgent relative to other problems? Who are you serving in your community and the world by taking on leadership in this area?

What is your strategy to help alleviate the problem, create real tangible change? How will you know that you have developed an effective solution? What will the outcome look like if you are successful?

What is the single most important first step(s) can people take to join you in this strategy? What form will their commitment take? Is it clear what they should do? Is it clear when they should do it?

44



Now flesh out your story of now in vivid detail.

CHALLENGE

What is the challenge we face? What images make that challenge real?

CHOICE

What specific choice are you asking us to make? What specific action should we take

and when?

OUTCOME

What specific outcome could happen as a result of our choice? What hope can it give us?

45



Record Feedback/Comments from Your Team Members Here:

Coaching Your Team's “Story of Now”

As you hear each other's stories, keeping track of the details of each person’s story will help you to provide

feedback and remember details about people on your team later. Use the grid below to track your team's stories.


46



WORKSHEET Tying it all together in a successful public narrative.

SELF US NOW

What are your experiences and values that call you to take leadership on climate change?

What is your reason for believing in the possibility of the people you will be speaking to? What is their story?

Why is it urgent to deal with climate change? What is your strategy to overcome this challenge? What is the first step that each person can take to be part of your solution?

O U T C O M E

C H O I C E

C H A L L E N G E

O U T C O M E

C H O I C E

C H A L L E N G E

O U T C O M E

C H O I C E

C H A L L E N G E

47



NOTES:

power shift participant guide

Documents