Exploring Internal Solidification 1

Last week I mentioned six areas we need to explore when it comes to internal solidification. To recap here they are:
1- structures and leadership,
2- long and short term strategic goal setting,
3- coaching and mentorship,
4- motivation,
5- recruitment,
6- and accountability.

I have been wondering where to start in deepening my learning and my exploration of these areas and perhaps a better place to start is to explain what I mean by these or why they are important to me. I will start with the first three.

Structures and Leadership

Our structures and modes of organizing from loose leadershipless to the rigidity of NGO hierarchy is worth examining from two perspectives: the structure and the people within that structure. Looking at the structures it is worth examining whether they are serving the intended purpose and team/ collective or hindering it in anyway. As for the people within that structure weather in leadership or constituency frameworks is this structure enabling them to grow as they work together to achieve the social change and further the movement? I believe that we should have in our arsenal an awareness of different ways of organizing and different structures and their pros and cons and have the guts and curiosity to experiment with them and allow ourselves the flexibility of moving between leadershiplessness and having leadership in some form. The people who push us along with visions, dreams and drive should be nurtured, and given the skills and tools to make them succeed at leading us through to something we can all work towards. But our leaders, whoever they may be, should also have a high level of self awareness and reflection on impact of and their actions, whether that be on themselves, the movement or more importantly the people they work with.

What ever frameworks of leadership(less) structures we choose we need to be honest and transparent. And frankly, I have rarely seen leadershipless organizing despite claims of such. I would much rather work on acknowledging informal and formal structures and understand dynamics of power. From that understanding I would like to support, challenge, and nurture an equitable and useful use of that acknowledged power.

Strategic Goal Setting

I bring up strategic goal setting because  in my experience over the years I have seen initiatives and projects come and go. Some were reactionary to events transpiring at the time and others were just flashes in the pan, good ideas that never got into sustainability phase. I recognize that sometime all you want is that one time project or action and those could be fun and useful. But larger movement work needs to be strategic and having a long term vision. That should be the driving force behind our actions and events. Changing a law, demonstrating and protesting, putting up profile pictures on Facebook, petitions… all of it should feed into a larger strategy and end goal. If we don’t think about how our work is strategic, whether it is short or long termed, what the change or shift will be after the action(s) taken then how will we get to where we are going? Tactics may differ but the goal, the strategic goal, should remain the same. If we don’t have that one (or more) stable goal then it is like trying to hit a moving target, our misses are going to be way more than our hits.

Coaching and Mentorship

I can’t advocate enough for coaching and mentorship. I personally have grown exponentially from both. My leadership, my work, my thinking, heck even personal life have shifted drastically through these kinds of relationships. We have generations (I don’t mean just mean age, I also include experience in that term) that have worked tirelessly before us and sometimes that experience, knowledge and wisdom is not passed on. An example is women who are dismissive of the older “aunties” who in the 60s and 70s were the ones out on the streets, (granted the pictures show them in coiffed hair and heels). But regardless,  those women rocked, they were warriors and we dismiss them and what they did because we don’t speak the same language. In Arabic we call them دقة قديمة, an old tune! Our politics may be different today but there is a lot to be said for cross generational exchange. I think that no matter how old your work is, or how old you are coaching, mentoring and continued learning can only serve to strengthen us and our movements. Our learnings can come from anywhere and everywhere. We should be open to it and when we dismiss an opportunity or person, it might be worth asking ourselves why did I not want to learn from that opportunity or person?

These first three areas are exciting to think about and ways to work on improving them for myself and for the  movement building work I am contemplating. I am curious to hear the thoughts and experiences of others on the matter and what ways we can build and grow our structures and leadership. How we can set our strategic visions and goals. And finally how to deepen our own coaching and mentorship skills so that we may learn to recognize them in others and learn from them as we pass on our own experiences. 

Building Our Internal Solidification

In my opening post I asked a question: How do we build strategic participation in our movements that focuses both on internal solidification and outward engagement? And I have been thinking about this first part, internal solidification since then (if not before). I have seen numerous examples of great people and activist so focused on the goal, the end result, the actual work that they forget to build internally. They work on everything but building themselves up to be the strong foundation that the work rests on. The results of this usually mean internal conflict, or disbanded groups once the work is done, a sense of unbelonging, or other organizing ills we are all familiar with. For the last couple of years I have been withdrawn from community work or movement work. I have been very reluctant to return because of this lack of internal gel I feel is missing alongside many other reasons. Yet, and throughout these last two years I have been reflecting on what does it mean to build movements and strengthen them? What does that look like? and when talking about social movements in the learning circle or talking with friends and other failed/ retired/ withdrawn activist more answers keep coming.

 

In 2010 I built a framework for movement building called the Social Change Program. It’s focus was nascent activists and it’s goal was to provide them with knowledge, resources, networks, and skills so that they can launch their ideas into realities. I have since left the organization and the program but I still think about whether it was effective and strategic in what it aimed to achieve, I will not go into a critique of my work right now but merely say that in building the program and seeing it run a number of iterations I am left with more questions about what is movement building and how is social change supported? I also think about activists who have a strong body of work and years of practice behind them and how they could benefit from a movement building program. If someone were to build a framework that targets internal solidification of movements and support of activists what would that look like?

 

To start answering that I think we need to explore and experiment in some core areas that include:

• structures and leadership
• long and short term strategic goal setting
• coaching and mentorship
• motivation
• recruitment
• and accountability.

I don’t think that these are the only areas of work but they are a good starting point. Our work is stronger if built on a good solid foundation and we, activists, are that foundation. I have spent too much time thinking I was the only one who knew what to do, or only surrounded myself with yes sayers or friends. Whatever outreach to others I did was quickly dropped at the first sign of disinterest or resistance. This I think weakened the work rather than fostered it. I spent time building my work with the help of a handful of activists rather than spending the time building the base for strategic and diverse alliances and relationships. The work in turn was good instead of great. And its impact confined instead of rippling.

 

I dream of interconnected and strong social justice movements full of support and alliances rather than competition, personal vendettas, and burn-outs. The road to that dream is still unclear and I am hoping that this venue, this blog, is an expression of both internal solidification in the ideas it explores and the conversations it sparks, as well as an outwardly engaging conversation across movements and communities. And from there perhaps the course will be set.