Sponsorship Opportunities for NCDD 2014

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Sandy Heierbacher

Plans are underway for NCDD’s 6th National Conference on Dialogue & Deliberation, to be held October 17-19, 2014 at the Hyatt Regency Reston in the DC Metro Area. NCDD conferences bring together 400+ of the most active, thoughtful, and influential people involved in public engagement and group process work across the U.S. and Canada (plus a few good friends from outside North America!).

NCDDSeattle-GRs-border Consider supporting this important convening by becoming a sponsor or partner of NCDD 2014. By supporting an NCDD conference, our sponsors are showing their leadership in and commitment to public engagement and innovative community problem solving to leaders and emerging leaders in our rapidly growing field.

Becoming an All-Star Sponsor ($3000), Co-Sponsor ($2000) or Partner ($1000) now provides you with months of PR, building good will, name recognition, and respect for your organization as we proudly acknowledge your support while we publicize the conference.

We hope to have between 400 and 450 attendees at NCDD 2014, and you can see from this chart that we have a strong track record for attendance. Learn more about sponsorship options and benefits. And thank you for considering supporting the conference in this critical way!

When you sign on as a sponsor or partner of NCDD 2014, you’ll be joining an amazing group of peers you’ll be proud to associate with. To give you an idea, here are our sponsors and partners for our last national conference, NCDD 2012 in Seattle…

Share the sponsorship doc with others or sign on yourself: www.tinyurl.com/ncdd14-sponsorinfo

Tufts’ new 1+4 program

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Peter

Yesterday, the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts (where I work) held a Symposium on Service and Leadership with retired General Stanley McChrystal, who commanded US forces in Afghanistan and who turns out to be gifted and engaging speaker. At the Symposium, “Tufts 1+4″ was announced. This will be a program to encourage incoming undergraduates to spend a year doing full-time service (domestic or international) before they come to campus.

Some students already do this. We heard inspiring stories from two current Tufts undergrads who had served, respectively, in the South Bronx and in Ecuador before their first years here. They both testified that their work in disadvantaged communities made them hungry to learn about social issues in college. The idea is to make a service “bridge year” much more common and more equitable. Tufts will address financial need. Making the program selective and prestigious should remove any stigma that might accompany a decision to delay college.

For General McChrystal and the Aspen Institute’s Franklin Project (which the General chairs), Tufts 1+4 is an important demonstration project. They are trying to make serious, voluntary national service an expected right of passage. They don’t think that the federal government will pay for all the service slots any time soon, so they want to construct an array of service opportunities through federal and state programs, colleges, and nonprofits. I have long argued for that kind of bottom-up, relatively incremental approach because I think quality is essential. If the government suddenly created millions of service positions, they would be filled by eager young adults (there is plenty of demand), but the quality of the experience would be mixed. Our responsibility is to do Tufts 1+4 well so that it can spread.

For Tufts, another motivation is to recruit a diverse group of incoming undergraduates who are more seasoned–and better prepared to consider social issues in the classroom–thanks to their intense service experiences. In that sense, Tufts 1+4 is an educational reform and an effort to strengthen the campus intellectual climate.

I am especially pleased that the Franklin Project is putting its emphasis on service as a learning opportunity for the people who serve. I have been involved in discussions of “service” since my undergraduate days. In fact, when I was in student government, we launched a program that paid students for summer service if they reported to their local alumni clubs. I have always argued that the service must address real problems or it won’t be valuable for those who serve, yet the main rationale is to enhance the civic skills, job and life skills, and social ethics of those who serve. We shouldn’t see service programs as a way to plant trees or tutor children, but as a powerful form of civic education. The main beneficiaries are those who enroll, which is why the experiences must be well designed and supported. Gen. McChrystal made the same argument rather explicitly yesterday at Tufts.

The post Tufts’ new 1+4 program appeared first on Peter Levine.

Group Decision Tip: Accountability

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Craig Freshley

In principle, accountability is comparing expectations with actions, what we hoped would happen against what actually happened. It requires that expectations are written. It requires that actions are evaluated in light of the expectations. And there’s another requirement. When we are accountable we say out loud that things were achieved as expected or that things were not achieved as expected. We don’t ignore successes or transgressions, we account for them.

Accountability done right is very helpful for personal and group development. It pushes us to be thoughtful about our expectations and to learn from our shortcomings.

Accountability done wrong creates conflict, like when I publicly hold someone accountable for something that they didn’t sign up for, or when I secretly carry an expectation or a grudge. It also causes conflict when a deed goes undone that someone did sign up for but no one calls it out; no one points out that the action was out of sync with the expectation. Accountability done wrong causes resentment, confusion, and unfairness.

Practical Tip: If you want to hold someone accountable, first ensure that there is shared understanding about the expectation. Write it down. Do not judge against someone for not living up to unclear, or even imagined, expectations.

It works well when we publicly acknowledge successes of others and failures of self. When someone else achieves an expectation, notice and point it out. When you fail to achieve an expectation hold yourself accountable, be the first to notice and acknowledge the failure, and take pressure off others to do so.

the president and the humanities

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Peter

At a General Electric plant in Milwaukee last month, President Obama seemed to disparage one of the disciplines of the humanities:

“I promise you, folks can make a lot more potentially with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree,” the president said. “Now, nothing wrong with an art history degree. I love art history. So I don’t want to get a bunch of emails from everybody. I’m just saying, you can make a really good living and have a great career without getting a four-year college education, as long as you get the skills and the training that you need.”

After receiving a critical email from University of Texas art historian Ann Collins Johns, the president replied to her with a hand-written apology, shown below. It’s a polite and disarming note. I suspect the president immediately regretted his comment about art history and was looking for a chance to address it.

Especially given his note, I do not want to add criticism of the president, personally. However, the administration’s educational policy does favor the applied sciences and engineering over the humanities. Moreover, in his note, the president reinforces the idea that the humanities are basically about appreciating the higher things of life; they are aesthetic disciplines. He writes, “As it so happens, art history was one of my favorite subjects in high school, and it has helped me take in a great deal of joy in my life that I might otherwise have missed.”

One sees this equation of the humanities with beauty all the time. Just last week, in the Atlantic, Olga Khazan cited Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, and Paul Cézanne as examples of geniuses in “the humanities.” Very few people seem to understand that the humanities are scholarly disciplines aimed at understanding a wide range of human phenomena. They are not about making or appreciating beauty. (See my post on “what are the humanities?”)

I do believe that you can often enjoy a work of art much more if you understand it as the solution to problems of its own time. This is something that art historians can teach you. I have made this argument in relation to Memling and to the city of Venice, among other examples on this blog. Thus the president probably did come to enjoy art more when he studied art history. However, enjoyment is not the purpose of the discipline; we do not call it “art appreciation.” As long as people believe that the humanities are about enhancing pleasure, they will not consider them an important investment in tough economic times.

The post the president and the humanities appeared first on Peter Levine.

A Year of Service

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Sarah Shugars

Tonight, Tisch College and Tufts University, where I have the privilege to work, are hosting General Stanley McChrystal for a Service and Leadership Symposium.

The event this evening will officially launch a new initiative: Tufts 1+4. As a story in today’s Tufts Now explains:

Tufts 1+4 will provide a structured year of full-time national or international service before students begin their four years of undergraduate study here. The program will begin in the fall of 2015.

“The idea behind the program is to give incoming students a transformational experience that will inform the next four years of their education,” says Alan D. Solomont, the Pierre and Pamela Omidyar Dean of Tisch College.

In addition to General McChrystal, the event will feature the personal stories of two Tufts undergraduates – Lydia Collins, A17 and Phillip Ellison, A16 – who have both completed years of service. Collins through Global Citizen Year and Ellison through City Year.

You can hear their remarks and watch the full event online at http://activecitizen.tufts.edu/mcchrystal/

Enjoy!

NCDD welcomes two extraordinary new Board members

Posted on February 19, 2014 by NCDD Community

This post was submitted by Barb Simonetti — the new chair of NCDD’s Board of Directors as of January.

It is my extreme pleasure to announce two wonderful new additions to NCDD’s Board of Directors. Both are longtime members and active friends of NCDD with impressive credentials.

SusanAndMartinSigns Susan Stuart Clark is the founder and Executive Director of Common Knowledge with the mission of exploring and demonstrating more inclusive and innovative approaches to achieving sustainable social change. She works with state and local government agencies, nonprofits, foundations and businesses, often facilitating multi-sector collaboratives. New insights and possibilities generated by dialogue are the core of the work. Susan and her colleagues gravitate to projects that that debunk the myth that the public is apathetic, that identify common ground on contentious issues and discover new resources hidden in plain sight in our communities.

Martin Carcasson is an Assistant Professor, founder and Director of the Center for Public Deliberation (CDP) at Colorado State University. The CPD is dedicated to enhancing local democracy through improved public communication and community problem-solving. The CPD was founded in August of 2006 within the Speech Communication Department at Colorado State University, and serves as an affiliate of the National Issues Forum (NIF) network. CSU undergraduates and local citizens are trained as impartial facilitators, and work with the local governments, media, the school district, and citizen organizations on various deliberative projects. Deliberation requires safe places for citizens to come together, good and fair information to help structure the conversation, and skilled facilitators to guide the deliberative process. The CPD is dedicated to providing these three key ingredients to Northern Colorado.

Susan and Martin join existing board members John Backman (Treasurer), Courtney Breese (Past Secretary), Marla Crockett (Past Chair), and Diane Miller (Secretary) and me, Barbara Simonetti (Chair). Lucas Cioffi, our previous Treasurer has stepped off the board as his term ended. We are a working board and we would all like to thank Lucas and all of our previous officers for their many contributions as we welcome Susan and Martin.

It is going to be another great year of serving and growing this extraordinary NCDD community. Learn more about all of NCDD’s Board members (and staff) at www.ncdd.org/contact.

Barbara Simonetti
Director, Meetings That Matter
Board Chair, National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation (NCDD)

Using Dialogue Then Deliberation to Transform a Warring Leadership Team

Posted on February 18, 2014 by NCDD Community

This case study is on the use of dialogue then deliberation to transform organizational cultures. The authors are John Inman (the consultant) and Tracy A. Thompson, Ph.D. a professor at University of Washington. This case study was published in OD Practitioner in the Spring of 2013. You can reach John Inman at john@johninmandialogue.com and Tracy Thompson at tracyat@uw.edu.

The new organization normal is complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity. Old paradigms or mindsets of leadership based on positivist and linear approaches to problem solving worked well in predictable and stable contexts but they are less well-suited to address the complexity and challenges of the current world. If leaders are to create an organization that thrives in the world as it emerges, they need a different mindset, one that enables them to design and host transformative conversations (Groysberg & Slind, 2012).

Because they are rooted in constructivist and interpretive approaches targeted towards changing deep mindsets, Dialogic OD interventions (Bushe, 2009; Bushe & Marshak, 2009, Marshak & Bushe, 2009) offer an appealing means for developing leaders. We begin by discussing the importance of mindsets to OD practice, and we identify the key elements of a dialogic mindset, the kind of mindset necessary to tap into the power of conversation.

Building from methods that focus on dialogue (Bojer, Roehl, Knuth, & Magner, 2008), we identify a set of practices, what we term the dialogue then deliberation approach, which focuses on creating transformative conversations that alter mindsets and change behaviors. We illustrate how an internal OD professional used this approach to shift the mindsets of warring leaders in a business unit of a large telecommunication company, enabling them to work together more effectively. We conclude with recommendations on how to move forward with this Dialogic OD approach to changing mindsets and behaviors in organizations.

Resource Link: http://www.johninmandialogue.com/wp-content/uploads//2012/09/ODP-V45No1-Inman-Thompson.pdf

This resource was submitted by consultant and NCDD member John Inman via the Add-A-Resource form at www.ncdd.org/rc/add. John included this generous note:

I would welcome a conversation on this work any time. Please email me at john@johninmandialogue.com, visit my web site at www.johninmandialogue.com, or give me a call at 425-954-7256. I am located in the Greater Seattle area and am open to working with others.

Zip-Barrow

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Sarah Shugars

With all the snowy days – and particularly all the icy days that follow – I’d like to propose a new business idea to make winter travel a little easier for all of us.

I call it Zip-Barrow.

Or perhaps not, as that might qualify as copyright infringement. But you know those wheelbarrows built so as to disperse salt as they pass? Apparently they are called Salt Spreaders, but perhaps everyone else already knew that.

On these icy days, I’ve seen several salt spreaders. On the campus where I work, for example, they use them on most of the walkways, and it seems like quite the efficient method for de-icing a slippery slope.

But not so with private, residential walks.

And with this pattern of snowing, freezing, melting, freezing, snowing, etc there has been many a time lately when I’ve tiptoed on a walk made icy by the sheer forces of nature – despite the better attempts of homeowners to keep the path safe.

So I thought perhaps I should get a salt wheelbarrow, as I call them, to push around town with me. Salting as I go.

But this is an imperfect solution. For one thing, I bet I’d go through a lot of salt. Then I’d have to figure out how to store the wheelbarrow at home or the office. And, of course, the ultimate path cleared by my wheelbarrowing efforts would be relatively minimal.

Enter Zip-Barrow. Or perhaps Salt Share.

Pick up a salt spreaders (and some salt, of course) at a local hardware store, push it a few blocks then return it to another hardware store. Chip in, perhaps, the cost of one bag of salt. In return, you get a salted path to where you’re going while others salt other paths. Then together, we will clear our sidewalks of ice.

Wouldn’t that be nice?

Someone once told me that only one out of every hundred ideas is a good idea. This might be one of the ninety-nine. But now you know what I think about as I try not to fall.

A Review of the Evidence on Open Budgeting

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Tiago Peixoto

Brand new.

“A Review of the Evidence on Open Budgeting” is a recent report by the World Bank Institute’sCapacity Development and Results team. It explores key questions and existing evidence around the impact of open budgeting. Despite the growing body of literature, there remains limited substantiation for whether and how open budgeting contributes to reductions in poverty and improvements in the lives of the poor. This report pieces together the results chain presenting evidence for and against from the literature. It explores links between open budgeting and indicators of impact such as human development and public service delivery. The findings highlight the importance of measuring budget transparency, accountability, and participation. The findings show that the impact of institutional changes differ under varying conditions in specific contexts. The conclusions of the report point to the need for further investigation into impact and establishing effective measurement practices for monitoring related institutional change under varying conditions and different contexts.”

You can download the report here [PDF].

English Pubs as “Assets of Community Value”

Posted on February 18, 2014 by David Bollier

So why should investors always have the upper hand in “development” plans when the resource at stake is a beloved building or public space? Why should the divine right of capital necessarily prevail?

How refreshing to learn that England has created a special legal process for preventing market enclosures of community pubs. There is even a Community Pubs Minister, whose duty it is to recognize the value of pubs to communities and to help safeguard their futures. So far, some 100 pubs have been formally listed as “assets of community value.”

I know, I know – what would Margaret Thatcher say? "Damned government interventions in the free market!" Fortunately, that kind of market fundamentalism has abated for a bit, enough that the Community Pubs Minister -- Brandon Lewis, a Conservative Party member of Parliament! -- now extols “the importance of the local pub as part of our economic, social and cultural past, present and future.” He adds: “We have known for hundreds of years just how valuable our locals are. Not just as a place to grab a pint but also to the economies and communities they serve and that is why we are doing everything we can to support and safeguard community pubs from closure.”

Civic Studies

An intellectual community of researchers and practitioners dedicated to building the emerging field of civic studies

Monthly Archives: February 2014