Money can mean a lot of things for those who have it. It can feed us, open doors, and keep us safe and warm. For those who have a lot of it -- we call that "wealth" -- it also provides influence and power. Those who make policy are those in power and most of those in positions of power are making enough money to do more than survive. In fact, onceyou have a certain amount of money and influence, one can use both to create more wealth and power.
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There have been critics on both sides of the exercise. Some will talk about their belief that important things, by their very nature, do not lend themselves to be measured. While others will identify the insufficiency of the measures chosen. Still more have called it a distracting fad that takes providers away from the important work of good people doing good things.
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My life is haunted. Some of the things that haunt me are the ghosts of stupid things I have done over the course of my life. Many, though, are the spirits of compelling ideas that just will not let go of me.
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Complexity -- it's everywhere we look. If you're working to engage communities and create meaningful, sustainable change, then you're going to come up against complexity. This becomes even more complicated when you're not only trying to make change, but evaluate your efforts in making change.
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Developmental evaluation, a form of real-time evaluation focused on innovation and complexity, is gaining interest and attention with funders, program developers, and social innovators. Yet, it's popularity is revealing fundamental misunderstandings and misuse of the term that, if left unquestioned, may threaten the advancement of this important approach as a tool to support innovation and resilience.
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Not long ago my friend Mark Holmgren posted a blog titled Becoming a Learning Organization that got me thinking about what it takes to provide leadership to a learning organization. As Mark points out in his post, learning organizations are more likely to address complex issues and challenges effectively. To be clear, the term "learning organization" does not refer to a specific size, configuration, purpose, or structure of a group. It can refer to a multinational corporation, public agency, small social sector or nonprofit organization, and even a project team. All of these can be learning organizations. The core idea is that it is an entity that has developed the capacity to learn, change, learn some more, and then change some more to respond effectively to its environment. Mark does a great job of explaining how this happens.
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