INTRODUCTION
This piece is about our practice as community workers, our mindset, our tendencies to resist the transformative leap. Sometimes it feels like we are standing on the edge of convention, a wide chasm between us and the “New World,” and looking down at the gremlins of risk and failure.
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"Vision without execution is hallucination." This quote by Thomas Edison has particular resonance in our Working Differently / Collective Impact communities. For in many ways, these communities seek to accomplish transformative change by building on two visions: the aspirational outcome and the cross-sectoral means of achieving that outcome. For this reason, carefully considering "how" this can be accomplished is vital.
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Sometimes, collaboration stinks.
Okay, I imagine I have your attention now.
Yes, I am being overly dramatic. I guess what I really want to say is that sometimes a really good idea gets overdone, twisted up, misguided. Collaboration is generally a good thing of course, but it seems sometimes we just do it or at least try to do it whether it is needed or not, whether or not we truly believe it makes sense. All of us know that sometimes we do it because funders require it. I called that “coerced collaboration."
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I wonder.
Have we have been hoodwinked. co-opted, and led to the altar of a false god – or at the very least, an imperfect one?
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A number of years ago I read a series of leadership books written by Max Depree, former CEO of the furniture maker Herman Miller. These books were inspiring both in their simplicity and also in their application. In many ways the design and content of the books – Leadership is an Art, Leadership Jazz and Leading without Power – were formative contributions to my own style of leadership and my career path.
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