Shared with HUD Sustainable Communities grantees at the December 2013 convening in Washington, DC. (Note: the first few slides supported a simulation exercise).
3. 519+ workforce
leaders
A guide/Blurb book
A blog/website
Short briefs & curated
collections of media
Social media friends
Video
A changed
understanding of what
was possible in
solving workforce
problems
WEADERSHIP.ORG
18. “We don’t expect every student to
become an Etsy seller, but rather
to apply the skills they learn to any
entrepreneurial path they want to
follow. We do
believe, however, along with the
City of Rockford, that this will lead
to real economic impact.”
“This pilot program has the
potential to be not just what Mayor
Morrissey calls a “pathway to
prosperity” for Rockford, but a
blueprint for similar programs
across the country and around the
world.”
28. “Building leaders is
not just a possibility
or opportunity, it is
something you
should make your
goal to achieve.”
29. 6 Practices for Building Community Partnerships, Creating
Jobs & “Changing the Odds”
EMBRACE
ADOPT A WIDE BUILD
RADICAL
ANGLE
DIVERSE
NETWORKS OPENNESS
VIEW
EXPERIMENT
& REPEAT
ADD
UNIQUE
VALUE
REGENERATE
31. 6 WEadership
Superpowers
ADOPT A WIDE
ANGLE
VIEW
BUILD
DIVERSE
NETWORKS
Description
Leaders look broadly for resources to help them
achieve their goals and seek to deploy their assets
in creative ways. They focus on solving important
community problems.
Leaders collaborate with partners creatively, using
informal networks alongside traditional hierarchies.
They make engaging people with diverse perspectives
a priority.
Resources Cited
-
CodeforAmerica.org on repurposing solutions
GitHub.com for sharing solutions
-
http://inmaps.linkedinlabs.com/network for
mapping networks
Monitor Institute’s Gather guide:
http://www.monitorinstitute.com/downloads/wh
at-wethink/gather/GATHER_The_Art_and_Science
_of_Effective_Convening.pdf
-
Leaders share the role of leadership with staff,
partners, and the public. They use social technologies to listen, inform, and collaborate.
Kiva.org for small business lending
P2PU.org for un-school example
http://meshing.it/companies for shareconomy
companies
Leaders know their industries and organizations
needs new ideas, and new ideas need testing.
-
AmericanSamoaRenewal.org for video
Prototyping Framework (NESTA)
http://www.nesta.org.uk/news_and_features/a
ssets/features/prototyping_framework
ADD UNIQUE
VALUE
Leaders find ways their unique contributions can
make a real difference in their communities. Those
who add value remain relevant.
-
CULTIVATE
NEXT
GENERATION
LEADERS
Cloudgate
http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dca/
supp_info/millennium_park_artarchitecture.html#cloud
Leaders build skills, share knowledge, and create
opportunities for others to lead, so that new leaders
can emerge.
-
Embrace multigenerational workplace and
boardroom
Leadership as mindset http://arnander.com
EMBRACE
OPENNESS
ENCOURAGE
EXPERIMENTATION
www.weadership.org
-
Editor's Notes
Note: The first part of this session was a simulation. We have not included those slides so as not to confuse viewers who were not present. However, we have provided a series of simulation toolkits at Weadership.org should you need more information.AgendaIntroductionsSmall group workDiscussion of effective practices for leading workforce initiativesReflection (post-card exercise & question generating)
In the last couple of years, we launched a project for the Dept of Labor called Enhancing Workforce Leadership.
We looked broadly at people leading workforce initiatives (people nominated by their peers) and asked them about their work – what they do that helps them succeed.Formal people like Mayors, county officials, workforce board staff & board members, state legislators, and those you may not expect, like young social innovators working on jobs issues, parents organizing around education and job oppty for their kids, and hackers who are volunteering their time and talent to create or help people find or prepare for jobs.We documented dozens of practices and ultimately created a framework for collaborative leadership called Weadership. You can find more info here – I just posted links to the guides, videos & so forth to make it easy to find. Right now I’m going to take you on a quick sprint through these practices.Also, you may be expecting traditional content, we’d be happy to talk with you more, but we’re also going broader because we’d like to offer you some possibilities for thinking broadly about job creation and workforce development strategies – as Catherine from USDA said yesterday, solving problems not just running programs.
The first one has to do with where and how we look for solutions to our problems.When we employ a wide angle view, we look all around us for information, ideas, and resources we can use and for contributions we can make. We look for tools and methods in professional fields, disciplines other than our own.
One of the people we interviewed for the WEadership project was Jennifer Pahlka, founding Executive Director of Code for America and now White House Technology Fellow.Are you familiar with Code for America? It’s like a Peace Corps for geeks. Borrowing from Teach for America’s structure, the org places young, top-notch programmers in select city governments all over the country and then connects them to each other and to local brigades everywhere.You might be wondering how this is a workforce problem?Well it’s quite a serious problem – Jennifer launched CFA to help to solve this problem (actually, she’s now a white house fellow for a year and works right down the street).Cities have trouble affording and recruiting tech talent – especially smaller cities - (and often don’t know how to search what they need).Gvots and companies need better procurement processes so bidders can respond with the best of what they have to offer rather than responding to proposals that ask for the wrong work to be done.And most sectors – public, private and nonprofit are trying to cultivate their IT sectors – but they need to make themselves known within IT networks.Finally, govt just simply does not work as well as it could – and that’s something we should all be concerned about and willing to help fix.
This story came from her (she also tells it in a Ted talk called Coding a Better Govt.). It’s one of our favorites. This is Boston in the winter. It turns out, there are still fires in the winter and if the hydrants are not accessible, firefighters cannot put out fires. Keeping hydrants accessible costs money. A Code for America fellow helped the city of Boston find a way to reduce the costs by getting people in neighborhoods to adopt hyrdrants using an app on their mobile devices. Some people were already doing this. The app encourages a lot more and makes a game out of it. It doesn’t solve the whole problem – but solving 50 or 80% winds up being a big cost savings. And what do you know? The same app is helping public officials in Hawaii keep batteries in the tsunami warning signals (turns out it’s similarly expensive to replace and test batteries). More recently, the City of Seattle started using it to keep storm drains clean, and Raleigh North Carolina is using it to keep bus shelters looking spiffy, Chicago for street cleaning. I’m sure there are many more.Now if the tsunami warning battery stewards were only looking among their peers, they would not have looked to wintery Boston. Their wide angle view of solutions helped them see how an existing solution to a different problem could be repurposed. What are some of the tools/approaches/even technologies that you are all developing that others would learn from? Transport apps were among the first – what do they tell us? Could you use something like an adopt-a-commuter? There are platforms that facilitate Ride-share – could that help get people to training and to work, for example?How about credential tracking apps to keep people on track – the skills acquisition version of Fit-Bit?
A couple points about networks…Although we use the word networks informally to name things like groups, advisory committees and organizations, networks are in fact a different kind of animal. They are flexible, with no permanent membership and no single center of powerThey are not limited in size and can shift (and shift quickly)With networks – the key is in the connectivity, not the dots.2. This means they look act, and can be supported differently than more traditional structures.
Structures less rooted in models like this…
And more like this. This is my LinkedIn network map – you can do this too, the software is free and accessible through your LI account.There are plenty of similar programs that will let you analyze your networks and your networks’ netowrks – facebook has one, and proprietary versions abound. Why do this?Networks can help you tap resources – people, money, time, energy, jobs…Allow you to measure distinct strengths that make your networks stronger – like density which tells you something about how quickly information will likely spread, or strength/vulnerability – how many nodes are connectors between large networks?Healthy networks enhance resilience. It’s true for individuals and it’s true for communities.For traditional leaders accustomed to predictable, orderly interactions with stakeholders, learning to work within networks can be a challenge. Especially as expectations around engagement change. For example…
Let’s take meetings. In the old world of committees and boards in which the desired outcome was known and the leaders task was to deploy resources to achieve it, meetings were an important means of keeping everyone informed, insuring quality, and getting advice along the way. Here are some familiar features of meetings…Meetings tend to be scripted, feature a speaker, event, or presentation, and then a little Q&A.They are useful, but not sufficient to achieve many of the goals we are working toward today.
When we engage in a network way – meetings are rarely enough. We need partners and collaborators who are helping advance common goals, not just attending meetings. In this context, if you are convening, this means you are no longer planning meetings, but designing experiences. They can be labs, conversations, games, knowledge sharing events, learning forums, and on and on.These are some of the things you might think about.Supporting this kind of engagement can be complicated, but it can also vastly improve efficiency and enable things that were not possible before – even if control is diminished.-----
Finally, when working in networks, diversity is a must, not an afterthought. Dr. Pastor helped me out by making a case for socioeconomic and racial and ethnic diversity, I’m going to tell a story to add a bullet point onto his…Diversity of skills and experience.Borrowing from LaniGuinier, some of you may remember the Apollo 13 mission, and others may have seen the film. There is a desperate scene in which astronauts in flight are inhaling carbon dioxide because of a leak. “Houston we have a problem.” The NASA administrator then assembles a team of people – designers, engineers, process technicians – differently skilled people with different points of view and representing different ranks in the NASA hierarchy. He gives them the same materials the astronauts have in-flight and asks them to avert catastrophe by solving the problem. And they do. Diversity really matters.
You, me, all of us - have never been more connected.The internet has made our organizations more porous and enabled new ways of organizing. Remember the network discussion we just had?For the first time in human history, we can collaborate at a mass scale entirely outside of traditional organizations and institutions. This is a profound change in a single generation.As a result, we see whole new kinds of entities:
Like Kiva, which provides access to capital for entrepreneurs, but isn’t a bank. (and is now providing access to capital for US entrepreneurs, including Sheldon here who is in the construction & home repair business – with a little intervention, he could be running a green construction and repair business…).
OrUdacity, Khan Academy, EduX, and here, P2PU, which are learning platforms, but not schools.These may not be the first resources that come to mind when you think about how to cultivate jobs and provide access to training, but for many, they are alternatives to structures that may not work very well and incent change within those very same structures and institutions. Again, point to something Dr. Pastor said – no about the program, it’s about the outcomes.
Task Rabbit – platform for??? Jobs? Eship?
Social media can help facilitate these connections. Is anyone here from the Rockford Project? -----
When we engage in a network way – meetings are rarely enough. We need partners and collaborators who are helping advance common goals, not just attending meetings. In this context, if you are convening, this means you are no longer planning meetings, but designing experiences. They can be labs, conversations, games, knowledge sharing events, learning forums, and on and on.These are some of the things you might think about.Supporting this kind of engagement can be complicated, but it can also vastly improve efficiency and enable things that were not possible before – even if control is diminished.-----
When we engage in a network way – meetings are rarely enough. We need partners and collaborators who are helping advance common goals, not just attending meetings. In this context, if you are convening, this means you are no longer planning meetings, but designing experiences. They can be labs, conversations, games, knowledge sharing events, learning forums, and on and on.These are some of the things you might think about.Supporting this kind of engagement can be complicated, but it can also vastly improve efficiency and enable things that were not possible before – even if control is diminished.-----
When we engage in a network way – meetings are rarely enough. We need partners and collaborators who are helping advance common goals, not just attending meetings. In this context, if you are convening, this means you are no longer planning meetings, but designing experiences. They can be labs, conversations, games, knowledge sharing events, learning forums, and on and on.These are some of the things you might think about.Supporting this kind of engagement can be complicated, but it can also vastly improve efficiency and enable things that were not possible before – even if control is diminished.-----
When we engage in a network way – meetings are rarely enough. We need partners and collaborators who are helping advance common goals, not just attending meetings. In this context, if you are convening, this means you are no longer planning meetings, but designing experiences. They can be labs, conversations, games, knowledge sharing events, learning forums, and on and on.These are some of the things you might think about.Supporting this kind of engagement can be complicated, but it can also vastly improve efficiency and enable things that were not possible before – even if control is diminished.-----
Again, in a nod to Dr. Pastor’s point about one size not fitting all – there’s not blueprint for sustainable communities or sustainable jobs, so we need ways to find what works.That’s what experimentation is – the willingness to fail fast, learn, try something else until it works. For many governments, corporations, and large institutions, and for the education, workforce and economic development sectors, this is a cultural shift.This is American Samoa. Tsunami. Needed to explain why sending students to Guam to learn construction.Used video – engagement.
Construction. Communicated the what, why, showed what students were doing. When you experiment, this is the kind of thing you need to think about. Resources: protoyping, co-creation, etc. Run small experiments – Workhands – does it work? Compared to what? What works better?We need experimentation to become part of the DNA of our workplaces, homes, and communities at every level.That’s a workforce challenge write large.The exhaustion of innovation – Salin talked about yesterday – This is the new work.First person came back and started company – subcontract major firm that won the roads contract.
In the development business, we count a lot of things: job placements, people, money, units, credentials, etc. But the real value of say “a placement” is more likely something like – a person finding her calling, getting a job, supporting a family, growing a firm and enabling the well-being of a community. How do we count and share these things? The things that reflect the real value of what we’re trying to do?In a more tangible example of the difference between data points and value….this is AnishKapur’sCloudgate in Chicago.It’s one public art installation.
Ways to measure it.
And here’s an expression of the real value. “The bean” creates community – and helps build a strong positive identity for the City of Chicago. Done well, measuring and sharing the value of what we do invites people to care. That is essential to our success and the success of our ventures.Remember when Dr. Pastor talked about fun – this is the expression you are going for in your community engagements.Catherine Ferguson – USDA? Her version might be something like solving problems is of greater value than running programs.
The idea of cultivating new leaders seems so simple, but it can actually be less about leadership training programs and other formal development opportunities and more like micropractices that are often about giving leadership away.So easy to do, so easy not to do. We found countless examples of leaders finding ways to engage colleagues across generations –Engaging the intern at Board meetings (behaviors)Not filling vaccuums (experiments)Mentorship (formal programs)If you are serious about building the kinds of relationships with firms and communities we have talked about during this session, and helping people in your programs thrive, then leadership is serious business -
Fredrik Arnander argues that the whole point of your leadership is to spread it. Just let that sink in.
That’s Weadership.A new kind of leadership based on these practices:Wide-angle ViewHyper Networked-nessRadical OpennessRelentless ExperimentationUnique ValueAnd the ability to regenerate