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Organizing can be learned as a leadership practice based on accepting responsibility for enabling others to

achieve purpose under conditions of uncertainty: identifying, recruiting and developing leadership, building a

constituency around that leadership, and transforming the resources of that constituency into the power they

need to achieve their purposes. !

There are five basic organizing leadership practices.

1. How to translate values into the motivation for action by learning to tell a story of why they were called

2. How to build intentional relationships as the foundation of purposeful collective action.

Leadership in organizing is rooted in three questions articulated by the first century Jerusalem sage, Rabbi Hillel:

“If I am not for myself, who am I?

When I am only for myself, what am I?

And if not now, when?

These three questions focus on the interdependence of self, other, and action: what am I called to do, what are

can my “head” devise new ways to use my resources to achieve my goals? How can my “heart” equip me with

the courage, hopefulness, and forbearance to act?

Leadership requires “accepting responsibility for enabling others to achieve purpose under conditions of

uncertainty”.

Conditions of uncertainty require the “adaptive” dimension of leadership: not so much performing

known tasks well, but, rather learning what tasks are needed and performing them well. It is leadership from the

perspective of a “learner” – one who has learned to ask the right questions – rather than that of a “knower” – on

who thinks he or she knows all the answers. This kind of leadership is a form of practice - not a position or a person

– and it can be exercised from any location within or without a structure of authority.

We also take a particular approach to structuring leadership, a structure that enables us to develop the leadership

goes to.

How does it feel to be the dot in the middle of all those arrows? How does it feel to be one of the arrows that

can’t even get through? And what happens if the “dot” in the middle should disappear? Sometimes we think we

don’t need leadership at all because “we’re all leaders”, but that looks like this:

Who’s responsible for coordinating everyone? And who’s responsible for focusing on the good of the whole, not

Another way to practice leadership is like this “snowflake”: leadership practices by developing other leaders who,

goals through recruitment, training, and development of leadership. Organizing is about equipping people

The first question an organizer asks is not “what is my issue” but “who are my people” – who is my constituency.

A constituency is a group of people who learn to “stand together” to decide, assert, and act upon their own

goals. Organizing is not only about solving problems. It is about enabling the people with the problem to mobilize

their own resources to solve it . . . and keep it solved.

achieve a common purpose (power with). But if I need your resources more than you need my resources, you may

be able to get what you need at my expense (power over). So power is not a thing, quality, or trait – it is the

and getting the answers to—four questions:

1. What are the interests of your constituency?

2. Who holds the resources needed to address these interests?

3. What are the interests of the individuals or organizations who hold these resources?

4. What resources does your constituency hold which the other individuals or organizations need to

Our power comes from people. Because powerlessness is the source of so many of the problems people face,

powerful people.

So organizing is not only a commitment to identify more leaders, but also a commitment to engage those leaders

first person who wants to make it happen to commit. Without this commitment, there are no resources with which

to begin. Commitment is as observable as action. The work of organizers begins with a decision to accept respon-

having a meaningful conversation, or giving a great speech. It is about specifying a clearly visible goal, explaining

why achieving that goal can make a real difference in meeting the challenge that your constituency has to face,

and making it happen.

1. Creating Shared Story:

Organizing is motivated by shared values expressed through public narrative. By learning the craft of public

narrative we can access our shared values for the emotional resources we need to respond to challenges with

courage rather than reacting to them with fear. By learning to tell stories of sources of our own values, a “story of

engage others far more effectively.

2. Creating Shared Relational Commitment:

Organizing is based on relationships and creating mutual commitments to work together. It is the process of

association—not simply aggregation—that makes a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Through association

we can learn to recast our individual interests as common interests, identify values we share, and envision

teams, and they are rooted in commitments people make to each other, not simply commitment to an idea, task,

3. Creating Shared Structure

A team leadership structure can enable organizing that grows stronger through collaborative and cascading

creative individual leaders. Structured leadership teams encourage stability, motivation, creativity, and

accountability—and use volunteer time, skills, and effort effectively. They create a structure within which energized

volunteers can accomplish challenging work. Real teams can achieve the goals they set for themselves, grow more

effective as a team over time, and enable the growth, development and learning of their individual members.

turn those values into action; e.g., desegregate buses in Montgomery, Alabama; getting to 100% clean electricity;

etc. Trans-local campaigns locate responsibility for strategy at the top (or at the center), but are able to “chunk

responsibility for figuring out how to achieve those objectives. Responsibility for strategizing local objectives

empowers, motivates and invests local teams.

5. Creating Shared Measurable Action

Organizing outcomes must be clear, measurable, and specific if progress is to be evaluated, accountability

program. Social media may help enable reporting, feedback, coordination. Transparency must exist as to how

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Organizing is a practice—a way of doing things. It’s like learning to ride a bike. No matter how many books you

read about bike riding, they are of little use when it comes to getting on the bike.

And when you get on the first thing that will happen is that you will fall. And that’s where the “heart” comes in.

INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC NARRATIVE & STORY OF SELF

When I am only for myself, what am I?

You will learn this practice the way we learn any practice: the same way we learn to ride a bike. Whatever we read,

watch, or are told about bike riding, sooner or later we have to get on. And the first thing that usually happens is

that you fall off. Then, and this is the key moment, you either give up or find the courage to get back up on the

bike, knowing you will continue to fall, until, eventually you learn to keep your balance. In this workshop you’ll

have the support of your written materials, peers and coaches.

You will also learn to coach others in telling their stories. We are all “fish” so to speak in the “water” of our own

to explain why, and make connections we may have forgotten about so we can tell our stories in ways others can

The language of emotion is the language of movement, sharing the same root word. Mindful action is inhibited

by inertia and apathy, on the one hand, and fear, isolation and self-doubt on the other. It can be facilitated by

urgency and anger, on one hand, and hope, solidarity, and YCMAD (you can make a difference) on the other.

Stories can mobilize emotions enabling mindful action to overcome emotions that inhibit it.

The Three Key Elements of Public Narrative Structure: Challenge – Choice – Outcome

A plot begins with an unexpected challenge that confronts a character

with an urgent need to pay attention, to make a choice, a choice for

which s/he is unprepared. The choice yields an outcome—and the

empathetically

The story of the character and their effort to make choices

encourages listeners to think about their own values, and

challenges, and inspires them with new ways of thinking about

how to make choices in their own lives.

hope (or not)? Did your parents or grandparents’ life stories teach you in any way how to act in that moment?

How did it feel?

us? How do you want us to feel?

1. OUTPUT (WORLD): The success of your team in taking the action required to achieve its valued goals –

2. CAPACITY (TEAM): Over time your team is learning how to work more effectively as a team, and

3. LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT (INDIVIDUAL): Individuals who participate on your team learn and grow

Your team is interdependent. As on an athletic team, a string quartet, or an airplane cabin crew, the contribution

that each person makes is critical to the success of the whole. Team members have a vital interest in each other’s

You have a shared – and engaging –purpose. You are clear on what you have created your team to do (purpose),

who you will be doing it with (constituency), and what kinds of activities your team will participate in. The work

everyone is bringing the most possible to the table.

Your team has explicit ground rules. Your team sets clear expectations for how to govern itself in your work

together. How will you manage meetings, regular communication, decisions, and commitments? And, most

we meet? How will we share and store documents? Communicate with others outside the team? etc. Others

address expectations for member interaction with each other. Initial norms guide your team in its early stages as

actors. The second step is to come up with the goal of your organizing effort: what exactly is the problem is you

The real action in strategy is, as Alinsky put it, in the reaction – by other actors, the opposition, and the challenges

and opportunities that emerge along the way. What makes it “strategy” and not “reaction” is the mindfulness we

can bring to bear on our choices relative to what we want to achieve, like a potter interacting with the clay on the

wheel, as Mintzberg describes it.

Although our goal may remain constant, strategizing requires ongoing adaptation of current action to new

change. Some people oppose us so we have to respond. Launching a campaign only begins the work of

event, but an ongoing process continuing throughout the life of a project. We plan, we act, we evaluate the results

Strategy unfolds within a specific context, the particularities of which really matter. One of the most challenging

aspects of strategizing is that it requires both a mastery of the details of the “arena” in which it is enacted and the

ability to go up to the top of the mountain and get a view of the whole. The power of imaginative strategizing can

1. Who are my PEOPLE?

2. What CHANGE do they seek? (Goal)