Diversity: Considering the Roots of Civil Rights

As we prepare for our first two deep dives in January in Portland, I am continuing to delve into Civil Rights in my own way. This morning a Facebook friend passed me a video set to Nina Simone's 1964 song, Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood.


The series of photos included in the video reminded me of the Little Rock Nine. I live in Northern Arkansas. Just 80 miles from here, in 1957, nine African American children were enrolled in Little Rock Central High School. The students had initially been blocked by the Governor, but this was over-ridden by President Eisenhower.


On the first day of school, the Governer called the Arkansas State Guard to form a blockade to prevent the students from entering and to support the segregationist protestors. Two weeks later the children entered the school for the first time, under the watchful eye of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army. In fact, Eisenhower actually federalized the Arkansas State Guard in order to take them out of the Governor's command.

The nine children were then subject to a year of physical and verbal abuse. They were spat upon, beaten up, and one even had acid thrown into her eyes.

I sit here now deeply ashamed. Not ashamed to be white, and not ashamed to be an Arkie. In this moment I feel deeply ashamed of being a human. I do not understand what madness drives any human to these ends. By what madness has it ever been okay to terrorize children?

Kubler-Ross's 5 Stages of Grief Applied to Climate Change

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief which have recently been applied to many other types of change. The five stages are:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

It has long been my position that what is commonly referred to as resistance to change can be better understood as one of the first four stages of grief. In my own personal history I have experienced all five stages in relation to global climate change. And while I'll describe that in order, I want to emphasize that my progression through the stages has been far from linear. Before reaching acceptance I swirled and spiraled around and through the first four phases a number of times.

Denial - I became aware of 'global warming' as it was called, in 1991 when I was in high school. I wrote a term paper on rainforest deforestation my junior year and a term paper on global warming my senior year. I'd have to say that for me 'denial' was the first 16 years of my life when I loved being outdoors but had absolutely no sense of environmental ethics.

Anger - Throughout the 1990s I was very angry about the history of Western civilization, industry, and capitalism. In general I felt like the only way justice could be served was if ALL humans (including me) were anihilated and the Earth was left to heal herself.

Bargaining - In 2000 I joined the US Forest Service. I was a GS-4 Visitor Information Specialist. I spent my days talking with visitors about the natural environment and picking up cigarette butts in Sedona, AZ. During this phase I spent much of my time, both personally and professionally seeking ways to balance nature and humanity so that our species could perhaps learn from our mistakes and co-evolve with the Earth.

Depression - I've had seasons of depression throughout the previous stages. There have been times when I feel like we're completely doomed. There have been times when I have felt like some groups will survive but most others will experience cataclysmic demise and death. At I've sought to understand multiple perspectives I've encountered numerous religious, cultural, and philosophical perspectives which predict or suggest a huge die-off of humans. Each time this possibility presents itself to me I attempt to really feel the full depth of my dispair, or sometimes our collective dispair... and somehow, each time I dive deeply into the possibility of loosing everything, I end up experiencing some form of acceptance.

Acceptance - From within depression I have noticed the equisite beauty of the fragility of all of Earth, including humans. My sorrow has been a type of gateway, as if the tears have washed away the selfishness of my personal perspective and left me with the ability to appreciate all of creation. From this place of appreciation I noticed a sense of connectedness with all of creation. I should clarify that the sense of connectedness was not new, but noticing this unity of consciousness while standing on the bridge between depression and acceptance of global climate change provides an entirely different vista. In fact, acceptance has, for me, been a gateway to a sixth stage: hope.

Hope - I stand firmly rooted in acceptance of mankinds past foibles and follies. I can appreciate that every generation has always done the best they could with what they had. I have come to forgive the fires of industry as an amplification of a parent's deep drive to provide well for the family. In acceptance of our present global situation I discovered a number of people who were highly motivated to generate change. I have a deep sense of gratitude and hope for all of Earth and her children. I understand that we're connected and that though there may be a great deal of uncertainty and even catastrophe, I trust that we are learning and we will continue to evolve together.

In my next post I intend to broaden the application of these stages of change and apply them to the myriad of perspectives which I observe when considering the complexity of climate change. To do this I will share portions of a causal loop analysis which I've been developing along with several others.

Can Economic Needs Drive the Greening of Americans?

Recently I had the opportunity to speak to some individuals affiliated with the timber industry, representing both local government and private interests. Something very interesting occurred to me in response to the conversations.

Regardless of whether people believe that the climate is changing, and regardless of whether they feel that climate change is driven by humans, there are people and companies joining the green movement because of economic interests. This probably doesn't come as a huge suprise to everyone. I've long heard self proclaimed greenies complain when giant careless corporations go green just to maximize profits.

What I am writing about today is something else entirely. I'm talking about hard working, honest Americans who are in industries which are collapsing under current conditions. I'm talking about folks who perhaps even belong to political parties, clubs, and churches which take a strong anti-climate change, or anti-anthropogenic climate change stance; who are reconsidering green technologies so that they don't loose their homes, jobs, and the land which has been in their family for generations.



The green curve you see above is a change curve that is so popular that I could not determine who originated it. It basically shows a bell curve distribution of people in response to any particular change. Under it is an amplifying loop, or growth engine entitled "Reinforced Survival of Individuals and Families. It can be read like this: employment leads to water, food, and shelter, which leads to individual and family survival, which (according to Maslow) affords one the capacity for higher learning, in this case the capacity to learn a trade. Over time this leads to being employable and over time that leads to having employment, which provides food and shelther.

In my most recent post, Honoring Multiple Perspectives, I spoke about how there are many mixed opinions around the possibility of global climate change. Today I suggest to you that the greening of America does not depend upon agreement around the science of climate change. Regardless of our science, politics, or theology, we all share the same fundamental human needs for food and shelter. In the end, only that which makes economic sense to real people will be implemented.

Honoring Multiple Perspectives

It seems to me that there are a number of wicked problems facing the world today. There are challenges in the area of environment, economy, and society that are so exceedingly complex that no one person, or no one perspective, could possibly provide a useful solution.

Take, for example, the possibility of land managers collaborating on how to respond to climate change accross a particular landscape. Climate change is definitely a complex and controversial issue. There are myriad perspectives including

• The climate is not changing in any significant way, it has always been variable
• The climate is changing and it is part of a larger natural cycle
• The climate is changing and it is caused or exagerated by human activities
• The climate is getting warmer
• The climate is getting colder

How much agreement is necessary in order for people to collaborate on designing livable solutions to today's challenges?

In any particular region, land is managed by a number of different stakeholders including tribes, federal, state, and local government agencies, corporations, non-profit organizations, families, and individuals. Each of these groups has its own unique set of priorities and objectives for how and why the land should be managed. Even if all the land owners in a region agreed that it was strategically important and mutually beneficial to collaborate on a project, and even if they agreed upon what the challenges were, and even if they agreed upon what the solutions were, it would still be complex to balance the multiple missions, multiple objectives, and multiple organizational policies, in order to collaborate effectively.

But when collaboration is really the only solution to a problem, we can't simply ignore it due to the complexity and the challenges.

Lately I've been attempting to map the complexity of the multiple perspectives on climate change. The effort has been deeply transformative for me, and I wonder if sharing some of my own learning would be of service to anyone else. I'm hoping to have the time to blog a little more frequently than I have of late. My intention is to try and find ways to share something large and complex in small and easily digestible chunks. Even if it doesn't prove to be of value to anyone else, it will certainly be a useful excercise to me.

Feedback and Resistance

I'm playing in several systems right now. In some cases the systems are 100 years old and I'm analyzing and intervening in service to a larger cause, such as various US Forest Service units at the national, regional, and Forest levels. In other cases I'm co-creating entirely new systems such as a cooperative elementary school and a new Forest Service Enterprise Unit called Organizational Development Experts (ODE).

In doing so the concepts of feedback and resistance come up frequently. First let me clarify that I'm using the term feedback from the Systems Dynamics perspective: feedback is an iterative process which generates the form of the system.

I left our last school meeting feeling angry and frustrated. I wanted to just let go of the entire effort. It seemed to me that the other people in the group were unable or unwilling to accept my donation of money for start-up costs such as filing the 501-3c (non-profit) paperwork. In my anger I realized it was futile to create a school based on fund raising and donations if the people who comprise the school are not able to accept or even ask for gifts of money. I took it as feedback that the group was just not ready to realize its dream.

Due to time and circumstances, I didn't get the chance to communicate any of this to anyone else in the group. And that's surely a blessing because as it percolated into my flesh I gained several more understandings. First, as the anger wore off I felt devastated and sad. I work hard to make positive changes in the world. In exchange for working hard I receive a salary which more than covers our basic needs. The earnings, then, afford me the opportunity to create even more good in the world by engaging in various activities such as switching to renewable resources and supporting the local economy and community. I felt like it was all a waste and that the effort was worthless if I couldn't share my abundance in our efforts to provide children and families with an excellent educational opportunity. For several days I grieved over this.

The grief turned to bargaining and I began to grope for ways of realizing this dream. As the facilitator of the strategic planning process, I feel like its my role to help the group take the steps needed to implement the vision and mission which we created over potlucks and amidst the din of laughing children. I thought of things I could say or do in order to nudge or even push people beyond their growth edges.

Finally, I've found acceptance, and here is what that looks like today. I've accepted that the group is not ready to realize the dream we created over the past two years. More importantly I've realized that they've been trying to tell me this for the past six months and I couldn't hear it because I was in denial. The truth is that the rest of the group is quite comfortable reaching for a smaller version of the dream, taking baby steps toward the larger dream. The truth is that we never really did lock in on one solid vision. My family came to the group with different needs and experiences than the other three families. Our central value for our kids education is that they need socialization, and so we were originally leaning toward public school. The other three families had always leaned toward home schooling for reasons of their own.

My husband and I have decided that this fall our son will start kindegarten at public school. Now that we've taken our kids out of the equation I can re-align myself with the needs of this group. I'm still dedicated to helping them realize their dream. I'm still dedicated to helping each and every person who is part of the cooperative achieve their best and highest purpose. And now more than ever I'm available to be present to the fact that being a servant to these people and their dreams means allowing it to emerge and unfold at its own pace.

It turns out that this time I was the resistance, and so I surrender in service to the greatest good.

Government: Transparent, Collaborative, Participative

On Friday, along with millions of other federal employees, I received a memo from Obama stating that government shall be transparent, collaborative, and participative. This is very exciting news and promises to maximize social media, such as blogging. Of course, everyone has heard by now that Obama is also the first blogging president.

Conceptually, I really support and understand the idea of things becoming more transparent, collaborative, and participative. I'll admit I'm not an expert at most social media platforms, but I consider myself an early adopter. I'm taking time to become more familiar because this seems to be the way of things. But, as open and adaptive as I like to think I am, I'm still experiencing resistance and confusion around how to fully realize the next era of effective communications.

I'm experiencing uncertainty around a number of big questions. Let's start with transparency. Who exactly should be transparent and how transparent should one be? I love the idea of having close to real time data in line-by-line transactions on the web where any American can go and see how the dollars are being spent. And I love the idea of reading blogs written by executive leaders. In both cases, people don't have to actually read either of these -- simply knowing its available increases the perception of being trustworthy. Let's take the case of Forest Service leaders blogging. I've been advocating this for a couple of years now. I want to hear weekly updates about what the Chief of the Forest Service has been doing, who she met with, what conferences she attended, etc. I want to hear her reflect upon the trends and dynamics she witnessed. I want to feel like I'm sitting in her office when the light bulb clicks on and she realizes that there is a connection between what she saw on Monday and what she felt on Wednesday.

But that's not how blogging is going in the agency. So far it's been very sporadic. The few blogging executives seem to post once every few months and when they write it seems white-washed and safe... like all the other internal publications. It's easy for me to understand why: it's scary to be that open! The reason why transparency builds trust so quickly is that transparency requires vulnerability!

I'm no executive, and there aren't 35,000 employees being reminded that there's a blog they could check out. Yet I'm still experiencing fear and resistance around this new media. Intuitively I know that we humans are striving to actualize new forms of networked intelligence and collective consciousness. I know that my own knowledge is only as valuable to the collective as it is accessible to the collective. And yet I am having a miniature identity crisis in the process of making myself accessible to the collective!

All in one week I've been asked if I had a FaceBook profile... by a professional contact, a spiritual friend, and my sister-in-law. I don't have a FaceBook profile because I can't figure out how to relate to each of these three kinds of contacts as myself. My sister-in-law could care less about the professional jargon-laiden side of my life. And my colleagues could be uncomfortable if exposed to something about my spiritual beliefs. What's really ironic is that I want to just be one person! I want to feel safe being who I am... without that jeopardizing my effectiveness.

But in order to be an active participant in this vibrant and dynamic web of connection, community, and co-creation, I absolutely must put myself out there. And if I want to feel whole and honor my whole self, should I put it all out there? I must not be the only person who is trying to balance all of this.

I believe that it is a travesty of human experience that we are discouraged from being our entire selves in the work place. It is yet another form of fragmentation which needs to be healed in order for us to achieve our highest potentials as individuals and groups. I advocate for a balance in the 5 dimensions of well-being: mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, and social. Emotional wellbeing, for example, finally entered the workplace in a more meaningful way when Daniel Goleman's work on emotional intelligence became popular in the mid 1990s. Physical wellbeing has been supported by employers for considerably longer because of the clear linkages between health and productivity. Mental wellbeing is an unspoken requisite for becoming and remaining employed. Social wellbeing is left to the individuals and differs greatly depending on personality types and the culture of the organization. Spiritual wellbeing is generally not touched by a 10 foot pole within organizations. There are good reasons for (and plenty of scar tissue around) the separation of church and state.

I don't really have a good way to conclude this post... other than owning the fact that I'm standing on the edge of a precipice and I won't be able to lead others into a new era of effective communication until I'm willing to leap into the uncertainty myself.

Change: Are you Weary or Savvy?

These days the only constant is change. For some of us that leads to stress and uncertainty. For others change is an opportunity and a time to be creative. Let’s think about that for a moment. In an organization, first, a change is announced. Then there’s planning and implementation. Then, as the change is assessed we learn that there are more things to change, so the cycle continues, like a ball rolling down a hill (see the blue loop). For those of us who are change weary, we feel stressed when more change is announced and our morale and productivity suffers. And since change keeps happening, we just feel worse and worse (red loop).

But what about those people who see change as an opportunity? When change is announced they think creatively and trust that they will find a positive outcome. This helps them avoid the downward spiral of stress. While they are scanning the horizon for their next steps, their creative thinking helps them turn a change into an opportunity.
Are you change weary or change savvy? Which group of people is probably having more fun at work? Which group of people do you imagine feels healthier? Believe it or not but you have a choice. You can choose to have a negative experience of change, or you can choose to have a positive experience of change. Stay tuned to this blog to learn how to change your experiences and reactions to change and other stressful situations.