August 2011

What do Rosa Parks (who in 1955 refused to obey a bus driver’s order that she give up her seat for a white passenger), community gardens in the mid United States and a UK framework called “Voice” have in common? 

They all demonstrate how practically any opportunity can be taken to strengthen or build community leadership - especially starting ‘where people are at’ and using those skills, interests and resources as the basis for development.

Transformational leadership in communities was the focus of the International Association of Community Development (IACD) 2011 Conference in Portugal, attended by people from Portugal, India, England, the USA, South Africa, Uganda, Indonesia, New Zealand, Australia, Scotland and Canada, among others.

Noticing how community leadership can come from any corner as long as it is intentionally supported was a consistent theme of the conference.

Inspiring Communities board member Mary-Jane Rivers presented an elective workshop on ‘leaderful communities’. We were delighted that it turned out to be one of the most popular of the conference, with the majority of delegates attending. 

Three conference highlights:

Keynote speaker Marshall Ganz focussed on the skills that lie behind providing this ‘intentional support’. Ganz is a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, at Harvard with many years in the field as a civil rights and community organiser. Material in his presentation can be found on the Harvard Business Review website.

Ganz’s presentation was an absolute highlight, and he started it by talking about Rosa Parks: He said “Let’s not for a minute think that Rosa’s action was a spontaneous individual action. In reality she was part of a community organisers training group, deciding to use opportunities to create the environment for change and leverage that change”. 

A great story teller, Ganz wove together a presentation, peppered with practical examples, about the power of community organising and developing social movements noting that they:

• emerge as a result of the efforts of purposeful actors (individuals and organisations) 
• assert new public values, and form new relationships rooted in those values, and 
• mobilise the political, economic, and cultural power to translate these values into action. 
• are collective, strategic, and organised (in contrast to fashions, styles, or fads (viral or otherwise)
• focus not only on winning the game, but also changing the rules - or redefining the game itself.

Ganz talked about his definition of Leadership as “… accepting responsibility to create conditions that enable others to achieve shared purpose in the face of uncertainty” and that leadership practices are about:

• Relationship building that is strategic and structured ( e.g. one to one meetings, house meetings and social networks)
• Stories that support ‘hope over fear’
• Strategy, which he defines as: "how we turn what we have into what we need to get what we want."  
  (Strategic capacity, for Ganz, consists of three elements: motivation, access to relevant knowledge, and deliberations that lead to new learning.)
• Action - the work of mobilising and deploying resources to achieve outcomes.

Ganz uses three questions to guide whether or not leadership training and coaching is supporting community leadership:

• Are we achieving the outcomes?
• Are we creating greater capacity?
• Are we creating more leadership?

Cornelia and Jan Flora from Iowa State University illustrated the burgeoning community garden movement, which is an international phenomenon, and the opportunity it provides for all to participate and bring skills, knowledge and diversity together that reflected their roots, culture and ethnicity. 

It was one of the rare opportunities where refugees, migrant workers and multi-generational US citizens were ‘equal’.  Community gardens were transformed from camellia beds to chilli plots. Vegetables never seen before in Iowa were planted, harvested and cooked. The advice between gardeners was a two-way stream never seen before – and further community development with this new group of cross-culture and ethnicity leaders is being facilitated by the Floras. See the Iowa State University website for more on this.

And from the UK a practical workshop by the Changes consultancy about a framework called ‘Voice’. Voice helps community groups and networks chart, assess and improve the influence (and leadership) that they have on agencies and partnerships. The two axes enable a group to plot existing capacity to influence against the amount of influence the group has, based on the views of members of the group. 

It can be used to: 

• assess and monitor community influence, 
• prompt discussion and debate within groups, and 
• help plan how to become more influential.

Its beauty is the discipline it has in bringing together multiple perspectives, creating some shared order and strategy.  For more visit the Changesuk.net website.