Resiliency+ Roundup August II

  August 25, 2020

As August comes to a close, our sector continues to face unprecedented challenges in fulfilling our role as advocates for democracy and citizen rights.  The PartnersGlobal Resiliency+ Framework offers our civil society partners around the world a lens to focus on building their resiliency to maintain this vital role around 7 key factors.

The first of its kind, the R+ Framework weaves together the many strands of resiliency to help civil society actors proactively navigate the rapid changes in our environments.

Check out some of the wonderful resources that have been inspiring us recently, organized by each of the R+ factors:

Adaptive Capacity: Preparing for the Unknown

Check out this article from the Center for Creative Leadership on ten future leadership skills needed in an uncertain world. Also from the CCL, find this piece by Cathleen Clerking on four scientifically-backed tips on harnessing the power of positive self-talk.

Check out HR Digest’s new article “Three Ways to Redefine Your Organization for a New Era” for insights on how organization’s can leverage this moment of crisis to redefine who they are and transform their culture for the long-term.

Business Acumen: Entrepreneurial Mindset

In “How Adopting An Explorers Mindset Can Help You to Lead Innovation, Tendayi Viki  argues the importance of exploration as a tool for innovation and of leaders using different mindsets to harness innovation. “What is key for leaders is to understand that they cannot manage their innovation portfolio in the same way that they manage their current business. We expect innovation teams to have a different mindset that is focused on searching, dealing with ambiguity, testing ideas, failing, and iterating. We have to set similar expectations for leaders. They also need to lead with a different mindset.”

Author and YouTuber Simon Sinek met with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky to discuss Airbnb’s Pivot after losing 80% of its sales in eight weeks. Sinek argues that in order for our businesses to pivot successfully, our mindset have to shift as well. View the recording here.

Situational Awareness: Systems Thinking

Building Emergent Organizations by Rob Ricigliano, explores what it takes for organizations to be resilient in the face of long-term uncertainty. Rob posits that organizations wanting to shift systems to healthier states first need to adapt to and engage with new realities as they emerge in that system.

Connectedness: Greater Than the Sum of its Parts

Wirearchy is an emergent organizing principle that informs the way that purposeful human activities and the structures in which they are contained is evolving from top-down direction and supervision. Wirearchy explores the relationship between power and effectiveness and people working together through connection and collaboration.

CoCreative’s Collaborative Innovation Methodology offers free resources to help people and organizations solve complex problems together. The methodology includes a collaborative innovation roadmap, infographics on innovation networks, six key patterns to help harness and shape collaboration work better, and more.

Legitimacy: Radical Transparency and Constituent Engagement

Responsible technology is key to legitimacy and transparency for civil society organizations. Ethical Explorer’s Responsible Tech initiative provides tools to help navigate the future impact of today’s technology.

In “Creating Collaborative Solutions With Communities Using ‘Gifts Explosion’ and ‘See It My Way’, Aakanksha Sinha offers two techniques for using a “person-centered” model to craft truly collaborative solutions. Sinha posits that the traditional top-down way in which social service agencies pursue their work often places concentrated power in the hands of service providers versus the communities their programs and services are designed for.

Engaging the Narrative: Intentional Communications

Social Change Initiative’s resource page on Narrative Change, offers lessons and tools for activists to bring about progressive narrative change.

Researcher and artevist Felipe Viveros, and renegade scientist, systems designer and social entrepreneur Phoebe Tickell, co-led a YouTube session on Sensemaking In the Fog of Narrative Warfare hosted by Reunion. In the session, Viveros and Tickell explore topics such as narrative change, digital storytelling, reframing, memetics and more.

In “The Facts Just Aren’t Getting Through”, Anne Applebaum offers 5 points of reflection for addressing and overcoming deep informational divides that separate one part of the electorate from the rest. Applebaum posits that unconventional messengers, appeals to patriotism, and jokes can appeal to and reach voters who don’t want to listen or be engaged.

Alice Highman’s article “Michelle Obama Just Gave Us a Roadmap for Building Solidarity”, unpacks the former First Lady’s profound guidance on empathy as a tool and strategy for “building up narratives that promote solidarity with human rights and social justice movements.”

Resilience Ethos: Embracing Uncertainty

Check out this article by Jessica Horn on Decolonising emotional well-being and mental health in development: African feminist innovations, for a practical decolonial approach to emotional well-being and mental health in development and humanitarian response. Horn argues for a decolonial feminist approach that “takes seriously the healing knowledges produced by communities of African women affected by collective distress and pays attention to the structural roots of trauma in African women’s lives.”

In We are Restless’ “Informal Networks Key to youth-led Covid-19 response in China”, Ting Zhang says “the key to youth groups spontaneity and impactfulness comes down to three crucial interconnected factors: time, social media, and transparency.” Zhang posits that these three factors were instrumental to the successful utilization of social networks to respond to the pandemic.

The Long Time Tools: Tools to cultivate long-termism in institutions, is a guide created by and for policymakers to integrate long-termism into policymaking work. The article argues for the next generation of policymaking to consider future generations in their decision-making.