Difference between revisions of "Sustainable Business Learning Community Conversations, Jan 2015 - Feb 2015"

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Sustainable Business, Feb 5, 2015 Topic: Jess Daniels on Transitioning Leadership

Comments from last week’s conversation about “bringing things to an end”: • Things really don’t end. Anything that ends leaves something behind; so to say something has ended doesn’t necessarily mean there’s nothing left. In nature, all death leads to new life – in some way or another. • How do we resolve “how much is enough”? Sometimes – and this seems to be true when we’re creating things – it’s difficult to say when something is finished. At the start of a project, we have an idea of what the perfect version of the product ought to be. Some of us tend to cling to this idea. At some point, the work is probably “good enough”; however, those who cling to the perfect version of the product may lose sight of good enough: They don’t know when to quit. • There are unique aspects of transitioning leadership: When does one’s role as a leader come to an end? Does it really end, or is there “something left behind”? • What sorts of messages are we giving to those who are following us – the folks who are younger and less experienced? Inside every leader is a follower and inside every follower is a leader. We need to recognize this as we work with others, especially those less experienced. The way in which we lead must take into account that we are also followers. • There is a new way of living and working emergent in Detroit. The crucible of post-industrialism is all around us. As those who aspire to be sustainable business leaders, we need to pay attention to the unique ways in which our community – and the leaders within it – are shaping the future of Detroit. • The industrial age taught us “big is better”; post industrialism is teaching us “big is risky”. Nature teaches us the same thing: monocultures are susceptible to all sorts of problems (e.g., disease, bugs infestations etc.). Diversity is far more “resilient”; the same is true in business. Diverse, local economies are far more healthy, and therefore resilient, than a “too big to fail” global economy. • The African term Ubuntu, which is often used in a philosophical sense to convey “…the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity” is appropriate to a discussion about leadership. An African Xhosa proverb "I am what I am because of who we all are” relates this notion as well. If we are to be effective leaders, and if the businesses we lead are to be successful in providing for “the common good”, we must recognize the dignity of every person. We need to realize, without followers – those who are also leaders – we’ll not have much of a business.

This week’s conversation, Jess Daniels' Story on Transitioning Leadership:

Jess Daniels, the founder and current leader of FoodLab, related her experience of leadership transition. • FloodLab was founded “unintentionally” following a number of conversations with food entrepreneurs about food. • FoodLab is now a 501 c 3 with a $300K budget and four staff members; it’s the result of Jess’s following her instincts and her heart. The folks who are part of FoodLab know that we are all part of a bigger system; they recognize the importance of understanding things in terms of systems. • Jess is comfortable with the leadership transition that’s now taking place at FoodLab. There’s much to be done – to be sure – but there’s a sense of peace in seeing FoodLab as a “Step Along the Way”. Jess sees her experience with FoodLab has being something that resonates with Archbishop Oscar Romero’s prayer, “A Step Along the Way”, which ends with the line, “We are prophets of a future not our own.” We cannot do everything, and as business leaders, it’s very important to keep this in mind. • When FoodLab was just getting started, Jess was going full force 100% of the time; this went-on for three years and throughout it all, the constant pace wasn’t tiring: it was an invigorating experience. Then, suddenly in July of 2013, burnout set-in and she actually dreaded going to the launch of Kitchen Connect, which was a milestone event for the organization. • Jess is a person with very “porous boundaries”, and taking on the emotional energy of those around her is something that comes naturally. She wound-up putting her PhD work on hold and pouring what she had into FoodLab. Ultimately, this singular focus was no longer something that was invigorating; it stopped being an energizing experience. • There were a number of conversations with the folks in her circle who are passionate about FoodLab: Who might step-up to help lead FoodLab? Some stepped forward, but Jess remained the one who was the most invested in the organization; she was the “glue” that held it together. • In January of 2014, however, Jess drafted a transition plan, which included a “co-director” model. The plan is really a two-page narrative that highlights how FoodLab is and could be managed. The plan was eventually introduced to key partners. • There have been some changes along the way. One very significant change is that the person who was to have become the co-director has admitted she’s not ready to take-on being the sole director. • The current leadership model could be described as a “staff collective”, wherein the staff lead by a consensus building model. FoodLab has always been a networked organization, so this sort of arrangement seems to fit naturally. • Some of the staff members don’t understand the administrative elements of the organization, which means they have some room for development and growth in their understanding. • Not being able to identify a titular head of the organization presents some problems for FoodLab – at least in terms of how others view FoodLab’s governance. Western society tends to have expectations about how an organization is to be led: there must be a single person who carries the title of leader. These notions are being challenged in this day. For example, titles are something the Green Garage eschews. Hierarchal leadership models may become a thing of the past. There are emergent governance models, such as employee stock ownership plans, that are challenging traditional expectations and are moving toward a much more democratic form of business leadership. • Now that the staff is becoming acclimated to this new leadership model, Jess is seeing them become more comfortable with decision making. Jess is less of a backstop for decisions than she has been in the past. • Others have experienced a questioning of their own: Can I do what I am setting-out to do? Can I put-in the effort it’s going to take? The masculine approach tends to be one of “forcing” things to happen, versus the more feminine approach, wherein one is to be cognizant of where things are flowing and nurture the organization along where these paths seem to be leading. Quite often, we have the impression it’s good because it’s hard, which can be very problematic. • The idea is not to cling to the “vehicle” on which our business rests, so much as it is to hold on to the “thread of truth” our business is pursuing. As business leaders, we must follow a thread of truth, rather than trying to force our vision onto reality. As we set-off to create sustainable businesses, we need to be aware of the truth that frames whatever it is we’re doing. As we learn more and gain experience, the clarity with which we see our business ought to improve. As it does, we may need to abandon certain elements we thought would work, in favor of things that are better suited to staying the course. If we cling too tightly to any material thing, we then run the risk of losing the thread of truth and going down the wrong path. • It’s a myth to believe people who lead have vision. The best leaders are pursuing a truth: how they get there will change as things progress. It’s not vision, as much as it is knowing some truth. Understanding this, and appreciating what others can do to help the leader pursue the thread of truth – the interconnectedness of life – is foundational to truly effective leadership. Making muffins can help one understand this concept. • Jess knows everyone has the capacity for greatness; it’s in doing whatever she can to remove the junk that stands in the way of people achieving greatness that really drives her. • When moving a business forward, the best thing a leader can do is get there without damaging people along the way. • Right now, Jess is acting primarily as a coach; she’s not jumping in to “save the day” if it looks like a deadline is going to be missed. Ensuring things get done is being taken on by the leadership team, not Jess. • Jess’s goal is to get out by the end of May and it’s the “leadership systems” that are allowing her to do so. Jess described the management processes and systems she’s helped to develop and implement at FoodLab. These leadership systems – the regular ways in which plans are updated, time is tracked and projects are managed – is Jess’s legacy of leadership. So, as Jess’s role as the leader of FoodLab comes to an end in May, her leadership carries-on in the systems and processes she helped to implement. • The systems and process we use create a certain rhythm peculiar to the business; this is not unlike the rhythms we see in nature, such as the change in seasons or when day turns to night. The numbers we use to measure key processes create a language team members can understand and trust. Within these rhythms and through the languages we speak, our businesses come alive and can be literally “felt” by our team members. These things – regular meetings, updates, and metrics – seem to some to be restrictive or too structured. Yet these seemingly restrictive things beget a deeper understanding of the business, and therein lies the confidence to be free: free to take time off to do other things. Of course, regular updates and metrics are “under the water”; they’re not sexy or things customers see, but they’re vital to the meeting the purpose of the business – to follow its thread of truth. • Consensus leadership models are an integral aspect of the Quaker faith tradition. There are all sorts of dynamics associated with achieving success with this model. In fact, collective leadership may not mean consensus. One of the questions that needs to be asked of a leader who’s not quite on board with a decision is this: Are you heading north? If the person is still heading north, than all will be well. On the other hand, if that person, upon an examination of consciousness, finds he or she no longer desires to “head north”, then it may be time to get off the bus. • It must be recognized that conflict is OK; without it, monoculture results, and there’s very little resilience in monoculture. This is analogous to an autocratic organization made-up of sycophants: the moment the leader’s vision is no longer congruent with reality, the whole place comes apart. • When it comes to making decisions, the focus must be on the process by which decisions are made, and not on the particular decision. No one person, or group of persons, is correct all the time. So, when an incorrect decision is made, or if things are not working-out, it’s more important to focus on how the decision was made. If the process by which the decision was made was in some way flawed, whatever breakdown in the decision making process needs to be fixed and the poor decision needs to be undone. Being concerned with how things are done – and working to improve these things – is the key to successful leadership and the way in which leaders are brought-up. • Systems leadership is the key term to remember. What sorts of systems make-up the business? Are they functioning well and do they nurture and enable leadership? These are the things that provide for on-going and effective leadership – regardless of who’s doing the leading.

Sustainable Business, Jan 29, 2015 Topic: Transitioning Leadership Responsibilities

Comments from last week’s conversation on Setting Limits; How Much is Enough?:

• What message should we give to young people today: do the traditional grind, or work only at a level that takes into account their work, health, and spirit, with a clear understanding of how much is enough for them as an individual.
• Work with more balance in your life
• Detroit can be a laboratory for a new urban lifestyle giving people the freedom to choose a different work/life mix
• Young people today look at older people and wonder if they want that same life
• There is only one life to a customer. What does success look like to you?
• How can one create a successful sustainable business incorporating a new work/life mentality in a system that demands expansion and growth? How does that new way of thinking (enough is enough) fit into the old model? This is not a negative, just an unknown. Working under a new model doesn’t mean you have failed, you’re just not included in the standard models.

Resilience is the New Growth

• Today, being big is very risky (ATT); being small and resilient is much safer and more sustainable.
• We know that monoculture is bad ecologically, economically, and sociologically - we need to build diversity in order to become more resilient as a business.

Today’s Topic: Transition of Leadership:

• Question: Is there any leadership will not need to be transitiioned? The answer is no, because we are always in fluid and ever-changing situations in which leadership will need to change.

• Secret to transitioning: Learning and Listening

• Leadership should overlap during a transition period so that change can happen easily and naturally.

• Do we develop followers as well as leaders? All future leaders are at one point followers; followers of people, trends, ideas… If you think of yourself as only a leader, then you are not open to learning and receiving new ideas.

• We all want to be individuals, and be part of the crowd at the same time.

“I am because we are, we are because I am”

Leadership and responsibility:

• Is relegating responsibility the same as passing leadership on to other people?
• There is a difference between passing on leadership and abdication of responsibility.

Kevin’s teaching position at CCS: Kevin wants to erase leadership/follower model and just have teaching and learning - everyone teaches and everyone learns. Everything is placed in the hands of the students - they are responsible for their own work and what they do. He arranged the work tables in a circle with his own table included as just one of the rest - all at the same level. He has the students explain their work to other students, allowing them to be part of the teaching process.

Sustainable Business, Jan 22, 2015 Topic: How Much is Enough? Finding Limits in a Sustainable Business

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Comments from last week’s conversation: How do we successfully bring things to a conclusion in a sustainable way?

• How do we define a healthy end? We sometimes interpret the end of something as a failure or death. How do we deal with anger, anxiety surrounding endings?
• If your values aren't in sync with those of the other person/business, then it can produce an unhealthy working environment. Bringing a business relationship that is not working well to an end can and should be done in a healthy way. "Nice does not mean stupid."
• Understand what the scope of your work is and what it isn’t - be clear about what a client is paying for.
• Reality of transitions: El Moore Project, we are finishing construction and starting operations. How does this transition go in a healthy way? From leadership standpoint, how do you get people to make transitions? How do you create a transition environment? There is so much to sort out and all those little details can really add up.
• Just like a theater director hands off to a stage manager as they move toward opening night (dress rehearsals, etc), business leaders need to know how to transition smoothly.
• Not addressing the difficulties of things ending is shirking your leadership responsibilities.
• Some transitions mean that you are losing a community - a group of relationships, and that can be hard.
• Kevin: as a designer going from a design phase to an implementation phase is hard for him. One idea for this year is to get over his hesitations - just move forward.
• Jeff’s Mission at DHive was planning for the future transition to the other people who were going to take the various programs of DHive forward. This was a goal he and they were always working on so it wasn’t looked on as a change but as progress. It’s psychological - a mindset that they worked on from the beginning. the DHive brand has peeled away and they were left with two new and healthy organizations - like cracking an egg - DHive was just the shell. Clear finish of DHive and clear launch of the two new organizations. Change was positive - everyone knew what their role would be - everyone knew that they would be moving forward and doing more - all were happy with the end of DHive and transition into new orgs. Change was always the plan from the beginning. If you want people to follow you, you have to tell them where you’re going.
• Planned change, unplanned but not surprising change, and the big surprise (change you didn’t expect and have to now adapt to)
• All endings, all transitions are what we make of them. Can be made into progress, or can be a big mess. How do we take care of the people, community and planet around these changes.
• First must accept that change is happening.

Today’s Topic: How Much Is Enough? Working With Limits in a Sustainable Business

• This is a question that we cannot avoid. How much practice is enough? Design? Money?
• This is a topic that keeps coming up over and over again with the small businesses we are developing.
• Have to gain some emotional intelligence about how much is enough in your business - what limits are sustainable for you in your business?

• Andy: When you invest in the market, you have to know when you have enough money. What do you do once you have enough? When you have enough, then you have choices - you can move away from the risk. You have to have minimally enough, but when do you stop growing?

• If you can’t identify how much is enough, that can lead to trouble and affect you and your organization negatively.
• Must have an awareness of ourselves.
• Identifying “enough” gets personal. You don’t want to regret your choices and know that you didn’t live the life you really wanted. Must do what is healthy for you.
• Kevin’s questions: What are the signs that he needs to look for that let him know that he has reached his limit and that it’s time to move on? Limits can be an ambiguous concept.
• Def of success: Getting to or exceeding your clients’ expectations.
• Advice for Kevin: the more work he does, the better he will be at guessing where his limits are. Also, his clients ought to pay for his play time. It’s all about developing the kind of relationships that allow you to do this.
• How many clients is enough for David B: First of all, it can take some time to learn how much is enough for you (took him 3 years after his retirement). His limit is 20 - 25, and thru experience, he has found that this is how many clients he can handle and only work 3 days a week.. Because he has other interests and responsibilities at home. So he has picked the things he likes to do - quality of life.
• Goethe: constantly seeking happiness - just look and it will be there. (look this up) Lisa to her start-ups: what will make you really happy? work with people in your community? work with communities in Africa? What does being a success mean to you - why do you want to do this business, what makes you happy? Keep checking in with that. You don’t want to get off track - careful of pivots. Be flexible to pivot to new opportunities, but not to the extent that it takes you away from your goals and what it is that makes you happy.
• Talking about money is important - you have to have control of the financials in your business.
• Even if you’re in a non-profit, money is still very important or you can’t do what you want to do.
• Tom: awareness of your limits. Much more accepting of my own personal limits now in his life. He has lived beyond those limits and realized that it’s not a life he wants to live. Part of this process is making mistakes and learning from those mistakes, moving back from too much to enough. Look at your weekly schedule and ask yourself, “Do I want to live that this week?”

Sustainable Business, Jan 8, 2015 Topic: Hopes and Plans for the New Year

As is our tradition with the Sustainable Business Conversation's first meeting in January, we ask participants to share with us their hopes and plans in the New Year for their sustainable business and/or for themselves personally. Here's what we learned:

Darryl (SideBar Black Art Theatre) has two goals:

1. To work with Project One Voice in getting components together for projects in Detroit.
2. Learn how to play the guitar!

Andy: Recently returned to Detroit after a number of years living in various cities around the country; with a background in city planning, he would like to identify a way that he could contribute to the revitalization of the city of Detroit.

Rich: Having recently moved to Detroit from Boulder, CO, he is thinking about how to create a new economy with a focus on people. Currently volunteering with the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative, he has a variety of business interests:

• He would like to continue his involvement in urban farming and be a manager of a farm, if possible.
• Would like to work on building bikes and cargo bikes; encourage people to bike in the city and use cargo bikes to do deliveries.
• Interested in starting a youth apprenticeship program, eventually creating jobs.

Kimberly: Understands that her work is more of a "soup", a combination of everyone's contributions and gifts. Wants to be more open to what others have to bring to the table, recognize the validity of differing points of view and people's different backgrounds and areas of knowledge.

Mark: Wants to start putting what he is learning about permaculture into practice. Through his work, he has learned a lot about how nature takes care of itself and how our artificial, chemical products disrupt natural processes. He wants to be able to put what he has learned onto his website and share that knowledge with his clients.

Kyle: Wants to begin implementing some of the ideas he's been kicking around for the past couple of years.

• First, cargo bike business - continue working on developing design and philosophy around this business.
• Work on advocacy group centered around transportation methods other than cars.
• Wants to move forward with development of a social/economic action group to reduce car dependency and develop bike-ability and walkability of city neighborhoods. Also interested in getting neighborhoods connected through access to transit.
• Learn more about development and how this happens in the city and in its neighborhoods.

John: He resolves to eat some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to celebrate every cold day of our Michigan winter. Good idea, John!

Harriet: Wants to finish setting up her Etsy store to sell the products she makes.