Conversations Are All We Have

Guest post by Leah Levac (bio)

I have a strong opinion about important conversations. I believe that they should be had, and that you should be invited to participate in and create them, whoever you are. I also believe that the only way to make sure conversations are actually important is by having them with people who wouldn’t normally talk together.

Last week at the Trudeau Foundation Annual Conference on Public Policy, my opinion about the importance of conversations, and about diverse participation in those conversations, was reinforced.

Dr. Mark Kingwell gave a keynote address on diverse cities, and discussed incivility as a problem facing our cities. He maintained, throughout his talk, that hope of achieving justice (which he referred to as ‘democracy’s gift’) is dependent on civility, primarily because important and productive conversations can only occur through civil discourse.

Last month, we (21inc.) started experimenting with ways to bring a wider range of participants to important conversations, and important conversations to more people. Moderated by Lisa Lane, four people – Ed Broadbent, Kelly Lamrock, David Alward, and I – chatted on video, unscripted, for about an hour. Clips of the conversation are now available.

For me, it was a remarkable experience; after all, it’s not every day you get to chat with Ed Broadbent. But it was remarkable for more reasons than that one. First, it was awesome that everyone agreed to participate. We need more people who hold positions of power to agree to participate – to really come to the table. Second, it was frank. Sure there was a bit of shiny political speak, but not much. Third, it was respectful, which is more than I can say for the Legislative Assembly, the work place for 2 of us (Kelly Lamrock and David Alward). Finally, it was enlightening, because it wasn’t rehearsed.

We were engaged in civil discourse, and so somehow, we’re a step ahead of where we were before our conversation took place. We talked about public engagement, about media’s coverage of politics, and about our antiquated democratic system. We talked about the importance of social welfare. We talked about government accountability. We talked about these things because they’re important to us. We talked about them on video so that if they’re important to you too, you can join us.

I hope that we, the New Brunswick ‘we’, can start to invest ourselves in more important conversations. Because conversations are all we have.

What Are We Educating For?

I drove home recently from a meeting with many provincial leaders from many sectors where literacy and education were dominant topics. Education and literacy are trumpeted by many as the panacea for New Brunswick’s economic and social woes. It’s been like this for a while now, but it probably started with confederation, when things started going downhill for NB.

Education and literacy is like breathing, who could be against it? With over half of the province’s adults counted as functionally illiterate few could blame politicians, businesses and educators for wanting to tackle it.

I've been thinking about this as an employer. The skills we need as a start-up include systems thinking, communications (in its many forms), self awareness, mental agility, creativity, initiative, self-learner and self-motivated, among others. Will the pressure on the school system to increase literacy help produce more employees with these assets?

I've just started Ken Robinson's book Out of Our Minds, which examines this question of education vs what society and organizations need.

“Business wonders why education isn’t producing the thoughtful, creative, self-confident people they urgently need. Yet business people cling to an uncritical belief in the supreme importance of academic education.”

We have to educate everyone and to a higher standard. That includes literacy. We don't have a choice about that.

We should also be asking questions about what we are educating for. Reading this book is making me worry that our obsessive focus on literacy takes us “back to basics” at the exclusion of all else. We should know now that the world where basics was all you needed is over.

Une affaire de Génération ou de Généralisation?

Plus tôt cet automne, j’ai assisté à une consultation organisée par le Public Policy Forum dans le cadre d’une série de dialogues tenus au niveau national. Le but de cette série de dialogues est de répondre à la question «Y a-t-il une déconnection entre la façon de vivre de notre génération, communément appelée Génération Y, et la façon qu’opèrent plusieurs organisations?»

En me rendant à cette session, mon opinion sur le sujet était mitigée et je n’étais pas certaine de la direction que prendrait la discussion mais je reconnaissais que c’était sans l’ombre d’un doute un sujet chaud, particulièrement au Canada Atlantique où l’exode des cerveaux et la rétention des employés donne souvent des maux de tête aux employeurs. Les résultats de la session furent récemment publiés dans Progress Magazine .

Environ 45 participants, jeunes professionnels et employeurs, ont tenté durant cet après-midi de répondre à la question initialement posée. Puisque mon opinion sur le sujet était mitigée dès le départ, j’ai décidé d’écouter les diverses opinions. Je me suis trouvée encore plus partagée dans mes positions. Parfois en accord, parfois en désaccord, j’ai réalisé qu’une des causes de cette position venait du fait que je fais partie de la génération Y, que je fus élevée par la génération X et non des baby-bommers, et ce dans une famille entrepreneuriale, expliquant pourquoi je me retrouvais parfois en accord avec les propos des employeurs.

Pendant que les membres de ma génération présentaient leurs attentes de leurs employeurs et que ceux-ci partageaient leurs expériences à traiter avec ma génération, j’avais l’impression d’être un spécimen dans une boîte de verre que tout le monde observe, tente de comprendre et d’analyser dans le but de généraliser des caractéristiques et déterminer des pratiques à appliquer afin de retenir une génération en particulier.

Étant parfois en accord, parfois en désaccord avec les attentes présentées par ma génération, j’ai décidé de généraliser à mon tour. Je ne suis certes pas une exception à ma génération donc je me suis dis qu’il était réaliste d’assumer que d’autres membres de ma génération seraient également partagés face aux propos tenus lors de cette discussion. Si ces propos sont adoptés par les employeurs afin d’établir des relations de travail avec notre génération, ils continueront à manquer le bateau avec une partie de cette population.

Après avoir bien réfléchi à tout ça, j’ai tiré mes propres conclusions. Certes, notre génération a des attentes et des façons de faire différentes de celles des générations précédentes, mais n’est-ce pas un également relié au contexte dans lequel nous avons été élevé? La seule généralisation au sujet de notre génération que je suis prête à considérer est que nous voulons être traités en tant qu’individus, non comme un numéro dans une organisation. Si cette généralisation s’appliquait réellement à notre génération, la seule pratique à retenir pour les employeurs serait donc de développer des relations de travail avec leurs employés et de cesser les tentatives de généralisation a sujet de notre génération!

Websites

For all small nonprofit organizations websites are both wonderful and painful. Wonderful because they are a quick and efficient way to tell you what we're doing. Painful because when fulltime webmasters are too expensive, except for raking leaves on a windy day, websites are the world's worst time sink. It's not uncommon to start some website work only to ask "where did the day go?" when done.

We're trying to add a special feature to the front page that better presents what we're up to. Hence, the English side of the page has the numbers 1-4 below the lead photo. You may have noticed that there are no links connected to those numbers. We're working on that. Hopefully we'll have links up in a couple days and this post will become moot.

Thanks for your patience.

Winning Arguments

This Saturday the Board of Directors of 21inc is meeting in Fredericton. Our board meetings are fun. We’re all friends and love what we all do and represent. This doesn’t mean we stay polite and proper. Our meetings can be and have been hot. And then afterwards we end up at a pub.

This board meeting is at a propitious time. We’re looking closely at some potential future programs beyond the 21 Leaders program and 21inc Ideas Festival. Both the above programs were envisioned when we launched almost exactly two years ago. This is the first time that we as an organization will be looking at future programming beyond our current menu.

As the board meeting approaches it’s been an interesting and helpful process reflecting on how to frame the discussion. What are the factors 21inc needs to think about when looking at future programs? The obvious ones are the merits of the programming and alignment with our mission.

But this is not the only lens through which our future actions should be assessed. The outcome of our upcoming conversation will also be determined by values, risk evaluations, and our experiences with organizational development across different sectors.

My sense is that arguments made on merits and alignment alone won’t win the day. Being able to speak to values and emotions will.

Olympic Dream

Hi everyone, I just want to take a minute to tell you about this contest I entered on the Globe & Mail website. It's called "Journalism Dream," basically like a Journalism Idol, and the winner gets to cover the Olympics! I am trying to get enough votes to advance to the next round, which will be judged by the G&M editors. You can vote once per day at:

http://journalismdream.theglobeandmail.com/entry_article.asp?id=485

Did I mention every vote gets you a chance to win a laptop or a camera?

A lot of you have already been voting and I really appreciate it, as this truly would be a dream assignment for me.

If you want to go the extra mile, you can join this Facebook group my wife set up, and invite all your friends to join as well:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=179584952664

Thanks again,
Nate

Retour sur la Tournée d'Étude 2009

Avant de partir, j’avais bien l’intention de partager avec vous notre trajet sur le blog. Comme vous avez pu le constater, ces bonnes intentions n’ont pas fait long feu une fois plongée dans le bain! Maintenant que la tournée est terminée, j’ai eu la chance de réfléchir sur cette expérience unique et j’ai décidé de partager cette réflexion avec vous.

Bien que j’aie assumé le rôle de coordonatrice dans la planification de la tournée et en avais discuté avec des anciens participants, je dois admettre que je ne savais pas très bien à quoi m’attendre à l’aube de notre départ. Même en sachant très bien que c’est impossible, je voulais que tout soit parfait et que l’expérience plaise à tout le monde.

J’ai bien vite réalisé certaines choses sont hors de notre contrôle et que peu importe le niveau de préparation qui a été fait, les gens vont constamment vous surprendre! J’ai donc dû vite apprendre que la meilleure chose à faire était d’apprendre à rouler avec les coups et de faire des ajustements rapides!

J’ai également réalisé que même si le Nouveau-Brunswick est petit en superficie, plus de 8 jours sont nécessaires afin de pourvoir affirmer bien le connaître. Que ce soit sur les plans économiques, culturels, environnementaux ou sociaux, que l’ont parle d’industrie ou de ses gens, le Nouveau-Brunswick nous a réservé bien des surprises durant cette semaine ou nous étions des touristes dans notre propre province.

La tournée fut pour moi une expérience d’apprentissage des plus enrichissantes autant sur le plan professionnel que personnel, la vivant à la fois sous mon chapeau de coordonnatrice et de jeune Néo-Brunswickoise.

En rétrospective, je me considère choyée d’avoir pu rencontrer tous les leaders établis qui nous ont généreusement accueillis dans leurs communautés ou entreprises durant la tournée, nous exposant volontiers à leurs réalités quotidiennes.

Je me considère également chanceuse de vivre dans une province qui fait certes face à sa part de défis mais qui offre également sa part de potentiel et d’opportunités.

Finalement, je me considère privilégiée d’avoir pu partager cette expérience avec notre groupe des 21 Leaders 2009. Ce fut un plaisir!

Applied Innovation

The importance of creativity for 21inc got reaffirmed last week during the Creative Spaces and Places conference hosted by Artscape.

Throughout the conference speakers reiterated the urgency to reinvent our institutions to meet 21st Century economic and environmental challenges. The 20th Century was defined by mass production and it’s under these tenants that many of our institutions still operate. The 21st Century looks like one requiring constant reinvention. In this world creativity, or as it was called at the conference, applied innovation, is a priority outcome.

To give an example, a study presented by Sir Ken Robinson showed that when kids are aged 2-3 85% of them could make over 200 objects from a random assortment of blocks, ropes and other stuff. By age 10 the rate declines precipitously, to 30%. By 25 the percentage of people who can make over 200 objects is 3%.

It is through institutions that we can reverse this trend on a societal scale. We need governments, universities, nonprofits, and schools to find ways to enable creative thinking, and fostering leadership that supports innovation and collaborative attitudes.

What does this look like? One example of this is the Australian state of South Australia which has a "Thinkers in Residence" program. Every year the Premier invites world leading thinkers and practitioners to live in the state for 2-6 months and embark on public education and policy specific studies that help guide the state forward.

Another example profiled at the conference was of a filmmaker in residence program -- at a hospital. This filmmaker didn't make documentaries but rather she integrated film techniques into the medical delivery system.

In Atlantic Canada, where ideas to deal with demographic and economic challenges are dire, In NB, arts & culture organizations can play an important role by being a central hub of social capital/idea generation. We need people with new, different and odd takes on the world to inspire solutions.

I’d be remiss not to include 21inc as part of this solution. We’re trying to ensure that the next generation of leaders have the skills and knowledge to inspire and apply creativity in our businesses, governments and nonprofit organizations. We’re still learning but this is the direction we're going. Having it reaffirmed last week is a confidence boost that we’re on the right direction.