Reflective practice

One of the things I often say to people who ask how I like graduate school is how much I appreciate the time to think, especially the time to reflect on past experiences and understand what I can learn from them. In my first semester, one of the things that struck me about my classes was how relevant they were to both my current and previous nonprofit management experience. One of my first classes even triggered a PTSD-like emotional response to an exchange with a professor that felt a little too much like certain unhappy conversations with my old board of directors; and while that doesn't sound like a good thing, it actually gave me a chance very early on to recognize feelings and defensive strategies that I was still carrying from my past position and to make a conscious decision to adopt some new ways of responding. (The class ultimately turned out just fine, BTW.)

As the year went on, it seemed like reflection on my past job moved into the background, and the focus shifted to my current organizational involvements in the real-world challenges I would bring to my class discussions and assignments. It was a shift that made sense, of course, and allowed me to become a reflective practitioner in real time as well as after the fact. The trend seemed like it would continue into this year; but as I realized that in planning some of my topics for course projects and papers, I noticed an unexpected sense of regret that I wouldn't be able to process more of that past experience through my current work.

Turns out, I'm not quite done with studying my past job, and I'm very glad for it. I'm taking a course on adaptive leadership this semester; and as I tried to figure out which organization to use as a basis for the papers I have to write, I realized that none of the present situations fit so well as the situation I found myself in just before I left my old job. There are some difficulties in trying to use that position and organization as the basis for my work: both I and the organization have moved on since then, and I've deliberately limited my contact with my past colleagues to provide some emotional space for all of us. I'm not at the point where I want to discuss the events surrounding my departure with most of the people directly involved in the conflict, because even a year and a half later there are still things that make me upset when I think about them.

But that is one of the advantages to studying the situation as a school project: I think it will help me to move past the old tensions and hurts and make the experience as productive as possible for my future development (as a person as well as a manager/leader). The reading material raises probing questions not only about what I thought was going on with other actors in the organization, but also about my own assumptions, values and behaviors. I need to be able to take a closer look at what I did as the situation progressed, because the fact of the matter is that many of my own strategies were just as maladaptive and unfruitful as those applied by my colleagues. In order to become a better colleague, manager and leader in my current and future roles, I have to recognize my own weaknesses as well as strengths and try to develop new ways of addressing change and conflict.

I'm hopeful about what will emerge from my writing, because I feel like I have many opportunities in the present to test out new methods for handling organizational situations. In particular, my challenge areas are dealing with politics, with personality conflicts, with my own tendency to inflexibility in how I want things done and a lack of openness to the suggestions of others, and with trying out new skills or activities that I haven't already mastered. I'd like my work to give me some additional layers of analytical process that can provide a buffer between what's happening around me and a my very sensitive emotional core; I don't want to become emotionless, but I want to get better at managing how my emotions are expressed and how I can use them to better advantage in my dealings with other people.

I think there's a lot of this that will be fun as well as deep and difficult. Case in point, the following excerpt from today's reading (The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, p. 94):

One way to understand the challenges raised by external loyalties is to use the metaphor of a vegetable stew. To make a good vegetable stew, you have to cook the ingredients just enough that they give up some of their original color and taste; otherwise, you'd have a pot of crunchy vegetables, not a stew. But if you cook the vegetables too much, each of them will lose so much of its distinctive qualities that you will end up with a pot of undifferentiated mush.

Imagine these vegetables as stakeholders, and suppose you get the stew just right. When those carrots and onions go back to carrot-land and onion-land, having sacrificed some of their distinctiveness in the interests of contributing to the stew, their old friends and family at home will noticed they have changed. "You ... smell like an onion," the carrots will say. "You're not one of us anymore. You've sold out. We sent you there to represent us and champion our views to the others, not to come back contaminated with their juices on you. What did they do to you there?"

Note to everybody: in no professional conversation anywhere does anyone want to hear about who did what with their juices. It's like my professor who said on the first day of class that he "gets off" on people writing down what he says when he lectures. Even if he didn't mean it literally, it is still just so gross.

But also, very funny!

Professionalism vs. participation

So, I had my first class of the year tonight - hooray! It is quite nice to be back in school. I think that it's a good sign of how much I really like my program that I haven't been dreading coming back, but actually looking forward to it.

I have to say that I was worried about the class as it got started this evening; the professor has a speaking pace that is very ... slow. He's not monotone, and he's not boring; but after 5 minutes I had a real fear that class was going to feel excruciatingly long. I did feel kind of long, but in the end I felt like he'd presented some interesting topics, and he had an amusing sense of humor (of the dry wit variety, to which I can relate very well as a speaker).

One of the interesting topics he brought up was the conflict between a society built on democratic (and sometimes radically anti-government) ideals and the whole concept of professional public administration. He mention that as a country and a profession we've never quite come to terms with the fact that public administrators, who are not elected or even in most cases appointed officials, are the biggest class of policy-makers we have - far more influential than our elected leaders (not to mention generally more focused on managing the country than political posturing to retain their position). This topic has come up in a couple of classes before, as has the idea of a "politics-administration" dichotomy that is supposed to keep public administrators focused on implementing the policies decided in the political process. But the reality of the complex systems we've set up to govern and manage our society is that our elected leaders don't end up having the time or the knowledge to work out all the details of how our public systems work, and they leave that to the staff of administrative agencies - who become policy-makers every time they create and administrative rule and decide how it should be applied.

On the one hand, there's the argument that we need administrative staff with professional training who can use their discretion based on specialized expertise to determine the minute details that bring vague and far-reaching policies into daily practice. On the other hand, there's an argument that administrators with no direct accountability to the people over whom they exercise power should not have power to make such important decisions about where public resources go and what happens to them when they get there. For the past year, I've kind of thought of this as an academic discussion; but I realized today that it is incredibly personal, and a tension I've been wrestling with for years.

So much of my vocational and avocational philosophy is about community and citizen empowerment, and recognizing the right and the ability of regular people to play a meaningful, dominant role in the decision-making that affects their lives. But at the same time, I'm in the middle of my second degree program that trains people to be professionals in their field - presumably based on the assumption that to do architecture or to manage organizations well, you generally need significant training in the tools and techniques of the trade. The very idea behind these schools is that, excepting the rare geniuses among us, the untrained individual will design or plan or manage or administer very poorly; and in practice, rare genius is rarely recognized unless you've gone to the trouble of getting the credentials to prove what you know.

This is a potentially serious philosophical conflict. How do I argue for open access to governance and decision-making on the principle that we all can participate without the need to be specialists - and then at the same time, defend the value of specialized training in making sure that people are well-prepared to be good decision-makers? If enough of this kind of training can be given to the general public in a simple, inexpensive way that allows them to participate fully, then why do we have all of these specialized schools (and more importantly, why am I spending my money on them)? And if this kind of training can't be gotten expect with specialized study, then doesn't that imply that there is a limit to how much or how well our citizenry will actually be able to self-govern?

Folks will probably argue that it doesn't need to be either-or, there's a balance, different roles for different times, etc., etc. But I feel like there's a little bit of a cop-out there, and a refusal to recognize that the conflict, while negotiable, is still real and sometimes very, very challenging. This is a question that gets played out over and over again, as public agencies are asked both to do their jobs efficiently and professionally and to be accessible and responsive to the demands of the public. It may be almost impossible to satisfy both of those requirements.

I have to head off to class now - but this is an item for further discussion! Heck, I may even turn it into my paper topic; isn't that clever of me?

In preparation

I'm currently celebrating the end of a very busy, very productive and very positive summer. There's been travel, good food, exercise, family time, friend time, career development, and a good bit of R&R. Honestly, I long for the days of my phone that made my want to blog all the time (HTC, I miss you!) ... somehow, my Blackberry seems all business and not quite enough play. Well, that's not quite true; I play XXL Gems and Facebook all the time, but the urge to write out my thoughts at length feels incompatible with my current keyboard.

Digression. The real point I was ambling toward is that there's so much I want to write about, because the summer has been amazing. But the thing that struck me most today is how clearly I can see the path that has been leading up to this really cool point in my life. That's not always the case with me; there are many things that God has worked on in my life that I didn't understand until much, much later, and quite a few that I don't yet get. But at this moment, all these threads are coming together in a pattern that is crystal clear - and very beautiful.

It hit home this afternoon in the bathroom (where I do all my best thinking, of course). I'd just taken a break from the mind-numbing task of starting to clean up a mailing list database at my new job. The task made me want to scratch my eyes out a little; but then I thought how cool it is to have this job that makes such full use of all my skills - from the big ones like strategic thinking to the seemingly little ones like database design and management. As much as the thought of sifting through those 6,000 records was daunting, I appreciated being able to do it, and being able to plan for how to improve our database design to help make these tasks easier in the future.

I can't describe how much I love my new job; it's like a puzzle piece that exactly fits to make the picture complete, only I didn't even realize it was missing until it came along. The story of my hire is definitely one of those you-find-it-when-you're-not-looking events (as much as I hate that phrase in other contexts): a connection from my summer fellowship gave my name to the organization, as did another person within the organization; I got an email about coming in for an interview the morning after I'd even heard that I'd been suggested for the position; and within the month, I was hired. I hadn't been planning on looking for a job until next year, I hadn't thought that I wanted to work in nonprofit management again for a while ... and I even realized, after looking back through some emails in the spring, that I'd ignored an earlier heads up from a friend about the fact that the position was opening up, because I didn't think I wanted a job like this at the moment. But when the opportunity came back around again - thank God! - it was so obvious how perfect a fit it is for me right now, that I can still hardly believe I've been so blessed.

It feels weird to insert a bulleted list in the middle of a rapturous story, but it's the clearest way I can think of to illustrate all the large and small ways that this job is so just-right:

• My last experience with nonprofit management was stressful to say the least, and I really didn't want to go back to the nonprofit world for a while. Or so I thought; it turns out that what I didn't want was not to have to deal with the crazy stressful aspects of my former job. My new job is everything I loved about my old job (working on design and planning, social responsibility, travel, collaboration, public speaking, writing, graphic design, organizing panels and forums, having autonomy and flexibility), minus the things I didn't (board management, finance and accounting, fundraising), plus the supportive work environment I really needed.
• My first interview was like the best first date ever. :D Example: as my new boss explained all the reasons why he had started the award program in the first place, I was thinking in my head, "I don't have to give you my rant on architecture awards, because you just gave it for me!" And then my fabulous predecessor began explaining all the people they'd been partnering with over the years and the new relationships they hoped to build; it was a list of all the people I either already loved working with from my last job or was already dying to partner with sometime soon. When I was finally hired, I had to remind myself to stay on vacation for the couple of weeks between the end of my fellowship and my start date, because I was so eager to get into my new role.
• One of the things I loved about my summer fellowship was the fact that I could walk to work every day; it was so much fun, and I loved getting in that extra bit of exercise. I kept thinking about how wonderful it would be to have my permanent job within walking distance, but I thought I couldn't possibly restrict my job search to within a mile of my house. Lo and behold: my new job is exactly a mile from my house, and a mere two blocks from where I was working all summer. I still love the walk just as much as ever!
• Speaking of my summer fellowship, I was actually awarded two this summer, and when I first started interviewing for the job, I was trying to figure out when to schedule the second one sometime during the upcoming year. It was my one hesitation about taking the job; how could I start a new job, and then tell them that I needed three months off within my first year to go work in Washington, DC for a bit? And alternately, how could I go back to my school and tell them that I had to turn down the prestigious fellowship they'd awarded me? My new boss answered the question for me in my second interview, when discussing my part-time status: "The hours vary throughout the year, and things get pretty quiet in the summer, so you can use that time if you want to make some extra money." Me: "Well, there is this thing I'm supposed to do next summer ..."
• And as it turns out, the part-time hours are one of the things I love about my job. In the immediate term, it means I can finish my final year of grad school and my second fellowship as planned. In the longer term, it means I have more time for all the volunteer things that I love to do, but that are so hard to squeeze in around a full-time schedule. But it's about more than just scheduling. As I have already discovered in my first week, the flexibility of my hours relieves a tremendous amount of the stress of working every day, and helps me to find that elusive work-life balance: I go to work when I am awake and rested, I get judged based on what I accomplish rather than when I clock in and clock out, I come home with plenty of time to take care of things around the house, and I can make time for friends and family with much more ease. It's a big step for me towards a new kind of lifestyle; one that is not built on rushing from place to place, but rather on making time for what matters most to me.

So I feel like this job has been prepared just for me, at this exact moment in my life. And what's more, I feel like I've been preparing for it over the past several months and even years, although I didn't know it. Where I've gone to school and my last job are obvious tie-ins; but so is the fact that my tech training and gadget geekiness let me have intelligent conversations about the tools we use in our office, or that the hours I spent and the skills I built researching and writing for papers this spring and my project report this summer are perfect preparation for the site visit reports and case studies I'll be responsible for in my work. Even living on a student budget this past year has been a preparation for me, odd as that sounds. When I look back on the amount of income I had this year, and the fact that for most of the year I was paying for my apartment by myself, I realize that I've been learning what are luxuries and what are necessities in my budget, and learning that I can live very, very well on much less than I've been thinking I needed. My part-time salary is actually an abundant gift.

This is one of those mountaintop moments for me. God has been hard at work clearing my mind and heart over the past year to be able to receive this gift and appreciate it. My joy is very full right now, and I can see so many amazing things both in my past and my future. I know that the path ahead will contain stressors and challenges as well as delights; but I am so thankful for the restful space in which to celebrate all the goodness around me.

What doesn't kill you helps you graduate!

I have so many things to be thankful for right now:

1. Start of April work count: 3 papers, 3 presentations, 2 final exams, 1 case study, 1 reflection paper. Current work count: 1 presentation, 1 paper. Hallelujah!
2. I chose my fellowship placement for the summer, and we are all mutually delighted to have me.
3. I had a great interview as the final source for my last paper; education + networking = awesome.
4. My intake today consisted of actual foods with recognized nutritional value.
5. I can go to bed whenever I feel like it tonight, with no guilt about staying up late or going to bed early. I choose early!!

I wasn't sure I'd make it through today successfully - so an extra hooray for that! Thank you, and good night.

Getting an education

When I started my graduate program, one of the things I loved was how clearly relevant the course were to me as a non-profit practitioner. When we studied questions about how non-profits related to their constituencies, or the legal issues surrounding their governance and types of activities, the relationship was clear and direct to the actual issues I'd faced as an executive director. It gave me a sense of confidence that I wasn't in a program of frou-frou academia; I was going to be learning about things that mattered to my daily professional life.

That trend has continued, but I'm struck with a new aspect of it this semester. I find that I am learning things that are not only relevant, but that significantly transform the way I think about my professional practice and my life as a citizen of my community. This realization became particularly forceful today, as I am working to complete a paper on the role of non-profit boards and their members. When I was dealing with the board of my former organization, I had pretty specific ideas of how boards should and should not operate, and what their relationship to the staff should be. These ideas were reinforced by experiences working with other boards in the past, by the advice of our donor organizations, and by the common best practice guidelines in the field. A major part of the reason I ended up leaving was that members of the board executive committee wanted to define the board's work in ways that seemed directly contrary to the best practice recommendations, and I didn't feel that I could support the changes they wanted to make.

I took these same ideas with me as I joined the boards of two community organizations this past fall. I wanted to use my experience - and the new knowledge I would be gaining in my studies - to help these boards become more professional and more effective. I knew that each organization and its board has particular conditions and characteristics, and that you can't just ram a "preferred" model into place; but still, I expected that the best way forward for these boards would look like the models I knew with only minor adaptations to local conditions. (In retrospect, for a girl who is so passionate about the necessity for organic localization in other aspects of public life, I find this especially ironic.)

I started my current research paper with the goal of delving into and defining non-profit board best practices, so I could present them with knowledgeable confidence to my colleagues. But what I am finding instead is that my own perspective is being transformed and expanded, to understand the common and recurring challenges of the traditional governance models. I'm also being introduced to alternative ways of thinking about and doing board work that make me have to revise my own rigid preconceptions. Normally, I hate being wrong :-) ... but in this case, I'm really digging it, because I can feel myself being stretched and can see all the ways that it will help me to become both a better board member and, if I ever go back to non-profit management, a much better senior executive. I love it when being challenged ends up being fun!

Everything I learned about leaving, I learned from Scrubs

Last week was the Scrubs season - possibly series - finale, with lead actor Zach Braff doing his last episode. It was a pretty emotional little moment for me, because I absolutely love Scrubs, and if it doesn't come back for another season, I'll be really sad. Even if it does come back, it will definitely be different, and it'll be interesting to see how they re-form the show with a new dynamic. The finale included at the end little outtakes from the final shooting, and clips of the season wrap moments for various actors. I unashamedly admit that I teared up, particularly at the one with Judy Reyes (who oddly, I saw just a week later in an episode of Castle, where she was a totally different kind of character ... nice contrast).

When I woke up in the morning, I discovered I was still agitated with the emotions from the previous night. Yes, some of it was for the show it self (I do seriously love it), but the rest had to do with the resonance the show had for my own personal situation, and some things I had to resolve about leaving a place where I've invested a lot of my time, evergy and self.

[SPOLIER WARNING: If you haven't watched the Scrubs finale and don't want to know what happens until you do, don't keep reading.]

As J.D. prepares for his last day at Sacred Heart, he is looking forward to a day that will appropriately mark the end of 8 years of learning, growing and contributing in this place. The experiences he went through, both personal and professional, were so significant to him, and he wants someone to sum these years up in their actions that day (as he usually does in his voiceovers). There are funny bits about his friend Turk starting off with a big farewell gesture and trying to maintain that intesity throughout the day ... but for the most part, the J.D.'s final day at Sacred Heart is disappointingly normal. Except for one or two small (but touching) moments with close friends, no one really remarks on what is happening; there's no party, no sendoff, no occasion created to show how much he was loved and respected. (There are some other funny bits on this point, about sendoffs for other folks who are going on maternity leave or week-long trips.) J.D. does manage to engineer a final tribute speech from his gruff mentor (and his long-desired hug), but in the end, he has to make his own quiet peace with leaving.

My agitation of the morning after was my own realization that my final days were likely to be much like J.D.'s - largely quiet, unmarked, a business as usual for the rest of the world. No one from my organization was going to fete me or shower me with flowers, tributes and awards; there would be no giant announcement lamenting my departure; and I was going to walk out of the office without ceremony, to go on to the rest of my evening and my life. I was a little bitter that morning, because I thought that someone ought to honor me, gosh darn it; but as my sister reminded me, I had to be at peace with the choice that I had made, and not dependent on others to validate my time here.

She was right, although I hated to hear it at the time and thought she was being very unsympathetic. :-) But my decision to leave my job wasn't a power play to get people to recognize me, or a way to say a giant screw-you to the people I worked with, or with the intention of watching the organization crumble in my absence. I'm leaving because I reached a moment when it was clear that my time at the organization was done, and even though it seems strange to leave a secure job in an uncertain economy without another prospect lined up right away, I feel very confident and at peace that this way the absolute right decision. I feel like God was preparing the way all this time; it was kind of fascinating to me how on Easter Sunday I finally felt reconciled with him, and then that Tuesday I had a meeting where it became clear that it was time to go. At first, I said, "Wait, you take me from all that joy to this crappy day?" But it was actually perfect timing ... I'd been going through this conversation with myself and my board about leaving for months, since almost a year ago, and agonizing and trying to figure out alternate solutions and line up other possibilities. It never seemed to work out where I could feel comfortable leaving; but when this day came in April and I came out of that meeting, the decision was so clear that it was hardly a decision at all, just the obvious thing I was supposed to do next.

Since then, I haven't really had any doubts, and I've been almost unbelievably happy. I don't know if I've gotten into grad school; I don't know if I'm going to have income to be able to stay in Boston through the summer, let alone beyond that; I might have to make a major move back to Virginia to be with my family. But none of that troubles or worries me; in fact, the only times I felt agita during this whole process was when people tried to suggest that maybe I should stay on a couple more months (which raised a horrible twisting feeling inside), and when I wasn't quite letting go of a project that I've been working on and felt a real investment in (kept me tossing and turning over the past weekend, until I realized that all that tossing and turning was a sign that I was taking a wrong approach, and I realized that God would either make a way for me to continue to be involved that felt absolutely right, or He wouldn't and I wasn't meant to keep being involved). Spiritually, God restored my relationship with Him so that I could have complete faith in what He is doing during this time; and financially, God gave me some extra cushion that I would usually never have, which allows me to spend the next few weeks without worry.

And that's that. I don't yet know what He's doing with me or where He plans for me to be, and tomorrow is my last day at my job - but I can't wait to see what the days after tomorrow will bring. I'll keep you all posted ... withouth this whole distracting "work" thing, I have much more time ot spend online. ;-)

BTW ...

... I have plenty of post-Easter news, but it's all so big I don't quite know where to start writing about it. The quick and dirty summary is:

• I feel much better spiritually, and am not fighting with God anymore.
• I decided to leave my job.
• I am still struggling with the whole "having community" thing, and I may choose to resolve that struggle by moving back to be near my family.

Not-quick versions to come, as soon as I can figure out how to write about each of those things in some sort of relatively-organized manner.

"Green" Careers

I'm speaking to a group of minority higher education students in a few weeks about "green" careers, and so I was doing a little research on how those get defined these days. (In a 2-for-1 bonus, it wasn't a bad leg up on exploring my personal options.) I think I found myself once again frustrated by a lot of the standard definitions, like the one used on Monster.com's Green Careers website, because they seem to focus on the environment so exclusively without looking at the needs of people. This gets me off on my standard diatribe: being sustainable isn't just going to be about doing things in a way that doesn't harm plants and animals, it also has to be about doing things in a way that doesn't harm other people. Even CNN's Planet in Peril series is starting to focus on this; the new special report that will air in December specifically looks at the way that battles between people over access to and profits from natural resources are integrally tied to environmental degradation. If you're not also addressing issues of global poverty, economic and social justice, and public health, these battles will continue, because the underlying reasons for them remain.

This is slowly becoming a more common part of the conversation, but economic and social sustainability remain the ugly stepsisters of the sustainability movement, no matter what any equilateral triangle diagram may tell you. The equity piece is especially ignored; while folks definitely want to encourage people to be green by looking at the economic benefits they can accrue, no one wants to talk about ho underlying inequities in our economic system continue to promote unsustainable practices no matter how many fluorescent light bulbs we install or Whole Foods stores we patronize. The effects may be more dramatic globally, but they are still visible locally; my favorite current example is the way that economic rationalizations about good market locations for stores that offer healthier foods continues to prevent easy access to healthy groceries for many neighborhoods in the urban core (and I'm not just talking about organic foods, I'm talking about even basic access to grocery stores with decent food). We could also talk about the variety of government subsidies that make high-calorie/low nutrition food dirt cheap to produce, while organic or locally grown food remains out of reach for a significant portion of our population.

This is an old rant of mine, but every so often I need to rage on it to let out my pent-up energy. And then I'm going to start working on a knock-your-socks-off speech that will encourage all of these college kids to not only hug a tree, but also hug their neighbors.

Uh, duh!

So I realized my trouble, which I actually realized in a professional development session a year ago but didn't act upon as aggressively as I should have: I am doing the wrong job for my organization. If being in my role means devoting most of my time to the administrative and governance stuff that I've spent so much energy on in the last year, then it's not a role to which my skills are best suited, it's enervating and de-motivating, and I'm at the point where it's become critical for me to stop doing it. If my role can be redefined to focus primarily on program development, project management and being the public ambassador and spokesperson for the organization and our values, then I can totally do that, because it's what I do very well and what gives me joy and energy and passion and the desire to get up in the morning. Mind you, I completely recognize the need for someone to do the other stuff, because it is critical to the organization's maintenance and growth. We just have to figure out how to find that person muy pronto, and free me up to do what I ought to be doing if I'm going to be at all productive in the short- or long-term future.

Plotting, plotting ...

Ugh.

I am here in my office this morning, burdened by the crushing weight of not wanting to be here. What a way to start the week!

I don't know how to approach my job right now. I'm trying to will myself to be enthusiastic, attentive, engaged, organized; I have a whole list of things to do. I can barely get myself to look at it, let alone get down to business, and what I do I seem to do at a snail's pace.

I know why I didn't end up leaving my job over the summer, and the reasons made sense at the time ... but in retrospect, I am really wondering whether I should have just left. I feel like I'm coming up on the point where I'm not just unhappy, but about to be ineffective at my job, which I would absolutely hate. The saving grace of my being here over the past year is that at least I've gotten good things done for the organization and for myself; if that ceases to be the case, then what on earth am I doing?

It could be that I'm just having a particularly bad day. For the moment, I'm going to chalk it up to that, and try to get cracking over here. We'll see how the week goes!

Systems behavior

The speaker this morning has made mention of the fact that we don't have the intellectual capacity to understand all the ramifications of human behavior on the systems around us. He stated that, even if we could develop the computing power to make these models run, we wouldn't be able to program it or to comprehend what the model was saying in all its workings.

It's rare that you really hear someone admit to this, in a society where we seem to go on the belief that eventually humans will be able to control and plan everything. But it also made me ask the question: if we can't understand all our consequences, how can we possibly make good systems choices?

(Of course, I have an answer to my rhetorical question. :-) ) When I think about natural systems and how those components know to work together, I don't think it's because they know everything else going on everywhere else in the system. But those that survive and thrive in a functioning system are responsive to the signals they get from the system; they listen, and they make changes accordingly to stay healthy. This pretty basic principle has formed an immense and complex network of interdependent, mutually-beneficial relationships that remain in an astounding dynamic and evolving balance over unthinkable (for us) periods of time.

Unfortunately, our behavior patterns, and especially our technology, are increasingly directed towards insulating and isolating ourselves from systemic consequences that would prompt us to change course. Whether it's a seasonal change that tells us to adapt our eating habits to what is available at the time; a set of climatic conditions that would tell us to build a certain way to be safe a comfortable; or a sickness developing that would tell us not to use that chemical for that purpose or grow that crop in that way.

What are the barriers that we've put up to block out or reduce the natural consequences of our actions? What would it take to dismantle those barriers? What would we do differently if we were forced into contact with those consequences? Could we find our right place in the systems around us?

Ambition

I think people get frustrated when they don't think I have enough drive to "fulfill my potential," when I don't have the kind of plan they think I should have for moving forward with my life.

It was strongly implied in a conversation this evening that I am - or am about to be - a 32-year-old has been prodigy who has nice talk but hasn't really shown that she can do anything significant. And I get asked, what's my plan, how have I determined that I'm going to lay out the next 5 to 10 years of my life to achieve my goals?

I don't really have plans like that anymore - not since my early 20s when I discovered that having plans didn't have all that much to do with what actually occurred in my life, and that if I was going to be content with the reality of where I was I needed to stop trying to compare it to a plan I'd developed when I was a teenager that became less relevant every year to my real life. It wasn't a farfetched plan, either, like being a rock star: it was a plan to graduate, be married, have kids, have a certain career, and all by certain times. If I hadn't let most of that plan go, I'd still be miserably bewailing my overall failure to achieve anything I'd set out to do. Anything that was in that plan that has even a remote relationship to my present life happened in quite a different way and time from any of my planning; and what hasn't happened ... well the fact that I'm still partly holding onto those pieces as I originally envisioned them isn't doing me any emotional or psychological favors.

So I don't have these long-term ambitions with time deadlines, in 5 years I want to be here, in 10 years there. Besides being married and with kids (the parts of my original plan I'm still grasping at), I honestly don't know. Grad school sounds interesting and fun for the next couple of years, albeit expensive and possibly something I can't afford, especially in the current credit market. The other thing that I'm really passionate about - this deeply sustainable communal living thing - depends as much on finding a whole bunch of other people at the right time as it does on me wanting it or having some plan about how it might work; so my control over that outcome is severely limited.

Or maybe I'm just being lazy, and if I were more driven and directed I'd be out there pounding the pavement until I found those people. Or I'd be making myself a nuisance hanging out at the Greenhaus until I figured out how to join them. And visiting every Christian community I could find and reading every book about it until I had absorbed everything I could.

Y'know what? I just realized that I never dropped that plan. Everything I've done in my adult life has still been about trying to get there, and trying to do the course corrections around life's twists and turns to make it happen. I did finish school, and in a design discipline (although not the B.Arch. I'd planned), and I did start my own design business (although not the firm I'd originally envisioned). I do teach and mentor, and I am focusing a significant part of my life on serving my community (or trying to, anyway). My problem? There's only that one thing left to start that I haven't started on yet, and I don't know how to begin to get there, and nothing I've tried has seemed to point me in the right direction, and I don't even know what the options are for what to do next ... and all the things I'm trying to pursue right now feel like placeholders, because I know that what I really want - the first thing that comes to my mind every time someone asks me - is to have the community of my partner in a sustainable life and the children that we work to raise to make a better world.

That's always been the core of my whole plan, the thing I wanted and fantasized about more than anything else, and the most important contribution I ever thought I'd make to building the world and building the Kingdom. And I have no idea what to do about that.

Silenced

After being told that I haven't really done anything with my life, I find myself much less inclined to speak about what I think on this second day of the conference. I suppose I feel like I've got no right, no credibility, no validity. I feel like I was told to stop talking until I've done something that makes me worth listening to.

I'd thought that I was, in fact, doing things of value and solidity over the past few years. I suppose they're too small, not of very much effect, especially for someone who blathers on about systems all the time. I guess I thought it was enough to do what I was doing in my little sphere, but continue to speak about the systems I think need changing, and hope that message would reach folks who have a sphere of influence that includes those things that I don't. But it seems that unless I place myself to be in control of those things, unless I set a path to reach that pinnacle and make it there, then my thoughts on such matters are of no account.

I suppose I wanted to be a modern philosopher, in a way, setting out a worldview that would stir others to action. And yes, practicing that worldview in my own life, so it's not just my words but also my actions that inspire. I wanted to be a thinker, a questioner, a person who critiques, but also proposes alternative ways of thinking and doing for me and for others to test out.

In the conversation that has me so subdued, we also got to talking about Barack Obama and how similar charges - what has he done, really? - were being leveled. And I was reminded of that jab about his community organizing experience as too little to qualify as really having done much. I guess I wonder what the question should be about; is it about the scale and scope of your results, or about the level and quality of leadership you took within whatever scope you were acting? Yes, yes, the balanced answer is probably "both," but somehow it seems that scope counts more. It counts way more if you do the bigger, showier thing; impact in numbers is better than impact in depth, if you have to choose.

I don't know that I have a point here ... just processing again, on a morning when I'm struggling with the question of my value. Is there still any value in my questions and comments? I don't know today.

Will architects be leaders?

So, here at this sustainable design summit, we're in a session where different groups are posing ways that we can respond to mass consumption. The suggestions aren't bad ones, but they're small steps, and I think they are generally steps that have low-cost for the people doing them - whether low financial cost, or low behavior-changing cost, or low social costs as far as how you are viewed by others.

Now, as you all know, I'm a radical thinker - but not yet a radical doer so much. I like to propose crazy, very break with the norm measures, but I haven't followed through yet with a lot of that. So maybe small goals would be better, because they'd be more achievable even if the impact was negligible. My excuse, for those curious, is that there aren't enough people to join with me in making these changes; not so much because there aren't enough people to have an effect as that I want people around me to support me and help keep me in line when I want to be lazy. Basically making up for my need for affirmation and my lack of discipline.

So maybe I have no right to make the critique I'm about to make. I don't know if I should put it out, because my hypocrisy makes it hard to take it seriously. I guess folks can ignore it if they want ... but I do still think it's true, even though I'm not following it yet.

The speaker just before this group discussion section said that we're like alcoholics when it comes to consumption. He suggested that this group was kind of like an AA meeting, where we're all admitting to what we've been doing and trying to support each other in changing it.

Now, I don't know much about AA, since I'm not an alcoholic and don't know many folks who've gone through it. But my impression has always been that you have to stop drinking, not just commit to drinking less. Same with many of these other addictive behavior groups - except in cases like eating, or sex, you're expected to stop your behavior, frequently cold turkey. With the ones where you don't stop completely (or can't, because as in the case of eating you would die), it seems like you're expected to either engage in the behavior under some very structured circumstances, or find a substitute to wean you off the behavior. But the goal with an addiction isn't to just be less addicted; it is to cease addictive behavior, and in the early stages by putting as much distance between you and the behavior as possible before. Only after a period of long abstinence and reconditioning can you really be considered strong enough to be around the behavior without reverting to your addictive patterns, and only very rarely can you engage in the behavior again, at all, ever. I'm simplifying, but I think that's a fairly accurate picture. (If I'm wrong, people who have more experience, please tell me.)

We are consumption addicts. Addicts, not just folks with bad habits. We have a problem with serious psychological underpinnings, and we have highly destructive behaviors that are extremely difficult to change. These behaviors are so addicting, so powerfully seductive, that I think we are only fooling ourselves if we say that we will break with this addiction by slowly, incrementally being less bad. We need an intervention, and probably a serious amount of counseling, in order to make a radical lifestyle change.

Too few of us recognize this and accept it as truth. Too many of us make excuses and try and be better in small, almost meaningless bits without addressing the core sickness we have. We are lying to ourselves to make ourselves feel better and to ignore the real situation we are in. We are trying to keep one foot in gross overconsumption and injustice while placing a toe in sustainability, and then wanting to say that we're leading or participating in change.

The profession of architecture is certainly doing this, at a time when we need real leaders. We need people to stand up, buck the system, refuse to accept feel-good compromise. We need folks who don't care about being soothing or political, who are willing to be hard and to pose difficult questions and get reviled and get thrown out and be unloved. If we wait until sustainability is popular and then do it when it's a good marketing tool, we are just followers who join right in the greenwashing of a broken system.

That's my first impression - and again, I know I speak as an addict with needle in hand. I'm sure someone will comment and tell me I'm full of it. I guess I'm trying to process the sense of frustrated possibility that these meetings always bring out in me, and seeing if I can find a new reaction after drilling through that. I believe that there is an opportunity for hope, not just despair.

I have so much to say ...

... but I'm too tired to write a blog post. Ah, well; my insightful Canadian reflections will have to wait until the light of morning. In short, Vancouver is lovely, I'm having a great time, and I'm looking forward to the conference tomorrow. I've spent a lot of time hoofing it around the downtown, danced quite a bit, ate well, and spent time with old and new acquaintances. The weather even perked up for the better part of today, which let me take some nice photos. Part of me wanted to re-walk the walk I'd done Saturday afternoon, but I'm not quite there yet; perhaps I'll be ready Wednesday in the afternoon, before I take the train back to Seattle.

I am glad that I came a couple days early; this summit agenda has us on task morning, noon and night! Most conferences don't leave a ton of time for exploring, but this one feels particularly packed. I'm not entirely sure what to expect ... I hope it's a good one. One of the fun bits is that I know many of the other emerging leader scholars, so I don't feel lonely and I have folks to hang out with.

Alright, that's it - I'm an old lady and I need my beauty rest! TTYL.

Christians are everywhere - even in Boston!

One of the nicest things about my day today was having a totally unexpected conversation with my business planning consultant about his involvement with another progressive Christian organization here in the city. Who knew there were so many of us? A shout out to Steve and his friends at CrossLeft ... what a nice discovery to start off the weekend! It's totally OK that we only spent half our meeting on actual business. :-)

Fiscal year round-up

So, the vortex of my major work event is over ... I think I'm still recovering from all the consequences. On the one hand, it was a great event for participants, youth and volunteers alike, and we got a very nice press article out of it, and I think it set a good foundation for future events like this for us. On the other hand, I haven't pulled a 34-hour shift since I graduated, and I wasn't ever planning to do that for a work-related activity. It was hard for me to celebrate the success of the day, because I left at the end tired and bitter and not having even seen most of the work that got done because I was trying to hold the seams of the event together with my bare hands. I'm glad no one really felt that on the attendee end of things; we worked so hard to make sure that was what happened, and I wanted all that work to be worth it.

But the carryover from that event finally prompted the open conversation with my board officers about how frustrated I am - and have been for months - with my job. It didn't come out the way I'd hoped; I had to unintentionally let out at the end of a meeting that I was very concerned about whether or not I want to stay with the organization. At first, the reaction to that announcement was so mild that I left even more angry, thinking that it was pretty amazing (= crappy) that I could potentially leave an organization I've led for 3 years and no one really seemed too upset. I think it was shock, though, as evidenced by the emergency emails and meeting that took place last night.

Surprisingly, last night was one of the better meetings I've had with the officers, despite the fact that it got a little emotional on my part. (I'm a crier, and I hate it so much; it makes me feel totally weak and not in control of my emotional expression.) I guess it was finally being able to be open about what was bothering me, and having permission to be frank about that without being told that I needed to buck up or not be so negative. As one of my officers described it, it was finally a "safe place" to be honest about what I thought was going on in the organization, which it hadn't been to date.

There has been a lot going on in the organization; my issues are part of it, but there are some wider things happening in terms of the whole way we do things. We have some very interesting personalities to balance on the board, and some strong voices that have a tendency to overshadow other opinions; other people may disagree with what those voices say, but they're reluctant to speak out in the face of such strong expression. Those two voices, in particular, have been the source of most of my work tension over the past year and a half - they are valuable resources and have a strong commitment to the organization, but they and I don't speak the same language or work the same way, to the point where I feel like I'm almost constantly doing battle in my governance meetings. It was exhausting.

I also think our board hasn't really defined its role very well; that we haven't had a strong, focused plan of action until very recently; and that we are following some models of operating that just don't work for us. My organization is supported by two large, influential organizations in our field, and we often defer to them in terms of the kind of organizational structures we set up, the way we do business, and our expectations. But these are organizations more than 100 years older than we are, with very different missions and purposes, and much larger. I think, in some ways, while we've been fortunate to have their support, we've also been hampered by a perspective that isn't appropriate for who we really are and need to be: a small, young, innovative and nimble organization that may have to find (or make up) its own way of doing what it does. I've raised this time and time again in terms of our programming expectations, but the discussion last night really made clear that it was a broader issue.

So many things were discussed: the level of professional trust and respect for me; my compensation; how we get to know each other and spend time together as a board; what we want our culture to be like; and whether or not this working relationship is still salvageable. I don't know the answer to that last part ... on the one hand, I have put so much into building this organization and I would love to feel like we could work through this and I could stay until I was leaving by choice, not by crisis. I do feel that I haven't done all I would have wanted to do here, and in some ways I see us at the beginning of setting up the things that would move the organization forward and give it - and me - some pretty awesome opportunities. On the other hand, it all depends on these relationships. If I don't feel secure, respected, like I can be a dissenter or questioner when I have to, like I will be cared for as an employees as much as I am caring for the organization, I would have a tremendously difficult time staying here. For some people, they're not as much into all the touchy-feely aspect of their work life, but it's a big deal for me and my personality. That's not such a bad thing, and it's actually one of the strengths that I bring to the position I hold. The challenge is how we learn to work with my strengths and weaknesses, and with everyone else's, so that we're a unit instead of these sometimes collaborating/sometimes clashing parts.

So the conversation continues ... but for now, our fiscal year is coming to an end, and it's been quite a doozy. I've mentioned before that I feel like I'm in a place of constantly being tested by the Lord this year, and like I haven't been doing all that well, to be honest. I'd love for this to be a success story; as they say, I could really use a win!

Conventioneering

So it's Day 3 of my 4-day convention extravaganza. This year, the big convention is here in Boston, and so my organization is coordinating a number of events as well as my more usual attendee/speaker activities. I can sum up this convention in one word: exhausting. I am so glad this won't be back in my town for another decade or more ... unless I have the misfortune to move to a different city that choose to host this convention within the next several years. That's going to have to become a criterion for consideration in any future moves.

I do enjoy all of the catching up with people, although I feel like I've been so busy that I don't have enough social opportunities. Tonight's my big party night (4 in one evening, 3 to which I can actually make it), which will be a good time for chatting ... if I can manage to stay awake that long. If not, at least I will look absolutely beautiful when I am caught sleeping on my feet. Oy!

It's gonna take patience and time

At least I have one of those. :-)

So, my hot-headed flash of job-crisis is over; not that there aren't still things that need to be worked out in my job, but I've gotten over the immediate and compelling urge to quit and retire to an organic farm. I think I need to set a new rule that I'm not allowed to take any action in response to any emotional developments (positive or negative) in my life for a period of 4-5 days. That seems to be about the time I need to have my reactions and then find my balance.

I have some interesting challenges ahead of me. The one that I'm most curious about is the need to control my very transparent facial reactions that so clearly communicate my opinions on a matter even when I take effort to control my verbal expressions. At first, i was really wrestling with this, because I have no idea how to make my face not say what I'm thinking; but then my colleague-confidante this afternoon said it wasn't really about separating my face from my thoughts, but achieving the kind of peace and equilibrium in my thoughts that allow me to accept other people's suggestions and comments without having them immediately disturb me. Actually, I'm not sure I have any idea how to do that, either ... but I think it may be more feasible, although it will require a great deal of mental re-training. In the meantime, I might just have to tell people to ignore my face and know that my initial reaction is not necessarily where I'll end up on an issue.

Also, I think I definitely need to continue studying what it means to be a leader. I'm OK at it in some ways, but I'm not yet that person who truly knows how to gently guide a group toward a desired end; how to balance between exerting visible influence and stepping back; how to know when to throw my weight around and what exactly that "weight" really is. Part of this is just developing skill over time, but I also think I need to do more reading about what others have thought and come up with on the topic. Book suggestions welcome!

Another suggestion was that I need to work more to build up a) my relationships with my allies in my work environment, and b) my personal "board of directors" who helps guide me in life challenges. With relation to b), I've got a pretty kick-ass group as a foundation so far; but what I think is missing are other people who are in very similar work positions and environments to me and facing some of these same challenges. Basically, I think I need to add some corporate executives to my "board", and some non-profit leaders. Come to think of it, I need some of those on my organization's board as well!

Unlike my roommate situation, I actually feel like I can find a way to approach this and both get the things that I need and satisfy the things that others may want. That's a nice feeling, so I don't have to end up writing a post titled Failed, #2. I think I have to learn to be more secure in myself, and content with who I am, so that I can act in boldness and confidence but submit when needed. It's tiring to always be in this uncomfortable, defensive posture toward so much of the world around me. I'm trying to figure it out - with my friends and family, when I do feel comfortable, why is that, and how did I get there?

Next!

So, I realized today that I may have reached the pinnacle of my career, and there might be nothing I have left to do except get married and have babies.

In all seriousness, it's tough to figure out what job I would take after a job like the one I have. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this job was really tailor-made for my aspirations - at least at the time I started it. I think that's not really true anymore; my aspirations haven't changed, but the job has, and it has moved away from a focus that I get excited about and enjoy. For once, I'm not taking this shift personally; there's simply a mismatch, and I don't seem to be the right person for this season of my organization.

Of course, all this requires more thought and prayer before any decisions are made, but the timing is ripe for change and I am looking around to see what's next. I actually had an awesome conversation with a friend just now that opened my eyes to some possibilities beyond the family front; there's a potential chain of opportunities and shifts that could put more people than me in a better position. But those are long-off options as yet, not even solid enough to be considered options in any real sense.

It does give me some hope, though, and a feeling that my passions and energy can still find purpose. Otherwise, in the absence of a potential mate, I'm taking up a job in clothing retail ... at least there, I get the perk of dressing myself for cheap.