KINS and Growing a Field

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Looking over Capital Missions Companies, Key Initiator Network Strategy (KINS), I have many points of agreement about the principles behind the strategies. I believe

• that we are all one
• that there are key laws of nature including distributed intelligence and emergence which we can learn from
• that there is strength in weak ties
• that peer-to-peer relationship offer great power
• that abundance, generosity, and trust figure strongly in our evolution

And we do need resource efficient ways to make large social change. So this is my spin and twist on what I understand about KINS.

Spreading behaviors path of 5

1. Establish credibility. To make network change, change agents require credibility. Susan answers the credibility issue by asking for powerful high-status actors. I would say, sure those help. High-status is one way of being credible; it is not the only way.

2. Encourage Inter-organizational Networks. Professionalization and inter-organizational networks act as sources for spreading the behavior through a network of common interest. There need to be paths in the network for connections to spread behaviors.

3. Fosters powerful models. Modeling innovative behavior can lead to the spread of that behavior. Lead by example. This can be reflexive A<-=->B or mimentic A–>B

4. Focus on commonality. Susan asserts that the spread happens through actors in similar structural positions. I prefer to broaden that: it spreads through actors who have something, anything that they know to be in common. The common trait between A and B need not be the common trait in B and C. There may be a propensity for dispersal of behaviors at a structural peer level, but it is not a requirement or limitation.

5. Emerge effective collective action. Open space for mobilization and coordination of community of individuals and organization around a common cause.

Agreed: “Homogeneous interests, a sense of shared identity, and dense social networks increase a group’s ability to mobilize its resources.”

So that is how I am understanding and reframing what I understand of KINS.

However, this does not speak to how to create homogenous interests, shared sense of identity, nor dense social networks. How do we do that?

All over the place and focus

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I suppose to some people my interests appear to be all over the place: philanthropy, currencies, technology, visualization, mapping, marketing, coaching, leadership, process arts, community development, art, creativity, and some other issues too like globalization, the bottom of the pyramid, social entrepreneurship, etc. And most of these areas I have enough understanding to listen and ask good questions…but not enough to debate academically on the finer points or the history. Coaching might be the exception. Maybe. I am not a specialist. And some say it is a world where we ought to be specialized. I don’t know about that. I think it is a world where we ought to connect and have engaging conversations.

Sometimes, in our lives, we find the varied paths we lead all connecting down the road somewhere. All this leads together…

How? Field building. I will post soon a longer explanation of field building, along with some tidbits of conversation and great links for those who are interested. For now, let me simply explain that field building is the conscious collective development of a network of purpose (both the nodes and the space between the nodes). And I see this as being critical for our evolution. We need to adapt to survive and for the planet to survive. We need to understand our world in more useful and appropriate ways. And all these interests of mine lead back to the many tools, processes, and systems that play a role in field building. An example–Social Network Analysis is an emerging field…It is defining itself, the practices, examining what distinctions are valuable and which are not. It changes how organizations work, and values human connection. It requires message management for maintaining a cohesive set of meaningful terms. It requires leadership to grow the edges and community to build the depths. It takes funding and marketing to keep thriving. It takes mapping and visualization to track and analyze itself. Other examples are Digital Media and Education, Currencies/Flows, and Thrivability (next evolution of sustainability). Sometimes fields are in transition too, like the work we are doing in Philanthropy to democratize giving, promote giving while living, encourage micro-philanthropy, etc.

We need to change our world, to understand it in new ways, to work in new ways. I see my work as building fields that help with that process. And why? It comes back to my core purpose–to help people transform their lives and live with passionate purpose.

Leadership in Participatory Culture

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What do we mean by leadership when we talk about it within the frame of participatory culture?

In May, Ode magazine published The Power of Many, an article about our participatory culture (rather than top down hierarchies). On the website, they also post another article about the We mentality.

Whereas leadership in hierarchical organizations, by definition, seems to be a relational position within the system, participatory culture surfaces a different filter for leadership. What is that filter? How do we know it when we see it, especially if it does not include an organizationally designated title?

Leaders within this context display, I think, the following characteristics. And I would, of course, prefer to think of them as nurturers. But to bridge from one paradigm to the new thrivable participatory one, we will use the past terminology. Leaders, then, in participatory culture, noticeably portray the following:

  • trust others and trust in the collective ability of a group
  • draw attention to commonality between participants (rather than dividing them with differences)
  • demonstrate active conscious commitment to vision, values, and goals as example to others
  • act responsively to feedback and help grow feedback loops among participants
  • show their humanity, making them credible and proving their integrity regularly
  • listen actively and deeply with distributed credit so decisions seem to come from collective
  • instill a sense of togetherness, a sense of “we can do this if we each do our part”
  • defend the collective to outsiders and represents their needs
  • hold each participant to their greatness
  • open to seeing how the pieces fit together–open to emergence
  • willing and ready for new opportunities
  • able to respond with compassion in times of stress and difficulty

Leaders in participatory community foster a sense of tribe/community as something each individual serves, uplifts, and is in turn cared for by. They presume that people are capable of being a contribution beyond their own individual wants to act for the improvement of the collective. These leaders are not afraid to be a strong example to embody the moral code of the group.

Leaders in participatory communities do not function in a top down dictatorial method–they facilitate emergence within the collective. They do not direct: they bring forth. They distribute power to the individuals, empowering them to be their best, give their best, and be given the best. They encourage positive reinforcement to get more of what the collective needs to flourish. These leaders see their role as bringing out the best in others, as responsible for people harnessing collective expertise, wisdom, and creativity.

Thriving with Complexity

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From simplistic thinking to embracing complexity…writes Dave Pollard.

He states:

There are ten things to remember about complex adaptive systems (which include all social and ecological systems):

  • It is impossible to know ‘enough’ about such systems to prescribe blanket ‘solutions’ to ‘problems’ in such systems: There are too many variables. A one size answer never fits all in such systems.
  • The wisdom of crowds is essential to even a basic understanding of such systems: The more people involved in understanding, thinking about, and making decisions about such systems, the more likely those decisions are to be effective….
  • Such systems are unpredictable: Because there are so many variables, many of them unknown, it is folly to even attempt to predict what will happen, even in the short term….
  • Many of the variables in such systems are uncontrollable…
  • In such systems, prevention is difficult but better than a cure after the fact…Prevention requires imagination, and unfortunately we live in a world (especially true in large organizations, where imagination is actively discouraged) of terrible imaginative poverty….
  • In such systems there are no ‘best practices’ or ‘best policies’: Every situation in complex adaptive systems is unique. Trust the people closest to that situation to know what to do, don’t try to impose some practice that worked well in some completely different context (though telling a story about that practice might help those closest to the situation decide whether it could be adapted to their situation)….
  • In such systems, great models can spread but they usually can’t be scaled… If you don’t understand why this almost always fails, re-read Small is Beautiful.
  • There is a tendency for those working in such systems to presume ‘learned helplessness’ of customers and employees: …And failure to engage customers and employees in co-producing the product is a tragic waste of great opportunity. The key is knowing how to engage them: Not through passive questionnaires or surveys, but through conversations, stories, and presenting the ‘problem’ to them so they can help you appreciate it better and then address it….
  • In such systems, genuine decentralization is almost always a good idea: That means pushing out real authority along with responsibility….
  • In such systems, networks outperform hierarchies: This is a corollary of the other nine tenets of complex adaptive systems. Information, ideas and working models spread faster and more effectively peer-to-peer than up and down hierarchies.

Networks. Adaptive Systems.

Listen. Learn network theory. Go read Valdis Krebs white papers, and understand how power works in networks, and how smart communities work. Then grab Linked. And wait, there is more. On top of that add some understanding of incentives and acknowledgment. Now you have basic tools for creating healthy flowing adaptive systems. It isn’t enough. It is a great start.

Let us weave these networks to deal with the complexity around us, moving, flowing, growing. Let us thrive together.

Listen. Trust. Flourish.