Maintaining Energy and Momentum

Episode 44 Description

Dialogue and Design is the sister company behind the Yes! We Rise Podcast, and in this space, we have a beautiful opportunity to listen to incredible changemakers working to build a brighter future with their communities. We love sharing stories and strategies that help build a sense of belonging, collective resilience, and community transformation.

In this Episode, Christine shares the top 10 strategies Dialogue + Design uses to support the different communities they work with, from establishing a thoughtful action plan, to balancing different personalities in a room, and acknowledging and honoring your wins. In an effort to create a safe space for diverse groups of people, certain approaches are absolutely essential. As a community strives toward a vision, it is vital that the door stays open for new members to join, and you’ll hear our best practices to bring you encouragement and new momentum in your community. Enjoy!

Welcome to Yes! We Rise.

Download the show Notes

Episode 44 Show Notes

find this episode on youtube

Key takeaways

A safe space and keeping the door open

In this episode, Christine shares some tools and techniques about welcoming people to a long-term collaborative, or a space where folks have been meeting for some time.

Christine talks about Dialogue + Design’s work which focuses on helping people envision their future, find tools and resources, and actually make their ideas a reality. To do this, creating a safe space for a variety of people to come together and create the change they desire is key.

Many groups have been together for a long time, and in order to maintain vitality and momentum, there is a lot of value in inviting new people and members into a collaborative group.

Dialogue + Design has found 10 important strategies that help groups stay intentional in keeping the door open, and our hope is that you will find them supportive as well.

The First Strategy is to be intentional about people coming into the group. People need to know you are there and that your door is open. They also need to feel welcome to join. The Second Strategy aligns with this and focuses on making it easy for people to learn about the history of your group and the decisions that have already been made.

Our Third Strategy is to offer to have a one on one meeting with new members. Take time to sit down with them, in person or by phone. This is a great opportunity to explain the group’s history, how it works, and any new opportunities they might be able to plug in to.

An action plan, new ideas, and space for feelings

It is important for a group to have an Action Plan to break down the vision, mission, and goals of the group, while also highlighting accomplishments and successes. Strategy Four is to make this plan available to the public, add it to your website, and share it with new members.

If your group has been together for a while, you’ve likely heard many thoughts and ideas. Regardless, Strategy Five is about welcoming and acknowledging ideas from new members. If an idea is old, but has never been brought to fruition, a new member may offer new energy and momentum.

Many of the groups we work with always help orient newcomers to the group with a quick rundown of the initiative. The Sixth Strategy we recommend is to start each meeting with a brief overview of what the effort is, some background, the vision, and the context. This helps fill in the gaps for newcomers and it also reminds everyone of their shared mission. It’s a way of grounding everyone into your common goal.

The Seventh Strategy is a little less about logistics and more about emotions. We encourage you to create a space where all feelings are welcomed. Allow grace, foster trust, and acknowledge fear. Having a group agreement to notice feelings as they emerge and name them helps you all work together and lean on each other in both hard times and celebratory ones.

Honoring the past, celebrating wins, and creating space for all voices

Groups that are in it for the long haul naturally shift, change, and grow over time, so Strategy Eight is that when members leave the group, take time to celebrate the work they’ve done. New people are an integral part of long-standing groups, but as this is done, still make the space to acknowledge and thank people as they move onto something new.

When you have a variety of people together, you tend to have both extroverts or more outspoken folks, along with shy or introverted individuals. To ensure all members have space to share and feel heard, Strategy Nine is to create an intentional space for quieter folks to share their ideas. This can be done by asking if anyone who hasn’t shared has something to share, or by asking members who are more outspoken to simply pause for a moment before jumping in.

In the midst of focusing on your goals, mission, and actualizing your mission, we strongly encourage Strategy Ten: acknowledge and celebrate your wins and accomplishments along the way. Don’t just continue to work without taking time to celebrate, breathe, play, and rest before rolling up your sleeves to continue the work

Keeping the door open to new folks will help maintain energy and excitement while moving the group forward. Always continue to welcome and value the knowledge, the history, the institutional memory that long term members have, while inviting fresh eyes, views and opinions. Both are necessary in a collaborative’s work to succeed and thrive.

Notable quotes from Christine

“We intentionally work to create a space that is as welcoming as possible to as many kinds of people as possible.” 

“We firmly believe that community resilience is built on the local ideas of local leaders.”

“When you have people who have been working together for a long time, they often have a lot of shared history in their work together. They often have a lot of shared knowledge. They also have points that they get stuck frequently. And often there’s a desire to welcome new people into a collaborative.”

“The intention really is to keep the momentum up for a group, to keep the effectiveness up, for a group to share the history of how the group has been working, to how to welcome people in an effective way.”

“Acknowledging where a group has been and where it’s going really helps keep the entity moving forward.”

“Communities change, they don’t just stay the same. And when we are intentional in honoring our past, that really actually helps create space for the future.”

“Having an agreement to notice feelings as they emerge and name them helps me work together and lean on each other to get through hard times and celebrate the good ones when they arise.”

“Continue to welcome and value the knowledge, the history, the institutional memory that long term members have. They’re really important, and they’re really essential in keeping a long term effort going.”

LINKS/RESOURCES MENTIONED

Learn more about Dialogue + Design Associates.

To learn more about growing community resilience, sign up for the Yes! We Rise email list and download our free guide: Three Simple Strategies To Grow A More Sustainable Future.

The Yes! We Rise podcast features solutions-seekers, change-makers, and those creating a resilient future. We share stories and strategies to inspire action to build resilience and community transformation. To create change, people need to feel like they belong and that they are part of a growing movement. They need to know their voice matters and that they have the inspiration, agency and ability to transform their lives and their communities. They are the key to a resilient future.

From the Navajo Nation to the mountains of Appalachia, incredible work is being done by community members and leaders. Change is often sparked by inspiration: seeing what others have done, especially in similar situations and places. People see that when someone looks like them or lives in a place like theirs, and has created real, true and lasting change, change that will allow their granddaughters and grandsons to thrive — they begin to imagine what might be possible for them. No longer waiting for someone else to come and save them, they realize they are the ones they have been waiting for. But what creates that spark? What creates that inspiration? Learning through stories and examples, feeling a sense of agency and belonging, and getting fired up to kick ass creates that spark.

We Rise helps community leaders and members learn to forge a new path toward creating resilience and true transformation. One person at a time, one community at a time, one region at a time, the quilt of transformation can grow piece by piece until resilience becomes the norm instead of the exception. Together, we rise.