Episode 39 Description

Real systems-level change takes community, safety, and trust. Today, Christine is joined by Beth Tener, founder of New Directions and Kinship. Beth shares that creating change does not happen through one person or organization, but through collaborative networks working together toward building systemic change. She believes strongly that the answers can already be found within a community – the challenge is in providing the necessary support to bring it forward. Beth’s work helps people remember they’re part of a beautiful ecosystem. Communities have a shared history that informs what exists in the present. Allowing those stories to be shared and held is vital.

Beth offers her wisdom, experience, and perspective on cultivating lasting transformation, creating spaces of care, and building social justice with community. Realize the power of collaboration, acknowledging the past, and building a brighter future with others to create new possibilities. Welcome to the Yes! We Rise Podcast!

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Episode 39 Show Notes

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Key takeaways

The answers are already there

Beth Tener started her post-college career working at a consulting firm focused on environmental compliance. She was working with many different companies and traveled regularly, and as a result she witnessed all types of cultures, human behavior, organizations, and systems. 

Through her work, she discovered how the presentation of current behaviors and systems is actually the result of the past and what came before. Of course it makes sense then, that for true change to occur we must be willing to look at what’s underneath it all. 

What is informing the way things currently operate?

After attending a powerful conference in the 90’s, Beth started a nonprofit focused on educating organizations on sustainable principles and how to integrate those practices into their business.

Beth is clear that creating change does not happen through one person or organization. It is through collaborative networks working together toward systemic change. This is exactly what her work has been focused on for the past decade. 

When you bring together people that really represent all parts of a community or a system and help them work together and collaborate, leaders begin to see how a whole new level of change is possible. They discover how to go from an idea to actual implementation while taking the collective whole into account. 

The process is about centering the community and the people. Structures are built to help the communities communicate what is needed. The goal, of course, is to provide resources for the people to come up with the answers. Beth believes strongly that the answers can already be found within a community – the challenge is in providing the necessary support to bring it forward.

Holding the past to create a different future

Beth has observed how too often, folks show up with the emphasis on looking forward. They will ignore not only all the gifts in the strengths within the community, but also what they’ve experienced. In order to actually move forward, you need to acknowledge what has already been.

In one of the core activities Beth leads as a facilitator, she arranges everyone in small groups and encourages them to share the significant events they’ve experienced as a community. They write it down and then put it up on a wall revealing the patterns over time. This honors what they’ve been through and their strengths.

It is in part this idea that led to the birth of Beth’s new initiative, Kinship, which is a part of her larger business New Directions Collaborative. The focus of Kinship is to provide safe spaces for folks facilitating community work. In conjunction with this, Kinship teaches the tools and skills to facilitate groups so more people can lead, rather than the role being placed on a select few.

A common thread seen in her work is this idea of leaders having it all figured out. Facilitators of trainings often place a lot of pressure on themselves to have the answer, but from Beth’s perspective, they don’t need to. She works with them to help them unlearn this way of thinking and instead, inspire others to find the solution.

A practical approach to this is through strategic questions and open-ended questions that create reflection and empower the group to find the answer, rather than the facilitator needing to have it figured out. This creates a space of learning and curiosity. The community has the answers within them; the facilitator’s job is to create a space to uncover them.

Beth works to help craft spaces where questions can be asked to create shared learning together. One example from a recent gathering Beth facilitated of a powerful, strategic question could be:

Given everything you just went through over the last two years, what capabilities and possibilities emerged from that?

Sharing in solidarity an individual experience

Unless a person is really heard and their story is held, especially at the community scale, it can be very hard to envision a different future. Being open, listening, and acknowledging together what was, provides safety in both a psychological and physiological sense. It’s through that trust and safety that newness and change can come forth.

Coming together in solidarity is key in moving forward because we live in such an individualistic world. Beth’s work helps people remember they’re part of a beautiful ecosystem. Communities have a shared history that informs what exists in the present. Allowing those stories to be shared and held is vital.

The power of creating safe and trusting communities is something that Beth has experienced firsthand. When she was in her 30s, her fiancé and partner of five years was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Throughout his illness and her grief after he passed, Beth’s community loved on her with support, compassion, and provision.

Sometimes in the depths of struggle, there is an intuitive awareness of how to meet one another’s needs and care for each other. There’s no need for a strategic plan, training, or funding. Trauma is too difficult for someone to bear by themselves. The truth is, that we’re not meant to hold things alone. 

Beth reminds us how, “we as humans have always had the capacity to share and hold the grief of those we love. It’s one of the most beautiful ways to be human together.”

Notable quotes from Beth

“We’re not going to solve this at the scale of one person, or one organization. To change this scale of systems, we need to have collaborative networks and work with systemic change.” 

“Too often, we just show up and say, “let’s look forward”. And we ignore not only only the gifts and the strengths, but also what they’ve been through, right? That needs to be acknowledged.”

“I’m really big on the practical tools of what we need to unlearn. You know, from the way we don’t do it and what we need to learn, and what spaces we need to add in alongside the work so that we can all sustain ourselves in it.”

“When you get people all doing the same thing, but in different places together, that’s just such rich learning.”

“So my number one favorite tool, (I have several), but one of the ones I use the most is called Strategic Questions. I’ve found that to be the doorway into helping people learn how to be more in a learning space, how to be in a space of inviting the group to find the answers.”

“There are ways you can listen where people really feel heard and understood and I feel like that’s critical. It’s critical for mental health.”

“There’s a huge need for a stability of funding. It’s like the soil: do you want to invest in soil that nourishes the work and the people? Or do you want to just keep trying to grow some little plant and then uproot it and start over?”

“When we’re in the village at our best, there’s a spontaneity to how we are with each other. We have the place and the connection to care. We don’t need strategic plans. We don’t need grants. Nature doesn’t strategic-plan how a meadow is going to evolve… How do we get back to that?”

“It’s possible to just hold this stuff together… As different people have needs, we can be there for each other, and it’s one of the most beautiful ways to be human together that we’re missing out on.”

LINKS/RESOURCES MENTIONED

Learn more about Beth and her new initiative, Kinship. Kinship is part of New Directions Collaborative. Take part in some of Beth’s upcoming events and sign up for the Kinship Newsletter!

BETH’S RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

• Art of Hosting will inspire you to harness the collective wisdom of groups
• System Thinking, System, Tools, and Chaos Theory
• Strategic Questioning
• Creative Approaches To Problem Solving has lots of great ideas!
• Relational Neuroscience by Sarah Peyton

Additional Resources from New Directions Collaborative

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.