Social Enterprise Planning Plus 30March2010

8/14/2019 Social Enterprise Planning Plus 30March2010

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Some Not-Quite-Random Notes around Social EnterprisePlanningA colorful white paper from Alexander Carpenter

Contents

Definition of Strategic Planning.......................................................................................................................3The Process...............................................................................................................................................3

Whats the Plan, Stan?..............................................................................................................................4Why not Strategic Planning?....................................................................................................................5The Challenge of Communications...............................................................................................................6

The Advantages of Social Enterprise Planning......................................................................................................7Culture and Structure Are Strategy...................................................................................................................7

Crazy Things Happen in Planning Processes.....................................................................................................8Prerequisites for a Successful Planning Process................................................................................................9

Style and Mood of an Effective SEP Process........................................................................................................10

Vision-Based Community Benefit Planning.....................................................................................................10Complexity..........................................................................................................................................10Simplicity............................................................................................................................................11Interviews and Group Conversations............................................................................................................12

Key Distinctions from the Operational Model of Change of the Model for Community Change ...........................................13Organizational Level:..............................................................................................................................13Program Participant Level:.......................................................................................................................13Community Level:..................................................................................................................................14Advocacy Level:....................................................................................................................................14

Complete Mission Statement Examples:.........................................................................................................15Values-Vision-Mission-Means-Goals Statement for a United Way Branch.................................................................15

An Internal Functional Vision-Mission-Means Matrix for a United Way....................................................................16Healthy Kids Mendocino...........................................................................................................................17Organization (and Organizational Chart) Parameters and Principles..........................................................................18

Corporate Titles....................................................................................................................................18CEO/President......................................................................................................................................18Finance..............................................................................................................................................19Operations...........................................................................................................................................19Resource Development............................................................................................................................19Marketing............................................................................................................................................19Accounting..........................................................................................................................................19Job Descriptions....................................................................................................................................20

Organizational Charts Revisited.................................................................................................................20

Social Enterprise Planning 2007-2010 All Rights Reserved Alexander Carpenter 30 March 2010 page 1


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Challenges inherent in the transition:..........................................................................................................21A Meditation on Covert Leadership (a tragic oxymoron)....................................................................................23

Self-Valuation Key Distinctions..................................................................................................................26Self-esteem............................................................................................................................................................27Self-worth.............................................................................................................................................................27Self-efficacy...........................................................................................................................................................27Clarifying Distinctions on Sectors....................................................................................................................27A Characterological Comparison of the Private and Social Benefit Sectors..................................................................28

Change Management..............................................................................................................................28Comfort-Zone.......................................................................................................................................29Private Sector Persons in the Social Benefit Sector..........................................................................................31Do Nothing........................................................................................................................................32Phobia of Criticism.................................................................................................................................32Consequences.......................................................................................................................................33The Cult of Mediocrity............................................................................................................................34Five Tragedies......................................................................................................................................34Supply and Demand................................................................................................................................35Servant Leadership..............................................................................................................................35Evil...................................................................................................................................................36

Major Resources........................................................................................................................................37Quotations...............................................................................................................................................38Appendices..............................................................................................................................................39

A Note on Political Correctness (and similar empty rhetoric):.............................................................................39A Note on Hedging.................................................................................................................................40



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Definition of Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning: The process of developing strategies to reach a [pre-]defined objective.

Identifies the medium-term goals integral to an institution's mission; general principles are fairly fixed, but the means forimplementation are flexible.

An approach to planning that aligns the unit's mission with its specific courses of action and results measurements.

Strategy: A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal.

Strategy is the wayan organization seeks to achieve its vision and mission. It is a forward-looking statement about anorganization's planned use of resources and deployment capabilities.

"What to do" ("mission") is not strategy; strategy ("howto do it") kicks in when "what to do" is adequately known. "What to do" is defined out ofvision; Whyto do it is defined out of values.

To align on means ("strategy"), one must first have aligned on a mission. To have a meaningful mission, one must first have aligned that missionwith the organization's (and its communitys) values and vision. These are organically distinct and essential stages, and are an integral part oftheModel for Community Change, which provides an empowering values-centric context for organizational planning, as well as an algorithm

(or template) for its implementation. For more information about theModel for Community Change, see its Key Distinctions below, andcontact Alexander.

The Process

What we in the social-benefit sector have been calling strategic planning should be done by a select group of Board members, most of themanagement team, and selected community peers, including volunteers. An organization that needs to hire a consultant for this purpose (ormerely to facilitate the process), is probably already in some trouble and may need more than strategic planning to thrive or even survive. Ifthe composite leadership can't do the planning, it cant run and evolve the company as a modern market-responsive (or mission-focused)organization requires. Facilitation is not leadership. Planning/facilitation skills are the same skills leaders use every day to facilitate oractually leadan ongoing success conversation and enterprise, with the ultimate goal being an organization of adults who are self-responsible,

creative, aligned, and committed in a team, andproductive. If present management cant do it now, then it can learn by doing it iteratively it may be inefficient at the start but the results will be highly advantageous in the medium and long term. One way to bridge this gap is to havean outside consultant coach in-house facilitating leaders in a behind-the-scenes mode.

True organizational planning must involve community peers or an inbred and involuted organizational culture will propagate itself. Its justhuman nature. Its no accident that things in the community are the way they are now, in equilibrium with the internal culture of theorganizations within it. To drive authentic change in an organizations community will require authentic changes in the internal culture. This isthe hard part, the demanding edge of moral courage, to have change begin within (with the next stage, to confront and change the establishedorder, only slightly easier). Peers from, say, a local Community Foundation, city and county government, and the Chamber of Commerce canwork to align vision; peers from national equivalent or parent organizations, various major individual and organizational donors, and from otherstakeholders such as churches can work to align mission; and peers from vertically integrated service agencies and other partners can work to

mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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align means. All will need to originate any re-alignment deep within themselves, through a ruthless and explicit conversation starting withshared values and resulting in grounded commitment.

Strategic planning in the social-benefit sector is a metaphor taken from the private sector, where strategic planning actually does work as ameans-defining exercise because the private (or business) sectors relatively simplistic values, vision, and mission are such a given: at the veryleast, and ordinarily little more, to make profits and increase market share. The social-benefit sector usually undertakes this same kind ofstrategic planning to determineitsmission (not just its means), without going deeper to its originating values and vision. This results in afragmented organization participating (if at all) in a fragmented community conversation. This is a failure of cultural diffusion: the navesocial-benefit sector has been seduced by the glibness and apparent (but illusory) technical mastery of this process in the private sector, whosetools are inadequate to meet the needs of a more-demanding way of life and a more-profound engagement with the very fabric of society.Strategic planning, as such, is not able to meet the social-benefit sectors needs (and, indeed, is inadequate for the private sectors completeneeds as well).

Most social-benefit organizations do only a strategic plan because their mission is (or appears to be) self-evident but which might largelyconsist of un-aligned (and even antithetical) projections. A strategic plan is only one part (and ajuniorpart, at that) of a master plan thatexamines the basis for being, the hidden assumptions, and the unconscious habits of an organization. Strategy can intrigue your mind, but amaster plan puts fire in your belly. It breaks down the artificial silos in an organization or community, and enhances communication,collaboration, coordination, and alignment not just of efforts, but of will. Most organizations that do only strategic planning accomplish theirmeans (or some of them) and fail to some extent at their larger mission because they have failed to link values-driven motivation and actionthroughout their culture and organization.

Whats the Plan, Stan?

Enterprise planning is a modern business strategy for integrating continuous process improvement into real-time operations, and running inparallel all the tracking and forecasting that requires. Enterprise Planning is also known as business process modeling and enterprisesystems integration. It can be similar financially, and an expansion from, a business plan, but is more comprehensive and detailed, and usesa framework or model specifically designed for the purpose. Social Enterprise Planning (SEP) is similar. It tends to be more broadlyfocused on society and used by non-profits that generate earnings in the marketplace (that generate earnings also applies to fundraising andother revenue-generating activities, so this notion is readily applicable to service-provider agencies, program operators, foundations and otherfunders, and even and perhaps especially corporations that are premised on a social or environmental component of their mission). It alsoseeks to integrate the social activities with the financing and fundraising so they work together.

Both Enterprise planning and Social Enterprise Planning are much more comprehensive than strategic planning and encompass the range ofdistinctions of the Operational Model of Change which is at least abreast of the state of this art (a good example of the convergentevolution of enterprise-planning models), and which now appears to be one of the more advanced presentations of the idea of modeling andintegrating social and economic processes that have a distinct community-benefit orientation. Ultimately, every person or organization that hasany social mission at all (even large corporations) can become more productive through Social Enterprise Planning, for all such organizationsshould ultimately be primarily focused on their social mission, which their business (or market) mission serves (or shouldserve). This wouldreturn corporations to their original rle in service to their polity, performing functions that are neither governmental nor private, but anintegrated hybrid of the two, and manifesting human values over (but not to the exclusion of) market values.

An analogous example of another tool borrowed from the private sector is SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis. While

of limited but real value in apurelytactical business context, it is actively damaging when applied to organizational planning in the social-



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context, just content. No integral connection to society or humanity. The conversation becomes amorphous mush. Poorly-defined visions getlost in poorly conceived and poorly coordinated actions, which, for want of that vision, often become ends in themselves (as programs).

Similarly, without explicitly identifying the criteria for success, and calibrating the accomplishment of that success (in both means and results),focus on interim accomplishments (e.g., raising funds) distract from, and often diminish, overall mission effectiveness (e.g., benefit from use ofthose funds). Because of its larger and more-coherent vision, a social enterprise plan can drive community benefit through program-participantbenefit strategic plans have tended to focus almost exclusively on driving participant benefit, and very rarely expand their vision and valueproposition to offer and deliver community benefit. Obviously, leaders whose style and practices include variations on divide and conquerwill find use of the Model threatening to their rule. Similarly, such leaders have avoided any real accountability, substituting We tried forWe succeeded hiding behind the illusion of irreconcilable complexity in a situation. Those leaders have always been willing to sacrifice truemission accomplishment to maintain their political position; they have always been able to rationalize and substitute the mediocrity of lowexpectations and partial engagement for genuine success.

Using strategic planning for overallorganizations in the social-benefit sector is a pernicious mis-application of an inappropriate tool. Evenmore than in the private sector, organizations and communities need Social Enterprise Planning. This is essential if there is to be an effectivefocus on community benefit, and an organizational focus on community benefit requires community-wide participation in a community-wideconversation. Working stepwise (and always iteratively) through the Models distinctions provides an opportunity for an entire organization andits community to generate a shared vision and align on the actions to realize it and the means to effect the actions. It connects the intrinsic andthe extrinsic. That connection is tremendously motivating and empowering to the organization and its individuals and community, and thatbegins a feedback loop of success engendering more success. The set of distinctions also provides a working structure for sequencing the

conversation.

Then, once a clear values-vision-mission field has been defined within an organization or community, we move into the Means distinction, wherestrategic integration and tactical planning should be done by a management team (a real mission-focused team based on actual personalstrengths, without regard to position or title) comprised of carefully selected or perhaps even most team members, and others (includingcommunity volunteers) when advantageous. This results in a series of benefit scenarios that describe howwe will deliver program-participantbenefit, community benefit, and a compelling value proposition to the community through theAdvocacy Model of Change.

The Challenge of Communications

Given a coherent process, the greatest remaining challenge is communications continuous, internal, and external. Communications happens

before, during, and after a Social Enterprise Planning process. In effect, Social Enterprise Planning is communications; there are few real actionverbs involved. Communicating content through shared visualizations, using an adequate visual metaphor for time, space, and process, leads toenrollment, alignment, and commitment. Stakeholders must see the potential benefit in its wholeness in their own lives. The vision metaphoris literal. A linear sequence of words on a flat page, even with pictures and maps, is not adequate, if only because the world isnt flat and isntsequential in any two-dimensional way. The reliance on such media is another reason why most strategic planning processes fail to becommunicated. They generate a printed and linear plan that sits on shelves while people continue to improvise and build ever-more-elaborateworkarounds until that added complexity implodes and drives them to yet another strategic planning process and yet another flat-fielddocument on a shelf. In practice, anyplanning process is an opportunity for people to have conversations they wouldnt ordinarily have, and toshare knowledge. Most of that knowledge is shared informally and locally, and it usually doesnt get organized and presented in the plan togain high utility from being clearlyintegratable by all, individually and collectively. A Social Enterprise Planning master plan approach isinherently more capable at dealing with these added dimensions of reality, desire, caring, and will. Modern matrix-visualization tools are



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available to deal with the need to assist and structure vision to generate and structure a coherent larger plan, to communicate it, and toguide its implementation. They are accumulating an amazing track record in every respect (see below, under Resources, for one example).

The Advantages of Social Enterprise Planning

Social Enterprise Planning (using, for example, theModel for Community Change as its template) is contemporary Management Consulting andOrganizational Development at its best and highest, stepping back from the illusion of knowledge and alignment (usually projected orsimplyassumed) to build a living consensus from the ground up. This requires true leadership (as opposed to manipulation, intimidation, and fetishistic

congeniality at any cost) and generous vision (as opposed to self-aggrandizing), with illusory seductions not prejudicing the process. It alsorequires tremendous moral courage, and highly skilled and even charismatic internal adult mission-focused facilitation without ego or narcissismfrom self-serving factions corrupting the process and its outcomes. In a very benign way, it challenges assumptions and habits, and liberatesauthenticity. It goes beyond collaboration, through commitment, to building community.

The implementation part of strategy generates benefit scenarios and definitions for success and how it will be known and communicated.Strategyis the senior part of the means distinction in the Operational Model of Change (see below). A strategy is the organizing principle forapplying resources through a tactical operations plan, which arrays the incremental means (techniques).

Even if its original ambition is small, a mission statement or strategic plan process structured through all these distinctions organicallybecomes a master plan. Then, when it is time to adjust the mission or the means (from effectiveness feedback and advocacy evolutions) thevision can remain intact. Similarly, with mission and means distinct, one can recognize some means as successful and others as inadequate orinappropriate, and emphasize some and choose others while maintaining the mission (and the whole process) intact. Or the vision can itselfevolve to accommodate a changed reality, and in turn drive adjustments in the mission and means. We will assume that our values will be themost stable part of the entire statement, with the vision a close second. Each distinction can be an independent variable, giving us moredegrees of freedom. If we havent explicitly distinguished one of these stages, we havent chosen (and cant choose) its content; it remains lostin a fog of assumptions, projections, interpolations, and guesswork. When intact, this process gives us adaptability with integrity andcoherence, as well as an inherent structure for improving mission and community-benefit effectiveness and for generating increasingly credibleevidence of success.

Upon applying the right distinctions within good process models, and with a knowledge-sharing culture (with appropriate infrastructure), anorganization becomes more efficient andmore effective at its mission, and makes fewer and more-recoverable mistakes at every level conceptual (vision and mission) andoperational (strategic, tactical, and technical).

Culture and Structure Are Strategy

The organization of a happy, thriving, successful learning organization is not an arbitrary fixed structure into which individuals are plugged likestandard modules. The highest creativity, productivity, and responsive market (or mission) adaptability comes from exercising the art ofintegral team building, which is always a dynamic, evolving enterprise. Most organizations are very poor at this. Most organizations structuresrepresent the bad habits, dead-end conventions, and obsolete cultural rituals of an ineffective past, and then institutionalize them into aconfining, morale-killing straight-jacket that symbolizes and propagates a damaged (and damaging) culture of reactivity and control.

Overall, peoples fundamental emotional and psychological makeup doesnt change much, if at all. People can learn new information, andresulting behavioral overlays can be maintained until stress forces reversion to their core automatic patterns. It is better to design

organizational systems around what people are than what they pretend or aspire to be, and its better to design systems that are inherently re-



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balanceable as personnel rotate through (and even as they evolve, which does happen but shouldnt be counted-on). Unless personal evolutionis the actual mission of an organization, the real-worldmission of an organization should not be sacrificed to that end. Some balance is called-for.

Instead of a corporate-style linear or hierarchic silo report structure, a small organization needs radial or holarchic parallel coordinationmade easier by a knowledge-sharing infrastructure applied in an adaptable culture less about power and authority (vertical and horizontalstructure, and territory) and more about actual workflow (mission-accomplishment movement). This helps escape the nominalizationtrap and free people to have their personal capabilities be more important than their positional authority which is always the case in anyhealthy organization.

This is a structural learning-organization modality, and requires (and facilitates) a demanding and substantive (that is, not merely social) team-building process that generates alignment, elicits commitment, and includes community volunteers. It generates a culture of peers, withmanagement and its leaders in aprimus inter pares or servant role. The culture requires participation discipline in content-rich meetings andmanyshort stand-up-type encounters; it also requires an expectation of immediate direct interpersonal communications whenever possible,even if awkward (especiallyif awkward), instead of intermediary media such as telephone and e-mail. It holds people and groups accountablefor results. It is kind, it is real, it is implacable, and it is successful.

With this culture and structure, acknowledgement for accomplishment is shared throughout the team, and no-one can get away withsequestering credit (or commandeering blame). An inverse prisoners dilemma culture, modeled high and low, in which at every opportunityall parties give full credit to allothers involved in an enterprise, will generate the most confidence, highest productivity, and highest morale (a

sense of generosity and equity being essential for high morale). In a mature culture, credit is not a zero-sum game (such games being typical ofa primitive organizational paradigm): if I give you all the credit and you give me all the credit, theres twice as much credit.

Crazy Things Happen in Planning Processes

A tremendous clamor of chatter and flak as stakeholders seek to claim mind-space and hedge dominanceSpasms of arbitrary power-grabs with no integral mission-aligned basis or goalFrenzies of projection, presumption, and posturing, unleavened by reality-checking and quality-controlAbandonment of core competencies in favor of attractive alliancesSeductions by grandiose attempts to save the world that are inherently and safely impracticable

Embracing distracting fads (such as PC) with no payoff or that actively interfere with values and vision (such as PC) A random walk of individuals and factions about transparency and disclosure, with whiplash extremes of overloading excess to cripplingsecrecy Compulsive reasonableness and appeals to, claims of, and hiding behind, pseudo-science (Posivitism) and calls for proof Rote and frantic random faction-building before any new purposes and functions are even defined Pre-existing lack of trust will generate paranoid position-taking and advantage-taking; both will undermine the power of choice andcommitment People act out through mis-direction their fear of examining their assumptions about the world they live in; afraid to go deep enough tochallenge their own personal premises

People neglect to examine their assumptions that their world is in a stable steady-state. They dont dig deep enough into their basis ofbeing and look at the meta-context of their existence and functioning they dont look for the masterplan



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A crisis of moral courage about reallytaking on the established order of things to effect meaningful change Every permutation of the above

Prerequisites for a Successful Planning Process

Institutionalizedmoral courage, through leadership by example A cultural climate of trust, confidence, inclusion (of the personal, non-PC kind), and transparency (all unlikely under most leadershipregimes)

A sufficiency of shared values, confirmed explicitly through a process such as theModel for Community Change Skill at aligning persons and eliciting their commitment

To have explicitlyidentified actual and latent competencies, and to prioritize them with appropriate humility

An end-game that involves active commitment to the values, vision, mission, and means co-chosen as part of a master plan A healthy tolerance for benign interpersonal confrontation at an adult (professional or impersonal) level

A practice of regular accountability conversations in which the organization measures its success and examines howits happening

Recognizing that we are accountable for our overall outcomes and benefits not to our donors (and not only to our shareholders), but to

our community at large. We do, however, have afiduciaryobligation to our donors to use their money responsibly and efficiently. Anybenefit we bring our donors comes from their sharing in the overall community benefit we advance using our resources Include explicit contingency plans for the most likely fundamental changes in the larger context of their operations and advocacy (e.g.,accelerating inflation, Peak Oil, economic instability, redistribution of war expenses, changes in national policies, natural disasters andsocial epidemics; recognizing that mediocrity, not drama, is the default resolution)

Some way to effectively and universally communicate the master plan and its component strategic plan visuallyas a dynamic wholesystem of aspects, responsibilities, and actions

Some effective communication that we are reallyseeking to make changes, based on newly established priorities A willingness (or better) on the part of the established leadership to do their job differently, and on a different basis (one of relativelylow ego and reduced control) without having been wrong about prior approaches ...

There is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than the creation of a new system. Forthe initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old system and merely lukewarm defenders in those whowould gain by the new one.

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, 1513

Even without the highest levels of interpersonal skills, these prerequisites can be approximated until they become effective and authentic.



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Style and Mood of an Effective SEP Process

Vision-Based Community Benefit Planning

If the board of a non-profit organization is planning for CommunityBenefit, it will not be creating a traditional non-profit strategic plan. It willalso not be creating an organization-focused business plan. Further, it will not be considering the current situation via an environmental scan, aSWOT analysis, or any other analysis of the current situation, as the context for moving forward.

Why not? Because when we tether our plans to today (via traditional planning processes and their precursor analyses SWOT, etc.), those plansare, in effect and in practice, tethered to what we do not like about today. As we try to find a way to move away from those negativecircumstances, that tether keeps us anchored there.

If, however, a board is planning to create the future for the people it directly serves and for its community, then the tether-point of that planwill be that positive, inspiring image of success the future it is planning to create for its community. The vision. How well that vision has beenrealized will be the measure of the organizations success. And the plan will be anchored in (and therefore pulled along by) that positive vision,which in turn is anchored in the values of the community and the organization.

When a board regularly considers and re-considers that proactive planning focus, and then monitors its progress throughout some well-defined

period, board members will have a system by which to hold themselves accountable for all four of the boards functions those focused on endsand those focused on means.

The back-casting approach inherent in theModel for Community Change (with its fundamental orientation around shared values and commonvision) and pioneered by organizations such as MGTayor (see MGTaylor Axioms: A Model for Releasing Group Genius athttp://www.mgtaylor.com/index2.htmland the new incarnation of the MGTaylor social technologies athttp://www.mgtaylor.com/I7/index.html) is squarely and almost exclusively focused on what we want to accomplish and not on theimpediments to that accomplishment. As such it is a classic application of the Law of Attraction, which states that what we focus on is what ismost likely to actually happen. When we establish our ambitions (our vision of the world we seek to create and live in), set aside our presentproblems, look backward in time from a mind-space future in which we will have accomplished them, and explore, define, and synthesize anuntrammeled means whereby we will have made them real, we are freed from the often-obsessive focus on the problems we are currentlydealing with and largely unable to solve. We can also escape the predicaments for which there is no solution.

If we focus on the impediments to our accomplishment, that is where our energies are trapped and expended, in an aversive and negativeenterprise. If we focus on the positive benefits of our ambitions, and create a de novo, anything-goes process for accomplishing them, we areliberated from the present impasse an impasse because we have not been able to escape it and accomplish our goals from within theperspective of the present situation.

Complexity

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Evolutionary psychology has shown us that human beings, as individuals and as groups, have evolved to react automatically and algorithmicallyto urgent situations, overwhelmingly emphasizing immediate benefit at the expense of any potential long-term benefits. So threat-responsiveproblem-solving is entirely natural and advantageous, but has limitations, especially when groups and organizations are involved, and evenmore-so when situations are complex. There are vastly more things we dont want than those we do want (there are an infinite number of waysthings can go wrong); fixing or preventing them wont necessarily get us what we want, and it can consume all our energies in the process.

A problem-solving approach inherently generates complexity as it layers ad hoc solutions to superficial problems upon layers of ad hocsolutions to even-more superficial problems without returning to the basic challenge and building an integrated approach from scratch. This

gratuitous complexity actively interferes with accomplishment and adds a tremendous physical, financial, and emotional cost to attempting it. Italso reinforces focus on problems and the struggle and even failure to solve them (with its consequent erosion of any sense of viability of theoverall enterprise). This results in a discouraged, even pre-defeated, mood that drives the people involved to default to self-serving (rather thanvision- and mission-serving) behaviors.

If you dont understand how things are connected, the cause of problems is solutions.

Amory B. Lovins, of the Rocky Mountain Institute.

The problem-solving mood is one of vexation and frustration, victimhood and blaming (invariably someone else) and irresponsibility, as peoplelimit their involvement and vision to shrinking aspects of the overall enterprise (Not myproblem). This approach can result in a death-spiral

of discouragement, equivocation, and, ultimately, failure. It is depressingly common. It invites under- or over-reaction to situations, andinappropriate changes in approach to developing and implementing the organizations plan. Changes are integrated afterthey are put in place,requiring yet another layer of problem solving for the unintended consequences of the solution to the previous problem.

The law of unintended consequences is what happens when a simple system tries to regulate a complex system. The political system issimple. It operates with limited information (rational ignorance), short time horizons, low feedback, and poor and misalignedincentives. Society in contrast is a complex, evolving, high-feedback, incentive-driven system. When a simple system tries to regulate acomplex system you often get unintended consequences.

Andrew Gelman

In this analogy, the political system is problem-solving; the complex system is the organization at large in its social and environmental setting.That complex system requires a sophisticated approach to regulation such as Social Enterprise Planning using theModel for CommunityChange.

Simplicity

A re-define-and-re-integrate-the-whole-situation approach represented by SEP using the Model maintains and recovers simplicity and re-familiarizes all persons involved with their motivation and inspiration, as well as with how what they do fits in with what others do.



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A good solution will: solve more than one problem, while not making new problems; satisfy a whole range of criteria; be good in allrespects; accept given limits, using, so far as possible, what is at hand; improve the balances, symmetries, or harmonies within a pattern it is a qualitative solution rather than enlarging or complicating some part of a pattern at the expense or in neglect of the rest.

Wendell Berry on Solving for Patterns

This approach is inherently inspiring, as it periodically clears away all the dead-end underbrush and allows not only the trees to flourish, but alsothe forest. It refreshes commitment as it clarifies how what we are doing connects to our values and vision. It maintains space for small or

incremental changes as well as large and sweeping changes in the way an organization implements its plan. It mostly pre-integrates changes andminimizes unintended consequences. It generates an uplifting and inclusive conversation. Accommodation for what would become, or had been,problems are designed into the system, and they can be entirely averted. Problem-solving simply can not do this.

Interviews and Group Conversations

Four core questions, for individuals and groups:

What do you like about your own job?Describe what your work and its outcomes would be like in the best of all possible worldsWhat most inspires you about what you and your group/organization are doing here?What would you do to make this situation better for everybody?

Instead of questions such as:

What dont you like about your job?Whats getting in your way?Why do you even bother?Who is a thorn in your side?

Maintaining focus on the positive requires rigorous and steadfast discipline on the part of the leaders of the process. It helps to explicitly set the

parameters of the conversation to exclude focus on problems until the integrated master plan has been defined, aligned around, andcommitted-to.

Inevitably, some focus on impediments and immediate problems will be called-for, but it is an entirely different matter to do integratedproblem-solving in the larger context of a backcasted master plan instead of as a stand-alone ad hoc approach to getting things done.Problems and sets of problems too-readily become predicaments when there is no sense that they are just minor irritants on a path we havecommitted to following, to accomplish a vision we can acknowledge and perhaps evenfeel throughout the organization.



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Key Distinctions from the Operational Model of Change of the Model forCommunity Change

Organizational Level:

A values statement is a list of the human and social values we will apply, in balance with, but not subordinate to, market-value constraints.

A vision statement is a description of a social condition of the community(a state of being) we seek to make real. This contains and generatesinterim (individual and family) and ultimate (community) intended outcomes.

A missionstatement is a description of exactly what we are committing to accomplish in the community(usually with program participants)that will realize our vision.

A goal is a milestone on the way to accomplishing our mission

Asuccess is an accomplishment of an interim or ultimate goal ormission (or output or outcome or objective)

The objective of the enterprise or organization or community is to make real its vision

A metric is an objective measurement of a success;in other words, a measurement of change

A key metric is a widely-occurring metric that will correlate with community-level statistics orprovide return-on-investment ratios

A means statement identifies the strategies, tactics, tools, and techniques (a set of engagements) we plan to use to accomplish our mission

An input is a resource the meansconsumes or applies. It includes infrastructure, program personnel, and programparticipants.

An activityis a tactic a programperforms(what it does) to accomplish a strategy; its deliverable(s).

An output is the delivered content of an activity, to a person, family, or group (the output unit).

Program Participant Level:

An outcome is a change inprogram-participantbehaviorin consequence of something a program does. There are two principal kinds ofoutcomes:

1. Internal changes(interior, subjective outcomes learnings of knowledge and skills, planning, and changes in thoughts, feelings, beliefs,and moods), leading to

2. Changes in behavior(exterior, objective outcomes observable changes in actual physical behavior), leading to

Results are the consequence in a participants life of the changes in her behavior, observed as changes in life situation or circumstance. Resultsare measured in terms of:

1. Changingoccurrence of events;

2. Market value of averted drain events and added gain events (the return); andSocial Enterprise Planning 2007-2010 All Rights Reserved Alexander Carpenter 30 March 2010 page 13


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3. An experience of improved Quality of Life.

Community Level:

Cumulative resultsare the consequence in the community of the results in many participants lives from many programs.

Communitybenefitoccurs from the multiplier effect of cumulative results. This, not outputs or outcomes, is what we are working toaccomplish.

Credible evidence of community benefitcomes in three ways:

1. Correlating changed occurrence of events in cumulative results with third-party community statistics

2. Return on Investmentis the return divided by the program cost to accomplish that return, whether individually or cumulatively

Return is the sum of market values of averted drain events and added gains from individual or cumulative resultsorevent.

Program output-unit cost is the total program budget divided by operating capacity(average outputs over time)

Operating capacityis the average (not total) volume of activityor output units throughout a period, or incidence of events

3. Changes in individual, family, and community experience of Quality of Life from community benefit.Our valueproposition to the community comes from accomplishing our mission (community benefit) and communicating that success withcredible evidence.

Advocacy Level:

Communitychangehappens when the community internalizes the applied and evolving values that led to the changes that accumulate tocommunity benefit. This is manifest as a shift in priorities from intervention to prevention and earlier intervention (because prevention-ROI isalways greater than intervention-ROI, and because the community cant afford a high volume of late intervention).

Facilitating that shift is theAdvocacyModel of Change

Please note that operational flow through the values-vision-mission-means-goals-outcomes-results-benefit distinctions is a dynamiccombination of linear and iterative, singular and parallel.



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Complete Mission Statement Examples:

Values-Vision-Mission-Means-Goals Statement for a United Way Branch

[Present in vacuo public United Way Mission/Means Statement: To improve lives by mobilizing the caring power of our community.]

UW Values: Integrity and equity (inclusion, fairness, trustworthiness, transparency), accountability with responsibility,responsive and adaptable, commitment to equal opportunity,1 courtesy, compassion and kindness, collaboration,wellness, geographic equity and integration, courage and leadership, operational excellence (efficiency andeffectiveness), strategic mastery, catalytic concentration of focus, ... all in the context of addressing thehuman2 needs of individuals and families in our community and maintaining human values over market values.3

UW Vision: One fulfilled three-county community with no un-met needs4 and a [self-]responsible culture of caring action.

UW Mission: To help cause, advance, and demonstrate opportunity and benefit for the community and all its members.[less specifically, and more as a slogan, toadvance the common good]

UW Means: Community collaborations, inspiration, enrollment, resource and attention concentration, conversation-generationand influencing, content-seeding through convening, disciplinedcatalytic focused funding, needs assessment;added value from program and United Way accountability; education and training, ...

UW Goals: First Round: $5MM unrestricted Focused Funding distributionsZero communications and connection lag in addressing un-met needs (211)100% community-wide name and value recognition for United WayReal-time community needs assessment in place

(demand-side feedback through program evaluation and 211)Doubledcommunity participation in United Way process: campaigns, volunteers, major giving,

sources providing community-level statistics (and sharing credit for success); ...Transformed value proposition through credible results-correlation and return-ratiosSignificant and productive increase in demand-side engagement where appropriate

1 as opposed to equal outcomes. See the Hayek quotation at the end of this document.2 in accord with the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Abraham Maslows Hierarchy of Needs.3 note the absence of diversity and other Political Correctness rhetoric (see Appendix)4 as opposed to un-met wants, which engages an entirely different conversation.

http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needshttp://www.un.org/Overview/rights.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs


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An Internal Functional Vision-Mission-Means Matrix for a United Way

DepartmentAdministration

& FinanceMarketing Resource Development

(Fundraising)CommunityBenefit

VisionState

An effective team, learning

and growing, and inspiringthe community

A community fully aware and

supportive of United Way

A thriving self-responsible

community with bountiful giving,investing, and participating(Give, Advocate, Volunteer)

A community with no un-met

needs

MissionCommitment

Support the operatingdepartments

Concentrate communityattention

Concentrate communityresources (money, people,materiel) to use for communitybenefit

Generate and showcommunitybenefit. Provide knowledge forMarketing, RD, Admin, andcommunity

MeansStrategies

Executive, donor,investor, and volunteerenrollment

Communicate the United Wayvalue proposition; inviteparticipation

Applied expertise at effectiveinspiring, enrolling, andfundraising. Answering the

question, Whats in it for thecommunity?

Develop, evolve, andimplement a robust Model forCommunity Change; enhance

accountability for benefit, value,& credibility

MottoIts not aboutus...

What do you need?How can we serve you?

How can we tell a morecompelling and biggerstory?

How can we help you do a betterjob at benefiting yourcommunity?

The difficult we do withdeliberate dispatch; theimpossible takes a bit longer.

ToolsTactics &Techniques

Good physical, cultural,and IT/MIS infrastructure;team building, alignment,and empowerment

Media, buzz, events, website,videos, printed materials, ...

Workplace campaigns, major-donor outreach, special events,direct mail, ...

Convening for content-seeding,focused funding, capacity-building awards, added valuefrom evaluation, focusing thecommunity conversation on

benefit

BusinessMetaphor

Lead (not manage) andServe the process

Communicate theproduct (and the process)

Sell the product(better: enroll people in theprocess)

Provide the product(Community Benefit andsecondary value)

Challenges History and psychology Noise Culture, economy, and noise Culture, economy, psychology,and inertia



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ANOTHER COMPLETE MISSION STATEMENT EXAMPLE:

Healthy Kids Mendocino

Values

All children have a right to quality health care, regardless of immigration or other social status.

All children have a right to be free from hunger and have quality food to eat. All families have a right to be treated with respect and cultural sensitivity. Cultural sensitivity is vitally important. Our partners are an essential resource in responding to the needs of children in their local communities.

Vision

A community of healthy children.

Mission

To promote access to health care for all children in Mendocino County.

Means

Assisting families to enroll their eligible children in government-funded health insurance programs for children. Paying the health insurance costs for children that are not eligible for government-funded programs. Working with community partners within local communities to reach families in an environment that is comfortable to them. Support parents in using the health care their childrens insurance makes available.

Goals

A one-page statement of values, vision, mission, and means can act as a complete, stand-alone communication of the entire ground of being ofan enterprise. It honors the intelligence and caring of a potential enrollee by being more incisive than a slogan (which is almost always triviallydemeaning), and less collapsed and amorphous than the typical mission statement. It invites engagement at many levels.



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Organization (and Organizational Chart) Parameters and Principles

Be very wary of organizational charts. The organizational chart of a happy, thriving, successful learning organization is not an arbitrary fixedstructure into which individuals are plugged like standard modules. The highest creativity, productivity, and responsive market (or mission)adaptability comes from exercising the art of integral team building, which is always a dynamic, evolving enterprise. Most organizations are verypoor at this, present company included. Most organizational charts represent the bad habits, dead-end conventions, and obsolete cultural ritualsof an ineffective past, and then institutionalize them into a confining, morale-killing straight-jacket that symbolizes and propagates a damaged

(and damaging) culture of reactivity and control.Overall, peoples fundamental emotional and psychological makeup doesnt change much, if at all. People can learn new information, andresulting behavioral overlays can be maintained until stress forces reversion to form. It is better to design organizational systems around whatpeople are than what people pretend or aspire to be, and its better to design systems that are inherently re-balanceable as personnel rotatethrough (and even as they evolve, which does happen but shouldnt be counted-on). Unless personal evolution is the actual mission of anorganization, its real-worldmission should not be sacrificed to that end.

Corporate Titles

Be very suspicious of enterprise-level corporate title-sets in smaller companies. They dont work in most smaller companies, and definitely

dont work in an organization as small as most organizations in the social-benefit sector. In fact, enterprise title-sets actively interfere withmission-accomplishment in small organizations. They tend to over-hierarchicalize functional flow, compress creative improvisation withinconfining conventions, and rob us of work-arounds. They lead directly and immediately to a dysfunctional culture and organization thatmagnifies the effects of, and can be crippled by, the weaknesses of its officers (rather than facile at working around those weaknesses tomaximize the results of their strengths). We may use some of those same words in titles, but unconventionally, and without taking them tooseriously.

CEO/President

Be very wary of an organization in which one person is both Chief Executive Officer andPresident. Those two jobs require verydifferentpersonality-types and skill-sets. There are very few persons with both. An organization with a CEO/President either has nothing to actually do,

does its operations poorly, or is helmed by an exceptional person who is at high risk of burnout which is why most functional (as opposed toposturing) CEO/President arrangements are temporary by intention as well as by default.

The roles of the CEO and the President are exactly analogous in an organization in the social-benefit sector and in a small and growingcompany in the private sector. In both cases, the CEOs principal task is raising funds and the Presidents is spending them as effectively andefficiently as possible. The CEO is the master politician and deal-maker; the President is the master of getting specific operational things tohappen. Although there are rare exceptions, the right person to be President should no more be CEO than an entrepreneurial scientist shouldremain head of a rapidly growing company he founded. Every investorknows this; why dont social-benefit organizations and their Boards.



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Finance

Most social-benefit organizations have no "finance" and need no VP of Finance. They have money-management (including payroll), G/Laccounting, audit-responsibility, and sophisticated and specialized fund-accounting and transaction-tracking responsibilities; and one ofaccounting's most important tasks may be the money-history half of potential-donor research (with thepersonal-profile half done in ResourceDevelopment RD). Please note thatfundraising is distinct from accounting. Even fairly large organizations just need an accountingdepartment reporting to the President, with real-time liaison to RD and the CEO through shared assistants. Most social-benefit sectororganizations are weak in managerial accounting, to their detriment.

Anything approaching a true "financial" decision is the rightful domain of the composite leadership, with content support from Accounting.

Operations

Operations would be run by a President/Chief Operating Officer (or even Community Benefit Officer, recognizing the true immediate orultimate purpose of the organization), who would also coordinate Community Benefit product development and delivery, logistics for convening,special events, and campaign operations (one person would liaise intimately with RD on this, especially on content), guide accounting, andadminister legal and employment matters. Presidents with diverse operating responsibilities must guard their boundaries and be wary of burnoutand getting over-immersed in the myriad details of their mission. They must have more-than-adequate administrative support.

Strategic integration (the fine-tuning of means) and tactical planning should be done by a management team (a real mission-focused team based

on actual personal strengths, without regard to position or title) comprised of carefully selected or perhaps even most team members, andothers (including volunteers) when advantageous.

Resource Development

Resource Development, or fundraising would essentially be run by the CEO, whose principal job is dealmaker fundraising at the highestlevels and below (and other political duties). Another task would be systematic advocacy at those same levels. A VP of RD would be hislieutenant, factotum, and researcher, and coordinate the content-delivery and relationship-building side of campaigns. Another lieutenantwould be a major-gifts specialist; yet another would be a workplace campaign specialist. They would share at least one assistant.

Marketing"Marketing" would appear to serve two masters, RD and Community Benefit (CB) through community enrollment with value propositions (valuepropositions work two ways), and events and campaign collateral. Those two would be tightly aligned and coordinated by the President.

Accounting

Accounting and executive management require two verydifferent personality-types and skill sets (even if its just managing operations), andveryfew persons have both. Some of the greatest businesses have foundered when money people have taken over from product, operations,and market people. Smart investors and Board members know this; are social-benefit-sector Boards necessarily less smart?

Accounting would also have a split function, with time-series reporting to the President and close coordination with campaigns and donors

through the various RD personnel. Good software will help this, as will sharing an assistant with RD. Internalizing transaction and G/L accountingSocial Enterprise Planning 2007-2010 All Rights Reserved Alexander Carpenter 30 March 2010 page 19


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and equity being essential for high morale). In an adult culture, credit is not a zero-sum game (such games being typical of an adolescentorganizational paradigm): if I give you all the credit and you give me all the credit, theres twice as much credit.

With this culture, a thriving learning organization emerges, generating productivity and a quality of life, and an aliveness that is threatening(even terrifying) to old-paradigm, command-and-control management, and to accountability-adverse persons fearful of commitment and itsimplications and risks and thus unable to be fully engaged and creative in their commitment to their mission.

Challenges inherent in the transition:

Realigning leaders to recognize their strengths andweaknesses, despite their self-myths and desperations, and to accept the need forsupport Motivating officers to trade the illusions of control they find in the false security of structure and secrecy for the rewards of success

Realigning all persons out of a heroic cult of individuality into a team mentality, also motivated by success as well as quality of life andemotional belonging a tribal synthesis Psychological inertia, vanity, and hubris Stark fear of failure and exposure The discomfort of developmental un-blocking Insecurity about change itself, so it must be handled with integrity and transparency in a mission-focused impersonal context

Finding new titles for everybody, so those who might otherwise feel they are being demoted dont feel dishonored Finding an entirely new schema of titling that tells more truth and is more transparent and inspiring, organized less hierarchically andmore of a team or tribe metaphor

During the transition and in continuing operations, exceptional presence and attention must be placed on everything. This cant be doneby one central person; it must be distributed. Transparency, alignment, and active communications become (and may remain) all-important.



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A Buddhist Lineage Tree: the structural analogue in a hierarchical religious organization of a corporate organizational chart. The flow isthrough time and generations; the authority is spiritual rather than operational. There is a genetically mediated social-behavioral algorithm (anarchetype) that supports this pattern in all cultures and social settings and organizations, even when one might least expect it, and even whencontrary to the nominal professed philosophy.



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A Meditation on Covert Leadership (a tragic oxymoron)

Leadership by compartmentalization, triangulation, and manipulation sacrifices aliveness, productivity, and creative synergy throughout anorganization, to accomplish only the illusion (as always) of control. It murders creative adventure for the illusion of emotional security. Itguarantees mediocrity or outright failure for the illusion of reduced risk. And then it lies about what happened, irresponsibly externalizing andexcusing cause instead of mastering circumstances. It is morally and intellectually bankrupt, while hoarding righteousness.

Another way to look at this is that it represents management with a hidden advance agenda that tries to remain hidden. However, all but themost resolutely clueless participants and stakeholders will sniff it out, if only unconsciously, and that will kill trust and creativity. An otherwisecompetent leader cannot actually lead with open inspiration and merit because of a neurotic (or worse) failure-risk aversion. Good intentionsand some genuine native strengths can nonetheless result in bad processes and mediocre (or worse) results.

It is usually the organizational projection of the character of a leading narcissist (and his cadre of like-minded or sycophantic Betas), who seeschallenges as coming from others instead of inherent in the system and his personal style projected onto the organization. Typically, reactivityto that imaginary competition or opposition blinds the covert leader to his part in creating and maintaining that system and culture. He is blindto the mission requirements because he is more committed to, and hedging at any cost, his personal outcomes and most important his self-myth. His life is more about his reasons (usually excuses) than about his results, which erodes or outright demolishes both the fertility andfecundity of his community. The narcissists ultimate fear is that his profound unconscious self-worthlessness be revealed through failure.

That any such worthlessness is merely a belief through conditioning is invisible and irrelevant to him. He is a hero divided against himself.

The antidote is transparency and true teamwork (alignment and commitment of peers around the substantive content of the enterprise, notmerely social bonding), and a moral courage that is readily (but not comfortably) learnable. Changefor the better, even when it is unanimouslydesired and from a benign intention, is as disruptive and awkward as changefor the worse from a malign (or indifferent) intention. To easethese (and many other) transitions, we say one thing and do another. The covert leader attempts change, but indirectly and often irresponsibly,with hedged, plausibly deniable equivocation. Because he is inexperienced at challenging his own self-myths, he is inexperienced in exercisingthe moral courage to directly confront the core myths of our society and polity and resistance to anychange. Attempting change withoutbenignly yet explicitly confronting that resistance results in unconscious, unchosen, fragmented, and largely unsuccessful engagements andoutcomes, because there can be no commitment or accountability under these implicit and evasive circumstances. To truly make a difference inthe world, conscious choices must be made, shared, and evolved with continuous, incremental communications, instead of rote habits of word

and deed. It is commitment, after all, that is the essential element for successful change. Its handmaiden, accountability, is invaluable fordefining and re-defining means, and knowing howsuccessful we are, and why.

Why all this focus on Covert Leadership?

First of all, because it is disappointingly common and disproportionately destructive of both established and potential success, in favor ofsafe mediocrity. It is an expression of what Ken Wilber has called boomeritis (after the Baby Boom generation) which is a near-universaldevelopmental disorder of our times and civilization, more noticeably manifested in men, if only as an artifact of mens greater socialprominence. Especially pernicious is narcissism combined with associated ancient (Pleistocene) concealment instincts (and other manipulations)of bred-to-dominate Alpha (or would-be Alpha) persons and clans, expressing adaptive behavioral algorithms.

We must recollect that all our provisional ideas in psychology will presumably one day be based on an organic substructure.



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Sigmund Freud, On Narcissism, 1914

Narcissism is not used here in a pejorative or clinical sense, but to describe a morbid intensification of normal self-reflexive consciousness.There are two threads of use of this notion, the older one focused on neurosis-level vanities and egotisms; the newer one developing in the lastdecade and recognizing that narcissistic behaviors usually represent compensations for severe personality and developmental damage deepand unconscious demolished self-worth masked by exaggerated self-esteem, intelligence, and charm, and by clear patterns of rituals to protectagainst exposure of the true worthless and incapable self. Those rituals revolve largely around the illusion of control. Sadly, the personaffected is almost invariably unaware of the damage as such, as it mostly occurred before his personality coalesced and self-recognized. Its thewater in which their psyches fish swim. This contemporary notion of narcissism integrates with evolutionary psychology in that it recognizes the

influence of genetically mediated impulses that have provided a distinct survival advantage for those who have been bred to manifest them. It isno accident that what we call narcissism manifests very differently in Alpha clans compared to the proletarian masses; and its no accident thatthe narcissist is driven to seek positions of apparent power, power that can provide an illusion of control to shelter them from their worst fears.

Providing a substrate of consonance with the experience of the individual damaged psyche is the universal fact that helplessness is the nativeground of being of an altricial species such as Homo sapiens. The helpless-versus-worthless distinction is interpretational and can be influencedby appropriate nurture that supports maturation over infantilization clear and beneficial interpretation ofprocess rather than focus onincremental events, and consistent realistic validation by others (primarily parents at the critical early age), such that a person gains self-worth.The damage tends to result from a paralysis and atrophy of confidence and core substantive engagement-skills when a child is confronted byerratic and contradictory stressors in his family or social environment when there is no possible reconciliation of what people say and whatpeople do, when there are only lose-lose choices to be made, when true evil destroys their aliveness through subversion and betrayal. [An aside:

The different effect of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in different social classes is marked by different distributions of expectation,Alpha breeding, and social resources such as education and money]

An additional factor is the conditioning of the Cult of Individuality reinforced by the isolating breakdown of the bicameral mind. See JulianJaynes The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, and the quotation from David Foster Wallace in an Appendix,below, which remind us of the structural semiotic reinforcements for narcissism.

There is a developmental threshold in mid-life (variously between 40 and 50, depending on other factors) when a person becomes newly able todistinguish the valuation choices and re-interpret his experiences. First of all, this requires time measured in decades. It also requires a historyand an environment rich in human connection without trauma, and trustability, coaching, and non-judgmental witness. This reinterpretation isprimarily at an empirical-experience level, and is only secondarily cognitive (which is why cognitive, or talk, therapy tends to be ineffective inthat arena). It occurs after a critical mass of cumulative events, is based on evidence from active life engagement, and not by re-experiencing

the original defining traumas which occurred prior to personality formation. The notable exception to this is the benefit of somatic release andre-patterning of structuralized stress through body-work and athletics. Both such integrations can gain a person self-efficacy.

Self-esteem becomes the narcissists universal compensatory projection, marked by masterful deception of self and others, enrolling othersthrough genetic-algorithmic bargaining (reciprocal altruism, in the parlance of evolutionary psychology) to not challenge each-others self-myths, and reinforced through co-conspiratorial Political Correctness. As always, when you want to know whats really happening in this world,turn off the soundtrack and watch the action. Listening to the masterful patter of the narcissist leader will only distract one from recognizingtheir actual patterns of behavior and outcome. The narcissist is usually very poor at aligning others with objective substance, because he haslittle or no internal such process to externalize. So he must control through reciprocal altruism, co-conspiracy, and the arbitrariness ofpolitical power, while separating through triangulation all persons he bonds with, and preventing (even suppressing) knowledge, creativity, andengagement except on his own terms. This represents the dynamic social-archetypal dichotomy between power (what one can control and

suppress) and freedom (what one can create and liberate).Social Enterprise Planning 2007-2010 All Rights Reserved Alexander Carpenter 30 March 2010 page 24


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It is a primate behavioral archetype for leaders (covert and otherwise) to exaggerate or even invent false dichotomies (the other) to controlthe social conversation. If we cant talk with our enemies, by default we have a conversation with ourselves, a conversation dominated by avery few voices (some of whom represent in token opposition the presumed and projected voices of the other). In typical practice, thiswinds up as straw-man opposition with both sides represented by essentially one voice. There is no space for wholeness, creativity, orprogress in such a regime; nor in a regime defined by triangulation, manipulation, and secrecy. It is a macrocosm of the narcissists internalconversation.

Second, to be kind and compassionate and find a way to shelter such leaders (and their organizations) from their tragic flaws while liberatingthem to exercise their actual powerful gifts for the benefit of all. Can we design an organizational system in which success is a structurallysupported element for all, providing stress-relief for the entire organization? Some modest stress is desirable, however, to maintain focus. Itsthat incoherent, unconscious, embedded stress that is so toxic and ruinous the stress of conflicting totally-incompatible messages betweenwhat is said and what is done (that same stress which demolishes the sanity of a young child and drives narcissistic compensations).

What are those gifts and virtues?

They are driven and very hard-working, perhaps even overachievers (sadly, with only modest achievement) They are skilled at becoming liked and becoming one of us They tolerate the mediocrity of compromise They are very intelligent and thorough They are often genuinely likable and well-meaning (unless they are simply bad people)

They can keep a secret if its to their advantage

What are those flaws?

They are highly, sometimes pathologically, risk-adverse (especially if there anypersonal implications) They generate the mediocrity of compromise

They fall back into rigid authoritarian positions under stress, stonewalling substantive content (they rely on the authority ofpositionrather than the strength of content and merit)

They choose amorphous and often-impossible challenges that structurallythey can neither succeed nor fail at They tend to be commitment-phobic, except for those grandiose challenges

They politicize the technical to the detriment of its coherence and success As they grow up, they are driven to emphasize intelligence and charm as things within their control, and other development lags Management by projection and presumption Callowness behind a sheen of sophistication They rely on secrecy, often pathologically, with triangulation a core isolate-and-manipulate strategy They tend to infantilize their subordinates and the cultures of their organizations They are run by fear, and cannot maintain a climate of love, either personal or principled



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How can we avail ourselves of the virtues of the narcissist? By placing them where their drive and skill at being likedis anadvantage, so they can enroll others in our enterprise so we can use their resources. The essence: so they can make deals.

How can we protect ourselves from the weaknesses of the narcissist? Have risk-responsibility undertaken by others morecapable ofmission-reward, while giving personal credit to the nominal leader(s), all, to the extent possible, in an open cultureof abundance, transparency, and shared courage.

Sheltered by a Board of Directors or an Executive Committee on one side (taking responsibility for vision and mission), and sheltered by aPresident and staff team on the other side (taking responsibility for mission and means), the narcissistic CEO leader is liberated to do what he

does best with no immediate potential downside. He is free to be creative and experiment for optimum results without the paralyzing possibilityof personal failure lurking at every turn. He can generate more of a solid track record of accomplishment (which goes to self-worth) and anexperience of gradually increasing confidence and risk-tolerance (which goes to moral courage). He can undertake more direct responsibility ashis development recovers and advances. He can generate an increasingly whole self-myth and evolve out of his personal and social conditioning.He can replace entirely subjective self-esteem with objectified self-worth, worth recognized and shared by others from their own directexperience.

This is an area where moving away from corporate-style title-structures can be liberating of new kinds of roles. Being trapped in what we think aCEO should be doing prevents us from redefining the actual real-timefunctions of that officer, other officers, and staff. J.P. Morgan remindedus that The CEO is just another hired hand. Organizational mythology and self-serving aggrandizement by narcissistic CEOs (and other officers)tends to obscure this basic fact, and that robs the organization its ability to provide emotional support for its leaders.

Such support requires a true team mostly impossible for the covert leader to generate on his own because of his internal self-narrative aconversation of one. Whence the need for other responsible officers and Board leadership. This requires explicit divisions of responsibility andconsonant structures and actions to manifest that division, which will inevitably be tested. This calls for a cultural evolution that is well withinthe skillful means of many Organizational Development craftsmen and artists. It requires a new template for the organizing conversation (suchas theModel for Community Change).

The developmental graduation from narcissism requires external support, and an internal spiritual and developmental growth that may be themost significant and valuable of his adult life. It is almost impossible to do without the active support of others, and is always verydifficult todo even with that support. It is a major life accomplishment. The support must make the self-worth connection before it breaks the old self-myth (or the result is borderline personality disorder of varying severity). The ability to abandon the prop of nominal position and title is ahuge initial stressor (so it must be spun properly, and customized for each person); the ability to give others credit will be a tremendous initialchallenge to a person voraciously needing all the credit he can get, and habituated to a zero-sum game. The ability to merit credit from otherswill simultaneously challenge and rebuild the devastated identity behind the self-myth.

And yes, this is all a game of sophistries, but they define the rules of the game. We say it, and our agreement and commitment make it so.

Self-Valuation Key Distinctions

All of these have been found in use by people in the real world, without any actual clarifying definitions in context. Curiously but notsurprisingly, these three modes of self-regard map to the Subjective Outcomes/Objective Outcomes/Results distinctions of our scalable fractalOperational Model of Change within the Model for Community Change.



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Self-esteem

About very-early-age personality damage leading to narcissism (among other things), and about conditioning by others Politically-correct self-delusion reinforced by others (Everyones a winner, social-promotion, etc.)

Close to 100% subjective, with no reality-testing (potential failure is too risky to self-myth) Usually has tinge of desperation with a subtext of denial-flight from an unconscious belief of worthlessness or from dissonance betweenreality and interpretation/projection Gets people in tailspin when their reality is challenged, because it is without basis in shared reality, so no framework for calibration Has no resilience

Self-worth

About appliedvalues and energies in life Based on feedback from personal and worldly engagement, and exercise of authenticity and integrity

Self-regard supported and calibrated by engagement-experience and a history ofpersonal accomplishment Willingness to risk Can range from largely subjective (e.g., poems) to somewhat objective (relationships) Resilient

Self-efficacy About personalpowerin the world Based on experience, personal and worldly success, and feedback

Self-regard supported and calibrated by engagement-experience at getting things done that involve others (whence political) or changingthings (crafting or inventing, whence physical) Highly objectifiable (and even transferable)

Highly resilient and often accompanied by an enjoyment of risk (when accompanied by a compulsion to undertake risk it could be anexpression of the denial syndrome associated with self esteem issues).

In individuals and in the collective, these can evolve with maturation and experienced engagement. They can also devolve (e.g., in the 19thCentury America had self-worth, and in the 20th Century it had self-efficacy. In the 21st Century it has self-esteem issues, is in denial about

profound dissonances between principles and practice, and is risk-adverse if theres no profitable market transaction, then theres noincentive). This scalability is analogous to the scalability of theModel for Community Change and its components (particularly the Operational

Model of Change).

Clarifying Distinctions on Sectors

Increasingly obsolete and even misleading distinctions presently used:

Public sector = government

Private sector = corporations, small business, personal affairs



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chronically disempowered ground of being that is often uncomfortable with even the notion of being powerful andaccountable in the world.Social-benefit-sector persons tend at least marginally more to take difficult news personally and defensively, and often resent that an outsideforce is acting on them (even if there is a potentially motivating promise in the proposed changes). When they hire change-managementconsultants (often as facilitators), they tend to have a difficult time with setting clear definitions of what would constitute success, and equaldifficulty with the means for measuring and reporting that success. This goes far beyond the genuine difficulties inherent in measuringintangibles such as quality of life.

Their motivation is more internal. They display more magical thinking (both a curse and a blessing). Human values tend to predominate (both acurse and a blessing).

Were the origination and architecture of typical change processes in the business sector more similar to those in the social-benefit sector, theirpersonal reactions would often be very similar to those in the social-benefit sector, so the distinctions above are not absolute.

The lessons:

Seek to have social-benefit-sector persons own and internalize what is essentially a continuous change-management process, andregulate its benefits.

Be kind and compassionate (while remaining truthful), and offer motivation native to the sector.

Be generous with value and honor for the caring and expertise of the persons and their community.

Enroll active change-agents who at least appearto come from within the sector, to seed the conversation with local idiom andmotivation, and perhaps even some actual experience. Primarily offer to empower and align with their mission accomplishment, and only secondarily to evolve it. Exert great effort to explicitly clarify distinctions and models to find the optimum levels and styles of structure in the sectorconversations: specificity and precision give us power.

Be explicit about the inter-relationships and balancings between human and market values. Set priorities.

Work iteratively to give complex non-linear systems time to evolve, and persons to adapt. Find the bestpace for change, in balance withthe benefits of change. Have clearly defined metrics and standards for success an integral part of the change-management process, and always defer to themwhen discomfort arises. Always maintain the distinction between interim accomplishments and the overall mission, and evaluate those interim accomplishmentsin terms of their contribution to that overall success.

Passive-aggressive behavior is always maskin

Social Enterprise Planning Plus 30March2010

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