We Matter

We Matter

Each and every one of us matters.

That principle must lead all human deliberations, decisions and actions as individuals and members of society.

Each of us must listen with open ears and minds, committed to understanding each other at all times and in all things in order to stay true to that principle.

Some of in society, perhaps more than others, by virtue of choice of career or vocation, have a particular interest in following this principle.  This is because their careers and vocations are defined by the drive to improve the lives of  fellow citizens, fellow human beings.

Nowhere is this more evident than with those serving through not-for-profit, health charity and government organizations.  The sole purpose of these organizations is the betterment of the lives of individuals and  the betterment of society by bettering lives.

In fact the same must be said about all people serving in any sort of leadership position.  The highest purpose of leadership is betterment of the lives of those being led.

What does this commitment mean?

People leading initiatives to improve the lives of fellow human beings must then reflect that each and every one of us matter in the style and manner of their leadership.  We being served must understand from our own observations that we matter to the leaders.  We know we matter when we know we are listened to and heard with understanding.

How will we people know we are being heard?

First of all, the people leading the initiative must ask us what our aspirations and frustrations are, what our comforts and fears are.  Then our leaders must restate our statements in their own words and check back with us, telling us what they have understood by telling us their statements and asking us if agree with that understanding.  The leaders will reassure us that our original statements in our own words will be saved, archived, to be referred to when needed.

In the discussions between leaders and us, both parties need to explicitly state that while we are working together addressing the issue exactly as expressed and understood, both they and we will learn new things as the process of addressing the issues unfolds, perhaps even because of addressing the issues.  That may cause the goal of the improvement initiative to change.  Recognizing this, we and the leaders must agree to maintain communication throughout to ensure we are true collaborators in our effort.

To enable this collaboration and continuous learning, we must maintain an open and accessible archive so both the leaders and we can be as up to date as possible on the development process.  We must maintain a record of all actions and  communications undertaken with third parties who may be required to enable the improvement process.  What are those third parties suggesting?  What are they doing?  How are each we and the leaders involved and engaged in these actions?  How does the enabling action work?  If it is seen to be not capable of fully delivering the desired outcome, why not?  What might be done to achieve the desired outcome?  What are the costs in time, resources and money to make the attempt?  Might alternative actions achieve the desired outcome?

The details of data collection and record keeping become important, including use of language commonly understandable to all interested parties.  Data collection is ideally an on-going “real time” process.  That may not be achievable because of resource constraints, but care must be taken to remain current.

When collecting data, particularly by asking questions, it is critical to not lock people into the box of the questioner’s mind.  The questions must be as open-ended as possible to ensure we are speaking our minds without having our thoughts filtered by someone else’s mind.  The questioning might start with something as open-ended as, “Please try to not think of services I (the questioner) or the organization I work with have to offer.  Please think of absolutely anything that comes to mind.  Okay?  Here are the questions.
What is going well in your life?
What is not going well in your life?
What is okay but could be better?”

Those questions might lead to very specific or very general or vague answers, but they can be used to begin dialogue.  The details of any given issue will be drawn out through this dialogue.  Always remember we must lead the dialogue.  The questioners will always encourage continual dialogue but not lead the dialogue.

If possible, the questioners should work within a questioning-group or research group to help develop understanding of the responses and to help carry the dialogue along.  The group will be able to help its members remember to remain true to the message heard from us.

This is especially important where the group or questioning organization is a service provider to the people.  Service personnel tend to do their very best to meet the clients’ needs and individual personnel can feel hurt or take responses as negative criticisms of their ability or motivation.  The group can be there to guard against misunderstanding of the issue due to defensiveness on the part of caring personnel.  The group can also support service personnel to prevent them from becoming discouraged.  In fact, the information being gathered will serve as intelligence critical to organizational and service personnel effectiveness.

Research group work is also critically important where the goal is to come up with service policy around which to build programs to meet our needs.  For policies to be relevant and effective, they must meet needs common to individuals and subgroups, or all of us.  That takes broad perspective enabled by many perspectives brought by each of the members of the research group.  The group members can encourage each other to stick with this difficult work, taking no short cuts which could easily disable the entire process and make a mock of everyone’s participation.

We all need to remember there is no greater waste of resources than ineffectiveness.

Conclusion
This can be the most rewarding work any advocate or advocacy group or indeed any service person can do.

All enabling third party providers will thank service provider leaders for directing their attention to exactly those issues important to each of us being served.  The providers’ work on our behalf will save third parties tons of time and other resources and greatly enhance their effectiveness by focussing exactly on our stated needs.

We whose needs are being met will, of course, be the most rewarded by this work.  We will know we matter and are not reduced to simply being numbers or test subjects in some system.  We know we are respected as individuals. We know our self-defined quality of life is improved through the effort shared between those who serve and ourselves.

Lastly and equally importantly, service providers and their leaders will themselves realize the reward that comes from doing the most effective job possible at improving the quality of life of those they serve, thereby improving the level of satisfaction throughout society.

Finally, each and every one of us knows that we, each of us server and served alike, do indeed matter.

Mike Klein

The Trouble with the Big Idea

Let’s say I had the “Big Idea” that the best economic planning relies on demand pull, rather than supply push.  I have reasons for thinking that and let’s pretend we all agree.

Then let’s say I had the “Big Idea” that capitalists (anyone with a savings account or pension fund) demand their savings/investments yield a useful and adequate income.

Then let’s say I had the “Big Idea” that enterprises were producing services and goods that people demand.

Lastly, let’s say I see a way for these “demands” to collaborate with each other so each of them succeeds in meeting their respective demands.

Okay, Wahoo!  I have found an exciting opportunity, a way of realizing the “Big Idea”, that I can describe as one large economic and business opportunity for people to participate in.

Now, I have taken that realization plan to people I see as prospective participants, partners, in the project and tell them how exciting the project is.

The reaction?  Well, they have all become excited by the suggested (Never promise!) benefits to each of them.

Then I begin to describe the intended operation as it will be, hoping they will see their respective roles as plain as day and jump in to assume those roles.

But, ... have you seen the movie “Moneyball”?  Good movie.  There is a scene where the general manager begins to ask hard questions about succeeding on the field without being able to do the standard thing, buy the most talented players to build a team.  The coaching/scouting staff are sitting around the meeting table, anxious to get on with things as they know them.  Billy, the g.m., isn’t too sure himself as his “Big Idea” realization is new to him too, so he can’t explain himself clearly at all.  The coaching/scouting staff keep looking at him waiting for something real to at least be said and nothing is happening.  This goes on for a while, a lot of quiet staring.

Well, that’s me in front of these prospective participants, trying to deal with a room full of blank, but expectant stares.

So, I have known all along I had to write the business plan, which is actually a project plan to bring a set of, albeit well known, theoretical relationships together to make this all happen.

The problem has remained that the “Big Idea” means that as one aspect or relationship is developed, it influences other relationships. These changes trigger the need for redesign and redefinition of the whole project.  So I then start over.  And I see that I will have to go through this again and again.

Frustrating.

So I gave up.

I then had no real idea what to do next, just that I had to do something.

I just started to write what I knew.

It eventually occurred to me that I was breaking the “Big Idea” into its component parts.

I wrote the core methodology that underlies the whole enterprise, the patent, as it were.

I wrote the benefits to the main characters in the project.

I wrote the needs for professional advice, one professional at a time.

I wrote the descriptions of the actions needed by the participants who will deliver the service as an on-going business, one participant at a time.

It seems I have a pretty good idea by now how all this will unfold.  By addressing each component separately, the plan is being built one component at a time.

I know I will have to adjust each of the components as the other components are added.

I also know that after the last component has been prepared, and I think all the pieces fit and the whole project plan is complete, once the participants start to tell me how each of them can be involved, the components will change again.

So, the moral of the story is, never be afraid to break down a project into bite-size pieces.  Breaking it down can only happen when there is a whole vision to break down, so that is the vision to achieve.  That means studying the “Big Idea” until you really know it.  Then create the components and assemble them to enable achievement of that vision.

Don’t worry, the components will be parts of the vision because the vision of the “Big Idea” is always in front of you as you work.

It’s still not simple, but the “Big Idea” then has the ability to become the “Big Thing”.

Mike