Best Practices and Innovative Solutions

Articles:

The Center for Visionary Leadership's Best Practices Project

What's Working in America - Spiritual Principles Behind Successful Solutions to Social Problems

Innovative Solutions "Salons" with Visionary Leaders

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The Center for Visionary Leadership’s staff have researched innovative and successful solutions to welfare dependency, drug abuse, and crime as part of a year-long consulting project for the Eisenhower Foundation and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. We published these solutions and how to replicate them last June in a book called Celebrate the Spirit of Success: A Guidebook to Best Practices. (Copies are available free from the Resource Center: 800-955-2232.) In interviews with executive directors of public housing, their stafffs, and public housing residents around the country, we found a number of key factors or principles (with the acronym SPIRIT) that were common to all the "best practices" programs we studied. We include them here as they may be applicable to other types of programs and helpful to your work:

SUSTAINABILITY

• Leverage individual, community and financial resources.

Programs with only one funding source are at constant risk of "running out of steam," especially if the money is used to cover all program costs. Leveraging resources from a variety of governmental, foundation, business and nonprofit groups is the key to continuity.

• Recruit and keep motivated volunteers.

Few programs receive sufficient funder to cover all staff and programs costs, so attracting dependable volunteers requires a widespread buy-in to the program itself.

• Transfer skills and technology to sustain programs over time.

It is crucial to invest in youth development and to train the next generation in leadership and skill development so they can provide continuity when current leaders leave.

PARTNERSHIP

• Involve key stakeholders throughout the process.

When everyone having a stake in the outcome of a program is fully engaged in creating and implementing it, the focus shifts from problems to solutions. Individual skills are combined to achieve a shared vision.

• Build partnerships and collaborative efforts.

Personal relationships and open communications among residents, local and county governments, police, schools, businesses, the media, social service organizations, and neighboring communities create synergy and momentum for program success.

INSPIRATION

• Empower people to take responsibility for themselves and their communit

A form of magic happens when people feel a sense of ownership in a program, accept responsibility for their lives, and build a spirit of community. It’s crucial to build on focused intentions and shared values.

• Develop and maintain strong, committed leadership.

Strong leadership is essential, and it may come from a single individual, a group of residents, a resident council, public housing staff, or others. Enhancing participants’ self-esteem and inner strength is crucial to leadership development. Whether one or many, effective leaders have the capacity to inspire, enlist, and mobilize people in a diverse population to achieve desired goals that serve everyone concerned

• Employ a systematic, life-cycle approach to programs that includes needs assessment, planning and design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.

A systematic approach helps people work together in a structured process toward common goals, with the flexibility to respond to changes and new needs. A whole systems view helps keep in mind the big picture of how all the parts interrelate.

• Manage effectively and accountably.

Developing strategies that are aligned with identified needs, clearly defined goals and assessed capabilities, and then conducting sound day-to-day business operations ensures that programs are successful.

• Tailor programs to local needs and strengths

Successful programs are based on a thorough understanding of the intended audience, including the local culture and environment, and are designed to meet specific needs, as identified in a formal needs assessment. They also capitalize on the strengths of their constituents, focusing on enhancing existing local talent, as well as building new capacities.

INTEGRATION

• Work with families and communities as units or whole systems

Families and communities are dynamic systems that interact and interplay in many ways. The actions and attitudes of one person in a family or a community affect all other members as they are deeply interconnected. Unless the whole family is involved in the effort to improve the quality of their lives, any single family member can have a tough time making a change in his or her life.

• Integrate multiple programs and provide services to multiple generations

No person is an island, and no single problem can be solved in isolation from related problems. Most problems are highly interrelated: poverty contributes to substance abuse and crime; high school drop-out rates contribute to unemployment, which reinforces poverty, which contributes to feelings of hopelessness, domestic violence, and other socioeconomic problems.

• Address root causes of problems to strengthen and renew the community.

Self-fulfilling patterns of disempowerment are forged from generations of dependency, long-term substance abuse, and feelings of apathy, helplessness, hopelessness and low self-esteem. These dysfunctional and addictive patterns are the key causes of unemployment, domestic violence, and crime, and must be reversed

• Emphasize positive, proactive, and prevention-oriented activities and outcomes

Being positive, proactive, and prevention-oriented means emphasizing desired results instead of current problems. It means focusing on moving toward something positive, rather than away from something negative, and drawing upon individual and community strengths and values.

"It is always darkest before the dawn," the old saying goes, and never has it been more true than it is today. Amidst widespread despair and cynicism about the capacity of our institutions to solve our fundamental problems, there is a growing army of inspired, ordinary people from all walks of life and cultures who are creating low-cost, effective new solutions to the problems of our times. As we wrote in our book Spiritual Politics several years ago, all the solutions to our problems are out there around the country--we just have to connect the dots between them.

Using their innate human creativity, intelligence and goodwill, people across the nation are innovating daring new solutions to entrenched problems. Inspirational solutions often come to those with pure motivation to serve people and relieve suffering. Whether it is pollution, drugs, violence, lack of health care, failing schools, unemployment or lack of housing, citizens are organizing themselves to cooperatively build win/win solutions that work. Some solutions are public/private partnerships, combining the high impact per dollar of non-profit approaches with government or corporate support. While some of these projects have been highlighted in the national media, few of these stories have looked at the underlying, fundamental reasons for their success. Here are some solutions presented by guest speakers at The Center for Visionary Leadership, as well as the spiritual principles behind them:

SOLUTIONS:

* Create public dialogues with all stakeholders to hear concerns and build consensus on sustainability goals and indicators (Angela Park, Dianne Dillon-Ridgley, Jacqueline Hamilton, The President’s Council on Sustainable Development)

* Demonstrate the economic viability of environmentally oriented businesses (Molly Harris Olson, The Natural Step) and ecologically designed housing developments (John Clark, Haymount)

* Make waste from one process into raw material for other processes--industrial ecology (Joe Abe, Business Ecology Network)

SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLES BEHIND THE EFFECTIVE SOLUTION:

* Honoring the interconnection of all life

* Promoting a spirit of trust, partnership and shared vision

* Whole systems/ecological thinking

* Sacrificing short term gains for long term benefits

PROBLEM: Poverty/Unemployment

SOLUTIONS:

* Create barter networks and local currency to keep resources in the community
(Olaf Egeberg, Neighborhood Solutions)

* Provide micro enterprise loans to peer groups who are responsible for payback
(Sam Harris, RESULTS and Grameen Bank)

* Teach self-esteem and personal development as well as job skills (Brenda
Richardson, Women Like Us; Vera Hope, Be Positive)

* Mentor disadvantaged young people (Shayne Schneider, Mentors, Inc.; Andrew Pepler, The UrbanAlliance)

* Compassion and serving the good of the whole

* Social responsibility

* Empowering people to become self-reliant rather than dependent

* Guaranteeing equality of opportunity, not results

* Stimulating healing rather than attacking the problem

* Focusing on the positive and a sense of hope

SOLUTIONS:

* Have both sides tell their personal painful stories to appreciate mutual suffering
and address the fear on both sides (Ambassador John McDonald and Dr.
Louise Diamond, Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy)

* Focus on current human needs, not past history or rigid positions and brainstorm mutually beneficial options (John Marks and Susan Collin Marks, Search for Common Ground).

* Listen attentively and surface what is hidden (Nancy Roof, Center for Psychology and Social Change)

* Ask problem solving questions, define the problem in an inclusive way, emphasizing common human interests (Theo Brown, Project Victory)

* Integrate traditional healing modalities and local wisdom with western psychological approaches to healing trauma in conflict torn societies (Michael Wessells, Anne Anderson, Psychologists for Social Responsibility)

SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLES BEHIND THE EFFECTIVE SOLUTION:

* Win/win, rather than win/lose thinking

* Tolerance and respect for different points of view

* Honoring the grain of truth in opponent’s position

* Forgiveness

* Reclaiming own shadow psychologically projected on adversary

* Detachment from outcomes and from recognition and reward

SOLUTIONS:

* Teach character education in the schools based on community dialogues to find common values (Steven Boyd, Character Education Partnership)

* Begin a dialogue on values-based policy decisions at both staff and executive levels in major organizations (John Huddleston, International Money Fund Values Caucus; Richard Barrett, World Bank Spiritual Unfoldment Society; Nancy Roof, United Nations Values Caucus)

* Coach executives on ways to support their values in business (Sherrie Connelly, Strategy Foundation; Lester Hoffman, Performance Communication Associates)

* Form follows thought and intention

* A higher purpose helps in transcending confict and greed

* Supporting the highest in people excellerates their development

Today there is an urgent need for visionary leaders who are solidly based in universal spiritual and ethical values, who can offer innovative and effective approaches to our problems, and who will unite rather than divide us. Ethical values, such as integrity, courage and heartfelt compassion, are the true source of effective visionary leadership, as clear vision comes to those who are spiritually dedicated to helping the world.

Visionary leaders are those intuitive pioneers who provide an inspirational image of the future and a path of clear direction on how to get there. These leaders envision a positive, attractive future for humanity and inspire us to create new forms to embody their vision. They are the builders of a new social order, working with imagination, insight, and boldness. They present a challenge that calls forth the best in people and brings people together around a shared sense of purpose. Their eyes are on the horizon, not just the near at hand. They are social innovators and change agents, who see the big picture and think strategically.

Many of these visionary leaders are featured at our Center for Visionary Leadership in our "salons,"-- a regular series of informal dialogues between visionary leaders and the public, which showcase cutting edge solutions to issues such as the environment, unemployment, substance abuse, prison reform, racial violence and international conflict.

Our opening salon featured members of The President’s Council on Sustainable Development (PCSD), established by President Clinton to build a consensus among environmentalists, corporations, and social justice groups on issues that divide them. This process of dialogue among adversaries to find common ground on national goals and indicators of success (called a "multi-stakeholder dialogue) is part of an innovative and more effective political process that is rapidly growing in popularity around the country. Council member Dianne Dillon-Ridgley noted that another Council member, who is CEO of a major corporation, said the whole process of working to build a consensus with adversaries totally changed his life.

Jacqueline Hamilton, a PCSD Taskforce member, found that the consensus decision-making process itself created a powerful commitment to decisions made, and solves problems more effectively by including the concerns of everyone who holds a stake in the outcome. This process has far greater power to solve problems than value-neutral indicators such as the GNP, which neglect the importance of what we care most deeply about, what we truly value, she said. Molly Olson, former Executive Director of the PCSD and Director of the Natural Step, observed that some environmentalists at first viewed the corporate CEOs as inherently evil, but through the dialogue process realized that many of the real difficulties are due to systemic limitations and not actual conflicting interests.

Another salon illustrated how a similar multi-stakeholder approach is being effective in drug abuse issues. John Bellassai, an attorney and board member of our Center, spoke of his work with a "community partnership" approach which brings together federal funders, state aid recipients, and local volunteers to build consensus and solve drug problems together.

Steve Boyd, attorney and board member of the Character Education Partnership, spoke about another multi-stakeholder approach around the country where students, parents, teachers and administrators meet in a local areas to build a consensus around which values and ethics they want to teach in their schools. Schools from racially and geographcially diverse areas surprisingly come up with similiar lists of values such as honesty, fairness, responsibility, compassion, and respect of self, others and the environment. They’ve found that character education has effectively reduced violence, teen pregnancy and substance abuse, and also improved academic performance.

At one of our citizen dialogues on race, facilitated by pioneers in the field of conflict resolution, John Marks and Susan Collin Marks from Search for Common Ground, we explored the recent rash of black church burnings. One participant commented that we must shift the envirnment around the arsonists so that there is no community or social support for it. Another said we must help heal the deeper forces that created the fires, build bridges of reconciliation, and "discover ways to dream together about our common future despite our troubled past.".

Ambassador John MacDonald, who serves on our Center’s Board of Advisors, offered the astounding fact that the deeper reason for the mostly peaceful dismantling of apartheid in South Africa and the acceptance of Nelson Mandela as President was the grassroots training of 20,000 people in non-violent conflict resolution.

Many speakers shared moving personal stories about the ethical foundation on which they base their work. John Huddleston, who has worked for many years with the Ethics Group of the International Monetary Fund, observed that our evolution is occurring morally and ethically as surely as it is technologically. But without a higher purpose, we tend to focus on turmoil and conflict, he noted. Kimberly Miller, legislative assistant to Congresswoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) spoke about womens issues and values, saying "innovative solutions have to come from within each person".

As co-chair of the Values Caucus for the UN World Summit on Economic Development, Dr. Nancy Roof, invited political leaders to speak about how they applied their values in policy decisions and found people were very responsive to this approach.. As a psychologist and an NGO representative to the UN from Psychologists for Social Change at the Harvard Medical School, she was very moved to do something about the horrible tragedy in Bosnia, and so travelled there at her own expense to offer stress and burnout training to the care providers so they could train others.

A number of the visionary leaders we featured work in the federal government. Dave Bassett, an energy efficiency specialist with the U.S. Department of Energy, observed that tolerance of new ideas is rarely an organizational virtue, and values are entirely removed from the process of governmental decision making, except at the interface between the citizenry and their elected representatives. Yet he found that it is 'valueless' decision making which permeates the bureaucratic organizations charged with implementation of value-driven policy objectives, leading these entities to ask only the question: can we?, instead of the infinitely more meaningful: should we ?

Gloria Cousar, Assistant Deputy Secretary at HUD who has worked with the Troubled Housing Agency, and is also an ordained ministeroften uses prayers and rituals, tapping the consciousness of nature and the angelic realms, to heal troubled housing projects. She learned that self-determination, cooperative ownership, and community preservation are harmonious planning strategies that can reform current bureaucratic dysfunctions.

Government, by itself, cannot solve our pressing environmental problems through regulation, noted Mike McCloskey, Chairman of the Sierra Club. In the end it is the consumer who holds industry accountable. Various rating systems have been created to inform consumers and evaluate industrial performance. But it is ultimately the citizen/consumer who enforces rules of conduct. So it is our responsibility to educate ourselves and make informed purchasing decisions.

'All my relations', a Native American saying wherein one is viewed as an integral part of the larger natural system, creates the empathy and compassion that is the true solution to our current environmental problems, offered Jan Hartke, President of the environmental group Earthkind International. Translating these paradigms and feelings into actions creates environmental ethics.

Mike Wessels, Ph.D., President of Psychologists for Social Responsiblity who’s been working in Africa, noted that therapies designed to treat post-traumatic stress disorders in the western context often fail to cross cultural boundaries. A new approach is needed that integrates traditional healing methodologies and local wisdom with western empirical models. In this context, in order to be a healing influence, the healer must cultivate a human dimension, a basic sort of humility and respect, where it is not appropriate to show up as an 'expert.'

Many other visionary leaders spoke at our salons, but we can’t include all their comments due to space limitations: John Clark, developer of a sustainable community of 4,000 homes called Haymount, Virginia; Susan Boyd, Executive Director of Concern.; Joe Abe, founder of the Business Ecology Network; Angela Park, Sustainable Communities Taskforce Coordinator for The President’s Council; John Fitzgerald, attorney with the Biodiversity Action Network; Brent Blackwelder, President of Friends of the Earth; Katy Moran, Director of the Healing Forest Conservancy; and Dr. Sue Lieberman, Director of the Office of Management Authority of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Olaf Egeberg, Director of the McGee Street Foundation developing skills exchanges and an alternative currency; and Duncan Hollomon, psychotherapist, and Cynthia Clarke, attorney, who facilitated a citizen dialogue with environmentalists on "Selling Out or Buying In?"

© 1997 The Center for Visionary Leadership’s Best Practices Project Staff