AN OVERVIEW OF NATIONAL TRAINING
In order to give presenters a sense of the overall objectives of national training I have
written the following on each of the 23 sessions:
Opener:
The opener sets the stage for the week with style and content. The
organizer must present a commanding presence and must let it be known in no uncertain
terms that we are about serious business this week. The primary content we convey is
showing the importance of relationships through their self-revelation to one another the
interaction between the organizer and the participants is agitational in style, which should
set the tone for the week. This session should end with a statement that we are in a war of
values and that what this week is about is equipping them with the necessary attitudes
and tools to win that war.
Melian Dialogue:
The primary purpose is to hold up a mirror to each participant to
show him/her the deficiency they bring to working effectively in the public arena those
deficiencies might be cowardice, shyness, individualistic behavior and/or false moralism.
What we should attempt is every person in the room encounters one or more of their
devils in the struggle to be a leader.
Analysis of the Dialogue: The purpose of the presentation is to rise up the concept of
the world as it is versus the world as we would like it to be what I want them to grasp is
that the Melians acting as they do present a clear recipe for failure in the public arena.
The Athenians actually bring many of the qualities of success. It is in analysis of the
game that we introduce the concept of POWER. We want to surface their attitudes about
power, define power as the ability to act and we want to establish that the source of
power is organized people and organized money.
Self-Interest I: We can begin to unfold the wrongs in the Gamaliel ladder. We bring to
this week a set of values. In order to live out those values we need power. In order to get
power we need to organize people and money. We organize people around their selfinterest. In this workshop we want to get out the definition of self interest as self among
others we want to contrast the relational concept of self interest with the non-relational
and individualistic concepts of selfishness and selflessness and we want to raise up the
difficulty one encounters in naming and claiming their self-interest.
Self-interest II: In self-interest II we agitate them around claiming their self-interest.
We teach them the difference between long term self interest and short term self interest.
We teach them the tool of the stick person. We give them 20 minutes to develop their
own stick person and we give an opportunity to share their stick person with others. I
like to end the evening with two ideas: 1) before one can begin on a path to living out
ones values, one must begin to act out of their self-interest. 2) tomorrow’s exercise will
be to present a tool to uncover the self interest of another person.
One-to-One I: We are going to organize people out of their self-interest one-to-ones is a
tool to uncover that. In this workshop, we lay out the goals the attitudes and the technique
of the one-to-one. We model it and allow the participants to practice it.
One-to-Ones II: We allow feedback on their one-to-ones and challenge them to develop
lists of people they might do one-to-ones with when they get home and challenge them to
do one-to-ones during the week.
Public vs. Private: In this workshop, we are clear distinguishing between private and
public relationships. This is important because most Americans think of relationships
primarily in personal and private terms. We also challenge them to build a public life and
to raise the consequences of not having such a life.
Qualities of a Leader: In this workshop we raise up the qualities of a leader the levels of
leadership and introduce them to the notion that they must not only accept the
responsibility for their own life but also that of others. Introduce at this time the concept
of the leader having the courage and creativity to create programs and actions.
Power Analysis: Up to this point, we have challenged them to look inside themselves
and we have challenged them to develop relationships with other people. In this
workshop, we want to introduce them to the complicity. To the viciousness and
ruthlessness, and the opportunities in the public arena. This workshop should end with an
analysis of successful organizations.
Elements of a power Organization: Here the agitation is around a challenge to build an
organization that is effective, and to rise up the fallacy of acting individualistically in this
arena.
Issues and Actions: The acts of a power organization.
Media: A necessary tool of a power organization.
Effective Meetings: Creating a collective vision and responsibility.
Money: The other source of power.
Agitation: A tool to move leaders to act out of their values and out of their self-interest,
therefore a necessary tool for the development of leaders.
Strategic Campaigns: This workshop explains how all the above tools of building an
organization are brought together in a campaign that can change the direction of a
neighborhood. This workshop should bring people back to the realization that we are
organizing to transform our society. I want to agitate to move from being petty protesters
to ambitious agents for change.
Path to Power: This workshop unveils the obstacles acting with power and creativity
and attempts to move the participants to become focused on becoming powerful. The
workshop should begin to map out for the person their path to power. The experience of
this workshop should form the basis of the conversation between the leaders and their
organizer.
Planning and Reflection: This is a workshop that presents a tool on how to move from
being a person directed by others, or as Alinksy says, a pile of undigested experiences, to
self-directed person.
The Opener for National Training
I begin with writing my name and title on the board and giving them verbally, I then state
that one of the most important concepts that we will discuss this week is the concept of
relationships. We have devised an exercise where you can begin the process of
developing relationships with one another. We would like for each person to tell us the
following:
Their Name
Their Church and or Organization
Why they are here/what they want from this week?
Who is a person they consider a significant person in the public arena?
And why they picked this person?
(These questions needs to be explained: the person can be anyone in history form
Adam and Eve to the present: someone public so we do not want mom, dad, and
grandpa; someone who has made a significant positive or negative impact on history,
Once one person like Jesus or Martin Luther King is named you have to come up with
someone else).
The presenter begins at one end of the room, goes around to each person, and gives them
a chance to respond.
The presenter can agitate around the reason they have come, or the public person they
have picked. For example: They might say they came because someone sent them.
Agitation: Do you always do what people tell you to do? By the end of the week, you
should question whether to do things because people tell you do them or if you want to
do them. Another example: “I came because I want to help my community.” Agitation:
what do you get out of it; are you just a do-gooder? In my experience, do-gooders are
dangerous to a community. Ex: “I want to develop my leadership skills.” Agitation: “Are
you a leader? Do you want to be a leader? What is keeping you from being a leader? It is
not skills; if you want skills, you are probably in the wrong place. Around the public
person, when they pick people like Martin Luther King, Jesus, Gandi, or Mother Teresa.
Agitation: Why did you pick them—because they were nice, because they were dogooders. They were tough. They challenged people. They manipulated people to do what
they wanted. Are you this kind of person? When they explain why they picked the person
there is often material for agitation. Ex: “He cared about people!” Agitation: A lot of
people care about people, only some have the courage to do something about it. If they
picked someone like Oprah Winfrey, kick their ass. It is important to be aware of time.
When you can, involve other people in the room and when you are agitating look around
the room. (I have noticed that when we are going down the rows of people, often the rest
of the class is not involved and it can get tedious).
After you have finished going around the whole class, we talk about some of the
following:
This training is about learning a new language. It is about reclaiming our
language. It has been said that the best way to corrupt a society is to corrupt the
language. As an example about how language confuses us: What do politicians
like to call themselves? (Someone will eventually say pubic servants). Is that
what they are? Why do they like to call themselves public servants? What does
that do to our thinking about ourselves as leaders? Are we supposed to be
servants? Words like power, self-interest, anger, confrontation, tension, have been
removed from our thinking about effective action in the public arena, yet all these
concepts are absolutely necessary. This week we are going to clarify such words,
clarify concepts, and reclaim our language so we can think clearly, about what we
must be and do.
This session is not about skills. You can read a book and learn about skills. It is about
yourself. It is about examing aspects of yourself that get in your way from becoming a
leader. It is about naming our devils correctly. You are the primary obstacle to you
becoming a leader and becoming effective. This is about you.
We are in a war of values. Our communities are in trouble. Talk passionately about what
you see are the problems in our communities-hunger, crime, drugs, racism, breakdown of
family, violence, etc. and declare that they are the people they have been waiting for it
is up to them to decide whether they will accept the responsibility for re-creating their
communities and their congregations. This week we will put the question to them clearly.
This week is not about the presenters explaining things. It is a dialogue between
yourselves and the presenter and between yourselves and each other. Those who lay in
the weeds will not learn much this week. Those who take risks, those who challenge the
presenters, whose participate will learn.
The Melian Dialogue Workshop
An Outline of the Workshop: During the weeklong training this workshop lasts for
three hours with a fifteen minutes break near the middle. This workshop has four main
parts. They are:
The Game Itself: The game is conducted four to six times by different groups.
This part lasts between 30 and 40 minutes.
An Analysis of how the games were played: In this section the presenter is
challenging the participants on how they as groups and as individuals played the
game. We try o hold up a mirror to them to see how they act and think in such
situations. This part lasts between 30 and 40 minutes and is followed by the break.
An Analysis of the Dialogue: In this section there is a discussion of the
difference between how the Athenians acted and how the Melians acted in the
dialogue. It is a place to rise up how power people act and how powerless people
act. We also can introduce the idea of the world as we would like it to be and the
world as it is. This lasts for 30 to 40 minutes.
The Concept of Power: This is where we introduce the concept power. We rise
up and analyze their attitudes about power, we introduce our definition of power
as “the ability to act,” and we discuss the source of power in the public arena -organized people and organized money. This piece should also last about 40
minutes.
All of the parts should be very challenging and agitational. This piece sets the tone for the
entire week. It is all right, if they leave this workshop stunned, confused, challenged,
angry etc. They will work it out later in the week.
The Game Itself
I walk in looking very serious. At exactly 9:00 a.m. I close the door. I write my name and
title on the black board and introduce myself verbally. I ask if they have any questions
about what happened the night before (I never spend more than three minutes doing this).
I then ask them to clear the tables and chairs from the center of the room and have them
line up five or six chairs on each side.
(Ask if anyone has ever played the game before; if they have appointed them as
evaluators and ignore them.)
I pick people at random (trying to have some diversity) to take the seats now facing each
other in the center of the room. I declare that on one side are the Melians and on the other
are the Athenians.
You announce boldly and clearly that this exercise has one rule and that is
that: “I can interrupt at any time.”
I write this on the board.
You then declare: “Let the Game Begin!”
I am taking notes and glaring at the participants during all of the games. I take notes for
points of agitations in the second part of the workshop. I notice they do not caucus, some
are very shy, some hoot their mouths off, etc. If I know their names, I make notes on
them personally.
The first move is to throw someone out. I take the cowardly approach and pick a person
who I think will go easily. I say something like, “You’re not participating, leave the
room” or “Let someone else speak, leave the room.” On the other hand, “You are not
taking this seriously, get out.” Things get easier after the first couple leave the room.
I usually throw only or two people out during the first game.
My interruptions during the first game are made when I think they are getting to a point
that is unproductive such as: They might be saying that they will wait for the Spartans to
come to their rescue—I interrupt with:
“Bulletin”. The Spartan Fleet has been destroyed in a terrible storm.” Alternatively, if
they say that they will surround the Athenians negotiators and capture them, I interrupt
with “1,500 Athenian Soldiers have moved into the town to protect their negotiators.”
When they reach a point (and they almost always do) that the Melians have decided to die
with honor. I stop the game. At this point, I tell all of the Athenians to take their seats. I
bring up five more people. I turn to the former Melians and tell them that now they are
the Athenians and tell the new group that they are the Melians, and say boldly, “Let the
Game Begin.”
I run this game pretty much like the first game. I throw more people out. I get bolder on
how I do it. I do not even explain why I do it. I pick stronger people. I let the game draw
a conclusion. If they are not coming to any conclusion, I announce in a loud voice.
Bulletin from the Athenian High Command, “You have three minutes to conclude
this negotiation, we have other islands to conquer.” I give them the three minutes and
declare the game is over. Once again, I make the Athenians take their seats, I appoint the
Melians to be Athenians and bring up five more people.
Before the third game begins, I make this important addition to the game. I announce that
everyone else in the room is a Melian citizen, and they are the ones who will suffer the
consequences of what their negotiators decide. I sweep my hands over the class and tell
them that their fate is in the hands of these Melian negotiators. I then declared: “Let the
game begin.”
I continue the games until every one has played. I throw one, two or three people out per
game. Sometimes the crowd gets into it, sometime they do not. I really do not care oneway or the other. I might say something like --“do you accept what your negotiators have
decided upon?”
Analysis of How They Played the Game
I begin by asking them something like. “What was this all about”? Is it not like what
happens back in our communities? There are people in power making decisions about us
and we are reacting to those decisions. How did we do? These are the key lessons to be
drawn out:
Why did you leave the room? Why did you give me power over you?
Is this the way you would act with the mayor or a corporate leader?
Why did you let your people be thrown out?
Why did you not caucus first? That is the only way people become legitimate
spokesperson.
Why did you shoot your mouth off right away? Who appointed you spokesperson
for the group? I tell them they are typical of many leaders and they are dangerous.
Leaders only get their power from those they lead. Are you always the self
appointed mouth in a group?
Why were you silent? Is this the way you act in a crowd?
Why are you so ready to call on the gods –do you think your gods are better than
the Athenians are?
Why were you so ready to die—it is harder to live and make a difference.
Why is compromise so wrong—power people are always compromises?
Why is win/lose the only option?
Do you realize the consequences of your action—there is not a single Melian
alive today. Seven hundred years of history was wiped out because of the
stupidity of the negotiators.
Why did the rest of the class “the Melians Citizens” not do anything? Is this the
way you act in your communities?
I tell them that it is no wonder our communities are the way they are --with them as the
leaders.
I stress that this was not a game. It is the way things are in the real world. There are no
rules. There is no script. People in suits and ties are trying to impose scripts on us.
We do this game to hold up a mirror so that at the beginning of the week they can see
what they have to work on.
At this point, I let them break.
Discussion of the Dialogue
The Athenians
They live in the real world
They act with power
They understand their own and
the Melians’ self-interest
They are practical
They are reasonable
They are flexible
They are democratic
They are modest
They understand limits,
boundaries and consequences
They have a power analysis
They would accept compromise
They have a vision and a goal
They understand there is no
neutrality
Have
Set the rules
Speak language of power
The deal with people as people
and understand motivation
They live in the world as it is
The Melians
The live in a world of false hope
They act powerlessly
They do not understand either
their own or the Athinas’ selfinterest
They believe in the Gods
They are ideologues
They are rigid
They do not believe in their
people
They are righteous
They live in a dream world
They do not understand the
world
They understand only win/lose
They just don’t want to be
bothered
They profess a false neutrality
An ostrich approach
Have not
Accept the rules
Talk of hope, justice, what
should be
They are racist-they think that
their brother Spartans will rescue
them
They live in the world as they
would like it to be
I ask them how we act in our communities, in our organizations, in our churches.
I ask them how they acted in the game.
I ask them whether they felt more comfortable being Melians or Athenians.
A Discussion of Power
I begin with trying to surface their attitudes about power. I do this in two ways. I ask
them for examples or people who wield or has in history wielded power. Usually they
pick negatives figures. I go around the room and I ask people whether they would like to
be known as power hungry people. I am trying to surface their ambiguous or negative
feelings about power. I then tell them that this is our (people with values) word and we
must reclaim it. This first and most important concept the Gamaliel Foundation wants
them to understand. I then give them the Webster dictionary definition of the power—the
ability to act, the ability to make a difference. I explain that in Spanish, the word for
power is poder and the word meaning; “to be able” is also poder. In fact, the English
word “power” comes from the Latin word posse, which means, “to be able”.
I then explain that if you want to do anything—fix the roof on your church, stop drug
trafficking in your community, help the youth, get rid of gangs, evangelize for your
church, build new houses in your neighborhood—you are going to have to “have the
capacity” the “power” to accomplish the task. Those who do not want power must not be
too serious or committed to accomplishing their goals. They have a choice—they can
pray that someone comes along and solves their problems or they are going to have to
want enough power to solve their own problems and meet their own goals, and live out
their own values.
I then enter into a discussion with them about why they are ambiguous about power. I
first ask them whether those in power want them to have power. I point out how priests,
popes, and politicians confuse us about power because they really do not want us to
challenge their power. Politicians call themselves servants; the pope calls himself the
“servant of the servants of men”; priests and ministers like to give sermons on how to be
humble. I point out that in the bible there is 247 times that the word power is used (and it
is almost always used in a good context, it indicates that presence of God) and that the
word humble is used but 9 times and the word humility is used only 32 times. I tell them
that I have received 247 sermons on how to be humble but none on how to be powerful.
I then ask them the real reason why they are ambiguous about power. Power implies
responsibility. It will mean conflict and controversy. It will involve risk and the
possibility of failure. We really do not want power because we do not want the
responsibility and the difficulty associates with becoming powerful. We are not virtuous
by not wanting power. We are really cowards for not wanting power. Deep in our hearts,
we want to shift the responsibility for our lives onto someone else. This is a sad and
dangerous trap. In so doing we give ourselves away.
I explain to them that power is good. “To have the Capacity” is good. It is not good not to
be able to see, to walk, to hear, and to act. We can misuse our capacities, but to have
them is good. Powerlessness is evil. Powerlessness invites evil upon us. A powerless
spouse will be abused, a powerless race will be abused, and a powerless neighborhood
will be abused. Powerlessness is to be avoided at all costs. It is an unnatural state of
being.
I then move to explain the source of power: organized people and organized money.
I discuss with them that these are the only sources of power in the public arena.
Knowledge can be used to organize people, but by itself, it does not create power.
It is very important that this is discussed and understood. It is here we begin to introduce
the Gamaliel Ladder:
We have Values
To act on our Values we need Power
To get Power we need Organized People and
Organized Money
The next logical question is how we organize people. That is the next workshop.
WORKSHOP ON SELF-INTEREST
Workshop on Self-Interest is to get people in touch with:
1. What motivates oneself?
2. What motivates others?
3. Being in relationship with other enhances how one understands his/her
place in the world.
Begin the workshop by checking in with the class. Ask what their reaction was to
the morning session on the Melian dialogue and on power. I usually spend fifteen
minutes or so getting them clearer about power.
I then proceed to the workshop on self interest.
I begin by stating: There are many ways to organize people.
1. Force, guns, and violence have proven effective by gangs and
governments; however, this is not the way we are recommending.
It is the way we brought African American to this country, it is the
way we solved our Native American Problem, it is very central to
our present foreign policy.
2. Money, bribery, contracts, and jobs have been quite effective in
Chicago and other arenas. Most of us do have enough of the above
to organize a base. Elections and legislative agendas are entangled
with motivating people through money.
3. Magic tricks, miracles, healings, and claiming the authority of God
has worked for preachers and damages. It was the Jim Jones and
David Karish method of controlling people. It is the T.V. healers
method. Unless you have had a revelation lately, it is not an honest
approach.
If you read the passage of the temptation of Jesus in the desert, you will see that
he is tempted to use these methods to organize people; and he rejects each one. He is
about to begin his ministry and he is tempted to use force, bread, and magic tricks. (The
trainer should, of course, be similar with the passage if it is to be used.) So how did Jesus
organize people? We say out of their “self-interest”. He offered them something they
knew they wanted.
I then ask, “WHAT IS YOUR DEFINITION OF SELF-INTEREST?” Have each
person write it out. Call for examples of each person’s definition. Usually their definition
is akin to selfishness. I push them on this, by asking “what is the difference between your
definition of self interest and selfishness?
What are their gut feelings about the word “self-interest”. I probe by asking
whether they would be comfortable if I said they were only acting out of their selfinterest.
I then use the following diagram tool to help clarify the concept of self-interest.
You put up selfish/self interest/selflessness as three ways of relating to a person. You ask
the group to list adjectives or synonyms for these types of attitudes and you usually end
up with something like this:
Selfishness
Self-Interest
Self-lessness
-doesn’t think of others
- thinks of self in
relationship to others
-only thinks of others
-greedy
-martys
-jealous
-humble
-small minded
-do gooder
-ego centric
-kind person
-thinks of only self
-dishonest
-motherly type
-kind
-self-centered
-loving
-the kind of person we
give plaques to
-the kind of person we are
told not to be
I usually make some outrageous remark like: “do you like the people who act
selflessly? I personally want to go home and take a shower after I have talked with one of
them. They bring no ideas, no energy, and no commitment to the table. When someone
says, “Greg whatever you think,” I feel like I have been hit with the green slime.
Someone is manipulating me into taking responsibility for his or her life. I give the
example of organizing an important meeting and asking someone what they think should
happen, and the person responds, “whatever you think, Greg”. This makes me responsible
and lets the person off the hook.
I then go into our definition of self interest as, self among others. The word
“interest comes from two Latin words “inter” meaning among, and “esse” meaning to be.
Self interest is fundamentally a relational word meaning self among others.
Self-interest is the only true way of relating to another person because it respects
the two sides of the relationship.
Self-interest is a relational concept. Selfishness and selflessness are non-relational.
SELF------------------------------ OTHER
In relationship
Selfishness denies the “other” in the relationship
SELF-------------------------------------- OTHER
Selflessness denies the “self” in the relationship
SELF------------------------------OTHER
I spend time using examples from business and politics to elucidate how self
interest is the mode of operation in the real world. I use examples of how bills are passed
in a legislature and how corporation want to know what we want in order to get what they
want. Think of your own examples. I states that bishops and congregational presidents,
are elected when deals are cut.
SELF-INTEREST – INTERESSE
SELF AMONG OTHERS
Do you know your own self-interest?
Do you demand that self-interest be met in your negotiations?
The opposite of self-interest is suicide –the absolute denial of the worth of self.
The people who are truly selfless are drug addicts, alcoholics, people addicted to T.V.
and other forms of pornography. All of these people refuse to invest in themselves, to
make themselves something worthwhile.
Thomas Aquinas declared: “True humility is the quiet pursuit of one’s own excellence.”
Very important to know what your self-interest is in your motivation.
The real language of power is self-interest.
The politicians want us to believe that the language of power is self-lessens
What is the language of guilt? Do it for others
Guilt and selfless is intertwined. What is the function of guilt? To avoid responsibility.
To know your self-interest
To declare your self interest
And to act on your self-interest
is
an act of courage
To deny you are self interest is to choose to be a victim and is an act of cowardice.
Victim hood is a strategy for survival --but not a good one.
Are do-gooders good for an organization?
-Do they bring ideas?
Do they bring energy?
Can you count on them in a flight?
GET RID OF DO-GOODERS IN YOUR CHURCH AND YOUR
ORGANIZATION
THE WORLD AS IT IS VS. THE WORLD AS WE WOULD LIKE IT TO
BE
What becomes of people who operate out of each mode:
Selfishness
-become cynical
-become isolated
-become lonely
Self-Interest
-usually more energized
-excited about life
-more powerful
-understand their place in
the world and understand
how to move it forward
World as it is
Self-less ness
-become depressed
-become bitter
-become angry at others
because they did so much
and got so little in return
-can become suicidal
World as we would like it to be
-
People work for money
-love and self-sacrifice
-
self - interest/cutting deals
-innocence
-
People want to be somebody
-purity of motive
-
People want recognition
-humility
-
People are motivated by greed
-self-denial
- ambition
-working for others
- a desire to be someone
-its all right if others get the credit
Aristotle, long ago said: “We think chiefly of ourselves, and only occasionally of others”.
Our founding understood the world as it is by establishing separate functions of government that
would hold in check the tendencies toward corruption.
-De Tocqueville said American’s strength is to have a divergence of self-interest.
The first insight of an organizer or a leader is to come to understand that—to be in a formal, public
relationship based upon self-interest actually empowers people.
Self-Interest- -the Medium of Exchange
The Public Arena
The concept of self-interest, like the concept of power is necessary to understand and to
embrace if one is to think clearly and act directly in the public arena.
If one understands clearly this concept remain amateurs and mere petty protestors and ever
get to the real table of power.
To many people, the definition of self-interest would be very similar to the definition of
selfishness. To most people self-interest implies self-centeredness, a lack of regard for others,
egotistical behavior, greed, etc. However, self-interest as its core forces us to think of others.
We have been condemned to thinking about motivation in only two ways; selfish and
selfless. Both are dead ends, because both are non-relational.
At this point I push people to declare their self interest. I start to ask people, “what is your
self interest”. Too often people will define their self interest by what they intend to do for others or
for the community. They might say I want to create a jobs program, or improve schools, or create
housing. I push them hard on “what in it for them”. What will they get out of it. Go around the room
as far as you can and get as many as possible to declare their interest.
WORKSHOP ON SELF INTEREST
PART II
First check in with the class to see what their reaction was to the previous workshop or)
self-interest, usually their concerns center on the identification of self-interest with selfishness; or
they are very confused about what their self-interest is. I very strongly challenge them around the
fact that self-interest is not selfishness because it is a relational concept - - you not only have to be
aware of what you get out of the transaction but you also have to understand how the other person
benefits. Neither selfishness are relational, self-interest is relational. I also firmly challenge them to
get clearer about their self-interest.
I then go into the distinction between short term and long-term self interest.
I explain that short term self interest is bound up with immediate needs. One might need a
job. One might need a house. One might have a crack house or the block and wants to get ride of it
one might have rates in the alley. One might need to get their child in a good school. One might be
running a church carnival and needs some help. We all are confronted with short term self interest
all the time. A good leader, an organizer, or a pastor knows that responding to these short-term selfinterests is a way of initiating a relationship.
People’s long term self-interest is bound up with their life work, their quest for
significance, their legacy, what they want people to say about them when they are gone, their search
for meaning.
I usually discuss the thesis of Ernst Becker in his book Denial of Death. Becker contends
that Freud was wrong – sex is not the primary motivation in our lives, it is rather a quest to
overcome death. Becker spent time in the Nazi concentration camps; and some of his observations
come from that experience. Becker observed that very young children are aware of loss, of the
fragility and tenuousness of life. They experience the death of a pet. They experience a baby-sitter
as part of their life and then disappear.
We are not so much afraid of death as we are afraid of dying and no one noticing. Hitler
understood this when he promised the young soldiers that their names would be carved in marble
and live on for a thousand year - - with such a promise, young men were willing to run into machine
gun fire.
It is this deeper self-interest that motivates people to do great things for church and for
society. Getting in touch with this self-interest in oneself and in others will tap into a powerful
motivation.
I ask the questions – do people feel that they were born to do something significant? Do
they feel that they have been frustrated in achieving their significant?
It is important that they begin to shape the path to that significance.
I think that one of the mistakes in our thinking about self-interest is that we conceive of it
as the ultimate career goal. For some interest is a light on a mountain top that guilds them through
the valleys, and dense forests of life. Harold Washington, being steeped in Chicago, politics by his
father, decided at an early age to be the first black mayor in City of Chicago. Jack Kennedy was
raised to be the President of the United States. Lyndon Johnson set his eyes on the Presidency early
in life. Winston Churchill was groomed to be the prime minister of England. Such clarity is a very
powerful force in ones life and can be a beacon and a magnet, which gives directions and informs
choices.
In my own experience, self-interest is more often an attitude and a compass. If uniforms
my everyday choices. If I do this will, it is in my benefit. It is a habit of always the question
“What’s in it for me?” If one develops this attitude, one will begin to construct a powerful public
life. One will be clear about how actions lead to organized people and organized money. To have
this attitude one will have to get in the habit of saying no; one will get in the habit of challenging
people who was wasting their time; and one will get out of the habit of trying to please people and
of working on a reputation of being nice. That reputation has to be destroyed.
Everything above should be done in no more than fifty minutes. The rest should be spent
on the stick person.
Stick Person
We begin this by a statement to the class that since we really have not been encouraged to
shape our self-interest many of us are confused about it. We see our self-interest “through a glass
darkly”. We have a tool to help us clarify it that is called the stick person.
Ones self-interest will be shaped by who one is, by what has happened to the person in life,
by important relationships, important experiences, ambitions etc. Drawing a stick person and
surrounding it with the important forces in our lives gives us glimpse of what our self-interest might
be.
Draw the stick person on the board and engage the class in listing the important forces that
shape a person’s life. It should look something like this:
RACISM
GENDER BIAS
EDUCATION
POLITICS
FAMILY (Past)
JOB
CHIRCH
NEIGHBORHOOD
FAMILY (today)
Spouse
Parents
Siblings
LIFE EXPERIENCES
VALUES
Kids
Extended Family
RECREATION
EDUCATIONFor Future
RELIGIOUS TRAINING
Friends
CULTURE
COMMUNITY
FUN
PERSONAL DEVEL
MENT.
I then ask people to draw their own stick person. In addition, we ask them to reflect on the
feelings and passions connected with each of these relationships and experiences.
Mike Kruglik asks them to pick the relationship in which they feel most powerful and pick
the relationship in which they feel most powerless.
Have them work on their own stick person for 15 minutes.
After this divide, them up into groups of four and have them discuss each other’s stick
person. Instruct the groups to help each other uncover their self-interest. Have the group pick one
person whole stick person seems interesting. Have them in small groups for 20 minutes.
For the remainder of the class has, the person selected in each group stand up and shares
their stick person with the class.
You conclude the workshop with the statement that this day has been about helping them
discover their own self-interest. Tomorrow will be about how we discover the self-interest of
another person that is about how we can draw a stick person about another person.
Workshop on Doing One to Ones
By The Gamaliel Folundation
Revised April 10, 2003
Objectives of this workshop: Give people a clear understanding of what a one-on-one is. Model
for people a good one-on-one. Have them understand that doing one-on-ones is the necessary tool to
build power. Have them understand that they must do this strategically and systematically.
Points of Agitation: Challenge people to build public relationships. Challenge people to probe
people’s deeper motivations. Challenge people to systemically set up one-on-ones
If we are doing this workshop during weeklong training, it follows the piece on self-interest, which
should have described accurately the stick person. We can then describe the one on one as a
process of understanding the stick person of another person.
If we are not doing this workshop during weeklong, we will have to explains the stick person
concept to set up the one-on-ones properly.
The workshop itself:
The source of power is organized people and organized money. We organize people around, out of,
their own self interest. Power people are always aware of their self-interest and can be directly
motivated by it. People in churches and communities frequently cannot enunciate their self-interest
directly. In order for us to work with such people around their self-interest we need to use a tool that
enables us to clarity people’s self interest and for us to get a glimpse of what their self interest might
be. We call that tool a one-on-one.
When power people interact, they know their self interest and operate from it instinctually.
(I frequently tell the story of the Head of the Cook County and a committee in a conversation. I use
Eddie Verdolyak as an example. Eddie was corrupt, racist, greedy, vicious, etc. But when he sat
down with the committeemen, the ones that turn out the vote, he began his conversation this way.
“What do you want” The committeeman could give an exact answer. “I want so many jobs, I want
the insurance contract on the park building, I want so many jobs, I want the insurance contract on
the park building, I want the building contract on a new project, I want support for my brother-inlaw to run for Congress” And Eddie knew what he wanted – loyalty on all important votes. The
conversation was efficient. It did not take more than ten minutes. But when a pastor, who does not
know his/her self-interest sits down with a parishioner and tries to discuss their self interest, it is
one mush bag talking to another. And even if the pastor knows his/her self interest, the parishioner
usually is unable to articulate there. And so we use the tool of the one on one.)
A one-on-one is a conversation with another person that has one agenda—getting to know the other
person. It consists of asking a series of open-ended questions that allows the other person to
describe what is important. The one doing the one-on-one is listening much more than talking.
There are four things we want to get out of a one-on-one:
1. Initiate a relationship. If at the end of the one on one the person says I would like to see
you again, you probably did a good one-on-one. If the person has feeling that they would
like to continue the conversation, it was done well.
2. Understand the other person’s self-interest. By the end of the conversation, you should
understand what motivates the person, their source of anger, and their ambition, some of
their story.
3. Give the other person a chance to gain clarity. By asking the person important
questions, we allow the person to speak of important matters. In so doing, they should gain
clarity about themselves.
4. Information. Where were they born, how many kids, etc?
To know a person we need to know about the person. We use the tool of the stick person to
structure our knowledge about a person. By knowing important facts about a person and
attitudes of a person we can get a glimpse of what is important to that person.
Draw a stick person and surround it with the following categories.
Education
Hobbies
Ethnicity
family
spouse, children, parent’s race,
job
Reading
faith journey
Politics
neighborhood
Ambition
what makes them angry
Organizations
what makes them angry
Organizations
disappointments, pain
Friends
We ask questions not to get one-word answers but to evoke the person’s feelings about these areas
of their lives. What are their passions around these areas of their lives?
The one-on-one should last for about a half hour.
We need to bring two attitudes to our one-on-one: courage and curiosity.
We need to bring courage because in many people lives there are areas of pain that people will be
willing to share. Without courage, we will shy away from a conversation about these very important
areas of people’s lives.
We need curiosity because we need to be genuinely interested in the person. We want to
communicate that the person’s life is interesting. We want to explore with the person the paths they
have come down to make his/her life what is. God has had a hand in shaping each person’s life, we
should be curious about God’s handiwork. In many ways, by being curious about a person, we
allow God to reveal who he is to us.
After this explanation, we should model a one-on-one. We should pick a person that we feel
will be interesting.
The modeling should never be set up as a role-play. It should be set up in real time. It is a real oneon-one in front of the class. I set this up by asking the question, “how is the workshop going for you
so far”. With the question they know where they are. Right there in the class. The one-on-one
should go for about twenty minutes.
After the one-on-one, we should debrief with the class. What was going on? What did you think of
this conversation?
I usually get a variety of responses. Some say it was very powerful. Some say it was amazing how
we have to know the person so fast. Etc.
Others however will say that it was too one sided. It was not conversation. The other person did not
get to know you. This is an opportunity to stress the following:
It is the job of a leader to build relationships. If the person wants to be a leader then they will have
to set up their own one-on-ones. As Aristotle said, “We almost always think of ourselves and only
occasionally of other people” Why should the interviewer presume that the other person had any
interest in the interviewer?” When a person is given the opportunity to talk about oneself, about
what is important to that person, one focuses on oneself.
We should ask the person who was interviewed what he/she thought of it.
We should check out the whether we covered the important topics that we listed above when we put
up the stick person. We should ask which of them seemed important and meaningful in the person’s
life.
We then should review the four objectives of building a relationships, etc. Did we achieve these
objectives?
Ask if they see why courage and curiosity is so important?
After this, we send them out with careful instructions on doing the one-on-one. During National
Training these instructions should be as follows

Your have 50 minutes to do a one-on-one with someone and that same person with you.

Pick a person in the room that you do not know but would like to know.

After you have connected with that person and cut the deal to do one-on-ones with one
another, you can get coffee, use the restrooms if need be; and then find a place where you
and your partner can do your one-on-ones. Pick anywhere in the building or outside.

This is not to be a conversation that goes back and forth. Begin with one person doing the
one on one and the other person having it done to. After twenty minutes switch roles.

Be back at 11:15 a.m.
Part two of workshop
1. Debrief their one-on-ones. Did they uncover self-interest? Did the initiate a
relationship? I pick one person and ask whom they did a one-on-one with. I ask the
above questions. I then ask the person it was done to whether the first person got it
right. I do this when six to ten couples.
2. I then talk about the mechanics: By appointment only, should last only a half-hour;
should not take notes during one on one; usually in the person’s house or office.
Write up one-on-ones afterwards.
3. Go through an exercise to show them who they should be doing one-on-ones with.
E.g., a pastor should be doing one-on-ones with key congregants, fellow pastors,
bishops, their organizer, politicians, the media etc. An organizer needs to do one-onones with all pastors and key lay leaders in the organization. A person mounting a
housing campaign will want to do one on ones with key leaders, experts, politicians,
funding sources etc. We do not one-on- ones to build power. Power is the ability to
effect change. Knowing the change we want to make will help us select the one-onones we need to do.
4. Challenge them to do one-on-ones during National Training. We will know who is
serious about building power by which we see doing one-on-ones with other people.
You should challenge them to do at least ten one-on-ones.
Organizing is the art of build power through relationships.
These relationships are built one at a time.
Workshop on Public vs. Private Relationships
A Challenge to Build a Public Life
Revised April 10, 2003
In the last workshop, you were challenged to develop relationships as the first step toward creating
public power. The relationships you are being challenged to create are not relationships that are
extensions of family and friendships ties; but are public. In this country, we blur the relationships in
our public and private lives and end up being ineffective and sometimes harmful.
In Japan, the people frequently have between their home and the road a pond; and over the pond is a
bridge. The bridge symbolizes the transition from the public world to the private world. In America,
there is no such bridge. (I draw a little house with a road in front of it. I draw a pond between the
house and the road. I then draw a bridge over the pond leading to the road.)
In this workshop, we want to draw a distinction between public and private relationships, describe
the pitfalls and advantages of blurring this distinction, and finally to challenge you to systematically
construct a public life.
Examples of the Two Types of Relationships
Public Relationships
Private Relationships
Fellow Workers
Wife/lover/husband
Boss/Employers
Children
Pastor/Doctor/ Lawyer
Parents
Used Car Salesman/ Politician
Siblings
Utility Company/ Banker/ Teacher
Very Close Friends (one to three)
Mikkman/Account/Social Worker
Psychiatrist/ Fellow Volunteers etc.
Distinctions between the Two Types of Relationships
Public Relationships
Private Relationships
We need/seek/respect
We seek love and intimacy
Formal/Contractual
Casual/Intimate
Over/Above Board/Objective
Covert/1 indirect/ Subjective
Based on Self-Interest
Blood/Kinship/Feelings
Temporary
Permanent
Voluntary
Involuntary/stuck with
Focused/Planned
Unfocused/Spontaneous
Agenda, Calendars
Just let it happen
Diversity/Pluralism
Similarity/Homogeneity
Tension/Conflict/Agitation
Peace/Harmony/love
Masks/Uniforms/Roles to Play
Just Being Yourself
Accountability
Sacrifice/Self-giving
Boundaries
No Boundaries
No Permanent Friends/Enemies
Lasting Care of Animosity
Exists for a purpose
Exists for itself
(The presenter must understand the above concepts and categories in his/her gut. You should be
able to use and example or tell a story that can exemplify each characteristic. Just listing these will
be deadly and boring. Interact with the class. Get them to tell stories about what it has meant to
them to mix things up.)
Private expectations in the public arena lead to confusion, hurt, manipulation, disappointment.
Debate never ends amicably, accountability is impossible. Tension and conflict erupt to control. We
are looking for love in all the wrong places.
Observe successful politicians and corporations –they understand there are no permanent friends
and no permanent enemies. They demand accountability between themselves, their partners, and
with employees. They are not afraid to create tension and seek to do so. Their relationships are
based on quid pro quo and self interest. The successful ones have a vision, a plan, and an agenda.
At the same time, they use this distinction to manipulate us. Politicians like to shake hands and kiss
babies to get us to believe that they are family; and we let them off the hook of accountability. The
telephone company wants us to reach out, touch somebody, and forget about their monthly bill. The
doctor and the used car sales representative want us to believe they really care for us to make us less
likely to critically examine their products and services. Professionals in the public arena know the
distinction and blur it to their advantage.
The process of oppression is to systematically strip people of their public lives. Is not this what was
and still is done to oppress women? Was not this the tactic employed in the white southerners
against African Americans? Deny people the possibility of public relationships and roles in the
public and roles in the public arena and they will be exploited. The path to liberation is creating a
public life. People who have extensive relationships can move things, create strategies, and win.
Rich and powerful people are born into a set of relationships that gives them a great advantage over
most of us. People like Cesar Chavez, Jesse Jackson, and Bill Clinton set about creating a public life
thereby exercised enormous influence in the public arena. That is the challenged to you here today.
Decisions about health care, education, electoral representation, economic development etc.. Are
made in the public arena. Getting to the table of power is to systematically establish public
relationships upon self-interest.
Workshop of The Gamaliel Folundation
Qualities of A Leader
On the first day of National Training, we focused on looking at one. We discussed your
attitude about power and your willingness to define and act upon our own self-interest. On this
second full day, we have been discussing our relationship to others. This morning we presented a
tool for you to effectively and efficiently public and private relationship and issued a challenge to
build a public life. This evening we will discuss leadership, which we describe as the ordering of
your public relations-ships to serve your own purposes, to meet your self-interest, and to live
out your values.
The goal of every leader is to: 1) to create large numbers of public relationships and 2) to
effectively order them to meet their self-interest.
Images of a leader might be the spider at the center of a web, the crossroads of several
major interactions, the axle in the center of a spoke wheel, a magnet generating a magnetic field,
or the sun at the center of the solar system.
What gets in the way of us becoming the “center of relationships” the force that orders
relationships? The same as that which causes us to avoid power and to not define our self-interest
–fear I insecurity I acceptance of responsibility, avoidance of work. The consequences of us not
being at the center, being the force ordering the relationships is that we become the pawn in other
people’s game, the insect caught in the web.
In Gary Willis new book, Certain Trumpets, he describes three necessary components “-“
of effective action – the leader, the followers, the program.
I would like to begin by discussing the program.
THE PROGRAM
A leader that does not initiate action is not a leader. It is in action, in activity, in setting and
reaching goals that leaders and a group is developed. The program leaders the relationship and
creates the leader.
Action creates the group, attract followers, and order the relationships.
The leader must have the courage to act, to create action. Action is the oxygen of a group.
Without it, the group suffocates.
Designing and implementing the appropriate action is a necessary component of leadership.
We have found that it is in this act that the true leader emerges; or to put it another way, it’s
through action that leadership is created, recognized, and developed.
It is this quality above all other that separates leaders from non-leaders. Having the courage to
move the group into action requires all of the qualities mentioned above.
Think of any group you are part of. An action well done activates the group. A group without
action or that does actions poorly dies.
The leader must design the action imagine it, communicate the action and the outcome to the
followers, challenge co-leaders and followers to implement in the action, control it while it is
happening, evaluate it, and exploit it to build strength in the group.
Use examples from our organizations: Bill and Ponsella put 5,000 people in a room, they had two
senators, four congressman, 15 mayors, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, Funding Sources
etc. By during the action they were in the center of a whole web of relationships. Use your
example
At this point I go around the room and ask each person what is the most significant event you
have organized for your union, congregation, and organization. I do not care if they say a fund
raiser, a public action, a strike, or a fashion show, building a new church building, etc. I want
to know if the leader was the one that actually made it happen, how many people were involved,
how effective was it, and how it changed their relationships with the groups and with power
people.
The Leader
Let us now talk about the qualities that a leader must have to create a program. In
order get people into action, what are he qualities must a leader have.
Ego: The Ability to define their own world and act on it.
Agitation puts people in conflict with people around her/him – sets up a tension in
relationships.
The problem now becomes how we restructure relationships.
Every community creates its own myths to rationalize the present situation—that
situation attempts to protect the status quo and maintain people’s place in the
present pecking order.
When issues arise –new relationships have to be established and these relationships
disrupt the status quo. A person with a weak ego will not be able to work within the
~ new reality. The Ego is the synthesizer. Without an ego a leader cannot with stand
agitation and act on it.
Establishing opposition apart from friends, family, and community is frightening
and most people resist it.
Psychologists sometimes describe the psyche as having three parts: the ego, the
superego, and the id. The superego is those voices and forces that come from
parents, teachers, church, and society in general telling us what we should be doing.
The id are the passions and urges directing us to do things we to do. The ego
synthesizes these two forces and constitutes who we are. The person without a
strong ego is always directed by what other people expect; or by irrational urges and
desires.
Humor –a sense of balance and perspective about others and self.
A leader must be able to see contradictions –something is and is not at the same
time. E.g. the dignified man falling on his behind.
A sense of humor gives us the ability to be ambiguous. Followers think in static
patterns. Some people get cynical.
A leader must get outside his own view of the universe, must have distance, and
must be able to see things from other people’s perspective.
What people laugh about and do not laugh about give insight into them.
Curiosity – the capacity to be inquisitive, questioning, inquiring. Curiosity allows
one to ask questions, look at alternatives. Without curiosity one is not fascinated by
other possibilities. One becomes rigid and task oriented. There is lack of joy and
energy in what one does without curiosity. Curiosity allows one to see the newness
in every situation.
Anger – an aimed reaction the violation of a value.
A society that loses its capacity to be outraged is a society in decline.
What people get angry about is a window into what they value. Anger is a sustaining
and motivating force in our lives. Anger enables us to relate to the oppression of
others. Anger integrates our emotions and directs our energy.
Anger is not rage. Rage is unfocused anger. Rage is destructive.
Risk – the ability to overcome the fear to the unknown, of potential ~ failure.
The enemy of the Good is the Perfect.
A person who is willing to risk must have a sense of the probable.
A leader must act. He/she cannot be paralyzed by what might go wrong.
Imagination –the capacity to envision, that which does not yet exist. Burnham, the
great Chicago Planner, said, “make no small plans, they do not stir Souls”.
Without imagination, we will not be able to motivate others or ourselves. What we
vividly imagine
Ardently desire
Sincerely believe
Enthusiastically act upon
Must inevitably happen.
People do not go from where they are to another place, by being told that where they
are is not good; they move to another place by being shown that they place they are
Going to be better than the place, they are in.
Only with imagination can we excite people to act.
Collaboration – the capacity to share leadership with others.
To be a leader one must tap into the desire of others to also lead, to emerge above the
Crowd, to overcome insignificance of the leadership position is one who leads a small
group.
Agitation –the capacity to challenge people to act out of their own self-interest; to be
accountable, to grow.
Without being willing to agitate, the leader will not be able to create discipline in a
group and will not be able to combat the tendency of a group to splinter, and
members from adopting a behavior destructive of the group. Agitation is necessary to
get the best out of followers.
THE FOLLOWERS
A leader must be able to speak for others, must listen and heat others, must not only
understand the individual self-interest of others but also the relationships between
other people. A leader must be creating a network. A leader must be systematically
doing one-on-ones to create a network. A leader must be systemically doing one-onones to create a network based on self-interest. A leader can be measured by the size,
the quality and the discipline of the group that he/she leads.
LEVELS OF LEADERSHIP
There three levels of leadership: Primary Leaders, Secondary Leaders, and Tertiary
Leaders.
Primary Leaders are thinking primarily about building the organization. They are
concerned about the whole of the organization and not just about one of its parts.
They think about relationships within the group and about creating relationships
outside the group. The primary leader is creates the vision for the organization. The
primary leader imagines the future of the organization.
The secondary leader is thinking about a part of the organization. The task and the
program of the part are this person’s concern. Relationship building is important but
limited to the component they are in charge of, and for accomplishing the task.
Tertiary leaders are workers. They might be in charge of a task; they might be
responsible for a couple of other people.
A pastor is a primary leader in congregation. The head of the choir is a secondary
leader. A member of the choir is a tertiary leader.
All people in a power organization are potential primary leaders. The power
organization is the testing ground for leaders, the vehicle for leaders to grow and
through which to exercise their power.
A power organization is continuously generating new leaders.
POWER ANALYSIS
Know the Jungle before You Enter
Revised April 10, 2003
A jungle is a place of danger; but for those who know the jungle, it can be a place that
provides food, shelter, raw materials, and military advantage. The political arena is a
jungle—it has its scorpions and snakes, leopards and lions, hyenas and mosquitoes.
However, it is also the place where we must enter to protect our rights and gain political
advantage for our people. To those who know this jungle, it can be the place where we can
find the resources to provide jobs, contracts, better healthcare, housing, a decent
education, a cleaner environment, etc.
In order to understand this jungle, you must understand the self-interest (the feeding
habits) of the inhabitants; and you must understand the ecosystem; that is the way they
relate to each other. Many seemingly disconnected people and forces actually have
symbiotic relationships to one another. The task therefore is to find out the sel-interest (the
ambitions, goals, visions, responsibility of as many of the players as possible) and
secondly to find out how there players are interrelated.
The tool to find out the self-interest of the players is the tool we have already \ given you –
the one-on-one. It is imperative than an emerging leader sits down With as many
politicians, agency heads, church leaders, etc. to gain some sense of what these people
want to accomplish – what are their capabilities and what are their limitations? These-oneon-ones are done in a way similar to what was previously described – they are by
appointment, they last a half hour, the goal is to uncover self-interest; not to convince or
proposition. The difference between these one-on-ones and those you do with your
constituency is that you will be interviewing people who are much clearer about their selfinterest in the public arena. The appropriate questions to ask are around: what their goals
and vision are for their present position? What are their ambitions in the future? It is also
important to ask them about who is helpful to them in pursuing their goals (who are their
allies) and who is putting up road blocks (their opponents).
It would also be important to ask the questions, “Who else do you see as important in the
City (Community)? This will give you new people to interview and give you some idea who
people perceive to be the movers and slickers in your area.
Categories of people to interview would include: principals, police, and undertakers, V.
Elder people, state and federal legislators, HUD officials, chamber of commerce leaders,
social service directors, fire fighters, church leaders, city department “heads, state
agencies operating in your area; and key business leaders.
ELEMENTS OF A POWER ORGANIZATION
OBJECTIVES:
1. Challenge people to be serious about building power organization.
2. Try to paint an image about what a power organization is to begin to shape a vision of
a Gamaliel Foundation organization.
POINTS OF AGITATION:
1. Why people would rather choose to be part of a cause or a service organization
than to be part of a power organization.
Power organizations-invoke images of conflict tension and
“unclear” motives.
Service Organizations- allow us to be called nice.
Cause- allows us to affirm our innocence.
Outline
If one decides to build a public life –to get involved in shaping their political economic
environment, there are three types of organization/activities in which they can involve
themselves; social service agencies, causes, power organizations. Let us examine these
three types of organization.
Examples:
Power
Issue/Service
Labor unions
Old democratic party
Mafia
Corporations
Attitudes about Each:
Cause
Nuclear freeze
Civil rights
Environment
Anti-apartheid
Single
Mother’s march of dimes
Muscular dystrophy
Boy Scouts
Food pantries
Power
Issue/Service
Dangerous
Suspect
Not so nice
Power implies
responsibility hard to
measure
Do not know when to stop
Cause
Not define
Easier
Innocence
Limits
Single
Simple
Short term
Nice
Measurable
Feel good
The false reward of being part of social service organization is to be considered nice –
those in power organizations like to give those in social service agencies plaques for
taking care to the victims of the decisions of the power organizations.
The false reward being part of a cause is to retain ones conception of themselves as
innocent –e.g. the young people carrying flowers and putting them in the barrels of guns
of the National Guard –many of these same young people did not vote.
Leadership:
Power
Issue/Service
Collective
Cause
A charismatic leader
Standards
They must have standard
Single
An executive director
Board of directors
Don’t like Change
They must rotate
They are elected
The are accountable are
flexible
e.g. of different types:
Lech Walesa –he great, now he has to govern
Ghandi –the same
King –no one to replace him
Membership
Leadership:
Power
Issue/Service
Cause
Single
Dues paying members
Narrow/ one cause
Individuals
Large institutional network Fanatics/true believers
Families
Undistracted
People to ask
Clients
Network with bonds + $
Non-political
Lots of denial self-interest
Church/families/collective
Anti-political
Diocese/values/interests
The church has moved from a power organization to a cause or a social service
organization (this in why so many congregations are hurting) when you have institutional
network you have to be accountable.
Accountability implies quotas, relationships, rules, standards, and authority.
Apathy and powerlessness are the results of being isolated.
Money:
Power
Issue/Service
Dues
Plate collections
Membership fees
We need lots of it
Cause
Single
Pass the hat
Money is dirty
Liberal foundations
Hollywood benefactors
Outside $
Government grants
Dependents
The Roman Catholic Church has grown soft on money.
Allies:
Power
Single Service/Issue
No permanent friends
Or enemies
Is the hunt for allies
Have peripheral
Self Righteous
Us or them
Tunnel vision
Cause
Conferences
Networking
Symposium
Predictable
Monotonous/routine
Demonstration for
demonstration’s sake
If you do not have the right to allies in the big fight, you will be in big trouble.
Style:
Power
Single Service/Issue
Disciplined
Confrontative
Face-to-face
Many faces
Mass meetings
Cause
Loose
Innocent
Casual
Idealistic
Romantic
Guilt ridden
Client/professional
Helpless/care giving
Staff:
Power
Single Service/Issue
Professional
Well paid
Agitators
Understand the
Consequences of their
actions
Cause
Vista volunteers
Administrative
Volunteers
Gofers
Small salaries
Between college and their
real career
Purpose:
Power
Single Service/Issue
To create more
Power to live
Out their values
Cause
Address the problem
Idealistic activity
Romantic ideal
Serve
Care giving
Self-perpetuating
Conclusion:
1) It is a myth perpetrated on Americans that we become successful and effective
with individual action. It is only with organization, that significant things are
done. This is true for military campaigns, sports, religious activity, business,
and even artistic endeavors.
2) Most organization tends to take away people’s power –either by control and
dominance or by psychological plays such as encouraging people to be
Followers, true believers, innocents. Power organization encourage its
members to assume power.
3) We should always try to either control on significantly impact any organization
to which we give our time.
Remember the one-on-one is not only to uncover self-interest, but to establish a
relationship. Conduct the one-on-one in a professional manner, do your research
before you go in, dress like a leader, put on the right mask. You want to leave such an
impression that you will be remembered and respected.
Decisions in the Public arena are made when there is a enough convergence of self
interest: not when there is some moral imperative to make a chandler.
The civil rights victories of the Sixties were made when not only the self-interest of the
African American Community, but also the interest of Northern liberal politicians to get
elected, the interest of business people to protect their investment, the interest of
people to avoid the cost of social unrest, the interest of church leaders all converged.
The health care debate will not be settled by what is right, just, and most effective; it
will be settled by a convergence of self-interest –that of the drug companies, the AMA,
manufacturers, small businesses, insurance companies, lawyers. In addition, oh yes,
our own interest have some impact if we organize to put it on the table.
If you want to know how political decisions are made, look behind the curtain to see
whose self-interest is being met. If you want to impact political decisions; know the
self-interest of all the parties involved and learn how to satisfy some, broker others,
and neutralize others. You can only do this if you have done a power analysis before
you enter the battle.
In the movie, The Wizard of Oz. it is Toto, the little dog, which puts back the curtain to
reveal the power of Oz. It is shown to be an ordinary person who, with smoke and
mirrors and loud noises, held sway over the people of Oz. Such is the case in our own
society.
Workshop of The Gamaliel Foundation
Issues and Actions
Issues: “The act of flowing or coming out; an important and controversial
matter” (dictionary definition)
Action: “The process of doing; energy; deed.” (Dictionary definition)
An issue creates energy; it allows passion about values to be expressed. It is a way of
exciting the people of your organization. Issues and actions are the tools that can
provide your organization recognition and a seat at the table of power. It creates
tension when it polarizes you from the powerbrokers; an issue demands an action. An
action creates tension that must be dealt with and broken by the re-action. An action
creates tension that must be dealt with and broken by the re-action. The real action
is in the re-action.
Usually, when we talk about issues confronting our communities, we really talk about
problems like crime, unemployment, and housing. Throughout America, people are
frustrated with their inability to affect these national problems. Some people turn to
distributing leaflets; others picket government buildings or hold prayer vigils; and still
others organize letter-writing campaigns to public officials. The majorities of the
people give up and do nothing.
Problems of this magnitude are impossible to resolve. They must be broken down into
manageable and realistic parts of the problem called issues. An issue is:
1) Winnable- you did your power analysis to understand the jungle and you
know it is winnable
2) Concrete-it is specific enough to be able to tell what if you win
3) Fairly short term-can be delivered in a matter of weeks
4) In the heart and guts of your people- this has got to be something your
followers care about
5) There is always a target- a person in power who can make decision to
resolve the issue.
A problem is housing – an issue is an abandoned building that the people want to torn
down. A problem is health care – an issue is the need for a clinic in your community. A
problem is drugs –an issue is a crack house doing business in a community. You can get
the abandoned building torn down and grass and flowers planted on the empty lot; you
can win a clinic to serve low income people from your community and you can have a
crack house shut down by the people who live around it.
Now you have you to be prepared to act on the issue that you have defined. An action is
a moment where the power of organized people confronts a person in power for a
desired decision. Organizers understand that the real action is in the re-action and they
design the action to obtain the desired re-action. Who is the target –the person in power
that can resolve this issue? What is the self-interest of the target?
An action is an activity for adults. It is not child’s play. It is serious and responsible work.
It is not designed to stump the public official; nor is it designed to humiliate, insult, or
degrade the target. It is an event where democracy is exercised and all of its participants
are treated with respect.
To carry out an effective action, the leadership must be well armed to go into battle. They
must have the facts about their issues; they must know that the solution they want is
realistic and acceptable to the people; they must know who the target is; they must
understand the self-interest of the target to assure a win-win situation; they must organize
their people to be present to to participate as citizens and to witness the exercise of
power.
Once the leadership is armed, they must create a face to face (cara a cara) opportunity
with the target to describe the issues, describe the solution and hold the target
accountable to re-act in a positive manner.
They must be prepared to personalize the target (“This is your responsibility”); they must
be prepared to polarize the target (“It is clear by your actions that you do not share our
values”); and they must then create the opportunity for the target to act out of his/her selfinterest and say “yes.”
Once a target agrees to be present at the action that is recognition. Once a target reacts
by saying “yes” to your solution, you are on your way to obtaining your seat at the table of
power. You must he de-personalize the target (“This is now our responsibility”) and depolarize (“We are pleased that you do share our values after all”).
Turning problems into issues and creating actions with targets are acts of courageous
people. Seek out courageous people to work with because. Actions are critical to the
growth of an organization. They must be constantly going on a few months. Actions are
to your organization what oxygen is to your body.
WORKSHOP OF The Gamaliel Foundation
Strategic Campaign Workshop
Revised April 2, 2003
I use this workshop on Strategic Campaigns to explain the reason why we are now doing
metropolitan organizing, why we need to build metropolitan organization explain some of the
issues cuts around metropolitan organizing and to agitate people around playing a role in creating
such an organization.
I use the distinction between tactical and strategic issues as an introduction to the piece.
Tactical campaigns:
Examples: an abandoned building, rats in an alley, a drug house, a school building in
disrepair, a dangerous and dirty park, a busy and dangerous intersection, etc.
Timeline: short term – one to three months.
Constituency: a small group people – 20 to 200.
Pay off for organization: trains new leaders, creates new alliances, develops confidence,
creates excitement, and develops publicity.
These issues are very important for the life of an organization. They are the oxygen of an
organization. But they do not necessarily change the direction of a community. There are in every
city a history of hundreds of such issues being waged and won in communities that continue to
decline. If we stopped with such issues being waged and won in communities that continue to
decline. If we stopped with such issues, we would be not much more than petty protesters or even
poverty pimps. We feel good about what we do, we as organizers are paid for what we do, but we
do not alter the downward trend in the community.
Strategic Campaigns:
(During the cold war, Russia and the United States had strategic weapons – they were the
nuclear weapons. It was thought by both sides that upon such weapons would depend the very
existence of the country.) A strategic campaign is one that will alter the very direction of the
quality of life in a community.
Examples: Getting Benito Juarez High School built in Pilsen. ( The neighborhood
is no longer in decline, it is being gentrified.) MICAH’S $500 million banking campaign.
(Property Values in the Inner City are going instead of down for the first time in 20 years.)
Interfaith Federation’s Campaign for the Court House. (Disinvestment in Hammond has
slowed.)
Timeline: One to three years
Constituency: The whole organization
Payoff for the Organization: The organization develops greater sophistication build
powerful alliances, emerges as a voice for the community, brings new constituencies to the
table , gains recognition in the press, unites organizations, brings in money.
These were the types of campaigns that The Gamaliel Folundation engaged during the first ten
years of Gamaliel’s existence. Our strategy was to create powerful neighborhood organizations.
We were committed to organizing in poor communities to empower the poor to decide their own
destiny. If we were to believe the press, we were very good at what we were doing. But we began
to analyze the results of our work and we were not satisfied.
Then I will explain at great length our analysis of why we get into metropolitan organizing.
I introduce it by saying that I describe my first 15 years of organizing as “cleaning the engine
room of the Titanic.” We were down in the engine room where the working class people of the
boat spent their time. We were in the most unglamorous part of the ship (the slums, ghettos, and
barrios of America). We focused on cleaning the grease off the floor, trying to put things in order,
shining knobs and adjusting nozzles (we worked on getting rid of drugs houses, improving a park,
opening a health clinic, etc.) But meanwhile the whole ship was being steered right toward a
disaster.
I also tell a story about a people that lived in a mountain valley. In the middle of the valley was a
beautiful lake. The lake water supported a diverse wild life of animals and plants. The water also
was used to irrigate farms and to give drink to livestock. The water was also used for recreation to
irrigate farms and to give drink to livestock. The water was also used for recreation and to beautify
the towns with fountains and gardens. The well being of the valley and its inhabitants were totally
dependent on the lake.
A group of people in a lower valley were very jealous of the wealth and well being of the
inhabitants at the higher elevation so they proceeded to secretly dig a tunnel to the lake in the
upper valley. They began to drain the lake for their own purposes.
Slowly the people in the upper valley began to suffer. The wild liked demised and died, there was
not enough water for corps and livestock, the fountains had to be shut off, and the gardens had to
die. The people attempted to change their lifestyle in order to adapt. They watered only at night.
They changed their crops. They watered their livestock by hand. But slowly and inexorably, the
life in the upper valley deteriorated into a poor and desolate place.
This is what had happened to our inner cities. The water is capital, the people in the lower valley
are the outer ring of suburbs. And in capitalistic society – where the capital flows, the garden
grows. We were trying to divide resources on shrinking iceberg.
Urban Sprawl and the systematic disinvestment in our cities underlie the seemingly endemic social
problems in America. This process is leading to racial isolation, the concentration of wealth and
poverty, the disparity in political power, the disappearance of an urban agenda in national policy,
the weakening of unions, and massive destruction of the environment.
St. Louis and Buffalo have gone from cities of 600,000 residents to a city of 300,000 residents.
Cleveland has gone from a city of 800,000 to a city of 400,000. Detroit has gone from 1.8 million
to 900,000 people. The poor have been left behind. The effect on city services, property values,
commercial enterprises, schools, and congregations has been catastrophic.
Twenty-five years ago Gary, Indiana was a city full of promise. The steel mills were prosperous.
Gary had elected the first black mayor of a major U.S. city. The city was the recipients of tens of
millions of dollars in anti-poverty money. A new Holiday Inn and convention center was built in
the downtown area. If you were to drive through Gary today you would think that it had been fire
bombed. If has lost 30 thousands homes. Its downtown area looks like a ghost town. The Holiday
Inn stands abandoned. There is not enough money to support good schools and other city services.
But if were to take a helicopter up above Gary and view the metropolitan region we would notice
that there have been 40,000 homes build in the suburbs, that one of the countries largest malls has
been built just south of Gary. And new churches have sprung up in the suburbs. Gary is the prime
example of what urban sprawl can do for a metropolitan region where there is little actual
demographic. For every home built, a home will be abandoned, for every mall created, whole
urban commercial districts will be devasted, for every church built, a church in the city will
wither.
And the tragedy is that the city of Gary actually subsidized its own demise. Money that could have
been used to fix streets was used to build expressways and road in the suburbs. Gary subsidized
the water mains, the sewer mains, and the utility lines that went to build the suburbs. We have in
America a Robin Hood in reverse syndrome – we take from the poor and give to the rich. What
drive urban sprawl is greed and racism.
Property values, which for most Americans is a retirement hedge or capital to send children to
college or start a business, have been stagnant or declining in urban areas. John Powell, a
professor at the University of Minnesota, says that people’s economic worth should be calculated
not by income but by equity. The makes the startling statement that the network capital worth of
the entire black community in America is zero. As much is owed and is owned. This is the result
of urban sprawl.
Children in our cities go to under-funded schools, live in crime infested communities, and have no
opportunities for summer and after school jobs.
People in our inner cities need to go to the suburbs to shop. There is not a single Sears Store in the
city of Detroit. “Where America Shops” is not in Detroit. Every time a city resident needs a
Diehard battery he/she is subsidizing the education and city services of better off people in the
suburbs.
(I draw diagrams on the board representing the urban core, first ring suburbs, and out suburbs to
illustrate the effects of urban sprawl).
For the first time in American history, the congressional districts from the suburbs to outnumber
urban and rural districts combined. That is why congress is uninterested in the city and city
dwellers.
Unions have found that they lose power the farther out from the city they go.
Environmentalist see the destruction of green space, the building of houses on natural flood
basins, and the every longer expressway with their polluting traffic jams are the real threats to the
environment.
How does this transfer of wealth happen? A study has been done on a suburban development
outside of the Twin Cities of Minnesota. The development is called Minnetonka. This
development was created with an expenditure of 360.0 million dollars in public monies. These
expenditures were for roads, water mains sewers, etc. With the most conservative estimates, the
people in the new suburb of Minnetonka paid $30.0 million of the $360.00 million in public
expenses. The people in the cities and older suburbs provided $330.0 million. This money could
have been spent on repairing streets and bridges in the inner city or beautifying urban space.
In Portland, Oregon they have created an urban growth boundary. Twenty years ago this boundary
was drawn around the metropolitan region that had already been developed. The metropolitan
planning council created a policy that no government funds would be expended outside the
boundary. As a result property values on the inside of the boundary are now worth 1.0 million
dollars per acre; on the outside of the boundary they are worth $1,000.00 per acre. Once can build
outside the boundary but they will not have a road, sewer system, or water main built to their
house. And if your house catches on fire, you will not be guaranteed that a fire truck will come to
put out the fire (this causes insurance rates to go up). Julius Caesar said long ago, “the margin of
profit for most enterprises is government subsidy”. His observation is as true today as it was 2,000
years ago.
I use these and other examples to describe the problem. I then move on the solutions.
The kind of issues that will begin to rectify these problems are: urban grown boundaries, tax based
sharing, equitable expenditure of transportation dollars, mixed income housing throughout the
region, changing the manner in which schools are funded. An experienced organizer should talk of
their own campaigns.
What does it take to take on these issues – a certain type of organization? We call this type of
organization a metropolitan organization.
We have found that working only with constituencies in poor communities; we cannot mount the
kind of pressure to create change. We have found in places like Milwaukee and Gary, that by
organizing only among minorities, it can strengthen the opposition because they use press
clippings about public meetings and pressure tactics to divide along race lines.
We also know that 80% of the people in a metropolitan community would benefit from a more
equitable disbursement of public funds.
But we are up against one of the two most powerful forces in our society. One of those forces is
the multinational corporations and the other is the urban growth cabals. Such irrational growth
creates billions of dollars in profits for the road builders, developers, insurance companies, mega
mall developers etc. These forces are organized, determined and ruthless in their efforts to
maintain the status quo.
In order to address issues at the systemic rather than the symptomatic level, we need to build
organizations that are capable to winning on such issues.
The organization will need to be
1) City and Suburban
2) Multiracial
3) Interfaith
4) Interclass
5) Have major allies in the business, labor, academic, and political worlds.
These organizations need to be large – 50 to 300 members. They should be able to turn out 3,000
to 10,000 people for public meetings. They should be sophisticated in their analysis, research, and
politics. They should have budgets of between $200,000 and $600,000 dollars. They will require
talented, committed and mature staff
They will need to function at a core team, cluster, metropolitan and statewide level.
These are the kind of organizations that The Gamaliel Folundation is building.
The Gamaliel Foundation is by in large Faith Based. As people of Faith can be timid in our vision,
hesitant in our hope, reluctant in efforts? Are we not impelled to dream great dreams? Are we not
impelled to transform the world?
What role are you going to play in building such an organization in your community?
At this point, I agitate people individually around what role they are going to play in building such
an organization: creating a strong core team, recruiting congregations, working on a task force,
raising money, being an organizer.
Preface to Workshop
On
Meetings
I have written what I think are the main conceptual ideas about good meetings. They do
not have to be presented in this order; they can be added to or subtracted from.
The points of agitation Select are the following:
1) Meetings are to make decision about something the people in the meeting are
prepared to act on. I challenge the group around meetings that are cluttered with
reports and debates on what the organizer or other leaders are going to do. The
debate should be about what the people in the meetings are prepared to do.
2) There should be clarity about why the meeting is being called. What is the action
being proposed, what must be done take the action.
3) The necessity to impose order – Murphy’s Law “if anything can go wrong, it will
applies” to all meetings. The leader who does not have the courage to impose order
will, no matter how much theory they know about how to run a good meeting will
fail. Chaos will break out if order is not imposed.
4) Every meeting needs to be evaluated – this is not something people do naturally.
The presenter must also conceive of the order of the presentation. Giving this workshop is
good practice for running a meeting. You should try to play an imaginary video in your
head about how this workshop will be conducted – your presence, the interaction, the
reaction of the participants, the presentation of content.
Workshop on Meetings
If one of the two sources of power is organized people, then we have two major tools to organize
people –one-on-ones and meetings. Good meetings are an essential element of good organizing.
A meeting is a place where groups of people decide to take an action, to develop the plan for the
action and to divide the responsibility to achieve the action. Most good meetings have a oneaction focus. That focus might be to organize a big meeting with the mayor, put on a fundraiser,
organize a leadership-training event, or plan a demonstration.
A meeting is a place where a collective action is taken; it is the place where collective
responsibility is taken, it is the place where people learn from each other and hold each other
accountable.
Most meetings are failures because they are not conceived of as a place to take an action.
Frequently they are used to hear reports of what other people are doing, to okay a plan that other
people will implement, to make a decision that will not require a commitment of the people
around the table to implement. Other meetings are a failure because the meeting was ill conceived
or was not conducted properly.
A meeting is a tool to create action
The attitude leaders must have to conduct a good meeting.
1) They must have the courage to act and to challenge other people to act.
2) They must have a decision of how his action fits into a strategic plan for the
organization or the campaign.
3) They must be very clear about the action they intend the people to talk.
a. They must be very clear that the action will achieve the desired results.
b. They must be clear that the people around the table can perform the
proposed action.
c. They must have a plan to overcome the resistance that the people will
have to taking the action. They must be aware of where that resistance
will come from. From fear, laziness, political infighting, or an alternative
plans.
4) They must bring courage to the meeting. Leaders must expect that people will
come late, that some people will want to dominate the meeting, that some people
will talk too much, that some will sit back and not participate, that some will be
there to sabotage the meeting. The leader must be prepared to impose order.
5) The leader must bring a collaborative spirit to the meeting – the action taken must
be owned by everyone, the responsibility and the work must be shared by
everyone, the benefits –newspaper exposure, key roles etc. must be shared by
everyone. The meeting is not for the glory of the leader – it is for building a sense
of community and for developing and involving new leaders.
The Elements of a Good Meeting
A successful meeting will have the following parts:
1)
2)
3)
4)
There is a meeting with you
There is a pre-meeting
The meeting itself
An Evaluation
The Meeting with yourself
Before a leader calls a meeting, it is necessary to have a meeting with oneself to gain clarity about
the action to be taken. To decide who must be at the meeting. To imagine how the meeting will be
run. (Even attempting to play an imaginary video in your head projecting how the meeting will
take place). Leaders who do this will master the art of running good meetings because they will
make clear judgments and projections as to what is to happen, act, and be in a position to evaluate
their actions and judgments.
The Pre-Meeting
This meeting takes place between the key people needed to organize a good meeting. At this premeeting, the key leaders brainstorm about the correctness of the proposed action, and brainstorm
about what it will take to implement it. At the pre-meeting the following decisions are made:
1) What the agenda will be
2) Who will be invited to the meeting?
3) What roles are needed to pull off a good meeting and who will assume those roles
(chairing, making the proposal, calling the roll, challenging late comers and trouble
makers, backing up the chair, evaluation, etc.)
4) The date, time, and place of the meeting.
5) The turnout strategy and dividing responsibility for implementing it.
The Meeting: A meeting must have the following elements:
A Clear Focus and Purpose: What is the action to be proposed, debated, and decided upon.
Most good meetings have only one such action.
Place and Set up: The place should be accessible and fitting to the occasion. Should it be a
power place – like a hotel ballroom, symbolic place like a church, a small meeting room? The size
of the room should accommodate the group but not be so big as to make the meeting seem small
or insignificant. The chairs and tables should be arranged in away that symbolizes the power
arrangement you want to impose. This is true for a meeting of four or a meeting of four thousand.
The Time and the Timing: A good meeting should start on time and end on time. (Most
meetings should last only one hour). Meetings that do not begin and end on time erode the
discipline of the organization and show disrespect to those who are serious. Secondly, the amount
of time spent on each subject should be commensurate with its importance. Minutes, financial
statements, and reports that do not need to be acted upon should be sent out in advance and merely
approved (not read at the meeting). Some decisions should be delegated to a committee –writing a
letter to the mayor, contacting the press etc.
A half hour of a one-hour meeting should be spent on debating the action making the decision to
take the action, planning the action, and deciding upon the roles to implement the action.
A Printed Agenda: The agenda and other printed material (minutes and reports) should be
sent out in advance. The agenda should be designed to enable the participants to
understand, debate, and decide, and decide on the action.
Roles Clearly Defined: Who will chair, who will be making the proposals, which will be
presenting arguments etc.
Discipline: There must be a commitment to challenge latecomers, to contain arguments and
distracting topics and to move the group toward decision and commitment.
The Evaluation
The Gamaliel Folundation rule is: If it is not worth evaluating, it is not worth doing.
Every meeting and every action must be evaluated. It is only in the evaluation that we
learn from our experience –from our success and from our failures. It is only in the
evaluation that we solidify the collective responsibility for the event. It is with evaluation
that we create community.
The evaluation takes place immediately after the meeting and lasts between 5 and 20
minutes.
The most experienced leader or organizer conducts the evaluation.
An Evaluation has the following components:
1) Get out people feelings about the meeting by asking each person in the meeting to
say one word that best describes their feelings about the meeting – great, excited,
nervous, angry, disappointed, okay, exhilarated relieved. The evaluator should then
go back to people who has named a negative feeling and ask them toe explain their
negative feeling. This allows the negative feelings to be dealt with in the group and
not taken home to fester.
2) Performance: How did the group and individuals do? Did they meet the turn out
goals? How was the set up? Did the meeting start on time and end on time. How did
the chair do? How did the floor team do? How did the other people with speaking
roles do? How did the targets perform?
3) Tension: The evaluator asks the group was there tension in the meeting and where
was it. Every meeting should require a commitment on someone’s part to do
something they probably would not have done except for the meeting. Commitment
creates tension. Tension can arise when people make commitments to do turnout or
to raise money. Tension also occurs when we challenging a public official to make
commitment on one of our demands. Tension also occurs when there are two sides
and a debate. Tension can occur when we challenge latecomers, or when we
demand that we stick to the agenda. Tension is Absolutely Necessary! at a good
meeting. If there was not tension, there probably was not a commitment to do
anything that would not have been done without the meeting. Tension creates
energy, excitement, accountability, and discipline.
4) Political Education – the leader or organizer uses this piece to “-“ educate the group
about political concepts, about how power confronts power, about how
commitments kept are necessary to build an organization, about how the target
performed; about keeping public and private roles separate etc.
Possible Outline for Workshop
1) Check how the group is feeling about last workshop
2) Explain importance of meetings –one-on-ones and meetings are the tools we use to
build power. If we can do good one-on-ones and run good meetings, we have the
tools to build power organization.
3) Ask the questions –what do people think goes wrong with meetings and what are
the elements of a good meeting.
4) Present the elements described above
5) In the last ten minutes, evaluate the training to role model the outline of the
evaluation described above.
Workshop on Core Teams
The Concept of the Core Team: The core team is the essential and fundamental
building block of an organization associated with The Gamaliel Folundation. It is
through this vehicle that we 1) deliver on the self-interest of the congregation. 2)
Identify and train leaders. 3) Build the base for the larger organization. 4) Initiate
campaigns. 5) Create the culture and discipline of the organization. A core team
should reflect and model what the organization is like -- how it runs its meetings,
how it develops leadership, how it initiate actions, how it evaluates, how it
develops a culture of one-on-one relationship building etc.
To understand the nature of a core team, we first must clearly understand what
organizing brings to a congregation. The three primary contributions we can make
are the following; 1) we create a culture of intentional and intensive relationship
building; 2) we recruit, train and develop leaders, and agitate them to assume
responsibility in the congregation. 3) We take the church into the public arena in
an effective way so that it can live out the gospel mandate of justice and deliver on
the self –interest of its people. If we clearly grasp these three elements, we will
know when we are doing it right and when we are doing it wrong.
Intentional and Intensive Relationship Building: It is a tenet of our organizing
that power comes from relationships. We present a tool to build relationships –the
one –on-ones. It is also a constant theme that a church must be about the
business of creating community. The core team must itself be a group of people
that is doing one-on-ones within the congregation. Secondly, it must be an
available resource to the pastor to help build relationships. For instance, if there is
to be an outreach in the church, the core team should either lead it or be an
important part of it. If there is not group in the church that welcomes new
members, that goes and visits the family, the core team should volunteer. The
core team should be anxious to either create or participate in strategies that build
community in the congregation.
The identification, recruitment, and proposition of leaders to accept
responsibility in the congregation. A healthy congregation is one that is
proposition leaders to play a role in the development of the congregation. It is our
contention that every person in the congregations should be given some
responsibility to make the congregation better. A core team is taking inventory of
the talent in the congregation and figuring out how it might be utilized. (This of
course is done with and through the pastor). The core team members are in the
hunt for leaders, they are doing one-on-ones with members to identify self-interest,
talent, and ambitious. They are recruiting people to go to National Training. It
should be the core team that is primarily responsible for this recruitment. The core
team is also agitating leaders to accept responsibility within the congregation.
Moving the Congregation into the Public Arena: The essence, the raision
d’etre of organizing, is to lift the veil of public decisions and invite, agitate, and
challenge people to move into them and take part in them. In the Christian Judeo
tradition, God is the God of History. He is active in shaping history. God’s people
are to be partners in the shaping of that history. However, religion, all religion, has
a tendency to be a sanctuary that protects and insulates people from acting in the
public arena. As Marx observed “religion is the opiate of the people.” Marx got his
idea on religion from a man named Feuerbach who observed; “the function of
religion is to enable people to transfer responsibility for their lives onto someone or
something else.” For some it is the pastor, for some it is the literal interpretation of
scripture, for others it might be an uncritical acceptance of the moral and social
code implanted in them by parents, teachers, and a religious upbringing. Because
of this phenomenon, we have a task in get people to ask questions, to challenge
power in the public arena, to lead others. At the same time, we have a weapon –
the scriptures that clearly obligate its adherents to work for justice.
The way the core teams bring the congregation into the public arena is
twofold: 1) It invites the congregation to participate in those issues that the
organization as a whole, the task force of the organization, have developed. This
will mean that members of the core team are active in the task forces, they do
turnout for major actions, and they bring their people into the programs and
campaigns. For instance, in MICAH core team leaders can recruit people to be
monitors on he Reinvestment Campaign, they can identify homes around the
congregation to be rehabbed, and they can help their own members get homes
under the program. 2) It identifities, crates, and defines its own issues campaigns.
A core team can, should and must cut it’s own its issues and do its own
actions. It is in this area that we need work. It is in this area that the most can be
gained for the local congregation, for the pastor, and for the organization. A core
team cutting its own issues properly will train and develop leaders, energize the
congregation, deliver directly for its membership, and possibly open avenues for
evangelization and stewardship. It is my contention that the future of The Gamaliel
Folundation is directly dependent on our ability to create the congregation
centered organizing.
The Structure and Activity of a Core Team
“If it isn’t a committee, it doesn’t exist.” Inside of a congregation, those groups that endure
and survive are groups that are themselves structured, and fit into the structure endure
and survive are groups that are themselves structured, and fit into the structure of the
congregation. A core team must have the following elements; it must have identifiable
leadership –a core team captain, a board representative, representatives to task forces; it
must have membership –a list of names that are invited to each meeting; it must have a
monthly meeting place and time; it must get its activity in the bulletin, it must be
mentioned on the congregation calendar; it must be part of the congregations budget
(membership dues). These would elements would be standard for any committee. Its
purpose or function is to: help build community, identify, proposition and train leaders,
and move the congregation into the public arena. The kinds of activity it engages in are:
doing a lot of one-on-ones in the congregation, helping the pastor organize outreach,
looks for new leaders, ( proposition –for national training and to assume roles in the
congregation); produce leaders to the activities of the organization; and most importantly
of all cut issues and do actions. A core team that does not cut at least one action a year
should be considered an aberration.
The agenda for a core team meeting
The meeting should last an hour; it should be done at a convenient time. It should have
the following elements:
1. Prayer and Biblical Reflection
2. What does the congregation need from us (pastor appreciation night, a
stewardship campaign, participation in liturgy, outreach)
3. What does the organization need from us (turnout for an action, selling ads,
membership on a committee, etc?)
4. What one-on-ones have we done this month? (Each member should report)
5. Who are we looking at for National Training?
6. What are we hearing from our people—what are the problems they are
encountering.
7. What is our issue? What action are we planning?
8. If there is an action planned; Plan the action, define roles, etc.
9. Evaluation
10. Closing prayer
The primary agitation of the workshop.
It is my experience, in my own life, and in what I have observed in others that we lack the
“courage to create.” To actually accept the responsibility to make a core team work, to
plan activities for a core team, to hold people accountable to making it work, to actually
have the courage to cut an issues and do an action, are all very difficult acts for an
individual. They feel overwhelmed, they do not know how to do it; they complain that no
one seems interested, they do not know how to do it; they complain that no seems
interested, they cannot think of anything to do. Trainee organizers that we pay frequently
whine these phrases. Getting leaders to be creative, energetic, forceful, etc. is not an
easy task. We need to challenge them. We need to create; energetic, forceful, etc. is not
an easy task. We need to challenge them. We need to create an environment where they
are supported, we need to train them one at a time, and we need to get them to learn
from each other.
Conclusion: In Gary Wills book on leadership; Certain Trumpets, he makes this very
simple statements –what is needed are: a leader, followers, and a program. For a core
team to work 1) someone needs to step forward and make it happen. 2) He/she must be
thinking about how to create a following. 3) He/she must be creating programs that
involve, inspire, and challenge the following to act. Without a program the group will
quickly dissolve. The programs could be –conducting an outreach, conducting a
neighborhood survey, conducting a fund raising, doing things with the power
organization, and “cutting issues and doing actions.” Until all three elements are in place,
there will not be a core team in congregation.
Workshop on Agitation
As we begin every class, we check in asking the class how the morning sessions
went. When I have cone this proceed with the workshop on agitation.
I begin by asking the class how one human being gets another human being to
act.
I create a list that includes such methods as: convincing, quilting, forcing,
bribing, tricking, manipulating, threaten, making people believe I have authority
(either from God or Government), legislating, etc. (The class should be involved in
creating this list).
I then draw two stick figures on the board like so:
A
B
What we are doing by all of the above ways of
getting a person
to act is objectifying the other person; we are making that person into an object, we are
projecting on to the person what we want the person to do; we are bending that person to
our will. These are not exactly respectful ways of interacting with someone else.
None of these ways encourages freedom nor do they respect the dignity of the
other person.
We recommend a method that speaks to the heart, the passion, the core of a
person and that way is Agitation.
(I will draw a little flame under person B and state that what we need to do is get
this person to act out of their own free will.)
I then ask for their definition of agitation. What do we call the thing in the washing
machine that gets the dirt in clothes out?
Agitation is the art of challenging a person to be true to their values, true to
self and to act on those values our of their own self-interest. It is the art of pointing
out the contradictions between what a person professes and how she or he acts.
Point out some examples of agitation used in scripture: 1) the woman at the well.
2) the story of the rich young man. 3) the scene where Jesus asks Peter three times
whether he loves him, 3) he story of Samuel asking David about the rich man who steals
the only sheep of a poor man.
Ask the class of examples.
The Rules of Agitation
1. Your job is to create a community, an organization, and a congregation. If
what you are doing with people is driving them away you are not agitating.
2. Your job is to create a vibrant, growing, powerful, dynamic community,
organization, or congregation. If people are not acting our their values, if there are
contradictions between what they profess and what they do, if they boring lazy,
dishonest etc. you are not agitating.
3You must be in relationship with the other person. (This can be through a
long term relationship, it can be through another person, it can be as narrow
as you being in this workshop and we knowing you were sent to grow and
learn.) You must have some sense of the person’s self-interest.
4. You make two judgments 1) where is the person now (where are the
contradictions and self deceptions? And 2) you make a judgment about where you think
that person should be, or really wants to be. (Some people think that we play God here.)
5. You do an action. You challenge the person in some way to force that person to
recognize their contradictions. This challenge could be through silence, through absence,
through a verbal challenge.
6. Do not take responsibility for the reaction of the other person. The other person
must own the reaction. This is about freedom, dignity, respect, and responsibility. In the
story of the rich young man in scripture, the rich young man is challenged. He cannot live
up to the challenge and he goes away sad. Jesus is not sad.
After you have explained the concept and the rules, you begin to agitate people in
the class. Supposed you know people well enough to agitate them.
I usually agitate six of seven people; one right after the other, not allowing for
comment between agitations. (This is the trickiest and most difficult part of the class
for the trainer. He/she must be able to make some judgments about the people in
the class about how they have been acting. It is best that the trainer has been in
the room a couple of times and has identified several people to agitate. You can
agitate people around not speaking out, you can agitate around taking a greater
role in their organization, you can agitate around women and minorities not acting
bold as leaders. Etc.)
After this series of agitations, I get the class to comment on what is happening. Try
drawing lessons from their responses. I ask them if they think that I am trying to put
people down or belittle them. I will ask the people that I agitated how they feel.
After this, you have them do agitations. You can ask for volunteers or just pick
someone. Ask the question “Is there someone in this class you care enough about to risk
agitating them.”
After or even during the agitations you ask what is going on, you ask the class if
they have succeeded. Ask the person agitating where they want the other person to go.
Frequently they are not agitating, they are whining, or criticizing the other person.
“They have not figured out where they want them to go.
Do as many as you can before the time is up.
Conclude by saying agitation is an act of love because you want the person you
are agitating to be that they can be.
Workshop on Money
Power is organized people and organized money. We have spent the entire week training
and agitating people about how tot think about organizing people. This workshop is on
the second sources of power-organized money.
My suggestion is that after you have checked in with the group about how they are doing,
you immediately set up the following three role-plays:
1. You pick a layperson from the room to sell ad for a book for their organization to
another layperson in the room. (If you can pick a layperson that has business
experience).
2. Pick a pastor or an organizer in the room to approach another pastor on paying
dues to the organization.
3. Pick a pastor to preach a sermon to raise money to establish a youth program for
kids who live in the neighborhood around the church.
Pick the people for each role-play and explain the role-play for each scenario before any
role-play is done. In other words pick your people, do the explanation for all three-role
plays, and then have the role plays conducted.
My suggestion is let each role play proceed without any comments from you. When you
think they are not going anywhere, call a halt to them. Do not explain anything or allow for
questions and answers until all of the role-plays are done. Take extensive notes on
each of the role-plays looking out for the following points:
1. Do the people really believe in what they are asking money for?
2. Do they seem like power people asking for an investment or beggars looking for a
handout?
3. Do they proposition people to give money based on an investment in their own
self-interest or are they guilty people to give.
4. Do they ask for a major investment of just a small amount?
5. How do they credential themselves—are they letting the pastor or the
businessperson know that many of their follow pastors or businesspersons are
also giving or becoming members. How do they present the organization?
6. Do they base the interview on a previous one-on-one or relationship that they have
with the pastor or businessperson?
After the role plays are complete engage the class in a discussion of the Role-plays. If
the above points come out—stress them. If they do not come out explain them. Agitate
the people to stop asking for handouts and small amounts. Challenge them to be clear
about what they believe in and challenge them to base them money exchange on an
investment in values and self-interest.
After the role play and analysis of the role play I make the following
points:
1. Money is a medium of exchange. It defines and sets a value on what is
exchanged. It measured the worth of the relationship. Once again –like power, and
self-interest –money is fundamentally a relational concept. When we think of it as
handouts or alms to the poor it is not relational.
2. We must think clearly about money—it is not tainted (the only thing tainted about
money is it t’aint enough). Money is necessary to do our work, to pay staff, to train
leaders, to be able to implement a strategic plan. Money, like power and selfinterest, is not a dirty word. We must get comfortable talking about it, managing it,
and raising it. Agitate people about why they are nervous talking about money—
are they doubt their self worth? Is it that they are afraid of the relationship that is
implied?
3. There are two types of money that a power organization can raise: Hard money
and soft money.
Hard Money
Soft Money
Examples of Each Type
Dues, membership fees, sales,
Weekly investment income
Foundation Money, bake sale,
bingo canvassing
Characteristics of Each Type
Predictable, implies a relationship
Unpredictable, does not imply a
relationship
With the giver, demands accountability,
Mutual self-interest. One time
based upon mutual self interest, long term Often demanding
based upon dignity and respect.
The Gamaliel Foundation encourages organizations to build budgets upon hard
money. You will then be accountable to your members. You will have to maintain a
relationship with your members. You will have to maintain a relationship with your
members. No one but your members can tell you what to do. In addition, you can think,
plan, and act strategically and long term.
Vision of The Gamaliel Folundation
The Name: In Acts, 5: 38-39, the wise man of the Sanhedrin, Gamaliel says: “If this
enterprise, this movement, is of human origin, it will break up of its own accord; but if it does in
fact come from God, you will not only be unable to destroy them, you might find yourself fighting
against God.”
Gamaliel was also St. Paul’s teacher. St. Paul was one of the great organizers of all time –he
worked among the poor and disenfranchised, he created structure and organization, he identified
and developed leaders, and he agitated. St. Paul’s mentor was Gamaliel. We at the Gamaliel
Foundation are teaching and mentoring people wanting to build enduring organizations.
Structure: The Gamaliel Folundation is tax-exempt and incorporated in the state of Illinois. It
has board of ministries, business leaders, professors, lawyers, and leaders of organizations.
It has a director, Greg Galluzo, an Eastern Region Director, Cheryl Spivey and an
administrative director, Tamara Fisher who organized this training. The Foundation has four
associates, Greg, Don Floyd, Micheal Kruglik, and Mary, who form the strategic planning group
for Gamaliel: Rev. James Leary is the director of the Pastoral Development program for The
Gamaliel Folundation. Mary Gonzales coordinates the work of Ntosake. There are fifty
professional organizers in this network.
Philosophy: The philosophy is built on the belief that people have aright and a responsibility
to define their own destiny, to participate in the decisions affecting their lives, and to shape the
social, political, physical environment to include their values.
People are excluded from exercising this right and responsibility by external forces –
oppressive forces in society, some violent, some more subtle—and by internal forces—fear,
insecurity, self-centeredness, cowardice, etc.
People exercise their right and responsibility through a collective, with others, in an
organization. The Gamaliel Folundation is clear that only when people are able to create
organizations that are as disciplined and effective as those organized by banks, insurance
companies, the mafia, and gangs will they be able to compete with those forces.
The kind of organizations we build are institutionally based, primarily congregations
based. Alinsky had a saying, “organize the organized”. In the communities where we work,
congregations are among the most important organization in a community. It is an institution that
people support with their time and money that nurtures leadership and that expresses people’s
highest values. It is also an institution that has credibility and some access to money and power
relationships. It is for these reasons that we work primarily with congregations create power
organizations.
Our goal is to transform people, to transform institutions and to transform –communities.
We want to move people from being defined by other to defining themselves, from lacking
confidence to having confidence, from being powerless to being powerful.
We want to assist institutions to achieve their goals. We do this by creating an environment of
intentional and intensive relationship building; by training and developing leadership, and by
inviting them into a robust debate with the public arena.
We transform communities through the issues, actions, campaigns, and victories of the power
organizations with whom we work.
Characteristics of a Gamaliel Foundation Organization. The type of organization we are
trying to build has the following components: A board (chosen from member institutions and lead
by an executive committee), a pastors caucus, issues task forces, core teams in every congregation,
a fund raising committee and a recruitment committee.
In 1986, The Gamaliel Folundation reborn as an organizing institute for Chicago and the
Midwest. Only three organizations were affiliated with The Gamaliel Folundation—two in
Chicago, and one in Iowa. Presently The Gamaliel Folundation works with 35 organizations in
nine states. We are receiving requests from states on the east and west coasts. In January, we will
be going to South Africa to provide training and consultation.
The Gamaliel Folundation provides the following services –consultation, National Leadership
Training, Local Training in communities, Pastoral Training, Advanced Training, Ntosake, the
recruitment and training of organizers, and most importantly of all it provides a vehicle for people
to support and learn from each in this important work of building community.
Path to Power
Edit July 14, 2002
As we do in every session, we check in with the class on how they are doing. They will have had
the workshop on money and the vision of Gamaliel preceding this workshop.
I begin the workshop with a discussion about the reading. “They sit to Conquer.” This reading
exemplifies all of the lessons that we have talked about the whole week. The trainer should be
familiar with this reading. The concepts of power, self interest, power analysis, the qualities of a
leader such as anger, ego, humor, vision, etc, are all brought out in this article. Claiming the moral
high ground (exemplified in the vignette about the judge), manipulation (as in Lewis’s meeting
with the Secretary of Labor), understanding that self interest goes beyond short term self interest
(Lewis using the Governor’s dead Grandfather as leverage) are all illustrated in this article.
This is a story of Melians that Win!
Now I ask the question. Who was John L. Lewis? I draw out from the class that he was the son of
a coal miner. I draw out what the expectations of the son of a coal minor were – alcoholic, wife
beater, uneducated, dead before the age of 35 of black lung disease, worth less than the mules that
pulled the wagons. John L. Lewis’ family came from Wales. He came from generations of people
who sacrificed their lives in holes in the ground so that others could be rich. Generations of Welsh
coal miners who had their backs broken, their lungs blackened, and their bodies destroyed. John L.
Lewis came from people who often prayed for and received an immediate death, because the only
option was a painful, lingering death.
So how was John L. Lewis able to become a person who felt himself equal to the President of
General Motors and the President of the United States. Did anyone in the class have a more
degrading beginning that a mine worker born around 1900. What is our excuse for not being
powerful.
This session is called the Path to Power because becoming a power person is a journey. Everyone
who has power is hungry for power and wants more. Every power person is on a Hero’s Road and
sees life as a journey on that road.
Nobody is on the Hero’s Road unless they clearly understand why they are on it.. What it is in
them that makes them want power.
The first step on the Path to Power is to name our own oppression. Every person is born to be
powerful, to live out ones full potential; but we are knocked off the path to power by experiences
that lead to self doubt. We are those experiences that have become internalized oppressions?
(At this point I draw the class into creating a list of forces that work to destroy a person’s psyche,
their confidence in themselves).
A partial list would include: racism, sexism, sexual abuse, physical and emotional abuse, losing a
parent at an early age, poverty, repressive religion, being a child of a single parent, being a child of
an alcoholic, having a disability, being fat, short, or tall, have to move all the time as a child, being
spoiled.
Talking about our oppression and sharing it in a community allows us to bring it to the light of
day, to examine it, and to be affirmed by others.
(At this point the trainer relates to the class the story of their own oppression)
Now invite the individuals in the class to tell their story.
When we have listened to the stories we ask this question – what is the emotion attached to the
oppression? It is usually shame and guilt. These emotions debilitate us. Shame is the feeling of
being worthless. These emotions direct the blame onto the victim.
The next step is to name the oppressor. There was an abuse adult that acted viciously toward a
child; there were racist teachers and others that were at fault etc. It is not the victim that is to be
blamed it is the perpetrator. What is the emotion that one feels when one recognizes that they have
been abused by an oppressor? It should be anger. Remember our definition of anger is the
appropriate human response to the violation of a value. Anger motivates, anger integrates, anger
energizes.
The third step is to take calculated action. Anger must lead to action. A person must take steps
to prove that they are worthy. Some get a college education, some become pastors, some teachers
some raise good families. What is the emotion that one feels when one succeeds in their endeavor?
It is not confidence? Confidence allows us to revisit the oppression. To go back over the cycle and
to see clearly that you were the victim because your success proves that you are a worthy person.
Psychologists can take us this far, but it is not far enough. We must politicize our anger.
I am still angry. However, can I take out my anger on those who called me names, abused and
made me feel worthless? No. There are two problems. First they are not here. Second, I do not
want to spend the rest of my life in jail.
However, does that mean that my anger just goes away? That I just forget about those experiences
of oppression and bury my anger somewhere? No. That is apart of my life that still makes me
angry.
What do I do with that anger now? Why do you think I am angry at now? I am angry with every
person who uses a position of authority to push around, step on, victimize, and disrespect those
who are more vulnerable.
Was John L. Lewis angry? Where was his anger directed?
That anger fuels the quest for power. That anger is why I am an organizer. Power people know
their own oppression, their shame, and their anger.
However, you just cannot stay with anger. Continuing on the path to power means that you have to
move that anger into confident action. To do that –to gain and build the confidence to act in a
powerful way-you have to take risks and prove you successful.
There is a very fine line here. If there’s not enough risk in the action, then it will not create
confidence-too easy. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Moreover, if there is too much risk, you
will not succeed, and you will end up with even less confidence. The stronger your anger, the
more risk you are willing to take.
What can you do to ensure successful. Risk-taking action?
1. Calculate the risk through clear power analysis.
2. Leverage and engage others in the risk.
3. Reflect on the successful actions.
Confidence does not have a very long shelf life. If it is not used, it soon fades away. No once can
give you confidence; it only comes through your won action. The process of
risk>success>confidence must be intentional and deliberate. Power people force themselves
constantly into increasingly greater and greater risks.
What were some of the calculated risks that John L. Lewis took?
Illegal sit-down strike; manipulated President; insulted powerful corporate leader; bared
his chest to the Governor; fired Homer Smith; others
What is your calculated risk?
Is that enough of a risk to build confidence?
Building confidence also builds your capacity for anger. The stronger your ego, the more
freedom you have to get angry. Anger measures the size of the ego.
Building confidence also builds your capacity for anger. The stronger your ego, the more
freedom you have to get angry. Anger measures the size of the ego.
From confidence comes the ability to envision you as a very significant and powerful
person. Then, you begin to create your own life you begin to create your own significance
and Power.
Nobody here has reached the end of the Hero’s Road, the Path to Power. I hope that we are all on
this road together. Now at the end of the week we want you to take stock of where you are on the
journey. We are going to give you fifteen minutes to answer these questions.
1) Where will be in your public life in three years? We want you to be able to describe it
in detail, to give yourself a title, perhaps a salary. The clearer you can project where
you are going, the more energy you will have in trying to get there.
2) What public relationships you will need to develop in order for you to achieve your
goal?
3) What attitude or behavior must you change in yourself in order to succeed.?
Instruct the class to return to the class in fifteen minutes and inform that you will pick three of
them to share their answers to these questions.
(The trainer must allow at least 15 minutes after they return for three people to share their
stories.)
CALANDERING AND REFLECTION
Calendaring
Points of Agitation: Are you going to control your own time or is your time going to be
controlled by others?
Are you going to use your calendar to do the things you need to do to
build a satisfying and creative public life?
I lead with the question – how do you use your calendar. Is it a blank page that is filled in by other
people asking you for appointments? If so, it is a tool for other people to control your life.
How can it be a tool for you to control your own life and accomplish what you want to
accomplish?
1) Decide clearly what you want to do and to become.
2) List the things you want to do with your time.
e.g.
Personal Time
Reading
Prayer
Fun
Exercise
Friends/Family
Education
Cultural Enrichment
Public Time
Power one-on-ones
Building your constituency
Strategy Meetings
Campaigns
Research
Planning
Conferences
3) Put these things in your calendar first.
What you need to do to control your own calendar is to control other people’s
calendars.
Things you need to practice:
a) Learning to say no
b) Deciding:
i.
What things you don’t need to be done?
ii.
What things other people can do?
iii.
What things you need to do to build your power?
REFLECTION
The word “reflection” means “to bend back”. The act of reflection is to bend back your mind on
your actions, your emotions, and your thought patterns to look at them in a critical manner.
Saul Alinsky used to say that most of us are “a pile of undigested experiences.”
Socrates lamented the tragedy of the “unexamined life”.
They are explaining that we are in many ways the sum total of our experiences and our
relationships. Experiences and relationships are the stuff that we have to construct ourselves. If we
are not “bending back” and looking at the material in our lives (in the past and in the present) we
will be haphazard construct. Powerful people are in control of themselves, their emotions and their
relationships. They do not react to events and of themselves, their emotions and their relationships.
They do not react to events and personal affronts emotionally. They position themselves so that
others react to them.
This whole week is about you taking control of your life – about becoming a person who is self
directed; about moving from being battered around by other things to a person who is shaping
ones own destiny.
What we need to control and direct is ourselves. It is our emotions, our bad habits, our fears, our
self-victimization, our thought patterns that are now controlling how we act and re-act.
Reflection enables us to take control of these inner processes, over come our self-centered and
self-destructive fears, and use our emotions to act productively.
How should we reflect?
1) Choose a regular time to reflect.
2) Choose a regular place.
3) Structure your reflection – it is not a stream of consciousness process. It is rather a
conscious, disciplined, critical look at our actions and reactions.
4) Write down your reflections
5) Create a grid through which to look at your actions and reactions.
a) What is your path to power?
b) What is your oppression?
c) How is your oppression shaping what do and how you react to events?
d) Are your actions consistent with your path to power?
Challenge yourself through reflection, through writing and with a mentor how to break patterns
and how to direct your emotions.
In my experience, we need to be challenged constantly about the way we are doing things. In
South Africa under apartheid, most white religious leaders prayed, reflected, and had spiritual
advisors and yet were unable to see the contradiction between the gospel and their own behavior.
It took outsides agitators to break into the established thought patterns.
If you want to change you have to be serious about having a mentor that challenges the way you
think and act.
Our emotions are a window into our souls. When we are confronted, for a brief second we have
the opportunity of looking into ourselves and asking why we are reacting so defensively, but what
we do in the second to blame the other person for the situation and loose the opportunity to
examine ourselves.
It is only in conflict and controversy and competition can things change. You have probably
changed this week because The Gamaliel Folundation purposely creates a conflictual, agitational,
and confrontive environment and then gives you three hours every day to reflect on your reactions.
We give you the opportunity to sort out your emotions and reactions and to compare what we
present to your own experience. This is the process of “digesting your experiences” of “examining
your life” of using your experiences to construct yourself.
Reflection is the tool to center ourselves in the process.
I have attached Paul Marincel’s tool for reflection. It might me something that you pass out to
everyone as an example of a top organizer reflects.
GOAL
I
Solving
Problems
SAMPLE QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION
The focus of this type of reflection is short term. It is a tactical. As
organizers we are inundated with problems everyday. To address these
problems, to solve these puzzles, we need to reflect on the situation. This is
likely the most common reflection we do.
Sample questions:
- How do I deal with this leader?
- Who is going to chair the banquet committee?
- How can we get this legislator to meet with us and support our
issues?
This type of reflection is longer term. It is more proactive. It requires
II
discipline and accountability to follow-through on this type of reflection
Thinking
Strategically because there are always dozens of immediate demands to attend to. Without
this type of reflection we will never be powerful. As soon as we assemble a
little power, someone else will be outthinking us and therefore using us in
ways we can’t control.
Starting questions:
-What do I want the organization to look like in one year? Three years?
Geographic turf? Membership? Money? Issues? Allies? Staff?
-Who am I in relationship with and who do I want to be in relationship with?
What will that require of me?
- What are the key tables (LCO) in the organization and what are they
organizing? How can they be strengthened?
-What should I be delegating to other people? What should I be saying “NO”
to? (Creating a “To-Not-Do” List)
-What’s on the horizon for the coming six months and how can I leverage
that, or simplify it, by thinking ahead creatively?
III
Seeking
Wisdom
This is about fear and faith. It’s about demons, doubts, prayers, hopes, and
ambitions. It is about our path to power. It is about who we are and who we
are to become. It is spiritual. It is about liberating ourselves.
Starting questions:
-How am I doing?
- What am I feeling? Why? What does it tell me?
- What are my deepest relationships? What am I risking with them?
-What are my self-interests private/public? Am I acting on them?
-Am I clear about my path to power?
- Am I acting with passion? Why or why not?
-What is my relationship with God? What does God expect of me?
-What do I need from God? How do I pray?
-Am I acting out of fear or trust?
-Have I named my demons? Are they winning? Am I? Why?
-What do I most procrastinate about? Why?
-Is this really me doing this work, or somebody else? How could I be more
true to myself as an organizer?
Getting Started/Restarted
Step 1)
-Schedule two “blocks” of time, at least two hours each. Commit to someone that
you will follow-through on these reflection times and that you will report on them
in your weekly report.
-Time Block # 1 is for “I Problem Solving”
-Time Block #2 is for “II Strategic Thinking & III Seeking Wisdom”
Step 2)
I problem Solving Time
-Make a list of problems. Check palm pilot or to do list.
-Pick the priorities and work them out.
-Do as many as you realistically can. Bounce your ideas off someone else soon.
(Remember there are lots more where those came from.)
Step 3)
II Strategic Thinking & III Seeking Wisdom
-Pick 2 or 3 questions for “II Strategic Thinking & III Seeking Wisdom”
-Go “somewhere else”: -conference room-coffee shop-library-bar-park-etc
-Assemble pen, paper, computer, coffee, beer, snacks, flipchart, markers, reading
material, calendar, cell phone (turned off!!!) etc
-write, think, walk around, think some more, come to tentative conclusions
-Schedule reflection for upcoming month
Step 4)
Take some action on your reflection
-Write in your report about what you’re struggling with.
-Open yourself to some agitation.
Step 5)
Repeat steps 2, 3, 4.
Rising very early before drawn,
He left and went off to a deserted place,
Where he prayed. (Mark 1:35)
(If He could find the time, so can we.)