Many folks launch social ventures in order to “solve a problem” they see in their community (or the larger world).
But here’s a different way to think about what you’re up to.
The Power of the Three
Charley Whiton, when he was a county commissioner in Wyoming, told me about a meeting that had him squirming in his chair. His fellow commissioners were lamenting what they had just learned: seven out of 10 high school students in their part of the state had tried drugs. The hand wringing was intense. Many people had chosen to live in the community because they thought it would have fewer of these “big-city problems.”
Now, Charley had participated in one of my workshops and in a community-building initiative, which had sharpened his ability to use the ideas you’re reading about here. He was the only commissioner who had that experience.
Charley told me that in the meeting of the county commission, the framework he had learned “cried out to be applied.”
“So when I spoke,” he continued, “I asked what turned out to be a surprising question: ‘What about the other three?’ You could just feel the tension melt away, as they began to think about working from the power of the three, rather than the problem of the seven.”
Problems get you down and possibilities lift you up.
Look for Hints of What You Want
Another case: A Fortune 500 telephone company found that their sexual harassment workshops were making things worse. The more employees studied examples of undesirable male-female interaction, the more leery men became of relating informally to women — freezing women out of the social process so vital to collaborating as colleagues.
Using the process of appreciative inquiry, which is at the heart of my work, the company switched the focus to looking for what they wanted: examples of successful cross-gender working relationships. They uncovered a rich storehouse of positive experiences — previously hidden assets — and the incidence of sexual harassment complaints went down.
A global manufacturer took the same idea to Mexico, ended up with the same results, plus an award for being the best place in that country for women to work.
There is always an affirmative pathway. What you look at and look for is what you’ll see. What you pay attention to — and what you talk about — is what you’ll create more of.
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