12 Days of a Learning Christmas

I work with a learning team that inspires me everyday. I dedicate this to them.

Bringing learning cheer to nonprofits

On the first day of Christmas, our learning team did see, one carful of carts and charts in which to dart around the state.

On the second day of Christmas, our learning team did see, two workshops on two topics over the course of two days, and one carful of carts and charts in which to dart around the state.

On the third day of Christmas, our learning team did see, three partners asking for special registration services, two workshops on two topics over the course of two days, and one carful of carts and charts in which to dart around the state.

On the fourth day of Christmas, our learning team did see, four booster emails, three partners asking for special registration services, two workshops on two topics over the course of two days, and one carful of carts and charts in which to dart around the state.

On the fifth day of Christmas, our learning team did see, five discount codes. Four booster emails, three partners asking for special registration services, two workshops on two topics over the course of two days, and one carful of carts and charts in which to dart around the state.

On the sixth day of Christmas, our learning team did see, six people needing help registering, five discount codes. Four booster emails, three partners asking for special registration services, two workshops on two topics over the course of two days, and one carful of carts and charts in which to dart around the state.

On the seventh day of Christmas, our learning team did see, seven contracts to manage at one time, six people needing help registering, five discount codes. Four booster emails, three partners asking for special registration services, two workshops on two topics over the course of two days, and one carful of carts and charts in which to dart around the state.

On the eighth day of Christmas, our learning team did see, eight lovely nonprofit people calling for post-workshop support, seven contracts to manage at one time, six people needing help registering, five discount codes. Four booster emails, three partners asking for special registration services, two workshops on two topics over the course of two days, and one carful of carts and charts in which to dart around the state.

On the ninth day of Christmas, our learning team did see, nine 90-minute webinars in a week, eight lovely nonprofit people calling for post-workshop support, seven contracts to manage at one time, six people needing help registering, five discount codes. Four booster emails, three partners asking for special registration services, two workshops on two topics over the course of two days, and one carful of carts and charts in which to dart around the state.

On the tenth day of Christmas, our learning team did see, ten heavy fold out tables needing to be set up, nine 90-minute webinars in a week, eight lovely nonprofit people calling for post-workshop support, seven contracts to manage at one time, six people needing help registering, five discount codes. Four booster emails, three partners asking for special registration services, two workshops on two topics over the course of two days, and one carful of carts and charts in which to dart around the state.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, our learning team did see, eleven people registered for member orientation (two showed up), ten heavy fold out tables needing to be set up, nine 90-minute webinars in a week, eight lovely nonprofit people calling for post-workshop support, seven contracts to manage at one time, six people needing help registering, five discount codes. Four booster emails, three partners asking for special registration services, two workshops on two topics over the course of two days, and one carful of carts and charts in which to dart around the state.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, our learning team did see, twelve (hundred) bounce backs, eleven people registered for member orientation (two showed up), ten heavy fold out tables needing to be set up, nine 90-minute webinars in a week, eight lovely nonprofit people calling for post-workshop support, seven contracts to manage at one time, six people needing help registering, five discount codes. Four booster emails, three partners asking for special registration services, two workshops on two topics over the course of two days, and one carful of carts and charts in which to dart around the state.

Best wishes for a wonderful holiday season!

Love in Learning

I drove home from an intense learning event emotionally exhausted. It had been an exhilarating day of deep thought and connection. A few groups had made significant breakthroughs on important issues. When nonprofits make breakthroughs, lives change.

It was a long day, and when signing off from a debrief with my colleague, the words rolled off our tongues: I love you. I love you, too. 

Love is a radical word that is both weak and bold, vague and crisp, all at the same time. It’s a word I lean on when no other seems to fit. What is the right word to describe the feeling in a room when people become so motivated by something they just heard or learned that they form connections that transcend that time and space? The word, I believe, is love.

I was first struck by the word “love” used in a non-typical way when reading Steve Patty’s book on evaluation, Getting to What Matters. Evaluation is hardly the bastion of romance and roses, yet his Heart Triangle describes the transformation I see in the classroom. He starts with the three human capacities– know, feel, and do– and shows how they can deepen into three defining characteristics– what we believe, love, and become.

When knowing, feeling, and doing work their way into the deeper recesses of the heart, when they influence the core elements of someone’s being, and when they seep into the enduring essence of a person, we see true and sustaining human impact in believe, love, and become features.

Getting to what matters, page 29

Knowledge becomes action becomes a transformed person. Feeling something shifts the tectonic plates that make us who we are and brings to our surface a commitment to being different. That is powerful learning.

Perhaps due to the Brené Brown effect, love in leading and living is becoming part of the vernacular. “Love of learning” has long been used to describe the delight a parent has when a child reads late into the night. I’m excited to take delight in the “love in learning” that brings magic to a classroom, a conference, a community.

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The 2019 “Train the Trainer Series” runs on February 26 and March 26. Join us!

Courage. Coragem.

Two weeks ago, nonprofit and community leaders gathered together in Yakima, Washington, to work in teams on hard issues. In several different conversations, people used the word “courage.” They described some people as having it, others as needing it, and a general hope that the community could muster the courage needed to do things differently.

I couldn’t help but think back to a time when a different community of leaders used the word “courage” to describe what they needed to have. I wrote about that experience in 2012, and the lessons from then seem as relevant now.  

As we go into the Thanksgiving holidays, I am tremendously grateful for the women I got to know in Salvador, Brazil– and the nonprofit leaders and partners across Washington I work with today. 

Coragem

Originally posted in February 2012

I was in Salvador, Brazil, last month teaching a class on NGO capacity building and grant writing, sharing everything I know about building community and structure around a mission that makes the world a better place.  On Friday, as all of the tools and tricks it takes to run an effective organization settled into the minds of class participants, one leaned forward and said, “Temos que ter coragem.”  We have to have courage.  Courage that allows them to pioneer new ways of doing things, knowing that they will make mistakes in front of each other along the way.

Indeed, courage was on the minds of these women that day.  A discussion about program evaluation shifted from graduation rates to measuring any gain in self esteem that might come through education and social support.  They described trying to get young women to even consider taking a university entrance exam within a culture of presumed failure.  Each of the women in the room had taken the Vestibular at least twice—several three and four times— before passing, and the young women they work with know that it is uphill battle to learn enough to pass this rigorous exam.  Their dreams of achieving a university education required courage to march through the pain of endless study with no guarantee of success, foregone wages, and, for some, social stigma for even trying.

As it turns out, the inner demons that haunt young African-Brazilian women were in good company. The night before, a police strike began, resulting in violence and looting in the neighborhoods to which these women were returning to that night.  By the time this conversation was happening, over eighty people had been killed, and randomness of crime had uprooted any sense of public security for the poor residents of the city.  The fear of what might happen was written on their faces.  They left early to journey home on public buses, some traveling alone as far as the airport.

Courage was on their minds, and now it is on mine.  These women are working in a space in which they have to muster together personal, professional, and social courage, battling internal and external demons around every turn.  They have to lift the spirits of others—giving others hope for a better tomorrow—when the same demons haunt them.  The success they achieve in these circumstances is heroic and humbling.

There I sat, listening to their discussion, aware of the space between their experiences and my reality.  What was my role in this partnership? Encourage? Encourage has someone else as its object.  It is passive, distant, and possibly condescending.  I was on a flight out the next morning.  Who was I to tell them to keep up the great work?

What struck me about my week in Salvador was how open these women were to learn and to teach, how they had made a commitment to social change and were in this work for the long term, and how they intuitively understood that their big societal issues were made up of many small problems, all of which could be tackled with the right resources.  They weren’t afraid to have the hard conversations.

Our alternative to encouraging them is to have courage with them.  We can be partners in hard conversations that cross cultural and power boundaries, giving each other the benefit of the doubt along the way. We can challenge our own limits, professionally and personally, in solidarity with them.  And we can build a long-term community in which to learn, celebrate, and labor together through whatever demons come our way.  To make a difference in this world, they reminded me, temos que ter coragem.

Webinar emails: trying something new

This fall, the Washington Nonprofits learning team changed up the emails we send related to webinars. Here’s an infographic explaining what we did and why.

What you do think? What are you doing to boost engagement with your webinars?

 

 

Project Runway: A Lesson in Adult Learning

Binge watching reality television provides a lot of time between the drama to think about learning. Such was the case when my daughter and I watched a season of Project Runway over the course of two weeks. It was my first deep dive into the world of high fashion design and catty criticisms about whether one contestant can stitch straight or not. The design side was amazing to see.

Exhibit A: The shirt that did not make it.

I’ve sewed since in high school, though seldom anything I would wear. By the second show, I had pulled out fabric and a pattern and sewed a jacket. By the end, I had my computer propped on a box to be able to watch while sewing, and I was pulling shirts out of my closet and sketching patterns to try and replicate them. One is already in the scrap pile. The other is a viable shirt, albeit one my daughter declared “something an old lady would wear.” I ignored the old lady part and went with the “would wear” possibility.

All of this to say that watching experts do something over and over again demystifies the process. It quickly became clear that sewing is really just geometry, carving shapes out of fabric in a way that allows seams to fall flat. Sleeves all need a certain give to allow movement; zippers add a rigidity that needs accommodation; the characteristics of the fabric make or break any design.

What does all of this have to do with adult learning?

First, what we know going into an experience determines what we get out of it. I watch Project Runway and am inspired to sew. My daughter watches Project Runway and decides sewing is too hard. The difference? I knew enough to see possibility. Prior knowledge serves two functions: it provides a foundation for new knowledge and shapes our confidence and curiosity. It can’t be said enough that teaching and learning begins with them, not us. How can we better draw on the prior knowledge of the people we teach? How can we strengthen prior knowledge going before a training?

Exhibit B: Success

Second, watching a show like Project Runway demonstrates that every fancy final product is constructed through a series of discrete steps, often the same steps repeated garment after garment. A complicated whole is achieved through simpler parts.  When you watch dress after dress being sewn, you see the design decisions that lead to a standard set of outcomes. Nothing is sacred; an evening gown can become a cocktail dress with the cut of a hem. While watching a video alone does not mean you will be able to do it too, it gives you a boost when combined with practice. Imagine if we created more opportunities to see experts at work. What if we could capture their decision-making in real time and give people time themselves to practice similar decision-making in real settings? And when it comes to content, imagine how powerful it would be if we cut away everything extra to be left with something simple and classy.

Lastly, watching Tim Gunn as a mentor is delightful. He anchors his critiques in a clear sense of the goal, often bringing designers back on track after they meander off course. His comments are crisp and honest, delivered with a sweet sense of love and protection. What any of us could achieve with a Tim Gunn by our side. The nonprofit sector would be vastly more effective if we invested in coaches to support the one-and-done learning that we too often provide.

I hear a new season of Bachelorette is starting up. I have a shirt she can borrow.