Direct Democracy Teach-in! Tales and tools from the Direct Democracy Pilot cohort

3:05PM Oct 15, 2022

Speakers:

Thad Kerosky

Mary Norris (Code for Fresno)

Dan Fey

Joseph T

Sierra Ramirez

Keywords:

brigade

volunteers

appreciation

people

project

idealism

meeting

discourse

group

question

vote

hear

practice

important

communication

work

ideals

members

dan

helps

Okay, we're

gonna start moving into this next session so find yourself a comfortable seat. So we can mobilize on this All right. Hi, everybody. Good morning. I'm Sierra, I have been helping facilitate the direct democracy pilot all this years. And yeah, and I'll tell you about how that's been and with my friends, Joseph and Walter and Dan, who can introduce themselves later.

Yeah, let's get started. Don't be awful.

Okay. So here's what we're going to be doing today. So yeah, what is the direct democracy pilot? Why is it important? We'll be talking about the link between directly democratic organizing and fighting burnout. And then I'll show you some tools and materials that we developed along the way. Then we'll hear from a particular case study from a group as part of our cohort from Sacramento in Fresno and then we'll do a little breakout where you'll get to try out some of these tools yourself. Okay, so I'm going to start with this little quote, clip from Meredith, our former network director from one of the workshops that we did in February of this year, and it's kind of a fun timing. You know, Meredith left for it. to hike the Appalachian Trail pretty shortly after this, I think and not long after this. And that was when we were starting the pilot, and now she's just finished it. So it's like, it all kind of comes full circle.

But yeah, so let's listen here. This will be about a minute.

I really appreciate that. And they give it to us. And that was just 100% accurate and it might have to find the face removed. The same and he's always going to shame or guilt or shame around the area that we don't use our spaces. Spaces really, really shaped

us maybe a little bit last question. All right, we don't agree.

So I'll explain briefly a little later about what what does it mean? Like the 100% or asked me for 100%.

But

these are kind of some of the principles that we've been talking about along the way. So I want to kind of seed your mind with some of these ideas before we get into the nuts and bolts. So I'll just kind of read this out. We'll kill your idealism, but keep your ideals soften your shoulders. Rest enact. And remember that group cooperation in this world is a miracle. With these types of approaches to collective work, which is what volunteer work is this work, right? These types of things will help with making that more sustainable, something that you can do for a long time. Yeah, because we live in a super individualistic competitive world. So trying to step out of that mode and into something Collective is a shift. This is a quote that I like to use a lot from. Ethan Zuckerman pick participation at scale, means devolving control and perhaps the other side of that coin. Or what another way of thinking about that is distributing work requires building collective power. So you have to kind of let stuff go, but you also have to build people up so that they can take it. So the direct democracy pilot, what is slash was that this was a cohort who participated in two meetings a month between mostly between March and August of this year. Those meetings were a monthly public workshop to learn the skills and models needed to organize a directly democratic organization. And then the second meeting each month was a cohort only meeting to work on those nuts and bolts to try to introduce some of these concepts into their brigades. And then we you know, we would spend time thinking about what this might look like, sort of at the network level. So this involved code for Sacramento and Fresno code for Chicago and open Oakland. So yeah, can we give them some love for sticking with that for six months? A lot of work. So, why is this important? Who's brigade leader here? Right? So your back cannot be the permanent foundation of your brigade. The longer that you do it, the less you will want to. And really, it will take years off of your life if you do not redistribute some of this labor and decision making the level of pressure that we put on ourselves in hierarchical organizations. You know, we can imagine them sort of like a pyramid, right? And this is an image I like to work with a lot. Because every pyramid, it kind of works, flipped over as well. So all of that pressure all falls down to like one person or small group of people. And so that's why it's important to try especially where people are not. We're we're trying to make an egalitarian thing where everybody can be included. We can use that fact to move that energy out. So the cohort members have been starting to redistribute the weight that their groups are carrying. And this approach also has the potential to make really powerful cultural and political shifts in the network. But moving from our regular kind of idealism that we work with, to operating around explicit ideals negotiation, asking for 100% of what we want. Those types of things will take a long time.

So another way of thinking about this, most volunteers doing participation in brigades already, they're already working in largely non hierarchical ways, right? You show up to the hack night, and you work together with your fellow volunteers, and you make something cool. But hierarchy still at play there. Because hierarchical responsibility is built into some of the roles that we have, like Captain and core teams. The very existence of those roles, it's not good or bad, but the existence of those roles can make volunteers not feel responsible for those types of that type of work. So it has to get done, but it's not entering into their mind. Sometimes it's something that they should be helping to hold. So if we can shift to those types of norms. We're shifting to a collective type of responsibility. And like I said, that can be life saving, including for your life. So how do we do it as a facilitator? I blend three important elements. One is basic, like organizing one on one here's how you do one on ones here is how you build power. This is what base building is, etc. And then I taught direct democracy models with historical examples and so forth. And then cooperative communication skills and that's where this idea of asking for 100% and negotiating to agreement comes from. So all together, I call that anarchists civics, but if that freaks you out, we can call it grassroots civics. So we take this grassroots civics, and then we add that in with this cohort being willing to show up, grappled with these ideas and work on fitting them into their gates for six months, and the result of that is a beginning of some slow and steady

change. So we made a bunch of stuff

we have all of the workshop recordings, the decks and materials. I made a core concepts deck that's kind of the Cliff's Notes version of the, you know, the core concepts. And Joseph from Chicago, went through all of these decks and pulled out a lot of the tools and and materials into a toolbox that you can link to here. And then I've also included our pilot guide, if you want to get a maybe a little bit deeper idea of like how the project actually worked. And now I'm gonna turn it over to Dan and Walter to share about their experience in Fresno Sacramento.

Yeah, so we're just gonna go over some of the some of the tool like there were lots of tools throughout the whole course. And we're going to talk about a few that have kind of been impactful to our brigade. So is 55 voting. So this is taking votes from brigade members ranging from zero to five, either on video and chat or in Slack. And the votes may be taken by consensus or majority. And kind of the purpose of 55 Voting is that instead of just like asking the general population, if they agree or disagree, and some people, you know, say something and other people are kind of silent. This kind of lets people provide their voice by by just putting a number out and that kind of feeds the conversation on on and letting letting everyone kind of have their voice heard. So yeah, the desired outcomes here. Give everyone give all members of voice and brigade decisions provide transparency and consistency in decision making. And this can happen at different levels. So, for instance, we now do a 55 vote at the beginning of every hack night. And if sometimes we get people at our hack nights that have been to our hack nights before, and they don't necessarily want to see all of the projects. And then other times we get new people so we vote at the beginning to see if we should proceed with all of the stand ups and all of the kind of like project descriptions or whether we should just go straight into hack night. Yeah, and then yeah, all members voiced their opinions regarding brigade initiatives. So yeah, even in like core team meetings, this is a great way to help help make decisions that may not be clear cut and make sure everyone's voice is heard.

All right. Thanks, Dan. Hello, everybody. Good morning, Walter, you go for Sacramento. So next up is open communication. So this is another tool provided by the framework that we've been putting to use within Sacramento and Fresno. So basically, it boils down to practicing honest direct communication with one another, both brigade formally but also informally. So a lot of times we'll communicate with each other before an event, we may just check in with each other and formally, and then when we get into the brigades, we have more open communication. So really voicing what are our challenges or risks and basically have a more honest, Frank style of conversation versus being guarded or, you know, having agendas, things of that nature. The desired outcomes of this is to provide clarity and transparency and Bria communication. So not only in our meetings, but also on Slack via email. Basically, all modes of communication, being respectful, but at the same time being open is really the key part of it as you would with a friends and family just really having that candor and openness and also to minimize surprises. And miscommunication. So a lot of times in the past we've had, where maybe needs or challenges were not communicated and maybe a member leaves and does not tell us and so that's a challenge because it disrupts our workflow and our projects and things of that nature. So beyond having a good relationship with each other also impacts the work of each brigade. So by having good open communication, just like a family, just like with your friends, you have good communication, and you're all on the same page. So it really helps with that working together and really the functioning workload of a brigade. And the way we implement that is, as I mentioned, to have open communication or during meetings, office hours and slack so basically all modes of communication, especially important I would say during virtual right so we don't meet really in person we used to, but in this hybrid environment and over zoom it's important to communicate again openly with each other challenges both personal and call it professional and volunteer work, and then communicate limitations which may impact your level of engagement. So it's also around needs. So say if Dan and I for example right now are super busy at work, so we have communicated that and so other brigade members know we need to miss a meeting, or if we need some help on a project others are willing to step up. And then that segues into the other tools such as delegation and not having that pyramid, right. We don't want to be the person on the bottom. So we want to be more of a distributed organization. And so that helps us do so by having open communication and lastly, such as the need for downtime, so we all need breaks or being able to hand do handoffs. And again, that's part of opening open communication.

Next up power dynamics.

How do you alter so yeah, power dynamics. Brigade members practice awareness of power dynamics. So there's different types of power dynamics. This might be you know, new newer members versus more experienced members. And it could also be like power dynamics, with like, someone being more technical or non technical. And really, what you need to be careful of is minimizing imbalance or, you know, either trying to like forcing someone to do something they don't want to do or or keeping someone from doing what they want to do. And so yeah, in terms of implementation, one way that we've that's helped us kind of keep an eye on this is during onboarding. You know, when we welcome volunteers of all experience level, really understanding what their needs and skill sets are what they want out of the group, and how and how we can kind of enable that. And so yeah, we can develop a mutual understanding of expectations between newer volunteers the newer volunteers and the brigade. Yep.

Right, two more and then we're gonna practice so pay attention. So empowering new volunteers. So this goes along with power dynamics. So the description overall This skill is empower new volunteers to take on more responsibility. So with onboarding that Dan typically will lead along with other members is really communicating to them that they're capable of a lot and so not to undersell themselves and may not know what to expect. So setting clear expectations and understanding their needs. Also allowing new volunteers have more influence. So again, as they come on board, often welcoming them to a project, really introducing them. So in our slide deck, we mentioned the roles that we're looking for, that they can step up into for the core teams never start too early to start recruiting, really reinforcing that message that they can contribute right off the bat. So from the first time they come in, they can join a project, we have a Slack channel, we do our virtual meetings and gather town, so everyone can get involved right away so they can hit the ground running. So the desired outcome of this is to allow new volunteers. empower them again to be more involved and also take some of the load off us. Right the core team or the senior membership so the more we can delegate and more we can communicate that new volunteers you're not you may be new to this organization, but you may bring a wealth of tech skills or other abilities are ones that we really need. So all are welcome and really empowering them from the beginning. And then also to facilitate with secession planning. I know Dan likes to joke that, you know, you volunteer with that nonprofit organizations long enough, you'll be leading it and I think we found ourselves in that position. Just a couple years in I wandered into code for Sacramento in 2018. And here I am, probably sooner than I thought and so I think, you know, being able to empower those to move forward and also think about the brigade that's larger than us as much as I think we take pride in what we do. We also want to think about long term planning, and really being able to scale abrogates so the implementation is empowering a new volunteers, as I mentioned, to contribute to projects and participate in brigade decision making as well. So just a fist to five. So we engage everybody right off the bat. I think the theme here is to really impress upon some of these with the new volunteers right out of the gate. So when they come in, we'd be onboarding, we justify, we do open communication, we have them, add them themselves to the Slack channel. And we told them right away, hey, you're new to the organism, you know, new to us, but not to volunteering or whatever you can contribute. And then also being able to transition some of the newer members in 14 roles and really trying to sell it it's not just hey, we're, we have these open roles, but hey, we really, really need your help. You know, in this particular project, or hey, you may be a good fit. So a lot of these tools are interconnected, and they also lead to good things for us, right, such as growing our volunteer base, and to have contributors to our projects. All right, last one, for certainly not least, is expressing appreciation. So for all the hard work that we do with all the members being able to express our gratitude to one another car let our first expressing gratitude. I you know, really really resonated with me. So basically description is to ask another volunteer to express their appreciation. One of the key things and you'll see this in the exercises when we do it is one has to ask for permission, and it's intentionally a bit awkward. So if you were to express appreciation, I'll just give a brief demo for you all in the group. So if I want to show Dan and appreciation, then I have an appreciation to get to give you would you like to hear it?

No. So that's it. So there's a little bit of awkwardness but it's really intended to be intentional. So it's not just oh, hey, Dan, great job. It's really intended to be a deliberate intentional act of kindness or act of gratitude. And so it's typically centered around a particular action or contribution. So obviously, it helps to be specific. So if another member made a great contribution to the project or made made an additional effort, it just did something that was special or stood out in your mind. It's great to be able to show show it from time to time. I think we definitely need to roll it out a little bit more. But you know, I know we've been working with it more informally. desired outcomes is to allow volunteers to express their gratitude for the contributions of others, develop better relationships and strong communication between volunteers and I know for myself even just the limited of experience I've had with it is really helped it really formalizes that expression of gratitude. It's not just a quick Hey, great job. It's actually an intentional act and could also be a bit more personal Hey, I know for myself and Mary Faye we've exchanged because she really we we step up to help each other as well as Dan and myself. So really being able to step up and help each other. Especially with new volunteers coming in and out. We've I think it really helps close that bond. So again, you all will get some practice and we'll be roaming around in groups and implementation so members have expressed appreciation for each other during brigade meetings again, you know, we're rolling that out, and we're going to continue to do so. And in considering the ad appreciation practice to brigade meeting agenda, so just similar to the way we do Pfister fie. In the future, we're contemplating to add that as well as our volunteers come in. So that's expressing appreciation.

Breakout time back to Sierra.

Okay, so, yeah, so we will be staying in here for the breakouts, but here's what we're going to do. Can I ask, well, how many people do we have, okay? Don't even want to do this. It's going to be really great and fun and wonderful. It'd be the best thing you do all day. Okay, what do we got? 1-234-567-8910 1112. Okay, I feel like there's like 15 or 20

Okay. So I would like to have

my three friends. Like raise your hand and kind of move to a different part of the rooms and people can kind of join you. So, do that.

Okay,

all right. So see where they're going. Okay. And so, why don't we do that right now. So go and find either hang up for

questions that people raise their hands. People raise their hands online. I don't know.

Okay, cool. We'll talk about those in a second. Yeah. Do you want to bottom line a group Okay, cool. All right. Cool. So then, yeah, people go ahead and move and be by these people who are raising their hands. So we want to have you know, no more than say five per per group.

About

Okay, and then on Zoom, we're gonna split you all into two groups is Mary on the Zoom. Awesome. Hi, Mary. I forgot to mention that Mary's here as well. So Mary will be helping out with at least one of the Zoom breakouts. And then are you down to be the other and the other one cool, and then m will be on the other one. Okay. Cool. I feel like people have mostly moved to where they need to be fabulous. So you're going to do three things. With the remaining time that we have. And then over the next like half hour, and then we'll come back together. So you're going to do the 55 that we've been talking about. You're going to practice asking for 100%. And then you're going to practice the appreciations, practice. If you go to this bitly up here, you'll pull up this very deck and you'll be able to pull up these I'll leave this up here for the moment. But the next couple of slides have the scenarios that you'll be doing. Okay, so, so that's Bitly slash dem dash STL. Okay, and I'll put I'll put this back up in a second. I just want to show you what the other slides look like.

So

so this is what the fist 251 looks like.

And you'll read that together.

If you need to see the detail a little bit better than what you can see here. The next slide, is it a little bigger? And then this is what the asking for 100% scenario looks like so that one will take a minute you know, the other one that would be quicker. And then this is what the appreciations, practice one looks like so these are the pieces that you'll be using. So start with the fist of five I would recommend. And I'll just briefly say you've got you're deciding together on whether or not to watch this movie. Okay, so somebody is saying someone's proposing this idea. You're going to be like vote on that in an informal way. negotiate a little bit and then vote for sure to decide. So this is an example of how 55 can be used for kind of a vibe check versus also being used for like a formal decision. Asking for 100% starts with a little scenario about that we've all kind of probably experienced where you say you want to go out for a meal with your friend and you know that they don't probably like the thing that you would like so then you suggest something else and then they don't want to do that either. And then you're bummed out. It's just bad news, right? So it has a scenario based on that kind of idea. And then to get your heads around it. And then we've got a scenario that you'll actually work through. That's something that comes up and you know, brigade context, you're going to take on roles, work through it in terms of what would happen if nobody explicitly asked for their 100% and then do it again, where you are, and see what happens. And then lastly, you'll do the appreciations practice to appreciate the different people who you are working with right now. Who you know will be doing a great job in your in your breakout. Okay, does that all feel relatively clear? You've got all gotten a relatively experienced person oops.

With you, there we go.

Who can help and I'll be floating around as well. So any little moment of clarification

needed? Yes.

Yeah, so So exactly. So one person is the person A and then everybody else is kind of this. The other people in the group? Yeah. Any other point of clarification before we get started? Okay, so we're going to come back to the group together at 11 and, and then share out a little bit about how that went.

All right back up. Okay. Ready? Set. Go. Well, why

Okay, we did a really efficient job.

Like, I guess we're just on top of this stuff.

Congratulations. That's

yeah, I wasn't aware of what time limit is.

I don't even know if the main meeting is still going.

On. Think we were a group here?

Like you mean the Live Meeting? Yeah, it should be on the live camera. Shannon.

I would think so. Joel 1152. I

think Thomas's volume is yes, because we can hear our echo. Congrats Thomas. This is being recorded. So hi, everybody who's seeing the recording it

you're your audience.

Hard to understand where do you have a set of

I don't have a good mic. Sorry.

Okay. If you. Yeah, if you have

headphones, your computer or sorry, your mic doesn't pick up your speakers. If you have. If you have headphones then your mic won't pick up what's going directly into your ear if you have like earbuds or something like that.

Is this better? Yeah.

Yes. Yeah,

I think so. Yeah, it's not echoing me anymore. No

echo. Okay, sorry about that. That's awesome.

So what were you saying?

Another meeting started.

Yes, it is. 1045 Okay, so we're in a we're in a dead zoom. Okay.

Are we gonna get to hang out because like, not everybody went to the other meeting, right?

Well, I mean, this one was supposed to go to 1115. So 1215 1515 Okay, Eastern Time. So our faraway land time, okay.

So when this ends at 1115 and that starts at 1145. I mean, in in Central time, okay.

So we're not at the gym. We're just waiting. You're Michelle, your profile pic is a white thing with a gray circle and a line is it like supposed to mean anything supposed to mean something in particular? Okay, I just

had to get an I an avatar. So I was just like, I'll pick this random png that I was working on one time. Well, I don't have a better one.

Thomas. Where are you at? So again, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque. My six year old daughter calls Alba turkey. For some reason well, good to make fun of. Turkeys called the turkey. Elvis turkey sandwich. Yes. My son has a Weird Al you know, album CD or whatever that has a song all that Albuquerque. And so occasionally my daughter's like, play the Alba Turkey song

so now she knows all about that.

Lunch complete Yeah. Lunch quest is complete.

It looks like all the remote people finished much more quickly than unless they just never turned the camera back on.

Short break. We can no break. What's up. I'm kidding.

I see em. They're still working. On their stuff Hi.

I used to be working on Rs to go

to check can be recorded I suppose next step. Is to sing the Code for America. Anthem anthem. Online async async style. That's right.

I gotta hear that. Yeah,

we have to figure it out. Maybe it should be the

conference or through funny

with friends. Yeah.

That's a very, very important specific topic to go ahead and make your conference.

Do we? Do we know Mary, where the how the unconferences work like there's unconference session one happening from 10 to 1115. central time, but I'm not even sure where or how it was voted on or whatever

you want. I didn't see anyone

there. Yeah, if it doesn't have their ID listed there, then it's open. Anybody can take that spot can start talking about whatever they want. And that's over by the Pawnee pub, which should be on the top left part of the map there.

It looked like it was near the help desk when I found it. Cool. Okay. Dawn conference session one, the first one they have different numbers.

Okay, yeah, cuz that's apparently all conferences should be up in number four, which should be by the Pawnee pub. Oh,

they should all be at number four.

At the party pub, because that's where they had to make a decision as to where we wanted those conferences to go to. So it made it being everybody knows we're finding Pub is or Aponte pub.

I'll pick a different one next time.

But how is it that the topics are presented to our fellow attendees and voted upon?

Thank you? Good question, because I went ahead and put it on discourse and asked anybody if they're interested to please, you know, reach us and one of us will get back to him. We got no bites, so I wouldn't be we should put it out and say, Hey, anybody wants to do it? Please do.

Yeah, I

not sure how. Like, I think this course is it's one thing if you put something up and everybody knows to go look at it, but if it's just there, I'm not sure people are really browsing around discourse to find stuff and vote on it.

Gotta get blank there. So how do you suggest we do that then you're gonna

want to start moving to maybe another minute or two just to wrap up and then and then we'll come back together for or to discuss how that went.

I don't have an answer. Marry

Yemeni.

I was thinking we could put it in the brigade schedule thing, which is I think what most people are looking at as a link to a place to post stuff and

Ellison booth. Were you guys looking for your information? If I may ask.

I've been for the just like the brigade, the Congress stuff. I've been looking on a discourse. So like, just from the main website Yeah. And then clicking on each of the discourse posts.

What if we just said like,

from discourse, there's a link in there to either another discourse post which is where all of the topics get posted and voted on or maybe it's even just a shared Google Doc or we can just put them in and then people can put stars or Asterix is or x is

getting yours from the from the discourse as well.

Know what I'm doing mostly on slack so I need to get on discourse. I haven't been on there all I don't think I knew that the discourse channel even existed

even on site What channel is it? You've been getting your info from?

You know, I've mostly just been on the main channel generation. Yeah, and I think I need to dig deeper.

Oh, so we can post on the main channel. On the main Slack channel link to discourse.

Yeah, we could do both. Yeah, the discourse schedule

thing, or we should do.

I think so too. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. I know we just get

grumpy about it.

Yeah, that's right. I'll take the grumpy grumpy anyway.

Okay, coming back, coming back. And if you've got more discussion, maybe you can have that after we wrap up and close

all right. So how was that

did y'all love it? Did you hate it? If you loved it, give me sparkle fingers. All right, I see a lot of sparkle. Is that hard? Did anybody have a difficult time with it? Or like challenging like interesting kind of difficult? Yeah. Who would like to share a little bit about their experience and, and or a question

please

hadn't thought about this and gotten that far. Maybe you come up here I don't know. Oh, perfect. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, cool. We've got two mics.

Is this going line? Sir, I have a confession to make. I've as part of the cohort, but I still didn't know what to ask for your 100% was until I did this exercise. It was it was like writing it down and reading it like you kind of conceptually know but then actually, like, articulating it and going through like roleplay of the conversation helped like solidify. What is it that we were trying to like practice? So I kind

of figured that might happen for somebody? Honestly, because some of this stuff. It's like, you can repeat it and repeat it and repeat it like yourself and then and then eventually like Oh, right. There's like a whole flip. That kind of happened. So I appreciate that comment. Other folks other questions or or reflections? I would love to hear a little bit from each group, ideally, just to have kind of generally how it went.

Right we had a very nice, great discussion with our group. I think we went through each exercise. I think everyone got a good sense of how to implement and practice with these. I know myself as well got refreshed on 100%. And I know we morphed it a bit for code for Sacramento so it's good to reconnect with the really coming through with your ideals. I think also the appreciation was very helpful to you even in a short time together, get to know each other and be able to express our appreciation.

Thanks. The perspective of a brigade leader, kind of a light bulb moment for me was just simply the act of making decisions about what projects to take on and what projects to sunset. I was like, Oh, wait, we don't decide that as a group. I come in with my slide deck already ready? And you know, basically tell everybody this is what we're working on.

And maybe I shouldn't do that. Maybe I should decide what they want to work on instead.

Excellent, excellent. Reflection. Yeah, I heard we have a couple of raised hands on the Zoom. Is there a way for us to hear their questions or that maybe they can put them in the chat? Yeah, if you can, if you're on the Zoom, and you've got a question or a reflection maybe you can put it in the chat sorry, my head said

it in the chat. Put it in the chat. It's in the chats, I agree.

And I wanted to just kind of reiterate it like it's really hard to do to not do what you're what you're doing. And so thank you for recognizing that's the first thing. But then there's all these other steps that make it hard actually, and so don't feel bad. And like that's cool. And we all like all the brigades are basically doing that in some form or another and so that's why this kind of stuff is super helpful.

Awesome. Thank you. All right. So some questions from the chat

can verbalize what Michelle was sharing in our group, which was that expressing 100% Doesn't necessarily mean getting it, but at least something closer to it. And then Mary, we can the whole room not be able to hear the online participants if they speak but we can also verbalize them. If you want to write them out. And happy to share.

Yeah, that's a great point too about asking for the 100% or creating space for asking it. Making it safe to ask doesn't mean you're gonna get what you want. But it's created the opportunity for negotiation. Right, which you wouldn't have unless everybody would be able to put their cards on the table. Hey, Sierra. Yeah,

we had, we had a question here. Can you can you touch again on when you're expressing your appreciation? Kind of the purpose of asking for permission first.

Yeah, that's sort of, that's where the magic is. It's kind of it's a little bit hard to put to words honestly. But that shift between what's the normal thing and I'm I totally do this myself all the time where like, Oh, my appreciation is not like worth a whole lot or I don't want to like, make somebody feel like they have. I don't want to do the wrong thing. Right. And so I'll just like, here's my appreciation. And if you want it, you can go pick it up. You know, but if you really are saying like, can I have something for you? Can I give it to you? It creates a little bit of a pause. And that creates like a container for it that doesn't normally exist. Like I said, it's a little bit hard to put into words, but it makes the appreciation more potent, more powerful. And I don't remember if I put it on the slide, but yeah, if you think of appreciations as units of power. This is like the moment where you are transferring a unit of power to another person. So there's a little bit more vulnerability with asking first, I guess that's part of it is that it's creating a little bit of vulnerability. And that's how the power kind of moves and happy to like dig I know that sounds kind of like esoteric but but as you can see, it felt really good, right? Like doing that practice is deeply helpful for group cohesion and being witnessed as well. You know, there's just a lot of different like powerful things kind of happening at the same moment, with the appreciations practice, even though it's very simple.

Hey, we have a question from Nick. To what degree is fifth this to five valid for choosing projects when maybe a bunch of new people want to work on a project that has a bad scope? Or something where there's a project that doesn't align with CFA values, but everybody wants to work on it?

Yeah, so it can definitely be a part of a bigger process, right? It doesn't need to be the only step. So if there's like a technical assessment that needs to be done as part of deciding whether it's feasible to do a project, that can certainly still certainly still happen. And the other thing, this is sort of tangentially related to the question, but depending on what you make the different numbers in the VISTA five, mean. You can say for example, like maybe we all agree that this project sounds really awesome and we would like for it to happen, but it needs a certain amount of people are willing to work on it or people with a certain level of expertise. So you can set a threshold for that. It's like well, we need fives from at least like two or three experienced people, or this project isn't going to have what it needs. And so you do your fists to five and then see what the results are. It's like okay, yeah, everybody's really enthusiastic about this, but we don't have what we need to do it. And so that might be a moment we call that accepting the unacceptable. So you look at what is and acknowledge it and then make choices based on reality. Basically,

in the in the Zoom chat, Michelle was sharing that I actually sometimes find appreciations to be overwhelming. So an answer of maybe I'll receive this later can be really useful for me. That's a really,

really, really good point. I'm really glad that that Michelle mentioned that. And that's something I've seen people say like they're just like too saturated with emotion, you know, for whatever reason, and they'll say, like, I've seen exactly that, like, can I get this later, you know, and the person's like, absolutely. And so then everybody's getting like that enthusiastic consent as well. And that can be just very yummy by itself. Comments or questions in the chat for now? I don't see any. I'll do one more ask of the group here and then that'll give a minute for one more ask in the in the Zoom chat. Any final questions or comments from the group? Yes, Grace. Let's get sorry, my hearings really bad. Can you wait till I get my thanks?

I thought that would be a wonderful way. Well, it would be wonderful to include that in the ask, are you comfortable with receiving it? Now or would you like to receive it later?

Yeah, yeah, that could definitely be a way to do it.

I also going off. I think the format you receive it in is important because if you're in a call with someone, especially a superior and they want to send appreciation to you, it can be uncomfortable for the person so maybe you can ask, Is it okay to do it now later? Would you like me to send it over email, even in a performance review? Like what kind of way do you want that delivered? Because, you know, everyone has a different approach and feelings. towards that.

Definitely, definitely. And what I've seen usually is like it, it doesn't mean you have to do it in this format at all times, but like you have a phase of the meeting that is for that before you close for example, and then people can opt to do it. At that moment, I see yes, even back Mary, maybe you want to

clarify.

So I guess just maybe preemptively asking for forgiveness from your gen xers who this is like a totally foreign thing. Right for us. This is just not we don't operate this way. It doesn't. We can't relate to it. We think it's kind of a lot. And so but clearly, it's it's what a different generation needs. So I don't want to speak for you, but I just feel like we're just sort of watching in awe, this whole thing and not if it does not resonate with me in any way, shape, or form. So I'm learning something today and so thank you for helping us get some insight into the psyche of people who are younger than we are but yeah, it's certainly something that's going to take a while to. Yeah.

Since I was pulled in this conversation, I agree with 90% of it. I just was saying a couple of things are, you know, eye openers to me that I'll try but you know, one was the killing my idealism. I think that's a better word would be temporary, your idealism, but you know, dramatically but the other one

I forget what the other one was.

Oh, yeah. They're just asking somebody tried, if I could offer them some appreciation. That was a little corny, but I it's something I'm willing to try. So I'm not necessarily I think there is a generational challenge here, but it's my bias or my set way of doing things and I'm willing to,

yeah, that's a lot, right.

Definitely, definitely. And I would say like, a lot of like, people are going to have different relationships with all of these different skills, and practices. And I think the benefit is, these are skills that are good for bringing working across difference and bringing people together so that people some people might feel more confident already speaking, you know, in a in a direct way and can wind up dominating. If there is not a group conversation about how do we make it safe for everybody? To feel like they can do that and to receive appreciations and things like that. So for sure, like the formality of it, and some of the structuring is of it can feel a little bit foreign at first. But there's a wider benefit and I know we're kind of getting to time but I want to

I just wanted to really quick respond to the tempering idealism ideals, explicit ideal if you go back to slide. For me the ideal i explicit ideals is almost a synonym of the hunter asking for 100% idealism is it is kind of not as productive as as they're saying what we need for ourselves at this moment. And that gets back to what Meredith was saying and her in a quote, pulled out. So yeah, I think that's a huge motivation for all of this and absolutely, ideals are super important. So

yeah, thanks for that. Yeah, exactly. So ideals are pretty much a parallel for what's 100% of what you want, and your values, right. And then idealism is kind of like the space between reality and what you're hoping for. And so we need to act from, like we're driven by what we believe in and what we want. And we are constrained by what is and so we make decisions to try to pull things more in a certain direction or change how things are going, but we have to operate from what is and guide it from what the values are. Basically, that's that's the intention at least. Any last comment from those? Okay, great. Awesome. Well, thank you all so much for your participation and and all of your comments and questions. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

We can try it. We're also overtime. So let's see if there's maybe two minutes I'll turn up the volume here. I don't know. I don't know if that's going to work.

Can you hear me?

Maybe on your computer said.

Yeah, turn your volume up. Mary. It's a little

okay. It's a little low. Is that what it is? Okay. Is that too much?

I think if there's a chat, an option to share in the chat, we can we can read it. Yeah, we're on the discourse page for this session. Or you can leave comments and I've already linked to the deck recording walkthrough.

I want to let them know that I do this in my purse so that it's continuing across. And so

yes, we can also save the chat. Okay, sorry, we can't hear the virtual participants. But that would be almost all the senses covered. Okay, so I think we're gonna wrap this session. We have a brief break. Starting again at 1145 I believe. So I'm going to end this this zoom portion. And see you all soon. Thanks, everybody.