Transformational Change with John Kania and Juanita Zerda of Collective Change Lab

[Music] Welcome to the Collective Impact Forum podcast. Here to share resources to support social change makers working on cross-sector collaboration. The Collective Impact Forum is a nonprofit field building initiative and online community that is co-hosted in partnership by the nonprofit consulting firm FSG and the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions. In this episode, Collective Impact Forum Executive Director, Jen and Prasplansky-Juster, is in conversation with John Cania and Juanita Zerda, with a social impact organization, Collective Change Lab. Jen, John and Juanita discuss what are some of the key qualities and practices needed when working to achieve long-term transformational change. Hello everyone! Thank you for joining us today for this discussion. Before we start, I am delighted to introduce today's guests for our chat. First, let me introduce John Cania, who serves as founder and executive director at the Social Impact Organization Collective Change Lab. John has been a practitioner, researcher, writer, teacher and speaker on how organizations and people can achieve change for the past over 30 years. And for podcast listeners interested in collective impact, John is also co-author of the article Collective Impact that was published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review in 2011, as well as many, many follow-on pieces on the topics of collective impact, collaborative change and systems change, and many others. Prior to founding the Collective Change Lab, John was my colleague and a great mentor for me here at FSG, and we had the pleasure of working together for many years. Thank you so much for joining us today, John. We also welcome Juanita Zerada, who serves as director at the Collective Change Lab. Juanita is a senior leader with more than 20 years of experience advising social justice organizations on strategy and assessment. She brings a multidisciplinary cross-sector and multicultural lens to bear on challenging issues. Hallmarks of Juanita's work are deep empathy and commitment to addressing disparity and disproportionality in communities and systems. Thank you for joining us today, Juanita. It is such a delight to have you both here to chat today. So I'd love to start by asking each of you to share a little bit about your journey and what led you into this work. Well, I'm sure I'm happy to start. This is John. Well, you know, yeah, I've had the sort of three, three stages of my professional career, at least. I started in the wonderful world of advertising where I first learned about the importance of narrative to achieve change. And, you know, of course, we'd talk about it that way then, but that is what it is. And then I, you know, I work in business strategy helping companies to escape to where the puck will be as opposed to where it is. And then last 20 years, this is, and outline has been doing the work of social change. So I've always sort of considered my passion to be in, you know, a really around change. And if there's, you know, one thing that I really sort of get excited about, it is helping those people that are really trying to get better to evolve those individuals and collectives, you know, go through that process. And that's sort of where I get really jazzed. And I'm really delighted to be here, Jen. Thank you. Thanks, John. It's so good to be back with you today. Anu Anita. Hi, Jen. So thank you so much for the intro and for having us here. So as you mentioned, I've been in the world of social services, like proven impact of social service programs for over 20 years, I immigrated from Colombia. I actually landed on that world a little bit out of luck and different, different storylines. I've actually had lawyers from Colombia. So when I arrived here, I couldn't practice law. So it was kind of like, what's next? And I started working with, you know, at that time, we used to call that anti-provative programs and got really, really interested in outcomes. Like, how do you measure impact? And, and did that for many years, you know, and I would say, over the part, in very different areas, you know, from housing and community development to education, workforce development, public health. But I would say over the past, maybe five years, I started to work much more close to close with folks who don't work on racial equity. And kind of really understand a little bit the difference between social services and social justice, I would say. And honestly, learning from them, seeing the work through different eyes, you know, like focusing a little bit more on processes and outcome itself versus outcome on their own. And that, you know, has changed a lot the way, not only what I think about the work, but even, you know, who I work with and why work. Why am I working for what I'm working for, right? And Medjohn, during that time, a few years ago, in, you know, an evaluators convening, and we just kind of connected over this idea of thinking differently about why are these programs, you know, where are these systems in place, right? And who are they involving and, you know, to what processes and not only thinking about kind of like sterile outcomes. And so now I am here, you know, in this adventure with John and pretty excited about what's the come. So yeah, tell us a little bit more about the adventure, the collective change lab. Sure, I'll jump in and we need to please share as well. You know, for me, having spent the last decade or so doing the work of collective impact, it's the most powerful social sector intervention work that I've done. And, you know, it really calls on unique system leaders who are going to go beyond their own self interest to focusing on the health of the whole. And there are some amazing system leaders doing collective impact work. But, you know, along the way, there were tubes or key observations that I made in terms of doing my years doing the work of collective impact. And one was that there was a serious need for people to shift from programmatic strategies. You'd get all the people together, get the, you know, people say if you want to change the system, get the system in the room and the system in the room would then come up with programmatic strategies instead of systemic strategies. And that, you know, for me, led to the development of a framework that is used in the sector of the six conditions of six systems change, three of which are structural policies, practices, and resource flows, and three of which are more what we call cultural, which are about relationships and power dynamics and mental models. And so that was one shift that I felt really needed to happen in the collective work moving from programmatic to systemic strategies. And the second one is been about, you know, even the best efforts that we have seen around collective change, collective impact, many are really only achieving incremental change when what I think many of us are hoping for is transformational change. But here's the thing. When we talk about attaining transformation, it's important to recognize that transformation is something turning into something else, something that's more mature, something that's more connected. And what I've been observing is that the practices and approaches used in collective change work often don't create sufficient conditions for transformation. But we have practices from cultural traditions and wisdom traditions, practices among indigenous peoples, practices from truth and reconciliation or restorative justice, and even spiritual practices that are outside of the mainstream hierarchical religion. Some of these practices have been are thousands of years old and they focus on creating conditions for individual and collective transformation. So that's really, you know, where the journey started to become, you know, about where we're headed today with the collective change lab. And one of the things we were observing, and then I'll stop for a minute. But just to say that one of the things that we were observing was that regardless of where you drew these drew from on these transformational practices, there were really sort of five qualities that they typically have in common. And I'll just talk about them really quickly here. Perhaps we can get more depth. The first is there's deep relational work among those that are involved. Second is there's a focus on interchange as well as outer change. Third, there's a focus on cultivating space for healing. Fourth is about transforming power dynamics. And fifth is about welcoming in serendipity and a sense of the sacred. Wow, that is super interesting, John. I definitely want to unpack, unpack those five and understand more about how you have experienced them and see them contributing to the kind of transformational change that you mentioned, that you're really focused on helping collect as achieved at the collective change lab and in your current work. So maybe we'll take them one at a time. Let's start with deep relational work. You tell us a little bit more about deep relational work and maybe give us some examples of what that'll look like. - Sure. As I said, the first of these five qualities is that there's deep relational work among those that are involved. And when we talk about deep relational work, it's really about enabling people to be seen for who they are and to experience authentic connections. And I think most of the people in the collective impact form audience know that relationships are the essence and the fabric of really collective change. But here is, how can we intentionally structure efforts in a way that really build true empathy and compassion so that connections between diverse participants happen? And I mean, I think again, for this group, we all know this is not soft stuff that it really does lead to significant improvements and outcomes. And one example that's really resonant for me is the work of Tony Breik, when he was a researcher in Chicago and he and colleagues researched, I think probably 100 elementary schools to determine what to row performance. And their measure of performance was improvement in math scores and improvement in reading scores. And what they found after a number of years of research is that hypotheses about key drivers being better curriculum or stronger teachers, those were important, but the number one driver of performance was what Tony Breik ended up calling relational trust and that's when administrators, students, parents and teachers all got along well. And the stronger the relational trust and they could literally quantify it, the more effective and more quickly scores rose. So yeah, so this whole notion of relationships is critical has to be a place that you start. - And following up on that, John, the collective impact context, if you imagine, thinking about really building those relationships and that deep relational work, do you see that happening, for example, amongst like steering committee members or are we talking about between leaders and members of community who are engaged in the work? Tell me a little bit more about who and how you see those relationships taking shape in a collective impact type context. - Yeah, I think what you just said, it's a little bit of all of the above. And yet, not everybody can be in relationship with everybody. So we have to sort of break things down and figure out where people are touching each other if you will in the system metaphorically. And how we can build better relationships there. I think often in the collective impact context, yes, we need to talk about how we build deep relationships amongst the steering committee, but that's not enough. We really need to engage community, which should be a part of the steering committee, but also within the working groups. And there's a little bit of sort of, this work needs to be done in terms of building relationships in an evergreen fashion. It's always true. And it's always got to be a part of the work really every time people show up together. - Yes, yes, definitely. So the next one that you mentioned, John was inner as well as outer change. Can one of you share a little bit more about what that looks like in practice and what that entails? - Sure. - We define it as prior to using change within oneself as a means of creating change in the world. It really is about doing that deep examination to remove the fog from your eyes in order to see each other more authentically. You know, I think this, John was just talking about the relational work and I think it's a little bit of chicken in the egg, right? Like once we see, we need to remove that fog, to remove that fog to see each other authentically. And also however, or end by seeing each other authentically, we get to truly understand ourselves. And it is in that connection that we need to examine our heart in whatever the connection is. And the process and the outcomes that is producing, folks are racial equity folks are really good at this, right? They are very clear on before you start doing any racial equity trainings. You need to first look at your own biases, right? You need all work starts with all racial equity work starts with the eye. Like who am I, where I come from? Like what is the ideology that I was raised in? How do I present what is the language I use? And how much it impacts our relationships with each other? And when we do that and we let our guard down a little bit in terms of being more open, we are able to see both the love and the suffering of others in more deeply. And when you do that, you do nothing but change. I think all of us have had those moments in which we have encountered someone else's pain and how deeply impacted, how we feel, who we are, what we think the next day. So it is both a precondition and a consequence of relating deeply with each other. - Yeah, the chicken and the egg, as you said, that I think that's a super helpful analogy. They really contribute to each other and you can't really have one without the other. And you also talked, John mentioned cultivating space for healing. Tell us a little bit more about that body of work. - You know, I think one of the things to note is that, you know, these aren't mutually exclusive. They build on each other, they reinforce one another. It's hard if you're not in deep relationship to participate with others and they're cultivating a space for healing as an example. But we define this as supporting people and sharing their traumas. And working to restore the harm done to them. You know, healing is not something you do all on your own. It happens through others, through community. And this is, you know, one of the, I'm gonna call it genius, but one of the real, you know, strong points of restorative justice is an approach to addressing harms that are committed. Restort of justice generally involves the entire community defining what the injustice has been. And, you know, as one example, and, you know, many people are saying, I certainly believe this, I will say that, you know, the US will never get where we want to be a transformational change until there's a reckoning done with the 300 years of slavery and almost as many years of genocide among the Native American population. And, you know, but on a less existential scale, it's important in when we address issues such as, you know, education, not to just identify disparities but to give voice to the trauma behind the disparities. You know, when we talk about the school to prison pipeline, what's the trauma been on boys and girls of color? And how does the community own that? And unless that's a part of the, quote unquote, problem solving process, I think it's really hard to get to transformation. - John, one thing I've heard a lot of folks also often in their racial equity field, talking about is reckoning and a process of reckoning and repair before you can move forward with change. Is that similar to what you're talking about here with healing or help me kind of draw some connections there? - Yeah, thanks, Jen. I think it is, it's, you know, it is, I think we're saying the same thing that are reckoning needs to happen. And every time we go through yet one more sort of perform effort that's aimed at, you know, sort of big transformative outcomes in education as one example. And we don't go through this reckoning, we're gonna be held back. And so, you know, I think this can happen in the, you know, big ways, like the, you know, the country coming to terms with, you know, what we've done. But I think it can happen, you know, in communities, you know, in smaller groups. And in fact, I think that's likely to be where we get to this reckoning as a country is that it's gonna happen on a smaller basis and it will sort of, you know, sort of flower out to more parts of the country. - So the next one you mentioned was transforming power dynamics. For me, this quality is where the rubber meets the road. We define it as building power with those who have been marginalized while equalizing accountability. amongst all. And I would say there's no lasting transformation unless power dynamics change, right? You can have, we can recognize each other, we can go deeper with each other, we can have a moment of you know justice and reconciliation of reckoning. But the last thing is truly where is the power, right? Like that, the that made a difference in the way decisions are made, who is making them, who is judging them. The continuity is in that transforming power dynamics. Now we, we all of us in the world of social change, you know, we have, we do great programs, there's great research, there's great, you know, we talk a lot about sometimes fidelity of implementation and all these big things. And yet, you know, the more we see it, it is in that engagement with whoever is most effective, whoever the whoever system is changing for. It is in those engaging with, you know, individuals or communities that we come to true aha moments of how the system must change. But it's not only engaging them is truly, you know, stepping aside to hear their wisdom and their guidance into how to change is to occur or how the transformation is to occur. So, you know, when we talk about power, power dynamics, sometimes it gets very theoretical, you know, what does power mean, you know, who gives power, when he gives power, doesn't, you know, honestly, simple questions is like, who is in the room? Who are the most affected by the problem identifying what this problem is or what this change needs to occur? Are they deciding who, how to address it? And when do we know that we're we're all good, right? Who's saying that? Is it the same people who started? We often just do it, piss me off, right? But power is that. It's truly the who says this is okay and how it's changing and what is a good idea? And Juanita, do you have any concrete examples of collaborative or situations where you have seen power shift? Yeah. So, you know, obviously, there's like two kind of very different and extreme situations, you know, one, I think that there's the situation in my country in Colombia with priest processes, you know, definitely some of those priest processes were top down, negotiated and, you know, the word sides, yes, no. And the last thing piece occurs in communities, right? And in the communities where that has occurs in communities where they have themselves done a process with the guerrilla or the parameter whoever give out the arms to say, okay, what needs to change in this community and how do we collectively and, you know, take the ownership and the accountability for that change, right? Complicated process whenever you have had people truly had, you know, everyone around them killed by the other. And yet, it occurs, you know, that the dynamics change because, you know, we collectively decide to share that power for the change. In the United States, I actually have worked a lot in education the recent years and I think that that is where I have seen it truly taking shape and is, um, an educational reform has often been very top down, like we know it, right? Like the shiny, the makeshirts of our bullet and very data driven, which I kind of love, that's making me love it. And yet, not lasting, not impactful, not authentic. And it's in the last year, so also thank you to the racial equity folks that have been more the voice of students has been much more, um, at the forefront. And reforms have been like calling for that, right? Like, okay, this is unless we have the community and unless we have true student voice and student agency, this is not going to stay, this is not going to change. And I have had, you know, I've worked with folks in, for example, Milwaukee, where he's been the students that have gone in and said, okay, how do we make our, you know, our school more welcoming, more sense of belonging, you know, and this is just literally they have changed the way furniture is arranged, like they themselves saying, this is what we want for change. And giving, and that, and that is, you know, power, a change in power dynamics. So it happens, you know, it truly happens. And in some spaces more than others, it takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of work, you can be slow. And yet, it just transformation. Absolutely. Let's see. So that was deep relational work. We've talked about inner as well as outer change, cultivating space for healing, transforming power dynamics. And the fifth one that you all mentioned was serendipity and the sacred. I'm very intrigued. I'd love to hear more. So I'm happy to take this one. And I also want to pull in an example that I think really brings perhaps all of what we've been talking home. First, the serendipity and the sacred, we define it as acting and right relationship with the earth and with others while inviting a universal source, which is a lot to participate in the process. You know, somewhere on the line, someone somewhere decided that at least in the Western world, solving social spirituality and solving social and environmental problems should be separated. And, you know, I think part of my awakening in this work is really recognizing how much we've been influenced by dominant culture in terms of sort of, you know, what's appropriate or what's inappropriate. And I think this is one particular area where I think in many mainstream social environmental problem solving efforts, people are very uncomfortable to talk about spirituality. But you know, the reality is given where we are as a society, given where we are as a planet with our planet, we are not going to get to transformational change just based on, you know, what we humans can do. We have to access sort of, you know, more the universal source. Now people describe that in a lot of different ways. I think we're describing it here as love. But let me give you an example of sort of how this all, you know, ties together when we're thinking about creating more radical containers, more ways of structuring the collaborative work that we do in, for example, collective impact efforts, where we are actually trying to attain those five qualities that we've been talking about. One very powerful example, and it's a case study that we're just about to publish, is comes from Roca, which is a community-based organization that works in Boston and in Baltimore. And Roca works with high-risk youth, most of whom are formerly incarcerated and supports them in shaping positive lives. And they use the practice of peace keeping circles in their work to actually change systems. Now some may be familiar with peace keeping circles, but let me, I can explain a little bit about them. They are a practice of many indigenous peoples. Roca's particular method of running circles, they've learned back in the year 2000 from the Tagui's team that made it peoples in the Yukon territories. And circles, and there are many varieties of circles, but in this particular orientation, the intention is to establish an intimate, honest, non-hierarchical conversation that's devoid of judgment. In the circles, they're facilitated by a keeper who leads sacred rituals and supports deep conversation. And the conversation happens one at a time. There's a talking piece that's passed around the room, and only the person who holds the talking piece can speak. And Roca runs these circles with young people, and they more recently have begun running circles that include both young people, formerly incarcerated, and police as a part of the circle. And they've had some real profound transformations when the people that are in the circle, regardless of who they are, come away with just a very different perception, mental model, if you will, of the other. Police showing up on the first day in uniform and holstered weapon on the last day walking in and street clothes. I mean, just really profound change comes about so much so that this process, which I would say, having observed it, and also having participated in many circles, contains the five qualities, all five. So much so that it's actually led to police changing policy in a way that's more conducive to supporting youth versus being automatically punitive. So what we're trying to do here is draw the line from sort of container and processes that sort of go beyond the incremental structures that we have today that can support transformation that ultimately you know it's cultural change that supports structural change and ultimately better outcomes for people that we're supporting. So hopefully that will give you a little bit of a sense of how you know all of this can come together and we're seeing it come together. Yeah that it's always super helpful to have an example and that the Roku work is quite impressive and very much look forward to reading the case study that you all are putting together. So and just to reiterate for folks who might know the inverted pyramid framework from the water systems change that John co-authored and referred to earlier it's that cultural change you mentioned around shifting mental models and relationships and connections and power contributing then to the top of the pyramid if you will the policy and the practice and the resource flow change. So it's John's really helpful to hear that example also holding the inverted pyramid framework in mind that I know has also informed a lot of the work that you and Waneita are doing now. So I really love how that ties ties all of it together. So this is really giving certainly giving me a lot to think about as we do work to support folks working in collective change processes. I'm curious if there are other pieces of work of the collective change lab that either of you would like to speak to thinking about making this even more concrete or accessible to folks listening that are practicing or interested in collective impact work. Well Waneita I'm happy to jump in I know you have some thoughts as well. Waneita and I are working on one case study that's in Morocco and we're being done by the camp supported facilitated by the TAMPKIN foundation it's community foundation there and the focus is on and it was initially on community development it's now spread into education and they take a totally emergent approach it's really you know focused on sort of facilitating the process for people to do that inner work and relational work so that they can get a better recognition of what they collectively want to do and what's fascinating to me is that it's really is totally emergent they don't set goals at the beginning for what they want to do they literally let it emerge and the other dimension that I find very interesting and I think you know we as a field really need to learn from and come to terms with is they don't sort of think in terms of traditional outcomes and we can argue whether or not that's you know a good thing but what they focus on is what they call manifestations and what they're really trying to get is really stories and narratives visual and you know coming directly from people of sort of how it feels to be in the change themselves and how the community whatever the community is feels different and I think you know in this world of complex systems change that were many of us are working in there needs to be a better way to articulate how the system is changing and I just fascinated by some of the work they're doing around around that as it looks very different than you know what traditional outcomes work would look like. Very interesting another case study I can't wait to read and one detail yeah we'll expand a little bit on what John is saying you know on this idea of transformation and being verteparamate you know as you as you rightly like mentioned you know transformation occurs in that lower levels of the pyramid right on that and you know they're very different type of buckets right from like resources and structures they really from everything that we've been you know working on and communicating with others and like hoping that our eyes to different traditions you have to set aside the traditional way of thinking you know like our dominant culture ways of thinking because there are parts of the pyramid that call for different elements of our being right beyond rationality that we so much privilege and we are so you know close to to truly thinking about the heart and the spirit and that's where mental models change right like you can think different I have thought many times differently but when I feel truly different that's when my thinking truly changes right not just the in the moment but in the constant and like a lot of us could have experienced that during moments of great you know difficulty or pain or losses know the way we think changes so it's experiment experiential and so I'm you know maybe just to say you know that transformation is it's not that you have to put rationality aside or deny rationality you kind of have to put an impart with other parts of your being you know you have to elevate other parts of your being to more deeply understand the complexity that our systems have especially as we evolve as a society right like who we are needless to say we communications with the conflicts that we have at the press and like the complex complexity of all that calls for a different way of existing and thinking and feeling and that's what we're just saying let's try let's try it out you know let's try it out being just having our minds at the part with other parts of us and I think Westerners and I obviously am one of those right like I remind that I come from Colombia like I'm still am that in that kind of traditional we are not used to that right we're used to the mind you know where that's our tradition which I love like believe me I mean I went to law school then did philosophy and then specialized in outcomes managed I'm the first one who loved the brain in the mind and yet my death has happened in other moments you know in other in other moments oh that's yeah really giving giving me a lot to think about and I think I'll give folks listening to to our podcast a lot to think about so thank you for that one need to to close I just wanted to ask you both you know these are tough times we find ourself in for so many different reasons and I just love to hear what you are finding to fuel you and give you energy right now during these tough times you know I said to John when we started talking I very early through living in very war toward war war torn areas of my country is that hope is a matter of choice like you always will have reasons to have it or not to not have it and I choose hope right we're doing this work all of us here in this conversation those who are listening to us we're choosing hope you know we're not giving up and of course when you come from privilege which I do it's also moral imperative so yeah my heart is heavy often of course it is and there's moments that I'm you know exhausted in the solution and yet there's no turning back like I am here and we're moving forward and so that kind of choice of hope and the second one is as dark as the days get there's always light on our connections with each other right like in those you know those days of you know those weeks that we've been recently and yet you go outside and this the moment where somebody meets you on the street and it says like wow you don't look very good you're okay and and that exists in dark as moments and we that feels me it completely feels me this conversation today feels me working with John so obviously has been an incredible not only privilege but the light to engage in this conversations and to yeah to have an adventure of hope I guess how about you John I feel like we should close with we need a beautiful comment um well yeah I guess you know I was reading something today uh that said you know we live in a dominant culture and in some respects dominant cultures thousands of years old you know it's uh it's about power and and everything flows from that. And yet, there's a world of love out there that keeps inserting itself. And over and over again, there's a choice, there's a choice around hope and there's a choice around love. And I think love does fuel, I think there's tremendous fuel that comes from love. And for me, it's in the connections with other people. I'm an introvert. But sometimes when you hear people talking, they're more than just them talking. There's something else that's flowing through them. And I think that's the energy that we all need to harness in this. And that really is the focus of what we're talking about is not, it's obvious. It's at one level, it's very simple. It's not new. Many people live this way, the way that we're talking about in their personal lives, but when they enter the door of the not profit or a foundation, they're working in somehow, it clicks in differently. And we've got to normalize this. We've got to normalize expectations around this is, the opportunity that's in front of us to all progress together, together with equity and with justice. And so, yeah, that's what fuels me as the connections with others. - Well, John and Juanita, I want to thank you for being in conversation with us today. Any conversation that can kind of close us out with inspirations around hope and love, certainly in my book is a good one. And so, I want to thank you both and say it's been a real pleasure chatting and hope that we can talk again soon. Thank you so much. - Thank you very much. - Thank you, John. - Great. - Thank you. - And this closes out this episode of the Collective Impact Forum podcast. If you were interested in learning more about what was discussed, we've included information and the footnotes for this episode. The intro music for this episode was composed by Rafael Crooks and our outro music is composed by Kevin McLeod. And for those interested in more learning events, registration is now open for the Collective Impact Action Summit that will be held on April 27th through 29th, 2021. The action summit is our biggest learning event of the year with over 25 virtual sessions focusing on topics like narrative change, power dynamics, data and community engagement. And one big plus for being virtual is that we're recording all the sessions and sharing those recordings with attendees after. So you won't have to worry about missing a session. You'll have access to them all. Visit the event section of collectiveimpactform.org to learn more. This is Tracy Timon's Gray, associate director here at the Collective Impact Forum and your podcast host. I want to say thank you so much for listening and we look forward to connecting with you more in the next episode. Until next time, we hope you are safe and well.