Webinar Resources

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Amber Trout: Welcome, powerful people to another community science webinar. Today we’re talking about maintaining your strategy and momentum in uncertain times, and we are going to let for a couple people to trickle in as we go, because we all know Zoom has a different opinion every time you log in.

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Amber Trout: But I just want to say, I’m just so glad you’re here to join us today. A lot of you shared a lot of thoughts in advance. It was really helpful to shape what we hope to talk about. So

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Amber Trout: really, how do you align your strategic alignment?

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Amber Trout: How do you get clarity on what to focus on now, and where to grow. And then we heard about, what do you do about burnout? And this is all coming from. What do you do when the goals you set forth feel like everything’s changing. So what do I focus on right? What I thought was known is no longer known. It doesn’t feel predictable.

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Amber Trout: How do I meet the moments, but not exhaust my team and still work towards that strategy so hopefully, that sounds good. And that’s why you’ve tuned in today. And that’s really what shaped. It’s also meant to be interactive. So we do have a Q&A box. So feel free as we go. I have my colleague Michelle. That will be watching that, and we’ll keep the dialogue going.

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Amber Trout: First.st I want to say that I’m Amber Row, principal of organizational effectiveness. But I’m 1 voice of many at community science. There’s a collective way that we work together to support everyone trying to look, how do you impact change. Today we happen to be focused on what is the role of an organization when your strategy might feel like it’s misaligned? Or how do you even have a strategy when it feels unclear.

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Amber Trout: and for us we really acknowledge every organization’s living ecosystems that’s connected to people, histories, places, and you can’t do it alone in isolation. There’s different organizations and groups. And how do we center learning and creating space for reflection

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Amber Trout: to move on through? And that’s what we’re talking about today. How do we move on through?

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Amber Trout: Some of you might be here because you’re feeling like everything’s equally important, or I’m exhausted. My team’s exhausted. I feel like I’m stretched.

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Amber Trout: Or there’s these external pressures that just really makes it hard to see from what’s next.

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Amber Trout: Sometimes internal communication silos are breaking, we heard, and it just it just feels disorganized. And how do we get that traction to get through that bucket list and find a renewed approach to your strategy? Maybe a new strategy, but really feel like I’m not losing sight. That’s what we heard for you. So really, today is meant to be like a workshop and interactive. We have some offerings, and we’re just going to walk through a case. Study that sound good.

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Amber Trout: I’m assuming. Yeses. I heard lots of yeses.

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Amber Trout: So let’s imagine you’re on a journey. You have your strategy.

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Amber Trout: Add, you went out for a hike, and you you’re trying to get from Point A to BB being the purpose of your organization.

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Amber Trout: But but on that journey what happens is there’s a new community need point C, but you only have 4 gallons of water.

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Amber Trout: and if you know you go to Point C,

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Amber Trout: you won’t have enough water to go to Point B,

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Amber Trout: and the point of starting off with this story is, where’s the capacity? Right? What’s the questions you ask yourself what we’ve been saying? Kind of the missing middle of your strategy to ensure you can be adaptive to change to. How do we include

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Amber Trout: Point C on our journey to Point B.

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Amber Trout: So for me.

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Amber Trout: I go to nature to understand what’s going on in my ecosystem. A lot of things have been changing. It feels like it’s unsteady. And this is what what I can draw from nature

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Amber Trout: is when when is the ecosystem that my organization is in? And what I’m saying is your place, your region, your organizations, your state. What’s going on? Is it in a growth phase where there’s a lot of nutrients funding opportunity, willingness to partner and solution.

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Amber Trout: Are you in a place in your ecosystem where it’s in conservation mode, right? That could be tricky. Conservation could mean there’s stability. There’s strong relationships. There’s agreements. There’s how do we work together?

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Amber Trout: But conservation can also mean, how do you just hold on and let’s just see this out.

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Amber Trout: And then that conservation could then go into the waiting out waiting out that there’s a release in the system, right? Everything that you’ve plugged into changes. And so in nature it looks like a collapse.

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Amber Trout: What does a collapse mean for nature? There’s not enough redundancy to make that stability stay in place. And for us here it’s saying we’re stretched so thin that one more drop in the bucket. One more task, one more shake to the system that your organization could feel like. It could feel like it’s collapsing on itself. But that release of energy

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Amber Trout: offers

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Amber Trout: a new way to reorganize and rethink. And that’s that step back. So that’s what we’re offering here for. This exercise is what’s that step back right? It’s not in the growth phase we’ve been, either, you know, a strong stability or we’re trying to wait it out. But finally, we’re in this step back where we have to try something new. But how do we get there?

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Amber Trout: So the navigation tool I reach for is really what’s my 3 horizon story? If I’m trying to step back, and I can’t see through the 1st horizon of what I need to do immediately, like I’m trying to see you all right. Now.

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Amber Trout: how can we use a way to think through how to get to point A to B with a new C,

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Amber Trout: so I want to feed my family. So if my long term outcome is, I want to feed my family, and I’m going to grow a garden because the cost of food’s gone up. My immediate.

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Amber Trout: which is horizon one on the right hand, side, left hand side is, I’m going to buy seeds, so you buy seeds. You even build your bed. So you’re ready to go. These seeds are going to feed my family, because that’s that’s the goal I want. My ultimate outcome is to feed the family.

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Amber Trout: and what I find is the seeds get picked off from the birds, or they’re not blossoming because there wasn’t enough rain. And so now there’s this unexpected approach to how do I get to feed my family food? Because I was depending on one mode to get there?

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Amber Trout: And so for us it’s how do we figure out Horizon 2. To have multiple paths to get to feeding your family? Now I know this is a simple breakdown, but the purpose of the webinar is. Let’s keep this simple. So then, when we try it on with our organizations or example organizations, we could get more detailed.

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Amber Trout: So we’re going to start with an archetype. This might sound like a familiar story, but here we have an organization. We could do it all with enough grit.

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Amber Trout: and what we know is enough. Grit and passion doesn’t always get from from A to B, and so here their original strategy was, how do we move a collective group of internal and external stakeholders to move equity and justice within their organizations. So it makes a bigger movement of change in the State.

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Amber Trout: and they’re going to do that by focusing on influencing, encouraging people, providing best resources, and making sure that there’s different structures at the org, the regional and the state level, thinking about moving.

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Amber Trout: Now, the the budget’s about 5 million. And there’s 6 people in this organization, and their main source is membership.

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Amber Trout: So this is important when thinking this is before their system went through the collapse and the releasing of new energy. And they’re trying to reorganize. But they’re not there yet. So what could this look like?

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Amber Trout: So if their ultimate goal they’re trying to get to is that community members are treated with dignity and have rights and opportunities to access the resources to live their healthiest lives.

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Amber Trout: knowing that not one organization could do it themselves. So they know it’s important. How do we build that collective? We.

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Amber Trout: And the strategy is about the collective, we. But there’s a new ecosystem out there. And so they start responding.

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Amber Trout: And so this organization of 6 people start adding new trainings to speak to every possible audience that might be interested in equity and inclusion.

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Amber Trout: And then they’re focusing on creating new resources for organizations that might be new to equity work in general.

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Amber Trout: and then they add a policy agenda.

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Amber Trout: So what does that middle strategy look like? So if that’s the what you’re thinking about every day again. That’s what’s in front of you. And you’re trying to get around to how to get to my long term impact. It might look like

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Amber Trout: their middle horizon is focusing on trainings aimed at changing hearts and minds with folks that may not be invested in equity yet or at all. It’s unclear adding strategies and shifting all of their staff support to focus on developing these new trainings and these new strategies.

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Amber Trout: And then

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Amber Trout: on top of developing new strategy, changing hearts and minds. They’ve added a work group to consider. How could they have a policy agenda?

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Amber Trout: So the question I put to the group is, does that help with that shift in focus to? There’s different people in the ecosystem. Does that get to the collective group of organizations?

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Amber Trout: Or how might they have added a new destination that may not lead to those stepping stones and feed those that are the organizations that are consistently doing the equity work to keep convening.

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Amber Trout: I’m gonna pause for a second. Look at these chats.

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Amber Trout: So if this sounds familiar to you, go ahead and put it in the chat. Even if it’s not a question you could say, Yeah, this sounds. This makes sense to me. This is this is what I might be experiencing.

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Amber Trout: So then, what’s our traction points? How do we get out of this?

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Amber Trout: Some of our offerings we have here that that I like to go to is how to how to get out of. But we have to do it all.

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Amber Trout: And we have these traction point questions, and there’s different ways to enter it.

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Amber Trout: How could we do it all? We’ll pause. What’s the function of your org? What can only you do to advance equity and inclusion?

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Amber Trout: So that’s that 1st question and just know we’ll have a follow up to this webinar. So I know there’s a lot a lot of words on this slide which is a lot to take in. But it’s more understanding. How can this change our same outcome? But having a different different approach to get there?

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Amber Trout: The next one is okay, if it’s only us. This is this, our organization is the best to convene, like mind organizations, to start shifting change not only within their organizations, but in different spaces and places to center equity.

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Amber Trout: Where are we going to focus our efforts? There’s 6 of us. So what is the type of meaningful change that this organization might want to see. And what are the outcomes to know that there’s a collective we of the organizations working towards change at their individual org. And at the more regional and network level. Or

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Amber Trout: you could think about, should we? What critical relationships should we focus on? Because you can’t know everyone if you try to touch everyone, is that your role? There’s other orgs in the ecosystem you exist in. So that’s really critical. To understand. Is this our role and who who are the critical relationships for us to work with and to guide and work together?

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Amber Trout: Or it could be. How do we want to show up in these spaces. Right? And so the idea is, you’re getting a boundary to understand. And this is important because we’re going to click towards the end where a lot of you asked about Staff Burnout. This is the traction point to start getting clear in what we’re doing. So then we could say what’s possible. So hang in with me.

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Amber Trout: So then, once we know, where are we going to focus our efforts is, what is the supports we offer within those efforts. So we’re constantly getting more clear and clear. So going from passion that everyone needs to be treated with dignity to how, when, and who

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Amber Trout: and so who are we offering these to? What’s our method? How do we know that what we’re offering is valuable to these different networks and organizations that want to be part of this collective way that we’re building in our region.

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Amber Trout: And then, finally, the management system.

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Amber Trout: When I say competitive advantage, I know that could sound a little corporatey. But what makes you again back to your strategic function? What about how you offer?

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Amber Trout: Convening people bringing folks together is helpful to the bigger goal of the region or an organization? And what structures and systems do you need in place internally as that organization that wants to convene people? Do you have those structures. What are the norms?

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Amber Trout: So these are the traction questions to kind of pull you forward when the when the fatigue and the exhaustion of constantly meeting. The moment keeps over hitting you and hitting you, and you’re responding right? And those responses could turn into kind of a

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Amber Trout: problem paradox where you’re following that ripple of the unintentioned consequences, and as you follow, follow the ripples, you forget to see what’s the stone that caused the ripples in the 1st place, and that’s how we’ve seen some organizations get stuck in the 1st horizon, I mean, hey? Guilty here myself at community science like, how do we know when we’re chasing the ripples versus getting to that root cause and patterns

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Amber Trout: changing those. So then, what does it look like for our scrappy, gritty, nonprofit organization. We’ve used our traction questions.

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Amber Trout: And so it’s still the same focus, right? The same vision, dignity, trust and have access to get the services you need.

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Amber Trout: Knowing no one organization could do it. But now, after using our traction questions, what they want to be in this moment, what only their org could do is, be a trusted advisor

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Amber Trout: to help organizations, address inequities, and then, particularly in communities, color and low income.

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Amber Trout: So you said what your role is, how you’re going to do it.

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Amber Trout: and who? Who is your focus? This is your audience.

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Amber Trout: And now they’re that missing middle horizon, then is.

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Amber Trout: how do they’re going to focus on convening regional stakeholders to focus on data ecosystems right to help understand? Where are there inequities when it seems like there’s not data available? How could we have a regional ecosystem.

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Amber Trout: How do we advise and provide practice and implementation guides for maybe organizations that are new or wanting to figure out how to work together.

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Amber Trout: And then where are we connecting and inviting people and expanding and bridging?

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Amber Trout: So the idea is, there’s a balance to your middle part of your strategy where you’re still anchored in your long-term goal of convening the like-minded organizations keep going, have different practices and ways of communicating to make change in the organizations and the region.

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Amber Trout: And you’ve added one tactic about one new strategy about inviting new people in. So you’re responsive. And you’ve reorganized to your new ecosystem knowing, hey? We need to find and invite other players into the collectively with us. But it’s not your only focus.

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Amber Trout: because your org was built for convening and getting like mind people to change and shift networks and change. And what’s that 1st step? What could you hold?

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Amber Trout: And who is holding the other part of that.

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Amber Trout: So that’s just an example on how to right size your organization. I know we’re trying to keep it simple for the for the purposes of this webinar. But the idea is, how am I working in the current

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Amber Trout: context that I have my current strategies at the same time building new ways and testing out how to work together, because the alignment across all of these horizons or horizon story really is about, how do you think about them all at the same time.

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Amber Trout: and so the immediate horizon you might be thinking about more frequently, and the long term horizon you’re checking in. But really you got to make sure that, are we building those stepping stones? And when you feel oh, our stepping stone stopped, we can’t find them anymore.

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Amber Trout: Stop! Find your traction questions and pull through.

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Amber Trout: just pausing to see. I think I saw.

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Amber Trout: So then what kind of mindset is helpful in these? And so when you’re stepping back in this reorg phase. Right? It’s a new context, things that in systems that were once known still unknown. So it’s an opportunity to find new strengths. But at the same time build upon existing. And so there’s this, that’s the intentionality and focus when we say alignment across. And so there’s these mindsets. So when you step back and think about your team?

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Amber Trout: Who are your managers.

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Amber Trout: who are? Who are your visionaries, and who are your entrepreneurs, and really think about that with when you’re thinking about your team

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Amber Trout: managers help keep what you’re currently doing. And they’re amazing at that. They keep it going. And they keep linking to what that vision is, visionaries are constantly imagining what’s possible.

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Amber Trout: And it’s your entrepreneurs. It’s that one person’s like, how might we? What if that’s just trying to disrupt a different pattern, and that brings that level of curiosity. So you really need all mindsets

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Amber Trout: when you’re trying to manage to horizon 2, and that can feel like

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Amber Trout: at times it could feel pathless.

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Amber Trout: But it’s really, how do you get better at having that adaptive literacy of choosing? There’s not going to be the perfect data or the perfect moment. But how do you make a choice?

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Amber Trout: And whose role can that be? Maybe it’s not the manager or the visionaries who has that entrepreneurial mind. But that also means there’s going to be a lot of fake. False starts. You’re going to try something. It didn’t work. Keep going. Try it again. Try something new. You still have your current strategies going, but you’re finding traction of different ways to do it.

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Amber Trout: And the reason why we mentioned the false starts is because you’re being mindful like I mentioned earlier of you don’t want to proliferate problem paradox where at that 1st horizon you’re like. But there’s so much to address, there’s so much need. That’s right, there is, and make sure. How are we making sure that we’re addressing the stone that’s being dropped in the water and not following all the ripples because you could get stuck on that 1st horizon. I see some things happening in the

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Amber Trout: in the chat.

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Amber Trout: What is the process for revisiting horizon? 2 that’s a great question. So

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Amber Trout: for us, let me go back for that question. That’s awesome. And so glad you submitted. It is really thinking about

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Amber Trout: the traction. So the process is, when are opportunities to 1st bring up these questions and so ideal state you’re at a table, and you’re thinking about it all the time. But there’s for me, I mean, I’ve noticed sometimes in organizations. Is someone asking the question for pause and reflect.

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Amber Trout: and then through that conversation, finding opportunities to say, What could we do right now to get out of the buckets? And so I think when we go to the next slide about some head and heart decisions that will get to it. But if that doesn’t answer your horizon to question of the process. Let me know. Put it back in the chat, and then we’ll we’ll make sure that we’re answering that question, so I just love. Keep it coming. Y’all

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Amber Trout: now you gotta bear with me. Click it through these slides.

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Amber Trout: So back to her rights. And so the missing middle, too. So let’s imagine that you’ve been able to ask some of these traction questions and understand, what do we keep? What do we try? New? Because there’s a new context? There’s new players in my ecosystem. The weather has changed.

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Amber Trout: At the same time you still have this. Our example organization still has 6 staff members, so, although they’re gritty, and willing to to put in the work at what cost. And so the pause and pull back

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Amber Trout: with revisiting your strategy is the head and heart heart hurt decisions of saying.

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Amber Trout: do we have the capacity to spread ourselves thinner to meet the additional need of the community without compromising our core mission right. And so for a gritty organization do they have the means to tend to new friends, stakeholders, and people that are new to equity, to walk with them while still keeping the core mission of moving that collective network of people to address on to address an issue? Can 6 people hold that?

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Amber Trout: Could 6 people make curriculum and hold convenings for 2 different audiences on a on a budget that’s less than 5 million dollars.

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Amber Trout: And so at times, even this question feels so big. So how do you? How do you make this like a chompable question to start the conversation?

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Amber Trout: And so.

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Amber Trout: as you’re thinking about your new strategies. You’re like, okay, I hear you the missing middle. Here’s new ways of how we’re going to reach our impact. Here’s what we’re going to keep doing.

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Amber Trout: But what could we do right now? Given our budget and people, what could we do next? And what could we do if we can get to it? And that 3rd category of if we get to it is important because you may not need to, because you’ve done the now and the next meaning you’ve got to the stone that was dropped in the water, and so that final ripple you may not be a problem that you have to address, because it’s been resolved with your middle horizon

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Amber Trout: being that that pathway to your ultimate outcome. So for our gritty org, you could think about what roles need to be in place behaviors, interactions, collaboration. If we are to invite more people and hold different audiences as a convener.

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Amber Trout: So some of the roles could be a problem solver, someone that’s interrogated. So you’re getting clarity on roles. So someone who mentioned like, How do you? How do you start the process of horizon? 2. This could be your entry point as well as figuring out. Wait a minute. What’s our different roles as we’re addressing all the different community needs, and what we set out to do as an organization. And you say, my role is problem solver.

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Amber Trout: What is what is your role? And someone might say, Hey, my role. I see it as the cross organizational relationships and cultures. We’re making sure our internal communications going. And someone’s like great. My role is the network and relations. How do we bridge within those that we’re already working with and welcoming others in?

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Amber Trout: So you’re getting clarity? And then asking, Can we do this? Is there a role missing? Or can we do all these roles right now?

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Amber Trout: So then, it’s thinking about what structures need to be in place. If we do add new audiences? Do we have the infrastructure to have ta and one-on-one coaching, perhaps right or phone calls to talk with that person? Do we have the trainers that know how to work with that audience or that new organization to new, to equity? Do we have those resources? And that is that where we want to spend them.

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Amber Trout: So this could look like, okay, we need some internal operation processes for engaging our core network of people.

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Amber Trout: How do we internally have agreement how to support those networks.

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Amber Trout: And do we need partnerships with other offices, or maybe different stakeholders or subcontractors to help with this legal and it cause there’s diff. It’s a different ecosystem out there. There’s different rules, and we don’t have the capacity to be translating them. But maybe a better way to use our resources to make sure we have legal and it resources

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Amber Trout: and maybe not take on the new audiences. So again, you’re strategizing and getting intentionality of what you do, how you do it? And do you have the capacities to do it? Well, and really, sitting with that, you’re doing no harm.

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Amber Trout: And then what are the external forces, and you know those. But it’s it’s understanding. Okay with the constraining budget, the changes in the funding landscape and the sentiment in the region where which audience needs the most attention and resources. Is it about keeping the network to keep going? Keep your focus on equity? We got you. We could do this?

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Amber Trout: Or is it about bringing in new stakeholders? It could be both. But remember, there’s 6 of you.

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Amber Trout: So what can only your organization do? And maybe there’s another organization in your ecosystem that holds that other part of the equation. And that’s what’s exciting in a future webinar that we’ll have a colleague, Jasmine Williams, Washington, talk to y’all about who else do I work with to achieve our mission?

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Amber Trout: Let me click right here.

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Amber Trout: Awesome.

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Amber Trout: so we have a question of how do we adjust? How do we know we’re getting at that root, that rock? And in one of our guides that we have online? So we’ll make sure that’s part of the follow ups is really understanding. Am I getting at the symptoms? So if you imagine a tree, the leaves are green, and it’s connected to this trunk that goes deep roots in the ground, and the soil is changing as the ecosystems changing. But if you keep making a strategy for green leaves. But then the season changes.

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Amber Trout: Now the leaves are yellow. That’s not. How often can you tend to the seasons of change of the leaves when it’s really the roots and the tree trunk that’s talking to the soil and then making the change. So it’s really about, how do I know, I’m getting to the roots of the issue. That’s informing what I’m experiencing. So it’s like.

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Amber Trout: hopefully, that helps. But we’ll have a follow up on that. That’s really great. Great question.

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Amber Trout: Let me pause. There’s been a lot of talking with y’all, and hopefully you’re ready for the rolling, rolling up of your sleeves, and like, how do we get in there to figure out our missing horizon? Is there any other questions that you all are curious about, or that we can answer.

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Amber Trout: hmm! There’s a good one about here. It is.

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Amber Trout: How do I work with leadership that creates the crisis mindset. And so what we have found helpful is really, what’s that 1st stepping stone into horizon? 2. So if you’re not

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Amber Trout: in that, in the in the position to make organizational level decisions, you’re not in the leadership team. What you can offer is, how do we?

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Amber Trout: How might we take that 1st step? Because often in the crisis mode you’re thinking about right now, and the brain gets frozen or foggy. It’s hard to see what’s next when you have an overwhelmed mind, and sometimes your role might be, what’s the 1st step, and then articulating it clearly. So then, that helps either your leader or your team. Take the 1st step forward and you’re saying, hey, look at me! Here’s the next step.

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Amber Trout: And so then, as you take one step at a time, it then becomes.

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Amber Trout: how are we able to look at the different ways of being together.

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Amber Trout: But oftentimes it’s just naming it like, Hey.

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Amber Trout: what’s the 1st step we could take?

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Amber Trout: So another question that we got was, how do you find balance in the burnout of the solutions?

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Amber Trout: So we’re hoping is with the burnout, and a lot of you asked about burnout is by being clear on how you’re implementing your strategy. So you’ve noticed that there’s drift or you have a bucket list. You’ve done your traction questions to regroup to the new new ecosystem. You’re existing in

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Amber Trout: the head and heart hurt questions that it’s really it hurts to make these decisions. At the same time those boundaries understand what’s possible for your team? Because if you’re pushing your team to the limits, then you can’t meet with the community. So the idea of saying, what could we do now with the capacities we have? And do we have the right structures to? The new strategy is one way to address the exhaustion. Structurally, as you’re laying on new relationships, how to talk about it.

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Amber Trout: Hmm!

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Amber Trout: Someone brought in. I think it’s about that routine reflection on like building the muscle on strategic alignment. That’s right. And for us we call it continuous learning. But what’s that learning culture? Again, that’s really important in these chaotic states? Because it’s how do we understand what’s going on? And it’s not that the chaos goes to simple, but at least goes to complex, because with complex, you can start finding pieces

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Amber Trout: of the to take on, and then that complex becomes simple or maybe automated. So then some parts of the decision is routine, so your mind can take on the next chaotic or complex

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Amber Trout: issue on the horizon. So it’s trying to tend to yourself individually on how much can a person or team think about. And then the more you can understand and routinize like, okay, these decisions, we know, this matches the moment here, what’s next? How do we think about the next chaos to bring it down to complicated to bring it down to Simple

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Amber Trout: and Michelle another colleague of ours will be offering a webinar. Okay, if I have my 3 horizons, what am I measuring? So we can learn what’s working and what’s not quickly. So then you’re constantly revisiting your missing middle, which is hopefully not your missing middle, but it’s iterating and finding those new pathways to

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Amber Trout: to your ultimate outcome.

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Amber Trout: What else? Folks

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Amber Trout: awesome.

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Amber Trout: So we’re really excited that you joined us. And this is just the beginning of how do you think about your strategy in these uncertain times, and really what we are hoping to offer here today is that missing middle? So you don’t have hollow strategies of bucket lists and grit, and forget to have extra water on your journey to your extra community needs that it’s in service to getting to that ultimate outcome.

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Amber Trout: And one way to do that is really thinking about. What are we strong at? What is our role in our ecosystem of people and funding that we do well? And then how do we line up our staffing systems and practices. Again, that reloop and revisiting is really critical, not only to make sure the strategies align to where you want to go with the new context. But your team is part of that vision and not left behind or exhausted.

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Amber Trout: and some of the ways to think about that kind of try it on as you think about what’s my 3 horizon story, or what’s my, what’s how am I going to get there? And why do I want to get there

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Amber Trout: is, how do I think about all those 3 horizons? At the same time? It’s just saying, Okay, what’s the most pressing issue? And how can my organization address. That is it our role to address? And that’s really the hardest question to answer so hopefully with those traction probes that helps you answer that question. So you’re making sure that you’re mobilizing your resources effectively. That makes sense for you, your people, and what you have in front of you at this ecosystem what you can change.

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Amber Trout: So then you’re minimizing your reactionary decision making again, that’s that problem paradox where you’re following the unintended consequences that you’re stuck in that 1st horizon of what’s without looking at who’s dropping the stone?

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Amber Trout: Because that’s the game. The system is infusing chaos. The oppressive system wants us to stay on the what’s wants us to find different paths, but never get to the horizon that are that we want to see or live out with other people. And so it’s saying, yes, and I’m going to meet the moment and find my traction points to keep persisting and going through to find new ways to reach that goal.

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Amber Trout: So that’s sometimes leveraging your existing strengths. Maybe that entrepreneurial mindset

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Amber Trout: or creating new ones and saying Yes, it makes sense to add a new way of being or a new audience for our gritty org example, to

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Amber Trout: create new curriculum for that audience, to move through and join that collectively.

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Amber Trout: and again, that maintaining momentum is not only about being curious and having that entrepreneurial mindset, it really is about not overextending yourself. And for me, I think that’s the hardest one. Because again, that’s that head, heart work. But trusting you’re part of an ecosystem, and someone else is going to hold that piece, and if not working with the system, to figure out who

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Amber Trout: and then really that lens of feedback? How do you keep redefining? Because really, horizon 2 is your longest one, and I have a colleague that says sometimes it feels like it’s the most annoying one, because, right as you’re starting a new way of being, it feels like a false start. But it’s not. It’s really a part of horizon, one where you’re figuring out. What do we focus on? But as you keep trying and finding where you’ll focus. That momentum will shift.

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Amber Trout: and you find out what are the right strategies for you with those traction probes to get to that impact you want. And hopefully, that horizon. 3 of feeding the family that we initially started with becomes your 1st horizon. And you have something new. So the idea really is cyclic, which is why we draw upon nature.

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Amber Trout: Let’s see, just checking one more time to see if there’s a question.

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Amber Trout: Oh.

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Amber Trout: awesome!

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Amber Trout: So we had a lot of questions about the ripple and finding that root cause. And so we’ll make sure

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Amber Trout: that that’s part of our follow up. But what we really want to know is, what else is helpful. What else could we be talking? What’s feedback on this webinar? What’s next? What would be helpful to in this moment that we can offer offer out into the world. And one for us is

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Amber Trout: that we’re going to have a couple other webinars that are focused on. How do you build that organizational capacity to change.

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Amber Trout: to navigate the change, to strengthen your ecosystem? Knowing you need to have impact across? What am I doing right now? What am I doing next to build to your ultimate horizon? And that will be Jasmine Williams, Washington, and then Michelle Haynes Bratz will be offering a webinar. Okay, but how do I measure? What matters? There’s a lot of things I can be measuring and amber. You just told me there’s 3 horizons I have to be paying attention to. That’s just too much data.

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Amber Trout: Well, Michelle will help us figure out. Well, what do I measure in horizon, one that might have a different rate of change compared to my middle horizon, where I’m iterating a lot, and that ultimate horizon that might need more time to happen. And so you’re not measuring as fast. But what’s the essential measurements, and not to be overwhelmed? What do I look to see through, and what we all like to say is, how do we move through?

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Amber Trout: So I just want to say, Thank you for your time. Let’s keep the conversation going. Let’s do some good work together. Let’s talk and support each other. But I could be reached at Ambertrout, at communityscience.com, and we hope to see you on our next organizational effectiveness. Webinar series. So take care, be well, and talk soon