Book review - Everyone Leads

With a title like Everyone Leads, this book caught our attention. A book claiming to inspire readers to see new leadership possibilities within themselves and their communities.. is definitely up our alley! 

The book's conversational tone makes it seem as if you are chatting with author Paul Schmitz. The first chunk tells the story of his innovative and  grass roots organization called Public Allies. It is, in fact, the organization that Michelle Obama worked in early in her career.  Still going strong across the United States (website), Public Allies identifies talented young adults from diverse and under-represented backgrounds who have a passion to make a difference, and helps them turn that passion into a viable career path.

The book, outlines the five core leadership values of this organization; 

1. Recognizing and mobilizing ALL of a community's assets
2. Connecting across cultures
3. Facilitating collaborative action
4. Continuously learning and improving
5. Being accountable to ourselves and others.

These are values that resonate with our work. In fact, much of the language and the "how-to" strategies run parallel with Raising the Village - relationships, leadership and strengths. Given our work with community collaboratives, we took a closer look at the chapter on facilitating collaborative action. Here are some of our favourite passages.

"Building teams is about building trust. 

Exercises and processes can help prevent common pitfalls..."

 "Leadership is inherently a collaborative process. 

Leaders inspire, persuade, and engage others to work with them on common goals." 

"Self awareness and interpersonal collaboration also extend to the formal and informal organizations that constitute communities."

"Being collaborative is a commitment."

The book offers an exercise that helps to identify and acknowledge strengths. Each individual writes the answer to the following questions and shares with a partner. We challenge you to answer them!

• What two gifts, talents or skills make you a valuable family member and friend?
• What two skills make you especially good at your paid or volunteer work?
• What talent do you have that not many people know about?
• What are your 2 or 3 favourite hobbies?

Let's take it farther!!  Here is a fun way to match your strengths and natural gifts to your role as leader and community builder.  Try our self-assessment quiz: What is Your Group Leadership Style. Are you a mover & shaker? a clarity seeker? a strengths creator? or (yikes) a group process killer?!

Embrace your strengths and offer up your gifts as everyone leads! 

Brain-based Engagement Strategies - a List

After a year of offering our Collaboration: Authentic Engagement Workshop, we have compiled a list of brain-based engagement strategies from the amazing and diverse workshop participants whose wisdom, experience, innovative thinking and new insights filled flip chart pages with practical engagement ideas.

The ideas are organized by the four key community building strategies that we outline in our book, Raising the Village;

1.  Unearthing - Are you looking at finding a deeper understanding of community?

2. Building Relationships - Are you looking at strengthening relationships or building new partnerships?

3.  Framing Leadership - Are you looking at enhancing and sharing the leadership required to work together?

4.  Constructing Collective Relevance - Are you seeking that "feeling" of collective relevance...the "us"?

The ideas are further sorted according to the 5 domains of human interaction using a brain-based engagement lens. We have learned about these domains over the last five blogs; status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness.

Enjoy! Download this handout of engagement ideas here. (under the leader Development section). We hope it is useful!


Upon reflection, our last six blogs have been a reminder to examine how we engage you - blog-readers interested in building stronger communities. Our mission at Raising the Village is to support, inspire and engage individuals, organizations and communities in their efforts to collaborate. So taking direction from our own handout...

We welcome your input, comments, posts and questions in all of our online communities - blog, Facebook and Twitter. Tell us what engages you about building community - and what you are interested in learning more about.

We are continually seeking new ways to support community building efforts (in your families, in your workplaces and in your communities). Check out our website Resource page for a great selection of information on community development, leader development, the early years and group activities.

Our new book will be available soon! It is full of engaging activities for group leaders. The book (also available as 2 ebooks) shares 50 group activities that guides groups to gather information, make meaning from data, generate innovative action ideas and make decisions for action. For our growing Raising the Village communities we want to offer a pre-order discount. If you are not already receiving our seasonal newsletter, sign up here - we'll be sending out the discount soon.

Fairness: Collaborating Without a Pit In Your Stomach

Check out these Fairness scenarios...

Among Children: “He has more chocolate milk than me” or “She gets to stay up later than me”

Among Coworkers: “We do the exact same job but I get paid way less”

In life: A store teller directs, “Can I help the next person in line please.” The two people behind you wheel their buggies to the front of the new line even though you are the next person in line.

In collaboration: “There will be a closed meeting tonight for our budget sub group.” A steering committee meets to discuss funding cuts. You are not sure what the implications are for your program this coming year and have not been asked to give recommendations.

Do you have a pit in your belly? Hands feeling tied? Bad taste in the mouth?

If so, these are all natural responses when faced with Fairness situations. These last scenarios showcase the F (Fairness) from the SCARF domains. In our Raising the Village workshop we’ve found that this domain can elicit a very strong THREAT or disengaged reaction from people (depending on the severity of the scenario).

Why does our brain strive for fairness?

 It often comes down to a perceived sense of injustice or justice. Unfair exchanges can activate the insular, a part of the brain involved in intense emotions such as disgust. This particular trigger is very sensitive to perception AND past experience. When we feel this unfairness our empathy abilities go way down.

What to do? How can we increase fairness?

•           Volunteer your services to causes that you feel increase justice and fairness in the world
•           Increase transparency with direct communication (who is impacted by your work? who might want to know about how this work unfolded? TELL THEM!).
•           Share details about internal processes (such as financial records, decision making methods, hiring practices, etc.)
•           Establish clear ground rules/guidelines/objectives in everything from one hour meetings to yearlong projects
•           Discuss shared workloads and base the work on strengths (what does the work look like? how will it be evaluated?)
•           Ask questions if you need clarification on expectations in your relationships. Don’t wait for someone else to always fill you in on the process.
•           Acknowledge your “fairness” buttons and let them be the catalyst to speak up for what is important. AND to be curious about what other people see as fair.

Village Raising Questions

 When do you feel that pit in your stomach?

What does this mean in your engagement with others?

Relatedness: More than Shaking Hands

You are mingling at a work related social luncheon where you vaguely know one other person. The MC begins an icebreaker activity that involves shaking multiple hands and introducing yourself as an animal.

So... are you suddenly covered in sweat, ready to break for the door or ruffling your feathers like a Turkey and ready to roam the room?

This type of scenario showcases the R in SCARF, the relatedness you feel or don’t feel when engaging with others.  (For more on SCARF see our Brain Engagement blog).

People are different in their reactions. Whether you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert may influence whether you jump full in or hold back and observe. Relatedness also involves your perception as to whether you are ‘in’ or ‘out’ of a social group. People naturally like to form ‘tribes’ or cliques where they experience a sense of belonging, however they want to do so at their own pace and in a way that fosters SAFE connections.

How can one foster safe connection and increase relatedness among groups?

•  Form work teams and ask each person what strength they can bring to the group.
• Share personal stories and information OVER TIME. Personalized introductions or energizers often work (but maybe don’t bring out the “introduction as an animal” one right away).   
• Incorporate small group or dyad/triad work to encourage safe sharing.
• Introduce mentoring and coaching opportunities among team players.

It’s not about increasing the number of social connections (or hands you shake) necessarily, but more about increasing the number of SAFE connections to increase productivity and positive relatedness responses.