A Funding Challenge

One of the people I coach is a funder, let's call him Carl. From time to time Carl comes to me with specific dilemmas that he encounters in dealing with people - both those he funds and those who are in positions of influence surrounding the funding itself. I am learning a lot from these exchanges about how power and leadership work, and I am also delighted by Carl's capacity to integrate the deep tools of collaboration into the work he does as a funder.

Recently, I was telling him about this approach, the invitation into a dilemma, and we discussed how this would apply in the grant-making world that he inhabits. I was thrilled to hear of an example where he intuitively applied this path.

An innovator approached Carl with a request for funding for a new project. Carl was impressed with the ideas and told them he was favorably inclined to offer them the grant and would get back to them soon to work out more specifics. In a conversation with a colleague of his, he casually mentioned this project, and was astonished to receive a strong admonition not to fund their project. His colleague, so Carl told me, said that while the ideas were great, the innovator didn't have any plan of action, and any money given to him would be thrown away.

Carl then told me that he instantly saw how much he has grown since embracing the principles of collaboration. In the past, what he would have done in a moment like this would have been to back out of his semi-commitment to the innovator, a practice that at some points in the past ruffled many feathers around him. Now, he chose, instead, to approach the innovator with full transparency and, as in the other examples, invite him into the dilemma. He explained to him his concerns and what he had heard about their project, and invited a brainstorming to see what they could do together.

Despite his growing satisfaction with the results of collaboration, he was surprised to see the outcome. The innovator, after an initial disappointment, became much more forthcoming about the struggles he was having. Instead of a large grant for a project that was not yet formed sufficiently, they both saw an immediate next step - a much smaller grant coupled with a referral to a consultant who would help in formulating a clear plan for the project. Carl and the innovator both saw how much more benefit this would bring to everyone, including the future beneficiaries from theinnovation itself.

These are three examples of what can happen when we work with people to address complex, seemingly intractable issues around which we tend to act in isolation. Our times are such that these capacities are essential. I believe the stakes are high, and constantly getting higher. The future of our species depends on this kind of active interdependence. If we don't align our practices with the reality of how interdependent we are, the level of alienation we live in, combined with our rates of consumption, will continue to exacerbate the stress on all of our life support systems. We really are all in this together. Let's act on that clarity.

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Date: 2014-12-29; view: 700