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Three Resolutions for Capacity Building
By Michael C. Gilbert, January 4th, 2007
One of the great pleasures of my work is getting to talk to people about their aspirations. Whether they are personal or organizational, short term or long term, grand or modest, these aspirations reflect the great virtues of our sector: People want to make a difference and they want to invest in their capacity to do so effectively. Recently, the aspirations that I've explored with people fall neatly into four categories, captured here as three questions that I invite you to ask yourself.
Are You Pursuing Your Life's Work?
Work isn't necessarily what you get paid for. Although a paycheck is a great way to make your efforts sustainable, Work is what you do in the world, what you make, what you labor at, what you leave behind. Or, as Kahlil Giban said:
"Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy."
What if 2007 were your last year on this this Earth? What work would you continue and what work would you put aside? In the time that remains, what will do the most lasting good? In the time that remains, is there a balance in your life that you seek?
Because our economy is cruel, by most people's standards, many of my readers are already engaged in very meaningful work. But the pursuit of one's life Work is an ongoing process and each opening to meaningful work invites new questions. We discover where the Work suits our heart and our strengths and where it doesn't. We are always on this quest, though most of us -- if we asked ourselves and answered honestly -- would say that we move a little too slowly through our lessons.
What lesson has been hanging over your head in your work, that you may have refused to learn? If you do social service work, is it time for you to look at what social change may be required to reduce the need you're currently filling? Or if you are doing policy work, is it time for you to ground yourself with day to day service?
Have you reconciled the means and ends of your work? It's a great challenge to live the life that we wish to bring about for others in the world. What sort of harm are you doing, especially to yourself, in the process of doing good work?
Do You Have a Book You Ought to Write?
I believe that we all have a great work within us. Such work often takes shape in the teaching we leave behind, and for some people this takes tangible form. Do you have such a work in you? Maybe it's a story that's waited all your life to be told and you're the one to tell it. Maybe it's an insight that you've returned to again and again, a lesson of the ages that is worth sharing in your words so that a new generation can hear it. Maybe it's a tale of beauty. Maybe it's a manifesto.
Is there some large project on which you aren't making much progress? What is taking up the time that might otherwise go toward that work? What would it look like to finish it? What would it look like to work on it every day?
Are You Bringing Out the Best in People?
The final question takes the first two and extends them out to the people around us, those we work with every day and those we work for, but never see. All of us are embedded in networks of vast untapped potential. Material changes in the world - the ever increasing richness of our communication systems - are inexorably making this potential known to us. But most of us - and most of our organizations - have not begun to touch it.
Touching it starts with a simple question: Are you listening? Genuine listening is the first step toward unleashing the silenced voices of the people around us. Everyone - staff, clients, donors, volunteers, bureaucrats - has untapped passion and energy that can be touched by the simple act of listening. Are there ways in which you personally could extend your practice of listening? More importantly, are there things you could do to help your organization listen better?
Once you are listening, you then have another challenge on your hands: Once people have awakened that energy, how can it be channeled to the greatest good? How do we get out of their way? How do we leverage our relationships so that everyone is empowered by people finding their voice?
Does your infrastructure reinforce healthy relationships? Does it empower people? Does it help them connect with others who share their passions? Does it help them find their own life's work?
I've chosen to ask these questions because they are the questions I ask of myself. As you can probably tell, I live and breath these questions every day, in my work. I've learned a few things about how to ask the questions, which is why we offer the programs we do at The Gilbert Center. But I am still as slow as any human being in answering them. With the knowledge that we are all on this path together, I wish you a happy new year. May it be rich with insight and action. May it be worth living for.
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