ORGANIZING NOTES
(2000)
Relationships
(#5)
We have looked at the setting within which organizing unfolds -- the power relations among actors. We have looked at how leaders can alter power relations by bringing people together to act on their common interests. We do this by weaving three threads together to form new organizations: relationships, understanding, and action. This week we look at relationships.
What Are Relationships?
The most common way to look at relationships is as exchanges illustrated in Relationship Chart #1. Blau argues each of us has certain interests and resources we may exchange for the interests and resources of others. But a relationship is more than an exchange. A relationship implies a future and assumes a past. A conversation over coffee contributes to a relationship only if there are to be more conversations. This commitment to a shared future -- and the consequences of a shared past -- transforms an exchange into a relationship. Relationships are foundational of most political work, including building organizations. Gladwell's account from the New Yorker highlights the role of relationships, even in the absence of formal authority, in "getting things done."
Building Relationships: Creating Social Capital
Entering into a relationship, as Relationship Chart #1 shows may reconfigure our interests and resources in several ways. Our interests may change as our interaction with others reveals new interests of which we had not been aware. For example, "Hmm...Before we talked I didn't realize I really wanted to be a doctor, but now....." We also may discover common interests of which we were unaware. As those of you who took part in the skills workshop saw, we may find shared interests in music, in movies, or in doing something about the dining hall service. Most importantly, we begin to develop an interest in the relationship itself. And to the extent we hope to preserve the relationship we must do lots of work to sustain it.
Just as the relationship becomes a source of new "interests" it can also become a new source of resources. We may discover new exchanges our individual resources. "I'll help you with your problem sets if you help me with my literature essay." Relationships may facilitate development of common resources. "Why don't we pool our funds to hire a tutor to work with both of us?" Most importantly the relationship itself can becomes a resource on which we both can draw.
That new relationships construct new interests and new resources is what makes them into what Robert Putnam calls "social capital" -- a source of "power to" which simply didn't exist before. This capacity or "social capital" explains why strongly "relational" communities are capable of so much collaborative action of all kinds.
The Relational World - Relationships and Roles
So relationships are fundamental to collective action of any kind, but there are many different kinds of relationships: strong and weak, public and private, formal and informal.
Granovetter distinguishes between "strong" ties and "weak" ties. By "strong" ties, he means ties with people who are "like us" -- homogeneous. By "weak" ties, he means ties with people who are "unlike us" -- heterogeneous. His insight is that strong ties may actually inhibit our capacity to organize. This is because they quickly create a closed-in, limited circle of people and resources. Lots of "weak" ties, on the other hand, may enhance our organizing capacity. This is because they open into broader networks of resources by opening the circle outward - an important way people find jobs. He shows how the fragmentation of residents of Boston's West End into intense ethnic, religious, familial, and cultural networks of very similar kinds of people inhibited their ability to combine and mobilize resources to resist urban renewal. Communities with "weak" ties found it easier to collaborate with each other and to find outside sources of support. For some purposes, strong ties may be very important -- especially purposes we share with people "like us." But for purposes that are more inclusive than people "like us" weak ties are the keys to success. Granovetter isn't arguing "strong" ties are bad and "weak" ties are good -- just that they are very different and contribute to common efforts in different ways. Which kind of ties does your organization rely on? Does this work?
When relationships persist over time, we often think of the patterns of relational interaction we learn as "roles" we play in social "scenarios". Goffman developed a powerful dramaturgical metaphor to help us understand the social action with which we enact these roles. He argued we could view our interactions as "performances," all of which have a somewhat strategic component to them. We not only "play" our parts, but at some level we are conscious of the fact we are "playing" our parts. He showed this in the kind of "facework" we do in our interactions with others to maintain each other's "face" and prevent distressing embarrassment that can result when we drop "out of role".
The more conscious we become of the "roles" we play in different social settings the more we can reflect on the extent to which our performance of these "roles" meets our own interests and those of others with whom we interact. Fear of "losing face" if we are rejected when we ask for help can make it very hard for us to ask for the kind of help we need -- as Cesar Chavez writes about his difficulty learning to ask for food. We also learn to play roles of deference and domination, reinforcing inequities of power through every personal interaction. An extreme example was the interaction of blacks and whites in the Deep South before the civil rights movement. Gendering of our public interactions can be viewed in this way as well.
Another important distinction is between "formal" and "informal" roles and relationships. We maintain many "informal" relationships with friends, acquaintances, etc. But when we form organizations to pursue common goals, we formalize relationships to make our roles within the organization explicit. When our friends become officers of an organization to which we belong, there is often a tension due to the introduction of "formality" into what had been an "informal" relationship. New teachers are often tense about "private" ways they are used to relating to their friends, colleagues, and family members and the "public" way they are required to relate to their students, including the authority they are expected to exercise. As a result, they have to negotiate a way to interact with their students that is true both to their own way of interacting with others and to the formal public role for which they have assumed responsibility. Similar issues arise for lawyers, doctors, social workers, ministers, and organizers. They arise any time we accept formal leadership roles. They require we distinguish between the kinds of social interactions appropriate in our "private" relationships from those appropriate in our "public" relationships. Failure to make these distinctions can result in great personal cost to our selves and to those with whom we work. This underscores how important it is each of us has a place where we can go where we are not "on stage".
How We Create Relationships?
How do we really create a relationship? In Relationship Chart #2, I propose one way to look at this.
• First, we must catch each other's attention. If I call up a minister to set up a meeting, it will help "get his attention" if I tell him someone he knows referred me. If I'm calling a potential volunteer on the phone, it will be important for me to use their name and explain how I got it. We may also be related to a common institution. Or, across a room full of people, we may just make eye contact.
• Once we have gotten each other's attention, we need to establish an interest in having a conversation. I may mention to the minister, for example, how I was told he was interested in doing something about domestic violence in his parish and that's what I'd like his advice on. Or, I was told he is the key person from whom to get advice about what is really going on in the parish. Or, since we both happen to be taking the same class, maybe we should talk about how we can help each other with it.
• There usually follows a period of exploration -- of asking and answering each other's questions, of probing for areas of common interest, of testing whether the other has anything to contribute to us, and of whether we have anything to contribute to the other. The key here is learning to ask good questions, such as why a person has made the choices they have.
• As a result of our exploration, we may begin to make exchanges -- not just in the future, but then and there within the conversation. We may turn out to be a good listener for someone who needs listening to. We may find we are learning a great deal from our interaction with the other person. We may find we have an opportunity to offer another person some insight, support, or recognition that they find valuable. We may find we can challenge the other person in ways that may yield them new insight. We may also discover a basis for future "exchanges" -- such as going to see a movie we both want to see, deciding to come to a meeting the other has told us about, taking responsibility to help pass out some leaflets, or just deciding to have another conversation.
• Finally, if we've determined a basis may exist for a relationship, we make a commitment to the relationship by agreeing to meet again, have coffee, come to the meeting, send emails, etc. What turns the exchange into a relationship is the commitment we make to each other and to the relationship. People often make the mistake of trying to go right to a commitment without laying a relational basis for it first.
Relationships in Organizing
Relationship building is central to the craft of organizing because it is within relationships that we develop new understanding of our interests and new resources to act on those interests. Within relationships we can create new direct experiences that may challenge each other's existing "roles" and open up the possibility of new roles. We may show respect to those with little experience of being respected; we may challenge those with little experience of being challenged.
Relational Strategies
Most organizations employ some combination of a few basic relational recruiting strategies: individuals, networks, and organizations. Sometimes an organization is built in one way, but continues recruiting in another. Think about the advantages and disadvantages of each of these approaches in terms of your project.
• One approach is to recruit individuals for an organization out of new relationships. Organizers develop relationships with each individual they hope to bring into the organization. Initial recruiting may be done at tables, street corners, sign-ups at rallies, etc. Kris Rondeau combined this approach with the network approach described below.
• A second approach is to recruit networks for an organization out of old relationships. The organization is built by drawing people in through relational networks they are already part of. New relationships are formed mainly between the organizer and the recruit, but the basic approach is to find people who can bring people in through their own pre-existing relationships. This is the approach Cesar Chavez used in building the Farm Workers. Sometimes networks are recruited from old organizations which act as incubators for a new effort. This was the role of many of the southern black churches and colleges in the civil rights movement.
• A third approach is to recruit organizations for a new organization. This requires building relationships with leaders of old organizations and drawing them into relationship with each other to make a new organization possible. There are advantages in this approach in that it makes use of organizational resources that already exist, etc. But it also requires accommodating the new organization to meet the interests of existing organizational leaders. This was Alinsky's approach and is that of the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization.
Relational Tactics
Organizations also recruit but using different relational tactics, some of which fit with certain of these strategies better than others, as shown in Relationship Chart #3. House meetings, for example, fit with the network strategy. One on one meetings, on the other hand, are important for all three. It is also important to distinguish between a "lead" -- someone who signed a list indicating interest -- and a "recruit." A person is not a "recruit" until a relationship has been established on the basis of which their continued involvement rests.
• One on one meetings are individual meeting between an organizer or leader and collaborator or potential member. The primary purpose is to build a relationship out of which further involvement in the organization may develop. The meeting is successful if it ends with a commitment to a "next step," which may just be another meeting. This tactic is very useful for building solid relationships among people who might not otherwise have them. Those of you who participated in the skills workshop at the beginning of the semester saw how one on one meeting could reveal interests we share with others that we never suspected to exist. You also found how much we can learn about each other and how well we can establish rapport in a relatively short time. At the beginning of the semester, we had one on one meetings with each of you in the form of the interviews we scheduled. Kris Rondeu also made extensive use of one on one meetings, as do most IAF organizers, as recounted by Simmons.
• House meetings are designed to make use of networks. For a house meeting the organizer first holds a one on one meeting with someone whom he or she believes may enjoy lots of relations with other members of the community. At that meeting the person is persuaded to invite a number of his or her friends over to meet the organizer and hear about the organization. If the person agrees, the organizer then coaches the person on how to be successful in getting the people there. At that meeting the organizer leads a discussion of the organizational effort or campaign, and asks each of the people present to commit to holding a similar meeting in their home. In this way, one can quickly meet with a large number of people in conversational settings as well as identify among the house meeting hosts a corps of potential leaders. In the 1987 Pelosi for Congress campaign in San Francisco our team of 6 organizers held 87 house meetings attended by 600 people in just three weeks. In addition to being asked to host another meeting, attendees were asked to volunteer on a phone bank. At the end of the house meeting drive, the 87 hosts and another 50 very active volunteers were invited to a meeting at which they were asked to become precinct leaders. In this way, four weeks into the campaign, we had recruited "proven" leaders for 110 of the 150 precincts we needed to organize to cover the entire congressional district. Each also had their own corps of volunteers with whom to work.
• Emergency meetings are well suited to political campaigns or other efforts where "urgency" is very clear. In the 1987 Cranston for Senate campaign in California, we had to organize a get out the vote campaign in 1200 precincts in the African American and Latino districts of South Central Los Angeles, East Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and Oakland. We recruited 50 organizers responsible for recruiting 15 precinct leaders each. Since we had very little time (the whole campaign was done in 5 weeks), we got registered voter lists for each precinct that were coded as to which persons "always" voted, which one's "occasionally" voted, and which ones "never" voted. The organizers set to work calling the "always" voters in their precincts, trying to recruit them for an "emergency" meeting the same afternoon or evening at the campaign headquarters. From among those who attended the organizers recruited precinct leaders for particular precincts who agreed to contact the "occasional" voters who lived there and to take the day off work on Election Day to help us get them out to vote. We wound up turning out 160,000 additional voters this way in an election Cranston won by only 110,000 votes.
What all these tactics have in common, although they vary in setting and in scale, is that they make it possible to develop direct relationships with people whom we hope to involve in the work of the organization. This is very different from relying on flyers, phone calls – or email. Relationships are about "influence" as well as "information" – while email can be very useful for sharing information; it is very limited as a means of establishing relationships. Eccles and Nohria show just how limited.
Maintaining Relationships
Maintaining and developing relationships provides the "glue" to the ongoing work of any organization -- and is itself ongoing work. Old relationships need to be renewed and new relationships developed. If this ongoing work is not done -- and the relationships become unraveled -- it becomes harder and harder to accomplish the "tasks" that must be accomplished. We also may remain ignorant of "who" the people are who are in our organizations and what they have to contribute. And it is in the absence of solid relationships that the "political" difficulties and "factions" with which we are all familiar develop.
©Marshall Ganz, Kennedy School, 2000