ORGANIZING NOTES
(2000)
Interpretation I:
Motivation, Narrative, Celebration
(#6)
What Is Interpretation?
The last time we met, we looked at how organizers build relationships. Today we begin to look at how organizers provide leadership to a group as it figures out what to do and why it should do it - what I call interpretation. Our understanding of ourselves and the world around us is based less on data about how things are, than on interpretation of what the data means in particular whether it signifies something good for us, something bad for us, or something irrelevant for us. As we have discussed before, we interpret data by contextualizing it within schemata or "frames" we have learned. Frames are patterns of understanding that influence what we remember, what we pay attention to, and what we expect that give meaning to discrete pieces of information we encounter. They are emotionally anchored, derive from our direct experience, and give us our "grip" on the world.
Two Ways of Knowing
Why and How
We can distinguish two ways we interpret the world -- narrative and analytic -- as shown in Interpretation Chart #1. We construct a narrative understanding of who we are, where we are going, and how we hope to get there. It is rooted more in how we feel about things (affect) than in what we think about them (cognition). It is inductive, evaluates "truth" by rules of analogy and metaphor and dominates fields of religion, literature, poetry, and politics (yes, politics, see the speeches by Cuomo and Reagan). Its power to persuade, linguist George Lakoff argues, rests on its grounding in direct life experience. It is the most ancient form of interpretation, remembrance, and communication and good for putting things together, synthetic as opposed to analytic. In organizations, we enact our narrative in symbols, rituals, and celebrations. This way of knowing helps us understand WHY we should act our motivation.
The analytic (a privileged form of "knowing" in the university) is based on our application of critical reason to understanding data about the world. It is rooted more in what we thing about things (cognition) than in how we feel about them (affect). It is deductive, governed by rules of logic, and often constructed in the form of syllogism. It dominates the fields of economics, policy analysis, and much scientific research. Its persuasive power rests on the logic of the evidence that it musters - based, in turn, on our acceptance of assumptions on which the logic is based or the authority of those who invoke this logic. It is most persuasive when it "works" -- helps us achieve the outcomes we want. Analytics are good for pulling things apart. In organizations we often do analytic work as a kind of deliberation, the job of many meetings. This way of knowing helps us understand HOW to act our strategy. This week we focus on motivation and next week on strategy.
Where Frames Come From and How They Change
Whether we are trying to understand "why" or "how", we interpret data with frames we acquire as individuals, members of families, communities, religions, and nations. Our "cultures" are repositories of collective frames of our community. Our frames (or schemata) originate in our direct experience, interaction with others through which we understand that experience, and the symbolic language (metaphors) with which we interpret that experience (Motivation Chart #1). Our early learning is particularly important in formation of frames - for individuals, childhood; for groups, formative moments; for nations, "founding" moments. The ways we learn to deal with experiences fraught with stress and uncertainty are also very important - for individuals, for example, St. Paul's transformation on the Road to Damascus; for groups, resolving a critical problem; for countries, the "New Deal" as a response to the "Great Depression". Frames develop in interaction with other people as "roles" and "norms" that govern our relationships and emerge in the early stages of group formation. One reason the formation of frames is so deeply embedded in our interactions with others is that the actions and reactions of others are a principal source of the uncertainty we fear and must learn to manage. Frames are also formed in the symbolic structures with which we organize our communication with one another -- our language, metaphors, and analogies. How do we discuss the "nature of being," for example, in languages that have no verb "to be?" If I frame my encounter with an organizer in terms of a belief in my own powerlessness, I will "interpret" most new "information" as further evidence of that powerless -- screening out data dissonant with that understanding. So if they fill the pothole on my street after an organizer has come around, I'm not likely to take it as evidence my wants matter, but rather as evidence the organizer has friends downtown. So I might wonder just what his or her angle is anyway, since we're all out to "feather our own nests."
Since direct experience, relationships, and symbolic understanding form frames, they can change in the same way. Motivating people to act in ways that cause them to reframe their experience can begin to alter a frame. Through new kinds of relationships, the experience of powerlessness can be transformed into one of "making a difference" -- as one is listened to, asked questions, afforded agency. Symbols can also transform frames as when Southern blacks in the civil rights movement took prayer services to the county court houses, transforming the meaning of going to the courthouse for blacks and for whites - or in the way many groups struggle to claim their autonomy by renaming themselves.
What Is Motivation?
The word motivation derives from the root word "motor" - also the root for emotion, to move. Motivation is much more about how we "feel" than what we "think". As you recall from our discussion of leadership skills, learning to be "motivational" transforms passive "disorganizations" into active "organizations." Strategy turns reaction into initiative largely through cognition - managing our thoughts. Motivation, however, turns passivity into action largely through emotion - managing our feelings. This is so important for organizing because so many of resources we mobilize are based on the degree of commitment of those who take part.
Do We Always Act In Our Own Best Interests?
Most of us would agree we don't always act in our "best interests." Sometimes we don't do things we know it is in our interest to do and sometimes we do things we know it is in our interest not to do. Why? One reason, as Fiske and Taylor explain, is that we interpret "facts about the world" by means of our patterns of belief or "schemata" which organize our perceptions of these "facts" and give them meaning. Our schemata influence what we remember, what we pay attention to, and what we expect. This is useful because it enables us to learn to navigate our way through a very uncertain and complex world. But our schemata also often "filter out" of our perception "facts" inconsistent - or dissonant - with our beliefs. Our "schemata" organize the data to fit our beliefs. This means we can get trapped in a self-reproducing loop: we act based on facts constructed by our patterns of belief which lead to actions which produce more facts which reinforce those patterns of belief, etc. Some of us become trapped within patterns of belief which limit our capacity to act on behalf of their own interests, e.g., I am powerless; my problems are uniquely my own; I can't trust anyone else; I'm "better" than those people, even though they have the same problems; etc. Under these circumstances, giving someone a leaflet to read is not likely to make much difference.
So where do our beliefs come from? Much of what we believe about the world is grounded in what we feel about it -- what is good for us and what is bad for us -- based on our direct experience, especially our early experience. It is often our most deeply emotional experiences that anchor them in our memory most firmly. Even when we acquire our schemata incrementally, they gain an emotional anchorage because they give us our "grip" on the world. When we are confronted with "facts" which may pose deep challenges to our patterns of belief, we tend to do everything we can to avoid having to face the anxiety this calls forth within us. And while our schemata enable us to manage our world, they are also the source of our stereotypes about ourselves, others, and the world around us that can be very destructive. The thing about it is, when we are trying to confront deeply entrenched patterns of belief, just going over "the facts" again won't do very much good.
So once they are formed, how can our schemata change, how can we learn to be more adaptive to changing realities, how can they be challenged? One way is employing "critical reason" to challenge our assumptions - much in the way of Socrates, Alinsky, or Paulo Friere. Ellen Langer's research shows that the more conscious we make ourselves of our schemata ("mindfulness"), the more open to change they become. This is facilitated by awareness of multiple perspectives, sensitivity to differences in context, confidence dealing with novelty, etc. Becoming more "mindful" can help us gain greater clarity of what our interests are in a given set of circumstances. Of course this is easier said than done. And although Socrates, Alinsky, and Friere used more or less confrontational styles, their way of teaching generates a great deal of emotional tension which those who use it must learn to handle. We do know what happened to Socrates.
Another way to challenge patterns of belief arises from the fact that we often hold conflicting patterns of belief, some of which are more salient in particular situations than others. Sometimes we can mobilize one set of beliefs to challenge another. This can produce a kind of cognitive dissonance, a tension that can only be resolved through action. This is sometimes known as "agitation." For example, a person's belief that her boss (teacher, parent, employer) is all-powerful may come into conflict with her belief in her own self-respect - - when their boss does something which violates that sense of self-respect. She may decide to challenge her boss -- or she may decide to "swallow her pride" -- or she may get angry with the organizer who points out the conflict. Although a cost is attached to either resolution, which do you think might better serve her "interests"?
Patterns of belief are most powerfully challenged, however, by new kinds of direct experience (Motivation Chart #1). Through new experience we may acquire new beliefs which may permit us to see the "facts" differently. Participants in the Montgomery bus boycott, for example, experienced a new kind of power which fundamentally challenged their prior beliefs as to the powerlessness of blacks in Montgomery. This is why "action" is so important in organizing. Not only does it resolve the tension that may be generated by "agitation", it creates new experience. The challenge facing many organizers, then, is not one of offering new "information," but one of offering new "experience," because new "experience" can lead to new "beliefs" and, thus, to new "action" -- breaking the "motivational loop.
Breaking Belief Barriers
Organizers mobilize feelings that motivate action to challenge feelings that inhibit it. As shown in Motivation Chart #2, the following describes the important emotional content of these beliefs.
FEAR - ANGER
The biggest "belief barrier" to action is fear - fear of all kinds: threats, danger, standing out, failing, being laughed at, etc. When we are afraid we pay little attention to the new leaflet about all the wonderful benefits a union can bring, for example. We are also likely to come up with all the excuses we need to avoid having to confront our fear. The most time honored way to counter fear is with anger - not uncontrolled "rage," but the indignant anger of "outrage" at unjust conditions. Gamson describes this as developing an "injustice frame" to counter a "legitimacy frame." This is not destructive anger, but constructive anger based on difference between what "ought to be" and what "is". It is the indignation we feel when our "moral order" has been violated. People don't mobilize in response to inequality, but they do mobilize in response to inequity - to injustice. In other words, our values, our moral traditions, and our sense of personal dignity are critical sources of the motivation to act against fear. This is one reason organizing is so deeply rooted in moral traditions. In the "industrial valley" story, when do people begin to lose their fear? Isn't it in response to the unjust eviction of one of the workers? Organizers can sometimes prepare for fear by "inoculating" those whom they are organizing, warning them the opposition will threaten them in this way and promise them that. When it actually happens it is not "unexpected" but "expected" and affirms the wisdom of the organizer. Fear and anger are really on a kind of continuum. Depending on the stage of development of an organizing drive, the same incident (e.g., the burning of a cross) can produce fear (early in the drive) or anger (late in the drive). This anger can then lead to action.
APATHY - HOPE
People talk a great deal about apathy - not caring. The root of apathy is Greek for not feeling. What we often describe as not caring, however, is often caring too much about something that we believe we can do nothing about. When apathy is coupled with anger it becomes its first cousin - cynicism or, in the academic world, cynical chic. Apathy can be countered with hope. But where does "hope" come from? It won't work to pass out cupcakes, sing kumbaya and announce we should "all be hopeful now." One source of hope is in the experience of "credible solutions" - not only reports of success elsewhere (the way the bus boycott sparked other activity), but the direct experience of small successes, small victories. Another important source of hope for many people is in their religious beliefs, their moral and cultural traditions. It is no accident many of the great social movements of our time drew strength from religious traditions within which they arose (Gandhi, Civil Rights, Solidarity). Much of today's organizing is grounded in faith communities. Another source of the experience of hope is in the relationship between the organizer and organizee. Don't you know people who instill a sense of hopefulness in you when you spend time with them? It's difficult to be a pessimistic organizer. Eyore, for example, would make a very poor organizer ("Good morning, Eyore! What's good about it, Pooh?"). And isn't "charisma" simply a kind of capacity to inspire hopefulness in others, inspiring others to believe in themselves? Lots of people have it, but need to be encouraged to use it. Just as religious belief requires a "leap of faith," Cornel West argues, politics (or civic action) requires a "leap of hope."
SELF-DOUBT - YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE
One of the biggest barriers to action is "self-doubt" - I can't do it, people like me can't do it, we aren't qualified to do it, etc., etc., etc. Organizers work to counter self-doubt by coming up with ways people can experience YCMAD - you can make a difference. These include recognition, an action program, accountability, and training.
One way is to offer recognition - specific recognition of specific people for specific contributions at specific times and in specific ways, visible recognition, widely shared recognition. The 1987 Agnos for Mayor campaign in San Francisco had an extensive volunteer precinct leader operation. When anyone agreed to be a precinct leader, his name was written on a star that was hung from the ceiling of the campaign headquarters. As the election approached, when you entered the headquarters, you would look up and see hundreds of stars hanging from the ceiling in recognition of the grass roots leaders involved: the real "stars" of the campaign. But to be of value, recognition must be based on real accomplishment. Otherwise, it degenerates into flattery no one believes. The idea is not just to spread recognition around. It is to spread accomplishment around and then recognize people for that accomplishment.
Another key way to create the belief that you can make a difference is to base your action program on what people can do, not what they can't do. For example, if you design a program that requires each new volunteer to recruit 100 people tomorrow and we provide no leads, no training, no coaching and no support -- it will only create frustration and deeper feelings of self-doubt. A fully supported program to recruit 5 new people within the next week would be far more effective. This kind of program is how the accomplishment can be spread around.
A third key means of persuading people they can make a difference is with accountability. There can be no real recognition without real accountability. Accountability is not a demonstration of a lack of trust in a volunteer. It is evidence that what the volunteer is doing really matters. Have you ever volunteered to walk a precinct in a campaign? They give you a packet with a voter list, tell you to mark the responses, and bring it back when you're done. One time, I'd been out for 4 hours, did a conscientious job, returned to the headquarters ready to report and was told, "Oh, just throw it over there in the corner, thanks a lot, see you next week." What about all my work? It didn't even matter enough for anyone to debrief me about it - let alone mark it up on a wall chart and try to learn from it. Do you think I went back "next week?"
Finally, training is essential. Training people to do new tasks which a program or campaign requires is not so much about giving skills, as it is about giving confidence. Training is a way of supporting people in a safe setting in which they learn a new task is something they can do.
ISOLATION - SOLIDARITY
When we feel isolated, we don't see the interests we share with others, we have little sense of access to common resources, we have no sense of a shared identity, and we generally feel quite powerless. The experience of solidarity - or love - is a direct counter to this. As Dennis Chong points out, because of the "snowball" effect it is much easier it is to get people to join others who are already in action. What was one of the main reasons the workers in the rubber work story found the courage to shut down the plant? This is one of the important roles of mass meetings, singing, common dress, shared language, etc. It is also one of the reasons developing relationships among those whom we hope to mobilize is so important.
INERTIA - URGENCY
What about inertia - just plain old resistance to change, habit, etc. The best way to counter inertia is with urgency. Although we think urgency is about time, it is really about commitment. It is about creating a space within which new action can take place. The urgent is what we really respond to, and unless we find ways to make the important also the urgent, the urgent alone will take priority. Imagine that someone calls you up and tells you they are recruiting for a plan to change the world, but it will take 100 years or so and they are just now in the first phase and were thinking about having a meeting sometime in the course of the next 6 months and want to know if you would be interested in coming whenever it happens? On the other hand, what if someone calls you about an election you care about with the news that election day is just 7 days away and that within these 7 days, 3000 targeted voters - or about 500/day - have to be contacted in order to win. With help of 220 volunteers who agree to contact 20 voters each they can reach them all. You happen to live near 20 of these voters. If you will come down to the headquarters just down the street from you at 6:00 PM; they'll show you exactly how to do it? Commitment and concentration of energy is required to get anything new started and urgency is often a critical way in which to get the commitment which is required.
How Organizers Challenge Old Beliefs with New Experience
Organizers create new experience through relationships, interpretation and action. One way organizers create new experience is through new relationships. A new relationship, after all, is a new experience and an opportunity to use one's interactions with the other to challenge old beliefs and generate new ones. When someone listens to us - and we haven't been listened to - it is a new experience. When someone recognizes our dignity - and we aren't used to it - it is a new experience. When someone expects us to take responsibility - and we haven't been given it - it is a new experience.
Organizers can also generate new experience by interpreting the new as the old, mobilizing some beliefs to challenge other beliefs. In his "I Have a Dream", for example, Dr. King denounced racism with a sermon delivered in the style of the Black church in language drawn from American religious and democratic traditions. In the civil rights movement, church songs became freedom songs, Wednesday night prayer meetings became "mass meetings," and prayer vigils found their way to county registrar's offices.
In the reading this week, Henry V "dramatically" reframed the frightening situation in which the English found themselves. He "reframed" the English understanding of themselves from a tattered band with a lost cause, doomed to destruction in a foreign land into a "happy few," a band of brothers with a holy cause, destined for honor and success. By "reframing" the situation, Henry transformed certain defeat into a possible victory. Of course the reframing didn't do it alone. Victory also required a supply of English longbows that could knock the French knights off their horses. But longbows or not, if the English had believed themselves beaten, they most likely would have been. How did he do this?
The Power of Stories
In organizing, motivational interpretation plays out as story telling -- frames constructed as new narratives. If Alinsky and Freire are successful in challenging old frames, where do the new frames come from with which we are to reinterpret our experience? They come from the new stories we tell about whom we are, where we are going, and how we hope to get there. If Henry V had only tried to challenge the "defeatist" frame and not offered a "victory" frame, the result would have been despair and paralysis. As Gamson shows, undermining a "legitimacy frame" without coupling it with an "injustice frame" goes no where. Stories can be told, however, in very different ways -- as is evident in the speeches by Reagan and Cuomo.
As shown in Motivation Chart #3, stories are constructed as a narrative or dramatic plot. (1) In the beginning (once upon a time) our protagonist was engaged in purposeful activity. (2) This activity was interrupted as an unexpected crisis threw the protagonist into turmoil, putting the purpose in doubt, etc. What will she do? What will happen? (3) The protagonist then tries to improvise or innovate a way to recover from this turn of events - or she doesn't. (4) As events unfold, suspense builds to a climax when things are resolved by getting back on the old track, getting on a new track to the old goal, or getting on a new track to a new goal.1 If most movies, plays, novels, anecdotes, jokes, myths, political accounts, etc. are plotted in essentially the same way, why are they so compelling to us.
Stories engage us because they teach us about something in which we are deeply interested -- how to deal with the unexpected that comes upon us every day as we try to live purposeful lives. Some psychologists argue this way of processing is embedded in our hard wiring. We experience life as goal directed, from birth through a series of transformative crises (childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, marriage, retirement, etc.), finally resolved at our death (Solon said the meaning of a person's life is never known until it is over). Through the stories of our families, our communities and our cultures we learn how to live, supported by the fact that most of the time parents spend with small children is in story telling.
Stories also engage us because they are lived experiences -- we are part of the story, as tellers or as listeners. As it is told we respond, call up our own stories, and tell another in response. And when we retell it, we may "customize" it a little bit to bring out our "truth" of what happened.
Analytics may be a repository of "knowledge," but stories are a repository of "wisdom." The academic world scoffed at President Reagan's lack of analytic interest, failing to realize their "logic" was an inadequate response to his moral "story" about America.
Organizers weave new stories out of old ones by linking stories of individuals, communities, and organizations. Our individual stories are about who we are (our backgrounds, our families), where we are going (our goals, our interests), and how we are getting there (our life choices, the crises we have overcome, our "defining moments"). Our community (and family) stories are also about who we are (as a community), where we are going (our values, our shared goals), and how we are getting there (our religious traditions, political beliefs, economic beliefs). We tell our community stories again and again as folk sayings, popular songs, religious rituals, and our community celebrations (e.g., Easter, Passover, 4th of July).
Stories of Hope
When we start a new organization, we not only develop new relationships and resources, but we also begin telling of a new story -- a story that, if it is successful, will weave together individual stories with a broader story of the community within which we live. "Organizing stories" bridge individual stories to a shared story, old frames to new, individual interests to those in common; old possibilities, to new ones. Organizers learn to tell a "story of hope" as illustrated in Motivation Chart #3. This includes:
Our identity - an account of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. It may include an origin myth, tales of founders, early achievements, crises overcome, our goals, why they are worthy, etc. This is an important appeal to feelings of solidarity.
The crisis - an account of the injustice or other reason why action out of the ordinary must be taken now. This may appeal to feelings of anger (at the injustice), urgency.
Our strategy - an account of a credible strategy which can overcome the crisis - but only if you do your part. This appeals to feelings of hopefulness, you can make a difference, urgency.
Stories are told for many purposes. They are told to recruit as a "rap" in which I invite you to link your story with mine and that of our organization. They are told to teach -- they communicate values, ways "we do things around here," who our "heroes" are, what our "formative moments" were, etc. They are told to empower -- the story of a new organization unfolds as new people join in "writing it" and weave their own story into it. They are told to mobilize -- a march, for example, is an enacted story in which each of us makes a contribution to a journey toward a shared goal. They are told to build community as we express shared identities in rituals, celebrations, commemorations, etc. They are told as we interpret ourselves and our organization to the world -- in word, symbol and deed.
Celebrations
If meetings do the deliberative work of an organization, celebrations do the story telling. If meetings are about thinking, celebrations are about feeling. A celebration is not a party. It is the way members of a community come together to "celebrate" who they are, what they have done, where they are going -- often symbolically. Most important life celebrations are at times of sadness, as well as times of great joy. Celebrations are rituals that tie us together in ways that make the vision of our community real -- at least to the heart. Institutions that retain their vitality are rich in celebrations. In the Church, for example, mass is "celebrated." And Harvard's annual celebration is called graduation and lasts a whole week.
Celebrations are a way we can interpret important events, recognize important contributions, acknowledge a common identity, and deepen our sense of community. They can be formal -- rallies fiestas, victory parties, shared meals, mass meetings, or religious services. But small "celebratory acts" can also be introduced into many aspects of an organization's life. In the UFW we learned a "farm worker applause" that celebrated our solidarity, expressed our unity, and identified us as participants in the movement. Certain opening and closing songs can played this role. Amnesty International ends its meetings with a short letter writing session on behalf of one of their prisoners. More important than the number of letters written is the affirmation of what the organization is all about.
What sort of celebrations do your organizations hold? What is celebrated there? How? What is the story these celebrations tell of your organization? How do you conduct celebrations that acknowledge diversity as well as unity?
Finally, organizers offer new experience through well designed action programs that provide the opportunity to do the work in ways that deepen motivation to do more. The issue in motivation is new experience, not new information. Have you ever watched a mama bird and her baby birds when it is time for them to learn to fly? Does she peck gently at their ears, persuading them they have nothing to be afraid of? Does she describe the wonders of flying, hoping to entice them? Usually, with a quick push, they're out of the nest and in the air. They wobble around a little bit, try their wings, go up, go down, but eventually get it. And as they begin to fly instead of seeing the ground as a dangerous and distant, they come to see it as a safe place on to come to rest. Instead of seeing the sky as a vast and frightening expanse, they come to see it as a wondrous place to explore. And, as the mama bird would tell you if she could, it isn't just knowing what to do that matters, but when to do it.
©Marshall Ganz, Kennedy School, 2000