Disrupting for Good: It’s majority-making, not matchmaking

I am in Vancouver this week and I have had three full days in a course on the Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations That Matter. It’s been such a privilege to participate and learn several methods and tools and also meet 50 great people. 

This morning, we learned about the Two Loops Model, a map of how change works in living systems, with one arc representing the legacy system that has to die, in order for the new system to emerge. This model acknowledges that new things are usually born out of existing things, and it all works a little bit better if you “hospice” the end of the dying system. ANYWAY, the two loops shape was taped out on the floor, and we were invited to go stand where we saw ourselves on the two arcs, and then find a partner and share some of our wisdom from that place on the arc with another person who wanted to get to that place on the arc. 

And I shared this: movement building is not matchmaking, and we don’t have to be 100% aligned with the people we are movement building with. Movements cannot be clubhouses if you want to get the people power to bring the change to fruition.

Organizing Isn’t Matchmaking
Here are a few sentences I have underlined in Chapter 9 of Let This Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes & Mariame Kaba:

“The desire to shrink groups down to spaces of easy agreement is not conducive to movement building.” 

“Organizing on the scale that our struggles demand means finding common ground with a broad spectrum of people, many of whom we would never otherwise interact with.” 

“To create movements, rather than clubhouses, we need to engage with people with whom we do not fully identify and may even dislike ”

The authors go on to acknowledge that the clubhouses where we share deep affinity can be a great respite to us, noting that we are all entitled to “some amount of sanctuary.” But broader movements are “struggles, not sanctuaries.” Listening and practicing patience help as we broaden our circle to include people who are new to the work, not cancelling folks for using the “wrong” or outdated lingo or jargon. 

When a group is newly formed in opposition to an existing or legacy system we want to change, the group can be defined by what we don’t want to be, or what we stand against. That’s a pretty natural starting place, from which healthy groups can then move on to developing some ideas about what we do want to be, or what we stand for, and invite others along. 

But it can feel much more comfortable to stay a small, tight group that agrees about everything, excluding everyone who says the wrong thing. 

One problem with this is that if we cancel everyone who isn’t just like us, we won’t be able to build the people power to win. 

Which brings us to majority-making. 

Kristen Grimm of Spitfire hosted a webinar last month that provided us with seven strategies for bringing our ideas to the critical masses. 

Majority-making is a long-term approach to disrupting opinions and popularizing or mainstreaming ideas to help us get where we want to go as a society. 

As a first step, Grimm suggests: “Before engaging, you need to decide what pockets of the population are ready for majority-making. Consider who comprises the next few layers out from your choir. Where can you find common ground and even common purpose to use as a springboard to majority make?”

The 30-minute webinar recording is worth watching, but one of her points I want to highlight is the importance of providing people space to gracefully change their minds, aka, an exit ramp from their current position. 

She shares a timely article by Deepak Malhotra, which offers seven ways to give people space and conditions to rethink their positions. These included helping them save face by creating a safe space for them to change course, giving them cover or a reason as to why they changed their mind, and making changing their mind a punishment-free zone.

This brings us full circle back to the Two Loops Model and how to allow those in the legacy system to transition to the new system via exit ramps that we have built for them. 

I’m going to leave it there for today, but if any of this sparks your interest, I hope you will follow some links and explore more yourself. If you land anywhere juicy and want to share it with me, I’d love that, too!