 One of my favourite kinds of science is the kind that help me understand how to get people to do what I want them to do…for the betterment of society, of course. This is a consistent theme in my TBR pile.
I recently finished Infuence Is Your Superpower: The Science of Winning Hearts, Sparking Change and Making Good Things Happen, by Zoe Chance. This book is an incredible cocktail of memorable stories and scientific research about how to be more persuasive in an ethical way. Adam Grant calls it “An engaging book on the science of encouraging other people to say yes.” If this stuff is interesting to you, you should read the whole book. Chance explains conscious and subconscious decisions with a whole Gater and Judge bit that makes it easy to understand (finally) why facts aren’t as persuasive as we think they are. The insights about the Path of Least Resistance and Framing are really useful, as is the explanation about why changing someone’s mind won’t necessarily change their behaviour. But in this post, I’m sharing my single most significant takeaway for those of us out here disrupting for good, that can be implemented immediately with tremendous impact: the Magic Question.
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As I recently shared, increasingly taking a posture of solidarity has left me more angry. It seemed like maybe my anger was being used against me last fall to shut down conversations that needed to be had, so I was reconsidering the strategic pros and cons of that anger. This topic resonated with a lot of you. So this is a deep dive/rant about the role of women’s rage in disrupting for good, mainly with insights from two books: Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger by Soraya Chemaly, and Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger, by Rebecca Traister. Both came out in 2018 at the height of the #MeToo movement. (They are both good, but if you are only going to read one for your own deep dive into using anger strategically, read Rage Becomes Her. Unless stated otherwise, that’s where the quotes in this post are from.) Let’s dig in.  Happy New Year! Today is my 42nd birthday and the 2-year anniversary of the Disrupt For Good Blog. It all began with my New Year’s Revolution/40th Birthday Manifesto. Whether you’ve been here since day one or you’re new, thanks for joining in the conversation about how to disrupt the social services sector for good and intentionally centre our work in justice approaches. Today I'm sharing some 2022 highlights and a few thoughts as we move into 2023.  Yesterday I was working into the evening, and my daughter told me I was in the grind. That is the opposite of what I want to be. It is the opposite of what I want to model for my daughter. And also, I don’t think resting and disrupting for good should be at odds. Which means that the way I am working—trying to cram in a too-long list of to-dos, picking up slack and being mad about it—isn’t aligning with my values and with who I want to be. So today I’m thinking about rest as resistance. Disruptive rest. And our tour guide for this work is the leader of the Nap Ministry, Nap Bishop Tricia Hersey.  Last week I had the honour of participating in the first Community Change Experience, held in Delray Beach, Florida. The 3-day gathering was a joint initiative of Palm Health Foundation, Tamarack Institute, Tenacious Change, and EJS Project. I want to share my main takeaways with you.   A Homeless Enumeration is a community-level count and survey of people experiencing homelessness at a particular point in time. These are mandated by the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, but they are conducted regularly in other jurisdictions in Canada and beyond.
Most homeless enumerations in Ontario use a combined methodology of a PiT (Point in Time) count, as well as a survey to try to glean more information that communities can then act on to improve our understanding of homelessness, inform efforts to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness in a given community as well as long-term strategies to prevent and reduce homelessness, and more. The website for the one here in Simcoe County reads “Our goal is to end homelessness in Simcoe County. The data we gather helps us do that.” I wrote that sentence. I have supported our communications efforts through four enumerations. We do gather some good data from enumerations that help us better understand the demographics we are trying to support - how many people, what type of housing they want and where, what barriers they face - but the more I am learning (and unlearning) about homelessness, the less I believe that the enumeration we are doing supports ending homelessness. In fact, I now believe it perpetuates harmful stereotypes. “Nobody wants to work anymore.” You’ve heard it. You might have even said it. It’s a dominant narrative, from fed-up employers to grumpy waiting customers and everyone in between. But is it true?  As a reminder, this is part deux of last month’s blog post inspired by Story or Die by Lisa Cron. I left you at the end of chapter 4, completely convinced of the power of story, ready to turn the page into the section entitled “Your Audience, Their Story, Your Point.” And friends, I will tell you now, I had high hopes that for $22.99 plus applicable taxes, I had stumbled onto the guide that would help me, and us, tell the stories that would persuade everyone to do what we want them to do.  Soooo, there’s a lot going on, locally and globally. As one Twitter user noted: “hey sorry if I seem tired they did like fifty years worth of bad stuff in a week.” For us hopey changey folks, there have been some...setbacks lately. It can feel like we are banging our heads against a wall as we advocate for things we feel are obvious. On some level, that comes with the advocacy territory. It's a long game. But also, I can’t shake the feeling that a lot of our well-meaning messages poll well in our echo chambers but just aren’t landing with the folks we’re trying to persuade. My instinct here is that better stories are at least part of the solution - not necessarily slicker, more polished stories. But a more strategic use and understanding of them maybe. So, after some moping, I’m digging into a book I’ve had in my TBR pile for a few months: Story Or Die by Lisa Cron. Full disclosure, I’m only on chapter four. BUT Cron has already dropped some seriously good points and tips that I want to share. Because not to be dramatic or anything, but the stakes are really high in some of the fights we are in right now and we need to be putting our best foot forward.  It’s voting day here in Ontario. I heart democracy, and I take my privilege and responsibility to vote very seriously. Even with my love of democracy and my shiny optimism, it can be hard to get excited about elections where we watch politicians backed by wealthy donors ‘win’ a majority government with less than 50% of the vote. Especially when a number of those candidates that will likely be elected tonight avoided all public debates. BUT. For my mental health, I'm not writing that rant today. In honour of the provincial election today, and in preparation for the municipal one we will have this fall, today’s post is a more positive democracy round-up: some history, some insights, and some inspiration.  |
AuthorI'm Jennifer. I am an advocacy and communications strategist working with multiple charities and nonprofits. And I want to disrupt our sector for good. Archives
January 2025
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