Pandemic as Portal: An Opportunity to Imagine Another World
Nearly a year ago, Indian author and activist Arundhati Roy put out a call to use the global virus as an opportunity to restructure ways of being that are ultimately destructive to people and the planet. She wrote in a Financial Times article, “Pandemic as Portal:”
“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging ... dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies….. Or we can walk through lightly.... ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
This has been a hard year. Lives lost. Financial struggle. Separation. Isolation. It has highlighted the inequities that already existed. At Cobscook Institute, we have used our tradition of responsiveness to pivot programming and adapt to the challenge before us. We’ve heard from people about their immense appreciation for our continued programming; we’ve been a lifeline for our students; we’ve pivoted use of our gathering spaces to instead be used as incubator spaces for mission-aligned small businesses. And we are excited to gather again in person and to welcome people back to our homeplace for celebration, learning, and connection.
And yet, we are changed. We emerge anew with fresh ideas and perspective. With an urgency that we not return to normal, but instead to continue to innovate and collaborate in order to be most relevant and impactful. With that commitment, we are refreshing programming and community engagement. This takes time and listening and we are committed to it.
We make the road by walking
To be a responsive, inclusive, equitable organization, those values must be reflected within the organization. For this reason, we are exploring and implementing models of distributed leadership.
We are a learning organization, and therefore we will experiment. As educator and co-founder of the Highlander Folk School, Myles Horton, said, “we must make the road by walking.” We have commenced a year of walking and of learning from other organizations and models while also learning from practice: evaluating and adapting based on what works best in our setting.
Following a tradition
There is a rich cross-cultural history of collaborative leadership, community organizing, indigenous education, democratic education, and cooperative development. These are practices and pedagogies that have informed our curriculum, community work, and programming through the years and that are now informing our leadership structures. In addition, there is an emergent energy within non-profit organizations to look at how their internal structures can actually perpetuate the oppressive structures that their programming aspires to transform. We are tapping the wisdom, methodologies, and research of old and new. And we are working as a team to identify a structure that most effectively supports our mission and programs.
What does this look like for us?
We have:
• Designed an interim structure that centers collaboration, distributed responsibilities, and leadership development, with built-in supports and accountabilities.
• Established a board/staff leadership team.
• Broken down our work into a collection of roles that are distributed among staff.
• Created working groups to independently manage specific aspects of the organization while staying connected.
• Invested in professional development to build staff capacity.
In April and June, we will evaluate. Third and fourth iterations and evaluations will follow. Our hope is to start next year with new systems and structures that best serve our work.
An Invitation: Accompany us on the journey
We will share our learning with our networks over the next year and we invite you to share resources and experience with us.
In addition, we’ve talked to other groups exploring distributed leadership about establishing a cohort for co-learning and resource sharing. If you or your organization is involved in similar initiatives, please reach out!
“Why share and distribute leadership? To be more resilient, adaptable and nimble as an organization. To tap the insights and passion all staff have for what Cobscook offers. When we engage our whole selves, empower each other, increase equity in decision-making, learn to really listen, and give and receive clean feedback, we build trust. Shared leadership is about building a culture of trust, practicing leadership that makes room for others—including our communities.” Sanna McKim, Board Co-Chair