I haven’t put an entry onto the blog for a while, as I’ve been busy wrapping up the completion of the Cochrane Sustainability Plan. You can see the final plan here.
The journey of developing the Cochrane Sustainability Plan has been quite remarkable. Over a 4-month period, nearly 500 citizens contributed their views in the visioning process. A group of 75 committed citizens were intimately involved in the process and were the real authors of this plan. Over 11 months, these folks contributed over 700 hours of meeting time to help create a plan for the future of their community. Most of that time was during a compressed 5-month period.
In leading the process to create this plan, a key attribute of these citizens began to become apparent:
They were focused on getting it right as opposed to being right.
This is an important distinction – especially when trying to create a plan that an entire community can use to work together. These citizens of Cochrane contributed a remarkable amount of time, knowledge and passion about their community, yet they were able to listen to one another and respect each other’s opinions. Without this, the process would have devolved into a competition of superior ideas or views, rather than a collaborative effort for the future of the community.
Is this what you use to hold onto your ideas?
Often times, we tend to hold onto our ideas or viewpoints with a vice grip. This is particularly prevalent with things that we care about. Mixed in with this are elements of ego, open mindedness and past experience. When the objective is to create as much common ground as possible, however, we need to take the long view of where we need to end up. That’s what was so inspiring about the citizens of Cochrane in our process – they stayed focused on the long view and didn’t worry about being right all the time. In your work, it’s an important question to keep in mind:
Am I trying to get it right or am I trying to be right?
- John, May 22, 2009
Labels: change, learning, sustainability
¶ 10:34 AM
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