What is your practice?

Oct 6

There’s a trope in movies in which the protagonist is processing something big. They aren’t seen passively sitting at a desk or meditating, they are shown swimming. It marries physical exertion with reflection (and a bit of breath-holding bravado). That discipline of doing something again and again to get better is what I love about the word practice. So when used as a noun, it is particularly powerful, especially in the workplace.

I started this newsletter simply to write more. It has become a practice of reflection. Each month, amid projects and meetings, I force half-baked ideas onto the page and discover which ones hold up. Like our swimmer, it takes habit and a touch of stubbornness to show up when I’d rather skip. Also like swimming, it’s rewarding precisely because it’s challenging but I am rewarded with something at the end.

Recently through a few projects, I have seen how a practice is not just for individuals, but also for groups and coalitions. This is especially important because these are no single organizations with clear hierarchy and accountability. They are groups of people working together toward a collective goal. I have three practices that I have observed in well-functioning coalitions that I think could have value for other groups and individuals even in different contexts.

A practice of reflection

Operational debriefs (“what worked/what didn’t?”) are common among organizations. But going deeper than post-mortems to reflect can help groups ensure everyone is on the same page. I have seen some of the best impact-based work succeed not just with the best plans or with the deepest metrics, but with the ongoing work of reflection.

As with my newsletter practice, group reflection allows everyone to take a step back to ask (and hopefully answer) critical questions like: Who are we? What similarities bring us here? Where are our differences? What strengths, assets, and blind spots do we bring?

Some may follow the method of Marshall Ganz, a longtime organizer and Harvard scholar, who developed the framework of public narrative to help leaders and groups translate values into action through reflection focused on storytelling. His approach centers on three types of story: the story of self (why am I called to this work?), the story of us (what shared values bind us?), and the story of now (what urgent challenge must we face together?). Ganz’s framework invites a deeply reflective practice: pause, look inward, and articulate not just what you’re doing, but why it matters. In this way, public narrative becomes a tool for group reflection, helping groups move from abstract mission statements to a shared sense of purpose rooted in experience and values. This kind of shared storytelling can shape understanding and build trust.

A single workshop of reflection can be very powerful. But I think the secret sauce is when it becomes an ongoing practice. While this type of deeper reflection is not something that needs to be done monthly or quarterly, checking back every year or two can be important given how the world changes. Like swimming, group reflection takes practice and repetition in order to hone and level u

I find the connection between these systems to be underappreciated. For example, at the intersection of housing and transportation, many people often choose where to live based on the time (or cost) of getting to work. There’s a great Housing + Transportation cost index that seeks to bridge these two different policy and pocketbook domains to show a fuller picture of what it costs to live somewhere. And I’ve been fortunate to be part of research that looks at how to spur housing production based on transportation.

I don’t think it’s coincidental, then, that we have departments at local, state, and federal (for now) levels of government devoted to most of these systems: departments of transportation and education and the environment. Organizing the government (and comprehensive plans) around them helps ensure trains run, schools open, and environments are clean. But while our systems are naturally interconnected, our silos are not. And when we see this, we want to bust the silos down!

A practice of trust

If reflection helps groups stay aligned on who they are, trust is what allows them to move forward together. Recently, I talked with a group of coalitions about community and coalition trust, which gave me the opportunity to really reflect on what trust means in the context of a group of people and organizations. Trust is really the glue of this type of coalition work, usually hiding behind the visible tools of strategies, budgets, and metrics. As Stephen Covey puts it in The Speed of Trust, change happens at the speed of trust.

Trust, like reflection, is not built in a single session. Rather it is a practice that is built, tended, and (inevitably) repaired over time, at both the individual and organizational levels. It is slowly built through the practice of actions: showing up, deeply listening, reflecting back, following through, repeating. When I worked for the DC government, I tried to build and repair trust by engaging with partners as true collaborators, being authentic (which meant being honest when we disagreed or faced constraints), keeping to my commitments and following up.

Building trust in coalitions is uniquely challenging because they bring together organizations with different missions, geographies, and sectors. Trust is what allows members to bridge inherent gaps and differences. Unlike within a single organization, coalition trust must operate on multiple levels: between institutions with different goals as well as between the overstretched individuals representing them.

As with any human enterprise disagreement is inevitable, so the real test of trust is whether coalitions can surface disagreements and manage them fairly rather than letting them fester. Trust also requires acknowledging that coalitions evolve, which means allowing partners to join and also leave (which can be hard and painful). I have seen how trust in coalitions is strengthened when members make a practice of taking time to celebrate wins together, creating moments of shared ownership and reinforcing the sense that the hard work is worthwhile.

A practice of convening

While reflection points us toward meaning and trust binds us together, convening is the shared practice that makes both possible. Convening may sound obvious, but in coalitions it is a practice. Convening is the discipline of creating rhythms that are predictable enough to build trust but light enough to repeat. This is especially important for coalitions in which the work is on top of one’s day job. And while I am the first to extol the values of a well-planned and facilitated meeting, often the most powerful group moments are sticky notes on a wall, sharing an important story, or pausing to celebrate a small win. The practice is in showing up, again and again (ideally in person given how virtual our world is ), to build toward impact.