[Oe List ...] Care for the ICA USA and its board of directors

[David Dunn]

On 9/6/07 3:34 PM, "Milan Hamilton"  wrote, among other comments:

> I continue to be mystified and totally puzzled at the arrogance and
> insensitivity, and might I say, ignorance (in the technical sense of the word)
> of ICA US Board and staff [in its relationship to the ToP Trainers'
> Network]...
> 
To which Marshall Jones replied:

> I'm not totally clueless about what's going on with the ICA-USA board and
> staff. But, like many who are proficient in using our methods and who
> participated in their evolution, I was never officially 'baptized' as a ToP
> Trainer, so I haven't seen the relevant documents... [that express a concept
> of the relationship of the ICA USA to the ToP Trainers Network that is
> rigid and authoritarian rather than collaborative and collegial]...
> 
> ...we wouldn't expect [the ICA USA Board] to be on ToP [of ICA's "ToP"
> facilitation methods] But I DO expect them to be respectful and sensitive to
> the collegial issues...

Dear colleagues,

The correspondence quoted above has to do with the posture that the ICA USA
has adopted in its relationship with the network of professional
facilitators and trainers who are authorized to deliver ICA USA's public ToP
facilitative leadership courses.

This email has a slightly broader context: one possible relationship that
conscientious stakeholders might choose to take to the ICA USA Board of
Directors. I'm going to share some background and context, describe my
experiences with this Board, offer some analysis of the situation and make
five recommendations.

FULL DISCLOSURE and RECENT BACKGROUND
As a laid off former employee, I am not a disinterested or unbiased observer
or advocate. I have, however, worked very hard at being balanced, open and
engaged with the people who now run the ICA USA, including the board of
directors. I believe that I have said on this listserv before that I have
not been engaged by that board and I have been explicitly excluded from any
dialogue about an aspect of ICA USA's future in which I have serious and
creative interest-- the care for the ICA Global Archives in Chicago. Several
emails to the ICA USA board have been ignored and a face-to-face
conversation with Kirk Harris resulted in my being barred from the basement
of 4750 N Sheridan Road.

That's the old news, pre-July 2007.

PRESENT CONTEXT
In early July this year I decided it was time to send a written letter to
the board of directors, to share some of my observations, to raise the
issues to which I believed the Board needed to address itself, to offer some
contradiction statements as a basis for dialogue about the future and to
make some proposals for moving forward. I sent copies of the letter to 35
respected movement colleagues around the US and Canada. (See the list
below.)

Carolyn Antenen, the board's president, to her credit extended the courtesy
of a telephone call and a brief phone conversation in response to this
letter. I have not, however, from either Carolyn or any other board members
had any response of any substance to my analysis or my recommendations.

I am making one last attempt to put before the ICA USA board and the
constituency of which we all are a part, some serious analysis and several
serious proposals for an authentic way to move the ICA USA forward with
integrity.

I live out of the assumption that the primary values that should be guiding
both the ICA USA board and staff are what we've characterized as "inclusive
participation" and "profound respect." I affirm and embrace the ICA's
mission: "Releasing the capacity to create positive, sustainable futures in
every individual, organization, and community." I also affirm as of central
and fundamental importance a phrase that has been meaningful to the ToP
Trainers Network: "Be the change you want to see." It's a quote from Gandhi
if memory serves.

MY EXPERIENCE OF THE CURRENT ICA USA BOARD OF DIRECTORS
I've tried to understand behavior that seem logically and emotionally
totally the opposite of what one would expect from the board and staff of an
organization whose mission is 'releasing capacity,' whose values are
participation and respect, and whose posture has been to 'be the change'
that leads to 'positive, sustainable futures.'

In the absence of information to the contrary, this is what I conclude:

 - This board feels responsible for the collapse of the ICA USA
 - Embarrassment and guilt have lead to a defensive, huddled posture
 - The pendulum has swung from the chronic disorder of laissez faire
   governance to the acute disaster of command and control governance
 - The present members of the board are exhausted, overwhelmed and
   paralyzed, rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding.
 - There simply is not enough functional depth of common memory in this
   board to conceive of 'facilitative leadership,' let alone provide it
 - Overwhelm has reduced a rich and varied program capacity down to
   'supporting' a single program thrust--ToP facilitation and training--
   the practitioners of which are mostly self-employed professionals
 - The only tangible program asset remaining to ICA USA is the supposedly
   proprietary intellectual property of the "Technology of Participation."
 - The rhetoric rings hollow when the posture and behavior of board and
   staff violates long standing traditions and practices that are the basis
   of the integrity of the intellectual property.
 
Whatever validity and merit this train of thought might have has arisen from
lengthy reflection and considerable prayer over the ICA USA over the last
eight years.

ANALYSIS
I have identified, named and described several contradictions. The most
interesting observation and provocative contradiction statement has to do
with the ICA USA's culture and organizational patterns. Over time, we
replaced the "driver patriarchies" of our distant past with a succession of
"driver-matriarchies" over the last twenty-plus years. It may have been an
unapologetic patriarchy that launched us into history, but it has been a
chronic conflict among immensely creative, matriarchal fiefdoms that has
thwarted the ICA USA's collective aspirations for the last two decades.

I write with the utmost respect for each of the creative women who created
the human capital and program genius with which the ICA USA was blessed up
until last fall and winter. The ToP series, the ToP Trainers Network, the
Learning Basket Approach, the Community Resource Center in Chicago were all
inventions of humanness that were willed into being by colleagues whom I
hold in the highest esteem.

But as an organization, neither I, nor any of my staff colleagues, nor any
board member, ever got a handle on the dysfunction created by not
acknowledging the energy sapping, fog producing tyranny of a structure and
set of relationships that lead to an unruly collection of programs that was
an single organization in name only.

These were effective programs and ingenious projects, but not an effective
organization with a coherent, sustainable presence in the marketplace. And
for the last twenty to thirty years, no ICA USA board of directors has seen
what was there plain as day to see and no group of staff members found the
functional wherewithal to seek and craft anything different.

Now this particular board has inherited three and more decades of separation
from reality. All the rest of us have been handed a do or die, put up or
shut up opportunity to work with one of the children of our labor and the
vast organizational gap between rhetoric and reality that has been its
protracted undoing for years. There are plenty of other organizational
contradictions that have contributed to the ICA USA's demise that anyone who
chooses to be serious about the ICA USA's future must attend to. I believe
that it is disingenuous at best and self-sabotaging at worst, not to
acknowledge and attend to contradictions, of which I've identified only one
above.

It seems to me that the observations and the contradictions that gave me
clarity about what's what, lead necessarily to the five inescapable
implications.

FIVE RECOMMENDATIONS
1. double the size of the present ICA USA board.
2. split off the Ecumenical Institute as a separate, distinct organization
and double the size of the two successor boards. (This is exceedingly
important. The ICA has held EI incognito for entirely too long and EI must
not be hijacked by a new regime without any clues to its significance.)
3. Sell 4750 North Sheridan road to an Uptown nonprofit.
4. Use proceeds from the sale to support ICAI, HIV/AIDS work being done by
the African ICAs and a participatory conciliar process to reinvent both
organizations.
5. Enlist movement guardians to oversee and facilitate this process.

DOWNLOADS
You can download my July letter to the Board and movement guardians from
which this train of thought arose at:
http://homepage.mac.com/dmansel/filechute/JulyLtr2Board.zip
[you'll have to unzip this .rtf file]
-or- 
in a password protected .pdf requiring Adobe Reader at:
http://www.mirrorcommunication.com/people_and_partners_with_wh.html
(Click the link under downloads.)

Let me know 'off the list' if you want a Word document attached to an email
or a text document pasted into an email. I'll be happy to respond.


Give me feedback.

David Dunn

-- 
David Dunn
www.mirrorcommunication.com
david at mirrorcommunication.com
720-314-5991
Skype: dmirror

-- THANKS FOR UPDATING MY EMAIL ADDRESS --

COVER LETTER sent to the board in July

Colleagues:

My intention in sharing the three-page ³talking paper² with you and others
is to urge and support broader and deeper dialogue. The listservs may be
venues for ³getting real,² but they¹re not up to finally ³getting serious.²

I¹ve mailed identical copies of the paper to the following, somewhat
arbitrarily-chosen but arguably widely respected and able colleagues. Are
there people like these in our network who would share with you the role of
transitional leadership in support of broader participation?

Pam Wilcox, Nelson Stover, Ellen Howie, Janice Ulangca: Linda Alton, Terry
Bergdall, Marie Blanchard, Karen Bueno, Ray Caruso, John Cock, Forrest
Craver, Marilyn Crocker, Rafael Davila, John and Ann Epps, Susan
Fertig-Dykes, Kay Hayes Gadway, Ken and Ruth Gilbert, Duncan Holmes,
Dorothea Jewell, Tim Karpoff, Heidi Kolbe, Wes and Sharry Lachman, Sue
Laxdal, Gene Marshall, David McCleskey and Pat Webb, Mary Warren Moffett,
Anne Neal, Lambert Okrah, Sherwood and Eunice Shankland, Oliveann Slotta,
Raymond Spencer, Jim Troxel, Larry Ward and Peggy Rowe, Jean Watts, Bruce
Williams and Rob Work