Friday Notes, December 9, 2022
Dear Friends -
In 1966, Abraham Maslow (he of the “hierarchy of needs”) wrote, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail." That remains a highly salient observation, maybe even more than in the mid-60s: a lot of people have one tool, and spend time and energy demonstrating how useful it is. “Systems thinking.” “Theory of change.” “Impact investing.” But one tool does not build a better world.
My friend and former colleague Jacob Harold has set out to solve the hammer problem, and he may just have done it. A true polymath, Jacob has written The Toolbox: Strategies for Crafting Social Impact, and it is a spectacular gift to those of us working in “for-purpose” organizations and social movements. I got it hot off the presses a week ago, and devoured it in (almost) one sitting.
The premise of the book is that a whole host of methods can — and should — be brought into the service of social change; each has its own place and purpose. Those methods, or tools in the toolbox, include: storytelling, mathematical modeling, behavioral economics, design thinking, community organizing, game theory, markets, complex systems analysis, and institutions.
This may seem like a list of apples, oranges, and hairbrushes, but Jacob makes a compelling case that these are all powerful tools that can be used to both design and effect collective action that will make a difference. And he doesn’t just describe the potential uses. He manages to give a master class about them, chapter by chapter, replete with application-oriented frameworks, examples, and accessible take-aways. Plus quite a bit of poetry. I finished the book feeling not just smarter but, yes, profoundly inspired to become a more skilled and better equipped builder.
Not surprisingly, given Jacob’s work in and around the philanthropic sector, the book may speak loudest to people who are operating at a field, or ecosystem, level. These folks understand that diverse approaches and actors are needed to move ideas forward toward meaningful real-world change. Along with Carlos Saavedra’s framework for understanding the role of different types of organizations in social movements, the “toolbox” can help funders figure out how different approaches to creating and implementing strategy can work — and work together.
As someone who is focusing right now on only one organization’s work, The Toolbox also gave me a new way to appreciate the different talents brought together under one roof. We need the internal impact measurement and learning team to do their version of mathematical modeling so we can figure out which types of projects will yield the greatest impact. We need the communications team to help us with storytelling. We need the team members who love behavioral economics to help identify and overcome the cognitive biases that get in the way of seeing the world from multiple vantage points. We need the institution-builders to create the organization-wide systems and the community organizers to maintain motivation for the hard challenges we’re tackling. In short, adopting Jacob’s understanding of the value of different tools has helped me think more deeply about what teamwork can look like.
I won’t belabor the point more: This book belongs on your holiday wish list.
Here’s some more recommended reading, all available with just one click:
The Dignity Report 2022: An articulation of a shared research agenda, a description of methods to understand and measure dignity-related behaviors and perceptions, and some brilliant reflections on this crucial dimension of social progress.
“The Three Leadership Tensions Every CEO Must Manage to Thrive in a Complex World”: An astute essay about balancing optimism and realism, making progress when the quality of leadership varies across the senior team, and deciding when to jump at an opportunity and when to move deliberatively. The piece includes three sets of “key questions for CEOs” that are quite brilliant conversation-starters for board-level discussions.
“The End of High School English”: An article about the potential (likely) use of the amazing AI-powered ChatGPT writing bot. We do seem to have suddenly entered a new era in which the art of writing clearly, which I’ve always considered to be a marker of thinking clearly, is now just one more task we could hand off to a machine. Sure, we can still pick up a pen and write, just like we can pick up knitting needles and make a sweater. But if it’s 1,000 times easier and the results are nearly as good — maybe better — why waste the effort? This article, written by a high school English teacher, lays out the conundrum vividly.
Closing with two videos that lifted my spirits.
Lizzo at the People’s Choice Awards:
And Trevor Noah’s Daily Show farewell:
Have a good weekend,
-Ruth