Culture Club

In the best workbook on how to be a consensus organizer (Ohmer & DeMasi, 2009), the authors begin a detailed roadmap to help introduce consensus organizing to virtually any organization with two words: "Be curious" (p. 304).

As anyone knows who has despaired of the culture within an organization of which they are a part, this is an even tougher problem at times than a radical revision of policies because it gets deeper than the what? and confronts the why? in any organization. 

Being curious is how we evolve as individuals and as collectives. Failure to do so is often framed as respect for those who came before or those who founded whatever organization of which we are a part. It can lead to a stagnant, ossified, hidebound group incapable of relating to the rest of the world, unable to meet challenges or change, even if they align with some triumphant party. As this is written, it is exactly what has happened to many Christian evangelicals, hyper-religious people who latch onto anyone who pretends to champion one or more of their goals. That people who call themselves devout followers of Jesus should virtually bow down to an immoral philandering conman like Donald Trump is an astonishing case of failure to be curious. Indeed, at one event I witnessed a peace person--a small woman holding an apolitical sign for peace--yelled at by a self-identified Christian, "Jesus said 'An eye for an eye!" It was an amazing instance of a profound ignorance of the New Testament, which repudiates the eye-for-an-eye approach. Stuck in the retributive and jealous God Old Testament, exhibiting a failure to even be curious about a "new" shift some 2000 years ago, is how some get almost hopelessly stuck.

But Ohmer and DeMasi's advice to start with "be curious" can help shake up an organizational culture. Kwame Christian (2018) also focuses on that orientation, calling it "compassionate curiosity." Similarly, the iconic civil rights strategist, the late Reverend James Lawson, advised civil society campaigns to always begin with a thorough assessment and investigation into all aspects of a question, of a general goal, of any deciders and influencers, and of any potential opposition. 

This is how any investigator starts--police, lawyer, researcher, and it should be how any social campaign or community organization begins anything.

References

Christian, Kwame (2018). Finding confidence in conflict. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6Zg65eK9XU&t=325s

Ohmer, Mary L. & DeMasi, Karen (2009). Consensus organizing: A community development workbook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.