CPCP Catalyst: Washington DC by Center for Performance and Civic Practice

CATALYST INITIATIVE ROUND 2

Actor and playwright Anu Yadav worked with Emily Norton of the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington, DC based progressive multi-issue think tank and community of public scholars and organizers. Their work together focused on how artistic practice can support an organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s management team and staff as they experience strategic planning by creating environments for conversation, team-building, and visioning. Their story together over a year of collaboration is one of deep listening, trust-building and improvisation; discovering the impact an artist can have on an organization that is facing large-scale shifts; how artistic process tools can make space for a 50-year old organization to consider its legacy and future.

Washington DC Center for Performance and Civic Practice

“I came on at a time when IPS as an organization was looking at their mission statement and doing some strategic planning for the first time in a long time, making some big organizational development changes.” – A N U YADAV

“I’m excited that through repetition the staff is starting to understand what we mean by civic practice and what Anu is doing here. I’m excited that folks are buzzing around her being here and telling the staff about what tools Anu has in her toolbox.” – EM I LY N O R TON, IP S LE A DE RSHIP DEVELOPMENT MANAGER

“Storytelling and performance are important cultural forms and integral to the success of nearly every social movement. We believe in Anu’s work as an artist committed to social change. Her ability to listen, learn, write, and perform are a set of crucial artistic skills that offer a great resource to our work.” – J O H N C AVANAGH, IP S DIRE CTOR

Contents The Partners

How It Started

Discovery/Shifts in Process

The Retreat and Post Follow Up

Ripple Effects

More On IPS

Exit Interview Quotes

PARTNERS Emily Norton Anu Yadav

The Partners

Anu Yadav is a critically acclaimed actress, playwright, and educator. She tours her solo plays ‘Capers and Meena’s Dream, and created Classlines, a storytelling project on wealth and poverty. Her work was featured in the documentaries Walk with Me and Chocolate City, as well as the Washington Post, The Crisis, MTV, WAMU-FM, among other media outlets. She was a 2016 DC Artist Fellow, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and holds an M.F.A. in Performance from University of Maryland, College Park. She is currently writing two plays THE PRINCESS AND THE PAUPER and ISM: A TRAGICOMEDY and in MACBETH at the Shakespeare Theatre Company. www.anuyadav.com

Institute for Policy Studies As Washington’s first progressive multi-issue think tank, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) has served as a policy and research resource for visionary social justice movements for over four decades — from the anti-war and civil rights movements in the 1960s to the peace and global justice movements of the last decade. Some of the greatest progressive minds of the 20th and 21st centuries have found a home at IPS, starting with the organization’s founders, Richard Barnet and Marcus Raskin. IPS scholars have included such luminaries as Arthur Waskow, Gar Alperovitz, Saul Landau, Bob Moses, Rita Mae Brown, Barbara Ehrenreich, Roger Wilkins and Orlando Letelier.

Emily Norton is the Leadership Development Manager at the Institute for Policy Studies and oversees youth programming and curriculum development at the Institute. She co-founded the Next Leaders Program, which pays interns from underrepresented communities to work hand-inhand with policy experts and allied organizations. Outside of IPS, she worked as a researcher for the Labor Network for Sustainability in an effort to connect the climate justice and labor movements. She has also served as a facilitator and mentor for femex, where she guided participants to explore different aspects of what it means to be “female” through dialogue and experiential learning.

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How it Started

A N U H A D I N I T I A L C O N V E R S AT I O N S W I T H J O H N Cavanagh, Institute for Policy Studies Director, about finding ways to communicate outwardly about the work IPS is involved in. Their initial conversations included ideas to connect IPS research to performance, in the form of short, video comedy sketches written and created by Anu that would “interpret” and capture essential concepts within research reports. This idea connected to IPS’ mission to make research more accessible and to create a public conversation. Emily Norton represented IPS at the Catalyst Initiative convening held in Chicago, Illinois in August 2015. After the convening, Emily became Anu’s primary liaison and point of contact for IPS.

“This partnership is exciting to me because I deeply respect the scholarship of the Institute for Policy Studies. I am interested in connecting research to performance through personal storytelling, as a way to educate audiences about structural poverty and its connection to (in)justice and environmental health.” – A N U YA DAV

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DISCOVERY/SHIFTS IN PROCESS

DISCOVERY

Anu began her partnership with IPS during a time when the organization was looking at their mission statement and contemplating large-scale organizational development changes. The management was in the midst of a larger internal ‘listening’ project, creating space to hear the concerns of staff as the organization moved towards strategic reorganization, a renewed mission statement and vision in response to those concerns. It became apparent that creating ‘outward-facing’ comedy sketches to reflect and interpret their data would be difficult as internally they were seeking to build a stronger and more unified sense of who they are and what they do.

“It became clear the organization wasn’t in a place to make full use of this proposed project, so I began thinking about how to shift the project to something more useful and relevant to where they were.” – A N U YADAV

LISTENING

Anu proposed that she play a role as a sounding board, hosting a series of ‘listening sessions’ with a few key staff members to get a deeper understanding of their needs, their vision, what they do, how they work as an organization. Anu described her role in these listening sessions: 1. Listen 2. Ask questions 3. Reflect back what she heard 4. Share ideas on how to apply her skills as an artist in this very important process they are undergoing right now. Anu became well-known at IPS. Several members of the staff attended a performance of Anu’s solo show. Anu met with IPS Associate Director, Tiffany Williams, who had been overseeing the internal listening process and had crafted a proposal for the strategic plan. Anu was invited to review the plan and offer feedback, and was then invited to attend the first two all-staff meetings where strategic planning was discussed.

SHIFTING

“I noticed that in some ways the partnership changed, not so much in the sense that Anu and I weren’t still working together, but that it was more important for her to work with other people at my organization.” – E M ILY NORTON

PLANNING

The strategic plan included a proposed organizational restructuring of IPS to improve communication and productivity, which staff overall agreed with. This process is entirely new to IPS -- the organization has never undergone this level of intentional restructuring in its 50 year history. It included proposals for fundamental operational changes and shifts from individual project-based work to collaborating in teams. As part of the work to renew IPS’ mission and vision, Tiffany planned an all-staff retreat and invited Anu to co-facilitate.

“I want to know [...] the goals/needs of the retreat itself. I want to figure out where their needs/goals match with the skills I have and how it makes sense for me to help with this retreat. There is a spectrum of support I can offer, from sounding board to planning to facilitation. And then my question is how to determine what I have the skill set to do.” – A N U YADAV

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FACILITATING

FACILITATING As the planning progressed, Tiffany asked Anu to be the main facilitator so that the entire staff, including management, could fully participate in the retreat. Anu worked closely alongside Tiffany, Emily and IPS staff to plan the retreat, her role being to listen, observe, and reflect back what she heard. Anu also helped shape the structure of the retreat to: 1) create a sense of community, and 2) invite the staff, who are often asked to use their analytical and critical minds, to bring their whole selves and personal values to the conversation.

“It has been really helpful to have Anu available to talk through things and to be more creative. I haven’t had enough quality time to invest in creativity when thinking about this retreat. I think that’s the thing that adds the most value, being able to think about how people interact with each other and ways to make the interaction more friendly, more loving, trusting; getting people to speak differently. I’m so focused on the content and sometimes that escapes me - and what I’m hoping for is more creativity while accomplishing what is on the agenda.” – T I FFANY WIL L IAMS

THE PROJECT

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THE RETREAT+ POST FOLLOW-UP

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The Retreat and Post Follow-Up The all-staff retreat took place on February 1, 2016, facilitated primarily by Anu, with some sections introduced or co-led by IPS leadership. To prepare staff for spending significant time on the mission, vision and theory of change statements critical to the organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s identity, they were invited into the space with a sense of play. Anu introduced structures such as story circles, small group conversations, and quiet reflections that allowed staff to take the time to appreciate each other, celebrate their successes and the work IPS has done over the years, and engage their personal values about the organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s future.

ONE OF THE RETREAT ACTIVITIES:

Share a moment or a story about your work: ... that you are proud of ... that made a positive difference ... that felt like a success ... that made you feel good to be a part of

Form small groups of 4-5 people. Each person has 2 minutes (and each group has a facilitator that is tasked with a timer so everyone has equal time) to share a story or moment at IPS that felt like success. Two other people document elements of these stories post-it notes, which are then posted on a designated IPS wall. Anu guided mini story circles on the successes and strengths of the organization and their work within it. The activity allowed participants to reflect on what was going well and share stories across their lines of work. People then documented these successes on paper and posted it up on a larger wall that the full group could refer back to later. WASHINGTON DC - 15

Retreat Feedback

“We’ve been around for 50 years, but it’s time to move beyond celebrating our past and begin preparing for our future. We’re trying to restructure our organization to fill out our needs. This is the first time we’re having an outside facilitator and we’re excited about Anu getting some creativity into the retreat.” – Emily Norton

“This retreat was impressively well prepared. I like that I can still be surprised by how much my colleagues know and how deeply they think about things, but bringing that out requires excellent facilitation.” – IPS Staff Member

Ripple Effects

AS PA R T O F TH E P O S T- R ET R EAT PROCE SS AND WITH an invitation by the management team, Anu provided a feedback report to the team with her observations on the retreat. This report was then used to plan several follow-up staff trainings, sessions, and conversations, many of which included activities or concepts Anu had introduced. Anuâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s participation in this process provided the organization arts-based strategies to support how IPS examines equity, diversity, and group dynamics internally and how this can lead to greater impact in their public work.

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“I think it feels really good to see us getting a lot closer to radical honesty. Having something be well facilitated and having a person come in and be bold and say “this is what I see happening” has started paving the way for us to be changing the way that we communicate with one another. I was impressed today - I saw people talking to each other differently. We had a conversation about the way we wanted to communicate with one another, and that’s something I’ve been wanting to see happen at IPS for four years.” – Emily Norton

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