Shifting Mindsets

In order to understand the difference that the West Creek Ranch experience made for the nonprofit leaders, it’s useful to understand what they were thinking about before they came. Nearly all voiced the same questions and issues of concern around resources, leadership and legacy, programming and services, and scale. Many of these will sound familiar to every nonprofit:

“How can we find the value of our work so we can be compensated?”

“What legacy are we leaving and how can we help families leave their legacy here?”

“How do we change the rules of collaboration to effectively bring more people to the table?”

“What will it take to serve thousands of people instead of a hundred?”

In just four days, participants gained new ways of seeing and thinking. They learned to act their way into change, instead of the overthinking and processing that typically takes place in work environments. This process gave them space and perspective to move beyond quotidian limitations, creating fresh, expansive visions of where they want to move their organizations and, equally important, where they personally want to go. Each nonprofit leader left with an expanded network of co-conspirators for good, a tool kit of processes, a common language, and new frameworks and ways of thinking to aid in their quest to make some difference in their worlds.

Specifically, participants gained the tools and ability to:

• Use language that breaks through jargon to express new ideas and shift paradigms.
• See and map systems that lead to a shared understanding of reality and priorities.
• Situate themselves and their organizations in context with nature.
• Think critically.
• Know how to unlearn and reframe problems.
• Recognize patterns and develop insights.
• Lead a collaborative creative process.
• Design for productive relationships.
• Use design methodologies.
• Create prototypes and integrate feedback.
• Act their way into new thinking, rather than thinking their way into a new way of acting.
• Critique skills that push ideas from inception to practical reality.

As a result of their time together, each participant became an activator of a process that, in and of itself, has become transformational for the organizations they lead.

“The process has helped me think in a way that allows us to go further faster.”

“Our strategic conversations have shifted from solving a problem to creating the conditions for success with our constituents.”

“The mapping process opened us to see so many connections and intersections in our work where we could align with others — both the obvious and, more importantly, the not so obvious — in order to expand possibilities.”

Their reflections and insights at the end of the program are a clear demonstration that this new mindset has taken hold and will create a ripple effect inside their organizations.

4 Books for Shifting Mindsets

As the Cheryls developed their program, four books inspired their approach:

Creating Social Value: A Guide for Leaders and Change Makers
by Cheryl Kiser and Deborah Leipziger with J. Janelle Shubert

The Intergalactic Design Guide: Harnessing the Creative Potential of Social Design
by Cheryl Heller

Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Futureby Leonard A. Schlesinger and Charles F. Kiefer with Paul B. Brown

The Elements of Style
by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White