It’s strategic planning time – the time to dream big, to reach for what is possible! Except we all know that’s not really what happens. At the end of the session, our biggest goal – if we’re lucky – might be to create a new program aimed at a small fraction of the problems our … Read more
In 2022, we asked our community to determine what’s next for our mission. Your answers fell into three categories: A place to learn about Catalytic Thinking Spaces to connect with other Catalytic Thinking practitioners Inspiration to experiment in your own work, to live in a space of inquiry. When we shared an update with our … Read more
Diversity. Equity. Inclusion. Justice. 60 years after Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, this work is the modern-day legacy of so much of what Dr. King stood for. To celebrate his birthday, we are therefore sharing a bounty of questions you can ask, to help make your work more equitable, more inclusive, more … Read more
If you’ve watched Creating the Future’s strategy and board meetings, you know that virtually every minute is spent in meaningful, generative conversation. Those discussions are what allow us to move forward in huge leaps, rather than tiny increments. What could be more important than thinking aloud together about the big questions your organization faces… Who … Read more
Community engagement means different things to different people. The more we have been diving into our own community engagement efforts, the more we’ve focused on what it means to be “in community with the people whose lives are touched by our work.” Beyond a transactional tactic for getting people to help an organization (so often … Read more
Catalytic Listening is a practice for bringing out the best in the people around us, simply by the way we listen when they are speaking. Because of that, Catalytic Listening is embedded into every aspect of the Catalytic Thinking framework. In every interaction, we choose whether to listen or speak. When we choose to listen, … Read more
For the past few months, this body has been applying Catalytic Thinking to the topic of board recruitment. This post is a summary of the work we did to design our recruitment process, and a reveal of the final outcome. To see the questions Catalytic Thinking led us to ask, click here. In our February … Read more
As a global organization, “working online” is in Creating the Future’s DNA. Our board, community, and action teams meet online. All our education programs, including our immersion courses, happen online. For 10 years now, online is our home. We’ve therefore asked our faculty for their key learnings, as you move your own in-person meetings online. … Read more
This week, Creating the Future will begin developing a communications strategy, to move our work to the next level. (You can watch or participate in that session here.) Because we will use Catalytic Thinking to develop that strategy, you may notice that some of the questions we ask feel different from questions posed in traditional … Read more
What does it make possible when people who work together know each other as whole people? That question led off this post about creating supportive, joyful teams. It also kicked off a whole series of posts in our weekly eJournal, with practice exercises for getting to know each other. Here’s the thing, though: All the … Read more