3.11 Give yourself the gift of generative time

I spent twenty years coaching nonprofit leaders and activists. Early on, I came to think of coaching sessions as sacred time…

Personal sacred.

And here’s why. Because you get to…

Tell the truth about how you’re hurting.

Ask for what you need.

Shut down the attacks of your inner critic.

And become your own person.

Through it all, you get to…

Hold yourself in your own heart, in the deepest place in your heart, with compassion.

But then there’s something more. I also came to think of these sessions as…

Generative time.

Because in response to provocative questions, you find yourself digging deeper than ever into what’s true for you. And…

You surprise yourself with what you hear yourself saying.

Then…

These surprises turn into your future.

They generate your future.

Which makes these sessions doubly powerful and doubly precious.

But…

Why limit generative time to coaching sessions?

I love to work with activists on how they can do deep self-nurturing on their own during the ordinary course of their days. And…

How they can design generative time into their schedules as a priority.

Let’s look at the possibilities for generative time, how you can structure it and how you can use it. The possibilities are myriad and you get to design what you need. Not what you think you should need, but what you really do need.

Terence was the ED of the biggest community organizing nonprofit in his city. He told me…

I’m working till 8 o’clock at night and I hate it. I want to be home with my partner for dinner. And I want a real dinner, not crap out of a vending machine. You know I’m a health nut, and what I’m doing is so unhealthy.

But there are so many demands on me from so many people all day long that I don’t have time to do my work. Which I only get to after everyone else has left the office.

So I asked him…

What if you decided to get radical? What if you restructured your time so it works for you? What if you had faith that if you made things way better for yourself that your organization would do way better, too?

Then I gave him a challenge…

What if you make the first two hours of the day yours? Close the door. Answer no phone calls, don’t look at any emails, don’t let anyone interrupt you.

I thought he would counteroffer and agree to do maybe half an hour or an hour at the most. But he didn’t. He went for the two hours and eagerly.

It took him a week to get settled in with his new schedule, but then he told me…

In the morning when I come in, I say hi to everyone, head back to my office, hang a sign on my door that says, “Focus time,” and then I close the door. For two hours. I make this like you said, sacred time, personal sacred. I protect myself.

The first day I did this my inner critic started shouting at me, “This is not okay, y0u can’t do this, you have to be available to your staff at all times, what kind of leader are you?”

You know, my inner critic is still trapped back in sacrificial-savior mode, but I’m not. Not anymore.

It actually feels a bit transgressive to take radical action like this, but I find I enjoy my new schedule all that much more just for that reason.

Three weeks later he said…

Some of my staff were a little grumpy at first. But then they noticed I was powering through my grant writing, which is what keeps them in paychecks. So the grumpiness subsided and turned into solid support.

I’ve got plenty of projects that take serious concentration—appeal letters, campaign design, quarterly reports, Board reports, staff evaluations. I do way better work on these things now because I’m doing them when I’m at my best.

And I’ve seen again and again that even a little bit of thinking time can make a very big difference. Both in terms of quality and speed.

Then at 11, when I open the door and the deluge begins, I feel great. I’ve started the day with a bang. Jason complained last Friday that he couldn’t get to me until then, and I just said, “Would you rather work for a happy boss or an unhappy boss?” He laughed and said, “Strike my complaint from the record. When you’re happy, I’m happy.”

Best of all, my partner and I really love the extra time we have together in the evening

At six weeks, Terence said…

I’m close to being caught up with all my big projects, and I’m so much more efficient I think I’ll soon be able to cut back from two hours to one hour a day.

So I gave him another challenge…

What if you keep the two hours, but now you have an hour that’s open. What would you use it for?

Oh, of course. Of course I should keep the two hours. I’m way more productive than I used to be. But that’s not enough. I want more. I like your word “generative.” I want that second hour to be generative time.

What would you generate?

Better ways to communicate with swing voters, that for sure. I’m obsessed with that.

And…

I need to be having more and deeper conversations with our campaign partners. I would like us to get more creative. We need better slogans and talking points. And the demonstrations we have are rag-tag. I’d like them to be coherent, with a clear focus. And like I said, I’d like us to get creative with them, make them surprising, make them tell a story, win hearts and minds.

And…

That’s enough for now, but with more thinking time I’m sure I’ll generate more ideas that will pay off. And will be fun. There you go, I’d like to generate more fun. I don’t want organizing to be a grind. Protests are useful, but leading the community in positive action is even better. I’d like to see us get to the point where we are such strong, influential, effective leaders in our city that we don’t need to do protests anymore.

Wait! Before you say And… I’ve got one more thing to add. I want time to do self-development. I want to think deeply about how I show up in my leadership. I want to make a coherent, strategic plan for becoming more what? Ask me a question, give me a prompt.

One thing I know about you is that you’re ambitious.

Yes! I want to become a force to reckon with in the field of community organizing. I don’t just want to engage with thought leaders. I want to become one myself. I want people to come to me for ideas and strategy.

And what about your staff?

Oh, yes, the same for them. I want to use some of my generative time to talk with each of them, and help them think deeply about their talents, strengths, and desires. And I want to make sure that those are playing an important part in developing the future of this organization.

You know I just heard something from a friend, a jazz aficionado, that Duke Ellington used to pay very close attention to the talents of the guys in his band, and he’s write pieces specifically to show off those talents. I really like that idea.

How much time do you spend thinking about your future?

Not much. That’s why I want to get proactive about strategizing further ahead. Like how chess players are always thinking ten moves ahead. I want us to do that in community organizing, instead of stumbling from one campaign to the next.

I hear that. And what about your own trajectory? Are you planning to still be in this job when you retire?

Oh god no. Once a month I do a two-hour brown-bag lunch where I tell my staff everything I’m learning about leadership. It’s optional, but everybody comes. And some of them take notes.

Why do you do that?

I want my staff to understand me better and how I make decisions. That was my initial impulse. But the sustaining idea is to develop leaders. I want deep bench strength here. This is my idea of a succession plan.

And how’s it working?

Really well. These sessions have inspired a bunch of the staff to get serious about their own development. Like reading, taking classes, doing coaching.

So you’re a leader who generates leaders?

I like that. I’ll claim that. That’s me. So, no, I’m not going to be here forever.

What do you know about what’s next for you?

Next to nothing.

How’s that sit with you?

It’s not okay. Like you said I’m ambitious. I want to be able to do more with what I’m learning. I know I can do more.

So, let me ask you this: How can you use this job to prepare yourself for what’s next?

I’ve never thought of myself as having a trajectory, one that I could work on and shape and strategize. But, wow, I like this.

And…

I need to take some of my generative time start researching what’s needed out there in the big picture of community organizing. When I talk with thought leaders, I’m going to ask them about their ambitions, and what they see is needed but missing.

And…

And I’m going to do a thorough self-assessment, and make a plan for boosting my strengths and seeing what I can do about my weak areas.

What will that take away from your work here? How will your organization have to sacrifice so you can do that personal work?

That’s my fear exactly, that focusing on my future is selfish. And isn’t it?

Tell me why it’s not.

Oh, well, because I’m dedicated to the larger mission of community organizing in this country. And guess what, everything I do to improve my abilities will be good for this place.

And my long-term thinking might well help improve campaigns we’re currently running.

So it’s okay for you to be generating your future?

More than okay.

Notice yourself now…

I’m so jazzed. I’m revved up. I’m trucking. I’m having fun. I think this generative time is going to become one of my favorite things ever. So much better than playing sacrificial-savior.

It seems to me that when activists are under the spell of the SSOS, they’re experiencing de-generative time. Because their work diminishes them.

That’s right! And the DNOS is generative and re-generative time, at least it is for me, because I feel like I’m coming back to life.