Category: Insights

Like a lot of people, I used to think politics was just about government, elections, and politicians. The word conjured images of power brokers and back room deals and had little, if anything, to do with me.

As a leader in the Minnesota Active Citizenship Initiative (MACI), my understanding of politics has deepened and changed, and it is changing the way we do business at Kowalski’s Markets.

MACI is a cross-sector initiative that builds the civic capacity of leaders and their institutions. Under the organizing leadership of Peg Michels, MACI leaders use the authority and power they have in their own institutions to reconnect citizens to policy making.

My husband Jim and I own nine grocery stores in the Twin Cities and we have been in business since 1983. When we were first introduced to MACI, we were in the process of developing a plan for passing the business on to the next generation. We built our company on strong civic values and we wanted to pass on those values. The principles and practices used by MACI seemed like they would help us achieve our succession goals. I have since learned that civic organizing, the approach used by MACI, offers us much more. It is making us a stronger, more sustainable company—and a company that is fulfilling its obligations as a civic institution in a democracy.

This type of change starts with individual leaders. I spent time looking at my own self-interest, my life work, and how I use politics and power. I began to see myself connected to a bigger purpose. I could not save the world. I could not vote for just the right candidate, give to enough charities, or save our education system. What I could do was accept and embrace the role I had as a leader and as a businesswoman in the place where I had the most influence, inside my own company.

In 2002, we started a three-year MACI pilot project within the company. Key employees took a 12-week course called Civic Organizing 101. In the course, they were introduced to “big ideas” about democracy, justice, power, and politics. From the start we tied the work we do within Kowalski’s to a bigger purpose, to the common good. These are some of the steps we have taken:

• We have restated our identity and operating principles to integrate democratic ideals with company goals. Our new identity explicitly states our obligation to the common good.
• We have set the expectation that everyone in the company has a role in helping to define problems, to contribute to finding solutions, and to strive towards the common good. In the process, employees learn that politics is the process of determining the right action and that political competency is required to get things done.
• We use disciplines that further build civic capacity. Employees take the time to think and write about what matters to them and what they value so they can define their life work. They learn how to manage their time in a way that achieves company goals and supports what they say is important. Employees learn to articulate the ideal, assess what is really happening, and then identify opportunities and barriers for closing the gap between the two. They learn how to organize one-on-one meetings and other public meetings so that energy is focused on the public purpose that furthers company goals and objectives. And, they use evaluation to develop policies to sustain what works.

These efforts have helped us create a civic infrastructure within the company. Employees feel greater ownership in achieving company goals. They are active decision-makers in the company and as a result we are making better decisions and producing a better product at less cost.

The work we are doing in the company is making a difference outside the company, too. Steve Beaird, a manager with the company, says it this way, “I used to go as a consumer to my child’s parent conferences. I expected the teacher to define the problem and find the solutions. I would listen but I didn’t really participate. Then I would complain to my wife and coworkers about what wasn’t working. I don’t do that anymore. I know now that I have an obligation to bring resources to the table to help solve problems wherever I have a role.”

Even before our work with MACI, Jim and I established a good reputation and developed a company culture that worked. What was missing was an intentional infrastructure that could sustain what we built and a purpose that made a difference in the larger world. The Minnesota Active Citizenship Initiative has helped us put that in place.

And now I know that politics is essential to making Kowalski’s work and to making a democracy work. At Kowalski’s, politics is our everyday work.

This article was originally published in the Citizens League’s Minnesota Journal – January 2007

Just to make myself miserable, I’ll sometimes play the “what if” game. What if I could have known the recent recession was coming? What would I have done differently with my family’s resources, or the Citizens League’s? Ah, how the world would be different if I had only known. Minnesota is in the middle of its own financial “what if” game right now, except that…we know what’s coming. We understand the causes of our state’s financial ills (aging and slow labor force growth) and the consequences of doing nothing, but our current approach to policy making cannot provide a solution. On a broad swath of issues, from education and health care to the environment and economic disparities, we often know what must be done but struggle to get it done—to move from reports to results. So how do we, mired as we are in bitter partisan and ideological divide, find the practical solutions needed to solve our state’s fiscal ills in a way that preserves the common good? We need to imagine a different outcome for Minnesota and then create it.

A NEW APPROACH
The current model for policymaking no longer works. Narrow but powerful ideologies have created narrow but powerful political “bases” and affiliations, fracturing our political process and making it nearly impossible for our elected leaders to find common purpose or act for the common good. Traditional advocacy and partisan politics only make this situation worse. We have allowed this divide to put our nation’s financial health at risk and create the longest state shutdown in U.S. history. To change this dynamic we as citizens must find a common collective purpose, one based on our shared need to govern for the common good. It won’t be easy. As a people, we’ve lost the basic civic and political skills required governance; we’ve lost sight of our role as citizens in governing. We more often see ourselves as consumers rather than producers of the common good. We see policy as something that happens “out there” in our state or nation’s capitol, and have come to view government as either the source or the barrier to the common good. It is neither. Although critical to preserving our republic, it is increasingly less central to many of the practical policy solutions we need. We must choose a new way forward.

A BETTER MODEL
In this issue of the Minnesota Journal, we offer examples that demonstrate how we can move forward by embracing a better process for policymaking. We are developing and advancing recommendations in key policy areas using civic organizing, a political strategy that develops the civic capacity (the governing ability) of selfidentified civic leaders who have enough authority within their institutions to influence change. Civic organizing takes democracy deep inside all institutions—closer to where we can impact outcomes. Its power to effect change comes from creating a diverse base of engaged citizens and institutions willing to find common ground and act for the common good. Civic organizing applies to our work in at least three ways: Common ground for the common good. Civic organizing begins by organizing those impacted by a problem to help define the problem against shared civic values, and then aligns individual and institutional self interest and the resources that come with these interests, toward creating and effecting a common solution. The Citizens League’s Honoring Choices, long-term care and Common Cents projects began by bringing together a large group of stakeholders to define the problem through respectful dialogue, and then identified the resources each participant could bring to help create the solution.

Everyone is a policy maker. Civic organizing assumes that all individuals have the capacity to impact the common good, positively or negatively, through everyday actions. But like unexercised muscles, our civic skills have grown weak with lack of use. Through the Quantum Civics™ leadership program, and the disciplines and practices of civic organizing, the Citizens League is helping to build a new base of individuals and institutions who see their role as producers rather than consumers of governance. Policy happens everywhere. Civic organizing assumes that all institutions, government included, must play a role in developing the incentives and capacity needed to solve our public problems. This isn’t an ideological notion, it’s an entirely practical one.

BUILDING BETTER SOLUTIONS
By helping to better define problems, and then building the capacity (the people and resources) necessary to advance policy recommendations, civic organizing has allowed the Citizens League to advance policy in a number of areas, including long-term care, mental health reform, poverty and water. Our work is better and more impactful because of this model. It’s hard to go against the grain of current politics and policymaking. But we’re at a point in time where as citizens we have to choose action over gridlock. Civic organizing offers both hope for a better future, and a real opportunity for us to make Minnesota once again the state where miracles happen. •

Sean Kershaw is the Citizens League’s executive director. He can be reached at skershaw [at] citizensleague.org, @seankershaw (Twitter), Facebook, or his blog at citizensleague.org/blogs/sean/.