5 Things I wish I had learned on my first day at Enspiral
Hello, all! I’m Amanda. For 4 weeks in June and July, I completed a communication internship program with Massey University, through which I was placed in the path of Enspiral. I primarily worked with one other Massey intern and Ted Taptiklis. We worked to create communication outputs surrounding Human Methods Lab, but I also got to rub shoulders with various Enspiralites along the way.
Being a social-media-active millennial, Buzzfeed list articles are, of course, a staple of my cultural interactions and/or communication with the outside world. It is fitting, then, that I’ve made a similar article to summarize my experience with Enspiral, as well as to advise my past self. What follows are the five things I wish I had learned — really learned — on my first day at Enspiral.
1. Relationships are the underlying engine for the work at Enspiral. Relationships are also the glue that help any and all of the ventures stick together and run smoothly. Coworkers often become friends, and, since there are no bosses to lord it over anyone, mutual accountability and high trust are not only natural but essential.
I have been part of a lot of groups and teams where I was told that relationships were really important, but Enspiral epitomizes that way of working. What is more, because the work that people do at Enspiral actively seeks to make people’s lives better — like developing leadership in youth at Orientation Aotearoa, or enabling real collective action around the world via Loomio — there’s an unspoken relationship between Enspiralites and the people they hope to ultimately help. It’s a pretty powerful philosophy.
2. Big, world-changing tasks are, in a lot of ways, never-ending. A theme I saw through multiple conversations was that because of the size of the aspirations of many Enspiralites — hint: these aspirations are HUGE, in a really cool way — the work is never done. Radically reworking government or creating an environmentally sustainable society doesn’t just happen in a year or two years or even decades. Which is a really exciting challenge and a really challenging challenge.
It might mean that your task for today is not as clear as it might be, say, in a hierarchical organization where you’re dealing with a product or customer based on a supervisor’s instructions. But it means that if you’re keeping the vision of a better world first and focusing on tasks that work toward that, your task for today matters. Which is pretty mind-blowingly cool.
3. Defining “Enspiral” and defining its individual ventures are two distinctly different tasks. (And so is interning at each.) When I was told I would be an Enspiral intern, I set off to understand exactly what Enspiral is. And although I could have rattled off a definition to you at almost any point in the process, it still took me about three weeks to really get it. And I could continue to grow in “getting it” for years to come. The ventures, however, are the manageable, bite-sized pieces of explaining what makes up Enspiral. (Except there’s quite a few ventures; so it still might take a while.)
To move beyond semantics (which I do love — I’m a linguistics major), interning at Enspiral is… well, it’s not really a thing. (I suppose it could be for someone. But it wasn’t for me.) I interned with an Enspiralite and worked with him to try to create communication outputs for a proto-venture. And I worked to understand both that proto-venture and Enspiral along the way. It’s a lot to get your head around. But the problem-solver in me was up to the challenge — even if it’s not even completed yet.
4. Related to #3, there’s no one terminology people will use in their definition of Enspiral. A huge part of the journey was figuring out mine. Now, I will tell my family and friends who ask where I interned (and future employers, too) that Enspiral is “a network of start-up ventures focused on social impact.” Which now seems simple enough to my ears. But most of my loved ones typically still respond with “Wow, that sounds complicated.” And I’m okay with that. Enspiralites certainly are. Because worthwhile work is just complicated sometimes.
5. “Stuff that matters” really is the primary through line for what Enspiralites do. In our final week at Enspiral (and in Wellington, for that matter), my fellow intern and I sat down with six Enspiralites we hadn’t met before to get their take on different aspects of Enspiral. A lot of things struck me during these conversations. But I noticed, in particular, how different these people were. They came from different professional backgrounds. They had varying skill sets. They had different aspirations and visions of a better world. They had a range of work styles.
But what brought them together was (1) their desire to work within a structure that was different from what most of the rest of the world was doing; and (2) their desire to doing things that matter to the world and add to society. Sitting down with people who prioritize those makes you think and it makes you better, I found.
Working around Enspiral for just a month was a complete adventure. Thanks for letting me peek in to the really cool things you are all doing and making. Thank you to each person I spoke with, whether briefly or over the course of a day or more. (Serving up meals at the Design for Social Innovation Conference was a major highlight — thank you especially to Skye, Doris, and Lucy!) It was a pleasure, and I miss Wellington so much already.
Keep on doing stuff that matters, all! Cheers.
