I joined the Catalyst team as a Producer on 1st December. The past few weeks have made me feel intellectually challenged and alive, my brain buzzing with new concepts and beautiful ideas. Simultaneously I’ve been winding down my Directorship at InnovateHer and trying to provide some space for the grief which comes up with the transition of letting a business go.
It’s a transition which I’m experiencing in tandem with multiple others; adjusting to life without my stepdad who passed away recently, in society as we try to resist plunging back into a state of mass fear around rising cases of Covid, and in the earth as we move ever deeper into winter. I’m finding solace in the knowledge of the upcoming dawn of the winter solstice on the 21st as it heralds the return of the light, the turning point which brings with it a new hope. And simply giving myself the space and permission to grieve by recognising that “there’s a crack in everything, but that’s where the light gets in.” (Leonard Cohen).
I’m balancing all this with taking delight in growing into in my new role at Catalyst. What I love most is the constant intellectual challenge and the diverse range of people who bring those challenges. There’s so much to digest, each new piece of information posing more questions, to which there are no answers yet, only even more questions! We’ve been exploring the original theory of change for Catalyst, created in 2019, and how this has evolved during the pandemic, during which time the network mobilised and responded to the circumstances in a rapid and impressive way. Now there is space to consider what comes next. A key part of our roles as Producers will be to co-create a new vision and theory of change with the wider Catalyst community network, to ensure we’re all aligned with what our shared purpose is.
Then there’s the questions arising around the relationship between CAST (our incubating organisation) and Catalyst. How do we hold the existing relationship with care, whilst recognising that a relative state of autonomy is important for Catalyst? How might we continue to draw upon the incredible expertise and connections within the CAST team whilst growing into our own identity? And if we don’t access the core support services provided by CAST, who will fulfil them? There are no answers to these questions just yet either. One thing is certain, we all agree that it must be shaped and steered by the needs of the network.
Ellie, Siana and I had a couple of sessions together to help us bond as a team and kick start some collective thinking for the upcoming Catalyst review. We met at Yard, a wonderful community-led initiative in Birmingham with a purpose of providing space for dreamers and thinkers to co-create in. (These folks are awesome and fed us really well!) Yard is also in the vicinity of Civic Square, an initiative rooted in the principles of a creative and participatory ecosystem — clearly much aligned with principles of Catalyst. The scene was definitely set for some creative thinking!
During one of these sessions, Ellie gave us a potted history of CAST, the key people involved and the development of Catalyst. The vision of tech for good as applied to the social sector co-created by Dan Sutch, Annika Small and Kieron Kirkland whilst working at Nominet Trust was way ahead of its time, and led to them co-founding CAST in 2016. It was fascinating to explore the broader network of people involved in building this, many of whom are integral to establishing Catalyst too. It nearly took a whole day, but felt core to our understanding of the context and the ecosystem.
As part of our onboarding, we decided it felt important to jointly explore our personal values. We did this because it encourages openness, establishes trust and may help to accelerate us through the forming stage of team development. Through this values mapping exercise we discovered a lot in common, but also some differences. It’s human nature to focus on our similarities, simply because we all have an innate desire to belong. Yet one value can mean a completely different thing to different people and neither of their definitions is wrong, because it’s deeply personal.
I enjoyed this blog from Outlandish on why working with differences is worth it. Abigail says;
“None of us can know the whole truth, we all have our own set of assumptions, perspectives and values that no matter how similar you might seem to someone, there will be differences, finding out more of the ‘truth’ or other people’s truth is interesting, fulfilling and leads to more understanding of each other, more connection… and more trust between each other.”
I had explored values in the past as a method to realign a team which was experiencing performance and cultural issues. It worked well because it provided a better understanding of one another and enabled us to pinpoint what was going wrong — namely a misunderstanding around personal preferences, communication styles and different ways of working. We coupled this with personality profiling for extra insights.
What was equally interesting to explore this time round, was how my values have evolved and shifted over the past few years since then. Spirituality is a core value which has surfaced strongly more recently for me. It encompasses connectedness, love, peace and purpose. I’d describe myself as a ‘spiritual shopper,’ borrowing from many different doctrines and pathways. I have a particular interest in buddhism and yogic philosophy. This provides fertile ground for some interesting discussions around faith, beliefs and purpose.
One of Ellie’s core values was love (her values had also evolved since 2019, you can read her previous piece here). This provided the basis for a beautiful and open discussion about how love can shape everything we do, and extend into our work at Catalyst. My first reaction was to ask is love a value or a feeling? We explored this and landed upon it being both a value and a feeling which can in fact permeate every action we take. Siana shared the phrase ‘love in action’ with us as a descriptor for how love actually transcends both and becomes something we do. This week her beloved guide bell hooks sadly passed away, who inspired this language. bell was an icon and a leading voice on intersectional feminism. bell wrote ‘all about love’ — which Siana recommended for anyone not yet acquainted with her glorious writing. bell says “love is an action, never simply a feeling.”
So, we move forward in love, towards defining a shared set of values which we hope will provide a basis for honest, open sharing and can hold us accountable for our actions too. We’re thinking about how our shared and personal values can enable us to lead this next phase for the network and translate into shared behaviours. We’re also thinking about how we’d like the network to shape their own set of values which will determine how we work as a wider collective.
One of the key learning points for us was that this is not something to be rushed, and must feel inclusive. We recognised the need to give ourselves time to process what comes up during the process and also the challenge in keeping the process inclusive for the extended team, which includes Debby, our Strategic Partnerships Manager. We’ll be sharing our collective values early in the new year.
So as we all move into a much needed period of rest and reflection, I’m going to take some time to process what we’ve learned so far. There are some big existential questions to be posed in the new year as part of the transition to a new shared vision for the future, such as;
How does change happen? Do we want to exist as a core team in 5 years time? How do we co-create and maintain a thriving ecosystem of people doing good things with digital? Do we let things form organically in a self-organising, decentralised but potentially inaccessible way? Or do we impose an opinionated structure on the ecosystem that doesn’t allow for as much self-government but means we can actively design it to be more inclusive? How do we measure the impact? What role do we play in this ecosystem?
….And so on. Lots to ponder! One thing I am sure of; we’re starting with love. Feeling a lot of gratitude and appreciation for the awesome people I’ll be working with in 2022 in the core team and the wider Catalyst community.
“Love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust.”
Thank you for your wisdom, bell hooks. May you rest in love ❤
