[The following Op-Ed letter is from Bob Wentworth, who has had a close-up view of CNVC’s organisational change efforts since 2012, having served as a CNVC Board member and co-architect of Process for a New Future, a facilitator of much of the process, and a volunteer supporting the Implementation Phase. This letter reflects his personal views of recent events. It was originally posted to the CNVC trainers Yahoo group.]
Dear Colleagues,
REQUEST
I will begin with my request: If you resonate with the concerns I raise in this message, would you please join me in writing to the CNVC Board <board@cnvc.org> to express something like the following (you are invited to express in your own words or use these):
It is important to me that CNVC relate with integrity and care to those who have worked on its behalf. I request that the CNVC Board honor CNVC’s commitment to the New Future Process — in a way that is satisfying to those who have invested their life energy by contributing to the process.
I request that the Board:
(1) respond to this email and let the community know, if and how you are planning to address these concerns;
(2) find a way to say “yes” to what the Implementation Council requests, while collaboratively finding ways to care for the Board’s concerns, in order to allow implementation of the NF Plan to proceed — as a process that is about improving and evolving CNVC; and
(3) honor its decision to include Dominic Barter as a voting Board member in any Board discussion of such requests.
The background that leads to this request follows.
APPRECIATION FOR THE BOARD
I am very glad that the CNVC Board has chosen to pay the Implementation Council for their work this year. I gather that the Board struggled to find a way to address this issue in a way that felt in integrity for it; I so appreciate the Board’s willingness to have the dialog among themselves that was needed to achieve this.
CARE FOR THOSE AFFECTED BY THE BOARD’S DECISION TO DISCONTINUE THE NFP
At the same time, I am worried about an even bigger issue, which is still unaddressed.
What has been addressed was a situation in which 4 people worked in good faith for 4 months, in a context where they believed there was an agreement that CNVC would pay them for their work.
What has not been addressed is a situation in which over 4 years, a total over of over 600 people worked in good faith, doing over 6000 hours of work in over 300 meetings, in the context of a CNVC Board decision that CNVC would unconditionally implement the decisions that were the result of that work.
I heard from many of those involved that this commitment by the Board was a major factor in why were willing to commit their labor to this effort. From Dominic and others I had learned on three or more prior occasions (e.g, in 2003, 2005 and 2009) CNVC Boards initially invited and welcomed community work to improve the organization, and then the Board unilaterally rejected the results of this work, stimulating many hard feelings and loss of trust. This time, a Board decision offered a commitment that this pattern would not repeat. This commitment by the Board was the unique defining feature of the New Future Process. This commitment seemed to be the key to many people’s willingness and enthusiasm for participating in the process. People who had felt alienated by the choices of past Boards reported allowing themselves some cautious hope for the possibility that, for the first time ever, a significant effort to improve CNVC might actually lead to change. They allowed themselves to hope that their dreams and labors might matter.
All the work done in association with the NF Process so far occurred with this understanding about CNVC’s commitment, and with faith in the Board’s word. Yet, in its April 25, 2018 letter to the Implementation Council, reaffirmed last week in a letter to the trainers list, the Board unilaterally and without discussion declined to honor this commitment, once again rejecting the work of the community.
* * *
When I say the Board declined to honor CNVC’s commitment to its own process of evolution – the New Future Process – the observation that I would reference is this statement that appeared in the Board’s April 25, 2018 letter to the Implementation Council, which was repeated again in its Sept 10, 2018 letter to the trainers list: “Given the current state of affairs, we suggest that the Implementation Council manage the NVC-O emergence independently and financially separate from CNVC.”
Although this has been framed as a “suggestion,” in the Board’s interactions with the Implementation Council I have not seen indications that the Board is open to alternatives.
Likely, Board members sincerely believe that this suggestion somehow honors the New Future Process and its output, the New Future Plan. However, this suggestion would render what happens into something entirely different than the agreed upon Plan.
The Board may not consider the change it is proposing to be a big one. But, the NF Process design (which the CNVC Board wrote and approved and continued to affirm its commitment to) makes it very clear that the Board does not have the authority to decide how to interpret or change the Plan. The New Future Process changed CNVC’s core decision-making processes so that representatives of the NVC community as a whole would be the ultimate decision makers regarding such issues. Not only did the Board agree to honor and implement the decisions made within the NF Process, it agreed that the Board would challenge the decisions of the Process only if they seemed to involve “breaching the law” — and even then, the CNVC Board would simply ask those in the NF Process to fix the decisions to make them legal.
The NF Plan is a plan for evolving and improving CNVC. “NVC-O” is term that essentially means “CNVC-after-it-has-been-improved.”
To my mind, the single most important thing in the entire NF Plan is that it changes the way decisions are to be made in CNVC – including Board decisions. Ironically, the Board’s recent decision-making processes illustrate precisely what the authors of the NF Plan were concerned about, and decided needed to be changed. The agreed-upon changes involve radically increasing transparency, consulting with those affected by decisions, and offering ways of changing decisions and addressing conflicts when conflicts about decisions arise. The agreed changes also involve changes to how Board members are selected.
The Plan is about changing CNVC, yet the Board suggests proceeding with implementing the NF Plan “separate from CNVC.”
It is as if, after inviting the community to design a plan to renovate a building, and promising unconditionally that the plan would be followed, the inviters then suggested “following the plan” but doing so without touching the building in any way.
I feel baffled and saddened at this suggestion, which rejects everything that is important to me about the NF Plan.
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I haven’t heard the Board acknowledge that a commitment existed, nor that that it has made a unilateral change of agreement. In the absence of such acknowledgements, I experience a sense of profound disconnection.
I long for CNVC to be an organization that is trustworthy and cares for the human beings who have worked on its behalf, whether they work for pay or as volunteers.
UNDERSTANDING THE BOARD’S CONCERNS
In its few public communications, the Board has alluded to what I think they interpret as fatal problems with the implementation of the New Future Plan. I welcome this feedback. Yet what I read them bringing up are issues that I see as easily addressable within the understandings and skill sets we share as NVC practitioners. If conversations between the Board and ImpC a year ago did not resolve these issues to the Board’s satisfaction, I have a strong sense that this was because there was a lack of shared reality regarding what the conversations were about, and what each group was assuming to be true. At the time, there was apparently insufficient support for achieving mutual understanding. We are in a very different context now, in which more is known, and support could be invited. There are new opportunities for connection. I have complete confidence that full connection would lead naturally and quickly to mutually satisfying solutions, and that engaging the support of the community could allow such connection and solutions to emerge.
If I understand what the Board has written about its concerns, it seems that the Board was primarily concerned about two things: that NF Plan implementation constituted a financial drain on CNVC, and that the implementation process prevented CNVC from addressing operational issues that needed attention. I personally have certainty that both of these issues could be easily addressed in ways that would be mutually satisfying and would not require ending the New Future Process. I wonder: If these two issues were addressed in a satisfying way, would the Board then be willing for implementation of the NF Plan to proceed as agreed? If not, why not?
In the absence of the Board sharing its concerns more fully, I am trying to understand the Board’s choices. I am guessing the members of the Board are painfully aware of a number of problems (independent of the New Future Process) that they feel responsible to address, feel alone, are overwhelmed with the magnitude of the challenges they experiences themselves and CNVC as facing, and are – even regretfully – opting for the best strategy they could think of that seems to address at least some of those challenges.
Maybe they are also somewhat unaware of negative impacts on many people that the Board’s course of action is creating. I personally have been intensely distressed ever since reading the Board’s April 25, 2018 letter to the Implementation Council, and I have a sense that I am not alone in this. I have not perceived the Board as acknowledging any impact on others. I long for CNVC to be an organization that is experienced as relating with care to the individuals who have been committed to serving it.
I respect the Board’s desire to attend to finances as a crucial aspect of CNVC’s functioning. However, I have a concern that, the Board’s recent choices may undermine CNVC’s future finances. Looking at the amount of energy and engagement the NF Process has so far generated, and based on my experiences with fundraising in other contexts, I am encouraged to envision CNVC as being able to do significant fundraising in the future — when it is broadly experienced as trustworthy and inspiring. So, I want CNVC to be experienced as trustworthy and inspiring for practical, as well as aspirational reasons,
I long for CNVC to be experienced as an organization that keeps its commitments, and is willing to wholeheartedly embrace work that many people experience as inspiring. That many have regarded the NF Process as inspiring is demonstrated by the huge amount of energy that has been contributed to the process on an ongoing basis.
As the NF Process has so far shown, by the huge energy and creativity it has inspired, full transparency and opening ourselves to dialog and collective holding of CNVC’s dilemmas can make our organizational challenges easier, rather than harder, and greatly increase, rather than decrease, CNVC’s chances of surviving and thriving.
I wish the Board of an organization that promotes the spread of NVC to benefit from the energy and collaboration New Future has so far unleashed. I have an interpretation that the Board is overwhelmed in part because it has not been able to leverage and benefit from the sort of synergy the NF Plan offers. I think restoring the Board’s full commitment to the NF Plan, and experiencing the enthusiastic support of a wide community, would offer far more relief to the Board and Staff than the current strategy of rejecting the NF Plan and trying to do everything alone.
I care about the challenges the Board is experiencing, and want relief for both Board and Staff. At the same time, I see considerable harm, and limited effectiveness, in the Board’s current strategies. I long for open, collaborative dialog aimed at finding a better way to move forward.
INCLUDING DOMINIC BARTER IN BOARD’S DECISION-MAKING PROCESS
Another commitment that the Board has not honored is its commitment, made in January 2015, to involve Dominic Barter, as a full Board member, in any deliberations or decisions involving substantial changes to the New Future Process. I cannot imagine more substantial changes to the NF Process than the ones the Board has been attempting to make. Yet, Dominic has not been invited or allowed to participate in Board decision making. I believe that this is likely to reduce trust that CNVC is an organization that can be relied on to honor agreements.
CONCLUSIONS
To the extent that an organization can be said to have a soul, I believe that the health of CNVC’s soul depends on how it chooses to address these issues. If that language doesn’t resonate, I think the health of the relationship between CNVC and the community that supports it is at stake, and that CNVC ultimately cannot thrive without a healthy relationship with its community.
What I would like to see happen is for CNVC to honor its commitments while also addressing any concerns that are present. I feel certain that NVC, and our collective knowledge about conflict resolution and collaboration, offer the tools to make this possible.
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My understanding is that, since sending its April 25, 2018 letter, the Board as a whole has said “no” to every substantive request made by the Implementation Council — until a significant number of people in the community asked the Board to pay for work that had been done, which stimulated a process which ultimately led to the Board honoring the request to do so. I feel grateful to the community members who played a role in supporting caring for the needs of those who had not been paid. Now, I invite attention to the larger issue I have named. Please consider the request that I made at the beginning of this message.
Thank you,
Bob Wentworth
CNVC Certified Trainer