Practicing Connection

Finding Your Purpose as a Group, Four Questions That Can Help

• OneOp • Episode 80

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Getting to a shared purpose as a group often requires digging a little deeper than usual. 

In this replay episode from 2024, Jessica and Bob talked about the "chaordic stepping stones," a helpful tool for going below the surface with a group, and share four questions that can help groups work toward a clear statement of purpose together.

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BOB BERTSCH: Hi, and thanks for joining us for the Practising Connection Podcast. I'm Bob Bertsch with Jessica Beckendorf. Hi, Jessica. How have you been? 

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Hi, Bob. I've been pretty good this week. I actually have a chance to reread an essay by Derek Sivers called You Don't Have to Be Local. As I was reading that essay, you know, not in the middle of it, but this week when I was reading the essay, I also happened to receive an email from one of my community development listservs that was really making a lot of statements about how local is everything and we have to keep everything local, that interacting more with our neighbours and engaging more locally will be better for us in our communities in the long run.

And these two kind of opposing ideas, you know, Derek Siver's idea of you don't have to be local and, you know, the community development listserv saying, "Local's everything,” were kind of playing around in my mind a little bit this week." And, you know, I do believe that engaging more locally [00:01:00] with our neighbours, with our community is better for us and is better for our communities in the long run.

But I don't know if it's because I grew up as a military kid or I don't know what the deal is, but I've never really felt local. And so to me, it was, it's inspiring to read Derek's words because, you know, he's basically proclaiming that we don't have to be local if we don't feel it. We can be global. And, you know, I don't know how I feel yet.

I think I'm going to keep giving local a try, but I've been thinking about this all week long. You know, I really do believe in the power of the neighbourhood, but this has been a good reflection and, you know, kind of some validating words. If you don't feel local, it's okay because you can be global. 

BOB BERTSCH: I love that.

And I love that you're accepting, "Hey, there's tension in this and that's okay." Yeah. We don't have to pick one side or the other in this global, local debate. I've been going back to a book that I pulled off of my shelf this week inspired, by the way, by our discussion of character [00:02:00] strengths- 

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm.

BOB BERTSCH: in last month's Practicast.

And the book is Austin Cleon's Keep Going. Super useful book. I highly recommend it. It outlines 10 ways to stay creative. And one of the ways that I've been thinking a lot about this week and right now is forget the noun, do the verb. And so that's about letting go of the thing that you're trying to be, which is the noun and focusing on the actual work that you need to be doing.

That's the verb, right? So instead of focusing on, I want to be a creative person, or I want to be an innovator, or I want to be a leader, which are kind of labels and, and nouns, you know, instead trying to focus on the work that you need to be doing the verb in order to maybe be that, but I guess that's changing my focus if I'm focusing on trying to be that, but just the work, right?

So yeah, not trying to be a creative person, but just acting creatively. And so love that book, and that's kind of [00:03:00] what I've been thinking about this week. 

JESSICA BECKENDORF: No, I love that. And all of Austin Clean's books are ones that I go back to over and over and over again every time I need a little inspiration, but I love this idea of you can work creatively within the verb.

You can work innovatively within the verb. You can be a leader within the verb. Like, just do the verb. 

BOB BERTSCH: Just do the verb, everybody. 

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Verb, verb, verb. Verb is the word. 

BOB BERTSCH: Sorry. Well, we'd love to hear what you've been thinking about and what's inspiring you. so please share that with us. You can email us practicingconnection@onop.org.

So let us know what you're thinking about, what's inspiring you right now.

So Jessica, let's learn more about finding your purpose as a group. Can you tell us a little bit more about the practice you'll be sharing and why you chose it? 

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Of course I can. I love this [00:04:00] practice. I chose a practice from the chaortic stepping stones. I'll explain a little bit about chaortic because it's a, not really a word.

It refers to a combination of words, the words chaos and order. And it was first coined by Dehawk, the founder of Visa International. The idea is that for change there's a sweet spot where chaos and order overlap and leadership, innovation and emergence thrive. 

If you go too far into chaos, it can be destructive. And if you go too far toward control, the environment can be stifling. So the chaotic stepping stones is a series of practices that guide planning and action for groups to address issues that are important to them. It's not a strictly linear process as each step can be revisited repeatedly and iterated on.

I'm gonna actually walk through what some people might call the second step, which is purpose. I chose this [00:05:00] practice because I have found the chaortic stepping stones to be a really helpful tool for going below the surface with a group and that's because each step in the process is designed to encourage dialogue and connection.

BOB BERTSCH: Yeah, I'm excited to hear more about this. Pulling back the curtain a little bit, we used the chaotic stepping stones when we created this podcast, when we had the very initial idea, we went to the stepping stones as a way of kind of really developing that and that's, as you said, one of the early steps, right, was finding our purpose.

So I'm really anxious to hear about the practice. Could you walk us through it? 

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah, absolutely. Each step in the stepping stones is really kind of a short series of questions that can be used to spur dialogue and develop, in this case, a shared purpose. I assembled these from a combination of sources from art of hosting practitioners, Jerry Nagle, Kathy Jordan, and Chris Corrigan.

Here's the series of questions. Use [00:06:00] these in a group to spur some dialogue. The first question is, if this work should live up to its fullest potential, what do you imagine is possible? What could this work do, create, inspire, and/or result in? What is the next level for our work? Where should we be heading?

And then finally, what is the purpose we can adopt that will best meet the need we are addressing? So what you would do is have conversations around these questions and record the shared understanding that comes out of those conversations. As a group then, co-write a clear statement of purpose for the work, right?

I don't recommend that you have one person take the notes from the shared understanding and have that one person write a purpose. I really think the group should do this together, so co-write a clear statement of purpose for the work, a statement that will guide the [00:07:00] initial direction. Don't become too attached to this statement of purpose.

As your group starts to deepen your work and make more connections, expect to make adjustments as you go because you're going to probably invite more people in. You need to give them a chance also to share their perspectives, especially if they're quite different from the group who initially got together.

So you can come back to the questions anytime, expect to make adjustments, but definitely co-write that statement of purpose. 

BOB BERTSCH: Thanks for sharing that, Jessica. I love the questions. Just so important, I think, to have that shared sense of purpose and speaking from experience, it's easy to just assume we have our sense of purpose.

We wrote it three years ago.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. 

BOB BERTSCH: and never revisit it. So, I love your advice there. 

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. I actually even think a statement of purpose should be revisited every year, like regardless of change, like ask yourself, is this still the thing that we [00:08:00] can adopt that would best meet the need we're addressing?

Is this still that thing? And if not, how do we need to change it? It's okay for it to change because our work adapts and evolves as we keep addressing the issue together. 

BOB BERTSCH: That's it for this episode. Thanks for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, click the share button in your podcast app and share it with a friend.


CREDITS: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of One-Op and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, US Department of Defense under award number 2 0 2 3 4 8 7 74 3 3.



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Jessica Beckendorf

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