A slightly different style of weeknotes today as I attended the Deceleration Assembly yesterday in Birmingham, and I’m taking this opportunity for some space to capture and reflect on that experience.
The context
The Deceleration Assembly was “a dedicated space for people actively working through endings and big changes in civil society”. It was hosted by The Decelerator team and you may recall I’ve been reading and referencing their resources about organisations ending as we at Connected by Data are now only around 18 months from the end of the five years that we were set up to run.
My context, of having a known end date - and a period to plan for the ending - was a rarity in the room. Partly I suspect because organisations don’t tend to set up with their end in mind, but also perhaps they can underestimate the impact of their ending as for them it’s always been present. There was a lot of trauma in the room, of people facing the brutal / unexpected / unwanted closures of their organisations - mainly because the money has run out but also some US friends talking about the shifting context across the pond. In these endings there is often less time for intentional planning and that serves to enhance the feeling of loss and anger … of grief.
Grief
One of the provocation sections of the day was “wisdom from another sector”. I was curious about this as with all the attendees being “civil society” there were a lot of different sectors in the room (predominantly arts and culture, which I suspect says something about the state of funding for the arts - and perhaps the type of approach such organisations want to take when closing down). The wisdom though was human death and bereavement and grief. We had a fantastic stimulating input from Poppy Mardall (Funeral Director of Poppy’s Funerals) and Amber Jeffrey (Founder of The Grief Gang). They drew on their experience of endings, our reactions to endings (in preparation of and moving beyond), of our attachments to things/places/the known and our challenge with facing change. Around their provocation we discussed how UK society is culturally one that is focussed on growth - the concept that we always need to be doing more, getting better/bigger. Such a mindset doesn’t allow for the reality…that there are always endings. There is an urgent need (both in the death/grief space but also in organisational ending thinking) to be able to resist that cultural construct and create the space for endings and talking about endings and doing endings.
Amber and Poppy talking about our general relationship with grief, and how it is discussed (or not!) with friends and families and colleagues and popular culture made me think a lot about the work I did in libraries around being death positive and the Death Cafe we brought to the library through the work of End of Life Doula’s, and the work that continues in that space. There is a cultural resistance to talking about, and claiming grief, yet there is power in owning and leading the ending.
Far from being depressing and morbid I found this input one of the most stimulating and inspiring of the day. There will be grief held by all of us in every ending we experience, whether that’s moving home, leaving a job, death of a pet (or of course a death of a human). As those involved the discussions about endings (of organisations) we need to recognize that there will be an element of grief in that ending for everyone that has touched the organisation. How that grief feels will vary massively between individuals, their connection to the organisation, how the ending comes about, but it will be there. Grief is always there. Space must be made for the human in the closing of an organisation.
“Grief is the hum in the background of our life” - Amber Jeffrey
Reducing the fear and empowering non-Professionals
The afternoon had a number of sessions, in an ‘open space’ style, and one that I selected was made up from people doing operations / finance / project management work in civil society organisations - but crucially none of us were capital P professionals (specifically we weren’t qualified/chartered in the role or members of any professional body). There was conversation about how this is common in charities in particular but more widely in civil society too where often salaries (particularly for non-delivery roles) can be significantly lower than the wider market (there are lots of people that have written deeply and articulately about why that is). However there was also an observation that when talk of closure starts that there is a fear (often from others in the organisation and/or Boards) about not having Professionals to lead that process. One story was told of a small grassroots organisation having a Board of Trustees that wanted to bring in insolvency experts at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds, rather than support and trust their existing team. We talked about how the formality of “closure” creates fear. We (perhaps unsurprisingly given our status) believed passionately in the power of the non-specialist but recognised that it can feel like knowledge support and experience in practical application is lacking around organisational closures. We discussed how peer support in such moments (or indeed more generally) could be helpful. It made me commit out loud to sharing (probably in these Weeknotes) my journey and experience over the next 18 months as we plan for, and close, Connected by Data.
First followers
It felt special to be in the first known large gathering of people thinking about how to end organisations well. People that want to (or have to) be stewards of the ending and conscious of wanting to do that in a compassionate but effective and responsible way. A comment was made about our motivation to step into that room and open ourselves to those conversations and learning, when so often the closure of an organisation is seen to be (and often felt by the individual) to be a failure. It was observed that others will be watching us, watching the outcomes of the Deceleration Assembly and learning from it (as will all of us that attended). It reminded me (a lot) of this 3 minute video about leadership lessons and specifically the concept of “first follower’. It felt a little like we were a group of first followers. I look forward to seeing the movement build and being a part of it as it does.
Photo credit: The Decelerator