Creating Movements for Change: The Tenacious Change Approach
The Tenacious Change Approach is an adaptive plan for the journey of community change. The Tenacious Change Approach is used to create a movement for change that brings the whole community (geographic area, organization, or system) together to participate, own, and lead the change.
What is the Tenacious Change Approach?
The Tenacious Change Approach is about creating ownership-based movements for change. “Ownership-based change” means change that centers the people most impacted by the change in co-designing it, whether it is change in an organization, community, or system. The Tenacious Change Approach is a pracademic framework (created out of research and practical experience). It features ten:
- Key Mindsets which are organized into ten
- Essential Operating Principles and animated through ten
- Core Tasks.
The Mindsets, Principles, and Tasks are built on a foundation of diversity, inclusion, equity, and the right of ownership. As a framework, the Tenacious Change Approach provides both a structure and process for collaborative change efforts which lead to genuine, lasting collective impact.
The Tenacious Change Approach is designed to help individuals and groups create and sustain change in communities, organizations, and systems through ownership-based change expressed through collective change leadership, a strategy for the whole community to work together for change.
The Tenacious Change Approach is a thoughtful, intentional, and adaptive journey of change undertaken by individuals or groups. It is not a program or curriculum in the traditional sense of how we think of and use those. It was created to help people facilitate ownership-based change in complex adaptive systems. If you are a fan of "collective impact," the Tenacious Change Approach is one way "to do" collective impact.
Creating a Change Movement: Getting Started with the Tenacious Change Approach
Use and implementation of the Tenacious Change Approach requires two levels of preparation.
Creating a Change Movement: Getting Started with the Tenacious Change Approach is an interactive streaming video course. It features 10 video presentations (none longer than 20 minutes).
Each video and lesson focus on a Key Mindset underlying each Essential Operating Principle and Core Task of the Tenacious Change Approach. Videos include a “pause and reflect” activity and close with an idea for how to use the Mindset and Principle in current personal practice. A Getting Started with the Tenacious Change Approach Journal is provided so learners can keep track of reflections, insights, and ideas. At the end of each lesson there is a (brief) quiz to help learners grasp and retain the most important ideas from the lesson.
In addition, participation in this course includes access to the Tenacious Changemakers online community, a closed social network for people who are learning to implement the Tenacious Change Approach. In Tenacious Changemakers learners make connections, network, and share successes and struggles with the framework.
Throughout Creating a Change Movement: Getting Started with the Tenacious Change Approach learners will have the opportunity to interact in
real time with the developer, instructors, other participants, and guests in a weekly Change Chat.
On average, it takes four to six hours to complete the course, depending on how much a learner engages with the material and activities. Creating a Change Movement: Getting Started with the Tenacious Change Approach is the first level in learning to implement the framework. This course is a pre-requisite to the next level, a cohort learning experience (described below). As a pre-requisite, its goal is to improve the personal practice of learners and then provide a common language and shared foundation for participating in the next level, Building a Change Movement: Learning the Tenacious Change Approach.
Building a Change Movement: Learning the Tenacious Change Approach
Building a Change Movements: Learning the Tenacious Change Approach is a cohort learning experience. Learners meet in a group of 10 to 20 others who have also completed Creating a Change Movement: Getting Started with the Tenacious Change Approach streaming course. The typical cohort learning experience is 11 weeks in length. This course is comprised of asynchronous (different time, self-directed) online lessons which include some light reading, videos, reflection, learning activities, online discussion, and praxis exercises to become familiar with strategies, tools, and resources. In addition, learners will make connections and build relationships with the developer, instructors, and other cohort members in real time through synchronous virtual cohort meetings for two hours each week.
Formation of cohorts will be announced to enrollees in the Creating a Change Movement: Getting Started with the Tenacious Change Approach.
Three Cohort Types:
- Individual Cohorts are for people learning more about the Tenacious Change Approach for their own professional development.
- Small Team Cohorts are for 3 to 5 people from the same organization who work together on the same or similar change projects. Small Team Cohorts are comprised of 3 or 4 teams combined to make a total cohort size of 15 to 20.
- Organization Cohorts are exclusive cohorts tailored to a single organization. The content and process of learning is the same as for Small Teams, however, the exclusive focus on a single organization or group allows the cohort learning experience to be tailored to the organization or group’s specific needs, circumstances, and context.
Cohorts coming soon!
What About CEUs?
We are working on CEU’s for Getting Started with the Tenacious Change Approach. We’ll make the announcement as soon as they are approved. Stay tuned!