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Happy Spring at last!
I hope you’ve been finding this newsletter useful. As always, click reply to tell me what more you’d like to hear about and feel free to forward this to friends and colleagues you think would benefit from reading this.
This month’s foundational to organizing word is:
Flexibility.
The last few months have demanded more pivoting, more adapting and more “ok we’re throwing out the plan and starting over” moments than most of us dreamed possible. But here we are.
It’s important to understand that flexibility isn’t the absence of a plan. It’s actually what makes a good plan survivable.
And if you read last month’s newsletter about respect, or the month before that about consistency, you may have noticed a theme building here. These aren’t separate ideas. They are all part of the same practice of doing this work with humanity, intentionality, discipline and, wait for it, strategy.
So let’s talk about what flexibility actually looks like in our work, both strategically and personally.
Flexibility is Not the Same Thing as Having No Plan
I say this in almost every training I do: when you create your content calendar, do so in pencil, not in pen. That’s not me giving you permission to wing it. That’s me telling you it’s ok to have a plan and to pivot from it when needed. It’s me telling you that you are 100% going to have moments where you need to pivot, or even abandon, and that it’s not just ok to do so. It’s imperative to do so.
The pivot is what can make the difference between a winning and a losing strategy.
Orgs without a plan aren’t flexible. They’re just reactive. There’s a big difference. Reactive organizing isn’t actually organizing, it’s exploiting people to advance our own agendas. It chases the news cycle in search of a reason to be, instead of making strategic gains towards our goals. It burns out our staff and our community. It never builds the kind of sustained momentum that actually builds the power we need to build the world we want.
Flexible organizing has a clear enough strategy that when a genuine moment of rapid response arises, you know exactly what you are pivoting away from, why and exactly when to return to it.
You can’t adapt a plan you don’t have.
Rapid Response Without Losing the Thread
Speaking of news cycles, not every breaking story is your story to tell.
As I always say, that way to know if it is your story to tell is to ask yourself:
- How long did it take me to think of this?
- Was the connection obvious or did I have to convince myself there is a connection?
- How hard will my audience have to struggle to understand the connection between our theory of change and this story we are telling?
Generally speaking, if it takes more than 10 seconds to make the connection, the connection probably isn’t actually there.
I know that’s hard to hear when everything feels urgent all the time. But one of the most important strategic skills you need right now is knowing the difference between a moment that is genuinely related to your work and a moment that is just loud.
When you drop your long term campaign work every time something blows up in the news, you are training your community to expect episodic content instead of sustained momentum. You are also training yourself to mistake noise for strategy.
Rapid response is a tool. It’s a necessary tool. It isn’t the only tool in your toolbox. And it should never come at the expense of the work you were already doing.
Flexibility in Your Paths of Engagement
This one is about respect as much as it is about flexibility, and that’s not a coincidence.
Are you paying attention to what your community is actually able to do right now? Emotionally, financially, physically? Burnout is real. Capacity fluctuates. The ask that worked six months ago may not be the right ask today- not because your community doesn’t care, but because people are tired and stretched thin and doing the best they can.
A rigid engagement path never accounts for where people actually are is both a strategic mistake and a respect failure. Make space for people to engage at whatever level they can. Trust that a smaller yes today is worth more than a burnt out no tomorrow.
Remember, it is incumbent on us to build that flexibility into our paths of engagement. It is our responsibility to make sure every ask moves us closer to our goals, while also respecting what our audience and will do.
Flexibility as an Organizational Culture Practice
Here’s something I’ve noticed over years of working with organizations of all sizes: orgs that struggle to pivot almost always have a culture problem internally.
Too many people who have to approve content. Too much ego invested in the original plan. Too much fear of appearing weak by pivoting. No psychological safety to say “Whoa, this isn’t working, let’s try something else”. A team that is afraid to flag a problem is a team that will keep running a broken play until it is too late to change it.
Flexibility has to be baked into how your team operates, not just how you communicate externally. That means creating space for honest check-ins. It means rewarding the person flashes the warning signal early, not punishing them. It means building a culture where “I think we need to re-think this” is welcomed and embraced.
Knowing When to Let Something Pass By or When to Let Go
This is probably the hardest part of flexibility.
Sometimes a campaign, a platform, a tactic or a partnership just isn’t working.
Being flexible means being ok with skipping over the idea that can’t be properly executed on or letting go of the tactic that just isn’t working.
Sunk cost fallacy (the idea that we stick with something because of what we have already invested) is alive and well in organizing. We keep running the same playbook because we already invested in it, or we announced it publicly, or it worked previously, or because admitting it isn’t working feels like failure. But continuing to pour time, energy abd resources into something that isn’t moving your work forward isn’t commitment, it’s stubborness dressed up as strategy.
Letting something go when it isn’t working isn’t giving up. It’s making room for something better.
Flexibility and Your Own Capacity
I can’t write a newsletter about flexibility without saying this: you cannot be strategically flexible if you aren’t personally flexible as well. And you can be personally flexible if you are running on empty.
I know, I know. Easier said than done, especially right now. But an organizer who is burnt out, overwhelmed and running on fumes is not an organizer who can make clear headed, strategic decisions when things change fast- and things are changing fast.
So whatever allows you to be flexible, give yourself permission to do it.
Flexibility Is What Keeps Your Strategy Alive
At the end of the the day, flexibility isn’t weakness. It isn’t inconsistency. And it definitely isn’t the same thing as not having a plan.
Flexibility is what keeps your strategy alive when the world refuses to follow your content calendar.
The most powerful organizations aren’t the ones with the best plan. They’re the ones who know how to adapt, protect their people while doing so and never lose sight if the long term work even when the short term is up in flames.
That’s the practice. That’s the discipline. That’s flexibility.
And on that note, I’m off to Italy for a 10 day birthday get away that I invited myself on with my sister.
Have a great May!