3 Tensions to Master

for Effective Activation and Mobilisation

3 Tensions to Master for Effective Activation and Mobilisation

Written by Yong Yoek Ling

Sector: Community and Health

Competency: Activate: The ability to move people to want to act

Movements hold the power to challenge the status quo, by rallying people around shared values that mobilise them to come together, to effectively translate these values into collective action. As such, one core competency that is critical to the movement ways of working, is the ability to ‘tell and influence’ in such a way that moves people to want to join us in advancing a shared cause.

This is sometimes also called Public Narrative, a coherent narrative that one puts together sharing not just the ‘what’, but the ‘who’ behind our work, effectively makes a case for others to want to join us in it, and what they can do to help further the shared cause. As summarized by the NHS England, this approach to storytelling has three key elements, which are: the story of self (sharing your values) • the story of us (connecting your values with those of your stakeholders) • the story of now (the need to create a sense of urgency for change along with a sense of hope that change is possible).

In this Movement Insights article, I share observations on three pairs of narrative strategies and how one can master the navigation of these tensions, in practising effective activation and mobilisation for one’s cause.

I) Story & Strategy (Head & Heart)

It can be said that we need to move the ‘head’ and the ‘heart’, before we can get the ‘hands’ to move into action! This is not new and comes from as long and as far back as Aristotle. Strategy is about convincing the ‘head’ that there is a gap, and why there is reason to believe that the solution you offer gives reasonable hope that it can solve the problem.

Yet cognitive understanding alone does not necessarily lead to action; one must engage with emotions to generate the will and momentum, to act on behalf of this understanding. And story is the vehicle to communicate emotional content from the speaker to the audience.

If ‘strategy’ is the steering wheel, ‘story’ is the fuel. Together, they form the deep sense of shared understanding that motivates one to action.

Is one more important than the other, you might ask? I have seen projects and groups die out for the lack of one or the other. Head without heart might be able to sustain in the short term as long as resources exist to power the project, but there is no generativity as the project exists only to fulfill the KPIs. Heart without the head may feel good for a while, but they eventually fizzle out for lack of a unifying direction. A skilled movements-builder interweaves both.

II) Self (Personal) & Us (Organisational)

How much of myself and my personal story should I put into my cause and my work? Having seen leaders who practise at both ends of the spectrum, again the answer is that skilled movement-builders who are able to not just start but sustain movements are adept at telling both their personal stories (Story of Self) and organisational stories (Story of Us).

Leaders, especially those who start from the ground up, may often be able to successfully build a following for their cause around their own personal charisma, stories and relationships. Such endeavours can be very strong and vibrant, but they also risk falling apart once the leader is no longer there. This is especially so if the bonds are linked to the person, and people find themselves motivated to act in support of the person, rather than because of the cause or shared values. On the other hand, leaders who speak mainly from the voice of the organisation lose the opportunity to tap on the connection and trust factor that comes from sharing one’s personal why and story of self. This is not easy, as one of the participants at a recent sharing session on movement-building capacities shared “I have a tendency to not talk about my self and convictions but to take the organisation’s perspectives instead. (My takeaway is) finding a good balance between the three pairs, especially for the self/us.” This is especially important in today’s context, where there is a growing mistrust of institutions.

Movement leaders who hope for their work and movements to sustain beyond themselves, need to be able to interweave stories of the self and us. They build trust and the initial momentum through their strong stories that communicate their personal ‘why’, but are also able to extend beyond themselves to build an ‘us’, an ‘us’ that is interconnected by common values that they share.

III) Nightmare (Criticality) and Desired Future (Hope)

Walter Brueggemann has a wonderful quote on managing the core tensions at the heart of what makes for ‘prophetic imagination’: a combination of criticality (experience of the world’s pain) with hope (experience of the world’s possibility), avoiding the extreme ends of both despair and idealistic optimism.

The criticality of the issue and fear of the nightmare scenario that could transpire if we did not do anything, leads to urgency, which can be motivating. But only when it is combined with a compelling desire for a future we hope for, together with a pathway to action, such that it enables instead of cripples action.

Whereas most participants of our recent sharing session on movement-building capacities leaned towards sharing stories of hope, most left with the takeaway on the ”incorporation of “healthy” fear and hope”. It is in telling stories of both pain and hope, that movement leaders can generate the creative tension that lead to action.

In effectively weaving between story and strategy, self and us, fear and hope, we build up our capacities to effectively activate and mobilise others to join us in our cause. Each of us likely has one set of practices that we lean on more than the other. The next time you hear a sharing that is compelling, consider mapping the narrative flow as part of deriving insights on how to practise tell and influence skills, as we have done with our first sharing session with Dr Chen Shiling of IDHealth!

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