Our Values & Theory of change
| Flourishing | Outcomes that focus on how we use, develop, and enjoy our capabilities over time and through transitions. |
| Mutuality | Nurturing connections that make us feel listened to, understood, and cared for – rather than invisible or ashamed. |
| Meaning | Elevating meaning, purpose, and beauty to core needs as important as food, shelter, and safety. |
| Whole Heartedness | Embracing that we don’t always know the answers, and having the courage to ask critical questions and challenge long-held assumptions. |
| Equality | Providing people most on the margins access to the resources required for flourishing – and seeing those resources as generative rather than scarce. |
We’re working backwards from a pretty big vision: a human service system that functions much more like a trampoline than just a safety net. That means a service system that:
- Raises staid expectations and lowest common denominators
- Increases people’s’ capabilities, power, agency and control.
- Embraces grief, loss, and resilience; removes shame and stigma; and advances dignity.
- Meaningfully activates informal resources and relationships.
- Mirrors a culture of continual growth versus stuckness & risk aversion.
To get closer to there, we must shift behaviours amongst leaders, managers, staff, individuals and families. Here are the behaviours we seek to shape:
- Leaders and system players are actively listening, taking cues from the bottom-up, re-calibrating power, and modeling an inquiry led culture.
- Managers and leaders are embracing new ways of knowing and not knowing, have fresh ways to understand what is happening on-the-ground, and imagining what could be different.
- People and staff are redefining their roles, making decisions, and interacting in more reciprocal ways.
- Community members and people are actively sharing their talents, supporting one another, and doing less othering.
The question, of course, is how to shift these behaviours? Here we’re drawing on foundational change theory: Prochaska’s transtheoretical model of change. That’s a theory that says people cycle through five stages of change: precontemplation, contemplation, planning, action, and sustaining. The activities we do are designed to propel people and organizations from one stage to the next. Here’s how:
- precontemplation: We raise consciousness and encourage self-exploration through our learning catalogue.
- Contemplation: We prompt deep reflection through our readiness research & playback.
- Preparation & action: We guide individual and organizational commitment through team coaching, modeling, and feedback.
- Action & sustaining: We enable counter conditioning by setting-up data systems and HR practices that hold space for humility and experimentation