Module Ten:

How Will I Get Leverage? Raising Awareness, Building Will, and Transferring Skill

Task #1: Select Your Methods for Raising Awareness and Building Will

Now that you’ve dug deep and are clear on what solution you want to spread.

Now that you’ve set a bold, quantifiable time-bound aim…

You’re ready for the nuts and bolts of scale.

This is the inflection point. This is the difference between running a solid program in one place to unleashing dozens, hundreds, thousands of other people moving in the desired direction.

The name of the game from here on out is this:

Tight on aims, loose on everything else.

From here forward, we shift our focus to three areas: raising awareness, building will and transferring skill.

This handout lists some of the most common methods we’ve seen of those three areas, though we’re sure there are more!

You’ll use this handout to choose from for your unique circumstances. The key is to avoid theory lock, that is doubling down on a particular method even as evidence begins to mount that it’s not working.

Circle the methods for raising awareness and building will that you’d like to consider for your spread/scale project.

Task #2: Select Appropriate Methods for Transferring Skill

Watch this video for an overview of the methods for transferring skill and how to use our calculator, then select one or two methods that are suitable for your situation using the calculator below.

Raising awareness and building will are essential for large-scale social change.

But we separate out transferring skill because if is by far the single most important technical aspect that you will need to consider. If you’re not sure you got the right answers when we did this live, I want you to have this “many ways to many” tool as an ongoing resource.

We’ve done the work of simplifying for you a broad menu of options.

We will help you narrow down your choices to which methods are most worthy of you consideration given your unique circumstances.

We’ve compiled some case studies and links to point you in the right direction.

Just know that many of these methods will take days or weeks or even months or years for you to learn how to do and how to do well.

For now your job is to narrow down to the options that are most relevant for you and do a little research for which you want to try.

All the text of the calculator – of all the options – is appended below if you’d like to dig further. And you feel free to do the calculator as many times as you like.

Circle back to the handout from the last lesson and circle the methods for transferring skill that you want to explore further.

Task #3: Plot Your Methods on the Diffusion Curve

Not sure what the diffusion curve is? Watch this short video for a high level summary.

Now that you understand that the name of the game when it comes to large-scale change is to raise awareness, build will, and transfer skill, we recommend you take this to the next level of specificity – mapping which methods of raising awareness, building will, and transferring skill you will use for each audience as you move along the diffusion curve.

Task #4: Complete a Driver Diagram

We use the driver diagram format to capture our theory of change. Another way of thinking about this is a mind-map.

This is a straight-forward, simplified explanation that captures your current hypothesis on the awareness, will, and skill strategies you need to test to achieve your aim.

We’ve created a template for you to fill-in. How it works is you put your aim in the left box.

If you know how you will measure your aim – and if not now – please land on that soon – put that in the box on the lower left corner.

Then in the middle row of boxes enter your best thinking now about which methods you will use to raise awareness, build will and transfer skill. We also think it’s essential to prioritize what we call “team excellence.” We’ll talk about this more later, so hold this for now, but the idea is how can you organize yourselves in such a way that unleashes the best out of everyone?

Your answers to this go in the Primary Drivers boxes which brings together everything from the earlier modules. Ideally you would also put quantifiable goals in the primary driver boxes, too. For example, if you want to use social media as a strategy to raise awareness, how many new followers do you think is sufficient? If you want to use organizing as a method for transferring skill, how many people do you want to mobilize, by when?

Secondary drivers are your best guess or hypothesis about what will help you achieve your primary drivers. You don’t need to go into that level of detail for our purposes here, but wanted you to have that as a reference. Some people go out to tertiary drivers.

The real beauty of this driver diagram format is that underneath it is a “testing” mindset. Let’s be clear – your plan is a hypothesis. It’s a guess. What will help you know whether or now you’re making the right guess is facing into the data. Early and often. We recommend weekly as ideal, monthly at the very least. If your hypothesis was wrong – better to discover that sooner rather than later. Just make a new driver diagram with a new hypothesis.

In the 100k Homes Campaign, we updated our driver diagram every couple of months. As we learned more, we adapted and revised our theory of change.

We recommend everyone on the team keep a copy of the driver diagram handy so everyone knows how they’re contributing to the aim.

Please copy the driver diagram template on slide 3 of the slide deck Driver Diagrams for Everyone, use it to drive a team discussion, and upload your best version to the same slide deck, and post it to Circle (click HERE or on the little speech bubble icon at the bottom right of the screen) when you’re done.

You will be able to see driver diagrams of teams that have gone before you and know that subsequent teams will be able to see yours. Bring this to office hours with Becky anytime!

Inner Work: Reflections on Module 10

By now it should be plain as day that what got you here won’t get you there. That the things that helped you build and run a successful prototype got you here, but to get scale, you will need leverage. You will need to raise awareness, build will, and transfer skill. In some ways, this can feel like a loss. It is possible you will feel further away from the work as you turn your attention to these essential new buckets of work. Do you notice any ambivalence about scaling now that you have a better understanding of what it entails? Is there any aspect to raising awareness, building will, or transferring skill that gives you a “yuk” inside? Where do you notice that in your body? What’s your body trying to tell you?

Similarly, this is about the time when leaders have the “oh, shit” moment of realizing there is no way they can do this themselves or with the current allocation of resources. What fears are coming up for you around the need for additional resources to get that leverage? How can you turn toward those fears versus pressing them down and telling them to go away. What supports can you shore up for yourself emotionally so that you can set yourself up for resilience in the days, months, and years to follow?

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