Strategy

Salimah Samji Welcome to the Leadership Organizing and Action Podcast series. In this six part podcast series, Marshall Ganz walks you through the five key practices of people, power and change and also provides practical strategies to learn this craft. Welcome to the fourth episode of the Leadership Organizing and Action podcast series with Marshall Ganz. Welcome, Marshall. 

Marshall Ganz Thanks, Salimah, it’s good to see you. 

Salimah Samji In today’s podcast, we will discuss the third key practice, which is strategy. Marshall, let’s start with why is strategy important? 

Marshall Ganz It’s important because while narrative addresses the why of things, strategy addresses the how of things. The thing is that we are all natural strategists. Just like we’re all natural storytellers. If you’ve ever overslept and you had to figure out how to get to class or work on time and you had to innovate some way to get there, you were strategizing. Because at its core strategy is simply how to turn what you have into what you need to get what you want. And as humans, we do that all the time. And so it’s over-complexified, I think, sometimes intentionally so as to remain in control of strategy. But the thing is, we’re all capable of it. We all do it. So in the context of organizing and leadership development, it’s what does that look like as a craft? How do we craft that capacity? In many ways, narrative is an emotional response to disruption that can enable a strategic response, whereas strategy is more of a cognitive response to disruption. And then how do we respond? So the two are very closely related heart and head, how they work together. If we think about how do I turn what I have into what I need to get what I want and understand that it’s something we all do and understand that it usually is motivated. In other words, we don’t just strategize for the sake of it. There’s some provocation. There’s been a change. There’s been a disruption. There’s been something that we need to now think through how we’re going to deal with it. Now, the other thing that’s really important about strategy is to understand that it’s a verb. It’s not a noun. And people often talk about having a strategy, but the reality is that making a plan is only the very beginning. And it’s like I think I quoted Eisenhower before about: Planning is really useful, but plans are useless. In other words, it’s useful to get on the same wavelength, to do the analysis, to do all that. But once the rubber hits the road, you’re in a different domain because you can’t predict the future. If you try to impose your prediction on the future, you end up in a whole other deal. And so then the question is, how do you sustain your learning? That’s why it’s a verb. It’s not a noun. And so that’s why we talk about teaching strategizing as opposed to strategy, because that’s the craft. That’s the skill. That’s the practice. And so that’s important. And if you take that as important, then it turns out that who’s doing the strategizing really matters. Because it’s a creative form. You can do all the game theory and all that stuff and you can come up with all these analytics. But how much that helps in the real world is very unclear. It’s a craft that becomes an art. For me, the linchpin, the key story about strategy is David and Goliath, because it lifts up the difference between resources and power. And the David and Goliath story, which a lot of folks are familiar with. If you really look at that, what happens is that Goliath, the great Philistine warrior, is challenging the Israelites for mano a mano combat. And everybody’s scared. And they look at their feet, they go away. They’ve got to clean their rooms, whatever, whatever. He comes out with this challenge. Well, the response really then comes from a guy who’s a shepherd, young guy, who’s there to bring food to his brothers who are warriors, but he’s not. But when Goliath comes out with that outrageous demand, David reacts. It’s like, wait a second. This is an insult to the ranks of the living God. And his brothers are all saying, Hey, cool, just don’t be a protruding nail. Just shut up. You say, No, no, no. But this is a blessing. So he doesn’t know how he’s going to deal with this, but he knows he has going to deal with it, which underlies the significance of motivation when it comes to strategic imagination. So then David goes to the King, King Saul. King Saul, I’m here. I’m ready to fight Goliath. He just laughs at him because you know, he’s been a warrior since his youth. And he points out to the King, well, I’m what you got. So the King says, well, okay, so I’m going to let you fight but it’s on three conditions. You have to put on my helmet, use my shield and carry my sword. You’re going to need these powerful tools to take on this powerful warrior. David then puts them on. One problem. He can’t move. They are too heavy. That’s when he looks at the ground and notices these five smooth stones. He says: Wait, wait a second I’m a shepherd, not a warrior. As a shepherd, I knew how to protect my flock from the wolf and the bear. It wasn’t with a sword and shield. It was with a stone in a sling. Maybe Goliath is just another wolf. Just another bear. So then he proceeds to face Goliath, who bursts out in laughter. Am I a dog? You send a boy with a stick? And in the middle of the third ha ha ha, he gets a stone in the forehead and that’s the end of Goliath. So there is something really important about that story. And all cultures have some version of it. That it isn’t about how much resource you have. It’s how you use what you have. It’s how you turn what you have into what you need to get what you want. And in this instance, you can see the interaction, the creativity, the motivation, the openness to learning, the recognition of the significance of your own resources, not those of the opponent. And then the value of surprised because Cesar Chavez used to say, power makes you stupid. What he meant was that if you’re used to unaccountable military political power, you stop thinking. And that’s what creates opportunities for the Davids of this world are to challenge. So strategic thinking and imagination and creativity. For me, it’s at the heart of how to address the power question. It’s not how many resources you have. It’s how you use the resources you have. It’s a little bit like moving the fulcrum on a balance. I don’t have more resources, but I’ve figured out how to use them. So then the question becomes, how do you create the conditions under which we learn and can learn that? And the word strategy comes from the Greek strata was the word for field, and the army was called a strata because its job was to take the field and the general was called the strategos. And so strategos would go up on the hill, look over the field, and come up with a theory of change. If I deploy my troops in this way, then that’s what it is. It’s a hypothesis. It’s a hypothesis that if we do these things, then this will happen. Now, the ranks of soldiers down in the valley, they were called taktikas, which is where we get strategy and tactics. The strategizing being the theorizing and the tactics being the actions, the activities. Now, this is fine, except when a cloud gets between the hilltop and the valley, because then the guy on the hilltop thinks I know the whole truth. And people in the valley, they think they got the whole truth. Strategy is profoundly contextual. And so we have the whole truth. But the reality is that neither one has the whole truth. They need each other to have anything approximating the whole truth. Those on the ground may have the intimate knowledge of context and all of that, but they’re in a context which is in a broader context in which there may be other people struggling with the same thing. It may be that others face similar challenges. And so unless you can step back and see it in context. So it’s how you put those two things together, the proximity of context and the perspective of a vision. That’s where the real sweet spot is. And in so many organizations these days, the locals are fighting the national or international. We got the whole truth. No, we do. And so what’s missing is the structures needed for mutual learning to happen. And historically, there were structures like that in instances in this country, which was organizational structure that had local, state and national. So what it meant was that the local leaders would be drawn into state level. There, they’d have to discover their common interests and so forth, and then they would get drawn into the national level. So you had a structural way in which people were learning to think in broader context and bring their specificity to it. And so now we have all these tools. It could make it so much easier. But often power gets in the way. I mean, no, we know we’re up here. So this whole question then of strategy, it’s creative. You know what I was working on my dissertation, I was working on strategy, and I went through game theory and all that. It was creativity theory that helped me kind of figure out what the conditions are. It’s not like here is a perfect strategy. It’s more like what are the conditions under which we are more likely to generate strategy? Because what’s perfect in one situation isn’t in another. So if you look at those conditions, what they seem to be, first of all, is a high level of motivation, like David. In other words, we’re in this because it matters. It’s not like it’s an exercise or it’s like there’s a lot at stake. Caesar used to say it’s not so much making the right decision as it is making the decision. You make the right decision. In other words, it’s committing to finding a pathway. Understanding that you don’t know or you may know. So the motivation is critical. The second thing that seems critical is salient information. In other words. If you’re on that mountaintop, trying to make strategy about the valley, then you don’t have the right information. So the question is how you bring the relevant information into the room. And the third is, what is your learning? How are you processing? Because if everybody is like, no, this is the way and no, this is the way and there isn’t a learning context, then you just wind up fighting with each other instead of figuring out how you can draw on the different perspectives. Now, from my experience, that’s about who the people are in the strategy theme and what are their sources of motivation? What are their sources of information? What experience have they had? What relationships are they in? How do we bring salient? So like in the farmworkers, we certainly had people who were farm workers. We also had a couple of people who were in the clergy. We had some of us civil rights activists. In other words, it was bringing together disparate sources of information so that you then get the benefit of the creative process as a collective process and not just who’s going to be the strategic genius. Because in reality, that’s how it happens anyway. The movie Selma was so helpful because it showed how strategy was being devised and developed not just by Dr. King, but by the whole set of folks that were engaged in that kind of strategic development and response that they needed to make. So I call that strategic capacity. And so the question is how you can create those venues for strategic imagination and so forth. And the thing about it is sometimes you got to move really fast. And the more that people have developed a sense of trust and access to one another, the faster you can move. The default is, oh Joe’s going to decide. And sometimes you just have to do that. But when Joe is included with Sam and Mary and Francisco, it’s just a different dynamic. And I know when I’ve been struggling with things, there’s two kinds of meetings: Dread meetings and joy meetings. And dread meetings are when you go knowing that, oh I’m going to be in for a big fight. Now the joy meetings are when you go knowing that you’re part of a team where the orientation is, how do we figure it out? Not who do we blame. And then you’re creating conditions that really facilitate strategic imagination. 

Salimah Samji Your Eisenhower quote reminds me of a similar one by Mike Tyson, who said: Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Right. 

Marshall Ganz Exactly. That’s when the real learning begins. 

Salimah Samji That’s when the real. But I think this point that you’re making of there needs to be a process, a way to think about this, not the plan isn’t as important as the process or the thinking that’s really important in this space. So how does strategizing work in practice? 

Marshall Ganz Well, the first thing I’d say is that it’s motivated. In other words, there’s a disruption to which we’re responding. I think we often confuse creating change from responding to change. And I think if you look at most social movements and so forth, they are responding to changes that are unjust, that create grievance and so forth. And so I think we need to really appreciate how important motivation is in strategizing. And what even creates the motivation? I mean, I oversleep. I got to get class on time. I got a motivation. So I’m trying to think creatively about how to get there. It’s also the case that one of the most important factors in generating good strategy is the motivation you bring to it and how important it is to you. So motivation is a starting point. It’s also where story and strategy kind of intersect is in the question of motivation. Now. It’s intentional. In other words, it is thinking through how I get from here to there. Where is there? Where am I now? And what are the tactics that I can use to get from here to there? It’s also sometimes people call it the theory of change. And it’s like we’re talking about that’s what the general does, is come up with this theory of change. It’s a hypothesis. It’s not a prediction. And so that’s why it’s always conditional. But it is purposeful and it is intended to have a clear outcome. It’s not we’re going to make more justice. Well, that’s nice. How do we know if we did that? It’s no, we’re going to pass this law. Okay. In other words, it’s anchored in a clear outcome and a theory we have about how to get there. Now, the other thing is that we can operate in ways that are proactive or reactive. And when you think about, again, what is it that initiates strategic process? And sometimes it’s when they do something that messes us up, then we strategize. It’s not very helpful because it’s all reactive. And as long as the opposition is creating the provocations that require reaction, then essentially they’re running the game. So the question is how then do we put ourselves in a place where we can create the timeline and for what’s happening? And that’s important to look at the context in terms of time opportunities when shifts are likely. For example, when there’s a new dean being appointed at school, this is a moment everybody’s scrambling to try to get whatever done they want to get done because it’s a moment of flux and they recognize it and they’re not sitting around and waiting.  Oh well, let’s see what happens. Now, if it’s a let’s see what happens, that’s not being strategic. That’s just waiting. The creativity is really at the heart of the process because otherwise it’s just whoever’s got more of whatever it is wins. And that’s why the David and Goliath story, there’s a version of it in every culture that I’ve come across of how the little guy is able to beat the big guy through their imagination or what we sometimes call street smarts. I mean, street smarts are how do people learn how to do a lot with a little because that’s their reality. And so street smarts are all about strategy because they’re figuring out how do I turn what I have into what I need to get what we want. And that’s a creative process. And finally, it’s nested. In other words, it’s rare that we want to secure world peace or we want to deal with climate change. And so we come up with a master strategy of how to do that. It’s not even clear what that means. Because unless we’re able to specify objectives that take us along the way to where we want to go. We run into the risk of triviality or grandiosity. That is, we run into the risk of, oh, the big thing is climate change. Now I’m going to write this seminar paper and it’s going to give the answer, Well, that’s not strategy. That’s probably fantasy. And so it’s much more. How do you then understand the relationship to where you are with where you want to end up and how you are going to build the capacity to get to where you want to end up? And again, that’s all about learning. So when we do campaigns, it’s structured that way. There’s a threshold, enough people threshold enough teams threshold enough voters. We’re building progressively as we move. So if we think about nestedness in strategy, it’s like, well, it can be something like, we want to elect the president of the United States. So we need, what is it, 270 electoral votes. So to get that, we need to get these many votes. Oh, wait a second. How many do we need to get in this day? And how many in that state and how many in the other state? Oh, and now we’re in California, let’s say. So how many do we need to get out of L.A.? And then it turns out that there’s precincts. Oh, how many do we need to get out? In other words, it’s appreciating the fact that all that is nested. And so we focus on what is proximate in order to get to the place where we build the capacity to deal with what is less proximate. In organizing, a lot of times people talk about fighting to get a stop sign. And what the point of that is, is not the stop sign. The point is the capacity you build in the course of getting that stop sign can then be a foundation for getting to changing the traffic patterns through a city council resolution. In other words, it goes step by step by step. The challenge is to connect what’s proximate with the big question. Now, Steven Lukes has a theory what he calls three Faces of Power where he is arguing that there is a first face of power where we see clearly who’s got the power. George Floyd is being murdered. But then there’s another question, which is, well, who decided that? Who authorized that? Who decides? That’s a second dimension. And then, well, why hasn’t anything been done about this? And that’s where you have to ask who’s benefiting and who’s losing. That third face reveals the structural context in which so many of the struggles we have go on. The second face reveals where there’s decision making that can influence it. And the first face says this is the pain. And so when you organize around a grievance, the question is, are you organizing in such a way that you’re building the power to go on to the next. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was about institutionalized racism. It was about segregation. But it was also about the pain of getting on a bus every day, having to, if you’re Black, walk past the armed deputized bus driver, rows of white people. You find a seat in the back. And if a white person wanted the seat you had to get and give it to them. Twice a day. That’s a pain point. And so then the question is, how do you generate some hope in that? Well, that turned out to be people staying off the busses for one day and realizing that, oh, we could imagine a desegregated bus. And so then what preceded it was not so much a lawsuit as it was the organization of an entire community that built power, developed leadership so that when the boycott was won, you didn’t just change bus practice, which you could probably do with a lawsuit. You created a powerful community to go on and fight segregation and then building powerful enough organizations and that to take on the institutional racism. So it’s thinking about this stuff in dynamic process growth, development and not just treating it as a single moment. 

Salimah Samji I really like this idea of dynamic process, right? Because it’s constantly moving. And I think your framework of strategizing is a motivated, intentional, proactive, creative and nested practice. It’s multifaceted practice, right? It can be really helpful for listeners to really understand how it has so many parts that you need to also pay attention to all at the same time. Also making one understand why this is difficult, that you just can’t have a plan because there’s so many moving parts. So Marshall, from a craft perspective, how do you practice strategizing the who, the when, the how do we strategize? 

Marshall Ganz Well, it’s kind of the heart of the matter. And I think people sometimes get confused and think there is such a thing as a perfect strategy. Now, with my one experience in consulting, that didn’t work. I didn’t like it. But I was asked to work with a new leader of a public sector union in Los Angeles and come up with strategies. And so I’d go to the session, we’d meet with him, with his staff. We come up with all these great ideas, and then a month later I’d come back and none of it happened. So what’s going on here? What I realized was that we were developing my strategy, not his. But he was the one who was there. It was his team. And unless they were crafting strategy that was theirs, then there couldn’t be adaptation, there couldn’t be learning because they were just trying to follow some blueprint that some guy came up with. So there is no such thing as the perfect strategy. So it really depends a lot on who the strategists are. And then how you create the conditions for people to form strategic teams that bring the different elements necessary for effective strategy together. So I think it’s so often missed. People want to do these abstract strategies and that can be useful. But you got to come back to who’s in the room, as they say. And where’s the buck stopping? Because their processes that are going to shape what comes out. And one of the really interesting things is how in the military, for example, they’ve been working at decentralizing strategic work. In other words, it’s not all the generals sits somewhere and designs everything all the way through, but every brigade or whatever is going to do that done work. And so they’re trying to then delegate, distribute more the strategic work as appropriate for the level. So like we’re doing the Obama campaign, we’re going to make a strategy at L.A., but then we have to also create the capacity in East L.A. but then we also have to create in a particular part, Lincoln Heights. And so if what we’re trying to do is create where you just follow the blueprint all the way down, no one’s allowed to contribute strategically. Everybody’s just doing what they’re told to do. Now, that’s an impoverishment. And I think one reason social movements can be so creative is because of the fact that creativity is needed at all levels. The challenge is it’s still gotta  add up. That’s why you need the mountain to connect with the valley, because it’s still ground up. And if people aren’t learning from the innovations, then it’s a huge waste. So unless there’s venues for coordination and consolidation, then you just go off in different pathways. But you want to empower the creativity of the people at the base. So we’ve been exploring strategy as a process, as a way of doing things. Now there are different ways to get at that. But one way to think about it that we’ve been working with is to ask yourself six questions. The six questions are not strategy. They’re a scaffold for the development of strategy. And the first question in the context of organizing is who are my people? Who are the people with whom I’ve engaged as my constituency for whom I’m accountable and responsible to? Then the second question is what is the change that they need and what. Not what I think they need. But what they think they need and want. So it’s getting into the real sources of pain and hope within a particular community or constituent setting. Okay, so now I’ve got the change. Now that we are clear about who our people are and what is the change that’s needed? Well, the next question is how can they turn what they have into the power they need to achieve that change? Now, that’s called developing a theory of change. It’s like the general on top of that hill who’s generating a hypothesis of how to win. So a theory of change is it’s starting point is to understand the sources of power. In other words, what do we need? How do we go about getting the power we need to accomplish this change? Do we collaborate with each other or are there others whose resources we need that we have to find a way to make it in their interest to give us what we want. So it is that kind of theory of change. So we start by doing a power analysis, and then based on that, we begin to figure out where our strengths are, where the other vulnerabilities are and so forth. Now, this is so important because what often happens is people jump right away to tactics with no theory of change. And then there’s that cartoon from The New Yorker. There’s two professors standing in front of a blackboard and there’s a whole bunch of formulas on the left and a whole bunch of formulas on the right. And in the middle it says, And then a miracle happens. Now, the problem is that we focus sometimes so much on inputs 5000 letters, 10,000 this, that that we don’t make the bridge to the outputs, which is really what the point is. And so the challenge there is to connect outputs to inputs. Then that’s where the theory changes. Oh, if we organize enough people, we get enough votes, then we can influence that so-and-so gets elected. And by electing so-and-so, that’ll tip the balance in our favor and we’ll get the law we want. It’s not just how do we register a bunch of people? It’s not just how do we turn out a bunch of people. It’s instrumental in achieving that outcome. So the theory of change then is foundational for the next question, the next step, which is deciding on a clear strategic objective. In other words, what is this goal that we’re shooting for? Why is it a good goal? And how do we measure the progress we’re making on getting to it? It’s a little bit like the bus boycott. We want to change institutionalized racism, but now we’re focused on segregated busses. We know what that looks like. Or we want to revolutionize the educational system. Well, we’re going to start by getting the school board straightened out and to do that, we have to elect these three people. So it’s getting very concrete because without the concreteness, then there’s nothing. Once we have a concrete objective like, say, an electoral objective, then we get to tactics. What are the different ways in which we can draw on our constituency for creative activities that can move this along? Now, often the first kind of major thinking is how do we kick off this campaign? And so a kickoff turns out to be a critical tactic. How are we going to do it? We’re going to do it in secret. Are we going to bring a bunch of people who we’re going to bring together? Where is it going to be? Is it going to be serious? Is it going to be fun? Will there be a prayer? In other words, it’s focusing on the moment in which the campaign becomes a campaign. Then the question is, what are the tactics? Well, that’s where it’s very creative. You know, in the farmworker experience, there was a priest who was working with us, a Franciscan, who was really good. And the bishop wanted to get rid of him. And so it was something that the women leaders in the strike really felt strongly about. So what do we do about that? Well, they decided to go up to the Bishop’s Chancery office and take all their kids and say, well, we’re just going to stay here until we get a contract signed by the bishop to keep this priest. Now. Interesting tactic. It actually worked. Or, I have so many farmworker examples, but you can see that’s where things get to be fun. But anything is not tactic. Say the administration decided that they were going to discontinue this class. We don’t like that. So what do we do? We have a petition. Well, why? Well, that’s what we always do. Well, is that a tactic? No, it’s habit. It’s not a tactic. The tactic is strategically attuned to what the strategy is. So now we understand we have to look at who decided that. Well, the dean. All right, so what can we do with respect to the dean that makes sense. A petition? Well, yeah, maybe. But I don’t know if we can hold the class for ourselves and invite the dean to come. See, that’s where the imagination kicks in. And I have one example on that. I was in Toronto, Canada, and we were boycotting grapes, and we were trying to get the supermarket chains to stop selling grapes. And we picked the largest supermarket chain in Canada, Dominion Stores. And we were doing picket lines and so forth to stop them from selling grapes. And we were getting very close. There were only about 3 or 4 of their stores left. And it was shortly before Easter. And we were strategizing with a group of Catholic high school students. And what could we do to affect the store? So what everyone said, well, it’s Easter coming? You know, I have some bunny suits. What if we all put on bunny suits? And we went in the store and hopped around and we sat before the grapes and somebody else said, oh that’s cool. We have this party. And in this party, you know, we had balloons and we got helium. So what if the one is all had a balloon? And they went to the grapes and actually tied the grapes onto the balloon and set it up in the air? Whoa. That’s really cool. So the next Saturday, the van pulls up in front of the Dominion store. The bunnies hop out with their balloons. They hop into the store and go to the grapes. They begin tying the grapes, putting on the balloons going up. Then the manager comes out with a big long pole with a spike on the end. Oh no. So we had to regroup. We had to have our pluses and deltas we had to do. What did we learn? And at that point, the one who had had the party said, hey, you know what else I got? What? Confetti? Now, what if we fill the balloons full of confetti? Then when they do that, it’s just going to make a big mess with it and they’ll have to clean it up. Okay. Next Saturday comes and Van pulls up the store bunnies with their balloons. They hop into the store. They hop to the grapes. They tie the grapes. It goes up in the air, Manager comes out and it’s a mess everywhere. The next Monday morning, Dominion Stores made a public statement that because of union goon tactics, they were going to withdraw California grapes from sale. And whoa. So there was a radio commentator named Bruno Jaroussky in Toronto who is a supporter. And he read the article and he said, I have a poem I want to dedicate to the farm workers. If all the goons use toy balloons and filled them with confetti, then cops and crooks would use dirty looks and guns that shoot spaghetti. Congratulations to the farm workers. 

Salimah Samji Wow, that’s an incredible story. 

Marshall Ganz I mean, and it’s all creative. It’s funny. And in Toronto, you have to be nice. And so this was very nice. This was just Easter bunnies. I mean, come on. So that was a fun thing. And it’s an example of once you have a strategy, then tactics. I mean, those tactics were perfect for that context of what we were trying to do. So just having a rally is not a tactic. It’s just an activity. That’s the power of tactics. And finally, the question is timing, because time is real. And one of the things that I learned in the farmworkers was that if you tried to start an organizing drive during the first half of the season, you could. But once the half point had been passed, you couldn’t. Because everybody was thinking about what was next. There’s a certain power of halfway points. I mean, it’s like midlife crisis. It’s sort of the time that’s before us is less than the time behind us. That imbalance then creates a different kind of context. Now, if you take that to high school semester, you’ve got to start an organizing project during finals. No, you’ve got to pay attention to the temporal dynamics, and we all operate within temporal frameworks. So the alignment of what we’re doing with the seasons with, you know, we’re going to have our launch on Labor Day with the holidays. In other words, we’re thinking about how do we situate ourselves within time, people’s own life cycles, when schools open. So all I’m saying is that looking at the temporal dimension is crucial. And so then the question is, how do we make use of time as our ally and as a support? And that’s where so when do we have our kickoff. And it’s understanding, too, that we don’t go from 0 to 60 in a minute. That’s where the structure of a campaign comes in. Stephen Jay Gould, the paleontologist: There were two ways to look at time. One is time is a cycle, which he called the rhythm of continuity, the annual budget review, the annual this, the annual that. That’s important. So we have predictability. But he says the rhythm of change is different. It’s episodic. He calls it time is an arrow. In other words, it’s intense. It has a start. It has an end. Now, that’s why we organize campaigns the way we do, because they are about change. They are not about continuity. And so that means that we have to structure it in such a way that we are building our capacity as we go. That’s why we would have a kickoff. Getting going. Then what’s our next goal? Okay. So many people. And so we’re building incrementally our power. If we waited to get a grant before we started the campaign, we would never start a campaign. And unfortunately, these days, people sit around and wait for a grant. You got to build the capacity in the course of your pursuit of the goal. That’s how you create change. It’s not by waiting for status quo to bless you with a lot of money. That’s not how it works. And electoral politics, I mean, they don’t have the money they need at the end at the beginning. So, that’s why this timing, the right timing and sequential timing is the sixth question. It’s then about who are my people? What is the change they need? How can they get that change? What’s the theory of change? What is the strategic objective that moves us toward that change? What are the tactics that can be used? And what’s the timing? This is one way to scaffold thinking through how to develop strategy for a campaign. 

Salimah Samji So this is what I’ve taken away. Strategy is how you turn what you have into what you need to get what you want. We all know how to do this. It’s innate, and there’s no perfect strategy, but it is an incremental process. And there are six questions that our listeners can ask to practice this. And those six questions are: Who are my people? What is the change they want? What is their theory of change? What is their strategic goal? What tactics can we use and what is the timing? Thank you, Marshall. This has been a real delight. 

Marshall Ganz Thank you.