On this weeks episode Melissa Berman, Founding President & CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisor and Uma Chatterjee, Founder & Director of Sanjog India continue the conversation what it takes to lead movements.

Story telling and setting the pace stand out as two essential skills for leaders of movements in this episode and as usual there is learning for us all. Be it for Leaders of great movements, ambitious organisations or small teams.

Julia Middleton 0:01

Unknown Speaker 1:49

I I've had the opportunity to really see and learn first, as a as an academic. And then as somebody in the nonprofit sector for more than 30 years, how important narrative is. It does stories that we tell, and the truth that lives in stories being so much more powerful than the truth that lives in facts. And so if I think about the movements that I've been involved in supporting as a nonprofit leader over the years, that my organisation Rockefeller philanthropy advisors incubates now, so many of the ones that are truly effective, are about narrative change, really, in order to make a movement successful, and even before you can actually fight the fight that creates the victory at the end of the movement building, you have to change the terms of the narrative, you have to help people understand who are the protagonists? What is their story? Why should I have empathy with them? What can I resonate with the connects to my own life that helps me understand their life. And those kinds of approaches are so much more powerful than just standing alone, and cursing the tide. And they are so much more suited to how women in interact in the world and how women view the world. So I'm a break big proponent of narrative change as a critical feature of women's leadership, and as an opportunity to build successful movements that might bring about change with less fighting. And if I want to be

Julia Middleton 3:42

a leader, who can tell the story and therefore create the narrative, yes. What do I need to do to become that kind of leader?

Unknown Speaker 3:53

So the best storytellers are always the best listeners. In the oral tradition, people who were storytellers learn their stories from listening to others because nothing was written down. And they did not see themselves as the creators of the story. They consider themselves to be the vessels of a story that belonged to everybody. And having that point of view, helps you as a leader, manage internally, and listen to the voices of the people in your organisation. It helps you listen to the voices of the people outside your organisation that you have the privilege of representing. And it gives you a kind of authenticity that becomes extremely powerful.

Julia Middleton 4:43

And I'm assuming that you believe that listening is a very active verb, not a passive thing.

Unknown Speaker 4:51

Listening is an extremely active and in fact, exhausting practice, to truly listen to people and to truly Try and understand what the subtext is, what the context is that they're coming from, what it is, they want you to hear how they are hoping you will react, how you can inquire of them what their journey has been, so that you can truly understand their narrative. That's a lot, a lot of emotional labour. And that's something that has to be practised. And that people also need to be able to step back and take a refreshing break from every now and then so they don't get burned out. So if Step

Julia Middleton 5:38

one is to be a good listener, step two, is to be a good storyteller.

Unknown Speaker 5:46

Step two is to be able to understand how your imagined or potential or actual audience thinks about this issue, and how to tell the story in a way that will resonate with them. So you can be a wonderful storyteller for yourself, and for people who think like you, but you would be a terrible storyteller for people whom you're trying to persuade. So you have to have what what John Keats called negative capability to understand not just how you would tell the story of how you see the story, but how to tell the story for somebody else. It's physical, and it's visceral. You know, we often talk about the head and the heart, but the that, and gut reactions and gut feelings, which are the combination of our heads and our hearts, in a very real way in our full body. The more we know about the microbiome, the more we really understand what it means to have a gut reaction to something and how important that is. That's part of where this comes from.

Julia Middleton 6:55

So that's step two, step three, is if I if I'm going back in a way to Europe to the movements and the leaders of those movements, yes. It must also be to get, I can't think of a better word, but the tone right?

Unknown Speaker 7:12

I would say that if you are telling your story in a way that is sensitive to how your listeners see the world now, then you will be getting the tone, right? I would say that step three would be to turn those listeners into storytellers.

Julia Middleton 7:35

You mean the people who are listening to you that they tell your stories to many others?

Unknown Speaker 7:43

Yes. And I think it's also important, not to so much think about it as my story. But our story? Yeah, you don't, you are the you are telling the story, but you don't own it. Tell me a bit more

Julia Middleton 8:00

about the elegance of some of the people you've seen doing it.

Unknown Speaker 8:06

So I would say that one of the people you want to be the young women leaders in this narrative change movement, that I think really highly of is Alia Matthew, who leads the collective Future Fund, which is about ending violence toward women, children, and domestic violence situations generally. And she is able to take a topic that makes many people deeply uncomfortable. If they've experienced it in, it's a trauma to think about it, if they haven't experienced it. It's something that they view with her. And she is able to find ways to connect things that have to do with back forces that people are comfortable with. Being fair, being kind, being able to have your voice heard, being able to have a seat around the table, she's able to find ways to tell the stories that don't put people in a situation in which they are either reliving their trauma or being asked to feel guilty about other people's trauma. And that's a very important gift. Because that allows her to enrol people in being able to then talk about it in a way that's comfortable for them.

Julia Middleton 9:39

So, therefore, communication comes right at the top of what you look for in a leader of a movement.

Unknown Speaker 9:49

Yeah, I would say so, although the trip some of the traditional definitions of communication which are very high Archi based, I have information that I am transmitting to you. Right? If you think about that, that's a very hierarchical way of talking about it. And that's why I think it's much better to talk about storytelling, and narrative. And, and that, because that is a communal activity, the storyteller traditionally, is telling a story that belongs to the community, not to the storyteller. The same thing is true of a folk singer. They're telling they're singing a song, which is not theirs, they may be interpreting it somewhat differently. And they may be changing it a little bit because of who they're singing to. But it's not there as it's ours.

Not far from that skill. But one that i Ma is, is, you know, you sometimes go into a room with a leader who's trying to get I don't know, maybe it's an NGO that's got masses of stakeholders. And they're all they've all arrived with their own interpretation, their own views, their own angles on just about everything. And, and somehow the leader comes in, and they find, and you sit there thinking, how are they going to make this into anything that's coherence, so that people, and somehow they, they wait, they listen. They keep on testing, when to say something? And then they come in at this extraordinary moment. And to your amazement, everybody in the room who have appeared to be disagreeing, start nodding,

yes, because they have, they have listened to what other people are saying, they have probably done some homework about those people, before they even came into the row. They have listened to what they're saying in that moment. They have been able to find the common thread, and the common language that will resonate with different people.

Or sometimes they haven't actually found, let's be honest, the common thread because there isn't a common thread, but somehow they find a thread that people will go with.

Yes. And whether you call that a common thread or something else? Sure. Absolutely.

They are absolutely what you hone down on on, I'm gonna back this movement. For that, yes.

Yes, the people who see themselves not so much as I have my message. And there are people who have that. And that's very valuable. And that's a different thing. The solo contributor, the icon like that, the individual artist, all of those things are important, but for movements, and, and changing hearts and minds. It's somebody who is able not just to talk about what I think, but to talk about what we think and what we can do. And who is as the it's the title of a book from the early 20th century, the singer of tales, the person who is able to adroitly share, what is the co creation of many other people. So it is a much less it's a much less ego driven form of leadership than the kind of traditional entrepreneurial CEO with a vision Steve Jobs like model of leadership. And it's not that those kinds of individuals don't contribute important and valuable things to our world, right? We need the people who are actually not listening to anybody, because they legitimately have their own idea and way of etc, etc. But that's a very, that's one way that change happens. But another way that change happens that over time is Much more important for equity and justice is how

movements happen. And how often have you met these kinds of leaders? I would say I need them

increasingly now as the nonprofit sector. And and some of the major funders of the nonprofit sector, are recognising that the technocratic approach that was so popular for the first two decades of this millennium, really just stays at the surface. And it gives you measurable results, but it doesn't really change anything. So you keep needing to solve the same problem over and over and over and over again, right. So as people begin to think more about changing systems, and they begin to look at the so called iceberg model of systems change, where what you see above the waterline is the tip of the iceberg. And at the very bottom of the iceberg are the mental models and assumptions that we carry around with us, some of which we're able to recognise and some of which are just impossible to recognise. That's where long term sustainable change has to happen. So there's a lot more attention now to systems change. And that includes narrative change.

Hey, who better than Melissa to push back on the technocratic model and make the case for movement leaders who don't just produce KPIs but narrative change? Thank you so much, Melissa. But actually, wait a minute. Before we thank Melissa and move on. Just one last question, Melissa, how do you make sure that your stories really resonate with your audience? What's the trick? Rather fairytales read the fairy tales of your culture. Go on. Because those are your those fairy tales, folk tales, legends, they hold truths that your culture holds

dear. And if you understand those truths, then you begin to understand a lot about the people whom you are hoping to have join your movement. So read those stories, and not just the old ones. But the new ones. You know, what's the story of the biggest tiktoks bars?

What is their story tell you?

What's the story behind the songs that are the most popular right now? And the musicians who were singing though? What is it that makes them so powerful?

Melissa, so stories, old and new, well made point, nuggets everywhere from you, Melissa. So thank you very, very, very, very much. And particularly for all of us who dream of living movements. Now we then move on to uma who has driven one of the most exciting movements I've ever come across. And we're going to quiz her on why she loves doing it. But most importantly, how she judges as a leader, the pace of the movement. And to my mind, it's almost the most important thing that a leader of a movement does judging the pace, but just just just enjoy it. Just enjoy the joy of it. There is a movement you've been a leader of for many, many years. Why are you so passionate about it?

You know, the word movement itself is a very passionate word. It means to create action, it means to go from one place to another place. So I think I'm a doer who love action. I love thinking but I love dreaming and then bringing it into action. So I think I movements embody all of all of the things that I believe in and movement is about sustaining action. You know, I'm also I run organisations, but you know, the organization's is the is an act of sustaining order, whereas movement is an act of sustaining action. So that that sustains me in itself, the word in itself. The other thing that I think, Julia why movements inspire me And why I decided to keep at movement building is because, you know, movements are in movements, that accountability is to a cause which is greater than any one individual. And if the movement is successful things change for everyone. There are sweeping changes, they're, you know, they are incremental as well as sweeping changes, but it's not restricted to what an organisation accomplishes by itself or priorities, not organisation sustainability, it is more about collective change. There's, you know, dreams coming true for billions of people. So yeah,

I'm sure the movements you've done, they can't keep up the same pace all the time, can they? So in a way the leader has to, has to judge the pace, it's almost the most important thing that the leader does is is judging the pace, would you agree?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Very well, it is, it is actually a lot about pace. You know, I often give this analogy of the pace of a movement. And a pacing is all about, you know, movements are about pacing. And just like when doing exercise, when we are exercising and pacing is all about how well our body can distribute its energy throughout an entire run or a marathon. The main premise is that, you know, you preserve enough energy for your entire workout or exercise regime regime, which is very, very important for long distance running or shorter sprints. So it's exactly like that, what you watch for

that says to you, I've got to slow the pace of the movement down,

two or three things that come to mind. One, when the, you know, movements always have a flow of energy, there's always energy when, so, when the energy is becomes SHA, charge negatively,

that is a rupture,

you know, a split or a break or a tear in the, in the, the fabric of the moon. And that's, that's something you can feel that. So, that's something I know that this calls for a cause something is broken, something has ruptured and not attending to the rupture very, very high stakes, it can it can completely you know, completely destroy the the movement. The other, the other thing is when I when there is a walking in the purpose, nothing precedes purpose in a movement nothing. So, if the mission of the purpose is suddenly unclear or there is a distraction, a drift, whatever a drift, yes, yes. Or there is a there is some kind of plateau that is happening and people from everywhere in the you know, people are not being able to answer the question, Why do we exist? Or why are we in this movement, that's a red flag. Hot pink area is about power dynamic the when, when I as a leader, I am sensing that there there are certain barriers in building power in demonstrating power and in undermining the power of the opponents because in the moment I'm also I know there is an opponent you know, I'm fighting someone. So when I'm and it is a power game, it is going to be a movement of shifting power. So a hinge when I am getting when that there are barriers or obstacles in the collective not being able to build its power or demonstrate its power or undermine the power of the opponent.

And the power is not shifting.

Then I know it's time to regroup, re strategize. So these will be the three things I think which would be red flags for me and going back to the drawing board and OD re huddling basically. And starting with the self reflection with the collective reflection with the Jenga storytelling, all of that needs to be back

what are the end caters when you know, you've got to speed it up, and really speed

it up.

You know, there are indicators of an enabling environment in any movement. And when that environment is there, you know, it's the last, I mean, you can sprint at that point of time. So some of these indicators of that enabling empowering environment, there is courage. There is shared courage to challenge the status status quo. That's, that's palpable, I can see it, there is an openness to learning, I'm learning new ways of thinking and working. There is an ability and an agility to respond to emergence movements are about, you know, that, like I said, Judah, it's about action. So that's so much of emergence, things are happening every minute, every hour, every day. So if you see that there is an ability to observe and respond to emergence. And there is a lightness of play. Imagination, curiosity, fun, I mean, fun as in. When I say fun here, it's about play of coming together and playing together collecting. So if these indicators, it's something I'm seeing in the movement in the in the in the collective, I know it's all lined up. There is no question about slowing down. That's the really is absolutely on its way. People have the courage people have the openness, people are challenging, they are playing, they are imagining about the new, the new world they are, it's curiosity. I mean, I know, you can see her talking about this, it's, it's magic. And then and you know, the environment is very, very enabling and empowering. There is no need to slow down.

And suddenly, sprint suddenly becomes easy.

Just so easy, you start breathing in sync, you start singing in synergy, you start playing just just everything comes like I said, it all falls in line. And dude, everybody's sprinting. Everybody is running. Is it ever you

that slows things down? Do you? I suppose? Do you ever get frightened? Do you ever get frightened yourself? And, and realise that it's you that might be slowing things down?

Honestly, you know, Julia, this has happened to me when something while I'm leading a movement, something has happened in the external ecosystem that triggers fear in me as a leader. And

the fear at that point of time about you know, how are we going to survive this? How are we going to keep the movement alive? It has frozen me for you know, and and that's when, when I get vulnerable, and I feel something and I'm not very sure. I'm feeling a little fogged out, you know, there's, and that has happened as a leader, that has also happened. And then then I asked myself, What is the most important thing here? What do I want you to happen? What is the price of doing something like this or not going for it? What is it that is going to advance our interests? That's one thing I do. I started asking myself a few questions about this. My, you know, the response in my reflexes sometimes to withdraw and that's when you know, I lean into my habit of saying, this is not the time to withdraw or disengage, I am scared, I need to now engage I need to listen to others, their frame of reference, not see it from mine. And I don't need to look at what's right or wrong, I don't need to look at winning and losing I need to look at transformation. So listening to others at that point of time has also drawn me out you know, engagement and connection has drawn me out of my frozenness that has also happened. Having said that, at these moments actually do their I have seen that. Movements are usually

built on things that we want to dismantle things you know, power plays that we want to power shifts that we want to happen. We want to I wish that it happens. So usually movements are based on social and human rights movements are usually based on that. And when when things are not going the way one has dreamed of it or undecided. We need to be laser focused actually, about what are we trying to create together than about attempting to what are we trying to dismantle? What are the what are the things we are fighting against? I mean, I know it's ironic, because movements are based on that we will get triggered because we're trying to shift and change and transform. But when things are stuck, or frozen, or it's towards the end, and the last leg. I think for me, what has worked is when I have been laser focused about what is it that we all love? And what is it that we are trying to create together? Rather than watching it? What is it that we are attempting to dismantle? I don't know, it just we've started from what is it that we want to break. But towards the end when the event is the last lap? For me what has worked is what is it that I am here for what is it that we are creating and loving

and that allows you to sprint to the end?

Yes, that last leg that last stretch. It has often happened to me because of arousal from evocation, rather than an arousal from provocation and challenge that I've started started something on.

Have you ever sensed that actually, almost you're being played, it's not you who's as the leader who's setting the pace for this movement, that you're actually letting some other force almost set the pace?

Yes, in both positive and negative ways. So when this happens, and when you see there's a surge of energy, and there'll be moments when you suddenly realised that you are not the person in control and it is suddenly taken over by a few others. And it brings a sense of joy, I have had that feeling. So when I was when I had led movements with survivors of trafficking, and there have been certain campaigns It was It has just been taken over by them suddenly with because of the surge of energy. And I know I have been shifted to the backseat. And I have somehow been able to pass the mic and it has failed. I cannot even tell you how overjoyed I have felt that it wasn't planned. And it happened. I have also experienced manipulation, when you say being played. And there has been someone has tried to manipulate and they either there is there are emotional directives in that moment that has hijacked and sabotaged the control from my from from my hands or from where I was eating. And there are signs actually and I have it it wasn't there at the beginning but with experience I have learned to identify those signs that when I am being played and I've been manipulated. And that's when I asked myself. So why is this happening? Where is the disconnect? What is the power play about? Why is it you know, so why am I getting destabilised or feeling exposed?

And,

or even disempowered and I the that probably has definitely disempowered feeling disempowered and helpless, you know, to be able to be in touch with myself and that self awareness of okay, I'm being played now. A drama has been created, and I have been pushed into the middle of all of it. And and yeah, I have I've realised that the pace, the road, the roadmap, the compass, everything has suddenly suddenly shifted, I have experienced was

Boom, what's it feel like when you get it right? When you get the pace rate?

When you get the pace, right? You're lining up what you desire, what you believe and what you do?

And that's magic.

Have you ever felt it?

Oh, yes. Oh, yes, it's a, that magic is rooted in care. It is rooted in accountability. It is rooted in non hierarchical, empowered ways of working. It is it's a flow of energy and animation. it all lines up. So you need to get your best right. I have felt it, I have experienced it. I have been so fortunate to be part of those celebrations when our desires, our beliefs and convictions, and our actions have lined up together. I have been in that room. And it's, I get goosebumps every time I speak about this. It's It's magical. And leaders who lead movements who have seen this happening, I'm sure all across the world who will be listening to the they will they will, it will take you back to it's a sensory experience. It's a heady experience, and it's such a humbling experience. So yes, it's important, because when you get it right, you really get it right.

Omar, I want to be in that room with you. And I want to share the Goosebumps there are too many leadership learning points to go back over this just just got to the listeners just gonna have to listen to that one again and again and again. So I take but But what do I take mostly from myself? I think Melissa's point about listening to the fairy tales and the songs and what they reveal about what people are yearning for or wistful about or dreaming of. And maybe not just listening to the fairy stories and the songs of your own culture, but crucially, all the many other cultures that you come across, and then OMA of the many, many things that you said uma when we spoke, I suppose I take mostly how you spoke the joy that I mean, uma you are dealing one with one of the most frightening issues in the world, and yet you do it with joy. And and I could feel that in every word you spoke. So I suppose all the things you said were really good, but it's how you said them that I won't forget. So thank you very, very much. Just before we go, don't forget next week is our next live remember expedition live every three weeks I and one of the members of the expedition. In this case, it's an Dini MCIT insky, who is an inventor, you young inventor. Recently in Forbes 30, under 30. She's an extraordinary member of the expedition. We both will look at all your issues. Look at all your questions, answer them when we can have some fun. It's on Wednesday the 19th of October at 4pm. UK time on Instagram Live. Do do do join us I think it'll be fun.

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