The new ONE/Northwest is centered on “engagement.” All of our programs are now aimed at engaging people and organizations in influencing decisions that impact the environment. You’ll hear more about these exciting new directions on this blog over the next few months. For now, it’s worth taking a quick look at what we mean by the word “engagement.”

Dictionary definitions of “engagement” encapsulate why I like the word for describing our new work. To engage is to occupy the attention or efforts of someone, to secure for aid, to attract or please, to attract and hold fast, to bind, to betroth, to bring into conflict, to take employment, to pledge one’s word and to cause to become interlocked.

In other words, to engage someone is to attract them, build connection and commitment with them, and facilitate working together with them in shared purpose. In short, engagement is part relating and it’s part doing.

This “relating and doing” or “task and relationship” is a dynamic that is critical to understanding how engagement works. It’s a give and take, a push and pull…a Yin and a Yang, if you will.

In healthy engagement, investments in “doing” are balanced by investments in “relating.” When we invest in building strong relationships, be it with constituents, staff, or even family and friends, we also invest in our collective capacity to get things done. Closer connections mean that we understand one another better. We know where shared interests lie, what impassions us, and what turns us off. We build trust. We build commitment. When we invest in getting things done together, we also strengthen our relationships. This is the esprit de Coeur that comes with high-functioning teams and the comradery that comes with jointly overcoming adversity. The best community organizers understand this dynamic intuitively and balance investments in doing and relating in all their work with constituents.

Unhealthy engagement comes from lopsided over-investment in either doing or relating. Organizations that over-invest in relating at the expense of doing, suffer from an inability to execute. Friendships may flourish, even long after the organization that once housed them has long since disappeared for failure to deliver. Organizations that over-invest in doing at the expense of relating often suffer from burnout, attrition, a failure to tap constituents’ passion and purpose, and an inability to exert the kind of real influence with decision makers that only comes through close relationships.

After nearly seven years of serving environmental organizations, I would say that far too many fall into this latter category. And just in case you think I'm pointing fingers, I would lump ONE/Northwest - and even me personally - into this group as well. We're talking about deep behavioral patterns here that percolate through organizations and their people.

This task and relationship dynamic is a good frame for thinking about how we engage people in creating social change. It points the way to interesting new tools and powerful new approaches to strengthening organizations’ “engagement capacity.” These new strategies and systems build relationships and put those relationships to work. This is the focus of ONE/Northwest’s work going forward.

Stay tuned.