Glossary

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 Democratic Accountability

Meaningful and legitimate accountability must include the direct participation by, and engaged collaboration with those directly affected by and interested in addressing problems of under-participation. It is based on inquiry about the values and goals motivating decisions, as well as the impact of institutions’ practices and choices. Active and diverse participation advances the goal of inclusion, provides legitimacy, informs action with the perspectives and knowledge of those who are the intended beneficiaries, and serves as a source of accountability and change.

 Dynamic Collaboration

Effective problem solving and transformation requires the participation of those affected by, responsible for and knowledgeable about the relevant concerns. The knowledge and action needed for systems change spans work units, organizations, disciplines, occupations, identities, and geography. The nature and composition of those collaborations also varies with the type of problem and goal at stake. To have traction, collaboration has to be flexible enough to adapt to circumstance and still durable enough to be sustained at different levels – individual, group, institutional – over time. The challenge for this work is to develop the capacities, tools, and architecture to enable and support these dynamic collaborations to develop and last.

 Full Participation

Full participation involves creating the conditions enabling people of all races and genders to thrive, succeed, and advance, as well as participate meaningfully in the institutions defining membership in the polity and economy. Under conditions of full participation, individuals and groups realize their capabilities as they understand them and are empowered to exercise voice in their institutions and communities. Achieving this goal requires a critical assessment of the barriers to access and full participation at the various institutional locations that shape inclusion and advancement.

 Innovative Leadership

Institutional change requires transformational and everyday leadership that operates at key locations where formative decisions occur. To be sustainable, leadership must be embedded in institutional relationships and support structures that regenerate and diffuse leadership through the system. Transformational leadership moves beyond the qualities of an individual charismatic leader, and asks what it takes to embed individual leaders in a larger systemic change initiative. It creates locations and incentives to step back from daily routines and crises, and to articulate a vision of an institution along with strategies for advancing toward that vision.
An innovative leader helps others access their sources of inspiration, intuition, and imagination so that members of an organization/institution/society may act both individually and collectively. It is crucial to understand what innovative leadership looks like, how those commitments are reflected in the decisions and choices that are made, how it is made visible to others, and how it is replicated, extended and rewarded.

 Institutional Change

The institutional level is a focus of the Center’s inquiry (as compared to the more conventional emphasis on individuals, groups, or policy). Interventions aimed at institutional practice have traction to improve the conditions shaping individuals' experiences and to connect local experimentation to national networks. Institutions, such as universities, workplaces, and police departments, organize individuals' decision making and activities. They shape how individuals participate in their workplace, and they manage the relationship of individuals to the broader profession and society. They often operate within a network of similar institutions, such as other universities, disciplines, and professional associations. Institutions are both lasting and permeable. They mediate how norms and policies are translated into practice. They are an important location for cultural meaning-making and for producing sustainable change.

 Multi-Level Change

Structural inequality is a multi-dimensional and embedded problem. Its remediation requires operating both deeply within particular contexts (to get at the level of individual and group experience) and broadly across contexts (to enable the reworking of the environmental conditions and incentives that shape internal practices). Particular programs that work in a particular context must be sustained over time and connected with other programs that influence overall gender and racial dynamics.
This requires a sustained change strategy that bridges and sustains the different interventions at the multiple levels and locations needed to change culture. We aim to explore the meaning of a mindset shift that penetrates systems at the individual, inter-group, institutional and policy levels so that the reframing and boundary spanning needed to address structural inequality can be sustained.

 Public Problem Solving

Remedying structural inequality and advancing full participation requires a process of public participation and problem solving. That process identifies the systemic dimensions of a problem through insistent inquiry that identifies the underlying dynamics producing inequality and the leverage points and openings for change. It encourages the design, evaluation and comparison of solutions that involve affected stakeholders. This process involves reconceptualizing problems in ways that expose underlying causes and bring together unlikely partners and allies. It also entails reframing the aspirations motivating change to reflect these interlocking problems and constituencies.

 Reflective Practice

Creating inclusive institutions requires reflection connected to action -- a process of ongoing institutional analysis and change. Where are the barriers to participation and mobility? Why do they exist? Are they signals of broader problems or issues? How can they be addressed? How do different aspects of the institution interact to produce an exclusionary culture? Where are the openings or leverage points that could reshape that culture?
Institutional change requires creating ongoing opportunities for mobilization within and across institutions where these crucial, cumulative decisions are made. An approach attending to collaboration, networking and institutional design is essential to institutional mindfulness—careful attention to decisions that accumulate to determine whether women and men of all races will have the opportunity to succeed and advance. It also includes the development of metrics that will track progress on these institution-level dimensions of change, and a structure of accountability to sustain this ongoing process of reflection

 Sustainability

Many innovations have not lasted beyond their first phase or, if they do last, they lose their transformative character and become bureaucratized. Innovation and change are difficult to sustain. They require developing the paradoxical capacity to systematize insistent questioning. This capacity entails developing conditions and practices able to sustain trust, generate new locations of energy and mobilization, and enable ongoing learning about the emerging nature of complex social concerns and the practice of trusting in the mutual process of co-laboring and co-generating sustainable resolutions.

 Systemic Approach

Advancing full participation requires operating at the systemic level, recognizing that inequality is embedded in structures and systems, and that meaningful change requires shifts at the systemic level. The micro level of interaction within a particular system is shaped by the institutional structure, which is in turn affected by social systems and the larger environment. Remedying the problem of structural inequality requires an approach that enables action at a particular leverage point or juncture, informed by an understanding of its relationship to the larger system.
Systemic change requires ongoing analysis to identify the underlying patterns or causes and the possible leverage points for mobilizing change. It also includes identifying indicators of transformation and change, to monitor progress and create accountability for taking action. Information’s efficacy depends upon its effective integration into a larger practice of analysis and action.