Our Guest: Kara Pecknold, Vice President, Regenerative Design, frog, part of Capgemini Invent

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Design Mind frogcast Ep.52 – Expanding the C-Suite

On this episode of the Design Mind frogcast, we’re sitting down with Kara Pecknold, Vice President of Regenerative Design at frog to talk about the world-changing potential that can take place when we come together and share space—whether it’s around the boardroom table the dinner table, or even nature’s table. For starters, we explore the need for new business strategies in the face of disruption, followed by a main course of the evolving role of leaders and we finish off by asking if the solution to the climate crisis could be found by looking at nature&#8217;s cycles.
Listen to the podcast episode below. You can also find the Design Mind frogcast on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/design-mind-frogcast/id1541644073" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/5mxbuRY6KtBwIrNhWhu0sx" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Spotify</a> and anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Kara&#8217;s recommended reading:
<ul>
<li>Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer</li>
<li>Limits to Growth by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers and William Behrens III</li>
<li>The Future of the Responsible Company by Vincent Stanley and Yvon Chouinard</li>
<li>Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature by Janine Benyus</li>
<li>The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac</li>
</ul>

Featured in this episode is the recent frog report ‘Futurescape: 25 trends transforming the next quarter-century.’ 

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[00:13:11] Elizabeth Wood: Now back to our conversation with Kara Pecknold, Vice President of Regenerative Design for frog. Here, she&#8217;ll discuss the value of play and particularly a popular tool from frog called <a href="https://cardsforsustainability.frog.co/">Cards for Sustainability</a>. 
[00:13:22] Kara Pecknold: Because I work in a creative space, I&#8217;ll always bring back the importance and value of play. I think we get very serious when we talk about some of these things that I&#8217;ve been speaking on. And even though you may be a leader, a seasoned leader, I highly recommend making sure that play becomes part of your life, part of your team, part of your experience, I think it brings levity. It brings a different way of looking at the world. Cards for Sustainability was something that was inspired actually by the work from cards for humanity, which is inspired by Cards Against Humanity. Cards for Sustainability was a means to really begin to think through what could be an intimidating topic in the creative world, where we are not necessarily trained to be people who do ESG reports, we were not necessarily trained on all the things that were impacted by science.   
[00:14:14] Kara Pecknold: We had other trainings to make creative work, and so what we wanted to do was use that creativity and use a playful tone to build a game. And the game allows for three key characters, so somebody who&#8217;s a business character, someone from society, and the third is something from nature. And so our tagline is, have you ever built a business plan for a bird? And the idea is that the game can be played pretty much anywhere. We&#8217;ve played it with clients. We&#8217;ve played it at conferences, and we enable three people to kind of take on the role of decision maker about our big ideas that we want to bring to the table. And could be an idea about a new business, a new product, whatever. And what happens is everybody of those three characters get. A chance to vote whether they think it&#8217;s serving the best interests of them to have this thing come into the world. And of course, it brings lots of laughter, because each of the characters actually tell us what they&#8217;re worried about in the world. So it&#8217;s very funny and playful. 
[00:15:14] Kara Pecknold: But in the end, it really does demonstrate how when we don&#8217;t get so caught up in our anxiety and our worry about a topic, we&#8217;re able to let go, because we&#8217;re putting on a playful mind. And we put on a playful mind just like children, we&#8217;re imaginative, we&#8217;re exploratory. We create whole new worlds. And I think the beauty of creativity and design and the arts, you could even say, is that it helps us to look at the world through these more you know, imaginative, open, hopeful possibilities, not just this will never work. This can&#8217;t get off the ground. And so watching a bunch of people play it at a conference was a laughable it was very funny to watch people who are maybe a little bit more serious take on the role of a bird or a turtle or something. But I think the outcome really demonstrates a different way of asking different kinds of questions and inviting different kinds of voices to be part of the decision making of what we put into the world.  
[00:16:13] Elizabeth Wood: During our conversation, Kara shared insights from her experience of working with innovative leaders and outlines the methodologies that frog and leading organizations are using to develop skills and qualities needed for effective leadership, from sitting down at nature&#8217;s table to the value of letting go.   
[00:16:30] Kara Pecknold:I see places where people are enabling their people. Companies are enabling their people to go off and do unique types of experiences. So we&#8217;re going to take you actually into nature. We&#8217;re actually going to bring you to nature&#8217;s table, and we&#8217;re going to talk about, what are the implications of that. And we&#8217;ve done that with a company. In fact, we worked on a project where we wanted to bring much more of a story of how their company was going to better connect with their community. So you could talk a bit more about like a loyalty program. And instead of going to an office somewhere, we actually went out to the North Sea and we learned what it meant to be in the boat, in the waves crashing. I think I actually absorbed my body weight and water that day, but we had to work as a team while we faced some stormy waves in a boat, and then we did all of our activities and learnings brought us out into nature, so we were very close to the very world that was going to be impacted by the business decisions that were made in this workshop.  
[00:17:39] Kara Pecknold: So I think a method of change can be a method of changing where you do your meetings, changing where your people get exposed. And so as frog, we have started to do these types of things, and it takes the right client, it takes the right moment, but it&#8217;s the type of thing that I believe is what&#8217;s needed to disrupt our thinking, to make us think in new and different ways about the business we build. One of the things we&#8217;ve really been focusing on, even in some of our team efforts, is how can we encourage that in in our organization on a weekly basis in some form? I think a principle that I&#8217;ve stuck to is the idea of purging. So if you don&#8217;t need something in your life, then let it go and figuring out what needs to stay and what&#8217;s important and what&#8217;s not important. And I think I learned that also from the processes of nature, right? I watch a lot more as I&#8217;ve grown older to see how does nature deal and using that as a principle of my own ways of thinking. So instead of thinking in quarters, I think in seasons. And I think, what does winter show me? It shows me maybe it&#8217;s time to be still. It shows me some things could go dormant. I don&#8217;t have to plant a billion seeds. I can let something go dormant. And there&#8217;s a real freedom in that. And then following the rest of the calendar, right? When it is time to harvest, when it is time to plant, when it is time to blossom. And I like mapping my year that way and looking at what are the kinds of activities I can bring out by just looking at how the seasons reflect in the world. It&#8217;s not failure to pause. It&#8217;s not failure to think about, what if you thought about the way you sold your product that wasn&#8217;t in a 12 month cycle. What if you thought about it in a different way? And new growth doesn&#8217;t come because we cut down everything. New growth doesn&#8217;t come because we fill a garden with way more trees than the soil can sustain. 
[00:19:32] Kara Pecknold: We think through thoughtfully, intentionally, about where is the best investment, and I think what we think is more is better because we think we&#8217;ll make more money, more profit, more whatever. But somebody who&#8217;s really thought through a business plan and strategically thought about the things that they have as things they don&#8217;t have to waste, can change the way they run their business and can change the way it&#8217;s delivered. And to me, that is actually much more in line with what we are actually connected to, which is. The natural world. 
[00:20:01] Elizabeth Wood: Kara believes that good culture is central to positive change. He or she discusses a need for softness and how we can reevaluate our priorities based on what really counts. 
[00:20:11] Kara Pecknold: The more I have one-on-ones with my clients who are really honest with me, the more I hear their aspiration and desire for something to change, because they are burnt out. They are exhausted. They are asking themselves, why am I here? Why am I doing this? And I think every company knows that a culture is a really important thing, a good culture, a culture that delivers on what it promises, be it the product, be it the inner workings of the business. And I really appreciate and respect that my clients feel like they could say those things to me so openly. And so I think there is this under the surface, kind of hope that with the role that business can play in society, that business could rise. 
 [00:20:58] Kara Pecknold: People now are expecting businesses to solve for things that, formally, other institutions in the world would solve for, the church, community centers, and when you don&#8217;t have those things, or those things get defunded, all of a sudden, business becomes kind of an important part, an institution in the society we live in. And I don&#8217;t know if business is ready to take on that role, but it is a pressure being put upon organizations, I believe, to satisfy the happiness of their employees, where maybe in former times, other institutions were helping to satisfy that. And that just makes me realize all the more and why I said in the future scape report, if we don&#8217;t build new muscles for this, we get weak. And the institution that we are in, which is the business world, the thing that drives and shapes a lot of the societal realities we face. If those new muscles aren&#8217;t developed in a good way, in a proper way, then we have a tendency to break right in our own human body. If we don&#8217;t take care of ourselves, we get sick. If we don&#8217;t strengthen our muscles, we could fall and break our leg. So I think these are these are maybe metaphors, yes, but I think they are really important ones to analyze when we see the role that business has in the world, and the role that business has is built of people, and people lead a business, and people make decisions for a business. And so these types of things have a great impact, not just on the business, but on society at large. 
[00:22:23] Kara Pecknold: A behavior is being modeled into the world right now, which is suggesting that cutthroat, aggressive, you name it, is a way that you get things done, and there is a message that that really creates a division when you operate that way, and when we deal with the softer sides of who we are, it creates a discomfort, because those are emotions, those are vulnerable places. Those are things that may make us feel exposed, but those are the very things that make life worth living. Again, if we&#8217;re gonna be people who lead the future of the business world, and we make the impact the way business can make impact. It&#8217;s a huge force, and it can be a huge force for the good that we see in the world. But if we have only ways of operating that are cutthroat, only ways of operating that are in complete opposition to building, to growing in a true way of growing, then it becomes an accepted norm. It can become an accepted way of being, and we assume that this is the way it ought to be. And I think it&#8217;s a time for asking, is it the way I want to live my business life? Is this the way I want to come into the world? And sometimes it is perceived that this is a female trait to be focusing on these topics. But I want to dispel that myth. There are many people of all genders who are committed to this type of work and committed to leading and operating in a way that is actually generous. Generous doesn&#8217;t mean weak. 
[00:23:51] Kara Pecknold: Growth in nature means sometimes things have to die, but how those things die also provide nutrients for the next. And I think if we think about what has to be broken, separated, what has to fall away. We can do it in a way where we&#8217;re thinking about the nutrients that that can bring, as opposed to the destruction that it brings. And that&#8217;s such a mindset shift. It&#8217;s subtle, but it&#8217;s major to me, and yeah, for me, this new C suite can be a very different kind of C suite. If we look at moving into an economy where things are risky, things are harder, and it can feel a little bit more like a survival mode, and I get how companies might feel, I get how employees might feel, but when I think about how really great things in the world survive, it&#8217;s because they collaborate together. They don&#8217;t do it because I do this in isolation and alone, I do well, because I seek the advice, the counsel, the support, the expertise of more than one type of person, and I invite them to that table, and we have a different kind of conversation. And if it&#8217;s about survival, then we&#8217;ll talk about it being about survival. If we&#8217;re talking about thriving, then let&#8217;s make it about thriving. Different perspectives are going to. Help you see how to solve it differently. 
[00:25:03] Elizabeth Wood: That&#8217;s our show the Design Mind frogcast was brought to you by frog, a leading global creative consultancy that is part of Capgemini Invent. Check today&#8217;s show notes for transcripts and a link to download frog&#8217;s Futurescape report. We really want to thank our guest, Kara Pecknold for her perspectives on how leaders can change the world for the better one table at a time. We also want to thank you, dear listener. If you like what you heard, tell your friends. Rate and review to help others find us on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/design-mind-frogcast/id1541644073" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Apple Podcasts</a> and <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/5mxbuRY6KtBwIrNhWhu0sx" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Spotify </a>. And be sure to follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. Find lots more to think about from our global frog team at <a href="https://www.frog.co/designmind">frog.co/designmind</a>. That’s frog.co. Follow frog on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/frogdesign" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@frogdesign </a>and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/frog_design/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@frog_design</a> on Instagram. And if you have any thoughts about the show, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/frog_design/">frog.co/contact</a>. Thanks for listening. Now go <a href="https://www.frog.co/make-your-mark">make your mark</a>.

Kara Pecknold

Elizabeth Wood

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Chief Challenges

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Three future fashion principles to protect against the elements

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Designing for Hazard-Proof Living

As we pursue the critical goal of reducing emissions and greenhouse gas levels, it is inevitable that we will have to live with significant changes to the global climate. In the coming years and decades, design will continue to play a key role in providing care and safety for inhabitants. Businesses and brands can help build climate resilience by providing consumer solutions that prepare individuals to live with, and live within, those changes.  
We’re navigating the topic of climate transformation using one of the more intimate categories of products as a starting point—clothing. By drawing on “Clothed in Chaos,” frog’s collaboration with wearable technology brand, Machina, we explore and imagine some of the ways that high-tech garments, wearables—and a brand new mindset—can protect us from what may become a more hostile planet, while contributing to protecting the planet itself.  
Download frog&#8217;s Designing for Hazard-Proof Living report <a href="https://go.frog.co/designing-for-hazard-proof-living">here</a>.

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To move into the future of product design, sustainability must be at the core. 

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Sustainable Product Design is Our Future

The climate crisis is a growing concern for our entire planet. If we do not lead the way in sustainability, we cannot expect our planet to sustain us as a species. <a href="https://www.frog.co/insights/chief-challenges/sustainable-business" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sustainable business thinking</a> must urgently inform every project in every industry, including design. In addition to designing for high consumer value, designers must ensure products contribute to a healthier, fairer and more livable planet. That means repairable products, made from environmentally friendly materials and produced in a way that promotes social equity. No one said this would be easy—but increasingly people are realizing how crucial it is that we act now. An obvious answer is to produce less, but perhaps a smarter answer is to design better. 
As frog’s VP of Regenerative Design, I helped to author the Capgemini Research Institute (CRI)’s recent study: <a href="https://www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/sustainable-product-design" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rethink: Why sustainable product design is the need of the hour</a>. A collaborative effort, thirteen co-authors from multiple divisions across the group actively discussed the need for <a href="https://www.frog.co/services/sustainability" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sustainable product design</a> amidst the ongoing climate emergency. Our study draws on original insights and data from 900 senior product design and engineering executives from large organizations across industries, including consumer products, automotive and industrial manufacturing. Read on to learn some of the key insights. 
  
Sustainable product design is a business imperative 
Ensuring sustainability in product design isn’t just the right thing to do for the environment but the right thing to do for businesses as well. An often-cited statistic is that <a href="https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/articles/recycling-and-the-circular-economy-whats-the-difference" target="_blank" rel="noopener">an estimated 80% of the environmental impacts of a product are linked to decisions made at the design stage</a>, showing how crucial a lever sustainable product design is to help organizations transition to net zero.  
More than two-thirds of organizations in our research say that they saw a reduction in carbon emissions due to the implementation of sustainable product design initiatives. By prioritizing sustainable product design, <a href="https://go.frog.co/sustainable-business-model-canvas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">organizations can accelerate progress towards sustainability goals</a> while also building resilience against future shocks to the supply chain. 
Sustainability must be at the core of product design processes 
Despite the urgent need for action, only 22% of respondents in the survey say that sustainability is a key component of their product design processes. While awareness is critical to action, many designers have a limited understanding of <a href="https://medium.com/frog-voices/designing-a-reduced-carbon-mode-a50e047f8805" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the environmental and social impacts</a> of products—and only about one-quarter of organizations conduct regular environmental and social impact assessments as part of the product design process.  
Furthermore, sustainable product design requires a mindset shift towards systems thinking and circular design, as designers must consider product impacts holistically. However, only 12% of organizations have incorporated a systemic thinking approach to product design so far. In addition, only a handful are taking concrete action to improve product sustainability. 
Cost concerns and material availability are challenges that can be overcome 
An increase in cost is often seen as a roadblock in sustainable product design. However, our research shows that sustainable design does not always lead to increased cost, with 23% of respondents saying costs have actually decreased due to the adoption of sustainable design strategies and 37% saying that they have remained the same.  
While cost is often the primary hurdle, there are other internal and external challenges organizations must overcome. Our study found that 55% of organizations cite a lack of availability of sustainable materials as a key challenge, as do 54% that specifically cite a lack of data with which to accurately assess environmental and social impacts of products. In addition, organizations were also found to lack fundamental sustainable design skillsets like systems thinking and circular design thinking. 
How organizations can support sustainable product design 
Sustainable product design is something near and dear to all of us who actively work towards a better planet. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to collaborate with my colleagues and the Capgemini Research Institute on a core aspect of design that’s so vital to our planet’s future. While there are many hurdles to get to a sustainable product design that can be incorporated into an organization’s workflow, there are nonetheless tangible, actionable steps that can be taken to get there. <a href="https://www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/sustainable-product-design/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Download the report</a> to learn more about how to begin designing and delivering sustainable products. 
Across industries, everyone can act to ensure that their part of their sector contributes to a healthier, fairer and more livable planet. If you’re interested in collaborating with frog in the <a href="https://www.frog.co/services/sustainability" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sustainability</a> space, <a href="https://www.frog.co/contact" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reach out to us.</a>

Find out where the next wave of innovation in financial services will come from.

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Banking on Invisibility

Create products and services that connect people, planet and progress.

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Connected World

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Design Mind frogcast

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Designing the Business of Change

Change is often necessary, but never easy. For any organization—whether company, community, or even country—driving lasting change for the better takes a deep understanding of both the overall landscape and the individual factors that contribute to its current state. It also takes an understanding of when and how to intervene.
In Autumn of 2019, I was a keynote speaker at <a href="https://designforbettersociety.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Design for Better Society</a> in Belgrade, Serbia, an event hosted by the civil society association Design Thinkers. The two-day event featured presentations, panels and breakout sessions with design leaders, educators, government and community leaders around the world and posed a broad directive: to use design thinking to create value and make the world a better place. I spoke on the Business of Designing Change. More specifically, I discussed how to understand core values within an organization and use them to drive change, as well as how to uncover the trends and shifts in the ecosystem surrounding an organization.
Indeed, effective change always requires thoughtful navigation. For example, a <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90464950/mckinsey-study-of-1700-companies-reveals-ceos-dont-understand-design-leadership-at-all" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent study</a> showed that while design leaders are finally getting a seat at the executive table, rarely are these executive teams equipped to integrate these design leads effectively. This trend proves that simply injecting change into an organization is not enough. It’s necessary to actually design for change to enable meaningful and lasting business success.
Every organization has untapped opportunities to grow and shift to make a greater impact on a local and global level. Through Org Activation, frog helps companies make change that matters most for employees and customers. With frog’s <a href="https://www.frog.co/sector/social-impact" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Impact</a> practice, we work with teams to find workable, scalable solutions that better their communities and society at-large. At the heart of any of these opportunities, however, is always a willingness to make and embrace change. This requires awareness of how individuals respond emotionally to change, as well as understanding of how to manage change effectively.
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<h2>Mapping opportunities for change management</h2>
The <a href="https://www.ekrfoundation.org/5-stages-of-grief/change-curve/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kübler-Ross Change Curve™</a> plots emotional response to change. It begins with the initial shock people experience upon hearing new information and eventually moves through stages of denial, frustration, depression, experimentation and decision, all toward creating a new sense of normalcy—one where individuals can fully integrate change into their world. Not only is it a diagram that organizations can use to understand how teams adapt to change to manage change more effectively, it also presents clear points to intervene by providing support and relieving burdens along the way.
In the client example below, we adapted the Kübler-Ross model to identify the emotional response of an aging population experiencing change. At each phase, we identified a specific action that can be taken to directly intervene, addressing their emotional needs at that time.

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Within businesses, the center of change is often the employee. The diagram below shows a different client example that explores how companies can drive volunteerism within their communities. Identifying the opportunity, defining the roles and partners involved and articulating a unified approach clears the path forward and gives the organization a better chance of embracing real change that makes a lasting impact.

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How your organization can make lasting change 
Now that we’ve discussed the power of change as well as the emotional stages involved with effective change management, here are some actionable next steps for how to drive lasting change within an organization.
Give people a framework so they know how to participate and act. At frog, our Org Activation practice is one way we help organizations seize new opportunities, which always involve embracing change. We’ve also developed the <a href="https://go.frog.co/en/collective-action-toolkit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Collective Action Toolkit</a>, a set of activities and methods that any group can use to solve a problem and drive change within their chosen community.
Understand the competence level required for the change. Designing change doesn’t happen overnight. Along with understanding emotional impact, it takes building capacity and nurturing existing competencies not just once within an organization, but as an evolving, transformative process.
Use systems thinking to drive change. Look broadly at the ecosystem an organization is involved in, then zero in on contributing factors. For businesses, this involves bringing the customer along, often co-creating solutions that go beyond the launch of a new tool, process, product or service, and instead enables a reframed mindset toward real change.

Kara Pecknold is a Creative Director at frog. She has a background in visual design and design research and is the current lead for frog’s Collective Action Toolkit, a collaboration and creativity tool for group problem solving that is being used worldwide.

Create Value Maps to put your goals into action

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Planning for Action with the Collective Action Toolkit

You’ve brought passionate minds together, aligned on a common focus and generated ideas to achieve your goal. Energy levels are high as the input of raw passion has been shaped into something tangible; something that can and should be realized. But this excitement can quickly devolve into pessimism as you face the daunting task of making it real.
There are reasons companies face paralysis when it comes to closing the gap between innovation and implementation. It can require investments in unproven technology or involve a cultural transformation within the organization. It could demand the development of different channels to reach customers, or it might mandate making money through entirely new means. It requires a massive step change; a departure from the comfort zone of what is known today.
We know it’s hard, and we also know that you’re not alone. More and more, frog finds itself forming frameworks to catalyze these steps for some of the largest organizations on the globe.
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<h6>The Collective Action Toolkit</h6>
So, how do we transfer our ideas on paper (or whiteboards and slides) to the market and into our customers’ lives? The frog Collective Action Toolkit (CAT) applies a pragmatic and measurable lens to achieving this goal with a flexible set of dynamic, group-oriented, non-linear activities that can be used again and again.
If you’re brand new to using the CAT, <a href="https://go.frog.co/en/collective-action-toolkit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">you can download it here</a>.
Where a first go-round with the CAT is often generative, you can take a second spin through certain activities with an evaluative twist to help you not only plan for, but actively engage in activities like making phone calls, crunching numbers and even testing prototypes.
Now available within the Plan for Action section of the CAT is a new activity called Value Map, demonstrated here. This exercise helps organizations take real action towards their established goals. Drawing from the toolkit, here are steps focused on transitioning from identifying the “why” of your goal to answering the “how.”
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<h6>First, make it measurable.</h6>
Revisit the goal statement that you developed during the Clarify Your Goal section of the toolkit. This should have established the “why,” or your project’s reason for being. These are your roots and everything stems from here. It is likely timeless, like a mission statement, and therefore broad-sweeping. It is also likely that your goal statement is not phrased in a way that you can immediately test progress against it. Let’s attempt to create a second version of the goal – a measurable statement that clarifies the “who,” the “what” and defines the “how”.
We are helping [__who?___] by delivering [___what?___] through/by [___how?____].
For example, frog worked on a project to support farmers who provide the staple food for their respective country (i.e., the “why”). The idea behind this project was to develop mobile products that would help enhance the lives of smallholder farmers.
To make it measurable, we could restate the goal like this:
frog is helping smallholder farmers by delivering critical weather and market information through mobile phones and local ambassadors.
Now we can use our core goal to track success. As in, how specifically are we helping farmers? Is it by delivering weather and market conditions? It is measured through the number of mobile app users and local ambassadors?
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<h6>Second, develop a Value Map.</h6>
The objective of the Value Map exercise is to more granularly map out how you deliver value and what resources you need to do so. A Value Map is not as daunting as it sounds. If you have your goal restated in terms of “who,” “what” and “how,” then you have the necessary pieces to map the value proposition.
Think of your customers’ journey with you and your service:
<ul>
<li>awareness (how they know about you)</li>
<li>decision (how they decide about you)</li>
<li>engage (how they engage with you and your services)</li>
<li>re-engage (how they think about you and decide to re-engage)</li>
</ul>
With your goal in mind, describe what happens between you and the people you are aiming to support at each phase of their journey, then determine how this interaction can be made possible. These are your “channels.”

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From here, you can create a cost-benefit model.
<ul>
<li>Based on the channels you’ve identified, determine the costs associated with reaching your customer.</li>
<li>Based on the touchpoints you’ve defined, determine the benefit generated at each touch-point with your customer.</li>
</ul>

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<h6>Next, line up the right people.</h6>
It’s time to bring this concept to life through a set of partners. Use the Rings of Connection activity in the Build Your Group section of the CAT to help you map the ecosystem of enablers. The objective is to identify and connect with some “doers”: individuals or businesses who can work with you to make your idea a reality. Doers will fall into a few general categories:
<ul>
<li>Finance Partners – Who will finance the details in your Value Map? How will you get the funding and support needed to make it happen?</li>
<li>Social Partners – Who are the people that can spread the good word about your solution? Who are your social partners?</li>
<li>Subject Matter Expert (SME) Partners – Who are the subject matter experts that you will rely on for critical information and know-how?</li>
<li>Technology Partners – Who will provide the technology to enable your solution and its channels?</li>
<li>Cultural Partners – Who will be your local link? Who will translate your ideas and concepts into experiences?</li>
</ul>
After you identify the people/organizations would be that fills these roles, then connect with them to define terms of working together.

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<h6>Finally, tie it all together. Launch, measure, revise, repeat.</h6>
From both the Value Map and the Rings of Connection activities, you now should have something you can act on. You know what you’re trying to achieve down to the channel level. You also know what the relative cost might be for each channel approach. And finally, you know who you must form partnerships with to make this all work. It’s time to start initiating conversations to build and execute.
This will take time, especially since you’re now relying on more parties and not just yourself and your core team. As such, it’s important to hold your team, your partners, and your service to key measures of success throughout the process. You can use other CAT activities to generate these metrics and to implement continuous learning and feedback loops to ensure you stay true to your goal.
Check back with us to learn how to use the CAT activities to hold our initiatives accountable. As always, if you have any feedback or ideas, we would love to hear from you!

The Collective Action Toolkit (CAT) is comprised of activities and methods that enable groups of people anywhere to organize, collaborate and create solutions for problems affecting their community.

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Kara Pecknold is a Creative Director at frog. She has a background in visual design and design research and is the current lead for frog’s Collective Action Toolkit, a collaboration and creativity tool for group problem solving that is being used worldwide.
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The Collective Action Toolkit Quick Start Guide

Groups of people around the world get asked to try and solve all sorts of problems, both big and small. How do people from unique backgrounds come together with their different skills and perspectives to make change happen? We’ve heard stories from all over the world, and while there is no perfect way to make change happen, we know that having a shared process can help groups move in the right direction. The <a href="https://www.frog.co/work/frog-collective-action-toolkit">Collective Action Toolkit</a> (CAT), which was launched in 2012 and re-released in a revised edition today, provides a set of activities that enables groups of people to organize, build trust, and collaboratively create solutions for challenges impacting a company or a community. Groups can use and adapt these tools to solve problems, build new skills, and gain important knowledge to better support their needs. The toolkit is part of <a href="https://www.frog.co/work/frogthink">frogCamp</a>, our approach to sharing the processes that we use with our clients at frog, so that more people can have access to the tools we use to solve challenges every day in multidisciplinary teams. Thousands of problem solvers have downloaded the CAT in the last four years, and sent us valuable feedback about how it can be best used and potentially improved. For example: <a href="http://www.pointb.is/#top" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Point B</a>, an organization in Myanmar, used the exercises in the toolkit to develop a curriculum for training the next generation of change makers in an emerging democracy:
<blockquote>“We started using the CAT because it was the first toolkit that was really made for local people who want to create change in their communities. We used the CAT to build our team and create strategies for how we were going to work together, what kinds of programs/projects we wanted to work on and where we wanted to focus our work.” —Rochelle, educator in Myanmar</blockquote>
Based on the input of people like Rochelle, we set out to do a revision of the CAT. We spoke to and surveyed people to find out how we could further improve it, and potentially extend it into new languages. As a result of what we learned, we refreshed the visual style to improve the overall usability of the toolkit, and added a French-language translation to our English, Chinese, and Spanish editions. Along with these updates, we heard from some toolkit users that they wished there was a simple quick-start guide to get them going with the toolkit. What follows are 5 quick steps you can do with a group to get started with using the CAT. All you need is a group of people, a space to meet, some pencils and paper, and a few hours of time. (We also recommend that you have some snacks on hand.)

Step One: <a href="https://www.frog.co/work/frog-collective-action-toolkit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Download the toolkit</a>

Step Two: Share your skills and talents
Start with the “Skill Share” activity from Build Your Group section. After about 30 minutes, your group should ready to take things further with a set of known skills. First, get into groups of 5 to 6 people. Each of you gets two sheets of blank paper and a pencil or a pen. For five minutes, individually write on one sheet of paper:
<ul>
<li>The name you’d like the other group members to call you</li>
<li>Your skills and talents</li>
<li>One recent accomplishment</li>
</ul>
On the second sheet of paper, take five minutes to create a drawing that expresses who you are and what you like. Over the next 15 minutes, each person in the group takes two minutes to share who they are and what they created. One member of your group should take notes about the group’s overall skills.

Step Three: Identify the challenge you’re trying to solve
We recommend trying the “Find True North” activity from the Clarify Your Goal section. After about 45 minutes, your group will have a shared sense of what you want to accomplish working together. Stand in a circle with your group. One person should have a piece of paper and a pencil to write down what people say during this activity. One at a time, each person should share what he or she wants the group to achieve collectively. The person who has the piece of paper writes all those goals down. Once everyone has shared their goals, each person can place a star next to the top three goals they heard from everyone present. As a group, each person should share why they chose the goals that they did. The goals that received the top votes should then be rewritten on a sheet of fresh sheet of paper that everyone can use as reference.
Step Four: Make a plan for action
Work as a group to develop a timeline for how and when you will achieve these goals. You might also want to decide on the next time you’ll meet together. Your group should now have an area to focus on and a timeline that can guide your group forward. Consider using the “Set the Timeline” activity from the Plan for Action section if you get stuck.
Step Five: Evaluate what you have learned
Now that you’ve done two activities from the toolkit you’re ready to familiarize yourself with the rest of the toolkit and choose your own activity. But first, it’s important that your team reflects on what you have learned. Take about 30 minutes to have your team members fill out a Learning Card. All you need to do is answer three simple questions:
<ul>
<li>What did we do?</li>
<li>What did we learn?</li>
<li>What do we want to do next?</li>
</ul>
In answering the first and second questions, you and your group members will be able to discuss how the previous activities went. If anyone in your group feels like the activities weren’t successful, you can ask them what you might want to change in the future to make the group more successful. For the last question, invite your group to look through the toolkit to decide what activity would be most appropriate to try next. In the coming months, we will be sharing more stories from CAT users around the world, so we can continue to grow a strong network of people who are working together to make change in their communities. Stay tuned for a future post to find out how to keep your group and your goals moving forward.

David Sherwin

David Sherwin is a Fellow at frog, co-founder of Ask The Sherwins, LLC and co-author with Mary Sherwin of Turning People into Teams: Rituals and Routines That Redesign How We Work (Berrett Koehler, 2018).

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frog Kara Pecknold presented a version of this article during Digital Shoreditch in London, England.

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Empowering Communities, Creating Citizens

In the book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Global-Competence-Activities-Succeeding-International/dp/0874255872" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Global Competence: 50 Training Activities for Succeeding in International Business</a>, we learn that there are at least 66 ways that we as humans differ. From what we value to how time is understood, this vast set of differences is a reminder that it can be difficult to find a means to align on a shared goal when seeking to make a change in our communities or organizations. During our experiences working with various groups, companies and organizations across the globe, frogs have found themselves continually challenged with how to overcome these differences.
Since we’re always asking ourselves how to arrive at a workable solution, there seems to be a range of responses that can emerge:
<h2>Give the group a solution</h2>
This response reduces focus on the differences and could improve the situation, but may not ensure sustainable growth over time.
<h2>Put the tools in the hands of the community and let them self-organize to drive and own their solution for change</h2>
This is a great idea if you have a process of engagement. Our work with <a href="https://www.frog.co/designmind/launching-point-bs-design-thinking-center-for-community-engagement-in-myanmar" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pointB Design Thinking Centre for Community Engagement</a> has highlighted how the second option is a powerful way to empower a community and create a new type of citizen. Citizenship, a broad topic at the best of times, holds a shared set of structures that permits engagement or a path to follow. Finding the right process and path, while often challenging, is more likely to yield solutions that can last. In many cases, what can be more important than the solutions themselves are ways the process can create more participatory citizens who own the solutions. Over the past six months, pointB’s community incubator has taken advantage of accessing the tools in <a href="https://www.frog.co/work/frog-collective-action-toolkit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">frog’s Collective Action Toolkit</a> and turning the outcomes into an opportunity to develop stronger citizens in Myanmar: “improving local governance in Myanmar calls for a deeper understanding of interrelated issues and the ability to think strategically about how to respond to the needs of citizens” and because of this, “the tools [in the CAT] provide structure and stability in a process that can be quite complex and confusing.” <a href="http://www.pointb.is/#top" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pointB</a>  is one group that is pursuing a means to grow more engaged citizens. We recently surveyed a set of our users who have worked with the Collective Action Toolkit and received many stories of how this type of structure can provide the path for engagement, even at the most basic level. We believe that when we have a path for engagement we can better understand each other and the ecosystem we’re trying to impact.

A few months ago we wrote about, Point B Design + Training (pointB), which launched in Mawlamyine, Myanmar. pointB is setting out to tell a new story in Myanmar’s emerging democracy: they have goals intended to develop a new generation of makers who will lead change by tackling their community’s social issues.

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Creating the Citizen Experience in Myanmar

These change agents are 17 young adults who have completed their traditional schooling in Engineering, Education, Zoology, and some are even working in local government offices. They are looking to bring a new way of thinking to their work and community.
frog helped pointB to develop a curriculum—based off of our <a href="https://www.frog.co/designmind/the-collective-action-toolkit-quick-start-guide">Collective Action Toolkit</a>—that provides training for these change agents. I was privileged to participate in facilitating their first needsfinding module in a six-month course.
Needsfinding looks a lot like frog’s practice of Design Research; It requires immersion into the local community in order to understand the needs, attitudes, and behaviors of citizens. At frog, we want to understand how people think and behave and rather than creating an online survey to do this, we interact directly with people to uncover the unexpected insights that could shape a product or service. When you are new to this idea and you haven’t been required to observe these needs, it can feel a bit strange to walk up to strangers and ask them questions. Over the course of five days, the pointB team “learned by doing.” This process helped teams build up their confidence and uncover insights that could shape ideas for impact.
To frame the week, we started by mapping out an ecosystem of needs that put the citizen at the center. We sought to put ourselves in the position of someone living in a rural community and imagine what aspects would be important to them.

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Three priority areas surfaced as we created the ecosystem map and teams formed to take on the challenge of understanding citizen needs in education, transportation, and communication.
Hypotheses were developed to put forward any assumptions about the topic. Research plans and toolkits were crafted by hand to allow for the collection of data at each interview. We spent time practicing our interviewing and documentation skills in order to be good listeners and observers of the world around us. From there, each team went out into the local community to learn more.

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The communication team began with the idea to create a proposal for a new cell tower. Through discussions and a reframed view of what it means to be a change agent, they shifted their idea to something they could have more control over: a solar training kit. This concept would increase rural knowledge of renewable energy by providing much needed power access for any type of communication. It also had the potential to become a viable business for remote locations. In order to test this hypothesis and ensure their assumptions were correct, the communications team developed a set of research questions around power usage and solar understanding. By further testing their ideas in a local village, they learned that focusing the training on children could be a better way to educate the entire community and ultimately encourage the growth of solar business.
The education team wanted to look at how to increase motivation and inspiration in students when the typical learning environment has been more focused on rote memorization. They were able to get a meeting with a headmaster at a government school and got permission to interview students, teachers and parents in one afternoon. They have now launched a day course to test their ideas for a different kind of learning experience with primary students.

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The transportation team focused on the needs of bus drivers and passengers as they looked to uncover ways they might improve the ride experience when the current system had cost and comfort challenges. For many, this was the first time they had ever approached someone they did not know to ask them questions about their life and values. “I was shaking,” said one change agent. “But I did it!” From their learnings, they have positioned a safety campaign to increase awareness around bus safety. They were even able to get a local business to support the campaign by providing safety banners for the bus.
The most profound shift I noticed was watching how each team began his or her process with ideas that required someone else to bring the solution to life. By the end of the week, they had transformed their thinking and come up with solutions that were both citizen-centered and actionable. Now we are excited to watch their concepts unfold and take form in the community!
To learn about their first impressions of the course, you <a href="https://vimeo.com/99531362">can hear from them directly</a>.
To follow their ongoing journey, you can follow pointB on <a href="https://twitter.com/pointBmyanmar">Twitter</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Point-B-Design-Training">Facebook</a>

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Kara Pecknold

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