Odin Zackman: Digging Deep to Connect (text only)

Introduction to Odin Zackman

April 9, 2008. Berkeley, California.

The day before our formal interview Odin and I spent the afternoon at the ball park across the street from his home that sits in a cul-de-sac next to a community center. It seems to be a quiet street for its location next to so much recreational activity. As we sat down on the grass, Odin's beautiful black lab runs around the edges of the field and with a panting smile lies down. Earlier that day I had run into Odin at the office of a mutual friend and learned that he had a cold and was in the midst of recovery; knowing Odin was making time for the interview the next day and a "touch base" conversation later that afternoon I felt thankful and wanted to be extra considerate of his health and recuperation.

Going into this interview process with Odin, my last interview in two weeks, I was well aware that I was feeling a little tired, a little anxious about the next steps of this inquiry process, and wanted to be attentive to holding the space in a way that respected Odin's time and energy in this process. In the prior interviews, making time to meet with each interviewee before the actual interview was a chance to get clarity about my inquiry and the interview process. I especially felt it was important to reconnect with Odin because as consultants we share common experiences about supporting social justice workers striving to live life in a healthier way.

Our conversation during our "touch base" meeting covered many topics, flowing in and out of various subjects from what sort of work we have been engaged in with clients over the last year and even touched on questions related to the interview planned for the next day. From the questions and topics we were discussing I could tell that Odin had taken time to reflect on the questions sent in the overview packet and I felt grateful for that. For me this is a characteristic of a solid leader who values their own time and that of others by preparing to be present in the conversation or task at hand.

On the day of the interview it is a sunny day and the air feels fresh. The home where Odin lives is surrounded by a gently worn wooden fence that makes it look like I am entering a secret garden. As I pass though the gate to my right I notice rose bushes with brilliant white petals on stems with rich green leaves. To my left is an array of other green plants that look like an invitation to explore the backside of the house.

In 2004, Odin and I met through the Leadership Learning Community gathering called Creating Space. Odin stood out from the crowd because of his vibrant energy, his willingness to jump in and support the facilitators, of which I was one, the sense of creativity he brought to interpreting the aesthetics in a room, and his fun eye glasses. I did not know at that time that Odin was the founder and principal of Dig In, "a San Francisco Bay Area-based design and consulting firm dedicated to working with individuals, organizations and communities passionate about social change and building more sustainable communities" (Zackman, http://www.digin.org/about.html, retrieved May 27, 2008).

The way I primarily have come to know Odin is through the his blog and electronic newsletter that he sends out for his organization. It is in this series of newsletters that his values as a social justice worker striving for Life-Affirming Leadership really come through. When I first considered Odin as a possible person to interview, I did not know that he had over 15 years of work in "community and environmental education, organizational and leadership development, and facilitation and community design" (Zackman, http://www.digin.org/about.html, retrieved May 27, 2008). Another reason I chose Odin was because over a casual dinner in June 2007 he eloquently shared the role his own practices play in his life. Similarly to the other interviewees he does not make a big fuss about his practices, they are just integrated into his way of being. During the interview I would learn more about how Odin's commitment to spiritual practice are integrated into how he "strives to link lessons from nature and working in community with building more effective organizations and efforts for social change" (Zackman, http://www.digin.org/about.html, retrieved May 27, 2008).

Exuberant Love

When I ask Odin to explain his work he does not pause. The love for his work flows out confidently and at a quick pace, I sense enthusiasm under his sniffling nose.

My work in the community is really about creating community, it's really about understanding the connections that happen between people and place, and I work in all different in different types of communities; and so my community work is in community in the traditional sense, a place located geographically defined area within, could be, a rural setting an urban setting, but it can also be within an organization, it can be in sets of organizations. And so my work is really about helping people transform the way that they think about each other so they can relate to each other more effectively; and I often talk about my work as being the connective tissue in a community building process or in an organizational development or leadership development process, so that I can help with the weaving that people can do on their own but that I can really help with the weaving together of different ideas and different currents that are coming into the community, to help that community achieve its goals and create a healthier sense of itself.

As the conversation progresses Odin describes how he experiences his work in the context of the larger field of leadership and organization development.

I think my work is seeded within that larger context and it's also very specific in a sense. and this is where it connects t a lot of social justice work and a lot of the history of what community building and activism has been, which is that it is organizational development and leadership development for a purpose; so I don't work with organizations who wanna just improve their bottom line, or who want to help people get along more effectively, or build more effective teams, I do that in service of creating more effective organizations for social change and for sustainability. Because I think those are the critical issues that are facing us, so taking leadership development and organizational development apart from is, it feels out of context for me.

It is during this explanation that Odin touches on an issue that I raised in Chapter Two, Section Seven, where I contend that these questions "Leadership for what purpose?", "Leadership for whom?", and "Who determines what leadership is?"; questions that I believe are not raised nearly enough in leadership development and organization development education or practice.

Odin's description of why he does this work, "I do [my work] of creating more effective organizations for social change and sustainability" offers me verbiage to distinguish how and why I approach my work in the way that I do. My interest of this topic rests on wanting to strengthen organizations and approaches to leadership that enables people from all sectors to work for "social change and sustainability" that is socially just. I struggle with the idea of leadership development and organization development being used to assist individuals, organizations, and institutions to work for social change and sustainability for the benefit of a non-inclusive and select portion of society.

I concede that the question of "leadership for what purpose" is a nuanced issue in the field that the boundaries of this inquiry do not let me address; nor is it a topic which have I placed a concentrated effort to better understand. However, I think it is an important topic to lift-up because it relates to the tension between:

1. Issues of misappropriation of technology developed for positive and inclusive social change;


2. The generosity associated with free will to use that technology, and


3. The hope that experiencing the technology can shift a person's leadership within an organization to positively affect social change for the masses.

This topic sits like a tickle in the back of my throat that I can not scratch and a feeling of dis-ease sits in my belly when it is glossed over. Perhaps part of my persistence in raising this issue belongs to that part of my cellular memory of how Native Americans in this hemisphere and other indigenous people from around the world have been treated after sharing technology, such as farming or hunting, that helped people who would come to oppress them to survive.

Moment of Transformation: Understanding the Wholeness of All Things

Some people remember that first moment where they decide to consciously transform the way they show up in the world happens when they are adults. For Odin it happened at the age of six:

It's really interesting when you think about a moment where something has really sort of come alive or has shifted for you; for me there is that moment, but for me there are many different moments. I can say that the thing that shifted for me was when I was six years old and a new friend the neighborhood I had just moved into told me I should cut down the tree that was in my back ways because it is just a weed. And, I said well you know even if it is just a weed it has the right to exist. So there was something that was seeded very early in me that was about kind of understanding the wholeness of things...

As I listened to Odin's story about how speaking up for this tree when he was six year's old because it too had a right to live, I am reminded of the first time my nephew's hair was cut. On the eve of him turning seven his hair was cut in a ceremony to symbolize the beginning of a transition away from his mother and towards developing a closer association with the male figures in his community. It makes me think that it is no wonder Odin's work is grounded in the principles of nature, by virtue of making a decision to not cut down the little tree, it is like he never made that separation from his Mother Earth. When I share this memory and metaphor with Odin, he "gets it" and gives a gentle knowing laugh while saying, "What a beautiful connection".

Odin describes how this sense of wholeness from his experience at six year's old shows up in his work as an adult and how it is inspired and guided by the words of Aldo Leopold, a man "considered [to be] the father of wildlife ecology... He was a renowned scientist and scholar, exceptional teacher, philosopher, and gifted writer" (The Aldo Leopold Nature Center, http://www.naturenet.com/alnc/aldo.html, retrieved May 28, 2008). In essence, what I understand of Odin's life-work is about, in his own words:

Bringing this feeling of connectedness to people...that is why I do the combination of the things that I do; where I want to do leadership development because that is about somebody connecting to themselves so that can connect more authentically with their community; why I want to do organizational development because that is about people connecting with each other and being more effective in their work in connecting with others; and why I want to also do work in conflict resolution because that is about feeling a sense of disconnection and withdraw and having the opportunity to connect more deeply.

There is another part of the interview that I think is important to share because it speaks to how being attentive to the relationship between self awareness and organizational culture can be an opportunity to support or diminish how a community is served:

I was going through my studies and just realized I couldn't do everything. Ya know it reminds me of that Thomas Merton quote about, those who try, and this is a horrible paraphrase of it, but essentially people trying to do so many things, to tend to all different kinds of different concerns, to help serve everyone in everything, to do that, is to succumb to the violence of our times; and I always remember that last line, because I think we go through our lives, and for me in college or even in high school, I was trying to do so many things and you just realize, like you can connect things but you need to focus in some way. And I still do that but it is really about a stepping back. And I think there are other moments that I realize I needed to transition out of organization life to do what I am doing now and to have that perspective was that there was something I felt like was getting caught in me and pulling me into really unhealthy patterns in some ways, working in social organizations and in progressive organizations and in doing this worker and I realized in order to be effective I can not do this and the organization can't do this, so I needed to step back, so in some ways the work that I do now is a retreat of sorts but it is about trying to keep that perspective of staying on retreat in some sense and to really doing the work and being committed and getting deeply into the work but always keeping that perspective of balance of wellness and health and spaciousness.

As Odin shares I am taken with his sense of honesty about his humanness and its effects on others. He shares this without bravado. What comes through instead is an authentic humility and a deep commitment to respond to the natural rhythms of life as they relate to his values. Parker Palmer's (2000) concept of vocation embodies the way Odin speaks to making meaning from his life and work: "Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue. It means a calling that I hear...the truth and values at the heart of my own identity, not the standards by which I must live – but the standards by which I cannot help but live if I am living my own life" (pp. 4-5).

Practice and Activism: Transformation Over Time

The concept of practice as it has been discussed throughout this inquiry is closely related to Odin's awareness about the role of connection to self, others, and the land. The CCMS describes practice as: "an activity undertaken regularly with the intention of quieting the mind and cultivating deep concentration, calm, and awareness of the present moment" (CCMS, 2006, p. 1). Like for many people, Odin's practices were in place long before he recognized them as a practice (CCMS, 2007). Even though he has a cold when he speaks to his interest in hiking and gardening as his way of being able to connect to nature and providing a literal grounding I sense gusto:

I think that the work that I do around place and around community and my own background in using urban agriculture and community gardening as a way of developing connections between people and then taking that out in a broader dense and using those metaphors to help connect people, and look at eco systems and how they are organized, and seeing how we are organized either internally or with each other is just really powerful; And, my practice came out of that, that practice of just being on the land, of gardening, of going on a hike.

As Odin came into his 30's he started to learn about Buddhism and felt like it complimented practices that he already valued "connectedness, compassion, and just acknowledging the present moment". Odin goes on to describe the connection he sees between practice and his work as activist.

"[Practice allows me] to be able to react in a way that I choose as opposed to a way that is visited upon me; and so to have that moment to experience and acknowledge "Oh, I am angry right no" or "Oh, I'm feeling giddy or punchy" or "Oh, I am sick" and to just allow that to be allows us, I think to be more creative and artful in the way in which we respond in the world.

What is critical to me about this particular reflection is how Odin's take responsibility for self-development. In addition he seems to be able to understand that he and social change constitute one another.

And here there is a clear connection to activism and to engagement is that it is really hard if you are just reacting, to ultimately do something that I think is going to affect change on a really deep level. And I think that is what has guided my transforming from running around and screaming in the streets bonafide way of creating change, and is stills something I engage in, but to think a little more about why screaming, why not silence and being with other people, why in the streets and why not meeting with board members of large corporations; and so I think we establish these distinctions for ourselves and I think practice helps us unravel those distinctions somehow, because we are just acknowledging "I am here you're here, I'm a person you're a person can we connect on some level" as opposed to what I am creating in my head about you and just realize that it is all being created in my head.

In this passage Odin demonstrates how the value of connectedness he came to know as a child was now being asked to be applied in new ways; ways, perhaps, that when he was younger may have seemed out of step with his struggle for change (Loeb, 1999). When Odin talks about his life-work I feel like he understands the wisdom of pacing oneself when working for social transformation.

Essential Characteristics

In my telling of Odin's life-work, I have not mentioned how he holds a smile on his face much of the time he is talking or listening. I have also not described how he laughs at things that seem paradoxical about life or how he responds to things I am saying with a "huh" not with the pronunciation of a question like, "What are you talking about?", but more like, "That's interesting, I hadn't thought of it like that." In all my conversation with him he never mentions that he might be feeling miserable with his runny nose—he just seems totally present with me and whatever we are talking about—like he is embracing the cold without judgment just as part of the experience. This small act of his, conscious or not, requires me to be mindful of my own self and how my values of caring for colleagues is expressed in how I conduct the interview with attention to length and intensity of the interview.

As we begin to delve into his description of essential characteristics of social change workers who demonstrates coherency between their values, actions, and beliefs, Odin holds a moment of silence before he answers:

I think that it is really important when involved in social justice and social change work to try and be consistent in terms of what it is that I am saying and practicing, and how it is that I actually am in the world. I think it is a lot of modeling; which is a lot of my work, showing people this is a way we can speak differently with each other, in showing people this is a way that we can take some time for ourselves, even in the course of this meeting, can we start with a reflection, and put the breaks on and take some time to check back in with where we are. I think it is rally important to bring that out into the world.

Another characteristic Odin mentions is humility, which he informs me, comes from the same root word as human and humus, the part of the soil where all the organic matter is, so that in essence humility really means to be close to the earth. Odin's own humility is reflected when he says:

And to acknowledge that even when trying to model this stuff, we unravel, we fall down, it is not about, again it is not about the egoic model of leadership; it is about walking side-by-side with people, it is literally about doing the work and not just directing the work to be done...it is about integrity.

When Odin speaks about his work as an activist, I don’t sense anguish; I feel liberation from self-importance and self-image as they could relate to his work.

As we begin to wind down the conversation, Odin energetically summarizes:

Integrity, health, wholeness, compassion, humility, honesty are all really critical, and if we are incorporating those and were practicing those and they are showing up in different ways and at in the world, then I think that means were seeing a very different kind of social engagement and social change.

Wanting to make sure I had given Odin ample opportunity to express what he would say to someone who wants to be a serious, dedicated, committed social change person, I ask him "What would you say to them to be able to do this work in a way that is transformative?" and as emergency sirens are becoming increasingly louder in the background, Odin without hesitation gives a gentle but deep laugh and says:

Don't take yourself so seriously. I mean I think it is really, really important, I think social change...is the most important work in the world. I think it is ancient work. It is increasingly more necessary as we are growing in population, as complexity as increasing...I mean think someone who is serious about it, excellent! Use your tools, but use all the tools that you have not just the ones that are given to you, and create new tools...I think it is really important if you are serious, great! But don't be that serious. It is really important to have fun...I have a friend, who is a community organizer, and I use this all the time, so thank you Jack, but he says "Why have a meeting when you can have a party?" and I think that is critically important, there are the party horns right now.

At this point in the conversation we both laugh and agree that his final comment, prompted by the sirens is an appropriate way to end the interview and we exchange thanks to each other.
As I pack up my gear and say my final good bye to Odin I am aware that I feel anxious. At first, I think it might be because I am trying to catch an early flight home. As I drive towards the highway, I take a deep long breath, realizing that what I am feeling is the power and beauty of the conversation with Odin, and am already thinking how I can tell his story and share the experience with integrity.