More Than Words: A Conversation on Social Impact Communications with John Trybus
About This Episode
John Trybus is a professor at Georgetown University and Director of the Georgetown Center for Social Impact Communication. He sat down with Carrie Fox for a conversation on the role and power of social impact communications on the cusp of the release of her book, More Than Words: Communications Practices for Courageous Leaders.
John is a generous interviewer and host and opens the conversation on a point we think of often around the halls of Mission Partners: "Think about how the social impact sector is evolving. How can it evolve if we think about doing our work a little bit differently?" It's a powerful question and one that drives so much of our work. What if, when we evaluate how we navigate our work in strategic communications, we were able to shake ourselves free of the increasingly artificial structures of all the communications work that has come before us?
We don't claim to have the definitive answer to that question. But we're proud to be on the journey toward it and honored to be in the conversation with John this week. Our great thanks to the University for offering the event to us to share with you.
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Carrie Fox:
Well, hey there. Carrie Fox, host of Mission Forward podcast. So glad you're here. Today's conversation is a really special one and I'm so glad to be able to share it with you. So not too long ago, few days actually in the lead up to my book launch, I sat down for a conversation with the brilliant John Trybus of Georgetown University. He's the executive director of the school's Center for Social Impact. The conversation was so good and so rich that Georgetown has given us the green light to re-share it here on our platform. John is a wonderful moderator and this conversation is so good. It's also a bit of a peek into the new book. So if you like what you hear, I hope you will pick up a copy of More Than Words: Communications Practices for Courageous Leaders for yourself. But now, onto the show.
John Trybus:
I want to give everybody a warm welcome. I know a lot of familiar names and faces in the room, but if we haven't met yet, my name is John Trybus. I'm a professor at Georgetown University, as well as the director of our Center for Social Impact Communication. If you don't know much about the Center, I really encourage you to check us out. We do three things in particular. One is we offer a number of programs, a number of courses on social impact topics. For example, we have a very popular certificate in social impact storytelling and social impact consulting, among other topics. We also really are about community service. So thinking about service learning and community engaged learning, especially really serving our backyard of Washington, D.C. And third and finally, we do convenings, which really brings us to today's event. We really lean on the power of communication to really stimulate conversations with interesting people.
Think about how is the social impact sector evolving? How can it evolve if we think about doing our work a little bit differently? And so that brings us to today's conversation. I couldn't be more thrilled to welcome Carrie Fox to today's session. You're going to meet her in just a moment, but if I may read just a little bit of her biography, if you don't know too much about Carrie and her work, because you really need to. Carrie Fox is a nationally recognized leader in social impact communications and a champion for business as a force for good. She is the founder and CEO of Mission Partners, a social impact communications firm, and certified B corporation that counsels organizations and their leaders to be more authentic in their words, equitable in their practices, and intentional about their impact. And I've had a lot of my friends, a lot of former colleagues, as well as students, go to Mission Partners, so I know the work well.
And for the past 20 years, Carrie has guided hundreds of organizations around the world to lead with purpose, fueling organizations and their missions forward in new and more effective ways. Carrie is also the host of Mission Forward podcast, which delivers thought provoking and perspective shifting conversations on the power of communication. And we actually happen to be recording today's episode for a future podcast as well. And there's so much more to talk about Carrie. The other thing that I have to mention is she is a proud resident of Montgomery County, Maryland with her husband Brian, daughter Sophia and Kate. And we can't forget, right, your dog as well, Fred. So Carrie Fox, so excited to welcome you to Georgetown. And first of all, congratulations. The book is More Than Words: Communication Practices of Courageous Leaders. I was also so thrilled to write a little bit of a blurb for the book. So without further ado, welcome and congratulations on your new book.
Carrie Fox:
Oh, John, thank you so much. Thank you for hosting this today and for being such a champion of our work. As you noted, there are a few folks who are on the line that are alumni of the program and have since moved over to Mission Partners. And so the relationship that we have with you all is a really valued one. Thanks for making the time to do this today.
John Trybus:
You have some of the best of the best.
Carrie Fox:
I sure do. That's right. And we are hiring. For those who are listening, feel free to head over to Mission Partners and look at those job listings.
John Trybus:
I love it. So I have tons of questions for you. I hope everybody listening, right, and watching our conversation also has questions. So again, do feel free to utilize the chat as we go along with questions that you have. But we're going to start with a little bit of an excerpt from your book. So it's just a couple of days away. So this really is a sneak preview, in a way, of More Than Words. But Carrie, if you could walk us through, take us to one of those chapters, take us to a little bit of an excerpt of your book and then we'll get into more conversation.
Carrie Fox:
I sure will. Thank you. So there is a grounding chapter that I tend to do as the excerpt. And I'm actually not going to do that one today because for the folks who listen to the podcast, you'll know that I actually gave that excerpt a few days ago. So I'm going to take us to chapter 13, and it's a chapter called Retool of Frame. Let me just set this up for you all first. So More Than Words: we will talk about this today, is really this idea that every communicator, right, whether you have communications in your title or not, you've got incredible power to change the way the world works, and there's more power than you think you have in your control. And so I give stories throughout my career as a social impact communications professional, what I've learned from both those who do it extremely well, who are trained professional communicators, and those who just know inherently when something is unfair or inequitable and they have the power to do something about it.
And so that's the story I'm going to share with you today. So as noted, this is from chapter 13 called Retool the Frame. And I set up this chapter by talking a bit about how early in my career there were some people who planted important seeds in me to ask questions and to dig deeper. And one of those people was a young man named Jacque. Jacque was a high schooler from West Philadelphia who I first met in 2008. Jacque was part of a high school team, competing against global behemoths for the $10 million Progressive Insurance Automotive XPRIZE. The global prize competition was hosted by the XPRIZE Foundation, my client at the time, who uses the power of prize competitions to unstick some of the world's most intractable problems. And between 2007 and 2010, that problem was America's addiction to oil. The XPRIZE Foundation dangled $10 million to engineers, automakers, garage inventors, and even a few high schoolers who set out together to find a better solution for powering automobiles.
Jacque and his high school teammates were the underdogs, but that's also why their story caught the attention of the national and international press. After securing them a print magazine feature, I received a call from a top national broadcast outlet that wished to do a long form interview with the team. This was a dream come true for the students and a great win for the XPRIZE. I traveled to Philadelphia to oversee the taping, and for an entire day, the students showed off their technology and answered questions, soaking up the excitement of the moment. And then a few hours into the taping, the group sat down for a more serious conversation. The reporter who started a lighthearted conversation quickly shifted into a line of questioning that we hadn't expected. She wanted to know what life was like for these students on the tough streets of inner city Philadelphia.
She wanted to know how many of them saw guns and drugs and fights in school and how those experiences shaped their desire to run after this multimillion dollar prize. But before she could fully shape the narrative she was focused on building, Jacque stepped in. "That's not it at all," he said. "There might be days that are tough here, but that's no different from any city high school." He went on to remind the reporter that the story she was here to cover was about a group of brilliant and creative high school kids breaking barriers that no other kids on the planet had been able to do. And with that, he changed the frame. He had found the words she needed to change the trajectory of that story. I'll leave it there.
John Trybus:
Thank you so much for that. That's one of my, I'm glad you selected that. That's one of my favorite stories within the book as well. And I think it's really a testament. The book is filled with a lot of stories of the experiences that you've had, the individuals, as well as the clients that you've worked with. And not only the wisdom that you really brought to them, but really what they've taught to you.
Carrie Fox:
That's right.
John Trybus:
I want to start though with you. And you do begin the book with what you say is grounding. And you share with the readers two events in particular that seem to be really turning points, in your life but also your professional journey. My former boss, Jane Goodall, would say a Damascus moment. That's a biblical reference, but really this idea that we have experiences in life that they change you so much that you can't walk away from them, not only how you think, but how you feel, and they fundamentally kind of change your path in life.
And so you shared too, you shared the 2016 election, need I say more for many of us, and you also share a day of service, 2010, which it sounds like it was packing up food for people who perhaps were food insecure. And you really say how that was a wonderful event, but you really question, is our aim to increase the care kits or reduce food insecurity? Do we want to challenge and disrupt inequalities or coexist with them? So take us back to those turning points in your life because they really changed fundamentally, it sounds like, how you do communications and how you're doing business through Mission Forward.
Carrie Fox:
Yeah, that's right. Thanks for setting that up. So John, it's so interesting, because I started my career, I started my business career in 2004. I was 25 years old, starting an agency, I often say before I knew any better, and entering into this world of wanting to use communications as a force for good. And so, from 2004 to 2010 all the way to 2016, I thought I was doing good. And in a lot of ways I was. But I was having these aha moments along the way of, am I doing the best I can? Am I challenging deep enough? Am I asking the hard questions to understand really what's at play here? And so if we start first with that moment of watching the debates in 2016, watching Trump and Clinton on stage and having conversations about the issues that our society and our country were facing in that moment, and I was hearing them use frames that quite honestly, I was using frames, I was using those same frames in my work.
I was using those frames around how we were raising money to address issues like homelessness and food insecurity. But those were inaccurate, false, toxic, harmful frames. I hadn't challenged it hard enough. And so in 2016, I made a very hard decision to decide that I was going to shut down my agency, C.Fox Communications is the name of the firm that I had started, and we ran very successfully for 13 years. But I was going to shut down that firm and start all over again. And I was going to challenge deeper the role that communications plays in addressing the norms and the society that we're part of.
And so, both with that as well as some of those other aha moments that you mentioned at the top, these moments I was having where I really started to understand that communications is the most powerful tool for addressing social inequities and also for improving the social health and fabric of our nation and our globe. But it really requires this very intentional questioning and digging and probing from a place of love, not from a place of hate, to think about how we come together on issues rather than continuing to break us apart and create deeper divides.
John Trybus:
And tell us more about that. I'm sure we have a lot of professional communicators, marketers, fundraisers in the room with us as well, but communication really is an ecosystem.
Carrie Fox:
Yeah, that's right.
John Trybus:
There's so many different aspects of it, right, including listening, which I want to talk to you more about as well. But really tell us more about, what is that ecosystem of communication from your perspective and really with the work that you're doing right now?
Carrie Fox:
Well, it starts first with thinking about all of the people who communicate from many different seats. We have a colleague who likes to say everyone is a leader from a different seat. And I think about everyone's a communicator from a different seat. You may be the professional communicator, you may be the spokesperson, but you also may be the team lead who is communicating or cascading down messages from your boss to colleagues. So we're all communicators. And it's how we use the power of our words, and also go beyond just the power of our words, to think about how we're advancing any initiative or any work that we're working on. This could even be focused on, if you're a volunteer, how you're connecting with the organization you're part of. Every single touchpoint is a chance to reinforce your values, is a chance to reinforce what you stand for.
And what I talk about in the book is, it's very clear when you come across an organization that knows really firmly in their heart who they are and what they stand for, it's clear at every single experience and every touchpoint in their brand and every person that even works with that organization, as compared to when you come across an organization that's really unsure of who they are. And perhaps they are in a moment of transition, maybe they're going through changes. But that uncertainty, when that uncertainty exists at the top of an organization, it will cascade easily through the entire organization. And that's where you start to see a lot of issues arise in an organization, when that clarity is gone.
John Trybus:
And obviously, the subtitle of your book is Communication Practices of Courageous Leaders. I think a lot about leadership. That's what my PhD was in. So talk to us, what is the link with leadership, and who are courageous leaders? Because you introduce a lot of them that you know also within the book.
Carrie Fox:
Mm-hmm. I've thought a lot about this book, the concept of this book for many, many years. And if I think about why it makes sense to be talking about courageous leadership now, it's fairly easy to think about that over the last few years. What we have gone through as a society and a world, having come through a global pandemic, having come through a very strong and hard and complicated racial reckoning that is happening in the US, that there are moments that leaders of today need to go through that they have not had to go through prior. Five years ago, six years ago, 10 years ago, the same kind of challenging moments that leaders are facing real time in the workplace were not as heightened as they are now.
And so, I wanted to dig in and understand what do courageous leaders have in common in how they communicate that allows them to support their team through difficult moments, that allows them to get through difficult conversations or challenging experiences in their organization. And there are these central practices that courageous leaders seem to have in common. And those are the four practices that the book is really based on. I can tell you a little bit more about those. I'm also happy to tell you one or two stories that make it real too if you'd like.
John Trybus:
Yeah, let's go into those practices, because as you mentioned, you give us four. And I don't want to put, you change my words if it's different, but it's really not a roadmap. It is the practices, but it's also you're really encouraging the reader to make them their own, right, again, based upon not just that head but that heart as well. So the first practice, Carrie, that you write about, is dare to ask. You write, "A leader, whether an executive, board member or team manager is willing to challenge and change a norm. Rather than defaulting to the expected spokesperson or communication strategy, courageous leaders see the opportunity to tell the story from a different lens." Take us deeper. Tell us more about that really key practice of dare to ask.
Carrie Fox:
All right, so I'm going to tell you, with each of these, I'm going to give you a story to back them up.
John Trybus:
Okay.
Carrie Fox:
All right. So in this first one, dare to ask. So there was an organization we worked with a while back that was focused on college readiness and success, even post-college. We were working with an organization who wanted to elevate the best stories they could to show the impact of their work. And I had identified someone who was a graphic designer who had an exceptional story about having moved through college and into career. And I remember this leader said, you know what? That's not the story we can lead with. We really have to go with a story that's more of the expected, a student who's entered the tech sector.
And that story is probably going to really resonate with our tech sector donors. And that was a moment when we dared to ask, what if we had an opportunity to actually challenge the expected story and instead tell a story of success from a different perspective? Challenge what we think is the fairytale ending of what a story needs to be to raise the most money and instead elevate a story of success that might not look the same to everyone, but is incredibly powerful and tells it from a different lens, truly, from a different point of view.
So this idea of daring to ask is not taking for granted any of the norms that we set, in society, in storytelling, in how business operates, and instead questioning, right, exploring, experimenting, going a level deeper. And we can all do this in any phase of our life, whether we're talking about storytelling or not. It's that idea of simply asking. I see how it's done, but what if we tried it differently next time?
John Trybus:
And that's a reframe that you really have throughout the book, the what if, right? Encouraging us as readers to really kind of envision that what if of the future if we really thought about this work kind of differently. And that story, that's one I think resonates with a lot of us in social impact or nonprofit work is, in that example, kind of that big perhaps gala event. You always want that kind of one particular type of story that you're going to, but to your point, what if we thought about getting away from that?
Because that can perpetuate bias and stereotypes. But we really have to ask, what if of trying to get away from that? What you also have, Carrie, within this practice of Dare to Ask is listening skills. And so you open that with the chapter with a quotation, of course, from back to my former boss, Jane Goodall. Change happens by listening, and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right. We often forget about listening as part of communication. And so you also talk about the idea of radical listening. What's that? How do we actually operationalize that?
Carrie Fox:
So if we think first about the way we experience the world, every single one of us has certain life experiences that shape how we see the world around us, how we understand the world. It's just inherent based on where we grew up, how we understand life as a result. And so when we think about the power that communications has to actually widen that lens. And to radically listen means changing, again, it's back to that first practice, changing a lot of how we operate. So for instance, at Mission Partners, we do something called community informed branding. We don't sit down with an executive team and sit in a corner office and understand what are we trying to solve for and how do we shape this brand of the future? We actually prioritize listening to the community and allowing the community insights to then power where the organization's going.
And for a lot of organizations, that can be a very difficult power dynamic, to really shift how we are listening and who holds the power in informing the future of an organization. But when you do, it allows you to break down those barriers or those biases that we might inherently bring to the work. So that's what we mean by radically listening, changing where we put our focus of power to allow ourselves to understand, to see, and to get closer to the heart of the story. There are a couple examples I used throughout the book of individuals who have tried to create a story or create a campaign and they were inherently too far away. And because of the space that existed between their own experiences and the community that they were communicating to, that they failed almost every time. But when you close that space, radically listen, shift where the power sits to be able to understand a full story, you are more likely to be able to then move your communications forward in a meaningful way.
John Trybus:
And it sounds obvious, but it's also hard.
Carrie Fox:
It is hard.
John Trybus:
And there's actual research that backs up, even people that are leading community-based organizations, there's research that's shown what they thought the need of the community is is not what the community actually thinks it is.
Carrie Fox:
That's exactly right. And that can be very, very hard for organizations to hear. If they have done certain things for a long time and they see, on the surface it looks like it's working, why change it? The opportunity, however, is that the outcome could be significantly greater and you could be reshaping some narratives that could be harmful through your work, whether you realize it or not.
John Trybus:
So the second practice you write about is dig down to the roots. And so you write, "Rather than communicating superficially, courageous leaders are willing to look and look again at the issues in front of them. They are ready to disrupt and challenge dominant norms and patterns to elicit true social change." Tell us more and give us that story.
Carrie Fox:
Okay, so my story here is I talk about Stewart Butterfield in the book. Stewart Butterfield is the founder of Slack. And I had an opportunity to interview Stewart and his colleagues over the course of a few years as they were rolling out a new pilot program on how to challenge some very clear and specific limitations in the diversity that was showing up in the tech sector. And so Stewart Butterfield very strongly believes that talent is equally distributed in the world, but opportunity is not. And his colleagues didn't necessarily believe that, right? They were hiring from the same colleges, the same universities, same pipelines to bring people into these high powered, high wealth tech sector jobs. And Stewart Butterfield instead said, you know what? I see that there is a gap in who is entering this skill, who is entering this job, and who is succeeding.
And so he, along with a few of his colleagues, challenged Slack to create a pipeline program with San Quentin Prison, and said, if it is true that opportunity, that talent is equally distributed and opportunity is not, then let's create a program to prove that some of the best technologists can come directly from San Quentin Prison. And so we documented that for him as a blueprint over the few years, and they used that tool to actually challenge and change how the tech sector hires and looks for talent and explores what's possible in closing skills gaps. And that program continues to be incredibly successful and powerful. There's actually a brand new documentary that just came out that John Legend is in and has produced, and I would invite you to check that out, but Stewart Butterfield does this so well, right? He dug down to the root of an issue. Rather than saying on the surface level, there's not a big enough pipeline. But the reality is if you dig deeper, you will see that it wasn't the pipeline that was the problem, it was the bias of the people who were creating the pipeline.
John Trybus:
Kind of goes back to that Damascus moment story of the day of service in my mind, at least, as well, is again, that was wonderful. But what's that root cause digging deeper? And that brings innovation, doesn't it, right, within social impact, but it also brings risk. We probably have to hold two of those things at once.
Carrie Fox:
That's right. So again, what I hope folks are hearing in these stories is that, yes, it is communication. It is how Stewart communicated that vision and that idea to his colleagues. He needed to do that in a way that would build trust and not concern people. But it was also in his actions. And that gets to this idea of it is more than words. Social impact communications must be more than words. It's about our actions as well.
John Trybus:
So we've got two more of your practices to go here. The third one is see your story as bigger than the moment. "The leaders presented in this book," you write, "are truly leaders of movements, not of moments. They rely on a wide lens to understand the world around them and their place in it. Courageous leaders realize the power of their words and actions to move people, organizations, and issues forward. They aren't in it for short-term gain, but rather the long-term impact."
Carrie Fox:
All right, so my story to back this one up is the work of a DC based nonprofit. Some of the folks on this line might know Jubilee Housing and their executive, Jim Knight. Few years ago, Jim Knight and his colleagues were thinking about how do we challenge and really advance the issues around affordable housing, primarily in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. And through some conversations, we realized that a big part of the problem was the frame. The idea of affordable housing and the way that it's understood was limiting the ability for them to move this community forward. And so we sat down and we thought, all right, this is not just about the affordable housing crisis in Washington, D.C. in this moment. This is about the fact that there has been an affordable housing crisis in our nation for a long time. And if we're really going to challenge that and look beyond that, not for today, but for the long term, we need to think differently about the frame.
And so we helped them create something that we now call justice housing. It's a completely different way of imagining the power of creating a community that can support the long-term effect and success of any given family or individual that lives within the ecosystem of Adams Morgan. And so what Jim Knight does really well, and I talk about him in the book, is that he needed to understand that, again, it wasn't just about the words of shifting from affordable housing to justice housing, but it was how he and his colleagues then went out into the community and advocated for a different way of understanding this work. And it wasn't for his own benefit, it wasn't just for his organization's benefit. It really was for the benefit of the larger city and the ripple effect that that could have on how we think about affordable housing as a nation.
John Trybus:
And embedded within this practice, but really all of the practices that you're sharing in the book, is storytelling and really thinking about a new paradigm of storytelling, which is something that we do a lot of at Georgetown in our Center for Social Impact, communication through our social impact storytelling program. So what is it, it's such a what I call a TED talk like question. It's such a big question. But if you could quickly, where do you kind of see, Carrie, what is the current state of storytelling for social impact and where do we need to go with it?
Carrie Fox:
Yeah, I do think that a lot of what I talk about in this book is happening. People have been scratching the surface of one piece of this, or another piece of this, for a long time. Where I want us to go as social impact storytellers is to challenge holistically how we think about who holds the pen is the person that holds the power. And I still see the vast majority of professional communicators hold that power. And it's what we do with the power, to think holistically about how we tell a story, who we engage with the story, how we turn over the mic to someone who may not typically get the mic or may not have all of the coaching yet to have the mic, that those are the Jacque moments.
Those are the moments that really allow us to think much more differently and holistically about how we move toward this, what Martin Luther King said as our beloved community, how we move toward the world that we all want to be in. But it requires that we think much bigger picture than just the words on the page. We have to think more broadly around the effect and the impact of social impact storytelling.
John Trybus:
Yeah, I mean, so often, unfortunately, I think our sector is kind of story as a product as opposed to this process. And so I'm a big advocate with our work at Georgetown is you can be telling really effective stories that are also, again, thinking about this dynamic of the power of the pen as you put it. So who is actually telling those stories? There are a lot of terms for these too in the academic sense. When you tell somebody else's story, that's called restorying. So sometimes even if you put a name on it, it helps us grasp, okay, that's what the concept is. How can we do it differently? So it sounds like you're trying to help your clients a lot, but also readers of this book as well as the sector is just think about new ways in which to approach storytelling. And we always go to that word, don't we? Storytelling. But what about story listening, amplification, convene.
Carrie Fox:
Right, right. And to your point, there are many elements that I pull into the book. We talk about Trabian Shorters and his commitment to asset-based framing versus deficit-based framing. Those things, again, are starting to happen on a much more natural basis within organizations. I will still say I think the social service sector has a long way to go when they think about how they frame stories. But we've got to think really big about who holds the power when it comes to storytelling, story sharing, story engaging, that the beauty of the world we live in today is we are very connected. And if we use that power of connection to our benefit, to our advantage, we can really understand the whole story, not just one frame of the story.
John Trybus:
Here's our last practice, right, that you share with us, which is follow through. You write, "The examples in this book are not one and done strategies. They are ways of living and showing up in service to the world that require continuous commitment and care. To become a courageous leader and effective social change communicator, you too must develop your practice and follow through over and over and over again." Tell us more.
Carrie Fox:
So there's two ways to think about this, but I'll start first with saying I think I'm probably the perfect example of this. I have failed many, many times in my work over the last 20 years. And I have learned to own those moments as some of my greatest learning moments. That if I say that I'm committed deeply to social justice and social equity, I need to live that every day of my life and I need to own when I don't know it, right, when I get it wrong. That those are moments for me to learn and grow and improve. If I think about the stories in the book, I think about there was a woman that we were coaching for many years, an executive of a non-profit organization, and she too is going through a process of trying to engage her organization to think more fully about their effect on issues of social justice.
And she kept faltering because she felt like she didn't have the words or the background or the skillset to be able to guide her team on these really complicated issues. So she started to doubt herself and her team then started to doubt her. And what I continued to talk through with her was we don't have to have all the right words. We do have to show that we care, that we have a deep commitment to learning, and that we're going to show up every day bit by bit to move this work forward.
And when she started to show up that way, as I try to do in my work too, truly honestly every day working to move this work forward, whether I know how to do it or not, it's that deep commitment and care that then results in that ability to be a courageous leader. So care, courage, clarity, these are three words and concepts that show up in every chapter of this book. And that's why, because we're not meant to get it all right, right? We're not meant to be perfect. That's not the point. We are meant to just be authentically human, to show up and be part of the process and show that we care. That's really what I think it takes to be a courageous leader today.
John Trybus:
And to that point saying at times, I don't know. Maybe that's okay too. And we actually see with formalized research that that often increases trust. When you say you don't know, obviously it's context dependent, but saying I don't know can increase that trust and really thinking about those human relationships in a different sort of way.
Carrie Fox:
Today's leaders, it's so complicated to be a leader today of an organization. Whether you're even of an organization or of a team, the questions that we are all being faced with are so complicated and so hard. That does not mean that we need to have the answers for those. That is the perfect moment, to your point, John, of instead saying, let's talk through this. Let's bring the team together. Let's understand it from different perspectives. Let's work through the problem and the challenge together. Comes back to one of those first pillars and principles of let's dare to ask what if we actually had our team help us work through this, rather than saying, we'll decide and we'll push out the answer to y'all.
John Trybus:
Exactly. Starts to become that co-creation. We now see how your practices start to really be synergistically kind of blurry.
Carrie Fox:
Right?
John Trybus:
So I want to invite any questions that are out there from all of you joining us today. Feel free to put those into the chat and I'd love to have the opportunity to verbalize those on your behalf for Carrie. So feel free to put those questions into the chat. And then, as we wait for those, Carrie, I'd love to ask you, what are you hoping is the impact of this book? Because I've heard you speak elsewhere that you said that this was a book I wish I had. I kind of wrote it because I wanted to read it way back when you were getting started. So what's your hope? What's your intended impact here?
Carrie Fox:
There's a few things that I hope. One, I hope that it does become a framework, and I often even say a friend for individuals who are going through complicated moments and they're trying to figure it out. I shared a story earlier this week. I write a weekly essay and this week's essay was how many times I've been in those moments. Those do I take this path or that? And people have said to me, you'll figure it out. Don't worry, you'll figure it out. Right? And in those moments, how much I wish I just had a framework. And my hope is that this book can serve as that, that it's designed to be approachable and friendly and totally based in story. Because I don't need to tell you exactly what to do. But my hope is that this can serve as a guide to help you navigate through those complicated moments.
So that's for those who are actively in moments of leadership and needing to think about that framework. But when we think about this conversation happening today at Georgetown, I also hope that this book can become used in curriculum, in college classrooms, in business classrooms, understanding that there are different ways of working and showing up for those who are preparing for graduation just next week and moving into the working world. This does not need to be 20 years into your career that you start thinking about this work. This is really an approach that could start right at the beginning of your career.
John Trybus:
Yeah. So we have a question into the chat. And Sadie, I know you were getting questions as well before our talk today, so feel free if there's any to get those in there as well for us. So question is, focusing on the courage and courageous, Carrie, where do you draw your courage from?
Carrie Fox:
Well, a few different sources. I do feel like I show up most days feeling a little more scared than I do confident. And I think that that's a good thing, right? Someone did say to me many years ago that you live your life on the edge of your comfort zone. And that's certainly what I do. But I think about the people that I work with every day, and many of them are on this line right now. How much I learn from my colleagues, how much I see them asking the hard questions, that they've instilled that in me, that it's really symbiotic, that if I have the ability to create an ecosystem where we are comfortable enough with one another that we can ask hard questions, that it fuels that for us. So I get quite a bit of courage from my colleagues who are here on this line.
I also have gotten quite a bit of courage from those who have coached me and guided me over the years. I feel incredibly blessed to have had so many incredible mentors in my life. Don Foley, one of my first bosses I write about in the book, my husband Brian, who for many years was my business partner, my mom who is on the line today. I feel so blessed to have such an incredible network of people who have pushed me along. And that's what I hope for a lot of folks who are on the line today too, that you've got those folks and those forces in your life, whether they're formal or not, that give you the courage to try and the courage to ask.
John Trybus:
And so glad your mom's on the line as well. Hello to you too, because that, of course, she is part of your gratitude within the book as well.
Carrie Fox:
That's right.
John Trybus:
So we have another question coming in, Carrie. Thinking back to the story you shared at the beginning, how do you ground yourself and your strategy to disrupt harmful narratives as a communicator? That's an interesting one.
Carrie Fox:
I think I come to it, well first, for those who can see me today, you can see that I am a white woman. I am in my mid-40s. I am able-bodied. I come to this work very honestly and openly and understanding that I have certain lived experiences that shape how I see and understand the world. I come to this work ready to ask as many questions as I can and ready to learn as much as I can from the people around me. And I definitely come to this work understanding that I do not have all the answers, but that I feel confident that the approach that I have created here and that we have now seen work over the course of many years works every time. And it comes really back to those three principles of care and courage and clarity.
John Trybus:
I want to welcome more questions into the chat. I'd love to hear a little bit more, if you would tell folks more about your agency Mission Forward and your team. You're also certified B Corporation, and that's quite interesting and impressive. So tell us more about Mission Forward in general, but specifically the B Corp designation.
Carrie Fox:
Sure. So I'm incredibly proud of what we have built. As noted in the beginning of the book, I write about this Damascus moment, as you say, that led to me winding down my first firm C.Fox Communications and opening in January, 2017, Mission Partners is the name of the firm, and Mission Forward is the podcast. I know that's tricky, but Mission Partners. We started Mission Partners with this idea that what if we used communications as the greatest tool to advance social justice? What would happen? And so we were grounded in our values and our commitment to use communication as that tool. And so, Mission Partners is based in Washington, D.C. We've got members of our team all over the country. We really operate at a pretty unique intersection. So we operate at the intersection of public relations, philanthropy, and policy, thinking about those three levers when they all work in tandem as the three greatest levers to affect social change.
And we're very proud of our B Corp status, which means that we are thinking very differently. We are using the values in this book every day to guide our own decision making. We are thinking about the force that business can be when business is used as a force for good. So even though we're a small business, we are right now in the process of moving toward a completely transparent salary process where in the next few months we will publish our salaries. You'll get to see exactly what they are at every level of the organization, including mine, to understand how firmly we are committed to shifting wealth across the firm and sharing wealth across the firm. We also have commitments through that B Corp commitment that, for instance, in 2020, we made an initial commitment of $50,000 to support black and women-led organizations. We knew that that was going to be important for us and that would be initially via pro bono.
Just a little while after that, we upped that $50,000 to now $2.5 million. By 2025, we will be distributing, we're already 60% there, via pro bono, via the vendors that we hire and the dollars that we distribute, and via programs we've created like our social entrepreneur and residents that invest in black leaders to support the shifting of our agency and of our field. We know that the communications and PR field is almost 90% white led. So if we want to do something about that as a small business, we think about what's in our power to shift capital, to shift resources and to share the privilege that we've had as a small firm to help rise up the industry that we're part of.
John Trybus:
Yeah. Really impressive what you and the team are doing at Mission Partners. And where do you see the future of social impact consulting going? Because as you know, we've got a certificate in social impact consulting, so that's something we're thinking quite a bit about at Georgetown as well. Your big bold moves that you're really leading with within your work. Where do you think social impact consulting in general is going?
Carrie Fox:
Well, you know what? I think there's a lot to be watching very closely about what Georgetown is doing and how you're doing it. Because I think you really are getting at the heart of what social impact communication can be and social impact consulting can be. So for those who are part of your programs, I'm excited to see where you go in your careers. But in the last several years, certainly, we've heard so much about first greenwashing and now purpose washing. And the opportunity we have as social impact consultants is to take very seriously the responsibility and the role that we have in shaping the future of our field.
This is not just about thinking about the advice we give in the moment or landing that job and then preparing to land the next job. This is really about a deep responsibility we have that the advice we give, sometimes I think about it as comparing it to the medical profession. The advice we give directly shapes the outcome of an organization. And so thinking really intentionally about the power that sits with that responsibility, I think, is going to be very important for us to really see mission moving change on some of the issues that our society is facing.
John Trybus:
Yeah. I mean, really evolving from this traditional model of the omnipotent expert, right?
Carrie Fox:
Right.
John Trybus:
You've got to know everything about everything. It's just not realistic, number one. But to your point, it's really not healthy as you think about what is the bottom line for those client organizations, which of course is social impact.
Carrie Fox:
Yeah, that's right. And you know what? The other thing, at Mission Partners, we think a lot about white dominant norms, and dominant norms in Western society broadly. And so if we think about norms like false urgency or there's only one right way, that there are norms that are baked into consulting practices that we have a chance to disrupt. We have a chance to think about, using your words earlier, how we co-create systems, how we co-create norms that work for the broadest set of our community, not just those who are typically the ones that find themselves in power.
John Trybus:
Okay, we've got a couple more questions coming in for you, Carrie. So the next one is, what are your thoughts on helping a CEO become a better storyteller and see that as prime importance to the mission? And this individual, Joan, good to see you here, by the way, works in the homeless youth space, and our new CEO comes out of direct care service. So the external relations portion of her job is brand new.
Carrie Fox:
Okay, you know what? I think it goes back to that practice number two to start, which is getting closer to the roots. Using that. If this is a new executive in a new role, use those first few months, not focused on what do I need to say publicly or how am I going to shape my position in the organization, but get as close as you possibly can to the heart of the work, right? Try to close whatever gaps might exist to understand it, to see it from other people's point of view. You may even decide over time that this executive is not the best full-time, or the spokesperson, not the best full-time spokesperson, but actually maybe appoints a few people to work with them and service spokespeople in the organization. But I always would say, if you're new in a role, thinking about how to improve your role as the executive and as the spokesperson, as the primary voice, get as close as you possibly can to your team, to the story, to the heart of the mission.
John Trybus:
The next question is about crisis communication. So Carrie, what's your advice when it comes to leaders communicating during crisis? How is that approach different or perhaps the same from communications during so-called peace time?
Carrie Fox:
We actually have a section in the book that talks about issues management and crisis management. And there's a framework I have in there that you can reference called the impact risk matrix. And it gives you a set of tools to understand, if you are the executive determining, do I say something, do I not say something? Or if you're on the team that's determining that, it gives you a set of questions to ask on, are we being, or will we be additive if we say something in this moment, or will we be adding noise?
And one of the major frames that we often think about when it comes to crisis communications is, does this issue have a direct threat or impact on our work and our community? If so, it should never be a question on if you're saying something or not. But if you're just thinking about, oh, we don't know if we should be silent because everyone else is saying something, pause there and think about that, right? Think about what you are going to be adding to the conversation. There's already enough noise. And so I would suggest for folks who are considering how and when to say something to have a look at that issues risk matrix that we have in the book.
John Trybus:
Just want to take a moment now that we're almost out of time to see if there are any other questions that are out there. Or Sadie, if there's other questions that came in before that we didn't address? And maybe as we do that, Carrie, tell us, it's just about to be published. This really is a sneak peek. Where can people find out more about the book and then hopefully buy it too?
Carrie Fox:
Well, we are very excited. Our friends listening today, is the book does officially get released on Tuesday the 16th. That's next week. However, the paperback is actually already live. Shh. So you can head over to Amazon. Sadie, in fact, if you're able to, maybe you can put a link in the chat if you would like to purchase an advanced copy. You can do so starting today. The hard cover will be available on Tuesday as well. So right now it is just available on Amazon and you can go ahead and purchase. And what I would ask is, if you have heard something today that's going to stick with you, I would love if you share a review on Amazon for the book and for our work.
And you can also head over to missionforward.us. That's where our podcast lives and the blog I mentioned. You'll be able to learn more about the book over there. So we're creating what we think about as a community of practice. This is not just a book that will be read and set aside. It's really the basis of a community, a practice that we are building around social impact communications and would love you all to be on the ride with us.
John Trybus:
And Carrie, here's the last question that's coming in. What would you suggest as a means of encouraging honest storytelling?
Carrie Fox:
Start with your own honest storytelling. Practice sharing stories that maybe feel a little uncomfortable to share. I do that in the book when I talk about my own experiences and the mistakes that I've made over time. And what I have found is, sometimes what feels like the most uncomfortable story to share, the most uncomfortable moments are in fact the most powerful and compelling moments to bring a team together. But it starts first with how we as leaders and communicators model it. We can't imagine or expect more honest storytelling to happen if we are not practicing ourselves.
John Trybus:
And Carrie, you end every chapter with the bottom line where you really kind of sum up the wisdom in each of the respective chapters. So I want to give you, what's the bottom line, as people really think about everything that you've shared with us today?
Carrie Fox:
Yeah, so the bottom line of this conversation and this book is we all have power to change the outcome. We all have power in our hands and in our reach. It comes down to how we communicate, how we connect, how we focus on care and courage. So power is in your hands, team, and I think the only thing that's stopping you is you. So this is an opportunity and invitation to join me along this journey.
John Trybus:
Excellent. Carrie, I want to thank you so much. The book is More Than Words: Communication Practices of Courageous Leaders. There it's at, there it is, right here. Really appreciate it. Really enjoyed the conversation today. I also want to acknowledge and thank our Georgetown team as well as your team as well who brought us together today. And thank you all for joining us and listening as well.
Carrie Fox:
And that brings us to the end of this episode of the Mission Forward podcast. Thanks again for listening to today's episode. We have just a few episodes left in this season somehow already before we start ramping up for season eight. And oh my goodness, we have some good things planned. To make sure you stay in the know on all of it, head over to missionforward.us and subscribe to our newsletter. But for now, hope you enjoy the rest of your day. Go out and make some impact and we'll see you next time.
