Island Values Assignment for Leadership for Sustainability

Example Assignment Based on the Book Leadership for Sustainability Hull et al. Island Press

Sustainability Values Diagnostic: Collaborating Across Differences Most sustainability decisions are hotly contested and intensely political because they involve deeply held, highly personal values that people don’t easily compromise.

Failure to recognize these differences produce confusion, negotiation train wrecks, and loss of trust. The purpose of this assignment is to help you understand your own values and to navigate the values held by others.

Upon completion of this exercise, participants should be able to: - Describe fundamental psychological mechanisms that make collaboration difficult: confirmation bias, identity protective reasoning, filter bubbles, echo chambers - Recognize your own values and biases that inform your positions on sustainable development debates.

- Become aware of how you compare to others.

- Actively listen to other people, recognize and navigate differences in values and assumptions, and practice boundary spanning to build synergies rather than devolve into paralyzing conflict

PART 1: Prepare for Discussion 1. Review chapter 6 Collaboration Across Differences (in the text: Leadership for Sustainability) 2. Take the Sustainability Values Diagnostic (make sure you have ~15 minutes to take the diagnostic). Print or download your results. Save your number so you can access results. The results of this diagnostic show how you compare to others. Your results will probably change as you learn about these topics, so don’t feel trapped or typecast by your initial results.

3. Use Chapter 6 and supporting material to interpret your results. Jot down things you were surprised about or disagree with. Come to class/Zoom prepared to discuss.

PART 2: Discussion [can be done virtually or face-to-face] 1. Instructor organizes time in class for students to work in small groups of 2-3 people where they share their diagnostic results and thus practice the language needed to discuss these issues, practice listening to one another, and begin to navigate differences.

2. Assign specific discussion questions relevant to the class topic.

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Example Assignment Based on the Book Leadership for Sustainability Hull et al. Island Press PART 3: Summarize Lessons Learned in a concise paper.

1. Riding the Elephant: (~200 words) Use the analogy of an elephant and rider to explain why human psychology makes collaboration so difficult. Explain why the rider operates more as a lawyer than a scientist. Define and integrate into your answer confirmation bias and identity protective reasoning.

2. Capital and Equity: (~200 words) Explain/rationalize your preferences for social capital, natural capital, intergenerational equity (benefits people tomorrow), and intra-generational equity (benefits people today). Use and define these (italicized) terms in your answer.

You may (and many do) change your allocations as you think about these issues.

3. Strategy: (~100 words) Defend your choice of the strategy for creating a sustainable future that you think is most likely to be effective: technology innovation, strong government, market forces, hybrid institutions, green mindfulness. Be particularly attentive to the tension (in many cultures) between government regulation and free market innovation.

4. Hot Topics: (~100 words) Describe and explain a diagnostic result of “hotly debated beliefs� that most surprised you or made you wonder how others think.

5. Dealing with Differences (< 50 words) List where you fit within the five phases of working across differences discussed in Chapter 6 of Leadership for Sustainability (i.e., denial of difference, defense against difference, minimize the difference, span differences, or synergize differences). Briefly discuss what it might take to get you to move up to the next level.

6. Lessons: (~100 words) What lessons did you learn from this exercise about your ability to collaborate across differences (i.e., what do you want to remember, change, and or get better at)?

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