Producer's Journal: Words of Wisdom from Sierra Solutions 2008

Today in opening comments at the Sierra Solutions conference, the founding president of the Sierra Business Council, Lucy Blake, spoke with pride about the evolution of the SBC over the past 14 years. She gave shout-outs to the many co-conspirators who assisted her in jump-starting a Sierra-wide business organization whose members value the environment and understand its value to business success here and everywhere.  She finished her opening remarks with a proverb:

"Even three bushels of beads won't make a necklace, until you string them together."

She then suggested that all of us in the audience were beads and the string that connects us all is the SBC. There were murmurs of agreement. Some folks took a note of this metaphor. I expect you'll hear about beads on a string. And now you'll know the origin of this gem of wisdom.

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During the coffeebreak before the sessions began, I said hello and traded phone numbers and email with Sierra Nevada leaders in the arts, conservation, business, recreation, and development communities.  This conference is an amazing opportunity to hear from and talk with the people who are creating sustainable communities up and down this mountain range.

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I attended a panel called "Connecting People, Land & Communities" featuring

• Paul Hardy of the Feather River Land Trust
• Tim Beals, Director of Planning and Transportation in Sierra County
• Wilfred Nabahe, the Environmental Coordinator of the Lone Pine Paiute-Shoshone Reservation
• moderated by Lucy Blake

We heard a wide variety of perspectives on the interaction and intersection between people and land, people and government (both local and federal), and people working with each other for the benefit of both people and land.

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Another great session was "Collaborative Leadership" facilitated by Susan Dupre of Global Visions and Susan Clark PhD with Dynamic Competence. They acknowledged that collaborative leadership is expensive, time consuming, and personally challenging. But, because collaborative leadership results in best long-term outcomes, it is worth convincing stakeholders to take part in the process. They gathered us into small groups to share experiences and ideas about collaborations we're been part of now.

We spent the session hashing over three key ideas:

Collaborative leaders need to agree to a common playing field, defined by boundaries (whether physical, financial or other), non-negotiable rules and laws

Collaborative project stakeholders must agree on the ground rules they are playing by. What are your constraints? Agree to and document those to make it easier to work through conflict.

And you must know who you are playing with and agree to respect their different perspectives. Follow up with all team members and respond why information was or was not used. This builds trust within the team.

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The conference concluded with presentations by the Sierra Nevada Youth Empowerment Program. High school students from Tahoe/Truckee area, Bay area and Eastside advocated for food justice, economic equality, and access to the outdoors in order to understand environmental justice. Through speeches, poetry, and presentations they offered a powerful vision for the inclusion of youth voices in our economic concerns and at our next conference! What a dynamic group of young people.