And welcome to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host and the podfather of your favorite hebdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with us. I’d come down with Cotard’s syndrome if you killed me with the idea that you missed this week’s show. Here’s our associate producer, Kate, to introduce it. Hey Tony, I’m on it. Ambiguity is the answer. Though wildly counterintuitive, producing and embracing ambiguity can give you the upper hand when it looks like you have no hand to play. Stop thinking of ambiguity as something you must react to and avoid. Start seeing the value in cultivating it. Kyle Crawford’s book is Ambiguity is the Answer, and he explains its power. On Tony’s take 2. A new tale from the train. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, DonorBox.org. Here is ambiguity is the answer. It is a pleasure to welcome Kyle Crawford to nonprofit Radio. Kyle is a strategist with nearly two decades of experience studying and working with movements and organizations. He’s the author of the book Ambiguity Is the Answer Timeless Strategies for Creating Change and how we bring about Change in Difficult Environments. You’ll find Kyle at KyleJ Crawford on Instagram. And you will find the book at Barnes and Noble. You’ll also find it at Amazon, but I like to give, I like to give breath to other institutions. Buy the book from Barnes and Noble. Kyle, welcome to nonprofit Radio. Hey, thanks for having me. I appreciate it, Tony. My pleasure. Thank you for joining. We’re talking about ambiguity. You have a book about ambiguity. We’re gonna talk about your, uh, Stanford Social Innovation Review article about ambiguity. I think we should start with how you are defining ambiguity. Yeah, I mean that that’s that’s the place everyone always wants to start, um. I think the most literal? Oh, no, that’s perfect. OK, it’s wisdom. I mean, we’re OK, we’re starting in the same in the right place in the right place. OK. Yeah, I mean, I think that’s what’s fun about the topic is that it uh it from the very beginning invites discussion and almost like debate and conversation. So I mean, the most literal definition is, you know, something that’s open to multiple interpretations. So, um. I think in layman’s terms, it’s much more used in the way that uncertainty is used, you know, we say like the environment is uncertain, it’s ambiguous, it’s a complex situation. Um, so that’s the way we kind of layman term use it, um, but I think when I, when I talk about ambiguity, it is, it is in the sense of things that are open to multiple interpretations, but for me, It’s part of a conversation that talks about who defines what things mean, who is uh responsible or obligated to define, to follow definitions set by others. It’s all, it’s, it’s within a context of power and language and meaning, and I think a lot of that for me, the, the usefulness of ambiguity sits with um folks in unequal power dynamics and What I look at the most is the role of ambiguity for folks who have less power to navigate those situations, share messages with different folks, um, and ideally disrupt those power balances and create change. So for me, like ambiguity sits, it sits in that context and we can get into that, but um, you know, most of the research is very literal. Does this object look like an old lady or a young lady? Does this, you know, it’s like there’s a very literal interpretation, but um. It’s usefulness kind of historically sits um in how it’s used and how people adopt and and convey meanings, yeah. How it’s used, how it’s created. I mean, you want us to create ambiguity to defeat uh established power structures. Yeah, I mean, to be totally honest, I mean, I think about the book and a lot of my research is sort of a remembrance, like, it’s reminding us that this is how this happens. I think for me, the narrative that we are told and is very familiar, I think the nonprofit leaders is, uh, it’s very managerial. You should structure something, you should set a plan, you should have dates and deadlines, and as if all we need to do is execute and we will accomplish the aim. I think when you look at really unequal power dynamics historically and folks who sort of succeed despite those. Dynamics, what you see is something that is not boiled down into into rigid plans and structures and, um, you know, just like typical managerial approaches. What you see is something that’s a much, that’s much more fluid. It’s navigating that external environment and in that is the sense that, you know, uh, you might convey one message to one population and you might convey another, right? So for nonprofit leaders like a good example would be You’re trying to create a big change. If you are too open too early about what you’re after, the people who are in power who could stop that if they’re aware of it might sort of get it on their radar too early for you because you’re not prepared to create that change. And so what a lot of people do is sort of like adopt a very innocuous. Appearance about what they’re up to, while trying to lay the groundwork needed to have enough momentum to create that change. And that’s what you see historically is folks needing to do that. And so, um, there’s lots of different ways that happens and and people think about that and use that, but um that sits, I I found that that essence is sort of like edited out. Of the histories of how we think about how change happens, but when you dig in, it’s central to how people are navigating these situations. I wanted to like remind us of that, yeah. So, so being so messaging in innocuous ways. Um, I understand you’re saying because people who might or interests that might. Be opposed to your actions are not certain where you’re proceeding because you’re being innocuous, vague is, is vague, is vague a suitable synonym for us to use here? Yeah, it’s in the same ballpark. OK, OK. Um, so we’re getting into what I was gonna ask you why is ambiguity the answer? All right. So if you’re, I mean, can I say like flooding the zone, like you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re being, uh, Yeah, you’re being innocuous. Uh, you, you’re being noncommittal about how you’re proceeding, but, but doesn’t that then confuse your allies as well, or maybe confused, but doesn’t that disturb your allies? Like, well, where are they with us? Are they, are they opposed to it or they, they say they want to do the same thing we wanna do as, as an outcome, but they’re going about it in these ways we’re not really sure what they’re doing. This is very disturbing. So, could it not disrupt your allies as well? Yeah, I think, I think that’s the challenge and the fear that folks always have is sort of, um, and so I think that there’s a tendency, a very rightful tendency to You know what, the world is a hot mess. Let’s be as clear as we can. Most people aren’t paying attention to us, but the people that we’re close to, we need to be as clear and transparent and honest with and because that’s how we’re going to move anything forward. I think that that makes sense. I think here’s here’s a historical example to maybe demonstrate it, right? Like, if you think about, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Kombi River raid, um, Harriet Tubman led the largest, um, Uh, in the Civil War, the largest sort of Freedom Acts where they freed almost 1000 people in a single night. The way they did that, right, was that on, on the plantations, the to the to the slave, the enslavers, everything looked like it was operating as it always had, right? The days looked the same to the people in power. What was actually happening was that there were very coded. Quiet messages being communicated about where and when different actions were going to occur in order to get people to freedom, right? And so, so when I talk about the power dynamics with ambiguity, what you’re talking about is like, often to people in power, it looks like the status quo is at play. These people aren’t making any moves, they don’t have it in them to make any moves, and below that surface. You see this kind of quiet coded communication, which is actually how we feel intimacy, it’s how we feel closeness, how we feel part of community, um, is that You know, in music and dance, and in how we move, the gestures, the clothing we wear, the art that we make, there are these messages to communities that share what we’re trying to express. And so like, but the Conbi River raid, what you see is like that one layer where everything looks normal, below is this whole other activity, um, and by the time folks in power realized that their, their sort of sense of the day was off. Enough has been done to accomplish, you know, essentially, which is an almost impossible task, freeing 1000 people in the middle, in the middle. And how were they, were they coding messages to each other? So, I mean, there’s there’s lots of different ways, you know, there’s a lot of um A lot of research on quilts being used, so folks think that quilts would have different um quilt designs would code different meanings like go left zigzag here, there’s food up here, you know, like, so quilt designs folks would hang up their windows and and that would give messages. What, what you would often see like what Harriet Tubman used to do was actually send in like Bible verses. And she would sort of like test to see whether they got um caught or distributed or not, and then she would use that as a test and then send in other messages which which allude to times and places for activities and so um that’s, I think that’s one of the most extreme examples, but that illuminates this idea that it’s not. Uh, it’s not clarity and transparency when you’re in a dangerous environment. It’s actually some of these other ways that we find safety, protection, and I think possibility. So it’s it’s those kinds of lessons that um are are I feel like kind of the power of ambiguity. Let’s drill this to the, uh, because before we talk more theory, like how to, how to achieve this, how to defeat the uh the existing power structures or at least If not defeat, um. Minimize their, their, uh. Their harm to what what we’re trying to, you know, and their obstacles to what we’re trying to achieve. uh, so before we, we talk more about the how, um, our listeners are small and mid-size nonprofit professionals. So is there, can you provide an example of, you know, some kind of social change. Either story or hypothetical where. Ambiguity was could be used or was used to advantage. Yeah, and I think that that, and I’ll get into that. I think that um I think that one of the first places to start with this is realizing that we get boxed in, and I think small and medium nonprofits, especially, you get boxed in by funder requirements, you get, you get boxed in by regulation, like. You often have like a very dynamic aim or mission, right, that you’re after, and you realize that that sort of gets boxed and you have to present it in a very specific, manageable way, right? And so I think that, I think that that’s part of the reason why it can be helpful is reminding ourselves that the way that we’re operating is is structured for us, that, um, and so I think one of the first things to, to do is to start to think like, Uh, is to realize where we have made ourselves more restricted or more limited than we actually feel and want to be, um, and sometimes we have to just recognize that before we do something else. So there’s lots of, I mean, I think about ambiguity doing lots of different things, um. I mean, 11 place that I think about it, um, is from the um the Delano grape strike during the 1960s, you know, you know, you had farm workers in California who were trying to get higher wages. It was a paltry sum anyways, but they wanted more, right? And, and, and this is where I think it applies. The leaders of small and medium sized nonprofits, you know, if you looked at the balance of what that challenge was, it was really powerful grape growers who had close connections to politicians and the police, and then you had farm workers with essentially no political power. Different ethnicities pitted against each other, and on paper that would look like an inevitably losing battle. And so what, what the responsibility of the farm workers was, was that they had to actually look at circumstances as not simply as they were presented, but as, as having additional meaning. So one example is that, you know, the um a judge made it illegal to say the Spanish or um uh to call a Filipino language for strike, right? And so, You would think that on paper, like now we can’t even talk about a strike. What they did is essentially turned the whole battle from a labor dispute into a free speech battle. So they had a group of supporters, predominantly women, go outside, start saying those words, get arrested for it, turned into publicity, fundraising. Opportunities, um, and I think shifted the dimensions of the, the, the challenge, the conflict that they were in, from simply being on paper this financial dispute to starting to expand it in these ways that attract new allies and start to generate new levels of power. And so that’s one of the ways that I think sometimes the challenges were and feel really simplistic in the sense that we don’t have the resources of the folks that we’re going up against and it in the The sort of empowering aspect about ambiguity is saying, what can I introduce into this moment that’s actually going to change that dynamic and start to put a little bit of the power in our, in our camp. So, um, they did that in lots of different ways. They also use that kind of thinking to shift it from a very local battle, like locally, they were up against. This terrible situation. What they started to do was turn it into a much more national argument, where the, the things that were beneficial to grape growers locally on the political scale nationally started to look really heinous and bad, giving more sort of political clout to the farm workers. And so, I think the, the, the impetus for anybody there is to say, The sit I see the sit the my first read of the situation is simply my first read of the situation and how can I start to look at it to see different meanings and opportunities and what’s being presented to me? Um, and that usually involves thinking about the circumstance and yourself in a little bit more ambiguous terms than how you kind of redefine yourself. OK, we’re gonna, I want to drill into how to how to. Like start this thinking, but I, I need to know, did the grape growers get the increased wages, the higher wages that they were, they were striking, they ended up striking for? They did, you know, there’s some confirmation bias, right? You gotta pick the ones that that OK. It’s time for a break. Imagine a fundraising partner that not only helps you raise more money, but also supports you in retaining your donors. A partner that helps you raise funds both online and on location, so you can grow your impact faster. That’s Donor Box, a comprehensive suite of tools, services, and resources that gives fundraisers just like you, a custom solution to tackle your unique challenges, helping you achieve the growth and sustainability your organization needs, helping you, help others. Visit donorbox.org to learn more. Now back to ambiguity is the answer. So we’re not talking about macro changes necessarily, or macro-social change. I mean, You know, uh, eliminating homelessness or poverty, you know, or domestic violence. I mean, our listeners are working toward those outcomes, but In your work, you’re thinking too just about like sort of micro, like it could be a, a program change. And it might just be your board perhaps that is is the sort of the, uh, what the opposing, I hate to think of your board as an opposition, but the power structure, let’s put it just that way, uh, we won’t characterize it. The, the, the board is the power structure that is potentially an obstacle to a program, a new program, or maybe a program change or something like that, right? So it’s gonna be on a micro level within the institution. Yeah, absolutely, and I think that, I think part of it is, is almost where you started, which is that we have a very good reason. To want to be certain and want to make decisions and not want to sort of sit in the mud, right? We, and so I think that even, it’s so much more comfortable to know, oh this is a binary, this is a black and white choice, it’s a binary choice. I, so I, I, so this is purely rational and we could do a cost benefit analysis and we can arrive at the objectively correct answer which will give us our desired outcome because everything is clear. So clarity is much more comfortable than ambiguity and vagueness. Yeah, I mean 100%, and I think, I think even just accepting that like, it makes sense that we want that and we all want that. And so for me, in a lot of the work that I do with like, say a new program, what you, what I usually get up to at a certain point, you realize that people want, they’re tired of of that middle ground where it’s not decided yet. And there’s almost like there’s a moment where people They want to close the door and make the decision. What I always think is like just a little bit too early. You’re close to sort of rethinking in a fundamentally new way, and after you do that multiple times, you kind of go like, Yeah, we’re just at that point in the process. It’s to me it’s usually like 2/3 of the way, like 2/3 of the way people get a little tired of sorting it out and they want to just move on and do the next thing and, and cross that off the list. And as a leader, right, so you’re working with your board, if you can, if you can see that coming, you know that there’s going to be that tendency, you know, maybe even the individual or two on the board who’s going to make the case for that. If you can Kind of see that in advance, except that it’s just part of the process, but then still be willing to hold people to work through that last maybe quarter or 3 of what you’re trying to sort out to do something fundamentally new. It just helps you sort of see where it sits in the process and it can also help you kind of go, I’m starting to feel that tendency, but that doesn’t mean we’re done. It might just mean that I’m getting too antsy and just want that clarity and certainty to be there, um. So just seeing it in the process is helpful to know this happens, it actually makes sense that we feel this way, and sometimes your, your responsibility is to lead a group to stay there just a little bit longer than than you might want to. Right, so let’s pursue this hypothetical. How, how would we Work with ambiguity as our, uh, you know, you, the, the title of your book is Ambiguity is the Answer. So how would we work with that you’re thinking to Get to the outcome that we’re trying to get to where we have a board that’s objecting to uh just a program change maybe it’s the ages of folks we’re gonna work with maybe instead of 5th grade to 12th grade we want to do 3rd grade to 12th grade like we’re just expanding on to us it’s a small but, but we know a small incremental change, but we know there are board forces. A foot that, that don’t want to go any younger than 5th grade. What do we do? Like, what do we think about to try to Overcome these. These obstacles that are that are in within our institution knowing that we have to continue working with our board, all our board members, however the outcome, whether we get to the 3rd grade objective or not, we, we all have to still continue working together so it’s like even harder because they’re not strictly outside influences that we might never need to rub up against again. Yeah, I don’t know if I have a a nice sound bite for how to do that because people, right? Well, no, it doesn’t have to be a sound bite. I don’t like. No, because they’re unrealistic. they’re they’re so think through like what would we, what would we as the CEO you’re the CEO and I’ll be the uh. You know, I’ll, I don’t know, I’ll, I’ll be the board liaison officer or something. I don’t know. You could be the CEO. You’re like, what do we need to think through to just try to get this change that we don’t see as substantial, but we know that there are a couple of people on the board who, who do. Yeah, I mean, I think that part of it is figuring out why folks, it’s usually, I think what, what are their object, what are the nature of their objection? What are their objective, so we need to speak to them. We need to bring them into the conversation. Yeah, and I think that there, I think often, and I’m sure a lot of the listeners understand and and do and know this, a lot of that time is sometimes getting it out of the group dynamic. It’s getting the person with the very vocal resistance in a one on one so they can voice all of that without maybe derailing an entire meeting for everybody, right? And then I think part of that too is. I usually letting those resistances be heard, be part of the process, but also not, uh not dictating that the decision is made based on that urgency that somebody’s expressing, right? And so, um, that’s, that’s what I usually see in the work that I do is you start to get a couple of folks who you hear are ants to be done with this, they’re ready to move on, they want to cross it off, they’re getting a little frustrated, and I think there’s two pieces. One is Having enough enough faith in the work of what you’re proposing that it’s going to pay off that dealing with a little short-term frustration and anxiety and pressure is, is not the end of the day if you believe that this is actually the right way to go. And so that’s part of it is going like, this is again part of the process, but we have faith in where it’s going. And then I think in the meantime, you just either manage those relationships or to be totally honest, you let people just Have those feelings for a little while while you sort out the last piece. Um, that’s what I see a lot is you’re not going to shut down those feelings for folks. You have to let them have it, but it also doesn’t need to stop you from having faith in what you’re trying to accomplish. Now, where’s the role of ambiguity in this? Well, in this Um, It might be more one of process where you are, like we, we haven’t, we haven’t fully crafted maybe what the what the 3rd grade program looks like, why it’s beneficial, um, and so somebody’s going, well, we’ve talked about it for 6 months now. I still don’t see the vision. I’m not quite there. This doesn’t, this is nothing we’ve ever done, and that’s too young for our organization. That’s really like in essence of saying I wanna just close the discussion. I wanna, I wanna start to make a certain decision right here, right? Um. And so the, the, to me the ambiguity is just in the process. It’s where you are that somebody wants certainty and and where you are is still kind of ambiguous and and uncertain. And so you just have to hold the group there, even if people are ready to close the door. Um, but you know, like, like all things, there’s a benefit to it. Having people that are willing to say, we’ve talked about it enough, let’s move on. Let’s get it, I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna argue for talking forever, but I just, I just think that on big new projects, or new directions, somebody always wants to close that door a little earlier and just accepting that as part of the process and saying they’re just struggling with what this moment feels like. That’s actually normal, but I’m going to keep everybody here a little bit longer because we’re going to get somewhere much better. In a short amount of time than we are right now, right? Don’t let their frustration. Derail the the end the conversation like, OK, I give up, you have, yeah, you’ve said it a couple of times, you recognize that this is gonna be a part of the process and we’re not at the stage yet where These ah objectors. Believe we are like that that that the decision is, is made and we’re not gonna proceed. That’s not, that’s not where we are. But you got to recognize that there may be, that may be coming from, from some folks. Right. And I think one of the most, one of the most interesting kind of applications of ambiguity that I think about is, is ambiguity as form and so maybe this might be a good segue, um. We, we find ourselves kind of stuck into a particular form and and how we operate. Maybe we’ve always been 5th grade and up, and that’s how we think about ourselves, right? Um. I think an important thing is to recognize that circumstances change and that requires the organization to change its sense of itself. And what you can see sometimes is that there’s such a deep commitment to that past sense of self, that it’s hard to kind of adopt a form that doesn’t look like it did in the past. One of the examples in the book that I use is um the HIV and I think it’s in the article to the HIV and AIDS HIV early decades, right? And so. The HIV AIDS crisis looked like nothing else. It had, it had the essence of all sorts of things. It had social movements, it had political issues, it had financing, it had homophobia, it had pieces of all of these circumstances, and all of these different kinds of movements, but it was, I think I say it was a new amalgamation of things, right? What I think to the great benefit of those activists, the design of the movement that they crafted did not look like. Any other movement in the past. It pulled from, uh, you know, feminist movements. It had sort of like these health clinics that were very similar to abortion clinic, like pre-ro abortion clinics, you know, it had a lot of um media and art that reflected other movements. It also worked with government in a different way, like they couldn’t just oppose. the government because they actually needed the government to do and fund and work in new ways. And so the HIV AIDS movement, like, it had this form that did not look solely like a social movement. It did not solely look like a, you know, political campaign. It reflect, it had like, It you could look at, to go back to the definition, you could look at it and you could see all of these different things. You could say this isn’t a social movement because of this, or this isn’t a political movement because of this, or this isn’t just an arts movement, it’s it’s all these other things, and I think that that willingness to say. This circumstance does not look like the past, and that requires us to not look like the past, and that might mean that we look in a way that is not as easily defined, but is actually what’s necessary to create that change. That’s like, I feel like one of the most beautiful applications of it is when you start to go like, I can’t be so committed to my sense of, of what people have done before and how we should present ourselves. What we need is to respond to the moment, whether or not that’s easy for others to define. We need to take on a shape that’s going to, you know, respond to the shape of the issues that we face today. It’s interesting that you, you remind us that arts were brought in. I mean, I’m thinking of the AIDS quilt, uh, but there were also dances about HIV AIDS, um, not, yeah, again, not what you would expect, uh, to your point, um. All right, I don’t know. Kyle Crawford, what is it about your background that drives you to this, to this ambiguity work? Why, why can’t you just be more, be more definite, or, or why can’t you talk about topics like organization? Uh, you know, this is 1234, this is what, no, what, what drives you to this, to this work, to this book? Ambiguity is the answer. Well, how did you get here? Yeah, it’s a little bit of everything. I mean, I grew up in kind of like radical punk DIY politics, which was very, very loud, be bold, um, you know, that kind of moved into anti-war organizing during the Iraq War, right? Like it was, I, I feel like I grew up with this. This idea that if you mobilize enough people, people in power will go, yeah, that’s enough people, and we’re gonna do what you want now. And I like with the war that just never happened. Like, you saw the largest protest ever, and it was always this dangled carrot, like, if you do what you’re told to do. People will make the change that you’re asking them to make, and I just saw that not work. I think enough times to say that like, we’re repeating this story, we’re we’re raising people into this narrative that you just do what you’re supposed to do and there’s like a rationality to it, and, and those changes will just be implemented when it’s presented the right way or with the right number of people. I just saw that not working enough where um I think I tied that kind of like that very radical, punkish need for big change with this real urge to say like, what are we missing from all the stories, like, the the planning, the structures, the all of that just was to me was not cutting it. Um and so, to be totally honest, I just, I just went into history as much as possible, you know, I was working and doing all the normal things as well, but on the side, I just kept thinking like, There’s something we need to know. To give ourselves a better shot at all of this, um, and I just found it in just such a wide breadth of of areas that, um, yeah, I mean it’s, it’s in the subtitle, but like it is this timeless aspect of how change is created. Um, and I just wanted to find, find that in as many places and then just make that as clear for folks as possible. The irony, of course, right, is writing about ambiguity and trying to be as clear as possible in your writing. I was just like, oh man, if I could get away with it. Being ambiguous on some of this, it would have been easier writing, but it was like it was this real fun. It’s a real fun challenge to be like, I’m talking, you know, this, this very making the case for this, but you can’t do that if you’re not sort of like as precise as possible in your language. So it was a fun challenge. It’s time for Tony’s take two. Thank you, Kate. I have a new tale from the train. This was my ride home from Kate’s house, actually, uh, over Christmas, took Amtrak back down south from the Wilmington, Delaware station to North Carolina. That’s a long ride. Uh, and as I had said, uh, a few weeks ago when I was extolling the virtues of Amtrak, you know, there are no 3 seats. Amtrak only has 2 seats on each side. So you don’t, first of all, you don’t have to worry about being in the middle. That never happens, can’t happen on Amtrak. Uh, but also, you know, it’s a, it’s a little, it, it’s a little chummier, you know, because you’re on the train for so many hours. Um, and you have these nice wide seats, and it’s comfy and eating is easy and It’s easier to talk to your roommate, and I did talk to mine. His name is Samson. And he’s just a, you know, delightful man, uh, retired, he’s 78 years old. He’s a caregiver for his mom, who’s 90. 7 or 98, something like that, um, and she lives with him. You know, but he does also on his own, he does local theater, he’s in a local theater company. So he was telling me about some of their recent productions, plus the next one that’s coming up. His brother was in the state legislature in South Carolina. That’s where he was headed. He was going to South Carolina. So, you know, just a delight, you know, so when you can strike up these conversations with strangers, could be on an airplane, certainly possible, but um again, the advantage to Amtrak is you’re spending a little, you’re spending more time next to somebody. Uh, so it becomes a little bit easier. Uh, either way. Have chats, you know, chats with your roommates, whether planes, trains, or automobiles, uh, planes, trains, or buses, buses would be a little tough. People are more, more uptight on buses, so it might not work there. But maybe something brief, a brief, a brief bus encounter that could work. So, That’s Tony’s take to a uh. The serendipitous, long conversation. With Samsung on Amtrak. And that is Tony’s take too. OK I think I already talked about this my first time on Amtrak alone. The first time I did it, I was with my roommate. So I was sitting next to someone I knew. But the second time I went, I was alone and I was scared, and it was Christmas break, so everyone was there. And I got to sit next to someone who I was able to talk to. And I think I said that she built playgrounds, and she had a little traveling dog with her, and she was really nice. I wish I remembered her name. Um, but I’ll always remember like being so terrified, but then this really nice woman was like, hey, come sit with me, like, OK, and then we like we’re best friends for those two stops that we were together and she got off. But yeah, start up conversations. Yes, absolutely. No, no reason to be terrified. Well, we’ve got Beau who but loads more time. Here’s the rest of Ambiguity is the answer with Kyle Crawford. Were you a musician? You mentioned punk culture a couple times. Are you? I did, I wrote a tiny bit, um, and then I did zines. I did the kind of like self-publishing in in the kind of organizing. I did a lot of um food not I ran a food not bombs out of my house and it was kind of like the political do it yourself side of. But yeah, I never not bombs. What was that? I mean, I can imagine, but what was that about? Yeah, I think out of the 70s, but essentially, you know, we would get food from there’s chapters all over, but we’d get food from the co op every Sunday, cook it, serve it for free in public. Um it was just this very like, very simple kind of direct action type of thing, but Kind of the punk movement has kind of close ties to that type of work. I did a lot of um books to prisoners organizing when I was younger as well, so just, yeah, it was just, it was always kind of trying to pair what’s the most tangible good you can do with also how are we gonna sort of like change this fundamental um. Dynamic that we’re in, so, yeah, just Just combining a whole lot of yeah, a little roadie work too. What is that like? What’s that like? Oh, it’s a bands that we would recognize in the punk scene or you came from the Pacific Northwest, so yeah, let me shout out. Yeah, it was a Broadways, um, say it again. Broadway calls Broadway calls. Oh, cool, yeah. I’ll have to let them know pop punk band, um, yeah, we went to California. I, to me, I think there’s probably what a lot of people who are musicians realize when they tour is sort of like. There’s a lot of sitting around and was there a budget for you? I mean, were you sleeping in people’s homes or what? Yeah, we were, we were sleeping on couches. I would sell zines and try to contribute my couple bucks every day and uh, yeah, I remember eating. Eating corn off the back of a truck and yeah, you know, you had to contribute money to this. No, I actually took, I took an overnight Craigslist ride from Portland to LA. Me and some stranger, we just alternated off who was driving, like we did probably said two words from Portland to LA cause we just slept at alternating times, but yeah, I just showed up in LA and joined him for. For a little while. Greg, Greg Newmark was a guest on the, on this show years ago years ago, yeah, yeah, after he had left Craigslist, but, uh, talked about some of his veteran’s work and he’s expanded since then. But yeah, Craigslist. All right, um, you got a roadie story. I mean, besides eating corn off the back of a truck, you got a like a good like punk band. I, I, I think my favorite moment, which is very funny, there was like a high school band, um, I think in Soul Dad, California, you know, just like 16 year olds, and the kid just starts breaking his guitar. And I mean, there’s probably 5 people in the audience. I, I remember telling somebody in the band, I was like, I could watch a band like. this every day. And he was like, I don’t need to see another one of these bands in my whole life. But I, I’m such a sucker for just like, you know, we’re just you’re in it. I just, I don’t know, something about like a kid getting, I don’t know, yeah, so I, I, uh. Yeah, like he was drawing energy from the 5 people in the crowd. Yeah, and just like that, you know, he’s probably on his first stage and feeling like a rock star. I don’t know, there’s something, there’s something endearing about how you, how you get absorbed into those, those worlds. It’s like when you’re, I don’t know if you ever like went in a mosh pit, like when you’re young and you get bumped around and thrown on the ground. I don’t know why, but, you know, there is something to like, you’re like, well, I’m in it now, like this is part of it. So yeah, that wasn’t my experience. One mosh pit in New York City. I went to, I went to see a band. I don’t, I don’t even remember the name of it. Um, and I, I, I got there early, so I was up close, you know, but then people started pushing my like my glasses were flying away. All right, but I’m older than you are, um. But uh yeah, I, I, it was all I could do is just get to the fringe of the, of the act of the uh semi-violent activity. I know it’s not violent, but the, you know, the, uh, the pushing and shoving, I, I had to get out of that as quick as I could. I almost lost my glasses and Yeah, it’s different but it didn’t feel safe. What did you say? I said it’s different with glasses. I had the same thing. It’s like, yeah, once you drop your glasses once you’re like, Oh, this is not worth it. Yeah, this is not fun. I’m not into the spirit of this at all. So I, I experienced it for like 90 seconds as quick as I could get out of the crowd. Um, but there’s like there’s no indication that it’s coming either. that maybe if like I said, I don’t remember the band. I don’t remember the club. It was somewhere in New York City. Um, so maybe for fans of the, of that band, maybe that’s common, you know, they expect it, but I just got there early, so I just stood up front, you know, I, I didn’t know. I didn’t, um, I didn’t get swept up in the movement that one. I, I got out as quick as I could. I was not swept up. I wanted out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was that was that movement was not for me, um. Let’s talk about in the article you cite a couple of uh rich historical figures besides Harriet Tubman. You mentioned Billie Holiday, musician Muhammad Ali, Thurgood Marshall, uh, let’s uh it’s, I used to be a lawyer. Uh, I didn’t like practicing law, but I used to be a lawyer. Thurgood Marshall, Supreme Court justice. What was his, why do you cite him as a, as an example of why, uh, ambiguity is the answer? Yeah, he’s, so he’s the opening chapter, and he, he’s maybe the less uh literal application I will say, um, but every chapter in the book has sort of A role of ambiguity as something, right? So for Thurgood Marshall’s chapter, it’s ambiguity as as precursor, which is essentially like precursor to a big change is usually a period of ambiguity, right? And so for Thurgood Marsh, before, before you, I’m sorry, I should give folks context because a lot of people may not know who Thurgood Marshall is. Uh, it was a black Supreme Court justice, uh, in the, in the heat of the civil rights era. Um, Brown versus Board of Education was, I don’t know if he wrote that decision. He may have. I don’t, I don’t remember. He did a lot of his work was actually was like, OK, he argued, he argued Brown versus Board of Education, but he did ascend to the Supreme Court. In the civil rights era and, and, and beyond. OK, I just want to set a little context. Yeah, yeah, perfect, thank you. I should have done that as well. The, um, I mean, his, his, I think if you’re thinking strategically with Thurgood Marshall, um. What he had to do, he was the the head of the NAACP legal education fund, um. What he had to do was take a stack of 500 cases every year, right, and say which of these is not only gonna produce an outcome for the for the individual in the case, right, but which of these is gonna create a legal precedent that’s going to build up to rulings like Brown v. Board, right? And so I think where you think about ambiguity was that like Thurgood Marshall was not secretive about what he wanted to accomplish. He was not shy about, you know, eliminating segregation. In all sorts of places, um, he was not shy about expanding justice to everybody that that it should be expanded to. What he was more, I would say more ambiguous about was um his strategy for doing that, right? And so what I say in the book that um You know, to sort of outsiders, and he looked like an underfunded lawyer just taking on a smattering of cases. What he was doing in practice was laying that that precedent groundwork so that each of these cases was building and making the legal justification for much bigger rulings. And so some of those would be like, you know, he might say like, You know, he got a ruling in Texas where, you know, if, if there’s no higher education for black students, the white institutions must, um, Must enroll them, right? So it’s a very like, very small kind of piecemeal winning, which doesn’t get even to the heart of the issues that he really cared about, but that actually opened the door enough where he could expand that in another place and do it in another place. So you get to the point where segregation in any institution is fundamentally illegal, and we have all these little justifications that that make that the case, and so, um. That that’s where that sits, but I think, you know, there is an irony, especially with your legal background, you know, the irony with Marshall is that the ambiguity in Brown. People actually point to as being a reason why the actual changes haven’t been produced as much. There isn’t, there wasn’t a timeline for integrating schools. There was not standards around some of that. It was left so ambiguous that actually the implementation struggled, but um the chapter focuses much more on his strategy to bring about that in the first place. It sounds like strategic ambiguity. It was very thoughtful, very thoughtful process. All right, um, in terms of You know, using this to your advantage, um, you talk about holding multiple readings of your situation and you’ve, you’ve, you’ve alluded to this, you know, but I wanna hit, you know, pull on this little thread a little further about just having different interpretations of, of what you’re facing. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we talked about that a little bit. I, I gave, I gave a workshop one time um on sort of like futures thinking and we, we crafted different scenarios for folks, right? And it was funny because to me, the components of these different scenarios all seemed equally. Bland, like they, they didn’t seem ne necessarily negative or positive, but almost across the board, it might have just been the time of year or whatever it was across the board, everybody felt like they had been given the most negative set of scenario features. And so that was like a realization where you You can take the, you can take almost just like facts or factors or pieces of, of your circumstance, um, and people will project readings onto them. But I think in terms of the beneficial role of kind of holding multiple readings, it’s really in the sense that I think that for a lot of folks. It’s it’s, it’s somewhat dictated how you’re supposed to view your circumstance, what different pieces mean, and a lot of the book and a lot of the research sits with people saying, I hear how I’m being told to look at my situation or look at myself, and actually my obligation. Or responsibility is to hold an awareness of what I actually know to be true, and I’m gonna hold that in the face of what I’m told is the situation, um, and then, and then kind of rooting what you’re doing in that. And so a lot for a lot of, I think a lot of that is just, you know, the maybe the most obvious place for that is like WEB Du Bois, like double consciousness is is having a sense of what you’re told. The social environment of the nation is, and then actually knowing what that experience looks like, that plays out in all sorts of different places, but I think there’s a historically you see there’s a ton of power in saying, I see how I’m told to look at the situation and I’m holding on to the truth of what I actually know to be true, um, and I think that that helps you not only navigate those circumstances, but, um, figure out ways to change them as well. Without giving voice to what you know to be true. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, it’s being described to you in as one set of circumstances, but you know that there’s another underlying truth. So holding and holding that, you know, sort of to yourself while you’re working toward changing that. Exactly, and I think nonprofit leaders are very uniquely familiar with this. It’s sort of you’re told how to present your work, you’re told what you need to do to bring more funders on board, and there’s always a little bit of attention, I think that, I think nonprofit leaders do an excellent job of it, but there is a tension in You’re telling me I have to operate this way or present what we’re doing in this way, and I know the reality on the ground is something fundamentally different, and I have to like, like nonprofit leaders have to live in that tension and navigate between those two, but it is a little bit of like Often, OK, I’m moving how you want me to move, but also I have to, cause you’re not quite getting what the situation on the ground is. I have to hold that awareness while still navigating um in order to to get the funding that we need, but I think the nonprofit leaders get pushed. In that, in that situation a lot, and I think that a lot of folks navigate that, um, much better than they’re given credit. And part of, part of like the, the push for me for ambiguity was also was with nonprofit leaders recognizing this is how they have to operate a lot of the times, but, but they’re told that you’re not supposed to, that it’s not supposed to be part of the work, but actually to navigate funding environments and all the work on the ground. You’re having to do that all the time, um, present the same program in slightly different terms because this funder likes it told this way, this funder likes it told this way, but the actual work might not even change, right? Nonprofit leaders are masters at that, um. But also we’re sort of supposed to act like we’re not and that’s not what’s happening, um. So I felt like we should give voice to that a little bit. Yeah, uh, you’re alluding to the the foundation fundraising, institutional, institutional grant making, um, you know, Trying to work within the. The confines of the funding priorities of different. Uh, the different funders. So you know, like going back to our example and and one might be a community foundation that funds work only in the county or the town even, but another might be, you know, an early education intervention funding priority, uh, and another one might be like college college prep. Uh funding priority and so you’re trying to, as you said, you know, describe your work. Uh, within, within all those different constraints, yeah, you’re right, you’re right, nonprofit leaders are. Extraordinary at that. Yeah, to communicate that out multiple messages to multiple audiences, multiple meanings is the same, about the same work is is a type of expertise that uh we I think we don’t recognize but is to me is like is just a fascinating level of awareness and ability, um. And yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think I could name a group that does that more often or more effectively than nonprofit leaders, like, sincerely, I really don’t. Yeah, that’s an that’s a really interesting subject thread, um. Yeah, no, and, and they’ve come to do it out of necessity. I mean they need the they need the institutional funding along with hopefully other, you know, other, other revenue sources, but, uh, and then government as well. You can imagine the constraints around government grant making. Federal grants, even state grants. All right. Yeah, that’s, well, that’s, that’s been born of necessity. Mm Um, how about, uh, Billie Holiday? How does she, how does she fit into, uh, ambiguity is the answer? Yeah, she’s one of my favorite because I think that, uh, you know, you better now you give the context for this one because you know, you know her work better and her her background better than I do. So fill in some context before, before you, you explain. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, Billie Holiday, um, phenomenal singer, kind of early part of the 20th century, black woman, um, bisexual. What I say in the book is like rose from poverty, the sold out shows at uh Carnegie Hall and magazine covers and all these other things, um. Uh, I think for me that she’s she’s incredible and that chapter I actually love so much cause there’s, there’s so much incredible work around. I think the layers of meaning and and power that she represented and and conveyed, but I think in general you could think about it in terms of like, A lot of her skill was in taking these very bland lyrical songs, and with the way that she conveyed them, conveying so much more meaning. I think the the most maybe applicable way about thinking about this is that um kind of coming out of a blues tradition, the same lyrics can mean multiple things, right? And so kind of to the conversation we’re just having, she might be singing a song about being treated right. And you might hear that and think this is about a relationship issue, right? This is about a partner wanting another partner to see them and show up for them and and and be there for them and do right by them. To a different audience or at the same time. Those same lyrics might mean the nation is not treating me right, and the nation deserve, like, should be treating me right, and that same lyric that feels like it’s about a relationship can also be a call for justice, a call for organizing. And so Billie Holiday, I think just in this way that there were so many layers to her, her story, there’s all these kind of piecemeal stories that um Contradict one another, that sort of don’t tidy up into a neat narrative about what is essentially just like this fascinating complex. Incredibly impactful woman. There is no neat narrative about her that holds up, and I think that that’s reflected also in the way that she um she sang and and and conveyed so many things. So I think she just like she just embodies to me like the art side of this, which is some of the things we love the most, we don’t understand. Like, we can’t pinpoint, we can’t sort of like break down. The the the perfect musicology about why somebody like her is so captivating, and actually there’s a lot in our lives, I think that it’s these things we don’t understand. They just captivate us and we don’t understand them and we’re pulled to them anyways, um, and I, I, I actually really love that side of this, like, these are some of the most meaningful moments as, as humans, um. And I think they’re the the kinds of things that we return to cause we’re trying to figure out why do I love this so much. The article mentions, uh, examples that we’ve just talked through a couple, uh, the folks are all black. Uh, it’s Thurgood Marshall, Muhammad Ali, Billie Holiday. Um, Harriet Tubman. Why, why is that because of the, the, the black experience in the United States? What, what is it, what is it that uh makes them excellent examples of, uh, why ambiguity is, is valuable? Yeah, I mean, I think that they’re all incredible people. I think that, I mean, There is just a lot, I think, to, to history, having incredible black people navigate just some heinous situations in this country. And so I think that, um, you know, each of those people, I think their examples are also very different from one another. So they’re all black, but, but they’re they’re what they’re navigating, how they’re using it, how they’re doing these things, um. You know, they tend to be in different chapters looking at it from very different angles, um. And I think that to me that’s just, to me it’s just some of the most powerful stories in history that I discovered. The book includes folks like, um, I mean all sorts of different folks, but um. You know, one example is like Phumz An An was this journalist from Vietnam who he ended up working for multiple sides during the Vietnamese-American War, um, And ended up essentially kicking, helping kick out the United States despite having very close relationships with everybody, and then forming kind of like reconciliation between the nation, like, just one of the most fascinating characters um that I I’ve ever read about, but you know, there’s Virginia Woolf and there’s Jane Jacobs and there’s Cesar Chavez and um. Yeah, there’s there’s a whole cast of characters, and I think for me it was, it was really like, what are the what are the stories that illuminate this, this piece of ambiguities application in doing something incredible, um, wherever I could find the most interesting stories and juxtapose with others that we tied it together, yeah. You called it the Vietnam-American War. Not the not the not the Vietnam, yeah, I don’t, uh, I don’t think just saying the Vietnam War makes tons of sense, but, um, yeah, I don’t know, I don’t know if that’s the correct language, but just saying that I’m not correcting. I’m curious you know, I never heard it called that. Yeah, I mean, I think that, I think that we had a role in, you know, yeah, enormously. I think that if you, you know, if you think like the Iraq War, the Vietnam War, like you’re essentially taking out. Our nation’s role in those circumstances, it sounds like it’s something that just happened there. To them for um um and we had no role. So yeah, I don’t, I don’t speak about it a lot, but it doesn’t, I don’t, something doesn’t sit right to me about just, just putting it on the nation that we invaded. I don’t, I don’t, yeah. I see. OK. OK. Uh, what else, what else about ambiguity we haven’t, we haven’t talked about yet or something you want to go deeper on something that we did talk about? What else? I mean, I think one last thing that might be worth mentioning is that in the article and Stanford Social Innovation Review, it ends with a number of questions that organizations can ask themselves. And so, um, if we got too heady or theoretical at any point in this, which is my, my fault or my tendency, um, the part of the, part of the point of that article is to really distill things that the leaders can do. As they think about how they want to move their organization forward. So some of that is just questions you can ask yourself, you can ask your leadership team, you can ask the board, you can ask as part of a strategic planning process, um, to consider. If the choices that you’re making or the the tendencies that you have as an organization reflects the circumstance that you’re in today, or if they just kind of reflect the um the tendencies that you have as an organization and so um that that might be somewhere uh folks get a lot of kind of very practical useful application of some of the things that we’ve talked about. Some of the questions that are there, there, like you said, there are 10. Do we have enough power right now to be fully open? Would, would being more ambiguous help us learn more information? Or a couple, do we need to clarify the situation now, or do we trust it to come to light over time? So do you know, we take the narrative or is it gonna emerge? All right. The article in strategic, sorry, uh, the article in Stanford Social Innovation Review is the strategic Art of Ambiguity. Kyle’s book is Ambiguity is the Answer Timeless Strategies for Creating Change. Kyle, thank you very much. Appreciate you opening up. Thank you. Thank you so much, Tony. Next week, storytelling with Sarah Wood. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you. Find it at Tony Martignetti.com. We’re sponsored by DonorBox. Outdated donation forms blocking your supporters’ generosity. Donor box, fast, flexible, and friendly fundraising forms for your nonprofit, DonorBox.org. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff. I’m your associate producer Kate Martignetti. The show’s social media is by Susan Chavez. Clark Silverman is our web guy, and this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that affirmation, Scotty. Be with us next week for nonprofit Radio, big nonprofit ideas for the other 95%. Go out and be great