Developing Kinetic West’s Vision for the Future
Our vision is an image…
It is an art piece that aims to evoke emotion and imagination. When we began our journey of creating a collective vision for Kinetic West, we knew that we didn’t want a vision statement, as we found words to be limiting. We wanted to expand our own thinking on what a vision could be. Our desire was to explore a different way of meaning and force ourselves to be risk takers and trust the process without knowing the outcome - we put ourselves in the position where we invite our clients to be each day.
Our team retreat session on creativity (described below) surfaced key themes and truths to guide the development of our vision.
RE-ENVISIONING CONSULTING
Desire to create something new that pushes back against the current state
Radical approach to consulting / how we do work
Not conforming to standards of practice that are white-centered and ultimately toxic
CONTRIBUTING TO CHANGE THROUGH COMMUNITY AND PARTNERSHIP
Kinetic West as contributors to the great work that is already happening in our communities
Viewing those around us as potential partners to this meaningful work
A collective approach to our work
RADICAL HUMANITY
Connection to nature and life balance that we all envision or want in order to be able to show up and be present and innovative
The vibe was joy & connection, that’s what matters
Real theme of hope – Fundamentally optimistic outlook
Reflection questions for your inner artist:
What emotion does this visual evoke in you?
What would your personal or organizational vision look like?
How does this visual resonate (or not resonate) with you in how you contribute to our collective humanity?
Our visioning journey began as Kinetic West entered into its 5th year.
We were quickly growing and as a firm in transition we were struggling with core questions…
What is the world we're trying to create?
What kind of firm do we aspire to be?
Imagine a world where Kinetic West didn’t exist, what would be lost?
We believed that if we brought our team together to create a collective vision then we would leverage everyone’s perspective, skills, and talents to create increased ownership, understanding, motivation and inspiration for the work we do each day. Our approach was to get the team away from our daily routines and into a relaxing space where we could exhale in nature and come together to collectively create our vision for Kinetic West.
This journey was intentionally broken into three ways of expressing our vision:
1) Sensory, Creative Visual Form
We began our retreat with self reflection and artifact sharing to answer the question: “Why you and Kinetic West?”. This allowed for grounding on what brought people to the team and what gets us excited about the work we do with our organization. After hearing everyone’s individual “WHY”, we shifted our minds to “WHERE we are going?”, through a visualization exercise by guiding team members through a scenario 5 years into the future, so they can visualize the various areas of success for themselves. We heard each other's aspirations and vision for the future, and we took this energy into creating a shared vision of the future we want, using images and pictures rather than words. We concluded this exercise with a gallery walk and team reflections.
2) Ethos & Purpose (classical vision session)
For the second portion of our visioning retreat we stepped into nature to give team members the space and backdrop to reflect on Kinetic West’s purpose and our collective WHY. The 60 minute nature walk was facilitated by an Islandwood staff member, she placed index cards throughout the walk and gave space between each person in order for individual time to occur. We concluded with a facilitated group discussion around a friendship circle which included a bonfire, which was perfect since we were all drenched by the time we finished the walk. The facilitated discussion allowed us to go deeper on questions posed during the walk and she captured much of our conversation on chart paper for us to have. Additionally, we recorded this conversation in order to share with our visual artist and have the audio available to reference. Some questions we reflected on:
What does social impact consulting look like?
How are we different from other social impact consulting firms?
What’s our team culture?
To wrap up our day we had dinner as a team and team building activity (“Consulting Olympics”) with healthy competition and a whole lot of laughter.
3) Analytical Questions and “So what”
We didn’t want to leave our visioning retreat without asking ourselves the hard questions, so the following day, we split our team into 4 small groups to have conversations around tactical questions such as:
What does growth look like? Number of employees, geographical locations, etc.
What clients are we serving?
What kind of projects are we taking on?
In order for our vision to become a reality in 2027, what do we need to keep doing, stop doing, start doing?
How can we ensure that our daily goals and tasks align with our larger vision?
How will we stay motivated when times are tough?
Our Approach
The power of self-awareness
After our team retreat
We met with Rommy, our visual artist, and shared with them all of our artifacts from the different sessions. After many conversations, both internally as a team and with Rommy, we collectively produced the panel to the right. To us, this visual represents a thriving human community that is diverse, full of joy and laughter…
Though the visual was beautiful- we didn’t see our work and what we do captured. This first iteration evoked some really insightful dialogue amongst our team, specifically around how we (as a firm) hope to show up for our communities, power dynamics, representation, etc. All things that really made this image evolve some more. After many more iterations, and continued conversations among the team and Rommy, we created the left panel.
This made our vision come to life- we saw not only the beloved community we work to build each and every day, but also our collaborative work and what we do and why we exist. A diverse group of dreamers and doers who come together around hard and messy topics, to work alongside the community to build a world in which every person lives a life of dignity and meaning.
Art in Social Justice Movements
Collective Leadership
Rommy Torrico is a formerly undocumented, queer, trans nonbinary visual artist born in Iquique, Chile and raised in Florida. They have been involved in social movement spaces encompassing (im)migrant, queer and trans rights struggles for over a decade and infuse much of their work with personal experience and the stories their communities share. Over the years, Torrico’s work has been included in several publications and exhibited at the Getty Museum, the Smithsonian Museum, the Library of Congress and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía as well as many galleries and museums throughout the Americas and internationally.