Building a More Impactful, Visionary, and Inclusive Future
Hey folks! It’s Michelle, Principal and Founder of Common Spark Consulting. A few weeks ago, our staff came to the team with a question: What kind of longer term impact do you hope our work together at Common Spark will have?
I invite you to take a peek into our conversation. Thank you Katie Wu, Managing Director, and Tanya Paslawski, Collaborating Consultant from Elevated Engagement, for your vulnerability in opening up our “chat” thread!
Michelle
One of the central questions we ask everyday at Common Spark is how our clean energy and climate policies could be more impactful, visionary, and inclusive if we change the conversation. I can’t help but believe that if we open up to the bigger conversation, sometimes the hard conversation, or the unwieldy conversation we can uncover solutions that hold and support more of us, if not all of us.
Tanya
I believe the same, Michelle. So many conversations, behind closed doors, exclusive, top-down conversations hold so much power in policymaking. Changing those conversations opens up new possibilities for policy. And I see your question in action in the projects Common Spark chooses to work on– challenging us and others in new policy areas, posing the knotty questions, and applying our values in different ways.
Michelle
I appreciate that you see that! I like to think we embody this vision and our values in all aspects of the work we do as a team, from internal processes to project selection and working with clients on a deliverable that embodies action. To offer a new conversation, and more inclusive conversation, we’ve had to internalize that effort in all our processes. I think it’s also reflected deeply in who we are as a team.
Katie
…and in how we work. One of the longer term impacts I see Common Spark building is establishing different ways of working and collaborating in the energy sector. Honestly, this is so fundamental to the work we do: We really invite and ask for folks to bring any and all parts of themselves to this work. Common Spark does its best to support how everyone does their work best, understanding that it's our uniqueness that makes us strong.
Michelle
I love that—our uniqueness makes us strong—especially in a time when it’s too easy to think differences are a disadvantage or drawback; it’s actually a special sauce!
Tanya
Couldn’t have said it better… It’s from that uniqueness that Common Spark sets a distinct precedent for collaboration, one that builds a common vision of where folks are starting from and where folks want to go, and doesn’t shy away from the history and conditions that set the foundations of the energy system today in order to make a more impactful, visionary, and inclusive clean energy future.
Katie
We are facing extraordinarily complex questions in extraordinarily uncertain times. It’s even more critical that we make an intentional departure from how we've done things in the past, if we indeed want to build something different. This is part and parcel of how we approach our project work with client partners, and I also know it’s a core aspect of the Energy (in)Equity training you lead, Tanya.
Tanya
Yes, the training is one of my favorite conversations, and so needed in our industry. Our training helps people in the energy industry understand the story of energy services; how they began and how they work now; who they serve and who they burden. So many leave the training with an expanded awareness of how others are experiencing injustice from so many well-intended clean energy efforts–and ways that they can begin to do things differently! When we know better, we can do better.
Katie
I guess that’s the longer term vision–that we all keep learning (and unlearning) on how to build a clean energy future that holds us all, our health, our wellbeing, our communities. And at Common Spark, we recognize that this requires us to engage our individual and personal selves, our gifts and talents. It requires organizational practices and a culture that supports equitable outcomes in our team and in our work.
Michelle
Totally. I know we haven’t talked much about our client partners in this chat, but this convo has really emphasized for me how our project work has taught all us Sparklers how to grow and learn; and how to make more room in ourselves, in our operations and how we do our work for equitable approaches and outcomes.
I know there’s a lot of hard heartbreak going on in our communities and the communities of our loved ones and dear friends right now. And yet, I know it’s not the end because folks are still motivated (and so am I and so is our team) to raise our voices for a better future - one that is safe, healthy, clean, and resilient. We’re not going anywhere, we’re still here for the work. Bring it!
