relational Value DEVELOPMENT

From crisis to innovation. When the financial crash of 2008 hit, Dreamfish was a bright-eyed startup, anticipating funding within a month. And then, ka-boom! Our seed money evaporated. Startups around us in San Francisco closed shop. What could we do? We worked without pay. We pivoted the business model to consulting, which led to very cool organizational change projects. 

As we breathed easier, we then turned towards this crisis with curiosity about value. Dreamfish explored how could we enable collaborative creation of value.

Relational Value Project, 2009
We live in an interdependent world. For the world to thrive, humans need to develop the social, emotional and cognitive skills of 21st century leadership, to respond skillfully to complex rapidly changing world. As a global community, we need to "grow ourselves up". This foundational belief was a driving core of Dreamfish.  Pedagogically, our programs carried a teaching philosophy of relational human development: Learning and development happens through practice in growthful relationships. 

In 2009, to engage this complex challenge, we created the Relational Value Project. The project asked individuals to self-reflect: What is value? In this moment of your work relationship, what value are you creating? What value do you experience? what is the relationship of value to money?


Generally, what a person values changes over time, at different moments in life. At one point, one often seeks achievement, to be able to say "I can do it", "I did that!". As one has a family, one is likely focused on safety and food security.  Later in life, one often seeks meaningful service and care for the world. 
What one dreams of also reflects life circumstances. Dreamfish members had a wide range of access to resources and privilege. Members included LGBT U.S. youth, American management consultants, Kenyan engineers, community leaders in slums and refugee camps, and a nomadic women's collective.

In collaborative work, we can help each other to realize the value that matters to each person at that point in time. During Dreamfish projects, team members openly shared about the value that mattered to them, and looked for how to help one another to create value.

With such diversity in membership, the Dreamfish network had a wide range of values. Some sought security and achievement, while others sought to be of service. Learning how to collaborate with this diversity was a continual learning edge. For example, often, a project job in the Dreamfish network offered learning and service, but had no funding, while a worker looked for a paying project, so that they could buy groceries or pay for school tuition for family members. 

In addition to engaging this internal tension of values between organization and individuals, Dreamfish also worked an external tension. Dreamfish also challenged society's dominant paradigm about work, that work could be of value beyond a monetary transaction. 


For more on value, check out:
Values Shift, by Brian Hall