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Mayor Olivia Chow and Marshall Ganz kick off the inaugural Dais Book Talks
Oct 31, 2024
Chow and Ganz talk leadership, organizing and the importance of empathy and authenticity in the digital age.
By: Nina Rafeek Dow
Mayor Olivia Chow joined us for the second time at the TMU Democracy Forum. This time, she sat on stage as not only a leader, but a student.
The mayor shared the stage with her longtime mentor and legendary organizer, Marshall Ganz.
As a former student, she credits her success to Marshall Ganz’s teachings, who spoke about his latest book, People, Power, Change: Organizing for Democratic Renewal. The Harvard Kennedy School professor’s ethos on organizing was also famously credited as the blueprint for Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign.
The inaugural Dais Book Talks series event was co-hosted by the Institute for Change Leaders, founded by Mayor Olivia Chow in 2016.
In a room of over 300 community members, change leaders, students and faculty, our Executive Director, Karim Bardeesy opened the event. Also a student of Marshall Ganz, he spoke about the impact of his teachings. “The Dais would not exist in the way it does without Marshall,” he said.
Our Democracy Forum host, Dais Senior Fellow and Toronto Star Political Columnist, Martin Regg Cohn, discussed a range of topics centering around the main themes of Ganz’s book: democracy, leadership, power, education and the complexities of changemaking in the digital age.
Regg Cohn kicked off the discussion with a question to the Mayor on how she won the election. She began her response with a story about failure.
Mayor Chow on failure
“Losing an election is pretty devastating,” said Mayor Chow.
The Mayor talked about losing two elections back-to-back—in 2014 for Toronto Mayor and the following year for MP in Spadina-Fort York.
Looking for her next step, she turned to Ganz, who reminded her that a successful campaign is about organizing and storytelling.
She explained that in her 2014 and 2015 campaigns, she relied on reading rehearsed speeches. In her 2023 mayoral campaign, Mayor Chow explained that she shifted her focus to telling her authentic story.
“You can have all the facts in the world and win the argument. But if you don’t touch their hearts through a story […], the hands will not come out.”
The “hands”, refers to building a movement and getting people to take action.
“The best teacher is through failure,” she said.
Marshall Ganz on leadership amidst radical uncertainty
Ganz introduced his book with a note about our time: “We’re living in a fast moment. That’s not news to anybody. It’s a moment of radical uncertainty.”
He continued, “[…] and the thing with radical uncertainty is, it can be seen as a source of threat and fear, or it can be seen as a source of opportunity and hope. It really depends on how we see what we see in it.”
Drawing an example from Mayor Chow’s winning campaign, Ganz talked about the power of leadership:
“You can structure things so that there’s one leader and everybody else’s helpers. Or you can construct things so that leadership is distributed and collaborative. On the second one, you build leadership. And that’s how you build growth. It’s how you build capacity.”
Marshall Ganz on Hope
“Hope, is believing in the plausibility of the possible as opposed to the necessity of the probable. In other words, it’s always probable Goliath will win, but sometimes David does.” He cited Obama’s presidential win as an example: “It was improbable we would elect a Black man as president in my country in 2007. It happened. Hope is that place between fantasy and certainty. It’s the domain of could be, of possibility. And that’s precious.”
Mayor Chow on “The Empathetic Bridge”
With Mayor Chow having lost her husband, former NDP leader Jack Layton, and Premier Ford losing his brother, former mayor, Rob Ford, Mayor Chow said she connected with the Premier on loss.
“The empathetic bridge actually resulted in a lot of agreement on how we could work together.”
Chow cited working with the Premier on the DVP and bike lanes as an example of finding common ground and moving forward together to find a solution.
“One thing about Marshall’s teaching is that if we connect through experience and not always fighting each other on opinions, because that’s ideology, that if we can connect as human beings and through the experience.”
Mayor Chow on Organizing
Answering a question from the audience, Chow explained how to combat government decisions based on the concerns of the loudest and not the majority. Chow said leaders must organize the majority of the people.
“That’s what democracy is about, right? Not people that are the loudest, but people that sometimes because they work 3 shifts, or they speak different languages, or they can’t get to City Hall, whatever the reason might be, or even just feel they don’t have a say. Well, you need to encourage them to come out.”
Marshall Ganz on Power
A central theme in his book, Ganz spoke about power being created though interdependence.
Pointing to the audience, Ganz asked, “If you need what I’ve got more than I need what you’ve got. Who’s got the power? “You,” the audience responded, referring to Ganz.
“And if it’s reversed, who’s got to power?” “Us,” the audience responded.
“See, power is an influence created through interdependence, and when that interdependence is aligned in terms of shared interest, we can create capacity like credit unions, co-ops that gives us more capacity, more power.”
Marshall Ganz and Mayor Chow on organizing in an online environment
“I feel over connected, but under committed.”
The quote was highlighted in Ganz’ book which he borrowed from one of his students. On navigating this hyperconnected environment, Ganz stressed to focus on relationships rather than transactions.
“It’s a choice. Do we use this technology to strengthen our capacity to work together and build relationships or not? Or do we blame the technology for the way in which we’re using the technology to dehumanize one another?”
Mayor Chow stressed the importance of using technology as a tool and to understand our relationship and limitations with it. She said that we can use Zoom for online meetings and discussion but we must not forget to foster real and authentic connections.
“Ultimately it’s hard to replace face to face,” said the Toronto mayor.
The TMU Democracy Forum is a year-round talks series that engages political leaders, from across the country, in dialogue about the most pressing issues facing Canadians today.
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