How to Change the World. Clare Feeney
pick the ones you need most, based on the content of the chapters.
There will be regular prompts to use particular action sheets throughout this book. Make sure you capture all the information, ideas and learnings you generate as you set up, run and review your program. This will be your gift to posterity!
Inspira[c]tion, n. A sudden happy idea that makes you draw in your breath with excitement and gets you out there doing great things (with apologies to the Concise Oxford Dictionary17).
When you’ve gone through each chapter of the book and used the action sheets you want, fill out the Inspira[c]tion Sheet at the front of the Action Planner for your priority chapters, choosing the option that works best for translating your inspirations into actions.
Oh, and about getting yourself to inspirac[t]ion – that action sheet includes some tips from Ed Bernacki18 to capture the different types of knowledge you’ll create as you go:
1.Insights: capture your ‘aha!’ moments.
2.Ideas: when you hear, read or say something that gives you an idea, write it down immediately!
3.Questions: capture insightful and exploring questions that you can think about later.
4.Quotes: when you hear, read or say something that’s worth repeating, write it down.
5.Actions: what can you do as a result of using the book and Action Planner?
Linda McDermott19, one of the most colorful people I know, uses symbols in the margin to color-code her responses to conference speakers in a way that is similar to Ed’s list; she puts a heart, a light bulb or an exclamation mark to highlight the best things she hears. She uses the letters TD for “To Do afterwards”, and quotation marks so she can attribute quotes to speakers who said something great – or that she herself thought of for later use. As a dancer, she uses a musical note in the margin, to tell her there is a tune she might use, or lyrics from a song that help her remember something. And she’ll write a dollar sign in the margin to denote an opportunity to make or save money. Linda also takes a day after the conference to review them all and make sure she does something with the best ones.
The last sheet in the Action Planner is a work program planning sheet that will help you focus on ‘first things first’. Once you’ve identified your priorities, you can go back to work in more detail on the chapters you need – inspira[c]tion in practice!
Every topic in this book could be expanded into another book: this book is a high-level overview so you can see what you are getting into! There are countless print and online resources for each topic, so I’ve provided links for the main headings in ‘How to find out more’ at the end of the book.
You may have realized already that there are seven steps to successful environmental training – and nine chapters in this book. Table 1 shows how they relate to each other.
Table 1 How the seven steps relate to the chapter headings of this book
| The nine chapters | The seven steps |
| 1: About this book / how to use this bookYou are here! Chapter 1 also contains a potted history of the evolution of Auckland’s erosion and sediment control program, because my long association with this program helped me identify the seven elements that made the program so successful for so long – and will make yours a success, too. | 1: Partnership: the fundamental platformEvery chapter refers to partnership in some way – it’s the must-have element of successful environmental training! |
| 2: The 7-step modelA six-page overview of each of the seven steps, which emerged from my analysis of the factors that contributed to the success of Auckland’s program. | 2: Research: building a robust caseEnvironmental research gets an honorable mention in Chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 9, but doesn’t have its own chapter: this is because you know your research needs better than I do. Training-focused research is in Chapter 5. |
| 3: Case studies of different environmental training programsA detailed description of the six elements of the US City of Charlotte’s successful erosion and sediment control program is followed by seven case studies of training programs on different environmental issues. You can analyze each of these in terms of my seven steps and the City of Charlotte’s six steps in order to develop your own series of steps to success. | 3: Monitoring, evaluation and reviewThis topic is so important that it has a chapter of its own – Chapter 6, Measuring success.It also has an honorable mention in Chapters 2 and 8. |
| 4: Dimensions of successAn attempt to capture some of the outcomes of Auckland’s program that indicated its success, along with some theorizing about the importance of regulation and enforcement in contributing to these. | 4: Policy, regulation and enforcement: a management frameworkThis doesn’t have its own chapter, as, again, you know your legal context and powers better than I do. But it gets an honorable mention in Chapters 1, 2 and 8 and a short analysis in Chapter 4. |
| 5: Setting up your environmental training programAn overview of the preliminary scoping you need to do before you invest too much time and money investigating a training program that may not be the solution to your environmental problem, or not right now, anyway. | 5: Technical guidelines: a performance benchmarkThis doesn’t have its own chapter. You will need to do your own research to develop a technical guideline that works for your environmental issue and desired outcomes. However it gets an honorable mention in various chapters, especially in Step 5 of Chapter 2. |
| 6: Measuring successA summary of seven levels of evaluation of the effectiveness of training (I prefer this terminology to the word ‘success’, which to my mind is a rather vague and loaded term). It shows how you can link these outcomes to the environmental and other outcomes of your wider environmental, social and cultural monitoring programs. | 6: Training and capacity-buildingYes, training does have a chapter of its own – Chapter 7 – but, if you are setting up a new program, development of training materials and delivery comes after a substantial amount of preliminary scoping! If you are already delivering environmental training, then this chapter may help you to stay on the sometimes bumpy path of continuous improvement. Training delivery also has an honorable mention in several other chapters. |
| 7: At last! The training itself!Overviews who you will be training, how you will be training them and who will deliver the training. Also looks at potential fishhooks such as sponsorship and who owns the intellectual property. | 7: Program resourcing and supportThis is such an important – though often overlooked – aspect of a training program that it has a chapter of its own – Chapter 8. And it gets an honorable mention in Chapters 2, 6 |