As the great designer Paul Rand said, “design is everything.” Let’s step away from graphic design for a moment and take the opportunity to discover how this statement reveals itself in other areas of our lives. Part one: food.

Food, Inc., the new movie directed by Robert Kenner and co-produced by Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation), is now playing nationwide. It was an eye-opening experience, the most important film I can think of in recent memory, and you have to see it.

Six years in the making, Food, Inc. details the industrialization of our nation’s food system and, more importantly, the adverse effect it has had on our health, animal well-being, the environment, farmers, and life in general.

The movie arrives at an important time. As we’re struggling to rebuild our economy, two interesting issues have appeared: how to design a better, healthier and sustainable system to feed ourselves and how to get the workforce required to make it happen.

Historically, as food became industrialized, young people left rural areas to pursue desk-jobs in cities. Interest in farming plummeted, demand for fast food increased, and as a result, most of our food is now controlled by a handful of corporations. Farmers are at the mercy of these companies and of government-subsidized, inedible corn that finds its way into almost all the food that is sold.

Whether or not you sympathize with the animals, with the farmers, or with the planet we call home, there’s no arguing that the system is seriously flawed and needs to be improved. And with the (still relatively minute) “farm to table” movement still on the rise, despite economic conditions, it looks as if good design will again prove itself to be the winning solution in the long run. (And a lucrative one at that, as you’ll see from Stonyfield Farm’s story in the movie.)

As unemployment continues to climb and young people find it harder to get jobs, farming has become a truly viable alternative. As one recent article in the Atlantic puts it: “This may be the first moment in modern history when it is more foolhardy to be an investment banker than a farmer.”

A couple of solutions have cropped up in an attempt to entice young people to consider the farming route. Triggered in part by acclaimed books such as Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, American colleges have begun promoting internships on farms for liberal arts students. Students are sold the friendly, back-to-basics, pastoral imagery and the possibility of affecting real societal change. I have a feeling that the oversaturation of technology and connectivity in our lives also plays a part in adding to the allure of the get-your-hands-dirty, rewarding “slow food” movement. On a smaller scale, home gardening is also on the rise, including a renewed interest in backyard chickens. The White House has one. Your neighbor probably has one. In fact, I know of several people who have a real pride in their own successful backyard gardens (one being Matchstic’s intern and pâtissier extraordinaire, Meg).

Meanwhile, the Japanese are taking a very different approach. To combat the fall of their agricultural industry (in part due to the huge percentage of imported food), they are trying to rekindle interest in the young by “making farming cool.” Yasuyuki Nambu, a Japanese CEO at the forefront of this movement, explains, “I want them never to take their ties off. The future of agriculture must be done in a fashionable way. The young need to think it’s cool to be a farmer.” Mr. Naumbu’s unconventional approach has included commissioning an urban farm in the basement of a Tokyo office tower.

Whichever you think is the best approach (I tend to lean toward the former), the whole movement is no doubt a giant step in the right direction. As we move away from a culture built on the excess consumption of cheap goods, what better way to replace it than by designing a more enjoyable, more considered, and ultimately more rewarding way of eating and living?

Photography from The Atlantic’s “Food Channel“.

Last week I wrote about the fact that the clients we look to work with aren’t defined by a business niche or size of company, but we look to work with courageous people.  Drew Clyde is one of those people.  We started working with Drew and PFM about a year ago and I was personally inspired by Drew’s courage during the process to accomplish the task for which he was hired, regardless of the resistance he experienced along the way.

Craig: What were you hired to do at PFM?
Drew: I was hired to engage young adults in Prison Fellowship’s mission and ministry.  Prison Fellowship is over 30 years old now and we really haven’t done a great job over the years of involving the next generation in serving prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their families.  You look at our partners that give to the ministry and those that volunteer with us and the average age of our donors and volunteers is about 55 years old.  We need to start engaging the next generation or we’ll start to diminish in our effectiveness pretty quickly.

Craig: Why did you take this job?
Drew: I’ve had a passion to see the next generation know Jesus and over the past 5 years God has developed in me a new passion for “remembering those in prison.”  So, I was pretty excited when this position came along where I could mesh these two and work to see both prisoners getting served and young adults passionate about being involved in it.  I knew that if this generation just knew what Prison Fellowship was about that they’d be drawn to engage in our mission.

Craig: When developing this new program, what internal challenges did you face?
Drew: Things have been done a certain way here at Prison Fellowship for a long time, and for good reason. But a generation or two has past since Prison Fellowship was founded and as most organizations know, it’s tough to change when circumstances don’t seem to be forcing you to.  We’ve realized that we weren’t connecting with GenY and we may have even skipped GenX.  Change is tough for a large organization even when you realize you need to change.  Even when you want to change.  Change is risky and it’s hard not to play it safe when there is so much at stake.

Craig: How did you handle balancing the internal relationships and respecting authority while also trying to accomplish organization goals?
Drew: The challenge was that it seemed everyone knew we needed some of our outcomes to change but at times we weren’t on the same page as to what needed to change in order to achieve those outcomes.  The important thing in balancing the achievement of the objective with respecting authority and not hurting relationships was just honest communication about what we thought and why coupled with genuine respect for others as human beings and their expertise in their role with the organization.  I had to say to myself, “Even if I find myself in disagreement with some of the leadership in the organization I have to believe that they didn’t hire me to always agree with them but to stand up for what I really believe is the effective thing to do to accomplish the objective they entrusted to me.”  I’m thankful that ultimately we have leadership that trusted me to disagree when it was critical to the success of what I was there to help accomplish.

Craig: How were the decisions ultimately made?
Drew: In the end, it came down to the question of “who is ultimately responsible for the outcome we’re trying to achieve?”  Whoever that person(s) is needs to be able to get all the input from different parties and then make a decision.  I felt it made sense to be the one to make that decision.  It was tough because many times I want someone else to make the decision for me so that I’m not accountable in the end if it fails.  I felt like Prison Fellowship is an organization that wants to change and is willing to make some mistakes to get there.  So, I was willing to make the call because I felt strongly that the decision(s) were directly related to the accomplishment of the outcome.  So, the organization put our team in a role where we ultimately had enough authority to make the call.  With that decision we of course took on the fair share of accountability if things didn’t work out so well.  I appreciate organizations that realize they need some people on staff to push the envelope and try some out-of-the box stuff even though it may be scary or feel uncomfortable.  I don’t expect everyone to go along or not fight some of the changes.  Heck, I’m a very careful person and I have to fight myself all the time to take some risks and realize that we’re going to need to fail sometimes in order to get it right.  So, I get that it’s going to take some time and even some good healthy internal disagreements sometimes to change.

Craig: What has happened since?
Drew: Things are good. We’re continuing to work together as an organization to change in the ways we need to so we can be more effective.  I feel like internally we are more on the same page than ever before and it’s an exciting things to see and be a part of.  Of course we’ll always have our internal disagreements and those are absolutely necessary to get where we need to be.  I also think when you stand up for something you really believe in, you gain respect and influence in the organization because they know that you really do deeply care about the mission of the organization and it’s not just a job.  If you can stand up for something and genuinely respect others as you do that, that’s what most organizations and people are looking for.

Craig: Where do you see the organization moving from here?
Drew: I’m really excited about where the ministry is at and where we’re heading.  We’re in a state of transition right now but it’s a good one.  Our mission has become much clearer over the past few years and our structure and strategy for accomplishing our mission is becoming more effective as we speak.  With the addition of a new generation of volunteers, donors, and advocates, I believe the future is very bright for Prison Fellowship but more importantly for the over 2 million men and women that are behind bars and the over 700,000 people that are coming out every year.  Our desire is to be better equipped to be used by God help reconcile them to God, their families, and the community so they can be transformed.

Craig: What advice do you have for others in your position?
Drew: Believe in the mission of your organization.  Know what you were hired to do and then be willing to take a stand for the important things that will lead to the accomplishment of the objectives your leadership has entrusted you to.  Of course, be willing to compromise, but not where you feel strongly that it will hurt the effectiveness of the organization.  In the end, true leadership wants people that care about the mission and are willing to stand up for what is right or effective even when it means standing up to them.

See also:

• The work we did for PFM

• An interview with Drew at Catalyst Conference

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