Timlynn Babitsky
Timlynn Babitsky is an engaging speaker, pragmatic teacher, and energetic social activist.
Based on her broad background in rural economic development, social networks, education and research, her professional mission is to help individuals build the skills they need to accomplish their personal agendas.
But individuals live and work within families, organizations and communities. When it comes to community-affecting projects, personal goals face a full range of diverse, often contentious stakeholders and nobody wins if only personal agendas prevail.
Timlynn and her partner, Jim Salmons, have developed a powerful process for influencing a diverse set of others based on finding the “Win-Win Sweet Spot” where everybody gains something that they need.
As the Executive Director of the North American Rural Futures Institute, and as documented in the handbook, Timlynn achieved extraordinary success in applying the Win-Win process to raise “wind power fever,” in Northcentral Montana.
The case study of her success, “Using Influence to Change People and Groups Outside Your Organization: Making a Minor Miracle in Montana” was requested by Babson College’s Allan Cohen and Stanford’s David Bradford for inclusion with the second edition of their classic management book, Influence Without Authority (John Wiley, 2005).
The Win-Win process has also been applied more generally. The chapter “Affecting Change from the Grassroots – Making a Difference Without Power, Prestige, or Money” is included in Empowering Marginal Communities with Information Networks, edited by Hakikur Rahman, of the U.N. Sustainable Development Networking Program (SDNP) for use in developing world communities (Idea Group, Inc., 2005).
It is currently being used as the foundation process for Rebuild and Grow, a community self-help initiative focused on flood disaster recovery in Cedar Rapids and the state of Iowa following the Great Flood of 2008.
Timlynn is co-founder of Sohodojo, lives in rural Iowa, and is actively engaged in entrepreneurial ventures and social action agendas.
