Choosing Power

A framework to help us notice, discern, articulate, and decide our relationship to power

Power is everywhere, but most of us experience power as something done to us rather than something we can shape. Wages, hours, or budgets get cut, claims get denied, institutions are destroyed leaving no safety net, and we are expected to just adjust and keep it moving. It’s a constant push to react—to swallow whatever is being shoved down our throats–and it erodes our sense of agency. We comply, burn out, or check out.

What’s often missing? An intentional practice that aids us in slowing down so we can see how power is operating in, through, and around us.

That’s where Notice, Discern, Articulate, Decide comes in. This is a simple, repeatable framework for interrupting the automatic ways we relate to power—whether that’s in an arts organization, a cultural center, a labor local, a collective, or our own families. Instead of assuming we’re powerless, or assuming we’re “the good ones” who couldn’t possibly be reproducing harm, this practice asks us to move more slowly and more honestly. It’s not a magic fix. It’s a way of building muscle: the muscle of seeing power clearly, making meaning together, naming what’s really going on, and then choosing how to act.

Notice is the first step, and it’s about observation without rushing to judgment or solutions. We ask: What is actually happening here? Who is speaking and who isn’t? Who has access to information? Who gets to decide how money, space, time, or attention are used? How does this feel in my body—in my nervous system—in this room? Noticing is about patterns, not just moments. That might look like realizing that decisions always get finalized in side conversations with the same two people, or that funders are consistently centered onstage while communities are treated as an afterthought. It might also mean noticing where we ourselves tend to grab control, shut down, or disappear when conflict surfaces.

Once we have something to notice, we move to Discern. Here we ask: What does what I’m noticing mean? Discernment is where we connect dots between individual behavior and larger systems—white supremacy, anti-Blackness, class hierarchy, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, colonial logics, and more. We might discern that what looks like “efficiency” is actually power being hoarded at the top. Or that what’s being called “neutral” policy is replicating racist or anti-Black outcomes. Discernment also asks, Is this the right use of power in this moment? Sometimes decisive, top-down action might be necessary (for example, in an immediate safety concern). Other times, the same pattern is a red flag that we’re reproducing the very dynamics we say we’re fighting.

Articulate is the step where we bring what we’re seeing and sensing into shared language. This is where we risk saying out loud, “It feels like decisions are being made without us,” or, “I’m noticing that funders are being treated like friends, but they are actually accountable to the mayor’s office, not to this community.” Articulation can happen in many forms—meeting comments, emails, one-on-one conversations, public statements—but the key is that we name the dynamics rather than leaving them as a vague unease or private resentment. Naming is a small but powerful act: it takes something that feels personal and turns it into something we can examine together. It also reveals where there is shared experience and where there is disagreement, which is crucial for honest collective work.

Finally, we Decide. Decision is where we move from “this is what’s happening” to “this is what we’re going to do about it.” That might be as small as deciding to ask a clarifying question in the next meeting, or as large as deciding to redesign a governance structure, refuse a grant, call out misconduct, or organize collectively. Decide asks: Given what we’ve noticed, discerned, and articulated, what risks are we willing to take? What boundaries do we need? What solidarities can we deepen? What experiments in action can we try? Importantly, deciding doesn’t guarantee control over outcomes. What it does is re-root us in participation instead of passivity. We may not dictate the whole system, but we can choose our stance within it.

Using Notice, Discern, Articulate, Decide as an ongoing practice, rather than a one-time exercise, is a way to resist the contraction of imagination and possibility that authoritarianism depends on. Fascism and austerity work by making us feel small, isolated, and grateful for crumbs. This framework slows us down enough to see that power is not only “out there” in city hall or a boardroom; it’s also moving through our agendas, our facilitation choices, our hiring practices, our invitations, our silences. When we practice noticing, discerning, articulating, and deciding—in our organizations, our collaborations, and our own lives—we start to reclaim some of that ground. We’re not just reacting to change; we’re understanding our place within it and choosing how we want to move.