Leading Effectively Blog

Leading Like a Kennedy

I've been listening to coverage of Ted Kennedy's death this week. I didn't know a lot about the man; and to be honest I still don't. A lot of what I know is based on sensational headlines, that weren’t always flattering (e.g. Chappaquiddick).

But as is often the case, the posthumous news is more endearing. Somewhere between the two is probably the real story.

Perhaps his faults, publicly displayed after the Chappaquiddick incident, contributed to him not becoming a U.S. President. The irony is he may have done more for the U.S. as a long serving (since 1962) member of the Senate than he could have as President. Sometimes the worst of failures can spark a positive force. His commitment and contributions to Civil Rights and Universal Health Care are undeniable. These issues continue to challenge the U.S. They are not ‘easy answer’ issues; they require a long term commitment which in turn requires empathy, vision, optimism, and perseverance. These are important ingredients for leadership on hard issues.

I’ll hand it to him – he stuck with it.

A story that stuck with me was of a father of a soldier who died in the Iraq war and how Mr. Kennedy worked with him and others to change the circumstances in Iraq so more soldiers had the protection they needed and fewer would be injured or killed. The father told how Mr. Kennedy accompanied him to Arlington on two occasions to visit his son’s grave and provided the advice to go early in the morning so he could have a ‘private moment in a public place.’

I was struck by Mr. Kennedy’s empathy. I wondered how many private mornings he had spent in Arlington by his brothers’ graves. I imagine he connected the tragedies he’d known to what this father was facing. What was also impressive was his doing something to prevent future tragedies. He fought to help protect soldiers fighting a war he did not support.

As a leader, you don’t abandon your constituents, even if you don’t support their perspectives – you protect them. I certainly don’t agree with many of the things Ted Kennedy said or did, but I admire his commitment to issues that matter a great deal and for his service to the public.

Lessons from Surgical Teams

It was a long wait at the Department of Motor Vehicles to take my motorcycle driving test, so Bryan and I got into one of those conversations about our work. Bryan is the entrepreneur who was renting me a motorcycle and helmet so I could take my test. His day job is as a hospital imaging tech (CT scans, X-rays, and so on).

When I told him about the Center, he asked “Can you do anything for surgeons?” and then launched into a series of stories about the leadership of surgical teams. He said, “I was working with one surgeon recently and everything was going smoothly. He would ask politely for what he needed. He calmly asked for the reports from different members of the team. In the middle of it, it dawned on me that this was extraordinary! A surgeon was being polite and not freaking out.” 

He went on, “On another occasion, we did one surgery with one of the intense, narcissists. The next surgery was with a different surgeon and when he asked for something, the whole surgical team scrambled frantically to get it. He looked around him and held up his hand, ‘Hold up there!’ he said, ‘Wrong doctor!’”

Bryan told me that there was a rumor passing around his hospital that there was a proposal that the team evaluations of the surgeons be eliminated. He didn’t have much confidence in the self-awareness or even willingness of these team leaders to take feedback. “But,” he said, “the teams where the surgeons treat the rest of the team with respect and maintain a professional attitude do better medicine.” He was convinced they had better outcomes too.

I asked Bryan what he did about it. “Well, three of the other techs got fed up with the behavior of one surgeon and they wrote a report to the hospital. I just deal directly with the docs. If I think a surgeon is crossing the line, I’ll tell him...try to make it humorous and not create a problem, but I’ll say something directly to the surgeon.”

He told me about one 25 year veteran surgical assistant who was dealing with a surgeon who began sputtering and waving his hand in front of her face. While quite sure that she actually knew what he wanted, she still challenged him, “What, are we five? Use your words!” 

The fundamentals of leadership are still key. The more power lodged with the designated leader, the more is required of him or her: certainly self-awareness and respect for the contributions of others. It can be a matter of life or death.

Starfish, Spiders, and the Federal Government

I recently had the honor to represent CCL and speak on a leadership panel at a conference hosted by the US Army on the Future Operational Environment: 2009-2025.The goal of the conference was to assess the implications of the future operational environment on leader development, capabilities and concepts, and training. In addition to CCL, the Army invited panelists from a widely divergent cross-section of private industry, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the public sector. It demonstrated to me that the Army is thinking creatively as it considers the future and taps into the best ideas from across our nation.

Ori Brafman, co-author of The Starfish and the Spider was the conference’s keynote speaker. I became intrigued and listened to the audiobook during my travels in the subsequent weeks. The premise of the book is that, although a starfish and a spider have a similar appearance, they are very different creatures.

Cut off the head of a spider and it dies.

Cut off the arm of a starfish and it regenerates an entirely new starfish.

The analogy is that traditional, hierarchical organizations such as the Federal Government are spider-like and are vulnerable to disruption. By contrast, decentralized organizations such as the Apache Indians and Al Qaeda are starfish-like organizations which can morph and grow under pressure and are difficult to defeat. However, each type of organization has its own inherent advantages and disadvantages. Brafman and his co-author, Rob Beckstrom, conclude that the hybrid organizations, combining the best of both types, are the most resilient and effective.

What do starfish and spiders have to do with CCL and leadership development in the Federal Government? CCL’s emerging research and latest interventions, collectively labeled, Transforming Your Organization(TYO), focus on cultural change concurrent with leadership development initiatives. Traditional hierarchical organizations (such as the Federal bureaucracy) are dependent cultures, characterized as dependent upon formal leaders to set direction, establish alignment, and maintain commitment (DAC) and are heavily stove-piped.

You can compare a dependent organization to a spider.By contrast, we have found that an interdependent, collaborative leadership culture is much more effective than a traditional dependent leadership culture. An interdependent leadership culture is characterized by extensive collaboration across boundaries, candor, more than one right answer, and synergies across the enterprise. Producing DAC is a collective activity requiring mutual inquiry and learning. This is more akin to the starfish or, better yet, the hybrid organization.

Consider the Federal Government’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It was definitely spider-like with many uncoordinated limbs. Interagency collaboration was sorely lacking, as noted in The Federal Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons Learned. The report cites stove-piped decision-making and a glaring lack of coordinated action across agencies. This lack of interdependence among the various departments and agencies responding to the crisis contributed to human suffering.

To correct the conditions which led to this state, the report recommends that, “our professional education and development programs must break down interagency barriers to build a unified team across the Federal government.” It also urges “the Federal government must make familiarity with other departments and agencies a requirement for career advancement,” (p. 73). The steps this report recommends are the foundations of establishing an interdependent leadership culture, the hybrid organization of The Starfish and the Spider. This sort of interdependence is currently only found within the Department of Defense and then only because it was mandated by the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986.

The federal government has long recognized the need for this sort of collaboration across agencies but has yet to act. What sort of professional education and development will accomplish these goals? We believe that our Federal Government can become a much more effective and efficient servant of the people if it establishes an interdependent leadership culture which leads to interagency collaboration. CCL has the ability to aid the Government in this transformation of its leadership culture with our TYO program and other emerging work. Our vision for the Federal Government is to help it develop an interdependent culture both within, and across, departments and agencies. This is something CCL is uniquely prepared to do. Creating this interdependent leadership culture will move us closer to a Federal Government which is both effective and efficient and fulfills its responsibilities to its citizenry.

Leadership Under the Bridge

The acknowledged leader (chief) of a homeless encampment in Providence, Rhode Island, was happy to step down when some in the group of 50 or so challenged his leadership. After all, he’d never been elected. It was just that the 55-year-old former factory supervisor had always been seen by those who gathered around him under the condemned freeway overpass by the river as the leader. However, the American assumption is that followers have a say in who will lead.

It wasn’t long before fights broke out among those who had taken up residence in the little tent city. Food was stolen. Soon John Freitas was voted back in as the chief and the community created a compact that included a 5-member leadership council and rules to guide the little community. By July, it had grown to 80 people with its own organization (tents of young single people and substance abusers are near the road so emergency vehicles won’t have to go through the rest of the camp, for example).

While this community is temporary (the overpass will be torn down) it shows how the right kinds of leadership are critical to the health of any group. It may even suggest that the symbolic value of the identified leader is essential to the process. The compact declares that “no person shall be greater than the will of the whole,” but it seems that having the executive function located with one person (Mr. Freitas) provides a kind of security that ensures the safety of the process.

This story from the NY Times provides a nice illustration of some important aspects of leadership and the role of leaders. I’d be interested in know what you see in it.

Creative Conversations With the Women of Kpendua, Ghana, West Africa

We have been field testing Visual Explorer™ with development work in Africa, as part of our Leadership Beyond Boundaries initiative. We were delighted to get this fascinating report recently from Cheri Baker, a Peace Corp worker serving in the most rural areas of Ghana, West Africa.

What does it take to have a creative conversation about a challenging topic? The language and cultural hurdles to conversation here in this story are striking. It is true that words often fail us. If we don't share the same language how can we talk? We see versions of this story even in organizations with a common language and shared culture. It can be really hard work to understand and be understood in conversation. When we began studying dialogue and conversation as part of the CCL Leading Creatively Program, we discovered the power of images to provide bridges, and insights, and generally to "mediate" the conversation. Our theory about this is that images provide metaphors (metaphor is underneath language) in a visible way (we are visual creatures) in the form of cards which can be handled, examined and shared (the mind is embodied and playful, and revels in art).

Here's the story in Cheri's words and images.

From: Cheri Baker
Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 5:44 PM

"Hello yet again! Of course, when I reached Tamale, not only was the Internet down but power all over the city was out for about 12 hours! I'm sorry for the delay, but it's an expected part of life here. Here's some information for your blog about the three women's group meetings I held in Kpendua using the Visual Explorer cards.

Work began soon after moving to a very rural village in the Northern Region of Ghana. As a Health/Water and Sanitation Peace Corps Volunteer, my work is incredibly varied and always interesting. Through constant interactions with the villagers in Kpendua, I have learned more than I ever imagined about another culture and its people.

Since I first moved to Kpendua, I have marveled at how strong and hard working the women are. Because I was so impressed with their dedication to their families, a group of village friends and I decided we should start a Women's Group. But at the first meeting, more than 65 women showed up to participate! In time, our one women's group became four separate ones, and our work together ever since has been very worthwhile.

"This is the Nyobilbaligu Women's Group having their monthly meeting on my veranda. Using the Visual Explorer cards, this meeting focused on thinking for oneself, creativity, problem-solving, and information sharing."

"[In these photos] three women at our women's group meeting trying to decipher what exactly is in each photo. When they weren't asking their friends for help, they were sitting quietly turning the Visual Explorer cards over and over in their hands.

At the majority of our monthly meetings, my Ghanaian counterpart and I teach interactive lessons on HIV/AIDS, nutrition, proper breastfeeding, hand washing, or a topic of a similar nature. For the two strongest and most active groups, we are also trying to create business plans for alternative livelihood projects like corncob charcoal and beekeeping. But the most interesting work I've done with them has been related to the role of a Dagomba (a tribe in Ghana with whom I live) female, gender equality in a village, and leadership development activities.

When I first moved to Kpendua, I used a well-known Peace Corps technique (specifically a PACA tool) in which you begin by posing a positive question to get the group comfortable and more receptive to information gathering, then following up with a more difficult one that makes the group think about some negative aspects of their life. After a meeting in the capital of Ghana with Lyndon Rego, Steadman Harrison, and Phillip Brady from the Center for Creative Leadership, I was able to bring some of CCL's techniques to a village in the North. In three separate women's group meetings, I repeated the same PACA tool--but this time with a very helpful visual aid: CCL's Visual Explorer Cards. And wow, what a difference they made! When I first posed the question to groups of villagers more than a year a go, I just got blank looks in response. When pried, I could get some answers out of the villagers, but the concept and reasoning behind my questioning was too unclear. They couldn't seem to fathom why I was asking them, "What aspects of your life here do you appreciate?" When pushed, they could only answer about tangible things. They'd say, "We like that we have a clinic in our village that serves nine surrounding communities," or "We like that we have a Primary School." I was disappointed to find that that was all I could get out of them. Frustrated at the time, I eventually moved onto other techniques. But this time around, using the same technique with the Visual Explorer cards made all the difference.

While it was still very difficult, the women were very chatty once they understood the concept of the meeting. I started by asking the women, "What is the best thing about living in Kpendua?" (Most villagers I live with trouble with the concept of the word, "best." They also have trouble with the concept of "goals," "improvements," and "future plans," but that's another frustrating story!) When I rephrased the questioning to, "What is already happening in Kpendua that makes you the happiest? What is successful? What is good about living here?"I was able to get a few very informative and interesting responses. The most impressive answer I repeatedly received was related to the Visual Explorer Card (VEC) that depicts a group of young boys standing with their arms around each other's backs.

Through that photo, the women talked about how it's great that everyone here helps each other, specifically to floor compounds (an amazing communal and very musical experience), plaster the mud walls (with a mixture of cow feces and mud), harvest groundnuts, and gather maize for naming ceremonies. Another group commented that they were happy that when a man asks other villagers for communal labor farming, men gladly ride their bicycles to farm to help weed. In addition, they were happy we have meetings and discussions so everyone's voices can be heard. The photo of the dilapidated house by a riverside drew murmurs of approval.

The women said, "The house is very beautiful; it is big and the landlord would be proud to own the house. We are happy that Kpendua has strong mud rooms for strangers (Ghanaian English for "guests") coming to visit because it's nice to have strangers." It was also interesting to hear a woman exclaim she was "happy because she has strong legs to do all the work that women do daily" and that "It's too hard for the women who can't walk well." All this just from a photo of small baby's feet held in an adult's hand!!

When a woman holding the card of crayons asked the translator if it was a picture of bowls, he explained to her that it doesn't matter what the photo is and that what matters is what she sees.

As she grew more comfortable with her thoughts, she made a long speech about how happy bowls make her. She clarified that female villagers use bowls to eat, and food is important. After pushing her to continue, she answered that bowls make her happy because it's nice to serve and share food at baby naming ceremonies and funerals. Though the inevitable tangible answer did come up repeatedly, it was great to hear what the women thought was going well in their communities. They realized they were lucky to have a competent nurse who could take care of them when they were sick at our clinic, which serves the nine surrounding communities.

Another woman's photo reminded her of mosque, and she explained that Fridays made her very happy because everyone was "praying very seriously." Another woman said she was happy we have a road big enough for lorries to pass through our village. Yet another said it made her happy when there was a full moon because people could walk around freely and see at night. (Kpendua has no electricity.) A woman who said it made her happy to see development in Kpendua discussed the photo of an old woman's eyes. Kpendua has a school, a clinic, a mosque, and light poles waiting for electricity. (Though the district has been claiming that "the electricity will certainly come soon" for more than two years, we do have light poles lying on the ground in the middle of the village!) And in a response that portrayed a major tradition in the tribe, a woman said she was happy that the elders here are respected and make the major decisions for the rest of the village after looking at a VEC of an old lady.

After this question, I asked a new series of questions trying to pry answers out of them about they want to happen in Kpendua. I asked questions like, "What do you see in the photos that makes you sad about living in Kpendua? What is difficult? What can we improve on in Kpendua?"This part of our meetings consistently proved very interesting. I have been here for almost two years, but I can rarely get any concrete answer out of this type of question. No matter how patient I am and how many times I explain that my role as a PCV is not to give money, most people just answer this question by saying that they want me to help them buy a tractor. And get more money. This was the first time I was able to hear what the women really want. The VEC cards really helped them open up. With the VEC, I now know that the women with whom I work want a special grinding mill to make shea butter. And on a related note, they want bulk traders to come directly to the village to buy the unprocessed shea nuts. I also learned that they want more Moringa Oleifera trees, a major nutrition project I have been working on with them for about a year. And they want more water, since there are currently only three working boreholes for 3000 people. (There is supposed to be one for every 300 people.) By looking at a VEC of an overturned shopping cart, a woman said she wanted to learn how to do beekeeping. (Apparently word of one of my potential upcoming projects has spread!)

They don't want any more lorry accidents (we had a very serious one a few months ago killing seven people from Kpendua and injuring literally everyone else.) And they don't want people to "grow lean" and suffer without enough food. After gazing at the VEC photo of a pile of skulls, a women said she didn't want any more warfare within the Dagomba tribe. (An ongoing chieftaincy dispute has split the tribe into two major sides.)

But the most exciting answer for me was when each group mentioned that they want latrines!! In the entire village, I still have the only latrine while everyone continues to go to the African "bush" to use the toilet. The women all agreed that they want latrines so they don't have to go to toilet so far away anymore. This answer made me so excited because my counterpart and I have been talking until we've felt like we were blue in the face trying to desensitize the village to the need for latrines.

Overall, the use of the VEC was a huge success. Though one of the women's groups kept asking my counterpart to direct them more with clearer directions, he kept refusing for the sake of the activity. We also spent a great deal of time stressing that there were no wrong answers. They didn't have to know what the picture was of; instead we wanted to hear about anything that they saw. Admittedly, it was also sometimes difficult to get the women to say how the photo related to Kpendua instead of just explaining what they saw in the photo. Even so, I heard more about what aspects of life they want to leave the same and what they want to improve than I have heard in a long time. It was pleasant to hear the women interact so freely with each other, and I enjoyed watching them work together to try to figure out what was on each card.

Near the end of each meeting, women were answering the questions very clearly without using the cards. It was the first time they were so open and forthcoming with their responses. It was an amazing change. I will certainly be using these cards again soon!"