Leading Effectively Blog

What do you see? A different kind of conversation at New York University's Wagner Graduate School for Public Service

How do we develop leadership for public service?

A number of us at CCL have the pleasure of collaborating with colleagues at the Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service at New York University. One question we have explored together is, How do we develop leadership for public service?  Wagner sees its relationship to student through this lens of leadership development. Dean Ellen Schall's addressed this year's graduating class and talked about this relationship:

"We have always understood at Wagner that it mattered how we started to engage you, even as prospective students, that we were beginning a conversation, perhaps a relationship--one that could last for years. Two years ago, when many of you applied, we decided to add a particular twist to our application, in part to get your attention, in part to signal we were after a different level of engagement. We gave you the possibility of responding to a photo, a visual image, from a collection of images developed by colleagues at the Center for Creative Leadership. As you may remember, we use Visual Explorer, which is what CCL calls this approach, at orientation as well. The basic idea is that it’s easier to get the conversation started when you have an object in the middle. And we wanted to get a conversation started."

This "twist" has worked well.

“It allows us to get a deeper sense of the applicant’s passion for/commitment to an issue, and unlocks the depth of interest in a way that is not always achievable in a standard admissions essay,” says Tracey Gardner, Wagner’s chief of staff.

This Sunday's New York Times published a slide show of the most compelling images and themes.

What does a swimming tiger suggest about public policy, or a pricked finger say about your goals?

Development of leadership in public service begins with engagement. How do you attract and engage students so that learning can be deeper? It can start with a simple question: What do you see?

"Too often," notes Ellen Schall, "applying to graduate school is transactional. We added Visual Explorer because we wanted to signal that the Wagner experience is transformational. Visual Explorer calls for people to slow down enough to reflect on their own experiences, connect their passion for public service to their professional goals, and offer their own perspectives on how to change the world."

Contact Chuck Palus at CCL Labs for more information on using Explorer Tools to create more effective and engaging surveys, and for visual support for collaborative conversations.For more information on this work at NYU Wagner click here.

Developing global youth leadership

Visual Explorer™ at the Global Youth Summit from Chuck Palus on Vimeo.

The Center for Creative Leadership reaches out to young leaders throughout the world through efforts such as our Leadership Beyond Boundaries initiative. Recently, we were happy to donate our Visual Explorer™ (VE) tool to Jane Goodall's Global Youth Summit, which brought together 100 young people from 28 countries to acquire "a toolbox for changing the world." VE was used in the closing exercise, to explore the question "What is one of the most important things that you learned about leadership at the Global Youth Summit?" The video above wonderfully captures the essence of the activity. The facilitator, David Shurna, the Executive Director of Global Explorers, describes it this way:

I used Visual Explorer at the conclusion of the week long summit as a way for students to share what they had learned about leadership throughout the week. I have attached the PowerPoint presentation that represents all of the images chosen by the students coupled with words about their action projects and their leadership lesson.

I was particularly struck by how well this work across cultures. We had youth ages 16-24 from more than 20 countries involved in the activity. Many were from developing countries and English was their second language. The images helped them open up and share powerful lessons and ideas in ways that we had not seen the rest of the week.

I was particularly struck by the variety of images selected and the creative ways in which students expressed their thoughts. One student from Kenya selected an image of a burning house [see below] and described the way in which this photo represented the destruction of his country that was taking place right now. Yet beyond the fire, he saw in the image something that represented his hope that he could inspired change when he returned.

Another student from Hong Kong selected the rugby image and discussed the ways in which he felt that he was often beat up, pushed around and discouraged by the lack of progress he was making on environmental issues in Hong Kong. Yet, he said the conference reminded him that we all get beat up at times and we need to have persistence and hope.

Not too many dry eyes in the room after these moments. Thanks so much for being willing to share this incredible resource with our organization.