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Volume
Five, Number Three (February 2004)
"What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them
how."
–W.
Wordsworth, from "The Prelude"
NOTES FROM READERS
What you
think
I am tardy this
month, both because this has been an especially busy season and
because the technical glitches I (and you) have experienced the past
couple of issues necessitate a change in the means of delivery of
these Notes. I apologize
for the hassle and inconvenience of the multiple postings in October
and December. Many of you
were kind to report that you enjoy Notes a good bit – but don’t
need 15 copies of the same issue!
Thanks for your patience and good humor.
This issue is being delivered directly from my desktop via a
simple email address book. I
am exploring options to manage our list going forward and will attempt
to make my choice as seamless as possible.
Besides your welcome holiday
greetings and appreciations for the conversation and forum these Notes
are meant to evoke, the most substantive response to the last issue
came from long-time friend, James Greenfield, who has taught most of
us much of what we know about accountability.
His wise words: “On the topic of accountability (my
favorite), this crucial issue is getting more attention by nonprofit
organizations but few know how to "be accountable" or, more
importantly, how to quantify the results as outcomes of their daily
programs and services as measurable benefits delivered back to the
community. United Way's workbooks and required attention to
outcomes measurement are to be praised for taking the lead in offering
a methodology to be accountable. Another "how to"
source is a book by James Cutt and Vic Murray, "Accountability
and Effectiveness Evaluation in NonProfit Organizations" (Ruttledge,
2000) that also includes how to conduct a "Balanced
Scorecard" analysis, another measurable tool. We do not
lack the tools, only the resolve to do the work required.”
Thanks, Jim, for your resolve and
imagination.
Occasionally,
I (or my colleagues) refer to items from previous issues of Notes.
If you have not been a subscriber previously, and wish to
review our conversations, past issues of Notes are available on-line
at www.jgacounsel.com.
The website version of Notes also includes helpful hyperlinks
to sources for purchasing or subscribing to the various publications
mentioned in Notes. I
thank my friends at Johnson, Grossnickle & Associates for their
many years of abiding support for our reflective practice.
REFLECT
ON THIS
Serendipity and
spontaneity
The launching of a comprehensive master planning process for the
college’s buildings and grounds has occasioned much reflection for
me on the nature of space and how it helps or hinders the building of
community. And so, while
the process primarily means that I learn more than I ever thought
possible about building materials and fire codes and turf management,
I also find myself focused on the gifts of location and place.
Two interrelated themes are in my thoughts.
I am intrigued, first, by the concept of serendipity.
A recently published volume by the late sociologists, Robert
Merton and Elinor Barber (The Travels and
Adventures of Serendipity: A Study in Sociological Semantics and the
Sociology of Science,
2004), opened my eyes to the origin of the concept and its
evolution as an explanatory tool in science.
Merton and Barber describe how, in contemporary popular
culture, serendipity has become a way to describe a talent for being
lucky – a definition that helps a suspicious democratic public
explains away elitism. The
book itself, however, offers a fascinating tale of the source of the
concept and helps to correct our misconceptions of serendipity.
The folk tale of “The Three Princes of Serendip” tells a
story of how the accidental spurs insight.
The authors suggest that the process of examining the
accidental is itself serendipity – and through that process
knowledge is gained. What
a wonderful way of describing what happens in a college.
Our accidental discoveries become the essence of our knowledge.
As we plan space for our college, what we are seeking to do is create
opportunities and contexts for serendipity to occur.
The way that lounge furniture is arrayed, the informal
arrangements of tables and chairs at the intersection of classroom
hallways, the gathering places alongside busy sidewalks become
opportunities for accidental interactions to be the source of insight,
for relationships to be born, for conversations to occur, for ideas to
be hatched.
In a similar vein, I also wonder about how a plan for space helps to
encourage what I call spontaneous engagement, those rare
moments when there are no plans, no predetermined outcomes, no stake
in accomplishing an objective. I
have been worrying lately about how my leadership team can be more
present at events and gatherings on campus, thus illustrating our
common interest in students and faculty and the wider community.
We occasionally review upcoming events and essentially make
assignment to ensure that one or more of us will be at key gatherings.
This makes me crazy (as important as it may be) because the
wonder of a small college community should be the opportunities we
have to interact and participate together in a wide variety of
community activities - spontaneously.
Planning for our presence takes away the surprise and wonder of
spontaneous engagement.
Though we all are busy with significant institutional projects, what I
have come to see is that those moments of spontaneous engagement point
to some essential characteristics of a healthy community.
They are moments of trust
– where a student trusts me enough to cross over the natural divide
between him or herself and the president (or where I trust enough to
do the same!). They also
are moments of personal and
institutional growth because when we engage each other we share
something of ourselves, risking that the other will do the same, and
in our engagement we create something more than ourselves – the work
of abundance. Finally,
they are moments of genuine love
because when we trust and grow through such engagements we are
expressing a regard for each other that is at the heart of healthy
relationships. I can plan
to attend an athletics event, but my love for this institution is
genuinely expressed when I engage the parent seated next to me about
how her daughter is doing in a tough chemistry class.
How does space help to create and sustain trust, growth and love in
our community? That is the
accidental dynamic we are exploring in our search for insight about
how best to plan and steward the facilities, grounds and location that
have been bequeathed to us. Our
emerging ideas and practices are the stuff of leadership in this
important aspect of our college’s life.
A commonplace
on learning
One of the rich and evocative trends in education is the reorientation
of the educational experience from one of receiving data and
information to be processed (i.e., being taught) to one in which
student and teacher are partners in the work of learning.
We are all teachers and we are all learners.
Our good dean here at Rockford College, Stephanie Quinn – a
scholar and teacher of the classics – recently recounted her
experience returning to the classroom to learn Italian in preparation
for summer travels. She
exclaimed, “How wonderful it is to be a student, to use your mind
and heart to embrace a text, a conversation, an experience!”
May we all find such joy in the lifelong adventure of learning.
In that path, I offer the following commonplace on the experience of
learning. I trust they
will take you to new places in your own adventure.
“My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments
with you, making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart
to understanding; yes, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice
for understanding; if you seek it like silver and search for it as
hidden treasures; then you will understand the fear of the Lord and
find the knowledge of God.” (Proverbs
2: 1-5)
“And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and
all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but
do not have love, I am nothing…For now we see in a mirror dimly, but
then we will see face to face. Now
I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully
known.” (I Corinthians 13: 2, 12)
“One cannot doubt that in the
United States
the instruction of the people serves powerfully to maintain a
democratic republic. It
will be so, I think, everywhere that the instruction that enlightens
the mind is not separated from the education that regulates mores.”
(A. deTocqueville, Democracy
in America)
“The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently
by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking
conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly
becomes one you have never read, never
even heard of . . .
No wonder you rise
in the middle of the night
To look up the date
of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon
in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem
that you used to know by heart.”
(Billy Collins,
from “Forgetfulness”)
“Be patient
toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the
questions themselves . . . Do not now seek the answers, which cannot
be given you because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now. Perhaps
you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant
day into the answer.” (R. Rilke, from Letters
to a Young Poet)
“But if I am to
let my life speak things I want to hear, things I would gladly tell
others, I must also let it speak things I do not want to hear and
would never tell anyone else!” (Parker
Palmer, from Let Your Life Speak)
“Education is about creating people of
‘wondrous ability, subsequently fit for everything.’” (Martin
Luther)
“I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not.
Across the color line I move arm in arm with Balzac and Dumas,
where smiling men and women glide in gilded halls.
From out the caves of evening that swing between the
strong-limbed earth and the tracery of the stars, I summon Aristotle
and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come all graciously with
no scorn nor condescension. So,
wed with truth, I dwell above the veil.
Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly
America
?”
(W.E.B. Du Bois, from The
Souls of Black Folk)
“Human beings are designed for learning.
No one has to teach an infant to walk, or talk, or master the
spatial relationships needed to stack building blocks that don’t
topple . . . Unfortunately, the primary institutions of our society
are oriented predominantly toward controlling rather than learning,
rewarding individuals for performing for others rather than for
cultivating their natural curiosity and impulse to learn . . .”
(Peter Senge, from The
Fifth Discipline)
“. . . I would contend at
all costs in both word and deed as far as I could that we will be
better men, braver and less idle, if we believe that one must search
for the things one does not know, rather than if we believe that it is
not possible to find out what we do not know and that we must not look
for it.” (Plato, from Meno)
“. . . I am convinced that the present concentration of the
best educated and most able people in centers of power, industry and
culture is a serious mistake. I
believe that for many reasons—political, ecological, and
economic—the best intelligence and talent should be at work and at
home everywhere in the country. And
therefore my wishes for our schools are opposite to those . . .
present-day politics of education.
Wes Jackson has argued that our schools—to balance or replace
their present single major in upward mobility—should offer a major
in homecoming. I agree.”
(Wendell Berry, Another Turn of the
Crank)
I welcome your thoughts and lessons on learning to extend these
provocative words.
PRACTICE THIS
The call
of civic prosperity
In the October 2003 issue of Notes, I discussed the concept of civic
prosperity – the mature work of citizenship in a democracy, by which
we create genuine partnerships in pursuit of ever more effective and
responsible ways of meeting individual and social needs.
It is a wonderful concept and one that is guiding much of my
scholarship and service this year.
I was pleased to read in the January 2004 issue of Fast
Company an article
entitled “Social Capitalists; The Top 20 Groups that are Changing
the World.” Apart from
the good work being done by the featured organizations, I found the
criterion used by the magazine to pick the top groups a helpful way of
describing the work of civic prosperity.
The five criteria and a brief description of how they are measured:
Entrepreneurship
– The ability to do a lot with a little – to galvanize resources
and to build an effective and efficient organization around an idea.
Innovation –
The startling new “big idea” or business model that’s not just
unique but also a dramatic leap from solutions that existed before.
Social impact – Results, pure and simple.
The best groups demonstrate both immediate impact as well as
the promise of broader systemic change.
Aspiration – It’s one thing to think big.
But future goals have to fit with past growth and with the
resources available.
Sustainability – Can it last?
It’s one thing to deliver impact now and another to build an
organization that anticipates and adapts to change.
What a fine way to describe and measure what it means to build
prosperity in our democracy. How
well are you doing?
After Action Reviews
I have referenced on occasion the work of the Society for
Organizational Learning, based at MIT and the publisher of Reflections, now an on-line publication (www.reflections.solonline.org).
In the December 2003 issue, an article entitled “Cultivating
a Learning Economy” describes the use of After Action Reviews (AAR),
a tool first developed by the U.S. Army to help accelerate learning
and now a practice embraced by organizations attempting to build a
culture of continuous learning.
The relatively low-tech
concept of the
AAR
seems quite doable for most organizations and the article’s authors
offer a helpful synopsis of how the consistent use of AARs offers a
vehicle for deep understanding, a safe way to discuss difficult
issues, and a way of building reflective practice into the work of an
organization.
AARs occur throughout the life of a project, focus on ongoing
actions, and produce an action plan that project participants can use
to be successful. Often
guided by a trained facilitator, the AARs are meant to eliminate the
role of rank through rules and processes that create a safe
environment for conversation across hierarchical (and disciplinary)
boundaries. The format for
an
AAR
includes:
- A
review of what was intended to be accomplished.
- Establishing
the “ground truth” of what actually happened.
- Consideration
of what might have caused events to occur as they did.
- The
articulation of lessons to be learned for ongoing work.
- Establishing
plans and expectations for the ongoing work.
As we all seek to create more knowledge-based organizations, a simple
tool such as the
AAR
strikes me as an accessible and effective model.
A four-way test
I am proud to be a member of the Rotary International, a service club
whose work around the world to eradicate polio and its educational
exchange programs are both exemplary.
The January 2004 issue of Rotarian
magazine focused some attention on one of the distinctive aspects of
Rotary – its four-way test of the values that should guide personal
and social behavior. The
test includes the following four questions to be asked:
- Is
it the truth?
- Is
it fair to all concerned?
- Will
it build goodwill and better friendships?
- Will
it be beneficial to all concerned?
Originally drafted
as a business ethic, a concise guide to ethical behavior, the Four Way
Test is the focus of several articles highlighting its history and
use. Of special interest
is an interview with Randy Cohen, the New York Times ethics columnist, who comments that the test offers a
helpful framework for ethical reflection, but as with all such efforts
to offer moral guidance, legalistic adherence to the rules could be
dangerous in our messy and complex human lives.
Use the test’s questions as “tools for thinking, techniques
for analyzing the moral implications of the situation” and then be
both generous of spirit and forgiving of human frailty – both
critical aspects of the moral life.
Wise words from a fellow ethicist!
PAY ATTENTION TO THIS
Resources for your reflective practice
Most of you know
already my deep interest in the “seven deadly sins” and their
relevance for contemporary moral reflection.
Imagine my delight therefore when Oxford University Press
announced its new series on the serious vices.
Each written by a well-known author (Joseph Epstein, Wendy
Wasserstein, Simon Blackburn, et al.), the slim volumes are
delightful. Three of the
seven have been issued thus far. I
have read Joseph Epstein’s wonderful Envy
and have begun Francine Prose’s Gluttony.
I received as a Christmas
gift Julie Salamon’s elegant Rambam’s
Ladder: A Meditation on Generosity and Why It is Necessary to Give
(Workman Publishing, 2003). It
is a text about which I will comment in a future issue of Notes.
Another welcome
holiday gift was Margaret J. Wheatley’s Turning
to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future
(Berrett-Koehler, 2002). Wheatley’s
evocative and instructive words are meant to be practiced.
For my
valentine
I have the
wonderful pleasure of being married to someone who was born on
Valentine’s Day. For my
valentine (and yours), this poem:
The
Orange
by Wendy Cope
At lunchtime I
bought a huge orange—
The size of it made
us all laugh.
I peeled it and
shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters
and I had a half.
And that orange, it
made me so happy,
As ordinary things
often do
Just lately.
The shopping. A
walk in the park.
This is peace and
contentment. It’s new.
The rest of the day
was quite easy.
I did all the jobs
on my list
And enjoyed them
and had some time over.
I love you.
I’m glad I exist.
Subscription
information
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Topics for the next issue (April 2004)
- Charters
and indigenous peoples
- The
company as village: implications for social responsibility and
corporate giving
- Deliberation
days
(c)
Paul Pribbenow, 2003
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