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Notes for
the Reflective Practitioner by Dr. Paul Pribbenow |
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Volume
One, Number Four (April 2000) ****** "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 was pleased to receive many replies to the last issue of Notes—and also to hear from a large number of new subscribers. The community and the conversation expands. First, a mea culpa or two. Some of you have noticed that the Wordsworth quote that prefaces "Notes" was ascribed for the first couple of issues to Rainer Rilke. I am grateful to my brother, Dean, who first brought the error to my attention. I first learned of the Wordsworth line from Robert Bellah and company's "Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life" (University of California Press, 1985), and have used it as a guiding principle ever since. Marc Hilton, a fine Chicago friend and historian, noted that my vignette about Adlai Stevenson II and the possibility of reflective politics overstated Governor Stevenson's public service. He did not serve as U.S. senator, though his son, Adlai III, did. One of my staff members here at Wabash, Joe Emmick, was good to remind me that a recent article by F. Warren McFarlan entitled "Working on Nonprofit Boards: Don't Assume the Shoe Fits," which appeared in the November/December 1999 issue of "Harvard Business Review" is a nice complement (or challenge) to my notes about reflective trusteeship. My father-in-law, Norman Crampton (no, not all of my subscribers are employees or relatives!), tied together his experience on a ministry discernment committee for the Episcopal church in Indiana and as a keen observer of corporate life in America to suggest that the important role of silence in spiritual formation and problem-solving is anathema to the corporate world. Any counter experiences or opinions? We never said it would be easy. Richard Swindle, vice president at Franklin College (Indiana), was kind to once again suggest a helpful reference. He notes that the March 2000 issue of "Fast Company" has an article entitled "Do you have the will to lead?", which focuses on the work of Peter Koestenbaum, a corporate consultant. Koestenbaum encourages leaders to "deepen themselves" and motivate others by "risking yourself with a personal, lifetime commitment to greatness and encouraging others to follow your example to experience responsible freedom." I remain an enthusiastic reader of 'Fast Company" primarily because of what it teaches me about the state of the world in which we live and work. I recently have been reading Jedediah Purdy's "For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today" (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), which offers a compelling indictment of the world "Fast Company" seeks to describe and perhaps perpetuate, the world of free agency. I find the tensions between "Fast Company" and Purdy very instructive. Finally, Kris Kindelsperger, vice president at Hanover College (Indiana), commented on how the tolerance for ambiguity that managers must have to be sane and successful is, in his experience, the only antidote to the "daily assault of contradictory input" many managers receive. He also noted how gratifying and tricky it is to surround yourself with colleagues who genuinely want to share responsibility. Well said. I encourage your notes on what you read here or elsewhere. Thanks for keeping the conversation alive and well. ****** REFLECT ON THIS >>Community-building<< On occasion, someone in one of my workshops will say with some frustration that it is all well and good that I have the time, the capacity, and the status to make change happen, to find meaningful work, or to reflect on things in the way I challenge everyone to do. But, they say, not everyone has the same opportunities. Not everyone has the luxury to be reflective. I am sympathetic to that frustration and sometimes am a bit more hopeful about the possibility of responsible change and reflective practice than my colleagues, but at the same time, I will not accept that reflective practice is a luxury, available only to those with certain rank or experience. The challenge then becomes helping all of those around us to find ways in which they can become reflective practitioners. And those ways may be very different. The key task is that we seek, in our own ways, to build communities of reflective practitioners and institutions that encourage reflective practice. This newsletter is one way I trust and hope to build such a community. You must find your own ways, choose your own battles, make good happen within the settings and circumstances you inhabit. Someone whose efforts to encourage reflective practice I have admired is Kathleen Carpenter, who founded "Chicago Philanthropy," a quarterly magazine in which my Notes first appeared. I note with some sadness that Kathleen has decided to discontinue publication—the circumstances of that decision are complex—but in her four years of exploring the state of the philanthropic community in the midwest, she made a difference. And that is what we all must do. >>What's the buzz about strategy?<< Michael E. Porter, professor at the Harvard Business School, is recognized as perhaps the leading thinker on the topic of organizational strategy. His "On Competition" (Harvard Business Review Book, latest edition, 1998) is a classic and illustrates almost twenty years of evolving thinking about the role of strategy. A helpful shorter introduction to Porter's work is a "Harvard Business Review" article entitled "What is Strategy?" (Harvard Business Review, November/December 1996), which I highly recommend. In the article, Porter draws the important distinction between strategy and operational effectiveness, arguing that operational effectiveness is necessary but not sufficient for strong performance. He suggests that many organizations have substituted management tools—which serve effectiveness—for strategy, which is about how an organization positions itself as distinctive. Both effectiveness and strategy are crucial aspects of organizational well-being. I have observed that many nonprofit organizations tend not to see how strategic choices are crucial aspects of determining priorities for what an organization does. Once we make these strategic choices—which Porter says lead us to "deliberately choose a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value"—then we are ready to manage the activities to ensure effectiveness. Without the strategy, however, operational effectiveness is pursued without reference to the values and priorities that strategic choices embody. We can have the best-managed organization in the world, but if we are not clear about who we are, why we do the work, who we serve, and who our competition is (all of which we know through strategic thinking and planning), then effectiveness does not necessarily ensure success. Our recent strategic planning efforts at Wabash College have illustrated the crucial role of organizational strategy. As a liberal arts college, how are we different than our distinguished colleagues—both public and private institutions that profess to teach the liberal arts, not to mention a variety of other organizations and activities that seek to attract our students? To be strategic, we have explored our mission (why we exist), our core values (the sources of institutional character and integrity), and the environment in which we exist (the analysis of competition, institutional resources, and so forth). On this foundation of values and careful analysis, we have considered how the way we educate students is different (or could be different) than other institutions. We have identified activities that create value for our students. The strategic plan presents ways in which activities can be organized to position us as unique and distinctive as an institution of higher learning. For us, this involves close, life-long relationships between faculty and students, creative uses of technology to supplement (not supplant) face-to-face learning, access to diverse and global resources, and the promise of an extended community of alumni and friends who will extend the experience of our students while on campus and after they graduate. Our deliberate, mission- and core value-based choices about how to configure these activities to "add value" for our students positions us uniquely as a college. Our strategy then defines a set of activities that will need to be managed and monitored for effectiveness and success—but the strategy comes first and that is why we have spent almost 18 months being sure that our entire community believes in our mission, how we will position ourselves, and the difference it will make for how we do our work together. Exciting stuff this organizational strategy! >>Lessons from my journeys<< I spend a good bit of my work life traveling on behalf of Wabash. I visit alumni and friends of the College all across the country, listening to them, sharing their stories, building stronger relationships between this college and its many friends. I have found my various journeys to be instructive, and so, I humbly offer a few suggestions of how we might travel on life’s way. First, I have learned again and again of the great diversity of our world, about its different people and climates and environments and attitudes. When I travel to Los Angeles or New York or Atlanta—and many small towns in between--my comfortable worldview is challenged. Difference is frightening and exciting and disruptive—it forces us to adapt and change and struggle. Difference is part of our nature; the world is wonderfully more than people and places that look and think like me. To fully live in the world is to never assume that our way of seeing and doing things is the only way. In my travels, I am challenged to be with people whom I must love—if I expect them to love me—and that is not easy, but it is the claim upon me as I seek to be a good citizen of the world. Second, I am reminded that I am linked in critical ways to the entire span of human history. Too many people in our world see their experience as atomized, ahistorical, somehow separate from the web of relationships and commitments that define our common life; they view their efforts as personal, in the moment, self-fulfilling. These are disturbing and frightening views of human existence. When I stay in a hotel room, I am reminded of all those who have gone before me and will follow—for good or ill! When I visit with Wabash alumni and friends, I am brought into stories about relationships and traditions and experiences that cross time and space. When I visit new cities, I relish the thoughts that I am standing on soil and walking sidewalks and seeing places where fellow human beings have gone before me. That is history, wonderful history, and I have the privilege of living in it. An historical people learn that to be authentically human is to keep faith with our histories. Finally, I have learned that my journeys are so very lonely, far away from the familiar, the love and grace of close relationships, of communities of memory that sustain and give my life meaning. Long days and nights in strange places, never spending enough time in one place to feel grounded, naturally leave me feeling disconnected and lonely. But it is in those very moments of loneliness that I also have learned how my aloneness is graced with many blessings of hospitality. When I am alone, I am most able to know love through an act of kindness from a stranger. A word of welcome, a smile, a recognition that I need help, an ordinary act of hospitality by a hotel staff member or an airline crew member—these are examples of how I am blessed. Sometimes, in our various journeys, we must know the loneliness and solitude so that we might be open to the great grace of hospitality. As we embark on our various journeys—journeys for work, or to solve personal problems, or to find our way to a new home—it seems quite fitting and necessary that we recognize the lessons we might find along the way. May your journeys be full of rich and abiding lessons. >>Acknowledgement and stewardship<< Last year I was leading a workshop on stewardship for a group of senior fund-raisers in Toronto. As part of our session, I asked the participants to think about their stewardship autobiographies; what, in their own experiences, had shaped their understanding and practice of stewardship? I had the usual set of rich and moving responses. Families, religious communities, personal acts of kindness, a special teacher—each of these had somehow made a mark on a participant, giving him or her the vocabulary, an experience, a story or image, that illustrated stewardship and challenged and motivated him or her to be good stewards in life and work. One response in particular caught my attention. A man who worked for the local AIDS foundation suggested that the first thing that came to mind for him when considering stewardship was the word "acknowledge." Now, for those of us in the fund-raising world, we know that acknowledge and acknowledgement are the fairly typical words we use to describe the techniques of thanking and recognizing gifts to our institutions. Those of us in that Toronto room realized the fascinating twist the man was putting on a stereotypical aspect of our work. As with much of how stewardship is used in our world and organizations today, we have limited its power and meaning to techniques intended to function as good stewardship. Instead, we were being reminded that to acknowledge someone or something (to recognize all of the gifts we have been given and our obligations to care for them) was at the core of good stewardship. My Oxford Pocket Dictionary says that "to acknowledge" means, among other things, "to admit the truth of, to recognize the claims of." The workshop participant in Toronto challenged all of us to think beyond techniques, and to admit the truth and recognize the claims of the many gifts we are given. What a gift, indeed. ****** PRACTICE THIS >>Reframing organizations<< I have long been a student of organizational behavior and one of the most helpful texts I have found on the topic is Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal, "Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership" (Jossey-Bass, 2nd edition, 1997). Bolman and Deal outline a holistic way of diagnosing and responding to organizational issues, reminding all of us that our attempts to control and predict what happens in organizations are futile—all we can do (in fact, what we must do!) is seek to understand what really is happening and help organizations navigate their circumstances. Bolman and Deal suggest that there are at least four lenses or frames through which we must view life in organizations, and that these various frames help us gain a more accurate picture of organizational dynamics. And better diagnosis gives us the best opportunity for appropriate and effective responses. Think of your own organization as you consider the four frames: (1) The structural frame--structure means various things, including division of labor, how jobs are defined, policies and procedures for staff and board, budgets, the steps we take to achieve goals and objectives, etc. (2) The human resources frame--human resources includes the fit between individual and organizational needs, how people are treated in the workplace, how people are held accountable, how collaboration and teamwork is promoted, etc. (3) The political frame—politics include the role and forms of power, the way in which conflict is managed, how you organize forums and processes by which scarce resources are divided, how coalitions are built, etc. (4) The symbolic frame--symbols include the rituals of our organization's life, how heroes and heroines are identified and celebrated, what comprises your organizational culture, what stories you tell and don't tell to depict the meaning of your work, etc. The key issue in using the frames is that we must not assume that a specific incident is adequately understood by viewing it through one frame only. When a new program isn't going well and we are tempted to reengineer its structure, think also about the fit between program staff and purpose, about the power issues at play, about the symbolism of the program—you may still want to reorganize (a structural response), but the holistic view of organizations may help you see alternative ways of making things work. >>Strategic questioning<< Since strategy is a critical aspect of organizational mission and integrity, I commend the practice of strategic questioning as a means to help ourselves and our colleagues find our way through change with a sense of values and direction. The "Key Nonprofit Strategist" (Volume 6, No. 1, Winter 2000) distributed by Key Asset Management, refers to the work of Tova Green, Peter Woodrow, and Fran Peavey, in whose "Insight and Action: How to Discover and Support a Life of Integrity and Commitment to Change" (New Society Publishers, Philadelphia), we learn that strategic questions involve seven key factors:
****** PAY ATTENTION TO THIS >>A few references<< I have recently begun to receive an email column entitled "Sightings," which is published by the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School. The column appears every few days with comments by faculty members and associates of the Marty Center on topics of current interest, seen through the lens of religious history and conviction. It is a real treat to have Marty's brief notes on the Elian Gonzalez case or Chris Gamwell's comments on a recent Supreme Court case. If you are interested, you can subscribe to "Sightings" by sending an email to Jonathan Moore, managing editor, at rjmoore@midway.uchicago.edu with the word "Sightings" in the subject line. Enjoy. The March/April 2000 issue of "Trusteeship," published by the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB), includes an interesting article by Anne Ponder, president of Colby-Sawyer College (New Hampshire) entitled "A Four Page Strategic Plan." It is a helpful reminder of the core characteristics of a strategic planning process and document—applicable to a wide range of organizations, not just colleges. One of the wonders of email and web-based technologies are the opportunities for participation in on-going conversations about topics of common interest. We all need to resist the temptation to over-subscribe, but I have found the listserv organized by the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) to be worth the time it takes to read posts from academics and practitioners about research and practice issues in the nonprofit world. The first-hand accounts of the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle in December (list members posting from Seattle) were worth the price of admission. Regular posts from well-known scholars also keep the list alive and engaging. For subscription information, visit the ARNOVA website at www.arnova.org. >>Great stories with memorable openings and endings<< Norman Maclean, who taught English at the University of Chicago for many years, was a master storyteller. I have read his "A River Runs Through It and Other Stories" (University of Chicago Press, 1976) so many times that I have gone through three copies of the book. Robert Redford's movie adaptation of "A River Runs Through It" doesn't do full justice to the story, but it too is well done. One of Maclean's special gifts is how he begins and ends his stories. He draws you in with a remarkable image and lets you go with a phrase that you never forget. Perhaps, kind readers, you have your own memorable stories with openings and/or endings that we all should read. "A River Runs Through It" opens with: "In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in eastern Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fishermen." From there, the story unfolds with a tale of fly-fishing, religion, and various forms of discipleship. And as he closes the story, Maclean writes: "Eventually, all things emerge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut from the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters." I often quote another passage from "A River Runs Through It" that occurs near the close of the story. Maclean is the first-person narrator of the story. Maclean's father says to him, "You like to tell true stories, don't you?" and Maclean responds, "Yes, I like to tell stories that are true." Then father asks, "After you have finished your true stories sometime, why don't you make up a story and the people to go with it? Only then will you understand what happened and why. It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us." Perhaps we all need to learn to make up stories. >>Subscription information<< Subscriptions to Notes are simple to establish. Send me an email at pribbenp@wabash.edu, ask to be added to the list, and you will receive a confirmation from the mailserver at Wabash College that you are on the list. Please feel free to forward your email versions of Notes to others—they then can subscribe by contacting me. I also am happy to send Notes as an MS Word attachment to an email, if that would make reading it easier for some of you. Just let me know. The current and archive issues of Notes are available on-line at www.jgacounsel.com. >>Topics for the next issue (June 2000)<< * What is the purpose of organizational assessment? Why do we care about outcome measurements, benchmarks, and indicators? Is it about doing better work, justifying our existence, or earning public trust? Perhaps it makes a difference to our assessment efforts to better define why we care to pursue them. * What is the role of emotional intelligence at work? Recent research illustrates how, in addition to intellect and technical skills, effective leaders are alike in one crucial way: they all have a high degree of emotional intelligence. What is emotional intelligence, what difference does it make, and how do we cultivate it for ourselves and others? * What are the commitments by which you manage? Can certain commitments be distracting to our organizations? Can others help us to see more clearly what we must do and why?
(c) Paul Pribbenow, 2000 |