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Notes for
the by Paul Pribbenow, Ph.D. |
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Philanthropy is a journey. Let JGA be your guide. Johnson, Grossnickle and
Associates LLC
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Volume
Two, Number Four (April 2001) ****** "What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how." (W. Wordsworth, from "The Prelude") NOTES FROM READERS >>What you think<< Happy spring, all.
After my Notes appear, many of you send greetings, which I very
much look forward to and see as one of the most gratifying aspects of
this project. I’ve met
many of you, at workshops or conferences or in other common projects,
but we don’t see each other very often and so these missives become a
means of staying in touch. Some
of you I’ve not met, but you’ve found your way to this list through
a friend or some serendipitous connection.
I think all of us take some comfort in the notion that when we
open our e-mailboxes every once and a while, someone we know (and who is
not after us for some work-related reason) has sent us a note, updating
us on their lives, telling us that something reminded them of us, saying
how much they miss us…it is one of the wonders of this technology.
Remember how much it means to you—and then don’t forget how
much it means to a friend or colleague.
Even on-line, it’s about conversation! Several of you wrote
after my last issue to comment on how Ray Oldenburg’s description of
“third places,” those wonderful, informal, lively, leveling, public
places, had resonated with your own experience.
From the gym to the church, you gave me a sense of how these
places have become (or you hope they will become!) the contexts for
happily anticipated gatherings of regulars beyond the realms of home
(the first place) and work (the second place). My friend and teacher,
Bob Payton, commenting on the progression from data to information to
wisdom in good organizational planning, reported that he once came
across a reference to five levels of consciousness: noise, information,
knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.
“Noise actually precedes awareness; information is when noise
becomes a perceptible pattern; knowledge is the first step of finding
meaning in the pattern; understanding fits knowledge and meaning into a
larger context; and wisdom—well, wisdom is whatever it is.”
And Mr. Payton has a good deal of it.
I worry a good bit about the noise. 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 abiding support for our reflective practice. ****** REFLECT ON THIS >>Civility in
transition: the ethics of coming and going<< As I mentioned in my
last Notes, reader Dree Thomson-Diamond wrote to describe a difficult
professional transition and suggested that I might consider addressing
how those of us who are professionals in the philanthropic community
treat each other during such transitions.
What are the links between professional status and respect?
How do we balance our various professional and personal
priorities when a transition is upon us?
Notes subscriber, Jack Sigel, wrote to say that he looked forward
to this discussion of professional transitions because he had recently
decided to change careers, moving into philanthropy from a more
traditional academic career. He noted that in his experience, the community of
professionals in philanthropy “demonstrated…the prevalence of what
Charles Dickens termed ‘fellow feeling’ among those involved in this
work.” May we all experience such fellow feeling! It is particularly
meaningful for me to return to this topic now because I, too, am about
to go through a professional transition.
As some of you know, I have long thought that I would like to be
a college president. Folks
at Wabash have been very supportive of that aspiration and I have had
many opportunities here to learn about how to lead a college.
Last fall, after many conversations with President Andy Ford, I
decided that it was time to set sail for a presidency.
Wabash was about to announce a significant increase in its
campaign goal and the college would need consistent leadership for the
next phase of the campaign. So,
I decided to step down as Dean for College Advancement at the end of
June 2001. My successor has
now been named and will begin to make his transition to the Wabash
community later this month. At
the moment, I’m not sure whether I will be in a presidency next year
or not. I am in the final
pool for a couple of positions right now, but it is a tricky business as
many of you know. If I
don’t move to a presidency this year, I will take on interim
administrative, teaching, and consulting duties, and get back out there
next year. I am excited
about the future—not too stressed out about the process—and pleased
for the friendship and support of many good folks. And so, in light of
Dree’s concerns and my own past and pending transitions, I offer this
edited version of a column I originally wrote for “Chicago
Philanthropy” in the fall of 1996, just as I arrived at Wabash. “My upcoming move to
a new professional position has given me the occasion to reflect upon
the moral dynamics of such transitions.
What are the values at play when you choose to leave one position
and assume another? Whose
values are most important in that move? Are there professional ethical issues that we must be aware
of as we make a move? What
do we owe the broader philanthropic community during a professional
transition? It strikes me that the
ethics of job transitions are an important issue for our profession,
especially at a moment when uninformed public scrutiny threatens to
undercut the fine work being done by thousands of devoted, skilled
philanthropic fundraisers. We
need to take every opportunity to show that fundraisers have thought
about the moral issues raised by our comings and goings. One of the most
effective ways to change such perceptions is to forge public
conversations about the nature of our work and its role in a democratic
society. Such conversations
are possible only after we, as individual professionals and as a
professional community, have made the effort to be reflective about the
ethics of coming and going. Allow me to offer a
simple framework for our reflections on the moral dynamics of
professional transitions. I would suggest that the ethics of coming and going must be
considered in relation to four audiences.
When making a professional transition, what moral consideration
do we owe:
1.
To ourselves Professional transition
is a time of sometimes conflicting thoughts and feelings.
It can be a "heady" time, full of confidence and
celebration of our accomplishments.
It also may be a time of escape, a time when we are able to get
away from the stress and the ordinary nature of an old situation and
look forward to the freedom of the new.
It is a time of uncertainty.
Will I be successful in my new job?
Did I do as well as I could in the old job?
What will people think of me—both as I leave this job and as I
move into a new position? All of the issues
raised for us by professional transitions are natural and healthy.
There is much to learn about ourselves during these life moments
if we are willing to take the time and think through what it means to
make a professional transition, about our various motivations in making
a move, about the health of relationships forged and to be forged, about
the legacy we leave behind, about the information entrusted to us, and
about the trust we must respect and sustain. These are challenges to
busy, preoccupied professionals. Make
self-reflection about your professional transitions a priority. Think about where you are going and why, and consider the
implications of your move for those who work and live with you.
Don't be afraid to name your legacy, even if it's not everything
you think it should be. Face
the perceptions of your move among those you work with, your
professional colleagues and the broader public. Celebration may well be
in order as you prepare for a transition.
Even celebration, however, deserves to be grounded in a sense of
integrity. Self-reflection is the key. 2.
To our organizations One of the central
dynamics of any professional transition is the pull we experience
between the needs and interests of the organization we are leaving and
those of the one to which we are going.
Most of the ethical principles in our fundraising codes related
to transitions address this tension in our experience.
We have information and relationships forged in one
institution—and we all know that information and relationships are at
the core of our work. Now
we are going to another institution. What goes with us? The
ethical codes are fairly clear about this:
we must be careful not to violate the trust of one organization
and its constituents for the gain of another. I would suggest that a
more helpful way to think about the pull we experience between
organizations is to consider the claims of balancing honesty and
loyalty. Consider a few
practical issues. As you
leave an organization, how do you help to chart a constructive future
path for its fundraising efforts while at the same time offering an
honest assessment of its capacity?
How do you avoid the "lame-duck" mentality that too
often leads us to avoid constructive recommendations based on our
experience? As we come into an
organization the "honey-moon" period is full of choices to
make changes; choices to build up or tear down relationships, to offer
up quick solutions to problems that may require long-term thinking.
People will look to us for a vision, for our expertise, for our
opinions. We will be tempted to make choices that make us look good.
What is the loyal thing to do, the honest thing to do?
What should we do? How do we respond to
these complex dynamics? There
is no easy answer—and that is precisely the point.
The tension between loyalty and honesty is a very real one, and
we must recognize and accept the tension, while we make real-life moral
decisions that have implications for us, for our organizations, and for
the people they serve. 3.
To our profession Another key dynamic in
professional transitions involves our obligations to our professional
colleagues and the professional community.
We know the temptations. There
are many comparisons in the fundraising world.
We compare results, styles, management abilities, techniques, and
so forth. As we move into a
new position, we have the opportunity to serve or to do a disservice to
our professional colleagues in several ways. For example, do we
leave behind a legacy of trust and planning and infrastructure that
gives our successor the opportunity to make things even better for the
organization? Or do we
leave behind a legacy of deception and personal (rather than
institutional) relationships that set a difficult context for those who
follow us? In our new
organization, do we honor the work of our predecessor, or do we use
his/her experience as the scapegoat for our success?
Within the professional community, do we participate in the
gossip-mongering and abuse of trust that too often pervades our
gatherings? Or do we seek
to understand the variety of styles and experiences that make up our
community? I would suggest that a
guiding moral principle for an attitude toward our profession and
professional colleagues in the context of transition might best be
termed ‘fidelity.’ I do
not mean an uncritical loyalty to everyone who calls him or herself a
fundraiser; I do not mean we should overlook incompetence or
irresponsibility. I do believe we have an
obligation, particularly in transitions, to help each other and our
organizations and constituencies to be more constructive, to be informed
advocates of philanthropy in our democracy.
In that context the strengths and weaknesses of individual
colleagues are to be taken seriously as part of the diversity and
complexity of our work. When done in the service of organizational mission, our
responses to colleagues are truly faithful.
When done in pursuit of our own success and personal gain, our
responses undercut the foundation of philanthropic fundraising. 4.
To the public In the end, I believe
that the central moral claim we face in professional transitions is to
focus on trust-building among the various publics we serve.
How have behavior, attitude, legacy, and public engagement in the
midst of transition, helped to build public trust?
How have we practiced civility in a professional transition? Trust, of course, is at
the core of healthy organizations and society.
Civility refers to the sort of responsible practices and actions
required of all who live and work in organizations and society. To be
civil is not simply to practice good manners (though etiquette is a
start). It also is not
uncritical tolerance in the name of avoiding conflict.
True civility is about trust-building among fellow citizens,
about making agencies and society more humane, and about encouraging
through every action an understanding of the deeply-held values and
commitments that bind us together. How have you and I
helped to build public trust in our professional transitions?
How do we practice civility in our comings and goings?
Have we even asked these questions of ourselves and each other? Begin by asking the
questions.” ****** PRACTICE THIS >>Mentoring
styles<< A fascinating article
in the November-December 2000 “Harvard Business Review,” entitled
“Gurus in the Garage” (Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap), describes a
special breed of adviser known as a “mentor capitalist.”
The article is worth a thorough read, but of special interest to
me was a sidebar describing the various mentoring styles employed by
these individuals. You
might note some consonance with “teaching styles,” which are
important for all of us who seek to be lifelong teachers, learners, and
mentors. Leonard and Swap
describe six (not necessarily mutually exclusive) mentoring styles: (1) Learning by doing – It’s not good enough just to have a personal opinion or idea. Show that the opinion or idea works and makes sense to others. Test your ideas in the marketplace. (2) Socratic learning – Ask the tough questions that force us to dig deeper, question assumptions, focus on what’s essential and what’s not. (3) Stories with a moral – Tell a good story that enables the student to imagine alternative paths or outcomes. (4) Rules of thumb – Sometimes you break the rules, but having rules in the first place forces all of us to think about parameters and principles. (5) Specific directives – As much as we wish that good stories or questions help a student reach the right conclusions, sometimes it is necessary to offer a clear directive, knowing that your instruction will set a precedent for future decisions. (6)
Learning by observing – We can’t overlook the efficacy of
watching someone do something well (or not so well). For example, I learned much of what I know about writing by
reading and then emulating. I had fun thinking
about these styles, both as a repertoire of methods available to me as I
teach and mentor, but also as a reminder that not everyone learns in the
same way and an effective teacher must be able to adapt the style to the
student. >>Ordering all
the clutter<< A brief article in a
recent “Fast Company” (April 2001) offers some insightful help to
those whose lives are threatened by the clutter of offices and minds! “Tackling your mess
means tackling indecision,” according to Debbie Gilster, whose firm,
Organize and Computerize, specializes in such issues.
Her solutions include:
There is some wonderful
metaphorical counsel in here for those of us who face clutter in various
aspects of our lives. ****** PAY ATTENTION TO THIS >>Some new
resources<< A few new potential
sources for your reflective practice. I quote it in my Notes
on occasion, but the quarterly newsletter, “Nonprofit Strategist,”
published on behalf of Key Asset Management in Cleveland, always has
tidbits of interest. For
example, the recent issue has brief articles on new philanthropy in the
global village, emotional intelligence in the workplace, and ten dangers
in receiving gifts. For
more information, contact Eileen Yantek at KeyNPAS@aol.com. A new publication
I’ve just recently begun to read is “Leadership in Action,”
from
Jossey-Bass and the Center for Creative
Leadership. A
subscription is rather expensive, but the journal is chock full of substantive interviews,
research summaries, etc. For
more information on subscribing, see Jossey-Bass. >>Transitions<< In keeping with the
theme of “transitions,” I was pleased to read in a recent “The
American Scholar” (Winter 2001), in André Bernard’s Commonplace
Book column, a sampling of commonplaces related to the theme.
Among my favorites: “It is time for me to
go.” (Al Gore, conceding
the presidential election in December 2000) “On one of Mead’s
last nights, Austin Ford learned, she had told her nurse that she was
dying. ‘Yes,’ the nurse
said gently, ‘We all will, someday.’
‘But this is different,’ Mead said.”
(From “Margaret Mead: A Life” by Jane Howard, 1984) >>Morning
Chores<< Two threads of our
times make the following excerpt from Jim Heynan’s poem, “Morning
Chores” (from his collection, “Suitable Church, “
Copper Canyon Press, 1981) especially poignant. First, the incredible emotional and commercial toll of the
hoof and mouth disease outbreak in Great Britain, and second, the ways
in which farms come alive as spring breaks around us.
These are reminders of the fragility, the awe, and the wonder of
creation. for us who have lived among animals is like a religion that stands when the old church crumbles. For to have moved with the beasts who know more than reason or law but who accept the sun in the morning and the hands that feed them is to have been the voice in a song that no one is singing, happier than one who praises and knows he is praising. >>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 2001)<<
(c) Paul Pribbenow, 2001 |
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