Taking Charge of Change by Paul Shoemaker
INTRODUCTION Our Bridges
Generosity in an Unexpected Place
Rosanne Haggerty’s story goes like this—shortly after college, the building next door to where she lived in New York City was known as Homeless Hell. The building had descended into chaos and bankruptcy and was a temporary shelter for homeless families. Also living there were two hundred longtime elderly residents and people with mental illness. The building was rife with drug selling and prostitution. She tried to interest housing groups in saving the building, but no one believed it could be transformed. Haggerty decided to leave her work and take on the mission
How do you end chronic homelessness in eleven communities across America, like Arlington, Virginia; Riverside, California; and Chattanooga, Tennessee? And how do you end veteran homelessness in Bergen County, New Jersey; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and Rockford, Illinois? Apparently by
The Bridge in the Park behind My House
When I was in first and second grade, growing up in Fort Dodge, Iowa, Snell-Crawford Park was just a few hundred feet from our backyard. In the hot, humid summers, I’d take off into the woods, try to avoid the poison ivy, and walk along Soldier Creek. Somewhere along the trail was a small, simple arch bridge with a road running over the creek. I’d sit underneath that bridge and wait for cars to go rumbling over. Even with a bridge that simple, I was sort of fascinated by how a structure could hold up a whole concrete street with cars speeding across.
Bridges across the United States in 2020 are deteriorating. A recent report3 estimates that it will take more than eighty years to fix all of them. There are more than 600,000 bridges in America, and 235,000 of them need some sort of repair. That’s almost 40 percent. Nearly 8 percent, 46,000 are structurally deficient and in need of urgent rebuilding.
The state of our deteriorating, structurally deficient bridges in 2020 is an evocative metaphor for the nation we are living in right now. The social, economic, and health structures underlying American civil society4 are in a more critical condition than they have been in decades.
Some parts of our nation need urgent repair and rebuilding, like that 8 percent of bridges that are structurally deficient. Perhaps no issue so visibly reflects our nation’s need for rebuilding as homelessness, the work to which Rosanne Haggerty has dedicated her life. As is and always will be the case, these times call for a new kind of leader.
Haggerty, and the other thirty-six leaders you’ll read about, is a Rebuilder, a leader for the 2020s. Rebuilders have a combination of qualities and skill sets that will enable them to effectively address the accelerating economic, social, and health disparities across an increasingly uneven, siloed America
The Five Vital Traits of Rebuilders
Those five leadership qualities and skill sets, the five vital traits, of Rebuilders that will matter the most are:
These traits are, like the parts of a bridge, interrelated and form a cohesive whole. When we walk or drive across any bridge, unless you’re an engineer, you may not fully grasp how many connected parts—piles, piers, abutments, superstructure, and so on—work together.
A bridge stays in place because all the forces acting on it are in balance. Most bridges stand for years, decades, even centuries. There are many kinds of bridges, but virtually all of them carefully balance two main forces: compression (a pushing or squeezing force, acting inward) and tension (a pulling or stretching force, acting outward).￡￡
For Rebuilders, the the vital traits of 24-7 Authenticity and a Generosity Mindset are in balance with the tangible skill sets of Data Conviction and the Capacity for Complexity. And the trait that connects them together is Cross-Sector Fluency
This book is for socially conscious and civically active leaders who are starting to redefine the leader they need to be and are hungry for clarity, stories, and direction. These five connected traits give you, your teams, and your organization an indispensable checklist for effective leadership for the 2020s
Why These Five Traits
Over the course of 2019, I took time piecing together a holistic picture of America’s economic, social, and health conditions. It became quickly apparent that these stark disparities are weakening our nation just as our bridges are weakening. They are creating a scale and scope of change unlike anything we have seen in generations.
Eventually, I came to understand that those underlying economic, health, and social disparities are like a faulty bridge structure. They have helped create and are playing out in the context of five megachallenges America is facing in the decade ahead
These five megachallenges directly suggest the five vital traits desperately needed in the leaders who will make the difference in the decade ahead.
The best way to stress test my thinking about those five challenges-to-traits connections was having conversations with dozens of leaders, like Rosanne Haggerty, who are coming up with some of the most effective solutions today that address these disparities. My conclusions in my review of these megachallenges as well as my talks brought me back to the realization that these five traits are key to leadership in the 2020s.
The meat of this book consists of stories of people who have led real change and are exemplars of those five vital traits. They are leaders who are taking charge of all this change. Many of them aren’t famous, widely known names; they are akin to the Level 5 leaders Jim Collins unearthed in Good to Great.6 Yet all these Rebuilders are true leaders in their own way
Looking into the Future
To be clear, my point of view is prospective, not retrospective. My belief in the centrality of these five traits of Rebuilders as keys to our future is based on objective and extensive observation and experience. It is not based on retrospective science
The aspiration of this book is to see the complex challenges facing us in the future and the unique traits leaders will need to effectively respond. Just as our deteriorating bridges will require significant resources and commitment before they can be repaired or rebuilt, America will require a unique generation of leaders to truly begin to repair and rebuild our civil society.
The skill sets, qualities, and traits it takes to rebuild are different from what it takes to build, and that is what we will dive deeper. There are always new products to build, organizations to create, and causes to attack. In the decade ahead, the traits of leaders as Rebuilders will be even more important to American civil society than the builders
Here are a few lenses to use as you think about the five traits
Massive Problem versus Generational Opportunity
America is at a looming inflection point. COVID has brought us even more abruptly to a massive reset moment, for America and for leadership. And that reset got accelerated and expanded by the sickening murder of George Floyd and the social movement it reignited. Like all change, our times are not only cause for uncertainty but opportunities for new leaders to step forward. Leaders ready for this century, not the year 2000 version, but for the 2020s and beyond. The previous twenty years might as well have been equivalent to a century full of change that we are still trying to catch up to.
Massive upheavals like 2020 can be moments for undoing and expelling old ways of thinking and working and being. As Seth Godin articulated recently in his typically simple yet powerful language, The industrial era, struggling for the last decade or two, is now officially being replaced by one based on connection and leadership and the opportunity to show up and make a difference. This is where Rebuilders come in, as powerful forces for a new kind of connection and leadership. For a future that otherwise risks fast becoming less and less equal and more and more siloed along economic, political, and health lines
To be blunt, there are heroes and villains to be made in the years ahead, just as there have been at other huge inflection points in American history
Taking Charge of Change speaks directly to a powerful truth: Each of us does not have to passively let change happen to us. We can each be a leader that shapes change and creates the kind of change we want to see in our world as a Rebuilder. We can’t control all of the change around us, but we can be an active positive force in leading how it will play out in the decade ahead for our communities, companies, and citizens.
If we can bring forward truly new and better leaders, then this period of time we are in will turn out to be a moment not just of division and inequity in the near term but of progress toward stronger, better communities and companies over the long term
The Rebuilders you read about will give you belief and hope. They are doing the work now to strengthen and rebuild our economic, social, and health bridges across America, but we need a lot more like them. Leaders like you
The times we live in call for renovation as much or more than innovation. There will always be entrepreneurs driving for the new and the never-been-done-before. But we will need to lean in more in the decade ahead on rebuilding, making more with what we have. We need reinvention as much as invention. And it will all have to happen in a post-COVID America that will be far more resource constrained.
The decade ahead will be The Decade of the Rebuilders
PART ONE Our Rebuilders
From the Bridge Tower
A bridge tender sits in the tower alongside a drawbridge. There are four of them around my hometown of the last thirty years, Seattle. The bridge tender operates the bridge to ensure the safe passage of water traffic under, and vehicle traffic over, the bridge. There is nothing particularly omniscient about the bridge tenders’ perspectives, but they do see through a wide-angle lens on the comings and goings around that bridge.
When I first started working on this book in the summer of 2019, I took a wide-angle focus, looking for stories and best practices of economic and social change across all sectors, geographies, and demographics of America. As I was looking into those examples of positive change, against the backdrop of our megachallenges, my focus started to shift—not just looking at the facts and strategies about the change, but instead at the people and leaders behind those changes.
The conversations with those leaders making real change elucidated a definable, distinct set of traits that consistently showed up. My primary focus shifted toward the kind of leaders and leadership our nation needs to create that positive change. Simply put, I let the data and research, and especially what I learned from dozens of leaders, tell me what to focus on
I studied dozens of leaders from all three sectors: private, public, and nonprofit. I looked at a broad range of industries and causes, and leaders with a diverse set of backgrounds and worldviews. I started with leaders I knew personally and did outreach through my network of trusted friends to add to the list
The leaders I focused on meet the criteria below. Imperfect, but intentional. Subjective, but substantiated.
Are Current Leadership Models Broken?
Rebuilders are leaders who don’t look and sound and act the same as we are used to seeing. Qualities like hyperauthenticity, an exceptional capacity for complexity, extensive cross-sector experience, plus others are what will define the leaders we need for our future
This isn’t about repudiating earlier leadership models, it’s about the future and what’s needed now. What I’m suggesting is that there are (1) timeless leadership qualities that get called on differently in a new age and (2) altogether new attributes that are more needed in this decade ahead. A different world takes different leaders with different traits
Generosity-Complexity and Authenticity-Data Pairs
Once you read enough of the leaders’ stories, like those of Rosanne Haggerty, Felipe Moreno, Dan Cardinali, and Trish Millines, seeing these pairings will start to be second nature. Perhaps these combinations can be another construct you can adopt as part of your personal framework for leadership:
PART TWO Why Rebuilders Matter for the 2020s
Back to the Bridge behind My House
A few times when I got back from my walks through the park and under the bridge in Snell-Crawford Park, I remember looking through an old, well-worn book about bridges. They are some pretty amazing structures understandable at a simple level and consisting of three basic parts: (1) the superstructure, the portion of the structure above water (or above another road or railway) that is the span that directly receives the load; (2) the substructure, that middle connecting layer that includes the abutments and piers; and (3) the foundation, which includes the piles and underlying structure on top of which everything rests
Human beings are always trying to build bridges with people they might disagree with. Dozens of songs include the word bridge in the title, maybe most famously Bridge over Troubled Water. Perhaps the most poignant bridge metaphor is of providing a crossing to the hereafter
Bridges do, in fact, have to be rebuilt across American civil society in the decade ahead. Not just the physical ones. We need to:
As you read about these individual leaders and their vital traits, I hope you will also think about the collective whole of leadership we need
Many of these Rebuilders have already been leading, as you’ll read, but we need to more intentionally connect more like them together in the 2020s
CHAPTER ONE Where We’ve Come From (1950–2000
In many ways, the successful expansion and sophistication of bridges across the United States in the half century after World War II, when more than two-thirds of our bridges have been built, mirrored the economic, social, and health progress of America during that same time
Progress wasn’t always even, but overall, there was steadily growing economic prosperity (technically, as measured by real GDP per capita) in the second half of the twentieth century. For a long time, this progress broadened the middle class, fueled our economy, and brought a significant majority of citizens along
There was a strong sense of significant advances in health, benefiting citizens similarly and broadly, between 1950 and 2000. Maybe the broadest, most comprehensive, all-encompassing indicator of improving health is average life expectancy. Over those fifty years, Americans’ life expectancy progressed from a little more than sixty-one years to more than seventy-seven
Social progress is defined as the capacity of a society to meet the basic human needs of its citizens, establish the building blocks that allow citizens and communities to enhance and sustain the quality of their lives, and create the conditions for all individuals to reach their full potential. That is an aspiration we can all agree upon. Progress in the social sector imperfectly lends itself to hard data. As much as any dimension of American society between 1950 and 2000, social progress is harder to see as a straight line. But there was progress in women’s rights, civil rights, the rights of disabled people, gay rights, and so on
In sum, there was a wave of progress—economic, health, social—that seemed inevitably, if not always evenly, positive and shared by a majority of people over the second half of the twentieth century. But then things started to change. Really, they began changing in the ’90s, but there was sort of a frog in the frying pan effect that hadn’t turned up the heat enough yet. The sometimes-euphoric technological advances and economic growth of the ’90s masked economic, social, and health fractures in America’s foundation that were beginning to emerge and would widen and accelerate over the first twenty years of the new millennium
CHAPTER TWO Where We Are (2000–2020)
Building hundreds of thousands of bridges across America during the second half of the twentieth century certainly helped fuel economic progress. But anything built needs to be maintained and sometimes rebuilt down the road. As we have already described, that time is now coming due for bridges
Let’s take a deeper look at the ways in which we have an America today whose progress has stalled or even reversed in the last twenty years
Let’s get this out of the way. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know how politically fractured we are in America today. Politics is like the superstructure of the bridge. It matters, but the disparities in our underlying foundations (economic, health, social) are much more the root causes
In the 2000s so far, the positive economic progress of most of 1950–2000 has slowed dramatically and halted or gone backward for far too many people. There was a slow, steady decrease in income inequality after World War II as the economy expanded. As we’ve shown, that resulted in a broadly shared, flourishing middle class for more and more Americans
The American health-care system in the 2000s has created a world where the health of the general population has stagnated, at best. The wealthiest have increasing access to better, more sophisticated care because they can pay for it. And lower-income, especially rural, Americans have access to lower-quality care
Unequal progress on social issues does not always reflect an unfair world. Some unequal and disparate progress is inevitable. But when those unequal opportunities have less and less to do with rewarding hard work, personal merits, or entrepreneurial risk taking, the world feels unfair to more people, it weakens social cohesion and contributes to less trust in institutions and, ultimately, in each other
America’s bridges need to be rebuilt. Is it more complex to build something new from raw materials or rebuild it when it is in a state of disrepair? Was it a bigger challenge to build America’s system of more than 600,000 bridges, beginning with the Frankford Avenue Bridge in northeast Philadelphia in 1697, than it will be to rebuild and repair the 47,000–235,000 bridges that are in varying states of structural deficiency today? We know that rebuilding will require something different—a different mindset, different skills, and a different, sustained intent
Our leaders in the years ahead can’t just be builders, they have to be Rebuilders. That’s what our unequal, siloed world calls us to be. As has always been and always will be the case when the challenges ahead are daunting, these times call for a new kind of leader
CHAPTER THREE Amplifiers
In the Introduction, we noted that most bridges stand for a long time, in part by carefully balancing two forces, compression and tension. Bridges don’t fail very often, but when they do, they always collapse for the same reason: something happens that makes them unable to balance those two forces
One force becomes too great, too amplified, for one of the bridge components (maybe something as simple as a single rivet or tie-bar), which then fails. That means the amplified load suddenly has to be shared by fewer components. Sooner or later, another component fails, then another, and so the bridge collapses in a kind of domino effect
At the same time as economic, social, and health progress are becoming more disparate and unequal, we have these incredible amplifiers—technology and media—that are accelerating these destabilizing trends even more. They make it easier to create a negative domino effect, analogous to the one that causes bridges to collapse, instead of keeping our country connected and strong, like the parts of a sturdy bridge
Amplifier Number One: Tech
Technology amplifies inequality and inequity
Enhanced capabilities are those aspects of life that become more important in a twenty-first-century society, things like advanced education and access to more sophisticated technologies; things that were once considered almost luxuries
Access to technology at a basic level is converging and more universally available, but at a more enhanced level it’s diverging
Our challenge is not whether technology has done the world any good. It has. The question is whether the value the average American will accrue from it in the future is going to be increasingly convergent or divergent. It’s a vital question with huge implications for leaders. The answer will determine whether technology returns to being more of an amplifier for good than for inequality or worse.
Amplifier Number Two: Media
Media is a fast-expanding amplifier of silos and separation. This is a fact regardless of where you are on any political or economic spectrum. In less than one generation, we went from three mainstream networks giving a fairly balanced, somewhat homogenized (admittedly with a left-wing bent) version of the news, to an incredibly dispersed media system of hyper-customization
Media also acts to amplify the perception of unevenness and inequality, To state the obvious, media and tech create a reinforcing cycle, a spin cycle that spins faster and faster. If you find this a little unnerving, join me. This dynamic is going to be hard to unwind or slow down, and it will be hard to get us back to at least some sense of shared news and information
We haven’t even started on social media. Everything we’d say about media in general applies ten times, if not more. Social media has never been regulated or managed like other forms of media. That is a challenge by itself. Traditional media needs to compete with one hand tied behind its back because it has some rules it has to follow
On social media, you instantly get biased, rushed reporting that has lost most editorial control (because social media has essentially no rules). Things are spinning faster and faster and it’s hard to know how to unwind
It almost goes without saying that COVID is further amplifying all of this. COVID (1) accelerates tech and media as amplifiers, (2) accentuates the economic, health, and social disparities, and (3) is its own form of amplifying inequity unto itself. A triple effect
CHAPTER FOUR Where Are We Going?
It’s very clear that we live in an increasingly unequal and siloed America over the last twenty years. Yes, it was always that way to some degree, in a capitalist economy, but nothing even close to the intensity and acceleration since 2000. It’s not just a political divide or some fabrication of MSNBC or Fox News. Parts of our American civic foundation are structurally deficient and in need of urgent repairs, just like America’s bridges. That set of diverging conditions for America is critical context for leaders in the future
To rebuild, we need to leverage the strengths of the American society today (not those of seventy or even twenty years ago), namely the diversity of people, approaches, perspectives, and backgrounds. That diversity of people, place, and power is what will lead us to better and stronger leaders that will make rebuilding possible at all. Diversity aimed at a shared purpose, not merely diversity for diversity’s sake. Diversity empowered with a common goal and shared interest
To be very clear, this is my one explicit political paragraph: this is about going forward to a new future, not a return to some glorious past with any MAGA-type inferences. We need to rebuild, but not return to, many of the systemic weaknesses that got us here in the first place. The entire Where We Are chapter points out many ways in which we are paying for not paying enough attention to the increasingly unequal outcomes across America
Our leadership hasn’t caught up with many of these changes. The pace of change the last ten to twenty years is dizzying, and taking charge of it gets more unclear by the day. The equation to solve is now far more complex, multivariate, and will require new kinds and updated versions of skill sets and qualities. We will find leaders for our future in less expected places, in neighborhoods, community organizations, sports teams, and so on in addition to corporate America. Some individual leaders are more ready than others. You’re reading about them. But leadership as a fundamental asset in our civil society—across our private, public, and social sectors—has not yet adapted nearly enough.
PART THREE The Five Vital Traits
There isn’t a new noun or verb I’m anchoring to here that hasn’t been written about as a leadership trait somewhere at some time. That’s not the point about Rebuilders. Look at and think about all five vital traits, as parts of a connected whole, not just individually. We will amplify these five interconnecting traits by telling the stories of exemplars of those traits and of leaders already in place, and , in communities and companies across America
They are leaders who don’t necessarily have a classic organization role as a CEO or executive director. They are at the top of organizations, in the middle of departments, or on the street in a neighborhood. We need leaders at lots of levels in lots of places. One of the exemplars, Richard Woo, talks about organization-less leaders. That’s a useful frame for many Rebuilders
We will look at each of the traits, one at a time, through the experiences and excellence of a handful of exemplars of each.
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THE FOUNDATIONS OF American civil society, like tens of thousands of bridges across America, are deteriorating. There are many connected parts of the foundation, substructure, and superstructure of a bridge that need to be looked at holistically before a plan is developed to rebuild. We need to look at these leaders holistically, and the five vital, connected traits, to rebuild our communities and companies across America.
CHAPTER FIVE 24-7 Authenticity
Of the five traits, 24-7 Authenticity may be the hardest one to obtain and sustain. It’s a very high bar. That just speaks to the world we live in. These leaders here derived their authenticity from different places. They are living it in different ways. But every single one of them is profoundly, truly authentic. We will tell their stories not only to learn from how they show up in the world but to deconstruct some of the keys to the 24-7 platform they’ve reached
Remember, 24-7 Authenticity in leaders is often paired with a strong conviction about data, which backs up and strengthens the trust built by being authentic. Data can sort of seal the deal and reinforce genuineness and authenticity.
THE DECK, THE PAVEMENT, of a bridge is the tangible platform of the whole structure. It’s what people can see and trust they can drive across, knowing it will be solid and enduring. Rebuilders are leaders that we can trust and that will be solid and enduring. When we think about rebuilding America, 24-7 Authenticity is a visible, tangible platform for a Rebuilder as leader
A Definition of 24-7 Authenticity
There’s been quite a bit written about authenticity and transparency as leadership qualities. Radical transparency2 has certainly been in the lexicon for ten or more years as a term to describe leaders significantly increasing the openness of organizational processes and data.
Authenticity sort of sits at the intersection of radical transparency and media-as-an-amplifier. You need to be authentic and open before you have to be. It’s not as if it’s optional or variable in today’s world. A leader just needs to start from that as a grounding principle. And 24-7 implies a proactive quality. Not just responsively authentic, but leaning in, pushing your comfort zone on authenticity.
As with all of these attributes, it needs to become second nature. In our world of sometimes-hard-to-discern (or fake?) news, this can’t be a transitory, transactional trait; it has to become a part of the essential DNA of Rebuilders for the future
Authenticity in an Amplified World
Being and leading with 24-7 Authenticity in the world of technology, especially social media, has gotten logarithmically more challenging and, hence, that much more valuable
Where Does 24-7 Authenticity Fit in Nature versus Nurture?
In general, we all agree by now that leadership can be taught; it can be learned. But within that big container of leadership, there are traits that may be more or less developable, more or less innate. Picture a continuum with a high degree of nurture on the left end and nature on the other end. 24-7 Authenticity is the trait at the midpoint—that is, the highest combination of both nature and nurture. You need lots of both.
If we apply this continuum to other vital traits, the easiest trait to develop, i.e., nurture, is Cross-Sector Fluency. Professionals can intentionally decide to take on meaningful, not cursory, roles in all three sectors, either early or over the course of their careers
The Downside of Authenticity
In some cases, like 24-7 Authenticity, the downsides may be somewhat obvious. I think there are two main ones to consider: personal exposure and professional cost.
Personal exposure is just that, putting yourself out there for the world to see. You need to be okay with that, and it’s not for everyone. I think leaders have to be at a stage and in a place in their careers in which they are okay with the risk
The potential professional cost is much like McAfee’s career getting detoured when he spoke the truth or Trish Millines having to jump off a career track to pursue the work that needed to be done. Not everyone, everywhere values authenticity, genuine authenticity. You will sometimes have a choice to give in to that less than authentic part of the culture of your company, your organization, your neighborhood.
We all make personal and professional choices every day. Our depth and degree of authenticity is a summation of all those individual decisions and choices. You are constantly building up your account balance of authenticity or making withdrawals (or going bankrupt). While it’s fairly easy to go bankrupt, it’s very hard to have a full account, and even harder to keep the balance full
Ten Things We Know about 24-7 Authenticity Leaders for the Future
CHAPTER SIX Complexity Capacity
Given that the total breadth and depth of challenges future leaders need to grapple with in the decade ahead are greater than we’ve faced, at least in the past seventy-five years (megachallenge #2), a capacity for complexity is an absolute need in any serious organization. Especially in a post-COVID world.
The capacity means you not only have to be able to take in the many variables at play, but interpret, process, and make sense of them, and ultimately communicate effectively. This trait is very much about using both sides of your brain
Complexity can scare many people away. I think this is the most innate of the five vital traits. I would say you can increase someone’s capacity in degrees through specific professional development. Some will grow their capacity incrementally through experience (that fits me). But I don’t think you can take anyone from amateur to expert, and you certainly can’t take anyone from no capacity to high capacity. It just rarely works that way. There almost always has to be some innate capacity
Complexity Capacity benefits from an open heart and strategic mind, aka a Generosity Mindset, to put that intricate understanding to work. You will see that duality at play many times in the next two chapters and dozen or so leaders
THE MOST COMPLEX type of bridge, in general, is a truss bridge, one whose load-bearing structure is a series of connected elements usually forming triangular units. A truss bridge can handle the biggest loads and has the greatest capacity in bridge designs. Some Rebuilders are uniquely suited to have this innate capacity to understand and interpret the complexity around them and take on the biggest loads
A Definition of Capacity for Complexity
We’ve already talked about a number of factors making our world more complex
This trait is about the ability to process all of those variables and more. Can you not only see, take in, and process them, but can you also interpret them and make progress, like every one of the Rebuilders you will read about in this section?
Complexity Capacity is about being and thinking in a nonlinear, less sequential way. It’s about knowing that past solutions may be decreasingly useful for informing future solutions, hence the need to rethink and rebuild. It’s about adaptability and being able to take in new information constantly. Complexity Capacity means, metaphorically, that you are better at open-ended essay questions on the test than multiple choice or true-false
Last but not least, listening as a core asset and attribute of leadership has always been a special sauce in my recipe for leadership. That skill, active listening, as Mike Myatt of N2 Growth1 defines it, is the act of genuinely listening, not just to hear or to be ready to respond, but wholly leaning in and fully understanding what others are saying. It’s not hard to understand how vital active listening is as a characteristic of leaders with a high Complexity Capacity.
The Downside of Capacity for Complexity
I’ll say I sometimes suffer from the downside of complexity, the inability to simplify the understanding and processing of complex problems. That doesn’t mean oversimplification or dumbing it down. One of the challenges with a vital trait like this is that it’s equally about processing the inputs and producing the outputs. That’s why this one stands out as likely the one that is most inherent, part of someone’s DNA, more nature than nurture. This takes some unique brain capacity.
There are fewer downsides, per se, to this trait, but it is probably the most unique one and the hardest to transfer. If you can find these leaders with a high capacity for complexity, keep ’em. You need to make sure you have enough team members with this trait, and the more complex the problem, the higher capacity you need
Eight Things We Know about Capacity for Complexity Leaders for the Future
CHAPTER SEVEN Generosity Mindset
When we are less connected and more siloed and isolated, and our ability to come together is harder today than it perhaps ever has been (megachallenge #3), the openness and expansiveness of a Generosity Mindset becomes vital. This might be the hardest trait to put into practice persistently and with fidelity
Whatever the social or economic or health disparities at hand, it is going to require a range of people and perspectives and philosophies. The ability to be the leader that, as Rosanne Haggerty said, creates a commitment to unity and looks for what you can commonly share while respecting each other’s differences is pivotal. The mindset to leave room for multiple identities at just about all costs is paramount
And remember that a Generosity Mindset needs to be able to process complexity in order to know where and how opportunities arise that can be leveraged and sustained
JUST LIKE THE superstructure on a bridge, a Generosity Mindset might appear to be the least structurally important. But like a cantilever bridge, it is fundamental to the whole structure and strength of the bridge being rebuilt. It might seem to be just a more visually appealing element, but it’s far more than that. Those leaders with a Generosity Mindset might not be as obviously structural and strategic to the ultimate solution, but they are sometimes the piece that makes all the parts come together
A Definition of Generosity Mindset
Just to reemphasize, the point isn’t about being nicey-nice or polite. It’s a strategic mindset. It’s a way of working and doing business, all the time. When you come to any setting, you are looking to see who’s missing from the table and who needs to be connected. You are able to keep your eyes on the ultimate prize and get past disagreements, detours, and diversions
Generosity appears to have especially strong associations with psychological health and well-being. Generosity toward others has been shown to help smooth over relational noise—perceived unfairness that can arise from everyday misunderstandings—making it a critical ingredient for increasing relational trust
One study found that generosity creates self-other overlap, a sense of oneness with others, and reasoned that, when we help others under this state of oneness, we feel as if we are also helping ourselves.
What that meta-research affirms is the need to keep a constantly open mind. Fewer and fewer people can do this today, so its unique value constantly increases. In a sense, a Generosity Mindset also requires you to have a sort of relentless authenticity
Doing versus Being
Being a Rebuilder is not just a way of doing things or accomplishing tasks or even building your skill sets. It’s just as much a way of being (see Figure 7.1). There is no shortage of definitions and descriptions of those two concepts, but maybe the best, and least ethereal one I came across for our purposes is this:
Doing?is what you do. It’s the actions you take. It’s the decisions you make. It’s your behavior and all its visible manifestations
Being?is who you are. It’s what’s underneath all of the doing. It’s your qualities and thought patterns. It’s the pattern of beliefs that you hold about yourself and your environment. It’s your worldview.3
Being a Rebuilder with a Generosity Mindset is absolutely a worldview. It’s about the approach to the work, the way you see the variables at play, and the complex equation for finding solutions. Each of the Rebuilders we’ve looked at operates from a set of values and beliefs and worldview; it’s part of what sets them apart and makes them the right leaders for the 2020s
Just to put an exclamation point on something. There is less and less of that kind of mindset in our world and it’s debilitating to civil society. Those leaders who possess that vital trait will be near-unicorns pretty soon, and we will need every one of them we can possibly find to truly address our five megachallenges in the 2020s.
The Downside of a Generosity Mindset
There are two main downsides. First, you’ll be balancing competing interests and agendas all the time. You’ll get consistently frustrated and you’ll need to constantly model generosity. A thick skin plus resilience is the prescription for the downside for many of these traits, especially a Generosity Mindset. Working persistently with an open mind to find common ground where it is hard to find definitely puts you in a position of more potential frustration
Seven Things We Know about the Generosity Mindset in Leaders for the Future
CHAPTER EIGHT Data Conviction
When there is slowing, more unequal, less certain progress across a broad array of social, health, and economic indicators (megachallenge #4), data becomes an indispensable element in trying to forge a path toward more equal progress across American civil society. With the data, progress is not assured. Without the data, progress is just about impossible
Think constant learning and improvement. Instead of data being an afterthought to understand social or community impact at a point in time, it’s more powerful to develop a relentless focus on understanding the real-world, real-time, ongoing impact of programs, practices, and policies. And ensure that the data being used is the right, not just readily available, data. It can then inform persistent, day-to-day improvement in companies and communities
And remember that Data Conviction risks being dehumanizing or too formulaic without the humanizing quality of 24-7 Authenticity.
A PILE IS THE vertical support structure used to hold up a bridge. A pile is hammered into the soil beneath the bridge until it reaches the hard sublayer of compacted soil or rock below. Piles leverage the grip and friction of the soil surrounding it to support part of the load of the bridge deck. They have to be as solid as the rock they reach down to. Just like the data we use for economic, health, and social change. It isn’t the only part of the bridge we are building for America’s future, but the data has to be solid because so much rests on top of it. If it’s weak or loose, so much can fall apart
A Definition of Data Conviction
Data Conviction may seem a little dry or stale as a vital leadership trait, but it’s not. It’s the conviction about and passion for data that is an absolutely necessary mindset for Rebuilders in the 2020s. Think about how complex the challenges are that our private, public, and nonprofit sectors are going to face in a post-COVID world. Without data to create some baseline degree of clarity, as well as a basis for bringing competing worldviews together, there is little chance for success
Let’s define this as not just understanding but being able to process and then get good at interpreting and using data. This is about a core belief that the data is an indispensable part of the answer, that data is not just a tactic or a number; it’s strategic. We know that good programs are necessary, but without the data, they are not sufficient
Is There an Approach to Data That Matters?
Or is it just a function of a few unicorns like the people in this book? Data, in and of itself, is nothing. Data needs to be imbued with analysis, interpretation, values?.?.?. and authenticity. In a world of social impact, where there isn’t just one bottom line, what does good, strong data look like and how do we access it? Here’s a simple working definition that can be used for more effective decision-making: data plus analysis equals evidence
There is a methodology for using data for effective community change, and it can be shared and replicated. But it’s not easy. Let me share a handful of principles for data that make a real difference:
The Downside of Data Conviction
Data can be awesome, except (1) you need to get it right—yes, you can make mistakes, but not too many or too often; (2) there is a lot of dis- and misinformation out there, as we well know, so it is a constant challenge to make sure data is commonly understood; and (3) once you start down the data-driven path, there is no going back. Simple statements, but not simple to live and practice for the long term. The potential downsides of Data Conviction seem most obvious of any of the five traits so we won’t belabor this point just to fill space on the page
Eight Things about Data Conviction in Our Leaders for the Future
CHAPTER NINE Cross-Sector Fluency
When the lines between and the historical norms of our private, nonprofit, and public sectors are intersecting and overlapping as never before (megachallenge #5), Cross-Sector Fluency becomes a must-have, not a nice-to-have. I don’t mean sort of hopping into a project in another sector and then going back into your longtime professional sector silo for most of your career. I mean genuine immersion in the other two sectors or at least one of the other two sectors
To be clear, lack of Cross-Sector Fluency is not a judgment of one’s inadequacy, personally or professionally. I am simply articulating a vital trait leaders need to have for the future
Cross-Sector Fluency often provides the glue that brings everything else together. Not just because of the experience itself but because it suggests that those who have it view the world more holistically, are more willing to see the nuance, have a wider lens, make trade-offs, and create the whole solution. They aren’t unicorns, but they’re pretty invaluable.
A BRIDGE BEARING provides a resting surface between the bridge’s piers and its deck, connecting the foundation to the substructure. Its purpose is to allow controlled movement between the two surfaces. Pound for pound, it is the most critical element in a whole bridge structure, one that allows the different forces to have the flexibility and give-and-take to stay in balance. In the same way, someone with Cross-Sector Fluency can often allow the different players some flexibility, facilitate give-and-take, and help bring the systems and people together and keep them in balance
“When I was a kid, there was no collaboration. It was you with a camera bossing your friends around. But as an adult, filmmaking is all about appreciating the talents of the people you surround yourself with and knowing you could never have made any of these films by yourself.” STEVEN SPIELBERG
A Definition of Cross-Sector Fluency
While individuals are more siloed, solving big challenges will require many leaders to be less siloed and have more Cross-Sector Fluency.
If a private sector company wants to be economically successful, its leaders have to understand how to navigate the public sector as well as the nonprofit sector in the community around them. If a social sector entity is trying to make progress on an intractable social problem, they cannot do it without the public sector if they want to make true, sustained progress. And the private sector is now an asset—human, financial, and intellectual—that is indispensable for tackling the community challenges nonprofits have been working on for decades. All of those interactions are positive dependencies and virtuous feedback loops
Profits versus Purpose
The economic, social, and health dynamics we’ve talked about are challenges enough. Let’s add one more dimension to the increasingly complex context our future leaders must navigate: the rise of stakeholder, not just shareholder, capitalism, i.e., the explicit conversation about purpose and people (their employees, their customers, their communities) being just as important as profits.
There was a seminal statement made in August 2019 by the Business Roundtable.2 The Roundtable is about as powerful and connected of a network of Fortune 500 CEOs as you will find anywhere in the world. Walmart, General Motors, Apple, Chase Bank, and on and on, though lacking the diversity of leaders you see in this book. Their Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation is critical for our purposes. I pulled out a handful of key, relevant statements:
Americans deserve an economy that allows each person to succeed through hard work and creativity and to lead a life of meaning and dignity.
While each of our individual companies serves its own corporate purpose, we share a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders. We commit to:
The Downside of Cross-Sector Fluency
In the past, when there was greater separation, if something got messed up in one sector, at least you had the checks and balances and a sort of safety net from the other two. Now, as the lines blur, when failure or corruption happens for a venture connecting all three at once, the impact is worse. This blurring is, on the whole, a very good dynamic, especially if it’s being led by individuals with the Cross-Sector Fluency like we have in these Rebuilders
At the end of the day, can we make 1+1+1=10, or is it something less than 3 because it’s too hard? Cross-sector Rebuilders know how to optimize that equation.
Five Things about Cross-Sector Fluency in Our Leaders for the Future
PART FIVE Our Possible Futures
“Your community needs you. When I say your community, I mean your rec league, the church, your youth group, and most of all your school. They need you. Most importantly, building your community is how you change the world. Be the first generation to embrace your responsibility: to rebuild your community. Class of 2020, the world has changed. You will determine how we will rebuild.” LEBRON JAMES, speaking to graduating seniors, May 2020
In the Introduction, I made the statement that I am worried about America in the dark of night but fundamentally optimistic in the light of day. These thirty-eight leaders are the number-one reason to feel hopeful, not despondent; to feel things are possible, not improbable; and to believe that there is a way forward, not just a sense that our best days are behind us or that we want to return to some glory days that either never existed or are now long gone. The Rebuilders you have read about in this book are up to that challenge. So are millions of Americans?.?.?. and you
IN RECENT YEARS, states have preferred design-build contracts to carry out the rebuilding of bridges. Design and construction teams working together from the start. Complications and contradictions are resolved internally and quickly so that the project can proceed with minimum delay
With government funding for infrastructure projects being so tight, a financing alternative has arisen in the form of public-private partnerships. Private investors assume the responsibility for financing and building a bridge, and the investors are granted the right to collect tolls, believing they will realize a good return on investment.
New contract arrangements and creative financing are being used to repair and replace aging bridges more economically, quickly, and safely.1 Some of the same kind of creative approaches and strategies for reusing existing resources to rebuild America’s bridges can be a very useful example to guide and inform how we rebuild our communities. And no doubt we will need the five traits of Rebuilders in making the best possible use of our nonprofit, public, and private sectors’ constrained resources in order to build a bridge to a better future.
The metaphor of bridges has been our guide. What kind of future are we rebuilding a bridge to? There are clearly dystopian versions we see previewed before our eyes every single day. There are other possible futures that are powerful and positive and transformational.
CHAPTER TWELVE Optimism versus Pessimism
“So, in this convulsive moment, let’s not say, This isn’t who we are. The right question is, Who do we want to be?” - JON MEACHAM
There is a lot being written these days about different possible scenarios for the American future, for the decade ahead. Let me offer these three
It’s not a surprise that the number-one key to America meeting the moment is leadership, the kind that these Rebuilders bring to their work and lives. There are bridges—decks, substructures, bearings, superstructures, piers—to be rebuilt. There is a nation to be rebuilt in the decade ahead. It’s not just that it’s an opportunity or a high-minded aspiration. We have no choice. We have to get this right. We have to have leaders ready to take charge of the change all around us
We need the economic progress of the second half of the twentieth century without the racial and gender inequities that exist to this day. We need to see real progress in the health of America without the rural-urban inequities that widened in the past twenty years. And we need to see more social progress for women and people of color, period
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