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Navigating the Territory: Good Ideas for Leading in Complex Environments
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Volume 1, Number 5
December, 2009
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 Greetings! This issue of Navigating the Territory: Good Ideas for Leading in Complex Environments focuses primarily on the theme of creativity and leadership. There's an interview with Nancy Garrabrants, Director of UMass Extension, who reflects on how she's been successful during the first 18 months of a challenging new position in an extremely challenging environment. My subsequent article on creativity and leadership builds upon Nancy's reflections. Then there's a piece on Mind Mapping, a powerful tool to support creative thinking.
For back issues of this newsletter, you can find them in the archives:
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs076/1102561682356/archive/1102700377250.html
Sending you wishes for a holiday season filled with joy and fulfillment. Thanks for your interest and support.
Deborah
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Learning from the Field
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An Interview with Nancy Garrabrants, Director of
UMass Extension
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Nancy
Garrabrants is Director of Extension at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The mission of UMass Extension is to address
public concerns of high priority for the Commonwealth. Extension works to improve the health,
well-being and security of youth, families and communities; conserve and
enhance natural resources; and strengthen agriculture and food systems. Part of
the national Cooperative Extension System, UMass Extension has four statewide
programs: Agriculture and Landscape, Natural Resources & Environmental
Conservation, Nutrition Education and the Massachusetts 4-H Youth Development
Program. Fo more information, go to UMass Extension.
Nancy
joined UMass Extension in the summer of 2007, as the country careened toward the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. Not only did she
have to get up to speed in a challenging new position, but she also has led the organization through budget cuts, the departure of her supervisor,
and an extended period of uncertainty about where Extension would be housed, a
change that had significant implications for Extension's future.
I
asked her to reflect on the past 18 months:
What has made this current period so uncertain
for you and your organization?
The division where
Extension was located when I first started was eliminated and we were
transferred this fall to a different unit. This made it a tough summer. The uncertainty about where we were
going was really challenging for everyone in Extension. This combined with budget cuts in FY 09
and 10 and major cuts in FY11. UMass
Extension is not unique: Many Extension organizations
are facing similar budget shortfalls.
Everyone is feeling the budget crisis.
What have been your two biggest leadership
challenges during this period?
First challenge was annual budget cuts
and this year having to make hard choices such as laying people off and disrupting
their lives. It's difficult to separate the person from what you need to
accomplish for the fiscal health of the organization.
The second challenge was Extension
having had interim leadership for close to a decade. In many respects, the organization has been
on hold. I stepped into a culture
that at times was very divisive.
To make that shift toward building consensus and allowing individuals to
voice their opinions and concerns was a huge challenge. I have seen improvement but it will
take time. I believe
Extensions's move into the Center for Agriculture will help in changing the environment.
What skills or capabilities have you drawn upon
in order to succeed?
Not having come from an Extension
background and not coming into the position with pre-conceived ideas. I had to step back and really do some
assessing. I made certain to ask a
lot of questions, not just listen to a narrow group of folks. Listen to people inside the
organization and also make those connections with people on the outside,
broaden your circle of who you listen to.
It was important for me to find
mentors outside of Extension to discuss issues, strategies and listen to their
advice. They are important sounding
boards. It helps to know your conversations are confidential. Having a coach has been extremely
beneficial. Deb has kept me focused
on my goals and accomplishments. Mentors
helps you focus on the things that are changing in a positive direction. Sometimes you're so consumed with the
problems you don't notice what impact you're having. This group has helped me
through what has been an enormous learning curve. Not being afraid to bounce ideas and challenges off other
people. If you isolate yourself...I
just can't imagine.
I'm not a "big stick" type of
administrator. Rather than
dictating change, I try to introduce ideas in ways that are like planting a
seed and then cultivating it. For
example, we've had some conversations about using social media in the
organization. Initially people were resistant. We convened a committee and it has been very interesting to
watch the shift in attitude and for the staff see the possibilities. I could have mandated staff use social media. It was much more rewarding for them to
decide this is a direction the organization should embrace.
Where have you seen unexpected opportunities?
The truly unexpected opportunity was Extension's
transfer into the Center for Agriculture within the College of Natural
Sciences. Thirteen years ago,
Extension was in the college and now it's a much bigger college. This change gives us a great
opportunity to broaden the issues we address and who we work with. We'll branch out into totally new areas
for Extension.
Once we got through the angst of the
summer, of not knowing where would be the best place for us...once the decision
was made that there would no longer be a Division of Outreach...we put our full
attention on making the merger work at the College.
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What Does Creativity Have to Do with Leadership?
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by Deborah Reidy
Lately I've
been thinking a lot about the connection between creativity and
leadership. I happen to think
creativity is a core capacity of a skillful leader but not necessarily in the
artistic sense. To me, creativity
in this context has more to do with being able to look at a situation that
seems unyielding and become conscious of the tacit rules limiting your choice
of responses. A lot of what
leaders have to do is keep things moving forward. Sometimes that involves helping people get unstuck; other
times it's about preventing things from getting stuck. My rule of thumb when you run up
against a seemingly intractable problem is to ask yourself what assumptions
are getting in the way of identifying new ways to solve the problem. Sometimes it's the assumption that the
problem is unsolvable! Whenever
you hear "It's always been done this way" or "We don't have the X to do that"
(as in time, personnel, money, power or any other finite resource) it's time to
ask, "What would it take to move forward?" To me that's creativity.
In her
interview, Nancy Garrabrants talked about how she decided in the beginning of
her new position not to accept the tacit rules that governed how people related
to one another. She saw that it
was possible to change the culture within the unit: for people to allow all
points of view to be heard, to
cooperate, to contribute. She
recognizes that, given the history of
the unit, change will not happen overnight-results take time to
achieve-but is pleased to begin to see some successes. Mentors have
been important part of this process: She started with an idea that things
could be different but was steeped enough in the university environment to
be doubtful that it was possible and unsure whether she could bring it
about. Having the
support and encouragement to move forward with her vision built her confidence
as she was building success.
Sometimes we
talk about breakthroughs...I think a breakthrough is essentially the same as
creative thinking: a different way of thinking about a situation that opens up
an array of possible solutions that hadn't been envisioned up to that point.
Leaders...must be more creative than most; and creativity is largely discovery, a push into the uncharted and the unknown..." Robert Greenleaf |
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Tools
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Mind Mapping: A Practical Tool to Enhance Creative Thinking
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Here is a
proven technique that will enhance your creativity. Mind mapping was
developed by Tony Buzan in the early 1970s. It was originally intended to help
people take notes more effectively. In the course of its application, Buzan
discovered that it also improved students' thinking skills. Mind Mapping can be
used for developing presentations, writing, note taking, project organization,
and in many other areas. Michael Gelb, a colleague of Buzan's wrote, "The
greatest power of mind mapping is that it trains your brain to see the whole
picture and the details...to integrate logic and imagination."
Practice this technique
whenever you want to develop an idea, or sort through an issue or problem. The
more you practice, the more you will discover that you have all sorts of ideas
about topics you never thought you had given consideration. Here's how to do
it:
Get a blank piece
of paper that is 8 x 11 or larger. The larger the better! Put a key word that
you want to work with in an oval in the center of the paper. It may help
to work in pencil initially, although later you may want to make
connections using different colored pencils or markers. Now, begin to
create branches to other ovals that are your main subjects. It may help to
have the topics that seem to be closely related to your central concept as
direct branches from that concept with less significant ideas that branch
from those. But don't worry: there is no right or wrong way. The idea is
to get the ideas flowing, not make judgments. Write down every
idea that comes to you, no matter how unrelated or insignificant it may
seem. You never know where the idea might fit. Especially if you are
trying to explore new territory, seemingly unrelated words and ideas might
lead you to a new insight. Also, if you don't write everything down,
you're likely to start judging and evaluating, which can block the flow of
new ideas. There always the opportunity to later discard something
that doesn't work. If you get stuck
for ideas, keep your hand moving by drawing circles or doodles in the
corner of the paper. I don' know why this works but it does! Once you feel you
are done, you can use colored pencils or markers to cluster ideas that
seem connected to one another. Feel free to use
visual symbols as a kind of shorthand.
There are also free online tools
that best support the mind-mapping approach for learning. Lifehacker recently reviewed the Five Best
Mind-Mapping Applications for online mapping action. I just downloaded XMind and have
started playing around with it.
Mind mapping is one of many tools aimed at improving thinking, especially
"design thinking," a term coined by creativity expert Edward de Bono.
He contrasts this with "judgment thinking." Judgment thinking relies
on logic, analysis and linearity. Design thinking is about possibility,
intuition, and leap frogging from one seemingly unrelated idea to the next
(also referred to as "lateral thinking.") Both have their place
but we get into trouble when we use one kind of thinking to serve a purpose
that it is not suited for. or when we trying to combine design and judgment
thinking in one step. This is very ineffective and can result in great
distress. Have you ever had a conversation where one person asked
"Why don't we...? What if we...?" (design thinking) and the
other person immediately responded with the reasons why the proposal would not
work? (judgment thinking). Or have you ever tried to write a report where you
were composing (design thinking) and editing (judgment thinking) at the same
time? Both of these examples lead to getting stuck. It's much
better to separate the two processes.
Skillful leadership, which is
often about opening up possibilities and finding new and better ways to work
together, requires the practice of design thinking, a powerful tool of
leadership.
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| What We're Up To
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| I'm spending a lot of time on Martha's Vineyard this month helping my parents overcome a recent setback. The experience is causing me to reflect on the role of creativity and leadership and the challenges of actually living into the question I wrote above: "What would it take to move forward? I'm struck by the way mindsets can be more powerful obstacles to moving forward than physical structures ever could be. As we contemplate the options available to my parents, what's causing the most angst is the frequency with which each option is met with a resounding, "No!" Even the simplest suggestion, such as rearranging furniture to make moving around a room more convenient is seen as impossible, usually for at least three reasons. As a person who's used to helping people move forward in the direction of their aspirations, it's humbling not be be more effective in this situation. And it's also a reminder that creative thinking needs to be accompanied by humility and patience. |
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| Upcoming Events
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Virtual Training Events
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We're taking a break from offering Virtual Training Events during the holiday season and taking stock of how best to proceed. If you have any suggestions for topics that would appeal to you, please send me an email at deborah@reidyassociates.org
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Reidy Associates offers customized solutions that enable leaders
and their organizations to succeed in complex and uncertain environments.
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