Beyond Charisma: Becoming a Reflective Professional

1
Beyond CharismaBecoming a Reflective
Professional

• Paul Pribbenow, Ph.D., CFRE
• www.augsburg.edu/president
• March 31, 2008

2
MY STORY AND YOURS

• The privileges and obligations of our work
• Living between the real and the ideal
  navigating the messiness
• Setting examples for those will follow us as
  leaders in philanthropy
• Were living out our visions of professional life
  in the philanthropic community now what!?

3
A VIEW FROM THE BALCONY

• Heifetz and Lauriess research on adaptive
  change and leadership
• Taking a balcony view of your leadership
• The dialogue between the balcony and the floor
• What are the challenges for adaptive leadership?

4
REFLECTION

• Blackburns notion of reflection continuous with
  practicetells us what to do and what not to do
• The belief that thinking matterslinks to ideas,
  values, and experiences
• Finding the time, the will, the skillsand
  helping others do the same

5
PRACTICE

• Donald Schöns notion of reflective practiceways
  of learning to work
• Personal, organizational, professional, and
  public practices
• Philanthropy as practice
• Where do we learn the practices of life, the
  practices of our professions, the practices of
  leadership?

6
THREE ASPECTS OF REFLECTIVE LEADERSHIP

• To listen for and follow a call your vocation
• To recognize and care for the gifts youve been
  given seeing things whole as stewardship
• To make and keep our promises to the public the
  covenant of philanthropic work in public

7
REFLECTION (1)

• What are your challenges and opportunities to
  lead in the nonprofit community?
• What do others expect of you? How are you
  perceived within and outside of your
  organizations?
• What do you need to pursue effective professional
  and public leadership?

8
1. THE LIFE WELL EXAMINED

• Philanthropic leadership as a calling

9
ARE WE LISTENING?

• Buechners definition of vocation where your
  deep gladness intersects with the worlds great
  need
• Our need to control, to know, to follow the
  rules, to fit the categories
• The promise of stories, images, ordinary
  experiences (Postmans weavers)
• Are we listening?

10
TO BE CALLED

• A search for inspiration
• A need for meditation
• A challenge to engage in conversation

11
LOVE AND WORK

• What do we love? What difference does our love
  make for our work?
• Love against work love and work love and work
  as paradox love transforming work
• A way to talk about what we are called to be and
  do
• Paytons philanthropic dimension of human
  experienceits all about love

12
REFLECTION (2)

• A word or phrase that you hear as a call
• Metaphors, images, stories that make sense of who
  you are and what you do
• What inspires you? What do you meditate about?
  What informs your conversations?

13
REFLECTION (3)

• Philanthropic autobiography
• The source(s) of your call people, experiences,
  institutions
• Remaining in touch with our histories and
  helping others to do the same

14
2. SEEING THINGS WHOLE

• Leadership in organizations

15
COMMON WORK

• My callinga meditation on motivations and ends
• Calling others into our work the challenge of
  leadership
• Jane Addams and humane philanthropyredressing
  the balance, creating a philanthropic community,
  helping others do their part

16
STEWARDSHIP

• The logic of stewardship
• We are gifted
• We have obligations to care for our gifts
• We must be strategic in caring for our gifts
• We must be accountable for how we care for our
  gifts

17
STEWARDS OF WHAT?

• The public trust--first and foremost
• Organizational resources--investment,
  infrastructure, and image
• Philanthropic partnerships

18
A LIBERAL ARTS VIEW OF LEADERSHIP

• Bolman and Deals work on reframing
  organizations structural, human resources,
  political and symbolic lenses on our work
• The goal is not to control, but to understand
  and then to navigate the messiness
• Palmer on the grace of great things

19
PAYING ATTENTION

• Attending topaying attention tothe things we
  care about deeply
• Learning to pay attention requires making
  choices, facing betrayalthe source of our fears
• How shall we become ambassadors of trust in a
  fearful world? (V. Havel)

20
TRUST

• I have this reminder on my desk
• Trust always in tension with mistrust
• The continuum of trust-integrity-image
• Understanding and nurturing forms of trust
  communication, competence, and contractual

21
ABUNDANCE

• I have another reminder on my desk
• Ways of seeing the world abundance or scarcity?
  Plenty or never enough?
• Loaves and fishes, Palmers wonderful
  interpretation of a familiar story
• We must be imaginative, resourceful, ingenious...

22
REFLECTION (4)

• Your sense of where abundance and scarcity are
  present in your professional work
• How do we create abundance when there is so much
  scarcity thinking in our midst?
• What does abundance look like?

23
3. PUBLIC SERVICE

• Keeping our promises to each other and the public
  good

24
PUBLIC SERVICE

• All professions are linked to public practices
  health, justice, education, social welfare
• Philanthropy is a public practice
• As we pursue our work in the philanthropic
  community, we are public servants

25
THE PUBLIC PRACTICE OF PHILANTHROPY

• A sense of history remembering
• A sense of place rooted
• A sense of values grounded
• A sense of hope faithful
• A sense of service the connection between the
  liberal and domestic arts

26
THE MESSINESS OF IT ALL

• John Courtney Murrays wonderful phrase
  democracy as the intersection of conspiracies
• Philanthropy and democracy as intertwined
  throughout history no monolithic definition
  then nor now
• Evolving conspiracies mean evolving social
  patterns and institutional arrangements
  innovation!

27
PROMISES

• Consider all of the promises we make and keep
  everyday
• Promises create covenants, trusts we must honor
• Promises to ourselves, each other, our
  organizations, the public
• Stafford on the promises that link us

28
LEARNING TO BE PUBLIC SERVANTS

• Of wondrous ability, fit for everything
  Luthers definition of education
• Life-long learners reflective practice as a way
  of life
• Chastened patriots Elshtains notion that we
  must love our causes but not uncritically the
  liberal arts approachmaking what we love better

29
A PHILANTHROPIC EDUCATION FOR PUBLIC SERVICE

• What does your curriculum (and co-curriculum)
  look like for a philanthropic education focused
  on public service?
• What do you read, practice, do?
• Where do you teach philanthropy?
• Who are the teachers and students?

30
REFLECTION (5)

• How do we practice philanthropy in public?
• What special obligations do we have as
  professionals in philanthropy?
• Philanthropic counselors

31
THANKSGIVING

• Surely our history reminds us of all we have been
  given
• How do we celebrate, ritualize, and symbolize our
  thanksgiving?
• Whom do we thank? Aspiring to a generosity of
  spirit and means

32
HOPE

• A vision for our workthe paradox of vision now,
  but not quite yet
• Aspirations we have as individuals and as a
  profession to be certain sorts of people
• Optimism is grounded in evidenceHope is grounded
  in faith

33
INSPIRATION

• The philanthropic dimension of all human
  experience
• Vocational education, examining our motivations
  and ends
• Stewardship as leadership, caring for the gifts
  weve been given
• Public covenants that link rather than fragment
  serving public goods and needs

34
WHAT SHALL WE DO?

• Keep the faithwith the past, present, and future
• Reflect and practicehope, generosity, abundance,
  trust, promise-keeping, and stewardship
• Be a force for good
• Practice philanthropy in public

35
MEDITATION AND CONVERSATIONPlease join me

• Notes for the Reflective Practitioner, my labor
  of love, sharing ideas, readings, practices with
  my colleagues
• To subscribe, email me at augpres_at_augsburg.edu
  and ask to be added to the list

36
STRANGERS

• What does it mean to be part of the company of
  strangers?
• Defining democracy as strangers negotiating
  their lives together
• How do we meet the needs of strangers?

37
FORGIVENESS

• Sometimes our history means we must ask for
  forgivenessperhaps the most crucial moral skill
• The forget/forgive dynamic
• Building a forgiveness framework into our
  organizational cultures

38
CLOUD OF WITNESSES

• Wendell Berry reminds us to return to the study
  of history
• Maya Angelou says deal with it
• We are not alone--we dont need to reinvent the
  wheel--our past tells us who we are
• History, difference, and the skills of
  improvisationBatesons Persian garden