Take a Beat:  Time for a Mid-Year Pause

Take a Beat: Time for a Mid-Year Pause

Take a Beat: Time for a Mid-Year Pause

Tsukada Island in Musashi Province, Hokusai 1830
Boats in calm water before heading back out to sea

 

 

Welcome to the second half of 2024!  I hope the first half has left you feeling satisfied while also bringing you worthwhile challenges that spur growth and increase confidence.

You likely achieve a lot.  You care about making a positive impact or you wouldn’t read words written by a person who is fanatical about helping others lead with generosity, agility and impact. The positive wake you leave is important to you.  I’m genuinely glad to know you.

Today is a good time to stop, or slow ourselves enough to get on the proverbial balcony so that we can see our life with broader perspective.  To disconnect from the swirl of activity we find ourselves in, check for alignment to what is most important and determine what deserves our attention moving forward.

Every year I publish a packet called Beginning Again.  The intent is to help folks get and stay focused on what’s most important for the upcoming year.  If you missed this year’s version, Ride the Wave of a Fresh Start, you can find it here.

You may already have a reflective practice that you do quarterly or half-yearly.  If so, you can add these questions to your reflection.  If not, this is a good place to start.

 

Am I being the person that I want to be?

Am I living and acting from what I declare is most important? Your values, purpose, and vision will provide the wisdom you need for living and leading consciously.

 

Compared to how I thought the year would unfold, how is it going? 

What am I most proud of so far? What hasn’t materialized yet? What happened that wasn’t on my radar? If you launched your year by getting clear about goals, look back on those and assess how you’re doing.  You will likely find you need to adjust by changing some of your goals and intentions.  Good for you for being mindful.

 

Am I making the impact I want to make?

As I look towards the second half of the year, where do I need to put my focus? Good on you for recalibrating your energy, attention and time to be on track for the rest of 2024.  You may have realized your approach needs to be adjusted.  I sure have!

 

How do I rate my overall level of thriving?

How are my levels of optimism and resilience?  Am I pushing through or savoring the journey? Is my physical-self able to support the life I wish to lead?  Your overall wellbeing is inextricably linked to your effectiveness as a leader.

 

Do I have rigor behind my commitments?

When I set an intention or a goal, do I treat it seriously?  Do I put systems in place that support me?  Do I prioritize my energy, attention and time around what I say is important?  Remember to be generous with yourself when you find you either over-committed or if life showed up and plans change.

 

Based on this reflection, what should I keep doing?

I am quite certain there are MANY things that are working well for you.  What are they? How can you ensure these good habits and behaviors stay sticky?

 

Based on this, what should I stop doing?

Our tendency is to add more to our plate.  The truth is that we all have limits to our bandwidth.  You may want to stop behaviors such as interrupting others, the default to social media scrolling, unconscious eating.  You may have bigger things to stop like: accepting so many invitations that you don’t have time to yourself or work that takes a lot of effort but yields scant results.

 

Based on this, what should I start doing?

This option is last because most of us don’t need more to do.  Use the same rule of thumb that many people have that requires them to purge the old before purchasing something new. What are you willing to stop doing in order to take on something new?  Take some time to get clear about your ‘why’ and to understand what resources (mental, physical, emotional, etc.) doing something new will take.

 

Congratulations for taking the time to reset.  I hope you have also found time to refresh and re-fuel for the journey ahead!

-LeeAnn

 

Reach out to me if you’d like to know more about Thriving as a leader.  I can guide you through the Be Well Lead Well Pulse assessment for wellbeing.Click on the image to download the full Beginning Again 2024: Ride the Wave of a Fresh Start.
 
 
What’s Your Cathedral Story? | Jonathan Haberkorn

What’s Your Cathedral Story? | Jonathan Haberkorn

#31: What’s Your Cathedral Story? | Jonathan Haberkorn

Are you completing a task or working towards a bigger vision?  If you have a Cathedral Story your work, your goals – your life will have more meaning.

As the cofounder of Intrizen, Jonathan Haberkorn specializes in making sense of complex processes and organizing them in a way that emphasizes human interaction first. By prioritizing the people who will be using the system and through promoting connections, Jonathan’s purpose fuels his craft.

Show Notes

If we’re going to spend the majority of our time doing work, there’s got to be a good reason and meaning behind it. That’s where the shift is. When you do land on where you feel like you’re in line with your purpose, it is easier to see the impacts, and you become a servant of that.”

– Jonathan Haberkorn

A serendipitous dinner conversation with Jonathan took place a few years ago and stuck with me.  I was moved by a story he told about the time when the magnitude of his work was unexpectedly revealed.  I call it a Cathedral Story.

Start with Purpose

Charging you work with purpose endows you with a greater sense of congruence between your professional and personal lives. Work then goes beyond the transactional aspects; supporting a life of intention and of fulfilling the promise of your potential.

As the cofounder of Intrizen, Jonathan Haberkorn specializes in making sense of complex HR processes and organizing them in a way that emphasizes human interaction first. By prioritizing the people using the system and the process of promoting connections, he relies on purpose to fuel his craft.

The Cornerstone of The Cathedral Story is our Orientation

[12:30] “The bricklayer said, ‘I’m a bricklayer, I’m working hard to make money so I can feed my family.’ The second bricklayer said, ‘I’m a builder, I’m building a wall.’ And then the third guy says, ‘I’m a cathedral builder, I’m building a cathedral where people will worship.’ …Basically, they’re doing the same job, but the context and the orientation that they’re doing it with changes everything.
“When we see how the work that we’re doing is going to be used, what’s the long term and even the multiplier impact it can have, it really changes. It changes the quality of our work.”

We can approach our work as a series of tasks or as a meaningful part of a greater vision with many ripples.

Purpose keeps us centered and whole

[26:00] “So knowing that things don’t always go to plan more times than not, and there’s deviations that happen, what’s our response to that? How are we going to react to it? We have the different ways we can react to it, we can be conscious about the way we’re thinking and kind of deal with it and handle it and give perspective around it.”

[31:40] “I used to think, okay, this is work, and then there’s home life…there’s definitely different aspects of life. But once I’ve really found my purpose, and have completely aligned to that, it all seems like one life to me. It’s all intertwining with each other.”
Purpose gives a perspective that transcends the silos of life.

Links to Intrizen and Jonathan Haberkorn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanhaberkorn/
www.intrizen.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/weareintrizen
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WeAreIntrizen/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/weareintrizen/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WeAreIntrizen

To subscribe to the Rise Leaders newsletter for more resources: https://mailchi.mp/426e78bc9538/subscribe

To discuss executive coaching, leadership development program design, and workshop facilitation, please visit:
https://rise-leaders.com/contact-info/

I specialize in helping leaders and organizations thrive.  Reach out if there’s a way I can support you.

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The Rhythm of a Great Place to Work: Drew Clancy

The Rhythm of a Great Place to Work: Drew Clancy

The Rhythm of a Great Place to Work:  Drew Clancy, President of PCI

Drew Clancy, President of Publishing Concepts (PCI), is a self-proclaimed ‘cultural enthusiast’.  His commitment to the core elements of culture has resulted in year-over-year growth and consistent recognition as a Best Place to Work.  As a third-generation leader, he has brought this near 100year-old family business solidly into the 21st Century through innovation and servant leadership. 

Season 1   |   Episode 09   |   November 12, 2019

Show Notes

 

We inspire dreams and transform lives

PCI’s Purpose

 

A Successful Third-Generation Family Business

Drew Clancy is President of PCI, a midsize, third-generation family business headquartered in Dallas, Texas.  In 2021 they will celebrate 100 years in operation, and like any company that has weathered that much time, they’ve experienced iterations and evolutions. In 1982, Jack Clancy, Drew’s father, breathed new life into the company and gave it a new name: Publishing Concepts, now best known as PCI.  They’re in the business of “helping college, university, and association clients engage their alumni and membership and raise money in order to fulfill their mission of educating our nation’s future leaders”.

Jack Clancy was a ‘dynamo’, as Drew describes in the interview and embodied many first-generation and founder qualities: charisma, high energy, generosity and a preponderance for making all the decisions, and generally keeping tight reigns on the business. These characteristics are needed at start-up but will cripple the business over the long-term.  Note:  PwC has published a very interesting survey on family businesses.  A short video summary can be found here.  

Drew entered the picture in 1995 after his father suffered a heart attack and could no longer bring his formidable energy and presence to the business.  Drew recognized the talent and capacity of the team and brought his own unique approach to leading and managing to PCI.  Essentially, he navigated the company past the ‘founder’s trap’ as described by Dr. Ichak Adizes, creator of the Adizes Corporate Lifecycle, and steered PCI toward sustainability.  And it’s working – PCI continues excellent financial performance, targeting $50M in revenue this year, doubling 2016’s performance. As you hear in the interview, Drew is a self-described “workplace culture enthusiast” and is so passionate about this that he invites anyone to reach out to him for a conversation.

Organizational Culture as a Business Strategy

We spent the bulk of our time discussing Drew’s passion: workplace culture.  He is a strong believer in Servant Leadership and sees creating a thriving workplace as a foundational business strategy.  His orientation is paying off:  PCI has appeared on both Dallas Morning News 100 Best Places to Work and Best Companies to Work for in Texas, nabbing first place in 2015 & 2016.  Even with these accolades, he doesn’t take culture for granted, claiming “you have to work for it every day”.

They have a term for the central elements of their culture, theFIVE:

  • 5 Elements of the core ideology: Purpose, Values, Vision, Goals, Commitment
  • 5 Values: Excellence, Unlock Human Potential, Act with Integrity, Innovate a Culture of Relationships & Fun, Lead with a Servant’s Heart

Structure Will Set You Free:  Rhythms, Rigor and Ritual

A best-place-to-work culture will not happen by wishing for it.  It won’t even happen if you articulate your core ideology (Jim Collins’ term for Purpose, Vision and Values) and hang posters throughout the workspace.  You have to take action.

Drew is keen on the idea that “structure sets you free”. Liberating structures are created to channel individual or group energy toward a specific goal.  James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, guides individuals to make tiny shifts in daily behaviors that will lead to big results.

At the organizational level,  leaders use liberating structures by setting rhythmic meetings with appropriate agendas to guide actions and increase engagement. Drew outlines the meeting rhythm at PCI that has helped create their award-winning cultural.

Drew’s morning ritual:

Like many successful leaders, Drew has a rigorous morning ritual that he’s been practicing for seven or eight years now.  Last year, he led a book discussion at PCI on The Morning Miracle by Hal Elrod, which helped him fine-tune his own routine (this is also an example of his commitment to Unlocking Human Potential as an organizational value). Here’s his practice:

  • Wake at 5:45a or 6:00a
  • Exercise – push-ups or sit-ups
  • Meditate for 10 – 20 minutes
  • Read the Bible & pray
  • Journal – writing about the 10 personal goals he sets each year

PCI’s Organizational Rhythm:

“Try a lot of things and keep what works”.  This is the advice Drew gleaned from Jim Collins’ epic book, Built to Last.  Here’s what is working for PCI now:

  • Annual Planning – Yearly
  • Monthly Extended Leadership Meeting – Trail Blazers meeting for anyone leading a team, project, product, client relationship, etc. This meeting is focused on growth and learning.
  • Weekly – CEO Council.  This is an L-10 meeting (Level 10 from EOS)
  • Daily Huddle – 10 minutes at 8:30a, called the 10@8:30. See PCI’s agenda here

These meetings share critical information such as metrics (transparency is key), updates, and progress and also keep team members focused on ‘theFIVE’

Helpful Articles:  Discipline Sets You Free; The Right Meeting Rhythm Will Set You Free; CEO’s Roadmap to Alignment

Book:  The Power of Liberating Structures

Courage:  The Final Element

Courage is the third element for creating an enduring culture.  There are times in the life of a leader when decisions aren’t just tough, they may even have a short term negative impact – financially or otherwise.  The leader has to choose whether to take the high road and stay true to the stated values of the company or let something slip by.  These are known as leadership moments and they are opportunities to embody the values that have been espoused.  Actions speak much louder than words.  Which reminds me of the quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi:  Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.

Drew Clancy’s actions SHOUT his commitment to the culture at PCI.

After listening to the interview and reading the notes, I wonder what your takeaway is?

Thanks for tuning in!

LeeAnn

 

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Visionary Leadership Keeps a 100-Year-Old Mission Relevant

Visionary Leadership Keeps a 100-Year-Old Mission Relevant

Visionary Leadership Keeps a 100-Year-Old Mission Relevant

 

Jennifer Bartkowski, CEO of Girl Scouts Northeast TX

Innovation, strategic thinking, and execution are marks of Jennifer Bartkowski’s  leadership. She invests these talents as CEO of Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas (GSNETX), and in collaboration with strategic partners, is transforming the Girl Scout experience. Jennifer is committed to making Girl Scouting a path to success for all girls. Her passion and visionary leadership are changing the game for GSNETX.

Staying relevant in a constantly changing world is daunting. As organizations age, their appeal often grows stale and without significant revitalization, they risk demise. Jennifer is accomplishing what has eluded countless leaders: she is bringing new life to a century-old organization to meet the demands of contemporary challenges. And she’s doing it while staying true to the Girl Scout mission: To build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.

Building on the Mission

“We asked ourselves, What else can we do with this strong foundation?  Our answer: we can get girls excited about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). We can get them excited about financial literacy and how it makes more things possible as they grow up. We can teach them about healthy living and healthy relationships and other skills required to be healthy adults. We can teach them about the outdoors. It’s fresh and exciting!

“One of the challenges of Girl Scouting is that we’re 105 years old.  It’s a blessing and a curse.  People know us for cookies, camps and crafts.  We are all of these things and we’re proud of them.  And we’re so much more today – the organization has been going through a real transformation.

“For six weeks of the year, Girl Scouts is cookies.  Every single girl owns their own business where they develop important skills like decision-making, goal-setting, financial management, and business ethics.  This experience creates a powerful foundation to build on.

“We are also camp, which is so critically important today.  This generation of kids is the first to grow up almost entirely indoors.  We have a proven history of teaching leadership at camp better than anywhere else.  (Note:  Girl Scouts founder Juliet Gordon Low purchased land for camping before investing in a physical building.)

“And yes, we are crafts.  Girl Scouts has always been about fun and creativity and we intend to keep offering what the girls enjoy.

We are taking all that is foundational and setting it on its edge.”

Women, Technology and Girl Scouts

In 2010, Texas Instruments (TI), a Dallas-based global technology company, approached GSNETX, asking them to be a partner in solving a business challenge: A significant talent shortage in the fields of technology and engineering is predicted by the year 2020. Girls are less likely to go into technical fields and TI would like to change that. TI has long been committed to diversifying the workforce and has been a champion of developing and promoting women. TI imagined that Girl Scouts could offer years of positive STEM experience all the way through high school, shaping their desire to pursue STEM degrees in college. A K-12 STEM Engineering badge was the first accomplishment of the partnership.

Texas Instrument’s offer also fits with Girl Scouts’ commitment to the development of leadership skills in girls and young women. Their curriculum, driven by the earning of badges, provides experiences that develop confidence, critical-thinking, and problem-solving skills and encourages the pursuit of challenging goals.

The STEM Center of Excellence at Camp Whispering Cedars

The timing was auspicious. Alongside the initiative with TI, GSNETX was taking a strategic look at their physical properties. A decision was made to unite the new STEM initiative with an investment in Camp Whispering Cedars, a gorgeous property in southern Dallas. That is how the STEM Center of Excellence at Camp Whispering Cedars was conceived.

Jennifer’s visionary leadership and passion for girls energized a campaign that cast a wide net across the business, academic, cultural and philanthropic communities. She invited them all to take part in giving local girls from all walks of life fun, hands-on experiences with STEM. The community responded with a resounding YES!  A sample of collaborators joining TI in this innovate effort (so far): the University of Texas at Dallas, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, the Dallas Arboretum, and many very generous donors. Other business partnerships are emerging and they’re eager to make this vision a reality. (Read about Capital One’s boost!)

STEM Highlights at Camp Whispering Cedars:

  • The telescope-equipped Moody Observation Tower is a place for girls to get high above the trees to study astronomy and sleep under the stars. They will also experience themselves as part of something much bigger.
  • Girls will learn underwater robotics when they’re not swimming in the on-site swimming pool.
  • Rockets will be launched, archery skills honed, walls will be climbed and girls will zip-line above the largely un-groomed, wide-open spaces so many kids no longer have access to.
  • A GeoScouting app already guides girls on their hikes through the beautiful escarpment, learning about rocks, plants and the geologic formation of Camp Whispering Cedars.

A Virtuous Cycle

Jennifer, the GSNETX team and their award-winning Board of Directors have created a cycle of contribution and benefit that is acting as a flywheel, reinvigorating itself with each accomplishment.The obvious benefactors are the young women who will experience STEM in an environment that only Girl Scouts can provide: an outdoor, all-girl setting, infused with leadership and life skills. These young women will be primed to follow degree programs leading to a job market hungry for their capabilities.

Local tech businesses will enjoy an enlarged and diversified pool of female talent ready for work for the foreseeable future.

Enrollment in engineering and other STEM-related university programs will increase. The more girls who enter programs with a flourishing peer group, the more will persist and complete their STEM degrees.

The City of Dallas is also a significant benefactor, and Jennifer is “proud to be a part of Mayor Mike Rawling’s Grow South initiative. Girl Scouts is investing $13M in 92 acres of the most beautiful land in Dallas, and we’re happy to be a part of the city’s priorities.”

Also promising is the role Girl Scouts can play in positively impacting race relations. At camp and in many troops, girls are playing, sleeping and learning next to girls of racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds different from their own. Their parents are also interacting with each other for a common goal: to prepare their girls for a bright future.

Innovation in Girl Scouts Delivery: Making the Experience More Accessible

A limiting factor for the number of girls able to participate in Girl Scouting is the number of troop leader volunteers. GSNETX is experimenting with new ways of delivering Girl Scouting: “We’re piloting a partnership with a few DISD elementary schools and exploring possibilities with KIPP schools as well. We’re actually going in and helping the teachers understand the Girl Scouts leadership experience, and enabling them to deliver Girl Scouting to girls at their schools. Those girls are using our STEM Center as a field trip space and becoming Girl Scouts in the process”. Solar Prep, an all girl’s STEAM (A is for Arts!) school in southern Dallas is calling itself a Girl Scouts school. 100% of the students there are Girl Scouts. It’s a new model.

“Finally, we’re piloting a way to make the space available to girls and boys in schools in the southern sector of Dallas for field trips. These schools don’t typically have the revenue to send their students to expensive camps in East Texas. Camp Whispering Cedars is a short bus ride away which gives them access to a 21st century STEM Center and an incredible outdoor space.”

A CEO Exemplar

Jennifer speaks from experience about the impact of Girl Scouting:

“I was a Girl Scout myself through ninth grade and earned the Silver award. Girl Scouting is a long tradition in my family:  my three sisters and I were led by my mother and she was led by her mother.  My daughter is a Girl Scout and I volunteer with her troop. Through Girl Scouts, I got to try new things and have experiences that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. I was the oldest of five kids and we didn’t have a lot of money, so every winter I worked hard and sold cookies so I could go to camp for two weeks on my own. I got to be my own person and meet new friends. As I got older I went on destination trips and got to do really cool stuff.

“Between Girl Scouts and competitive swimming, I learned leadership, teamwork, time management and how to work hard and be competitive. Girl Scouts opened doors for me and I’m passionate about making sure that girls from all walks of life have access to the Girl Scout leadership experience and programming. It can be transformative.

“We’re all on a leadership journey: me, all of our staff, and of course the girls. My entire life and career have led me here, building the skills the organization needs now.  And I’m being challenged to develop new ones all the time!  I believe we are doing this work on purpose. We’re leaving a legacy for the future by building on an amazing foundation for Girl Scouts of the 21st Century and beyond.”

For Reflection:

  1. Is your mission clear enough to guide strategic decisions?
  2. How can your legacy products and services be delivered in new ways that fit the current environment?  Explore out-of-the-ordinary ways that your mission can be accomplished.  (GSNETX paired camping with STEM)
  3. Who are your stakeholders?  How can you partner with them for win-win outcomes? (Consider the innovative partnership between TI and GSNETX)
  4. Do you feel on purpose with your vocation? Are you passionate, engaged and creative in your thinking?

 

The Art of a Strong Finish

The Art of a Strong Finish

The Art of a Strong Finish

Accomplishment, completing

Setting and Achieving Goals. Discipline. The sense of accomplishment.

This is what 26.2 conjures for me. The person sporting this sticker demonstrated the grit and determination required to finish a marathon. They trained for months when it was hard and they weren’t in the mood. They persisted in challenging conditions, and followed the plan all the way through to the end.

Many experts write about the struggle and ultimate value of finishing what we start. In his book, The Art of Somatic Coaching, Richard Strozzi-Heckler describes the Rhythm of Energy, the stages we go through when moving from inception to implementation of any idea, activity and even in relationships. We move through the stages of Awakening, Increasing, Containing and Completing on grand and minuscule scales – from large projects to the smallest of activities and tasks. The more consciousness we bring, the more choice we have at each stage.

When we learn to complete, to end chapters and stages of our life, we can then move freely ahead to new frontiers.

– Richard Strozzi-Heckler

The act of completing gives us satisfaction and “creates the possibility of a new beginning. When we learn to complete, to end chapters and stages of our life, we can then move freely ahead to new frontiers“.

And on the flip, “if we’re habituated to not completing we create an unending cycle of dissatisfaction”. The weight of unfinished business is like a ball and chain, keeping us from moving forward. These “open loops”, as David Allen calls them, also cause a restless mind and sleepless nights.

The finish line of another year is in sight. Will you run through the tape with your goals and projects complete or is your year fraught with loose ends and ultimately dissatisfaction? You have a sliver of time left to decide how you will finish.

10 Simple Yet Powerful Practices for Completing

Engaging in these practice on a daily basis helps build habits for finishing what you start.

  • Be imperfect. “Ship it”! (a la Steven Pressfield) Get your ideas out there and iterate if needed.
  • Do one thing at a time – finish one task before you start another.
  • Schedule time-blocks in your calendar for completing activities and moving projects forward.
  • Remind yourself why you are engaging in an activity. Connect with the original intention and desired result.
  • Conduct an After Action Review (AAR) at the end of each project.
  • Mark emails for follow up and delete them upon completion. There’s such sweet satisfaction in taking something off the list!
  • Break large projects down into bite-size chunks and make plans for completing each segment. Celebrate each milestone reached!
  • Engage an accountability partner to support you on your most challenging goals and check in with them regularly.
  • Make your bed every morning. You will begin your day by completing a task.
  • Empty the sink of dirty dishes prior to going to bed each night. You’ll end your day by completing a task and wake to a clean environment for fueling your day.

Expert Advice for Reaching Your Goals:

The Art of Somatic Coaching, by Richard Strozzi-Heckler. Read Chapter Five, The Rhythm of Energy.

Steven Pressfield. Pressfield is well known for his writing on resistance and urges us to just get started and to ship (complete) in his trilogy, The War of ArtDo the Work and Turning Pro. All three are must reads for bringing to life anything that is important to you. I’ve linked to Brian Johnson’s Philosopher’s Notes (TV) to for a quick review of each.

David Allen, author of Getting Things Done (GTD), is THE guru of personal productivity. This book describes the GTD process. The concept most impactful for me was that of closing open loops – that incomplete tasks cause our mind to be restless and nights to be sleepless.

Following the advice in The Power of a Positive No by Bill Ury reframes ‘no’ such that we are actually giving preference to what is most important rather than saying ‘yes’ to what isn’t. This increases the likelihood of fulfilling commitments we make to ourselves and others. Follow this link to an overview of the concept.

LeeAnn Mallory has worked in the field of leadership and organization development for over two decades and has cultivated a diverse portfolio of client engagements. She specializes in practice-based and multi-month leadership programs and presence-based leadership, which she integrates into all of her work. She lives in Dallas, TX, with her husband and LuLu, their sweet boxer. They have two daughters who have launched out of the house and into college. Check out her website www.rise-leaders.com.

You Can’t Lead People You Don’t Love

You Can’t Lead People You Don’t Love

You Can’t Lead People You Don’t Love

Lead with Love, Exemplary Leadership

Exemplary Leader Michael Sorrell

Profile of an Exemplary Leader: President Michael Sorrell of Paul Quinn College

A core intention of my business, Rise Leaders, is to promote individuals who are making a positive impact in the businesses and communities where they lead. They are taking a different path, coloring outside the lines and disrupting the norm. Michael Sorrell, President of Paul Quinn College, is an exemplar. Paul Quinn College (PQC) is a HBCU (Historically Black Colleges & Universities) located in Oak Cliff, a community in Dallas’ Southern Sector. The college was fighting for its life when he stepped in.

Leadership of the type written about here is uncommon and only for those willing to take a strong stand for what they believe in. President Sorrell demonstrates that it takes a galvanizing vision, a mission that won’t be compromised, a tireless work ethic and love for those being served to turn around a failing institution.

I had the opportunity to hear President Sorrell speak at a Sum + Substance gathering in Dallas early in the Fall of 2015 and knew I wanted him to be my first interview. I hope you enjoy and are inspired by what you read.

As background, President Sorrell had a few goals on his list as a young man. Not like most of our goals. His goals included public service as a mayor, owning an NBA franchise and becoming a college president.  We began our conversation with how becoming a college president arrived on his list in the first place. While attending Oberlin College in Ohio (where he had a very impressive basketball career), Sorrell had a serendipitous meeting with Dr. Johnetta Cole, who was then president of Spelman College. A seed was planted for his future; only he didn’t pursue the qualifications needed to realize that goal. He went on about his plans to become a lawyer, which he did. He said he figured he would get to be president by virtue of his other life’s accomplishments.

In response to his “plan” for becoming president, I jokingly commented that I heard he had admitted to being cocky. While he claims not to remember the admission (smirking), he did comment on his confidence, which comes from a strong work ethic. We’ll pick up the interview there.

Is the willingness to work hard an important leadership trait for you?

The key to my confidence is my work ethic. There is no problem you can give me that I won’t find a way through. I am willing to outwork anybody. This makes me supremely confident in my abilities.

People make excuses for why they come up short and aren’t successful. I think that most people simply don’t want to work hard enough to truly be successful. We’re having a lot of success [at Paul Quinn], but the first three-and-a-half years, I regularly worked fifteen, sixteen, seventeen-hour days. I went back to school to get a doctorate [a Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Pennsylvania] and worked full time. My students saw me come to the office on weekends at nine o’clock in the morning and stay until nine, ten o’clock at night. They saw that I don’t ask them to do anything I’m not willing to do myself.

The reality in dealing with under-resourced communities is that this population has a dysfunctional relationship with work. There are a myriad of contributing factors; it’s complex. You have to teach people the expectation of hard work. Telling them that they don’t work hard enough doesn’t mean I don’t love them, doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re wonderful, doesn’t mean I don’t think they’re special. But you can make some amazing things happen for yourself if you roll up your sleeves and work your way through it.

Tell me about the Four L’s of Quinnite Leadership here at Paul Quinn. Did you create those?

Our institutional ethos is WE over Me – the needs of the community supersede the wants of the individual. When I got here I looked around a realized we needed something to hold on to. The Guiding Principles of the institution are the Four L’s of Quinnite Leadership:

  • Love something greater than yourself
  • Leave places better than you found them
  • Live a life that matters
  • Lead from wherever you are

The Four L’s are basically my personal value system, learned through great parenting and a Jesuit education, but repackaged for Paul Quinn. The Jesuits teach us to be men and women for others. That translated to loving something greater than yourself.

My parents taught me to always, always leave places better than you found them.

We wanted to communicate to the students here that you don’t have to wait to lead; leadership begins today. In under-resourced communities, people need to become action-oriented. They need to be empowered. They need to hear, “You have the ability to change this. You don’t have to wait. You have something within your personal arsenal that can change your circumstances. Let’s go find it together.” That is lead from wherever you are.

Live a life that matters … When I was a freshman in high school I learned about renaissance men and women in my World History class. History remembers them as being good a many different things. I thought to myself, “Man, I want to be a renaissance man. I want to be someone that history remembers.” If you live a life that matters, that’s your legacy. Leave places better than you found them, improve other people’s lives, be selfless. History will remember your service.

What is Paul Quinn College to Oak Cliff, symbolically?

Our goal is to be one of America’s great small colleges. Period.

One of the things that’s very important to us, and important to me, is the use of language – controlling your narrative and establishing the narrative to be completely what you want, and not what others impose upon you. That’s important, especially in under-resourced communities and institutions, because people are always telling them who they can be, and what their dreams can be. Our goal is to create an extraordinary national institution. We want to be the signature higher education experience for students from urban, under-resourced communities.

In the context of Oak Cliff, we represent the non-gentrified possibilities for a better tomorrow for the indigenous people from this community. We’re not going to transform this school and then make it inaccessible for the very people we came to serve. What we’re saying is, when you subscribe to these values, the price won’t be what keeps you out. What will keep you out is your ability to serve. If you don’t want to serve, you don’t belong here. If you don’t want to be taught to lead, you don’t belong here.

Everyone has all this angst over “how do we develop Oak Cliff? How do we develop Southern Dallas?” The same way you’ve done it everywhere else. When you have a sustainable four-year, high performing institution, it produces the middle class that transforms the community from within.

Do you hope that graduates of this school stay in the area and reinvest themselves?

It’s not even about hope. I expect that a segment of my students will stay, and that they will pour themselves into transforming the area, absolutely. Not all of them, because we’re national. We need some people to go be mayors of LA, and Oakland, and Chicago, and New York, and to go do extraordinary things so that it raises the profile of the institution and inspires. We’re going to transform the institution and create an amazing place for the folks in this community who have held on for thirty, forty, fifty years, while a city built up everything north, and no one thought about them.

At the Sum + Substance event, you talked a little bit about anger. You said that it’s an important emotion – it causes things to happen if you use it the right way.

I think righteous anger can be incredibly healthy. You need to be angry about the state of affairs because you need to constantly be critical of those who come to you and say, “We did the best we could.” No you didn’t. You did what was in your best interest to do. You did what was safe for you to do. You did what soothed your conscious, but don’t tell me that this imbalance was the best that you could do.

When a bank tells us that our campus is worthless, when grocery stores told us, People in that neighborhood don’t look like our customers”, I said, “Thank you, because you didn’t have to tell me the truth. You could’ve given me the polite song and dance. You telling me the truth has infuriated me. It’s infuriated me enough that I am taking this personally, and I will expend whatever personal capital, whatever institutional capital that we must to do right by the people who deserve it.”

Revolutions don’t start from above. Revolutions start from below. They start from the places of unhappiness. They start from the places of dissatisfaction where people have lost a sense of hope, and they’ve lost their direction. They’re fed up with being told, “It’s not your turn, or you’re not good enough, or sorry, we did the best we could do.”

Revolutions are also messy. How do you plan for that?

Why do we have to plan for the messiness of the revolution? Life is messy. Poverty is messy. So what if some people’s feelings get hurt on the way to creating a better, more balanced city? Don’t we think that people’s lives have been hurt and their feelings have been hurt by living in mind-numbing poverty for generations? I’m not saying that you have to be angry to the point of irrational behavior. What I am saying, is that you also can’t allow yourself to become consumed by what everyone else is going to think about what you’re saying. You have to identify your constituency. You have to represent them to the best of your ability. I don’t want people to hate us, I don’t want people to hate me, but I also don’t think that it’s right that people live in food deserts.

I was struck by a few quotes from another interview and would enjoy hearing what’s behind them: 

You can be our kind and not be our color.

In my estimation, what HBCU’s are meant to really do is provide opportunities for students who have some type of disadvantage in their background.

I’m not insecure about our institutional heritage. I’m not insecure about our African American heritage. In fact, I’m so secure about both that I can welcome others as well. It doesn’t diminish mine.

Are we less of a Historically Black institution because our Miss Paul Quinn College is Latina? Are we less of a Historically Black institution because we have white soccer players? Are we less of a Historically Black institution because we have a diversity of religious experiences? No, we actually now have more to offer our Black students because those things; because we are expanding to become a HBCU that is also a Minority Serving Institution. What often happens when you grow up in under-resourced environments, is that you tend to engage in the ‘politics of less.’   That is, you define everything from a position of what you don’t have. You look around and you say, “I don’t have enough of this and I don’t have enough of that. If I share with you, I will have even less.” We reject that thought process. We believe that we can all have more if we share our resources. It’s not a zero sum game, but if you’ve grown up in poverty, that’s how you’ve been taught to define your life. We’re not going to do that.

The education you’re providing is more than academic.

Absolutely. I think that we would do our students a disservice if all we did was provide them with solely an academic education.

What is next? How can Dallas link arms and be part of the story?

The real estate community has completely embraced us.

Trammell (S. Crow) and The Real Estate Council (TREC) have been amazing. Trammell has been our number one donor for years and I don’t know if TREC could be any more supportive from the stand point of getting their members to provide services and help us in all other sorts of ways. We’ve got to build new buildings. There haven’t been any new buildings on this campus in forty-plus years. We need help. We need friends. They all know this and they’ve just been phenomenal.

As I think about what else we need outside of more economic resources, we need people to have some faith, that what they’re seeing is really happening. People don’t tend to believe something they’ve never seen before.

What would exemplify that people have faith?

I do think a lot of people have faith in us. I would like to see the counselors in DISD (Dallas Independent School District) show some faith by sending us more of their best students. We’re getting really good students now, but they rarely come from DISD. We can get great students from Detroit, Chicago, Pennsylvania, New York, St. Paul, and from California. We do an amazing job with gifted students. Because we are smaller, the line to stardom at Paul Quinn is much, much shorter.

There are so many people embracing us: the business community, the philanthropic community, and the majority of the Black, Hispanic, and Anglo communities. Politically, our elected officials have been incredibly supportive. I think the exception is more with a certain segment of the community that my students engage with more than I do. My students sometimes feel beaten down when they’re so excited to be Paul Quinn students and they go out in the community to serve, and hear disparaging things from this segment.

I think ours is just an issue of time with the non-believers.

It sounds like your reputation hasn’t caught up with you in some circles.

That’s exactly right. Who we are today hasn’t translated yet. In fairness this school (seemingly) struggled for twenty years and just started really getting back on track in the past five. It’s a matter of interpretation, but it makes a difference.

What advice can you give to other leaders facing the hard work of a turnaround situation?  

  • The opportunity has to personally resonate with you. You have to believe in it.
  • I tell people all the time, “You should not lead people you do not love.” I think you lead with love. I think that makes an enormous difference. I love this school, I love my staff, I love my students. I feel it is a privilege every day to come to work and be their president. I genuinely feel that way.
  • You have to know where you want to go.
  • It’s really important to have a sense of humor; you need to be able to laugh at yourself. You’re going to do ridiculous things.
  • Understand that failure isn’t forever.

Coming back to leading with love, you also need to learn how to love. The best advice I was given, advice that fundamentally transformed my presidency, happened early. The first summer that I was at Paul Quinn, I got into a huge argument in the middle of campus with a student. On the outside this young man looked and acted tough. We were still yelling when we got to my office where broke down into tears. After he left, an extraordinary staff member, Ms. Dickerson, said to me, “Baby, you know, I met your mother. I know that your mother loved you. I know that you grew up in an environment where there was strict discipline, but you never spent one second of your life wondering if you were loved. You bear all the markings of a guy who has had an abundance of love. If you hadn’t had that, and your college President yelled at you, would you have heard the love, or would you have just heard the tough?” She said, “They won’t hear you until they know you love them. You have to learn to lead with love.”

I can’t begin to tell you what a difference it made. It didn’t make a difference immediately, because there were still students for whom I thought, “You don’t need love, you need to have your butt kicked. You don’t get that other part,” (laughter) but it made a difference. I see the difference it makes. It’s made me a far better leader.

The other thing is my students need to see me as a husband, and as a father, because many of them have no model for that. They see me being very loving towards my wife. They see me bringing my son up and hugging him. They see him come up here and run around wreaking havoc. They see my little girl (she turned one in February). It turns out that people need to see how I do these things, and it’s okay to be sensitive in front of them.

I have a final question if you will indulge me. Are you in line with what you feel your life’s purpose is? If you think about those kinds of things, would you say that you’re on track?

I think that I have found a peace that I did not have before. To the extent that that peace is only possible when you are aligned with your purpose, then perhaps so. I think I am becoming the man that my family would’ve hoped that I would become. I think maybe this is what I was built to do.

Thank so much for your time. This has been delightful.

Thank you for thinking that I’d be a worthy subject.

 

Today a very solid foundation is in place at Paul Quinn College. There is fidelity in their Core Ideology, which surfaced naturally in our conversation. There is strong alignment between Sorrell’s personal values and those of Paul Quinn – there is no wonder that he feels peace. He is also demonstrating the ability to hold two important poles in business: a relentless pursuit of goals and executional excellence and the ability to be a compassionate leader and role model for a population who direly needs it.

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LeeAnn Mallory is a leadership coach and consultant who develops exemplary leaders and thriving organizations.