January 2014 ENGAGE Recap

Guest post from 2013-14 ENGAGE Breakfast Series guest blogger Alicia Dietrich. Alicia is a public affairs representative at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin. See the end of this post for the podcast from the breakfast.
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The January installment of Leadership Austin’s ENGAGE breakfast series explored the best ways for leaders to move Austin forward during this period of tremendous growth and change. Panelists Travis County Judge Sam Biscoe and University of Texas at Austin Professor Jeremi Suri sat down with moderator Shannon Wolfson of KXAN to discuss the challenges Austin faces as it grows, and what it will take for leaders to address those issues.

Suri outlined what he believes to be the three greatest leadership challenges facing Austin: the challenge of success and how to lead beyond that, diverse groups in Austin not living in integrated ways, and the uneven growth of the economy and lack of opportunities for upward mobility.

January 2014 ENGAGE breakfast at the Long Center

To address Austin’s greatest challenges, Biscoe advocated for better collaboration between the city, government agencies, nonprofits, and community leaders. He noted the improved state of mental health care in the city after local hospitals worked with the county jail to make sure that patients were getting appropriate treatment instead of jail time.

However, he said that while the city has high aspirations for cooperation, we often fall short on implementation.

"We've always done a good job of studying and putting together reports and plans," he said. It's the next step that’s key, though.

He explained that government tends to respond to issues and problems, and if you have a problem you want solved, you need to get it in front of the right person and work to build consensus.

"We respond, by and large, to specific issues that we try to fix," he said. "I don’t know if we as a county ever sit down and think, 'What kind of Travis County do we want?'"

He noted that building consensus and compromise are crucial: "If you have five persons responsible for a decision, you'll see that often what we approve wasn't what was brought to us. But you'll see what got consensus and what we had resources to back up."

KXAN's Kate Weidaw interviews
panelist Judge Sam Biscoe

Suri noted that it was important that people learn that compromise is necessary and that they shouldn’t feel shut out of the process if they don’t get everything they want. "When people come to believe it's a process where the decision of today isn't the last decision—if they only got 20 percent of what they wanted today, maybe tomorrow they'll get something more. When it's a process and you have credibility, that's what works."

Suri also discussed the importance of crossing lines in politics to get things done. "We need to talk to people who think differently and see things differently. We need to make a conscious effort to cross lines because you can't [create change] if you're only talking to people who already agree with you. You need to make a conscious effort to cross lines, and the beauty of Austin is that we have such an intellectual diversity here all around us."

As Austin moves toward a new City Council structure next year with single-member districts, both panelists stressed the importance of asking tough questions of potential leaders to make sure they can articulate a vision for the city’s future and how they will include everyone in that vision.

"As an elected official, your attitude should be 'I represent all county residents,'" said Biscoe. "From the neighborhood association level on up, inclusion should be part of everything we do. If we err, it should be that we included too many people."

Suri said, "We desperately need people in this city now who can continue to talk to groups who have been dominating dialog but are also able to bring other people in and connect them. Successful politicians are connectors. Second, I think it’s time we ask our politicians to say not just what they promise to do about a problem, but what they envision the city looking like. I think we do need a vision. I don’t mean a visionary in terms of pie in the sky, but an ability to articulate, to tell us a story about how you see our city with all these changes, institutionally and economically, growing in the next five to 10 years and how we can all be part of making that kind of city."

Both panelists also emphasized the importance of mentoring and incubating future leaders, through encouraging students to pursue public service and by implementing permanent succession strategies at the government level.

"We need to remind people at all age levels, but particularly young people, that public service is a noble calling," said Suri. "Leadership has to involve politics in your organization and in your city."

Full Audio from the Event


Download this audio file (MP3)

The Soul of Leadership

Guest post from Essential Class of 2006 graduate Joe Barry.
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Decision making for a civic or community leader can be daunting to say the least. He or she often juggles a multitude of perspectives in an effort to best serve the community. There are countless examples of what we call “bad decisions” that have led to bad outcomes. And when we look back to see what went wrong we often find indicators along the decision making path where communication went awry and important information fell through the cracks.

In her book Soul at Work, Margaret Benefiel states, “most leaders want to make good decisions for their organizations and their failed decisions are not for lack of trying.” She goes on to describe that the pressures of time, unrealistic expectations, and the speed of work provide the fodder for decisions turning bad.

Of particular focus for Benefiel is how leaders and organizations listen to each other and to themselves. She uses the word "discernment" to describe this type of listening. Discernment is the process of listening for an individual’s or group’s deeper wisdom. Just imagine if we took the time to do this in our work and personal lives! It is well documented that when people feel heard, included, and respected there is an increase in productivity and employee and customer satisfaction.

Listening for deep wisdom requires us to take extra time to reflect before we act. I know this may be contradictory to the speed of work we experience today, so I offer this: we tell ourselves we don’t have the time to take five minutes to reflect because of all the external pressures we experience, yet when things go bad, we seem to find all the time in the world to get them fixed. Which is the greater cost?

Even though I employ discernment practices in my daily life, I am still drawn to make the speedy decision. I feel the pressure to get things done sooner than later risking an outcome that may be less than satisfactory. In Soul at Work, Benefiel explains “maintaining a reflective inner disposition, patiently seeking underlying issues… and testing a decision by its fruits all keep a leader operating on all cylinders.”

If you want to hear more from Margaret Benefiel, CEO of Executive Soul, she will be in Austin on October 25-26. Click here for details.

Joe Barry, MA, is an educator and spiritual director at the Seton Cove in Austin, Texas. He enjoys working with individuals and groups facilitating leadership and team development.