Chapter 6
Suzi Levine, Learning When Not to Raise Her Hand
Do You Believe 1 + 1 = 3?
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
—Aristotle
“I've always been an individual contributor. Somebody who can power through things really well on my own.” When she was growing up, “you name the club, I was in it, and I became the president of it.” Suzi Levine, who you met in the prologue, is a master connector today, but she didn't start out that way, as her words above convey. Like many of the skills these regular heroes have developed over the years, learning to believe in the power of building connections is a slow, and sometimes arduous, process. We need people who step up like she did, no doubt, but she might not have always had enough of the right people coming along for the ride.
During the summer between her freshman and sophomore years of college, Suzi traveled by herself through Europe for six weeks. As she told me, “I had the opportunity to have a lot of conversations with myself. Then I went to Israel in the fall and one of the biggest lessons I learned was what ‘community’ means. It is where people open their homes, where people care about each other, where it is completely nonjudgmental.”
It was in this context that she started to develop some of the skills that have made her a great connector today. She continued, “I learned to ask questions. I learned to ask the dumbest questions. I learned to formulate better questions. And then, I learned the value of having better questions than having answers.” That was a very different Suzi from the young woman at the end of her freshman year.
Over time, Suzi changed. She had to. It started in college, with the train rides in Europe and trip to Israel and it continued through life. Between having two kids, a personal financial crisis, and being part of the Jewish community where she lives, she eventually realized that “getting where I wanted to go,” in other words, meeting her future goals for her community, was about empowering others and recognizing the superpowers that different people have. “It's more about listening. It's about active listening [her words, not mine]. I think I was always so concerned with people thinking that I was smart and raising my hand.” How many of us can relate? And how many of us have the guts, the wisdom, the self-awareness to eventually come to realize that it's not about people thinking we are smart but instead about empowering and connecting?
To bring it full circle, she says, “now I like putting puzzle pieces together. You remember James Burk, the science historian, who used to connect seemingly unrelated items? For example, he'd say something like, ‘Let me show you how this hot dog is connected to this light bulb [not really, but I get the point, Suzi], that's me. I love making connections between things. And being the listener, it's only by listening and asking questions that you can be a great connector.” Suzi is one of those friends that I wish everyone could meet, because I know you'd like her. After getting to know her over the years, I have no doubt that learning to be a connector was something that eventually became more natural for her, but she did have to learn how to not always lead from the front.
Let's pick up some more of Suzi's story, where we left off in the introduction, back in 2005 in that old building on the south edge of the campus of the University of Washington, where two leading researchers, Pat Kuhl and Andy Meltzoff, were doing world-class brain research, truly cutting edge, at the Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences (I-LABS, http://ilabs.washington.edu). Pat and Andy not only knew the facts, they were fundamentally optimistic that their findings could change the lives of millions of newborns and young children. Along with another colleague, they published their research in The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us about the Mind.1 As I said up front, their work was not yet reaching far enough beyond the hallways and conferences of their fellow academics, and most surely, not into the living rooms of enough parents of young, growing children.
But it did reach one parent—Suzi. At the time, Suzi was part of an SVP grant committee that was exploring grant opportunities in early childhood education. Often these grant committees will seek out experts to help inform their efforts to find effective nonprofits to work with. Suzi brought the group to I-LABS and the committee began to focus on the work of I-LABS itself. It turns out that another member of that grant committee was Bill Henningsgaard. So this put two master connectors in the same room, with two determined optimists, Pat and Andy.
The group's visit to the lab was illustrative. They asked a lot of questions and listened intently for the import and the potential of the work Pat and Andy were doing. At one point they asked what I-LABS could do if it wasn't limited by resources. What would they do if they could go as far as they dreamed? This ignited Suzi's can't not do.
Suzi and Bill came away from the meeting determined to help I-LABS fulfill its dreams. A meeting a few days later helped everyone codify a direction. After that, Suzi and Bill helped them compose a strategic plan and the first call to action was the creation of an advisory board. The connectors started connecting with other connectors. They tapped their networks to create a new board and worked together to develop strategies to raise I-LABS’ profile. When they realized they would need more resources, they did more connecting. Big missing pieces filled in. Just two years later, on May 24, 2007, Suzi, Bill, Andy, and Pat were able to celebrate a new world-class brain-imaging facility. The governor, university president, local and regional civic and business leaders, the media, and more were there. Today, presidents and Nobel researchers look to I-LABS as a world leader in early childhood brain research.
I was, proudly, one of the connectors who helped put a few of the I-LABS pieces together2 and I will never forget the feeling of that May 24th gathering. It was a beautiful spring evening on a gorgeous college campus. I walked in and started looking at some of the exhibits they'd set up for this celebration; they were cool. But what struck me far more profoundly, and I can still vividly remember the feeling to this day, was walking around and seeing someone I knew I'd played a role in getting involved…then another person…and another person. It was sort of like walking around seeing different pieces of the completed puzzle. I remembered each of them individually, but it wasn't until May 24th that I saw all of the pieces come together and felt the cumulative effect of all the individual connections. It was such a powerful, humbling lesson about the value of connecting the right people even though, at the time, I didn't always know what would end up happening. In this case, it was something beautiful to behold. Their work will affect the lives of millions of newborns in the future.
What's the Point?
Why does connection matter? Why is it so key to making things work? What value does it create when it comes to empowering people to solve social challenges? Nothing here is rocket science and yet, we often don't value it nearly enough. Let me give you three short, emblematic examples that elucidate the incremental, significant, sometimes game-changing value that results from being a connector.
- An ant colony is an organized and productive system. No individual ant ever sees the whole system, yet the contribution of each ant is critical and each, in turn, benefits from the greater whole they collectively create. There are people who study ant colonies in great detail. Why? Because people like Deborah Gordon, at Stanford's Biological Sciences Department, are “interested in systems where individuals unable to assess the global situation still work together in a coordinated way, i.e. the parts create a whole greater than the sum of the parts.”3 Connections create much more potential than people and parts do individually. More potential.
- Meg Wheatley, who studies organizational behavior, has said, “Who we become together will always be different than who we were alone.…When living beings link together, they form systems that create more possibilities.” She goes on, “We discover we are not alone. There is no power equal to a community discovering what it cares about. Real change begins with the simple act of people talking about what they care about. It takes two or three people to notice they're concerned about the same thing and then the world begins to change.…Friends talk to friends. They talk to others and it grows and grows.”4 Connecting empowers and emboldens us because we know we are not alone. More possibilities.
- Metcalfe's Law5 says that as the number of nodes in a network increases arithmetically, the value of the network increases exponentially. Or as Kevin Kelley explained many years ago in New Rules for the New Economy 6 if four people join a network, there are six potential one-to-one connections. If you add a fifth, the network increases to 10 connections, and so on. Kelley explains, “Each additional member increases the network's value, which, in turn, attracts more members, initiating a spiral of benefits.…A connected object in a network that interacts in some way with other nodes, can give birth to a hundred unique relationships that it could never do while unconnected.” Connections make things possible that weren't possible and creates new things that didn't exist. More relationships.
More potential, possibilities, and relationships. Just like humility and listening, I want you to know that connecting isn't just a nice-to-have, it's a strategic-level imperative in making real change happen.
1 + 1 = 3 with Connectors
Bill Henningsgaard told me a few more things, actually a lot more things, over the years, that really struck me, “I've always been motivated by this opportunity to make 1 + 1 = 3 instead of 2. All these individual organizations are working their butts off to try to get something done, and I always try to find the connection that adds value somewhere.…The absence of something like Eastside Pathways would mean some of these one-off opportunities [individual organizations doing good, but isolated, work] show up for a little bit, but sometimes go away.…There is a constant existence of the opportunity to connect unconnected efforts.”
All of those statements represent a relentlessly open system view of the world. You have to be a connector of the parts and people as much and as often as you can. You have to use your eyes and ears at the right times to create those connections. You can't just own or solve these challenges by yourself. I am not talking about your traditional, built-in social or work circles. This is being motivated, even hungry, to connect people even when they don't look, act, or behave like you. It's impossible to overstate how important the principles are here. You cannot change the world without human connection.
You can say this is sort of obvious, and it may be. But, how often do each of us really do it? How much connecting do you do? I can almost guarantee the answer is not enough, at least not yet. When you walk into a meeting, are you looking around to see who isn't there who should be? Do you always follow up with people to make sure the dots or people get connected? Do you keep track of who you've contacted and when you should contact them next and connect them to someone else? You need your tribe, but we'll get to Seth Godin in a minute.
The ideas in this chapter are as foundational as any in the whole book. I've been involved in building SVP in 39 cities in eight countries these past 17 years; we've engaged over 4,000 SVP partners and worked with over 300 nonprofits. What I've learned is that the solutions exist, the money and resources often exist. But what we lack most is enough connected human capital—people who have found their can't not do and who operate from a committed, focused foundation. I've witnessed it over and over and over again. When you connect your internal passion to the right networks of people, you can go so much farther together.
Learning to Connect
Two of my favorite books are The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell7 and Tribes by Seth Godin.8 Gladwell (www.gladwell.com) wrote, “Connectors are the people in a community who know large numbers of people and who are in the habit of making introductions. A connector is essentially the social equivalent of a computer network hub. They usually know people across an array of social, cultural, professional, and economic circles, and make a habit of introducing people who work or live in different circles. They are people who link us up with the world…people with a special gift for bringing the world together.”
That's part of your job description in this social change work. Go do it as best you can. You may not already fit that description or ever become a full-blown Gladwell version, but it's a good goal. Remember, you don't have to be the master connector to learn lessons that you can apply to your life.
If I'm a fan of Gladwell's, I'm a superfan of Seth Godin (www.sethgodin.com/sg/). There are lots of people out there trying to tell stories well; he tells them very well. He also lives what he talks about; he's not just a good storyteller. Seth cares deeply about living in and contributing to a better world. He is his own version of a regular hero. I had the pleasure of having coffee with him in New York City last year and I've never written down that many notes that fast. Why I didn't audio record our conversation I'll never know.
The end result of being a great connector is, in short, a stronger, bigger, better tribe. Seth explains: “A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.…A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.” Everything in this book will, I hope, help you find your shared interest and the way to communicate.
He has two great notes that are totally relevant to being a connector, “What most people want in a leader is something that's very difficult to find: we want someone who listens.…President Reagan impressed his advisors, his adversaries, and his voters by actively listening. People want to be sure you hear what they said, they're less focused on whether or not you do what they said.” That last sentence is worth reading again.
And, “If your work requires success before commitment, it will have neither. Part of leadership, a big part of it, actually, is the ability to stick with the dream for a long time. Long enough that the critics realize you're going to get there one way or another…so they follow.” Active listening and determined optimism are core to being a great connector. Yes, stick with your dream for a long time, simply and beautifully put. Thanks, Malcolm and Seth, for spelling all this out so well.
Pacing the Floor Like an Expectant Father
David Griffis—we'll call him “Griff” like everyone else does—was born to be a connector. He has a degree in counseling and guidance. For over 35 years, in his consulting business, he worked with CEOs and their boards and teams, assisting with meeting facilitation, problem-solving, dispute resolution, and joint ventures. He and his wife, Ginnie, retired in Tucson where he has served on several nonprofit boards like the Tucson Pima Arts Council, Casa de los Ninos, and the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona. Griff and Ginnie were also early members of SVP Tucson, which has a focus on improving literacy and life skills for members of their community. He's another part-time can't-not-do person.
I can't say I know Griff really well, I've only met him twice; this story was pieced together from several people involved. But after hearing the story that follows I could see exactly how he was the right guy for the job at the right time. Even if, like me, you only met him twice, you would still feel the quiet, sunny confidence he exudes. No ego, not in it for himself, clearly. He's got a twinkle in his eyes, and listening to him recount his role and what he remembers is just fun. As with so many can't-not-do people, you can feel not only what he brought to the work, but what he gained from it; he lives and breathes the positives of being a great connector.
In 2011, five literacy-focused nonprofits in the Tucson area decided to explore a merger to create a single entity and they approached Griff to help figure out if it could be done. Before you start to think a merger between nonprofits might be easier than one between for-profits, think again. A few of the elements might look a little different, but it's still fundamentally about merging missions, people, cultures, programs, and products. It's tough stuff and, in the nonprofit sector, a merger usually happens only in response to either a leadership transition or a crisis in one organization.
So this case is unique because it was driven by aspiration, not transition or crisis. And even more unique because it was five, not two organizations. I'm not sure I've ever heard of that happening. And remember each organization has a director, maybe one or two key staff involved, and a board of probably about a dozen people. Griff wasn't just connecting five parts, he was connecting and holding together dozens of people. His task was to help them find their shared interests and provide the way to communicate (thanks again, Seth).
This whole process must have taken at least a year, maybe longer, right? Nope, seven months. Because there was a connector intertwined in and underneath all of it. A connector keeping detailed notes so all conversations were clear and could be referenced. A connector talking to individual people about their concerns and nudging them back into the fold. A connector listening and asking the right question when it needed to be asked, making sure important, tough issues didn't go unaddressed or end up being dealt with in the hallway, in a side conversation outside the real meeting.
Griff said, “My role was to keep the group together, focused on exploring common interests…facilitating the meetings and working behind the scenes to find language that would work for each entity…serving as a neutral convener…and pacing the floor like an expectant father until I heard the merger was approved by the fifth and final organization.” That's the mindset, the essence of a connector.
There is a new entity in Tucson now. Literacy Connects (www.literacyconnects.org) represents 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1= much more than 5 and possesses so much more capacity and leverage to be a “more powerful voice to promote literacy in all its forms.”
In its words, Literacy Connects is about how “we, as individuals, neighborhoods, organizations and businesses, share a human connection around literacy that helps each of us learn, grow, and have a voice. Together, we are developing more resources, serving more people, doing more good, and accomplishing more than ever before.” That's the reason we all do this work, isn't? More people doing more good, that's what Griff's connecting made possible.
I truly believe in the power of human networks to solve our most intractable, seemingly unsolvable problems in the world. But these networks need the connectors, the open system people, the people who are wired to connect and keep connecting until the problem is solved or sustained momentum is in place.
You might be a connector/leader from the front of the pack, from the back of the parade, or walking alongside. You're not going as far as you could if you are not being a connector—as much of one as you can possibly be. I know not everyone is wired that way, so do your best. Always be motivated by, always be looking for ways to make 1 + 1 = 3.
For you geeks, I remember a trigonometry lesson in school where we were taught that the interior angles of a triangle always add up to 180 degrees. That's true as long as that triangle is on a flat surface, but if you inscribe a triangle on a sphere, the angles add up to 270. Connecting people is about creating more possibilities by looking at the world in three-dimensional, not two-dimensional, form.
One last point—it is often the relationships with others that help each of us clarify our own internal values and identity. It's the outside that pulls out the inside and the inside that anchors and informs where we reach out. There is powerful stuff inside each of us when we connect it to the right people around us.
I've said it before; there are solutions out there, way more than people know, to most of our social challenges. I do not think our biggest challenge is know-how; it's not even money. It's connecting the right people with the right ideas in the right way. Sound easy? It must not be because the condition of our world today proves that it isn't.
Director or Connector?
I didn't change my job title from executive director to executive connector just for the heck of it. Somewhere along this journey, I realized two things: I don't do very much directing and the right people who have or can find the answers are already out there, they just need to be connected. That doesn't mean anything we are working on is a quick fix. It just means we have most everything we need in our heads and hearts and communities, right now, if we will work relentlessly to connect these resources like Ms. Reece and her teachers or Mr. Maple and the pins on his wall.
Connections have been a fundamental element of growing SVP from the great idea of a few people in 1997 to a worldwide movement. If someone asked me for a quick list of the top six tips and tricks I've learned, and am constantly learning, about connecting, I'd rattle off something like this:
- It's about dogged, stubborn persistence. Nothing sexy, just keep at it. In my work to get people connected into SVP, so far the longest time it's taken to get someone to join our network is 11 years. I'm sure we'll break that record soon.
- Keep track of every person (okay, maybe 98 percent) with whom you come in contact. You need to have a database, literally, where you keep track of them, the notes on your conversations, anything and everything. You never know which person you talked to X years ago will become the key missing link tomorrow.
- Keep in contact with as many people as you can with some regularity. Even if, for many, it's just the occasional e-mail, text, or note to keep the connection going; it's worth it.
- Use social media to reconnect with people whose contact information you've lost. More often than not, one of your friends knows where the person went or how to find them today. If you work hard enough, there's almost no one you can't find via LinkedIn, Google, or Facebook.
- Connect at the heart, not just the head, level. There are facts and figures that connect us, but more than anything, stories and hearts connect us for the long haul.
- Whenever you meet someone or are in a meeting or room with other people, stop and think who else should this person, these people, be connected to? Just make it a habit.