Action: Build on Strength

Another week has passed since I made my last notes. Dad has enjoyed a real bounce in both energy and appetite, and he’s bent on putting both himself and me back into play in our Serving Leader project. Mom, Dad, and I all know that this bounce is only temporary, that, in fact, it might be very short-lived. We want to make the most of it.

Yesterday I reviewed with him the work I’ve done so far, showed him my journal, and talked at length about what I’ve been learning. I watched him intently while he read—saw his smiles, his nods, and at times his outright laughter. And I was riveted to his face for a couple of incredible moments when he stopped his reading, tears in his eyes, to look up at me.

“This is really good,” he said simply when he had finished. His face told me everything a son wants to know.

We talked about how personal my journal has become, and Dad told me this was, in his estimate, the best part of it.

“If it wasn’t personal, Mike,” he declared, “it wouldn’t be worth a thing!”

His strong statement startled me. He made his point.

“You wrote what Martin had to say about helping people,” Dad explained. “I’ve found that his point applies to everybody, children of prisoners and CEOs alike. If all we’re doing is offering services or insights to people, we’re just playing that tired old dependency game. All of us must make our contribution. It has to be personal. All of us must bear the fruit of this work in our own lives.

“We’re on the same team now,” he added with a smile. “This journal weaves it all together, yourself included. Nothing could please me more.”

Nothing could please me more, either. I’m on my dad’s team!

“But you’re not done,” Dad said matter-of-factly. “Some important dimensions are still not woven into the story.”

I waited while he collected his thoughts.

“All the partners we’ve involved, Mike—the police, the corporate executives, the pastors—have to be connected to each other because they each bring a strength to the table that is needed by others. Isolated greatness, whether it’s in the police department, a profitable business, or a growing church, isn’t greatness at all. We need our communities to come back to life. We’re doing this work in order to make the kind of citywide impact that can only be made when we bring our collective strengths to the service of the whole.”

Dad paged back to my pyramid diagrams and reviewed my terms: Upend the Pyramid, Raise the Bar, Blaze the Trail.

“I need you to look at some great work done in Chicago several years ago by John Kretzmann and John McKnight. Martin has spent a lot of time with these guys looking at how you build on the strengths of a community.”

He pulled their workbook down from his shelf, and we spent an hour paging through it as Dad explained how the Serving Leader paradigm encompasses the larger community.

“Here’s another paradox for you,” he then said. “You’ve heard that the best way to improve yourself is to work on your weaknesses. It turns out that the opposite is true.”

I frowned in puzzlement. I’ve been working on my weaknesses for decades. Well, okay, so maybe these efforts haven’t been all that effective.

“Paradoxically,” Dad continued, “you get better results by shifting attention away from your weaknesses. It’s far more productive to shift your focus to your strengths.”

“Sounds irresponsible,” I said, deadpan. Actually, giving it a moment’s thought, it sounded pretty good. Still, it didn’t sound quite proper.

“The Serving Leader’s job is to focus everyone on the team and in the organization and in the community on living out their strengths. When people are living out their day-to-day lives by exercising their strengths, they’re more productive and, frankly, happier.”

“Okay,” I drawled. “So you just pretend you don’t have any weaknesses?” Isn’t that what I’ve always done? Hasn’t that been precisely the thing that’s gotten me into trouble?

“Pretend you don’t have weaknesses?” Dad laughed. “And who’d buy that? No, Mike. The point is that it’s dumb to pour all your good life energy into turning weaknesses into serviceable mediocrity!”

All right, so this is starting to make sense.

“The better approach is to bring together a team where the individual strengths offset the individual weaknesses. A high-performance team is put together with the greatest care and attention to how each person’s strengths can be used to the max and how the weaknesses will get covered by someone else on the team.

“In my first corporate lead role,” Dad continued, “I figured out that I was terrible administratively. My instincts were scarily accurate when it came to spotting a new opportunity for our company and then in knowing what would be needed to translate that opportunity into success. But I’m not good when it comes to the follow-through. Once I saw the opportunity and conceived a strategy to implement it, I stopped paying the kind of attention that’s needed. So I made sure I had a COO who was gifted administratively. Together, we were quite a team. I helped craft high-level strategy, and my COO made sure things got translated administratively into tactical plans with i’s dotted and t’s crossed.

“Serving Leaders must work to create teams where all members are living out their strengths day to day. This applies to small teams, to midsized organizations, and to whole communities.

“Now here’s my point,” Dad concluded. “In the same way that good Serving Leaders in a corporation build upon the strengths of their employees, Serving Leaders in a community build upon the assets that are already present there. They don’t put their focus on the problems but rather on the solutions that already exist.

“I’m calling the No-Name Team to a special meeting,” he declared suddenly, as though he’d just made up his mind. “I don’t have much time, and I don’t care if there are stockholder meetings or black-tie dinners at the White House. We’re meeting tomorrow! This work is more important than anything any of them might have on their calendars.”

I just smiled. Dad was feeling like the boss again, and I loved seeing him like this. I also sensed that he was preparing himself for a final push to the finish line.

I made a note of Dad’s point.

To address your weaknesses, focus on your strengths.

We met this morning, everyone convening in a section of the city Dad identified on the map as Greenwood. “Where’re we going?” I asked as Dad directed me along the streets. I’d never visited Greenwood, never driven through it, and never met anybody from there, in fact. Indeed, there was nothing green about it. A more miserable twenty-five city blocks I have never seen.

“We’re in the heart of our city’s best hope,” Dad answered evenly.

I must have had an incredulous look on my face because Dad just grabbed my arm. “You need new eyes. Eyes to see what’s here, not what’s not. Remember what we just talked about yesterday? Build on strength?”

I remembered, and I was looking. But I couldn’t see!

“I’m going to introduce you to an old friend this morning, someone who will help to improve your eyesight.”

We arrived in the parking lot of a well-weathered red-brick church. Our meeting took place in the church basement, this venue being quite a surprise to me, especially after starting out five weeks ago at the Pyramid Club.

We walked down the steps into the church’s fellowship hall, and everyone was there, those I’d already met as well as nearly thirty others.

The chief of police came, along with his community liaison officer. Two hospital administrators were present, an editorial-page writer for the Enquirer, nearly a dozen neighborhood leaders and organizers, the mayor’s chief of staff, several local pastors, Alistair Reynolds, Will Turner, Dorothy Hyde and Harry Donohue from Aslan, Stephen Cray and Anna Park from BioWorks, Martin Goldschmidt’s university research team, and many other business leaders.

I don’t think I’ve ever been in such a circle, certainly not in my consulting work. This group was as female as it was male, more African American than white, and also Hispanic and Asian. And the spirit was delightful; these people knew each other, and the banter told me that they also liked each other.

A large square of folding tables had been arranged for us, encircled by folding metal chairs. I was greeted by many of my new friends and introduced to many others. Dad was obviously the guest of honor. Everyone wanted to say a word to him, give him a hug and, in the case of many of the women in the circle, a kiss. I saw their looks of dismay and their exchanged glances of sorrow as they realized how much weight he had lost, how frail he looked. Dad was among his family, and the care they showed him was deeply moving to me.

We took our seats, and I was pleased that Anna positioned herself next to me.

“Ladies and gentlemen, can I call you all to order?” Dad’s voice was clear but very weak. You could have heard a pin drop.

“Some of you have already met my son, Mike.” Nods, smiles, and “Hey, Mikes” all around. “He’s writing our story, and, fatherly bias aside, it’s as good a piece of work as I’ve ever seen.”

I felt a small blush crawl up around my ears and really liked seeing the smiles that showed the group’s love for Dad. Somehow, I felt that their love for him was being graciously extended to cover me as well. As to the compliment, I doubted anyone believed that “fatherly bias” had been set aside in the least.

“I think your father’s wonderful,” Anna whispered, leaning close. I started to slouch toward her to acknowledge her comment.

“Mike,” Dad barked, “I called this meeting for you, so pay attention!”

Everyone roared at the start this gave me. They’d all been called to better order at one time or another by Dad’s commanding instructions and clearly enjoyed seeing the old man’s boy get the very same treatment. I was sitting very straight and tall now. Dad looked pleased with himself.

“Usually, quarterly meetings are devoted to our community-building projects,” he continued. “The goal of the No-Name Team is to serve the communities of our city by developing stronger Serving Leaders throughout all city sectors. We support these leaders with many kinds of needed resources and then magnify their impact through the strategic interconnections of this broad group. Occasionally, we even help them find expert consulting services, I might add,” he said, winking at me.

“Traditionally, the community sector is left out of the equation, Mike,” Dad went on, now addressing me directly. “But we think of our work in the first three sectors—the public, the private, and the nonprofit—as all needing to contribute to the building of the most important fourth sector, the community. Our work, then, to put it simply, is to develop the Serving Leader model in each of these sectors—building their teams and organizations—and then to connect these sectors to improve the life and vitality of the communities and neighborhoods where people actually live.”

By this time I was writing furiously.

“For our meeting today, I’d like to ask my friend Jim Silver to update us on developments underway right here in Greenwood. Jim?” he said, nodding to a man about my age seated across the table from us.

“Listen up, Son,” Dad added, enjoying this final fatherly gibe.

“I’d like to just say, as an introduction, that Robert Wilson is a money grubber,” Jim began, causing the group to again collapse into laughter. My dad was grinning broadly. “I’ve brought your lousy hundred bucks, Bob,” Jim continued. “You thought I was going to try to weasel out of it, didn’t you?”

I wondered what he was talking about.

“It was your dad, Mike,” Jim continued, “who got me stuck in the middle of everything here. He and I met while flying back from a business convention, and we just started talking on the plane about the sad state of some of Philadelphia’s urban communities. Anyway, he asked me if I thought I was really putting my best gifts to use for the broader community, and frankly, I knew that I wasn’t. The fact of the matter is that I wasn’t putting my best gifts to use for anything! I was at the very top of my game, head of the company, and feeling like an empty shell. I think your dad sensed it, Mike. He says to me, ‘Jim, I’ve got a big idea that I’d like you to consider.’”

More chuckles. My dad has apparently buttonholed more than one person with one of his big ideas for their life.

“‘I’d like you to do an experiment, Jim,’ he told me. ‘Do you believe in prayer?’”

“‘Of course,’ I said. Which was a total exaggeration, I’ll tell you right now. What I knew about prayer was a joke.”

Laughter gave way to serious listening.

“‘Well, then I’d like you to pray every day for Greenwood,’ Bob says. Greenwood! I thought. Why Greenwood? ‘We’ll put a bet on it,’ he said, ‘and six months from now, if something significant hasn’t happened in Greenwood, I’ll give you a hundred dollars.’”

“I told Bob then that I didn’t blame him for only making it a hundred since I knew enough about Greenwood to not expect anything significant to ever happen here.”

I noticed several of the attendees looking rather stoical at this remark. They were Greenwoodites, I surmised, and less than amused by Jim’s negative press on their neighborhood.

“Well, I took Bob’s challenge, and I took it seriously,” Jim continued. “I started praying for Greenwood every day, but then I began to figure that I couldn’t really pray for this neighborhood unless I knew a little bit more about it. So I got a map of Greenwood and began to pray over the map every day. Then it occurred to me that I couldn’t just pray over a map but that I’d need to start actually visiting Greenwood and learning to know some of the people here. Call me a rocket scientist,” Jim quipped.

“So I started driving around the neighborhood, stopping in at churches and shops, meeting people. I brought my daughter, Sara, to a diner here on Saturdays. One day, a group of local folks stopped in during a neighborhood cleanup project, and we asked if we could join in. We spent that beautiful fall day working and laughing with them.

“Another time at the diner, Sara and I started talking to a guy in a suit and tie. He told us he was from Jersey. He’d spent the morning scouting factory locations for his company and had just given up. He told me he realized that this was the wrong neighborhood.

“Here was my first surprise,” Jim declared. “That man’s comment really ticked me off. I’d spent enough time hanging around here that his bias against Greenwood felt like a bias against me! If all he saw were problems, then he wasn’t looking right!”

The stoical faces had warmed up to the presentation again.

“I told him I thought he could do very well here and that I’d line up some contacts for him if he’d like. So I arranged for him to meet several businessmen interested in his product and got him together with a couple of local community leaders who were eager to provide incentives for him to move here. Long story short, he changed his plans. As we speak, he’s in the process of relocating his manufacturing operation to right here in Greenwood. A hundred and twenty new jobs will grow out of this.”

Applause and a few hoots.

“And what’s the hook? We have an incredible asset—an available, trainable workforce and a world-class job-training organization. Dorothy agreed just yesterday to put an Aslan training branch right into his new facility to deliver those workers.”

Cheers again, this time acknowledging Dorothy.

“A few other things have happened, too,” Jim went on. “I was telling a friend a while back about my prayers for Greenwood—she’s a representative of Big Brothers Big Sisters—and she told me about Dr. Turner’s work with children of prisoners. Well, I got right on that since I’d met quite a number of incredible Greenwood community leaders by that time. Short of it is, we’ve now activated a hundred and fifty mentors from local churches for kids in the Greenwood area.

“Like I said, Bob,” Jim continued, smiling broadly, “you’re a money grubber! And do you want to know where my family and I have just decided to move?” he asked, his voice combative and playful.

“Greenwood,” was Dad’s simple answer. “You owe me a hundred bucks, Jim,” he added. There were tears in his eyes.

“Glad to pay it,” Jim replied, his voice suddenly missing the tone of bravado that had characterized his report. “I feel like I’m living for something now,” he added, struggling to control his emotions.

There were several other exciting reports during our meeting. A group of churches in the city is working together to help their members learn about their gifts and passions and then “mobilizing” them strategically in the community. New businesses are forming. Several neighborhood groups are being trained in community-organizing skills to increase their effectiveness in addressing neighborhood challenges. A dads’ group is teaching young fathers how to be fathers. They’re finding some of these absent dads by hanging out in maternity wards where the guys sneak in to try to get a look at their babies! This excited me a lot—even “AWOL” dads often want to see their children.

Will updated the group on the mentoring program for children of prisoners. The pastor of the church where we were meeting reported on the church’s success in obtaining a nonprofit designation for a new computer-skills program for the neighborhood. And several other members of the group shared some new ideas, asking for guidance or direction as they pursued their vision.

The last forty-five minutes was spent in prayer. The most moving part for me was when the group surrounded Dad and prayed for his healing. “Heal him here,” the host pastor prayed, his hands on Dad’s shoulders. “Or heal him there. But heal him for sure!”

Heal him for sure. That’s my prayer, too.

I added to my picture tonight.

Serving Leadership upends the pyramid, it raises the bar, and it blazes the trail. But it does something else that’s very important. It builds on strength. And now I understand what my dad’s been saying to me about new eyes. You can’t build on strength if you can’t see the strength—if all you see is the weakness. To be a Serving Leader, you need new eyes!

Dad’s No-Name Team is a strength finder. And a strength connector. Moving from great teams and organizations—established by great Serving Leaders in all areas of business, government, and social sector work—Dad’s team aligns strengths for the good of whole communities. This is exciting!

Weeks ago, Martin Goldschmidt had said this to me: “Community happens when everyone rolls up their sleeves and gets to work. Only a Serving Leader can catalyze that kind of a miracle!”

I saw what he meant today. More to the point, I felt a part of a community today. I feel like I belong and that I have strengths to contribute. I also feel that my weaknesses can be covered by others. It’s another paradox, really. You can’t become the best unless others do, too. Our best requires their best. We need a community if we really want to shine. “Lone star” is an oxymoron. If a star is alone, it can’t shine.

Today, I drove into a totally alien neighborhood and I experienced community!