My Public Service Story

As some of y'all may know, I've been applying to graduate schools for matriculation next fall (but we'll see if I end up getting in and even going if I do). Getting to the point, some of the questions in the various applications have been extremely introspective (read: awesome to write). Seeing as how I've been trying to be more in "equilibrium" this year, I wanted to share some of these publicly.

They way I figure it, I'm really comfortable sharing what I think in public but find it rather uncomfortable to share what I'm feeling or sharing details about my life and experiences. The only time I ever really do share that sort of stuff (which I actually am quite happy to do in this case) is when someone asks me a question...much different than voluntarily sharing personal information. Since I've had to write these anyway, I wanted to proactively share a few of these...kind of as a way to push my own boundaries and connect with others.

Anyway, this is the first one I've completed. The prompt was to share about your commitment to public service, what you've accomplished, and what you intend to do. Thanks to Auren and Ling for the wonderful edits (it sure isn't perfect, but I think it's better...almost entirely due to their feedback).  Here it is.

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Bearing the loss of Nakul – one of my younger cousins who lived in India – when I was 14 years old was the event that inspired my commitment to family, community, and public service. He died within a matter of days after contracting Dengue Fever, and recollecting my relatives’ accounts of his illness still make me uneasy. They said his body cracked like fire in his final hours. Amidst his delusional fever, they added, his only request was to eat an apple – which they heartbreakingly couldn’t provide, given his condition.

While grieving Nakul’s death, I started to think obsessively about institutions and organizations. If the broader institutional constructs which shaped medicine – health policy, private sector investment in healthcare, etc. – were more robust, I thought, Nakul wouldn’t have died. More importantly, I started to realize that institutions, in general, have supreme influence over whether individuals and communities suffer or thrive. Nakul’s death catalyzed my thinking on an idea which is one of my closest held beliefs today – that institutions matter, a lot.

Moreover, I was quickly convinced that public and social sector institutions mattered more than others. Because they can affect entire societies, I thought, those institutions have the deepest and most direct influence over whether human suffering even exists. After coming to this conclusion, my heart committed itself to public service and I started exploring.

I started exploring institutions and public service, in earnest, during high school. During my senior year I hosted a voter registration drive at my school and rallied my peers to participate in school activities. In college, I interned in Washington D.C. three times and wrote mostly about public service topics as a columnist for the Michigan Daily, the student-run campus newspaper. I focused my undergraduate studies on understanding the relationship between sectors and my honors thesis explored Gen Y talent management in the Federal Government. Because of my overt passion for public service, some friends jokingly called me “Mr. DC.”

But toward the end of undergrad, I took a detour. I realized that private sector institutions also mattered greatly and that I needed to understand them to solve the problems I thought were most compelling – ones that require collective action across public, social, and private sector institutions. Starting my career as a consultant, though seemingly counterintuitive to a public service commitment, was a deliberate decision to understand business so that I could better effectuate social impact, across all sectors collaboratively, later in life.

Along the way, I fell in love with Detroit and decided that this is where I want to translate my passion for institutions and public service into action. I want to invest in Detroit, in concert with the other passionate people who are committed to its future. I’m doubling down on my hometown.

Because I care about and understand institutions, I intend to work at the systems level and create new models for solving cross-sector problems and for engaging citizens. Even now, I’m considering how to create social hack-a-thons which rapidly prototype solutions for cross-sector issues, or community forums that are inclusive of all citizens. In Detroit, addressing systemic concerns (like how to get better at the process of solving cross-sector problems) is often overlooked and I intend to do something about it.

  

I also believe that Detroit is a preview of what’s to come in communities across the country, because it’s the first city being rebuilt in a world with disruptive technology, rising individual power, and increasing performance pressure. For that reason I don’t see just see transforming Detroit as a regional matter, I consider it a blueprint for the next wave of community redevelopment which will occur across the country in coming decades. I intend to make a broader impact in the world, beyond Michigan, by solving gnarly problems here and helping others replicate and adopt our models elsewhere.

I believe that I am capable of doing the difficult work of rebuilding institutions because I’ve already started deeply understanding institutions and successfully working to improve them. For example, when serving clients as a consultant, I have successfully built programs which led business units to win the hearts and minds of employees impacted by major changes resulting from corporate transformations. As a Fellow at one of my firm’s innovation centers, I am studying the deep shifts affecting the business landscape and am building cutting-edge ideas to help organizations navigate those shifts. I will use what I’ve practiced to convene broad groups of community stakeholders to rebuild Detroit’s institutions, through entrepreneurial social initiatives informed by community needs.

Outside of my client service work, I have already developed entrepreneurial initiatives which attempt to solve cross-sector, institutional issues in Detroit. For example, I co-founded a pilot initiative within my firm to incubate skills-based volunteerism. We did this by pairing practitioners from across our office with leaders of regional not-for-profits and focusing those teams to scope and plan skills-based projects. As we build this incubator – we are currently in our second phase and have worked with 10 organizations to date – we are impacting not-for-profit organizations in the short-term by building their capacity to work with skills-based volunteers. More importantly, through our pilot we are refining a new model for tackling skills-based volunteerism which can eventually be leveraged elsewhere.

More than anything, I think I am capable of rebuilding Detroit’s institutions because of how much I care about this place. I love my neighbors and how they have a rare combination of toughness, humility, and compassion. I am proud of Detroit’s history and its impact on America and the world. I even long for the smell of the air in November, right before winter begins, when I travel away for work. My passion and conviction will continue to compel me to learn and do anything, as long as it’s ethical, to serve my community. I am committed to rebuilding Detroit’s institutions, even it takes my entire adult life. I’m fired up to finish what I’ve started and share what we learn with others across the country.

Was it really a hard day?

With the exception of approximately four types of life events, I've felt the extremity of human emotion. I've had all but two of the highest of highs (marriage and childbirth) and lowest of lows (burying a child and imminent death). I've lived the most blessed of lives, and at the same time, I don't even remember anymore what not being heartbroken feels like. I've struggled (and still do) with the most pervasive of grief and guilt while also understanding the purest of joy.

I had a hard day today. A really hard one. And yet, I am persisting without seeming to flinch at what should probably be a wrenching  angst. I don't know what to make of it.

In some senses I think it means I've grown, that I've learned to handle difficult feelings and how to live life for the gift that it is. In other senses, I worry that I'm emotionally closed off and incapable of really feeling almost anything personally affective, strongly.

What do you do if you can't tell if your humanity is as real as it gets or if you're a monster?

The Shelf

I had a realization just now. I'm always on girls' shelves. Which is to say, I'm not someone they ever want now, but someone they perpetually want to save for later.  Someone that they put on "the shelf" for awhile so they can access them later.

This practice, of shelving people, is heartbreaking...which is to say it breaks hearts. DON'T DO IT.

The best feeling in the world.

I sometimes lose sight of the big picture, despite a near addictive tendency to downplay the importance of details and see the forest over the trees. At those times...I forget that it's going to be okay.

I'm a lucky guy, so I have family, friends, colleagues and sometimes even perfect strangers to remind me that it is. Remembering it is the best feeling in the world.

That's hope. It's the foundation of a happy life. Every other good feeling in the world comes from hope.

And where does hope come from? Exploring this topic is a little new for me, but I think it comes from two places - truth and faith.

This is an interesting coincidence, because my spiritual journey comes from two places - Hinduism and the Judeo-Christian tradition. The cornerstones of those two worldviews are truth and faith, at least as I see it. I think this may be one of the only times that I feel solace instead of tension when reconciling two (or more) of my conflicting identities. That's a good feeling too.

Almost home (SFO -> DTW)

I'm remembering my FIJI days a lot today. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. 

Also remembering my FIJI days because, there's nothing that cannot be accomplished - no suffering that cannot be abated nor any joy that can not be actualized - if you are surrounded by friends, family, colleagues, and strangers who are committed to doing what's right and are committed to each other.

I try to remember that demonstrated love when I'm feeling defeated, like today. Because after remembering it, the following day seems possible. That hope and yearning aspiration for something beautiful, tomorrow, is enough to inspire any man. Hope doesn't change the world, but it does make it seem possible to surmount the tremendous odds against us personally and against us as a civilization. 

That is powerful. That love which leads to that hope is something everyone deserves. Including ourselves when we don't feel like we do.

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As an aside, this is the first time I've felt and expressed something verbally in a long time, maybe years. To many people and things, thank you for helping me be me, once again.

Public Commitment

At the beginning of this year, I coined the hashtag #equilibrium2012 as a way of summarizing a journey I was undertaking to become more emotionally healthy. It has most definitely been a journey. To start all this, it took a series of admissions. First, I had to admit I was not emotionally healthy. Second, I had to admit that I needed to hone some "tools" to become emotionally healthy (because I didn't, unfortunately, have the capacity to be emotionally healthy I think), and I had to admit that I couldn't do it alone. Even getting to those conclusions was difficult because I'm honestly pretty stubborn and don't like to admit that I have deficiencies in anything that's generally considered to be in the arena of "strength".

Now, I have to make another admission, well, two admissions. Moreover, I have to do this publicly (even if it's on a blog that just about nobody reads) because I struggle follow through on commitments unless I make them publicly.

• I'm not only emotionally unhealthy, I think I'm unhappy.  Or overwhelmed or stressed. Or ambivalent. In any case, I'm not "happy" in the traditional sense of the word. What's terrible is that I'm probably much happier than most people in America. But, I've never been much of a relativist and I don't plan on starting now. 
• Alcohol and indulgence culture has without a doubt been the largest contributor to my state of stress and unhappiness. I haven't made many bad decisions (thank goodness) but the ones I have made have all been associated with alcohol or indulgence culture. [For the record, I have not done anything illegal or exceedingly immoral as a result of alcohol or indulgence culture, just things that are not healthy to me and sometimes others. I bring this up because I'm applying to graduate school and I don't want to lose admission to my dream school because I happen to be honest but not detailed about the truth on a blog, which as I mentioned before, nobody reads anyway].

So, I've made a decision. Much like the stance I took before I turned 21, I'm abstaining from consuming alcohol for a time. I'm not sure how long or what exceptions I will make to this rule. I'm not even sure if it'll even help. But much like when trying to cut costs when restructuring an organization, I think it's worth examining the biggest ticket items on the books. Luckily, in this case, taking a break from alcohol has just about no opportunity cost.

I even floated this idea a few months and some friends convinced me out of it. I suppose that simply making this decision is probably a step in the right direction because it's a decisive move to take control of my own decisions in the face of peer pressure, which is probably something I'm too influenced by anyway.

Let's see how this goes.

I'm Ready

I don’t think I’ve ever been terribly confident, not even when I was too little to understand what confidence was. I have a hard time believing that I’m a talented or valuable person…I even struggle taking a simple compliment. I’ve struggled with big things and small things just like everyone else and have been afraid of the responsibility I’ve been given and the pressure I’ve been put under, quite often. I’m afraid of rejection, loneliness, and letting others down. I’ve lived with irrational guilt that I can hardly bear. It’s not useful to really dwell on this or go into detail on any of this. The point is, I’ve had a lot of growing up to do, quickly, over the course of my life. It’s been very hard.

This year has been particularly trying. I’ve made mistakes and I’ve been obsessedly reflecting on my identify, my aspirations, and my emotional health. I’ve prayed (which is notable because I’ve avoided prayer since I was 13 years old). Correction, I’ve had to pray. At the beginning of the year, I think I felt the collective girth of all the struggles in my life weighing on my slim-fit frame. It was bearable, at best.

I’ve also realized, however, that I’m blessed with friends and family and at a few other blessings –health, mental faculties, and passion. I’m really, really, lucky. For these things I am grateful.

This combination of struggle and reflection has taught me a lot about being a friend, son, brother, colleague, neighbor and citizen, and one day husband and father (hopefully). I hear there comes a point in every man’s life that this happens – it’s a point where you give up childish things, put impossibility aside and do what you were meant to do. I’ve been afraid of this because like many, I’m not afraid of inadequacy but of being powerful beyond belief.

I guess I write this all to say that I’m not afraid anymore. I’m ready. I believe.

The Avengers: A fun case study of high-performing teams

The Avengers, sure to be one of the biggest blockbuster films this summer, was a move with a lot to like. It was exciting, funny, stunning, and inspiring.  The basic plot is this: faced with the potential subjugation of earth by powerful galactic gods, Nick Fury – director of S.H.I.E.L.D…basically an agency 10x more awesome than the CIA – brings together 6 of history’s most remarkable heroes to save the planet.  The implementation of “The Avengers Initiative”, once abandoned by S.H.I.E.L.D. because it would’ve brought together “forces which cannot be controlled”, is the focal point of this super sweet movie.  It’s also a surprisingly good case study about high-performing teams.

These heroes – Captain American (Cap), Iron Man, The Hulk, Black Widow, Thor and Hawkeye – must put aside their differences to literally save the world.  Here are some examples of why The Avengers are a high performing team and some observations about their fellowship.  Do you have any more to add, or criticisms of their teaming?:

(Spoiler Alert - If you haven’t seen the movie, stop reading now!)

They had a crystal clear purpose

The Avengers come together to save the world by preventing the tesseract (a source of limitless energy) from being used to open a portal to another galaxy.  Very little is clearer than that (saving the world is a pretty clear and simple purpose), I think.

They had diverse strengths

The team has very different strengths, capabilities and styles.  Iron Man is a brilliant inventor and The Hulk is very good at smashing things.  Cap is a super human with deep convictions.  Black Widow and Hawkeye are elite S.H.I.E.L.D. spies.  Thor is a demi-god who controls thunder.  I’d say this is a very well rounded crew.

They articulated their roles clearly, together

The Avengers all knew what their role in the plan was, even if it took them a bit of time to get there.  Bruce Banner (Hulk’s human form) had to find the tesseract.  Thor had to control Loki.  Cap was playing the role of military field general (he is a Captain, after all).  Also, all these players adapted their roles, together, on the fly, to deal with whatever situation emerged.

They were onboarded well

Each Avenger was onboarded well.  By the time they arrived they were well versed in the mission and ready to rock.  This helped them start working together very quickly.

They had the freedom to operate outside the bounds of a chain of command

To do something nobody has ever attempted seems difficult to do within existing organizational boundaries.  Nick Fury seemed to recognize this.  He resisted the S.H.I.E.L.D. Council’s requests to abort the Avenger Initiative and behave as they directed.  He knew this was bound to fail so he provided political cover to the Avengers to operate outside of protocol and a chain of command.  This allowed them to move fast and fiercely, as the situation required.

I think this is pretty applicable to organizations, generally.  Most organizations that I am a part of succumb to this as well.  Nothing that pushes edges gets done within traditional organizational hierarchy.  Maybe our organizations should allow for some Avengers every once in awhile!

Trust was hard to come by

Trust was hard earned in this team.  It basically took the murder of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Phil Coulson to bring the team together to put aside their differences.  It also took honesty on the part of Nick Fury to reveal S.H.I.E.L.D.’s true intentions for the tesseract.  This goes to show that even remarkable people need time to develop trust and that trust is really important for teams to be effective.

Individual collective agendas were aligned / incentives

The Avengers each had a personal agenda as well a collective one...and all of these agendas were (luckily) aligned.  For example, Black Widow wanted to settle a debt with Hawkeye and Hawkeye wanted to get even with Loki for controlling him.  Cap was searching for meaning after being frozen for several decades.  The Hulk wanted freedom (I think) and Iron Man probably wanted some ego-boost.  All of their individual desires, in any case, were aligned with the rewards of collective success(the reward of collective success was saving the world).

This alignment of agendas (and in turn rewards and incentives) obviously helped the Avengers prevent their individual differences from being an obstacle to collective success.  Having aligned agendas probably wasn’t a deliberate observation by Nick Fury when putting the Avengers together, but it was convenient.

They had the tools / equipment / resources they needed

The Avengers couldn’t battle without weapons and armor.  Same with teams – they need the right equipment and resources to succeed.  The Avengers had all this.

A formal leader is noticeably absent

Something interesting, I thought, was that there wasn’t really a designated “leader” among the Avengers.  It’s like they led themselves without a coordinating authority.  They all had the right roles and they executed effectively because they were committed to the mission.  That’s pretty cool.

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Right as the action started to intensify in the film, Nick Fury said something about why the Avengers were brought together: “There was an idea to bring together a group of remarkable people, so when we needed them, they could fight the battles that we never could…”

This quote is the one element of the movie that I vehemently disagree with.  We don’t need remarkable people in teams.  In fact, I don’t think we can rely on remarkable people to make up high performing teams.  Rather, we should create organizations that take ordinary people and make them into remarkable teams.  I have faith that we can make this sort of institutional transformation happen, and we must.

Public and Private Voices

One of the first lessons I learned as an Organizational Studies student, in fact not one of the first...THE first, was that the influence of organizations are all around us.  Our teacher, Jason Owen-Smith, put us into small groups and asked us to brainstorm all the organizations we interact with on a day to day basis.  After listing the basics - the University, the Government, our student-group affiliations, etc. the list became much longer - the FDA (did you take Tylenol this morning?), British Petroleum (oh yea, I guess I had to put gas in my car today), your house (I guess my roommates and I all function as an organization)...and so on.

The list of organizations that we are an active player and representative of is much smaller.  There are maybe a handful of these but we are swimming in them.  We are totally immersed in them, which makes it hard to separate the organization from our identity.

We also have voices for our identities.  We have our private voice - the voice we use that's in our day-to-day when we feel like we aren't being watched or monitored.  We also have our public voice - the voice we use when we feel like we're addressing people publicly or perceive ourselves to be monitored.

These "voices" also roll-up into the organizational world.  In some organizations (say our crew of best friends and family) we feel private - we aren't scrutinized for our words or actions because they're, well, private.  In some organiztions we feel public (say the company we work for) - an as a result we project an image ourselves that we want people to see.  There are also variations of these - e.g., in a social organization which is private but we feel like we have a public reputation to project within the confines of that organization or in a community forum where all actors are in a public sphere but form sub-committees where they have private voice.

What I think is interesting is that the organizations themselves dictate a lot - in addition to the people contained - of the norms of using public and private voices.  After all, organizations with similar types of people or objectives produce very different cultures.  And  organization types produce very different cultures and behaviors even though people may be the same too.

In addition to this, many things have suddenly become interesting hybrids of hyper-public and hyper-private, because of telecommunications technology.  There's a lot of ambiguity in how one projects themselves publicly or privately and when has to do one or the other.

Managing these public and private voices, I think, is very stressful.  We manage our identities more than we tell the truth. I would argue that this causes our organizations to do funny things and have lackluster outcomes.  We spend tons of time managing our voices rather than focusing on our work, purpose and intended outcomes.

I think the ideal is to be able to have one voice - an "authentic voice", if you will - instead of a public and private one.

I don't have time to elaborate on this now (I'm about to land) but I think a nice goal for groups of people and the organizations they make up is to produce an environment where people can speak in an "authentic voice".  I think the same goes for individuals, we should try to merge our public and private voices into one.  It'll yield more trust and probably much more happiness and much less internal conflict for ourselves.

Everyone is suffering enough, we should rid ourselves of suffering that is self-imposed.

What makes a good team member?

As many readers (not to imply that I have a readership, but please roll with me) probably know or could guess - I have a fairly romantic but peculiar obsession with the idea of teams.  In my experience, as is with most things, some people buy into teams and others don't really see them as teams but rather as a sum of individuals.  Some see the synergy and some see the parts which may create synergy.  Some see the forest and some see the trees.

I'm interested in what makes people see the forest - what makes people buy into the concept of teams and be successful in them.  Here's a frame: what makes some people trust things (and in some cases put almost blind faith) into things that are "larger than themselves"?  Here are some thoughts, not necessarily woven together:

Practice / Commitment
If you're around teams long enough, you see the magic that they create and it's inspiring...especially if you're on a good team.  Moreover, if you're on a team that sticks together for awhile you start to flow really well together, which is good because you get past the growing pains of being on a team and you get to the good stuff.

Confidence / Comfort
I feel like it would be very easy to be alienated in a team if you're constantly fearful of your own standing or of your material well-being.  So, it's probably important to be confident and feel affirmed.  Without being affirmed, you'd probably be too worried about self-preservation to care about the team.

Purpose
It's a big turn-off, at least for me, to be on a team which doesn't align with one's own purpose.  It's really taxing on your personal energy.  Adding to that, if it's not a noble purpose (of the person or the team) one of the two - the team or the person - will fall to selfish aims, and in turn destroy the team.  To have purpose you have to find something that matters gravely to you - so I suppose discovering your passion is an utterly necessary component of being a good team member.

Humility
To submit yourself to something larger than yourself, you have to acknowledge that something other than you can be greater than yourself.  That's jumbled, I know, but the point still stands - you can think anything is greater than you if you think nothing is greater than you.

Selflessness / Listening
Teams don't function when any one members' needs are consistently higher than others'.  So, once has to have some level of selflessness (so they don't monopolize mindshare) and ability to listen.  Without these, there's not a team because someone has elevated themselves above others.

Authenticity
People in teams have to be real with eachother, or, nobody trusts them.  No trust = no team.  'Nuff said.

All of these, though, raise a larger question of - Neil, you've listed all these virtuous qualities...how do you cultivate those?  Ya know, I'll have to think about that - my ideas aren't quite there yet.

-nt