A Community at Work

Last Thursday, I attended a panel on Young Leaders in Atlantic Canada on the topic of Corporate Social Responsibility organized for the Canadian Business Ethics Research Network's annual conference, this year, held in Halifax. The panel was organised by Sheila Brown, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Public Affairs, and was a workshop facilitator at this past November's Emerging Leaders Summit in St Andrews where she led a session on team-building.

When introducing the panel, to my surprise, Sheila gave a great shout-out to 21inc and our community. As she explained to me, the Summit has led to her thinking more about emerging leaders, which sparked her initiative of organizing this young leaders panel at the conference. Furthermore, when it came time to find some panellists, she picked up her program from the Summit, and browsed through it to get some ideas of leaders she could invite to be on the panel. 2 of the 3 panellists, she knows from the 21inc relationships she built at the Summit with our alumni; Michelle Strum (Alteregos Café / Halifax Backpackers) and Todd McDonald (Give to Live), whom she met through Ashley Ward (Give to Live) (Emerging Leaders Summit).

It was awesome to bare witness to the 21inc community and to know that people are continuing to build and nurture relationships with other community members...especially when staff has nothing to do with it.

Long time, no post

This is the beginning of week four for me of my full time employment with 21inc for the summer. I have been quite neglectful in updating the blog (oops) but this is my attempt at change. I'm just going to write a bit about what I've been up to in my exciting first weeks here

For the most part I've been working on our first newsletter. I have put much of my time and effort into it, so I'm looking forward to it getting out there. It's definitely awesome (if I do say so myself.)

During my first full week, Bill Clinton came to Fredericton and spoke at the UNB Aitken Centre with Frank McKenna. Tim managed to get some tickets, so I was able to go (along with a number of 21inc Alumni) which was really cool. The talk itself was great, it was definitely funnier than I was expecting it to be.

Afterwards, 21inc and the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce hosted an event at the Windsor Castle Bar, titled 'Dissecting Clinton.' Margaret Conrad, Michael Maynard and Larry Sampson all spoke for a few minutes on what they thought of Clinton's talk, and then attendees spoke about what they thought. It was all really interesting conversation and definitely got some wheels turning. Afterwards I conducted some interviews, which will become a webisode to be released in the future. I also took some pictures, which you can see here.

The webisodes aspect is definitely one of my favourite parts of this job. I really like everything about it, aside from maybe approaching people. I'm a little shy - But if you think about it, what's the worst thing someone's going to do? Say no? So that part gets easier every time. Aside from that, I get to go to interesting events and talk to people about what they thought, which is always nice. The part that I find really interesting is threading together all these interviews - people's thoughts - into one coherent train of thought that spans a number of people. It's definitely very fun for me.

The following week, we took a trip to Halifax, which was fun. It was sunny for the first day in a few weeks, and it was nice. I got to go to Julien's Bakery which was awesome (I had a bagel with chive cream cheese.) and we took a visit to The Hub which is a cool place.

That covers my first two weeks, so I'll leave it at that for now.

Bill Clinton and Event-Making Leadership

Bill Clinton can get a conversation stared. Using his signature ability to elegantly repackage complex issues, he told an audience of over 2000 at the UNB Aitken Centre yesterday that developed countries suffer from tired, strained, and stubborn systems (think of our challenges in healthcare, education, political and economic development). They must be reformed, he said, if we are to unleash future prosperity.

What does this mean for NB? How can we take his insights and act smarter? This was the purpose of an event we called, “Dissecting Clinton,” that 21inc hosted in partnership with the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce. About 40 people joined us for a wide-ranging talk at Windsor Castle Bar.

We trotted through familiar territory before entering new ground. Many people lamented that change in NB seemingly takes forever, even when we all know the current system is broken. We discussed how our tired, strained and stubborn systems encourage anti-change behavior.

This led to a discussion on the role of leadership in fostering change. Looking to a messiah or hero isn’t sustainable. Once that person stops, so does the change. How do we create different models of leadership?

Larry Sampson, Executive Director of the NB ICT Council and one of our guest “instigators,” said his belief is that NB (and I’d argue the rest of the Maritimes) needs an event to make the right conditions for change. This is Rahm Emmanuel’s dictum. The former Chief of Staff to Obama channeled a Chinese proverb when he said that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

But do events or crisis always need to be external? Can we create our own conditions?

Sidney Hook calls leadership that transforms “event-making.” Most leaders are “eventful.” That is, they “shape the course of events, but their contributions could easily be replicated by others.” The little Dutch boy who put his finger in the dike was an “eventful” actor because he prevented a flood that would have destroyed his community; but virtually anyone in the same situation could have acted as he did.

Event-making leaders change the course of history because of personal qualities they bring to the situation (and not always in desirable ways). Under Franklin Roosevelt’s leadership, the United States became a world power and an emerging welfare state. “Without him,” writes Nan Keohane in her book, Thinking about Leadership, “American history would have been different and not just in its details but in its larger contours.” Roosevelt, was an “event-making” leader because his actions created consequences through his outstanding capacities of intelligence, will, and character rather than accidents of position.

I agree that New Brunswick can’t rely on a messiah. That’s part of our problem; our culture seems dependent on this as an answer. It’s like the person who who believes that their retirement funding will come by winning the lottery. But nor can we afford to wait for an outside event. We need event-making leadership at all levels. And these event-making leaders need to put in place the effective, sustainable, and adaptive systems to carry on when their work

The Afternoon that Inspiration from Perth, Australia came to The Hub Halifax

Let’s start with a preamble:

There are many great things about working out of The Hub Halifax. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, The Hub is an international social enterprise of collaborative workspaces, hubs, in four continents and 12 cities for people who want to make things happen. From The Hub’s website, “We set out to create places that borrow from the best of a member’s club, an innovation agency, a serviced office and a think-tank to create a very different kind of innovation environment”. We are lucky to have a Hub in Halifax, and it is thanks to co-founders Joanne Macrae (alumna of our 2010 Emerging Leaders Summit) and Tracey Boyer Morris. When you’re in the neighbourhood, you should definitely pop by for a visit. Even if you are based outside of Halifax, you should consider getting a membership at the Hub so that you have a friendly and comfortable work space between your meetings when you are in town on business.

Okay, that was the preamble. Now to the story:

So, yesterday was lining up as a usual day at the Hub when Joanne, mentioned above, said to me that someone named Reece Harley was going to be hanging his hat at the Hub later in the day and that I should try to connect with him. Reece is Perth (Australia)’s International Youth Ambassador for 2011, an honorary appointment by the City of Perth, in association to their Youth Advisory Council. Youth Advisory Council? Youth Ambassador? Are you impressed yet? Just wait!

The City of Perth, through their Ambassador Program has sent Reece to visit three cities to learn and get inspiring ideas to make the city a better place to live, looking at issues ranging from homelessness to culture and creativity, to economic development and beyond. Reece is visiting Houston (Texas), Washington (DC) and our very own Halifax, Nova Scotia. Now, didn’t I tell you that it got good? His reflections, discoveries and findings will be brought together in a report that will be distributed to the four municipalities and its contributors.

I connected with him in the afternoon at the Hub. I wanted to chat with him about 21inc, as well as to gain some insight about the youth-focused initiatives in Perth.

He talked to me about Youth Tree and Big Help Mob, essentially a rent-a-mob service (you must check out the video on their front page), and the Left Right Think-Tank, as well as Azaria Media and Young Social Pioneers (check out their video). You should check out Reece’s website for a link to more inspiration organisations doing great work in Perth.

Example after example, organisation after organisation, I was impressed at how Perth has its stuff together. Or at least, how they’re investing in people, in social enterprise, in young people, in innovation to overcome the challenges that they do have (they are a commuter city, the cost of purchasing property is very expensive, etc.)…yet, the City has invested in a young person to go on a research mission to three cities on another continent all to bring back cool ideas to make their city better. Come on!

The obvious question I had for Reece, upon realizing that people and institutions are investing in young people and social enterprises, was “Where did that come from? How did it start?” I was expecting a complex answer – an explanation involving seismic shifts and dynamics that was decades, or at least years, in the making.

“It’s because of the Mayor”, he told me simply – a Mayor who recognizes the importance of investing in people and social enterprise.

Of course! Yet another example that leadership is at the core…a fundamental principle for us at 21inc and the reason why we are trying to unleash and unstick leadership excellence – the awesome – of our region’s emerging leaders.

So, there you have it, folks - yet another example that the Hub Halifax is a place ripe for meeting people, exchanging knowledge and ideas and creative collisions. I can’t wait to see who I meet next.

Fuelling Inspiration

I had the wonderful opportunity, as my first ‘official’ event as Chair of 21 inc., to attend the Public Policy Forum (PPF) Testimonial Dinner on Thursday night in Toronto. Our own Premier, David Alward was one of the co-chairs (with Elyse Allan, President and CEO of GE Canada), and the room was filled with 1300 public servants, policy makers, social innovators, and business men and women. I must admit, I wasn’t sure what I was getting into, and felt like a rather small fish in a big pond, until I started talking to people. No matter where we come from in Canada, we seem to all struggle with many of the same issues – education, healthcare, social equity, the environment. I had some great discussions about the nature of engagement in New Brunswick, and what 21inc. is doing to be the successful and sustainable action tank that we were set out to be, and how we are cultivating leaders of today and tomorrow, ones that could possibly be honoured at a PPF Dinner in the future.

There were six people honoured at the event: the Hon. Bill Davis, Former premier of Ontario; Gordon Nixon, President and CEO of RBC; Jim Stanford, Economist for Canadian Auto Workers; Monique Leroux, President and CEO of the Desjardins Group; Emerging Leaders Award winner Victor Thomas, President, Regina and District Chamber of Commerce; and, Hyman Soloman Award Winner for Excellence in Public Policy Journalism, André Picard, Public Health Reporter, Globe and Mail.

Just typing their names tires me out, and to think of the quality of award winners is simply awe inspiring. I could go on a long time about the many things these individual said that caught my attention, but I will focus on a couple.

Firstly, Bill Davis. I must admit, I didn’t know much about him until last night. Now, if he decided, at 82, to run in an election, I would be more than willing to be a public servant in his government. A dynamic, fair, and incredibly witty gentleman, Premier Davis lead Ontario in the days of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the birth of Medicare, as was intricately involved in the signing of the Constitution under Pierre Trudeau. A man of integrity, one of the most inspiring things out of his mouth was this – “we believed in ideas over ideology […] We had an obligation to mature the economy, keep people employed, and help those who couldn’t help themselves. To those cynical about public life, we could fight with our opponents, but broke bread together. It wasn’t personal.” In this day in age, we can get so wrapped up in party lines, whose idea was what, and infighting in government, that we tend to lose the big picture. That as public servants and policy makers, we have a job to do for the people. To provide essential services, and basic rights to our communities, provinces, and our country. And the kind of politician Bill Davis was, we don’t see very many of any more. He impressed me, he moved me, and he made me want to be a better person, and a better public servant.

Secondly, Monique Leroux, she was elected by her peers to be the only woman to run one of the largest companies in the nation. Monique spoke with such passion for her work, and for the values it was built on. And she said this one thing that really inspired me – “We cannot leave our democracy to those who shout the loudest. The best ideas emerge when many voices are engaged.” Isn’t that the very premise on which 21inc. is built. A group of young, engaged, and passionate people coming together in one voice. And as chair of this organization, and an alumna of the 21 Leaders program, I couldn’t be more proud to be involved with an organization that is based on ideas not ideology, and emerging ideas.

So I left Toronto motivated not only as the representative of 21inc., but as a public servant, and a Canadian. And just when I thought I couldn’t get more inspired, I ran into David Suzuki in the airport in Montreal. No joke. He has long been a hero of mine, and he was kind enough to engage in a conversation about what is going on in our community. Such a cool guy.

I look forward to many more inspiring moments over the next year in my term as Chair of 21inc., and would love to hear your ideas and stories that inspired you! Send me a note at alycia.morehouse@fredericton.ca.