Good Work and “Unlearning” in Times of Transition

by Danny Mucinskas

Drawing on two decades of research, The Good Project aims to help people of all ages, from young students to veteran professionals, in their efforts to do “good work.” Such work is conceptualized as excellent (high quality), ethical (socially responsible), and engaging (personally meaningful). These “3 Es of good work” are the pillars that support a productive and virtuous relationship to work. 

Similarly, the Learning Innovations Laboratory (LILA) at Project Zero is a long-standing initiative that brings together researchers and practitioners to ideate together regarding organizational change and learning. For the past twenty-one years, the group has developed insights into the nature of human learning and change on the individual and systemic levels, including in workplaces.

Over the course of a lifetime, the work that an individual does will change many times. According to the American Bureau of Labor Statistics, individuals today may have held 12 to 15 different jobs by the time they reach retirement. Most of us therefore expect to go through many points of transition that require the reinvention of our career identities, as well as “unlearning” of habits, mindsets, and systemic knowledge from previous roles.

While the process of transitioning to a new role can be daunting in itself, it becomes even more difficult when previous modes of thinking and doing are no longer useful and in fact may get in the way. By paying attention to areas that might require adjustment and new approaches, “good work” can continue to be achieved.

These topics were explored in a new course, titled “Navigating Transitions: Unlearning and Good Work,” which I have developed in partnership with Marga Biller of LILA. The course was recently presented as a pilot to a group of learners in Singapore in collaboration with the Singapore Institute of Management, with a focus on helping participants navigate career transitions by becoming familiar with practices of “unlearning.”

As facilitators, Marga and I began with an introduction to the idea that transitions are part of everyday life and can be times of both excitement and anxiety. We then explored existing conceptions of “good work” that participants hold related to their current jobs and probed their relationship to the 3 Es framework. Next, we delved into the various dimensions of “unlearning” that require attention in order to successfully move from one role to another, specifically:

• Mindsets we bring to our work based on our past experiences, including values, identities, and expertise (for example, an understanding of our skill sets and how skills might need to shift in new roles);

• Habits we rely on in doing our work (which are shaped by cues, routines, and rewards, and which can be changed by paying attention to cycles of habit formation), 

• Systems we are embedded within (including organizations and teams with members who may or may not share the same goals related to work and the learning ecologies around us that support life-long learning). 

Participants were invited to reflect on these themes in exercises that included The Good Project’s value sort activity, an identity map, and the design of a learning ecology based on resources in and outside of the workplace. We also used a dilemma narrative about an employee starting a new position who made a mistake by relying excessively on past knowledge rather than meeting the requirements of her new job, analyzing what she could have done differently to succeed.

Reactions to the course from the initial audience were positive. Interviews and surveys revealed overall appreciation for the unique blend of content that combined research insights with practical models that would aid people in successfully handling career transition. Based on the feedback we received, in future offerings of the unit, participants will spend extended time exploring the concepts as well as implementation intentions in between sessions. We seek to provide more explicit suggestions about how employees can readily and appropriately apply the ideas we introduced on the job and with co-workers.

Our ultimate goal in offering this course is to help people deal with workplace change, equipping them with the tools and strategies they will need to do their best good work across the span of their careers. As a result, we are considering ways to expand further iterations of this course for adult audiences in Singapore and perhaps elsewhere.

I invite our readers to ask themselves some of the following questions that were explored in the course.

• What are some ways that unlearning preexisting mindsets, habits, and systemic knowledge could help you to better do good work in your own life?

• What values, identities, and expertise do you bring to your work? How have these changed from previous positions you may have held?

• What habits do you rely on in doing your work? Have you ever had a habit that was no longer serving you that you needed to change? How did you do so?

• How does the way you view your work overlap with or differ from your coworkers’ views? How can you open conversations that might spark dialogue about areas of difference?

• What is the relationship your work has to the broader communities you are a part of, such as your town, city, or society? How does your work affect people near and far from you?

• What responsibilities do you feel you have in your work to others?

ON GOOD LEADERSHIP: REFLECTIONS ON LEADING MINDS AFTER 25 YEARS

by Howard Gardner

Once I had begun to write about the varieties of human intelligence (Gardner, 1983/2011), people frequently asked me about the intelligences that leaders have—as well as the ones that leaders lack or do not need. As I pondered this question—which I’ll return to below—I formulated ideas about how leaders function, what makes for an effective leader, which leaders I have admired and why. As a lifelong citizen of a democratic society, it seemed natural for me to focus on voluntary leaders—people who are able to get, to persuade, to inspire others to think and act differently without forcing them to do so.

In Leading Minds (Gardner, 1995/2011) I portrayed 11 leaders whom I admired—ranging from university presidents, to military leaders, to individuals who—despite lacking an ascribed platform—succeeded in changing the minds and behaviors of many individuals. According to the cognitive view that I proposed in that book, leadership takes place as an exchange between minds. The powerful vehicles that leaders wield are not tangible weapons—they are stories. Leaders create stories—and they embody these stories in the lives that they lead. These “lives of saints” (and of “sinners”) are “existence proofs” so to speak. The evocative stories told and exemplified by effective leaders affect people; and, in turn, the people come to behave and act differently as a result of encountering the stories.

Today, I still believe this account in general. But events of the past 25 years have given me considerable pause.

By 2010, some wrinkles or challenges to my account were already becoming clear. In an edition of Leading Minds published the following year, in a section called “Leadership in the era of truthiness, twaddle, and twitter”, I reflected:

No leader today can afford to ignore this powerful trio: The ease of promulgating false statements; the detritus that permeates the blogosphere; and the prominence of the ad line and the gag line. Indeed the challenge to the leader is to counter these forces when they are inimical to his or her goals and to put forth a powerful counter-story that highlights truth against truthiness, clarity against twaddle, and a developed and substantiated story as opposed to a twitter-length teaser. As I write these lines, US president Barack Obama clearly understands these challenges; but it is uncertain whether he—or, indeed any thoughtful leader capable of complex thought—can be heard and understood above the din. (Gardner 2011, p. xii)

Of course the threats to authentic stories, compellingly told, and actually “lived” have been exemplified by the persona and behavior of President Donald Trump. But I don’t want to focus unduly on Trump because we hear similar contrived stories, and encounter analogous faux embodiments around the world—consider the words and actions of contemporary leaders—Bolsonaro (Brazil), Duterte (Philippines), Orban (Hungary), Erdogan (Turkey), Xi (China), Putin (Russia)… and the list could be easily extended.

Nor are these threats limited to the early twenty-first century. My cautionary words of 2010-2011 could (and perhaps should) have been applicable in the 1930s—in the years leading up to World War II—and no doubt in earlier eras as well. It has long been tempting for leaders to create powerful myths—posing as heroic loners, arrayed against the forces of evil—and to persuade an impressively sizable cohort of followers that what they say is true and that, as a consequence, their edicts should be followed. (Niccolo Machiavelli would not have been surprised). And as I pointed out in Leading Minds, a simple or even simplistic story all too often prevails over one that may be more accurate and more appropriate and more truthful, but also more complex.

 An Approach to Good Leadership

In recent years, as part of what we call The Good Project (thegoodproject.org), my colleagues and I have shifted our focus from what makes for an effective leader to what makes for a good leader. And in this line of research, we have identified the three key features of a good leader:

Excellence: The good leader knows the field in which he occupies an influential role, keeps up with developments, and draws on his knowledge appropriately.

Engagement: The good leader cares about her work, finds it meaningful, looks forward to carrying it out effectively even at times when conditions are not favorable.

Ethics: The good leader ponders the ethical implication of contemplated words and actions, strives to do the right thing, reflects on consequences, and seeks to do better the next time.

It’s not always easy to determine whether someone is a good leader. With respect to excellence, many leaders rely on previous knowledge and/or do not know how to proceed when conditions change significantly. With respect to engagement, one may well be deeply engaged in carrying out work that is compromised or even malevolent (see Shakespeare’s histories and tragedies).

My colleagues and I have been particularly concerned with the ethical dimension. In almost any position of leadership, there are certain well-established norms and rules which can and should be followed. In following such norms, one does not need to exercise one’s ethical muscles. 

The “ethical test” occurs when challenges arise for which the standard procedures are not adequate or appropriate, and when the leader recognizes this conundrum. I’ve termed this recognition the ethical “A-ha.” Indeed, if you don’t recognize and then attempt to deal with the new situation, there is no possibility of an “A-ha” nor, accordingly, for pursuing a better course of actions. 

In such challenging situations, leaders need to reflect on intentions or motives, the means at their disposal, and the necessity of dealing with the consequences of the actions that they undertake or choose deliberately not to undertake (Nye, 2020). Accordingly, we judge the “goodness” of leaders in terms of recognition, action, consequences, and lessons learned. And of course, the cycle continues throughout the tenure of the leader.

Here’s  a rough metric that one can apply in an evaluation of whether leaders qualify as good leaders:

1. They seek to determine the truth and tell the truth; and when they have made errors, they admit it and try to make amends.

2. They recognize the existing norms and abide by them, or are willing to challenge them openly and bear the consequences (which might entail civil disobedience).

3. When the norms are not adequate, or new issues arise, they publicly acknowledge this situation—I call this awareness The ethical “A-ha”.

4. They articulate and ponder the dilemma—they don’t claim to have all the answers.

5. They search for the best input—expert and political—including advice from a “team of rivals’’.

6. They make a decision openly, anticipate the consequences, are poised to change course as necessary, and to revisit the consequences of actions taken or not taken.

7. They indicate their willingness to repeat this cycle and, ultimately, help to bring about a new or revised norm of ethical awareness and reflectiveness with respect to the conditions with which they have been dealing.

A Word on Intelligences

As mentioned, once I began to carry out scholarly work on leadership, I was asked about the kinds of intelligences that leaders had. I formulated an answer to this question: Leaders need linguistic intelligence, because they are essentially story tellers; and they need interpersonal intelligence, because they have  to put themselves in the place of audience members or followers and appeal to their better angels. It is helpful as well if they have intrapersonal intelligence—though, as illustrated by the case of President Ronald Reagan, one can be an effective leader even if one has little inclination toward introspection. Other intelligences (musical, spatial, etc.) are fine, but they are optional.

When asked about Donald Trump’s intelligences, I was initially stumped—because he has modest gifts in language (several commentators have suggested that he is dyslexic, and his vocabulary seems to be quite limited); and clearly he has not an inkling of intrapersonal intelligence. This is not a new story at all—the long-standing saga of populism in the US.

Perhaps we should postulate a new intelligence—media intelligence. Because even if one wants to castigate Trump, one must concede that he mastered the medium of television via his long-running show The Apprentice and has used Twitter in a way which is astoundingly successful (Trump 2020). Media intelligence might be a form or strand of interpersonal intelligence, but one entirely devoid of empathy or of understanding of particular individuals (as contrasted with an appreciation of “the crowd”). And indeed, in the past, successful leaders have displayed mastery of the new media—Franklin Roosevelt (and, alas Adolf Hitler) with respect to radio, John F Kennedy with respect to television, Ronald Reagan with respect to movies, and so on.

It’s also been suggested that Trump has the ability to read the “spirit of the times”, a more significant achievement. That may be so. On the other hand, it’s equally possible that he has long had a litany of complaints and proposals over the decades and—for reasons unconnected to his persona—the spirit of the time intersected with his program.

Concluding Note

My goal in this essay is not to denigrate Trump or to raise other leaders to a higher status. Rather, I have sought to revisit my initial conception of leadership. Specifically, I have emphasized the need to take into account a fast-changing landscape; and the pressures to master the most popular media of communication. Also, I no longer take for granted a democratic society with clear standards of right and wrong and with a faith in the importance of the truth. Rather I have focused on what it means to be a good leader and on the properties and processes that a good leader needs when faced with challenging dilemmas. In a phrase, we don’t need more leaders—we need better ones; and we need to help those with leadership potential to deploy their gifts in pro-social ways. 

 ©Howard Gardner 2020

References

Gardner, H. (1983/2011). Frames of mind: The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. (1993) 1993). Creating Minds. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner. H (1995/ 2011). Leading Minds. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner, H. (2011). Truth, Beauty and Goodness Reframed. New York: Basic Books.

Gardner H. Ed. (2010). Good Work; Theory and Practice. Available at: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c5b569c01232cccdc227b9c/t/5e7e1b520a5e5d2a3e0677fc/1585322850147/GoodWork-Theory_and_Practice-with_covers.pdf

Nye, J. (2020). Do Morals Matter? New York: Oxford University Press.

Trump, M. (2020). Too Much and Never Enough. New York: Simon and Schuster.

The 3 E’s of Leadership

by Reha Bublani, Head – Training, The Global Education & Leadership Foundation

Leadership is a broad concept, with several dimensions and perspectives. No single theory or example can explain its depth or intensity, and no single leader can exemplify all qualities of leadership.

Working on instilling leadership skills in youth, our foundation found communicating what is at the essence of leadership to be a big challenge. Who is a leader? What makes him/her a leader? What can  one do to nurture one’s own leadership potential? These are some common questions that The Global Education & Leadership Foundation, based out of Gurgaon, India, has frequently faced. We explored possible solutions to this puzzle and found something we fell in love with: The GoodWork Toolkit.

We were delighted to share and present our work at the Project Zero Conference in London, held in October 2013. Attended by educators from across the globe, the workshop fostered intense discussions and sharing of experiences as the participants tried to reflect on their own leadership potential. Before discussing this workshop, we would like to present some background on our involvement with the Good Work Project.

Lynn Barendsen and Wendy Fischman, from the Project Zero Team, introduced the GoodWork Toolkit to us as part of the GoodWork Toolkit Certification course conducted for 35 partner schools across India. What started as an endeavor to encourage passionate, introspective discussions in the classroom soon turned into a movement aimed at promoting “good work culture” in schools.  Our students saw themselves in the vignettes, rattled their brains through the ‘value sort’ and above all related their real life decisions to the values they chose as most important. Through these activities, discovery and learning –  some expected, some surprising –  was taking place. In due course, the students gained clarity on leadership. As teachers and students came to comprehend the depth of the 3 E’s (Ethics, Excellence and Engagement), they drew connections to global leaders we had spoken about – Gandhi, Mandela, and Mother Teresa. That is when, together, we created a new definition of leadership:

Leadership = Ethics (Values) + Excellence (Being good at what you do) + Engagement (Working with others)

While this is in no way the ultimate leadership formula, we believe it is a strong starting point for students. It helps them understand the relationship between each of the 3 E’s  to leadership, and how the absence of one can lead to the possibility of weak leadership.

At the Project Zero conference, our audience was willing to engage in the same kind of reflection we had participated in on the road to learning about good work.  We explored each “E” in terms of leadership, understanding, and experiences facilitated by use of activities in the classroom.

Ethics, defined as values in action, was the anchor for a meaningful discussion as we saw participants exploring their own important values using the value sort. Further, the difference between espousing a value and living a value was highlighted, using stories and leadership examples. A key question we posed, “We all believe in honesty, but do we live out that value?”,  encouraged participants to explore their own value-behavior gaps.

Excellence, defined as “being good at what you do”, formed the second ingredient of leadership. In our discussions, participants stressed that there is no substitute for excellence and a leader needs to be good at what he/she does. Sharing their own moments of excellence helped participants solidify their success stories and plan paths ahead. It also inspired participants to consider how they can walk the “extra mile” towards achieving excellence in professional and personal realms.

Finally, Engagement, as constructed by us to mean “working with others”, was brought forward with groups forming “human machines”. This not only reinforced the importance of teamwork but also highlighted its role in leadership.

The participants felt that the activities and games conducted during the workshop could help students back in the classroom to understand their leadership potential. They also felt that it was a good starting point for facilitators and educators to conduct discussions relating to leadership and life skills.

As The Global Education & Leadership Foundation grows in its journey to create change-makers of tomorrow, Project Zero and The GoodWork Toolkit have added incredible value, bringing a variety of flavors to the delicacy called “Leadership.”

To Improve U.S. Education, it’s Time to Treat Teachers as Professionals

by Howard Gardner

This piece is part of a leadership roundtable on the right way to approach teacher incentives — with opinion pieces by Duke University behavioral economics professor Dan Ariely, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Harvard Graduate School of Education professor Howard Gardner, and Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein.

“What are the right incentives to have in place for teachers?” The very question itself is jarring. It implies that teachers don’t want to perform well and that they need incentives, which in today’s parlance translates into rewards (money) and reprimands (fear of loss of benefits or position).

Let me present a very different picture: Teachers should be regarded as and behave like professionals. A professional is a certified expert who is afforded prestige and autonomy in return for performing at a high level, which includes making complex and disinterested judgments under conditions of uncertainty. Professionals deserve to live comfortably, but they do not enter the ranks of a profession in order obtain wealth or power; they do it out of a calling to serve. Be it law, medicine, auditing, education or science, the expectation is the same: professionals should work hard to gain the requisite credentials, behave ethically as well as legally, and when they err, should take responsibility for their error and try to learn from it.

Does this sound hopelessly romantic? I have had the good fortune of working with many professionals with the attributes I’ve just described. And yet, I would be naïve if I did not admit that this picture of professionals is not as vivid today as it was in 1950 or even 1980. The reasons for the decline of the professional are complex, but certainly the hegemony of market thinking is the dominant factor. If one thinks of professionals simply as individuals thrust into a market place, subject to supply and demand, and seeking to accumulate as many financial and other resources as possible, then they are indistinguishable from individuals who are not by definition professionals—such as business people or artists or athletes…

This piece was originally published in The Washington Post.

Surface Manifestations of Leadership

by Howard Gardner

With President’s Day around the corner, it seems a good time to reflect on the nature of leadership. Below, we share Howard Gardner’s responses to some questions recently posed by an Italian journalist.

Until the 20th century, most citizens had no idea of what their leaders looked or sounded like, and certainly did not feel that they had any personal relations or connections to the leaders. This did not matter so much, because most countries were not democracies, and even those that were usually had parliamentary systems rather than direct election of leaders.

We live in a time of more direct voting for leaders and where most citizens have access to the media– first radio, then television, now a 24-7 news cycle which includes Youtube, Facebook, Twitter etc. Even though leaders themselves do not know that many citizens, citizens feel that they know the leaders. Indeed, they might well want to use the first name with Tony or Bill or Silvio because they feel that they have an intimate relationship to the leaders, even if the relationship is obviously one way and largely illusory.

Also, politics in terms of parties has declined universally. Fewer and fewer people ALWAYS vote Labor, or Christian Democrat or Communist. Indeed, as the world now knows, my home state of Massachusetts, regarded as the most liberal state in the United States, just voted in a Republican Senator by a wide margin. In most elections, only a tiny minority of voters actually know the stated positions of the candidates, and even fewer understand the issues well enough to paraphrase a law (like health care legislation) or a policy (on immigration, on nuclear test ban, on carbon emissions etc).

Accordingly, we now have a state of affairs where elections are significantly ‘beauty contests’. Just as voting on television programs like “American Idol” have a lot to do with how comfortable the audience feels with the performers now invading their living rooms, so, too, elections often hinge on how likeable and simpatico are the candidates. It is not that most Americans thought that George W. Bush was MORE competent than Al Gore or John Kerry. They liked Bush better and that sufficed for him to win two elections, against individuals who were arguably more competent and certainly more knowledgeable, but with whom the voters would not have liked to ‘share a beer’.

Your questions focus on the faces and on the body language of leaders in the world today. In ordinary life, we do judge people in terms of how comfortable they seem to be with themselves (that is signaled by body language) and on how sincere and friendly they seem (and that is signaled by eyes, mouth, and facial expression). With respect to the British case, it is clear that the smiling, comfortable charming Blair wins out over the rather dour and awkward Brown. And Cameron also wins in that comparison against Brown, and perhaps that is why he is the head of the Tory party.

Turning to France, Sarkozy comes off as too active, too energetic, too frenetic, but with the passage of time, people are getting used to these personal characteristics and, for his part, Sarkozy has calmed down a bit.

Obama certainly comes off as likeable and as comfortable in his own skin, and those are major reasons why he was elected. But there is something about the presentation of self that is rather distant, rather professorial. Obama likes people well enough but, unlike Clinton or Blair, does not seem like he NEEDS to have people around him. And that sense of distance– which served Charles deGaulle well– does not play well in a determinedly demotic, populist environment.

Which leaves Silvio Berlusconi. Truth to tell, most of the rest of the world cannot understand why Berlusconi remains a popular leader, despite his checkered past and his obvious personal and professional involvement in shady activities (financial, sexual). I have to think back to Latin leaders, like Juan Peron, for a similar example. And of course, Berlusconi cannot really be a ‘man of the people’ with his billions of dollars and control of the media.

I suspect that Berlusconi prevails for two reasons: l) There is no viable opposition (Sarkozy benefits from this lack of opposition as well); 2) His rascal personality and behavior has an appeal to the Italian population, particularly older males– just as Zuma’s persona in South Africa justifies sexism on the part of macho males. This is not just an Italian or South African phenomenon: Both Scott Brown in Massachusetts and Arnold Schwarzenegger in California benefit from this male chauvinist persona.

As an American with little sympathy for Berlusconi or Zuma, I like to quote Abraham Lincoln: “You may fool all of the people some of the time, you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.” There will be a post-Berlusconi era!