5

Reflection in Community

Our lives as leaders both demand and deserve reflection. They demand reflection because we must know what is in our hearts, lest our leadership do more harm than good. They deserve reflection because it is often challenging to sustain the heart to lead.

—Parker J. Palmer

A speech pathologist named Rosalie “Rosie” Martin can help adults who’ve never been able to read because she can break the task down into its tiniest components. That allows the learner to be successful at every point of the process. Rosie explained: “I say the word ‘spoon,’ and it’s just this little collection of sounds: s-p-oo-n. Four sounds, five letters but four sounds. That little sound pattern is an auditory symbol that represents that thing. It’s not that thing; it’s the symbol that represents it. All of language is our symbolic system for representing the world.”

“To me it just feels like my daily work, but I have realized that other people find it amazing.” That’s the most true of the people she helps. A prison inmate we’ll call Peter (not his real name) finally learned to read and write at age fifty-one thanks to Rosie. As soon as the inmates are able to write, Rosie asks them to reflect. In his own written words at age fifty-three, Peter describes the difference Rosie made in his life: “It’s funny, before I went in I didn’t know reading and writing, but deep down I must have known how to, but I didn’t know how to start before Rosie showed me I could do it. Rosie somehow opened the door and let the man out who would write. I knew there was somebody at home up there, but he didn’t want to come out to play. Now he’s out and he just can’t stop writing.”¹

Rosie has been a speech pathologist for thirty years, but teaching prison inmates took some courage. Rosie first opened her business as a sole practitioner while her children were young, and now is the busy owner and director of a high-profile private speech pathology clinic. The main clinic in Hobart also supports three outreach clinics in outlying areas of Tasmania.

For years, Rosie had been thinking about offering her clinical skills to nearby Risdon Prison, where she knew that many adult inmates could not read or write. Very often they’ve come from situations where they’ve experienced repeated failures. They might have tried to learn to read when they were in school, and often they tried again in various adult literacy programs. They would need specialist interventions to make real and sustained progress in acquiring literacy skills. Yet Rosie was reluctant and, in some ways, afraid to extend her services further. It wasn’t fear of the inmates or of being inside a prison. Something deeper, unnamed yet, was holding her back.

One day, Rosie was sitting in an auditorium listening to a plea for volunteers to work at literacy tasks with prisoners. A colleague was also there, across the room. When the event ended, they walked toward each other.

“We knew simply what the other was thinking. We know how to add quality [of intervention] for these complicated souls unable to respond to regular methods of learning to read. We have the skills. We ought to be sharing this knowledge with these vulnerable men and women.”

But something more than her intellect was recognizing an opportunity. Rosie wrote about what that felt like: “In the moment my eyes met hers, I felt in my depths a breathless sparkle like bright flow between river stones—vivacious élan which I have come to recognize as my herald of heart action.”²

Her aha moment provided momentum, but Rosie still needed nudging. Two days later, she met with a career coach for the second time, who said, “You will always try and get all the details lined up before you do anything. Why not just go and get started?”

Rosie realized what else had been holding her back: “I desired to bring my skills into a wider social justice setting, but I knew that I didn’t really know how to proceed.” Rosie ran her clinic business well, but she knew little about running a charity and engaging with the bureaucracy of a prison system. “Also, I felt the responsibility of ensuring that the clinic didn’t wobble too much if I withdrew my time to work in the charity—I have employees who depend upon their jobs.” Rosie recognized that her worry was about the organizational shift, not at all about the clinical work. “The clinical work is my area of practiced expertise—I’m completely fearless in that domain!”

The word chutzpah was on Rosie’s mind, working its way into her heart. Rosie had been pondering the paradox of humility and chutzpah. She recalled different times in her speech pathology career when she had chutzpah. “I am audacious about asking for mentors. I just e-mail and ask. I think they are often amazed—if they are UK or US based—to receive a request from what seems like an exotic place on the other side of the world, and they nearly all say yes. I live my life on the you’ll-never-know-unless-you-ask principle.”

“The coach’s words made me realize I had to jump and trust my cape!” Rosie overcame that mixture of dissonance, desire, and the flurry of confusions that accompany not knowing how to make a shift yet feeling compelled to do so.

“That afternoon, I rang the prison and said, ‘This is what I know how to do. Can I come talk to you?’ They said, ‘Yes, come in and tell us.’ So I did, and I got such an incredible reception. Then everything just started to open up.”

Rosie began volunteering at the prison several times a week. She founded a charity called Chatter Matters as the vehicle by which to run what became a small pilot project, Just Sentences. Rosie’s pioneering work³ with prisoners uses reflective dialogue practices that come from a clinical intervention program based on parent-child attachment theory.⁴ “The Courage Work brought a new depth of understanding to what trust actually deeply means and the depth of trust that needs to be established. I am now more aware of the fragility of trust and the importance of deeply honoring the other person.” She trained more speech therapists and prison volunteers, including her husband, Rich, to work with a small number of inmates for the pilot phase. As they started seeing rapid improvement in the inmates’ literacy skills, Rosie kept spreading the word further to gain more funding.

“I’d talk with anybody who would listen about what we were doing. I was actively, intentionally making connections in order to share the value of this work and the importance of it, because my skills are as a clinician.

“And then I just realized, actually, I’m not afraid to talk to anybody anymore. I don’t feel like I’m scared anymore. I can see that that’s been a gradual change in me over the last few years. Chutzpah is a great word. I feel like I’ve got it.”

“When we know and understand ourselves, we can be more honest with our inner selves in a richer way. That provides us with opportunity to be able to bring all of ourselves to the communication, which then opens a space for the other person’s communication to be lifted and enlarged as well.”

“Am I going to continue to do the thing I was trained for, on which I base my claims to technical rigor and academic respectability? Or am I going to work on the problems— ill formed, vague, and messy—that I have discovered to be real around here?” Depending on how people make this choice, their lives unfold differently.

—Donald Schön

Reflective Practice and the Courage Way

Being a wise and skilled leader is not something you arrive at one day, fully formed and complete. It takes ongoing personal and professional growth that has a purpose beyond one’s individual success. Your growth as a leader benefits the people you serve, the causes you care for, and the purpose behind your profit and product. Reflective practice is at the heart of the capacity to grow as a leader.

Where do you observe your own reflection? In a mirror? In the glass of a storefront you pass by on the street? In the watery depths of a still pond? In the eyes of another person?

We must engage in reflection if we are to see ourselves clearly (that is, become self-aware). By definition, reflection is a two-way process that requires some form of mirror. Reflection can also mean individual contemplation, meditation, or pondering.

Reflective practice is not exactly the same as introspection, which you might call soul-searching or self-examination. In Courage Work it is both an individual and a communal practice. Reflective practice is more than taking time to think about process, learnings, or data. It can be about all of that, yet it’s also about checking in with your inner life and doing so with other people.

Rosie’s story illustrates why personal growth from reflection is both personal and communal. She was reflective when she recognized her need for the chutzpah to act. Her coach helped her reflect on her tendency to procrastinate until all details are neatly lined up. When she and her colleague locked eyes and realized that they needed to act, that was also a moment of reflecting a common purpose and inclination. Reflection helped her remember other times she had courage. Reflection in these instances may look incidental, yet Rosie is practiced at paying attention to the clues of her life. The real power is revealed when reflection is intentional.

We have much to learn from within, but it is easy to get lost in the labyrinth of the inner life. We have much to learn from others, but it is easy to get lost in the confusion of the crowd. So we need solitude and community simultaneously; what we learn in one mode can check and balance what we learn in the other.

—Parker J. Palmer

Reflective Practice in Community

To become your authentic whole self, you need other people to help you see yourself clearly. As noted in chapter 1, the Courage Way presents a specialized meaning of community as “solitudes alone together” as well as a “community of inquiry.”

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke writes of “a love that consists in this, that two solitudes protect and border and salute each other.”⁵ Parker Palmer expands on how we can support another person’s growth: “We stand with simple attentiveness at the borders of their solitude—trusting that they have within themselves whatever resources they need and that our attentiveness can help bring those resources into play.”⁶

The word love isn’t often used in terms of leadership. Not to be confused with romantic love or even intimacy, love can describe the patience required of a good leader who aims to bring out the best in other people. The Center’s work is grounded in a core value of love, by which we mean the capacity to extend ourselves for the sake of another person’s growth. Working in community stretches people to understand, respect, and support each other, which is why learning to love is one of the most demanding disciplines one can choose. When regarded with love, we are surrounded by “a charged force field that makes us want to grow from the inside out—a force field that is safe enough to take the risks and endure the failures that growth requires.”⁷

Solitudes . . .

Solitude starts with you and your thoughts, along with your journal and pen. If you’re truly averse to handwriting on paper, you can choose to keep track of your thoughts using an electronic device. But consider unplugging for a time and see if your heart speaks more clearly when you involve your fingers and hands differently (especially if you’re always plugged in for your day job or doing a lot of texting). It’s also a chance to draw and doodle. Handwriting is good for your brain, stimulating creativity and relaxation.⁸

Solitudes become “alone together” when you take time to share your reflections out loud with one or more other people. We use the terms dyads and triads when we invite people to find a partner or two. You can do this in person, in small groups at work, even over the phone with one to three other people who commit to a recurring weekly or monthly peer support call. The protocol is that each person has the same number of minutes to speak without interruption, then it’s the next person’s turn. You do not comment or share insights on what the person just said. Say thank you and then take your turn. This allows one person to be “heard into speech”— to be witnessed expressing a newfound clarity of innermost thoughts. It’s astounding what a difference you can make by doing something as simple as listening without commentary. If time allows at the end, you can ask people if they are open to a question (but if they say no, don’t force your opinion). Any speaker can opt to invite thoughts.

Communities of Inquiry

Solo reflection is a form of inquiry, but the reciprocal asking of questions yields an abundance of insight. Communities of inquiry are meant to support personal and professional growth. Also known as a community of practice, it is where you feel safe enough to be your genuine self and willing to be gracefully challenged by others’ open, honest questions and reflection that will help you become more authentic.

Our touchstones define a shared fierce commitment to hold safe space, which creates a communal experience of respect and regard. Done well with intention, such community can generate individual insights and also create interpersonal trust, empathy, compassion, and joy. Yes, even joy—and happiness and celebration.

Community and leadership are required for facing serious, hard issues, as well as mourning our losses and taking stock of our learnings. But they’re also about ensuring we have moments of laughter and light—making sure we celebrate accomplishments and take time out for fun.

These pictures [by Cézanne] demanded one’s participation, not just one’s understanding; a process that left no room for the distance of detached observation and comparison.

—Heinrich Wiegand Petzet, art historian

Finding Common Ground with Third Things

Engaging in reflective practice with other people, particularly around inner-life questions that draw on our spiritual side, can be tricky when living and working in mostly secular settings. Even in daily life, simply getting to know one another beyond small talk is hard.

In Courage Work, we introduce material that we often call a “third thing”—something to focus on that can help people find common ground. Adding a third point takes us from a polarized stance of two points with a tense line between them and instead makes a triangle. This creates a space, a field, in which to interact and relate.

In The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer says that communities are held together not only by personal power but by what the poet Rainer Maria Rilke calls “the grace of great things.” Interacting with such great things helps us discover deeper truth.

The “thing” could be a poem, a teaching story from a wisdom tradition, a case study from your profession, a quote, or a piece of music or art, like the video of the trapeze artists that Lynne used (see chapter 4). One facilitator told me she has a photo of several horses standing in a corral—but the gate is open, and beyond it is a huge open field. She asks people to reflect: Why are the horses all in a corral when the gate is open? Just about anything can spark a metaphor to speak to our human condition. As we seek to explore the meaning and significance of third things, we are lifted out of our objective mindset and into a different cognitive space.

The gracious, hospitable power of these third things becomes like another person in the room, a welcoming, inviting, evocative person with whom we’re in dialogue and with whom we’re learning. Interacting with this third thing as if it were a living being—entering into dialogue with it, getting inside it and letting it get inside us—evokes new insights. We feel safe talking about the subject at hand because we’re coming at it from a different angle.

In the Just Sentences literacy program, Rosie brings in essays written by adults who learned to read and write after a lifetime of illiteracy, physical impairment, or brain injury. Rosie partnered with Island magazine to publish a collection of those essays. These essays function as “great things” because they speak candidly about the shame of growing up unable to read or write, being bullied, being the bully, being unable to fill out employment applications, and experiencing the triumphs of finally learning to read. In her introduction to the essay collection, Rosie describes what happens: “I have been asking the new learners I work with to read the Island essays to me, or I read them aloud to them. I sit across the table from men and women and see eyes well and throats choke as they read or listen. For in honest language, their own hidden pain is gently spoken. And the same soft syllables carry inspiration for who they are and what can be.”⁹

Reflective Leadership

Different points in your day or goals on your leadership path call for different types of reflective practice. Leading from within requires a capacity to reflect on your own professional practice. Leading together requires reflection about relationships and the community context in which you work. Leading for impact asks you to reflect on yesterday’s learnings so that you can adjust today’s actions to keep you moving toward your goals. Leading for transformation requires a depth and breadth of inquiry—within individuals, between colleagues, and among stakeholders—so that each person involved finds intrinsic motivation to take responsibility for actions that contribute toward realization of a shared vision.¹⁰

In the midst of our current environment where there is so much change, complexity, and uncertainty, it’s easy to lose touch with what is most important. Many leaders struggle with such questions as How can I possibly achieve all that is required of me and of my organization? How can I reduce uncertainty and know that the strategies I’m following will produce positive results? Seldom, however, do leaders ask the questions, Who am I in this role? How can I be renewed as I work with and relate to others? How can I discover my strengths and work toward common purpose? Yet these more personal and reflective questions are the key to leading for the long term. Results, challenges, and pressures come and go, but the capacity to reflect on the subject of your work, on your own performance and practices of leadership, and on the relationships you have with those you lead and serve and report to is central to good leadership. Through reflection, you can learn to examine your assumptions and biases, and to contemplate “failures” so that you can learn from them and apply those insights in other situations. Reflective practice isn’t just an act of will or the result of encouragement. It has to become a habitual response, a part of everyday life.

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.

—Audrey Hepburn

Reflection and Renewal

Reflection can liberate us from our inner prison where our shadows and unexamined assumptions, or our simple lack of attention, obscures the clarity of truth. Rosie saw the power of being a reflection partner for the inmates of Risdon Prison: “Suddenly somebody’s talking to them like they’re an incredibly valuable human being and that they’re courageous. They’ve never thought about themselves in those terms before. They’ve never thought about the inner vulnerabilities and shame they’re holding with not being able to read. They’ve never thought about addressing that as a point of bravery or of courage.”

One of the gifts of reflection is that we get to both listen and be listened to. Reflecting aloud in a trustworthy space generates a sense of personal voice and agency. When leaders feel renewed in terms of “who I am and why I’m here,” that renewal can ripple out to rejuvenate the vision, mission, and vitality of their colleagues and organizations. Parker Palmer reminds us that we needn’t do it alone: “And yet it remains possible for us, young and old alike, to find our voices, learn how to use them, and know the satisfaction that comes from contributing to positive change—if we have the support of a community.”¹¹