W H O

I N S P I R A T I O N F O R T H E C O M M O N G O O D V O L U M E 7 - I S S U E 1 - W I N T E R 2 0 1 5 $ 1 0 . 0 0

JOURNALTHE

I S

4 - H F O R ?

KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER BOARD OF DIRECTORSDavid Lindstrom, Overland Park (Chair)

Ed O’Malley, Wichita (President & CEO)

Ron Holt, WichitaKaren Humphreys, WichitaSusan Kang, LawrenceCarolyn Kennett, ParsonsGreg Musil, Overland ParkReggie Robinson, TopekaConsuelo Sandoval, Garden CityClayton Tatro, Fort ScottFrank York, Ashland

WEB EDITIONhttp://issuu.com/kansasleadershipcenter

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

Annual subscriptions available at klcjr.nl/amzsubscribe ($24.95 for four issues). Single issues available for $10 by emailing cgreen@kansasleadershipcenter.org.

PERMISSIONSAbstracting is permitted with credit to the source. For other reprint, copying or reproduction permission contact Mike Matson at mmatson@kansasleadershipcenter.org.

KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER325 East Douglas AvenueWichita, KS 67202316.712.4950www.kansasleadershipcenter.org

PHOTOGRAPHYJeff Tuttle Photography316.706.8529 jefftuttlephotography.com

ARTWORKAngie Pickmanwww.ruralpearl.com

MANAGING EDITORChris Green316.712.4945cgreen@kansasleadershipcenter.org

GRAPHIC DESIGNNovella Brandhouse 816.868.9825 www.novellabrandhouse.com

©2015 Kansas Leadership Center

The Journal (Print edition: ISSN 2328-4366; Online edition: ISSN 2328-4374) is published quarterly by the Kansas Leadership Center, which receives core funding from the Kansas Health Foundation.

The Kansas Leadership Center equips people with the ability to make lasting change for the common good. KLC focuses on leadership being an activity, not a role or position. Open to anyone seeking to move the needle on tough challenges in the civic arena, KLC envisions more Kansans sharing responsibility for acting together in pursuit of the common good.

KLC MISSIONTo foster civic leadership for healthier Kansas communities

KLC VISIONTo be the center of excellence for civic leadership development

JOURNALTHE

3.

about the cover: A scrapbook photo shows Don Winger, an officer

of Grant County 4-H in the late 1950s, standing in a milo field.

I N S P I R A T I O N F O R T H E C O M M O N G O O D V O L U M E 7 - I S S U E 1 - W I N T E R 2 0 1 5

JOURNALTHE

p.36

p.8

p.76

p.70

p.26

p.50 p.60

contents

Welcome to the Journal

By President & CEO Ed O’Malley . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Dispatches from the Kansas Leadership Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Balancing Act

By Erin Perry O’Donnell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

A Soaring Economy, Whether Cars Fly or Not

By Chris Green . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

A Mission to Grow

By Brian Whepley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

The Point of Case-in-Point

by Jill Hufnagel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

The Intersection of Art and Social Change

By Laura Roddy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Heat Raiser

By Laura Roddy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Artist: The Storyteller

By Angie Pickman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Poem: An Arrangement of Hearts

By Roderick Townley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

The Back Page

By Mark E. McCormick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

4.

tell us your storyYOUR TALES OF LEADERSHIP SUCCESS –

AND FAILURE – CAN HELP US RAISE THE BAR

I am writing this on the last workday of 2014. The office is quiet. I won’t be back until the NewYear. I reflect and plan.

I savor special moments from the past year. Personal moments stand out: Jack’s smile afterhis first home run; Lizzie confidently heading to her first day of kindergarten; volunteering with Kate at the Kansas Humane Society; and walking on the beach with Joanna.

I think about my special professional momentstoo: the big decisions we made within KLC; thesuccesses we notched in 2015; and the mishapsthat led to great learning.

I think of you and other Kansas Leadership Centeralumni. Great people doing great things. What aprivilege for those of us at KLC to interact with you!

In the “old days,” we could really get to know almost everyone who interacted with KLC ideas.Now, because we’re scaling up, that’s harder.

So, I wonder: What special leadership momentshave you had over the past year? What are yourstories? What did you try? What worked? Whatfailed? I would love to know.

KLC asks a lot of questions. We send out a lot ofsurveys, trying to learn what’s working and wherewe fall short. We dive into that data and modifyour efforts accordingly.

But as I sit on the precipice of another year – the ninth for KLC – I want more than data. I wantyour story, or at least just a nugget of it.

For eight years, the Kansas Leadership Center has been working to answer big questions. Whatis leadership? How do you help people learn it?What will it take to build the leadership capacity ofa state? What would happen if vast more numbersof people began exercising more leadership?

The questions can be haunting. We want to getthis right.

We’ve had success. People apply the ideas weteach and report progress. We’ve failed plenty,too. Some initiatives fall short. Some ideas weteach are muddy.

5.

Our constant struggle to learn and improve meanswe never feel fully satisfied. It’s hard to celebrate.There is always more to do.

When you share a leadership story – success or failure – with us, it’s like seeing that first bloomof spring. We are energized and uplifted. It remindsus why we labor over those questions.

Will you send me a quick note? Tell me what’s different in your world because of your leadership.Let me – and by extension KLC – learn from your story.

What’s been your greatest leadership success ofthe last year? We all fail. What’s one of your latestfailures? What did you learn from it? What ideafrom KLC has resonated with you the most? Why?

Send your story, wisdom or thoughts directly tome at ed@kansasleadershipcenter.org. I wouldlike to share your response with the KLC team.But please let me know if you want it kept justbetween you and me.

Finally, let me say thank you. Thank you for exercising leadership. We need more of it and,frankly, it’s not often appreciated. THANK YOU!

Ed O’MalleyPresident & CEOKansas Leadership Center

P.S. As an extra incentive, I’ll send a copy of a new book about leaderhip in organizations,“Adaptive Capacity” by Juan Carlos Eichholz, to the first five people who respond.

DIsPAtcHesFROM THE KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER

YOU. LEAD. NOW.

Kansans from all walks of life who want to improvetheir leadership abilities can attend You. Lead. Now.This three-day program experience will be offeredmonthly in 2015 through November.

The program allows people to add value to their efforts by gaining knowledge, skills and insight that will help them advance what they care about. It is designed for those who live or work in Kansas,although out-of-state residents may apply. The ideal participants will be working to better theirown leadership capacity, create change within an organization or enhance their effectiveness on a team or group.

The cost of the program is $300, including mostmeals and materials. For more information or to register, please visit: klcjr.nl/youleadnow

Upcoming Sessions:

March 16-18; April 13-15; May 18-20; June 15-17; July 13-15; Aug. 17-19; Sept. 14-16; Oct. 12-14; and Nov. 16-18.

LEAD FOR CHANGE

Looking for a sustained, experience-driven leadershipprogram with intensive coaching and support to helpyou foster large-scale change? KLC’s multi-episodicprogram, Lead for Change, is designed to help youbring your aspirations to reality.

Participants will gather for an initial four-day sessionand reconvene for a follow-up session about twomonths later. The length of this experience makes it ideal for individuals looking for sustained support asthey work to create systems change on entrenchedissues in a community, foster culture changes withinorganizations or navigate diverse perspectives on important issues requiring collaboration andcoalition building.

There is no prerequisite for attending the program,although it is a great follow-up to the three-day experience, You. Lead. Now.

The cost of the program is $800, which includesmeals and most materials. For more information or to register, please visit: klcjr.nl/lead4change

Two Upcoming Sessions in 2015:

Begins May 4-7, ends July 21-23; Begins Aug. 3-6, ends Oct. 20-22.

TEACHING LEADERSHIP CONFERENCES

Two multidisciplinary conferences will allow teachers, coaches, facilitators, consultants and mentors to learn new methods and enhance their skills at teaching leadership.

The conferences will run June 10-12 and Oct. 7-9.Deborah Helsing from Minds at Work will deliver aninteractive keynote at the June event. Carter andTeri McNamara of Authenticity Consulting will deliveran interactive keynote at the October conference.

6.

February marks the launch of a slate of intense but enriching leadership training opportunities from theKansas Leadership Center in 2015. All sessions of the programs detailed below will take place at the KansasLeadership Center & Kansas Health Foundation Conference Center, 325 East Douglas, in downtown Wichita.

7.

Both conferences will allow participants to choosefrom four skill development tracks. In June, thetracks offered include: (1) Teaching KLC Principles & Competencies, Part 1; (2) Coaching Foundations; (3) Case-in-Point Fundamentals; and (4) StrengtheningCommunity Leadership Programs.

The cost for attending a conference is $300. For more information or to register, please visit:klcjr.nl/tlconf

TEACHING LEADERSHIP WORKSHOPS

Participants can develop specific leadership teachingskills at eight one-day workshops offered this year.

The workshops are ideal for individuals using KLC’s leadership framework, although anyone with the passion and aptitude for developing others may attend.

The cost of each workshop is $100. For more infor-mation or to register, please visit: klcjr.nl/tlwrkshps

Upcoming Sessions:

March 12: Case Teaching in the Classroom; April 8:Case-in-Point in the Classroom; May 13: Coachingin Leadership Programs (Helping Learning Stick);July 8: Team Coaching for Leadership Development;Aug. 12: Storytelling for Teachers and Coaches;Sept. 9: Case-in-Point in the Classroom; Nov. 11: Facilitating Leadership Coaching Circles.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALUMNI

Alumni of KLC programs can continue their learningand stay connected to leadership ideas and otheralumni through Konza gatherings and On the Balconyconference calls.

Konza gatherings provide an opportunity for alumni to refresh their leadership skills and identifyopportunities to practice them. Learn more aboutKonza gatherings by visiting klcjr.nl/konzagatherings.You can find out about upcoming Konza gatheringevents near you on KLC’s Facebook page atklcjr.nl/konzaevents

On the Balcony calls are a monthly conversationabout leadership for the common good hosted by KLC President and CEO Ed O’Malley. For more information, visit: klcjr.nl/onthebalcony.

Upcoming On the Balcony Sessions:

March 10, Engage unusual voices; April 7, Hold to purpose; May 12, Start where they are; June 9,Make conscious choices; July 7, Inspire a collectivepurpose; Aug. 11, Leadership is risky; Sept. 8, Take the temperature; Oct. 6, Act experimentally;Nov. 10, Identify who needs to do the work; Dec. 1, Get used to uncertainty and conflict..

8.

B A L A NC I NGAC T

HOW DOES A BELOVED

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION

ENGAGE ITS FUTURE

WITHOUT LOSING ITS HERITAGE?

Nicole Small stands with her sonsDexter, 11, and Maddix, 8, on herfamily’s farm near Neodesha insoutheast Kansas. Growing up,Small was immersed in 4-H and herchildren are carrying on the tradition.

9.

As a farm kid in Montgomery County, Kansas,Nicole Small was more than involved in 4-H.She was immersed. She raised beef cattle,hogs and sheep. She studied bugs and veterinaryscience. She cooked; she sewed. She learnedphotography. “My favorite thing to do in 4-Hwas to give talks,” Small says. “Crazy, I know.Most kids hate to get up and speak.” And she was an expert on beef cattle. She raisedand showed animals at the county, state andnational level. She was in the beef quiz bowland beef ambassador competition. Everythingshe did required a lot of record keeping, organization and just plain hard work. Smallhas carried that work ethic into adulthood as a farmer and rancher near Neodesha, where she and her husband run a cattle operationand also grow corn, wheat, soybeans and milo.“My brother and I both feel we wouldn’t be where we are today without 4-H. We learned to set deadlines andmeet goals – to finish what we started,” Small says.

By Erin Perry O’Donnell

A collection of photos and ribbons from a scrapbook in Grant County provides a glimpse into what 4-H participation looked like in the late 1950s.

The Smalls’ sons are carrying on the tradition. This year, Dexter, 11, and Maddix, 8, each raised his own small plot of crops. Dexter’s took secondplace at the state level. They’ve raised bucketcalves, polished rocks and baked award-winning cinnamon rolls. The Smalls attend their 4-H communityclub’s meetings as a family every month, where students work on yearlong projects in subjects thatrange from livestock to rocketry to crafts and submitthem for judging at the county fair – the highlight ofthe 4-H year. Nicole leads the club, one of several inWildcat Extension District 4-H, serving Montgomery,Labette and Crawford counties.

But what if the Small boys didn’t attend 4-H year-round?What if their club weren’t led by a parent? Or if theydidn’t enter a project in the county fair?

What if they were like the Lavigne family in Ulysses?

Twins Jace and Kyle Lavigne joined Grant County 4-H in 2013, when it began offering a series of short-format, after-school special interest clubs. The clubs met once a week in nine-week segments,each with a different focus: ceramics, robotics, gardening, and foods and nutrition. The clubs are led by volunteers, and the boys’ mother picks them up when she gets off work.

Is that kind of experience still 4-H?

What is 4-H Enough?

A growing number of Kansas 4-H agents, staff members, volunteers and members are answering“yes.” They’re working to expand the definition of the 4-H experience in hopes of extending the program to new populations, especially as they have watched enrollment dwindle across the state.Kansas’ changing demographics are partly responsibleas the population shifts from rural to urban and suburban areas, and the state’s Hispanic populationgrows every year.

But sometimes when 4-H officials do try new things, they’re rejected for not being 4-H enough.

“Our model has always been that the long-termexperience in 4-H is one of best things you can get for kids. But it’s not necessarily the only way,”says Barbara Stone, the head of Kansas 4-H YouthDevelopment and assistant director of K-State Researchand Extension, where the program is housed.

What 4-H veterans believe, and research has shown,is that mentorship from engaged adults is the singlemost important factor in youth development. “Themagic sauce is a positive relationship, in a positiveenvironment, with positive experiences. That’s overthe long term. Who says we can’t condense that?”Stone says.

But there’s an underlying challenge in making thatshift. For many families and volunteers, 4-H is morethan a club. It’s an identity. And expanding that identityto include different types and intensities of experiencescan be a big change for some whose roots in 4-H run deep.

“We all think of 4-H as our own experience, and we want it to be exactly that way for others. It’s hard to give that up,” says Rhonda Atkinson, associate director of public relations and publicationsfor the Kansas 4-H Foundation.

A Troubling Trend

In Kansas, 4-H programs exist in 60 counties and 16multicounty districts. Extension staff members operatethe programs at the county level, but 4-H relies heavilyon volunteers to lead individual clubs. Those may takethe form of a community club – the most well-knownmodel, with members meeting monthly and workingthroughout the year on long-term projects. But 4-Halso offers in-school clubs, after-school clubs, mili-tary clubs, special interest or short-term programs,overnight camps, day camps, school enrichment, individual study and mentoring, school-aged careprograms, and instructional TV or video programs.

4-H HISTORY TIMELINE

1901School principal in Ohio, A.B. Graham begins promoting vocational agriculture “clubs.”

1902Graham organizes the firstclubs, considered the found-ing of 4-H. Original 3-leafclover symbol is adopted.

1903Creation of the USDA Office of CooperativeDemonstration Work.

11.

21.11.

As the 21st century dawned, state 4-H and foundation leaders watched as youth participation began a marked decline. “We werebeing challenged with changing norms, changing family structuresand changing demographics,” says Gordon Hibbard, who recently retired as president of the Kansas 4-H Foundation, a not-for-profit organization independent of K-State Research and Extension thathelps assist and maintain Kansas 4-H through private fundraising.“There is this out-migration in a large number of rural counties that are losing population.”

Participation hit peak levels of 150,000-plus youths in the early 2000s,according to Kansas 4-H figures. Since 2004, an average of 76,000children have participated in Kansas 4-H each year. In 2013, the figurewas 65,206. School enrichment programs, which occur during schoolhours and support school curriculum, usually account for a little morethan half of the participants.

Enrollment in organized clubs, which are led by adults with a yearlongplanned program, averaged between 22,000 and 28,000 membersthrough the 1980s and ’90s. Since 2004, that number has hoverednear 23,000 after peaking at 42,000 in 2002. In 2013, there were20,420 youths in organized clubs. Aside from population changes and an ever-growing menu of youth programs to choose from, there’s no definitive reason behind the decline.

As the traditional 4-H population was shrinking, organizers began thinking that they needed to bring 4-H to new audiences. That’s theobjective of the Growing Kansas Leaders expansion grant pilot program,made possible by a donation from the Kansas 4-H Foundation.

The foundation’s strategic planning committee led a capital campaignin the late 2000s, through which fundraisers identified a donor whowanted to contribute significantly to 4-H programming. Atkinson,meanwhile, had joined the first leadership class at the Kansas LeadershipCenter in 2008 to work not only on declining 4-H enrollment but also a decline in volunteerism. Atkinson thought that if volunteers didn’tfeel obligated to stay with 4-H for life, they would be more likely to sign on for short-term involvement.

“An adult working with a young person on a meaningful project is how we do business,”Atkinson says. “If you have more volunteers,you can reach more kids, and the dominoes just start to fall, in theory.”

YOUTH PARTICIPANTS

GENDER

52% Female

48% Male

1904Corn clubs and corn-growingcontests are introduced inHamilton County, Indiana.

1905The Nebraska Boys Agricultural Association and Nebraska Girls DomesticScience Association are formed.

1906-1914Clubs were started in nearly all states.

1911The first full-time state club leader is appointed in Iowa.4-leaf clover approved.

YOUTH PARTICIPANTS

PLACE OFRESIDENCE

Central Cities of >50,000 19%

Farms 19%

Towns < 10,000 and Rural 26%

Towns/Cities 10,000-50,000 & Suburbs 21%

Suburbs of Cities > 50,000 15%

12.

PHOTOS OPPOSITE PAGE FROM TOPLEFT: The saying of the 4-H pledge atmeetings is a tradition that has contin-ued even as the youth developmentorganization seeks out new audiencesthrough shorter-format special interestor SPIN clubs; Barbara Stone, the headof Kansas 4-H Youth Development, sitswith children participating in a SPINclub on health in Ogden; Grant County4-H agent Mary Sullivan (left) assistsEmma Bahl with making “pumpkin piein a baggie” while Stephanie Castilloof K-State Research and Extension(far right) helps Jayden Gutierrez withthe same task.

19%

26%

21%

15%

19%

Twins Jace and Kyle Lavigne participate in a Grant County 4-H program conducted last year. The pair joined Grant County 4-H

in 2003, when it began offering a series of short-format, after-school special

interest or SPIN clubs.

Soon, KLC faculty, state 4-H and extension officials, and 4-H Foundationstaff members joined forces to guide county 4-H agents in developingplans for growth. Three cohort groups of five 4-H agents each werechosen to participate, with the first group beginning work in 2012.

Each county received $5,000 and guidance to diagnose the situationthey faced. Then each agent drafted a three-year business plan that included programming ideas and goals for increasing membership and volunteers.

“You’re not going to get a very strong program if you don’t get volunteersinvolved. That’s been a hallmark of 4-H for years and years,” Hibbardsays. “With the changing dynamics of today’s family and economy,the model we had when I was in 4-H in the ’60s isn’t the same onethat’s always going to work today.”

The agents organized town-hall meetings with their most active families, local residents, current volunteers and board members to talk about where 4-H appeared to be headed in their communities and how it might need to change. Eventually a leadership team was formed in each county to help carry out the plan objectives.

The goals for each of the 15 participating counties or districts are:

• Increase volunteer participation by 20 percent.

• Increase 4-H community club membership by 15 percent.

• Increase the number of 4-H youth by 25 percent.

• Increase retention of 4-H families by 10 percent.

• Recruit a volunteer to be a new families coordinator for each county.

• Reach out to underserved populations, such as low-income or minority families.

Hibbard says the involvement of Ron Alexander, an Overland Park-based member of the KLC faculty, has been key to the program’s success. Because of Alexander’s long history of working with 4-Hand extension, he’s been able to shepherd participants through sometense conversations. The great fear was that 4-H would change to thepoint of losing its core values.

“Ron has a level of empathy that very few people would be able to provide,” Hibbard says. “Anytime you have a change, there is a sense of loss.”

21.11.

191544 youth in corn clubs each won a trip to thePanama Pacific Exposition in San Francisco.

1919One of the most important meetings in 4-H history was held in Kansas City.

1921Formation of the National Committee on Boys’ and Girls’Club Work for the purpose of obtaining private support.

1922A canning club team from Iowa wins anational contest and is awarded a trip toFrance to give canning demonstrations.

Its signature clover is a familiar sight to most Midwesterners, even if they don’t know what

the four H’s are. They stand for the values the program is designed to teach to children and teens:

HEADManaging, Thinking

HEARTRelating, Caring

HANDSGiving, Working

HEALTHBeing, Living

“We all think of 4-H as our own experience, and we want it to be exactly that way for others.

It's hard to give that up.”

RHONDA ATKINSON,

Kansas 4-H Foundation

Laura Porras shows the model car she built out ofempty paper towel rolls in

a Grant County 4-H special interest club. SPIN clubs focus on a specific topic,

including ceramics, gardening,nutrition and science and

technology subjects, such as crime-scene investigation,

zoology and robotics.

14.

the history of 4-h

The seeds of 4-H Youth Development were planted in the late1800s by rural leaders who worried that young people wereturning their backs on farm work for better prospects in the industrialized world – a refrain that’s still heard. • O. J. Kernsof the Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station was one of the firstto build a youth club around farm and home topics, known as Farmers’ Institutes. In 1901, Ohio school principal A.B.Graham created clubs in rural schools to promote vocationalagriculture. The following year, with help from the OhioAgricultural Experiment Station and Ohio State University,Graham formed what are considered to be the first 4-H clubs,with officers, projects, meetings and record requirements. • Currently, 4-H serves about 7 million children and teens in 50 countries. Theprogram is housed in the research and extension departments of 110 land-grantuniversities throughout the United States, including Kansas State University.

18.

A scrapbook photo shows DonWinger, an officer of Grant County4-H in the late 1950s, standing in amilo field. The history of 4-H YouthDevelopment in Grant County liveson in the photos of members suchas Winger, a longtime teacher andathletics coach, who died in 2011.

15.19.17.

‘It’s an Addition, Not a Subtraction’

Officials and agents hope this 4-H pilot program will inspire innovationstatewide. Their big experiment is the special interest or SPIN clubs. Theseshort-form programs distill the 4-H experience by focusing on a single topicover a short time frame. They’re designed to:

• Encourage young people to investigate topics that may or may not be typical 4-H projects.

• Encourage new and underserved youth and families to get involved.

• Provide an easier way for members and volunteers to try out 4-H.

• Recruit subject-matter experts as volunteers.

In western Kansas, Grant County 4-H agent Mary Sullivan almost didn’tapply for a grant. Her program was growing and had started to reach outto the region’s growing Hispanic population. A visit with Stone at theKansas State Fair changed Sullivan’s mind. “(Stone) said, ‘You’ve gotsome things there that we need to explore.’”

So Sullivan applied and was accepted into the first cohort. The grouptook its growth proposal to a community meeting with Alexander andrepresentatives from the 4-H Foundation and state offices. Sullivan saysthe SPIN Club idea got a good response – at first. But then people hadquestions: Would this siphon kids away from the community clubs? Howwould kids learn citizenship and leadership and public speaking on ashort-term basis? Could a SPIN Club possibly offer the same results asprojects that take a year to complete? What if parents just dropped theirchildren off and never got involved?

“All of a sudden the whole room came to this realization that 4-H was never going to be the same,”she says. “They felt a horrible loss. Ron said, ‘I cansee it on your faces that we’ve hit a roadblock here.’”

The same scene unfolded in Reno County, says 4-H agent Joan Krumme.In 2013, Reno County started an after-school SPIN Club for photographyand video production, open to fourth- through sixth-graders.

Interest was high, but there was only enough equipment for 12 youths tojoin. Months after the club formed, Krumme says, she still heard peoplesay it didn’t count as “real 4-H.” Although she didn’t agree, she understood.

21.11.

1948First International Farm Youth Exchange between American and European youth.

1952The 50th anniversary of 4-H is celebrated and a U.S. commemorative stamp is issued.

1950s4-H extends into urban areas.

THE VALUES OF 4-H

drawn from the Edwards County New Family Guide

1.4-H youth are more importantthan the project exhibit itself.

2.Learning how to do a project

is more important than the project itself.

3.To “learn by doing”

through a useful work project is fundamental in any sound educational

program, and is characteristic of the 4-H program.

4.Generally speaking, there

is more than one good way of doing most things.

5.Our job is to teach 4-H membershow to think, not what to think.

6.Winning isn’t always

measured by the results of the ribbon or judging event, but by the character of the4-H’er, parent and leader.

“I think they felt threatened that we might want tochange their club, and 4-H is a very traditional thing,”Krumme says. “It’s part of who you are. It’s woveninto your life. It’s like trying to change the traditions ofa family, because 4-H is just that – a family.” Sullivansays she tried to emphasize that “this is an addition,not a subtraction. The thing we kept coming back towas, ‘Do you believe every youth in our county deservesa taste of 4-H?’ And they would always say ‘yes.’ So the question is, ‘How are we going to do that?’ ”

In 2013, Grant County started its first four SPIN clubs.The Lavigne twins were among the first members.In 2014, there were 56 participants. The county's4-H membership grew by 32, well above the goal of20, and the program also added nine volunteers, whenthe goal had been three. Community clubs grew fromtwo to three. Since the county got its grant in 2012,membership has increased 50 percent. In 2014, 88percent of families returned from the previous year.

SPIN Club participants are full-fledged 4-H members,and they’re encouraged – but not required – to takepart in other 4-H activities. SPIN Club meetings followmany traditional practices, such as saying the 4-Hpledge at meetings, displaying the 4-H clover, providinga showcase for what members learn and using theirskills for community service.

For most of the SPIN Club members, though, 4-H isn’tthe family tradition that it is among many communityclub members. Melissa Lavigne, whose sons joined the Grant County SPIN clubs, was never a 4-H member.“When I was a kid, I thought it was more of a farmer’sthing,” Lavigne says.

The boys are in their second year of SPIN Club mem-bership, and Lavigne says they’ve enjoyed finding acreative activity to go along with everything else theydo. That’s a long list, and it includes soccer, baseball,tae kwon do, Odyssey of the Mind at school, Awanayouth group at church and the Boy Scouts.

“They’re interested in so much,” Lavigne says. “I think 4-H gives them a little more range of different ideas to think about.”

Last fall, Jace and Kyle entered their ceramics projectsin the county fair's open class category, which anyonein the community can enter. It's separate from the categories designated for 4-H community club members. The boys took first and second place, andJace was named grand champion for his category.

While longtime 4-H’ers are beginning to accept SPINas legitimate 4-H, some of the original communityclubs are changing, too. “It’s not just cows and cookiesanymore,” Sullivan says. Only four out of 45 memberswho are doing traditional projects in Grant County are raising livestock, she says.

Small, the Montgomery County farmer, says modern4-H is definitely not just for farm kids. “I think thekids who don’t live on farms get more out of it thankids who do,” Small says. “It takes them out of theircomfort zone. I think it’s great to get that interactionbetween rural and city kids.”

Dozens of SPIN clubs are springing up statewide, andscience and technology are hot topics. In Seward County,an agent from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation leda crime-scene investigation (CSI) club. Reno Countyjust launched a zoology club, in partnership with theHutchinson Zoo, that Krumme says is formatted like aninternship for teens. Several counties have partneredwith their local libraries to do reading clubs.

Kathy Bloom, 4-H agent for Seward County, says: “I feel like our people have been a little unsure abouthow this was going to affect the community club. Butactually we’ve had a lot of community club membersjoin in the SPIN clubs.” A few SPIN members havecrossed over to the community club. That’s not a stated goal of the grant, but it may reassure somestakeholders that SPIN clubs can be an entry pointto a deeper 4-H commitment.

And in Reno County, members of the photo and videoclub found so much enjoyment that they chose toconvert from a SPIN Club to a traditional communityclub. They’ve done projects in arts and crafts, foodsand, of course, photography – all 4-H mainstays.

21.11.

1960s - 20004-H experiences two significant trends: 1) The basic purpose

of 4-H is the personal growth of the member

2) Program and organizational consolidation results in combining 4-H organizations divided by gender and race into a single integrated program.

20024-H celebrates its 100th anniversary.

“With the changing dynamics of today’s family and economy, the model we

had when I was in 4-H in the ’60s isn’t the same one that’s always going

to work today.”

GORDON HIBBARD

Retired president of the Kansas 4-H Foundation

Israel Moncay listens during aGrant County 4-H SPIN Club

meeting. Over the last decade,4-H officials have worked to

introduce the organization to southwest Kansas’ growing

Hispanic population by hiringbilingual staff members and

developing marketing campaigns in Spanish.

Volunteers Still Hard to Find

With the decline in 4-H enrollment came a decline inthe volunteer base. Traditionally, the majority of clubleaders have been parents or grandparents of 4-H kids.The SPIN Club model encourages more leadershipfrom other areas of the community, and Krummesays it can be easier to find volunteers for short-term programs.

“When we ask them to volunteer for 4-H, they automatically think it’s a life sentence,” Krumme says. “So it’s really nice to be able to say, ‘You’re only committing for a six-week period.’ If they want to continue after that, it’s fine.”

In Seward County, Bloom says, the CSI SPIN Clubwas already in development when she joined theGrowing Kansas Leaders program. Now she’s pursuingvolunteers for unusual topics like glassblowing and a photography club that would focus on historic or tourist sites around Liberal.

Being part of the pilot program “has opened up somecreativity. It’s nice to get out of that traditional boxand think of some new things,” Bloom says. Butother agents are still waiting to see a payoff.

In October, agents participating in the grants submittedtheir year-end reports to the 4-H Foundation. Some wereclearly discouraged that their efforts had fallen short.

Edwards County staffers Marty Gleason and AmySollock noted: “It has not been easy!” They had triedto create SPIN clubs around topics like aviation andgenealogy but couldn’t find volunteers to lead them.“I’m not sure why we are struggling in this aspect,”Gleason wrote in his report, “but Edwards Countyhas not embraced the SPIN Club model.”

It doesn’t help when area families give conflictingreasons about why they don’t participate. The community club can seem like too much of a commitment, but then some reject the short-termSPIN clubs because it isn’t the familiar model.

Barbara Stone, the Kansas 4-H head, says volunteersoften have specific ideas about how they want to runan activity. “Most nonprofits are trying to figure outhow to attract and keep them. We’re in that sameplace,” Stone says.

2013TOTAL 4-H PARTICIPATION WITHOUT DUPLICATES

ALL DELIVERY MODELS

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: A scrapbook photo shows a typical 4-H activity from more than a half-century ago; the modern face of 4-H includes Jayden Gutierrez, a Grant County 4-H participant; and Ginny Barnard and Kalea Santos-Chatfield play a “following directions” gamefor a “human body” class in Ogden.

Less than 100 100 to 500 500 to 1,000 2,000 to 10,000 10,000+

24.

DISCUSSION GUIDE

How would you diagnose the situation facing Kansas 4-H? What are the different stories that might be told about what’s going on here?

Name the stakeholders you see emerging in this article. What goals and values do they embody? Where are values coming into conflict?

What process challenges do you see emerging in this story? What type of leadership work needs to be done to navigate the balance

between upholding core values and promoting growth?

Where do you see the desire to maintain tradition clashing with the urge to grow in your community or organization? What steps might be taken

to help your community or organization navigate this balance?

Derald Winger, a Grant County 4-H member in the 1950s, and “White Rocks,” one of the photos kept in a scrapbook detailing the county’s 4-H history.

25.

Krumme says building community partnerships has helped 4-H in Reno County offer more robustprogramming. The video club got hands-on experiencein the production studio at Hutchinson CommunityCollege, and Krumme is also pursuing a partnershipwith local radio stations to start a broadcasting club.

Coming Full Circle

Hibbard retired as head of the Kansas 4-H Foundation this winter after 10 years as president.One of his proudest accomplishments was helpingto introduce 4-H to the growing Hispanic populationin southwestern Kansas.

Two foundation board trustees made personal donations to fund outreach in that area, Hibbard says.The money helped hire bilingual staff members anddevelop marketing campaigns in Spanish. Local extension and 4-H agents also had to learn aboutHispanic family culture, Sullivan says, to form those relationships.

In many counties, agents went to meatpackers andagricultural employers to encourage their employeesto try 4-H. Extension agents who were already workingwith immigrants in their family and nutrition programsbegan to pitch 4-H as an activity they could do alongside their children. The agents developeda marketing campaign called “Una vida mejor con 4-H.” “A better life with 4-H.”

The outreach is working, as Hispanic participationblossoms. “It’s almost like 4-H looked 100 years ago.The whole family comes,” says Stone. “It’s so grati-fying. You hear people say 4-H is dying, and then youlook at this audience that’s just hungry for it becausethey see 4-H as something for the family.”

Krumme says she understands why it’s hard for someto accept innovations like the SPIN clubs, even whenthey succeed. “There are certain things about 4-Hthat lifer 4-H’ers believe only 4-H offers,” she says.

But the 21st century may be seeing the creation of anew status quo. The challenge for those in the GrowingKansas Leaders program is to plant the seeds ofpositive youth development in a new way and perhaps come up with a hybrid that meets moreneeds than ever. If everyone can agree that resultsare what’s important, it may matter less and lesswhich road they take to get there.

The more traditional involvement of families such asthe Smalls in activities such as their community clubstill represents a core part of what 4-H is and does,but there are other paths to become part of 4-H.While Jace and Kyle Lavigne may never join the 4-H community club in Grant County, their mothercan already see the influence of the organization’svalues showing up in the lives of her fifth-graders. At school, the boys had a choice to take a test onplant cell structure or do a project to demonstratetheir knowledge. Jace picked the project and built a cell out of Jell-O.

Who’s to say where that influence might end?

Today’s 4-H members will likely be tomorrow’s 4-H leaders and volunteers, carrying on a tradition oflifelong involvement in their own ways. As Krummesays, “Kids who grow up in 4-H never really leave it.”

In the end, 4-H officials say the thing to remember isthat what matters most isn’t so much how childrenand families choose to engage with 4-H; it’s thatthey do and that their lives – and the lives of others – are positively affected because of the experience.

“The principles of 4-H are key,”Atkinson says. “How we apply themin today’s world is different, but theresults should be the same: Are wehelping produce citizens you wouldwant to live with and to work withand call your friends?”

Find out more about 4-H Youth Development in Kansas, locate clubs near you and learn how to join here: www.joinkansas4-h.org

26.

27.

BY CHRIS GREEN

A SOARING ECONOMY, WHETHER CARS FLY OR NOT

Travel to the future – and back – to see why harnessing our demographic shifts and increasing the level of minority business ownership might be crucial to the future of the Kansas economy.

That’s 2050 to be exact, a leap of 35 years. We’restanding together at 325 East Douglas in Wichita,just outside the current location of the Kansas Leadership Center and Kansas Health FoundationConference Center, which feels both hauntingly familiar and strangely changed. I’ll give you just a moment to get your bearings.

We didn’t come to Kansas in 2050 to see whetherwe finally have flying cars. Our mission today is to tryto understand the state’s economic future. I must warnyou: It could turn out to be a bit of a wake-up call.

At first glance, it might be surprising how recognizableKansas is in 2050. What’s really different, though,might not be noticeable at first, unless you’re a demographer.

The America that Kansas sits in has changed. It’s a vastly more competitive world, but we’re still amajor economic world power. There are 100 millionmore people living in the U.S. than in the time we just came from, more than 400 million people in all. Kansas is more populous, too.

It might be hard to spot from this busy street corner,but one big change that has occurred is that as aCaucasian, I’m a minority in this country. People wholook like me, non-Hispanic whites, still make up thelargest population group in the U.S., but now there aremore people, combined, who are Hispanic, black, Asianor American Indian/Alaska Native. Plus, more peoplenow straddle multiple races, ethnicities and identities.

The changes in Kansas might not be quite as big as they are nationally. But they’re here. And if I tookyou from the street corner on a tour, community bycommunity, it would likely be hard to find a place thathasn’t been touched by these demographic shifts.We’re a long way from the 1900s, or even the 1970s,when more than 90 percent of the people whocalled Kansas home were white.

Our economy here is humming along better thanever. Kansans have higher per capita incomes. Thingsare far from perfect, but these are good times. A lotof factors went into this surge, but one of the mostimportant is people. Residents put their focus onpeople and developing their abilities to bring theirbusiness ideas to fruition, impacting the economyfor the better.

People from across the state – governors, state lawmakers, local-government officials, businesses,banks, chambers of commerce, economic develop-ment officials and community groups – foresaw the demographic changes. They upped their emphasis on a high-quality education for all Kansans.They recognized the role that promoting more entrepreneurship and business ownership couldhave in invigorating our economy. And they made the decision that one of strategies for bolstering our economy would be to foster the growth of minority-owned businesses.

BEAR WITH ME FOR A SECOND. I’M GOING TO GIVE YOU A GLIMPSE OF THE FUTURE.

THIS COLLECTION OF LETTERS AND SYMBOLS MIGHT LOOK LIKE A MAGAZINE ARTICLE.

BUT IT’S ACTUALLY A MAGIC TIME MACHINE.

LET ME REATTACH A FEW LEVERS AND ADJUST THE FLUX CAPACITOR A LITTLE BIT.

BOOM. IT’S THE FUTURE.

28.

A Critical AssetI’m sure it wasn’t an easy decision. There must havebeen doubters and dissenters, many of whom hadsome really great points. And there were countlessbarriers to explore and try to overcome. But there werea lot of reasons it made sense, too. The data we had35 years ago told us that minorities were significantlyunderrepresented as businesses owners in Kansas.These statistics served as a warning that somethingwas wrong and needed to be addressed.

Taken together, information showed that minoritieswould play an even larger role in our economic success.First-generation immigrants wanted to start businessesat a higher rate than nonimmigrants, so encouragingthem to create businesses represented a leveragepoint. Data showing the U.S. economy becoming

less entrepreneurial over time reinforced the need tofoster increased dynamism in the state’s economy.

Faced with all that, government, business and nonprofit sectors made some clearly-thought-out,strategic decisions. They knocked down barriers to financing. Mentorship programs were started to help build capacity. Kansans recognized how important a resource people are for poweringeconomies with their ideas and risk-taking. They understood that smart, talented people like to cluster around other smart people pursuing thesame interests. They wondered if bolstering minority-owned businesses could give the state a competitiveadvantage in the global economy. They mulled overwhether increasing minority business ownership represented a “low hanging fruit” approach to bolstering the Kansas economy.

MINORITY BUSINESS OWNERSHIP PARITYratio of minority population to ratio of minority business owners

50%+ 40-50% 30-40% less than 30%

29.

Their efforts didn’t come with a lot of guarantees.But over time, the rates of immigrants starting new businesses in Kansas ticked up. Places such as Wichita tapped into a wealth of know-how and innovation in manufacturing to reinvigorate that sector. A number of these new businesses werestarted by minorities. As the ranks of minority-ownedfirms grew across the state, they also mostly grewin the right places, limiting the displacement of existingbusinesses, particularly in the service industry. Moreand more minority business owners starting firmsworked to tap into the global economy by exportingtheir goods, helping build the state’s export power.

It’s always hard to attribute economic changes to anyone strategy, but there’s a widespread belief in 2050that Kansas has a more dynamic economy at least insome part because of the increase in minority-ownedbusinesses seen over the previous 35 years.

But you don’t need a time machine to see this futureon the horizon. Author Joel Kotkin, DistinguishedPresidential Fellow in Urban Futures at ChapmanUniversity in California, penned a book in 2010 thatdescribed an economically surging future America fueled by immigration and entrepreneurship, and featuring a period of renewal for Great Plains statessuch as Kansas.

“The Heartland offers the country an outlet for theentrepreneurial and creative skills of its rising popula-tion,” Kotkin writes. “It will offer millions the chanceto enjoy more spacious, less congested, and morehealthful lives than can be found or easily afforded in the largest cities. No longer geographically isolatedor cut off from vital information, the Heartland is one of America’s critical assets as it prepares to accommodate the next hundred million.”

All this, of course, hasn’t happened yet. It’s just onepotential timeline for the future. An aspiration, really.

30.

The choices we make here in 2015 and beyond willplay a role in whether this future actually happens.To get a sense of where this more prosperous futurecould start, we’ll have to hop back in the time machine.We’ll be leaving 2050 behind – or is that ahead? I’ve set the dial for August 13, 2014.

What Makes For a Good Economy?Just up the main staircase and to the right in KLC’sbuilding is the High Plains classroom, where 35stakeholders have gathered to discuss the state of minority-owned business. It’s a diverse groupof people from a variety of different sectors: govern-ment, business, finance and the community. Sittingat the front of the room are three economists, DonnaGinther of the University of Kansas; Jeremy Hill ofWichita State University; and Rob Catlett of EmporiaState University. Ed O’Malley, KLC’s president andCEO, is moderating the panel. Wayne Bell, district director for the Wichita office of the U.S. Small Business Administration and someone who has tried to bring a lot of attention to the need for moreminority-owned businesses in Kansas, speaks as well.

Now that we’ve seen the aspiration for the future,we’ll be exploring our less-than-ideal current reality.Some pretty stark statistics illustrate the gap. Minoritiesaccounted for just 7.7 percent of the state’s businessowners last decade, even though nonwhites and Hispanics made up nearly 23 percent of the state’spopulation. It’s hard to come up with any justifiablereasons for this situation. While no state reachesparity, Kansas fares worse than most, ranking 42nd. More diverse states tend to fare better interms of minority business ownership parity. But

Kansas trails nearly a dozen other states with less diverse populations.

It’s certainly hard to argue against the social value of having more minority-owned businesses inKansas. But the question before the group that day hinged on economics. Would increasing thenumber of minority-owned businesses in Kansas actually improve the state’s economy?

What looks clear from the vantage point of our imagined 2050 feels fuzzier in this room. To help us understand things better, Hill, Ginther and Catlett– economists and experts – explain just what weknow about making an economy hum.

Some high-level takeaways for those who snoozedthrough econ: People are really important, both interms of having a growing population and havingwell-educated people with strong skills. Universitiescan fuel innovation, but Kansas currently lags inpatents. Tax policies can help but generally takeawhile to have a “real economic impact.” Increasingexports, particularly in the already established manu-facturing sector, and having people in other countriesincrease the level they are investing and owningcompanies here can make a big difference.

Jobs often grab the headlines, but per capita incomemight be a better measuring stick. And wealth, too.If you look at the wealthiest states, Catlett of EmporiaState says, you’ll find “extremely, extremely highlevels of education in terms of their work force.”That means increasing levels of educational attain-ment would be important for the Kansas economy. Perception matters, too. Firms looking at the stateneed to know that Kansas has a qualified workforceto employ and is a good place to locate a business.

Minority-owned firms are six times more likely to conduct business in a language other than English compared to nonminority-owned firms.

36%

6%

Firms Conducting Business in Language other than Englishby percent of firms

minority-owned firms nonminority-owned firms

31.

“When you talk to companies, they have a very difficult time because of this negative image of thestate,” says Hill, director of the Center for EconomicDevelopment and Business Research at WSU. “Sospecific for us is a strategy of really changing andgiving resources that say, ‘Here’s why you really do want to come here.’”

The state can also derive economic benefits, Catlettsays, from the clustering of companies and talentoperating in the same sector near the same location.Whether it’s Hollywood, Silicon Valley or the aerospaceindustry, the pull to be among firms and talentedpeople working in the same field is a strong one.

Pitfalls Along the WayThe promises for Kansas in increasing the ranks ofminority-owned businesses lie in harnessing factorsthat we already know help create economic growth.

The simplistic formula could look something like this:Cultivate more minority-owned businesses in sectors

already rooted in Kansas that have growth potential, especially ones with the potential to increase theirexports, such as Wichita’s manufacturing sector. Provide high-quality education for children from earlychildhood on. Increase levels of educational attainment,particularly in minority communities. Mentor prospectivebusiness owners and foster business-ownershipskills early on.

Encourage the development of succession plans thatallow minority owners to keep established businessesalive. Clear away structural barriers to financing andgovernment contracting. Make the state a magnetfor smart, skilled people who have great business ideas– whether they were born here or not – and find waysto encourage them to bring those concepts to reality.

But the devil, as they say, is in the details.

“As a strategy, it’s a new one,” says Ginther, directorof the Center for Science, Technology & EconomicPolicy at KU’s Institute for Policy & Social Research.“There’s a short-term version of it, which is workingwith businesses and people right now. And there’s alonger term version in terms of creating an infrastruc-ture through the state so that (more minorities) havethe capacity and potential to be entrepreneurs.”

There are pitfalls, too. As Hill points out, it matterswhat sectors minority-owned businesses are locatedin. The largest number of existing minority-ownedbusinesses in Kansas are located in support sectorsand “may not be necessarily creating new wealth toa regional economy,” Hill says. A given area can onlysupport so many service businesses. Increase minoritybusiness ownership as currently structured in Kansaswith a wave of a wand, Hill says, and you’re likely to displace other businesses, both minority- and nonminority-owned.

Furthermore, as Ginther explains, not everybody issuited to be a business owner. Entrepreneurship byits very definition involves assuming risk and courtingfailure, and not everybody has the skills, dispositionor interest in bringing a business concept to marketor managing an existing business. And while increasingbusiness ownership is a leverage point, it’s also important to recognize the role that larger, moreestablished firms play in increasing employment andpaying higher wages. Don’t expect to find a magiceconomic bullet.

Regardless of Firm Size, Minority-Owned Firms are

More Likely to Exportby percent of all exporter firms

$500,000 to $999,999 in sales

$1 million plus in sales

9.4%

6.9%

16.6%

13.8%

nonminority-owned firms

minority-owned firms

32.

“The Heartland offers the country an outlet for the entrepreneurial and creative skills of its rising population ... It will offer millions the chance

to enjoy more spacious, less congested, and more healthful lives than can be found or easily afforded in the largest cities. No longer geographically isolated or cut off from vital information, the Heartland is one of America’s critical assets

as it prepares to accommodate the next hundred million.”

JOEL KOTKIN

33.

Learn more:

“The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050” by Joel Kotkin, published by The Penguin Press (2010), explores how a projected rise in U.S. population will translate into economic strength.

In “Welcome to the Failure Age” in The New York Times Magazine, Adam Davidson writes about how our lives and work are being transformed by the “innovation age” and what changes might be necessary to cope with the increasing risks we’ll face. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/magazine/welcome-to-the-failure-age.html?_r=0

In an interactive essay, “The Next America,” Paul Taylor, senior fellow at the Pew Research Center, highlights “a future marked by the most striking social, racial, and economic shifts the country has seen in a century.” http://www.pewresearch.org/next-america/

There are also plenty of unknowns.

As our state delves into the issue, we’re only beginningto discover just what the barriers to minority businessownership actually are. Some of the barriers mightbe as much about perception as structure. We’ll haveto get to the bottom of why these barriers – both realand perceived – exist and try to counteract them.

For instance, many banks in Kansas don’t see a lot of minority applicants for business financing. Theysimply don’t come in or take the final steps. Bankersmake decisions, as one participant in the meetingstated, based on the five C’s of credit, including capacity, capital, collateral and conditions. But one of those C’s, character, is subjective. It’s judged byhaving someone sit down for a talk with you. To prosper,we’ll need more minorities who can look past thestereotype of the “stodgy conservative banker” and take the risk of seeking out financing for theirbusinesses. And we’ll need lenders who’ll activelywork to create climates to attract qualified applicantsfrom any cultural or ethnic background.

As with many complex adaptive challenges facingKansas, we can only address the problem by learningalong the way as we try to solve it. Which makes it

hard to know how we’ll get from Point A – where we are now – to Point B, that vibrant economic future I gave you a glimpse of earlier.

What we have right now is a lot of questions. Foremostamong them: Do we have the will to advance thisissue in the service of the state’s economy? Becausechanging the status quo will require engagement notonly among minority communities, but also amongmany who are neither minorities nor business ownerswho might not see yet how change benefits them.

How far exactly are we willing to expand our circlesof concern to act in making the Kansas economymore vibrant?

It’s a deep question even our magic time machinecannot answer. As residents of this state, we’re the ones who must respond to it.

A future that’s sure to be influenced by changing demographics lies ahead. And there’s enormous potential for increased economic opportunity lyingjust over the horizon, if we can harness these demographic shifts to benefit the common good.

What shall we do next?

DISCUSSION GUIDE

What’s your gut feeling when you read about the demographic shifts described in this article? What do you think influences you to feel that way?

What difficult choices might need to be made to make progresson promoting minority-owned business in Kansas?

In what ways might individuals experiment to be part of the solution?

34.

WHY WE SHOULD GROWMINORITY-OWNED BUSINESS

IN KANSAS

POTENTIAL PITFALLS

What are the possible side effects? Intervening in an economy can produce unforeseen effects. What would be the political consequences

if some businesses ended up being displaced?

Not everybody can or should be a business owner. How do we encourage minority business ownership without overreaching?

Will increasing minority-owned business really increase the economy, or is it more about the social value of equity? Or are the two connected somehow?

Most Kansans will not be minority business owners. Are we willing to expand our circle of concern? Do we have the will to advance minority

business ownership in service of the state’s economic good?

DEMOGRAPH ICS

With Kansas growing more diverse, we’ll need more minority-owned businesses to help our economy grow and prosper.

PEOP L E

Individuals, their knowledge, their skills and abilities play an important role in economic growth. If we can equip more people to excel as business owners, it could benefit our economy.

CLUS T ER ING

People like to be around other smart, talented people. Kansas could see benefits from becoming a destination for minorities who want to start businesses in certain sectors.

COMPET I T I ON

We are increasingly competing not nationally but globally. If we don’t invest in fostering the development of people and increasing our

capacity to devise and execute big ideas, we’re liable to be left behind.

RURAL KANSAS HOSPITAL SEEKS TO CHOOSE

ITS OWN DESTINY WITH A FOCUS ON BOTH

SHARED LEADERSHIP AND PURPOSE

BY BRIAN WHEPLEY

a m i s s i o n t o

grow

36.

A week after Benjamin Anderson took over as theCEO of Kearny County Hospital in June 2013, helearned that one of its four family doctors was leaving.

The departure, a shock to the system for both Andersonand the hospital itself, illustrated one of the manychallenges that rural hospitals such as Anderson’sface. The demands of delivering health care in a ruralsetting can be draining. Stability is difficult to achieveand maintain. The smaller the hospital is, the moreuncertain its future is.

Like a game of Jenga, one piece removed stressesthe remaining ones and can threaten a cascade.

Anderson – in his mid-30s with a trim beard, stylishwide-rimmed glasses, spiky hair and more energythan most can imagine – looks more fitting for therole of a tech start-up CEO than the administrator of a hospital in a county of fewer than 4,000 people.

And in some respects, they might have a similarmentality – security comes through growth.

Strangely enough, though, key approaches for fosteringthat growth sound less like a business strategy andmore like the driving force for a nonprofit – sharedleadership and tapping into people’s desire to domission-driven work overseas and at home.

Although hospital officials ultimately filled the doctor’sslot, the situation reinforced a belief of Anderson and others that the hospital needed to commit to a “surgical” approach to growth to try to increasethe odds of survival in a chaotic health care sectorwhile continuing to meet the medical needs of a region short on health care providers and services.

“We have an opportunity to choose our destiny here.We are looking at a health care delivery system that issick, and we are vulnerable,” Anderson says. “We have

37.

Kearny County Hospital in Lakin, about 230 miles west of Wichita, represents a crucial pillar to the future of a western Kansas county of nearly4,000 people. The hospital is the largest employer in the county with more than 220 employees, two-thirds of whom live in Kearny County.

24.

two choices: One is surgery, and the other is palliativecare. Surgery is painful and expensive and risky butbrings with it a good chance of healing and growth andprosperity. Palliative care is just as it sounds: choosingthe most painless way to die. We have calculated therisks and believe we are making the right choice.”

Rural hospitals face many financial challenges, including that more than half of their incomes typically come from federal programs for the elderlyand the poor. The Affordable Care Act delivered another challenge when Kansas, along with a number of other states, decided not to expand Medicaid coverage to many Kansans without insurance. Hospitals have been squeezed becausethey’ve seen federal cuts in Medicare subsidies that, because of the state’s decision, have not been offset by greater Medicaid payments.

The multifaceted nature of the hospital’s approach is intriguing, particularly since the risks it faces arehardly theoretical. Since 2013 began, more than twodozen rural hospitals have closed across the country,according to the North Carolina Rural Health ResearchProgram. Small, rural hospitals have always facedchallenges, but the pressures they face have rampedup in a hurry as populations shrink and they’re pushed to cut costs and keep patients for shorteramounts of time.

More than convenient doctor’s office visits and ready access to an emergency room are at stake if a rural hospital doesn’t survive. In communitiessuch as Lakin, 25 miles west of Garden City on U.S. 50/400 and about 40 miles from Colorado on theHigh Plains, adapting and growing are essential notonly to the health of the hospital but to the vitality of the city itself. Quality of life means many things,and close access to health care – whether a trip tothe ER or a place nearby for mom when she cannotlive on her own any longer – is one of them.

“Communities that lose their hospitals lose theircommunity,” says Jon Wheat, a dentist who headedthe hospital’s board until early in 2013. “You can’t re-cruit teachers, and then your school system goessouth.”

The current climate has basically left rural institutionswith a choice, “grow or die,” says Fred Jones, Lakin’scity manager for seven years before becoming awater resource manager in Garden City.

For Kearny County Hospital, a small facility in a state withmany even smaller ones, growing means serving morepatients, adding staff and providing a wider range ofservices. It means reaching a scale where the hospitalhas the equipment and expertise – from scanners todoctors to billing and reimbursement specialists – so

25.

that it remains a place patients choose to use. And itneeds to be a hospital that has the heft and resourcesto navigate the changing health care sector and notbecome a greater burden on county taxpayers.Such an expansion requires leadership that fosterscreativity, vision and resources. It involves a volunteerboard that sets a big-picture view of the hospital’s future but trusts others to carry out the day-to-daymission of caring for the community. It involves doctors, nurses and other providers attracted to the mission, and a chief executive who seeks outpartnerships with businesses and other organiza-tions. It involves collaboration among the countycommission that funds the hospital, the board thatoversees it, the administrators that direct it and the providers who see patients.

And it involves openness about the hospital’s moves,successes and failures. That’s important, as about 10 percent to 12 percent of the county budget goesto the hospital, and in the past some taxpayers have questioned what they’re getting for their money.

“When people don’t understand what you’re doing,they fill in the blanks,” says Rita Stockton, a hospitalboard member, retired district court clerk and, now,priest of an Episcopal house church.

A BIG CHUNK OF THE ECONOMY

The 25-bed hospital and its accompanying 70-personsenior living center are big business in the countyand in Lakin, which is near enough to Garden Citythat many residents shop and do much of their otherbusiness there. With more than 220 employees,two-thirds of whom live in Kearny County, the hospitalis the largest employer, trailed only by the Lakin schools– home of the Broncs. “For us to even have a chanceas a county, the two things that hinges on are theschool system and the health care,” says Jerrad Webb,a Kearny County commissioner and an EMT instructorat Garden City Community College. “The two thingsthat anybody moving to town wants to know aboutare access to health care and the school system.”

Crucial to the hospital’s growth is tapping into a deeper purpose that could attract physicians. It recruits doctors and other staff who see medicineas a mission, one they practice primarily in KearnyCounty, Kansas, but also as far afield as Zimbabwe,Haiti, Ecuador and elsewhere around the globe.

LEFT TO RIGHT: Dr. John Birky, aKearny County hospital physician,assists student Jaimie Dungan witha female patient in the southernAfrican country of Zimbabwe. Dr. Arlo Reimer and Ken Donahue,a physician’s assistant, stand at a nurses station in the hospital;Kevin Hoover, a registered nurse,works with patients in Haiti. Thehospital recruits doctors and otherstaff who see medicine as a missionand provides eight weeks off eachyear to provide care in places suchas Zimbabwe, Haiti, Ecuador andelsewhere. (First and third photoscourtesy of Kearny County Hospital)

Another key piece is Anderson, who was drawnto Lakin’s team of mission-driven doctors and a hospital board supportive of stepped-upgrowth. Raised on the rougher side of California’sBay Area, Anderson went to college in Spring-field, Missouri, and ran a student-mentoringand college-placement organization there aftergraduating. A stretch as a physician recruiterfollowed, as did the realization that he wantedto be on the other side – hospital management– of the recruiting equation. He and his wife,Kaila, a social worker, felt called to rural and underserved areas, and Kansas – “that big rectangle” – fit the bill. “I think he’s taken theframework that was already in place and justmade that vision bigger,” says Drew Miller, a family practitioner who joined the hospital-owned practice in 2010.

The hospital serves not just Kearny County but a sizable surrounding area that stretches intoColorado. English, Spanish, Burmese, Somaliand other languages are heard in its halls andwaiting rooms, reflecting the area’s farm andranch heritage, its long-running Hispanic pres-ence and the ever- shifting, heavily immigrantworkforce of the Tyson Foods packing plant in nearby Holcomb.

Mothers-to-be need prenatal care and some-one to deliver their babies – something all fourfamily doctors do. Diabetes and obesity, as inthe rest of the nation, are major and growingproblems. Specialists are few, and family

practitioners provide a wide variety of care –though the hospital has a rarity for the region,an ear, nose and throat specialist. If residentscan get care close to home, whether physicaltherapy, a colonoscopy or carpal-tunnel surgery,it’s a time and money-saver, a stress reducerand a blessing.

The hospital’s plan to meet those medicalneeds is a three-year effort to increase thestaff to six doctors and five or six midlevelproviders – physician assistants and nurse practitioners.

The plan, formulated by the administration,board and medical staff after that doctor leftin the summer of 2013, is partway there withthe hire of a replacement physician in mid-2014.

“For years, our major problem, and it didn’tmatter whether it was a director of nursing, a financial person or a doctor, no matter whatwe came up with, we could not recruit toLakin, Kansas,” says Tom Vincent, chairman of the hospital board. “There was alwayssomething we couldn’t compete with.”

“The mission piece put us in the first string,” says Shannon McCormick, a county commissioner. “We could start picking off that top tier of student applicants.”

To be an attractive employer for applicants,Kearny County Hospital seeks to tap into whatthey care about most. It seeks out doctors

“we have an opportunity to choose

our destiny here. we are looking

at a health care delivery system that

is sick, and we are vulnerable.”

benJamin anderson

CEO, Kearny County Hospital

40.

41.

Benjamin Anderson became CEOof Kearny County Hospital in June

2013 and has made growing thehospital a key strategy for surviving

challenging times in health care.

Where do you see Kearny CountyHospital officials and supportersholding to purpose in this story? What challenges does that create for them?

In what ways might hospital officials be acting experimentally in this situation? What leadership interventions do you see occurring?

What’s hard about creating a growth mindset? What challenges do you find your own community or organization facing in trying to grow?

DISCUSSION GUIDE

“For years, our maJor problem,

and it didn’t matter whether

it was a director oF nursing,

a Financial person or a doctor,

no matter what we came

up with, we could not

recruit to lakin, kansas.”

tom vincent

Hospital Board Chairman

Tom Vincent serves as chairman of the hospital board.

44.

and other employees who have a passion to performmedical missions, and it gives them paid time off todo it. The time off is a carrot, but it’s that drive toserve that meshes with the hospital’s core mission of serving local residents’ medical needs.

For many staff, including Anderson, the drive to serve both near and far is fueled by faith – answeringthe call to serve “the least of these.” Although thedrive doesn’t have to be spiritual, Anderson says, staff must have that commitment.

All of the hospital’s family doctors, Anderson andmany other staff members have ventured overseason missions.

“The type of physician who is willing to go overseasand work where there are mud huts is also the typeof physician who is more likely to go to rural Kansaswhere there is dust and wind and no Chipotle,” saysJohn Birky, a family doctor who joined the hospital in2011 and has done missions in Zimbabwe, Egyptand elsewhere.

Besides the medical care they provide, the Birkys,Millers, Andersons and some of the other young professionals drawn to Lakin also deliver somethingelse highly desired by shrinking rural communities:young families with children (and more on the way).

PUTTING A TEAM TOGETHER

Part of the hospital’s recent success in attractingstaff is that it’s intent on building a team of people – not just doctors but other providers and staff –committed to service. Word has spread about themission-driven culture – in place for many years butnow building momentum – and the hospital is nowgetting more applicants than it can hire, Anderson says.

Most young doctors want to practice together – infact, friends Birky and Miller interviewed as a team.So they won’t have to cover every ER call, so they’llhave colleagues to bounce ideas off of and learnfrom, so that they can take a vacation, so they can watch their kids’ ballgames. The same goes for nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

The goal of adding staff – “to get a stable medicalstaff here who were able to put down roots and feellike they were part of the community” – is not new,and has long been supported by the board, says Arlo Reimer, the medical chief of staff who started at the hospital in 2000.

What’s changed, though, is intensifying the effort so Lakin’s doctors aren’t one departing colleagueaway from burnout.

45.

Dr. Lisa Gilbert looks over reportson a patient; Jerrad Webb is aKearny County Commissioner and EMT instructor who believes accountability has grown withgreater communication betweenthe county commission, hospitalboard and the administration; Rita Stockton, a hospital boardmember, says that despite an uncertain future, the board believes the hospital is going in the “right direction.”

“The key step is the hospital board itself,” McCormicksays. “It got really focused on recruiting, not just on doctors but recruiting a CEO,” one interested in taking the hospital’s existing commitment to mission-focused staff and running with it.

Wheat, the former board chairman, met Andersonwhen he was CEO at the Ashland Health Center inAshland, Kansas, and saw a good fit. Anderson tooksome persuading – Birky and Miller made pitches to him as well. They convinced him that KearnyCounty had a staff, board and county commission– a team in which he would be one of many

catalysts – united in taking the hospital to the nextlevel in a time of great uncertainty in health care.

“Instead of just trying our best to make ends meetand outguess the government, it’s his philosophythat you provide the service in an atmosphere thatpeople want to be there and it will all pay out,” saysVincent, the current board chairman. “He’s got his visions and his projects. But we also need to makesure this stuff is all working, and he’s coming upwith ways to make it work.”

Part of making it work is working with others to setand carry out goals.

“Ben has been a great administrator, but it’s not justall about him,” says Reimer, the chief of staff. “It’smore of a team effort, and I feel like that’s how thehospital board operates. They don’t have their ownpersonal agendas. You can’t just dictate it from thetop and expect it to fall into place like it does here.”

SEEING NEEDS AND F ILLING THEM

Since Anderson’s arrival in Lakin in mid-2013, thehospital has hired one young doctor, Lisa Gilbert, and signed up two more who will start work in August after they have completed international family medicine fellowships at Via Christi Hospital St. Francis in Wichita.

Just as important, the hospital has added threephysician assistants who not only see patients butalso assist with births and other procedures and help share the emergency room load. Another iscoming in September.

Patient visits are up year to year, as are deliveries in the roomy, modern birthing suites. The clinic’s not-so-big, toy-filled waiting room is often packed – agood problem. Partnerships with other organizationsand hospitals, telemedicine, becoming a hub andsupplying outlying spokes with staff and care: All are strategies the hospital increasingly utilizes.

46.

Dr. Arlo Reimer, the medical chief of staff, holds twins that he delivered at Kearny County Hospital. Since Anderson arrived,the hospital has hired one youngdoctor, signed up two more, and has added three physician assistants. (Photo courtesy of Kearny County Hospital)

41.

“there are answers out there.

You have to embrace

the change. You can’t be old

school in health care”

deborah stern

Vice President of Cl inical Services, General Counsel

for the Kansas Hospital Associat ion

“There are answers out there,” says DeborahStern, vice president of clinical services andgeneral counsel for the Kansas Hospital Association. “You have to embrace the change. You can’t be old school in health care.”

“I don’t think they’re jumping into anything just because they can,” says Jones, the former city manager and a Lakin resident. “They are looking at what their patients need. The things they are trying to do are to address a need or concern.”

One partnership with Swedish Medical Center in Denver and Tyson Foods brings orthopediststo Lakin twice a month for consultations andsurgery. An emphasis will be carpal tunnel sur-gery, as meatpacking workers are susceptibleto the injury because of repetitive motion.

Another relationship, with the closest woundspecialist in Wichita, allows that doctor to seepatients in Lakin via a telelink, working with aspecially trained hospital nurse. That’s a way to address the wounds that can come from untreated diabetes. Julie Munson, the ear, nose and throat specialist, visits other westernKansas communities on a regular schedule to see patients.

And Gilbert, the new doctor, has spent two daysa week seeing obstetric and other patients atGarden City’s United Methodist Mexican AmercanMinistries clinic, which has had trouble recruiting

doctors. The partnership with the clinic – whosepatients include recent immigrants, longtimeresidents, the poor, the insured and the unin-sured, working people and the unemployed – benefits both the clinic and the hospital.

And it allows Gilbert, a child of missionaries in Africa, to pursue her passions for workingwith diverse, underserved patients, particularlymothers-to-be. Recently, Gilbert’s passion toserve has taken her on a three-month, hospital-sanctioned leave to care for Ebola patients inLiberia and surrounding areas. “What’s great aboutBenjamin’s style of leadership is he does hisbest to find out what your passion is. It doesn’tmatter whether it’s his passion or not,” she says.

“Benjamin, or course, wants KCH to succeed,but he also wants the rest of us to succeed, sohe has a wonderful ability to balance the needsof his organization with the medical needs ofthe community,” says Julie Wright, UnitedMethodist Mexican American Ministries’ chiefexecutive officer. “If he meets the needs of thecommunity, he feels like he’s been successful.”

The clinic-hospital relationship will soon take another turn. Birky will leave the hospital May31 to become chief medical officer for UnitedMethodist Mexican American Ministries. “It’s a transition KCH strongly supports, as itwill stabilize care for some of Kansas’ most vulnerable patients,” Anderson says.

47.

B E T R A N S PA R E N T TO T H E C O M M U N I T Y

With the growth, though, comes questionsfrom residents, as might be expected of a hospital that receives a sizable chunk oftaxpayer money and is undergoing change.Responding to the questions prompted bythat change has become a big part of thehospital’s civic leadership challenge withinthe community.

In 2006, the same year a voter-approved hospital expansion occurred, repeated publicvotes were necessary to obtain an increasein the hospital’s operating subsidy. Now, Anderson totes a scorecard to hospital boardand county commission meetings, trackingmeasures such as staffing, patient satisfactionand new services. The hospital holds quarterlytown hall meetings to explain what it is doingand takes questions – and criticism – aboutfunding and care issues.

Among the questions staff and board members have heard and addressed are:

Why don’t all the hospital staff members livein the county? (Housing isn’t easy to come by,and sometimes spouses work in another city.)Why did I see a physician assistant instead ofthe doctor? (So the doctors can concentrate onthe more serious cases.)

Are patients from outside the county leechingoff the hospital and costing us money? (We

can’t turn people away, and we usually getreimbursed by the government or insurers.)

Webb, the commissioner, thinks accountabilityhas grown with greater communication andtransparency between the county commissionand the hospital board and administration.

“The public has the right to know. The hospital just did a big study on personnel.They found they are overstaffed in someareas and understaffed in others. (Anderson)is willing to admit the faults,” Webb says. “I think that’s something that has reallychanged the attitude toward the hospital.”

Even with the best efforts to lead with information, “there’s a little hesitation andfear that we’re getting in over our heads,”says Webb, who thinks growth is necessaryif the hospital is going to deliver the care the community requires.

Despite all the initiatives and energy, the fu-ture remains uncertain. It’s an ambiguity thatbinds the hospital administration, physicians,staff and the community as they try to leadtheir facility into a secure, prosperous future.

“It is a leap of faith,” says board memberStockton, the Episcopal priest, “but we’re fairly positive that we’re going the right direction.”

“the mission piece put us

in the first string. we could

start picking off that top tier

of student applications.”

shannon mccormick,

Kearny County Commiss ioner and hardware s tore owner

THEPOINTOF CASE-IN-POINTSix Anchors for Turning Classrooms into Living Leadership LabsBY JILL HUFNAGEL

It's day four of our Foundations of Leadership course, and as is our practice at the end of class, a participant who has been "sitting on the balcony" (observing the class as a system) has come down front to offer her observations. With nervous laughter, she begins, "Class today? It was a mess."

And to her eyes, I believe that's how it looked. My guess is that many others in the class agreed with her assessment. She got quite a few head nods; some chimed in with laughter. And then, she talked about what she had seen: a pattern of certain students dominating the conversation and interrupting while others patiently awaited their turn. Emotional reactions to the ambiguity and unmet need for order from authority. A tense conversation about an alpha female dynamic present in the room.

For me, her “mess” was a resounding success. Participants experienced trademark challenges of engaging in acts of leadership in every other room they will enter: uncertainty about the rules of engagement, disappointment with authority, thicket issues around gender. In short, they pinpointed the frustrations and identified the capacities they will need to grow if they are going to engage in acts of leadership.

42.

51.

TRADITIONALTEACHING METHOD

CASE-IN-POINTTEACHING METHOD

52.

Leadership is observable. It’s in actions we can pointto. And leadership engages us beyond the cerebral,in below-the-neck, feel-it-in-the-gut sorts of ways.What happens in leadership classrooms and large-scale leadership development programs varies widelyand speaks to the ambiguous nature of the word andthe processes by which we might grow leadershipcapacity on both individual and organizational levels.A core question – can leadership be taught? – is onethat typically remains well-hidden, below the surfaceof syllabi and executive education offerings. Servingas counterpoints to a certain collusion in avoiding that tough question are both a decade-long researchproject that resulted in Sharon Daloz Parks’ 2005 book“Leadership Can Be Taught” and a symposium of thesame name hosted by the University of Minnesota.Both posit that leadership can indeed be taught.

While leadership has wormed its way into curriculaacross the country and around the world, leadershipcan’t claim discipline status, which occurs whenthere is something of a consensus about what isknown and how we should research and teach. Atleast not yet. Those of us in this loosely-held-togetherfield may share the same landscape, but what’s happening in leadership classrooms is so disparatethat the gold standard “discipline” remains beyondour reach. We have little to no shared language, andthe pendulum swings past the outfield in terms of anyconcurrent belief in how to grow leadership capacity.We have yet to sort out what is truly essential in aleadership education experience, much less how wemight assess participant development. If we aspire to stake out the territory that is leadership, then we have much surveying and debating before us.

As a foothold along the way, the turf I aim to claim isthis: the power of Case-in-Point teaching, a methodologypioneered by Ron Heifetz and his Harvard KennedySchool colleagues. Case-in-Point is a framework that connects the dynamics in the moment with key leadership concepts, in effect breathing life into

theory through the unfolding narrative in the room.Positing that the challenges endemic to engaging in acts of leadership mirror those within the learningcommunity, the method seizes the opportunities alivein the classroom to both discern and dissect vitalleadership thinking and strategy. Case-in-Point offersparticipants a thoughtfully crafted inroad into mappingthe systemic forces at play in the moment, while simultaneously inviting participants to notice theirown default patterns and relationship to authority. No other leadership model is charged with thehuman element in the ways that Case-in-Point is.Which underscores my belief that if you're not teachingthrough an experiential framework such as Case-in-Point – at least some of the time – then you're not really teaching leadership. That's because you're notproviding a way for participants to learn leadershipthrough their own practice.

While in its 30th year, this innovative methodology is alive in only a scattering of classrooms. (Editor’snote: This includes the Kansas Leadership Center,where Case-in-Point is a primary teaching method.)Those using Case-in-Point are experimenting with a vital question: How do we shift our classrooms to become spaces to practice leadership rather thansimply study it? If our hope is to prepare people toexercise leadership, then this aim is quite differentfrom the academic learning on the agenda of mostcourses. The cornerstone of Case-in-Point is a beliefthat to teach leadership well, those in the teachingrole must be actively doing – not simply talking about– the very things they’re aiming to teach. What are thesedoings? Managing self, exploring the relationships to authority playing out around the room, surfacingfactions, orchestrating conflict. In short: the complexwork at the heart of engaging in leadership outsidethe classroom.

Rather than continuing to work and live in ecosystemsof less – fewer resources build unrest; a desire forless risk squelches innovation; with less time to think,

A CORE QUESTION – CAN LEADERSHIP BE TAUGHT? – IS ONE THAT TYPICALLY REMAINS WELL-HIDDEN, BELOW THE SURFACE OF SYLLABI AND EXECUTIVE EDUCATION OFFERINGS.

53.

we jump to solve the wrong problems – this is a lead-ership development model built on more. If, as wehear far and wide, we need more leadership, then we also need to create frameworks that serve thatup more: more opportunities to experiment, more relationship-building skills, more moments for honinginsight, more diagnosis, more possible responses beyond our current defaults.

At the same time, Case-in-Point also asks more of facilitators: more willingness to think aloud, tochange course, to remain open to what is alive in the room not printed on the schedule. Yet with thispromising “more” comes another, rather dauntingset of “more”: more possibilities of not knowingwhich direction to head, more chances of appearingincompetent, more moments that feel like failure. Inthis way, the efficacy of the session is often a directresult of the facilitator’s willingness to model thosevery dicey leadership capacities many of us avoid atall costs. To create training spaces every bit as aliveas the world outside them necessarily involves risk.And tremendous reward.

This approach to leadership development uses thelearning space as the ultimate laboratory to observeand unpack the complexities of exercising leadershipas they show up in the room, thus the term Case-in-Point. Keeping one eye on the shared work – in thiscase, learning leadership theory while understandingthe classroom system in which we are all embedded– participants are challenged to identify acts of leader-ship as they occur. Here, an act of leadership is castas an intervention that advances that shared work:identifying the challenges of engaging in leadershipas they show up in the room.

What typically gets in the way of this work? The needto appear competent, and therefore avoid askingquestions. The need to be right and in turn avoid experimentation. The need to act quickly and thusskip over diagnosis to engage in hasty action.

These trends are the hallmark of the idea that “if youdo what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’vealways gotten.” Whether teaching leadership or attempting to engage in acts of leadership in serviceto our deepest challenges and concerns, ambiguitytypically holds center stage. It’s when we don’t knowhow to solve a problem, what to do, where to turnthat we need leadership. Here’s a stroke of brilliance,care of Case-in-Point: Make that ambiguity wildly productive. The methodology allows a facilitator toacknowledge and use that inherent messiness to engage participants emotionally while emboldeningthem in action.

How, then, do we help folks see what it is thatthey’ve always done and that they continue to do?With lots of mirrors and an overarching maxim: Theonly person we can’t see fully is ourselves. Scary. To be sure, it’s a high-wire act – one that requires thevery capacities that participants are working to growin themselves: an ability to manage one’s self in themidst of action, a willingness to listen to conflictingopinions, the strength to call out work avoidance inits many nimble, subtle forms (creating a new sub-committee, screen-scrolling, harboring old conflicts).

To do that, facilitators must observe the system as it is revealing itself, generate multiple interpretationsof the data in the room, and then craft interventionsthat help the system both see itself and engage morepurposefully. This ability to reflect in the midst of action demands a discipline and clarity that is surelyhumbling and then some. But with practice and pur-pose, I’ve found my own trepidation is surmountable.

In attempting to both use and encourage others to use Case-in-Point, I’ve discovered six anchors that help keep me grounded as I navigate the unsteady-by-design terrain of Case-in-Point teaching.

DISCUSSION GUIDE

After you read the article about theanchors of teaching Case-in-Point,watch this video about why theKansas Leadership Center uses the method with its participants.http://vimeo.com/45326837

What do you think is the most challenging aspect of teachingCase-in-Point from a teacher’s perspective? What is the hardestpart for participants? If you have experienced it yourself, what was the hardest part for you?

In what ways might teachers andparticipants use these challengesas productive tools for learning?What do the challenges of teachingCase-in-Point tell us about the challenges of exercising leadershipmore broadly?

FRUSTRATION AND DISCOMFORT ARE PART OF THE PROCESS.

1

The deeply countercultural components of Case-in-Point often erupt into frustration with the person at the front of the room. In varying forms, participants will say, “I thought you were going to teach me.” My response is always the same: “I thought I was.” Here’s the twist, though, which must also be voiced:Case-in-Point involves being a learner in ways that we don’t yet know how to be. Ditto for teaching in thisway. Just as our students will ask to be taught in the way they already know how to learn, this force willrear its head again and again in the classroom. And it tends to get traction, showing up in other forms.

The song beneath the words tends to be some arrangement of “keep me comfortable” – in work (leadership)that is by its very nature deeply uncomfortable. Because participants’ varying expressions of wanting theirown need for comfort to be honored shows up repeatedly, helping them notice this proclivity is incrediblyhelpful. When we cast the “comfort” net a bit wider, we’re able to counter push-back wrapped in languagearound “respect” and the noble elevation of one’s own values. Rather than entertaining requests that legis-late “respect” (a highly subjective quality, individually scripted and culturally entrenched), I've found that en-couraging experimentation and generosity of spirit with one another can disrupt this debate. Similarly,participants will demand order – “hand raising, please!” – or equity – “no interrupting” – when they feel frus-trated, when facing ambiguity or uncertainty. To cede to comfort rather than to leverage this moment, sothat participants learn to be more effective in the face of frustration, is to lose sight of the power of Case-in-Point.

IF PARTICIPANTS WANT TO GROW THEIR LEADERSHIP EDGE,

THEY WILL HAVE TO GROW THEIR CAPACITY FOR BEING UNCOMFORTABLE.

54.

In traditional training settings, the front-of-the-room contract with participants is based on having answers, on expert knowledge. The person at the front of the room is there for a reason: typically, to share expertise,wisdom, experience. Participants have a set of expectations based on this same reasoning: that they will learn in familiar ways from the authority figure, that a certain hierarchy will govern the day’s interactions, that the front of the room “knows more” than the bulk of those across the room. Case-in-Point both surfacesand subverts these expectations and in so doing generates losses. These losses might be participants themselves who leave the classroom, negative course evaluations, the loss of control on the line when we lean into the moment rather than the PowerPoint. These losses cut across the system, and thereforewrestling with casualties becomes most productive when this wrestling is taken up as the shared work of participants alongside those facilitating within this framework.

My sense is that we always have losses in our classrooms. We simply agree not to surface them. We disappoint our participants in myriad ways: with concepts out of sync with their lived experiences, by boringthem with our lectures, by assigning group work. Those losses are tangible if we look for and name them.

The list is long, and we’re typically complicit in pretending otherwise. To honor these losses is to connectthem clearly and compassionately to the purpose of the leadership classroom. For participants to develop the thicker skin necessary to engage in acts of leadership, they will both disappoint and be disappointed byauthority. Again. And again. Allowing them to navigate that disappointment in a learning environment meansthey can become both more skillful in intervening and more resilient in the face of the inevitable disappoint-ments and losses that come with acts of leadership.

TO ENGAGE IN MEANINGFUL LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT, WE MUST LEARN

TO NAVIGATE DISAPPOINTMENT.

2

EXHIBIT A:The participant who flips

from his workbook to Facebook.

EXHIBIT B:The participant who comes to class late.

EXHIBIT C:The participant who

zones out for half the session.

55.

48.

EXPOSING MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUTAUTHORITY FUELS LEARNING.

3

When authority fails to behave predictably – by providing protection, order, direction – participants will wonder whether what’s happening in the classroom is contrived, planned or otherwise manufactured. I cast this as a “magical thinking” kind of authority relationship – one on the Wizard of Oz spectrum. Beneath this sentiment is a set of beliefs about authority:

(1)THAT AUTHORITY IS WORKING THAT HARD.

(2)THAT AUTHORITY IS SO ALL-KNOWING TO BELIEVE

THAT IN BEING “SET-UP” PARTICIPANTS WILL LEARN.

(3)THAT AUTHORITY IS BY NATURE A VEHICLE OF MANIPULATION

AND ONE DEMANDING A LEVEL OF SKEPTICISM AT ALL TIMES.

(4)THAT AUTHORITY KNOWS MORE/BETTER THAN I DO.

As these sentiments are voiced, they present an opportunity to examine the ways in which these mind sets both serve and skewer individuals and systems. Ideally then, in-the-moment examination of these beliefs allows participants to experience their own seeing and to expand their ways of thinkingabout and in turn interacting with authority.

56.

49.

FACILITATORS MUST SEPARATE WHO THEY ARE FROM THE ROLE THEY ARE PLAYING.

4

Participants will confuse self and role as they experience and make sense of this disorienting approach to facilitation. Participants often expect authority to take care of them, to be likable, to meet their needs. Case-in-Point, however, posits that by catering to those very needs we do little to activate participants attempting to deepen their leadership capacity. Therefore, the facilitator must be adept at serving the system rather than the self – a leap that is both frightening and liberating. The role of the facilitator is not to perpetuate dependence, which feeds our own sense of competence. Rather the role of the facilitator is to serve as an anchor while participants get their bearings, to help them renegotiate their dependence on authority and to seed the belief that, by experimenting in the training arena, participants are growing their own leadership capacity in ways that will serve them outside the room.

Here’s how this plays out: Participants will have an emotional reaction to the way in which I’m working at the front of the room. They will confuse my willingness to work my edge in service to systemic learning with who I am outside of this role, my deeper self. Richard Pascale, in his work on the CambridgeLeadership Associates advisory board, put his finger on this piece of the work of Case-in-Point:

“THE SECRET SAUCE HERE IS THE WILLINGNESS

TO NOT CARE ABOUT BEING LIKED IN THE MOMENT.”

To connect Pascale’s insights to the work of leadership development, it’s also about keeping one eyesquarely trained on the work in the room: helping participants grow their own leadership capacity. Nothing in that work promises being liked while doing so.

Another potential response to working this edge that I’ve found helpful: I can divide my self from my role in service to this work not because I don’t need to be liked but rather because I’m meeting that needoutside of this context in the rest of the relationships in my life. This is also a caveat to practitioners. Unlesswe’re solid outside the room, it’s tough to do this work inside the room. In short, one demands the other.

57.

CASE-IN-POINT HELPS A GROUPDISCOVER ITS RESILIENCE.

5

The temptation to privilege group harmony (not interrupting, tolerating unproductive conversation, attempting democracy) over group progress is both strong and seductive. Groups tend to skew towardrules of engagement that are pleasant and polite. Yet this sugar-coating also serves to maintain a surface-level illusion at odds with the work of leadership. By investing in this illusion – work the group is typically already quite adept at – the opportunity to engage in more challenging leadership development work is minimized. Collusion is a galvanizing force in every system – particularly when the collusion serves a “not.” Not behaving differently, not interrogating one's own assumptions, not rocking the boat. In short, it's a brilliant, collective engine for work avoidance. Suggesting that the group has some untapped resilience and burgeoning capacity allows members to test their assumptions about rules of engagement,work that results in a riper, more robust space to learn and develop core adaptive leadership skills.

GROWING CAPACITY IS THE POINT OF THE METHODOLOGY – AND THE DISEQUILIBRIUM.

6

When we get lost, connect to purpose. In this case, the purpose is to teach others how to engage in acts of leadership, which means they must first experience the disorientation endemic to the methodology. That participants tend to push back against that disorientation is to be expected. Countering that push-back by reconnecting to purpose is a tool that serves me and the groups I work with well. When I get lost – and I will – this is a place to hold tight. We create these educational environments rife with ambiguity, conflict and disappointment in service to something larger: growing our capacity to navigate those same thickets beyond the walls of the learning space. Again, the language of more, of abundance, of generating possibilitiesin the room thanks to the Case-in-Point framework can be helpful here.

58.

As I go back to that opening snapshot, I think aboutthe points of adaptive-leadership theory on the slatefor the course and how those concepts came to lifein the room. The distinction between leadership (anaction) and authority (a role based on protection, order,direction); the challenges of working across factions;the need to regulate the temperature in the room, sothat the time is productive. All of these concepts onthe page played out in the moment. No longer werethey theoretical ideas; rather, they became a part ofthe lived experience in the room. Coupling opportunitiesto learn from successes and failures with the continuedreminder that what happens in this room mirrors whathappens outside of it, participants have a place toidentify the complexities of leadership and experimentwith how best to deploy themselves in service tomeeting their most complex leadership challenges.

While I could use more conventional approaches todelivering this material, inherent in those methodologiesis a gap between the subject of leadership and theways in which I might engage in acts of leadership to catalyze learning. That gap is seductive, promisingmountains of safety both for participants and for me.However, I’ve yet to see that we need leadership insafe spaces. What I notice is a deep need for acts of leadership when the climate is unsafe, unsure,shaky. Thus the learning space has to reflect thatsame uncertainty if we are truly wedded to the work of meaningful leadership development.

Given that premise, using Case-in-Point does not comewithout losses. I often ask leadership educators andpractitioners a core question to surface a tension inthe room: “What losses are you willing to bear inservice to your own leadership development? And to the leadership development of your participants?”Their responses are typically steeped in fear: fear of losing the client; fear of upsetting participants and plummeting evaluations; fear of losing the little

ground we have in establishing leadership as a legitimate discipline; my shared fear of appearing incompetent, of failure, of being overthrown.

The antidote to this fear is the possibility inherent in Case-in-Point: the possibility of teaching leadershipas an act of leadership. When we work from that angle,we gain access to a powerful metanarrative: impactingthe trajectory of education. Case-in-Point rejects statusquo, front-of-the-room modes of learning, effectivelyremoving the veil that governs our current classroomstructures and creating a more dynamic classroomsetting. If we are to shape environments ripe formeaningful leadership development, we will have to start by aligning our rules of engagement to meetthis deeper purpose. Case-in-Point offers us a mapfor that realignment, one that hinges on the notionthat what is happening in the room is the ultimatefodder for honing our leadership strategy and capacity.The idea that what we learn “in here” – in the leader-ship classroom – is somehow distinct from the “realworld” – out there – suggests that all of us are trappedin the very systems we will have to dismantle andreimagine if we are to survive and thrive. Case-in-Pointasks that all of us let go of what is comfortable, known,familiar in service to a larger aim: igniting and sustainingpowerful leadership development in our students, ourclients, ourselves, and in the world we all share.

Jill Hufnagel’s interest in the work of the Kansas Leadership Center began after working alongside KLC President and CEO Ed O'Malley as visiting faculty on the Harvard Kennedy School's Art & Practice of Leadership Development program in 2012. Since then, she has made three trips to Wichita, each time more deeply moved by the powerful leadership developmentwork catalyzing at KLC. She is the associate director of the Batten Leadership Institute at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. She loves hiking trails with her twodogs and cooking for her family of adventurous eaters.

ADDITIONAL CASE-IN-POINT RESOURCES:“Case-in-Point: A Taxing and Transforming Leadership EducationArt Form” by Chris Green. Published by the Kansas LeadershipCenter. klcjr.nl/cipgdbk

“Case-in-Point: An Experiential Methodology for Leadership Education and Practice” by Michael Johnstone and Maxime Fernin the Fall 2010 Kansas Leadership Center Journal. klcjr.nl/cipexpm

“The Harvard Experiment: Living ‘The Art and Practice of Leadership Development’” by Patty Orecchio, Barbara McMorrow, and Marg Connor in the Summer 2008 issue of Principal Connections. klcjr.nl/hrvdexp

“’The Class of the Forking Paths’: Leadership and ‘Case-in-Point’”by Adriano Pianesi in The Systems Thinker, Vol. 24, No. 1.klcjr.nl/frkpthscip

“Leadership Can Be Taught” by Sharon Daloz Parks, published in 2005 by Harvard Business School Press. klcjr.nl/lcbtbook

59.

60.

theintersection

of artand

social changeBy

Laura Roddy

Marshall Middle School studentspaint a mural, “Embracing CulturalDiversity,” based on a digital composite of their own art. Thenorth Wichita mural, funded withthe help of a grant from the WichitaArts Council, is part of a broader effort to create public art by the ICT Army of Artists.

61.

62.

Seventh-grader Gabi Ehss inspects the details on the portion of the mural that was her creation: fourfigures of different nationalities who are eating whatshe sees as all-American food – a hamburger, a hotdog, a taco and a slice of pizza.

The students’ mural is part of a broader effort to create public art in the neighborhood. The ICT Armyof Artists is the brainchild of Armando Minjarez andthe Seed House (Casa de la Semilla), a community organization that promotes art, activism and social justice.

“Hello, artists, creatives and provocateurs!” is howMinjarez addresses his troops via email. In person, he often wields a clipboard while dressed in a T-shirtand a trucker hat. He peppers his conversations withSpanish phrases and easily switches between thetwo languages. He asks questions, writes ideas ongiant sticky notes and gently steers discussion backto agenda items.

“I want artists to become agents of social change,”Minjarez explains. “The idea of community engage-ment is somewhat unusual for visual artists. You really have to let go of it and become a facilitator.”

One of the first projects under the Army of Artists’umbrella was “Immigration is Beautiful,” a mural constructed in the heart of north Wichita. Inside an outline of the United States are the Statue of Liberty as well as figures wrapped in the Mexican

and American flags. The mural was vandalized twice insix weeks in early 2014. Both times, volunteers ralliedand scrubbed away the racial slurs and swastikas.

Minjarez, an immigrant himself, says the communityresponse was as important to the ICT Army of Artistsas the art itself.

“We’re really shaping culture,” he says. “We’reshaping how people think and how they behave nextto each other.”

Minjarez says measuring the impact of the ICT Armyof Artists will take time and the community is takingsmall steps toward greater social activism.

“People in the neighborhood may not be ready to talk about running for office. This is the start,” hesays. “What I’m seeing is relationships amongartists, connections in the community.”

collaboration and leadership

Over at the “Embracing Cultural Diversity” site, Escarpita, an art teacher at Marshall Middle School inWichita, had a similar mission for his young muralists.

“I really hope that I’m helping foster their artistic talents but also kind of building those leadership capacities – collaboration, working together to achievesomething bigger than themselves,” he says.

on a crisp fall saturday, middle schoolers dab brushes in paint and

carefully fill in the outlines on their canvas, which in this case is the

side of a mechanic’s shop in north Wichita. cups filled with bright paint

colors are scattered about, and a mom drops off a tray of hot choco-

late. one student works on a ladder, while others paint at eye level.

Joel escarpita, their teacher, scales the scaffolding and helps a stu-

dent artist fill in an upper quadrant of the work.they are working on a

mural called “embracing cultural diversity,” fitting for the neighbor-

hood, which is home to many spanish-speaking immigrants.

63.

“i really hope that i'm

helping foster their artistic

talents but also kind of building

those leadership capacities –

collaboration, Working together

to achieve something bigger

than themselves.”

Joel Escarpita

Marshall Middle School art teacherJoel Escarpita served as a lead artist

on the mural painted by students.He hoped the project would fosterboth their artistic talents and build

their leadership capacities.

“We’re really shaping culture.

We’re shapinghoW people

think and hoW they behave

next to each other.”

Armando Minjarez

The ICT Army of Artists is the brainchild of Wichita artist ArmandoMinjarez and Casa de la Semilla (the Seed House), a community organization that promotes art, activism and social justice. Minjarezsays he wants artists “to becomeagents of social change.”

66.

Escarpita spent the previous spring teaching a unit on diversity as it relates to race, gender, nationalityand religion, inspired by an artists retreat organizedby Minjarez.

In an assignment, Escarpita had his students createartwork that represented cultural diversity. He tookmany of those images and created a digital composite,which became the mural. Minjarez helped secure agrant from the Wichita Arts Council for the projectand assisted with the logistics.

More than anything, Escarpita wanted to stimulateconversation.

“I want them to think about cultural diversity,” hesays. “Too often we kind of get into a little bubble.”

As the students worked, parent Keith Eliot chronicledthe progress in photos. As he reflected on the diversitymessage, Eliot also marveled at the makeup of thestudents who were creating it: “You look at the students who are here, and it’s everybody.”

Norma Saenz, one of the student artists, contributeda “Mexican lady,” reflecting her own heritage, whichmakes her think of parties with food and dancing.

Examining the mural, she says: “To me it feels like all of the people of the world are gathering together,and you can just be yourself.”

Seventh-grader Aaron Doell says he liked using art to convey a message.

“You don’t have to say your thoughts,” he says.“People can see them.”

dealing With setbacks

As with the immigration mural, the public art efforts ofthe ICT Army of Artists don’t always go as planned.

In the fall, just a few blocks away from the Marshallstudents’ project, a half-dozen adults worked on an-other mural, this one known as “Mujeres EducadasHacen la Diferencia” (“Educated Women Make theDifference”). The central image was of a large tree in front of a pyramid. Female figures of different ageswere ascending it, holding such things as a telescopeand a book.

Margi Ault-Duell, one of the artists, admired the finaldesign as the notes of “Bohemian Rhapsody” rangout from a portable stereo.

“I think public art can be a really powerful tool for social change,” she says. “Murals are a big part ofhow communities tell their stories.”

For a couple of months before the “Mujeres Educadas”mural began to go up, Minjarez and Melissa Gettinger,the project’s lead artist, worked with group membersinterested in the topic of educated women.

In August, about two dozen people met at the nearbyTacos y Salsas for an ice cream social and brainstorm-ing meeting.

“We mobilize people by first of all going wherethey’re at,” Minjarez says. “That means meeting at a familiar and safe place.”

Gettinger passed out copies of an initial mural design,featuring “the goddess of the North End” and askedwhat it means to be an educated woman. She talked

67.

about the big ideas — acknowledging the women who have come before them, the concept of womenas maiden/mother/crone and how education fits in – and then those gathered broke into small groupsarmed with a black-and-white copy of the design. The tables were stocked with crayons and watercolorsto encourage creativity while delving into the proposedmural design.

During the subsequent large-group discussion, there was a lot of debate about acknowledging many women’s nurturing roles while also highlighting their intellectual achievements.

Ault-Duell had a request: “I would ask us to be really intentional about the visual representations of women’s bodies.”

By the end of the evening, Gettinger felt a little deflated.

“Everyone hated it,” she says. “They scribbled allover my drawings.”

Back to the drawing board she went. It took anothermeeting to hash out the final details.

Gettinger, who has a degree in painting, knows about art, but working on a collaborative project became a lesson in leadership.

“When you’re an artist, you have control over a project,” she says. “Because it’s community, all ofthe sudden you have consider everyone’s views.”

Still, she was drawn to the group because shewanted to meet other artists and was intrigued

by the idea of “artivism” – using public art to shareideas of social activism.

“It turns out leadership is more about having to fol-low – it’s not telling people what to do,” Gettingersays. “I’ve had a lot of growing pains along the way.”

By the time October rolled around, the final mural design was a point of pride for Gettinger.

Unfortunately, just days after her group began paintingthe mural along North Broadway Street in Wichita,the owner of the business effectively fired the ICTArmy of Artists, Gettinger says.

The owner had asked for a mural that representededucated women, but she disagreed with the design.Gettinger and her team felt compelled to paint overtheir design as a result, not wanting to disregard allthe community meetings and input that had goneinto creating it.

“The experience has rocked me personally and theothers, too,” Gettinger says. “I am really looking forthe silver lining, but I guess a person has to grievebefore they can move on.”

There’s already a glimmer of hope for her: Althoughthe mural is on hold until spring when a new site canbe procured, Gettinger hopes to retitle it as “MujeresEducados Son la Fortaleza.” which translates to “Educated women are resilient.”

Artist Melissa Gettinger holds up a drawing of a mural that wound up being rejected by a local business owner. The mural is on hold until spring so a new site can be found for it.

“it turns out leadership

is more about having to

folloW - it’s not telling people

What to do.”Melissa Gettinger

DISCUSSION GUIDE

Creating a work of shared art can be similar to tackling a leadership challenge in your organization or community. As Melissa Gettinger says in the story,“When you’re an artist, you have control over a project.Because it’s community, all of the sudden you have toconsider everyone’s views.”

Think about a leadership challenge you care about.What does the end result look like to you? Create yourown mural by drawing the outcome on a piece of paper or flip chart. Stick figures are just fine! Ask others you work with to add their visions to your “mural.”(Note: If you are working alone, try to imagine the ideal outcome for others and add it to your mural.)

70.

ADVOCAT E FO R T R A F F I C K I NG V I C T IM S

H E L P I NG BU I L D A MOV EMEN T T H ROUGH TOUGH

CONV E R S AT ION S ON A D I F F I CU LT P ROB L EM

BY LAURA RODDY

HeAtrAIser

Karen Countryman-Roswurm, executive director of Wichita StateUniversity’s Center for CombatingHuman Trafficking, has made a career of rallying others around difficult issues.

71.

72.

She was a teenager when she started working instreet outreach with the Wichita Children’s Home.She had a knack for getting teenage runaways to listen and begin to consider a life off the streets.

Countryman-Roswurm later became a passionate opponent of the commercial exploitation of childrenfor sex. She was appalled that human trafficking – often referred to as modern-day slavery – was happening in Wichita, with dozens of cases occurringeach year. And she was infuriated that the teenagerswhom she viewed as victims were seen as criminalsin the eyes of the law and general public.

It was a tough issue that required tough conversa-tions. She brought together law enforcement officers and social workers to talk about human trafficking. The meetings were heated – peopleyelled. Years passed, and her reach expanded. She worked with judges, state legislators and the attorney general.

It hasn’t been easy. Countryman-Roswurm, now in her mid-30s, found her passion, but she not onlyhad to get others to think about a difficult subject,she also had to get them to reframe their entire understanding of it.

It’s a sometimes solitary exercise that requires frequent, skillful effort.

“I feel like I’m pulling a train by myself,” she says.“This is a human-rights movement that we are partof. … It’s the lens. I see the whole world throughthis lens.”

To accomplish her goals, Countryman-Roswurm hadto intervene skillfully by “raising the heat,” whichmeans taking action to help a group make progresson an issue without pushing the members of thegroup beyond what they can handle.

‘gently fIres tHem uP’

Countryman-Roswurm has had both successes andsetbacks with the Anti-Sexual Exploitation Roundtablefor Community Action that she founded. The group,organized under the auspices of the Wichita Children’sHome, helped to focus the conflicts among police officers, prosecutors and social workers. They allcould see the victimization that was occurring, butsometimes they disagreed as to whether it involvedan element of criminality. From a law enforcementperspective, an arrest could serve as a tool to get ateenager off the street and away from a pimp. Froma social work perspective, advocates were concernedthat those being trafficked were not being viewed as victims.

Sarah Robinson, chief advancement officer of theWichita Children’s Home, has watched Countryman-Roswurm have these difficult conversations amongpeople with disparate agendas.

I T ’ S H A RD TO E X E R C I S E L E AD E R SH I P

W I THOUT H AV I NG D I F F I CU LT CONV E R S AT ION S .

K A R EN COUN T RYMAN- RO SWURM , A

W I CH I TA - B A S ED V I C T IM S ’ A D VOCAT E , H A S , I N A WAY,

M AD E A C A R E E R O F H AV I NG T H EM TO R A L LY

OTH E R S A ROUND AN I S S U E AND TA K E AC T ION S .

73.

“First and foremost, she is earnest, and she is passionate,” Robinson says. “She really believes in what she is doing. She is articulate without hurting feelings. She gently fires them up.”

Countryman-Roswurm hasn’t always found the per-fect balance. As a Kansas Health Foundation fellow,she had an opportunity to learn from a Harvard Univer-sity leadership scholar who advised her to learn toanger people at a rate they could tolerate.

That meant gritting her teeth when police officersused terminology that was offensive to her. Sheused the word “victim,” and they used “prostitute,”but together they investigated ways to help the juveniles who were being exploited.

“Some of it was staying strong and staying firm but meeting people where they were,” she says.

Taking the long view paid off. Some of the police officers and social workers who she thought treatedsex-trafficking victims so poorly 10 years ago havebecome some of the best advocates in the communityin her view. They just had to find a way to understandone another and find common ground.

Over the years, Countryman-Roswurm has alteredthe language that frames how society views minorswho become victims of commercial sexual exploitation.

In 2007, when Kansas passed its first human traffickinglaw, children were still referred to as prostitutes. Thelaw was updated in 2014. Children are now calledvictims, and the state Department for Children andFamilies is required to provide a staff-secured facilityto take care of them. Before the law was changed,judges often felt compelled to lock up minors fortheir protection, even if the judges understood them to be victims of sexual trafficking.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt has workedwith Countryman-Roswurm on human trafficking,both in his current office and previously as thestate’s Senate majority leader.

Law enforcement and victim advocates have a com-mon interest, he says, but it is like they are speakingGerman and Italian to one another.

“Karen’s been an effective translator,” he says, noting that people respect both her passion and her grasp of the subject matter.

The law enforcement perspective, Schmidt says, isthat the legal system has tools to get victims off thestreets. Fully decriminalizing human trafficking takesaway some of law enforcement’s ability to intervene.

Countryman-Roswurm listened to the law enforcementcommunity and was open to persuasion, Schmidtsays – willing to help improve the law even if it didn’tgo as far as some victims’ advocates would like.

For example, the 2014 legislative changes do call thosewho have been trafficked “victims” and provide asafe place to take them. However, they do not com-pletely decriminalize the matter. Schmidt says thelaw does allow enhanced opportunities for affirmativedefenses, which mitigate a defendant’s culpability,and for eventual expungement of a criminal record.

For Countryman-Roswurm, the changes represent a revolution in thinking that has been nearly twodecades in the making.

“I could not be more proud of my state to be takingthis stand, for saying we get it – this is not prostitution,”Countryman-Roswurm says. “I feel like I’m in a different world today.”

beIng reAl, beIng vulnerAble

In her efforts to turn up the heat, Countryman-Roswurm has found success by opening up and allowing herself to be vulnerable. She let The WichitaEagle profile her in an eight-part series in 2000. One factor that helped her connect with runaways as a teenager was that she had been in their shoes,choosing life on the streets over foster care after her mother’s death when she was 13.

That ability to relate to people has served her well in her role as an advocate.

“I think a lot of times people don’t bring their vulner-abilities to their jobs,” she says. “There’s always casualties. Many times my husband and I weighthings – will the impact be good?”

74.

Countryman-Roswurm counts seeking justice andbeing bold among her spiritual gifts, but she alwaysthinks about what the repercussions might be for her own two children. She doesn’t want her efforts to help other children to get in the way of her beingthere for them.

And she’s not intimidated by people in positions ofauthority, so she seeks a relationship with the U.S.attorney the same way she seeks a relationship with a troubled teen.

“People are people,” she says. “I pursue peoplewith less fear.”

new cHAllenges

Today, Countryman-Roswurm has more allies thanever. In 2013, Wichita State University created theCenter for Combating Human Trafficking and namedCountryman-Roswurm its director, recognizing hersignificant national influence on the issue. A tenure-track professor in the School of Social Work, she relishes her association with the university. It allowsher to help at a macro level and unite the spheres of direct practice, research and policy.

“I get to get my hands on multidisciplinary studentsbefore they ever go out into the field,” she says.

She wants to make sure these students, as they prepare for careers in social work or law enforcement,understand the complex nature of trafficking, whetherit be for purposes of labor or sexual exploitation.

In one manner of thinking, Countryman-Roswurmmay have been too effective at turning up the heat onthe trafficking issue. In some instances the challengefor her has become: “How do I kindly engage or dis-engage these appropriate citizen groups or allies?”

Sexual exploitation has gained more attention fromthe public in recent years, as the media report morefrequently on the issue and more traffickers areprosecuted. Sometimes Countryman-Roswurm findsherself meeting with people who want to get involvedbut are ill-equipped to work with victims.

“It’s so tempting to embrace this rescue-savior complex,” she says.

That’s where people, from their place of privilege,start to think they are irreplaceable in the fight to endsex trafficking, she says. Despite her own experiences,Countryman-Roswurm does not view herself that way.

“My significance is not found in this human-rightsmovement,” Countryman-Roswurm says. “When it becomes that way, it’s really easy to let your ego become involved. … One of the things that has helped me is knowing that it wasn’t about me rescuing anybody.”

She finds another grounding force by not definingher own worth as a human-rights advocate, whichhelps keeps her in balance and well-positioned to intervene when she can make a difference.

“You have to commit to the fact that this will becomepart of who you are,” she says. ”You have to learn to balance and take care of yourself. If I am to be effective, I have to take care of myself.”

DISCUSSION GUIDE

The article mentions five ways in which Karen Countryman-Roswurm has utilized the skill of raising the heat to advance her purpose.

Which of what she has done would you feel comfortable doing? What interventions has she undertaken that you would feel uncomfortable doing? Why do you think you feel the way you do?

Design an experiment in which you try a new way of raising theheat. Use pages 104-105 in the For the Common Good ParticipantHandbook as a resource.

1.HELP PEOPLE SEE

AN UNCOMFORTABLE REALITY.Notice how Karen Countryman-Roswurm influences

people to confront an issue – the commercial sexual exploitation of children – that exists but most people would probably prefer to avoid.

2.GET PEOPLE TO EXPLORE THEIR

PART OF THE MESS.She engaged with others, including law enforcement,

to help them see how the language being used might be contributing to the problem.

3.ORCHESTRATE DIALOGUE

BETWEEN POLARIZED GROUPS.Changes to the law came when she helped two groups with different ways of looking at the same problem started talking and

starting sorting through their differences.

4.ASK PEOPLE TO ASPIRE TO A HIGHER IDEALS.

She kept the focus on protecting and securing the human rights of exploited children.

5.USE BOTH THE

ACCELERATOR AND THE BRAKE.She stayed influential by pushing sometimes

and pulling back, as the moment demanded, but never doing one or the other all the time.

fIve wAys to effectIvely

rAIse tHe HeAt:

AN A D VOCAT E ’ S A P P ROACH

76.76.

77.

tHe storytellerby AngIe PIckmAn

FEATURED ARTIST

I began cutting paper in 2003 after seeing “The Adventures of Prince Achmed” – a cut paper stop-motion silhouette animation from 1926 by a German artist, Lotte Reiniger. I had always wanted to be an “artist” – I knew from a very young age that it was my calling – but it took me a long time to figure out in which mediumthis would manifest itself. The traditional forms taught in school neverfelt quite right, but when I saw Reiniger’s work, something clicked.

My life philosophy revolves around achieving simplicity, winnowingaway at all the things that are not needed so that the individual canbe reduced to the rawest, purest being possible. I think, at this level,one is more readily able to truly observe and take in the naturalbeauty that exists around us, finding awe in all the parts and not justthe whole. Cutting paper is metaphorical for this – the cutting awayof all that is unnecessary to reveal the subject in a simple, bold form,where the most intricate details can be revealed.

As a native of Kansas, I feel a strong connection to the landscape ofthis region. After living in New York City for many years, I discovered,while still there, that I wanted to strengthen that connection andbegan revolving my work around the spirit of the Kansas terrain.Moving back to my homeland has proven to give me the inspirationthat I need to make my art continually: a simpler lifestyle combinedwith constant access to my muse.

Angie Pickman, a native of Atchison, lives and works as a full-time cut paper artist in Lawrence, often operatingunder the moniker “Rural Pearl.” She combines traditional paper-cutting techniques with collages of various colored and textured papers to achieve an aesthetic similar to relief printing or screen printing. She earned her master’s degree in 2004 at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where she focused her studies on cut paper art coupled with stop-motion animation. She continued living and working in New York City until returning to Kansas in 2009 to pursue her artistic career full time. She exhibits at galleries and art fairs nationally,does illustration and design work, conducts public presentations on her art and teaches various art classes andworkshops. She is a member of the Lawrence Art Guild and the Guild of American Paper Cutters.

77.

An ArrAngement of HeArtsby roDerIck townley

The author of 16 books, Roderick Townley has published two volumes of poetry, “Three Musicians” (The Smith) and “Final Approach” (The Countryman Press), and two of criticism,“The Early Poetry of William Carlos Williams” (Cornell University Press) and “Night Errands:How Poets Use Dreams” (University of Pittsburgh Press). He is best known for his novels foryoung readers, including “The Blue Shoe” and “The Door in the Forest” (both from Knopf),and “The Great Good Thing” (Atheneum). He has received the Kansas Governor’s ArtsAward, the Thorpe Menn Award, the Peregrine Prize and two prizes from the Academy ofAmerican Poets. His greatest honor is his marriage to Kansas Poet Laureate Wyatt Townley.(www.rodericktownley.com)

Thinking about kingsand how to keepfrom winning

I fail to notice her head lower over the cards.

An arrangement of heartstips forward. “Mom,”

I say, knowing she’dwant to play it out,“Mom, it’s your move.”

Death scene in stained bathrobe? Her hair redas a setter, white

shining through. But look:the blue eyes open wide:

“Are you sure, dear?Oh!” (Smiling.)“I seem to have gin!”

FEATURED POEM

78.

80.

THE BACK PAGE reconcIlIng tHrougH tHe

Power of sPeAkIng to loss

South Africa called its version of racial segregationApartheid, or literally, “apartness.”

Their apartness began like ours, only their cotton plantationswere diamond mines. Their racial identification “one-droprule” was more bureaucratic – a government agency determined a person’s race and then dispensed papersdetermining where you could live and work.

It seems South Africa has made more progress morequickly than we have. The races there share governmentalpower. They held public hearings to address past wrongs.They elected a black president before we did.

That president, Nelson Mandela, was the reason forChristo Brand’s trip to Wichita.

Brand has devoted his life to sharing the story of hisfriendship with Mandela, which developed when heworked as the late South African leader’s prison guard on Robben Island. That friendship reflects the healingand liberating power of not only acknowledging pastwrongs, but speaking directly to them.

Wichitans met Brand when Mayor Carl Brewer’s delegationtoured what is now a museum on Robben Island in late2014. They invited him to Wichita. Brand spent three dayshere, speaking to students and civic groups and signingcopies of his book, “Mandela: My Prisoner, My Friend.”

Ted Ayres, Wichita State University’s vice president andgeneral counsel, took Brand to a Shocker basketballgame at Intrust Bank Arena in December. Ayres allowedme to tag along.

“May I ask you a personal question?” Brand asked me amid the crush of black-and gold-clad fans in thearena concourse.

“Sure,” I said, “ask away.”

“Where are the blacks?” he asked innocently, havingnever been to a basketball game before. “Are they notinterested in this sport?”

My answers felt feeble. I couldn’t explain why bothteams were predominantly black but the crowd, predominantly white.

What a time for Brand to visit with a sunny message ofracial reconciliation.

Two national cases of unarmed African American menkilled by police closed without indictments for the whiteofficers have spawned widespread racial turmoil.

Our American “apartness” glares in our justice system.

In a white community, a belligerent man carrying a semi-automatic rifle enjoyed the privilege of a 12-hour negotiationbefore police arrested him. In a black community, officersshot and killed a 12-year-old carrying an airsoft gun lessthan two minutes after arriving at the scene.

Brand said racial animus in his country hadn’t vanished, butprovinces that share power experience greater prosperity.

How’d they get there?

Largely through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission– a restorative justice agency that allowed victims of grosshuman rights violations to testify about it, and to haveperpetrators acknowledge what they did, apologize, andseek amnesty from criminal and civil prosecution. Throughthe agony of those admissions, a new nation emerged.

The oppressed majority understood that their vengeance-- righteous or otherwise – could cost the nation its future.The ruling minority learned that they weren’t being op-pressed because the majority gained rights the minorityalways had.

Here in America, we run from our racial history, and its enduring legacy.

There can be no agony for us until we run toward it.

Mark E. McCormick is the executive director of The Kansas African American Museum in Wichita.

“Life is sentimental. Why should I be cold and hard about it? That’s the main content. Thebiggest thing in people’s lives is their loves and dreams and visions, you know.”

– poet Jim Harrison

325 EAST DOUGLAS AVENUE

WICHITA, KANSAS 67202

THE RECORDMAILING

N O N - P R O F I TU . S . P O S T A G E

PAID

KA

NSA

S LEADERSHIP CENT

ER

F

OR

T

H E C O M M O N GO

OD

KLC PRESS