Lastly September Forbes published “America’s Most Innovative Leaders” list, profiling one hundred of “the most creative and successful business minds of today.” Ninety-nine of the top one hundred list were men (and barely a sprinkle men of color). You had to scroll down to # 75, Ross Stores’ CEO Barbara Rentler, to see the one woman mentioned, and she didn’t get so much as a headshot — just a masculine silhouette in gray (which has since been updated to resemble a female). YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP.

As noted by this Washington Post reaction, the Forbes list was supported by an algorithm that ranked CEOs market value (greater than $10 billion) and their companies’ “innovation premium,” or the “difference between their market capitalization (value) and the net present value of cash flows from existing businesses.”

“What’s astounding is that there is no discussion of how much the 99% male list might be a result of choices about what quantitative indicators to use.” Others laced their comments with sarcasm: “It’s so weird,” mocked one Twitter user. “Our algorithm, which is based on years of outdated statistics that favor privilege and patriarchal systems … just seems to keep rewarding white guys.”

In case you missed that: the Forbes list, like many, was supported by an algorithm. An algorithm (like all the rest) designed by, with, for people. Do not blame the inanimate databases or the robots; we’re wiring systems to preserve and promote exclusivity.

Women barely represent 5% of CEOs in the S&P 500 Index. So from the get-go, women didn’t stand a chance at making the Forbes list. Further, in response to public backlash, Forbes acknowledged that the vast majority of its lists are “data-driven exercises, where we determine a methodology, crunch the numbers and let the chips fall where they may.”

Let the chips fall where they may?!

This practice of surrendering to systems designed to filter and screen in the few is also common [understandably, to a point] in recruiting — yet all too often loaded with bias.

I’ve devoted a large portion of my career to creating diverse and inclusive workspaces. I regularly hear companies fret about the lack of skilled talent “supply” in the local pipeline, and concerns regarding workforce readiness and training consistent with open jobs are valid.

Of equal — arguably greater — concern is the “demand” side of the equation: companies that want to grow diversity yet create and/or outsource applicant screening processes that favor exclusivity. Many hiring systems are designed to screen-in pedigree where, on the job, a degree is significantly less a determinant of success compared to the know-how of skill. Ask any professional what or who they credit most for their success in the workplace and they are much more likely to cite learning gained from real world experience, not degree.

Further, if only a third of the US labor market has a college degree, what’s to happen to the other two thirds, particularly those for whom a college degree was neither affordable nor accessible? By choosing pedigree over skills mastery, a large portion of talented human capital is excluded from mere consideration for the job interview, let alone participation in our talent-hungry, innovation-starving labor market.

To quote a common phrase from my good friend and colleague, Byron Auguste, co-founder of Opportunity@Work: “Talent is universal. Opportunity is not.”

Though the struggle was real for my parents to send this first generation kid to college, I have been blessed beyond measure with opportunities to go to school, to travel and gain perspective, to seed and strengthen my social networks, to know a person that knew a person that scored me a job interview, helped pave my career path, and so forth. I was born on third base where others don’t get up to bat. I have a responsibility to stand up and speak out, to pry open closed doors, to create opportunity.

But standing up and speaking out isn’t sufficient. Until more women are seen and leading in spaces traditionally dominated by men, these not-so-accidental slip-ups like Forbes’ will continue and we’re all the emperor’s new clothes.

Forbes: if you want to make a list of innovative thinkers and publish it, please do the world a favor and come out of your man cave to see what real inclusive leadership looks like. Here’s a fantastic start by Sarah Robb O’Hagan on LinkedIn, (my newest hero, who deserves a spot on this list just for writing it).

Please join me in the call for discernment toward inclusion, and not just from institutional structures and systems but from and for ourselves. We are the systems we’re designing. It’s high time we take a long look in the mirror at how we design and choose systems that make our daughters see they’re worthy of a world in desperate need of their and their sisters’ strong-willed, driven, intelligent, compassionate, creative innovations.

We are better than Forbes’ list. Our systems can be too — if we design them to be.

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“Namaste,” I returned.

“Namaste,” I said, holding up my prayer-shaped hands, my heart overflowing with gratitude. I continued to make my entrance through the greeting committee, two lines of brightly adorned red, blue, and pink Nepali dressed women. Several gifted additional flowers to me, repeating the same warm Namaste welcome. Some proudly carried their infant children on their hip or in their arms. Never before had I felt like such royalty; this was a most warm, most proud welcome of my friends and I to their village.

Carmina met me at the end of the entrance lines; she hadn’t taken me out of her sight. She told me she was 15, and her face appeared curious, friendly, and anxious to meet us.

When she returned less than an hour later she was dressed in a shiny black and red floral dress. Her hair appeared newly rinsed and she was eager to get my attention. “I show my house,” she said gesturing for me to accompany her through the village, pass the straw-covered barns of water buffalo and goats, to her home. I left my group and eagerly followed her lead.

She introduced me in Nepalese to her grandmother, who crouched on a two-inch high stool, stirring sun-dried corn kernels over a ground-level fire. The woman turned to me and smiled enthusiastically. “Grandmother,” Carmina explained, and then proceeded to introduce other surrounding family members using the few English nouns she had memorized at the nearby English boarding school attended by privileged youth.

Yes, privileged. The ground we stood on was dirt covered but flat, their house short but made of bricks and covered not by a thatched roof but one instead made of tin. The small manger nearby where the food was prepared housed a mother water buffalo and her calf, as well as a family of goats, to include several new kids. The sounds of baby chicks chirping filled the air, as well as the laughter of curious children eager to see the foreigner and her fancy camera.

Such ordinary experiences that remind us we are extraordinarily strong women. The generations of women from WORTH may appear quite unlike my daughters and I on the surface–different attire and material surroundings — and yet within we share a great deal. As it goes when we say, “Namaste” — I honor the light in you that is also in me. Though that visit to Chitwan lasted a matter of hours, and the capacity for English-Nepali translation nil, there are few with whom I have experienced wholeness with such immediacy and at that scale.

Is there a sight more beautiful, more divine than that of a capable, confident, strong woman? Such a gift to have met those women of WORTH, to witness their pride first-hand, and to be reminded of my own immense strength and the promise of two capable, confident, strong young girls who make my heart swell with love and hope.

Photographs provided by Jan Somers, Ralph Kelly, and Jen Hetzel Silbert

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Among our growing list of A1 partners in social innovation (by disruption) is Neighborhood Centers Inc., a non-profit human services agency serving the 

This post examines Neighborhood Centers’ journey and the role of ‘figure it out’ leadership in taking a snowball’s chance to define communities as sources of infinite potential – not problems to be solved. Experience their story live when CEO/President Angela Blanchard takes the stage at #BIF10, Sept 17-18, 2014.

From Settlement House to Social Innovator

Jane Addams

Neighborhood Centers Inc.’s earliest work began with the settlement house movement in 1907, laying the groundwork for marginalized populations to participate more meaningfully in society in ways that nurture self-sufficiency over dependency. The agency held true to a key tenet of the settlement house philosophy: neighborhood involvement. In one of her early writings, Ms. Jane Addams, a founder of the settlement house movement, stated that she and her fellow workers learned “not to hold preconceived ideas of what the neighborhood ought to have, but to keep ourselves in readiness to modify and adapt our undertakings as we discovered those things which the neighborhood was ready to accept.” Openness and adaptability was key.

In the 1960s and 70s, the agency was considered a ‘poverty agency,’ not just because of the population it served, but because of how it operated: in ragtag buildings, poorly equipped, poorly trained, under-funded, and in many cases taken for granted. ⁱ An ‘either/or’ mindset was the norm: EITHER the agency funded its internal infrastructures OR fed its clients.

Under the leadership of Angela Blanchard, first as board member in the early 1980s, then CFO and now president/CEO, the search for ‘both/and’ solutions took over: “Far from depriving our clients, we were strengthening our capacity to help them by meeting the basic needs of our organization.” ⁱⁱ  Helping clients hold a possibility-focused abundance mindset meant Neighborhood Centers Inc. had to hold one for itself.

Angela Blanchard, CEO/President

Despite initial resistance Blanchard persisted, strengthening internal infrastructure until the results began to speak for themselves. In 1995, Neighborhood Centers Inc. was eleven times larger than it had been in 1986 with the lowest overhead among agencies of equal size. ⁱⁱⁱ

Leveraging internal talent and a strengthened operating capacity, management began securing large government grants and contracts. This enabled the expansion of financial assistance programs aimed at child care, adult employment services, job training and case management for disaster relief activities. Neighborhood Centers Inc. built on its long-standing expertise in childhood development, expanding services to include early childhood education and opened a charter school. By 2007 its reputation as a poverty agency was a distant memory as it catapulted itself into a new position as one of the largest service employers in the greater Houston area. ^iv   

From White Board to Neighborhood

Neighborhood Centers Inc. was already a success story, but it aspired to still greater heights, namely improvements to service delivery consistent with their strength-focused operational philosophy.

“Kinfolks” by Sacha Lazarre: spirited painter, advocate for immigrants

In 2005, Blanchard’s staff began experimenting with Appreciative Inquiry (AI) as applied to Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), recognizing that individuals and organizations housed assets on which economic, political and social strengthcould be built.  AI framed service delivery around two deceptively simple premises:

1. What we look for, we find, and what we pay attention to, grows.  Positive image begets positive action.
2. People commit to what they help to create.  The more inclusive the change process, the more committed community members will be to its success and follow-through.

Neighborhood Centers’ responsibility and opportunity was to link neighbor to neighbor, asset to asset. Consistent with its settlement house roots, it did not set out to ‘help’ Houston residents, but to ask, to listen, and to empower, giving voice to people such that they might participate in the enrichment and vitality of their neighborhoods, building on strengths while transforming the lives of those who live there.

Over 120 appreciative interviews were facilitated at town hall meetings and community events, at schools and places of worship, even on front porches.  Staff published these stories of strength, resilience, and exemplary leadership in its first Voices report shortly after. Unlike traditional media sources, Voices portrayed the amazing promise of Gulfton and Sharpstown, printed in both English and Spanish, and was distributed widely across the community.

The impact was astounding; conversations began to shift from the downward spiral thinking residents were used to (poverty, struggle), to that of adversity and opportunity. Community members began to change the stories they told about themselves.

Gatherings small and large, these community inquiries helped the agency turn a critical corner. By inviting residents to come together to tap into their well of strengths and assets, and envision still greater possibilities for themselves and their neighborhoods, improvements occurred more swiftly, efficiently and purposefully. The change was grounded in principles of self-empowerment and cooperation.

Among the countless social innovations that have since spawned:

• A community newsletter titled “Gulfton Neighbors” to communicate and highlight the many rich assets already at play in the neighborhood, while also shedding light on opportunities for further strengthening social connections critical to economic and community development.
• 

  The Magic Bus

  The Magic Bus, which circulates between the neighborhood’s many apartment complexes, grocery stores, and social service providers – key locations that the city’s public transportation alone does not serve.

• New partnerships, particularly among service providers who were inspired to work together more collaboratively around complementary strengths and shared areas of interest.
• 
  

  “Voices to Vision” Appreciative Inquiry Summit

  The Voices to Vision summit, a three-day gathering in August 2008 of over 400 staff, residents, educators, business owners, donors, volunteers, students, and elected officials for a collaborative learning and strategic planning journey. More then empowering staff to ask great questions, Neighborhood Centers wanted to empower and inspire its richly diverse community to also be the change they wanted to see in Houston.

• 

  Baker-Ripley Neighborhood Center

  Cutting through the partisan rhetoric, Blanchard wooed Democrats and Republicans, raising $25 million to build the Baker-Ripley Neighborhood Center which opened in 2010, a five building, four acre complex designed by community members for community members, with services ranging from tax preparation to low-cost banking, a clinic, and charter school.  Since the center opened, crime has decreased 11% in Gulfton. In Houston overall, crime is down 4%.

• In 2010 Neighborhood Centers gained national attention from the US Department of Education, which granted the agency a $500,000 Promise Neighborhood planning grant, wherein Neighborhood Centers was 1 of 21 organizations selected (out of 300 communities that applied nationwide).

The agency’s model for building vibrant communities stepped up to the national stage in 2011 at TEDxHouston, then later at the Business Innovation Factory (BIF7) summit. Fast Company magazine listed Angela among its November 2012 Generation Flux, honoring disruptors who embrace adaptability and flexibility with success.  The following year Angela was featured again in Fast Company, this time on its 2013 Top 1000 Most Creative People in Business.  Also in 2013, Neighborhood Centers was invited to the White House (for the 3rd time), where Blanchard met with 9 other community development leaders, senior white house officials, and President Barack Obama to advise the administration on the President’s Promise Zone Initiative and Ladders of Opportunity, working to ensure that all families, no matter where they live, have ladders of opportunity to the middle class.  

Figure It Out. That is the job.

Perhaps most noteworthy of the many innovations spawned and honors received was the agency’s own transformation from the outside-in, from a facilitator [of strength-based service delivery for others] to an OWNER of strength-based, possibility-seeking human capital development [for ITSELF].

In a recent interview, Blanchard talked about the most important jobs, those that she calls “FIO jobs”: “Figure it out. That is the job.”  The task may seem daunting, and the masses might call the mission impossible; real leadership figures it out, no matter.

A big fan of Simon Sinek’s ‘Golden Circle,‘ Blanchard knows how to start with the “WHY”.  It’s one thing to tell the world WHAT you do and HOW you do it so well, but it’s quite another to tell them WHY they should care. And FIO leaders “need a big WHY to get an even bigger WE.”

Blanchard lives by Teddy Roosevelt’s mantra, “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”  Her favorite day each month: every third Thursday, when she hosts her #InGoodCompany forums for aspiring leaders, which she opens up to the general public.  It’s a mixed bag of storytelling, listening, and connecting – topped off with a call to action for community members, youth, and staff to be ‘figure it out leaders’, come hell or high water.

For more on Neighborhood Centers social innovation savvy, come to #BIF10 in Providence, Rhode Island, Sept 17-18, 2014, where Angela Blanchard takes the BIF stage for the second time.

Endnotes

iBlanchard, A. (1995) Hierarchy of Needs – For Organizations: A Story of Organizational Transformation

ivChung, R. (January, 2008). ‘Financial Comparison 1997-2007: Neighborhood Centers Inc.’

vTimme, L. (January 2008). ‘Pasadena & South Houston: Unlocking the Strengths of our Communities.’ Voices: A Report onthe Strengths and Assets of a Community.

viChung, R. (January 2008). ‘Financial Comparison 1997-2007: Neighborhood Centers Inc.’

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1. For one, all three will take the stage at this year’s #BIF9 Summit hosted by the Business Innovation Factory (BIF) in Providence, RI September 18-19^th. (Talk about a package tour for innovation junkies.)
2. Second, these women each played a significant role in personally ushering me (and countless others) to find my story and make the pivot, an unexpected call to action when I might have otherwise stuck my head in the ground.

If Obe-Wan Kenobe was casted a woman, these ladies would make Lucas proud. Allow me to introduce them to you:

Meet Carmina, Rebel at Work

I first met Carmen Medina in 2000 while working as a contractor in the Intelligence Community. Those were my career ladder rungs where “butts in seats” (profit) came before personal fulfillment (passion), landing me a project where, though grateful to be employed, I cared little for the work. I didn’t “fit” in, and this lack of congruence minimized my self worth, which was already in the dumps, magnified by the divorce I was going through at the time.

Carmen hovered close, not as a supervisor/superior, but as a mentor and friend who not only listened to my somewhat “radical” ideas but fearlessly went against the grain of group think whenever she suspected there a better way, however foreign to government norms. Carmen put my ideas and input on a level playing field with the others—which was huge, considering my subordinate rank and the hierarchical nature of the community wherein we worked. She gave me the time of day where others did not. Most significantly, Carmen encouraged me to keep the faith—not just in the project, or in the Intell Community at large, but in the journey I was on, however muddled and messy. My focus needn’t be about fitting in or being successful, but about learning along the way—a tough pill for this [then] corporate career ladder-climbing businesswoman to swallow.

Carmen credits her friend, Bob, for delivering this message to her. “Sometimes the ‘pivot’ isn’t a pivot, but a willingness to accept and soldier through.” We may find ourselves in a stressful life chapter, unsure or weary of the outcome. What matters is not what happens or whatever success we aim to claim at the finish, but our resolve to keep steady while walking to the other side, to learn to develop equanimity along the way.

A rebellious optimist, as her BIF6 story goes, Carmen gets it that heretics have to learn to live with discomfort, a natural consequence of their willingness to deviate from the norm and to break habits. Carmen just so happens to define innovation as “the opposite of habit,” so it’s only natural for her to be invited back to the BIF stage this year to share her insights from Rebels at Work, a community and collection of stories for “corporate rebels” to share experiences, insights and advice.

Meet Deb, Serial Mentor Extraordinaire

Deb Mills-Scofield and I first met on Twitter. Her influence and charm was magnetic, and I felt an immediate connection that was familiar and safe—like longtime friends (family, even) reunited long last.

When we met in person for the first time it was by way of a warm, lasting hug at BIF7. Deb asked questions with a curiosity that was nurturing, a “I want to understand you so I can help you” inquisitiveness, followed by the “here are the people I know that you need to know” to-do list for introductions and network expansion.

A serial mentor, Deb credits her “Other” orientation to the influence of many, but especially to her “mommy,” whom she affectionately references by this name today. (September marks five years since her mother’s passing.) A Holocaust survivor, Deb’s mother instilled an appreciation for that which cannot be taken away: knowledge, experience, and the stories that pull it all together. Material goods will come and go; learning stays.

For Deb, it’s always about nurturing others so we can learn, together.

“There’s ‘magic’ in what we learn at the BIF summit that is unique, unlike any other conference. BIF manages expectations in such a way that we arrive not to be seen, but on a level playing field. That’s the magic. And this goes back to the unique, intimate city where BIF is hosted, Providence, and the amazing staff that run BIF: no arrogance, just real down-to-Earth people.”

2013 will mark Deb’s first BIF experience on stage (versus taking her usual seat next to the bloggers). “I’m honored to share my story, and I think it’s cooler to arrive as a participant, whether you’re telling a story on stage or not,” she says, describing the summit as a humble, intimate version of TED without the hubris.

“BIF is very much about the ‘Thou’ and not the ‘I’. And—very important—the intent with which you arrive at the conference makes a difference with what you get out of it,” says Deb, who ascribes to Martin Buber’s I-Thou philosophy: we exist only in the way we encounter others.

“Is the world about me (I), where you inherently seek that which benefits you first? Or is the world about others (Thou, God)” – an outward perspective mindful of making the world better for everyone in it?

Many business leaders strive to create a legacy in the form of a lucrative company, intellectual property that lives on. Deb’s intellectual property is her network, and it’s open-source. “If I can share my network with others and inspire them to grow it for others, then I’ve lived well.”

Meet Whitney, the real-life Working Girl

I first met Whitney Johnson when she took the stage at the BIF7 Summit in the fall of 2011. Whitney shared some lessons learned from her own disruptive path, and the pain and reward that comes with the uncertainty of leaping into the unknown. “If it feels scary and lonely, you’re on the right track,” she said, assuredly, “…and you have no idea what will come next.” Then and there I thought the room went black with one spotlight shining on me alone. I felt terrified and validated all at once.

Several months after BIF, Whitney invited me to guest blog on her Dare, Dream, Do site. One brief and brilliant coaching call later, I found my story in its magnificent purity and simplicity.

Finding my story was significant, because the stories we tell about our past shape our vision of the future. And whether our (or other’s) expectation of the future is high or low, we live into it.

This is true for Whitney’s own life-changing pivots, where others believed in and cheered on her greatness – from Smith-Barney, where she ascended from “Working Girl” secretary to investment banker; to Merrill Lynch, where she learned to appreciate her innate capacity to think across disciplines – music, finance, spreadsheets, and more.

“Everyone needs a cheerleader to tell you you’re awesome… And, there’s a reputational risk when that cheerleader applauds you in a public forum. You simply have to live into—not just up to—that expectation,” she explained.

Whitney has had many cheerleaders along the way, from past bosses, to her coach, to Saul Kaplan (BIF founder), all who inspired her to take the dare—to dream and do. She is especially thankful for the encouragement she receives from her husband, whose belief in her instills a confidence to make things happen.

“When I think about my own experience on Wall Street, and then talk to other women, I’m stunned by how few of them have dreams—or worse, they do not think it their privilege to dream. It is everyone’s privilege to have a dream.”

Whitney doesn’t see her role as speaker and coach as giving back or paying it forward. Her motivating force comes from within; it’s how she connects to others and to the world.

“When I can encourage people to name themselves, to dream, then I feel connected. ‘I want you to see you as you are so I can connect with you.’ I do this because I have to.”

Carmen, Deb and Whitney will be among 30 storytellers and over 400 innovators, troublemakers, entrepreneurs, inventors and transformation artists making the pivot at the #BIF9 Summit this September 18 and 19. Now in its ninth year, the BIF Summit has earned its reputation as “one of the top 7 places to watch great minds in action” (according to Mashable). Join us in Providence for two days of unforgettable stories that connect, inspire and transform.

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Here at Spartina, business cards read “Partner and Co-founder.” But the expertise that we bring to each and every client and collaborator that we work with is so much deeper. When we’re meeting with clients we activate our experiences as parents, coaches, athletes, and even as clients – empathy is key! We encourage you to learn more about the experiences of your teammates and colleagues, perhaps the experiences not visible on CVs, to better understand each others strengths and perhaps forge some new and unlikely connections.

Dave’s hats are many! In his former lives he raced sailboats, worked as a carpenter, served in the Navy and for the State Department, and led an executive team at a Fortune 1,000.  Dave is also a proud father of 2 and happiest when he’s on his sailboat. He describes being at the helm of a boat as an infusion of inspiration and possibility because one can travel anywhere. If Dave could choose a less traditional title for his business card, he identifies strongly as a “Connector.”

Tony’s former career in global health and travel to over 80 countries dramatically informs his current client work. When traveling in foreign countries, he would arrive to a blank slate, not knowing the nuances of history, language, and culture without the guidance from locals. Curiosity and inquiry were key to launching successful, sustainable community-based programs. When Tony collaborates with a new organization, he comes with the same appreciation that every business is different and that no one knows more than the employees themselves. Tony also wears the hats of soccer dad, poker player, beach volleyball player. If Tony could choose a less traditional job title, he relates to being “Sparky” – to spark conversations and big ideas.

Jen has too many hats to count! As a nurturing mother, passionate kickboxer, nonprofit board member, and advocate for innovations in public education and civic engagement, it’s easy to address complex challenges creatively. One of the most poignant perspectives that Jen brings to her clients is her former work as a marathon coach. Working with people from ages 17-70, Jen coached people to reach goals they never imagined were possible. Who knew that an infusion of motivation and inspiration could make the impossible possible? If Jen could select a less traditional job title for her business card, it would read “Curator” – Jen is a wizard behind the curtain facilitating conversations and uncovering commonalities.

What are the hats that you wear? Which do you wear to work? It may be time to revise the dress code!

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