Creating and Sustaining Healthy Organizations

February 25, 2013

Larry D. Roper

Flow

• A little background on health• Set our context• Explore our responsibilities• Assessing our leadership• Considering health and

inspiration

What type of organization do you aspire to create?

What does health feel like and look like to you?

Where are we?• The most aspiration-rich spaces on earth;• Laboratories for creation, discovery, re-invention

and transformation;• Spaces of serious work, play, experimentation,

testing and verifying…;• Mission-inspired and values-informed

environments;• Places where both character and character flaws

are revealed;• Interaction-intensive, dependent environments.

Responsibilities of Leaders?

What is Expected of Leaders?• Educators• Providers • Translators/Interpreters • Mediators• Conveners • Architects

Fulfill Our Position Description• To realize the promise of our mission;• Ensure all students receive the educational

benefits of our institution;• To translate institutional beliefs into practice; • To construct and carry out organizational

ethos;• Produce mission-critical outcomes;• Responsibly manage that with which we have

been entrusted.

Make Meaning and Create Sense of Place• Make meaning of relationships;• Bring order to chaos;• Foster connections among the isolated;• Give audibility and visibility;• Promote human dignity and institutional

integrity;• Achieve high-level connection with our

colleagues and institution;• Create space for important work and

conversations;• Strengthen foundations of community.

Exercise Leadership• Create and apply our unique professional

frame;• Name and own organizational issues;• Balance the dynamic tensions;• Heal, repair, reconstruct;• Model hope and optimism;• Be generative;• Nurture breakthroughs in awareness;• Work with seriousness of purpose and

lightness of touch.

What must we get done?

Dialogue with Ourselves

• Who are we?• Why are we here?• What do we hope to get done?• What is taking up psychological or

emotional space for us?• What is the condition of our

relationships with each other?

Construct a Congruent Self-Narrative

• Demonstrate the quality of grace;• Manage our conversations in a manner that reflect

our commitments;• Care for the dignity of others as we would care for

our own;• Let our words, actions and relationships reflect our

desires;• Transform eliminative conversations into

conversations of possibilities; • Be good company on the journey,

Acknowledge Dynamics

• The world does not look the same to all of us;• The world does not feel the same to all of us;• Personal history is embedded in our leadership

– recordings are challenging to erase;• Visible and invisible diversity must be

acknowledged and addressed;• Beliefs are powerful and can be reframed;• Environments can and should be manipulated

for the benefit of community members.

Strengthen Connections• Affection for our institution;• Honor the humanity and vulnerability of others;• Willingness to struggle in the relationship;• Taking ownership;• Expressing generosity;• Speaking our truth with care;• Investment in the future/long-term health of

the institution.

Healthy Organizations tune in to our Walk, Talk and Touch

We communicate with our Walk

What path(s) does our community see us walk?

In what ways do we enter the lives of others?  In what condition are others when they leave their experience with us?

We send messages with our Talk

What affect do our words have?  

How and when do we use our voice?

What echoes remain after our voice has quieted?

We communicate with our Touch

How do we handle that which has been entrusted to us?  

Where are our “fingerprints” visible in the functioning of our community and the condition of the lives of others?

How lightly or heavily does our presence land on the soul and spirit of others and our community?

Healthy organizations provide inspiration

Inspire connection

Inspire Courage

Inspire Growth

Inspire Innovation

InspireBelief

Inspire Joy

Inspire love

Conditions to Nurture Health• Cultivate energy for a creative and sustainable

future;• Show grace in relationships;• Demonstrate faith in others;• Allows hearts be aroused, spirits to be touched,

souls to be nourished and minds to be stimulated;• A sense of place – feelings of being at home in the

organization;• Being at peace with the course of the journey.