Michael Koehler: Welcome to Episode 11 of On the Balcony. My name is Michael Koehler, and I'm your host. This is part two of our conversation with George Papandreou, Prime Minister in Greece from 2009 to 2012. If you haven't listened to part one of this conversation, I encourage you to do that right now before you continue with this second part.
So, let's catch up. Last week's episode, we began exploring Chapter 10 of Heifetz’s Leadership Without Easy Answers, with the title, 'Assassination'. It's the chapter that captures how groups tend to externalize their stresses with adaptive challenges. For example, by blaming authority, scapegoating someone, or shooting the messenger.
And we heard the Prime Minister share some of his own firsthand experience of practicing leadership amidst these undercurrents in the Euro crisis. Today, we'll look at two cases from Papandreou's experience that illuminate some of the core strategies for adaptive work, such as; including people in the problem, framing the adaptive challenge, and pacing the work.
The first case we'll look at is his attempt to include people in the work through the idea of a referendum - a pretty controversial move at that time. The second case, we'll hear about his successes around Greek-Turkish relations in his previous role as Foreign Minister in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, which led to a significant shift between both countries from conflict to collaboration.
The quote that the Prime Minister chose from Heifetz’s book, and that we've been keeping in our minds throughout part one, and we'll continue to keep in our minds through part two is this: "Severe distress can make people cruel. Empathy, compassion, and flexibility of mind are sacrificed to the desperate desire for order."
Let's dive right into part two of our conversation.
George, last episode, you were sharing with us how you negotiated at two different arenas or stages in the Euro crisis. The first one was internally, with Greek people asking them to make big, huge sacrifices around yet another set of difficult or sturdy measures. And the second one, more externally, where you negotiated in Europe around new systems of financial protection.
So, here's my question: In the midst of that, you planned an intervention that built from the idea of inclusion - a referendum. Would you tell us a little bit more about how that played out and how Ron Heifetz’s framework inspired you to do so?
George Papandreou: So, we reached a point where the stress was so big, so painful, but I realized I could not alone contain this. So, when I was talking to Ron, he would say, "Go out on the countryside, bring people in, talk to people, both metaphorically but also even physically, embrace people." And I needed to do that. But as you said, I was fighting on multiple, multiple stages. So, if I had to spend weeks traveling around the world to convince people that Greece is doing better, that would take away from my time, traveling around Greece and talking to people there. So, I think that created a vacuum, which ended up for me saying, "Listen, I want to create a wider coalition. We need to bring others. We need to include as much as we can, the political world to work out this issue together." That led to a number of things because the political world didn't want this. It was very easy for them to stand back, let them say, "You do the work, you get all the blame, you take all the responsibility, and we'll just wait for the next elections to win." But of course, that was a very irresponsible thing because that created a sense of instability that, you know, things were not moving forward, reforms and work maybe stalled. The international community in Europe was saying, "Well, why isn't everybody on board?" So, I ended up proposing a referendum, which was basically to say, 'let's all take the responsibility.'
So, that's part of what Ron here says in his chapter here is, he says, talks about inclusion. And this was one way, one other way, maybe very drastically to say, “Okay, let's include everybody. This is a decision we all have to make together. Are we going to continue?" There was actually-- we had a new package, we had a hair cut off our debt, it was a new possibility. But there was a big reaction to that. So, inclusion, actually, it's I think a very important thing, but inclusion also means giving power to others. I was giving power to our citizens - "You can make the decision." And the traditional political world didn't like this because had the decision been a positive one in this plebiscite, in this referendum, the other parties would have no say. They would have lost power, and many others, of course.
So, inclusion is not a simple thing either. You are basically changing the power structure, and the old power structures will very possibly react to this. So, they did. And they did inside Greece, but also outside Greece they were worried about-- but I ended up being able, through this pressure to create a coalition, but I stood down in order to create the coalition. So, I said, "Okay, I wouldn't say the martyr, but anyway, I will be the one to take the hit." I was already quite a bit of a lightning rod, but I said, "I will only do this if there is a real coalition, but we continue on the path so we don't go into bankruptcy." But it did not allow for the necessary deeper adaptive change.
I think what happened though, in the end, since I did my years of Prime Ministership in dealing with this crisis, the next government had to deal with this crisis, which was more right-wing. Then there came another government which was more left-wing. So, the whole political spectrum dealt with this, and they all pretty much had to do the same thing. In the end, people said, "Okay, well, maybe he was right. Maybe, there wasn't another way to do things." But I think we lost a bit of the opportunity to really do some deeper adaptive work in our country.
Michael Koehler: Yeah. Wow. What an intense leadership case you're bringing in here. I would love to just put our toe into another piece of experience you're bringing that I think is a story that is very different, is from a different role where you are Foreign Minister in Greece, and I think achieved tremendous progress on the Turkish-Greek relations.
I'm going to read the sentence one more time. And I'm curious, like, what wisdom in that sentence connects to that experience and the leadership successes, the successful moves you made in this sense. So, here comes the sentence: "Severe distress can make people cruel. Empathy, compassion, and flexibility of mind, are sacrificed to the desperate desire for order."
George Papandreou: There was major stress between our two countries - these Greeks and Turks, perennial enemies, and then there was a particular event which was, a head of the PKK, which is one of the Kurdish movements which uses violence in Turkey, came to Greece, and the Foreign Minister tried to send them off to Africa to safety. But there was a bit like-- the Turks saw it as their major enemy, their worst enemy was being helped by Greece. Their, you know, sort of traditional enemy. And that created a crisis.
The Foreign Minister did resign, and I was picked to become the new Foreign Minister. So, I had to deal with this major, huge crisis. And there was a lot of distress and a lot of fear. And of course, particularly from the Turkish side where they felt that this was an act of war. So, we were close to actually going to war or at least inciting some major conflict. And what was the traditional stance from the, I would say bureaucracy in the ministry was, I had just gotten an ultimatum from my counterpart, İsmail Cem. And on the Turkish side, he was a Foreign Minister, and he said, "We demand this, this, this, and this, and this." So, it was really this tough ultimatum, "You've got to do this, this, and this."
So, the traditional way to deal with this is, "Okay, this is what they say. We just send another letter to them; we say ‘you're the bad guys.’" And I said, "No, no, no. Let's see if we can use this as an opportunity to open up a dialogue," to lower the tensions by saying, "Okay, let's talk about it," rather than going up, you know, just banging our heads, very risky. They said, "This is risky, and, you know, we'll never solve the Turkish problems." I said, "But you know, I'm Foreign Minister, I asked my bureaucrats, if you like, very smart diplomats." I said, "Well, what is our major issue in foreign policy?" They said, Turkey. And I said, "If I don't deal with Turkey, then why am I in this Ministry?" So, I said, "Okay, we'll do it."
I started then discussing with my counterpart, İsmail Cem, and, you know, sometimes luck plays a role or chance if you like. So, I found a person on the other side that I could trust, and he'd found a person he could trust. We could be very honest about our differences, but also very honest and credible - when we said we could do something we'd do it. And also honest in the fact that we actually did want to make changes in our relationship. So, what happened was, we did start a discussion and we said, "Okay, let's start with the easy issues. Let's start with the issues that everybody can understand, let's say like trade and maybe tourism, you know, people-to-people meetings, and so on. So, we started with that. All of a sudden, about three months into this discussion we had, there was a huge earthquake in Turkey. Many lives lost, lots of people under the rubble, needed a lot of help, from blood to clothing, to food, and so on.
So, I decided again, to take a risk and come out publicly and say-- I asked my fellow Greeks, even though, you know, we have our problem with Turkey, but down deep, we're all human beings. Let's show this humanity, and let's help them. I didn't know how the reaction would be, of course, because you know, when you are in a leading position, you do have to step out, as Ron will say, many times, and take that risk.
Otherwise, things will just not be moving - but so I did. But the reaction was amazingly strong. After a few days, I got a call from the hospital director saying, "Tell people, not so many people to come - too many people coming in to give them blood because we don't have that capacity." And then finally, we sent over some special forces firemen that one of them pulled out a young boy, three years old alive, and the next day, the whole Turkish newspapers were saying, "Thank you, Greece," in Greek.
Then that created a momentum. So, I sat down with İsmail Cem, I said, "İsmail, this is an opportunity, we need to build on this. How are we going to build on this?" So then, what we started to think, the two of us is," Okay, we have our major problems of Cyprus, we have our problems in delineating the continental shelf from the Aegean - we've had dog fights over islands. Let's see how we can build trust, and how we can build understanding." So, every time we got together, we would say, "Okay, what's new that we can do?" One thing we started doing is including our citizens in foreign policy. We ended up calling it 'People's Diplomacy.'
So, what we said is, "Okay, let's get NGOs, get women-to-women's organizations, basketball teams, football teams, local government, business-to-business--" and we were recording it. And after a few months, there was so much of this. It just sort of caught on fire, so much that we couldn't even record it, just too much. So, it was actually the people themselves that somehow, we touched something that really brought this. And of course, then we started thinking of other ideas, signing the Olympic Truce, we went together to Gaza and to Israel and Palestine, we worked on Kosovo then with humanitarian aid.
So, we showed that we can rethink, reframe this relationship from one of animosity to putting it into a different frame, and saying, "Okay, what if we can work together? What are the benefits of working together?" And actually, one of the benefits was very clear - we had about 3 million in trade, in a few years, we had 3 billion in trade. We had zero tourists, almost, and then a few years ago, we had about a million tourists from Turkey and vice versa. And of course, within a European context, we said, "Okay, now Turkey, you could become part of this European family, which is basically family values.And if we have the same values, you know, we can deal with our differences alongside rules, alongside values, alongside understanding each other, and through dialogue.”
Of course, just coming into the present day, I think we left both sides some of these issues unsolved, and that's also not only because I wasn’t Foreign Minister, but governments changed. Some did not have the courage to move forward. Governments changed also on the other side, so then, after a period of time, this was a period of maybe almost 20 years of quite calm, we reach a point where these problems, not addressed, come up again. So, leaving them untouched, and just sort of not dealing with the difficult ones is not a way, which I also think, one has in Ron's chapter here as it has a very important point.
Michael Koehler: I'm just going to summarize a couple of the strategies that I heard embedded, and I hope I'm characterizing them accurately.
One piece I heard was actually a very successful case of pacing. Like, start with the easier issues, and then go to the more difficult issues as you're beginning to have some successes.
The second one I found fascinating, which was actually like almost a little bit more of good authority work than good leadership work of restoring order in that crisis moment of the earthquake, where you did kind of the leadership move was to go across the boundary, across the border, but provide, you know, aid - first aid, and blood, and basically helped in that massive crisis that needed also some technical expertise, provided that technical expertise and that helped build trust. That helped kind of build a bridge towards then some of the deeper adaptive work.
And then, the third strategy I heard was really like a version of kind of framing the adaptive challenge in a way that relates to higher values or a higher sense of purpose, such as; humanity - we're human beings, we're neighbors here, sense of Europe, the sense of like, economic development. Like, what is the higher ‘why’ for which we overcome these divides and move forward?
George Papandreou: I think that's right. Pacing was very important. That was sort of our daily work with İsmail, from the other side. We ended up becoming very good friends. Unluckily, he died some years ago of cancer, but I've been keeping very close relationships with his family, and we even have a Cem-Papandreou Peace Award to keep this pace even in difficult times. But pacing was very important. As you said, also, stepping over boundaries; and we were breaking taboos. We were dealing with taboos, and also with wounds, with very difficult histories. We had to recognize them, but then say, "Okay, let's not forget these wounds. Let's not try to bury them. The scars are there, but let's go beyond. Let's see what we can do now together." And this is what we tried to show.
Of course, then the third is this very different framework within which I think leadership, as Ron says, is not value-free. It's not neutral. There are values behind it. Actually, that's what motivates, I think that's what should motivate good leadership. What are the values you are presenting, and be very clear about-- and in times of distress, in times of difficulty and uncertainty, it may be just the values that are the anchor for, if you like, the compass. You know, it's not the physical walls, it's not, you know, you're closing off your borders, it's not, you know, trying to find a scapegoat. It is those values where you can say, "I am trying to be consistent with working with these values." And can we work to really bring them to fruition? And values that unite, or allow people to at least understand, and basically, I would say, allow people to deal with conflict in a way which is not violent. And I think that's going to be a key - it has been, all through humanity. But it is a key issue for today's world.
As a matter of fact, going back to the ancients, the first book written, maybe the First Western book that they call the Iliad starts with the word "rage." Rage, anger. And it has been seen now by many theoreticians that it was a story of, you know, the War of Troy, basically, and this sort of macho culture of killing, and raping, and stealing women, and fighting over women, and so on, and fighting for gold, and fighting for them, this is, and was highlighting the physical prowess and so on. Over the years, this was considered as an anti-war book, which actually, over generations, as Greeks read it again, and again, and again, that helped in building democracy because one thing that democracy also is, amongst other things, is a way to solve conflict through peaceful means, through debate, by respecting the dignity of the other.
And I think that's another very important issue in conflicts in the Greek-Turkish issue, but also in the financial crisis, we went through. If you can really give a sense of dignity, that people feel dignity, they feel dignified, they feel they're being respected, they're being recognized, their voice is being heard, their pain is being heard, that is very important in this adaptive challenge to make those changes. And of course, then out of that ancient time, the Olympic Games came, which were basically also a way to bring truce at times of war, and so on. I believe that these higher values that we have are ones which we need to be very conscious of when we want to try to lead, whether with or without authority.
Michael Koehler: Beautiful. Thank you for tying the bow around this conversation by making these connections between democracy, humanity, and the practice of leadership.
George, it's been such a joy to have you in conversation today around these ideas, to learn from your rich experience as a practitioner and somebody who reflects on this practice.
Really, really appreciate the time. Thank you.
George Papandreou: I appreciate it, Michael, and I wish you the best in your work. It's great work. As always, I look forward in continuing our work together.
Michael Koehler: Yes, we will.
George Papandreou: Thank you.
Michael Koehler: Thank you.
We'll be back in two weeks with our penultimate episode on the final chapter from Ron Heifetz’s book, Leadership Without Easy Answers, with the title, 'The Personal Challenge.' We'll look at what it means to get On the Balcony when you are in the midst of action.
And then, quick preview, in two weeks after that, we'll close this season with the author himself, Ron Heifetz, who's going to join us to look back at his book 30 years later, and explore with us how the framework has been evolving - that's two episodes from now.
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On the Balcony is brought to you by KONU - Growing and Provoking Leadership – and hosted by me, Michael Koehler.
We’re produced by Podigy: Editing – Riley Byrne, Daniel Link. Cover art by Kenneth Amoyo and Rosie Greenberg. Our music is called ‘Change in Blue’ by Hannah Gill and the Hours.
Thank you for listening. We'll see you back for Episode 12, On the Balcony.