Michael Koehler: Welcome to On the Balcony. My name is Michael Koehler, and I'm your host.
Today, we'll engage with the final chapter of Ron Heifetz’s, Leadership Without Easy Answers, with the title, 'The Personal Challenge'. It is the chapter that is most practical of all of them, in that it outlines a set of reflective questions. You can ask yourself to better practice leadership around difficult adaptive work. These reflective questions fall into categories of a wide range of principles for adaptive work. The ideas like getting ‘on the balcony’ to understand and regulate heat, and counter work avoidance, distinguishing self from role, and the realization that people often don't relate to you as the wonderful human being that you are, but as the role that you have in their lives; putting the work in the center and depersonalizing issues, using partners, and while you do, distinguishing between allies and confidants, the people who care about the work versus the people who care about you, listen, find sanctuary, and preserve a sense of purpose.
Now, this is a lot, and a really, really rich chapter to read through if you haven't done it. We'll discuss these ideas with a wonderful practitioner today - Susanna Krueger, serial social entrepreneur and former CEO of Save the Children - Germany, the oldest and largest independent child's rights organization in the world.
Susanna shares her experiences from managing change in crisis during the pandemic, and the hasty withdrawal of the international community from Afghanistan in 2021. She explores what adaptive work in the development sector could look like when rethinking its current paradigm, and we'll talk about what it really means to connect to purpose.
As always, I invite you to read the chapter, that's Chapter 11, with the title, 'The Personal Challenge'. All right, let's dive right in.
Welcome, Susanna. It is so good to see you.
Susanna Krueger: Nice for having me. Thank you.
Michael Koehler: Susanna, we anchor our conversation today in Chapter 11 of Heifetz’s Leadership Without Easy Answers, with the title, 'The Personal Challenge', and we will get to know you more in a second. But before we get to know you, I would like to anchor us in the chapter and hear a little bit from you. As you were revisiting that chapter, what were one or two ideas that stood out for you?
Susanna Krueger: You know, I studied with Heifetz 20 years ago, and when revisiting this chapter, it really stood out that the demand of authority was a trap, and it stood out that I sometimes, in the past 20 years, didn't listen to that experience anymore. So, for the most part, when thinking about leadership, that comes as a crude awakening, that you are not the one who is supposed to deal with everything or manages everything, but that you engage people, and that you really ask, "How are you, and how can I promote you? How can I bring out the best in you?" This really stood out.
And the second part, and maybe we can come back to that later, which stood out for me, was the first part in this 11th Chapter, which is called, ‘The Personal Challenge’. And there, he introduces this chapter with, "Why is it lonely on the point? Because those who lead take responsibility for the holding environment of the enterprise, and they themselves are not expected to be held." It kind of moved me because I, as the CEO of Save the Children in Germany for the past six years, had often the feeling that I was not being held, but I had to hold others all the time. And so, that really stood out for me.
Michael Koehler: Yeah, I really resonate with this, and I think many people resonate with this idea - the loneliness, and not only lonely, but, like, it can be a little bit brutal to be that lonely, and to feel the heat of these challenges. I love that, and I can't wait to dig deeper into that, into your experience, into your ideas.
As I've been reading the chapter, the piece that struck me, and I think it is related to what you said, was this whole idea of mirroring, and this idea that when you are stressed, or overwhelmed, or feeling all kinds of sensation, how often we tend to psychologize that and say like, "Oh, you know, Michael is just a stressed person, or Michael is just an overwhelmed person." Or, versus like, reading that as clues for what's happening in the environment, and particularly, if you're in charge, like how you or the executive team may be mirroring those dynamics that are going on out there in the organization, or even in the ecosystem.
Susanna Krueger: You know, in 2021, Afghanistan was again bullied by the Taliban, and the Taliban took power again, and I had been in this situation that, in 2019, it was my last journey before COVID 19, before the COVID pandemic. It was the situation that I stood in front of all these people working for us in Afghanistan, actually, 2000 people, and I said, after the question of a young woman in the crowd who asked me, "What do you do when the Taliban come back?" And I said, "You know, we will be with you. We won't disregard you." And one and a half years later, I found myself in this situation that I personally couldn't do anything, and that actually mirrored a lot of what the organization, Save the Children mirrored, because we couldn't do anything, and not even camping in front of the foreign office helped much.
And it also mirrored what happened in the world because everything that I felt, the helplessness, and the aid system that was coming to an end, kind of, was also mirrored in the bigger contextual environment. And it led to a deep questioning of what we are doing. Do we really have the right leadership in place? Are we doing the right things? And in many people, it also led to depression.
Michael Koehler: We're right in your experience, Susanna, and I think that's the reason you are here. We can't wait to hear more about it. I want to just take a quick pause and invite you to share a little bit more about your background. And the way how we do that, usually on this show, is kind of in the tradition of thinking about roles and identity. So, a very simple question, Susanna - who are you?
Susanna Krueger: I mean, first of all, I'm a woman, a German white woman. I'm a daughter of parents that are very special. My father was a priest, actually, and taught, and preached in a prison. And I'm a sister of a disabled brother, who has Down syndrome, and who was a very, very important teacher in my life. I'm an entrepreneur, a social entrepreneur; I founded many different organizations, starting from a political movement in the liberal party in Germany, to a new university, to a consultancy that worked with nonprofits and corporates to measure their social impact, and then, right now, I'm also a founder of a new company in Berlin, who is trying to really disrupt the nature of giving in Germany. But yeah, all of that. I'm also a wisdom seeker, and a very critical mind, and an evaluator, and probably, also an innovator, because I always want to change things in the world. So, that comes with good and bad.
Michael Koehler: Terrific. So, we'll anchor our conversation on a quote from the chapter, and I'm curious to hear which quote you brought with you.
Susanna Krueger: Yeah. A quote that actually, very deeply moved me, was later in the chapter where Heifetz says, "A sense of purpose is not the same as a clearly defined purpose." You know, you can have clearly defined purposes in corporations or in organizations, but that doesn't mean that people who belong in the organization, or who are working with you really feel that. So, a sense of purpose, he says, generates defined purposes within any given context by asking, and that is something that really impresses me, and moves me because that the art of leadership and the sense of purpose that you give to an organization is with the people you are working with, and by asking them how you can help them to become their best.
That is really hard sometimes in the stream of things, and when you know you have your everyday business going on, and pressures are rising. And this sentence really speaks to me because I believe that the most important thing you can do in an organization in exercising leadership is by really listening and asking people how they can be their best.
Michael Koehler: Let me read the quote to you again, and I'm going to invite you to slow down with that quote a little bit, and watch your thoughts and minds, and see what images come up as you listen to that quote.
"A sense of purpose is not the same as a clearly defined purpose. A sense of purpose generates defined purposes within any given context, by asking simple questions."
Susanna Krueger: The image that comes up is the period when COVID hit, in March 2020, and I had 150 people in Germany, and I was also part of the International Leadership Team in Save the Children International, where we had 25,000 people, and we had to move into a digital workstream within one week. And people were very disconcerted and felt that they didn't know where to go. And I had the feeling that the most important picture that you had to give to people was a picture of hope and of belonging. And so, we did all kinds of communication measures. We had weekly staff meetings online; we had a couple of rules that we defined for every team that they had to do a checkup in the morning and in the night.
I did an international podcast where I invited people from the so-called ‘field’, like Somalia, Sudan, Haiti, and so on, to really tell us, all the 25,000 people, you know, tell us about, where are we now? What are we doing? How do we cope with the pressures and the problems? And so, these podcasts became a kind of cultural engagement for the community, because they could relate to that, and they could feel the purpose. So, it was not the purpose that we defined as Save the Children - we are ambitious and we are glorious, and we are communicative and blah, blah, blah. So, people could really feel how their staff on the ground dealt with the problems of being digital, and not could communicate directly anymore sometimes with our beneficiaries. And so, that was a kind of 'Preserving the Purpose' that I did with the help of others, of course, and where I found that was very helpful; to really create something of a belonging structure, and where people could really feel why they're in there, you know, why they're here even if they're staring at a Zoom conference.
Michael Koehler: I love that.
Susanna Krueger: There was a story in our country office in Ethiopia, and they had a shutdown during COVID. They couldn't do the work with the children and the families anymore, in schools. You know what they did? They actually put on a radio show where they had the classroom on the radio, and they had 80 to 85% of the pupils they had before on that radio show. And so, we did a podcast on that and streamed it through the whole community of Save the Children International, and everyone was engaged, everyone was full on purpose and full of ideas, and engagement. That is something where you can connect to real purpose. So, to come back to the citation of Heifetz, this is what moves me in that sentence.
Michael Koehler: So, in a way, the podcast, or the streaming, was the opportunity to create a space for a conversation around purpose-
Susanna Krueger: Exactly.
Michael Koehler: -rather than like, "Okay, here's the purpose statement and let's go back to that. No, we're engaging and we're grounding ourselves around purpose and that."
Susanna Krueger: Exactly. I don't believe in purpose statements and workshops about culture. I believe that you have to do it, and you have to live it. And spare yourself the workshops, just show up how you want to be showing up. And that's how you create culture and also change it. And you don't change it through workshops.
Michael Koehler: I'm sitting still with that experience you shared in the beginning of our conversation around Afghanistan and the helplessness. The experience of helplessness, as in these very first weeks, days in which kind of the situation in the country changed so much, and basically, the international community was fleeing out and many of the local people couldn't.
I'm going to read the quote one more time, and I'm curious to hear, as you sort of put that quote next to the situation, what's coming up for you right now as you reflect back on that situation. So, here comes the quote: "A sense of purpose is not the same as a clearly defined purpose. A sense of purpose generates defined purposes within any context, by asking simple questions."
Susanna Krueger: You know, Michael, I think the international community in these countries like Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, and wherever it might be, should be asking a lot more questions and have less frameworks to come in with. And I learned from that experience last year that you cannot impose developmental contexts and developmental goals, and impact goals, from a Western point of view. It will fail because it is not what generates from the community. So, I think the purpose of development can only originate in communities when they say what they want by themselves. And the idea of international aid is deeply flawed, because most of the time, we are not asking what do they really want, but we ask what is in our interest.
And that's why I, by the way, think we should reduce international aid and put much more effort into local businesses, social entrepreneurship, looking where solutions are being built in these communities because there are a lot. What we think of in Europe, of Africa, is deeply flawed, because there is not only misery, there is so much entrepreneurship, there is so much strength, there are so many cool people around that really know how to bring forward their businesses and their communities. And sometimes, they think differently than we. And I think we should listen to them, and that's what is coming up when you read out the sentence again.
Michael Koehler: Yeah. That sounds like a big change agenda for the International Development Community.
Susanna Krueger: Well, yeah. There are a couple of people who think the same, but it's not the majority. And also, it's of course, sometimes a problem of belonging to a large NGO, which I did, of course, you want to accelerate what they're doing because they're also doing a lot of good things. And when you, as I, look at the critical points, or look at the things that are not working, then you sometimes are being portrayed as somebody who is not supporting the cause, or who is working against the cause, or something.
And that is the problem when you speak about these things. And so, I have not found a solution for that. I was very alone with these questions also in the international NGO community, but I know that a lot of people are thinking about these things, and they are just not able to change these huge structures and organizational constraints because they are so stark. They are so manifested. It's like a bureaucracy that you want change, and that is always a problem-- which brings me back to Heifetz, actually, where one of his leadership strategic principles is a partner - partner with others. And yeah, I did that, and I had a couple of people also within Save the Children, but we were not enough. You need huge coalitions to really change organizations.
Michael Koehler: A follow-up question around that, and then I'd love to pivot looking a little bit more forward into your current role. But what I'm curious around is kind of the polarity between the humanitarian work and the developmental work where, you know, one is a little bit more kind of emergency, disaster, you know, in a way, maybe in Heifetz’s language, also technical. Like, we have some expertise, we know how to like, get, you know, water rolling back again, and sanitation, and medical supplies, versus like the developmental work kind of potentially being more the adaptive challenges. And the question around kind of, how does sustainable development look like? And then many organizations do both, or in the nexus between those tensions. So, how does that play out in your experience, particularly behind that, you know, stark thesis that you put out there around like, we need to reduce, or really shift our framework of aid?
Susanna Krueger: I think we have to shift our framework of aid, particularly in the developmental space, I'll come back to that in a second. The humanitarian space is a bit of a different thing. When a cyclone hits, or there's an earthquake, there is an international organization or stuff in place where we can help. The interesting thing is that the humanitarian and the development space are actually coming much closer together in the past 10, 20 years, because there is not only a singular humanitarian event that is not connected to a larger developmental question.
So, the distinction becomes a bit more complicated. When I say a humanitarian affair or a humanitarian event is something that is clearer from a developmental one then this is only one part of the picture. So, in the developmental space, I think you-- I was deeply inspired by David Snowden. Actually, I don't know if you know him. He has The Cynefin Framework, where he says, "You know what? There are a couple of problems that you can think of in different leadership terms." So, you have one thing where you have a recipe where you can, for example, bake a cake and there is a recipe. Okay? So, you know, this is what we are doing. Then there is a complicated situation where you build a plane, you need experts. Okay? But you also have a recipe, but you need much more explanation for that, and much more, people who are very well educated.
And then, and here comes the developmental space, then you have messy situations, and very complex ones. For example, how to get children into schools, how to enhance youth participation in administrative settings - yeah, so to hear their voices. There, you have no recipe, so you have to come in, and prototype, and really think about what works, and what does not. And this is the kind of developmental space that we're in. And the humanitarian space is chaotic. And in a chaotic space, you need guidance most of the time. In terms of leadership also, you need protocols, you need something that you know, that can work. And in the developmental space, we in the West, apply sometimes, or most of the time actually, still recipes that we think might work, but they don't.
And we don't allow for a lot of prototyping, we don't allow for relearning. And so, this is what I think has to change, and that is the distinction between the humanitarian case where, "Hey, you have to come in. There are blankets, there are food, there is water that is needed," and that is clear, in the developmental space that that really needs different recipes. And still, they are all intermingled, and that's why it's so hard - there are no clear recipes. That's just how it is.
Michael Koehler: Yeah. And I can't help as I'm listening to you, obviously, many of these theories are connected out there. But Heifetz’s core distinction between technical and adaptive is so present in that nuanced framework that you just described, and including the trap, you know, applying a technical solution to an adaptive challenge and it sounds like the recipe is that technical solution.
Susanna Krueger: Oh, this is what we are doing a lot. Not only in policy, we are doing that in Germany, we are doing that in Europe. We are throwing technical solutions to developmental and, as you call it, adaptive problems, where we think we have the solution, or someone has to have the solution. You know, just one guy somewhere has to have the solution. And it's just not true. And come to what I said in the beginning, there is a demand of authoritative structures, and often, of authoritative leadership, which is just not working. And it's hard to get to grips with that. It's hard to live in the ambiguity, in the chaos, and where you have to navigate, where you have to lead people through this, and you yourself through this, because it all mirrors, of course, in yourself, all the anxiety, all the stress, because you think, "Oh my God--" I had so many situations in Save the Children where there were really the problems where I thought, "I have to solve it here."
People think that I have to solve it, and of course, I cannot. Through partnering, I can only find a sanctuary, what Heifetz says. You know, I went to the forest a lot, and I do a lot of meditation, by the way, that helps me a lot. And you also have to really distinguish yourself from your role. That is also something that Heifetz says. You know, people are projecting so much stuff onto you when you are leading such an operation. So, you have to be very clear that you are not the role. Like, you are a person, and then you are a role, and then you have to find a distinguishing component where you can integrate these two perspectives into each other.
So, that's not so easy. And that also comes with inner development, by the way, which is something, and maybe we can speak about that because I think Heifetz is a bit short on the inner development. I think that he has a framework where he says a lot about listening to others, and get ‘on the balcony’, but he doesn't speak so much about what it takes, in terms of listening skills, in terms of living in an ambiguous situation, and also living within war zones, or very complicated situations. What do you do with yourself? How do you stay alive? How do you have the mental capacity to navigate through these things without falling trap to, "Now I'm going to order something. Here's the project management plan, and here's how it works."
Michael Koehler: Yeah. What have you found useful in your own experience? Like, would you share two or three practices that have helped you stay sane, stay alive, stay engaged? Not say like, "Oh my God, get me out of here."
Susanna Krueger: Yeah. What helped was shifting the structure of my attention. I had a very important teacher in my life, that is Peter Senge, and also Otto Scharmer, Otto Scharmer, with the Theory U. And I think where Heifetz falls short is like-- the essence of leadership for Otto Scharmer is to shift the inner place from which we operate, both individually, and collectively. And that means that you learn to listen differently. So, I'll give you an example. You have a conversation with someone, and you say, "Oh, okay. What you say, I know that already."
Then you can say, you listen to someone and just say, "Oh, yes, I can feel that." So, okay, fine. And then you can say, "Let me experience in my own words what I heard from you." That is a different level, and I think the level of listening requires us to access other things than just logic. It requires us to access like open heart, and open conversation, and the capacity to connect. So, this is something that is very important, not only in times of crisis, but in terms of leadership.
So, my experience is that I attend in a certain way, and how I attend, therefore, it merges. You see? So, the quality of the intervention that I do, be it a conversation with staff members, be it a conversation with board members, be it an interview somewhere, the quality of the intervention depends on my inner quality of how I am. How aware I am, how much I can listen, and not only download, and not only represent something. So, it has a lot to do with how am I in the world, and how present am I to be able to really listen to people and connect. And this is the way how you lead in these uncertain situations. So, this is one way.
And it's hard, it's messy, it's not clear. And people will tell you, "We want more leadership. I want more direction." And then you have to sit in this place and say, "Yeah. I know, and I will give it to you, but I will give it to you in a certain way, and in a certain structure, but not as you expect, probably." So, this is a way-- and also, really find space for yourself and get away from it all, that is also very important. And being humble also. Like, you cannot save the world. It's just not possible, and it's okay.
Michael Koehler: Love that. Susanna, we only have a few minutes left, and I want to circle back to your current work, and your latest startup. And I'm intrigued around how the story goes from, "We need to change the way how aid works," to, you know, "I'm engaged in a new organization that shifts the way how we give." Would you just share with us a little bit what you are up to.
Susanna Krueger: Look, we are building a platform, it's called, ‘project bcause’. And we are giving people with money that they want to invest in good causes, the opportunity to connect to each other, and to invest in something that is really helping the sustainable development goals. And what is different, and why I'm doing that is because I think it needs a community to get more private capital into this space, without saying that there is no need for government. But we have so many people in Germany, and in Europe, with so much money, and they don't really bring it to work. And so, that's what we want to do.
And also, to other things that really move me here is, I want to give hope to people who really want to change things in this world, because I think, and coming from Save the Children where I have spoken about crisis, and another crisis, and another crisis, all the times, without ever having a path to a solution other than, "Give us more money." So, I want to build something, a community, a platform, a team, together with investors, together with members, that have great causes, which they can invest in, and finance, and speak to, engage with, that gives them hope.
You know, because there are solutions, it's not only problems. We have solutions, we know what to do in terms of climate. We know that. And it's just not financed enough, and it's not urgent enough. And so, we want to build something like that.
And then, last point, coming from Save the Children, and coming from the social space where I had experienced project logic for the most part, in the past 20 years; which means, a social organization who has experience, who has great staff, who has knowledge, always have to apply for grants in terms of like one year, one and a half year, two years, and then they have to say how many taxi drives they had, and what kind of staff they employ. And I always ask myself, "Why don't we fund social innovation the same way we fund startups that are making profits?
So, a startup gets millions when they have brilliant business ideas nobody has to give in taxi receipts. There are investors who are engaged, and believe in the team, and believe in the idea, and believe in the social cause, or in the business cause in this way. Why don't they believe in the team with the social cause? So, and that's why on our platform, we invest in organizations and in teams, and not on projects. And that, I really find great.
Michael Koehler: Beautiful. So, then, I'll invite you to close out our conversation by reading your quote for one final time, and then I'll close us out with a closing question.
Susanna Krueger: "A sense of purpose is not the same as a clearly defined purpose. A sense of purpose generates defined purposes within any given context by asking simple questions. What is the opportunity now? What is our purpose here?”
Michael Koehler: Susanna, looking forward, what are you being called to do?
Susanna Krueger: I want to be a part of changing the world into a better place, in a humble way, where I can be at my fullest, and where I can connect to people, and where I can help others to be their best.
Michael Koehler: Beautiful. Connection, development, and on behalf of a better world, and in a humble way. I love that.
It's been so inspiring to hear your stories, to hear how that purpose has been coming to life already in your journey, and I'm wishing you all the best for what's there to come. Thank you so much, Susanna.
Susanna Krueger: Oh, thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.
Michael Koehler: We'll be back in two weeks with our final episode of the season where we'll talk with the author himself. Professor Heifetz is joining us to look back at this book 30 years later, and share both how the framework came about, and also how it's been evolving.
If you like the show, follow us and please leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform.
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.
Thanks for listening. We'll see you back for the final episode.