‘Building on a bedrock of failure:’ My personal leadership retrospective for OpenSavannah in 2018
What I learned about myself, my limitations, and the dangers of leading “from in front” — and why 2019 can be a tipping point in our movement for the Savannah we see possible as we barrel into nearly the third decade of the twenty-first century
I’m a failure.
There, I said it. Spilled the Gourmet Parker’s jumbo cup of coffee on your lap. Forgot to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day in Savannah.
But, disarming and hokey local references to deflect from my seriousness aside, I won’t sugarcoat it: I failed to be the community leader I should have been for OpenSavannah in the latter half of 2018.
I’ve let down some of our most committed volunteers by not doing enough to ensure that well-meaning events meant to bridge divides don’t end up feeling like another case of what local resident and friend John McMasters aptly and succinctly dubbed “stakeholder fatigue.”
I’ve strained the patience of our most ardent cheerleaders (if not all of them, at some point or another). And I ignored the wisdom of existing community insight when cautioned by multiple members of an amazing and truly dedicated volunteer Core Team, who’ve made this journey become what it is and who have been there to make this possible from the beginning, when I failed to build team consensus, then wrote off their legitimate and well-meaning concerns as petty pessimism that we could somehow magically overcome with a single day of deliberative democracy.
To put it bluntly, I focused on shiny objects rather than putting the needs of the community and the needs of dedicated, well-meaning local public servants coming to us looking for help for the first time in such a trusting way. I put people’s needs behind the imaginary needs in my mind. How did I manage to let others down?
For one, I led from the front, not the back; at too many points, sensing no strong opposition otherwise and feeling somehow I, by virtue of having read about it from some other place, some other community, thought I knew the best solution. I failed to follow the core principle of strong and inclusive community leadership: “leading from behind.”
I used a fork when I really needed a shovel or a bulldozer and lots more time. I applied what Warner Robins native Jessica Lord dubs a “fork-and-go” solution to the complex human and dynamic communal process of restoring a depleted civic bank account. You can’t ‘fork and go’ your way to repairing deep, systemic, long-brewing communal discontent. You can’t just shovel software patterns onto deeply entrenched civic issues with roots as tangly and deeply intertwined into the soil as a 100-year-old bald-cypress and expect fresh seeds of civic trust to sprout up in a day.
I also forgot the wise words of urbanist Jane Jacobs — the very same words I so frequently loved to cite in the first year of this journey together — “There is no greater expertise than locality knowledge.” Put the user first, always.
Did I in my mind have good intentions? Certainly. Was I naive? Definitely! Hypocritical without noticing it at the time? Guilty.
But are our divisions as a community forever intractable?
On that last point I will have to say no. I must. To say otherwise would be write off our potential to be the Savannah I see show up in the most unexpected places; the Savannah that has jumped on board with foreign-sounding civic-techno talk about how we can help — how we should offer up our diverse, cross-discipline talents and gifts — to help build a local government that works better for all residents in the 21st century.
“Through a paradigm of predicting failure on a consistent basis, you develop a kind of predictive awareness … the same thematic awareness gives you the clarity that bridges the gap to the ultimate make. Failure shapes us proportionally as individuals and as a community. This up-close and personal relationship between failure and risk . . . is a mutual understanding we have, a shared ethos and pivots you to corrective action.” –Rodney Mullen, skateboard entrepreneur, Code for America Summit, 2018.
Failure itself happens to all of us from time to time, and it’s something that, as long as we keep going and refuse to let it slow us down while learning to correct course and pivot from our failures, we should wear as a badge of honor. But for me particularly I’ve always had a difficult time admitting it when I fail. I don’t know if it’s blind hypocrisy, aversion to criticism, or simple stubbornness, but I have not always been one who walks the walk of failing fast. It’s easy to talk the talk of failing fast, though. It’s harder to admit you were wrong and let go of your ego to keep moving forward. I’m thankful to patient and forgiving teammates, past, present, and future, to have helped create the seeds for change in Savannah.
I’m less ashamed of failure now. But I’ve never been more committed to the ideals of this community and the shared ethos we have, either. Failure has bred a coat of resilience.
We’ve planted the seeds for change with our wins and with our recovery from failures. Those seeds are firmly pressed into the soil. Now, let’s start watering them!
Where do we go from here?
That’s up to us. It’s up to us as a community. Not me, but us. Not them — someone else, someone whose ‘job’ it supposedly is — but us. All of us.
This isn’t going to happen without a community behind it. We have that. Let’s just do a better job at distributing the task. Let’s decide it’s worth fixing. Let’s get moving.
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A word of advice to other community leaders: The lesson I take home from this is that it’s critical to treat your community members with respect, give them a seat at the table, and allow dissent to be voiced in an open environment early on. Never assume you know the answer. Don’t apply off the shelf solutions to complex issues without testing them to ensure they meet the needs of your community. Do your research. Build consensus. And never take feedback as an “insult” or “mean” (umm, gendered much?) or write skepticism from your community off as pessimistic ipso facto. This feedback is a sign of a healthy community, not a weak one.
