We established the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. This effort began our exploration of crisis leadership as a way for the country to better prepare for and respond to massive disasters. One common complaint at the time was the pervasive “silo mentality.” Organizations and sectors whose joint work was intended to make the nation safer were operating in isolation from one another. Federal agencies were not collaborating. Within agencies, departments and offices acted separately. The federal government did not adequately cooperate with its state and local counterparts. And the private and nonprofit sectors were often kept out of the loop. Information, assets, experience, and relationships were not optimally connected. After 9/11, this disconnectivity quickly came to be seen as a national vulnerability.
To remedy that vulnerability, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was established in 2002 to better coordinate activities by combining twenty-two separate federal agencies into a single entity. However, it takes more than a bureaucratic structural change to accomplish that mission. Forging the actual connectivity was a meta-leadership responsibility. Six years later, DHS secretary Michael Chertoff noted, in addressing the NPLI at Harvard, “I am the first cabinet-level secretary whose job description is meta-leadership.”
We rephrased the question: rather than dismantling silos, how could the silos be better connected and, through that connectivity, be even stronger? The idea caught on. In organizations, silos do in fact have important functions. Specialized knowledge and skills are found there. For example, if your boat capsizes, you want the Coast Guard to come get you. Likewise, the cardiac intensive care unit is where you want to be with a heart problem. A robust finance department is necessary to handle the intricacies of revenue, expenses, taxes, and regulatory compliance. Strong silos foster proficiency in complex work environments. They also offer a reassuring modicum of familiarity and comfort, especially during periods of high stress or crisis.
So silos themselves aren’t the problem: it’s poor communication and anemic connections between them. Silos reward inwardly focused behavior and can be highly resistant to transparency and collaboration with other silos. As a meta-leader, you appreciate the silo when it creates value while building momentum for even greater success through broader engagement. Connecting and empowering silos is what meta-leaders aspire to achieve in leading across and beyond. Influence is your essential tool.
Through our work at the NPLI, connectivity—between leaders and among organizations in different sectors—became a strategy for reducing the vulnerabilities aggravated by silo thinking and behavior. For example, from 2007 to 2012, we presented Meta-Leadership Summits for Preparedness, cosponsored by the CDC, the CDC Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. These events brought together government agencies and private-sector businesses, and community organizations in thirty-two communities across the country. As summit participants embraced collaboration, new opportunities were revealed.
The benefits of connectivity became particularly apparent in large-scale operations, whether responding to a hurricane or terrorist event. No single leader can know how, or have the resources, to mount an all-encompassing response. There is not enough money, expertise, or capability in one place for that. Connectivity emerged for us as a central strategy when we realized that, when you grasp the big picture and how the pieces connect, new reservoirs of capacity and capability emerge.
We also saw that overcoming silo-based antagonism by crafting opportunities—including recognition and reward—encourages shared solutions. These incentives amplify the central narrative of your meta-leadership objective. Complement the typical incentive structure for in-silo performance with acknowledgment of cross-silo achievement and the value derives from it. Whether facing a problem or opportunity, you elevate what can be achieved when you replace traditional rivalries and conflicts with the gains of a shared enterprise.
As the meta-leadership model matured, we extended this connectivity premise to the everyday work of business organizations, government agencies, and nonprofits. Hence, connectivity became a practice to enhance the functioning of each individual, department, or office as part of a larger whole. This is a fundamental premise of meta-leadership.
Walter “Budge” Upton is the chief executive officer of Upton and Partners, a Boston-based real estate development and project management business. The firm oversees planning and construction of large public buildings.
Upton won the contract to serve as director of project development and construction for the ambitious expansion of the Art of the Americas wing at the Boston’s renowned Museum of Fine Arts. The most significant enlargement of the prestigious museum in a century, it was a plum assignment. The dramatic 200,000-square-foot new wing connecting to the existing structure had to be built without closing the museum or moving any more of its priceless collection than absolutely necessary. Construction would be a high-wire act of engineering and logistics, as the design was ambitious, the budget firm, and the deadline set in stone.
One other detail: Upton was actually the fourth project manager to be given the job in the first eighteen months of the expansion.
Four designees started work in the role, and three had been dismissed. As Upton took over, he knew from the start that he faced an arduous challenge. “The project was public and very visible. It involved a high-powered board and museum director, a world-renowned architect whose principal offices were across the ocean in London, and one of the world’s foremost collections of art. The work crews ranged from Italian artisans to union steel workers. It had a high profile physically, politically, and financially.”
The project was also a significant meta-leadership undertaking. Upton had enormous responsibility and limited final authority: his leverage had to be earned through astute influence. He had to lead up to donors, who contributed vast sums to construct the project, as well as to the museum directors. He was confident that associates on his team—to whom he was leading down—were with him, though he would have to support them in weathering the anticipated storms of dissent in coordinating a complex and already conflict-prone operation. He led across to the architects, construction companies, and suppliers working on the building, some of whom were not directly under contract to the museum.
Upton appreciated that his project management and construction qualifications got him the job. It was his meta-leadership skills, however, that would make the difference between success and failure. He would have to lead—get people following him—in all directions simultaneously.
“You have to manage the psychology as much as the logistics,” he told us. Early on, he created an expansive organizational chart that included his team plus the major donors, the museum board and management, public officials, and everyone else whose support he would ultimately need.
“I wanted to be able to see all of the stakeholders,” he explained. Describing how he connected in the situation, he told us that he “walked the job” every day. “If you are seen, particularly by those from other organizations, people assume you know what’s going on. I also had to learn to be a better listener. Every job is different, and so you have to learn all the time. You have to be tolerant in resolving the ‘people’ problems. And you have to learn to build confidence in your own problem-solving. When it is time for you to make a decision, you must. And you also occasionally have to eat a little crow along the way to keep things moving. You don’t want to be right all of the time.”
He learned critical meta-leadership lessons along the way: “Make the levels of authority clear so that you know where the lines are drawn as events unfold,” Upton said. “You want to know who has authority, how much you have, and how much your superior has. When dealing with subcontractors, you don’t have full authority, so you have to be careful about the contract: the scope, cost, and the schedule. You have to meet the people and go to their shop—look out for their attitude as well as their competency.”
Critical in his leading up
—to a powerful project executive committee of six influential trustees—was establishing a clear process to let them know what was going on. They met at least every two weeks during the project.
“If you sit on a problem, you’re gone,” Upton said. “Create a safe environment for airing all problems and then for reaching decisions.”
There was also a large “anonymous” donor—whose identity was a well-known secret—with his own agenda. When it came time to choose a general contractor, Upton knew who was best for the job; however, he wanted the decision to be theirs—the trustees’ and the anonymous donor’s—as long as it was the right decision. The contractor he recommended—who was eventually selected—had never been sued by a project owner. This was a key attribute that spoke to relationships as well as the quality of work. Upton intentionally sought a general contractor with a history that demonstrated an orientation toward partnerships rather than adversarial relationships—in other words, a good connector. It would be good for the project and make his own meta-leadership easier as well.
Numerous problems arose that required Upton’s diplomacy in leading across, among them the issue of the exterior stone selection for the building, a topic of extensive debate. Junkets were flown all over the world to look at different stone. Ten mock-ups were built, and opinions about them were diverse and passionate. The architect’s preferred option—and the most expensive—was to reactivate a closed Italian quarry in order to extract its black marble. Concerns were expressed that, while it looked impressive in some lights, it could appear ominous and forbidding in others. The architect’s team insisted, however, on presenting their recommendation to the trustees.
Upton did not want to get in the middle of this fight, even though he had an obvious stake in the outcome. He scheduled a meeting for the architect’s team to pitch their preference to the trustees, orchestrating the discussion to ensure that the right people were in the audience. Upton knew that it was up to the trustees to make the decision. He also knew the option he wanted to go with himself in order to keep work on budget and on schedule. Advocating for it directly, however, would have pitted him against the architects, with negative ramifications for the rest of the project. He had confidence that the trustees shared his concern about finances and timing, even as they respected the architect’s vision and expertise. He trusted them to be prudent when they weighed all of the relevant factors.
After the presentation by the architect’s team, the board decided to use gray marble from nearby Deer Isle, Maine. It was aesthetically pleasing, could be purchased at a reasonable price, and delivery was not an issue. It was a small yet significant victory and an important test of Upton’s stewardship of the project.
The project architect remained resolute throughout. There was a dispute over whether to include light louvers planned for the top-floor gallery. The architectural team insisted on them. The anonymous donor’s team said, “Over our dead bodies.” Upton knew that indecision would seriously delay the work. He also discerned that taking the louvers out of the plan would be a significant change, costing about $1 million. The donor’s representative did not want the louvers and even more, they did not want to spend the money to change the plans. This gave Upton the chance to establish himself as a decision-maker: the light louvers would remain. From the architect, Upton earned respect as a champion of the design. From the donor, he got credit as a guardian of the budget. He looked good to both while also managing to keep the project on track.
Upton offered political advice for meta-leaders: look for and connect with allies who understand the politics, especially if you don’t. “I cultivated allies who understood what was going on. Without them, I would have been flying politically blind. As a result, I was able to protect myself. Often, you need those allies along with a lot of information to make a judgment, which may, from the outside, appear arbitrary. As leader, you have to provide direction to the many people involved and then accept the consequences. Be honest about your own strengths and weaknesses, and build your team to compensate for what you lack. Ultimately, in a job like this, you have to be accountable.
“As a leader, you want to model balanced decision-making behavior. Acknowledge to the stakeholders what has to happen. Put it on the table. Also acknowledge that all decisions will not be right and that sometimes the worst case can be no decision.”
The museum’s Art of the Americas wing, with fifty-three new galleries and more than five thousand works of art, opened on November 20, 2010, to rave reviews. Upton and his team made it all the way to successful project completion.
Map-Gap-Gives-Gets
Your meta-leadership ventures may not be as public or ambitious as Budge Upton’s. Nevertheless, his story is instructive. He forged the necessary connectivity of effort to get the project done. He was a presence for everyone involved in a mammoth and complex venture. He engaged them and the situation, and in the process he learned, taught, and gained influence. Upton was able to guide decision-making in directions he saw as beneficial to the project, though he often did so with hands-off ingenuity. He managed as he led and led as he managed. Understanding key relationships and how one person can affect others, he leveraged that knowledge and those connections to build momentum where his attention and endorsement were needed. He clearly perceived the obstacles.
Recognizing the sometime divergent motivations of the many stakeholders involved, Upton was able to forge mutually acceptable—or at least mutually tolerable—solutions to guide the project over foreboding hurdles. Most important, in his coordinating role, he recognized the connectivity between one set of activities and other activities, and between one group of people and other groups. He was also aware of the impact of each decision and action on the whole enterprise. It was that sensitivity and understanding—the essence of the meta-leadership mind-set—that kept him on the project and kept the project on track.
To help other leaders achieve similar results, we developed “Map-Gap-Gives-Gets,” a tool for building connectivity. The map shows the contours of the situation—what is happening or needs to happen. Upton’s detailed project plan combined with an expansive organizational chart that included all stakeholders to create a map of the terrain he would traverse.
In being seen on the job and regularly meeting with key constituents, Upton was able to spot gaps—differences between what was supposed to be happening and the reality on the ground. He did not have the authority to command people to meet his every demand. Instead, in closing the gaps to resolve the conflicts over the exterior marble and the gallery louvers, Upton astutely laid out the consequences in terms that the stakeholders could appreciate. He specified the gives—tangible elements, such as money, as well as less tangible elements, such as aesthetics. This opened them to exploring what each was willing to give and get—the transaction—in order to move the project forward (“I’ll give on the louvers I dislike because I’ll get to avoid a million-dollar addition to the budget”).
Map-Gap-Gives-Gets is a tool that uses four simple words to frame complex and critical calculations. Applying influence beyond authority, you persuade others to join together. Whether renovating a prestigious museum or preparing for a major crisis, you connect and leverage the wide-ranging capacity of organizations and people. When you lead an emerging integrated health system, you better and more efficiently meet patient health needs and you control costs by connecting different departments, specialties, and services. If your business is assembling a complex global supply chain, you connect with suppliers and with others who affect the flow of goods, including governments, nongovernmental organizations, shippers, trade organizations, and local communities.
Shortly after Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen was asked by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to serve as national incident commander for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, he called upon Rear Admiral Peter Neffenger to be his deputy.
We observed Neffenger as he assumed his post in New Orleans on May 7, 2010. As we a
rrived, Neffenger was being prepared to conduct his first daily briefing to report on what was happening both at sea and on shore.
The first appointment was the 10 a.m. “governors call.” This exercise in connectivity would become a daily ritual throughout the response. Leaders of the directly affected states met via teleconference with the array of federal agency leads and White House staff assigned to lead the emergency response. Neffenger reported each day on what the Coast Guard knew and what was being done in the field. That first day, he was told that four governors would be on the call, and he prepared accordingly. Roll call was taken. The governors of three states responded “present.”
For forty minutes, Neffenger presented information on the situation and answered questions. He outlined what was known about the oil leakage far out in the Gulf, the resources and assets being assembled in each state to get ahead of the spill, and the efforts to limit damage to shore areas. Given the wide scope of the emergency and the limited supplies to contain the oil, it was necessarily a Map-Gap-Gives-Gets exercise.
Suddenly, a loud voice bellowed aggressively through the speaker: “I knew it. You’re doing it again!” There was an uncomfortable silence. Finally, Neffenger spoke: “Excuse me, who is speaking?” Presidential senior advisor Valerie Jarrett, on the call to represent the White House, recognized the agitated voice on the line and welcomed a fourth governor to the call. Going into a tirade, he was furious that efforts were being discussed for each of the states—but not his. Once again, silence. Neffenger spoke slowly, “I apologize, sir, had I known that you were on the phone, I would have spoken about your state.” The governor hit back: he and his staff had been listening silently to see what would happen. It was just like Katrina, he said—other states were getting attention and support while his was ignored. This governor was identifying a gap that affected his state and he was geared for a fight.
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