The Journal, Summer 2015

THE

JOURNAL

INSPIRATION FOR THE COMMON GOOD • VOLUME 7 • ISSUE 3 • SUMMER 2015 • $10.00

Lessons Learned from a Failed Merger THE FORT HAYS STATE AND DODGE CITY COMMUNITY COLLEGE PLAN

Rally Round the Flag?

IS THE KANSAS FLAG DUE FOR A REDESIGN?

Ropin’ Them In STARTING WHERE THE COWBOYS ARE

GROWING PUBLIC SERVANTS A PLAYBOOK FOR LEADING LOCALLY

(Print edition: ISSN 2328-4366; Online edition: ISSN 2328-4374) is published quarterly by the Kansas Leadership Center, which receives core funding from the Kansas Health Foundation.

The Kansas Leadership Center equips people with the ability to make lasting change for the common good. KLC focuses on leadership being an activity, not a role or position. Open to anyone seeking to move the needle on tough challenges in the civic arena, KLC envisions more Kansans sharing responsibility for acting together in pursuit of the common good.

KLC MISSION

To foster civic leadership for healthier Kansas communities

Jeff Tuttle Photography 316.706.8529 jefftuttlephotography.com

To be the center of excellence for civic leadership development

David Lindstrom, Overland Park (Chair) Ed O’Malley, Wichita (President & CEO) Ron Holt, Wichita Karen Humphreys, Wichita Susan Kang, Lawrence Carolyn Kennett, Parsons Greg Musil, Overland Park Reggie Robinson, Topeka Consuelo Sandoval, Garden City Clayton Tatro, Fort Scott Frank York, Ashland

JOURNAL CONTRIBUTORS

ARTWORK

Marcia Streepy marciastreepy.net MANAGING EDITOR

Chris Green 316.712.4945 cgreen@kansasleadershipcenter.org ART DIRECTION + DESIGN

Novella Brandhouse 816.868.9825 www.novellabrandhouse.com CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

KLC VISION

KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER BOARD OF DIRECTORS

PHOTOGRAPHY

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Sarah Caldwell Hancock Mark McCormick Dawn Bormann Novascone Laura Roddy Patsy Terrell Brian Whepley

Brian Whepley CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Brian spent 16 years working in daily newspapers, including The Wichita Eagle, and now writes and edits for nonprofits, businesses and individuals. A passionate music fan, he is married to Kathy, a teacher, and has two children, Erin and Drew.

COPY EDITORS

Bruce Janssen Shannon Littlejohn ILLUSTRATIONS

Pat Byrnes Erin DeGroot

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Anne Dewvall Jim McLean Darrin Stineman Joe Stumpe

WEB EDITION

Joe Stumpe CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Born in southern Illinois, Joe studied journalism at the University of Missouri in Columbia. A writer, musician and culinary instructor, he’s spent his career along the Arkansas River, working in Texarkana, Tulsa and Little Rock before moving to Wichita in 1999.

http://issuu.com/kansasleadershipcenter SUBSCRIPTIONS

Annual subscriptions available at klcjr.nl/amzsubscribe ($24.95 for four issues).

Single issues available for $10 at klcjr.nl/publicservants.

PERMISSIONS

Abstracting is permitted with credit to the source.

For other reprint, copying or reproduction permission contact Mike Matson at mmatson@kansasleadershipcenter.org.

Anne Dewvall KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER

325 East Douglas Avenue Wichita, KS 67202 www.kansasleadershipcenter.org

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Also a novelist and newspaper columnist, Anne writes frequently about entrepreneurship and is fascinated by the idea of using stories to catalyze change. An avid reader, she often frequents local businesses – especially craft breweries – with her husband and two rambunctious dogs.

Contents INSPIRATION FOR THE COMMON GOOD • VOLUME 7 • ISSUE 3 • SUMMER 2015 PUBLISHED BY KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER

2.

Welcome to the Journal BY: PRESIDENT AND CEO ED O’MALLEY

4.

Dispatches from the Kansas Leadership Center BY: CHRIS GREEN

7.

Turning a Page: Konza Book Clubs BY: DARRIN STINEMAN

12.

Leadership Library Alumni Edition

20.

62.

BY: JIM MCLEAN

BY: MARK MCCORMICK

28.

68.

BY: BRIAN WHEPLEY

BY: CHRIS GREEN

42.

76.

Carrying the Torch: Profile of State Rep. John Rubin

Growing Public Servants: A Playbook for Leading with Authority

Lessons fron a Failed Merger: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly BY: JOE STUMPE

BY: KONZA SALINA

14.

Fiction: Resolution Part 1: Dropping a Bombshell BY: ANNE DEWVALL ILLLUSTRATED BY: ERIN DEGROOT

56.

Ropin’ Them In: Lessons in ‘Starting Where They Are” BY: JEFF TUTTLE

How Eisenhower’s ‘Hidden Hand’ Destroyed Joseph McCarthy

Rally Round the Flag?

A conversation about the Kansas State Flag

Apparent POET LAUREATE ERIC MCHENRY

78.

The French Clown FEATURED ARTIST MARIA STREEPY

80.

The Back Page BY: MARK MCCORMICK

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LETTER FROM KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER PRESIDENT & CEO ED O’MALLEY

The Case of the $3 Million Fix KANSAS’ FINANCIAL WOES ARE GROUNDED IN AN ADAPTIVE CHALLENGE.

“The single biggest mistake we make when trying to exercise leadership is treating an adaptive challenge as if it were technical.”

-MARTY LINSKY, former GOP legislator, aide to two GOP governors in Massachusetts, leadership scholar, author and friend of KLC.

No doubt Marty has seen things like this before.

The seduction to treat adaptive challenges as if they were technical is ever present, especially in politics.

As part of the wrap-up to the longest session in state history, the Legislature passed and the governor signed a bill that allocates $3 million to hire a consultant to scrutinize the budget, looking for ways to save money (hopefully at least $3 million worth). The idea is a technical fix. The underlying challenge is adaptive. Hello mismatch.

Those of you unhappy with the Legislature’s recent work might be tempted to gloat as you read this. Not so fast. Truth is we all fall victim to this way of thinking. Is the political class’ $3 million technical fix any different than when we subscribe to the latest diet fad to lose those 20 pounds? Or, when we vow to be “more organized” at the start of the new year?

I use the phrase “$3 million consultant fix,” not to cast blame, but as a case study to help us all learn about the allure of technical fixes.

A bit of history: The state’s budget faces a major structural imbalance due to tax and budget decisions by the governor and Legislature beginning in 2012. The Kansas budget is in crisis and, therefore, so are Kansas schools, universities, road projects, programs for the vulnerable, etc.

Despite this year’s significant budget cuts to various agencies and the largest tax increase in state history, estimates are that another $400 million will need to be cut next year just to balance the budget.

Budgets can feel “technical,” with all those numbers and such. But budgets – a family’s, an organization’s or a state’s – convey what we value, so cutting the budget means reordering what we value, an adaptive process for sure.

Technical issues have clear problem definitions, obvious and clear solution definitions and the work belongs to experts with the know-how to get the job done. Adaptive challenges lack clear problem or solution definitions and often aren’t found in status quo thinking and operating.

This difference between adaptive and technical challenges is the starting point for the ideas we seek to convey through the Kansas Leadership Center.

Adaptive challenges put the disparity between our values and our circumstances directly in front of us. We’d rather avoid that, thank you very much. The $3 million technical fix was so alluring because it allowed the Legislature to put off tough choices about values, thus avoiding some of the risks associated with exercising leadership.

Granted, there may be times when a technical fix to an adaptive challenge may come in handy.

We may need to buy time; we may need to consciously satisfy key factions. The key is to deploy technical fixes on purpose, as a tactic to a larger strategy aimed at getting to the core of the adaptive challenge, and ideally without a $3 million price tag.

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There are myriad factors, that, taken together, have brought Kansas to its current budget situation. Some are stratospheric in their nature: The role of government in our lives, the innate complexity of elective politics, competing public policy approaches, the emotions of human beings when change impacts their faction.

Our current Kansas budget woes are one big, messy adaptive challenge. Is there a clear disparity between our values and our existing circumstances? Do solutions lie outside our current way of operating? Yes and yes.

Think about the adaptive challenges facing your organization or community? What’s your version of a “$3 million budget cutting consultant”? Perhaps that economic development consultant from out of town? Maybe the consultant brought in to design new strategies for company growth?

All of this comes back to the need for people who wish to exercise leadership to distinguish the adaptive challenges from the technical problems.

Fail to make that distinction and you are on your way to bringing Marty’s “single biggest mistake” comment to life. On the other hand, get it right and you are on your way to the hard work of leadership – helping your people renegotiate their values.

Onward!

PRESIDENT & CEO KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER

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Dispatches FROM THE KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER

YOUR LEADERSHIP EDGE CAPTION CONTEST

Write a caption for this Your Leadership Edge cartoon about exploring tough interpretations. Craft a witty, pithy or insightful entry using KLC leadership ideas and submit it to yle@kansasleadershipcenter.org. You’ll become eligible to win the YLE cartoon book. Last issue’s winner was Michelle L. Eastman of Wichita.

CHAMPIONING LEADERSHIP

About 200 partners of the Kansas Leadership Center have committed to a new initiative designed to increase the reach and impact of leadership principles and competencies in their communities and organizations.

The KLC Champions Initiative includes directors and facilitators of community leadership programs, Konza alumni gathering champions, faith partners, health alliance partners and other key alumni of KLC programs.

Through the initiative, partners will be able to learn more ways to leverage KLC and its offerings and expose more people in their community or organization to thinking adaptively through KLC training and ideas.

The effort will provide a structure to support partners and alumni leveraging KLC training and resources to make progress, provide a way for alumni to connect more people in their community to KLC and create a coalition to push KLC to improve its efforts to foster civic leadership for healthier Kansas communities.

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CREATING A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

Nearly 150 teachers, coaches, facilitators, practitioners and consultants from across Kansas and beyond convened at the Kansas Leadership Center in June for the first-ever Teaching Leadership conference.

The conference featured keynote presentations from Marty Linsky of Cambridge Leadership Associates, who helped pioneer the Case-in-Point teaching method at Harvard University, and Deborah Helsing, whose organization Minds at Work advances change in individuals and organizations through the Immunity to Change process.

The conference also marked the release of a new book, “Teaching Leadership: Case-in-Point, Case Studies and Coaching” by Chris Green and Julia Fabris McBride. This KLC Press offering can be purchased online at http://klcjr.nl/buytlbook.

Teaching Leadership conferences are designed to nurture a community of practice for all levels of the leadership teaching experience. A second multidisciplinary Teaching Leadership conference will be offered Oct. 7-9. It will feature an interactive keynote from Carter and Teri McNamara of Authenticity Consulting and offers tracks that cover KLC principles and competencies, case teaching fundamentals, facilitating peer coaching groups and strengthening community leadership programs.

For more information, visit http://kansasleadershipcenter.org/programs/teaching-leadership/ conference.

FALL OFFERINGS

KLC’s monthly opportunities for Kansans from all walks of life to learn or hone leadership skills will continue into the fall. Sessions of KLC’s three-day You. Lead. Now. experience will run Sept. 14-16, Oct. 12-14 and Nov. 16-18.

This program helps individuals who want to add value to their efforts by gaining knowledge,

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skills and personal insight that will help them advance what they care about.

For more information, visit www.kansasleadershipcenter.org/programs.

WORKSHOPS UPDATE

Two opportunities remain for participants to develop specific leadership teaching skills at one-day workshops.

Sept. 9, Case-in-Point in the Classroom; and Nov. 11, Facilitating Leadership Coaching Circles. These workshops are ideal for individuals using KLC’s leadership framework, although anyone with a passion and aptitude for developing others may attend.

UPCOMING SESSIONS ARE:

The cost of the workshops is $100.

For more information or to register, please visit: klcjr.nl/tlwrkshps OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALUMNI

Continue learning and stay connected to leadership ideas – and other KLC alumni – through Konza gatherings and On the Balcony conference calls.

Konza gatherings provide an environment for alumni to continue their leadership learning and connect with others in their community who have learned the KLC framework. Learn more about Konza gatherings by visiting klcjr.nl/konzaclubs. You can find out about upcoming Konza events near you on KLC’s Facebook page at klcjr. nl/konzaevents.

On the Balcony calls, monthly conversations about leadership for the common good, are hosted by KLC President and CEO Ed O’Malley. For more information, visit: http://klcjr.nl/onthebalcony.

UPCOMING ON THE BALCONY SESSIONS:

Sept. 8, Take the temperature; Oct. 6, Act experimentally; Nov. 10, Identify who needs to do the work; Dec. 1, Get used to uncertainty and conflict.

“

I F YO U R

ACT I O N S I N S P I R E OT H E RS TO

dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a LEADER

”

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

– JOHN QUINCY ADAMS

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T U R N I N G A PAGE TA K I N G A ST E P F O R W A R D I N Y O U R L E A D E R S H I P L E A R N I N G J O U R N E Y C A N B E A S S I M P L E A S CO N V E N I N G A L E A D E R S H I P B O O K C LU B

By: DARRIN STINEMAN

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The idea of reading books with the intent of discussing them with others to glean leadership lessons may not be unheard of, but leadership is hardly typical fodder for a literary discussion at your local bookstore or library.

Just about everyone knows what a book club is. But a leadership book club?

Over the past two years, a growing number of groups in Kansas have started using discussions about the content of books and magazines to continue their study of the Kansas Leadership Center’s principles and competencies of civic leadership.

“He got to participate in all the fun events at night, and I was home with the kids,” says Brown, 30, director of professional education and outreach at Kansas State University Salina.

“I said, ‘You know, I’d really like to be involved with the group. What would be a way I could do that?’”

In Salina, members of the Read It, Lead It! book club, a collaborative effort involving leadership-program alumni and young professionals, have drawn abundant inspiration from being part of the group.

Brown and a co-worker put together a flier and the Young Professionals group promoted it, but there wasn’t much response. About a year later, Weis, one of the organizers of a Leadership Salina and KLC alumni group called Konza Salina, got in touch with Brown about making Read It, Lead It! a partnership between the two entities.

And a lot of that inspiration only indirectly had to do with books.

The group now has 10 to 15 members for its bimonthly book discussions.

“I always, always pick up at least one or two very practical tips from each meeting that I can take back and apply to my work or home-life situation,” says Susan Weis, 37, a finance officer at the local community foundation.

“It’s not even generally what’s in the content of the book. What we get out of talking about it is very helpful as well. I think my favorite part is, when we have our discussions, just listening to everyone’s point of view and what they got out of the book. It could be entirely different from the way I interpreted things in the book.”

KLC alumni from other parts of the state also have launched book or magazine discussions in the spirit of continued learning. Konza Kansas City launched its book club this year while KLC alumni with Konza Emporia are meeting quarterly to discuss articles being published in The Journal.

The genesis of Salina’s club was sparked by a desire for adult fellowship as much scholarship or skill-building. About three years ago, Danielle Brown and her husband, Eric, were members of the Salina Area Young Professionals when Danielle realized that her membership in the group was in word only.

Konza gatherings provide an environment for KLC alumni to continue learning about civic leadership and to connect with others in their community who have had similar KLC experiences.

There are currently Konza gatherings in about a dozen communities throughout the state.

In Salina, members select books for discussion, and a facilitator is chosen from within the group.

Starting next year, a Bring Your Own Book – Literary Smorgasbord will be added to the rotation.

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“We knew we were going to meet six times and there were only five of us to lead discussion, so we said, ‘Let’s make this last one a free-forall,’” Weis says. “Sometimes it’s fun to just share titles that you’ve read that have been very interesting to you. I’m kind of excited to see what people bring to the table.”

As the name of the club implies, leadership is the main theme of the books that are discussed.

They generally fall into four categories: change management, innovation/creativity, motivation and career management.

Titles discussed so far have included “Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration” by Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar Animation Studios; “The Fred Factor: How Passion in Your Work and Life Can Turn the Ordinary Into the Extraordinary”

by Mark Sanborn; and “Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action”

by Simon Sinek.

Discussion styles vary from facilitator to facilitator.

Weis said she particularly enjoyed facilitator Kay Quinn’s approach to “Creativity, Inc.,” which veered toward the unconventional. The discussion took place at the Salina Art Center and required participants to put their creative juices to work in a hands-on activity.

“We broke up into two groups and were given two sets of different supplies, and we were told to imagine a beautiful home or garden setting,” Weis says. “One group was given prettier, fancier things and had a much easier time coming up with something pretty. The other group was given very simple things and had to use a lot of creativity using those items. It was fun.

“Our discussions are a little bit different every time. There are some times when we ask some very general questions, and everybody just chimes in and gives their feedback. Other times, we have hands-on activities that are kind of crafty, thinking-type activities that are very structured.”

Debbie Irwin facilitated “The Fred Factor” last year. “’The Fred Factor’ was a really good

one for me,” says Irwin, 58, who is circulation director for the Salina Journal. “It’s a book about a postman in Colorado and how he goes above and beyond in customer service, and his name is Fred and that’s how it became ‘The Fred Factor.’

The idea is to try to do a Fred Factor thing every day, where you try to do something above and beyond for someone else. That’s the part of the book to carry forward.”

Like Weis, Irwin says she has drawn a lot of wisdom from the books, but even more from the other members of Read It, Lead it!

“The reason I love it is it’s a combination of people from the Leadership Salina alumni and the Young Professionals group here in Salina, so it’s a nice mix of people that crosses all industries,” Irwin says. “Those of us in Leadership Salina tend to be a little older, and the people with the Young Professionals group are younger, in their 20s and 30s.

“I think it brings different ideas and perspectives, because millennials think a lot differently than baby boomers. We can all collectively decide what might be the best route when we’re reading a book or talking about an issue at work. That’s where you really come together.”

The book club is just one way that Konza Salina makes its presence known. Earlier this year, the group hosted a charity micro-funding dinner to connect the community with local projects that need cultivating with seed money. It also offers quarterly network-and-learn events and monthly 30-minute Coffee and Competencies gatherings.

Brown says she has gained a lot from being part of Read It, Lead It! “I think we make it a point to read books that cause you to constantly re-evaluate how you approach people, how you approach work, how you approach different facets of your life. It’s important, because if you don’t do that, you can get stuck in a rut. I think the active reading and self-reflection helps you to grow and define your role in the world and define yourself as a leader.”

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H O W TO STA RT A LE A D E RS H I P B OOK CLUB L E S S O N S F R O M KO N Z A S A L I N A

1.

Set a direction and stay with it.

Determine what kind of leadership materials you will be exploring in your club.

2.

Give it a name and spread the word. You want to brand and market your club in a way that gives others something to follow and buy into.

Kendra Pratt, an employee at Sunflower Bank in Salina, participates in a Konza Salina book club event last year.

3.

Balance focus with choice. You want to choose reads that follow the direction you’ve set but also offer a variety of selections to choose from.

4.

Make your meeting times stick. Follow through with your scheduled meeting times and try not to hedge when things get busy.

5.

Share the work.

Partner with others to lead sessions.

A club shouldn’t be one person doing all the work.

Everyone should be making a contribution.

Discussion Guide 1.

What leadership hurdles did Salina alumni overcome in their efforts to connect around leadership ideas? In your view, what has allowed their efforts to progress?

2.

What challenges do you face in connecting with other KLC alumni? What experiments might you undertake to develop a stronger network for advancing your learning and practice of key leadership ideas?

“Creativity, Inc.� is one of several7 books THE JOURNAL that have sparked leadership discussions in the Read It, Lead It! book club.

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The Leadership Library WHAT ALUMNI ARE READING

What do leadership program alumni read to continue their learning? The following reviews, submitted by participants in Konza Salina’s Read It, Lead It! book club, show the breadth of what constitutes a good leadership read.

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“Intrinsic Motivation at Work”

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BY KENNETH W. THOMAS

In the modern workplace, the employee motivational models of earlier eras are gone. Today, employees are challenged to use their intelligence and experience to proactively direct their work. This book describes a four-step, self-management process for employees with resulting intrinsic (psychological) rewards crucial for keeping staff engaged in their work and striving to reach organization-wide goals.

“Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out Of the Box”

BY THE ARBINGER INSTITUTE

As a new hire, Tom is full of boardroom confidence and energy. After an intensive session or two with his CEO, Bud, Tom begins to see how he practices self-betrayal to justify his distorted, judgmental views of others and their actions. Being “in the box” means seeing co-workers or family members significantly more flawed than we are. Getting “out of the box” means seeing yourself as equally biased.

A good choice for getting a team to reduce blame and increase compassion, to view themselves and others more accurately.

“Creativity, Inc.”

BY ED CATMULL WITH AMY WALLACE

Pixar founder Catmull outlines his views on taking leadership to a new dimension.

He gives readers a behind-the-scenes view of the successes of Pixar and Disney Animation, including the paradigm shift his teams helped foster in the animated-film industry. He provides applicable examples of “why equal voices count” and how conflicting corporate cultures can be poisonous. “Creativity, Inc.” also offers solid, usable tips on how to lead people and strive for the best results possible.

“Profiles in Courage”

BY JOHN F. KENNEDY

Written in 1955 while Kennedy was a junior U.S. senator from Massachusetts, this book still inspires many in business and government. It features accounts of eight sometimes overlooked patriots, each of whom also were U.S. senators, including John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton and Sam Houston. One of five books credited to Kennedy – this one written while he was bedridden due to back surgery – “Profiles” was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1957. There have long been rumblings that his speechwriter, Theodore Sorensen, had involvement in the book’s drafting.

The 2006 “P.S.” edition commemorates the 50th anniversary of the book’s publication with an introduction by Caroline Kennedy, vintage photographs, an extensive author biography and some of Kennedy’s correspondence as he was writing. The book serves as a reminder to those operating in today’s volatile political climate of the importance of standing up for important principles in the face of pressure and opposition.

What are you reading, watching or listening to as a way of continuing your leadership learning? Email your book, film or other suggestions to Chris Green, managing editor of The Journal, at cgreen@kansasleadershipcenter.org.

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FICTION: A CIVIC LEADERSHIP DILEMMA AT A NONPROFIT

Resolution PART 1:

Dropping a Bombshell By: ANNE DEWVALL

Illustrations: ERIN DEGROOT

“Let’s rock this,” said Felicity Hoffman, high-fiving her co-worker David Bell as they hurried down a richly carpeted corridor.

The annual board meeting of FREAD, a nonprofit literacy and career-training program for female inmates that Felicity ran, was always a special occasion. Today the board of directors had reserved a room at the area’s most exclusive country club, bestowing an air of festivity on the gathering.

Felicity, FREAD’s co-executive director in charge of outreach, looked forward to this meeting as a chance to share testimonials and receive the board’s endorsement of the budget. Sound leadership historically had been rewarded with approval as the board rubber-stamped Felicity’s plans.

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CONTEST:

Finish the Story Write your own 150-300 word summary of how Felicity could resolve this situation using the Kansas Leadership Center’s leadership principles and competencies. The best entry will receive a high-quality, commemorative print of an image from the Summer Journal.

You can submit an entry for consideration here: http://klcjr.nl/findingrescontest

“Good luck in there, kiddo. Not that you need it,” David, her co-executive director and the nonprofit’s director of operations, smiled warmly as they pushed open the paneled oak doors of the executive conference room.

The carpeting instantly deadened all stray sounds, and Felicity sank into a leather chair while David distributed binders around the polished walnut table. It took a moment for her to realize how unusually quiet the group was.

Normally, the room crackled with energy and ideas, but today’s mood was icy. Marta Carroll, a feisty older executive who had mentored Felicity through many of the organization’s growing pains, stared diligently at her agenda.

“Before you go any further,” chairman Emmet Stone began after calling the meeting to order, “There’s an important item of business to discuss which supersedes all others, I’m afraid.”

Good news never begins with an apology.

Felicity could feel her hands begin to shake and forced them under the table.

“It’s time to take FREAD in a different direction.”

The words smashed into Felicity’s consciousness like a hammer. She dug her heels into the rug as the world spun around her.

“What – what does that mean?” she gasped as soon as she was able to speak.

After a moment of agonizingly awkward silence, Emmet explained that the board wanted to disband the 501(c)(3) and fold the organization’s intellectual assets and leadership into their largest corporate donor, the Mueller Company. After the nonprofit was dismantled, select employees would be hired by Mueller to run a new division with a similar mission to FREAD. “Times are tight,” Emmet explained. Although he served as chairman of their board, he also was a vice president at Mueller, so he spoke now on behalf of both groups.

“Mueller has had to reduce their philanthropy and, regrettably, will no longer be able to fund the bulk of FREAD’s operations, as has been our arrangement in the past. But the company doesn’t want to see your work stop. That’s why Mueller has proposed this rather unorthodox solution to a very delicate problem.

“As members of your board, we strongly encourage you to consider the offer. We won’t make the move official without your consent, but we have a resolution we are ready to approve.”

Marta caught her eye and nodded.

“I know this news must come as a shock, but I hope you see it the way I do – as a tremendous opportunity and a sign of approval for your work,” Emmet’s tone was kind but Felicity could tell he was tense, waiting for her reaction.

She sat numbly as Emmet began to outline the Mueller proposal. Mueller was offering generous compensation packages to David, Felicity and a few staff members to operate the program as a for-profit venture under the company’s oversight.

Mueller was already in contract talks with the

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state, among others, to provide career services through the proposed department, and earning projections were favorable.

“It’s a win-win,” Emmet emphasized. “Mueller benefits from the great relationship you have formed with the community over the past seven years, and FREAD gains the stability of being part of one of the region’s largest companies.”

Felicity ground her teeth. In her experience, the term “win-win” was a fallacy. Emmet had mentioned some of the advantages of this deal, but the negatives were spinning in her mind.

FREAD would lose its autonomy. The staffers would report to a division manager, abide by corporate guidelines and meet sales goals.

They would lose their identity, Felicity realized, and be absorbed into the corporate machine.

“Without Mueller’s financial backing, it is the board’s belief that FREAD will be unable to operate,” Emmet looked pointedly at David over his silver-rimmed spectacles and let that sink in. What choice did they really have?

David nodded slowly. His calm acceptance of the situation sent flames of indignation through Felicity’s chest. How could he stand there, saying nothing?

“So, we can kill FREAD quickly or slowly,” Felicity spat out, her throat swelling as tears welled. A torrent of accusations began to flow from her mouth as anger and pain spilled out.

David gently pulled her away from the table and out the door. The last thing she saw was the top of Marta’s head, staring at her agenda. Whether in sadness or shame, Felicity wasn’t sure.

After years of smooth sailing, the storm that threatened to capsize their ship had risen in a single day.

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Now Felicity sat in David’s office, arms crossed defiantly as Emmet’s words echoed in her ears.

They were at a crossroad, and no matter which way they went, FREAD – and Felicity’s life – would be forever changed. They could follow their board’s recommendation and be absorbed by Mueller or they would have to radically restructure to survive without the company’s patronage.

“Sorry for yelling at the board. And you … ” Felicity mumbled. Now that her temper had cooled, she felt embarrassed about lashing out at some of the people she respected most.

“I’m still in shock myself,” David admitted.

“Maybe you went too far, but I just stood there with my mouth open.”

Outside, she knew the staff was pretending to work while keeping an ear turned toward the office, hoping for news about the board meeting. Every couple of minutes the shadow of one of her employees, Todd, passed the window. With a baby girl at home, Todd was understandably worried about his job.

Suddenly, the full weight of the challenge facing David and her began to sink in. She had been thinking of what FREAD meant to her, but this affected hundreds of people: their clients, volunteers, board and staff.

“I don’t trust Mueller,” she complained.

David sighed. “Not all businesses are evil, Felicity.

Maybe the situation is just as Emmet described.

You’ve always liked Mueller in the past.”

“When they’re writing a check or sending us Christmas cards.”

“You know they’ve been more help to us than that,” David chided. “What about the time they helped us with legal counsel for that employee problem? Or the time they paid for us to attend that conference? Oh! What about the job placement program? Is it possible this proposal is exactly what it seems?”

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Felicity sighed. “It’s possible,” she admitted.

Mueller had long been a source of support and encouragement both on and off their board.

“But I worry about what it means that this has all been orchestrated behind our backs.”

“Besides,” Felicity continued, “what happens to us once we’re at Mueller? Can we even work the way we do now? What will these contracts look like? Who will we work with? Will they trust us?”

“Well,” David paused, “We have a really honest relationship, so I want to be straightforward, even if it’s impolite. Mueller’s offer is really tempting. In one scenario, I most likely lose my job and in the other, I get a big, big raise.”

David put his head in his hands. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

Felicity felt like she was drowning. No matter which way she looked, she saw casualties.

“You think we’re going to fail without Mueller!”

David raised his hands defensively. “I didn’t say that. But it’s hard to imagine things going smoothly.

There are a thousand organizations fighting for funding. We do good work, but facts are facts.”

“So you get a raise ... “ “And you get a raise,” David pointed out.”

Along with everyone who gets offered a job.”

“Fine, so we all get raises. Except for everyone who gets fired!” Felicity thumped the proposal on the desk. “This says there are positions for 10 of us.” Her mind started scrolling through the staff directory and each name she conjured was paired with the faces of the employee’s family.

“I don’t know what choice we have,” David mused. “FREAD may not be able to stand on its own. If we turn down this offer, we could both be looking for jobs in six months anyway.

I’m not that worried for myself, but there are a lot of people invested in this thing.

“What happens to all of them? It’s hard to believe we’ll be able to continue helping people in the same way.”

In addition to the staff, dozens of community members contributed time as volunteers, serving nearly 600 incarcerated women. It was one of the few programs in the state that sought to address adult literacy, and it had forged bonds across racial and community lines. People felt like they were part of something special.

She didn’t like it, but no matter how much she argued with David, it seemed like they really only had one option.

“Fine,” she sighed. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Time to rip off the Band-Aid.” This concludes Part 1 of “Resolution.”

Look for Part 2 in the Fall 2015 edition of The Journal.

Discussion Guide 1.

How would you diagnose the situation facing Felicity at the conclusion of Part 1?

How would you characterize the adaptive challenge that she and her colleagues face?

2.

To what extent do you think that Felicity is exercising leadership in this story?

What opportunities is she taking and what opportunities is she missing?

3.

What big assumptions might be getting in the way of Felicity making progress in this situation? How might she test some of her preconceptions?

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You may not know much about state Rep. John Rubin. But when an open-government bill faced all-but-certain doom in the Kansas Legislature’s 2014 session, the persistent lawmaker with a deft touch shepherded it into law. It’s a behind-the-scenes story of what can happen when one skillfully navigates the terrain of holding to purpose and working across factions in exercising leadership.

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CARRYING THE TORCH By: JIM MCLEAN

At first glance, John Rubin doesn’t stand out.

The short legislator with a shock of white hair and a fondness for sweater vests blends in with other rank-and-file Republicans in a Kansas House of Representatives dominated by members of his party. He isn’t in a powerful position. He is chairman of an important committee but not a particularly high-profile one.

To many colleagues, however, the retired administrative law judge from Shawnee has become a go-to guy on tough topics. Members on both sides of the aisle see him as a principle-driven colleague who is willing to exercise leadership on complicated, obscure issues.

A case in point in the most recent session was Rubin’s objection to rule changes being sought by legislative leaders hoping to avoid pesky amendments and lengthy debates as they aim for adjournment. They wanted the flexibility to bundle large numbers of bills together into conference committee reports.

The reports are compromise bills drafted by small groups of key lawmakers to resolve differences in legislation that has passed the House and Senate. Votes on them often occur in the wee hours, and members frequently don’t grasp their details. And even if they do, they are allowed only one “yes” or “no” vote on an entire package.

“You might like six of the things added to the conference committee report and hate six of them, and you’ve got one vote and no chance to amend,” Rubin says. “And the vote is occurring at 3 o’clock in the morning. That’s the evil of bundling.”

So Rubin objected. He offered alternative rules to limit conference committee reports to no more than two bills. He didn’t prevail but legislative leaders were forced to agree to a five-bill limit.

Rep. Jim Ward, a Wichita Democrat who rarely agrees with Rubin, gives him credit for taking on the leaders of his caucus. That’s the kind of

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thing that can cost a committee chairman his post. Rubin’s courage and his willingness to listen to opposing views set him apart from many legislators in both parties, Ward says.

Troubled by the incident, Rubin did some homework and discovered that Kansas was the only state that prohibited any disclosure of probable cause affidavits.

“If I make a good argument, I can get John,” Ward says. “He doesn’t close his mind just because it comes from someone who doesn’t align with him ideologically or politically. And that’s all I ask for: Give me an opportunity to make my case.”

He spent the opening weeks of the 2014 session asking: “What do we know that everybody else doesn’t know? Why are we out of step with the other 49 states?”

‘A REAL BULLDOG’ In 2014, Rubin didn’t need any coaxing to take on what at the time appeared to be another lost cause. For several years, the Kansas Press Association, the lobbying group for the state’s newspapers, had been trying without success to open certain kinds of police records to the public.

Rubin was alerted to the issue by a newspaper article about Robert and Adlynn Harte. The couple were held at gunpoint by sheriff’s deputies in 2012 while their Leawood home was searched for what turned out to be nonexistent marijuana plants.

Immediately after the botched raid, the Hartes were told that state law prohibited the disclosure of the probable cause affidavit used to obtain the search warrant. So they went to court. It took months of legal wrangling, but they obtained a copy of the affidavit. It said that Robert Harte’s purchase of hydroponic equipment for his tomato garden and some tea leaves that officers found while searching the couple’s trash and mistook for marijuana led to the raid.

“Now, the rights and the wrongs of the execution of the search warrant was not central to what I did,” Rubin says. “What bothered me is that it took the Hartes $25,000 in legal fees and a year to find out why the Johnson County Sheriff’s Department thought they were growing marijuana in their house.”

When no one could give him “a good answer,” Rubin introduced legislation requiring police and prosecutors to release the affidavits.

A staunch conservative, Rubin says he took the issue on because of his strong belief in open government.

“I believe in sunshine,” says Rubin, a 2010 alumnus of the Kansas Leadership Center’s program for new legislators. “I think democracy works best when the public, to the maximum extent possible, knows how their elected and appointed representatives are using taxpayers’ money and how they are enacting public policy.”

Rubin joined forces with Richard Gannon, director of governmental affairs for the press association, and with other members of the Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government.

Removing the seal from probable cause affidavits was the coalition’s top legislative priority. “Our statute was an embarrassment to Kansas,” Gannon says.

Maybe so, but it quickly became apparent that changing the law wasn’t going to be easy.

Reporter Karen Dillon, currently of the Lawrence Journal-World, found the restrictions had come into being in the late 1970s after a Topeka newspaper – against a prosecutor’s wishes – had published the names of suspects being sought in a murder investigation. One of the men was never found, prompting a legislative backlash against the media.

Several prominent prosecutors were opposed to requiring the release of the records, as was

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Senate Vice President Jeff King, an Independence Republican and chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.

Barry Wilkerson, the chief prosecutor in Riley County, was among those opposed to disclosure.

He remembers testifying against the bill in the House Judiciary Committee and then having a pleasant conversation with Rubin over dinner that night.

“Even though we had testified against the bill, he was very cordial,” Wilkerson says.

That made an impression on Wilkerson that was to pay dividends later.

Despite opposition from prosecutors, Rubin managed to steer the bill through committee and onto the House floor, where members approved it by a wide margin. But the measure went nowhere after it landed in King’s Senate committee.

It was a classic clash of deeply held values, where the goal of increased transparency was coming into conflict with a desire not to do anything that might hinder law enforcement.

King “was listening to those prosecutors who thought the press was irresponsible and that any disclosure would jeopardize ongoing investigations, harm innocent third parties,” Rubin says, summarizing the opponents’ arguments against the bill.

It was late in the session, and the bill was still stuck. King wasn’t budging, and Gannon and other advocates were ready to throw in the towel.

“We thought it was dead,” Gannon recalled.

“But John wouldn’t give up. He was a real bulldog.”

RACE TO THE FINISH With the clock ticking down to the end of the session, Rubin and Wilkerson started talking.

They brought others to the table, including Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett, Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe and King.

Recalling the KLC program, Rubin says he knew he wouldn’t be successful unless he reached across factions and gave those with concerns about the proposal a role in crafting a compromise.

“It was a two-way street,” Rubin says. “It gave me a chance to convince them of the sound public policy that I was advocating for. But it also allowed me to hear from them and to make adjustments where necessary.

It wasn’t just about getting them on board; it was about making the policy better.”

A compromise started to take shape. Prosecutors were concerned about the administrative burden of having to review and release all probable cause affidavits.

So the bill was rewritten to require the release of only those affidavits specifically requested by the media or a member of the public. The timeline for reviewing and releasing affidavits also was extended.

“Representative Rubin and I spent a lot of time on the phone on evenings and weekends,” Wilkerson says. “He worked really hard on it.”

The compromise addressed practical issues but not, Rubin says, at the expense of the primary objective.

“There comes a time when you have to stand firm on the basic principle,” he says. “I was not going to give up the goal of greater transparency.”

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“

I BELIEVE IN SUNSHINE.

I think democracy works best when the public, to the maximum extent possible, knows how their elected and appointed representatives are using taxpayers’ money and how they are enacting public policy.”

JOHN RUBIN

By the time the compromise bill was ready, there wasn’t time for King’s committee to conduct a hearing and vote. So the bill was bundled into a conference committee report with a Senate-passed measure that had run into trouble in the House.

King was a strong supporter of the Senate bill, which would have fast-tracked appeals in death penalty cases. So he agreed to couple it with the probable cause affidavit bill in exchange for Rubin’s help getting the conference committee report containing both measures through the House.

Rubin tried. He took to the House floor twice to urge its passage.

But a coalition of members opposed to the death penalty rejected it both times. After the second defeat, Rubin approached King about dropping the capital punishment bill from the report.

“This was the day before the last day of the session, when everybody assumed the whole thing was dead,” Rubin says.

“But I tend to be tenacious, and I don’t give up.”

King, who, according to Rubin was being “somewhat unfairly painted as a villain” by editorial writers and cartoonists, relented.

Standing alone, the bill to unseal probable cause affidavits sailed through the House 123 to 1 and the Senate 40 to 0 just ahead of the session-ending gavel.

“Plain and simple,” Gannon says, Rubin made the difference.

“Boy, when he gets hold of an issue that he believes in, he just won’t let go.”

Jim McLean is the executive editor of KHI News Service, an editorially independent program of the Kansas Health Institute. It provides in-depth reporting on health issues in Kansas and the public policy debates surrounding them at www.khi.org/news.

A retired administrative law judge, Rubin helped clear road blocks to open government legislation by engaging in dialogue with the measure’s chief opponents. He has developed a reputation in Topeka for exercising leadership on complicated, obscure issues.

Discussion Guide 1. Being effective at leadership requires both flexibility and holding to purpose. Where do you see Rep. John Rubin holding steadfast in this story? Where do you see him adjusting his approach in hopes of making progress?

2. Being able to engage with stakeholders of differing viewpoints is crucial for making progress on very difficult issues. In what ways do you see Rubin working across factions in this story? What do you think makes his efforts effective?

3. To what extent do you struggle with both holding to purpose and working across factions in your own leadership? What signals help you understand when to stay steadfast and when to be flexible?

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HOW TO BEAT THE ODDS: Four Leadership Lessons from John Rubin By:

CHRIS GREEN

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1.

TREAT LEADERSHIP AS AN ACTIVITY, NOT A POSITION.

There are plenty of lawmakers with more authority and power in Topeka than Rubin. But in this situation, he shows just how far personal credibility and skill can carry a person. Notice, too, how Rubin is able to take the initiative without being disrespectful to those in authority, such as the Senate judiciary chairman.

2.

HOLD TO PURPOSE WITHOUT BEING RIGID.

Rubin is justifiably lauded for his tenacity. But it was his ability to hold to a purpose while also remaining flexible that made him truly effective.

He didn’t try to keep the bill from being rewritten and he was willing to carry a contentious conference committee report with the proposal in it to the House floor. Because he never said “it’s my way or the highway,” he created multiple avenues for progress on something he cared about.

3.

GO ALL IN TO WORK ACROSS FACTIONS.

Rubin didn’t just talk about engagement. He worked extremely hard at it by engaging not only newspaper lobbyists and open-government advocates, but also the very prosecutors most actively opposed to the bill and a wary Senate judiciary chairman. It was his willingness to take the views and concerns of the legislation’s opponents very seriously (and adapt to them) that ultimately helped secure the bill’s passage.

4.

DO WHAT YOU CAN TO MAKE THE PROCESS MORE TRUSTWORTHY.

Rubin worked to build trust among a number of groups (newspapers and prosecutors, journalists and lawmakers, the House and Senate) who might have had some pretty good reasons for not trusting one another. And he didn’t do it through backroom deals or double-crosses, but through talking and listening. It’s an approach that’s true to the spirit of the openness and transparency that he was advocating.

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GROWING PUBLIC SERVANTS What does every local elected official need to know about leadership? Experienced ones say that the secret to being truly effective is focusing more on engaging effectively with others instead of only trying to push your own agenda.

A PLAYBOOK FOR LEADING WITH AUTHORITY By: BRIAN WHEPLEY

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Nobody hands you a how-to manual on how to lead when you’re elected to a local government office. You can’t buy a Rosetta Stone program to learn how to speak the dense language of government or how to communicate effectively with your constituents.

But you can likely benefit from the sage advice of veteran officeholders – learned through hard-earned, head-shaking experience – about what to expect and how elected officials should handle themselves.

As an elected official, you’re uniquely positioned to shape your community for the better, whether you’re serving on a school board, city council, county commission or community college board. But you’re also set up perfectly to speak before thinking and get in over your head, all while fully exposed in the public eye. The decisions you’re making affect not only you but friends, strangers, neighbors, co-workers, people who voted for you and people who didn’t.

Some of the advice from those veterans involves sticking with the things we all should have learned in kindergarten: work hard, listen closely, don’t yell, be careful what you say about others, say you’re sorry when you make a mistake, and don’t sigh and roll your eyes.

had been part of his campaign: early childhood education, a dual-language school, improving enrichment programs for all students.

But the truth about leadership, they say, is that success is often based more on how you do things than what you do.

For instance, when Patrick Woods was first elected to the Topeka school board in 2007, he threw himself into advocating on issues that

Woods backed up and advocated approaches he was learning while pursuing his master’s in public administration, where he focused on leadership. Engagement and ownership were essential tools, with the district using its citizens advisory council as a starting point. Parents, businesspeople and many others were brought

He drew on knowledge gained through personal interest and as education policy adviser in Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ administration. He used facts and figures to trumpet his case for the long-term benefits of preparing children for school before they reached kindergarten. He put out his own news releases and went on TV. And he didn’t really get anywhere.

Entrenched interests believed already scarce resources would be further diluted. Child-care providers thought the district would take away customers. Some parents feared changes in their local schools.

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into discussions that included early childhood education, enrichment programs, career training, shifting some schools to a K-8 model, and redrawing school boundaries and closing small, inefficient elementary schools. The conversations involved public forums, community meetings, television and other tools.

other board members are going to expect you to care about more than that one thing. If you aren’t willing to work across factions and adapt your approach, you’re probably going to get shut out, feel frustrated and somewhat lonely, and, even worse, be an ineffective leader on that issue and others.

“The lesson that I learned – after beating my head against the wall initially with early childhood education – was that when I’m pushing really hard for what the science says and am expecting people to trust me (even if making sense), they’re still not always going to trust me,” Woods says.

“It wasn’t until we started putting information in front of them and allowing them to arrive at their own conclusions that we made progress.”

“If you run for political office, you have signed on with that team,” says Erik Sartorius, executive director of the League of Kansas Municipalities.

“And the credibility of the entire organization is at risk if you can’t disagree in an agreeable manner.”

In 2014, with the district and stakeholders having worked through discussions about closing smaller schools, voters approved a $143 million bond issue that expanded early childhood education, built a new elementary school and added a career training center, among other projects.

“They only did that because they trusted us with all this other stuff. Ten years ago that couldn’t have happened,” says Woods, who won re-election to the board in April.

ON-THE-JOB TRAINING AND TEAMWORK

Being an elected official is even harder work than you can imagine it is, veterans say. You’ll learn about budgets, ordinances, state and federal policies, and a whole lot more, with much of it spoken in a language seemingly imported from Planet Jargon and written in a shorthand bureaucratese that can be deciphered only through time and questions. Lots of them.

Furthermore, if you sought office because you wanted to clean up city hall, fight off Wal-Mart or think that shifting school boundaries might harm your child, take a deep breath and open your eyes – and your mind. The job is broader than that one issue, and residents – your neighbors – and

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You might not agree with a stance, or even comprehend how a person could have reached it, but the great majority of officeholders – and paid staff – have the best interests of their city, county or school district at heart, veteran officeholders say.

“Everybody likes to take a side and think the other side is evil. For the most part, I really think both groups of people want to do the right thing, but they have their own perceptions of what that is,” says Joy Eakins, who started her first term on the Wichita school board in 2013 and has tried to build bridges with legislators on school finance and other issues. “When you start walking with those people and you get to know them, you know a lot of them really are good people.”

GET TO KNOW THOSE AROUND YOU

Racquel Thiesen was first elected to the Newton City Commission in 2007 and served for eight years before losing a re-election bid this past spring. She remembers well a situation when she lashed back at a fellow candidate during an “ugly campaign” several years ago, regretted it and resolved to change her approach.

“I fired off a letter saying that I wasn’t going to do business with him any longer. Then he got elected,” says Thiesen, recalling that she had thought the candidate knew about claims some supporters made.

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Now, “I wouldn’t call us friends by any stretch, but I sit next to him on the bench, and I have worked really hard to build a rapport with him because I acted too hastily. … Judging people too early was one of the mistakes I made.

I didn’t like my behavior, but I wanted to be better for my sake and the community.”

Thiesen and other veterans say that the value of knowing people and where they come from – that doesn’t mean you have to have dinner with them – cannot be minimized. It’s not as easy as one might think, as the majority of time spent together is while conducting business.

Open-meetings rules, too, can have a downside, in that unofficial gatherings can readily turn into a law violation if officials start talking shop.

“One thing we don’t do very well, especially in local government, is develop personal relationships with others on the board,” says Greg Musil, a member of the Johnson County Community College board of trustees who also serves on the Kansas Leadership Center’s board. “I have developed a pretty good relationship with a person I had been at odds with. Our daughters played softball together. It’s just amazing to me when you have something in common like that. You don’t call each other names.”

Being disagreeable and closed to alternative points of view can have consequences, says Musil, who also served on the Overland Park City Council from 1993 to 2001. “If you come in with an agenda that you are going to do X, then you don’t do A, B, C or Y and you tend to not listen to other members of your body, you tend to isolate yourself. There may be five different ways to get to X, but you don’t pay heed to the other four ways to get there.”

DON’T BE DISMISSIVE

Just as a new elected official should take care not to hastily judge fellow board members, neither should you form snap judgments regarding professional staff – the city manager, the college administrator, the streets superintendent, rec

director and others who handle day-to-day operations. Sure, those professionals may have a different perspective from elected officials – you have to worry about voters; they don’t – but they often care just as deeply about the community and have years of expertise.

Sometimes, though, staff gets lumped into the “them” in any “us vs. them” issue.

“The biggest mistake I’ve seen over the years is coming into office and not listening to advice from professional staff, the individuals working for the city, for the taxpayers every day,” says Dave Drovetta, who served for nearly two decades as a council member and mayor in Gardner until losing a close race in 2013. “They either have a wealth of experience or have access to a wealth of materials that we don’t as elected officials.”

Trust, respect and civility are words veteran officeholders mention frequently when discussing effective boards. Musil, looking back to his city council days, chuckles when recounting a tale of how not to treat a fellow board member.

Musil had immersed himself in a budget issue and – good literature or not – decided to put his argument into rhyme. Another board member’s reaction was to borrow from Shakespeare: “It is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury.

Signifying nothing.”

“It was the most dismissive thing that has ever been said to me in a public meeting,” Musil says. “That didn’t help our relationship.

“One of my partners said, ‘Man, you got dissed.’”

Getting past slights and differences isn’t easy.

Adrienne Foster, executive director of the Kansas Hispanic and Latino American Affairs Commission, served four years on the Roeland Park City Council and from 2009 to 2013 as the city’s mayor. Her community and neighboring Mission “did not get along.” But relations improved, she says, after an initial face-to-face encounter – and a hilarious role-playing song – with Mission’s then-city administrator at a Kansas Leadership Center training session several years ago.

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“JUDGING PEOPLE TOO EARLY WAS ONE OF THE MISTAKES I MADE. I DIDN’T LIKE MY BEHAVIOR, BUT I WANTED TO BE BETTER FOR MY SAKE AND THE COMMUNITY. RACQ U EL T HI ES EN, former Newton city commissioner

“IF YOU RUN FOR POLITICAL OFFICE, YOU HAVE SIGNED ON WITH THAT TEAM, AND THE CREDIBILITY OF THE ENTIRE ORGANIZATION IS AT RISK IF YOU CAN’T DISAGREE IN AN AGREEABLE MANNER.”

“REGARDLESS OF HOW LONG YOU HAVE FOLLOWED POLITICS OR LOCAL ISSUES, THERE ARE ALWAYS THINGS YOU ARE NOT AWARE OF, WHETHER THEY HAPPENED BEHIND THE SCENES OR EIGHT YEARS AGO.

ER I K S ARTO RI US , executive director of the League of Kansas Municipalities

DON SHIM KUS, Oxford school board member

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“THE BIGGEST MISTAKE I’VE SEEN OVER THE YEARS IS COMING INTO OFFICE AND NOT LISTENING TO ADVICE FROM PROFESSIONAL STAFF, THE INDIVIDUALS WORKING FOR THE CITY AND THE TAXPAYERS EVERY DAY.” DAV E D R OVE TTA, former Gardner mayor

“I KNEW I NEEDED TO BE A BETTER LEADER AND PERSON. BEFORE THEN I DID NOT REALIZE I HAD A PROBLEM WITH MYSELF.” ADRIENNE FOSTER, former Roeland Park mayor

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Setting aside the history, “the next morning we started talking and developing a better relationship,” Foster says. “I never gave up my values or beliefs, but I was able to say we can talk to each other.”

Two people talking led to substantive progress on issues both small (paving a shared section of Johnson Drive, a major thoroughfare) and large (coordinating efforts on Johnson County’s comprehensive plan).

“The epiphany was with Mission,” Foster says.

“I knew I needed to be a better leader and person.

Before then I did not realize I had a problem with myself.”

STUDY UP AND ASK QUESTIONS

Eakins, the Wichita school board member, hopes to visit every district school before her term expires in 2017. That’s nearly 100 schools – she recently reached three dozen – but she also wants to visit every school in her own district each semester to better know the issues, concerns and people. That’s a bit more work than twice-monthly Monday agenda reviews and meetings, which bring plenty of homework themselves with a sizable packet of information to read and digest.

“I think the workload surprised my family,” Eakins says. “I think they thought it would be a couple nights a month. But it was their idea” for her to seek office.

Newton’s Thiesen says the learning curve of being involved in city government was greater than she anticipated. Not only does it take awhile to learn the ins and outs of aspects such as budgeting, but the pace at which change occurs can also be challenging.

“For really good and not-so-great reasons, government moves kind of slow, and that’s part of the learning curve,” she says. “You can’t fix

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things overnight. There’s a process involved, and that’s hard to see until you get into it. You have to build your muscle for tolerance and patience while you work hard to make progress.”

Don Shimkus, an Oxford school board member and president of the Kansas Association of School Boards, agrees. “There’s a lot of institutional history and memory that you can’t get until you’ve been there awhile. … Regardless of how long you have followed politics or local issues, there are always things you are not aware of, whether they happened behind the scenes recently or eight years ago.”

Like Eakins, Sartorius, Thiesen, Drovetta, Musil and Foster, Shimkus has also learned the Kansas Leadership Center’s curriculum through one of its training programs. New board members can also learn the ropes of their roles through classes offered by state associations, which can provide a primer on budgeting and other issues.

Training and other resources – such as seeking out a mentor, as Thiesen has – are valuable, but nothing replaces listening, learning and raising your hand.

“Rather than sitting back, I usually counsel the opposite,” Shimkus says of newcomers.

“Speak up and ask any questions you may have, because, of course, that’s the way you learn.”

IN THE PUBLIC EYE, MAKING HARD DECISIONS

As anyone with a computer knows, anything you say or do can spread like lightning via email or social media. Being careful what you “like” on Facebook is just one of many ways public officials must manage themselves in the spotlight. You can’t make jokes the way you used to before you took office, and as Thiesen found out, you’ll quickly undermine your position by rolling your eyes and sighing heavily.

“The lesson that I learned ... was that when I’m pushing really hard for what the science says and am expecting people to trust me (even if making sense), they’re still not always going to trust me.”

PAT R I C K WO O D S ,

Topeka school board member

BEING A GOOD CONSTITUENT Elected officials aren’t the only ones who can benefit from engaging with others more effectively. While it’s impossible to avoid conflict and disagreement on some issues, the following approaches will put you on solid ground as a constituent trying to influence the thinking of your elected officials.

1.

STAY CALM AND RESPECTFUL:

“We were at a meeting and people wanted … something. They came up and were very concise and presented their point in a very calm way. And I said, ‘That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you complain.’”

– Dave Drovetta, former Gardner mayor

2.

REALIZE YOU MAY NOT HAVE ALL THE FACTS:

Joy Eakins, a Wichita school board member tells of a parent approaching her last year during a teacher’s forced transfer: “She says, ‘Look, I love this teacher.

But I also know I don’t know everything. My goal is to help all of us walk through this so the administration hears our concerns.’ … She just wanted to help.”

3.

DON’T RUSH TO JUDGE:

“Nothing feels worse as an elected official than when people automatically assume you don’t want to help them, that you’ve sought this office for the wrong reasons.”

– Patrick Woods, Topeka school board

4.

DON’T WAIT TO ENGAGE:

“A good constituent is someone who is interested in what’s going on when nothing is going on.”

– Dave Drovetta “There’s nothing worse than the constituent who didn’t get what they wanted and doesn’t tell anybody until it’s time to come to the public comments part of a board meeting and then wants to shout and yell about it. It could be that if they had told us, we could have done something about it.”

– Patrick Woods

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“You really realize there are people in that room taking down every word you say, and it may show up tomorrow in the newspaper or on TV,” Eakins says.

Foster says that, even with training, she must actively remind herself of the need to “manage self,” especially when the public is watching.

The effort has paid off, though, as others noticed a change, including a one-time political adversary whose neighbor went before the Roeland Park City Council with a complaint about trash. “She came up to me a few months later and said, ‘I heard a lot of good things about you. What are you doing different?’”

“Even if you are in a town of 300, you are a different creature now,” Sartorius says of holding office.

“Your words now carry more weight on everything.”

Reflecting the spotlight shining on officials and how technology has changed the scrutiny, Sartorius’ organization is “looking to do some training on ‘before you hit send’” and “understanding the consequences of being in the public eye.”

One of those consequences can be explaining your views and votes to your neighbors.

“My first hard vote was on a residential day-care program, and 25 people in my ward were against it,” Musil recalls. “I ended up making a motion for it, because I thought it was the right thing.

It’s hard for you to vote for what’s right when you know those people. Someone may pull up while you’re washing your car and say, ‘Aren’t you on the city council?’ You are on the front lines.”

Part of the equation can involve weighing your

personal opinions and values against the best interests of the community as a whole.

“I have a framework for my decision-making, but it includes my values and beliefs. But that may get in the way of making the right decision,” Thiesen says. “Just because I can pay more taxes doesn’t mean the folks I represent can.”

LISTEN FOR THE VOICES

Eakins thinks officials must remind themselves that, by the very fact they hold office, they may not have difficulty obtaining information or resolving a problem. That’s why, she says, it’s necessary to find ways to hear constituents’ concerns. “I have to know parents in schools and people who work in those schools so I can get an accurate picture of other people’s experiences,” she says. With a district parent’s help, for example, she had members of parent-teacher groups and school site councils to her home.

“The unusual voices are the people who aren’t in authority in the district, because they have a high stake – the highest stake for a parent is what they do with their child’s education and their life,” Eakins says.

A healthy public discussion is a broad one, Drovetta says. “Contrarians are the ones who are going to push us to make better decisions.

The person that wants the shopping center is not going to rush right out and point out the flaws.

The person who doesn’t want it will point out the flaws, and we have to consider those to make the best decisions. A person has to be open to all sides and listen to those unusual voices.”

Discussion Guide 1. What leadership principles and competencies do you see local elected officials living out in this article?

2. What principles and competencies do you think are most important for elected officials to be mindful of?

Which ones do you think they find most challenging?

3. How might you encourage more leadership from the local elected officials who serve you?

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“EVERYBODY LIKES TO TAKE A SIDE AND THINK THE OTHER SIDE IS EVIL. FOR THE MOST PART, I REALLY THINK BOTH GROUPS OF PEOPLE WANT TO DO THE RIGHT THING, BUT THEY HAVE THEIR OWN PERCEPTIONS OF WHAT THAT IS.” J OY EAK I NS , Wichita school board member

“THE LAST FOUR-PLUS YEARS HAVE BEEN A BLAST. IT’S THE MOST REWARDING AND CHALLENGING EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE.” M IC HAEL ASHC RAFT, Johnson County commissioner

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Drovetta acknowledges that a big mistake in his tenure was not asking a member of a vocal opposition group to join a review committee assessing a controversial railroad intermodal facility in Gardner. “We had people who were opposed, but they weren’t ones out front with the T-shirts and signs. If we had brought someone in from that organized effort, it would have been more challenging and taken longer, but I think those folks would have at least recognized that they had a voice.”

No matter how an issue is resolved, or how well it is handled, officeholders must realize and accept that someone likely will take them to task for it.

“It can be frustrating as hell, but I absolutely love the work,” Thiesen said. “You can see results and see that it matters.”

Michael Ashcraft, another alumnus of KLC, spent many years working in local government before seeking public office as a Johnson County commissioner. Sure, he says, it involves work and sacrifice, but it’s worth it.

“The last four-plus years have been a blast,” Ashcraft says. “It’s the most rewarding and challenging experience of my life.”

Anatomy of a Public Servant (Who Leads) BY: PAT BYR NES

RESPECTS THE KNOWLEDGE OF OTHERS

CAREFULLY CONSIDERS ALTERNATIVE (AND OPPOSING) POINTS OF VIEW

PUSHES BUT DOESN’T SHOVE JUGGLES MORE THAN ONE ISSUE

SEES SHE’S PART OF THE MESS

UNDERSTANDS LIMITATIONS

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POLL POSITION: A new law will shift the election date for city and school board offices from the spring to the fall of odd-numbered years.

But what it will mean for exercising leadership at the local government level remains less than clear.

By:

BRIAN WHEPLEY

It appears candidates for city and school board offices in 2016 won’t be trying to make their voices heard among the well-financed din of Jeb Bush, Hillary Clinton and others seeking national and state-level offices.

But Gov. Sam Brownback’s signature on legislation moving local elections from April to November of odd-numbered years will likely bring a shift in approach for new officeholders and for the groups that help them do their jobs, such as the League of Kansas Municipalities and the Kansas Association of School Boards.

The election-calendar legislation underwent changes in the House and Senate that removed two of the biggest concerns opponents had about the original proposal: that local elections would become officially partisan and that the elections would occur in the fall of even years, when presidential, congressional, gubernatorial and other races are held.

“The concerns are about getting lost among the electorate, about getting lost in the election cycle and trying to find voice space among that many candidates,” says Erik Sartorius, executive director of the League of Kansas Municipalities.

School board members have traditionally taken office July 1, when the fiscal year begins and much closer to the start of the school year than the new start date in January. The calendar change takes effect in 2017, so this year’s school board class was the last to start in the summer.

Coming in halfway through the school year, with the annual budget year half done, means new officeholders will likely feel a bit out of step at the start of their service. And if they come in believing that they have a mandate to carry out, that could require greater adjustment.

“I think there will be a sense that you will be coming in in the middle of the situation,” says Mark Tallman, the school board association’s associate executive director for advocacy. “In the past, you got in right at the start of the cycle.”

The change will also have other practical effects.

School districts may consider shifting the timing of annual superintendent reviews, for example, to better involve all board members. The school board association and the league are starting to discuss what they will have to adapt, particularly the training they do for newly elected officials.

Now held in the spring and summer, that training will likely move to after November elections and into the heart of the holiday season and end-ofyear business.

Sartorius says his organization is still sorting through the details of the new law, which has “inconsistencies and conflicts” that must be worked out. As the change is instituted, he said, he would give the same advice he provides on any issue local officials confront: “As we move into that cycle – and we stress this with our members – being clear and being accessible is important as it ever was. It’s one of those key things.”

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The

GOOD, BAD UGLY

The

and The

A HERALDED IDEA TO MERGE DODGE CITY COMMUNITY COLLEGE INTO FORT HAYS STATE UNIVERSITY FELL APART LAST FALL AMID CONTROVERSY. WHAT CAN THE PROPOSAL’S FAILURE TEACH US ABOUT LEADERSHIP FOR THE COMMON GOOD?

H

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In classic Western films and TV shows of yore, it was easy to tell the good guys from the bad. The good guys wore white hats.

The bad guys clad themselves in black.

But when controversy erupted over a plan to merge the community college in Dodge City with a four-year university, there were no such markers of moral clarity, even in a town known for its storied ties to the Old West.

By: JOE STUMPE

Not so long ago, it appeared that the concept of merging Dodge City Community College into Fort Hays State University had widespread support. To occur, the merger would have required the approval of the Dodge City Community College Board of Trustees and the Kansas Board of Regents, along with enabling legislation passed by the Legislature and signed by the governor.

By last fall, though, the proposal had collapsed amid division within Dodge City and on the community college’s board of trustees. The mixed election results from an unusually heated campaign for that board this past spring made any near-term reboot of the plan appear unlikely.

When what once seemed like a good idea goes nowhere, it’s tempting to look for easy answers and scapegoats. But in dealing with issues in civic life, it’s rarely wise to look for a culprit with nefarious motives to pin the blame on.

Instead, it helps to take step back and look for learning opportunities from a tough situation.

By examining the scuttled merger in this story, The Journal hopes to bring to the surface important leadership lessons not just for Dodge City and southwest Kansas, but for the entire state.

(See “Analysis” sidebar.)

After all, Dodge City is hardly the first community in Kansas to struggle with the pros and cons of a merger. For instance, several months of talks regarding an enhanced partnership between Fort Scott Community College and Pittsburg State University shut down in 2013 after the college’s board of trustees voted to end them after constituents raised objections. Melding government or educational entities has proved to be notoriously difficult in the state, and most concepts don’t even make it to the drawing board, much less to a series of votes by a governing body.

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Situations without fairy-tale endings often provide the best material for learning about leadership. By bringing an impassioned debate into the public eye, the stakeholders on all sides of the issue provided a compelling case study on leadership. It’s one that readily underscores the importance of understanding the process challenges in a situation and how crucial it is to speak to losses, real and perceived.

HOW IT STARTED When the proposal to merge Dodge City Community College with Fort Hays State first emerged, it did so along the lines of a widely espoused value – the importance of expanding access to higher education in southwest Kansas.

The community college at the heart of the controversy – Dodge 3C to locals – serves about 1,800 students, making it a small- to medium-sized institution by Kansas standards.

It began life as a junior college in 1935, housed on the third floor of the local high school, and was converted to a community college in the 1960s, when Ford County voters assumed responsibility for it.

In 1970, it moved to a new campus on the northwest edge of town. The architecture, which won an award, has not noticeably changed since. A walk across the grounds suggests that its reputation as the “windiest campus in the United States” is well-earned.

Operating with an open-door admissions policy within Ford County and an eight-county service region, it offers two-year associate degrees in 30 areas from agriculture and hospitality to nursing and mass communications.

As drawn up, the proposal to establish Fort Hays State at Dodge City would have brought as many as 2,500 new students and $15 million into Dodge City – a one-time infusion of $10 million for construction of a new technical institute and $5 million annually for operations of an upper-level college capable of granting bachelor’s degrees.

Some observers of higher education see collaboration between institutions, including mergers, as a wave of the future. Just this year, Georgia State University and Arkansas State University absorbed two-year colleges in the regions they serve. The move is seen as a way to help institutions cope with rising tuition costs and state funding squeezes by allowing them to offer more services without duplication.

Southwest Kansas is the only region of the state that doesn’t have a four-year, Board of Regents institution, and bringing one to Dodge City greatly appealed to people such as Shane Bangerter, a Dodge City attorney who is a member of the Regents, and then Kansas Commerce Secretary Pat George (George left his position in July to become the chief executive officer of Valley Hope Association, a Norton-based provider of drug and alcohol treatment services).

A Dodge City native and prominent businessman, George has been working to bring a four-year degree-granting university back home for nearly 20 years. In his view, having a university is essential for the city – and southwest Kansas in general – to remain attractive enough that people don’t feel a need to leave for greater opportunities. George and Bangerter found an ally in Merrill Conant, a family physician and chairman of the Dodge City Community College Board of Trustees.

But the prospect of a merger raised issues of identity and control for many within the college and community. What would Dodge City Community College be giving up in the transformation? What would it be allowed to keep?

Among the critics was Floris Jean Hampton, a retired nurse, longtime member of the community college board and former member of the Regents. Hampton says she’d like nothing better than for a four-year institution to locate in Dodge – but not if it meant the community college would go away and be replaced by a branch of Fort Hays State. Another was Sue Hammond, who teaches developmental writing at the college to students who need extra help in that area.

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“There is no reason for this college to have to dissolve in order to add bachelor’s programs.”

FLORIS JEAN HAMPTON

Floris Jean Hampton, a member of the Dodge City Community College Board of Trustees, stands in the institution’s campus bookstore. Hampton, a retired nurse, became a critic of the college’s proposed merger into Fort Hays State University because it wasn’t enough of a partnership.

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There’s a big difference between the faculty of a community college, focused on teaching, and tenured professors.

“That was the mission that was going to be lost.”

SUE HAMMOND

Sue Hammond, shown in the community college’s student union, teaches developmental writing at the college and opposed the merger because it might shift the mission of the faculty away from serving much of its current population of students.

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As the proposal collapsed, each side blamed the other – for not being transparent, for fearing change, for not be willing to negotiate, for not understanding what was actually proposed.

PROCESS CHALLENGES: TWO VIEWS OF THE SAME EFFORT In order to lead effectively, it’s important to understand process challenges, those issues or barriers that keep members of a group, community or organization from working together. They tend to bubble below the surface, and would-be leaders have to be extremely vigilant about tending to them to make progress.

There are two distinct viewpoints about the process by which the proposal to merge the community college into Fort Hays State took shape. For supporters of the change, it was a tale of the right people getting into a room together to bring a long-sought idea to fruition.

To opponents, it was seen as a series of back-room deals concocted by powerful people in Dodge City, Hays and Topeka.

According to George, the plan had its origins in a conversation between Gov. Sam Brownback and himself in 2011. On an economic development trip to the area, George says, he mentioned to his boss that the southwest quadrant of Kansas had been without a four-year college since the 1992 closing of St. Mary of the Plains, a small, private college in Dodge. “The governor said ‘You should look into that,’” George remembered.

Working behind the scenes, George and others came up with a proposal that got Brownback’s approval and backing for funding. The group included Bangerter, whom Brownback had appointed to the Regents in 2013; Bud Estes, a John Deere dealership owner and first-term state representative; Jim Lewis, a local car dealer; Conant; and Morris Reeves, vice chairman of the community college trustees.

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After determining that there wasn’t support at the state level for a new four-year institution to be established in Dodge, George and the others approached Ed Hammond, then the president at Fort Hays State, about the possibility of a partnership between the schools. Hammond (no relation to Sue) put together a proposal, or white paper, that became the basis for the plan, including merging the community college into Fort Hays State.

But some other members on the college’s board of trustees – six people serve on the board – say the first they heard about the proposal, beyond rumors, was in January 2014, at a closed-door meeting with Ed Hammond, Estes, Bangerter and others.

“Our chair and our vice chair were in meetings in Topeka that the rest of the board did not know about,” Hampton says. Still, that didn’t stop Hampton from initially voting in favor of pursuing a merger. Indeed, the first two votes of the community college trustees were unanimous.

Estes says it wasn’t realistic to think that “everybody in the world” was going to be involved in laying the groundwork for something as complicated as the proposed merger.

“If I was going to combine one of my John Deere dealerships with another, would I go sit down with all my employees and say, ‘Well guys, should we do this?’ Hell no, you wouldn’t do that,” Estes says. “You can’t do everything by committee starting off to develop a concept.”

Conant, asked if the plan’s supporters could have done anything differently, sounded unsure.

“Maybe we didn’t do as good a job as we could have in terms of providing information. Sometimes people hear only what they want to hear.”

Reeves, the board’s vice chairman, acknowledged that the proposal could have been handled better but says part of that was timing. The Board of Regents was willing to include $15 million

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: A flag displaying the Dodge City Community College mascot, the Conquistador, waves in the breeze above campus.

The college serves about 1,800 students and plays a significant role in educating students from the region. Southwest Kansas is the only region of the state not served by a four-year, Kansas Board of Regents institution.

The Conquistadors have a long history of competing in the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Athletic Conference in sports such as basketball and football. However, a merger would have required the college to find another conference to compete in.

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for the merger in its budget request for fiscal 2015-16. But that budget had to be submitted by the fall of 2014 or else the funding request would have been delayed at least two years.

“I’ll admit it, it probably was rushed a little bit,” says Reeves, who supported the proposal. “In hindsight, if we had another six months to really get all the information out, then I think it would have made it a little easier.”

PARTNERSHIP VS. DISSOLUTION? Dodge City boosters have long dreamed of having a stand-alone four-year institution of higher learning. The next-best scenario for them would be for Fort Hays State or some other four-year school to locate an upper-level branch in Dodge, sharing the same campus as their community college.

Merger proponents came up with a three-tiered plan that they thought would work much more efficiently under one administration rather than two. As Bangerter explained: “Once you look at that technical institute and figure out that’s where the students are likely to come from, then how to make the technical institute successful, when you start analyzing that, then very clearly now you can see if all these institutions are one, the whole program is much more likely to succeed, much better for the community, much better for the student, much better for the institution.”

Merger foes remained unconvinced of that necessity.

“It does not require a merger,” Hampton says.

“There is no reason for this college to have to dissolve in order to add bachelor’s programs.”

Hampton and others were alarmed by the idea that the community college board would have to be dissolved and reconstituted as a different type of entity, as a lawyer for the Board of Regents said would be necessary to comply

with state law regulating the functions of such boards.

Hampton says opponents were also told that state legislators, who would have to approve the necessary funding, would never do so without a merger. “Well, we don’t know that,” she says. She says the proposal should have moved forward as a partnership.

“Partnership is a great, great way to look at what can happen in the future because it’s being done all over the country.”

Indeed, collaboration between community colleges and four-year public universities is already a reality in Kansas. Since 2012, the Board of Regents has approved 56 courses for guaranteed transfer, meaning a student who completes one of those courses at any community college can transfer that credit to any public university in the state.

But that’s different from sharing a campus.

LOSSES AT STAKE: IDENTITY AND CONTROL In addition to process, another important concept to understand in leadership is the idea of loss. People don’t resist change as much as they resist the feeling of loss. Leading effectively requires acknowledging when stakeholders view that they are losing something important because it can help create the space to help everyone move on.

Loss, or at the very least the perception of loss, played heavily into how some stakeholders in Dodge City responded to the merger proposal.

Opponents claimed that the merger would have done away with many of the most important aspects of Dodge City Community College, from affordable tuition and developmental classes to faculty positions to athletics.

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Dr. Merrill Conant, chairman of the community college’s trustee board, worked with a small group of state and local officials to help craft a merger proposal that won the support of Gov. Sam Brownback. As drawn up, the plan would have brought in as many as 2,500 new students, $10 million for the construction of a new technical institute and $5 million for operating an upper-level college capable of granting bachelor’s degrees.

“I believe it will happen somewhere in the state.

I just think the idea is too good to die on the vine. I still hope or wish or dream it could be in Dodge City.”

DR. MERRILL CONANT, Dodge City Community College Board of Trustees

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Sue Hammond says 80 percent of the community college’s students take at least one developmental class. The state does not reimburse four-year universities for developmental classes, as a way of ensuring that incoming students meet certain criteria.

“You couldn’t afford to do it, so obviously that would go away.”

Community colleges also accept students who do not qualify academically for the state’s public four-year universities. “Most of our students would not have been able to qualify. They said things like, ‘We’ll see about getting the law changed.’”

Sue Hammond also predicted that “a lot of people would have been fired from the staff” if the merger happened. Fort Hays State administrators “would have done all the hiring and reviewing.”

There’s a big difference, she says, between the faculty of a community college, who are primarily focused on teaching, and tenured professors at a four-year university, who are expected to conduct research.

“That was the mission that was going to be lost,” says Hammond, whose husband, Bill, was inspired to run for the board of trustees because of the merger controversy but fell short of being elected.

The community college’s athletics teams, known as the Conquistadors, are a source of pride to the community and a draw for some students. They almost certainly would have been forced to leave the Kansas Jayhawk Community College Athletic Conference, where they’ve competed for decades, if the merger had taken place.

Sue Hammond says misunderstanding the proposal is what led the community college board to vote twice, unanimously, in favor of pursuing a merger, before ultimately splitting

3-3 on the issue. She also characterized the proposal as an attempted takeover by Fort Hays State, with help from the Board of Regents.

Sue Hammond, it should be noted, doesn’t claim to speak for all 60-some members of the faculty, just a group that called itself the Coalition for a Better Plan.

“I think there may be some who are in favor of it,” she says.

Merger proponents such as Bangerter say no one at the community college would have lost his or her job in a merger. “Same programs, same instructors,” he said. He added that current instructors would have more opportunities if a couple of thousand students were added to the campus, including the instructors’ ability to pursue master’s degrees from Fort Hays State at no cost.

He says developmental education would have continued at the merged institution – “bringing first-generation students into the system, making sure they’re successful and preparing them to go on to a four-year program. There was a lot of discussion about whether we would be able to maintain that. Everyone involved in the process is committed to making sure that happens, that the community college mission continues to be the focus of that lower-division college.”

Merger proponents did not dispute that the Conquistadors’ sports teams would have had to find another conference to compete in. Their proposal provided more than $2 million a year for athletics to continue on the Dodge City campus.

As for the merger being a takeover, George, Bangerter and others say they approached Fort Hays State, not the other way around. Ed Hammond and his successor, current president Mirta Martin, repeatedly stated that no merger could happen without solid support from Dodge City. Although the approval of a simple majority on the community college board would have

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legally sufficed, the Board of Regents asked for a strong or optimally unanimous vote in favor of the merger.

ROOM FOR COMPROMISE? Merger opponents claim the proposal was presented without any room for negotiation.

Proponents deny that and point out that committees, which included community college faculty members, had been formed to work through tuition, athletics, staffing and other issues at the time the merger talks collapsed.

Personality conflicts and side issues got thrown in the mix as well. Ed Hammond, the former Fort Hays president, rubbed some community college faculty and trustees the wrong way.

Hampton called his successor, Martin, who arrived in the midst of the controversy, “a breath of fresh air” (but not enough of one to change Hampton’s vote).

At one point, a graphic on the website of the Fort Hays State student newspaper showed a tiger – that school’s mascot – swallowing a Conquistador, arousing indignation in Dodge City. The image was removed. Public comments about how much the merger could help the community college and Dodge City as a whole were seen as not-so-subtle criticism.

“When barbs are thrown that the finances are in trouble – which they are not – and your campus

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needs to be upgraded – which we are aware of – they are controversial,” Hampton says.

Sue Hammond interpreted the support of the Dodge City Area Chamber of Commerce for the proposal as meaning “we haven’t kept up with (Dodge’s longtime regional rival) Garden City.

We’re being told we’re bad.”

Conant says there were “a lot of discussions” but little give and take.

“There had to be a sense of community, and there was more a sense of ‘Here’s my side and here’s the other side, and never the twain shall meet.’”

That appears unlikely to change after this spring’s elections. Two incumbents who ended up on opposite sides of the merger debate, Hampton and Dr. Jeremy Presley, were re-elected in that vote. Former board member Terry Malone, also aligned with the Coalition for a Better Plan, won a seat, replacing Jason Joy, who had opposed the merger and chose to not seek re-election.

Meanwhile, Dodge City is no closer to having an institution that can grant bachelor’s degrees or a new technical institute.

“I believe it will happen somewhere in the state,” Conant says. “I just think the idea is too good to die on the vine. I still hope or wish or dream it could be in Dodge City.”

Discussion Guide 1. How would you diagnose the situation facing Dodge City Community College at the beginning of the merger discussions? How would you diagnose the situation as it stands now?

2. What leadership principles and competencies are most essential for making progress in a situation like this?

3. Speaking to loss is an important but difficult aspect of energizing others in leadership.

Name at least five ways that one of the parties could try speaking to loss in this situation.

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9 Analysis:

LEA DERSHIP LESS ONS F ROM A S CUTTLED MERGER

By: CHRIS GREEN

1.

PROCESS CHALLENGES EVOLVE, AND YOU HAVE TO GET OUT AHEAD OF THEM.

The work of merger proposal organizers to bridge different factions to create a credible proposal is laudable. They gained the buy-in of the chairman and vice chairman of the community college trustees, Fort Hays State officials, state officials and key stakeholders in Dodge City. But they recognized too late the amount of opposition to the proposal from within the college and community, and the situation quickly became a battle of “us vs. them.”

2.

3.

Within a business there are usually clear lines of authority, and a business owner – as one supporter observed – doesn’t have to ask his employees if they support a merger. But no one person has the power to determine if a public institution like a community college will merge with any entity.

Everybody who pays taxes to support the institution has a stake in the outcome and a voice in what happens.

There’s a theory in social science that suggests our brains are wired more strongly to avoid losses than to pursue gains. We care more about keeping what we have than gaining something new, even if it’s really good. The strongest opponents to the merger were concerned about losing things such as control, identity of the college and community, athletics traditions and even their jobs.

The reason the illustration of Fort Hays State’s Tiger swallowing the Conquistador was so controversial was because it aptly captured in visual form the fear that the community college wasn’t merging with a partner but being consumed.

CIVIC LIFE DOESN’T WORK LIKE A BUSINESS.

PEOPLE DON’T FEAR CHANGE. THEY RESIST LOSS.

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4.

DEALING WITH PEOPLE FACING LOSS REQUIRES EMPATHY.

When the heat starts rising, our instincts often tell us to defend our position or to argue that what some people think is a loss is actually a gain. But this is usually a first-class ticket to nowhere. Far better to make it clear that you understand that people on the other side are losing something valuable and that you will mourn their loss with them.

7.

SPEAKING OUT IS GOOD. BUT SUBJECT YOUR BELIEFS AND ACTIONS TO A REALITY TEST ON A REGULAR BASIS.

We often tell ourselves noble stories about our roles and behavior. In this situation, opponents of the merger rallied around a Coalition for a Better Plan. But their success in raising their concerns wasn’t transformed into the creation of a better plan.

Right now, there’s no credible alternative accepted by a broad enough array of stakeholders to become a reality. And there’s little hope of seeing one conceived. As a merger opponent, ask yourself: “Have my actions really contributed to the creation of a better plan?”

5.

DON’T FOOL YOURSELF INTO THINKING THE PROBLEM IS ABOUT CLEARING UP THE FACTS.

A lot of energy seems to have gone into dispelling myths and rumors in this situation.

We often tend to think that once people have the facts as we see them, they will see things our way. But facts, as social scientists have shown, rarely change minds because there’s a set of underlying beliefs driving what facts we accept. Hitting people over the head with facts doesn’t work. You have to understand and address their fears.

6.

SPEAK TO WHAT’S BEING CONTRIBUTED.

One thing that seems to be missing from this discussion is some sense of what Dodge City Community College and its students, faculty, staff and patrons would be bringing to the merger. Acknowledge the value they are bringing so that the merger can be something being done with them, rather than to them.

8.

9.

If you want to bring a four-year institution to Dodge City or southwest Kansas, it’s probably going to require a merger of some sort with some institution.

It’s going to require changes that result in some amount of pain because it will require some significant changes on the part of the local institution.

There’s always a cost to progress, and you have to decide what costs you are willing to accept and which ones you are not.

The surest place to find your footing is to reorient yourself to what’s most important. The proposal to merge Dodge City Community College with Fort Hays State was built from a desire to expand access to higher education in southwest Kansas. That is the one purpose that seems broadly shared by everyone involved. What would be possible if the conversation restarted from there?

RECOGNIZE THAT THERE’S NO PAIN-FREE FIX.

WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, RETURN TO A PLACE OF COMMON GROUND.

ROPIN’ THEM IN A PHOTO ESSAY ON ENERGIZING OTHERS THROUGH LEADERSHIP

By: JEFF TUTTLE

A group of cowboys pray inside the arena just before a night of bull bucking. It is just one of several western-themed activities occuring at the Three Wooden Crosses Cowboy Church near Augusta.

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CO W B O Y C H U R C H O F F E R S LESSONS FOR ‘ S TA R T I N G W H E R E T H E Y A R E ’

For many of us, our mental image of a church is one of pews and stained glass panels. But a place of worship doesn’t have to look like that.

A church can also be a place where congregants don pearl snap shirts, cowboy hats and boots. It can be a place with a rodeo arena where you can ride a bull.

Or get baptized in a stock tank.

That’s the kind of church you’ll find at Three Wooden Crosses Cowboy Church near Augusta. It draws about 80 participants to its Sunday services and offers a slate of weekly activities that range from Bible study on horseback to barrel racing and mounted shooting. The church started last year under the guidance of Pastor Don Mayberry, who has been serving churches for nearly four decades in a number of states and also carries on his family’s heritage as a horseman.

It’s one of a handful of churches across Kansas that spread the gospel with the help of the words and songs of cowboy culture. While hardly a recent phenomenon, they’ve been on the rise recently and are known for their “no barriers” approach to ministry.

The church doesn’t have a dress code or collect offerings. “We do everything we can to sever the trip wire that keeps some people from going to church, or returning to church if they’ve had a bad experience,” Mayberry says.

Mayberry’s mission is to use nontraditional means to get people with affinity for western culture to become “passionate followers of Jesus Christ.” But his church’s efforts can provide all of us working on leadership challenges with powerful insights about starting where people are, an important aspect of the Kansas Leadership Center’s competency of energizing others.

Starting where people are will often look different than you might expect. It feels different. Because it’s not about you. It’s about whom you’re trying to reach. And sometimes it’s something that you can do better with saddles, spurs and a guitar than loafers, slacks and a hymnal.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Mike Shields attempts to keep from getting bucked by a bull in the arena during one of the cowboy church’s activity nights. As part of its ministry, the church hosts events that range from barrel racing to mounted shooting; Pastor Don Mayberry leads the congregation in song on Easter Sunday. Country and western music, including secular tunes, play an important role in the services; Cowboys wait their turn behind the chute to ride a bull. The church takes a “no barriers” approach to spreading the gospel.

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Pastor Don Mayberry baptizes Colby Caster in a stock tank during Easter Sunday.

He says the church does everything it can to “sever the trip wire that keeps some people from going to church” or returning, if they’ve had a bad experience.

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“ I K E I S D O N CO R L E O N E , T H E G O D FAT H E R . H E K N O W S H O W TO T A K E S O M E B O D Y O U T W I T H O U T L E A V I N G A N Y F I N G E R P R I N T S .”

DAUN VAN EE, Editor of the Eisenhower published papers

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LEADERSHIP AND

THE ‘HIDDEN HAND’

EI S EN H O W ER , T H E ‘ G R EAT MI D D LE W AY’ A ND HO W H I S E F FO RTS D EST R OY ED SEN. JO SEPH MCC A RTHY

By: MARK MCCORMICK

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DURING A BRIEF ERA THAT TODAY SEEMS WORLDS AWAY, A GREAT MIDDLE WAY DOMINATED AMERICAN POLITICS, PARTLY BECAUSE PRESIDENT DWIGHT EISENHOWER WANTED IT THAT WAY.

That’s not to say that politics lacked acrimony or that building consensus was easy. The party system operated through the usual collision of ideas. Politicians had rivalries fueled by ambitions.

But Eisenhower didn’t believe in nasty public fights. He believed in decorum. He hated demagogues.

As he ascended to the presidency, Eisenhower was a political novice but what he lacked in political chops he made up for as a more-than-capable strategist, Nichols says. Deception is a key aspect of military strategy. You want to keep your opponent guessing – and guessing wrong – until that opponent makes a mistake that can be exploited.

And that’s precisely why he hated Joseph McCarthy.

Nichols says if you had asked Eisenhower, he would have said he was a champion of the middle way. He was anti-extremism. Eisenhower also concluded that what McCarthy was doing was wrong for the country.

Beneath the glow of postwar triumph, an ugly political storm brewed and what would play out publicly would be decided in deeply personal dimensions. Eisenhower’s role in this littleknown episode offers a glimpse into the unsettling and perhaps even disillusioning world of presidential leadership, power and politics.

“Eisenhower loathed McCarthy,” says David Nichols, emeritus academic dean of history at Southwestern College and author of two previous books on Eisenhower. “He loathed him like no other man. He was a terrible demagogue.”

Today, the term “McCarthyism” refers to demagogic, reckless and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on a person’s character or patriotism by mere association with political opponents.

“McCarthy personified the ugliness of that period,” Nichols says.

Eisenhower wrote in his diary: “Nothing will be so effective in combating his particular kind

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of troublemaking as to ignore him. This he cannot stand.”

fame, that in effect, accused the former soldier and statesman of treason.

Eisenhower even refused to use McCarthy’s name in public.

When McCarthy went after alleged communists in Ike’s Army, Nichols says “he signed his own political death warrant.”

“When reporters would try to get him to discuss McCarthy, Eisenhower would say, ‘I don’t talk in terms of personalities, I talk in terms of principles,’” Nichols says. “He didn’t believe in being negative with anyone in public.”

Exploiting a Crisis However, McCarthy would learn that Eisenhower could be as ruthless privately as McCarthy was reckless and demagogic publicly.

Nichols says two public missteps moved McCarthy out of favor with Eisenhower.

The first was the senator’s grandiose but empty claim that he had the names of some 205 communists working in the U.S. State Department.

The second was an attack on Eisenhower’s mentor, Gen. George C. Marshall of Marshall Plan

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Nichols says some leadership imperatives drive presidents beyond the bully pulpit.

“Ike was constantly criticized for not ‘speaking out’ against McCarthy but the bully pulpit doesn’t change much of anything,” Nichols says.

“One important study says that transformative presidential leadership arises when a president exploits a crisis. The examples I use are Lincoln and the Civil War, Roosevelt and the Great Depression. That’s what makes the difference.”

This kind of maneuvering was a hallmark of Ike’s administration.

“Eisenhower’s ‘hidden hand,’ (Princeton University’s Fred Greenstein’s phrase) permeates his presidential leadership,” Nichols says.

WHEN REPORTERS WOULD TRY TO GET HIM TO DISCUSS MCCARTHY, EISENHOWER WOULD SAY, ‘I DON’T TALK IN TERMS OF PERSONALITIES, I TALK IN TERMS OF PRINCIPLES’

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PRESIDENTS SOMETIMES HAVE TO BE DECEPTIVE AND EISENHOWER COUD BE VERY SNEAKY. HE WAS A STRATEGIC GENIUS.

The End of McCarthy Eisenhower’s hidden hand proved to be a patient one. Advisers pressed the president to take McCarthy on as early as 1953, but the president was dealing with the close of the Korean War and trying to build relationships with new Soviet leaders following Joseph Stalin’s death.

He waited for the perfect time to surface in early 1954, when a situation emerged involving two of McCarthy’s closest aides. One had been drafted into the Army, and the other (rumored to be motivated by romantic feelings) began pressuring the Army to give his friend and colleague special privileges.

With McCarthy facing increased scrutiny in March 1954, Eisenhower’s administration released a report that led to Senate hearings as to whether McCarthy and his aide were trying to improperly sway the Army.

Nichols says McCarthy came across poorly in the hearings. “The hearings were a huge thing,” he says. “McCarthy looked so bad.

He was sweaty and his attitude, how he treated witnesses, made him look worse and worse.

And everyone was watching.”

Using his executive power behind the scenes, Eisenhower helped the hearings, which were

being televised gavel-to-gavel, drag on.

“McCarthy was doing so much damage to himself that he (Ike) wanted the hearings to continue,” Nichols says.

McCarthy’s political support withered amid the exposure, dooming his career and paving the way for his eventual censure by the Senate.

Never one to crow publicly, Nichols says Eisenhower did draw some pleasure from McCarthy’s unraveling, repeating privately a saying circulating in Washington: The nation’s capital had been under siege by McCarthyism but was now enjoying a period of McCarthywasim.

Instead of trying to out-talk his political adversary, Eisenhower outsmarted McCarthy.

He set a trap, one that McCarthy would step into and ultimately destroy himself.

“Presidents sometimes have to be deceptive and Eisenhower could be very sneaky,” Nichols says. “He was a strategic genius. A lot of important things presidents do aren’t visible to the public. That’s why we can’t evaluate them immediately after their presidency. We have to wait for some of their decisions to come to the surface.”

LEARN MORE ABOUT EISENHOWER’S ‘HIDDEN HAND’ IN “Eisenhower and Joe McCarthy: How Ike Destroyed an Extremist” A FORTHCOMING BOOK BY AUTHOR DAVID A. NICHOLS (EXCERPT BELOW)

A generation ago, William Ewald wrote a book titled, “Who Killed Joe McCarthy?,” a title worthy of an Agatha Christie whodunit.

That question has reverberated for six decades. Beginning in 1950, Wisconsin’s junior senator, Joseph R. McCarthy, had thrown the nation’s capital into turmoil with his reckless, unsubstantiated charges. In his campaign to rid America of an alleged communist conspiracy, the senator charged respected citizens, especially government employees, with being Soviet agents. McCarthy’s lack of respect for the truth, his insatiable appetite for headlines and his willingness to damage reputations turned “McCarthyism” into an enduring epitaph in our political language.

Yet, by mid-1954, McCarthy’s political influence had been essentially destroyed. How did that happen?

The answer – fully told for the first time in this book – is Dwight D. Eisenhower. When I first mentioned this project to Daun van Ee, editor of the Eisenhower published papers, he responded: “Ike is Don Corleone, the godfather. He knows how to take somebody out without leaving any fingerprints.”

Discussion Guide Would you consider Eisenhower’s behavior in this situation to be an example of leadership? Why or why not?

Rally Round the Flag?

GREAT FLAGS SHOU LD B E SO SIM PLE EVEN A C HILD COU LD DRAW THEM .

HOW DOES THE KANSAS FLAG STAC K U P?

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Once a subject of passionate debate, the Kansas flag doesn’t exactly evoke strong opinions. Or stand out from the crowd. In fact, its basic design looks similar to about two dozen other state flags across the country. It’s time to consider a makeover.

By: CHRIS GREEN

Let’s have a conversation about the Kansas state flag.

Chances are you’ve seen our flag before. It’s been with us, after all, for nearly 90 years. But you probably don’t spend all that much time thinking about it.

Flags, namely the Confederate flag, became a hot topic in our country this summer in the aftermath of a racially motivated mass shooting at a historically black church in South Carolina. It sparked a nationwide push to remove symbols of the Confederacy from public spaces.

The controversy is an example of how any flag is more than just a piece of fabric. It can be a powerful symbol that inspires passion and debate.

However, the Kansas flag – with its dark blue background, sunflower crest and state seal – doesn’t evoke a lot of passion in Kansas these days. Nobody’s fighting for or against it. It’s just there, waving in the background.

And from my perspective, that’s a problem.

I want Kansans to start talking about our flag.

Do you love it? Do you hate it? If it’s a beloved symbol, then why don’t more people fly it? And if people don’t care for it, then why don’t they do something about it?

I love Kansas, and I think we should be represented by a flag that more people can love. I think now is the time to reimagine what the Kansas flag could look like. What do you think?

If you’re ready for change, then stand up for it.

If you’re happy with the flag as is, now is the time to fight for your flag.

And if you’re apathetic or ambivalent, get off the fence and pick a side. After all, it’s just a flag, right? What do you have to lose?

One skill we teach here at the Kansas Leadership Center is the idea of “taking the temperature.”

We encourage people to master the art of stepping back and taking stock of how hot an issue is before diving headlong into taking action. It helps us know whether we should try to raise or lower the heat on a given issue.

This article is my attempt to model taking the temperature on an issue before proceeding. By seeing how others respond to it, I’ll be able to make a better informed diagnosis of whether Kansans are satisfied with the status quo when it comes to our state flag.

You, the reader, can play a big role in helping me take the temperature. Consider whether you like the current design of the flag. Is it good enough

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Before assuming the office of the governor in 1915, Arthur Capper wrote to agencies of other states, asking if they had their own state flags. In a typical letter sent to Providence, Rhode Island, Capper inquired about designs and noted that “having just been elected governor of this state, it has been suggested to me that Kansas should have a state flag and I am anxious to know what other states have done in this matter.” The Michigan Historical Commission advised that “each state can have its flag by using its coat of arms on the blue ground of Old Glory. Your seal should make a fine design.”

JAMES H. NOTTAGE AND FLOYD R. THOMAS, JR. writing about the start of a 13-year effort to approve a Kansas state flag in “’There’s No Place Like Home’: Symbols and Images of Kansas.”

as it is? Or could it be better? Think about your answers and then discuss them with others.

Then email me at cgreen@kansasleadershipcenter.org or tweet what you think using the hashtag #kansasflag on Twitter.

Knowing your thoughts on this question would tell me a lot not just about how you feel about our flag, but also what you believe about our state.

How we relate to the flag is pretty good metaphor for how many of us operate in civic life.

As engaged as some of us are in our communities or expressing state pride, we’re probably the exception to the rule. There are many more people who would say they like our state (just as they say they like the flag), but they aren’t committed to it or take its assets for granted.

Others dislike the status quo but aren’t doing a whole lot to change things (the flag or the state).

It’s either not worth the effort or they just can’t persuade enough people to join with them in creating change.

I dare you to name an important civic issue in our state right now where this dynamic is not in play and affecting the outcome.

Why is it that Kansas – be it the place or its flag – too often inspires very little forward motion?

THE GREAT FLAG DEBATE

You wouldn’t know it today, but the process of designing the Kansas flag was a long-running saga that produced rancorous debate. Passions ran so hot that it took our state 13 years – from 1915 until 1927 – for residents and state officials to finally settle on an acceptable symbol.

The push for selecting a flag for Kansas came in the aftermath of the state’s semicentennial in 1911. In the wake of the celebration, historians James H. Nottage and Floyd Thomas Jr. wrote that there was increasing interest among several organizations in fostering state pride, patriotism and creating new symbols for the state. A half-century into statehood, Kansas had just two symbols, the great seal and the state flower – but no flag.

In 1915, Gov. Arthur Capper started writing to other states to learn how they had picked their flags, according to the two historians. The effort picked up steam when the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) settled on a favorite that played off the national colors of red, white and blue.

That didn’t sit too well with the Grand Army of the Republic, a powerful group of Civil War veterans who had risked their lives to preserve the Union, and another group, the Native Daughters of Kansas. Their pride and loyalty was invested in the national flag, and they didn’t want anything that would steal its thunder.

The two groups, Nottage and Thomas wrote,

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Image courtesy of the Kansas Secretary of State’s office.

believed this: “‘Old Glory,’ good enough for the United States, is good enough for Kansas.”

Supporters of a state flag countered their passion by arguing that the national flag couldn’t represent the state, too. After all, nearly every other state had a distinctive flag of its own. Who were we to be so out of step?

At that point, Kansans had a bona fide leadership challenge on their hands. One side wanted to honor Kansas by giving it a flag that referenced the U.S. flag while the other wanted to honor America by giving Kansas a flag that let the U.S. flag stand alone. Would Kansas be like the other states or would it choose to be different?

The controversy led to some creative attempts at compromise. In 1925, the state wound up adopting a banner that hung from a brass bar – with a sunflower and the state seal on a blue background, Kansas was written at the top and gold fringe hung from the bottom – as an alternative to a traditional rectangular flag. But debate raged on. Some people hated the display of the sunflower because they considered it a weed.

DAR representatives were not pleased either.

They didn’t want a banner. They wanted a flag, The final straw came when the Kansas National Guard found itself stymied because it was impossible to march with a banner. The banner also found little respect in Washington, D.C., where it was excluded from flying among the other state flags.

The state’s adjutant general, Milton R. McLean, used his influence to settle the fight in 1927.

His push for a flag led to what is essentially the design that you see today. The Kansas Legislature tweaked the look by adding the word “Kansas” to the bottom in 1961 and shrank it to make it smaller than the national flag in 1963. But other than that, the flag has looked much the same since the days of President Calvin Coolidge.

RAISING THE BAR

For most of my life, I haven’t given much thought to the design of the Kansas flag. I loved it because I loved Kansas. But as I became more aware of design principles earlier this year, I’ve started to ask questions about the status quo.

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TH E FI V E P R I N C I PLES OF FLAG D ES IGN W H I C H STAT E F L A G S M A K E T H E G R A D E ?

1.

KEEP IT SIMPLE (SO SIMPLE A CHILD COULD DRAW IT FROM MEMORY)

The Kansas flag has multiple design elements (state seal, sunflower crest and letters) vs. the simple flag of Alaska (column 2, row 3), which was designed by a seventh-grader.

2.

USE MEANINGFUL SYMBOLISM The New Mexico flag (column 2, row 7) uses the sacred sun symbol of New Mexico’s Zia Indians.

The Kansas seal incorporates symbolism into the flag but not as obviously.

3.

STICK TO TWO OR THREE BASIC COLORS The Texas flag (column 1, row 8) uses just red, white and blue while the Kansas flag has a variety of different colors.

4.

DON’T USE LETTERING OR SEALS Kansas uses a seal and lettering. South Carolina (row 3, column 7) stands out with a white palmetto tree and crescent over an indigo background.

5.

BE DISTINCTIVE (OR RELATED) The Arizona flag (row 4, column 8) is distinctive while the Kansas flag echoes the banners being used by other states.

SOURCE: “GOOD FLAG, BAD FLAG: HOW TO DESIGN A GREAT FLAG” COMPILED BY TED KAYE; FLAG IMAGES COURTESY OF USA.FLAGPEDIA.NET

Discussion Guide Based on the criteria above, which state flags at right make the grade? Which fall short?

What makes simplicity hard in designing a flag?

To what extent would you benefit from adhering to more simplicity in designing your leadership interventions?

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The way I see it, there are two problems with our flag right now that we could try to address.

One is that not enough Kansans feel ownership in it to display it and point to it as an emblem they’re proud of. Another is that the present design of the flag may not be strong enough to inspire that pride.

Despite the contentious process by which the flag was chosen, these days those of us who feel passionately about the Kansas flag are in the minority. My wife, Sarah, and I own one, and we display it on our front porch to commemorate Kansas Day, the date our state entered the Union in 1861. And on just about any other day we want to express that we’re proud to be Kansans. Truth be told, we’re sure there are others who do the same thing, but we don’t know a whole lot of them.

It’s not as though it’s rare to see a Kansas flag.

Drive far enough in our state and you’re bound to see a Kansas flag or two flying somewhere, whether at a government building, civic organization or business. But the sense I get is that our state flag was intentionally designed to blend in, perhaps in solidarity with other Union states and in deference to the U.S. flag. It’s telling that we mimic roughly two dozen other state flags by employing the same basic flag motif – state seals over a solid blue background.

As common as that approach is, it’s not a popular one with people who spend a lot of time thinking about how flags should look. Our Kansas flag – recently derided by a humorous article in The Washington Post as looking like the logo for the classic video game “Oregon Trail” – ranked 48th out of the 50 state flags in attractiveness in a public survey conducted by the North American Vexillological Association, an organization devoted to the scientific and scholarly study of flags.

Not standing out too much or showing off may often be a good thing. But it’s not what a flag

is supposed to be about. Flags – the distinctive designs used by New Mexico, Texas, Alaska and Arizona come to mind – should shout their presence from a hundred feet away.

What spurred my thinking about flags – and the Kansas flag in particular – was a TED Talk given earlier this year by Roman Mars, the host of a radio show called “99% Invisible” that explores the hidden ways design and architecture shape our world. In his presentation, Mars explored the key elements of a great flag design and explained why many state and local flags “may be the worst-designed thing you’ve never noticed.”

In the video, Mars gets a lot of laughs from the audience by showing the flags that conspicuously flout the five good design rules (Kansas, thankfully, was not mentioned).

Great flags, as Mars explains, are really simple. So simple, in fact, that a child could draw them from memory.

They stick to just two or three basic colors. They use meaningful symbolism, but they steer clear of using seals or lettering of any kind. They’re also distinctive in that they stand apart from any other flag, although they can riff off the designs of other flags to show deeply rooted connections.

Based on these criteria, as you can see in the accompanying graphic, the Kansas flag doesn’t stack up too well. Our flag is not simple, uses lettering and is certainly not all that distinctive.

The question that I’ve been turning over in my mind in recent weeks is, “Does it matter how the Kansas flag is designed?”

To me, it does. And it’s not necessarily because the Kansas flag flouts design rules. For me, it’s

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about fostering more pride and ownership in our state. I’d be happy to live with a flag that flouts the rules of the “experts” if it were something that Kansans believed in strongly enough to fly in front of their houses or display as stickers on the back of their cars. But I have yet to see enough of that. In my view, that’s a sign that we ought to be able to do better.

Some people, and my wife is one of them, think the Kansas flag is just great as it is. I’m willing to accept that position, provided that defenders of the current flag are also willing to live out that belief by honoring or displaying the state flag in some manner. Even if it’s just putting up a tiny 4-inch by 6-inch rayon flag to display at your office desk (If you’re interested, you can buy them for $2.50 klcjr.nl/smallksflag.)

If we decide to keep our state flag as it is, though, we should set a much higher bar for creating and honoring emblems of pride in our state. We should have greater appreciation for the city of Wichita’s beautifully designed flag, which is based on an American Indian symbol for home and consistently ranks high in flag surveys. More people in Kansas should start caring about the city flags being displayed in their communities, which are rarely designed well. If we don’t like what we see, we should work to make them better and strengthen the pride and ownership we have in our communities.

I know that some are sure to argue that Kansans have much more important things to worry about than flags, and I don’t disagree. In the grand scheme of things, a flag is a very little thing. But if we can’t make little things that we’re extremely proud of, what hope do we ever have of creating big ones?

Furthermore, it’s certainly no waste of time to talk about what we value and how we represent ourselves to the world. Making space for that isn’t going to keep us from making progress on more substantial problems, whether it is poverty or balancing the state budget. If anything, successfully tackling a challenge where the stakes aren’t as high and getting clearer about what we stand for might provide great new insights about the kind of leadership we’ll need to effectively address much more daunting problems.

It’s been a century since Kansas began the process of selecting its first state flag. Now’s the time to decide how we want others – and ourselves – to see Kansas for the next 100 years.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE KANSAS FLAG?

Share your thoughts with managing editor Chris Green through email at cgreen@kansasleadershipcenter.org or tweet them using the hashtag #kansasflag on Twitter.

HAVE YOUR OWN IDEA FOR WHAT YOUR STATE OR CITY FLAG SHOULD LOOK LIKE? Use the 1-inch by 1-1/2-inch rectangle below to sketch out your own idea. By staying within those constraints, you’ll be more likely to design a flag that looks great from a distance.

Send a photo of your idea to cgreen@kansasleadershipcenter.org.

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POET LAUREATE

ERIC McHENRY

APPARENT

MEMORY OF EVAN,

FOUR OR FIVE YEARS OLD

If it had been an open window you would’ve kept walking, but because it was sun-puzzled glass you saw me through, you stopped halfway across the yard, and squinted through the glare, and waved, and seemed to wait for something else to happen, and finally it became apparent that it had already, and that you were being kept from what you’d been about to do by nothing, and you gave me one more gentle wave — I’m here, you’re there — and left me in my frame. (first published in Seattle Review)

Eric McHenry of Lawrence became the fifth poet laureate of Kansas in April and will serve in that role into 2017. An associate professor of English at Washburn University in Topeka, McHenry is a fifth-generation Topekan and a nationally known poet who has been featured in publications such as the Poetry International website, Slate magazine and the Yale Review. He also contributes poetry reviews for The New York Times and Columbia magazine. “Odd Evening,� his third book of poems, will be published by The Waywiser Press in 2016.

As poet laureate, McHenry will promote the humanities as a public resource for all Kansans through public readings, presentations and discussions about poetry in communities across the state. The program is organized under the Kansas Humanities Council, a nonprofit organization that supports community-based cultural programs, serves as a financial resource through an active grant-making program, and encourages Kansans to engage in the civic and cultural life of their communities.

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FEATURED ARTIST

The French Clown By: MARCIA STREEPY

I create a painting to see the flow of watercolor or pen and ink, the brilliant colors of pastels and the expressive brush strokes of creamy oil paint. I enjoy plein air painting for the joy of being outdoors, the warmth of the sun, the buzz of cicadas, the singing of birds, even the rumble of traffic. The atmosphere – whether warm, cold, windy, rainy or a glorious day – is always a challenge and part of the experience.

The creative process of painting, deciding on color, composition, value, design and what subjects to include or exclude is so engaging that I don’t notice space, time, pain or distress. Painting on location helps me appreciate the wonders of our world, the beauty of Kansas skies, the rolling hills in Chase County, and the glorious wheat fields in western Kansas. It is my goal to show something with a new perspective or in a different, interesting light. I do not paint realistically but by glancing and squinting at the subject and then painting. By doing this, I hope to convey the impression of the space and time and spirit of the object.

I have been exploring my lifelong interests and painting about them.

Recently I did a series about my love of sewing using sewing patterns as subjects for large oils. I used sewing paraphernalia, along with my life drawings on top of pattern paper to create collages.

While an artist in residence in Lindsborg, I painted clowns using old pattern covers and I was inspired by the work of Kansas artist Lester Raymer. I intend to follow up with more paintings showing how our own clothing and lives are like clowns. My ultimate goals are always to strive for better paintings, showing that even my small life as a mother, wife, woman and Kansas resident has meaning and is worth recording.

Marcia Streepy of Shawnee is a lifelong resident of Kansas and has painted professionally for 20 years. She first painted with watercolors before starting to use pastels in 1990, and has since begun using oils. Her mother, Pat Potucek, was a Kansas artist known for painting murals throughout the state. Streepy, who teaches classes in pastels and watercolors, started a daytime life drawing group 15 years ago that still meets weekly. She works to mentor young artists and encourage the practice of art as a lifelong joy.

HTTP://MARCIASTREEPY.NET

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Humility and its Dissidents By: MARK MCCORMICK

As the search begins for lost 49 percenters – people whose candidates lose elections by the slimmest of margins then go entire election cycles virtually unrepresented – New York Times opinion columnist David Brooks suggests we all do some soul-searching as well.

Brooks says as much in his book “The Road to Character.”

We’re due, he says, for a deeper examination of humility if we’re ever to mend our political process and bring 49 percenters back to the civic table.

“Politics is a competition between partial truths,” Brooks says. “Conservatives have a piece of the truth, progressives have a piece of the truth, and it differs on each issue, but you should be able to talk about it.” But we don’t, and that inability creates dissidents and dissonance.

We have citizens wandering civic life’s margins like Bedouins, and people of all political stripes threatening to “leave the country if so-and-so wins.”

It reeks of bluster, but they do leave.

They don’t actually leave the country, but they stop following political news. They don’t bother voting – or even registering.

They disengage after seeing that their ballots don’t guarantee them a seat at the table.

But this isn’t just about voting.

The cold wind blowing through

voting booths is merely a symptom of our lack of faith in the process.

We emphasize shallow “résumé virtues” over character-fortified “eulogy virtues,” he says.

We’re character starved.

We build character through humility or, “radical self-awareness at a distance.” He says, “You develop character by confronting your own weaknesses. It’s about asking constantly, “Where’s my sin and how do I spend the day combating my sinfulness?”

Character construction depends on disciplined self-confrontation.

Humility is the greatest virtue, he argues. Some identify love as the greatest virtue, while others choose courage because it takes courage to love.

Brooks argues for humility, because “before you can do anything, you have to understand and see the situation and humility is the capacity of self-awareness.”

of obligation to the 49 percent who didn’t vote for them.

But what if those who prevailed electorally did more of that humilitybased soul-searching Brooks talks about? What if they worked harder to represent everyone?

Sports journalist Frank Deford once lamented civility’s unraveling over the years. Competitors once said, “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”

Then it became, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.”

Then, finally, “In your face.”

That’s as far from humility as you can get.

We need the kind of soul-searching Brooks outlines. We need more of our citizenry back at the table.

Our future depends on it.

If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.

Without it, he said, we’re settling for “moral mediocrity.”

Harvard University recently asked 10,000 middle and high school students whether their parents cared more about them getting good grades or being kind. Eighty percent of them said their parents cared more about grades, and that’s what we’ve wrought.

Our politics are about temporarily winning arguments rather than addressing challenges. Winners of marginal victories feel no sense

Mark E. McCormick is the executive director of The Kansas African American Museum in Wichita.

“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

WILL ROGERS

Non-profit Organization U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 476 Wichita, KS

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325 EAST DOUGLAS AVENUE WICHITA, KANSAS 67202

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