Reorienting Coro
Remarks by Jill F. Hultin, Former Chair, Coro National Board of Governors

Introduction

First, let me express my deep gratitude to all of you who have contributed so much to shape and sustain the Coro program over the years.  As a graduate of the Fellows Program, I can personally attest to the profound impact Coro training has had on the way I perceive the world and do my particular kind of work in it. 

Second, thank you for your confidence in selecting me to chair the Coro National Board.  I would not have accepted the position if I did not believe that, working together, we can help Coro become a thriving, sustainable national organization.

WIGO

Someone once said that "context is everything," and in Coro it would be bad form to talk about my vision of how Coro needs to move forward before describing what I see going on in the world.   So I want to begin by talking about this sketch I've made on a flip chart.  In this picture, you see four concentric circles that I'm using to represent my "map" of the world.

In the largest outer circle of this map, you see a planet experiencing a set of profoundly destabilizing problems that are interrelated in dynamically complex ways:  large and small-scale conflicts over territory, resources, religion and ideologies; predictable environmental consequences like global warming and unpredictable, disruptive events like natural disasters, epidemics and terrorism. 

The second circle includes our key social, economic, governmental and non-governmental institutions, which although they exist to manage and address our collective human and social needs, seem to have lost much of their productive problem-solving and innovative capacity.  In fact, I would argue that most of these institutions have devolved into what the author Edwin Friedman described as "imaginative gridlock," the key characteristics of which include:

• Applying the same solutions to the same problems with greater and greater energy despite ample evidence that the effort is not producing significant results
• Pursuing a "one right way" approach to complex problems, rather than asking different questions which generate more options, and
• Polarizing into false dichotomies differing opinions and those who hold them¹

The third, still-smaller circle includes a handful of organizations and institutions grappling with how to implement more effective methods of addressing key social and economic issues as well as ways to increase citizen engagement in the problem-solving processes.  Of course you see Coro located in this circle.  And finally, the smallest circle represents Coro as an organization, including all the various entities in the system: six Centers with their staff and boards; the new program in Cleveland; the Coro National Alumni Association and the Coro National Board; each working to fulfill its own mission and charter in an effort to make a difference in the world. And as you look across the four circles on this map, you also see many dots representing Coro's 10,000+ graduates who are also out working in the world applying their individual skills and insights in ways that they also hope will make a difference. 

So if I step back from this map with a wider lens, how do I interpret it?  There is a world with great needs and Coro with the relevant assets of its methodology, programs, staff and reputation.  But in relation to both the problems and the opportunities, Coro seems terribly small and under-resourced.  Despite the strengths of our 62-year history, we have not yet figured out how to align our various organizations for greater impact or how to link our 10,000+ graduates into a national network that is widely known for its graduates' abilities to improve the quality and effectiveness of citizen engagement in complex, cross-sector problem-solving at the regional, national and international levels.

Reorienting Coro

So what kind of reorienting process would permit Coro to become a thriving, high-profile institution that functions like a wedge overlaid on this map, strengthening and multiplying the influence and impact of our programs and leveraging the individual efforts of our graduates with a stronger brand and links to other leaders and organizations working on issues of mutual interest? Although it is always tempting to believe we just need more money to expand and replicate our programs or improve our infrastructure, both my experience as an organizational consultant and the literature on organizational and cultural change suggest that it's very difficult to motivate or achieve significant organizational or cultural change with a strategy that focuses primarily on doing more of the same. 

Instead, I would argue that Coro as a system needs to reorient to the opportunity to make a difference in some of those big problems in the world--and then commit to and passionately pursue a strategy to marshal Coro's assets and apply them to those problems in ways that dramatically increase our measurable impact on and benefit to society.

Some important steps in that re-orientation would include:

• Asking different questions that generate more options;
• Clarifying what I would describe as our "North Star" and then charting a common course in the context of that singular orientation.

Asking different questions

When I talk about asking different questions and generating additional options, you may be reminded of those Coro exercises in general semantics and communications, when we were shown repeatedly how our assumptions limited our perceptions. Here, I'm suggesting that the questions we ask and the way we frame them also limits our options.  Let me hasten to acknowledge that over the last two years, we have made progress as a group in asking some different questions.  There has been a perceptible shift from each entity in the system asking "What can you do for me/my problem?" to "What shared problems could we benefit from addressing together?"  But I think many of you would acknowledge that the commitment to this new process has been tentative, the individuals involved keep changing and the pace of progress has not been aligned with the potential benefit of successful resolution of the problem.  An objective observer might be inclined to ask "What exactly are we trying to avoid?"

Clarifying our “North Star”

When considering Coro, I think it is useful to think about the difference between orienting to "magnetic north" and to "true north." Those of you who are sailors know that magnetic north on a compass can vary by location on the globe and by year, so navigators make adjustments to assure they are charting their course to true north, which is fixed.²   While each of Coro's organizations may use a magnetic compass to guide its own ship, there is nothing to prevent us, as a flotilla, from also orienting ourselves to a "North Star."  And if we were to define that North Star as one or more of the intersections of the world's great needs and Coro's great gifts, instead of focusing on cooperating around specific inter-organizational functions, we might be exploring how to align our programs, staff and alumni to address specific social or economic problems or governance challenges on a regional or national or global basis.  The first question limits our thinking to our own operations. The second opens up the possibilities of partnering with others and accessing resources that would not be available if we focus solely in the context of our own organizational needs and capacities.  Pursuit of this North Star would become the primary driver in our work together, and through it we would create that wedge with which to impact the world.

The VISA example

As an example of the potential benefits to the kind of reorientation I'm proposing, let me tell you the story of how the VISA system came into being.   Some of you may know Dee Hock, who was for many years the CEO of VISA International.  Back in the late 1960's, Hock was a Vice President of a Bank of America branch in Seattle at a time when the credit card industry was in deep trouble.  Bank of America had been the first bank to issue a credit card, but by 1966, several California banks had worked together to develop Master Charge as a competing product. Bank of America then franchised the BankAmericard, and soon other large banks were developing their own cards and franchise systems. By 1968, so many cards had been issued that fraud was rampant, banks were losing money and the industry seemed to be in a race to the bottom.  So Bank of America, in an effort to address the problem, called a national meeting of its licensees. 

The meeting was a disaster.  Everyone blamed everyone else for the problem, and productive discussion was impossible.  Eventually, Hock volunteered to chair a committee to work offline on a solution, and his committee slogged its way through two years of painful discussions.  Finally, in 1970, they were ready to launch a new independent organization called National BankAmericard, Inc., later renamed VISA International, and Hock was appointed its chief executive. 

The new organization was formed as a nonstock, for-profit membership organization with ownership in the form of nontransferable rights of participation.  It was designed to be highly decentralized and highly collaborative.  Authority, initiative, decision-making, and wealth were pushed to the members.  Instead of trying to enforce cooperation by restricting what the member can do, the VISA bylaws encouraged members to compete and innovate as much as possible-pricing, marketing and serving their own products under the VISA name. But at the same time, in that band of activity that was essential to the success of the whole, members agreed to engage in the most intense cooperation.   This was their "North Star."  And this blend of cooperation and competition is what allowed the VISA system to expand worldwide -despite differences in currencies, languages, legal codes, customers, cultures and political philosophies. The sole product of the VISA Corporation is to facilitate and coordinate decision-making and work processes that benefit all members.  Its results have demonstrated that an organization composed of many members can be effective without coercion or any elements of command and control. ³

In my vision of how we need to move forward, I believe this VISA model could greatly enhance Coro's influence, visibility and the speed with which we achieve it. We would work together to identify those two or three initiatives where we think we can make both a significant improvement in the world while also enhancing the success of our organizations.  Then each of us would make an appropriate commitment of time, energy and resources to those initiatives, because they would now be perceived as priorities rather than as marginal add-ons.  And our commitment would not be limited to the personal decision of those individuals in the room at the time. Rather, it would be supported by the strategy and policy of our various organizations because all those organizations perceive the benefits of making Coro a more significant force for change. 

We have already made an important first step toward this kind of commitment by our shared  decision to develop a new technology platform for the Coro website and alumni databases, with improved connectivity and functionality that will benefit every organizational entity in the system. This platform will function as a technological wedge, giving all Coro entities for the first time a single face to the world and a single point of entry to the whole system.  Functionally, it will allow alumni to connect with Coro programs across the country and with each other-regardless of where they live.  It will enhance our systemwide ability to collaborate, share materials and promote best practices.  Ultimately, it will support online fund-raising.  But most important, it will give us a streamlined capacity to share ideas and research and to engage in dialogue with our constituents and other organizations.  And it will allow us to align our programs and human and financial resources in ways that significantly increase our reach and impact.  

The challenge of reorienting to opportunity

You all know the story of Christopher Columbus and his journey to the new world-but you may not have fully appreciated the context of that voyage.  In Columbus's lifetime, the Ptolemaic map of the world had not changed since the 2nd century.  In that ancient map, the major land mass of the planet was situated entirely above the equator, and extended contiguously from Western Europe to Eastern Asia.  Columbus had learned a great deal about the limitations of that map in 1477 when he worked as a crewman on a trade voyage seeking a "Northwest Passage" to the Orient.⁴   As a result of that earlier trip, Columbus decided that the limitations of existing knowledge and technology made it almost impossible to find a Northwest Passage, if one actually existed.  So he changed his focus and began to ask different questions and explore different options.⁵  

Well, you know the rest of the story.  When he stepped outside the confines of conventional beliefs about geography and separated himself from the expectations of his peers, Columbus was able to both perceive and risk an alternative way.  Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the Columbus story is that for several hundred years after his discovery of the new world, many major European explorers continued to direct their energy toward finding the elusive passage to the Orient, instead of taking advantage of the opportunities and riches in the new continent Columbus had discovered. 

It's been my experience that it's far more difficult for organizations to reorient themselves to new opportunities based on a fresh understanding of what it possible than it is to organize around current problems and assumptions, but when they do, they can change the expected course of history.   We in Coro have to choose. We can persuade ourselves that all the ways we are currently stretching ourselves to work together is sufficient; or, using Columbus or VISA as models, we can reframe and decide to build that wedge.  I'm personally excited about the opportunities that are within our reach, and am committed to working with you to reorient Coro in ways that help us become a powerful influence in shaping the 21st century.

¹ Edwin Friedman. A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix. p. 40. Bethesda, MD, The Edwin Friedman estate. 1999. ed. Edward W. Beal and Margaret M. Treadwell.

² “Face Value: Consulting in the Right Direction,” The Economist, October 22, 2005.

³ M. Mitchell Waldrop, “The Trillion Dollar Vision of Dee Hock,” Fast Company, Issue 05, October/November 1996.

⁴ Silvio Lacetti, “Rediscovering Christopher Columbus,” The Record, Bergen County New Jersey, October 14, 2002

⁵ Edwin Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix, pp. 65-68.