So many ingredients must go into a health initiative to
ensure its success. The money must be
there. A sense of collaboration and cultural awareness. The manpower, sometimes
with a particular skill set. The
technology. But all of this must come
together under a source of strong leadership.
This TED Talk was shared with me recently and I love how
broadly it can be applied across various aspects of our lives, including work
in international health. I would highly
recommend watching the full 18 minutes, but if you are short on time, he
explains his main idea 1:40-4:40 (also love the beautiful analogy he makes to
human brain function at 5:50). I believe
a broad definition of leadership is any way to inspire desired behavior, which
is the goal of health campaigns. However, we know from countless international
health examples that this often fails (remember Lala mentioned a 5% success
rate among public health initiatives).
Then there are the times that the goal outcome is achieved, but by
questionable means that may impinge on future progress, as was the case with
forced smallpox vaccination. Leaders of
health initiatives, whether they’re directing the WHO or working on a specific
case at a local level, could have a lot to learn from Sinek’s method of
leadership, called the golden circle (see graphic).
The circle asks three questions about your
initiative: why, how, and what. Most communication in our day-to-day lives is
rather uninspired, working from the what to the how and never touching the why.
Example: “I’m exhausted and I need a coffee (what), so I am going to run to
Starbucks (how).” But why are we
exhausted? Why is Starbucks the answer?
Why have we fallen into this pattern?
Now let’s take an international health example. “HIV/AIDS is a problem in your village and
people are dying (what). We are going to
treat the afflicted with this medication and we are going to teach safe sex
practices (how).” Why doesn’t this
approach always work? The facts are
there, and they are indisputable. But
the approach lacks a deeper connection.
It lacks empathy. It lacks why. Senik points to the example of Martin Luther
King Jr., whose famous line “I have a dream” did not start with what or how,
but with why: his purpose was his belief, and that was what inspired so many
and brought about remarkable change.
Senik’s catchphrase, if you will, is “People don’t buy what you do; they
buy why you do it.” He repeats this
again and again. Though in some cases the
what/how might be enough to spur change, the why has infinitely more power to
inspire. It also necessitates deeper
introspection into the cause and mission of a health initiative and how to
connect it to the local people. It turns
a mandate into a mantra, a plan of action into purposeful action.
What do you think of Senik’s model? What are other important
components of public health leadership and inspiration?
Hi Sydney,
ReplyDeleteIt is certainly one of my favorite talks and a great model to attribute to anything with a purpose! Having the "why" as the foundation to any research question is something I learned quite quickly in my time here at Purdue, and I think it is the most prevalent in public health field. One author and leadership expert I love following and often relate a lot of his work to public health research and intervention program development is Robin Sharma. His leadership model stems from his famously published works- "The Leader who Had no Title" and "The Monk who Sold his Ferrari". I think all public health professionals should at one point listen to one of his talks or follow him in some way. To sum his model up, is that he truthfully believes in the POTENTIAL of every human being and that there is something inside of us all that are capable of doing something great. This is primarily popular in Customer Relationship Management fields; however, there is a lot that can be taken and relate it to Public Health as PH professionals and especially in designing and implementing interventions. The communities in which we work in are fundamentally consisted of people who are CAPABLE, who are filled with potential and having this BELIEF that there is VALUE in what they know, and that it matters. As behavioral research has shown, there is great impact on building confidence in another to do wonderful things, even alter health behaviors. In PH, getting involved with the community members, community leaders, and taking a step back and "lead with no title" in the interventions that are employed can create effective change; creating a sense of mentorship, partnership, and relationship versus impositions. I encourage signing up for his mailing list:
http://www.robinsharma.com/about-robin