The Global Leaders Program has a unique learning structure, positioning Reflective Mindset Labs and Change Projects at the core of the curriculum. Change Projects assist cohort members to overcome limiting beliefs and thought patterns whilst Reflective Mindset Labs allow small teams to discover and learn how to leverage a range of collaboration styles. We caught up with GLP Module Director and Reflective Mindset Guru Eric Booth to see how the 2022 cohort’s journey went.
Eric Booth is often hailed as “Father of the teaching artist profession”. He has served on faculty at Juilliard, Stanford, NYU, Tanglewood, Lincoln Center Institute and The Kennedy Centre. Eric has been Faculty Chair of the Empire State Partnership & The College Board’s Arts Advisory Committee. He is also a firm favorite with each GLP cohort!
Eric, you have been Module Director for Reflective Mindset Labs, could you perhaps explain a little more about the concept of Reflective Mindsets within the GLP curriculum?
The U.S. education philosopher John Dewey put it this bluntly: ”If we do not reflect on our experiences, we do not learn from them.” Yet Western cultures are belligerently anti-reflective, driven by a go-go-go ethos of gratification and accomplishment that squelches the habits of mind of consistent reflection that are necessary for continual learning and effective leadership. The GLP curriculum invests in reflective pauses with targeted prompts that build those habits of reflection that enable individuals to pull out those discoveries, insights, questions, hunches, personal connections, wonderings that would otherwise be lost. I always think of the reflective work in the GLP as reminding cohort members of the pleasures of reflection rather than teaching the obligations of reflection. Indeed, it feels great to recognize your individual creative style, to celebrate a discovery, to be excited by a new question, to wonder about a possibility—there are so many subtle delights to reflective practice. The GLP teaches reflective practice. By the way, artists are exemplary at reflection in their artistic work; the acts of creation and reflection are so intimately related, often suffused, that they are inseparable when we are doing our best work.
Within the structure of the program there were several moments for the cohort to reflect on their journey. How did this help them to develop interpersonal skills, and ultimately shape them into leaders?
Most of us who work in projects and with working groups start fast, hurtle our way forward, revv up as we reach deadlines, and finish with a burst and release. We manage the group as best we can, sometimes having to pause to address challenges in the group, but the learning comes after the finish, if at all. In the GLP, we use reflective pauses strategically, along the way. We structure in opportunities to reflectively investigate how we are contributing as individuals to the group, and how the group itself is doing and might do better. This significantly intensifies the learning results and makes the group work succeed better too. A common guidance I give teaching artists is “slow down to speed up”—invest well in reflective pauses to grasp what’s really unfolding, to see more clearly and sharpen intent, and then you go further as a direct result.
In the final Reflective Mindset Lab, a member of the cohort said: “Allowing everyone in your group to bring their 80% is hard. It takes a lot of courage, empathy and understanding.” This sounds like one of your pearls of wisdom! Could you please elaborate further on this philosophy?
Yes, that little nugget is The Law of 80%. (I call it a law to make it sound scary.) The law is that 80% of what you teach is who you are. Your main tool of influence is who you are in the room (including a zoom room) with your participants—they learn more about what it means to be an artist from the way you listen, the way you discover new connections in the moment, from the quality of your attention, from the clarity of your seeing, and more, than they learn from your good plans, assignments, and syllabus. The challenge of the Law, that the cohort member you mention cited, is the responsibility to bring your best artist self to the less exquisite materials of business and organizational thinking. As cohort members learn to inhabit this responsibility, they gain power as leaders.
The GLP is unique in its focus on group work. The cohort collectively produce and submit course work and have a shared investment in the outcomes. How central do you feel this experience is to the GLP ethos?
I love this prominent feature of the GLP because it models the way the real world works. So many professional development programs skip or stint the significant challenges of becoming effective as a colleague and a group creator. It is so common in my experience to see emerging leaders struggle when they leave a training program and then discover the difficulties of succeeding in the teamwork required by real world projects. I think GLP gets the balance right—not laborious psychological instruction on interpersonal dynamics, but just enough to set individuals up to learn through experience, reflection, and revision in second chances. Success in the GLP depends on the success of your small group, so the stakes are high. But so is the focus on small group process, and ongoing reflection on the small group dynamics and continual adjustment toward better practice. This sets up cohort members for success when they graduate into the real world projects through which they can, and do, change the world.
The cohort undertook character profiling to be assigned their groups. How much did this shape their experience and how successful did it prove to be?
This feature of GLP’s preparation is another rare investment in small group success. Rather than beginning the year of small group challenges watching for how the group is functioning, the gateway is a healthy dose of self-discovery that encourages flexibility and discovery. The profiling activities provide fresh insights into the tendencies, style and personality patterns in each individual. They learn what they are bringing to the group, and they are guided to consider experimenting with ways to contribute to group success by adjusting their own ways of working. They share this set of strengths and personal patterns with small group partners right at the beginning, so they can support one another in finding multiple ways to contribute, to divide responsibilities, and creatively design small group processes. I am always impressed to hear cohort members make natural reference to the roles they take, and are trying out, within their small group work, regularly referring to their profile insights and aspirations to expand their range of skills they can bring to their leadership.
As a group of Musicians and Art Professionals you might expect the cohort to be more attuned to group work than individuals in other professions. Sensitive negotiation and respectful communication are at the heart of rehearsal techniques and successful pedagogy. Was it a smooth transition for the cohort into the business model of teamwork?
I do think the depth of experience of interdependence that these fine musicians bring into the GLP provides rare wisdom to success in business models. But the translation of musical knowing to effective small group entrepreneurial work is not so simple. They are profoundly fluent in the processes, aesthetics, criteria of success, and range of tools within the language of music, but the less familiar, highly verbal languages of business and social impact tend to activate the “other” parts of their schooling at first, where they didn’t go as deep, didn’t love the aesthetics, processes, and ways success is determined in the same way. As much as we do make reference to what cohort members know from music, and they do have experiences of discovery, they are often learning new kinds of interdependence and a different kind of harmony. It takes a GLP year to discover ways in which musical knowing informs effective practice outside of music.
What are your top tips for harmonious, supportive, and productive group work?
Balance matters—sustaining the right mix of practical thinking, interesting exploratory investigation, fun personal connecting, laughing, and getting stuff done. There is a rhythm to discover in a longer-term project so that there are satisfactions to parts of the work along the way—not just one long crescendo of endeavor. I always look for developing routines and rituals, often small in size and time, but they create group identity and effectiveness. Routines are about creating natural efficiencies that minimize waste of time and energy. Rituals are about creating inner states that maximize effectiveness because you can be your best selves together. And I will mention just one more—establishing, early on, some practices that allow small uncertainties, annoyances, and challenges to be addressed safely and with mutual support. These pebbles can grow into boulders if left unaddressed, and this is where courage and conscious forums for such exchange become valuable—establishing the pattern of brave and positive attention to such human realities early in the life of a group pays off all the way to the end.
