Expanding our family through an international adoption has
shaped the last four years. The journey began in December 2009 and
in March of 2012 we brought two sisters, Remy and Tara, to Austin from Ethiopia
and into our home. The adventure continues and the expedition has
provided emotional lessons; some of them even apply to leadership.
Leaders Know Pride is Universal: I serve on the board of Eden Reforestation, an organization
that plants trees to save lives in Ethiopia, Madagascar and Haiti. On August 14th, 2013 several board
members were with President and
Founder Steve Fitch in Ethiopia and had an opportunity to visit World Vision’s Humbo
Project. This is a reforestation
project near Sodo which is
ironically close to our daughter’s birth village of Areka. Like many reforestation projects, the origin
of Humbo’s issue is increased population density in subsistence farming
communities which causes people to encroach into the forest for expansion of
farms, grazing land, charcoal production, and collection of firewood and construction
materials. And when the forest dies, the
people suffer.
 |
| Highland! Highland! |
We wanted to visit this World
Vision site because they have a community based approach in which the
entire community owns the land and elects leaders to run the project. Worknesh Mekonnen,
the Deputy National Director led the two-truck caravan that navigated three to
four hours of bone-jarring ruts punctuated by squealing children racing alongside
our truck yelling, “George Bush! Highland,
Highland, Highland!” Highland actually makes sense – it is the original
bottled water in Ethiopia and kids collect the bottles. George Bush?
George don’t get worry about identity theft, two years ago the children
yelled “Obama,
Obama” when I rode through rural Wolayta.
Mr. President, I promise I won’t mislabel any selfies…
We dismounted the ancient Land-Cruisers and
prepared for our two mile walk into the project. But first, a short visit with the man who
leads the community effort; the Elder of the Forest Development Cooperative
Society. I feel underdressed as he shakes my hand through the sleeve of a suit
jacket. We stoop to enter the one-room
headquarters of the Society. A dozen
people cram into the 70 square foot structure.
The first thing that catches your eye are charts and graphs of
progress. Directly in my line of sight awards
decorate the walls, “Worknesh, please
tell the chairman congratulations on his accomplishments, he and his people
have done amazing work”
The cool part about translated conversation is you get the
same broadcast delay
used in live TV. I was watching the
chairman, who sat between two of his deputies, who were in turn flanked by more
members of the team. I could see the
exact second the information transmitted, his eyes flicked briefly to the
pictures on the wall, his back straightened slightly, chest out just a bit and he
blinked quickly at each ‘side’ deputy, “Amesegënallô”. Thank you.
There are few faces stitched on a human more beautiful than satisfaction
in job well done. Not the bad kind of “pride
goes before the fall”; but the good kind of pride. The pride in looking at the thing you have
created with your own hands and knowing it is good. I saw that same face 8,551 miles away several months
earlier.
A little over an hour after she opened Are You My Mother,
Remy haltingly spat out, “Yes, I know who
you are,” said the baby bird. “You are a bird, and you are my mother”
She lay back in her bed mentally exhausted.
Remy had arrived in the States having never been to school and with no
more than a few words of English. Adding
to the degree of difficulty
rating, the Amharic alphabet does not really give you a frame of reference
when trying to read in English, “እወድሻለሁ።” Got it? Of course! This actually means “I love you” – one of the few phrases I
have learned.
“Remy –
congratulations on finishing your first book!” Her eyes flicked briefly at
the book, her back straightened slightly, her chest puffed out just a bit and she
blinked quickly at her sister, “Thank you
Dod” Same face as the Society Chairman.
Pride.
What does a man planting trees in Sodo and a girl reading
her first book in Austin have to do with leadership? Money does not motivate. Sure it can attract
people and maybe keep them. It might even provide short term bursts of
energy. But pride? Pride in your own work? Pride is universal and it is a deep sustaining motivator
of the soul. The leader’s job is to
provide people with the anticipation of being proud of their work and the
resources to help them create something wonderful.
“Being the richest man
in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done
something wonderful… that’s what matters to me” – Steve Jobs
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