NCU Magazine - Facilitating the Future

Empowering the Next Generation of Leaders

An Interview with Dr. Gordon Anderson

President, North Central University

NCU Magazine: What does the term ‘facilitating
the future’ mean to you?

Dr. Anderson: To me, facilitating
the future is simply doing everything I can do to ensure that the vision God is putting in the next two generations
comes to fulfillment. I may not understand it, and I may not even like it, but as a leader I must trust them. I need to give them opportunities
to actually begin to implement that vision, even if I don’t understand it.

Facilitating involves empowering a person to lead and setting up the structures
within which they can operate. If their role will be leading a committee, I can identify who will fill the other roles on that team. This creation of the structure allows those individuals who are going to be the leaders of the future to begin to experience
leadership now.

As a 61-year old, it is important
for me to recognize that I can influence not one but two generations. Of course, the generations I am referring to are those who are roughly 20 to 40 years of age, and those who are 40 to 60 years of age. I want to empower these leaders to fulfill their God-given dreams, visions, and ideas. I have learned that doing so requires having the faith to understand that they have the God-given means to accomplish
those dreams.

NCU Magazine: What are some of the practical challenges that can result from empowering younger leaders?

Dr. Anderson: The most basic challenge is that most people don’t naturally welcome change. It is hard enough for an organization to stop doing something even if it has stopped working.
What often happens is that the long-term success of a senior administrator or leader results in a belief that a method they found to be effective should continue to be the way things are done. Change also upsets the comfort
zone that those who are involved in the process have developed. The people who are doing it are employed for that purpose, and the whole structure is geared around that activity. It can be very hard to set it on the shelf and admit it isn’t working anymore. Often a situation has to become so bad that it is just an absolute disaster, or someone without an attachment
to the old way of doing things must be placed in a position of authority before change can take place.

I sometimes say that change in an organization results from death, disease, disability, drug addiction, debauchery or demon possession.
While this is perhaps an exaggerated statement, it is a reality that leaders and organizations often wait until a problem is so bad that they are forced to make a change. We hesitate to admit something
isn’t working, because when you stop doing something,
it changes everything; from each employee’s job description to the amount of budget needed. When everything
changes in that way, it goes against their natural emotional attachment to what they were doing, even
if it was not effective.

It can be even more difficult when a process or program is working, but not working very well. This is why, in any one decade, the vast majority of the companies
that enter the Fortune 500 disappear. Even though they continue to do what they did to become successful,
they won’t do what they have to do to stay successful. Another example can be taken from how a team loses a basketball game. Perhaps the most common way is simply to play at about 90% efficiency. If you do this, you will most often lose the game, 90-82. The uniforms, the shoes, and the players were there. You scored a respectable 82 points, and you were right in the game, but you still lost. The reality is that you will lose every game and have a total losing
season because you are functioning at 90%.

NCU Magazine: You mentioned that you may not always understand or agree with a young leader’s vision. What if a senior leader understands the vision
but doesn’t like the
new plan?

Dr. Anderson: That can be a very difficult situation. If I don’t understand it I can often say, “Go for it” even if I don’t quite see how it will come together.
However, if I think I understand it and I don’t like it (The reality is that this will happen from time to time.), I’ll ask questions. I may begin by asking, “Are you sure you really want to do that?” Then I’ll take the opportunity to listen and to talk it through with them.

As the President, I have a lot of power at North Central. The level at which I can exercise the most power consists in stopping anything from happening. I have enormous power in that regard –I can stop anything.
My second level of power is to manage what is happening, but even in that regard my power is much more limited. The area in which I have the least amount of power is actually making something happen.

This is true in any organization,
and often senior leaders tend to become more conservative as a result. They put a stop to more things and they tell more people “no.” Frankly, they’ve heard a lot of bad ideas, and they know they’re not going to work. In the end they become resistant, conservative, and maintain the status quo because they hang on to what worked in the past.

The people who can make it happen are the next two generations of leaders. I’ve seen it exemplified with students over and over again. If I have an idea and I tell them about it, they won’t be particularly moved by it. But, if they have an idea, and I say, “Go for it,” energy is unleashed; it’s like a bomb going off!

NCU Magazine: How do senior leaders, then, facilitate
the energy and ingenuity
of a younger generation even when they come with some bad ideas?

Dr. Anderson: Trust is the way that they are truly empowered. When you let it be known in the institution that you believe in them, and that if people pick on their vision, they are picking on you, it releases them to step out and not be afraid of making mistakes. Of course, they will make some mistakes,
but when they do it is important to let them work through the situation. If
we take the attitude that they will learn from experience
and be successful, that attitude will ‘facilitate the future’. In fact, that is the attitude I wanted when I was a twenty-something.