We need to be imaginative about what we need and who we can collaborate with to accomplish audacious goals
What would you think if I told you that a partnership among a global philanthropic research organization, a major sports league, a church, and a United Nations fund was the key to addressing one of the world’s most challenging health issues?
Nearly 20 years ago, the Gates Foundation wanted to eradicate malaria in Africa. They knew that the most effective approach was prevention, using mosquito nets. They had substantial resources. Yet they realized they couldn’t go it alone. They needed an ecosystem mindset. Having a viable solution was only a starting point: the biggest obstacles to adoption at scale were psychological, socio-political, and logistical. They needed to raise awareness of how the nets prevented malaria, cultivate trust in that solution, and build infrastructure to deliver the nets to remote rural locations.
Those goals required a diverse and unlikely set of partners. Unicef had an extensive delivery infrastructure, based on decades of work across Africa. To build credibility with the population, Gates teamed up with the United Methodist Church. And, spotting that excitement for basketball was pervasive, Gates pulled in the NBA.
The collaboration of these unlikely bedfellows indicates both humility and an understanding of our interdependent, complex world. Linear solutions – which only look at singular organizations or single-sector approaches to major challenges – are now rarely effective. Instead, we leaders need to engage unlikely stakeholders outside of our industries and sectors to explore wide-ranging perspectives on the way forward.
In the 1990s, I worked at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest federation of scientific and engineering societies. We worked on understanding the social, ethical and legal consequences of scientific advances before they became realities.
We brought together scientists, lawyers, policymakers, media and religious leaders – people who were rarely in the same room – to imagine the future. They helped us see fresh possibilities and made all of our worlds bigger.
When we consider a big-picture vision of how disparate elements fit together, we can create unlikely partnerships that transform our work. This mindset can both help solve complex problems and help us to capture opportunities we might otherwise miss. We can also use this framework to develop our own skills and help our teams flourish. No individual can deliver transformative change alone. We need to partner with those who share our core goals but come from different perspectives and possess different superpowers.
We build careers by going deeper into our areas of expertise, but when we make it to leadership positions, we can fail to look at the big picture. At the Coach K Center, I convene leaders across sectors to explore commonalities and points of learning. The strongest leaders learn from those whose abilities differ from their own.
The old career and leadership playbooks no longer work. We need a diversity of people in our networks, and as our mentors. Next time your organization faces a major challenge or opportunity, resist the urge to retreat into silos in search of solutions. Instead, move out of your comfort zone.
Cultivate the habits of curiosity and build relationships with those who are different, to expand your thinking and your world.
Sanyin Siang is a Pratt School of Engineering professor and leads the Fuqua/Coach K Center on Leadership & Ethics at Duke University