avoid ambition as a mask for cynicism

In K-12 education, in electoral politics, in public health, and in philanthropy I’ve seen a distressing tendency among leaders who have signed up to attack really hard problems. Some of these leaders lose the belief that they can make headway on the piece of the problem that is right at hand. So many have tried before and failed, maybe we’ve also tried and failed. We can’t make it happen for the kids in this classroom / the voters in this precinct / the non-profits in this city - look at these giant forces arrayed against us! 

This is a pretty ugly thing to admit to oneself and maybe even uglier to say out loud. So instead of admitting this and saying it, the jaded leader looks out at a scale much bigger than the problem at hand. They look at the giant forces. They get swept up in systems change or policy questions or macroeconomic fantasies. Teaching the kids to read (these kids, this semester, in these chairs) gets lost in a quest to upend capitalism (or structural racism or maybe just the current school board).

This is a vote for housekeeping. The leaders I’ve seen make the most impressive pushes on the macro forces were true believers in micro-problem solving. They built a great product for a specific group of customers. They carried a classroom in a Title I school to stellar end of year results. They routed one lousy bill through the state legislature on a very unsexy issue. 

Ambition was a fuel for their optimism, not a mask for their cynicism. They built small things that proved what was possible for their own teams and that gave them license, over time, to build big things that changed what was possible for everyone else.

-eric