by James Wagoner

In January 2012, Debra Hauser transitioned into her new role succeeding James Wagoner as Executive Director of Advocates for Youth. Together, they take a look at Advocates’ place in the movement, opportunities on the horizon, and lessons learned along the way.

Read Debra Hauser's "Looking Forward" 

December 31, 2011 marked my last day as Advocates for Youth’s Executive Director, a position I had held since 1997. As I look back on my time in this role, my first reflection is that time does indeed fly when you are having fun! Without doubt, the last fourteen years have been the best of my professional life, due to the incredible talent, commitment, and energy of my colleagues at Advocates and the field at large.

While I’m excited about continuing as a senior adviser to Advocates and engaging some new opportunities as a consultant, I already miss my co-strategist, thinker, and friend, Deb Hauser. Deb taught me the value of partnership in leadership; how adjusting the “fit” can dramatically improve a staff colleague’s performance; how effective decision making is an iterative process propelled by frank talk and honest differences of opinion; and how putting vision first not only builds a strong institutional brand but also helps regulate ego and other factors that undermine organizational culture. Simply put, she is the best - and Advocates for Youth, as well as our field in general, will benefit enormously from her leadership and collaboration.

I often referred to my time at Advocates as a “fountain of youth,” because it immersed me in idealism, principle, and passion – powerful antidotes to the calculation, cynicism, and dysfunction that too often defines Washington D.C.

The best gifts I will take from my years at Advocates are the lessons I have learned about leadership, non-profits, and social change. While I will certainly continue to reflect and learn from these experiences in the months and years ahead, for what it’s worth here are some highlights:

“Culture” eats “Strategy” for breakfast.

I forget which management guru made this pronouncement, but I have now adapted it as my mantra. If vision, passion, talent, and planning are the fuel of organizational success, then culture is the engine that determines how efficiently that fuel is translated into outcomes. A good organizational culture is grounded in clear core values and a leadership team willing to live – not just espouse – those values. The better the organizational culture, the better the opportunity to recruit, retain, and develop top talent and the higher the percentage of intellectual capital generated by that talent that will be translated into innovation and high impact outcomes. Ego, lack of transparency, poor communication, and double standards all undermine success by burning off the fuel that propels it. People do their best and most amazing work when they have the opportunity to connect their personal passion, drive, and vision to that of a larger cause and the non-profit that exists to advance it. Organizations with dysfunctional cultures rarely sustain effective strategies because they cannot sustain the flow of ideas and talent necessary to innovate and implement those strategies over time.

For much of my career, I thought that leadership was three smart people in a room telling the rest of the organization what to do. It turns out, I had it backwards. Advocates transformed my concept of leadership from one based on personality to one based on culture.

Washington-based policy is a means, not an end.

Social change doesn’t begin in Washington, it begins at the grassroots – and Washington, forever the lagging indicator, catches up later. It doesn’t mean federal policy isn’t important. It is, because policy allocates resources and sets parameters for programs. But when Washington policy becomes the driving force for movement strategy and tactics, bad things happen. The relationship between organizations that do federal policy and organizations that recruit and mobilize grassroots support gets distorted, and we lose power, which, in a democracy, is ultimately based on the number of people passionately engaged with your cause.

I worked in the Senate for ten years. I thank my stars each and every day that I gained a different perspective by working for a non-profit authentically connected to its grassroots stakeholders.

Invest in Millennials. They’re the generation we’ve been waiting for!

This is the most educated, diverse, open generation in U.S. history – all of which accounts for their also being the most pro-sexual health generation in history. Ultimately, we have to shift not just policy, but social norms to make America a sexually healthy nation. The best pathway to achieving both these goals is investing in young people who are not only current leaders and activists but future parents and opinion leaders.

The corollary to investing in youth is investing in technology and new media. We’re whistling past the institutional graveyard if we don’t.

Advocates taught me that technology is culture for young people, and that asocial networks have the capacity to bring social activism to scale.

You diversify to represent your constituency…and to remain relevant.

I used to view diversity as a positive cultural statement. I now view it as the best way to reach the marketplace. The most successful for-profit enterprises find ways to hear, reflect, and engage their consumers. Adapting that principle to the non-profit world, I learned that we need to diversify our staff, boards, and networks to remain relevant in a rapidly changing, multi-cultural country. Advocates taught me the value of having an organization that reflects its constituency, as well as the link between good culture and good recruitment.

Collaboration is not just the smart thing to do…it’s the right thing to do.

Darwin said that those who have learned to innovate and collaborate most efficiently have prevailed. I buy into that because I’ve seen the results that authentic collaboration has brought to the field of sex education. But I also feel that collaboration is an ethical necessity. All of the expertise gained by our organizations was financed by a foundation, individual, or government that invested in a pro-social outcome. That expertise is a trust, not a proprietary holding. Therefore, we all have an obligation in some sense to share what we know with each other. It is the best and the “most efficient” way to reach the social good.

Well, these are a few of the insights I’ve gleaned working for Advocates over the last 14 years. I am so very grateful that I had this opportunity, and I look forward to collaborating in new and exciting ways with my valued colleagues in the field!