[SOUND] Good morning, it's great to be with you this morning. I'm looking forward to working with you over the next three segments. You've been looking many different aspects of international organization. You've been looking at the definition, the context in which IOs work. You've been looking at funding strategies. Now we're going to focus on the issue of leadership in international organization. And we're going to be focusing more specifically on leadership in the United Nations. This is because I think first and foremost the United Nations is the premier forum of global governance that we have today, love it or hate it. You may think it's doing great work, you may think it's doing lousy work, but it is pretty central to all issues related to global governance. So I think it's a good place to test different ideas about leadership. And then the second reason is simply that I've spent the bulk of close to 30 years working in the UN, so hopefully I have something to contribute on this particular subject. What I'd like to do is to focus on a specific question for each of these three segments. For the segment today, I'd like to focus on the question, how are we to understand leadership in the United Nations? How are we to understand, what does it mean to be a leader in the United Nations? In the next segment, in the second segment we will kind of reverse that and we will focus on the question of what is it that the United Nations thinks leadership means. From the point of view of the United Nations, is that clear, is that clarity, as to what leadership means? Is there a terms of reference? Is there a guide? Is it clear cut? So, what are the points of reference in the UN for their own understanding of leadership? And then, in the third segment, I'd like to explore with you different instruments for exercising leadership. There are a different range of ways of trying to create space and exercise leadership and I'd like to share some of those with you. Now if we start with today's segment and we start with this question about what do we mean by leadership. What comes to mind is there is so much sterile debate that we confronted with always on this issue. Which is do we want a secretary general with a capital s and small g. Or do we want a secretary general with a small s and a capital g. Do we want a Secretary general? Or do we want a secretary General? And what tends to happen is one gets into a rather ideological debate about the power that one thinks that this institution should have or the authority that person should have. But actually it's a very reductionist debate, it's a very sterile debate. And what I'd like to try and explore with you today is a different way of trying to understand what leadership means. It may not be useful to couch it in that kind of simple way. And to try and help us with this, I'd like to go back to a body of work which I know you're already familiar with, the work of Mark Moore and his strategic triangle. But I'd like to dig back right actually to the beginning of his work, to his opening chapter where he introduces us to this little story of the Boston librarian. And let me share with you the core elements of that story. There is a school which has a problem because they have about ten kids, they're about ten years old, and both their parents work. They're called latch key kids. When the school ends, they don't know what to do because there's nowhere to send them. They can't get off the school bus and go home because there's nobody at home. The school can't keep them, they don't have the budget for it, they don't have the legislation for it. So, somebody comes up with the smart idea that what they are going to do is they're going to put them in a school bus. And they're going to deposit them at the library and they're going to stay in the library and when the first of their parents stops working, they can come by and pick the kids up. So this person thought this was a pretty clever idea, they stick them in the bus and the bus arrives at the library. And my question to you is imagine yourself as that library. What would your reaction be to one sunny day you're sitting their looking after your books and these ten kids, you can assume they're pretty rowdy because they're ten year olds. So these ten kids walk in and they're going to be with you for the next couple of hours. Two hours, three hours, four hours, until one of the parents shows up. What is your reaction going to be? And in my experience, your reaction, in terms of your peers and your colleagues, and classes over the years. Tend to come back with three different types of responses and let's call it a third, a third and a third. The first third say, hell no this is ridiculous, I've trained, I got a Master's in library studies I have spent a long time trying to get this library in order. I have very valued customers who come in and use this library. This is a place of learning, this is a place of books. This is not a nursery school, this is not a babysitting operation. These kids are not arriving with any intent to really use the library, they're coming to park themselves. This is because parents aren't responsible, the school isn't responsible and I'm being asked to do that job. I don't have the time, I don't have the resources. I don't think it's the right thing, I don't think this is the right mission for the library. I don't think the governing body of the library would agree with this. I don't have the capacity to do it. I don't have any finances to do it, so hell no. The second group is almost exactly the opposite. The second group is, wow I became a librarian because I wanted to add value to my community. And what a wonderful opportunity to add value, I have these ten kids, they have nothing to do. They are sitting here, for the first time they are surrounded by books. If I can't get them interested in books, if I can't create value in the library for these kids then what kind of a librarian am I? What does it even mean to be a librarian? This is part of my mission, this is what I actually believe being a library was all about. And I can't believe that my authorizing body, that the governing body of library, I can't believe that they would have a problem with this. And, I don't need more capacity, I can reorganize my day, I can structure it, maybe I can get volunteers. I can find a way to solve the capacity issues, so I'm in. I welcome this, I'm going to write a letter to the school and thank them. And then the third group are trying to figure out what is the combination that would make this a success? They're basically on board with the mission. They kind of think yeah, I should be able to do something with this. These are kids from our community. I should be able to be helpful, but I'm not sure I can do this without going to the library board or the school board. What if one of the kids falls down and breaks their leg in the library and I get sued because this is an institutional arrangement but it was never agreed by anybody. So I've become liable for it. No thank you, I think I'm going to get official authorizing environment for this, approval for this. And you know, I'm actually pretty busy I want to be able to render my services to my normal clients in this library, I need some help. So if they want to do this, I need some funding. So either I'm going to get funding from public money. I'm going to go and get some budget approved. And if that's impossible I'm going to try and get the parents to cough up some money. But I need to build my capacity up. So what you have three different interpretations. What we're looking at is three different understandings of mission and value, of capacity, and of the authorizing environment. The ability to create value is fundamentally related to the ability to get those convergence between those three circles. To get convergence between the authorizing environment. Which is what it is possible to do with mission and values which is what is desirable to do and capacity which is what is actually doable, what you can actually get done. And leadership is about bringing those together, getting convergence and maximizing the space between these three different circles. This picture that you have here that you're looking at, this is the picture of a well led functioning organization. And that picture over there, the picture where the three circles are going in different directions. Where there is no intersection, there is no common space, this is the classic picture of a dysfunctional organization. And I'm sure each of you, in your own experiences has been in a situation where you've had a leader that's taken the organization this direction. A budget constraint which has taken the organization backwards in this direction, so it's actually not possible to deliver on that. And a set of authorizing environment which neither wants to give you the resources to do it nor does it agree with what you're trying to do. Unfortunately, we see many too many cases of these types of situations. [MUSIC]
