Based on everything he saw around him as an inner city kid in Pittsburgh, Bill Strickland's prospects looked pretty bleak. But then a teacher came along and planted the seed that a different path is possible.
That seed grew, and eventually Bill founded an organization that has changed the lives of hundreds of people, replanting that seed of hope and possibility over and over again.
Bill Strickland is the President & CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation, an organization that includes a multi-disciplined arts learning center for inner city youth, a vocational training center, and a grammy-winning jazz recording label.
He is the author of the book, Make the Impossible Possible, the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Genius award, and a presidential appointee as a Council Member of the National Endowment for the Arts.
Listen to this podcast and learn:
- What inspired Strickland to found Manchester Bidwell Corporation.
- How Strickland's organization turned the traditional view of at-risk kids and poor people on its head.
- Why the people around you are such a vital piece of achieving success.
- How to find a great mentor.
- The most important thing to remember when pursuing your vision.
- How people get in their own way when pursuing their vision.
Details:
Click here to listen or save the mp3:
Curt Rosengren's M.A.P. Maker Podcast: Bill Strickland
Length: 14:47
Enjoy!
--
You can subscribe to the podcast's feed here.
--
Click below (if you're on the main page) or scroll down (if you're on this post's page) for the transcript of this podcast.
As a teenager in the inner city, the course of Bill Strickland’s life
was drastically altered by his high school art teacher. The teacher
introduced him to making pottery and in the process, planted the seeds
for believing that much more was possible in his future than the sense
of hopelessness that permeated the environment around him.
In 1968, his life-changing experience with pottery led him to found the
Manchester Craftsman’s Guild in the neighborhood he grew up in. He
never dreamed it would have such a profound impact, both on his own
life and the lives of others. What started with a desire to make a
difference in his community through introducing kids to art has turned
into a nationally recognized organization that has inspired similar
programs in cities around the US, with others in the works around the
world.
Bill Strickland is now the CEO of Manchester Bidwell Corporation, an
organization that includes a multi-disciplined arts learning center for
inner city youth, a vocational training center, and a grammy-winning
jazz recording label. He is the author of the book, “Making the
Impossible Possible,” the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Genius
award, and a presidential appointee as a Council Member of the National
Endowment for the Arts.
It all started with the ability of one man to open Strickland’s eyes to a new way of seeing himself and the world around him.
Well, I was an inner-city public school kid, and an art teacher got involved with my life and basically saved my life. His name was Frank Ross, and he was a very imaginative and creative guy who got me excited about ceramics as a sixteen year old high school kid. And I got pretty good at it. And in addition to teaching me clay, he also taught me how to learn, and how to feel good about myself. And that eventually translated to my desire to go on to college when I finished my high school experience, largely at the experience of Frank Ross.
Paradoxically, the seeds for an organization that has done so much good in people’s lives were planted by violence and destruction.
while I was an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh, the community was on fire because of the riots and the assassination of Dr. King and so forth, and I really wanted to help make a positive contribution to improving things. And the best way I thought to do that was to use some of my creative skills and my mind, and make a contribution to the community in that way. And that led me to creating the Manchester Craftsman’s Guild as an arts program in the community where I was born and where a lot of the rioting was going on.
And I was lucky enough to get an old row house that was donated by the local Episcopal church. I developed a relationship with the bishop of the diocese who helped me raise some money. And that’s how we got started with the program in the sixties.
Strickland’s book, Make the Impossible Possible, is the outgrowth of his experience over four decades of creating results that nobody thought possible. In many ways, the book is a reflection of the organization itself.
Well I wrote the book because I wanted to promote the idea that my center is founded on here in Pittsburgh, which is that you can really increase the quality of your life by extending a hand to help others who are less fortunate. That part of the payback of living the right kind of life, with the right values, is that you grow yourself as a human being, and it increases the life opportunities that will become available to you.
And Manchester Bidwell is an organization that’s all about that, relative to working with unemployed adults, and welfare people, and at-risk kids and so forth as we’ve done over the years. But also, in the process of accomplishing that work, I’ve learned a great deal about myself. I’ve developed a philosophy of how I’ve elected to live my life, and the book really reflects that philosophy based on lessons that I’ve learned over 40 years of working with Manchester Bidwell, etc., etc.
For Strickland, Manchester Bidwell is all about the bottom-line results of creating possibility in people’s lives.
Well, the most immediate and measurable change is in the lives of the students that go to the school. Close to 85 to 90% of our arts kids go on to college once they graduate from high school, and have turned their lives in many cases into productive, contributing members of society as lawyers and schoolteachers and business people and so forth.
On the vocational side we train people literally to provide them with a life opportunity in employment and the ability to pull themselves and their families out of poverty permanently. So the arts program channels kids to college. The vocational program challenges and directs people to employment, and we do this in a facility that has now made a contribution that is an asset to the community where it occupies the space.
The positive ripple effect from Manchester Bidwell’s work is being felt in other communities as well. Its success in opening doors to possibility has inspired other organizations to create similar programs.
So as a result of that, we’re now building smaller versions of Pittsburgh in other communities. And in Cincinnati and in Grand Rapids and in San Francisco, centers now exist that are replications of the work that we’re doing in Pittsburgh. We don’t own them, but we helped set them up, and they’re getting comparable results to what we’re doing in Pittsburgh. And we now are planning eight more centers in the US, and one in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and we’re having some early conversations in Ireland, and in Israel, and in Rwanda. So the model in Pittsburgh is now beginning to really pay dividends because we’re using what we’ve learned here to apply those principles to apply those principles to other communities.
I asked Strickland what kind of effect the difference his work makes has had in his own life.
Oh yeah, I feel that I have a better life as a result of the work I do. I feel that my life is more enriched. I can directly measure the meaning of my experience through what happens with other people who come through here, and it makes me feel that I’m making a contribution in a way that’s really measurable.
There are very few jobs in the world where you can actually say to yourself, my life made a difference to another human being. So to be able to say that, not just with one human being, but hundreds, so it’s not abstract what I do for a living every day. It’s quite measureable, and quite specific, and in many cases it’s a life as opposed to death conversation because many of the people we’re working with are down to their last hope and their last prayer, and to be able to give them a shot at having a meaningful life is very powerful stuff. And we see it every time we have a graduation here at the center. It’s very touching. So I feel very gratified to be given the opportunity to have this kind of life.
The success of Manchester Bidwell’s approach, as Strickland sees it, all boils down to how you look at people.
If you treat people with respect, they’ll give it back to you. If you create environments that are nurturing, you’ll get nurturing human beings. If you believe in the power of kids – and adults – to do extraordinary things, they will. And so it really becomes a different way of approaching what are historically called social problems.
So we’ve decided that rather than look at social problems as problems, we look at them as opportunities. And we see at-risk kids and poor folks as not liabilities, but assets. And people are a function of environment, and they’re a function of expectations. And if you have that in motion, you can do pretty extraordinary things.
That recognition of the importance of other people runs deep in Strickland’s approach to life.
Well, I think that you can’t stand alone in this world, and if you think you can you’re wrong, and you’ll die a lonely death. That we are biologically and psychologically designed to live in community. And when the community’s healthy, everyone’s healthy. And when the community is sick, it affects everyone.
So recognizing at the beginning of the conversation that people matter, that lives matter, that the way that you treat others, the way you live your life, the way that you acquire values that you learn from mentors and so forth, really becomes the substance and fabric of your existence. And to that extent, I believe that that is much more lasting and much more powerful than simply monetary or political visibility. I think the way in which you elect to treat others is the way that people will treat you. Which is not something that I’ve invented, but it’s something that I’ve rediscovered in my own life and I’ve tried to apply it in the way I’ve lived each day of my life.
Given his focus on other people, it’s no great surprise that one of the key components he pointed to when asked about the keys to his success was the people around him.
Well, I had good parenting. My mom particularly was very focused on giving her children a sense of value and a sense of purpose, so the foundation was laid by my mom. But also because of my interest in other human beings, which came from her as well, and having great mentors along the way, I acquired a value system and an educational outlook that ended up being complementary to the work that I actually ended up doing in my life.
So my mom, and mentors that I’ve met, extraordinary people, both at the university and through the arts, and my community work. I’ve learned from them, I’ve drawn a lot of experience and energy from them.
Strickland offers some advice for how to find great mentors.
Well, I think you find them where you live. You don’t have to go someplace. You find them out of your own experience, and you can define your mentors by defining what your needs are. It’s pretty tough to find something if you don’t know what you’re looking for. So it really becomes important that you formulate some kind of philosophy and a vision of where you’re trying to take your life and where you’re trying to take your career. And that begins to equip you to evaluate the experiences and the people around you. And I think that most of the experiences are close at hand. Most of those individuals are closer than you think, but if you’re not equipped to see them, you won’t. And so I think the first place to start is to reflect on what it is that you want your life to be about, and then begin the process of selecting people who can help you get there.
I asked him if he had any advice for people out there who wanted to pursue their dreams and do the work they feel inspired to do.
Go slowly. Don’t go fast, go slow. Left foot in front of right. Don’t get out ahead of yourself. Allow the world to become acquainted with your thinking and your ideas. And that it’s important to build the house one brick at a time. To build a good foundation, and then good walls, and eventually a good roof and so forth. And that’s a long-term proposition. That is not something that comes instantaneously. You can’t buy it in a drugstore. It’s something that comes out of your experience moment by moment and hour by hour.
Strickland sees one big way that people get in their own way as they pursue their vision.
By trying to get to the end of the conversation before they start it at the beginning. And many of the answers that you’re looking for are yet to be written. They come out of the experience itself. So be patient, calm down, recognize that this is long-term thinking and long-term opportunity, and recognize that what’s at stake is your life so you evaluate things at the level of importance that they deserve.
Wrapping things up, I asked him what gives him hope.
By looking back from where I came, which is very clearly articulated in the book. That’s why the book is hopeful, because it is called mission impossible. And I look back at where I’ve come from, which allows me to appreciate where I’m at, and gives me the courage and confidence that I can go further in the future.
As a former teacher, what a joy it was to read this. But no matter who we are, we never know what kind of impact we will have on a child simply by offering words of encouragement. You never know what wonderful path you have helped someone start on.
And that initial pebble thrown into the water keeps going out in more waves, afffecting more people's lives in positive ways.
Can't wait to read Strickland's book.
Thanks, Curt, as always, for the inspiring post.
Posted by: Judy Dunn | April 28, 2009 at 01:30 PM