Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Lessons for Nonprofit and Start-up Leaders
WORK NOTES: with Michael B. O’Leary
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
http://www.simonandschuster.com/authors/Maxine-Harris/1103168 * https://ctc.georgetown.edu/harris
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Clinical psychologist. Community Connections, Washington, DC, cofounder, 1984–, became CEO. National Capital Center for Trauma Recovery and Empowerment, Washington, DC, executive director; Dartmouth Medical School, adjunct professor; Maryland Correctional Institute for Women, psychological consultant; Principal investigator or co-principal investigator in several research studies.
AWARDS:HOPE award, Center for Mental Health Services.
WRITINGS
Contributor to books, including Treating Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders: An Evidence-Based Guide and The Encyclopedia of Psychological Trauma. Contributor to journals, including Journal of Dual Diagnosis and Journal of Traumatic Stress.
SIDELIGHTS
Maxine Harris is a clinical psychologist and cofounder of Community Connections, a nonprofit behavioral health organization in Washington, DC Community Connections has served a variety of populations, including homeless people, substance abusers, and survivors of trauma, often with gender-specific approaches. Harris has been principal investigator or co-principal investigator on numerous research studies on behavioral health, and she has written several books and journal articles.
Down from the Pedestal
One of Harris’s early books, Down from the Pedestal: Moving beyond Idealized Images of Womanhood, examines the ill effects that stereotypes, even positive ones, can have on women’s lives, and offers guidance for women on overcoming them. Attempting to conform to ideals such as “Dutiful Daughter,” “Selfless Mother,” and “Wise Old Women” can limit women’s options and result in dissatisfaction, Harris writes. She encourages women to instead plan their lives according to themes that offer flexibility: exploration in youth, creativity in midlife, and contemplation in later years. She laments the lack of role models for older women and suggests adopting some ritual to mark entry into this stage of life; she had a “croning” ceremony. She also shares information gleaned from interviews with seventy women about their life choices.
Some reviewers thought readers would find much of value in the book. “Harris’s discussion of female role-playing is overly familiar, but her intriguing look at ‘the themes of a woman’s life” proves fresh and insightful,” remarked a Kirkus Reviews contributor. A Publishers Weekly critic added: “This innovative approach to understanding female psychology offers appealing insight for both sexes.”
Lessons for Nonprofit and Start-up Leaders
Harris tracks the growth of Community Connections and what she had learned from her time there in Lessons for Nonprofit and Start-up Leaders: Tales from a Reluctant CEO, which she wrote with Michael B. O’Leary, professor of leadership, management, and innovation at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. She started Community Connections in 1984 with Helen Bergman (Bergman died in 2011). It grew from an organization with three employees and a few dozen clients to one with a staff of more than 400 serving more than 3,000 people a year, making it the largest provider of behavioral health care in the District of Columbia. In the book Harris describes the challenges this growth created and how Community Connections met them. She addresses topics including organizational culture, hiring decisions, leadership styles, and planning for succession. She begins each chapter with a fairy tale illustrating these challenges, with titles such as “A Fable to Reach the Sky,” “The Magic Ring,” and “Crossing the Woods,” then offers a case study of how her organization dealt with them.
“I have always thought of myself as a storyteller,” Harris told Skip Pritchard in an interview posted at his eponymous website. “I’m curious and I want to hear the story of how a person or an event unfolded.” Therefore, she said, she wanted to tell the story of Community Connections. “But real-life stories are not the only kind that appeal to me,” she continued. “I have always been an avid reader of fairy tales, the stories that grow out of our imaginations. So, I decided to write a series of fables and have each one illustrate a challenge or a dilemma that business leaders might face.” She explained that the mix of fairy tales and business advice made sense. “In a fairy tale, the normal rules are temporarily suspended, and you can make things up as you go along,” she told Pritchard. “If you start a truly innovative business, feel free to go to new and uncharted places. There is something exciting about letting yourself dream about what you might like the world to look like.”
“Some people learn best when their imaginations are engaged,” Harris and O’Leary write in their introduction. “It is no surprise that every culture, from the Maori in New Zealand to the Navajo in North America to the Danish in Western Europe, has a tradition of fairy tales–stories of fanciful creatures and naive protagonists, set in an imaginary land, in a time long ago. As these stories engage our imaginations, they teach us a moral lesson, a way to solve a problem, or an explanation for how hings work in the world.”
Several critics considered the use of fairy tales an effective way to illustrate how businesses overcome obstacles, and also praised Lessons for Nonprofit and Start-up Leaders for its in-depth study of a single organization. “This provides both an excellent illustration of the point to be discussed and a good memory hook to remember the point,” related the blogger behind Ozrhodes.com. The book is “an entertaining and thought-provoking read and the lessons identified and the solutions delivered are insightful,” the blogger continued. A Publishers Weekly reviewer observed that Harris and O’Leary offer an “informative and thorough exploration” of Community Connections, then concluded that their work will “impart to readers a solid understanding of how one organization met its challenges.”
BIOCRIT
BOOKS
Harris, Maxine, and Michael B. O’Leary, Lessons for Nonprofit and Start-up Leaders: Tales from a Reluctant CEO (nonfiction), Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, MD), 2017.
PERIODICALS
Booklist, June 1, 1994, William Beatty, review of Women of the Asylum: Voices from Behind the Walls, 1840-1945, p. 1739.
CrossCurrents: The Journal of Addiction and Mental Health, spring, 2009, Ann Dixie, review of The Twenty-four Carat Buddha: Healing Trauma through Fables, p. 19.
Kirkus Reviews, November 15, 1993, review of Down from the Pedestal: Moving beyond Idealized Images of Womanhood.
Publishers Weekly, March 1, 1991, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Sisters of the Shadow, p. 69; November 15, 1993, review of Down from the Pedestal, p. 63; July 17, 1995, review of The Loss That Is Forever: The Lifelong Impact of the Early Death of a Mother or Father, p. 212; June 26, 2017, review of Lessons for Nonprofit and Start-up Leaders: Tales from a Reluctant CEO, p. 168.
ONLINE
Center for Trauma and the Community, Georgetown University Medical Center Website, https://ctc.georgetown.edu/ (April 11, 2018), brief biography.
Community Connections Website, http://www.communityconnectionsdc.org/ (April 11, 2018), brief biography.
Ozrhodes, https://www.ozrhodes.com/ (March 20, 2018), review of Lessons for Nonprofit and Start up Leaders.
Primal Page, http://primal-page.com/ (March 20, 2018), review of The Loss That Is Forever.
Skip Pritchard Website, https://www.skipprichard.com/ (April 11, 2018), interview with Maxine Harris.
Maxine Harris, PhD, is the co-founder and current CEO of Community Connections, a large behavioral healthcare organization located in the nations’ capital. She has been operating (in conjunction with her now deceased partner Helen Bergman) Community Connections for over 30 years. Harris is a national expert in clinical practices for treating persons with serious mental illness, substance addiction, homelessness, trauma, domestic violence and early traumatic loss. She has authored or edited nine books and ten training manuals on these topics and has been keynote speaker at several national conferences. She has also served as an expert witness on cases involving the impact of traumatic loss on surviving children. Her most successful book, The Loss that is Forever: The Lifelong Impact of the Early Death of a Mother or Father, which is still in print after almost 20 years. Harris is the recipient of the first HOPE award, granted by the federal Center for Mental Health Services for her “pioneering work and innovation in the field of trauma-informed care.” She has also served as the principal investigator on federal grants studying homelessness, trauma, addiction, HIV infection and residential services.
Maxine Harris, PhD, is co-director of Community Connections mental health agency in Washington DC, adjunct professor at Dartmouth Medical School, and psychological consultant to the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women. She is the author of Women of the Asylum and The Loss That Is Forever.
Center for Trauma and the Community
MAXINE HARRIS
Maxine Harris, PhD
CEO for Clinical Affairs and Co-Founder
Community Connections
801 Pennsylvania Ave. SE Suite 201 Washington , DC 20003
Phone: (202) 608-4794
Fax: (202) 608-4286
Email: rwolfson@ccdc1.org
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Trauma Recovery of adult women with serious mental health, PTSD, and substance abuse concerns; male trauma survivors with mental health and substance abuse concerns; adult women with HIV and mental health concerns; Intentional Recovery Communities; Peer-to-Peer Recovery Support Services; Trans-generational Violence
RESEARCH SUMMARY
Principal Investigator in Randomized Controlled Study of TREM & PTSD funded by NIMH; Senior Project Consultant for Sisters Empowering Sisters: A Peer Recovery Community for Women (SAMHSA funded).
Senior Project Consultant for Creating Communities, an integrated services project for chronically homeless individuals with severe mental illness (SAMHSA funded).
Senior Project Consultant for the West Institute Co-Occurring Disorders Study, a multi-level project testing psychosocial and pharmaceutical interventions for substance abuse among people with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders (funded by the West Family Foundation).
Senior Clinical Consultant for the Isis Program, a services program for African American women with mental health concerns and HIV (SAMHSA funded).
Co-Principal Investigator in former DC Trauma Collaboration Study funded under the Women, Co-Occurring Disorders and Violence Study (SAMHSA funded)
REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS:
Books:
The Twenty-Four Carat Buddha and Other Fables: Stories of Self-Discovery. Sidran Press, March 2004.
Using Trauma Theory to Design Service Systems: (ed. with Roger Fallot), New Directions for Mental Health Services, Jossey Bass: San Francisco Spring 2001
Healing the Trauma of Abuse: A Women’s Workbook (with Mary Ellen Copeland} New Harbinger Press, 2000
Trauma Recovery and Empowerment: A Clinician’s Guide to Working With Women in Groups, Free Press, 1998
Sexual Abuse in the Lives of Women Diagnosed with Serious Mental Illness (ed with Christine Landis) Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997
Articles:
Fallot, R.D., McHugo, G.J., Harris, M., & Xie, H. (2011). The Trauma Recovery and Empowerment Model (TREM): A quasi-experimental effectiveness study. Journal of Dual Diagnosis, 7(1), 74-89.
Ford, J.D., Fallot, R.D., & Harris, M. (2009). Group therapy approaches to complex traumatic stress disorders. In Courtois, C. & Ford, J.D. (Eds.). Treating Complex Traumatic Stress Disorders: An Evidence-Based Guide. (pp. 415-440). New York: Guilford Press.
Fallot, R.D. & Harris, M. (2008). Trauma-informed services. Reyes, G., Elhai, J.D., & Ford, J.D. (Eds.). The Encyclopedia of Psychological Trauma. (pp. 660-662). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
Fallot, R.D. & Harris, M. (2008). Trauma-informed approaches to systems of care. Trauma Psychology Newsletter, Division 56 of the American Psychological Association, 3(1), 6-7.
Whitley, R., Harris, M., Fallot, R., & Berley, R.W. (2007). The active ingredients of intentional recovery communities: Focus group evaluation. Journal of Mental Health, 17(2), 173-182.
Harris, M., Fallot, R.D., and Berley, R.W. (2005). Qualitative interviews with female abuse survivors on substance abuse relapse and relapse prevention. Psychiatric Services, 56(10), 1292-1296.
Fallot, R.D. and Harris, M. (2004). Integrated trauma services teams for women survivors with alcohol and other drug problems and co-occurring mental disorders. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 22(3/4), 181-199. Co-published in Veysey, B. and Clark, C. (Eds.). Responding to Physical and Sexual Abuse in Women with Alcohol and Other Drug and Mental Disorders. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press.
The Trauma Recovery and Empowerment Model: Conceptual and Practical Issues in a Group Intervention for Women, Fallot and Harris, Community Mental Health Journal, December, 2002
The Relationship Between Dimensions of Violent Victimization and Symptom Severity Among Episodically Homeless, Mentally Ill Women (with Goodman and Dutton), Journal of Traumatic Stress Vol. 10, No 11997
Treating Sexual Abuse Trauma With Dually Diagnosed Women, Community Mental Health Journal Vol.32, No. 4,1996.
Biography
Maxine Harris is CEO and Co-Founder of Community Connections, a private, not-for-profit mental health agency in Washington, DC. She is also the Executive Director of The National Capital Center for Trauma Recovery and Empowerment. In the past several years, Community Connections has specialized in gender-specific approaches to treating women and men, trauma survivors, homeless persons, and substance abusers. Dr. Harris, in collaboration with investigators from Dartmouth Medical School, has served as principal investigator or co-principal investigator on numerous federally funded grant projects including: A Randomized Controlled Study of the Trauma Recovery and Empowerment Model (TREM) & PTSD (funded by National Institutes of Mental Health), the DC Trauma Collaboration Study funded under the Women, Co-Occurring Disorders and Violence Study (funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), and several other federally funded grants to study homeless women, substance-addicted homeless persons, to implement vocational services for persons with serious mental illness, and a youth violence prevention project providing trauma services for adolescent girls. Dr. Harris is the author of numerous articles and several books including, "Trauma Recovery and Empowerment: A Clinician's Guide to Working with Women in Groups" (The Free Press, Fall 1998) and "The Loss That is Forever - The Lifelong Impact of the Early Death of a Mother or Father" (The Penguin Group, 1995), which focuses on the often ignored trauma of losing a parent in childhood. She is co-author of "Healing the Trauma of Abuse: A Woman's Workbook" (New Harbinger Publishers, 2000), contributing author and co-editor (with Roger D. Fallot) of Using Trauma Theory to Design Service Systems, New Directions for Mental Health Services #89 (Jossey-Bass, Spring 2001). Most recently Dr. Harris authored "The Twenty-four Carat Buddha and Other Fables: Stories of Self Discovery," a collection of fables inspired by the stories of women with whom she has worked. Her new book, "Lessons For Non-Profit and Start Up Leaders: Tales of a Reluctant CEO," will be available September 2017.
Quoted in Sidelights: “I have always thought of myself as a storyteller,. I’m curious and I want to hear the story of how a person or an event unfolded.”
“But real-life stories are not the only kind that appeal to me. I have always been an avid reader of fairy tales, the stories that grow out of our imaginations. So, I decided to write a series of fables and have each one illustrate a challenge or a dilemma that business leaders might face.”
“In a fairy tale, the normal rules are temporarily suspended, and you can make things up as you go along. If you start a truly innovative business, feel free to go to new and uncharted places. There is something exciting about letting yourself dream about what you might like the world to look like.”
Tales from a Reluctant CEO
Maxine Harris and her partner Helen Bergman started a business and grew it to $35 million through trial and error and constant change. In her new book, Lessons for Non-Profit and Start-Up Leaders: Tales from a Reluctant CEO, Maxine shares lessons that can benefit all of us starting something new. She shares how they overcame obstacle after obstacle to succeed. I recently spoke with her about the lessons she shares in her new book.
When should a start-up start thinking about culture?
Culture is not really something that you think about when you first start a business. You might say, we want to be casual or formal, or we want to maintain an air of professionalism, but short of being doctrinaire, you can’t really control what organizational culture will become. More than anything, culture evolves from the personalities of the founders. I happen to be very chatty and like to ask a lot of questions. Some employees see that as friendly; others see it as intrusive. When I push people to “think smart” and try to do things in better and more creative ways, some people see me as demanding and judgmental, others feel that I am encouraging and stimulating. In both cases, it is the employee who identifies culture based on how they interpret what is going on.
Culture is one of those things that exists in the eye of the beholder. An employee, an outside consultant or a business colleague takes a step back and sees the unspoken rules and nuances of the organization. Sometimes people are only aware of the organizational culture when they are asked what they like or don’t like about their jobs. When we asked people who were joining the organization what they were looking for in their selection of a job, we got a glimpse into the kind of culture in which they would feel most comfortable. And while many said they were looking for an environment in which their opinions were valued and respected, others wanted a cultural milieu in which the boss would tell them what to do and they would have clear guidelines for performance.
Over the years, as Community Connections grew in size and diversified in its programs, culture changed. You could feel the difference. A business with three employees can’t help but be informal and casual. But as we grew and increased our size to over 400 employees, it became impossible not to have some hierarchical structure. You can remember the names of three people, but when the size gets big, and leaders are rushing from one meeting to the next, it’s hard to be as friendly as you’d like to be.
“
“Culture is the arts elevated to a set of beliefs.” –Thomas Wolfe
Tweet ThisShare on Facebook
You wrote fairy tales for each chapter. That’s unusual in a business book. Why did you decide to do that?
I wanted to write “lessons for non-profit leaders” because after almost 30 years of founding and then running a non-profit business, I thought I had learned some things that I wanted to pass on to other start-up leaders. But, I had to decide how I was going to do that. For myself, I don’t really learn from books with a lot of research studies and tables of statistics. Even though I know the relevance of hearing what the academic studies have to say, I often find my eyes glazing over and skipping pages to get to the “good” parts. I knew I didn’t want to write a traditional business book.
I have always thought of myself as a storyteller. I’m curious and I want to hear the story of how a person or an event unfolded. It made sense that I would start by telling the story of Community Connections. I thought the journey of the little start-up that grew into a 35-million-dollar business would be fun to tell.
But real-life stories are not the only kind that appeal to me. I have always been an avid reader of fairy tales, the stories that grow out of our imaginations. So, I decided to write a series of fables and have each one illustrate a challenge or a dilemma that business leaders might face.
We often use our imagination to test out new ideas, and I think imagining what might be possible is part of starting and running a business. In a fairy tale, the normal rules are temporarily suspended, and you can make things up as you go along. If you start a truly innovative business, feel free to go to new and uncharted places. There is something exciting about letting yourself dream about what you might like the world to look like.
Save
As your business grew, how did you tackle the problem of hiring new employees?
When you first start a business or a non-profit organization, you aren’t thinking about employees. We had just three people and one floor of a town house, and we shared a mission and years of friendship. Our business was small and we really didn’t need more than just the three of us. As we got bigger, we knew we couldn’t do all the work ourselves, so we began to think about hiring more people.
And the first thing we did was to think of who we knew who might want to join our group. We never thought of what skills or talents we needed to make the organization run more smoothly. We just thought about whom we wanted to hang around with. We made the mistake of hiring people without paying attention to the skills and talents we needed to get a job done, and most of the time this ended poorly.
Despite the fact that we desperately wanted to avoid becoming too bureaucratic, we realized that we needed to define positions and articulate skill requirements before hiring someone to join our team. Further growth demanded that we establish a department of human resources that would be responsible for hiring and training employees.
But we ALWAYS reserved the right to go outside the structure we had developed. Most of the time we hired a person to fill a position, but every once in awhile, we hired an exceptionally talented person to create a position. Some prospective employees are just too good to pass up.
Become Organizationally Self-Aware
You talk about self-awareness on the part of leaders, but you also mention organizational self- awareness. What do you mean by that?
We all assume that organizations function more smoothly when leaders are aware of their strengths and weaknesses, their impact on others and their particular vulnerabilities. Over the years leaders at Community Connections evaluated one another, were evaluated by employees and received coaching and training from outside consultants. And many gained a greater sense of their leadership styles. Truthfully, however, most of this resulted in very little change. Leaders who were indecisive now knew they had trouble making decisions, just as overly aggressive leaders now had an awareness of how their styles intimidated employees. But awareness rarely translated into change, and some leaders were even offended or embarrassed to acknowledge a style that had been observed for years by others.
When we took a step away from individual self-awareness, however, we were able to identify another less threatening type of awareness that could more easily be embraced by our entire leadership team, and that was organizational self-awareness – not who am I and how am I seen, but who are we and how are we seen? At Community Connections, we saw ourselves as mission-driven yet willing to take a risk. We also saw ourselves as innovative and curious to learn new things. Our awareness of the kind of organization we were led us to embrace business opportunities outside our comfort zone and to compete with larger more experienced organizations for new contracts. We saw ourselves as a can-do organization and that enabled us to do big things.
Organizational self-awareness transcends the self-awareness of any given individual. It speaks to a collective identity that is shared by an entire organization.
Manage Change
How has your organization managed change over the years?
Change is an inevitable part of running a business. Some changes are driven by outside forces, like new regulations or increased competition. Some originate inside the organization itself when workforce needs shift or staff turnover suddenly becomes high. But just as with evolution, organizations either adapt to changing conditions or they risk becoming extinct. No business leader wants to go the way of the dinosaurs.Save
Over the years, I’ve learned a few simple rules that make it easier to survive, manage or initiate change. First, whenever possible, change should be intentional rather than reactive. I tend to be the kind of person who leaps first and looks second. And while that sometimes works, and my instincts are right on, there have been many instances when I made a quick decision that proved to be a colossal mistake. As a leader you should always survey the landscape, make sure you understand just what changes need to be made, what resources need to be in place, and what the consequences of a mistake might be. In other words, look first, make an intentional plan, and then leap.
Change is always easier when you create a nimble system. Some organizations get so weighed down by bureaucratic process, meetings, protracted discussion and the need for multiple checks and balances that the mechanism for deciding becomes more important than actually changing. I think of a backpacker who carries so much weight that he or she can’t move fast enough to either make it to the destination or avoid danger along the way.
The more people who need to have input into a decision to change the longer it will take to make that change. And while you don’t want a leader going rogue, you also don’t want to lose an opportunity because too many people need to approve a decision before you can act.
And finally, I like to always make sure that I leave enough gas in the tank to make a quick correction if I need to. Commit to a change, but always have sufficient resources so that you can rectify a mistake. It makes sense to have a plan B, but a plan B isn’t worth much if you don’t have the capital to carry it out.
What was your biggest mistake as you grew Community Connections and how have you overcome it?
Our biggest mistake was not what we did, but what we failed to do. We failed to set up or even think about a succession plan. The last thing that is on the minds of start-up leaders, whether in the for-profit or the non-profit world, is who is going to take over when they are gone. In the absence of a plan, one or both of two things begins to happen: Some employees begin to worry and feel that the organization might be in jeopardy if the leader leaves. Others begin to plot and plan for how they can position themselves to take over. In either case, the organization experiences an insecurity that interferes with productive work.
As I began to realize that the lack of a succession was posing problems, I did two things. First, I began the process of building a deep bench. A group of almost 20 employees were cross-trained in a number of important organizational functions and tasks so that anyone could feel a level of confidence if asked to take over. That same group of people were given the opportunity to attend a local university and receive specific training in executive leadership. And finally, I established an executive team that met weekly to review current practices, solve problems, and strategize about the future direction of the organization. This cadre of individuals felt confident that any one of them could take over when the time came, and the larger employee pool came to feel the same way.
Save
But, I also did something else that might have been equally important. With the guidance of the Board of Directors, I developed a process whereby a new leader would be chosen. Human Resources assisted with devising an application process, a way for assessing a candidate’s skills and weaknesses, a method and schedule for interviewing prospective candidates and finally a methodology for making a selection.
Just knowing that there was a way for assuring stable leadership put people’s minds at ease. When you believe that there will always be a Community Connections, then the future feels secure and everyone can just focus on getting the current job done. And the leader can feel a sense of relief that he or she has done everything possible to guarantee the sustainability of the organization.
Quoted in Sidelights: “informative and thorough exploration”
“impart to readers a solid understanding of how one organization met its challenges.”
Lessons for Non-profit and Start-up Leaders: Tales from a Reluctant CEO
Publishers Weekly. 264.26 (June 26, 2017): p168.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Lessons for Non-profit and Start-up Leaders: Tales from a Reluctant CEO
Maxine Harris and Michael B. O'Leary. Rowman & Littlefield, $34 (188p) ISBN 978-14422-7653-6
Harris, cofounder of D.C.-based nonprofit Community Connections, and O'Leary, a professor of leadership at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, team up to examine the challenges of establishing a new organization in this informative and thorough exploration. The authors take an unusual approach to their topic by starting each chapter with a fairy tale "from our collective imagination" that colorfully illustrates a specific business hurdle, such as learning how to hire the right people, overcoming obstacles, or winning over stakeholders. These stories receive titles such as "A Fable to Reach the Sky," "The Magic Ring," and "Crossing the Woods." Each fairy tale is followed by a case study that shows how Community Connections dealt with the issue at hand. By using Community Connections as the sole source for their case studies, the authors impart to readers a solid understanding of how one organization met its challenges. While many business books provide examples from multiple companies in the name of breadth, seldom do readers have the opportunity to explore a sole organization in such depth. (Sept.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Lessons for Non-profit and Start-up Leaders: Tales from a Reluctant CEO." Publishers Weekly, 26 June 2017, p. 168. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A497444426/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=e623d1f1. Accessed 20 Mar. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A497444426
Quoted in Sidelghts: “This innovative approach to understanding female psychology offers appealing insight for both sexes.”
Down from the Pedestal
Maxine Harris, Author Doubleday Books $22.5 (275p) ISBN 978-0-385-46994-4
MORE BY AND ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Psychologist Harris ( Sisters of the Shadow ) writes about ``the images which trap women and the life themes which can liberate and give meaning to their lives.'' Identifying stereotypes like Eternal Girl, Selfless Mother and Sweet Old Lady, the author shows how women suffer from the expectations of themselves and others that they fit into these roles. Harris proposes alternative ways that a woman can think about her life based on broader, more flexible themes: in the early years, exploring and preparing; in midlife, creating; in the later years, contemplating and measuring. Seventy women of varying backgrounds relate their experiences and a repeated wish that life for subsequent generations will be better than it has been for them. This innovative approach to understanding female psychology offers appealing insight for both sexes. (Jan.)
DETAILS
Reviewed on: 11/29/1993
Release date: 12/01/1993
Paperback - 978-0-385-46995-1
Sisters of the Shadow
Maxine Harris, Author University of Oklahoma Press $29.95 (252p) ISBN 978-0-8061-2324-0
MORE BY AND ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
In her Jungian-based study of today's homeless women, Washington, D.C., clinical psychologist Harris finds that, like her hapless street sisters, every woman harbors in her psyche an unrecognized or denied ``shadow'' of a potential ``victim, exile, rebel or predator.'' Each type of female outcast is illustrated in the individual stories of homeless women, many of whom are not only estranged from society and from their inner selves but are in need of psychiatric treatment. The author suggests that recounting their experiences--both victimization and dreams--is a first therapeutic step in helping them to recover their identities and integrate their psyches preparatory to rejoining the community. Female readers, she stresses, may also benefit from recognizing their kinship with these women. (May)
DETAILS
Reviewed on: 04/29/1991
Release date: 05/01/1991
Paperback - 264 pages - 978-0-8061-2502-2
Open Ebook - 257 pages - 978-0-585-11907-6
Quoted in Sidelights: “This provides both an excellent illustration of the point to be discussed and a good memory hook to remember the point,”
“an entertaining and thought-provoking read and the lessons identified and the solutions delivered are insightful,”
Book Review – Lessons for Non-Profit and Start up Leaders – Tales From a Reluctant CEO
1414 101010 1717 | Book Review
Book Review – Lessons for Non-Profit and Start up Leaders – Tales From a Reluctant CEO
In Lessons for Non-Profit and Start-Up Leaders: Tales from a Reluctant CEO,Maxine Harris and Michael O’Leary offer a valuable insight into the workings of a nonprofit organisation that has faced many of the challenges that growing companies face.
The interesting and effective additional feature in this book is that the authors have used fables to set a context for each of the lessons presented. This provides both an excellent illustration of the point to be discussed and a good memory hook to remember the point.
The main areas of any organisation are covered well including:
Culture
Delivery (making the idea come alive)
Power, Authority and Responsibility Distribution
Hiring
Problem Solving
Engaging with the Market (outside World)
Self and Organisational Awareness
Preparing for the Future
Each chapter presents one of these themes with a Fable followed by an explanation. A series of case studies illustrate the lesson being discussed and explores how the organisation deals with each.
Maxine further illustrates the point by adding a personal note from her position as CEO. This adds a very clear insight into the thinking of this particular CEO and is, I suspect, reflective of the thinking of many other senior leaders in such positions.
The last section of the chapter provides other broader reading to support the reader if they too are facing the challenge in that chapter.
Of particular note are the sections that discuss Power, Hiring and Problem Solving.
Maxine discusses in detail the problems encountered by a pro hire and the subsequent handling of that situation. It led to a continued poor performance and a reduction in trust in the leadership. This section is valuable reading if you are in the hiring process at the moment.
The problem-solving section covers understanding the framing of the problem and breaking it down to address the underlying issues and not just the symptoms.
Of particular note is the section that discusses Power, Authority and Responsibility and this is often the most challenging problem faced by a growing organisation. Knowing who is responsible for the delivery of a particular project or task and ensuring that person is given and treated as having the power to do so is critical to success.
The fables and Case Studies make Lessons for Non-Profit and Start-Up Leaders an entertaining and thought-provoking read and the lessons identified and the solutions delivered are insightful. While these solutions may not work for all situations they offer several options to consider.
Overall an interesting and entertaining presentation of the challenges that Maxine faced as CEO and a useful look into how nonprofit businesses see their role.
Grow!
Book Review The Loss That is Forever: The Lifelong Impact of the Early Death of a Mother or Father by Maxine Harris, Ph.D. Penguin Books, N.Y. 1995, pp. 342
Reviewed by John A. Speyrer
The Loss That is Forever, tells the stories of sixty-six interviewees of the author who suffered the early loss of a parent and how the resultant imprints followed them in their lives.
While the case studies are mostly about ordinary people, Dr. Harris intersperses her accounts with appropriate comments from well-known persons who themselves suffered the loss of a parent. These were accounts from Eleanor Roosevelt, Virginia Woolf, C. S. Lewis, Sylvia Plath, Adolf Hitler, Richard Wagner, Jean-Paul Satre, Joseph Stalin, Abraham Lincoln, Edgar Allen Poe, Charles Darwin, Nietzsche, Gloria Vanderbilt and others.
The child who lost a parent always remembers the catastrophe which accompanied the parent's death. The mourning and shocked child's fantasies include images of death and destruction such as being in wars, storms and cruel mass murders. These representations are sometimes forever etched in the memories of the survivors. It seems as though the mind, as a protective device, substitutes these transpersonal symbols rather than accepting the direct unvarnished truth of their very personal disaster (reviewer's comment) . Harris writes that the child's previous "natural order" life becomes one dominated by death. This may be so because the parent's death becomes a reinforced trigger to the "death in the birth canal" trauma of the child (reviewer's comment).
Unfortunately, the author does not discuss why, when a parent dies, some children who had suffered an earlier severe trauma can be more easily triggered and retain a deeply pessimistic outlook on life. Dr. Harris does describe, however, how some of these children remain obsessed with ideas of death and dying for their entire life. Some actually change from earlier states of being spiritual and religious and loving God to developing a hatred of God. They no longer feel able to love a deity who would leave them bereft of a parent to care for and love them.
Such was the case when the French author, Alexandre Dumas, died. His son, Alexandre Dumas (fils) wanted to kill God and ". . . grabbed a gun that had belonged to his father and ran into the attic of his house, trying to get to the sky so that he could kill God for having taken his father away" (p. 9). At four years of age, his world had changed instantly.
British novelist, Virginia Woolf recounts that her mother's "death was the greatest disaster that could happen; it was as though on some brilliant day of spring the racing clouds all of a sudden stood still, grew dark, and masked themselves; the wind flagged, and all creatures on the earth moaned or wandered seeking aimlessly." (pps. 9-10)
The author makes a distinction between "loss" and "absence." In cases when the parent was not consciously known, as in death during infancy or toddlerhood, the victim feels the absence but not the loss. With what we have learned in primal and attachment theory, I wonder if this is a reasonable distinction to make. Loss does indeed need a previous relationship, but relationship can exist as early as inutero. What would be the extent of the loss in such early relationships as compared to those which occur one or two years after birth? (Also see Intrauterine Memories of Twinship Experiences )
Some of us in the regressive therapies know that one's pre- and peri-natal trauma - our prototypic trauma, can deeply influence our philosophy of life and whether we may feel welcomed, reluctantly accepted or emphatically unwanted. The lessons of a parent who loses a wanted and loved child, especially when tied in to their own early trauma, often views the world impacted by their new understanding. The sword of pain can cut both ways (My comments).
Suicide by a parent can result in the child having profound guilt, especially if guilt consciously or unconsciously was earlier used as a parental ploy. In those cases, the resultant reinforcements can be solidified and persist for a lifetime (My comment). The slow last illness and death of a parent can teach the child that their parents are weak and without power and perhaps unable to protect them. Habits of familial culture can predominate after the death of a parent as sometimes there seems to be an unconscious understanding among family members to deny that the death occurred by seldom or never speaking of the deceased.
Shame, guilt and relief are described by the author as "unacceptable feelings" but yet, quite common ones in those children who lose a parent. The surviving parent, due to their own neurosis, may be overcome by feelings of inadequacy and depression and retreat from the care and support of their children. Instead, such parents may often look to the surviving children for support.
Those who lost their parents early never learned how to be a parent - especially those undertaking the role of the parent who died. They can remain perpetual children for lack of a role model.
Some who lost a parent believe that the worst mistake they can possibility make, with their own child, is to die before they raise their child. And yet these now grown children sometimes feel that the lessons they learned, such as being self-reliable, were indispensible.
Experiencing the death of a parent as an adult would normally be less devastating than the same death would be to the person as a child. As an interesting aside I will quote, E. Michael Holden, neurologist and early medical director of the Primal Institute who wrote,
". . . (W)hen one cries for a parent at a funeral, the agonizing quality of the grief derives from infancy, when love-loss was totally unbearable; much less from the loss in the present."
(The Journal of Primal Therapy, Vol. III, Nr. 1 - Symptom Formation in Neurosis, p. 24).
Thus, it would seem that many as adults who suffer the death-loss of a parent may have already suffered, to a variable degree, the psychological love-loss of a parent as an infant! They had earlier suffered an even greater loss, but because of repression had not felt their trauma. Because of triggering, the energy of the unconscious infantile trauma may be felt at the death of their parent.
Dr. Harris does not focus her work on the loss suffered upon the death of parents who were abusive to their children. Research has been conducted in cases of bad parents and the loss of even less than adequate parents were nonetheless traumatic to their surviving children. Obviously, each case is different and one variable is the severity of the abuse (my comments).
A number of children in the study endured their parental losses with no one to share their sorrow. It was earlier mentioned how, after the funeral, the family might not ever again mention the lost parent to the child. There is, in such cases, no way for such a child to grieve his loss.
Some cultures, however, have helped solve the common problem of blocked grief. Dr. Harris writes,
Lucy, whose mother died when she was seventeen, told me about a custom in her Caribbean homeland designed to prevent mourners from denying their feelings. The funeral begins in the family home with the body laid out in familiar surroundings. Family and friends are joined by a group of professional mourners whose sole responsibility is to make sure that family members feel their feelings at each appropriate moment.
When Lucy first saw her mother stretched out in the coffin, she remembers trying to distract herself by examining the coffin itself. She looked at the hinges, the metalwork, the way the wood was polished. One of the professional mourners, realizing that Lucy was avoiding her feelings, came up to the casket and began to wail. She called out Lucy's mother's name and said, "Why oh why did you leave me?" At that moment, Lucy began to cry. The mourner had accomplished her task.
As the funeral procession continued to the gravesite, the professional mourners again and again made sure that family members were not allowed to deny their loss. At the gravesite Lucy began to walk away, and one of the professionals grabbed her arm and brought her back. Lucy would not be allowed to leave the gravesite of her mother until she had cried. At the time she remembers thinking, What a nuisance these intrusive mourners are. As an adult she has realized how important it was for her to cry and weep and feel her pain at the loss of her mother. (pps. 36-37)
I had often read of professional mourners accompanying funeral corteges, but had not realized that they had been hired to help family members express their feelings of loss. I had believed that they were hired as "make believe" mourners for relatively rich and influential people who wanted to convey the idea that the deceased had many friends who would miss them.1
* *** *
Psychologist and author, Maxine Harris, emphasizes the importance of not allowing the memories of our loved ones, who have died, to slip away rather than be treasured and felt. Denying and hopeful forgetting temporarily helps to keep down the pain associated with the one who died. She suggests that if you find this happening, speak with those who intimately knew the departed. Share your stories and feelings about the deceased with others. These recountings can help facilitate grieving, hold back depression while the memories of the loved ones will be forever cherished.
______________________
1"Some can never mourn. A schizoid person may be secretly appalled that on the death of his own mother, or even of his wife, he has felt no emotion of grief or loss at all. (He concluded the relationship with his mother before he was one year old.) He may feel guilty and isolated because of this, inhuman and even unreal." [Frank Lake, M.D. Clinical Theology, p. 305.]
Dr. Maxine Harris, is a clinical psychologist and the co-director and co-founder of Community Connections, a full-service community mental health agency in Washington, D. C.
Quoted in Sidelights: “Harris’s discussion of female role-playing is overly familiar, but her intriguing look at ‘the themes of a woman’s life” proves fresh and insightful,”
DOWN FROM THE PEDESTAL
Moving Beyond Idealized Images of Womanhood
by Maxine Harris
BUY NOW FROM
GET WEEKLY BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS:
Email Address
Enter email
Email this review
KIRKUS REVIEW
A partially successful exploration of the stereotypical images and overriding themes through which many women live their lives. The idea that girls and women learn to fit themselves into idealized images is not new, although the images and their effects vary from generation to generation. Some images, says clinical psychologist Harris (Sisters of the Shadow, 1991--not reviewed), are transient--those of the ``Flapper,'' the ``Cheerleader,'' and Marabel Morgan's ``Total Woman,'' for instance--but others sink their roots deeper into myth. Reflected in fairy tales, the ``Dutiful Daughter,'' the ``Selfless Mother,'' and the ``Wise Old Woman'' are all roles offered to women at various stages in their lives. Harris agrees with Simone de Beauvoir that it's more difficult to separate from these positive images than from pictures of women as ``Whore,'' ``Devouring Mother,'' or ``Witch.'' Here, discussions and case histories of women trapped by such images precede the liberating concept that women's lives are guided by themes. For the young woman, Harris says, primary themes are exploration of self and of the world that awaits her. For women in midlife, the most important themes involve nurturing and creativity, while for older women, integration and perspective take precedence. Whether a young woman chooses to drop out of school and have babies or to pursue college, travel, and a high-powered career, she's exploring her world and the options available to her. In the same fashion, whether a midlife woman chooses car-pooling or stock-brokering, she's nurturing either children or clients. The transition to the last stage may be the most difficult, the author contends, because there are fewer role models and because older women tend to become invisible. One solution to the crossover: a ``croning'' ceremony to be celebrated on the 56th birthday--the age when, Harris says, a woman officially becomes a ``crone.'' Harris's discussion of female role-playing is overly familiar, but her intriguing look at ``the themes of a woman's life'' proves fresh and insightful.
Pub Date: Jan. 1st, 1994
ISBN: 0-385-46994-2
Page count: 320pp
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 20th, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15th, 1993