Almost exactly 50 years ago, I started a new job as the director of a Carter Administration management Resource Center for Region II, which included the Virgin Islands. Little did I know, or even be capable of imagining, that a long-term relationship was starting. One that would include the center’s training and technical assistance programs, founding the St. Thomas/St. John Youth Multi-Service Center, leading a number of other projects, and serving as a longtime columnist for the V.I. Source.
Some thoughts about this half-century.
At the heart of these thoughts is a lesson learned in the years before beginning my first Virgin Islands assignment. That lesson: it’s a lot better to listen than it is to talk. I had become a listener. And there were few places where that habit was more useful than in the V.I. where being lectured by mainlanders, especially federal officials and an endless cast of know-it-all experts, was standard practice.
Virgin Islanders liked our team’s approach of focusing on “What? Why? and How,” instead of the eternal “You should … (fill in the blank for whatever it was that you should do).” The “you should’” effect usually went up a few notches when it was a white expert explaining the world to Virgin Islanders.
Then, my second act in the Territory. I informed the Region II head of Human Services that there were no youth services in the Virgin Islands. He said I was crazy and should be put away. We made a bet. He would send his staff to explore the issue, and if I was right, he would give me a very small grant to start a youth multi-service center modeled on one in New York City. (If I lost the bet, I think I was supposed to buy him a donut.)
I won the bet, and with the support and leadership of two great Virgin Islanders, Calvin Wheatley and Wilburn Smith, the Youth Multi-Service Center was born. One of its early staff members would later launch the St. Thomas Source.
In these — and other — experiences, four big themes emerged. Their value has been repeatedly reinforced over these decades: First: nothing is ever as simple as it seems. Having a great idea and implementing it are not the same thing. Second: champions and committed leaders are critical to success. Third, success equals execution, the discipline of getting things done. And, finally, focusing on problem solving, and rejecting blaming and blame avoidance are also essential to success.
Each of these themes has direct relevance to the Virgin Islands and the challenges that it faces in today’s world.
Their sometime annoying qualities aside, outsiders can bring something of real value to a place. That value is best captured by a quote from Tolstoy: “There are no conditions to which people cannot become accustomed, especially if they see everyone around them living in the same way.” Also known as “just the way things are here,” usually stated as an eternal condition that can never be changed.
To the outsider, these “normal” things are not normal, the “fresh eyes” benefit.
As the outsider, working with a very broad range of organizations and cultures, I continue to be surprised — sometimes amazed — by what people have become accustomed to. A range of individual behaviors, group norms or entire cultures. Many of these things have significant negative effects, which people also become accustomed to. Tolstoy was right.
A big example: how mass shootings have become normalized, just the way things are, now pretty much one-day stories in the United States. A smaller — and much less visible — example: in recent years, I have become increasingly struck by the negative impacts that passive aggressive people can have on an organization or group, and how “normal” their behaviors had become to the people in the group.
A few outsider thoughts on things that Virgin Islanders seem to have, over these years, gotten accustomed to. “Just the way things are.” There are, I believe, three big ones, which can, as a group, form an action agenda for change.
First, based on experience, and not unlike lots of mainland jurisdictions, Virgin Islanders have low expectations of their government. And, their government, in turn, regularly meets these low expectations. This “negative norm” applies to basic public services, as well as areas in which policy change and something new are clearly needed.
The results are a lack of accountability for achievable goals, lowered standards, and, something that often goes unexamined: creating temptation because functioning safeguards aren’t in place.
Second, as in other parts of the United States, but to an even greater degree, Virgin Islanders have become accustomed — and adjusted their lives in response — to extraordinarily high levels of violence. A comparison: Honduras has a reputation as a violence-ridden country. Its homicide rate is 25 per 100,000 persons. That rate in the V.I. is 42 per 100,000, with the rate on St. Croix being 92 per 100,000. No mainland jurisdiction has rates this high.
The third outsider observation, one that has always struck me as having a range of negative impacts, is the unhealthy relationship between St. Thomas and St. Croix. The result being the entrenchment of the negative norms of mistrust, zero-sum thinking, “They’re getting what we should have,” and a lot of “what-about-ism.” All impediments to positive action, and the benefits of everyone pulling together toward shared goals.
Why is this last item so important? With each passing year, it becomes clearer to me that trust is the foundation for all positive action, the only way to get people and groups “pulling together.” Without trust and its partner solid execution, pessimism and stagnation are almost always the — self-reinforcing — outcomes.
I believe that there are several “front-end” steps, the single most important one being strategies and actions that generate hope. A belief that we can actually change things. A key being to find strategies and actions that include short-term visible “wins,” the fuel that sustains support, and defeats the self-fulfilling norm of pessimism.
Another “front-end” step is to find and support leaders and champions, the people who can move communities away from what we are accustomed to. Every community has such leaders. They need to be mobilized and equipped with the tools for change.
Then, there is the action agenda. Some outsider thoughts on the key items that should be on that agenda in the Virgin Islands:
— first, economic and community development initiatives that create hope and opportunity;
— second, implementing proven strategies for violence reduction and building peaceful communities; and,
— third, not discussed above, making the Virgin Islands a model for a renewable energy and a climate change resilient future.
A suggested “front-end”: use the following equation as an invaluable starting-point checklist: a clear and achievable strategy and goals + the right people in the right roles/jobs + solid systems and work processes + excellent internal and external communications + core values of trust, clarity and mutual accountability for achievable goals. The outcome: success.
Not easy, but doable, and the starting point for building that better future that Virgin Islanders deserve.
— Frank Schneiger has built and led three public sector organizations: The City of New York Assistant Health Commissioner and first Director of Prison Health Services; Executive Director of the HEW/HSS Region II Family Resource Center; and as the organizer and first Director of Department of Children and Family Services in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, each recognized as national leader in its sector. Co-founded and built a $20 million specialty health care organization, and founded and sustained 40-year management consulting firm devoted to planning and execution, organizational change and building and sustaining healthy organizations. Frank holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and dual Masters Degrees and a Ph.D. from Columbia University.
Editor’s Note: Opinion articles do not represent the views of the Virgin Islands Source newsroom and are the sole expressed opinion of the writer. Submissions can be made to visource@gmail.com.
