Where we’ve been and where we’re going!

In 2009, David Allen Ibsen
published, “Leading your way out of the recession”.

It was a recipe for what it would take to survive the global economic crisis.

The ingredients included:

• Self Confidence
• A clearly articulated and broad vision
• A willingness to be flexible
• The skill to act upon intuition
• A talent in mobilizing resources (the right type, at the right time)

“The skill to act upon intuition” was evident here in Ireland when, in January 2009, Raymond Sexton convened what he imagined would be a “one-off” session to bring a group of colleagues together. The meeting was designed to kick off the New Year and attend to:

• the move from despondency to a sense urgency and passion which would lead to focused actions, individually and collectively
• rediscovering the basic elements of success, in his view- Time, Treasure and Talent
• providing each other with needed inspiration, encouragement, and support
• curating a body of knowledge which would provide participants access to mentorship, connections and empathetic financial resources

The enthusiasm generated that day resulted in a call to “do this again”. In April, they convened Limerick. An ancient city and home of Shannon Development, created by some of the most forward thinking and action oriented change-makers in Ireland. Their initiatives from the 1960s forward have made Ireland the commercial gateway to Europe it is today.

In the three months between those the Howth & Limerick meetings, attendees at the first had launched nearly a dozen positive initiatives. Clearly, Tangible energy was catalysing change.

The momentum generated in Limerick drove the initiative forward to New York City in May. Scheduled on the morning of the annual Ireland Funds Gala, it was enthusiastically received. A July seminar followed in Sutton, Co Dublin and the leadership series was born.

As the series enters its ninth year, with over 60 seminars behind us, it includes 7 annual sessions in Ireland. Thanks to the enthusiasts, ambassadors and conveners we have met along the way, the global outreach now extends from New York to Sydney, and London to San Francisco.

We’ve proven that resilience is born, as the Irish proverb puts it, Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine, “In the shadow of each other, the people live”.

You are welcome to join us in Oranmore, County Galway on 6. October or in London on 17. November for the remaining #Tangible16 seminars.

In 2017, alongside our “events as usual” we will begin to deliver a structured programme designed to offer continuing professional development.

Next year’s events begin as we “Bring it On” in Howth, Tangible’s 65th event in it’s ninth “new year”!

Oranmore, County Galway

“A mind is a terrible thing to waste” 

So goes the very powerful fundraising campaign launched by United Negro College Fund in 1972. It’s one of the most enduring tag-lines Madison Avenue has brought the world. It endures because the sentiment is universal.

Dust off the cobwebs, turn off the talking heads and find out what real people working on the front lines of social, political and educational change, are up to.

The season of “Summer Schools” is underway. It’s a glorious opportunity to surround yourself with the intellectually curious, to have your thinking challenged and be infused with a dose of positivity.

We are sadly lacking mature leadership on the island of Ireland and it has never been more important for all of us to develop ourselves into an active and engaged citizenry.

The McGill, Merriman & xChange Summer Schools are now behind us. There is ample coverage of all available and still time to consider The Thomas D’Arcy McGee Summer School in Carlingford  which will address “D’Arcy McGee, 1916 and Revolutionary Republicanism” and Tangible Ireland’s Ambassador Summer School which covers “Business & Civic Leadership”.

Don’t do it for yourself, do it for your children and grandchildren. Education doesn’t end with “qualifications“, it’s a life-long process. Model it!

Why? Frederick Douglas sums it up perfectly: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men”

*(per the 2014 post – and an excellent incentive to mark your calendars for the 2017 events…)  The McGill Summer School will stream its programming on “Reforming and Rebuilding our State”. And there’s still time to plan an outing to Glenties. Audio highlights of the xChange Summer School about “Changing Conversations” are available. Still ahead are the Merriman Summer School where “Emotional Life in Ireland” will be explored; The Thomas D’Arcy McGee Summer School in Carlingford  will address “The Famine in Ulster”; Tangible Ireland’s Ambassador Summer School covers “Business & Civic Leadership” and there are many more.

“Do as I say, not as I do!” …or not!

When Tangible Ireland began in 2009, we were experiencing a lot of that kind of leadership in Ireland.

Founder, Raymond Sexton believed that an emphasis on the positive was required.

• What was going well?
• Who were the people driving the success stories?
• Did anyone else believe we were better than our bottom line?

He began to examine what drove excellence in leadership both at home and abroad.

The perspective was that of an engineer and project manager experienced in helping multinationals invest and build facilities in Ireland, a homecomer returned from a decade in Australia, and a closet historian.

Who the Irish are in Ireland and who we become when we go abroad is a fascinating study.*

And the many Tangible ambassadors, partners and guests have joined him in studying it – up close and personally, across the island of Ireland and worldwide.

There have been over sixty Tangible seminars in global cities – Dublin, London, New York and Sydney; regional capitals – Belfast, Limerick & Galway; and in the urban & rural villages that lie at the heart of Irish life and values – Howth, Kilmallock and Crossmaglen.

There’s a common denominator in all these communities. We honor our original associations, whether counties, communities, schools, or team affiliations, we pay it forward and take care of our own. We are industries, joyous, playful and determined.

Here’s what we do:

Imagine the simplicity of a “3 pinned plug” and the energy it channels. It’s the way each Tangible Seminar is designed. We showcase and model the best business and civic leadership in a region by:

• focusing on the maverick and entrepreneurial “live wires” – the local leaders driving change
• highlighting and sharing connections to the startup, trade & inward investment support offered in the Republic and in Northern Ireland
• recognising our citizens at home, abroad and in transition, uniting them in their efforts to prosper both here and across the Diaspora

Here’s what we’ve learned:

• at home and abroad our values never change
• our Diaspora represents our greatest asset; vast supplies of human capital available for spending and investment
• our citizens never cease to be our citizens

Here’s what we believe:

• Personal, business and trade relationships empower us individually & collectively, in our new lands and across Ireland.
• Our citizens never cease to be entitled to be heard.
• At home, abroad or in transition, we owe each other a duty of care, including responsible stewardship of this island, economically, environmentally and politically.

This drive for excellence in leadership and best practices reflects our duty of care to the next generation by making this island fit to come home to, or to never be forced to leave.

We are survivors.

Who we are and who we become, whether we stay here or go abroad needs to reflect our best hope for the future of our Irish or Northern Irish children and grandchildren in the Americas, the EU, the UK, Oz or elsewhere.

To join us in San Francisco on Thursday, 21. July  or at the annual Ambassador Summer School here in Ireland follow the links to register.

For a great summary of why Tangible travels the globe in search of “live wires” – here it is:

*…who we become when we go abroad as described by one of our own:

My relationship with the Irish language has evolved over the half dozen years I have been here.

It’s doubtful I’ll learn to speak it, I’ve little facility with language, but what I’ve learned about it has certainly informed my understanding of the people of this island.

Three people opened the door to that understanding.

Carol Conway, Freelance Catalyst, facilitator and youth leadership trainer was the first. I’d no idea that she “had Irish”. She’d studied it for the love of the language.

She held my frustration with the use of it – often politically on the border – as a weapon designed to divide an audience into “them vs us”.

“Eve, you won’t understand the Irish people until you’ve studied the Irish language .”

She got my attention with two relevant aspects of the language:

• The absence of the possessive to have. I don’t have a coat. It’s the coat on me or the coat beside me.
• Tenses are constructed differently. We haven’t had a conversation – the absence of a “past perfect” means we’re “after having a conversation” and after living here, one learns to ask, is anything really in the past?

The net effect informs our use of English – and I’ve heard it posited – makes us the storytellers we are.

Linda Ervine, is a Belfast teacher and an Irish Language evangelist. She sees merit in teaching the “Hidden History of Protestants and the Irish Language” going so far as to suggest that in refusing to become familiar with it we deny the connection of the language to the culture of Ulster.

Beyond opening my eyes to the inclusive nature of the language she opened the door to tolerance. In delivering “The Hidden History of Protestants and the Irish Language” as a talk at the 2012 PUP Conference she even addressed my intolerance of what I once thought was a Northern Irish ignorance of grammar. It’s not! *

This abstract is from the Slugger O’Toole blog on the event.

Linda Ervine spoke about the “hidden history of Protestants and the Irish language”. In what was probably the best delivered session, she explained how she had been filling out the recent census online when she looked back at the 1911 census and discovered that her husband’s relatives had lived in East Belfast and spoke both Irish and English. Yet their signatures were listed on the Ulster Covenant. Linda deduced that their knowledge of Irish wasn’t linked to their politics…

She quoted Douglas Hyde, son of a Church of Ireland minister, first president of Ireland and founder of the Gaelic League in 1893, an organisation set up to preserve the Irish language. In 1905 he said:

The Irish language, thank God, is neither Protestant nor Catholic, it is neither a Unionist nor a Separatist.

 Linda went on to illustrate how Irish is behind many place names, and words and phrasing we use in everyday vernacular. She also pointed to the Red Hand Commando’s motto which is in Irish! During the coffee break, several delegates signed up for Irish language classes at East Belfast Mission!

She concluded that language was neutral, only a tool to communicate.

She drove home Carol’s point about the structure of the language and what we have carried over into English. Things she used to correct about her Belfast students’ grammar were actually correct in Irish. This among people who are many generations removed from Irish speakers.

She is “Beating swords into plowshares” in Belfast.

And lastly, a cultural and evolutionary observation which bears out the message of both women:

Anthony McCann has proposed imagining an Irish cultural equivalent to “Ubuntu”

Garaiocht: An Irish Value for an Energised Ireland

A linguist, musician and  a coach he reflects on Garaiocht as a deeply hopeful value which allows an understanding of the possibility of potential and an openness to a deeply hopeful future.

The link will take you to a brief video describing it in greater depth. In short- imagine the folks of this island – at our convivial best, in good company with a pot of tea and the time to express ourselves in stories. This concept of Garaiocht embodies:

1. Nearness
2. Hereness
3. Withness
4. Helpfulness
5. Conviviality
6. Continuous Action (verbal noun – a noun that acts as a verb) Can’t have an absence of action in the notion of Garaiocht
7. Mutual support/interdependence
8. Resourcefulness/Entrepreneurship the ability to make the best use of the resources that you have (opportunities for helpfulness)
9. Response-ability appropriate to context. Leadership quality with its core values at the heart of Irish life This notion of leadership which is not authoritative – not reliant on command and control.

In “sourcing” the wisdom from this ancient language – he reiterates Douglas Hyde’s point, Linda Erivine’s point and Carol Conway’s widsom when she told me:

You won’t understand the Irish people until you’ve studied the Irish language

We can better understand each other with the gift of a language that predates our generations of conflict. A language that is neither Protestant nor Catholic, it is neither a Unionist nor a Separatist.

Thank you Carol, Linda and Anthony – for opening the door to knowing what I might never have otherwise known!

For more on this subject: “Beating Swords into Ploughshares”

* at 16:55 Linda Ervine discusses the structure of the language. To “twig on” begin a bit before that for a fascinating overview of the words that have entered the Northern Irish vernacular directly from the Irish.

Here’s a  2022 update on Linda Ervine’s work

Global City!

Tangible Ireland’s Dublin meeting October 9th is a special one. It marks the first session of my “senior year”* at Tangible.

Four years ago, with the help of Linkedin’s algorithms, I found my way to a meeting at the Dublin Civic Trust.

Welcomed by Dan Feahney, an enthusiastic, ex-pat American, I felt comfortable. Joining over 20 men and women from Northern Ireland & the Republic – it was the best collective company I’d found since arriving two years earlier. Remarkably, a full quarter of the group were women!

2010 was a bleak time in Ireland. We’d already hit bottom. My response was that there was no where to go but up. Everywhere I turned I saw opportunity.

Not so my Irish neighbours.

I was frustrated. The passivity of most and their despair was overwhelming. Where was the outrage? Where were the protests? Why were people saying “We got the run of ourselves, now we’ll pay”?

No one deserved it. It was clearly a failure of leadership, abuses of power and downright incompetence and it was going unpunished. (Sadly, still is…)

Compounding my frustration, I was still confounded by life on the border. The Good Friday Agreement was over a decade past and I lived every day with new messages about “them” & “us”. Somehow we could rail against historic wrongs, be willing to fight imagined enemies over exaggerated slights, but we were passive about the real and present danger.

Not at Tangible. It was different there, among these people.

One by one people rose to present.

I finally heard a language I recognized. Passion was alive in the voices of those calling for new & responsible leadership, self-reliance and a prosperity process!

Presenters came from across the island. I heard the language of respectful citizens of both governments interested in addressing the needs of the island’s economy with no political agenda.

Everything I heard at that meeting affirmed my vision of what life in Ireland could be. This community and their messages have sustained me.

There were 11 speakers that day. They included a young activist and social entrepreneur, Killian Stokes. He’d created a charity. Conceived in Dublin driven by a software platform built in Belfast, he recounted fundraising in America. Nothing passive about a young man equipped with a file of Google images, doorstepping executives and funders at meetings and conferences in New York. Here was passion, confidence and enthusiasm I could relate to!

Next up was Paul Smyth. The quiet dignity of this Belfast based Chief Executive of Public Achievement – belied the passion behind founding WIMPS – Where is My Public Servant? He was answering my near constant musing: Why isn’t anyone holding politicians to account? He was empowering teenagers in Northern Ireland to “speak truth to power” – with microphones in their hands plus the training and wherewithal to disseminate the interviews.

And then Ronan King took the floor. The theme of the day was Excellence in Ireland and one of the most powerful moments was when he put up a slide and said: “Do you know what happens when you Google Fianna Fail & Dynasty?”

Suffice it to say much blood was spilled to form a Republic that is shockingly dynastic.

His focus on demanding the accountability of regulators and bankers was refreshing in light of the self-flagellation I was used to hearing.

Noreen Bowden, an American ex-pat then living and working here presented on diaspora relationships, specifically, the disenfranchisement of emigrants.

Talks on talent management and leadership development by Alan Jordan & Danica Murphy were delivered in language I recognized. Empowering, not self-effacing; proactive and not passive.

Carol Conway then went on to deliver a summary of the first Ambassador Summer School. I knew I’d found a home. She and Dan Feahney closed by moderating a discussion: A Shared Future, the potential to design an Ireland of excellence.

Every seminar since has done precisely that. Tangible Ambassadors share the vision of an excellent, prosperous and sustainable island of Ireland fueled by the wisdom, strength & wealth of Global Ireland.

Join us as we gather annually in other Global cities – London in November, New York in May or Sydney in the summer; Belfast in February, Limerick in March;  Howth in January, Crossmaglen in July & Kilmallock in August.

Why? Noreen Bowden has returned to America, Killian Stokes is living and working there, along with 1000 like him who leave Ireland every week. Let’s develop the leaders who will create a dynamic, sustainable and prosperous Ireland for our children and grandchildren to come home to!

*College & high school years are called freshman, sophmore, junior & senior in America.

I spent three days last week chairing and participating in the Tangible Ireland Summer School. It was interesting, challenging, heartening, stimulating and fun! It also reminded me, in a very tangible way (forgive the word play) of the inestimable value of spending time around positive people. Bear in mind that when I say “positive”, I do not mean rose spectacled Pollyanna types who are relentlessly cheerful no matter what the circumstances. For me, positive people are those who consistently look for, and focus on, solutions to whatever problems or challenges they encounter.

So it was that over the course of three days I had glimpses into the numerous ways people are working to help others achieve more of their potential. Be that through leadership with Anthony McCann, Empowerment with Eve Earley or culture change with Eoin Barry. I was heartened by Catherina Casey’s story of success and new challenges in connecting the global Irish through our shared cultural heritage and by Brian O’Boyce’s perspective on some of the excellence within our health services. I was intrigued by Gerry O’Sullivan’s story of a Limerick man in the Shanghai police…perhaps enough to buy the book! I was grounded by Stephen McNulty’s focus on the numbers and Robert Baker’s analysis of the opportunities out there. I was inspired by Chris Gordon’s ideas, passion and energy and by John Webb O’Rourke’s relentless drive and positive focus in the face of obstacles. I was called to action by Donagh McKeown and his timely initiative to encourage all of us to talk about mental well being. And to finish it all off Alan Gallagher showed us how we can all play our part with passion, positivity and connections to the global Irish network.

So I am celebrating my good fortune to have (or create) opportunities to spend time around other positive people and I am reminded of the value of this to my own mental wellbeing. Of course I can’t claim that this is a new insight, indeed I know it so well that it features on my essential tool kit! Nonetheless it is an insight worth refreshing on a regular basis and, after last weeks interactions I am certainly facing into September thoroughly refreshed!

originally posted 28 Aug 2013 14:04 by Carol Conway