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serve you well this year as CGD. individual projects could not work together. I
had to serve as a barrier to ensure that each was

One of my favorite quotes is by President focused on their own tasks, but that they did
Harry S. Truman: “It is amazing what you can not interact with each other. I learned that you
accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” need to recognize interpersonal conflicts and
I have found this to be very true. First, by not understand how best to handle it. Sometimes the

fighting over who will get credit for something, best way to handle conflict is to provide a barrier
you can just focus your attention on getting it so that they can each complete their own work.
done. They both did extremely well in their tasks.
Second, by giving credit and recognition to

others, it rewards them for their hard work and
encourages them to do more.
Finally, if you allow others to take ownership
of a task and put their creativity into it, they can

often accomplish far more than you initially
expected. This brings to mind another favorite
quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The
art of acceptance is the art of making someone

who has just done you a small favor wish that he
might have done you a greater one.”
Many years ago when I served as Chair of
an organization with about 300 volunteers,

I appointed a young man to be chair of a
committee that had potential but had not been
fully utilized. I gave him a specific objective, and
then let him take the lead to accomplish it. I made

sure he had the support necessary, and from that
point on he took off with a whole project that If you don’t think you have
accomplished far more than I otherwise would
have done. It spawned a whole new organization achieved your goals, think on

that grew and continues to this day.
That experience underscored my belief that a deeper level. What have you
if you give people the support they need, give
them ownership of a project, and then let them done for others?

be creative, they will thrive.
Another lesson I learned is that not everyone
can work together. Two powerful women
who were tremendously good at completing

VOICES! | JULY 2021 11