Joining an organization in flux
DeVries describes the dynamics at the Center for Creative Leadership when he arrived there. It was an organization in flux and was looking to DeVries to provide the kind of good ideas that would justify its existence. He had plenty of help from the psychologist Robin Cook and David Campbell.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with David DeVries, November 23 and December 2, 1998. Interview S-0010. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- ELIZABETH MILLWOOD:
-
Now you've mentioned David Campbell as one of the key
players. Were there other key players that you initially interacted with
that you have strong memories of?
- DAVID DE VRIES:
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Interestingly enough, even during the interview and then during my first
year when I was in the Center, there were two visiting scholars. The
Center had [unclear] the visiting scholars
program where they tended to take social scientists that were
accomplished, probably in their latter years professionally, and have
them live at the Center for a year or two. And there were two folks
there. One was Robin Cook who was a great social psychologist. And Robin
really helped me understand the potential of the Center. He also
challenged me intellectually. That was extremely helpful to me. The
other thing that kept me going was that I immediately ran into Morgan
McCall. Morgan and I immediately started to collaborate in some ways
that really tested me intellectually, really pushed me. And together, we
started to do some writing and frame some research projects that very
quickly got off the ground. In fact in less than six months of my
arrival, David asked us to start a separate research function. When I
arrived, there was no such thing as a research function. It was embedded
within a larger kind of program. So that created a tremendous momentum
early on in my tenure at the Center. It was clear that if you had some
interesting ideas, the Center of Creative Leadership was going to
provide a way for you to act on those. The other impression I had, a
profound impression, was that the place was living
day to day and it was perilously close to being in debt, in that its
life was about to end. I did not realize that when I accepted the job
and moved my family. I had three young children, so my wife and my three
young children joined me down here in what felt like was really a
foreign country almost. My wife had not been eager to move to the South.
And then the moment I got on board, it was clear to me and communicated
to me by people beginning with David Campbell, that the board of
governors really had to be convinced that we had enough good ideas that
it was worth prolonging the existence of the place. And then we even had
another visiting fellow who was of "the sky is falling, the sky
is falling" mentality. And before every board meeting, he would
talk to each of us about how dire the prospects looked. I remember these
spikes of anxiety before every single board meeting. And Morgan and I,
from the time I arrived, would be called in to present to the Board. We
were the group that Bill Friday quickly called the "young
turks." The "young turks" that the Board
looked to to say, "Do you have any ideas that are really worth
keeping this place around?" And that was a very vivid part of
my early memories of the Center. And for me, it took about three years
before I was convinced that the board wasn't going to pull
the plug.
- ELIZABETH MILLWOOD:
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Because of their skepticism as you heard it each time they met?
- DAVID DE VRIES:
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Yeah, exactly. Fortunately, not only did we then kick off a research
program during those years, '75 to '78, but the
leadership development program got finally coalesced and really got
going as well in those years. So you had a one, two punch. You had LDP
which now has evolved into the most visible management development
program in the world. And then also simultaneously, a research program.