Chanoff David - From crisis to calling: finding your moral center in the toughest decisions

FROM CRISIS
TO CALLING

FROM CRISIS TO CALLING

Finding Your Moral Center in the Toughest Decisions

Sasha Chanoff and David Chanoff

From Crisis to Calling

Copyright 2016 by Alexander Chanoff and David Chanoff

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First Edition

Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-62656-449-7

PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-62656-450-3

IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-62656-451-0

2016-1

Interior design: Laura Lind Design. Edit: Lunaea Weatherstone. Cover design: Leslie Walzer/Crowfoot Design. Proofread: Karen Hill Green. Production service: Linda Jupiter Productions. Index: Paula C. Durbin-Westby.

This book is dedicated to all those who have lost their lives in the Congo, and to David Derthick and Sheikha Ali, my heroes.

Sasha Chanoff

To my wife, Lissu. We have shared everything meaningful in our lives togetherthis too.

David Chanoff

INTRODUCTION
The Five-Step Pathway to Moral Decision Making

PART I
The Congo Rescue Mission

ONE: BE PREPARED
Confronting the Unexpected Dilemma

TWO: YOUR VALUES IN THE BALANCE
Opening Your Eyes, Confronting Yourself, Knowing Yourself

THREE: TAKE COURAGE
Making the Decision, Implementing It

PART II
Moral Decision Making

FOUR: EMPATHY
Where the Moral Sense Comes From

FIVE: SELF-KNOWLEDGE
How Self-Knowledge Impacts Leadership and Organizations

SIX: CALLING
How Crises Lead to Callings

Throughout history, leaders have experienced crucible momentstimes when they are suddenly thrust into the middle of a crisis and must quickly gather their wits, sort out right from wrong, and act decisively. Those moments often shape them for the rest of their lives. In the case of the best leaders, those tests also become the making of their moral centers.

Think of a young Gandhi early in the 20th century, beginning his life as a barrister in a foreign land, South Africa. The moment when a conductor threw him off a train because he was Indian was not only a humiliation, it was a crucible that propelled him to become a protest leader and eventually win independence for his native people.

Think of the personal dilemma Eleanor Roosevelt had in 1918 as her husband Franklin returned home with pneumonia from a trans-Atlantic voyage. She had to help him with his luggage and in opening his trunk discovered a packet of love letters exchanged with Eleanors social secretary. A mother of six and a strong believer that her husband would be a great American leader, Eleanor had to decide quickly whether to leave or stay in her marriage. She stayed and helped him become president. But more than that, she began to devote herself to service outside the home, and she became a towering figure in securing human rights in America and the world beyond.

Or think of two very different men at mid-century: one a young Martin Luther King Jr., taking up his pastorate in Birmingham, being thrust into racial conflict when whites threw Rosa Parks off a public bus. King went to his pulpit to urge his parishioners to protest but soon saw. that despite his contrary inclinations, he must go to the streets, too. His protests brought a civil rights revolution. Not long thereafter, a man who was sometimes Kings opponent, Bobby Kennedy, went to Mississippi and discovered hunger and discrimination that horrified him. He became an immensely important voice for social justice.

Crucibles are moments that can change lives and change history. And so they have in the case of Sasha Chanoff and his dad, David. Early in the pages of this stirring book, they tell the story of Sashas own crucible in the heart of Africa. There he faced, for the first time, life-and-death decisions about how to respond to a refugee crisis. And there, from that moment, Sasha discovered his own moral values and how they transformed him into the world-class leader he has become today.

These crisis situations, the authors tell us, often go much further than simply putting people in touch with the values they need in order to become authentic leaders. Dilemmas, they write, require decisions; decisions require actions. Sometimes the required actions reach deep. They generate a full investment of the selfthat is to say, they constitute a calling. When that happens, it not only opens us up to who we are but to what we are. In other words, crises have the power to reveal qualities we harbor within ourselves that may have previously gone unrecognized. They can clarify our sense of ourselves and our capabilities.

After his Congo experience, Sasha founded RefugePoint, an NGO that works throughout Africa to find solutions for individuals and communities in imminent danger. They acted not a moment too soon. The world is now experiencing its biggest refugee crisis in recorded history: more than 60 million people are now displaced by conflict across the globe. The migrant crisis could destabilize Western Europe, and it is causing enormous human suffering in other continents such as Africa.

RefugePoint has become one of the most successful organizations in the world in addressing this catastrophe. Over the past decade, it has successfully helped more than 32,454 refugees gain access to resettlement. It has also become a role model for countless others. In 2013, on behalf of the Gleitsman Foundation, I was proud to present to Sasha the prestigious Gleitsman International Activist Award, bestowed every other year by a global selection committee representing the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. Students and faculty alike were enthralled by Sashas story and by the lessons he brought to his leadership.