PUBLISHED IN STARFISH E-MAGAZINE
By Loren Eiseley
One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?” The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.” “Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference!” After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said, “I made a difference for that one.”
As a leadership development tool, the story tells us that leadership starts with a person who has a vision and the heart to take on the challenging road towards change. The story pulls out the risk-taker in the leader through the message that even if there are “miles and miles” of work that needs to be done, what matters is that you do something, you start with something, and then some difference will be made. The boy represents someone who wants to serve and help, while the starfish is assumed to be those who need the help – usually in the form of underserved members of the community who are in need to have their lives bettered.
While the story deeply inspires, the process through which “making a difference” is portrayed in the story needs revisiting through the lens of development. Leadership in these trying times must dialogue with the discourse and processes of development. The leader is most often the catalyst for development, but is not alone in the development process. Leadership must assume forms of social engagement targeted towards change [loosely defined here as the transformation from one state to another, from point A to point B].
Simply put, leadership does not end with transforming only the leader. The leader is as good as the change she jumpstarts by her acts of ‘making a difference’. This is why it is important that we sensitize our understanding of the Starfish story as a leadership tool that accounts for the processes towards development.
Other-orientedness, Leadership and Development
The Starfish story tells the development intervention that the unnamed boy did. In simple terms, the boy saw the need to save the starfish – miles and miles of it along the shore – and the means by which he intervenes is by throwing them back to the sea. Noble intentions, definitely. But he misses out on a few key development assumptions.
In more recent development literature, there is growing support given to an “alternative paradigm” (Kaplan, 1999, p. 16), which forwards an understanding of development as a process. This alternative paradigm refutes the idea that development is created and engineered, and brought by others who are presumed to be more development to those who lack the standards of such development. Referring back to Eisley’s story, the boy assumes the position of a more developed, more knowledgeable entity, and single-handedly decides that throwing back the starfish into the sea is the intervention that will be best for the starfish.
The problem with such interventions according to Kaplan is that development is considered an outcome rather than a process, which tends to compromise the people on the ground and their knowledge (and constructions) of their own world (Ibid, pp. 5-7). In simple terms, if we take on the assumption that the starfish are beneficiaries of the boy’s intervention, the boy forgot to account for the context and perspective of the starfish in the process of service intervention. Development is a process, and if the process of development can be jumpstarted and sustained with the people-in-need for and by themselves, then development in itself is achieved.
Key word: PARTICIPATION. And it manifests in different ways, such as participative decision-making, participative processes, and participative leadership. The paradigm of development dialogues with the servant leadership principle of other-orientedness.
If we’re going to take on this paradigm to intervention and apply it to the Starfish Story, here are a few notes that the boy needs to consider before throwing another starfish into the sea:
Ask 'Why'.
Why are the starfish along the shore? Perhaps they are there out of their own choosing [if we assume that starfish can make choices; but in the leadership process, we always deal with people who can and must have space for their own choices]. Never assume what others want, though you might have an initial hunch of the need. Learn about how they perceive their world. Development practitioners call this process by many names – community scanning, consultations, community vision-setting, and so on. Even if we think something in the situation needs changing, we do not jump into saying what needs to be done. We might have the noblest of intentions, but borrowing from a popular saying, “The road to hell is also paved with good intentions.” Leaders that initiate change do not perform acts of service from noble intentions alone. Planning, consultation, and strategy must also be accounted for.
Another ‘why’ approach is, why are the starfish washed out into the sea? In the story, there are hundreds of starfish on the shore, and it is assumed that without intervention, they will all die of dehydration. Because of the gravity of the situation, the problem is most likely systemic. Perhaps the waves are too strong and the starfish keep getting washed out of the sea. Perhaps there are groups of people who take the starfish out of their natural habitat. This opens the room for the next consideration …
Ask 'How'.
Most problems in need of intervention are outcomes of a system. And a bad system at that. Hence the efforts of the boy in the story are rendered very small compared to the task to be done. Of course, the value of doing small good things is still there, but since the boy is inclined to help, shouldn’t he consider saving the starfish more systematically and maximize his efforts?
Development-oriented leaders learn about the causes of the problems they are facing. You do not solve the manifestation of the problem; it does not really solve anything. Maximize efforts to contribute to the largest impact possible. The question at hand for the boy is, “Given the resources that you have, and could realistically have, how do you account for the greatest impact of your intervention?”
Do not just throw the starfish randomly into the sea. Systematize. Target to do purposive, structured processes. Engage others who can help. The boy could possibly call out to the other people at the beach to help him bring the starfish back to the sea – through this he gathers manpower to match the rate by which the starfish are washed out onto the shore. He could get the man (assumed to be much older) to call on his networks and lend hands (or donate resources; who knows, it’s worth asking), to help the boy create systems to save the starfish. The range of options is wide for exploration. The development process calls for leaders who can engage different groups and stakeholders to give their counterparts to augment current resources and to achieve target outcomes.
The point is, since the boy has the energy and the spirit to help, better make it count the greatest way possible. Make the difference not just a difference, but a great difference for that matter. This is perhaps the biggest challenge that leaders face today – how do you make efforts count the most? There are so many problems that need to be addressed. We need to keep on aspiring to co-create the greatest impact with those who share our vision.
Rewriting the Starfish Story
Now let us try to rewrite the Starfish story in a more development-oriented approach:
One day a man was walking along the beach when he notices a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?”
The youth replied, “Oh good, thanks for asking. I learned that starfish in this area is continuously being washed to the shore. As you can see there are hundreds of them around here, and more over there. If we leave the starfish out here, they will all die. I want to help them, but I cannot do it alone. I can throw them one by one, but I can only do so much. I want to save as many of them as possible, in the fastest time that I can. Could you help me?”
The man, giving out a faint smile from the boy’s answer, said, “What kind of help do you need?” The boy politely replied, “Could you help me call on the people nearby? I see you have friends with you too. Do you think you can ask them to help us?” The man said, “Sure I can try.” And he started walking towards the other people at the beach.
“Mister, wait a second!”, the boy said, “Could also tell them to bring their own friends along? I can talk to them so they would know what we’re up to. I am hopeful that when they understand what we’re trying to do, they’d help and call more people to help us here.”
The man said, “Of course they would. You’re something, boy. You can really make a difference.”
And as the day went by, more and more people came to help the boy and the man. Each helped according to her own capacity. Some able men started making fences that would prevent the starfish to be washed back to the shore, while most of the others kept throwing as many starfish as they could back to the ocean every minute. As the day ended, the miles and miles of beach were cleared of the starfish. And each person found a new friend.
The man said, “It is done now. All is well.” The boy replied, “We’ve done what we can do for now. You think they will help us again to save more starfish in other areas?”
The man said, yet again, “Of course they would,” then he turned to the boy to say, “You are one who can bring us all together to make such difference.” ■
Reference:
Kaplan, A. (1999). The Development of Capacity. New York: United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service.
Marcia Czarina Corazon M. Medina, MA, is an alumna of the Ayala Young Leaders Congress 2006. She works in the field of development, leadership, and social change as a sociologist, and faculty from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ateneo de Manila University. As practice of her profession, she takes on research projects related to development and assessment of development programs and frameworks with different organizations. She also works as program manager for the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines, and research consultant for Garilao and Associates. Her youth leadership development engagement is most fervent in the Ayala Young Leaders Alumni Association as National Secretary and head of the Department of Research and Publications, among other youth programs in Ayala Foundation Inc. You may reach her atczarinamedina@gmail.com.
