Another Outlook on Outcomes - Part Two

NOTE: Today’s blog is a continuation of yesterday’s entry, so, it is recommended that you read yesterday’s entry before reading today’s.

Every single one of us in the youth work field knows how rare it is to receive a note like the one I received from this former program participant -- and how good it feels to do so. We often don’t really know how things turn out for people in the long run and it’s a good feeling when you hear that something you’re doing is actually paying off in terms of long-term results. Still, I have always tried to design programs in such a way as to guarantee that whatever success a young person has, it will be their success, not mine. I want success to be something they own, not something they owe. So, when he wrote; there is no question that a large part of my success as an adult owes to your work; I felt a need to address that. Part of the response I gave him included one of my infamously lame analogies (which I so identified):

First, let me say that yes, I remember you, and I'm really happy to hear that you are doing well. I appreciate you throwing some of the credit for that my way, but don't for a minute believe that it wasn't your doing -- the services you became involved with may have given you a recipe, but you had to bake the cake (yeah, I know, I stink at analogies ;-)

I didn’t know that I was opening the door for some rather creative musing on his part, but I’m glad I did. His musing makes some very interesting points. All the bold emphasis is his …

That's a pretty good analogy, actually. Imagine trying to make a cake without any knowledge of how to do so. One might be able to guess that flour, milk, a binding agent, a leavening agent, a sweetener, and some sort of flavoring is involved, but they would likely be completely unaware that the flour needs to be sifted 3 times, the eggs need to be room temperature and the butter softened to avoid clumping, or that the batter needs to sit different amounts of time based on whether baking soda or yeast is used. The ingredients need to be added in a certain order, and at certain ratios to each other. Even with a complete knowledge of the ingredients and their proportions, and with a fully stocked kitchen our hypothetical cake maker might still fail several times. There are a million ways to make a cake, but with each recipe certain protocols must be adhered to. Stomp around too much while baking and your cake will fall flat. Bake the cake for too long and you've cooked a nice charcoal loaf; Too little cooking time and you've sweet egg and flour soup. With encouragement, mentorship, and the chance to fail as many times as it takes to succeed, they will learn to make cake if they want to.

I put the bit about failing in bold, because that might be the most relevant factor to my ascendancy from the streets. I spent about two years failing. Two years of draining the income of Portland homeless youth serving organizations without producing any measurable outcome. A cost/benefit analysis would have clearly indicated that I was a poor investment. No matter how many times I failed, or how spectacularly, I was never written off as a lost cause.

Of course, as you already know, 'failure' can actually be a developmental success as long as the person in question doesn't give up on themselves. Real success isn't easy, and an easy success has little value as an accomplishment. True growth comes from facing a task which is perceived to be impossible, and persevering through adversity until the task is complete. With impossible under one's belt, the concept of difficulty is no longer a bar to achievement. If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach him to fish, and the guy will be stuck eating fish for the rest of his life. But teach him to aspire to the loftiest of his goals, to test and strive for the full depth of his potential - and steak's back on the menu.

Our dialog continued after this, and he went on to share some additional insights on outcomes which I will share with you … tomorrow.