Possibility To Reality: Spiritual Leadership In Human Services With David Swain
This fascinating conversation focuses on the deeper dimensions of providing services to people with intellectual disabilities. Andrew speaks with David Swain, the CEO of Endeavour Foundation, a provider of support services and employment to people living with disabilities in Queensland, Australia. David talks about caring in action, recognizing the inherent worth of the people being served, with a focus on making impact rather than making money. At the same time, David talks about the need to speak the language of business when running a large organization. He leads us into the intersection of purpose-driven action and leadership, the key things that allow him to create a greater impact organizationally and individually. David also talks about the need to focus on and measure the being level at work, not just the doing. He serves as a wonderful inspiration for those of us trying to make a greater impact with our work in the world.
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Possibility To Reality: Spiritual Leadership In Human Services With David Swain
In this episode, I'm so pleased to have with me, my friend and former client. Once we're connected, we're always connected. David Swain in Queensland, Australia, thank you for joining us from afar. David is the CEO of the Endeavour Foundation, which provides support services and employment to people living with disabilities. He spent many years in government and regulatory areas in Australia, consulting senior industry roles, and starting his career as a nurse and officer in the Australian Army if I'm not mistaken. Also, he served on various boards some of which intersecting business and faith communities including the Community Services Industry Alliance. He's been a Director of Guide Dogs Queensland. There's a lot of spirituality in the Guide Dogs business. We know that.
He has previously served on the boards of Churches of Christ in Queensland, the Australian College of Ministries, and Drug ARM, which is now Healthy Options Australia, a health-related and known for-profit as I understand. David and I met when he came to Philadelphia to do the Advanced Management Program at Wharton. I had the chance to work with him. I'm so pleased because when I thought about this show, I thought I've got to get David on this show as we talk about the intersection of practical spirituality in action and leadership. Welcome, David.
Many thanks, Andrew. It's great to be here. To me, it's a critical topic.
First, could you talk a little bit about the role that you're in? It's an interesting combination of where you've been on the path and perhaps it might inform our conversation a little bit.
Thanks for the introduction. That could sound very disparate because of the various many roles but for me, the central theme running through all of that is human services. My career has been very much around health and human services, particularly focused on people who are more marginalized, vulnerable, or perhaps don't have stronger voices. All of what I've done and where I've been contributes to where I am. That's the same for all of us. The total of experiences contributes to what we're doing now.
Endeavour Foundation is a large organization with a particular focus on supporting people with intellectual disabilities. That focus is to help people turn their possibilities into reality. When you think about that, you could see that as a slogan but I take that seriously. What's the inherent potential of individuals who live with intellectual disability? Where are the barriers to them in achieving their possibility or potential? The fun part we can play is removing those barriers. We are the largest employer of people with intellectual disabilities in Australia and a large provider of accommodation of community services. We are a large advocacy organization as well.
For me, I used to have a physical sledgehammer in my office. That was an icon to remind us to remove silos and barriers. I don't have the physical sledgehammer in my office but it is certainly sitting there metaphorically or virtually. Our job is to remove barriers to inclusion. For me, it's a fun job. In the past job I had, I worked out of what I call my vocation, making a difference in the lives of others. How does someone else breathe a little bit more easily through the interaction that I or my organization has with them?
There's your marker of success. That's beautiful. I do remember that one attorney I used to work with in California had a sledgehammer in his office but he meant it very differently. I'm so grateful that this sledgehammer is in good hands. One of the things that I remember about your time in Philadelphia years ago is that you were in the area for five weeks in the Advanced Management Program. It is a wonderful leadership program at Wharton that I've been involved with for quite a while.
You would make it a point to visit different faith communities and churches every Sunday as I recall and being involved in something, “What could I do to be of service?” I've seen a lot of people move through that program and have never seen anyone do that. I'm wondering. For you, it all sounds like a cliché question, forgive me but what was important for you about doing that? I'm curious to know if you've done that in other parts of the world because you've got some experiences here about that that I'd love to hear.
For me, it is about who I am. That's all. Who I am doesn't change regardless of where I am. I'm wired towards human services. People might think Wharton is about making money and that's what people have related to me. My experience in the Advanced Management Program is about making an impact. If your key focus is on making money, go and find another program. It is about true leadership and how we how we lead in this world. I did find a fair bit in that program around leading ethically and from a strong moral compass and so forth.
Who I am doesn't change regardless of where I am.
If anyone's thinking about the Wharton program, I highly recommend it. In Philadelphia, I wanted to connect with the community. Prior to that, the Advanced Management Program was looking into some other activities around housing and social housing in Philadelphia. We did some work with some other organizations to understand how Philadelphia was responding to homelessness at the time.
I got an appreciation of the huge amount of welfare for health and human services. That's wealth that's not necessarily evenly distributed. I particularly look at the university hospitals and so forth. I did propose the program at Wharton. It must be a community with the highest health practitioner-to-community ratio in the world. I assume then it's got the best health outcomes in the world and it doesn't. That's a bit facetious because there is a large number of people who are not as well supported as they should be.
I'm wired towards making that impact. I was walking through Philadelphia, looking for a faith community to connect with while I was on the program. I saw this church that had a suit program running on a Saturday morning. Homeless people were going into that program to sit down, be waited, and be served. I thought, “That is the church that I want to go to while I'm in Philadelphia.” To their credit, I walked into the soup kitchen and said, “I'd love to volunteer.” They said, “Great. Here's your apron. Come on board.”
I was volunteering in those soup kitchens that are Episcopalian Church while I was in Philadelphia. That was very humbling. I don't like labels, speaking with some of the diners, seeing the smiles on their faces, and saying, “Why do you come here?” They're saying, “We come here because we can meet with our friends. People don't judge us, look down at us, or spit on us.” I think, “How good is this energy here?” That, for me, is the heart of spirituality. That is an equilibrium. That's harmony. That's what the world should be about.
In that church, in that soup kitchen, the people who were serving the diners got it. The question is, do I do it in another part of the world? As time and opportunity permit. I do things here and there. It's who I'm being. I don't do this as a job. I'll support people when I'm paid to do it and I'll forget that when I go home or anywhere else. I'm critical of some of the social reforms in the world. Some of the social reform has transactionalized care. When you think of that, care shouldn't be transactionalized. They make sense.
Is this the end-of-career role for you? What's next? I wonder. As things have evolved and you've moved in different types of leadership roles and operations, served on boards, and in this role, how has your willingness, ability, and ease with which you make the connection between spirituality and bringing these spiritual dimensions of ourselves and these spiritual components of yourself into the workplace evolved? I suppose that, on the one hand, that's a function of time, advancement, and the world changing a bit around us.
We're all born spiritual people but we look at what interferes along the way or what gets in the way. Some of that is groupthink and rules get in the way. Laws get in the way, to be honest. These sorts of things become barriers to exercising your free self. I'm not calling for anarchy here but I'm saying sometimes laws and rules are not just. We need to do something about it. Many times, groupthink is not just. In Australia and similar Commonwealth countries, we have royal commissions for bad things when bad things happen.
Particularly, we've had royal commissions into the financial institution or institutional child abuse. A lot of that comes from groupthink, people thinking that certain behaviors are okay instead of reflecting on themselves, listening to their spirits like, “What is the right thing to do here,” and following that path. That requires some exercise and resilience which can only be gained over time, or if you're blissfully ignorant of the impact of what you're about to do. That's good, too. I don't want to dismiss that because there are some truly courageous people who are not concerned about the consequences of doing the right thing.
For me, it is about listening to that quiet self. That thing for me is the power behind the moral compass. We can listen to all those around us as to what we think might be the right thing but somewhere deep down, most of us know, “What is that thing that can take us to an equilibrium of a community that's caring and just?” I've acquired that over time through maturity. From an organizational context, I'm meeting with our board here to look at the strategy of the organization. With previous organizations, we can look at where we're going but it needs to start with, “Who are we being?” That's where spirituality, however you call it in a corporate context, needs to be grounded.
How do you incorporate that and roll it into a business strategy that needs to be approved by a board that's making a business decision? It's a force for good in Queensland, the area, or Quantumuka Country. We can come back to that. It's a business so how do you roll into the business decision those being dimensions?
It's tricky. You do have to translate it because, for me, this spirituality in who we're being is a couple of layers down from the behaviors that we want to see or the policies. We use a whole lot of other corporate language like point of difference, unique selling point, or competitive strategy, all of these things, which are corporate language. For me, the best point of difference happens, we call it at the spiritual level, who I'm being.
If we are being as an organization that truly gets the inherent worth of every single individual that we're connecting with, the people we're supporting, if we get that point of inherent worth of the person that may be nonverbal, living with intellectual disabilities and a number of other health issues as well, and I'm being guided by the belief in the inherent worth of that person, I am here then to truly transform that person's possibility into reality. That's a deep understanding that's driving that.
Your question is a good one, “How do we take that and translate that into things that we can measure?” It starts with this. For example, the people we recruit, we are recruiting for values, and how you measure values. It is the artifact of treating people with respect. We can look at things like complaints but I want to challenge more to say, “How do we deeply understand what someone's potential is or their possibility from their perspective? How do we map that into a series of goals for that person? How do we measure outcome and impact?”
From a corporate plan perspective, it's the measurement of outcome impact. That is like gold. If we can translate and communicate that to policymakers, customers, and potential customers, the difference that we're making in the lives of individuals is like gold. I do believe that we can measure many of these things. That's how we do it. We've got to translate that understanding to the impact, and to use business language, how we modify or promote that. It doesn't change what's driving us. What’s driving us is the same purpose.
Let me ask you in the role you're in. It's a personal question. That translation or pulling things out of the aspirational morality, making that translation from things that might be categorized as spiritual to business, do you enjoy making that connection? How can we frame this in a way that it can live here in business terms? It needs to be in this world and this operation. You're running an operation. Do you enjoy that translation? Do you endure that translation and go, “It's a necessary evil with being in business?”
I enjoy it because that's why I'm here. I'm here to transform an organization and perhaps to transform the way that some people think or behave. I enjoy it but it is very challenging because the vast majority of people who may sit on boards, who may be executives, including executives in my organization, come from corporate backgrounds that don't talk or think in this way. The translation from the spiritual or moral approach into an organization that truly, deeply cares is a long game. It's not a short game at all. What I have learned to love is the long game and looking for the small wins.
Let me share for example a small win in my previous organization. You mentioned Churches of Christ in Queensland in my bio. I was working there for a number of years. We ran the largest child protection program outside of the state government in Queensland. At one point when I started there, it was very staff-centric. It wasn't client-centric or child-centric. We went on a program to focus on the children and ensure that their lives could be transformed, this belief of the inherent worth and potential of those young people.
A couple of years later after following a number of programs, including a significant program that we acquired from the US called The Sanctuary Program, looking at a trauma-informed way of approaching our young people, we had an audit. This was a regulatory audit. The auditor came in to run the measure over the organization to see how well we were doing and what we were doing. At the end of that audit, we sat down to hear the results. I said to the auditor, “I don't want to hear whether we're compliant or not because I assume we are. Compliance is not a goal. It's a license to operate. Stand back a bit and tell me what you've thought of the organization or better still, what you felt.”
The auditor said, “In short, I wouldn't like to stand between a Churches of Christ employee and what they saw was in the best interests of a young people that they were supporting.” You can tell that that creates some emotion for me. In that statement, it says that over that time, individuals had created themselves into 10-foot-tall bulletproof advocates for people to support. If I translate that into business sense, how do you think that helped us to attract new business?
It was a very good thing for attracting business because we'd created people who are thoroughly wired towards taking these damaged, traumatized young people, helping them to heal themselves, and giving them a future for thousands of young people. That's a whole cohort that had transitioned from groupthink to connecting with their spirituality as the inherent worth of that person that's right in front of them.
What a beautiful gift it is to that person who goes home to his or her family at the end of the day with a sense of a job well done and being on purpose.
For that young person who has experienced that healing, that has an intergenerational impact. That's a healing of spirit that goes on.
It's an alarmingly disconfirming experience about how people can treat one another, how resources can be used, and how we can care in a structured, organized, operational way. Thank you for sharing that story. It's lovely. I would like to think that in each of these experiences of audits and these reviews that bring in the commercial lens to a deeper, personal caring environment, over time, you've been able to tweak, revise, and figure out how we can measure impact. That’s something that can be revised and refined. I imagine they'll send it to an auditor and an auditor may not get it but you do.
I've been in an auditor. I spent several years auditing residential aged care or aged care homes for the government. At the time, it was to implement Australia's first audit regime for aged care. There are 44 indicators of that. Very few of them get to the heart of measuring the things that we need to measure. With my health experience, you can tell a lot of things by walking around and looking at people. For that, I would like to replace those two measures in that age care context. When I walk around, I want to do a lonely eye count, “How many rooms do I walk past and I see a lonely set of eyes looking back at me?” Loneliness and depression are a scourge for older people.
The second one is I want to do a happiness count. “Are people feeling happy?” We can look at all this other technical stuff but if you're feeling happy, engaged, and connected, all else around the health transactions and so on, it is their academic. Those who are providing the care understand that for someone to be happier and more connected, you need to clear out a couple of these other barriers, whether their health or, “How do I connect with my family or neighbors?”
We overcomplicate things. We do need to challenge ourselves about how we get to that deeper level of understanding of whether someone's spirit needs healing. How do they deeply feel within themselves? Everyone ages. Many people have a disability. At that spirit level, are they feeling whole, connected with the world around them, and affirmed? They're the fundamental questions we need to ask. All of this other stuff around like accreditation and regulations are fundamental. If you care about those deeper things, you'll cruise through the other stuff.
I'm curious to know. As you operate from this base of spiritual direction and in a business world, perhaps it's a little bit easier for you because you can help frame the conversation as the CEO a little bit more directly. That's nice to be able to do. How do you overcome resistance to putting this spiritual dimension front and center front burner, “It's about what we do,” when you encounter auditors, investors, or board members? I suspect that how you answer that question could be something that any of the readers or I could take to leverage to move forward to overcome resistance they may be facing.
It starts with a more logical perspective. For me, these sorts of discussions are easier to have with the likes of an auditor or perhaps external people but if I look at the board or my executive as an example, they may come from environments that are more transaction-based or commercial transactions like, “If we're not performing, chop this or that. Get onto this. Do that.”
We've got to take people on the journey. To operate at a different level that will be much more sustainable in the long run may take a little bit more time upfront but if we're operating at that, “Who am I being?” level, then we're creating. To get back to my story earlier about the advocates that we've created, imagine that. If every human services organization would stick by advocates, that would create some challenge but by and large, it creates a lot of opportunity.
I'm reflecting on some conversations that I've had with senior executives in my organization. It's important. What I say to them is, “Here's one way of doing things. Here's one way of doing leadership or management. This is the method that I'm following, which is a bit of a slower game. You might see slower gains but it's important that I get to every part of the organization and communicate about the inherent worth of individuals or the individual potential that we're trying to tap into on how we're going to measure that.” We can then enshrine that in some tools and strategies.
For example, in human services, and you might have seen it yourself in aged care or disabilities, people will talk about, “It's time for me to feed Mrs. Smith in bed 5. It's time to take Mrs. Smith for a walk.” You feed a dog and take a dog for a walk. With a human being, you help them enjoy a meal. You walk alongside somebody to make sure that they're safe while they're enjoying their time out. It's going from paternalistic and transactional to a deep connection with a human.
What makes someone feel that sense of dignity? If they can make their decisions of whether they walk left or right or they're walking ahead and not behind. With these sorts of things, we can then enshrine those. People get that then intellectually but to be sustainable, it's got to come from that deep place. That's what I would say to those reading. Explain yourself. It's difficult if I extract myself and put myself into the business sense. We do need examples of where this is working effectively.
To be sustainable, it's got to come from that deep place.
I can provide examples but whether they're researched examples, this is what we need more of, to demonstrate the sustainability or the impact. For financial sustainability, we can deal with that separately as well. If you're an organization that is seen to be financially successful, and I'm talking about human service organizations, you're not meeting a fundamental purpose. There are many organizations in Australia.
We've set up the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It's been going for about a few years across the country. There will be about $50 billion invested into that over the coming years. It is a lot of money. Lots of organizations have set up to make the most of the NDIS. They are established. Largely, they need to promote dependence on their services because their financial model or sustainability model depends on it.
Creating dependence on their services isn't doing the right thing by their clients. That's why they set up and that's what they're doing. There are plenty of examples of that. We need to create the examples. If an organization is having an impact and reducing in size, then so be it but the reality is if an organization is successful, impacting lives, and transforming lives, then it will have plenty of business but we need those examples.
What I'm hearing too is examples of something that we can hold up and say, “It is worth the additional investment of time. This is why the longer game works and is worth investing in.” “It's taking too long.” “No, let me point to this example and measured result.”
For organizations, like my organization, because the government's not going to do this anytime soon, we need to get in and produce the outcome or the impact measures. What is the impact and the outcome we're having? That's what the governments, those who are stewards of public money, are looking for, “Is this being invested wisely?” From a government perspective and those making these investments, you don't want that first model that I mentioned, which is ever ever-expanding drag on the public purse by organizations that are creating a dependence on their services. You don't want that.
They're about creating that support for people to be independent. I put another hat on. I'm on the board of Guide Dogs. One of our clients in Guide Dogs said to me, “I can have people take me for cups of coffee every day of the week funded for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, take me shopping, and do all these things that create that dependence but just give me a dog so I can do it myself.” From that spiritual place, it is saying, “What's my approach to humans? Do I want to make that client dependent or help them to be independent? What's going to be the impact intergenerationally if I take the second approach?”
I feel so inspired by hearing this. I'm asking myself this question, “How can I ask myself that question as I work with clients mostly in very corporate spaces? It's not their customers, product users, or any users. It's their employees, teams, and staff.” I love that we're doing this and I love where you're taking this because I feel inspired to ask myself that question regularly.
It was a great question. I've had a time in health and safety as well but many practitioners in health and safety, and certainly human services and health say, “My job is to try and make myself redundant.” You would have heard that. Let's truly put that to the test. Are our models doing that or not?
It's quite a challenge. If I may ask, what's next for you? What are you focusing on if it's not something you've already discussed? Tell me what's the next frontier for you in bridging these gaps that exist here in the physical world?
For me, it is about continuing to be myself. I am drawn to have as much impact as possible. I am working at the federal policy level. I get to the point where policy has made an impact on the whole of the nation. I'm not talking about government but from outside of government and influencing government colleagues in that policy space. I enjoy connecting with individual people on the front line and working at that spiritual level. Equally, I enjoy working at that federal policy level so everything in between.
There's a model in my mind. People talk about client-focused care, customer-focused care, or whatever fits in your business. The customer or the client is the center there. Every organization will say that they are client-centered or customer-centered. If not, they are. Everyone will say that but then you look at the various circles. In my mind, it's a model with various influences that impact on an organization's ability to truly be client-centered. It might be the client’s understanding of themselves, the frontline staff, whether they understand what's possible for providing support, and so forth.
It is the service itself and its rostering. It's the habits, the organization and its policies, and the disciplines or the professional bodies around that, which are the regulators. Thinking conceptually at all of those things that impact our ability to help that individual in the middle transform their possibility into reality. There are many barriers. For me, this is where the business side is. It is understanding what we're doing to bring effect to every level of that. Some people are most gifted to work at that frontline level and remove the barriers there but for those who are gifted to work at the federal policy, funding, or the community perceptions level, we need all of it.
Human Services: Some people are most gifted to work at that frontline level and remove the barriers there, but for those who are gifted to work at the federal policy, funding, or community perceptions level, we need all of it.
I'm inspired. Thank you for sharing your experience. All I can say to you is let me know how I can support you to continue sharing your gifts because it is a gift. I'm so grateful that we can connect across the world, share these types of messages, and begin or continue a conversation like this. I'm amazed at how technology can support us to do that.
That's one great thing coming out of COVID too. It is a bit more comfortable. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you for being a conduit for these conversations and for being who you are. I love to turn the tables on you sometimes. That's something you might want to think about.
Bring it on. I'm open. I trust you. We'll go from there. Thank you so much. Perhaps there will be a time when we continue this conversation. There are a lot of places it can go.
Thanks, Andrew.