‍The Power of Being Seen, Roger Saillant, copyright (c) 2002, Saratoga Springs Publishing, Saratoga Springs, NY, ISBN 978-1-955568-10-4.

This book is valuable to Project Managers and Scrum Masters, because it helps us understand our project sponsors, stakeholders, team members, and managers; as Saillant says, we need to “See” them. While many of us strive for professionalism all of the time, we are human, we have emotions, we can slip. Project Managers, Scrum Masters, and managers generally need emotional intelligence. What's behind this assertion? We need to understand where the members of our teams come from if for no other reason than we need to motivate them to get the projects completed.

We need to understand Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, and where our key stakeholders feel themselves to be. The easiest people to manage are those who feel that their job is the key to their self-actualization. The most difficult are those for whom the job doesn't pay enough to meet their basic physiological needs for food and shelter.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Self-Actualization – becoming the most one can be.

‍Esteem – respect, self-esteem, status, recognition, strength, freedom,

‍Love and Belonging – friendship, intimacy, family, connection,

‍Safety – personal security, employment, resources, health, property,

‍Physiological Needs – air, water, food, shelter, clothing, sleep, reproduction.

After earning his PhD, Saillant went on to a 30-year career at Ford, building teams and building and managing factories, creating high performance organizations. He worked in the US, Mexico, Ireland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Thailand, India, and Brazil. Then he went on to Plug Power as CEO, lectured in Marlboro College's MBA program, where this writer took his seminars, became Executive Director and Adjunct Lecturer at the Fowler Center at Case Western Reserve, and co-wrote the eco-thriller “Vapor Trails.” He is currently Chairman of the Board of the Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education.

Yet … at the age of nine months he was abandoned by his biological mother into the foster child system in Philadelphia. In narrating the first 18 years of his life and his journey thru the foster care system, Saillant discusses leadership, self-reliance, self-control, determination, and focus, and abandonment, betrayal, and isolation. His was a childhood of being bullied but never bullying, of shoplifting, stealing, arson, anger leading to a murder plan (that was abandoned), and depression leading to contemplated suicide. Despite the pain, he worked hard, laboring on a subsistence farm (from the time he was four years old and big enough, in his foster father's eye, to hold a hoe), and studying. Somehow his inner light showed through sufficiently such that he was able to succeed in high school, go on to college, grad school, and a career.

Saillant describes social workers and a psychiatrist asking for information about his life and his feelings. He tells of his older foster brother, Richard, his primary role model, saying, “Don't talk to Social Workers. Don't tell them what's going on. It will only make it worse.” And how he consistently refused to answer. Roger describes himself as marginalized. Like Ralph Ellison, he could use the term invisible. The fact that he made himself invisible, hiding his emotions, as he was taught by Richard, even when he met his biological mother and her other children, underscores his isolation and his pain.

The foster care system didn't work for Roger, his foster brother Richard, and many other foster children. The social workers couldn't give the children love, nurturing, a feeling of belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization. That was left to the foster parents. In Roger's case, the Perry-Ferrys, the Piersons, and Mrs. McClelland did. Mr. McClelland, who was Roger's foster father for about 13 years, from the time he was four to the day he was moved to the Piersons when he was 16 or 17. Despite having foster parents – three sets that he describes in detail – Roger was on his own.

Was he successful in school and work because of his harsh childhood or despite it?

It seems that the first foster couple he wrote about, the Perry-Ferrys, met his needs for love, esteem, and belonging. But then Mr. Perry-Ferry passed away, and four-year old Roger was yanked, almost literally, from the arms of Mrs. Perry-Ferry. In one terrible week she lost her husband and a foster child that by Roger's account she loved.

He was taken to live on the McClelland farm in rural Pennsylvania. Clearly, Roger's physiological needs were met. And as he describes it, the Child Welfare agency tried to meet his health and guarantee his safety needs. But his higher needs; love, esteem, self-actualization, seem from this account to have been largely denied to him from until after he left the farm at 16 or 17.

And yet, he learned to work hard, solve problems, defer rewards, set goals, and develop plans to achieve them. Mrs. McClellend, his foster mom, provided encouragement. While Mr. McClelland was not a compassionate man, he taught Roger to work hard, solve problems, and get the job done

Saillant also describes how Mrs McClelland would sign his report cards and take an interest in what he was doing at school, and how several teachers, social workers, and a psychiatrist tried to break through his emotional barriers. He describes being bullied by his older foster brother and other older boys, resolving to never bully, and then beating up one of the bullies. He also wrote how he loved being in lineman on his high school football team – because it was ok to hit people – within the bounds of the rules. He knew that he was releasing his anger. He credits Mrs McClelland, the Piersons, his foster family, several teachers, and Mr. Molitor, his last social worker, with helping him develop some emotional intelligence.

The book also brings to mind the terrible tragedies of various government policies such as the U. S. Family Separation Policy. Does the fact that people are trying to come to the US as undocumented migrants or insufficiently documented refugees justify their being dehumanized and their children being marginalized? “The Power of Being Seen” suggests that it does not.

In my current role, IT manager at a technology company, I am responsible for projects and ongoing operations. One of the key members of my team is, in some ways, difficult. He doesn't talk much. He acts in ways that are easily perceived as disrespectful to me. He comes in late, always with the same excuse, “a migraine.”

“Man up,” General George Patton would growl.

Jack Welch would order me to fire him. And then fire me for putting up with him.

But he works very hard, on site and at home, gets his work done, doesn't need to be micromanaged, and tells me what I am missing when I make a decision he disagrees with. And sometimes he's right.

Knowing what I now know, I understand that what I perceived as disrespect and a challenge to my authority could very well originate in his being, in Saillant's words, a “marginalized” child.

So,

Does he want my job? Absolutely not.

Does he act in disrespectful manner? It feels like it.

Is he really disrespectful? No, he is simply distant and reserved.

Do I have the right to ask him about this? Yes. The right and, as his manager, the obligation.

By providing a window into the brutal childhood of a successful executive Saillant reminds us that we all came from somewhere, and that some of us have come from some incredibly harsh places. Managers, project managers, and everyone who works with others need to understand their colleagues and stakeholders.

Beginning with the dedication:

“To all adults – never pass up the opportunity to see a marginalized child and encourage them.“To all marginalized children – do your best to be open to the wisdom and guidance offered by adults who see you, and you sense are trying to help you.”

The Power of Being Seen, gives us hope.

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Larry Furman, MBA, PMP, is exploring project management and project mis-management in “Adventures in Project Management,” a book he plans to publish in 2023.

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