Page 184 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows
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LEADERS ARE PERSUASIVE
“For years and years architects had a code of ethics that had a prohi-
bition against competition on the basis of fees; they had fee schedules that
were set,” McGinty explained. “The Justice Department ordered the AIA
to stop all that. At the same time, there were architects in the AIA who
were looking for new roles in society such as doing construction themselves,
which had also been prohibited. And then, of course, the environmental
movement was coming on, and the civil rights movement too. There was
a great effort to widen the profession, to be more diverse, and to bring in
more women and minorities, because architecture had always been a white
gentlemen’s profession until then.”
McGinty was in favor of all the new trends facing the AIA and believed
the time for change had come. Through his new leadership position he
planned to modernize the concepts of architectural practice to address
societal trends such as consumerism and conservation, and he planned to
waste not one minute in doing so. He proposed a series of resolutions to the
convention while he was president-elect of the AIA. “So, being young and
thinking I knew everything, I was certain everybody would agree with me
and we would revolutionize the profession and reform it overnight,”
McGinty said. “But I was wrong: Everything got voted down. I was defeated
in my effort to rewrite the canon of ethics and redefine membership
qualifications and professionalism.”
The young president-elect could not believe he had lost in his bid to
revolutionize the organization. He wondered where he had gone wrong
when it suddenly became clear to him that he had made the same mistake
as the organizers of the Poor People’s Campaign. He had not taken the time
to build a solid foundation for his ideas; he had not utilized the power of
persuasion.
“As soon as I realized my mistake, I decided I would devote my year as
president to making sure the reforms did happen. I went back to work and
spent the following year building a greater intellectual basis for reform and
building a broader constituency.” McGinty set out to develop a grassroots
movement for change within the AIA. He organized a task force that
included people with a broad range of opinions and experience, from the
institute’s youngest associate members to its veterans, as well as industry-
related professionals such as engineers. He traveled around the country
visiting local groups of architects, talking with them about ethics reform
and listening to their concerns. On the basis of the membership’s input, he
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