On December 1, Mark Alpert
officially assumed the role of president of Pegasus
Communications. With a background in performance
improvement and a proven track record of
implementing learning in support of organizational
strategy, he is excited about the opportunities inherent
in his new role. Mark talked with Leverage Points
about what drew him to Pegasus, his reflections
on attending the Pegasus Conference for the first
time, and his hopes for supporting the learning
community Pegasus serves into the future.
LP: Can you comment on why leading
Pegasus makes so much sense for you as the next
step in your career and personal learning journey.
MA: People tease me for always
saying, "We can only learn." I say it to my kids; I say it
to the folks I work with. When people start getting
frustrated at work it's often because they stop
learning. When things get redundant or repetitive or
nothing new is happening, people get bored and start
to check out. I believe that learning is one of the most
vital parts of work and life.
Having focused on organizational improvement for
the last 25 years, I am excited about the prospect of
working with a community of people who are not only
learners, but are serious about results. To me,
learning is just part of the journey; turning that learning
into action is equally important. My sense about the
Pegasus community is that they are not afraid to focus
on results and the accountability that comes with
results. People who take on complex organizational
challenges or important issues such as childhood
malnutrition or apartheid or global warming are not
going to be satisfied until they see real progress.
I appreciate, too, the chance to join forces with
people who think about things systemically, who know
that a part is never stronger than the whole, and who
are always looking at how the parts work together.
Part of my frustration with industry has been trying to
get organizations to think that way. Unfortunately, most
organizational leaders have structured their
organizations and compensation policies in ways that
break things into parts and reward those parts. Then
they wonder why the system, the whole, never
improves. The people in this field have made that
connection, and they understand the unintended
consequences of thinking in terms of parts.
LP: Having just been selected as the next
president of Pegasus Communications, you attended
your first Pegasus Conference in November. How
would you say the Pegasus Conference differs from
other conferences?
MA: I was impressed with how the
conference
design encourages dialogue. I've been to so many
conferences where you listen to an "expert" presenter,
take a quick refreshment break, hear whatever you
can hear from a couple of exhibitors, then scurry off to
the next concurrent session. The Pegasus
Conference is set up very deliberately to allow
meaningful conversation to emerge as a means for
people to learn from one another. There's a
conversation space that you can drop into at any time,
and lunch is mobile; you can take your food and sit
down with 10 other people who are interested in
talking something through with you.
Another thing that struck me is that most other
conferences try to make themselves feel huge. They
assume that people have to justify their attendance,
so they position themselves as "the biggest
conference in our industry" or "the biggest conference
this year." I think Pegasus, by contrast, succeeds in
taking a pretty big event and making it feel intimate.
The collegial environment lets you get closer to
people, including other participants as well as
presenters.
LP: You must have had a tremendous
number of new names and faces coming at you over a
period of just a few days. What was your overall
impression of the people in this learning community?
MA: The people were absolutely a
highlight for me. From an orientation perspective, the
timing was excellent. I saw some of the behind-the-
scenes ramp-up for the conference, and then, by
being a full participant, I met hundreds of people. I
couldn't have asked for a better opportunity for insight
regarding who Pegasus is and what folks expect from
us.
I got an invaluable slice of learning history by
talking one-on-one with Peter Senge, Bill Isaacs,
George Roth, and some of the other founders of the
field who came out of MIT and started the process of
bringing systems thinking to a wider audience as far
back as the early '90s. Those conversations helped
me understand the groundwork that led to the
establishment of Pegasus and SoL and all these
various businesses that are up and running now.
