TPO@20!  Interview with Erich Pica, President of Friends of the Earth US:  Leading a Highly Emotionally Intelligent Organization

December 10th, 2014
Written by: TPO

This interview is part of a yearlong retrospective blog series commemorating TPO@20!—TPO’s 20th Birthday. These conversations with TPO partners, clients and executives focus on what has and hasn’t changed in “how we work” over the last two decades—and what we can learn for the next 20 years. This interview is with Erich Pica, President of Friends of the Earth US, which has been a TPO client since 2004. 

TPO:  Erich, thanks for participating in TPO@20!  First question:  What were you doing in 1994?

Erich Pica:  I was an undergrad in college in my second year at Western Michigan University—trying to figure out what I was going to do. I thought I’d get engaged in politics. It was around ’94 that I really got engaged in environmental issues—I had my awakening, so to speak. In a History 101 class, we were reading a book by Lester Brown called Saving the Planet. Specifically there was a chapter on how the U.S. government measures GDP (Gross Domestic Product) incorrectly—by combining both positive and catastrophic growth. This was around the time of the Exxon Valdez incident, so the costly cleanup in Prince William Sound ended up being an economic boom for Alaska and US—and was included in the GDP.

TPO:  In 1994, Netscape introduced the browser and America Online provided Internet access. Do you remember the first thing you did on the World Wide Web?                                                                                            

Erich Pica: A lot of my work was on a nascent email system at college. Email was a novelty. I did some web research using Netscape. It was so rudimentary that it was almost more efficient to go to the library and use Lexis/Nexis. From Internet browsing perspective, I didn’t become a real surfer until 1996-97. I remember looking for jobs posted on Internet.

TPO:  Do you remember the first web site you visited? 

EP:  Not really. But my big awakening on the power of Internet was during the impeachment of (President Bill) Clinton, and MoveOn was launched around 1997-98. So with email, for the first time we saw the democratization of advocacy via online communications. MoveOn was the first to do this effectively. This was one of my “ah ha” moments.

TPO:  In terms of changes in your industry that have had a significant impact on “how you work,” what is the first thing that comes to mind?  

EP:  Email is biggest—having instant communications—and the corresponding need for instant gratification and response. I go back and forth on whether it is overused and under thought through. We were doing some office cleanups recently and encountered some beautifully drafted memos that had been mailed or faxed. It was a recognition that it’ll take a couple days of back and forth, so people had to be very clear and explicit. It reminded me of the use of writing to do deeper more analytical thinking. That type of thinking and writing has been supplanted by “I have this crazy idea–let me shoot it to everyone and see what people think.”

TPO: What else comes to mind?                  

EP:  Major changes on the advocacy front. There are so many ways to engage that it is quite exciting. Social media networks, online/email, blogs and traditional media. It is also intimidating–because with all channels you have to have strategies and be deliberate. But ultimately it is exciting because we have the capacity to reach so much more deeply and broadly.

TPO:  Let’s talk about Human Resources. Thinking back 20 years, what was your definition of HR then and what is it now?

EP:  My impression of HR was that you hoped they didn’t call you. You only called them when you need something–raises, benefits. I considered it reactive, more discipline related. Running an organization now, I experience HR very differently. It is a pretty integral component in managing an organization and staff, providing assistance to staff and making sure managers have proper training to utilize 35+ staff to their fullest capability. I have become more of a true believer of HR, particularly the proactive side of it.

TPO:  What was the definition of leadership? Has it changed?  

EP:  Yes, it has changed. As organizational leaders, we have just as much power over the emotional state of the organization as we do the programmatic and financial aspects. My experience with our staff is that they are much more outwardly emotionally intelligent–more so than any other team I’ve worked with in 15 years. And recognizing you have a strong say in their emotional well being is one of the most humbling aspects of leadership that I was not expecting.

TPO:  Name two things about “how we work” that have not changed in the last two decades.  

EP: There is still too little time to do too many things. The good or bad thing about the work we do is the constant immediacy issue that kind of dictates how people work. Whether it is email today or something else 5 years ago–people do not have time to do the work they need to do. So they tend to substitute working harder for working smarter.

TPO:  Do you remember the first performance review you received?     

EP: Yes—it was a 6-month review that was essentially a memo from me to my supervisors highlighting everything I did. That memo served as the basis for discussion about my performance.

TPO:  What impact has TPO had on your business?

EP:  We have been with TPO for a decade and are quite happy with what they have done for us. I do not want to be an HR expert or have one in the office because we need to focus on our mission. Working with TPO brings an outside perspective to the organization–especially to the CEO and the rest of the executive team who can, very naturally, be inwardly focused.

TPO has helped us professionalize our HR–not only from the benefits side but also by giving the staff a place to have confidential communications outside of the normal hierarchy. TPO has also convinced me that at the end of day, if there are staffing issues, it is better to be decisive and take action once a judgment has been made—instead of just grinding on with a mismatch. This is for the benefit of the organization and the staff member. If you don’t think it is a fit, they probably don’t either.

TPO also brought me an “ah ha” moment. You hire staff, which is, lets say, half of your budget. So you need to be more systemic with onboarding and the review process and training. TPO helped me understand the cost of failing to onboard new employees properly. This includes both the economic costs to the organization as well as morale costs, which sometimes go under-appreciated.

TPO:  Erich, thank you for helping TPO celebrate its 20^th birthday. We appreciate your time.

EP:  It’s been my pleasure.