Make the Impossible Possible: One Man’s Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Achieve the Extraordinary (review)

In community-activist and MacArthur-fellow Bill Strickland’s inspiring book, Make the Impossible Possible, a simple theme resonates: “Everyone of us can accomplish the impossible in our lives if given the right inspiration and motivation to do so.”* As the guiding influence and life force behind the creation of the Manchester Bidwell Center (in 1968), a now-well-known jobs training center and community arts program, Strickland sends a motivational message that should reach everyone, from inner city youth to corporate CEOs.

Strickland’s story begins in his childhood in the rough Pittsburgh neighborhood of Manchester. With the help of community and corporate leaders Strickland went on to take artistic skills he learned at home and in school to shape the lives of countless impoverished youth and disadvantaged adults.

What relevance does this book have for leaders in health care industries? What analogies can be drawn between Strickland’s inner-city jobs training program and the bureaucratic sprawl faced by current health care organizations? Strickland lays a foundation of optimism for seemingly impossible situations. In today’s world of health care challenges, workers who begin idealistically by hoping to help others can soon be overwhelmed by the seemingly impossible grind of daily rules and regulations that chips away at time spent on patient care. In an atmosphere of increasing bureaucracy and budget cuts, leaders faced with mentoring disillusioned employees may take lessons from Strickland’s book.

Strickland calls on everyone to find his or her own passion and then find a way to pursue it. A health care manager feeling a passion for his or her work will ultimately help to utilize and inspire the creativity found within each employee. Strickland advocates understanding each person’s uniqueness, talents, and abilities: “People are born into this world as assets, not liabilities,” he writes. Helping others to pursue their own passions will create the satisfied, enlivened workforce that is key to a vital organization.

The limiting nature of poverty is a recurring theme in Strickland’s book. Strickland himself comes from a predominantly African American community that became economically impoverished after the close of the steel mills and other mass manufacturers in the industrial Northeast and Midwest. Strickland’s world as a child and teen encompassed condemned houses, drugs, alcohol, gangs, and riots. He describes the ghetto mentality to which he increasingly succumbed: “Your world is the whole world . . . your future and all the sorry possibilities life will ever offer you, are already right before your eyes.” Strickland acknowledges that, as his world crumbled around him, it left him with very little hope of a bright future.

The one solid foundation in his life was his mother, who focused on order and keeping the family together despite her husband’s addictions and poor judgment. Strickland also recalls the formative influence of one high school teacher. As he first entered Mr. Ross’s classroom at Oliver High School it was almost as if he entered a parallel universe that was full of jazz, the smell of coffee, entrancing bright lights, and tons of clay. This comfortable, inspirational environment encouraged him to use the arts, music, and smells as foundations for his subsequent enterprises.

Strickland addresses not only economic poverty, but other types of poverty as well, stating “We all suffer some form of poverty—poverty of imagination, or courage, or vision, or will.” Strickland encourages others not to be afraid of failure, change or criticism. As he speaks to a broad spectrum of leaders and entrepreneurs, it is easy to translate his message into the increasingly resource-scarce world of health care.

Using intuition to overcome the inhibiting nature of linear goal-setting is another theme woven throughout the book. Strickland decries the...