VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1 • OCTOBER 2014
BY LOCAL BUSINESS. FOR LOCAL BUSINESS
Leadership
edition
MONADNOCK REGION PIONEERS
THROUGH THE CENTURIES
THE UNIQUE CHARACTER
OF LEADERSHIP IN
THE KEENE REGION
SPEAKING OF LEADERSHIP:
A ROUNDTABLE
DISCUSSION
5 LOCAL PROFILES
JOHN HOFFMAN
DEBORA PIGNATELLI
JAMES CRAIGLOW
MAUREEN CURTISS
CHERYL YOUNG
PUBLISHED BY
COMPLIMENTARY
PRESORTED STANDARD
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
KEENE SENTINEL
John
Hoffman
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BUSINESS MONADNOCK OCTOBER 2014
Humility is essential to effective leadership
BY PAUL MILLER / PHOTO BY BILL GNADE
J
ohn E. Hoffman Jr. is thankful for the ample blessings in his life,
and he recounts them regularly.
Life, he will tell you, has served him well.
But the one thing he reflects on most perhaps is the manner in
which his fate was shaped when he discovered the Monadnock Region, in particular a piece of quiet farm property in Sullivan. The retired New York attorney, whose vast legal résumé includes a prominent
role in negotiations with the country of Iran that led to the release of
American hostages in the early 1980s, wanted one thing: to leave Wall
Street behind and find a place in the country where he and his wife,
Jean, “could be quietly ignored.”
A good plan, but it didn’t work out that way entirely.
And what a gift that turn of events is, Hoffman, now 80, will tell
you, his eyes still lighting up.
John and Jean, married 59 years, have their rural dream property,
Seward Mountain Farm, which features an historic one-room schoolhouse and nearly 800 acres of land, all protected by conservation easements.
But dropping out of the picture, and living out their years indistinctly and without notice … well, that wasn’t in the cards.
“It’s funny,” Hoffman remembers, “what happened is that Sullivan,
the people of the town, they just accepted us early on. These were people among so many in the region doing amazing things for their communities, volunteering and giving of their time.
“At that time, I didn’t even know what a nonprofit sector was. I had
no idea. I came to know about the needs a community has and must
deal with – homelessness, domestic issues, violence, and to see these
people working like crazy for no pay, no financial reward, to try to
solve these kinds of issues, I thought, holy cow, this is really different.
It was not the environment that I came from, where everyone was
trying to make more money and stabbing others in the back to do it.”
Hoffman was hooked, and for the greater Monadnock Region, that
has been its benefit for more than two decades.
He and Jean moved here in 1988. Inspired by simple acts of volunteerism and civic engagement the likes of which he’d not been exposed
to as a big-city attorney, John jumped right in, sleeves rolled high,
bringing unique vision and experience to a process that came naturally
to him and that, he regularly acknowledges, gives him “tremendous
personal satisfaction.”
He quickly became involved in community and statewide affairs,
and his leadership skills were not inconspicuous, those who have
worked with him will say. Hoffman has served on dozens of municipal
EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP CONTINUED ON PAGE 32
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EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5
and nonprofit boards in the region over the years, providing invaluable
guidance and wisdom, and helping to foster positive change where it’s
most needed.
He hasn’t let up; his retirement schedule, at times, has a certain
rush-hour feel, never mind the five children and 12 grandchildren that
often visit him and Jean. His curiosity for life and things has never
waned, he says, and, though he doesn’t mention this, his fitness is enviable for a person of any age.
Competing recently in the Keene YMCA’s first annual Senior
Olympics, Hoffman, on a yoga mat, his body lowered rigid and parallel to the surface, held what is called a plank position for
five minutes. The exercise is meant to improve core
strength; in this case it was not training so
much as a demonstration.
Hoffman’s most recent project is
serving as chair of the Cheshire
County Nursing Home Task
Force. In August 2013, the
commissioners formed a
group and tasked it with
coming up with options for how best to
operate Maplewood,
a long-term care facility in Westmoreland, in future years.
Maplewood is an
aging and costlyto-operate facility.
Task force members
include health and
medical professionals, members of the
N.H. House and concerned residents.
Hoffman says
effective leadership
does not happen by
accident. It is more
often than not born of
life experiences, he says.
It’s hard to teach; there
is no textbook for it,
The task force put
forth a proposal to build
he maintains.
a new Green House concept in Keene. That proposal
is being evaluated by the county
commissioners and the Cheshire
County delegation.
“My motivation,” Hoffman says, “has always been to make these boards more effective
– to improve their effectiveness and capacity. The hard
work was already going on by the people serving on the boards.
For me, this was a chance to do something good, to help people instead of saving some money for Exxon. And it all felt very natural.”
Hoffman says effective leadership does not happen by accident. It is
more often than not born of life experiences, he says. It’s hard to teach;
there is no textbook for it, he maintains.
“The essential quality, I think, is humility,” he says. “If a person does
not have that quality, then they’re probably not going to be an effective leader.
“A big part of being a good leader is trying to understand where
32
BUSINESS MONADNOCK OCTOBER 2014
the other side or the other people are coming from, and that goes for
anybody in any situation, not just a board meeting. Take going to the
movies: If your wife doesn’t want to go to the movies and wants to stay
home instead, and you don’t take the time to try to understand why
and so you go anyway, you’re in big trouble.”
The movie analogy illustrates a simpler time in Hoffman’s life, as
it should. When he worked so hard and so diligently in 1980 and
1981 to help win the release of the American hostages from Iran, that
was high-profile tension, and, looking back now of course, high-level
leadership at work.
Writing with Warren Christopher, then the U.S. Secretary of State,
Hoffman later co-authored a book on the ordeal: “American Hostages
in Iran: The Conduct of a Crisis.”
He calls the experience invaluable for his growth as a person and
“helpful in just about anything that I’ve done since.”
In the end, he says, effective leadership or negotiations is all about
respecting that there is almost always another view, another side. Taking the time to understand it is critical; ignoring that element is shortsighted and amounts to arrogance, he says.
“In the Iran matter, I had to immerse myself in their internal politics, in militant Islam. They had two factions vying for power, the Mullahs, and a more enlightened, educated community. They all wanted to
release the hostages they just didn’t know how to go about it. Essentially, we had to solve their internal problem for them.”
Hoffman was not a bit player in the process. He was a partner at
the time for Shearman & Sterling in New York City. His specialty of
working with other nations in dispute resolution was well known by then. “After every
war, every resolution in recent history, there’s
always an array of disruptions and relationships, and I just always happened to have clients in the middle of those situations,” Hoffman says. He worked on litigation related to
frozen Cuban assets, with the Russians and
the Chinese, and eventually the Iranians.
“I ended up using the relationships I had to
establish back-channel lines of negotiation. I
learned, or what I got out of it, was an understanding that I could help to make these
intractable problems manageable somehow.”
In the Iran matter, Hoffman at one point
met directly with the Iranians, in the middle
of the night at an embassy in Bonn, Germany.
“I was admitted in by some big thug, who
looked like he was right out of central casting,” Hoffman recalls. “There was this large
portrait of the Ayatollah on the wall. I’m 49,
and I’m thinking how in the hell did I end
up here.”
His expertise spurned a niche practice that
was exciting and intriguing, he says. But today, he says, he gets as much satisfaction from
a successful community effort. He speaks with
particular pride about a project in his home
town, in 1996, in which a new $150,000 town
hall was built without taxpayer expense. It was
a complex deal, he says, that involved swaps of
property. He says its success was the result of
all parties seeing opposing points of view and
finding compromise.
“In the nursing home matter, what are the
issues and what is the pushback that we need
to understand and overcome so that legislators can see what we’re trying to do,” Hoffman asks rhetorically.
At the end of the day, he might argue, effective negotiation and leadership is the same
on all playing fields, be it an embassy abroad
or a small-town meetinghouses.
“Where you get into trouble,” Hoffman
said “is when you try to push something down
someone’s throat. That’s not good leadership.
The good stuff is easy to spot; it’s great and
you admire it so much.” ■
Local Resources
For Leaders:
Chambers of Commerce:
Greater Keene Chamber of Commerce:
www.keenechamber.com
Jaffrey Chamber of Commerce:
www.jaffreychamber.com
Peterborough Chamber of Commerce:
www.greater-peterborough-chamber.com
Rotary Clubs
New England College of Business
Toastmasters
Leadership Monadnock
Leadership New Hampshire:
www.leadershipnh.org
Hannah Grimes Center:
www.hannahgrimes.com
Now Welcoming New Members!
MENTION THIS AD WHEN YOU JOIN!
PeterboroughChamber.com • 924-7234 • [email protected]
BUSINESS MONADNOCK OCTOBER 2014
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