Who’s Your Most Important Customer?

We are all vulnerable to the vitality of “customer” relationships.  In business we’re economically vulnerable.  But in our personal life we are even more fragile.  Our mental, emotional and spiritual sense of well-being is deeply tied to the quality of our personal relationships.  After all, our loved ones are “consumers” of us.  Our thoughts, moods, values, interests and personality.  And everyday they vote their feelings by the quality and level of intimacy of attention they give us.

I have two clients who are senior executives for the same high-pressure company.  They are unusual because they have been married to each other for over 10 years. When I first started working with Chad I couldn’t help noticing his enthusiasm when he talked about his wife.  He was wild about her in every way.  He thought she was a brilliant executive—creative, compelling, efficient.  On a personal level, the raves were even sweeter; he called her an amazing wife and a gifted mother.

Carole spoke about Chad as if he were a god.  The most brilliant, visionary leader she had every seen.  A sensitive husband and a loving father.  She freely used words like adore and admire, and she meant them.  To hear two people separately talk about each other with such affection and idealism is exceedingly rare.  For husbands and wives in business together, it is virtually unheard of. 

As I continued to work with Chad and Carole, I discovered two things.  One, they consciously focus on the quality of their relationship and use something called Active Advocacy.  That is, they are each other’s greatest fan, and they aren’t shy about making that known. Second, they spend time together.  Whenever they aren’t working, they are together, and they invest at least an hour a day in nothing but personal communication with each other.

So what’s up with Chad and Carole?  Are they just obnoxiously lucky?  Well maybe, but their relationship is built on pillars anyone can employ to change the energy of their relationships.  There are three main things we can do to create better primary relationships.  I call them the Three Pillars of Love:

 1.  Understand

 2.  Involve

 3.  Affirm

To Understand

The prime need of a human being in a relationship is to be understood.  We can only provide understanding when we value others intrinsically.  This means we don’t value them for how they please, fulfill, serve, or satisfy us, but for whom they are in and of themselves.  We don’t appreciate their good qualities alone but the whole package.  We treasure their extraordinary gifts and the quirks that others may find annoying.  We taste the spice that makes their entire dish unique.  Only when we value another intrinsically can empathy flow. 

Conversation is vital to understanding.  Couples who are romantic talk a lot.  Little conversations throughout the day. Other couples, on the contrary, seem to get their entire talking life “over with” when they’re falling in love.  During those hormone-enhanced early days, they lose track of time and talk all night.  But lasting romance requires continued soul conversation.  Without knowing the depth of our beloved, there is nothing real to love.  All we see or hear is the superficial, the practical.  We lose sight of the good stuff, the soul stuff.  

To Involve

A blissful relationship requires hands-on involvement.  It is not enough to tolerate the interests of our loved ones; it isn’t even enough to support them.  If we want love that lives and breathes, we must involve ourselves in their interests.  At least some of the time.  We don’t have to be involved in everything they do, but we should try to be involved in the special things.  The things that appear to give them special satisfaction.   That’s where the love payoff really is. 

To Affirm

Affirming is simple.  As soon as you notice someone doing something well, being kind or thoughtful, expressing his/her gifts, or looking good, you mention it.  Say it as soon as you think it.  The habit of affirmation is one of the most powerful loving skills you can develop.  Why we keep our positive thoughts a secret is a great mystery.   

Dan Baker, Director of the Life Enhancement Center at Canyon Ranch, cites research confirming this. “When we affirm others, we use parts of our neo-cortex that generate positive moods.  Affirming stimulates neuro-transmitters that are mood elevators.  Those who affirm and love others are making themselves happy.”  It’s simple.  Want to feel better?  Make someone else feel better.

Of course the three pillars of love don’t just work with a spouse or romantic partner.  Understanding, involving and affirming can turn up the quality of any relationship whether with children, parents, friends, even customers…everyone.  And it’s free.  It costs nothing, but the payoff is life’s jackpot. 

 

This article was originally published in The Deluxe Knowledge Quarterly KQ3 2008.

CSR and the 4 Ideals of Socially Responsible Leadership

Corporate Social Responsibility is rapidly transforming into Corporate Social Opportunity.  And it’s about time.  Socially responsible leaders look for opportunity in a time of crisis, and if they look in the right places, opportunity is all around.

The idea that it is the responsibility of leadership to come up with new ways to create value so good, hard working people can keep working takes a good dose of both courage and creativity, but that’s what Corporate Social Responsibility is all about.  In a time of hunkering down, strong leaders look for ways to expand.  How?  By looking for ways to benefit humanity and heal the environment.  Wait a minute isn’t that what we don’t have money to do?  Aren’t we going to have to wait until good times roll to spend our extra money on doing good?  Not at all.  Just look at the Grameen Bank, a bank that invented micro credit for the world’s poorest people and makes money by loaning to sub, sub, sub, prime borrowers yet has 50 million customers and a 96% repayment record.

If we are just willing to lift our heads above the herd there is a path to sustainable abundance. When the whole world is thinking small it’s time to think big.  Our path to re-prosperity is through saving the world and through socially responsible leadership.  We cannot continue to compete for scarce resources using wasteful, broken business practices that turn our planet into money.  Rather, it’s time to turn ideas into value.  For that we need a radically new leadership model based on the four ideals of socially responsible leadership—what I call the REAL Leadership model.

The first ideal of socially responsible leadership is to be Relevant. A leader’s impact is long.  Their decisions weigh more than others.  So they must be wise enough to constantly see the big picture, to carefully consider the impact of their decisions on employees, customers, suppliers, the environment, the community, and the generations of unborn.

The second ideal of socially responsible leadership is to be Ethical. To be ethical is to be moral.  The moral standard is do as much good as you can.  Create the Greatest Total Value you can.  For everyone, all the time.  Why else lead?

The third ideal of socially responsible leadership is to create sustainable Abundance.  Sustainable Abundance requires more than innovation.  It demands invention.  It requires creating something with unique value  that genuinely benefits humanity and heals the environment.

The fourth ideal of socially responsible leadership is to create a Legacy.   A leader’s legacy is his or her impact on the future.  The world needs saving.  We need new solutions we can implement as fast as possible.

That’s what social responsibility is all about.  If you aren’t going to save the world then get out of the way and make room for someone who is.

CSR Will Survive the Economy

As the economy continues to spiral, all over the news we hear companies desperately seeking to cut costs.  And, I think it would be safe to assume that the first place most companies would look to save money is in their Corporate Social Responsibility efforts.  After all, unfortunately the common view of CSR is still to donate money rather than include CSR into the core business strategy making it an integral part of the business practice. I am pleased, to report, however, that this is not the case for everyone.  Many strong leaders despite their economic woes are embracing their Corporate Social Responsibility.

In Surprising survivors: Corporate do-gooders found in Fast Magazine Jan. 20, 2009, Lawrence Delevingne explores how some companies are “sticking with the program” of CSR.  One company profiled is Intel.  While Intel’s stock has fallen and their fourth-quarter numbers were down, Intel is still devoted to their CSR initiatives.  In fact, the company recently launched the Small Things challenge, a $300,000 partnership initiative with non-profit groups Kiva.org and Save the Children.  Delevingne states, “That’s part of the company’s pledge to maintain its commitments in 2009, which includes $100 million for global education programs from the Intel Foundation ($1 billion has gone to the cause over the past decade) and such green investments as energy conservation efforts (a $20 million investment since 2001) and the purchase of 1.3 billion kilowatt hours of renewable-energy certificates.”

Delevingen quotes Intel chairman Craig Barrett: “You can’t save your way out of recession – you have to invest your way out.  We look at our CSR activities in pretty much the same way: you can’t just do them in good times and then just forget about them in bad times and hope to get any results.”  What great words of wisdom.

Another company highlighted in Fortune’s article that is devoted to its CSR strategy is Starbucks.  Even though Starbuck’s stock lost more than half its value in 2008, leading to more than $400 billion in cost reductions, their corporate responsibility remains as strong as ever.  Delevingne refers to a recent article in Huffington Post by Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, titled Yes Business Can in which Schultz makes a strong and passionate case for Corporate Social Responsibility especially in today’s economy. Delevingne quotes Schultz, “Short-term thinking in a recession can lead to the ‘false belief that investments in people and training can wait; that corporate social responsibility can be put on the back burner…Now is a time to invest, truly and authentically, in our people, in our corporate responsibility and in our communities. The argument – and opportunity – for companies to do this has never been more compelling.’”

Will Marré, CEO of REALeadership Alliance, couldn’t agree more.  In his recent article, “Good First,” Marré states, “When times are tough it’s hard not to be hijacked by fear. Thinking about how much good we can do becomes downright unnatural when we’re genuinely afraid we won’t have what we need.  But what if we turn that fear upside down?  Imagine that the key to security, prosperity, and happiness comes from doing good.  As much good as possible.  Just imagine.”

Marré goes on to discuss the concept from his book, Save the World and Still be Home for Dinner, he calls Good, Grow, Gain.  He states, “The Good, Grow, Gain model simply means that we think first of how much good we can do, knowing that the more real value we offer the world, the more we will responsibly grow our opportunities and gain the resources for everything we truly need.”  Marré believes that the best way out of the current economic state is also the way up.  Seeking ways in which companies can do good will drive new growth based on real value creation, and that will be rewarded in the marketplace.  He concludes, “In tough, tough times when the winds of fear howl and the smog of distrust fills our lungs, the world calls for people who are willing to transcend their fears and seek good first. By putting giving value first, we truly gain more than we ever thought possible.  That’s how the world will change.”

In CSR in an Economic Dip CSR Digest discusses how sticking to CSR strategies is a no-brainer during these economic times if one’s CSR is truly based on how profits are made.  The article quotes Dan Gray’s blog, Can CSR survive a recession? stating, “Companies that pull back from CR are liable to label their activities as opportunistic, rather than an integral part of a considered, long-term strategy.”  CSR Digest also refers to several benefits of CSR as to why companies should remain strongly devoted to CSR efforts such as reputation; transparency—and integrity—are still important; recessions don’t last forever; and communities feel vulnerable.

Christopher Flavelle in Responsibility Is Still Good For Business quotes Geoffrey Heal, a professor at Columbia Business School: “”Since the concept of CSR became popular, there’s never been a recession like the one we’re going into right now. Profits are going to be very hard to come by for many corporations. If they see CSR as contributing to their bottom line, they’ll continue to act responsibly. If they see CSR as a kind of a PR campaign, they’ll probably cut back on it.”

Yes, it is easy to get caught up in the constant turmoil and negative messages we are bombarded with everyday and think only of the bottom line.  But there is good news.  Strong leaders are not running with their tail between their knees, only willing to do good when doing good is easy.  They are embracing their social responsibilities, and this will make all the difference.

Real Leadership for Social Responsibility and Sustainable Abundance

We are living in a time of immense challenges.  It’s an era that begs for the wisdom of real leaders.  Leaders who have the moral imagination to empathize with unborn generations who will inherit our legacy.  Such leaders are always in short supply because most people pursue leadership to validate their own special importance and the social myth that power, fame and wealth matter.  Our common human fear is the illusion that we live a meaningless existence followed by the darkness of non-existence.  This fear leads us to frantically find strategic ways to magnify our self-importance.  The most dangerous manifestation of this fear is to bully and manipulate others to bend to our will because we mistake power for personal significance.

The central problem of our leadership class is that for the past forty years we have put tens of thousands of MBA students and millions of business managers through training in the arts of power.  We have reduced leadership to a set of skills and attributes.  Often when I ask an audience of business leaders what the signs of great leadership are they recite a list of attributes such as vision, risk taking, inspiration, decisiveness, intelligence, focus, and a host of “competencies” that we can fill flip charts with.  Then I show slides of Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Osama bin Laden and ask them how they would judge these leaders against their list of admired traits.

Most often the audience is stunned because all of these leaders were “great” in terms of their skill; however they used their leadership skill to torture, kill and impoverish millions.

Then I show a picture of Ken Lay, the affable former CEO of Enron who died before he went to prison for defrauding investors and manipulating energy prices that kept old widows freezing in their tiny apartments during a long dark winter of highly manipulated energy prices.  If we only consider skill, Ken Lay was a great leader too.

The point I make is that the essential attribute of a real leader is not just their leadership skill but their noble intention.  Unless the prime motive of a leader is to serve and to promote the greatest good for the greatest number that leader will construct a dark universe with a twisted moral physics that seek only to aggrandize themselves and their friends.  They will seek to remake the world in their own image.  They will create business models that require work without end because their work has no intrinsic value.  It is only work that results in money.

The real question of leadership is not what skills you possess but rather, “What are you trying to accomplish?”  The problem with our leadership education and development system is that we haven’t been asking the right questions so we have few of the right answers.  We have glorified accumulation instead of contribution, and our economy thrives on consumption instead of creation.  There is too much “me” and too little “we.”  Nobel Prize winner John Nash (of the movie A Beautiful Mind) proved that the greatest good for each of us occurs in an economic system that promotes the greatest good for all of us.  Isn’t it time to extinguish the illusion that we are not responsible for the world we have created?  Isn’t it time to elevate the avowed commitment of every leader to fulfill the mandate to create a future of sustainable abundance?  To do that we must radically reject the synthetic justifications for selfishness and embrace the practical imperative of our mutual responsibilities to each other.  In the only future we honestly desire our social responsibility to each other is the only ideal with the power to reduce human suffering and enable our pursuit of genuine happiness.  This is not a burden of leadership; rather it is its essential opportunity.

These are not new ideas.  The noble call of real leadership is as old as human society.  It is, however, a largely forgotten ideal.  Perhaps the best thing we can do as leaders of our own lives is to carefully consider “What are we trying to accomplish?” in our careers, our relationships and in our lives.  We all need to be the leaders we wish we had.

Questions:  Considering what’s going on with our banks, businesses and government, do you agree we have an epidemic of leadership failure?  What’s the cause?  What can we do?

Above All…Be an Original: Finding Your Dream and Living From Your Design

A few years ago, Chris, a great friend of mine, was attending a summer concert featuring a Beatles Tribute band. They were dressed up like a 1965 version of John, Paul, George and Ringo. They had their accents and music down. They were an amazing group of musicians perfectly imitating genuine rock stars. And they were fake. After twenty minutes Chris couldn’t handle it. He actually left his family sitting on the grass and spent an hour walking home. He couldn’t stand listening to “fake Beatles.” To this day, Chris tells me that if he were a musician, he would rather spend his life playing his music in small bars and clubs then playing someone else’s music to crowds of Baby Boomers trying to re-imagine their past. Chris is an original. He is not about to sing someone else’s song.

Turns out, this is great career advice. “Be the rock star of your own life!”

What if you were designed perfectly to live your Dream Life? Well you are. You were designed to succeed at what brings you deepest, lasting joy. And fulfilling your design is the music of your heart. All you have to do is hear it.

Although we share over 99% of our DNA structure and pretty much 100% of our spiritual nature with other humans, there’s still an amazing amount of room for individuality. Recent brain and personality research suggests that each of us is more unique than perhaps we ever imagined. Turns out that 1% DNA difference leads to tens of millions of physical, psychological, and personality differences. That’s what makes us an original! The way we think, the way we learn, and the way we excel are extremely idiosyncratic. Many of us feel frustrated and anxious when we we’re not allowed to do “our thing our way.” This turns out not to be stubbornness but Design trying to shine through.

Our very uniqueness holds our personal key to fulfillment. A Dream Life is built on discovering, or re-discovering, our authentic Design. Greatness is always the result of being different—Being original.  No one can be better than you at being you.  Don’t compete; be unique.  And turn up the volume.

So how is this accomplished? Luckily, surgery is not required, nor are light explosives. You discover your design by becoming aware of your persistent traits and talents. Your “Design” is the intersection of traits and talents that you bring with you into the world.

Talents are skills that you perform exceptionally well and with natural ease. They are the way others see and experience you—the outer you. Talent yields success with minimal effort. Traits are the inner you. They’re the way you experience the world, what you pay attention to, what you derive deep satisfaction and value from, and how you like to engage life and others. A trait is a persistent quality of our essential identity. Examples are optimism, caring, courage, and enthusiasm.

What you both value doing (traits) and do extremely well (talents) is what you were Designed to do—your calling. Activities that are aligned with your Design give you energy rather than sap it. You don’t tire of them. You have to be told to stop doing them. You do them when you should be eating lunch. You would do them even if you didn’t get paid. They fire you up. When you are expressing your design, you have no longings to do something different. Something better, yes. More opportunity, of course. A bigger stage, more impact…sure. But you don’t yearn to do something fundamentally different.

It’s inspiring to believe that each of us are perfectly designed to fulfill our real dreams; that our traits, talent and interests are sign posts to the road of our greatest possible life.  But I’ve found it take more than understanding and inspiration to actually live a Dream Life.  It requires changing how you think, what you feel, and what you do.  Every decision you make either takes you closer to your Dream Life or further away from it. Yes once you think about it, it’s clear that to live an extraordinary life, extraordinary choices are necessary.  Once, when I was deeply confused my father advised me, “Be who you are and do what you came for.” It was his way of telling me not to be a fake Beatle.

I don’t know what your dreams are or what your extraordinary choices should be.  I can only challenge you to consider your choices and make them. All of us are ultimately responsible for our own lives. Our lives are our anthem. But spending our life imagining what it might sound like doesn’t do any good. Pick up your microphone and belt it out.

This article was originally published in The Deluxe Knowledge Quarterly KQ2 2008.

Unnecessary Layoffs Reprehensible

Will Marré, CEO of REALeadership Alliance and author of Save the World and Still be Home for Dinner, recently wrote an interesting blog, Microsoft is Stupid, in lieu of Microsoft’s recent announcement to layoff 5000 employees.  Marré’s stand is that when a profitable company lays off employees, it is irresponsible and poor leadership.  He states, “I am of the firm belief that the foundation of Corporate Social Responsibility is that competent, committed employees should not be fired while a company is profitable.  It’s even more outrageous when Microsoft has tens of billions in cash languishing uninvested because they can’t think up new ways to grow.  This is an immense failure of leadership.”

While Marré’s view is certainly controversial, especially since it is not an uncommon practice of top leadership made famous by Jack Welch, CEO of GE, to me, it is dead on.  After all, shouldn’t a company’s top priority be to its employees?  Michelle Sterling, founder and President of building b: solutions, in Heads up HR: CSR is Knocking, states, “Research continually shows that the number one item that consumers look at to judge the CSR of a brand is how that company treats its employees.  Numero Uno.  Top of the lists.”  Marré states in Corporate Social Responsibility Needs HR,  “Doesn’t it make sense that an organization’s first social responsibility is to benefit and develop their own employees?  It seems that most American’s don’t care if businesses are recycling if they treat their own people like trash.”

Not everyone agrees, however, with this viewpoint.  In Some Firms Cut Costs Without Resorting to Layoffs by Cari Tuna it states, “Some workplace experts say layoffs are a useful part of the business cycle, allowing employers to weed out poor performers, increase efficiency and promote a high-performance culture.” Tuna continues, “Today, many companies argue that alternatives such as across-the-board salary freezes and budget cuts are more harmful, because they can drive away top performers.”

I have to disagree.  Aren’t layoffs, instead, the ultimate failure in taking care of one’s employees? Tim Sanders, author of Saving the World at Work, states, “In my view, socially responsible companies don’t have layoffs when they are still viable or making money. It is not an expense reduction strategy with an upside.”

IAC Chief Executive, Barry Diller, was quoted in Diller to profitable companies: Lay off the layoffs at Huffington Post: “The idea of a company that’s earning money, not losing money, that’s not, let’s say ‘industrially endangered,’ to have just cutbacks so they can earn another $12 million or $20 million or $40 million in a year where no one’s counting is really a horrible act when you think about it on every level. First of all, it’s certainly not necessary. It’s doing it at the worst time. It’s throwing people out to a larger, what is inevitably a larger unemployment heap for frankly no good reason.”

Employee layoffs should not be the easy way out for companies, even though they see a decline in profits.  Top leadership should be doing everything they can, trying every other option before resorting to layoffs, especially when remaining profitable.  In Some Firms Cut Costs Without Resorting to Layoffs Cari Tuna also explores what some companies are doing to avoid layoffs. Tuna states, “Some employers are freezing hiring, offering voluntary retirement packages, cutting hours, reducing salaries or delaying raises. Other cost-saving tactics include raising employee health-care contributions and slashing bonuses, employer contributions to retirement plans and budgets for training, travel and other perquisites.”  Alex Chang, founder of real-estate search engine Roost.com, has gotten creative to save of his employees jobs from moving to a smaller office space and allowing some employees to work from home and asking vendors for discounts.

The bottom line is that CSR must start with responsibility to employees. As Marré concludes in Microsoft is Stupid, “[Microsoft’s] first Corporate Social Responsibility is to hold leaders accountable for their persistent inability to use their resources to create products and services that people value.  Laying off 5000 people is reprehensible.”

Make Yourself Depression Proof in the Economic Crisis

This feels like an economic apocalypse.  Everyday we are being psychologically carpet-bombed with news of job layoffs, foreclosures and bailouts.  And whether we’ve taken a direct hit with a job loss or are only suffering the collateral damage of stress and worry, it’s time to move from the war zone.  There is a land of hope and opportunity just beyond this stormy sea and you will see it clearly when you quit looking out and begin to look in.

We must create our own opportunities.  Now more than ever.  It’s the nature of industrial capitalism to make all jobs generic.  That way labor is just a unit of cost.  Nobody’s special; everyone’s replaceable.  Humans are made cogs in a giant worldwide money machine.  This is the major issue of our career future.  A study from the University of California at Berkeley estimates that as many as 14 million current U.S. jobs could be lost in the next 10 years.  Such a job extinction could increase structural unemployment to nearly 12%.  That’s more than a recession; that’s a tragedy.  The biggest body count is likely to be among the young (ages 15-40).  They are coming into the workforce with little experience and often with inadequate education.  Not much to trade in the swap meet of hyper competitive world labor.

Many business leaders, economists, and the business press say such a job destruction is healthy, as if human lives are ripe for pruning like a fruit tree.  They tell us, grow up, face reality.  It’s the business cycle at work.  Well, it’s not inevitable.  It’s a choice.  It’s the result of economic, trade, education and tax policy.  It’s a choice today’s leadership class is making.  After all, their kids will have trust funds.  So, not to worry.  In the large sweep of history, change always creates casualties they tell us.  It even has a name…creative destruction.  It doesn’t sound so good if it’s your life that’s being creatively destroyed, however.

Such thinking is wrong.  The companies that are growing most profitably are those that conduct business differently than their competitors.  Fortune Magazine recently published its annual list of the 100 best companies to work for.

Mostly they have one thing in common, they put employees first and rely on those employees to come up with constant innovations to reduce costs and increase value.  Companies like Costco, Southwest Airlines, Starbucks, WL Gore, Netflix, eBay, Google, SAS Institute are not just great places to work, they are great engines of human capitalism.

When we face the truth we understand that no matter who signs our paycheck, we are all self-employed.  All jobs are contingent.  If you are going to work for someone, only work for the industry leaders who are successful by not competing on price, but creating new, mind blowing value for customers.  These are companies that have few direct competitors.  They’re different.  They have leaders who embrace social responsibility and environmental sustainability.  They are both large and famous and small and unknown.  They exist in nearly every city and town in America.

But whether you work for a great enterprise or for yourself, the future of jobs is going to look like a war.  Huge explosions of new technology and new competitors that will obliterate companies, change industries and create un-thought of opportunities.  My message is don’t be a casualty.

But there is an answer.  As far as I can tell, the only answer.  It has three dimensions:

1.    Express your design. What makes you different is what makes you valuable, irreplaceable.  Self-knowledge is essential to your future.  Ultimately we are valued for who we are (traits and talents) more than what we know.  If we find ourselves in jobs where we cannot positively express our unique gifts; if we are only valued for our generic skills, the clock is ticking.  It’s only a matter of time before someone hungrier, smarter, and cheaper will take your place.  Only you, the unique you, can’t be duplicated.  Be you.

2.    Pursue your desire. Excellence at any endeavor requires strategic persistence.  This is consistent striving combined with readily embracing feedback, results and reality so that successful adjustments can be made.  If we are trying to achieve someone else’s goals that don’t give us a personal buzz, we will not excel over time.  We simply won’t do what it takes to be amazing.  Being amazing requires inner motivation.  Competing with someone else’s frantic ambition is not a serious problem if our motivation is intrinsic.  We will do well because we enjoy doing more than necessary.  If we are just racing to win a medal, we will lose to many who will simply out train us.

3.    Make love your prime motive. Daniel Goleman has shown that Emotional Intelligence is essential to career success.  Emotional Intelligence is a fancy term for understanding our design and being clear on our desires combined with emotional maturity, empathy and collaboration.  Emotional maturity frees us from acting on fear and fires us with love.   Empathy and collaboration are the pillars of social wisdom.  Empathy and collaboration are not primarily skills, although lots of company training programs try to teach you how to listen empathically and behave collaboratively.  But like words without music, the outer action without inner conviction is empty.  Love makes the quality of empathy and richness of collaboration work.  When love is your prime motive, everyone feels it.  They act better, think better and do better.

In today’s hyper collaborative world, people with high social wisdom are the first hired and the last fired.  They are the connective tissue of enterprise, the glue between company and customer, management and workforce.

Although the power of love can be expressed over fiber optic cable through voice (telephone) or data (email), there is nothing more powerful than personal presence. Thus, the most global proof jobs of the future are those that require us to be in a specific place with specific people to express our design.  Often, these careers combine personal service, high skill and individualized creativity.  If you want to be indispensable, make your personal presence a central part of the value you bring others.  Engage people with love.

The answer in a nutshell:  Don’t compete, be unique.  You already are.  Just turn up the volume.

How to Cure Our Own Healthcare

I know the title of this blog is overly ambitious.  But it’s undeniable that America’s health care system is on life support.  I just came from a private meeting of Johnson & Johnson “wellness” executives that was inspiring.

Johnson & Johnson is one of those all-too-rare companies that is serious about their social responsibilities and have been for over 100 years.  Yes, I know they are not perfect.  What $65 billion enterprise is?  But their annual direct contributions to human health exceed a half a billion dollars.  Once more, their famous operating credo points customers first, employees second, community third, and share holders last.  It was written in 1943 by their only shareholder, General Robert Woods Johnson.  Remember, they took Tylenol off all the store shelves in the world when a few capsules were found laced with poison in a deadly prank. What other company has handled a recall with such concern for our safety?

Well let’s just say J & J is serious about making our wellness and healthy aging a big strategic priority for the next 150 years.  They talk in 50-year terms, which is breathtaking in an age where most executives think long-term means a week or 10 days.   Yes of course they plan to make good health a profitable business.  That’s what makes their plans sustainable.  It’s what I call socially strategic leadership…business that makes money by benefiting humanity.  That’s the good news.

The challenge is that American health care is completely compromised by the intense lobbying culture in Washington.  Today we have over 200 ex-congressmen lobbying for their special interest instead of our common good (See Stuck in the Revolving Door in the Washington Post).  When asked why lobbying had become such a huge business in Washington, Robert G.  Kaiser, former Chairman of the Democratic National Committee said, “There’s just so damn much money in it.”  That’s not funny.  Lobbyists actually write many of the bills that become laws.  For instance, they wrote the drug Medicare benefit passed by George Bush’s congress in 2003, which made it illegal for the government to negotiate with drug companies on the price of the drugs Medicare now pays for.  It’s called corporate welfare, reverse wealth transfer, or as Jack Abramoff called it, “legalized bribery.”

So, where has this gotten us?  In very deep yogurt, that’s where.  The U.S. spends 50% more on health care per person than the next highest spending country (Norway).  We have the fastest growth in health care spending in the world.  Yet we have below-average life expectancy, the largest number of uninsured in any industrialized nation, higher infant mortality here than in Poland and 3 times higher than in Japan, and a growing obesity epidemic caused by our lifestyles.

So who’s going to fix this?  Well, Tom Daschle was presented to us as the most knowledgeable man in America to fix our system.  But it turns out his part of this Washington D.C. culture of I’m-so-special I-don’t-have-to-pay-my-taxes.  Damn.  (Unlike Rush Limbaugh I am rooting my brains out for President Obama to succeed.  But please.  Paying one’s taxes is a very low standard for anyone who’s going to serve in our nation’s cabinet to reach.  It’s disappointing the corrupting influence of Washington has made even that standard too high for some of our best potential public servants.)

Our health care problems are astoundingly complex.  Solutions are beyond government alone or the so-called free market to solve.  Greed, incompetence, demographics, and complexity are causing costs to skyrocket while causing massive unnecessary suffering.  So what’ the best thing we can do?  Well, first, today begin to make the changes in our lifestyles that are known to promote our and our family’s health.  If you could do just one thing, what would it be?  Get moving.

According to Dr. Jim Loehr of the Human Performance Institute of Johnson & Johnson, if Americans just got our large muscles (legs) moving more, we would begin to get healthier.  I know a business leader who lost 30 pounds over the past 18 months simply by wearing a ped-o-meter on his belt to make sure he walks a total of 5 miles a day.  Usually he does half of this on a 40-minute walk in the morning or evening.  The rest he does by moving throughout the day.  He takes the stairs, walks to other people’s offices and takes every other opportunity to walk he can.  The payoff Loehr says is that getting moving changes our blood chemistry, our muscle tone, our strength, our energy, our blood oxygen levels and jacks up our motivation to make other changes with our diet, our sleep, and our stress resilience.  I was going to suggest a few more things we could do to reduce our personal vulnerability to our broken health care system but let me stop with this.  Get moving.  Today.  We’ll all be healthier for it.

So what do you think of our health care mess?  Obama’s blunder with Tom Daschle?  Your personal advice on how we can live more healthy?

Wanted: Hero

In the wake of the current economic crisis is it any wonder that we look to someone, anyone to save us from the impending gloom that greets us daily in the news. It is astounding to think that this crisis would effect one man to such a degree that he would literally kill himself, and his entire family (Los Angeles Times Article). What perceptions would lead this man to believe that death, and putting an end to the life of himself and his family would be a better course of action than making the most of what he had? In times like this our fears and perceptions can eat in to our souls like demons and distort our view of reality. At one point in our lives, I am fairly sure that all of us have felt despair, perhaps even to the point were the very desire to live was lost. If you look back upon those moments now, you can see that the response was warranted, and as bad as things may have been, they were never as bad as you feared; the storm passed, the sun arose, and you lived to experience a thousand small moments that made life worthwhile.

Two of our greatest fictional hero’s, Superman and Batman, were born of a time much like our own when the economy seemed to be spiraling out of control and our time honored institutions seemed to be in decay. In an interesting article simply titled “Superman and Batman”, Cliff Jacobs points out in great detail how each of them represent both our ideals (Superman) and our fears (Batman), and discusses the heroic manner in which each are dealt with. In times of crisis, feeling as though we have no control, it is only natural that we would look to a hero to free us from the dire consequences of our own fears. Superman and Batman are of course fictional characters, but everything they stand for exists within us. Like the words in the song “People as Places” by Modest Mouse, the journey for answers leads back to us:

“To answer a question
It’ll probably take more
If you’re already there
Well then you probably don’t know
Well we were the people
That we wanted to know
And we’re the places that we wanted to go
It’s hard to get hold of
And hard to let go
Always something we look for
From the day we were born
Instead we’re the people that we wanted to know
And we’re the places that we wanted to go
Yeah we’re the places that we wanted to go
We’re the places that we wanted to go”

You might feel that the course of world events is outside of our hands, your congress person, or senator, may not have the foresight and integrity to listen the emails they receive from you and their other constituents (if this is the case, keep trying, and vote them out of office if they can’t seem to get the idea that they work for you). Unscrupulous charlatans will use your fears against you, they will offer to save you from your fears in exchange for more power. They will relieve you of your responsibilities, and much, much, more. We should support those among us who can raise to the occasion of histories great challanges, and help us to overcome the adversity that passes through time like the dark clouds of a powerful storm, but never at the price of our own power. We are the Knight in Shining Armor, We are Superman, and together we will confront the challenges of history while holding fast to our rights, our liberties, our freedoms, and our power.

The fact of the matter is you do have control, but “the impossible” might take a little while. What you do have control over right now, is your own ideals and fears. You can choose to stand by your ideals, conquer your fears, and fight for what is right no matter how long it takes. Or you can entrust the task someone else at the cost of your own power, and hope they don’t use it against you in the end.

You can be Batman!

You can be Superman!

What is the greatest thing you can do to stand by your ideals, and conquer your fears?