Tiger–No longer a virtuous role model?

Tiger Woods has really been in the news lately.  And the stories are not about his golf game.  Instead the stories are about Tiger acting, well, like a tiger.  I respect his privacy. But even though he is, after all, just an athlete and his private life should be private, I think many of us are a little disappointed that he’s admitted his struggle with his own testosterone.

Why?  Because we long for virtuous role models whether they’re athletes, politicians, religious leaders or business tycoons.  We admire people who in the face of outrageous temptation act on moral virtue.  It seems rare among the famous, rich and powerful.  But like many rare things, it is highly valued.  Perhaps we value the moral commitment of fidelity because it is so hard, so “unnatural.”  We live in a media world that thrives on serving up stimulation and novelty.  It is easy to stimulate the brain juice of dopamine showing reckless infatuation turning to instant sex.  It’s more difficult portraying the fulfillment of deep and enduring intimacy based on mutual trust and commitment.

I know, trust and commitment just don’t sound all that exciting.  But as I point out in my book, Save the World and Still Be Home For Dinner, it turns out that trust and commitment are the bedrock of human happiness and deep life satisfaction.  It also turns out that no greater emotional pain can be felt or caused than betrayal.  Maybe all of this commitment stuff is such a powerful human force precisely because it is unnatural.  I often read that evolutionary biologists claim that monogamy is unrealistic.  Men, we are told, are biologically designed to spread their DNA to as many partners as possible.  Sociologists wonder if being married to one person over a lifetime is too “unnatural” because our modern lifetimes are so long.  But most of us admire multi-decade marriages.  We admire fidelity and honest commitment precisely because these things are so unnatural.

Of course commitment and trust cannot be given blindly.  Our personal dignity requires that trust and respect must be mutual.  Commitment to an exploiter is an act of self-destruction.  However we must take care not to label our partner’s quirks and interests as intolerable or selfish as a weapon to work our own agenda.

It’s hard to be patient, wise and fair.  What is “natural” is to be selfish, self absorbed, and exploitative like Charlie Sheen’s character on Two and a Half Men.  Sure it’s funny.  But we can’t build a civilization by acting natural.  What most of us admire are people who act unnatural.  People whose commitment is greater than their moods.  People whose purpose is greater than their self-interest.  People who value self-control as much as self-expression.  We admire this because these are qualities of our higher selves.  Qualities of our soul.  They are the pinnacle qualities of what it means to be truly human more than just evolutionary blobs of selfish protoplasm.  Enduring love matched with fierce commitment is unnatural, and that’s why it’s so sublime.

So I offer my best wishes and highest hopes for Tiger and his family.  I must also tell you that I don’t speak of these things as an idealist.  I have been roughed-up plenty by life’s surprises and gut-wrenching relationships.  Lasting intimacy is the battleground of happiness and the hard road of fortitude.  At the same time I am convinced there is no other road I’d rather travel because when there is a break in the forest, the views are breathtaking and the oxygen is pure.

So what’s the best thing we can do?  Love like our life depends on it.

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.

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.

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.

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?

The Meaning of Life

We have begun a new year, and the milestone that marks the passing of one and the beginning of another encourages us to look where we have been, and where we are going. Will we choose to live the New Year with purpose? Or will we simply walk aimlessly to some distant horizon? Why did you get out of bed this morning? Was their a purpose or was it just something you had to do?

As I look back at my own life and the year that has passed, I see both types of days. The interesting thing is that when I lived life with purpose and meaning, nothing could get me down. I knew why I got up in the morning, I understood the purpose to my actions, and everything I did meant something. When one chooses to live their life with purpose the distractions that drain of us of our life’s energy loose their power over us. When I have purpose I don’t get worked up if someone cuts me off on the freeway, says something I find offensive, or if someone doesn’t live up to my expectations. Why would I allow such a small thing to affect me when my life means so much more than such trivial distractions?

Stop for a moment and think about a time in your life when you felt truly driven. It needn’t be anything world changing or even life changing. Maybe it was a job interview that you felt really good about, or just a moment where you embraced life and enjoyed it.

I recently had such a moment on New Years day when a quick New Years jump in to the ocean turned in to a cold water endurance contest. For thirty minutes my daughters and I bobbed and floated in the surf without wetsuits, embracing the cold winter touch of the Pacific Ocean as it bit at our finger and toes. That simple act of embracing the experience turned something uncomfortable in to something joyful and filled with purpose and meaning.

One of the reasons that we frequently fail to find purpose and meaning in our lives is that we tend to look to others to find the meaning in our lives, when the meaning lies inside ourselves. How often do we suffer because some one fails to meet our expectations? This is what happens when we look outside to find happiness instead of finding it from within and enhancing it with the presence of friends and loved ones. It is unfair to burden someone else with the weight of all our hopes and dreams, and each of us must find the purpose and meaning inside of ourselves.

Another reason we frequently fail to find the purpose and meaning in our lives is that we fail to see that meaning has it exists right now. What does this moment mean to your life? To see the meaning in the past is nostalgia, the meaning of the future a hope and a dream, but to see the meaning of now is liberating because now is when your future is created. One of the most influential books I have ever read is “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle which goes in to great depth on the topic. The meaning in our lives must be constantly renewed if we are to overcome the ups and downs that life brings.

There are many resolutions that I could pursue in the year ahead. I could lose weight, do a better job at managing my money, or just resolve to do something great. In the end however, I realize that understanding the purpose and meaning in my own life is the foundation upon which all of these things rest, and my resolution is to renew the purpose of my life and give it meaning each day.

What is the greatest thing you can do to live a meaningful life in 2009 and beyond?

Demand Ethical Leadership

Mom passed away early Christmas morning.  Her passing was a peaceful release from the body she was trapped in.  Thank you for the kind expressions of concern you offered over the past weeks regarding my mother and mother-in-law’s death.  At my age it’s strange to feel orphaned, but that’s my unshakeable feeling.

As I am preparing a eulogy for Mom, one of the things I most admire about her was her ability to somehow both forcefully and gently remind the strong men in her life to be virtuous.  Mom was kind and empathetic.  Living through a massive Depression followed by a World War that involved all her four brothers tends to amplify your compassion.  Today we live in times that call each of us in the same way.

So this morning I am watching the news about thousands of layoffs being announced by various companies across many industries.  Most of these layoffs are unethical acts of powerful leaders who think it’s responsible business.  It’s not.  It’s moral cowardice masquerading as a practical business decision.  I’m not just ranting here.  I am stating the most obvious flaw of financial capitalism that has emerged over the past 40 years.  This flaw is that short-term actions can generate short-term financial gains while destroying long-term value.  Business leaders are incented to cut jobs, investment, research, new technology and worse, pollute, mis-state earnings, corrupt lawmakers, and an endless list of shenanigans that hurt us all.  All of this, whether it’s legal, is immoral.  Here’s why.

The core standard of ethics is the mandate to never cause avoidable suffering.  Period. Is it asking too much?  Or does it ask us simply to be morally responsible for the consequences of our decisions?

One way to judge suffering caused by business decisions is something called switching costs.  Ethics requires us to consider how much it costs to the person my decision impacts to switch to another company.  So for investors the switching costs are very low.  For instance, Toyota recently announced two things.  They will likely lose money this next year, and they will continue their no-layoff policy for full-time employees.  (They are doing extra employee training during their manufacturing slowdown.)  So if an investor in Toyota doesn’t like this policy, they can sell their stock or “switch” to another one in 30 seconds online.  Switching costs for investors are very low.  Next to consider are customers.  The cost of switching from one brand of product to another of equal value is also very low.  There are so many substitute products today that consumers’ switching costs are nearly non-existent.

So what about employees?  Consider your own situation.  What if you involuntarily get laid off from a profitable business during an economic downturn?  What are the “costs” of switching to a new job or industry?  Huge.  Gargantuan.  Brutal.  The American Psychological Association reports that the two biggest traumas that are the most difficult to overcome are loss of a spouse (death or divorce) and job loss.  The suffering caused by these two events has severe long-term consequences not only on the individual directly involved but also their families.  The U.S. Department of Labor reports that 40 percent of white-collar workers over 40 laid off in the past fifteen years never achieve their previous level of income. Illness, chronic pain, abuse, divorce, alcoholism, depression, and suicide are markedly higher among laid off workers.  Is this the kind of society we want?  If a company is making money or has ample resources to continue operating, is pleasing Wall Street the highest moral good?

Is this the best business leadership we can imagine?  The much admired Jack Welch championed shareholders over all others also pioneered the mass firing of workers of GE’s profitable businesses to increase earning.  Fortune Magazine honored him as manager of the century. Right.  What’s hard about firing people and demanding everyone else work harder so we can make more money for shareholders who churn stock holdings faster than bank robbers running for their getaway car?

So if we can agree that willfully causing human suffering is immoral then profitable companies who layoff workers are by definition behaving immorally.  Consider this.  We just “donated” $350 billion to America’s banks without any oversight and they just laid off tens of thousands employees.  Meanwhile they continue to hoard our money, choke off lending to other businesses and pay their executives for their outstanding performance.  Is that okay?  Is that just “aw shucks?”  If a business leadership cannot find productive ways to use bright, loyal, hardworking employees, whose fault is that, the employee’s or the leader’s?

So how can we fix this?  Not through laws.  If we pass no-layoff regulation we’ll only succeed in making sure people don’t get hired at all.  One of America’s great advantages is our fluid workforce that allows us to change jobs and careers whenever we choose.  The difference, of course, is that when we have a well-led economy rich with job creation then employees have a playing field where we can bargain with our talent.  When we have a corrupt leadership creating fake economic gains we have mass suffering.

So what’s the best thing we can do?

Make noise.  Buy from ethical companies.  Demand ethical leadership.  A revolution is happening right now.  Employees and consumers worldwide are demanding that Corporate Social Responsibility be more than cosmetic.  We are seeing major strides in the reduction of waste and increasing sustainability.  This is all due to yours and my demands for a better future.

Now is the time to demand that Corporate Social Responsibility begins with responsibility to employees.  If Toyota and Honda can keep their employees when the car business has collapsed then so can nearly every other business if they have a will to.

I once had a large client who was going through a massive financial implosion during the dot-com era.  Their woman President didn’t layoff a soul.  She instead sponsored huge strategy workshops involving every employee in creating either cost saving or income increasing strategies.  The entire process was led by a senior maintenance man.  Yes, crazy, idealistic….well it worked.  Within 12 months the company was minting money and growing faster than ever.  Do you know why this visionary leader did this when her board was encouraging her to slash and burn?  She told me, “Our problems came from bad leadership decisions.  Firing our employees would have been immoral.”

It’s time for a new kind of leadership.

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The Rebirth of Wonder

The holiday season is upon us, along with all of the rare and beautiful opportunities it brings. No matter what name you choose to assign to it, or how you may choose to celebrate it, it will work its own special kind of magic. For just a moment we will stop what we are doing, we will share gifts, spend time with loved ones. Beautiful lights and ornaments will be placed on display, and we will stop to observe them and appreciate their beauty. It may seem like a small thing, but in reality it is a wonderful opportunity. Most of us have been conditioned to live our lives obsessing over what happened yesterday or what is coming next. We spend our lives trying to achieve this or that, and never stop to appreciate those achievements or the wonder and beauty that surround us every day. Make the most of the opportunity, breathe it in deep and take a moment, a day, a week to appreciate your life. Consider making it a way of life; and just in case you need a reminder the next holiday season is only a year away.

Do you remember the wonder and magic the holiday season held when you were a child? The Christmas tree became a shrine to wonderment, and each light glowed with magical warmth. My play would center around it, I would stare at it for long stretches of time that could not be measured because they were time-less. The smell of pine would take me away to a place behind reality, and the occasional trip to the snow with my grand parents, well that was Nirvana. No matter what holiday tradition you might have observed as a child, there were probably one or more aspects that struck you with the same sense of wonderment. And that sense of wonderment and adventure probably didn’t stop there when you were a child; most likely it accompanied anything new that awoke your senses. It is unfortunate that we tend to loose that as we go in to adulthood.

We worry about things which seem important at a given moment, but which mean nothing when observed against the wholeness of our lives. The traffic, other people’s opinions or impressions, how a project will be received, if the kids are going to do their homework correctly, and a million other things fight for every minute of our attention, and we become the slaves of our own worries if we are not careful. We forget to allow ourselves time to just be, and appreciate our relationships and our surroundings In observing the holidays we are given an opportunity to recapture the magic of youth.

So take a moment to quit thinking about what yesterday held, or tomorrow may hold, and enjoy everything you have right now.

What’s the greatest thing you can do to enjoy the magic of the holiday season?

Corporate Responsibility OR a Disposable Society

Frankly I am amazed almost daily by the breakthroughs companies are making to create more responsible and greener products and humanitarian services.  I am not talking about superficial PR to re-label factory made food as organic or other advertising buzzwords designed to mislead us.  Rather I am impressed that global companies are making genuine progress to reinvent the future.

I have been most recently impressed when I visited the big financial firm ING to learn of their aggressive micro-credit business in India and their European car leasing operation that buys carbon credit for every mile driven to make their auto fleets carbon neutral.  I am inspired that General Electric is making organic lights that are nearly 10 times more effective than every light sold today.  Even if you’re not a raging environmentalist, you’ve got to be impressed with how companies are paying more attention to making more things more energy efficient.

The reason these trends are persisting is that consumers, especially younger ones, are demanding products that are more responsible.  Companies that are responding to this growing consumer demand will continue to grow while those who don’t will fade away.

Why General Motors is Failing

That’s one of the main reasons General Motors is sucking air.  My brother-in-law once owned a GM Geo Metro, a dog of a car if there ever was one.  As the tin and can aged he noticed that the price of parts was beginning to exceed the value of the car.  Finally a mechanic told him, “Hey, the Geo was designed as a disposable car and guess what, it’s time to junk it!”  A disposable car.  Hmmm.

A Disposable Society

In the 1950’s the big American car company accountants came up with the brilliant idea of planned obsolescence that required engineers to design parts to fail at 50, 60, or 70 thousand miles.  This, they were told, would increase their downstream parts business.  What a tragic idea.  But this has been the mindset of leadership over the past 40 years—create one big disposable society.  Disposable cars, disposable marriages and fast food that has as much nourishment as the cardboard package it comes in.  Have we gotten so seduced by “new” things that we have lost sight of the quality of our lives and the strength of our society?

Americans are Rethinking Their Addiction to Waste

Americans are a resilient people.  We seem to have un-ending ingenuity.  So inventors, engineers, and increasingly companies are re-thinking their addiction to waste.  They are doing so because we are demanding it and our children are demanding it.

So what’s the best thing we can do? We should all be fully engaged, noisy consumers.  We need to demand genuine quality, real nutrition, and yes environmentally responsible products.  We should demand personalized, low-stress service to be treated like a person instead of a problem.  The louder our voices are in the market place, the more it will change.  I am seeing this first hand.  Of course progress is slow and imperfect, but at least there is progress.  Progress caused by us.

So what do you think?  Am I into something or is my view to rosy?  What’s the best thing you can think of to drive business to become more responsible?

Giving Thanks through Gratitude Letters

Gratitude is a powerful mood elevator.  At least that’s what psychologists, neurologists, as well as anyone experienced in fighting back from disappointment will confirm.  It seems that thinking and caressing thoughts that count our blessings actually makes us feel optimistic and positive.  Once the gratitude centers our brain awaken they mix up a batch of warm brain chemicals that energize our entire body that animates feelings of well-being.

In fact, this “optimism effect” is so powerful that renowned psychologists such as Martin Seligman, PhD. are prescribing gratitude letters as a way to fight depression, anger, and hopelessness.

How to Write a Gratitude Letter

1. A gratitude letter begins with thinking of a person you deeply appreciate.  Someone who may have gone out of their way to help you, offer encouragement or given you an opportunity.  It may be someone far back in your life history, a teacher, a coach, or a grandparent who said or did something that made a positive difference in your life.
2. Once you identify the person you write a letter detailing exactly what that special person did and why it had such an impact on you.  Try to be as specific as possible.
3. To maximize the mutual impact of a gratitude letter you don’t mail it at first.  If the person lives nearby you make it a priority to see them in person and read them the letter.  If they live far away you read it to them over the phone.
4. Then you give or mail them the letter.

Gratitude is Life Changing

The mutual impact of a gratitude letter can be life changing for both the giver and the receiver.  At a minimum, it’s life affirming.

And today there is nothing more important than affirming life and its amazing opportunities.  Yes, I know that what’s happening in our wider world is threatening, unfair, and the joint product of towering amounts of stupidity and greed.  But we don’t live day-to-day in the wider world.  We live in our world.  And no matter what, and I mean no matter what, we can make our world better today and tomorrow.

I have personally met so many people whose outer lives were destroyed by war, poverty, divorce, bankruptcy, illness, joblessness, betrayal, or natural disaster that simply refused to let their trauma’s define them.  Their subsequent victories are the direct result of their inner strength.  Their commitment to string together a chain of positive decisions to make today better that led them to live inspiring lives.  I am thinking of two close friends who survived bankruptcies to become millionaires doing work they love.  I am thinking of two divorcees who were betrayed by spouses who remarried and are living happily ever after.  I am thinking of a girl who lost her mother to a tragic death who started a foundation to mentor parentless children to live a happier life.  I am thinking of Abraham Keech, one of Southern Sudan’s lost orphan boys who grew up, earned a college degree, and has recently built a school in his old village in Africa.  All of these people are like you and me.  No one gave them permission to be extraordinary.  They just choose to be.

Of all the things I am most grateful for, it is perhaps our unique ability to imagine a future better than our present circumstances and to choose to do something extraordinary.  That may be our greatest gift.

Of all the great things we can do at this Thanksgiving, maybe the greatest is to write and deliver a gratitude letter.  And then as our moods are lifted to imagine what we might do to make tomorrow better.  And just start.  That’s how the world changes.

Will Marre

(Feel free to post your gratitude letter for all to read.)

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