Socially Responsible Leadership and Wise Leaders Who are Investing in the Future of Humanity

It’s easy to be outraged at the incompetence and greed apparent in business leadership. Titanic ethical failures like Enron, failures in judgment by General Motors and greed-induced insanity by our major financial institutions have caused millions to suffer. Leadership failure is so bad the Economist magazine reports that only 2% of consumers worldwide trust business leaders to do the right thing if it costs them profits. With business institutions having the most trans-global power on earth, that is breathtakingly bad.

But there is a strong minority of courageous and wise leaders who use their resources for much more than self-interest. More needs to be known about these wise companies who lead their industries, embrace sustainability and are investing in the future of humanity.

Take FedEx and Johnson & Johnson for example. They have partnered with Heart to Heart International, a health-based nonprofit whose main focus is to get life-saving medicine and supplies to victims in crisis. Their work has never been as important as now as they rush to get much needed supplies and medical support to help save Haiti earthquake victims.

Fed Ex and Johnson & Johnson make these efforts possible. Not only has FedEx provided significant financial support and transportation services to Heart to Heart, but they also have created Forward Response Centers—FedEx warehouses full of relief supplies that are ready to go to virtually any disaster zone in the world quickly and efficiently. These centers take up valuable space in FedEx warehouses, but they do it because they understand that business is about more than money. When the tsunami hit Thailand in 2007, FedEx planes were among the first to land medical supplies. These Forward Response Centers have made it possible for Heart to Heart to be among the first responders to the Haiti disaster.

Johnson & Johnson is one of the main generous providers of these supplies which include The Ready Relief Box, otherwise known as the portable pharmacy that contains such items as pain relievers, antibiotics, vitamins, first aid supplies and doctor’s essentials such as a stethoscope and digital thermometer; The Medical Surge Module, which can increase capacity at healthcare facilities by providing enough medical supplies for 2,000 patients; and The Personal Hygiene Kit, which provides hygiene care for up to two weeks and is vital after a disaster to prevent contagious diseases from running rampant.

And wise leadership is not limited to a few visionary corporations. Today the non-profit Grameen Foundation is focusing their efforts on economic recovery—both short- and long-term. In partnership with Sèvis Finansye Fonkoze (a Grameen Foundation microfinance partner in Haiti), the Grameen Foundation will build upon their existing efforts in Haiti of using microfinance and technology to help Haitians, especially women, move themselves out of poverty and build a more self-reliant future. The President of the Grameen Foundation, Alex Counts, states, “Please help us help the nation recover from this recent disaster and try, as hard as it may be to imagine, to help our local partners build a Haiti that is more prosperous than pre-earthquake conditions.”

So what’s going on with these enterprises? What drives their leaders to do what others refuse to do? In my 30 years of working with senior leaders I can only conclude it is, at its core, one thing. Wisdom. Plato defined wisdom as “a knowledge of the Good and courage to act accordingly.” He further described wisdom as the commitment to seek the right balance between “all that exists.” What we today might call sustainability. At the core, wisdom is moral courage. As philosophers from every culture, across time have noted, it is not enough to know what is Good. We must also act on that knowledge. The responsibility of today’s business leaders to act from wisdom is essential for our future. We are all increasingly connected and to act only on self-interest is poisoning the water that our children drink.

Sadly, nearly all leadership failure I have witnessed up close has been the result of many small decisions that compromise the wise choice into simply an expedient one. Too many leaders are driven by fear. Fear of being criticized by the Wall Street money-changers or fear of being second guessed by their own hard driving executive team. Fear makes leaders stupid. The neurobiology of fear literally extinguishes creativity, open-mindedness and moral reasoning. We need leaders who have the everyday courage to act on the “Good” as a way to create more value for all. When I counsel senior leaders I often ask them, “How much good can you do, right now? When I get a response I simply say, “Do that.” You see doing the best thing you can imagine in a sustainable, wise way always creates value that makes you and your enterprise stand apart. So it not only ends up being wise but also smart.

Most of the few great companies that are doing the most to restore environmental balance and benefit humanity don’t toot their horns about it. (Who knew FedEx planes were landing in Haiti full of medicine?) No, that’s not a good thing. In 2003, I founded REALeadership Alliance to do just that; help leaders and companies become clear on the good they can do. The wisdom of courageous leaders needs to shine as a beacon to inspire those who fear to wake up and get busy saving our world. It’s actually just wise business.

So what’s the best thing you can do? Transcend your own fear. We are all leaders. All CEOs of our own lives. Be wise. Stand for something that matters. Speak up every day for the best thing you can imagine. Everyday courage accumulates. Our consistent small acts of integrity change the future. We all need to lead.

Who do you work for?

With the publication of my new book, Save the World and Still Be Home For Dinner, I’ve posted a survey at www.SavetheWorldBook.com to help you determine whether you work for an enterprise that is helping forge a sustainable future or one that is trapped in the dying ideas of business-as-usual.  Who we work for is important.  If we want to change our future we must lead.  There is plenty to be hopeful about, and I want to get a pulse on your experience of the employer you work for or the organization you lead.

Recently I was doing leadership training for the Gap at their San Francisco headquarters.  I like the people at Gap a lot.  They understand how their huge global business can be a force for good, and they are serious about using their economic clout, market reach and worldwide workforce to create a better future than the self-consuming dinosaur business model we’ve trapped ourselves into.

It’s true; we live in a time when confidence in business leadership is at an all time low.  Just look at these statistics:

• 94% of the public does not trust business to regulate itself (AccountAbility).
• 86% view business as negatively impacting the public good (Harris Poll/Business Week).
• 76% of employees have observed illegal or unethical conduct by their employer in the past 12 months! (Harris Poll/Business Week)
• 98% of the public don’t believe CEOs are very trustworthy (NY Times).

This is sad. What’s really sad is that most of us would nod our head in agreement with these polls.  Business is the most powerful institutional force in the world, and the world doesn’t trust it.  That’s because human history has proven it’s not smart to trust that someone else’s self-interest will benefit you in the long run.  The Great Recession has just made that crystal clear.  But there is good news.  It’s that the world has changed.  Citizen consumers and citizen employers have awakened to the fact that we must create a new sustainable future.  One that works for our children.  All our children.  Perhaps nowhere is this more clear than in the market place which is changing at a breathtaking pace.

As more and more consumers and employees have demanded greener, healthier products responsibly made, the number, choices, and quality of these products has skyrocketed.  For instance, every major auto manufacturer is now engineering hybrid models that will be sold in every country in the next few years.  China has adapted tougher auto emissions and mileage standards than we have.  But for some companies like Gap, it’s more than just making t-shirts out of recycled plastic or organic fibers.  Increasingly it’s about human sustainability.

For instance, in Gap factories in developing nations they’ve instituted a personal and professional development program called P.A.C.E.  It’s designed to help under educated young seamstresses strengthen their literacy, their health, their life skills and business acumen.  Gap’s corporate social responsibility is investing in poor women because they are society builders.  And Gap is not alone.  In company after company I visit I see a roaring torrent of programs to enable employees to volunteer for their favorite cause, to raise their business standards on environmental impacts, and to promote health and human rights.

But wait, you say.  Isn’t all this just a little “greenwashing” and image polishing?  After all, it’s corporations that tare down the old-growth rain forests, over-fish our oceans, pollute our air, water and earth, and strip-mine our world from its natural resources.  Exactly.  All of that is true.  But it’s also true that global corporations and fast acting enterprises are the institutions most able to drive fast positive change.  They operate across boarders without political inhibitions.  They must respond in real time to consumer and employee attitudes.  Corporations are self-interested, but consumers determine where that self-interest leads them.  As long as we escalate our insistence on sustainable, responsible products and processes we will get more of them.

And now there is something turbo-charging demand for business responsibility.  It’s a new generation of employees.  The flood of 20 to 30-year old practical idealists who believe we can reshape our businesses into a force of progress and sustainability is raising the tide of positive change.  The energy of sustainability and social good is contagious, and I am seeing an epidemic of virtue take over business-as-usual.

This is not my imagination.  As Gen X independent thinking pragmatists take over more leadership roles, they are more connected to sustainable innovation, cutting bureaucracy and re-inventing our future.  And the new workforce of Gen Y and Millennials (those 16-30) are focused on re-making business into institutions of global sustainability.  What makes this new generation of leaders so potent is their number (126 million—far larger than the 75 million boomers) and their newly developed social technology which is driving change, informing attitudes and creating new business models faster than at any time in history.

I am hopeful this is happening in the nick of time.  We have ignored our problems for too long.  We’ve let what were little brushfires turn into a raging wildfire threatening our heath, our environments, our peace and every other important asset to our quality of life.

What’s the best thing we can do?

Participate in the business revolution!  I am seeing global companies life Gap, Nike, FedEx, and Johnson & Johnson transform themselves at a breathtaking rate.  No, it’s not perfect.  It will take years.  But the speed of change is accelerating.  Just 5 years ago sustainability and corporate social responsibility was something tree huggers and hippies whined about.  Today it is driving corporate strategy.  It’s time to turn up the volume of our demands for business to use their power and innovation to create sustainable value.  It’s time for us, no matter where we work, to transform our daily jobs into a global force for change.  We are the leaders of the sustainability revolution.  You and me.

So who do you work for?  Please take this short 5-minute survey and find out.  It’s a way to amplify your voice by helping us build a database to influence leaders.

And one more thing.  What do you think?  Do you have positive stories of companies, non-profits or individuals transforming the future?  Do you have personal aspirations to do so?  Tell us about them!

Increase Our Energy – Solve Health Care Costs

On Monday I was with some researchers from Johnson & Johnson talking about our heath care crisis. Much of our crisis is invisible. For instance, this number really blew my mind…

The current estimate for the annual productivity lost due to preventable illness is $1 trillion dollars a year.

That’s about the same as any health care cost of any new plan or that is being discussed for ten years. The cost of our lifestyle has reached unbelievable proportions. I’m here at the Human Performance Institute looking at health care’s ultimate answer.

80% of chronic illnesses are preventable and most of the causes of the chronic illnesses are simply bad lifestyle choices.

We know how to live, we just don’t. How we eat, how we don’t exercise, and how we don’t sleep makes us very vulnerable to our bodies breaking down. We also don’t do a very good job recovering from stress. HPI’s secret is that they know how to change that behavior permanently. Their evidence is pretty overwhelming. The underlying premise is that most people don’t change their behavior because they don’t have the energy to. We’re simply too tired to exercise, too tired to think positive thoughts, and too tired to interact with each other in positive ways. We’re just too tired to do anything that isn’t really easy, and it’s in that choice of doing something easy that we make ourselves sick.

So it all begins with how to increase your energy. HPI seems to have found a way. If we can simply get more of us taking better care of ourselves because we have the energy to do it, things might change. The best way to solve the cost prices in health care is to get a whole lot healthier!

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?