“White guys won’t work here anymore.” “What? What do you mean?” I said to a friend of mine who heads talent for a multinational technology company. I was shocked to hear that, as her company had a great reputation. “This month, I had two white guys from Texas turn down great offers because the company wasn’t diverse enough. I never thought I’d see the day when white guys in a job search, and in a recession nonetheless, are saying they need women and people of color on their teams.” “Holy cow! I just got chills.” I exclaimed. “I’ve been harping on this for years,” she replied. “I’ve been telling our CHRO that the time would come that we’ve fallen too far behind in creating a place that attracts diverse talent.” That time had obviously come, as now 90% of white men place some value on DEI, with 42% who believe it is very or extremely important to them (Center for Talent Innovation, 2020). Unfortunately, 55% of all employees (and 45% of white employees) believe that racism at work has damaged their relationship to their employer. Now, 4 in 10 white employees avoid employers who don’t take a stand against racism (Edelman, 2021), far exceeding the 25% tipping point threshold (Centola, 2020) required for a belief or behavior to penetrate an entire population. As older workers retire and hand the reins to younger ones, and as frontline managers, new hires and customers are increasingly more diverse, companies must be places where everyone feels like they belong, that their contributions matter and that they can thrive. If that's not the case, news travels and it becomes hard to fill roles, e.g., half of younger employees (aged 18-34) now avoid employers who don’t take a stand against racism (Edelman, 2021). Traditionally, attracting new diverse hires meant recruiting at historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), providing mentorship, forming ERG’s and paying living wages. Today, these are simply table stakes. Deep down, today’s workers want to be a part of something that matters. They want to join mission they can easily find on Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy or the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, and to be on a team where all people belong and can do their best work. Of course, these concerns have always mattered to women, and people from the LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities. Now, it matters to almost all of us. If the table stakes aren’t there, which we can easily tell from industry gossip, the company’s website and Glassdoor ratings, we’ll keep looking. If the board looks like a yacht club, we’re moving on. If we don’t get the sense that there is a powerful mission, and a culture of inclusion and warmth on the team, we either leave or undermine our company through petty squabbles at work and trash talking to our friends and family. Companies have tried to fix the symptoms of a culture that lacks purpose and belonging with individual interventions like apps, free food, mentorship, and volunteering opportunities. Ultimately, these tactical point solutions fail to produce substantial and sustained results because they sit on top of a pile of dysfunction. From the underlying biases (privileging whites and men), culture (always on, impress the boss, similarity bias, no purpose activation), and systems (profit principle/quarterly earning reports, performance reviews, quotas), work generally dehumanizes and separates people. We are experiencing a whole system failure, but few companies recognize it. Most companies still think that more individual interventions are the answer to the ongoing systemic failure. We can’t ice cream social our way out of a toxic culture. We can’t app our way out of anxiety. We can’t pill our way out of a crap boss. We can’t hire our way out of turnover. We can’t blog our way out of racism. We can’t deck chair our way out of a hull breach. We need to think holistically about the problem. It’s time for a new way. There is no such thing as an individual human - like the bison, we are a herd species. We exist by, for and through each other. We need each other and always have. The neuroscience of empathy reveals that when one of us suffers, we all suffer (APS, 2017). Although we all have freewill and a unique purpose, they exist within the implicit wholeness and connection of our families, communities, companies, ecosystems and species. As such, all internal people activities now must be re-imagined with a holistic and social approach. How can any of us be truly well when one of us is suffering? A few innovative companies, such as Coursera, have begun to swing the pendulum from the eagle to the bison, seeing the increasingly number of dependencies between DEI, L+D, wellness, talent and culture and that each needs to be reimagined and inform the other. For example, wellness strategies need to be informed by DEI, as it is well-established that systemic racism is a public health issue (CDC, 2021). Accordingly, Coursera is dissolving HR silos and is actively crafting new ways to care for the whole person and community. Wellness initiatives will now be informed by and amplify priorities of DEI, CSR, Talent and L&D. L+D will now adopt an inclusive/ social/ wellness/ culture-forward pedagogy. Talent, workforce planning, policies for hiring, performance management, promotion and compensation will include culture, DEI and learning goals. DEI strategies will address more than biases and behavior change, but are also woven into product development, marketing, culture, learning, and wellness. It’s still too early to tell the results, but at least they are asking the right questions and thinking holistically, systemically and socially. Before we explore the particulars of what it looks like when the pendulum swing towards the bison, let’s do a thorough audit of where the pendulum is starting from. Of course, most organizations are somewhere in between the eagle and bison, however its illustrative to explore where we've come from and where we're headed. Eagle @Work Although HR folks are, in general, incredibly thoughtful, kind, self-aware and compassionate, the systems and culture in which they operate are paternalistic, individualistic, allopathic and dehumanizing, echoing the paternalism and exploitation that our settler colonialist nation had/s towards First Nations' people and those we enslaved. Employees are regarded selfish, interchangable children who leave everything important to them, e.g., their love lives, souls, families, communities, faiths, and nation, and that impacts their life, e.g., ongoing socioeconomic dynamics such as flat wages, skyrocketing housing and transportation costs, police brutality, climate change, income inequality, political corruption, and systemic sexism and racism, at the door to the office or zoom room. Eagle HR has spent the last 30 years attempting individual interventions to address collective failures. It assumes that if we’re uneducated, we simply need to learn information from superior beings - experts and trainers. If we’re unwell, a pill, program, app or therapist is the answer. It assumes there is nothing unique about any of us, that we are tabula rasa, a blank slate, without any endemic purpose. This results in insecurity about our worth and value to the company. It has us hedge our bets, play cover your ass (CYA), put in face time and withhold our best ideas and dissenting opinions for fear of losing our income, housing and healthcare. It has us see our efforts as insufficient, our emotions as bad, our failings as moral and personal, and ourselves as always needing to work hard, or at least maintain the appearance of working hard. As you might imagine, a people strategy so deeply dehumanizing, does not serve us well and is marked by high levels of stress, burnout, disengagement and employee turnover. Let’s get out our magnifying glass and see what’s going function by function: Eagle Learning and Development Eagle L+D treats us as individual students who learn from experts in live or virtual classrooms. We are given information and are tested on it. We pass or fail and sometimes we get a certificate or badge to put on our intranet or LinkedIn profile. Unfortunately, we forget 90% of everything we have learned within 7 days (PLoS One, 2015), so it is fair to say that a great portion of the $446B global L+D spend (Beroe, 2019) is wasted. Further, eagle L+D allocates resources in an elitist fashion, with cheap and boring e-learning for frontline employees (who are typically more female and diverse) and expensive training programs, off-sites and 1:1 coaching for executives and high-potential leaders (who are typically more male and white), and thereby edifying existing inequities. Eagle Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Eagle DEI typically includes hiring quotas, mentoring, ERG’s, anonymous reporting systems, and one-time bias and discrimination trainings. It separates diverse populations into ERG’s, creating insular personal networks (MIT, 2021) and edifies the pattern of othering, secrecy and mistrust between groups. It also typically has the same ethos of treating people like children who are behaving or performing poorly. Underlying assumptions include:
While mentoring is desired by, and impactful for, diverse candidates, it actually reduces their tenure (MIT, 2021). Eagle DEI does indeed educate people, but because it is not centered in purpose, folks don’t see inclusion as an expression of their purpose, but rather as something exogenous to it. It also doesn’t create high-trust connections between diverse people, so it produces conscious and unconscious resistance to diverse groups and DEI initiatives as a whole. As we’ve explored, the $8 billion DEI spend (McKinsey, 2017) has resulted in neutral to negative outcomes over the last 2 decades, wasting $8B per year and millions of hours of people’s time every year. Eagle Culture The eagle way of developing culture is not to develop culture. It’s frequently ignored and when it is acknowledged, it is an afterthought or deprioritized. Sure, ice cream socials, holiday parties, volunteering, townhalls and happy hours do have some benefits. They are excellent opportunities to take a break from the routine, and when done well, are a great way to recognize people’s contributions and foster common purpose. However, these rarely involve intentional relationship development beyond ice breakers like “two truths and lie”, treasure hunts, three-legged races and bingo. But relationships do indeed form at work and culture does indeed develop - “wherever two or more are gathered”. Without being explicitly addressed and cultivated, insular packs form around the lowest common denominators of race, gender, and sexuality, similarity bias, grievance, passive-aggressiveness and nepotism. All you have to do is stand up on a chair at your next company event and observe who is talking to whom. White sales folks talking to white marketing folks. Asian engineers talking to Asian engineers. Black customer service reps talking to black customer service reps. HR ladies talking to HR ladies. And those with the most power holding court in the corner with their HiPos (folks designated as high potential). This results in a culture of disparate tribes, resistance to change, and edifying existing exclusionary power dynamics (Journal of Personal and Social Psychology, 2002). Moreover, the role "office mom" is typically not part of anyone’s title, so it gets assumed by or "voluntold" to lower status folks (New York Times, 2021). Typically these are white women, who add these responsibilities onto their already packed schedules and unbalanced workloads. Without any time, staff or budget to think it through, at best it gets done quickly and expressing the tastes (food, music, activities) and unconscious biases of the white women in charge, further edifying the dynamic that culture doesn’t matter, because it’s done poorly, driven by someone with relatively low status, and/or it doesn’t include everyone, especially remote workers. This dynamic is part of what causes remote workers to have 50% fewer work friends than workers in offices (Olivet Nazarene, 2018). At its worst, this becomes an opportunity for "office moms" to send the shit downhill by allocating budgets for Fourth of July activities, but none for Juneteenth or Pride, for Christmas and Hanukkah activities, but none for Diwali, Eid or Kwanza. Eagle Wellness The ethos of eagle wellness is “Work is hell. Eat some broccoli, exercise, take a pill and get back to work.” It is reflective of our allopathic sickcare industry, that addresses the symptoms of our atomized, poorly/micro-managed, soulless and dehumanizing workplaces. It labels and stigmatizes mental illness, psychological languishing and physical illness, and produces a culture of denial and victim-blaming. It treats the crisis of connection and fulfilling work as an individual failure. It assumes if we are not healthy and happy, we are broken, and unable to take the pressure. So, it doles out tips, tools, podcasts, apps, hacks and pills to get us back on the job, but doesn’t give us what we actually need to cure our malaise, burnout, loneliness and languishing - purpose and belonging. Research shows that individual interventions designed to increase happiness and improve mental health may actually make us more lonely (Mauss, et al, 2012) and unhappy (Mauss, et al, 2011). In this way, eagle wellness is indistinguishable from an agricultural veterinarian, whose job is to make us just well enough to be exploited. As work and money are the top causes of stress (Statista, 2017), it should be no surprise that few turn to their abuser for comfort. Despite 97% of us being unhealthy (Mayo, 2017) and 84% of us being stressed (APA, 2021), and our great need for support, only 24% of us make use of wellness benefits (Gallup, 2015). Although a handful of great, award-winning wellness programs exist that are part of a holistic culture of purpose, transformation, connection and health, most wellness programs face the Sisyphean task of marshaling comparatively little time, power and budget to combat the perfect storm of hyperindividualism, overwork, and inequity. The eagle way doesn’t work, and likely never has. To make matters worse, the pandemic exacerbated many of these dynamics. According to a June 2021 Gartner study (Gartner, 2021):
Of course, like nearly all dynamics in our nation, women, children and communities of color were disproportionately impacted. Despite poverty rates reaching all-time lows because of pandemic assistance, those who are most vulnerable suffer the most, e.g.,
As I mentioned, most HR folks are generally kind, inclusive and heart-centered, and there are multiple bright spots, swinging L+D, DEI, wellness and culture pendulum towards the bison. So this isn’t an indictment of HR professionals, but rather an indictment of the manner in which the eagle pervades our business logic, our corporate structures and people processes. It’s an indictment of the logic that says systems are not to blame for systemic issues. It’s a rebuke of victim-blaming that results from throwing apps and intranet tips at systemic problems. This is a call to end the madness. If our nation didn’t have a noble purpose to be a place of flourishing, equity and unity, to be a democratic and multicultural beacon for the world, we could avoid responsibility for this systemic oppression and chalk it up to “man’s inhumanity to man”. But we do indeed have a noble purpose, so treating people in this way, lacks moral imagination and is out of integrity with our nation's purpose. It’s time for the bison. Instead of treating people like selfish children and then blaming them for perishing in a toxic culture; Instead of driving people apart through elitist and ineffective L+D approaches that presume there is nothing unique about people and ignores the transformative power of purpose; Instead of driving people apart through anonymous reporting systems, paternalistic mentoring programs and one-time compliance trainings; Instead of driving people apart by allowing similarity bias to ensconce geographic, racial and political tribes; and Instead of driving people who suffer mentally and physically into shame and isolation by telling them they are on their own to fix their broken selves with apps, pills and therapy, Let’s treat them like adults with souls, families and communities; let’s bring them together, empower them to activate their purpose at work and nurture their shared humanity. Bison @Work To do this, we must think holistically and get at the source of what people need to flourish - meaning, connection, care, and believing they matter and are apart of something that matters. The bison way is one relationships versus the eagle's outputs, of covenants versus the eagle's contracts. It is about establishing our personal covenant with our unique purpose, and with each other around a shared mission. It is the way of nurturing a healthy culture where each of us can activate and fulfill our purpose and enjoy rich connections with each other. We must avail ourselves to the research and an emerging set of best practices, which we'll explore in greater detail in the next chapter, to come together to serve an aligned vision, empowering cross-functional teams to achieve common goals and objectives, and actively nurturing care, trust and autonomy. This means multiple business and people metrics. No single business unit or function can address belonging, inclusion, productivity, flourishing, innovation, wellness, employee engagement or attraction/retention. They all must align in order to create true systemic and culture change. With this orientation and the powerful mechanisms for unleashing purpose and belonging at scale, let’s imagine how the bison way could look and feel by function: Bison Learning and Development Work is a source of community, self-discovery, fulfillment, and professional growth. People view their organization as a place where they activate their purpose, belong, continually learn, do their best work and develop authentic relationships with diverse peers. Learning is sourced in purpose and values, happens in the flow of work versus at an offsite or in a classroom. It’s delivered in an egalitarian fashion, where people at each level in the organization, in the office, cafe or at home, come together to activate their purpose and values at work. Because it is delivered over time, the concepts and skills are reinforced, build upon each other, are translated into action and are retained in the relationships as norms and habits as institutional knowledge. Bison DEI Work is compassionate, inclusive and forgiving. It doesn’t punch white people on the nose and label them as racists. Rather, inclusion is baked into everything the company does, from people development to culture to product development to sales to finance to marketing. As purpose, empathy and inclusion are the foundation for diverse relationships, collaboration, hiring, development and promotion, diverse peers learn skills together, share their experiences, purpose and values, empathize with and respect each other, and form diverse, lasting and authentic relationships. Bison Culture Work is a fun and authentic community. People feel like they belong, can bring their whole self to work, and genuinely like the people they work with. Peers across differences and departments regularly learn together and develop a sense of the organization’s mission, history, structure and the interdependence of the various departments and geographies. They each activate and share their purpose and values and find their unique connection to the organization’s mission and values, resulting in a 333% increase in alignment with the organization’s mission (Kumanu/Harris, 2021), 50% more meaningful work relationships (Imperative, 2016) and 7.4 month increase in tenure (BetterUp, 2019). The result is a dynamic culture and 3x return to shareholders (McKinsey & Co., 2020). We recognize the transformative power of relationships and the healing power of community. We nurture relationships as the foundation of leadership, learning, inclusion, culture, and health. We cherish our relationships and lean on them, as they are an endless well that heals many forms of suffering. They are the foundation of our joy, growth, comfort and laughter. Bison Wellness Work makes us happy and healthy. Research suggests that nurturing thick culture through connection, caring and contribution is the key to social and emotional health (Ford, et al, 2015). When peers develop high-trust relationships with each other, they share their fears and anxieties (96%), and discover new perspectives on their challenges (94%) (Peele, Asbaty, 2020). The deep connections and check-ins in their peer groups empower them to complete their stress cycles and avoid burnout (Nagoski & Nagoski, 2019). Especially in light of the trauma related to the pandemic and racial justice movement / white backlash, group / interpersonal interventions can be a meaningful driver of post-traumatic growth (Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 2021). By activating their purpose, they improve their emotional regulation (+538%) and resilience (+529%) (Kumanu/Harris, 2021), resulting in 32% fewer doctor’s visits and 61% fewer hospital overnights (Harvard, 2014). These diverse relationships also empower social integration, a powerful driver of longevity resulting in employee life spans that are 10% longer, and increasing the likelihood that employees reach the age 85 by 41% (Journals of Gerontology, 2020). When combined with the 7+ year longevity bump from purpose (Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine, 2008), together we upper reaches of longevity and vitality. Guided by the Bison
With a powerful, dieable why, a clearly communicated vision, a culture of purpose, belonging and autonomy, work now has the potential to re-humanize us and drive national renewal. Guided by the bison, we shape business units as communities. We develop roles and souls. We build a legacy via our products and customer success. It begins and ends with people - people on purpose and in deep relationship to each other and the power to create and experiment. It is mutual concern and common cause. It is recognizing that for any of us to win, we all have to belong and co-create. Before the pandemic this may have sounded like warm fuzzy platitudes, however in the stark relief of the pandemic, the bison has revealed itself as essential, as food for our souls and the soul of the nation. With this picture of where you and your organization might be headed if you choose to be guided by the bison, let’s take a deeper dive into the twin drivers of flourishing: purpose and belonging. Chapter 5 Summary:
Chapter 5 Reflection Questions:
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“Maybe that works for y’all out in California, but we’re sitting on a powder keg right now.”
I was talking with a friend of mine who is the head of DEI of a 300,000+ person global technology company. “How do you mean?” I inquired. “We’ve got All Lives Matter MAGA folks here. Good people who do a great job, but who create this constant political hostility and resistance to anything DEI. We can’t put them in a training with people of color. It’ll re-traumatize folks. They’ll leave, I’ll miss my DEI targets, and then I’ll have to leave. I’m already seeing disproportionately high early retirements and leaves of absence for women and people of color. If we start a big culture change effort, I think it will only get worse.” And she was right, it was July of 2020 and the political tension and racial unrest was at a fever pitch. She knew she had to do something beyond providing mental health resources and public statements, and that even a public statement was going to kick the All Lives Matter hornets’ nest. This is because no American likes being told what to do or what to believe or how to feel, especially by those with more education, wealth and power. Historically, DEI, with its unconscious bias trainings, anti-discrimination trainings, anonymous reporting systems, employee resource groups (ERGs), and hiring quotas, has had an elitist, corrective and shaming feel. This has resulted in many white folks consciously resisting or tuning it out and subconsciously deepening the sense of feeling attacked and the need to settle a score. As we explored, the field of DEI has failed to deliver positive outcomes in hiring, retention and promotion of diverse candidates over the last two decades. So introducing new or expanded DEI efforts at any time, given this history, is a giant risk. In the wake of multiple videos documenting the murders of BIPOC folks by police, a summer of protests and one of the most consequential elections in American history, that risk just expanded 10x. However, there is hope. If there is any silver lining in 2020, it is that it shook the tree of liberty, and a bunch of aspiring white allies fell out to defend it. That certainly happened to me and Mike, my conservative CEO friend. We were part of 2020’s bumper harvest of justice and equity co-conspirators. Many of us deepened our learning, reading “White Fragility” and “How To Be An Anti-racist”, formed book clubs, joined ERGs as allies, took allyship trainings, joined our local SURJ Chapter (Showing Up for Racial Justice), donated to organizations like Black Lives Matter (BLM), National Association for the Advancement of Colored Peoples (NAACP), and the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) and took to the streets alongside our BIPOC friends and family. Unfortunately, much of this allyship harvest rotted on the truck. Most of it was short lived. Public support for Black Lives Matter jumped dramatically to 67% in June of 2020, up from 43% in 2016 (Pew, 2016). However, it then fell to 55% by September of 2020 (Pew, 2020) and then 50% by March of 2021 (USA Today / Ipsos, 2021). Equally illustrative are the empty promises of corporations. They promised to spend $50 billion on racial justice initiatives in 2020, but by March of 2021, less than $250 million (0.5%) had been spent or committed (FT, 2021). Further, the March 2021 USA Today / Ipsos poll suggests that support for racial justice among white people may have already fallen below 2019 levels. What’s telling is that support for BLM is at 88% among white Democrats and 16% for white Republicans (Pew, 2020) and that 91% of all Democrats say black people face a lot of discrimination in American society versus 42% of Republicans (American Survey Center, 2020). This suggests that the topics of diversity, race, equity, and inclusion are likely to ignite these deeper racial/partisan identities and further aggravate the wound. My friend was right, DEI is indeed risky business. While some white folks opened their hearts and began the journey to allyship, many dug their heels in. Regardless of whether we actually increased support for healing our genocides and apartheid, what's clear is that we cannot keep doing the same things and expect different result. Whether its being proactive with more bias trainings and diversity hiring programs, or denial, something has to change. Help isn't coming from churches, school or Washington. It's on us, and the stakes are higher than ever. Death to the Tyrants! Unfortunately, our political and racial tribalism isn't merely one of catty clicks and scornful frowns. Many believe that the other side should suffer and die. 54% of us believe our fellow Americans are the biggest threat to our country (CBS News, 2021). 33% of us now justify the use of violence for political gains (American Enterprise Institute, 2021), with 15% of Democrats and 20% of Republicans believing it would be a good thing if a bunch of folks on the other side just died (Kalmoe, 2019). This is the powder keg my friend was talking about. Workers who feel culture, race and/or politics play a role in them being passed over for promotion or in their dismissal could resort to violence. Of course, this threat wouldn’t be such an issue if AR-15’s and ammonium nitrate were not so easily accessible. Obviously, this is way more than a business risk. It’s more than people not getting along, or not wanting to collaborate with or promote diverse colleagues. This deep tear in the moral fabric of society is a risk to our bodies, minds, souls and democratic institutions. ... In the summer of 2020, my wife and I wanted to show solidarity with the BIPOC community in San Diego. Like many folks, we painted our windows and put up a Black Lives Matter sign in our yard. After a few weeks, our sign was defaced, so we fixed it. Shortly thereafter, we learned that a neighbor had taken a photo of our home and posted it along with our address on the Instagram feed @DarkNightSD. He had public discussions about bringing death to the tyrants and forming a militia to take us out, along with the other homes in our area voicing BLM support. Let me repeat - he wanted to take us OUT. I reported it to the San Diego Police Department. I had proof of @DarkNightSD being linked to the personal account of my neighbor, which also showed him marching at Trump rallies without a mask. After I told the dispatcher what had happened, and described the evidence I had in my phone, she said, “So what did these Black Lives Matter people do to you again?” I was shocked. Had she not heard anything I said? How could she think this white supremacist had anything do with Black Lives Matter supporters? Three hours later, two units showed up and I told them what had happened. I offered to show them the evidence in my phone and they declined to look at it. Instead they invited me to take down the signs. They told me there is violence and intimidation on both sides of the issue. Both sides of what I wondered? Then it clicked for me why the dispatcher thought it was BLM supporters who were suspected. It was clear that SDPD viewed BLM negatively, and it was likely that their sources of information were the same ones painting BLM as a domestic terror organization - which is literally the opposite of what it is - an organization to mobilize support for stopping the terror rendered upon communities of color by police and white nationalists. I was advised to report the incident to the FBI, which I did. A friend at the Department of Justice talked to her friends working on domestic terrorism (covertly of course, as the Trump administration officially ignored it and allocated no resources to stopping it). I learned that politically and racially motivated domestic terror incidents are popping up all over the country, such as the blue dots spray painted on the curbs of Biden supporters in Roseville, California (Independent, 2020) to the lynchings in Palmdale, California (NYT, 2020) to the nooses in Connecticut (NYT, 2021). She also told me that nothing was going to happen about it unless there was a change in the DOJ’s policy on domestic terrorism. ... However, there is only so much the government can do. And as the surveys reveal, many of us likely have family and friends inclined towards the use of violence, even if they’ve never said anything about it to us. We also are clear that this is the beginning of something far worse. 51% of us expect an increase in violence (CBS News, 2021), 71% of us believe democracy itself is in jeopardy (CBS News, 2021), and 93% of us recognize that our hatred for each other is a problem (Civility in America, 2019). We are perhaps in what Boston University professor and former Reagan administration State Department Official, Angelo Codevilla, has called a “cold civil war.” We need only recall the Rwandan genocide to see how quickly things can escalate from cold to hot, from disinformation and hate speech to genocide and war. There were months and months of vitriol on the radio, while tens of thousands of machetes were quietly distributed. Then the long-waited for cue, “Kill the cockroaches”, came over the radio. Within the next 100 days, 500,000 to 1,100,000 Rwandans were dead. It wasn't that long ago that our nation tore itself apart over our differing views on race. 750,000 of us died in the Civil War, representing 2.5% of the population. If 2.5% of our nation died today, that would be 7 million deaths. Was the 1/6 insurrection a dry run for Civil War II, like Hitler's 1923 failed coup? It is hard to say. But what is clear is that polarization and racial animus aren’t just harmless societal trends. Nor do they operate independently from the economy. They are enmeshed in the economy. These people are our investors, employees and customers. Many of us see the news, and assume this is only happening to other people, or in other states, not to us or near us. There are 838 registered hate groups in the United States (Southern Poverty Law, 2020). The odds are good that there is one near you and that your organization counts their members as investors, employees or customers. These are the people representing your brand, holding your shares, servicing your customers and buying your products. As it turns out, our vicious cycle of media hyperbole, social outrage and political entrenchment, has significant economic consequences as well. According to a Harvard Business School Faculty Report, political dysfunction is the #1 barrier to our nation’s economic competitiveness (HBS, 2016). It’s clear our approaches to culture, such as DEI, must be re-envisioned in the wake of this deep and increasingly violent tribalism. Like everything else pre-pandemic, pre-George Floyd’s murder and pre-insurrection, how could it not evolve? When even the words “diversity”, “equity” and “inclusion” raise the hairs on the backs of many white necks, we must address inequity and racism with more than a frontal DEI approach, e.g., mandatory one-time trainings, hiring quotas, etc. We can’t keep punching resistant white folks on the nose with it - it just doesn’t work. It never did. We have to treat the problem holistically and systematically. To do so, we must get at the root of the tribalism that endangers our organizations, social and racial progress and descecrating our sacred nation purpose. To do it will be helpful to understand what brought us to this point. How did we get here? It’s a mix of loneliness, hyperindividualism, mistrust and lack of purpose. As we explored in chapter 2, individualism has been part of our identity and culture since the 1800's. However, in 1960’s, we threw gas on the fire, each of us coming to believe that we are on our own, and not connected to anything larger than ourselves. As we’ve explored, we have few close friends, we don’t trust our neighbors, and our participation in faith communities is on a multi-decade decline. Because of our social isolation, the eagle / bootstraps / rugged individualist myth and the endless opportunities to disconnect from people to turn to screens, we feel increasingly distant from our friends, families, neighbors, community, workplace, faith and nation. The result is that we are conditioned to believe that we are on our own to get our needs met, to find meaning and purpose, and succeed. And if we fail, it's our fault. For Boomers coming of age in the 1960’s and 1970’s, this individualism initially came with greater freedom, fulfillment, pleasure, prosperity and self-expression. They no longer had to live like their WWII / Spanish Flu / Depression-era parents, who were bound by duty, faith, prudence, hard work, self-sacrifice and restraint. They could love how they wanted, study what they wanted, smoke a joint, ditch their bras, drive a cool car, listen to rock’n’roll, choose their own path and be far more self-expressed than their parents. While this yielded many benefits for society, it also had a dark side. By the 1980’s, greed was considered good, big was better, and gas was cheap. More champagne, more coke, more of everything, and it was ok because everyone was doing it. With the exception of a few hundred Freedom Riders and a few thousand college kids who protested in the 60’s, nothing really bound this generation together. It was everyone for themselves - liberty in overdrive. The children of Boomers - latchkey Gen X kids like me, millennials like my wife and zenials like my cousins -, came of age in this individualistic and consumerist culture. With no moral code and no genuine elders (remember many of our Boomer parents are pleasure seekers who take no responsibility for the impacts they have on others or future generations), we grew up watching our leaders burn the planet, raise tuition, kill unions and flatten wages. Although we have an abundance of choice, we lack moral clarity, common cause, life direction, and the faith that we will have a prosperous future. As mentioned we are not just confused and alone, but 67% of us are unfulfilled (Imperative, 2016), 75% of us are distrustful of our government (Pew, 2020), 84% of us are stressed (APA, 2021) and 97% of us are unhealthy (Mayo, 2017). Amplifying this fear, disconnection, resignation, resentment and confusion is the political and media landscape that peels us off into ideological eddies claiming to explain and blame away our problems. Initially, this individualism, meaninglessness and isolation was good for business, as the core human needs for purpose and belonging that were traditionally met by family, friends, community service, religion, farm life and war, could now be readily, although not substantially nor sustainably, sold back to us via an ever increasing menu of consumer goods and experiences. However, as we explored previously, it has been taken to a shameful extreme. Combined with the last four decades of flat wages, we have become increasingly unable to buy ourselves back any of the meaning, connection and wholeness that we so deeply need. Stripped of a social identity, deprived of genuine elders, and a shared moral code, we turn to anything to help us feel like we matter and belong. Increasingly, this void is being filled by racial and political tribalism and easily accessible firearms. Extremists pray on the lonely, poor and marginalized. As Hannah Arendt revealed in The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), the source of political fanaticism is loneliness and spiritual emptiness: “Loneliness is the common ground of terror.” Extremists give people a common enemy to blame for their suffering. Grievance becomes common cause. We are experiencing what is called the footballification of culture - my team is perfect, good and divine, and yours is a bunch of immoral, selfish and untrustworthy animals. I will defend my team to the death, especially if it means yours. How We Can Heal Our last chance against this deluge of danger, despair, disarray, dehumanization, and democratic collapse is the organization. Work is now how many people try to get the majority of their needs met - income, healthcare, meaning, connection, growth and achievement. It is the plow, ale house, church, and hospital rolled up into one. While I think most of us would want it to be otherwise - having a fulfilling career, with affordable quality healthcare disentangled from work, and a shorter and flexible work week with time for friends, family, the outdoors, religion and civic engagement-, it is what is so right now. As such, work has become the epicenter of all that is good and bad about our nation's culture. Which is also to say that corporate leaders are responsible for what continues to be good and bad about it. And with the clarity about what we know to be missing - purpose, belonging, connection and common cause - we have an incredible opportunity for reckoning, repair, redemption and resurrection. We have an opportunity to lead our nation into the bison era and establish a meaningful legacy. In times of peace, as leaders we have to look at the data dispassionately, assess the risk and opportunities and invest our time and resources wisely in accordance with our purpose. In times of crisis, however, we must not only take wise and purposeful action, but swift, substantial and sustained action. This is a time of crisis - we are unwell, impoverished, angry and heavily armed. 46% of us own guns and there are a total of 393 million guns in the U.S. (Small Arms Survey, 2018). We mobilized our economy once to defeat Hitler. We must now do so again to prevent a second civil war. As my friend, Renee Smith of Make Work More Human observed, this is our economy's Apollo 13 moment. She referenced (Smith, 2021) a scene from of my favorite movies, "Apollo 13", when Mission Control realized that the astronauts would not survive unless they rebuilt the C02 filter mid-flight. This is what needs to be done. Our flight plans from 2019 and even from 2020 and 2021 are dead. Organizations are hemorrhaging diverse talent, erasing the last 6 years of gains for women (McKinsey, 2021), people want to be fulfilled and belong at work, cultures are in atrophy, stress is at an all-time high (84%, APA 2021), supply chains are disrupted, democratic institutions are crumbling, extreme weather is decimating our communities, and customers want purpose-driven, carbon-neutral products and living wages paid to workers. It's time to accept these new design constraints, dump all our tools, our purpose, our values and our assets on the table and rebuild the entire business from the ground up. So how about that purpose of yours? Do you hear the call? Do you feel responsible for the health, safety and well-being of the people in your care? Before we dive into how you can transform your organization, let’s look at what's on the table, what’s working, what’s broken and what could be next for you, your people and your organization. Chapter 4 Summary:
Chapter 4 Reflection Questions:
“I’d use a 3 or a 4-iron,” I said to Mr. Bernstein, the member I was caddying for at L.A. Country Club.
“Gimme the 4,” he responded. (thwack) His ball bounced just before the green and rolled to 10 feet from the pin. “Nice shot.” “Thanks.” I handed him his putter for our long walk to the green. “What sort of work you looking for?” He asked, knowing that I had an MBA and caddying likely wasn’t my dream job. “I’m not sure yet. I’m trying to find a way to shift our culture, so I think it’s in media production, because that is a big part of what shapes us. But I really can’t be sure.” “Why not just get a job in finance or marketing at a studio and start there? Should be easy for someone with your credentials.” “Yeah, you’re probably right. And I would put a bullet in my head if I was responsible for the next Fast and Furious. It’s gotta make a difference.” It was the Summer of 2004. I had just completed my MBA at Columbia and was making $15 an hour reviewing scripts and answering phones for a talent agent in an effort to learn the production side of the media business. To make ends meet, I caddied on the weekends. I lived in a 2-bedroom apartment with two other 20-somethings and their 5 cats. My “room” was the living room, where I had a mattress on the floor and my clothes in banker’s boxes, which turned out to be perfect places for the cats to leave turds. So why would a former country club member, with a background in investment banking and tech startups, an Ivy League MBA and $150k in student loans make these choices? At Columbia, I had taken a powerful self-awareness program that oriented me towards having a career of purpose and impact and leaving a legacy. For me, there was no looking back. Through the exercises, readings and close friendships I developed in that program, I came to the view that my life couldn’t just be about success, prestige, pleasure or acceptance, but self-expression and service. I needed to pay forward the tremendous privileges I had received and the talents I had developed. Unfortunately, I didn’t yet know how to do that. All I knew was that if I followed the money and went back to Wall Street or Silicon Valley, I wouldn’t find out. I knew there was something inside, that I had a great work within me, but without any wizened elders at my side, I was on my own to sort it out. I needed to find my way to what Dr. King called a "complete life", a legacy that had length, width and height:
Over the next several years, I hired therapists and coaches and sat in men’s circles. I participated in numerous spiritual, personal and leadership development programs, read hundreds of books, made trips to India and Latin America, went on meditation retreats, worked with plant medicines and wandered through Burning Man camps. It wasn’t until 2011, that I had the good fortune to experience purpose discovery work first hand, and find actual clarity about my purpose, the “why” I would give my life to. Those 7 years between 2004 and 2011 weren’t easy. There were gurus and charlatans. There was heartbreak, failure, rejection, loneliness and shame. There were false starts in media, renewable energy, education and non-profits. But something within me kept going. I knew I had a reason to live that was bigger than myself or my family. I knew that my life had to be for something, and that if I relented, if I gave up, I couldn’t live with myself. So I kept putting one foot in front of the next, hoping the next job, course, book, guru or ceremony would crack me open to the path to wholeness, to a complete life with length, width and height. Since February, 2012, when my purpose revealed itself, I’ve devoted myself to making this journey easier, more accessible, connected and scalable, so that no one will ever need to wander alone again. That’s at the heart of my writing, teaching, community and work in the world. But this isn’t about me. It’s about you, the reason you’re here, the very thing you will give the remainder of your life to - your legacy. Your legacy is your gift to your people. It's the sum total of your existence poured into works. You will need access to it in order to change your own leadership behaviors. It's the foundation of believability. It is what inspires others to join you. Folks need to get the sense that it not only matters to you, but that you are the person to do because it is a source of personal salvation, redemption and service to the greater good. They need to get that you're willing to lose it all in service. Without this connection, the “empathy, community, and shared purpose“ (McKinsey & Co., 2015) required to innovate and transform, nothing will change in your organization. People want to see a brighter future, feel a sense of solidarity, and know they are guided by someone who really cares for them, the company culture and their impacts on society and the planet. Without a connection to their legacy, a person is at best a manager. With an awareness of their legacy and the clear connection between it and the company’s mission (who the company is for its customers, employees, community and planet), they have earned the right to lead. It's important to note, that your legacy is not the same thing as your company's mission. It's both more personal and bigger than that. So what is your legacy? And how do you encounter it? There are several well known instances when a legacy appeared and the real story of a life and an enterprise are revealed, such as Patagonia founder, Yvon Chouinard’s awakening to his - to empower people to make contact with their true selves through nature, or Interface Carpet CEO, Ray Anderson’s awakening to creating planet positive flooring. Volumes have been written on these encounters (and many more) and their resulting organizational transformations, including: The Soul of a Business (1993), Good to Great (2001), Firms of Endearment (2003), Let My People Go Surfing (2005), Reinventing Organizations (2014), An Everyone Culture (2016). Notice I use the words “encounter”, “appeared”, “revealed” and “awakening”. A legacy is not decided upon, nor can it be outsourced to marketing, nor guessed at by an expensive consulting firm. It is an encounter with your soul. Although this encounter can be facilitated with outside help, by people who ask good questions and hold space for revelation, it comes from within a leader's heart and soul. It can appear mid-sentence in a meeting. It can just as easily erupt in the shower, on a walk, or over breakfast with your kids. But it cannot be decided upon. It must arrive as a revelation, as an incandescent truth that was always there right in front of you. When it is revealed, two things happen. The first is that feels a little obvious, like a coherent pattern that emerged from the data you've been staring at for years - “of course, that’s what I’ve been doing this whole time.” The second is a religious conversion, of feeling something sacred erupt inside you as new energy to incarnate your legacy, let it guide your leadership. It shapes how you do business, communicate, develop people, shepherd culture, deliver for your customers, capitalize your company and serve the community and earth’s ecology. This is why every conversation about culture change begins with someone on fire. My hope is that seeing yourself as a steward of your people’s flourishing and our nation’s purpose, and making an impact you can be proud of is part of your legacy. My greatest hope for you is that you die a good death… With gratitude, tenderness, fulfillment and a sense of legacy completed… With the bone deep knowledge that you did what you came here to do... Surrounded by those you love, and... Able to look your grandkids in the eyes and honestly tell them “I did everything I could to make this world better for you”. Your access to your legacy and a noble death is to bring forth what is inside of you and your enterprise, and take it out into the world as an act of service. Numerous traditions have provided us similar guidance, e.g., “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” - Jesus Christ, Gospel of Thomas “It is better to strive in one’s own dharma [fate, purpose, legacy] than to succeed in the dharma of another. Nothing is ever lost in following one’s own dharma… The ignorant work for their own profit... the wise work for the welfare of the world, without thought for themselves... Perform all work carefully, guided by compassion.” - Krishna, Bhagavad Gita "To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." - e.e. cummings Before you can be clear on your legacy, we need to know what legacy actually means. Even among trained purpose practitioners, answers somewhat vary. Below is how I hold it. Def. legacy
Now legacy is much more than this, as I’ve explored in my previous book, Planet on Purpose, e.g., its also fun and spacious, creative and sensual, etc., but this is the part that matters right now, because without it, you cannot lead your organization into a purposeful future, nor steward the sacred purpose of our nation. So what is it? We're looking for what is yours to give your life to and die for. As Malcolm X said, “If you’re not ready to die for it, put freedom out of your vocabulary.” Same with your legacy. It has to bleed. It's not your kids, their college funds or your reputation. It's not a hobby. It's found in your suffering. Your access to fulfilling this destiny is through the transformation of your suffering into wisdom, creativity, care and service. You are on the path of “follow your blisters”, as Michael Meade declared, and that means leading from a place sourced in your heartbreak, in your weakness, pain and loss. This means standing naked before the largest entity you hold dear, e.g., God, Source, the Universe, Life, etc., with your deepest heartbreak in your left hand and all your gifts, virtues, experiences, capital, and relationships in your right. It’s you saying, “Take me. Use me. Let’s do this. I’m tired of half-measures and simple pleasures. I’m ready. I’m here to fulfill my legacy or die trying.” It’s likely you already know or could generate a quick inventory about what’s in your right hand. But can you tell me what’s in your left? Before you move any further into this book / your journey as a leader, there has to be something at stake, something you’re willing to change everything for. So what is it? For me, it’s sourced in not ever being good enough for my dad. I never felt seen, like my gifts and talents mattered. I received affection and praise only insomuch as I mirrored my father’s values and aspirations. I was denied affection and shamed when I shared the contents of my soul - my creativity, my femininity, my values and aspirations. Well-intentioned as he was, this left me a fraud, a prostitute, a machine who performed for his praise. Behind the facade of good manners and athletic, social and academic achievement, I was deeply unhappy. I know the pain of spending a quarter century trying to be someone I’m not. I know the pain of getting good at lying to myself and others. I know the pain of being dead inside. So I’m willing to die for soul, for purpose, for the right for everyone to be blessed - to have their gifts seen, accepted, developed and stood for by others. I want every person to be liberated by the dignity of their soul and fulfilled by their purpose, to know that they matter, are wanted and are blessed. Of course there are many ways this shows up. Blessing is a thread woven throughout my life. It’s not just in writing books and culture change work. It’s in my marriage, my friendships, my mentees, my racial justice work, my men’s circle, my self-care, the way I relate to children and connect with my neighbors. In this sense, legacy is the one and many, the parts and the whole, a guiding light that is equally useful in a marriage, a boardroom, and a shipwreck. For the rest of this book to be of most use to you, you need to agree that you do have a legacy, even if you’re not crystal clear on what it is right now. If you feel like you're close and would like some more clarity, I invite you to journal a few sentences for each of these prompts. Please be warned, answers to these questions will bring up painful memories and might re-traumatize you, so check-in with yourself to see if you have the energy and psychic stability to dive in. If you don’t feel ready for it or have no clue what it might be, I invite you to work 1:1 with a trained purpose practitioner (see Appendix A: Purpose Activation Resources). As a reminder, this is about you, not your organization, career or role.
Now review what you’ve written and circle the powerful and evocative phrases. What themes do you see? Any new information about your legacy? Now, you don’t need absolute clarity right now, nor understand all its implications for your career, relationships and organization. All you need right now is the awareness that something is there inside of you, some kernel of passion, aliveness and heartbreak that will transform your life and the world if you give attention to it. The next chapter, “Culture Change is a Matter of Life and Death”, we explore what is at stake in this next phase of your leadership, you might discover some new information about your legacy. Chapter 3 Summary:
Chapter 3 Reflection Questions:
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal.’ “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. “I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character…” - Martin Luther King Jr. Every nation has a dream, a code, a unifying myth, a tradition that evokes our origins, calls us to rise to our highest aspirations and live out our most cherished values. These myths, codes, symbols and heroes orient our ethics and inspire us to serve others. As we explored in the last chapter, the mythos of the eagle that currently governs life and commerce in our nation is different from Dr. King's dream - it is that of the rugged individualist (and usually white) who was destined for greatness. He overcame the odds, through wit, guile, creativity, determination, privilege (and usually more than is acknowledged), built an empire, made a name for himself and fulfilled is pre-ordained destiny. Elon Musk. Jack Nicklaus. Thomas Edison. Andrew Carnegie. Warren Buffett. Bill Gates. John Rockefeller. We praise men like these - the resource extractor, the champion, the inventor, the investor, the technology “disrupter”. The eagle is an individual bird of prey (vs. social / herd animal) who sweeps down from on high, hunts and retreats to its perch to savor the feast. Like the centralization of wealth in white families and our foreign policy, the eagle scavenges, hoards and retreats. Like the power and wealth of our nation, the bald eagle is predominantly dark on the bottom and white on top. “For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him. “With all this injustice, he is never in good case but like those among men who live by sharping & robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest…” - Benjamin Franklin This is not to take anything away from the bird, an integral part of numerous ecosystems playing an important role in regulating fish populations, and distributing nutrients from lakes and rivers to the forests. This is about how eagle mythos dominates our nation. It’s about the symbol of getting ahead, sharp elbows and leveraging every advantage to improve one’s circumstances, and minimizing responsibility, expenses and risk. It's a powerful symbol chosen by several nations and movements, e.g., Rome, Iraq, Russia, Syria, Mexico, Poland, the Czech Republic. The Nazis were also big fans. This eagle mythos carried Calvinism across the ocean into the Mayflower Compact and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, establishing white Puritans as God's chosen and divine. From the outset, First Nations people were regarded as the enemy, as the devil, as dark, lusty and sinful. As punishment for their sinful existence, Massachusetts and Connecticut began a privatized "forever war" to incentivize otherwise peaceful Christians to own slaves by awarding white men an extra 75 acres of land for every enslaved human they owned, and to burn native villages and feed stores, murder them and sell their scalps to the state. It is important to remember that these first settlers arrived after having been oppressed, marginalized and traumatized for centuries by eagle doctrines in their home countries. Monarchy and feudalism slowly degraded and homogenized the lived experience of European peoples, first by stripping them of their freedom and sovereignty. Christianity, then came for their languages, pagan gods, rituals, animist theology, and their witches. The Enlightenment finished them off by disembodying culture and relatedness, by privileging the mind and the individual over the body, nature and relationships. By the time most Europeans set sail for the new world, they had become almost entirely disconnected from nature, their bodies, animist cosmologies and anything else that might connect them to spirit, the earth or the dignity of foreign peoples. The cross, crown, reason and moral code extended only to other white Christians. The gun and hatchet were for others. When they arrived on Turtle Island, they survived in large part by paying forward their oppression, taking the fruits of the labor of the First Nations people (fields, stores, cultivated forests, roads, trade routes, systems of governance). Then through disease, starvation and war, they enacted legal and systematic genocide, resulting in 5-15 million deaths). They continued this tradition with the human trafficking / slavery / murder / rape / torture of African peoples (35 million dead Africans). Broadway was cleared by the enslaved. The wall from which Wall St. was named, the White House and the Capitol were built by the enslaved. Citi and J.P. Morgan financed the trade of the enslaved, and accepted enslaved humans as collateral. Aetna and New York Life ensured the trade. In the 1800's, our eagle's talons turned abroad, via manifest destiny, into Latin America, Africa and the South Pacific. In the early 1900's, via the "Second Great Awakening" in Christianity, the eagle set to work on our culture by further perverting Christian theology, morphing it into an evangelical individualism. It was no longer about God's chosen white people seeking refuge in white Jesus and the white community, it was now every chosen white person for themselves. Ministers, like Charles Finney and Oral Roberts, put the path to wealth and divinity in our hands, laying the foundation for the prosperity gospel of Reverend Ike's "Fake it to you make it" in black communities and Jim and Tammy Faye Baker's televangelism in the white communities. This gospel focused on the individual and the individual alone as the source of all good and bad fortune. It equated wealth with divinity and poverty with sin. It bled into our nation's two booming secular religions - consumerism and self-improvement. As we made the transition from farmer and blacksmith to financier and marketer, our deep need to produce something went unattended, so we set about producing the best versions of ourselves. As we made the transition from community member to consumer via Edwin Bernays' advertising "innovations" (translating the psychology of his uncle Sigmund Freud into irresistible subconscious messages to generate desire to fill our otherwise empty lives with goods) and the legions of Mad Men who followed him, we came to believe that goods and brands were needed for us to stand out, have worth and survive. According to the gospel of Charles Finney, Oral Roberts, to Reverend Ike, Jim and Tammy Faye Baker and Joel Ostein, the self-improvement gurus like Norman Vincent Peale, Werner Erhart, Tony Robbins, and Oprah Winfrey, and the Mad Men who dressed us for the occasion, we now had only one person to thank for anything right in our lives and one to blame for anything wrong - ourselves. If we didn't project wealth, beauty and boundless optimism, we had succumbed to the devil / limiting beliefs / loserdom. The results are are we've become self-centered eagles. A study examining the evolution of language in the United States throughout the 20th century revealed that words such as "thankfulness", "kindness", "appreciation", and "helpfulness" decreased by 56% (Kesebir & Kesebir, The Cultural Salience of Moral Character and Virtue Declined in Twentieth Century America, 2012). Additionally, the average 2009 college student scored higher in narcissism on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, than 65% of students in 1982 (Twenge, Generation Me), and 75% of college students in 2009 scored lower in empathy than the average student in 1979 (Konrad, O'Brien, 2011). "When there is no 'we' anymore... then there is no legitimate authority and no unifying basis for our continued association." -Dov Seidman (NYT, Thomas Friedman, "Where did 'We the People' Go?" Now empowerment and freedom are not a bad things at all. In a cohesive, intact and just society, where the eagle is in balance with the bison, they a great source of self-expression, individuation, actualization and community wealth. Empowerment in an eagle society (one devoid of social ties, ecological empathy and shared purpose) however, goes wrong very quickly, e.g., our two unhealed genocides, a remaining apartheid, gated white suburbs, subsistence wages, climate change, rape culture, etc. Another problem of the eagle mythos is the likelihood that it will actually bear any fruit. While the media is fascinated by the few eagles who amass gigantic fortunes, e.g., Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and escape to space, most of the time the eagle way ends in failure. 65% of new businesses fail in their first decade (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020). Because we divinize wealth and shame poverty, we blame the poor for their obvious lack of intelligence, creativity and hard work, and when it is us on the ropes we either delude ourselves into thinking that soon our ship would come in, or we give up and turn to crime or seek refuge in alcohol, drugs or God. As John Steinbeck once mused about why the labor movement had so much trouble gaining steam in the United States, "...we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist." We don't need solidarity with other oppressed peoples or government handouts, we need more hard work and a little luck to acquire the wealth needed to insulate ourselves from the cruel morality of the market. To raise the stakes in this eagle game, we gutted unions, public education and our social safety net, which disproportionately impacted our BIPOC sisters and brothers and further equated darkness with poverty with sin. The eagle way segregated our society and economy in numerous ways. As we explored, the suburbs contain a largely white managerial class of people, who own homes and employ a largely BIPOC working class of people who predominantly pay rent in the cities and exurbs - to provide them with food, goods and services. Those who live in the suburbs are largely white home owners who commute to the cities where they make their income, but do not pay taxes. The result is that suburbs have become eagle's nests, with well-funded schools and social services, smoothies, sushi, massages, gardeners, golf courses, plastic surgeons and yoga studios. Starved of tax revenue, the exurbs and cities have underfunded schools, are food deserts, epicenters of malnutrition and obesity, and continue the tradition of exiling the poor, dark and sinful to the slums and hinterlands. The necessary solidarity and revolution doesn't happen, because the bootstraps / prosperity gospel has thoroughly saturated every institution with which the poor engage (business, media, religion, education) and offers us only one path to salvation - individual achievement, wealth and status. It's not unions, protesting or Civil Rights that are needed. It's entrepreneurship and hard work. One day our ship will come in. "The world we live in is not working. We have these multifaceted crises — health crises, economic crises, societal crises, racial crises, environmental issues, geopolitical tensions. "For me, on the top of my F.B.I. most wanted list are two people. One is Milton Friedman, with his shareholder primacy — the excessive, obsessive focus on profits as the key thing that matters. And the other one is Bob McNamara, with the model of scientific, top-down management — getting a bunch of smart people, coming up with a plan, tell everyone else what to do, put incentives in place and hope something is going to work... "So much of what I learned in business school was either long dated or incomplete. The definition of madness is doing the same thing and hoping for a different outcome, so for me, there’s this urgent, urgent need to rethink the foundations of our economy." -Hubert Joly, ex-CEO, Best Buy, Harvard Business School professor, and author, "The Heart of Business" (NYT, 2021) As the eagle way de-unionized our economy beginning with Carter and Reagan, it then off-shored manufacturing to countries that offer dramatically fewer protections for labor, and fewer social benefits and environmental regulations. This resulted in stagnant median wages and job insecurity at home to cover skyrocketing housing, healthcare, education and transportation costs. The eagle way made life considerably less stable, abundant and secure for most people. And that’s just how the way of the eagle shows up on our soil. We are also eagles abroad. A reading of the last 100 years of U.S. foreign policy reveals we have done little but preach about democracy, while impoverishing other countries with expensive debt, overthrowing their legitimate governments, assassinating their leaders, installing corrupt dictators friendly to American business interests and then bullying them to sell us their labor and natural resources for pennies on the dollar. By 2021, the eagle has subjugated the will of the people in over 80 countries in all 5 continents (Wikipedia, 2021). As a finishing touch, we then appropriate and commercialize their aesthetics of their cultures, their spiritual practices (yoga), fashion (Comanche headresses at Coachella and mala beads and dashikis at brunch) and cuisine (kabobs, curries, tacos, etc.), fetishize them as noble and exotic, and then use them as props for our vacation selfies. It’s almost as if Europe’s marginalized and dehumanized classes came over here, didn’t heal any of their traumas or rediscover their own cultures or gods, robbed from and exterminated the people they encountered, and set up interlocking systems to perpetuate separation and suffering. From scalps, to slavery, to sharecropping, to Jim Crow, to lynching, to suburbs, to congested freeways, to flat wages, to contract lending, to Hoover's Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) to harass and assassinate Civil Rights leaders, to pesticides, to consumerism, to housing projects, to Superfund sites, to privatized healthcare, to rape culture, to pollution, to plastic surgery, it’s almost as if hurt people can’t do anything else but devise new ways to make a buck by hurting others. Eagles gonna eagle. There are so many wonderful things to celebrate about our country, from our democratic institutions to music to our crafts to our technology, higher education institutions and scientific achievement. However, these things exist in large part because we have taken from and exterminated others, and without remorse or fair compensation. In the same way the gilded palace halls of Buckingham and Versailles are truly extraordinary, and yet also dirty with the blood of war, murder, slavery, torture, rape and oppression, much of what is good, true and beautiful in our society was built on the backs of the enslaved and oppressed. If this make you feel bad about our country, I don’t blame you. However, feeling sadness or shame is not a bad thing - it’s natural in the face of shameful information. It’s healthy to feel remorse and shame when we and our ancestors have been complicit in hurting others. Let us use this sadness and shame to guide us back into our ideals and moral imagination. Our history would not bother us if we knew ourselves to be better than murderers, thieves, rapists and slavers. If we didn’t hold ourselves to a higher standard, reading this would produce no resistance, no knot in the pit of our stomachs. Let us remember the suffering our ancestors caused, the danger of perpetuating it through our inaction and the redemption available to us through reckoning, responsibility and repair. Let us now complete this chapter of American history and start a new one. Let us put to rest the pattern of dominating, impoverishing, hoarding, bullying, retreating, externalizing costs and avoiding the consequences of our actions. R.I.P. Eagle (1619-2020) Let us articulate a new era of collective flourishing, healing, belonging and purpose, one that calls forth our most cherished ideals and effectuates Dr. King's dream. What symbol calls us into our nation's true purpose? In a time when culture and politics have devolved into gang warfare, where even our flag and colors are polarizing (NYT, 2021), our country needs a new symbol to guide us into this new era of respect, reckoning, responsibility, and redemption. As the fates would have it, this symbol arrived under auspicious skies and bipartisan support. “We recognize the bison as a symbol of strength and unity,” Fred DuBray, Cheyenne River Sioux In 2016, as a result of a bi-partisan coalition in the House and Senate along with the InterTribal Buffalo Council and the National Bison Association, the bison became our National Mammal, but it is much more than that. It is a symbol of strength, redemption, protection, resilience, care, courage and commonwealth.
From the National Park Service: “After four years of outreach to Congress and the White House, by the Wildlife Conservation Society, its partners the InterTribal Buffalo Council and National Bison Association and 60-plus Vote Bison Coalition members, the National Bison Legacy Act was signed on May 9, 2016, officially making the bison our national mammal. This historic event represents a true comeback story, embedded with history, culture, and conservation. “To honor such an iconic and resilient species, Congress passed the National Bison Legacy Act on April 28, 2016, making the bison a U.S. symbol of unity, resilience and healthy landscapes and communities. The Act recognizes the historical, cultural, and economic importance of bison. More than 60 American Indian tribes participate in the Intertribal Buffalo Council, an organization working to help coordinate and assist tribes in returning bison back to tribal lands. Also, over one million acres of tribal land contribute to the conservation and cultural efforts of bison. Not only do bison play an important cultural role, but they also have significant economic value. Private bison producers own about 360,000 bison, creating jobs and providing a healthy meat source as well as leather and wool products to the American public. Bison also play an important ecological role, beneficially influencing prairie ecosystems through their grazing patterns and behavior. “Although the recognition does not convey new protections for the bison, the Act recognizes the great conservation success story and importance of its comeback to Native Americans and rural communities alike. This new and permanent designation conveys a vision of shared values of unity, resilience and healthy landscapes and communities. No other species is so iconic of American history and culture like the bison.” As we begin the Era of the Bison, we cannot simply say “the past is the past” and begin anew. That has never worked. People remember. People carry the wounds and injustices of the past into the present. Reckoning and reparation are required. We must take responsibility for our actions, and heal and repair the impacts of the last era. For starters, this means giving some of the stolen lands back to indigenous peoples, such as our National Parks (Atlantic, 2021), making reparations to the descendants of those we enslaved (Coates, 2014), ending the preschool to prison pipeline and beginning a restorative justice approach (Restorativeustice.org, 2021), and treating each bio-region / watershed as a living entity with rights (NPR, 2019). These may seem impossible. They are major undertakings for sure, but not impossible. Remember, we defeated the Nazis, Communists and the Confederacy. Surely, we can pull up our grown up pants, and clean up our messes. We can take responsibility for our actions, make things right and create a future of collective flourishing. The Bison Way The energy of the bison elicits something deep in our souls. It connects us to the wide open range, lush forests, rushing rivers, majestic peaks, the rising sun, a prismatic dusk and a starry sky. It calls us into relationship with wild nature, play, community and adventure. It beckons us to be grateful for natural beauty and summons us to care for all that is sacred:
So what does this mean for us? It means that we allow the bison to work on us individually, to move through us and into greater courage, care, inclusion, play, independence, interdependence, boundaries and generativity. It means we remember who we are before the eagles broke us and told us we needed to work ourselves to the bone in order to exist, stand out or matter. This doesn't mean abdicating will or purpose, but remembering that as we express them, we remember that we too are mammals and are fundamentally relational and responsive. It means we remember that we're invested with voice, emotions and neurochemicals that bind us to one another (Frans de Waal, "The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society", 2009). We evolved empathy and altruism, not pure selfishness, to survive. We are wired to connect, feel, communicate, play, relate and cooperate (Thomsello, "Why We Cooperate", 2009). It's time to accept that we are all in recovery, in a post-traumatic response to centuries of dehumanization and oppression, and individual coping mechanisms to endure it. We're all in varying stages of grief, healing and recovery. To heal from our multiple traumas and enter a period of post-traumatic growth, we must turn towards one another, and once again place care, authenticity and belonging as the primary units of measure and success. So what does this mean for you as a leader? It means we guide our organizations towards greater connection to, and care for, the commonwealth. It means we view the world and each business decision through the lens of resilience and long-term wealth, versus extraction and short-term profits. It means we must also be vigilant for the remnants of the eagle way in our thinking, marriages, families, and neighborhoods, that we find new ways to communicate, lead and do business. As Hubert Joly continued, "If you think about business by first thinking about how you want to be remembered as a human being, most of us gravitate to the golden rule — doing something good to our people. If you can connect that desire in your heart with the way you run the business, the employees will love the company. The customers will love the company." To do so means we transform our approach to our people, culture and learning. We no longer view people as an expense to be reduced, but rather as a source of long-term wealth, resilience and innovation. We no longer abdicate our responsibility for culture and well-being, but intentionally develop it. It means that we view each person as whole, with emotions, a soul, a life, family and community. It means we see each person as worthy of dignity and prosperity, that we bless the beauty of each soul, empower each person to develop a connection to their purpose and the opportunity to shape their lives and careers in its image. It means we are deliberately developmental - seeking to unlock and activate human potential within and outside of our organizations. It means we move labor from a line item expense on the income statement, something to be reduced in service of shareholder profit, to an asset on our balance sheets, something to be invested in, cultivated and treasured. It means we give as much attention to burying our dead as we do celebrating new life, by bringing care to each phase of the employee lifecycle, from new hire to leader to alumni. It means we stop our paternalistic approach to people, where we view them as selfish actors that need to be reformed, conformed, and motivated with compliance, incentives and punishments. It means we move from a talent ethos of “culture fit” towards celebrating our uniqueness as a “culture add”. It means we adopt an ethos of empowerment and connection, bringing people together to learn about themselves and each other in a safe and effective way. It means we end our reliance on one-time compliance trainings, and begin ongoing social learning experiences, of learning and authentic connection as part of the normal course of business. It means we stop our extractive and oppressive business models and practices and look to regenerative, cradle-to-cradle approaches to meet customer needs. This might sound nice and all, but if you tell your boss or board you’re doing this, they’ll fire you on the spot. People will laugh at you and your name will be Mudd. At least some part of you is thinking that. Luckily, you have more than the people, history and bison on your side. You also have the numbers. There is a solid business case for activating a culture, beginning with purpose and belonging. You can expect to realize more than $20k per person per year in additional productivity and an additional 7.4 months in average tenure (BetterUp, 2018, 2019). Given that the average tenure of an employee is about 4 years, that’s an expected gain of $80k+ per employee. Let’s say you get each of your employees a purpose and leadership coach at $6k a year - that’s a 3.3x return. Let’s say you activate purpose and belonging with small, diverse peer learning groups at $500 a year - that’s a 40x return. How many investments can you make that yield that kind of return? Economic productivity and tenure aren’t the only priorities you’ll impact by activating purpose and belonging. If you decide to take this path it will improve matters with all your key stakeholders - your investors, customers, employees. Investors
Customers
Employee Productivity, Engagement, Satisfaction and Tenure
Before we explore how to transform your organization, you're going to need a big reason, one that excites and scares you. Ch. 2 Summary:
Ch. 2 Reflection Questions:
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