Doug Sundheim's Blog, page 2

Great Leaders Bridge Divides

Originally published May 29, 2020 on Forbes

The news in Minnesota and Kentucky today is sad. Acutely for the senseless violence and killing. More broadly for the divisive mindsets and rhetoric that are fueling it, starting at the top.

Us vs Them is easy. Accentuate differences. Point out flaws. Ridicule the other. Draw battle lines.

Us and Them is tougher. Dig below differences to find common ground. Uncover the threads of humanity. See the whole person. Find the “We.” Have the courage to love and respect amidst hate.

Historically, Us vs Them thinking had a legitimate purpose. Our ancestors needed to quickly clarify the enemy so that they could more readily recognize and avoid daily threats of existential danger. It was a blunt instrument unconcerned with nuance or deep understanding, but it protected the tribe from attack or starvation. Division had a clear survival purpose.

Now that we live in a world of interconnected mutual dependency, division creates more harm than good. We still have threats of existential danger, but they’re not just tribal, they’re global, impacting all of us. Threats include disease, climate change, hunger, inequality, and poor education. The more time we spend focused on our differences, the less time we have to find solutions to these pressing complex global challenges. To move beyond outdated Us vs Them thinking we must truly hear each other and learn how to compromise together. For this we need bridge builders.

The power and potential of bridging divides was never clearer than on April 4, 1968 when Robert F. Kennedy addressed a predominately African American crowd in Indianapolis, breaking the news to them that Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot and killed. He scrapped his prepared campaign remarks and instead delivered an improvised speech that would come to be regarded as one of the greatest speeches in American History. With tensions running high and riots breaking out in several cities around the country, Kennedy’s words provided calming reassurance. In Indianapolis no riots broke out. It’s the type of leadership we need today.

A few excerpts from Kennedy’s speech:

“In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black—considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible—you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization—black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another…

… What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black…

…We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we’ve had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”

The power in Kennedy’s speech lies in its restraint. At a moment when he could have tried to rile the crowd in an effort to polarize and divide for political gain, he instead provided unity. At a moment when he could have used angry rhetoric, he chose love and compassion. And at moment when he could have avoided appearing altogether, he chose to stand amongst the people and stand up for what is right.

We need more bridge builders like Kennedy right now.

We’re All Improv Actors Now

Originally published May 21, 2020 on Forbes

by Doug Sundheim

Leading in the current environment is stressful. Every day leaders are assessing and reacting to shifting realities. On good days, things click. On bad days, things fall apart. There is no way to remove the inherent anxiety amidst all the uncertainty. However, there are ways to roll with it, and use it to your advantage.

Enter improvisational acting training.

At its core, improvisational acting (improv) is about taking what you are given and making the most of it. It’s a useful skill in any circumstance, but it’s particularly helpful during times of upheaval and change.

Many people find improv terrifying. Actors are in front of an audience, with no preparation, performing a scene based on an idea that was just thrown at them, all the while trying to be entertaining. Successful improv is awe-inspiring to watch. (For good improv, check out the new Netflix series Middleditch & Schwartz)

But what seems like spur-of-the-moment magic has a simple, elegant underlying structure. And it’s a structure that anyone can learn. Doing improv takes practice and courage, but less than you might think. And once you get good at it, you’ll find it’s invaluable training for leadership.

I first tried improv twelve years ago after losing a bet. Entering the theater, my fear of making a fool of myself was in high gear. After warm-up exercises and cursory guidance, I jumped into a scene with seasoned actors. When the dialogue turned to me, I blurted out that I wanted to play baseball. However, at that point in the evolving scene, we were on a plane flying from Miami to New York: Suddenly my fear of making a fool of myself was realized. Without skipping a beat, another actor got his imaginary baseball gear out of the overhead compartment and the group played a few innings between passengers on the plane. It ended up being funny.

The takeaway? My screw up worked to our advantage. Rather than ruin the scene, it made it entertaining and memorable.

I recently dissected this scene with improv acting coach Scotty Watson, who shared the essence of great improv and why its lessons are so important right now.

“Most people don’t see what’s going on around them,” Watson said. “Stuck in their own heads, they miss the moment. In improv, we call this missing the “offer.” When you miss offers, things break down. Consider your airplane scene. Your desire to play baseball was the offer. Another actor took it and built on it, which is what made the scene work. That actor said yes. If he had rejected your offer, it would have stopped the scene dead in its tracks. Improv is about taking the situation that’s handed to you and saying yes and then building on it. This is exactly what leaders need to do in the current moment. Denying reality never works.”

Scotty shared four key improv lessons that leaders can use right now.

Live in observation

Keen observation is the foundation of all great improv and leadership. Observe everything. Keep your eyes open for new data and information. It sounds simple, but it can be tricky. Given our personal histories and experience, we’re all primed to see some things and miss others. We accept this piece of data but reject that one. The advice is to see and accept everything. It may not be something you would have chosen, but it’s here and it’s reality. Being firmly grounded in the reality of the moment gives you power.

Accept and build (Yes, and…)

Once you accept reality, you can do something with it. You can forward the action and build momentum. In improv this is called “yes and.” It creates inclusive and collaborative energy. You’re saying, “Yes I see that…and here is a thought to build on it.” The kiss of death in improv is the word “no” because it stops action. It’s the same thing on a leadership team. Every offer, even if you disagree with it, has the potential to forward action. When you disagree, you have two options. You can say, “No, you’re wrong and here’s why,” or “Yes, I see where you’re coming from and here’s a suggestion to build on it.” The former is a battle of ideas which stops action and saps energy. The latter builds ideas that generate movement and create energy.

Make active and positive choices

A fundamental belief in improv is that when you do things in good faith and to the best of your abilities, no matter what happens, good will come from it. When you’re moving with positive intent, even if it’s in the wrong direction, you can course correct. When you’re not moving, you can’t course correct because you’re not on a course. In leadership, like improv, the key is to get into action.

Don’t be afraid to mess up

In improv, mess ups are the foundation of some of the best scenes. Watson likes to tell the story of improv legend Adrian Truss mistakenly saying, “no” and then having to dig himself out of it. “It created something hilarious, memorable, and more interesting,” Watson recalled. “It woke everyone up.” Similarly, leaders shouldn’t be afraid to mess up right now. The world is in upheaval. No one knows exactly what they’re doing and as a result, no one is expecting perfection. People are just expecting active and positive choices to create forward momentum.

In true improv fashion, Watson has followed his own advice by accepting the “offer” of the moment and making a positive and active choice. He’d never been on Zoom before March 2020, but is now using the platform to deliver his improv classes online six days a week and is finding success. It’s not surprising—after all, improv actors are the quintessential “pivoters.”

Leading, like improv, is about movement. Just do something. Stay present to what is unfolding around you. Make one choice after another. Who knows, a crazy idea just might end up being your best.

When Crisis Strikes, Lead With Humanity

Originally published April 23, 2020 on Harvard Business Review

by Doug Sundheim

The writer George Saunders has a fitting analogy for the current Covid-19 moment: We’ve slipped on ice but haven’t hit the pavement yet. We’re caught in a suspended state between losing control and feeling the full impact.

The comparison points to a paradoxical tension that leaders must manage: providing direction, guidance, and reassurance while acknowledging that the path ahead isn’t clear. Doing one thing without the other doesn’t work. Both are needed to help people find the clarity and strength to move forward.

Balancing this tension requires leaders to lead with humanity and do a few important things.

Put People First

Hard-charging cost savings and profit motives that may have previously served an organization well could backfire in the current environment. In a recent survey by the public relations firm Edelman, 71% of respondents said they would lose trust in a brand forever if they believed it was putting profit over people. The reaction to companies perceived as having done so has been punishing and swift:

Within 24 hours of cutting staff members’ pay, the owners of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers admitted they had a mistake, apologized, and reversed course, largely avoiding a backlash. The owners of the NHL’s Boston Bruins and their home arena, TD Garden, were slower to react and got brutalized in the media as a result.
When the food delivery service GrubHub rolled out a discount for customers ordering online, supposedly to support restaurants struggling in the pandemic, it forced restaurants to bear the discount’s brunt, drawing ire from restaurants and customers and sparking calls for a boycott.

Other organizations are putting people first. The Las Vegas Sands has said it will pay its nearly 10,000 employees as if they were still working even though its properties have been closed. The Dallas Mavericks has kept on all its hourly workers.

And consider VillageMD, which partners with and employs some 2,700 physicians across the United States. I spoke with CEO Tim Barry last week about his company’s strategy. With patient volume in many medical practices down by 50% to 75% and providers laying off and furloughing clinical and nonclinical staff, VillageMD is finding creative ways to keep people on. It’s  scaling back office visits, now reserved for the most medically needy, and ramping up telehealth services.

“We are resisting cuts, because it’s the right thing to do for both patients and staff,” Barry told me. “Instead of laying off our medical assistants, we have asked them to stay in virtual contact with our sicker patients. The patients love the extra attention during this confusing and often lonely time, and our staff is thrilled to continue engaging with them. While we can’t guarantee no layoffs, we are being transparent about the situation and our desire to avoid them. And we are asking people to be flexible in terms of what is being asked of them.”

Be Up-Front and Vulnerable

Everyone is having bad moments, bad days, and bad weeks. It’s OK to let the struggles show. Several years ago I wrote about the idea that good leaders get emotional. That’s never been more true.

After seeing Marriott’s revenue fall by nearly 75% in most markets because of Covid-19, CEO Arne Sorenson wanted to deliver a video message to employees. His team advised against it because of his appearance: He had been undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer, and chemotherapy had left him bald. Sorenson made the video nonetheless. In it he announced that he and the company’s chairman would forgo their salaries in 2020 and that the executive team’s compensation would be halved. He choked up at the end, while talking about supporting Marriott associates around the world. The video has inspired other leaders to give up their salaries too.

Openness and vulnerability were also exemplified by Dan Price, the CEO of the credit card processor Gravity Payments, whose monthly revenue had been cut in half by the pandemic. He calculated that the company would be bankrupt in several months. Wanting to avoid layoffs but facing a grim financial reality, he decided to share the situation with his staff and get people’s input about how to proceed. Over the course of four days he and his COO held 40 hours of meetings with small groups of employees. “We just put all our cards on the table,” Price says. “And we listened.”

Following the meetings, company leaders decided to reduce salaries rather than lay people off, but their plan had an important twist. Instead of cutting everyone’s pay by a certain percentage across the board, they asked each employee to say privately how much he or she could sacrifice. The strategy worked because Price had built a strong culture of trust. ”CEOs: please, consider talking with your employees before laying them off,” he tweeted. ”We lost half our $4M monthly revenue & had 4-6 months until bankruptcy. When we told employees this, they volunteered pay cuts that will get us through 8-12 months, with no layoffs.”

Support and Connect

The pandemic is having a vastly different personal impact from previous crises. People are getting sick; some are dying. Amid our existential anxiety, we’re doing our best to carry on. We’re working from home, if we’re lucky; we may be unemployed, or we may be out on the front lines. Our children are trying to learn online and are missing their friends. We’re worried about our elderly loved ones. We’re worried about rent, mortgages, and the other day-to-day needs we took for granted just weeks ago. Compassion and opportunities for sustained connection are critical.

For leaders, this means, at a minimum, slowing down, being flexible, and giving employees leeway to deal with these new challenges. It also means an opportunity to connect more deeply.

Last week I spoke with the U.S. CEO of a global professional services firm about the importance of making time for personal connections. “We’re learning a lot about what works and what doesn’t in connecting the organization virtually,” he said. “One of the most valuable lessons is the importance of making more room for informal, face-to-face, unstructured time. In a culture that is usually all business, we’ve been hitting the pause button to just listen and support one another.”

He shared an example of a town hall call that went over by an hour as colleagues in some of the hardest-hit areas of the world shared their stories. “As leaders, we recognized that the need to hear and support one another was more important than the transactional needs at that moment. That simple insight can be easily missed among a bunch of Type-A professionals. But it’s crucial. The former supports the latter over the long term.”

Connecting on a personal level has also been a priority for Neil Sprackling, president of U.S. Life & Health at the reinsurer Swiss Re. “I start and finish every employee and client interaction on a personal note,” he says. “We tell stories, and I ask if they need any specific support. It seems small, but taking the time to consciously do this has been tremendously helpful in strengthening relationships and maintaining our sanity.”

That personal approach has been extended to group gatherings. When one of Sprackling’s senior direct reports retired last week after 40 years with Swiss Re, his team organized a surprise virtual farewell. “The retiree thought she was dialing into a call with her direct reports. Then over 30 colleagues and I joined a Skype video chat. We made time for each person to share a tribute. It was a very poignant moment. Kleenex all around.”

It could be argued that the suggestions outlined above are just good leadership, no matter what the circumstances. That may be true, but it misses an important point: Understanding good leadership and practicing it are two different things, especially in the face of uncertainty and one’s own anxiety.

In the weeks and months ahead, leaders need to move beyond themselves and stand in other people’s shoes. Endure challenges on others’ behalf. Be open and vulnerable. Experiment with ways of offering communication and support. Trust that caring and open-hearted leadership will not only pay off now but also reap rewards well into the future.

To Decrease Your Anxiety, Shoulder It For Others

It’s a wonderful paradox of life. One of the best ways to help yourself is to help others.

This truism is particularly powerful in times of high anxiety because it interrupts a classic vicious cycle. The more we focus on ourselves, the more we worry. And the more we worry, the more we focus on ourselves.

One technique for breaking this cycle is Tonglen, an ancient meditation practice focused on holding anxiety for others. On its face it seems ludicrous. If we’re feeling anxious why add to it? In practice, I’ve found it has the opposite effect. By holding others’ anxiety, we get out of our own head. We see our worry in context. Moreover, the simple process of connecting to others’ humanity reminds us of our own, strengthening our connection and compassion.

You can find a variety of guidelines online for practicing Tonglen. Many are from Pema Chodron, a Tibetan Buddhist monk who has popularized the technique over the last twenty years.

Below is how I practice it.

Find a quiet space – You want to be alone and uninterrupted for at least 10-15 minutes.
Rest your mind — (~30 seconds) Get comfortable. Begin to breathe deeply and calmly. In through your nose, out through your mouth.
Visualize what you’re experiencing — (~1 minute) Get in touch with the worry you’re currently experiencing. Just notice it. Be honest. You don’t have to look good here. I’ve found it’s helpful to say the anxieties out loud in a low whisper. It allows me to understand what I’m currently grappling with. Ensure to keep breathing deeply and calmly throughout.
Breathe in negative feelings, breathe out positive feelings — (~3 minutes) There are many ways to do this step. Using words works for me. I breathe in the negative things I’m telling myself about the situation at my worst moments (this will never work, it’s going to be a disaster etc). I feel the uncomfortable heat of the anxiety. Then I breathe out the positive things I tell myself about the situation at my best moments (everything in life moves in cycles, with good intentions things work out). I feel the calmer coolness of decreased anxiety. As I keep breathing in and out, I reconnect to the idea that I’m creating my own reality on a moment-to-moment basis with my thoughts. Every moment I have a choice.
Visualize others who are experiencing what you’re experiencing — (~3 minutes) Who is also feeling what you’re feeling? Start with those closest to you. Family members, close friends, people in your organization or community. See their faces. Imagine what they are possibly feeling. Stand in their shoes.
Breathe in their negative feelings, send them positive feelings (~3 minutes) — On the in breath, breathe in what others are worrying about and might be telling themselves at their worst moments. Feel compassion for them. On the out breathe, send them something. Strength, love, understanding, compassion etc.
Expand the sending and receiving (~3 minutes) — In the final moments of the meditation, expand #’s 5 and 6 out to a broader population. Visualize people in other parts of the world who are also experiencing a similar anxiety. Breathe in their negative thoughts and send them strength, love, understanding, compassion.

After 15 minutes, you can find this simple process has taken you out of your own head, expanded your thinking, and connected you with others. And chances are your anxiety will have decreased some. Like any training it’s a muscle you can continue to practice and strengthen over time.

As I’ve practiced it over the years it’s reminded me how universal my experience is. That others have been here before me. And that all conditions are fleeting. When I’m on edge, it’s helped me feel calmer, more collected, and better able to be the leader I need to be in that moment.

Making Stakeholder Capitalism A Reality

Originally published January 22, 2020 on Harvard Business Review

by Doug Sundheim and Kate Starr

Stakeholder capitalism, a popular management theory in the 1950s and ‘60s that focused on the needs of all constituents, not just shareholders, has been poised to make a comeback since weaponized financial instruments brought down the economy in 2008. Now, spurred by the alarming climate crisis and increasing social challenges such as rising inequality, the movement is gathering additional steam. Increasingly, there’s a sense among business leaders that the prevailing ideology of putting shareholders above everyone else — which has reigned for the past 40 years — needs a serious update.

Naysayers will call stakeholder capitalism a PR stunt. Window dressing designed to placate protesters and pretty-up corporate images. But there are signs that it’s far more than that.

This month, Larry Fink of BlackRock, the world’s largest investor with $7 trillion in assets under management, sent his annual letter to CEOs placing long-term sustainability at the center of his investment approach. “Awareness is rapidly changing,” he writes, “and I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.” Last month, The World Economic Forum, whose annual meeting kicks off this week, updated its Davos Manifesto for the first time since 1973 to more clearly state that businesses must be stewards of the environment, uphold human rights throughout their global supply chains, and pursue sustainable shareholder returns that don’t sacrifice the future for the present. And last August, 181 multinational CEOs of the Business Roundtable revised their Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation to explicitly move beyond shareholder primacy — a stance they’ve held since 1997 — to express “a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders.”

The list goes on.

How did we get here? Like all cultural change it’s a long and winding tale of social, financial, and political forces. The story is filled with good intentions, questionable assumptions, data-light economic models, willful blindness, and a fair amount of hubris. Yes, shareholder capitalism has delivered economic growth with many important benefits, but it’s also left a path of environmental and social destruction for future generations to grapple with. As Kate Raworth succinctly articulates in her excellent book, Doughnut Economics, this tension lays bare an extremely uncomfortable reality: “No country has ever ended human deprivation without a growing economy. And no country has ever ended ecological degradation with one.”

This reality leaves us with two critical and wickedly tough questions:

1) How can groups across socio-economic and political divides get better aligned on the current reality we’re facing?

2) What is the appropriate approach, including taxation and regulation strategies, to produce the economic, environmental, and social outcomes we need to survive and thrive for generations to come?

Business leaders need to help answer these questions or run the risk of getting uncomfortable answers foisted upon them. Changing the narrative from shareholder to stakeholder won’t happen overnight, but we need to make room for the conversation. Our organizations — and ultimately the planet — depend on them.

Like all change, the best place to start is locally, identifying opportunities and priorities in your own organization. Here are four suggestions:

Measure the right things

Today’s climate and economic realities require laser-like focus. If you’re not careful, you can get lost in an unending dashboard of performance indicators with varying degrees of usefulness for your organization. To separate signal from noise, we recommend using SASB’s Materiality Map as an initial measuring stick to evaluate your organization’s performance against the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues that are likely to affect your industry. A deep focus on metrics that relate to day-to-day deliverables will support your team in successfully measuring ESG issues, even if the results, by definition, will occur in a longer timeframe.

At the same time, pick your spots where you want to become an industry leader. Doing so can lead to a meaningful competitive advantage. A great example is Eli Lilly, whose initial diversity efforts were yielding no meaningful results for advancing the careers of women and people of color. Then they commissioned a detailed survey called the “Employee’s Journey” that uncovered deeper, personal reasons why their diversity efforts were failing and pointed to proactive steps they could take to remove those organizational barriers. These actions have helped increase diversity in their clinical trials, spur innovation, and market their medicines more authentically.

Be a thoughtful voice for regulation

Business leaders must rethink their relationship to regulation. The widely accepted notion that regulation decreases competitiveness and is a drag on growth is too simplistic and short-term. In the long term, a habitable climate and peaceful society are the bedrock of an economic system that delivers prosperity. And these things require strong and effective policy frameworks to protect them. Forty years ago, business, labor, and public interest group lobbying was on relatively equal footing. Today, large corporations and their associations outspend labor and public interest groups 34 to 1 on lobbying efforts. Business’s large thumb on the scale in Washington has led to a taxation and regulatory environment that tends to serve corporate interests above broader public interest.

Corporate executives are starting to see the writing on the wall. At the 2019 New York Times Dealbook conference, eight technology executives discussed the topic and a majority agreed that the time has come for additional oversight, even if it will be difficult. Facebook founder Chris Hughes struck an optimistic tone. “We can get regulation right. We do it with airlines. We do it with pharmaceuticals. We do it with the F.C.C.,” he said. “We have come to a cultural agreement in the United States that when private industry is crucially important in our lives, we have to ensure that it works for the people.”

Paint an integrated picture for shareholders

Stakeholder capitalism can’t succeed if shareholders don’t see the value. In a stakeholder model, measurement must be a team effort. While the CFO bears central responsibility for delivering financial results to shareholders, he or she will need support from the COO, CMO, CIO, and CEO to also articulate how working on ESG issues affects financial performance. Research is beginning to show clear value in this approach. For example, George Serefeim at Harvard Business School has found that strong sustainability performance is translating to increased valuation premiums.

Moreover, the picture painted for shareholders can’t be overly focused on short-term performance. The return on smart, sustainable business practices isn’t measured on a quarter-to-quarter basis. The CFO needs support in shifting shareholder discussions to the longer term. Successfully doing so will give your organization the runway needed to implement the right competitive and strategic investments for the future.

Don’t be afraid to take some risks

Your stakeholders don’t expect you to have all the answers. However, they do expect you to get into the conversation. Engage in dialogue with customers, peers, employees, scientists, activists, and investors about what’s happening and how it relates to your business. See the world through a variety of lenses as you determine best courses of action. Then focus on some knotty problems and begin to experiment with solutions. Successful or not, be transparent. We all must learn together.

Humans have never had to deal with the challenges we’re now facing. Simple solutions and sound bites coming from one side of the ideological spectrum or the other won’t cut it. It’s time we get serious about writing a new chapter on capitalism, before it’s too late.

Making Stakeholder Capitalism Work

By Doug Sundheim and Kate Starr

This article was originally published January 22, 2020 on Harvard Business Review

Stakeholder capitalism, a popular management theory in the 1950s and ‘60s that focused on the needs of all constituents, not just shareholders, has been poised to make a comeback since weaponized financial instruments brought down the economy in 2008. Now, spurred by the alarming climate crisis and increasing social challenges such as rising inequality, the movement is gathering additional steam. Increasingly, there’s a sense among business leaders that the prevailing ideology of putting shareholders above everyone else — which has reigned for the past 40 years — needs a serious update.

Naysayers will call stakeholder capitalism a PR stunt. Window dressing designed to placate protesters and pretty-up corporate images. But there are signs that it’s far more than that.

This month, Larry Fink of BlackRock, the world’s largest investor with $7 trillion in assets under management, sent his annual letter to CEOs placing long-term sustainability at the center of his investment approach. “Awareness is rapidly changing,” he writes, “and I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance.” Last month, The World Economic Forum, whose annual meeting kicks off this week, updated its Davos Manifesto for the first time since 1973 to more clearly state that businesses must be stewards of the environment, uphold human rights throughout their global supply chains, and pursue sustainable shareholder returns that don’t sacrifice the future for the present. And last August, 181 multinational CEOs of the Business Roundtable revised their Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation to explicitly move beyond shareholder primacy — a stance they’ve held since 1997 — to express “a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders.”

The list goes on.

How did we get here? Like all cultural change it’s a long and winding tale of social, financial, and political forces. The story is filled with good intentions, questionable assumptions, data-light economic models, willful blindness, and a fair amount of hubris. Yes, shareholder capitalism has delivered economic growth with many important benefits, but it’s also left a path of environmental and social destruction for future generations to grapple with. As Kate Raworth succinctly articulates in her excellent book, Doughnut Economics, this tension lays bare an extremely uncomfortable reality: “No country has ever ended human deprivation without a growing economy. And no country has ever ended ecological degradation with one.”

This reality leaves us with two critical and wickedly tough questions:

1) How can groups across socio-economic and political divides get better aligned on the current reality we’re facing?

2) What is the appropriate approach, including taxation and regulation strategies, to produce the economic, environmental, and social outcomes we need to survive and thrive for generations to come?

Business leaders need to help answer these questions or run the risk of getting uncomfortable answers foisted upon them. Changing the narrative from shareholder to stakeholder won’t happen overnight, but we need to make room for the conversation. Our organizations — and ultimately the planet — depend on them.

Like all change, the best place to start is locally, identifying opportunities and priorities in your own organization. Here are four suggestions:

Measure the right things

Today’s climate and economic realities require laser-like focus. If you’re not careful, you can get lost in an unending dashboard of performance indicators with varying degrees of usefulness for your organization. To separate signal from noise, we recommend using SASB’s Materiality Map as an initial measuring stick to evaluate your organization’s performance against the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues that are likely to affect your industry. A deep focus on metrics that relate to day-to-day deliverables will support your team in successfully measuring ESG issues, even if the results, by definition, will occur in a longer timeframe.

At the same time, pick your spots where you want to become an industry leader. Doing so can lead to a meaningful competitive advantage. A great example is Eli Lilly, whose initial diversity efforts were yielding no meaningful results for advancing the careers of women and people of color. Then they commissioned a detailed survey called the “Employee’s Journey” that uncovered deeper, personal reasons why their diversity efforts were failing and pointed to proactive steps they could take to remove those organizational barriers. These actions have helped increase diversity in their clinical trials, spur innovation, and market their medicines more authentically.

Be a thoughtful voice for regulation

Business leaders must rethink their relationship to regulation. The widely accepted notion that regulation decreases competitiveness and is a drag on growth is too simplistic and short-term. In the long term, a habitable climate and peaceful society are the bedrock of an economic system that delivers prosperity. And these things require strong and effective policy frameworks to protect them. Forty years ago, business, labor, and public interest group lobbying was on relatively equal footing. Today, large corporations and their associations outspend labor and public interest groups 34 to 1 on lobbying efforts. Business’s large thumb on the scale in Washington has led to a taxation and regulatory environment that tends to serve corporate interests above broader public interest.

Corporate executives are starting to see the writing on the wall. At the 2019 New York Times Dealbook conference, eight technology executives discussed the topic and a majority agreed that the time has come for additional oversight, even if it will be difficult. Facebook founder Chris Hughes struck an optimistic tone. “We can get regulation right. We do it with airlines. We do it with pharmaceuticals. We do it with the F.C.C.,” he said. “We have come to a cultural agreement in the United States that when private industry is crucially important in our lives, we have to ensure that it works for the people.”

Paint an integrated picture for shareholders

Stakeholder capitalism can’t succeed if shareholders don’t see the value. In a stakeholder model, measurement must be a team effort. While the CFO bears central responsibility for delivering financial results to shareholders, he or she will need support from the COO, CMO, CIO, and CEO to also articulate how working on ESG issues affects financial performance. Research is beginning to show clear value in this approach. For example, George Serefeim at Harvard Business School has found that strong sustainability performance is translating to increased valuation premiums.

Moreover, the picture painted for shareholders can’t be overly focused on short-term performance. The return on smart, sustainable business practices isn’t measured on a quarter-to-quarter basis. The CFO needs support in shifting shareholder discussions to the longer term. Successfully doing so will give your organization the runway needed to implement the right competitive and strategic investments for the future.

Don’t be afraid to take some risks

Your stakeholders don’t expect you to have all the answers. However, they do expect you to get into the conversation. Engage in dialogue with customers, peers, employees, scientists, activists, and investors about what’s happening and how it relates to your business. See the world through a variety of lenses as you determine best courses of action. Then focus on some knotty problems and begin to experiment with solutions. Successful or not, be transparent. We all must learn together.

Humans have never had to deal with the challenges we’re now facing. Simple solutions and sound bites coming from one side of the ideological spectrum or the other won’t cut it. It’s time we get serious about writing a new chapter on capitalism, before it’s too late.

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The Future Belongs to Storytellers

Great storytelling—the ability to weave facts and data into compelling narratives—has long been a valuable skill. Two dynamics have significantly increased its value over the past quarter century: (1) data is proliferating at breakneck speeds and (2) anyone can reach everyone around the world instantly. Now more than ever, we need storytellers to pull us out of the swamp of information we’ve created. We need storytellers to help us paint a positive picture of what’s possible on the road ahead.

Below is a passage from Robert McKee’s landmark screenwriting book, Story. One of my favorites on the topic of storytelling.

Rare as story talent is, we often meet people who seem to have it by nature, those street-corner raconteurs for whom storytelling is as easy as a smile. When, for example, coworkers gather around the coffee machine, the storytelling begins. It’s the currency of human contact. And whenever a half-dozen souls gather for this mid-morning ritual, there will always be at least one who has the gift.

Let’s say that this morning our storyteller tells her friends the story of “How I Put My Kids on the School Bus.” Like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, she hooks everyone’s attention. She draws them into her spell, holding them slack-jawed over their coffee cups. She spins her tale, building them up, easing them down, making them laugh, maybe cry, holding all in high suspense until she pays it off with a dynamite last scene: “And that’s how I got the little nosepickers on the bus this morning.” Her coworkers lean back satisfied, muttering, “God, yes, Helen, my kids are just like that.”

Now let’s say the storytelling passes to the guy next to her who tells the others the heartrending tale of how his mother died over the weekend … and bores the hell out of everyone. His story is all on the surface, repetitious rambling from trivial detail to cliché: “She looked so good in her coffin.” Halfway through his rendition, the rest head back to the coffee pot for another cup, turning a deaf ear to his tale of grief.

Given the choice between trivial material brilliantly told versus profound material badly told, an audience will always choose the trivial told brilliantly. Master storytellers know how to squeeze life out of the least of things, while poor storytellers reduce the profound to the banal. You may have the insight of a Buddha, but if you cannot tell story, your ideas turn dry as chalk.

McKee, Robert. Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting (pp. 27-28). HarperCollins. 1997.

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Do Less, Think More

An EVP at a client recently told me that his CEO takes two hours every morning to read the Wall Street Journal and New York Times cover to cover. “It feels antiquated,” he remarked.

“What would you rather she be doing?” I asked.

“Getting in there and helping to solve pressing problems.” He replied.

“Perhaps one more person down in your problems is the last thing you need,” I shared. “Perhaps her spending reflective time connecting dots across a wide variety of topics is going to keep the company from getting into future problems.”

“Maybe,” he begrudgingly smiled. “We have had an extremely successful 3 years.”

Two of the most stubbornly erroneous assumptions I find in organizational life is that activity = productivity; and thinking = daydreaming. We tend to pride ourselves on being busy as if it’s a proxy for adding value. It isn’t. Especially nowadays when it’s incredibly easy to be busy doing the wrong things.

Don’t get me wrong. Senior executives obviously need to do things. But they should balance the doing with the thinking. And for many, that balance is out of whack. There’s far too little time carved out to just think, alone and together with others.

Here are a few recommendations I regularly share with clients:

Block off thinking time on your calendarMeet with peer groups, both inside and outside your industryRead voraciously, both inside and outside your industryRegularly capture ideas you want teams to exploreEncourage debate and discussion of the key ideas with your teamSynthesize what comes out of the bullets above

We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.”

EO Wilson, Consilience

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Saying Goodbye to a Friend

At first blush, Mike Van Cleave and I had nothing in common. We met in 1999 working for the same ad agency. When I mentioned I went to Cornell, he asked if I’d spent time at a certain local coffee shop on campus. I said that I hadn’t and that I’d wondered who went in there as it looked like it was filled with self-important d-bags. He told me he was the owner. Whoops. He then told me his customers would have thought I was a d-bag. Fair enough. We didn’t interact much for the next two years.

By 2001 he had started his own agency and I had hung out a shingle doing organizational consulting work. When we ran into each other at a mutual friend’s party that year we were both struggling as entrepreneurs. We quickly found a kinship around this topic that trumped any old animosities. From 2001-2003 we became close friends, diving into deep conversation about business and life. We supported each other, but also pushed and challenged each other. We gave each other confidence at a time when it was in short supply. It was a pivotal few years in my personal and professional development, and Mike was a big part of that. By 2003, after a few client setbacks, Mike was fed up with NYC and moved to Colorado to restore Jaguars. We lost meaningful touch for a decade.

When we reconnected in mid-2014 Mike shared that he’d been battling cancer for a number of years and things didn’t look good. He was living in Paris by then. I felt guilty that I hadn’t known about his illness and hadn’t been there for him, but also thankful to be back in touch. By December, doctors had given him six months to live. He decided to throw a blowout party at a farmhouse outside of Paris for five days in Jan 2015–The “Fete de Mike.” A (potential) last hurrah. 100+ people from four continents showed up. It was a remarkable gathering. I’ve never felt so much love in one place.

Fete de Mike, Jan 2015

Moving from one experimental drug to the next, Mike somehow managed to live for four more years. We interacted a lot in that time. It felt like our conversations from 15 years earlier. In Sept 2018 we got together for a few days when I was visiting France on business. He was in a lot of pain and couldn’t move. We just drank, ate, and looked out over the Mediterranean. He shared that I had had a profound impact on his life, which I hadn’t really appreciated until that moment. I shared that he had had a profound impact on me too.

Mike passed away on March 27, 2019.

Over the course of a lifetime—If we’re lucky—we each come across 2,3,4, at the most maybe 5 people with whom we powerfully resonate for some reason. 3-hour conversations feel like 10 minutes. Crazy ideas are greeted with a knowing head nod. You don’t want the dialogue to end because it feels validating at a fundamental level. You feel deeply understood. Some would argue that’s all any of us really wants out of life.

Mike, you’ve been one of those people for me. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I feel deeply appreciative to have crossed paths with you.

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Don’t Bite the Hook

Buddhist monk Pema Chodron gave a recorded talk in 2006 titled, Don’t Bite the Hook. It’s about pausing to get our bearings before reacting when something triggers us. I’ve listened to it many times but haven’t recommended it to clients until this year when I recommended it to three of them. For all of them it’s become a centerpiece of our conversations opening the most useful and enduring insights of our work together. It’s made me grateful to be in my profession as I’ve benefited as much from these conversations as I believe they have. It’s also made me curious as to why I recommended it now and why my clients have been so receptive.

I think part of the answer is that many of us are feeling more “trigger-able” these days. Politics are dividing us, technology is connecting yet isolating us, our work is demanding more from us, our families are getting less of us. We know something’s not right, but we can’t figure out how to get off the damn merry-go-round. So we hang on. All the while our stress and anxiety are rising while our patience is thinning. It’s like a powder keg. We’re setting ourselves up to get set off. And when we reach this point, we’re an accident waiting to happen.

So what to do next? Chodron’s answer; don’t try to solve it. Get curious. Watch the dynamic. It’s an old pattern at play. Some of her thoughts paraphrased…

The next time you get irked, get curious about it. Watch what happens. It’s something we all do. It can become irritation, then it can become rage, then it can become fury. We build it up. Not only that, we can’t sleep. Not only that, people don’t like us. When we step back and look at it, it always has a negative impact. We can’t be complacent about our own anger. We can’t be complacent about the fact that it starts small. If you have a quaky feeling going on because of the world situation, or even just what’s happening in your own life, notice it. It’s a seed. It will grow quickly. Then, before you know it you’re in a really tough spot, especially if things speed up or get worse. You may find yourself clinging to some fear-based patterns. Not seeing the world as it is, but rather separating everything into friend or foe, or for me or against me. And if that happens with THIS crowd, what’s going to be happening all over the rest of the world? There have to be people, who are of like mind, to hold our seats. To not get sucked in. To not get thrown in the face of challenge. Peace and non-aggression can be just as contagious as war and aggression. It’s just that the latter are easier emotions to hold.

A great set of reminders.

You can find the talk here

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