John B. Izzo's Blog, page 2

The Way Forward – Dr. John Izzo Launches a Podcast

I’d like to ask you a simple question: If we keep going on the same path as a society and as a planet, will that lead to a positive future for our children and grandchildren? I have asked that question of audiences around the globe. I’ve asked people to answer by raising their hand. About eight in ten people always answer “No!”

Whether the problem is caused by deteriorating democracies, climate change events, a loss of civility, increasing violence, inflation, or ongoing conflict, we desperately need to innovate to find a new way forward for all of us.

That’s why I am excited to announce the launch of my new podcast called The Way Forward Regenerative Conversations about the future of humanity and planet. I am co-hosting it with Alain Gauthier, a seasoned consultant of fifty plus years on big systems change.

The podcast is non-partisan, exploratory and not meant to suggest that we KNOW the way forward. Instead, we explore a range of issues including business, governance, technology, climate change, economics, and civility to have real conversations about how we can make a more positive way forward that is even better than things are now.

In each episode, we invite a leading thinker to be our guest to discuss and sometimes disagree on ideas about how we can innovate for a better future. You may not agree with everything you hear, and neither will I…but that is exactly the point.

Please take a listen. Follow us on Apple podcasts. Like it and share it. Most of all, send me your feedback so we can make it the best it can be.

I look forward to your feedback. And do let me know of any guests you think we should invite.

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The Great Reconsideration: Three Keys to Win Talent Now

Last week I was scheduled to have dinner with a friend at my favorite restaurant in Palm Desert, CA but we arrived to find a sign which said, “Sorry we are closed due to lack of staffing.”

Organizations both large and small are struggling more than ever to find and keep talent, scrambling to operate, never mind thinking about engaging their fullest energy. Some people have described the past two years as The Great Resignation because of the number of people who have left the labor pool, but I prefer to call it The Great Reconsideration. People of all ages are reconsidering their relationship to work and life.

I believe there are three major ways people are reconsidering their relationship to work: choice, authenticity and meaning.

The first shift is a desire for choice. Having been given a taste of flexibility in the form of working from home, only one in ten people said they want to go back to how things were before COVID. Seventy three percent of workers want remote environments to stay and about fifty percent say if forced to go back to the office full time they will find another job. Recruiting companies now say that offering hybrid or virtual work is the number one thing an employer can do to win talent and those who have a flex arrangement likely almost never leave. And choice isn’t just about being virtual, it is about giving people ways for work to integrate with the rest of life.

The second shift is a desire for authenticity. There is nothing like a world-wide pandemic to get people thinking that life is too short and they need to live their values. A recent Gartner study showed that about sixty-nine percent of the workforce said it was important to be their “most authentic self at work” but less than half of the respondents said they could do that. Leading with empathy and inclusion is critical today. Leaders must learn how to get to know team members as unique individuals so they can tailor leading to that person’s needs. I call this “leading people as an n of one.” In other words, taking the time to truly know what matters to this person and helping them feel truly included. One of my most popular programs now is Leading for Empathy and Inclusion. If empathy and inclusion were important before the pandemic, the Great Reconsideration makes it even more vital.

The third shift is a desire for meaning. As many of you know, I have been writing about purpose at work for almost forty years. Every time there is an economic event such as the Global Financial Crisis (2008-2009) and then the pandemic, people ask me if purpose still matters. Every time I have said that each crisis only deepens people’s desire to have purpose and meaning at work. I am seeing workers even more focused on doing work that has meaning for them where they get to contribute to something they care about. Just the other day, a client told me about a high-level person who left her corporate job to work at a flower shop. The days of most people seeing a “job” as just something you do for money is a dying paradigm. Of course, people still need money but companies that harness purpose will win the talent war. Besides, the one-third of the workforce that is most focused on purpose perform better on almost every metric we care about as leaders. So, if we aren’t appealing to that one-third, we are losing out big time.

Three Questions to Ask Yourself to Win Talent

As you consider your organization’s capacity to offer choice, authenticity and meaning, here are three questions to ask yourself:

Am I/Are we offering maximum flexibility to team members? Are we pushing our norms and being innovative about choice?

Have I/Have we created an inclusive environment where people feel known and valued for who they are?

Do I/Do we focus on purpose from the moment of recruiting through to everyone’s daily experience at work?

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How to Lead like Amazon’s Home Page

When my last book came out two years ago, one of my clients called me up excitedly to tell me that my book The Purpose Revolution was on the home page of Amazon. I thanked him for calling me but assured him this was not the case. He sent me a screen shot where he had put Amazon.com in his browser and there I was. I then sent him a screen of the home page when I went to the main site. He was surprised to see my book absent.

I explained to my client that Amazon had been studying him and knew he was a fan of my work, so his home page featured me. I on the other hand am obviously not as big a fan of me. In other words, while the core of the website stayed constant, Amazon had designed our pages just for us.

For the last year or so I have been telling leaders that our job is to lead our people the way Amazon designs its home page. While our core values and leadership philosophy must stay the same, we must customize how we lead to make each person on our team thrive. We must lead in a way that helps each person bring their most authentic self into their work.

This is even more critical today because workers say it is more important than ever for them to be their most authentic selves, and a recent survey found that less than half feel they can be that at work. Leaders who demonstrate empathy by taking an interest in the needs of team members retain talent, have higher engagement, and drive better performance. And leaders who are perceived as inclusive have even better outcomes, plus their approach encourages more innovation from their teams when people freely incorporate all their knowledge, skills and experience.

How to Lead Like Amazon’s Home Page

To customize our leadership, we must take the time to know our people especially in four dimensions:

Know what is happening in their lives. Know what is important to them outside of work. The more we can connect to their lives, the more they will feel they can bring their full selves to work.Know what their purpose is and what they find meaningful at work. Once I know where a team member finds their purpose and meaning, I can appreciate their unique contributions by connecting the dots between their work and purpose by finding ways to customize assignments to their passions.Know what they need from a leader to thrive and also what drives them nuts! Find out how leadership and interactions with their leader can reduce their capacity to develop. When in doubt just ask: What do you need from your leader to thrive and what makes it more difficult for you to thrive? We also must find out their “love language,” which means what makes them feel appreciated and valued. For some it is quality time (e.g. coffee time, regular career mentoring), or words of affirmation (e.g. verbal or written appreciation for their work), for others tangible gifts and rewards (e.g. an afternoon off, a bonus) or acts of service (e.g. offering support by removing a responsibility or supplying a resource) and for others it is physical gestures (e.g. a firm handshake or a high five).Know who they are. Find out what makes them tick and discover the unique things that have shaped the unique viewpoints, talents and skills that they bring to their work.

Here is a simple homework assignment. Make a list of all the people who report to you and see how far you get with knowing each of them in the four areas above. Take time to explore the areas you aren’t sure of. Then ask a simple question, do they feel the way I lead is designed for them? If you can use some coaching and assistance in this area, check out my new program Leading for Empathy and Inclusion.

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What Studies of Male Violence and Humiliation Tell Us about Putin and the Current Crisis

Much of the world is rightly shocked, angry, and concerned about the Russian invasion of Ukraine alongside overt threats from Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons. Reports are that he is increasingly isolated, appears to some as “unhinged” and now is lashing out about how poorly things are going in Ukraine. The world is rightly nervous. Our knowledge about masculinity and male violence could help us now because a humiliated man is a dangerous thing.

Understanding why people, especially men, sometimes do destructive acts against their own self-interest and survival, who even kill their own children, should be considered as we proceed. Research shows that humiliation and isolation are strong predictors of men doing violent senseless acts, such as young men in classrooms shooting their teachers and classmates, a middle-aged man renting a hotel room for the sole purpose of killing strangers at a concert located below, or a newly fired father going home and shooting his family. James Gilligan’s thirty years of study has shown a clear relationship between profound experiences of humiliation in some real or imagined way and a link to male violence. This may be as true for masculine cultures as it is for individuals. Russia is a society where power and masculine energy have been dominant for centuries. Putin’s KGB past means he has had a career where violence and the use of force were rewarded. Men who kill with their own hands aren’t the same as men who order others to kill, but we must learn from what the science of masculine violence tells us.

Most westerners can’t imagine that at one time Putin was quite popular in Russia before he took complete authoritarian control. When the cold war ended, the west began heaping humiliation on the former Soviet Union as a failed nation, then over the last two decades many called it an irrelevant country that was no longer a player on the world stage, except for its nuclear arsenal. A decade ago, to my surprise, many ordinary Russians told me that though they hated the old Soviet system, at least they were then seen as a world power. For a masculine culture, pride is everything. They liked that Putin was strong in asserting Russia as a force still to be counted.

George H.W. Bush was routinely criticized for not publicly doing a victory dance when the Berlin wall was taken down. He wisely sensed how precarious change was in Russia and even said, “Let them have this moment,” not wanting to rub defeat in their faces. He may have sensed that humiliation wasn’t a good strategy.

Western rhetoric about the failed Soviets was followed by country after county in the Eastern Bloc turning west and joining NATO. All of it was humiliation to Putin whose stated legacy was restoring Russia’s past glory. To the west, Ukraine is one country turning towards our way of thinking, but for Putin it likely is the straw that breaks the camel’s back in terms of his self-respect. Arguably Russia will be weaker for invading Ukraine, so this war may be more about humiliation than world domination. Right now, world leaders fall over themselves to speak of isolating Russia, bankrupting Putin and bringing the country to its knees, and of aiming to “collapse the economy of Russia.” This is dangerous language in the context of humiliation when the US and the west are entering a scenario of winner-take-all manhood. It’s important now that our response is not about that – this is not a time for trading dares but to bring about safety and peace for the Ukrainian people. We need to cease the focus on bringing Russia to its knees and instead gather our efforts on bringing it to its senses.

When men are isolated and humiliated, one of two things can happen. They either take it out on themselves by suicide, or they take it out on the world with violence. Going nuclear would accomplish both. We have witnessed desperate isolated and humiliated people without histories of violence shoot innocent people. While Putin may not feel humiliated, it would be prudent for us to act accordingly as if it was so.

While staying strong in our resolve to sanction Russia, we may want to tone down our rhetoric that he is unhinged, that he is a two-bit thug who bumbled into a war with no idea what to do, and we might want to avoid dismissing Russia as a cold war relic. We not only need to reach out to Putin, but also reach out to other Russian men and women, to avoid demonizing Russia. It’s not just Putin’s humiliation, but a humiliation of Russian men and women, and Russian manhood, that we should avoid. 

An isolated and humiliated man is a very dangerous thing. And this man doesn’t just have a gun, he has the capacity to end civilization as we know it. Men and male cultures, when humiliated, often become more violent. If the image of a brooding, sullen, and now angry Putin is true, we have reason to be concerned.

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How to stay on purpose in 2022

For many years I have been telling audiences that the problem with life is that “It’s so daily!” We tend to think that our lives and the organizations we lead become shaped by a few large decisions we make once in a blue moon. But in fact, a life full of purpose, happiness and a successful career is created mostly by small decisions we make every day, or even many times a day. Let me tell you about my friend, who has a healthy and active ninety-five-year-old father. His secret: every day, for almost thirty years, he has made the choice to go to the gym and use the rowing machine. This is a simple daily choice that helps maintain his excellent health. Many of you have heard me say that “habit is destiny,” and I believe it to be true more than ever at the start of the year.

With that in mind, I wanted to suggest a few things we can do every day to make it easier to stay on purpose in 2022. Think of these as a few simple ideas to make sure we experience purpose and impact. These three simple habits will take only a few minutes each day, but they will make a big difference if we do them every day.

The three habits are:

Start your day remining yourself of your purpose.

Many teams start their meetings by reading their purpose or mission statement. They do that to remind themselves why they are working and what they hope to accomplish. Similarly, each of us should start our day reminding ourselves of our purpose in life and our purpose as a leader. As many of you know, my purpose is to inspire and embody compassion, kindness and intentional living in every interaction while helping to accelerate the shift needed for the Earth to regenerate and for humanity to thrive. By reading my purpose every day, it gets me pointing in the right direction.

Every day identify one way you can live your purpose TODAY.

The second habit is to think about the day ahead asking yourself, “Where and how can I live that purpose today?” In doing this, you will begin to ensure that the activities of your day make room for your purpose, but also make it more likely for you to live your purpose through every opportunity that arises. A client recently told me his purpose was to inspire people to be their best selves. When I asked him how he was going to live his purpose that day, he told me how he was going to enter a tough conversation with a young branch manager who was struggling with decision making. My client had already resolved to be 100% direct with the branch manager because this person’s fear of being disliked by others was clouding his judgement and causing production delays. In other words, fear was holding him back from being his best self, and my client felt called to provide inspiration.

Have a Purpose gratitude moment at the end of every day.

Finally, at the end of every day, take a few moments to reflect on your day and ask yourself, “How did I live my purpose today?” Once you recollect those instances, take a few breaths and be grateful. I once heard Tom Peters say, “We must celebrate that which we want to see more of!” When you take a few minutes in gratitude to remember how you lived your purpose today, you will not only feel good about the day, but will naturally create more of those moments.

A gentle reminder to leaders: if you want to see more people living your company’s purpose, you sure as heck had better celebrate it when you see it.

Here is wishing each of you a year on Purpose!

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THE CURE FOR EXHAUSTION

A few days ago, I saw a headline that said it all: Tired & Exhausted-Another COVID Holiday Season.

I think about a few conversations I’ve had recently with clients. Some are exhausted from zooming, some from broken supply chains and difficulty finding employees, some are exhausted with wearing masks and some from other people wearing masks. Some people are exhausted from too much work and some from too little. Many are simply exhausted – flat out done with 2021 – and exhausted already for 2022, which was supposed to start out on a new leaf but instead served up Omicron (coming to a theater near you just in time for the holidays).

Not surprisingly, a fair number of my clients this year told me as part of the preparation for my talks (almost all virtual) that their people were “exhausted” and that it would be great if I could help with that. What I told them is that, “The cure for exhaustion is not necessarily rest. The cure is often wholeheartedness.” I think of times in my own work life when I was exhausted from flying around to give talks only to realize that what I really needed to do was to make sure that what I was speaking about and who I was speaking to brought me fully alive. Every time I asked myself to evaluate the what and who questions in my life, it led me to new frontiers of energy.

If these past two years have done anything, they have invited each of us as people and leaders to go deep and figure out what really matters to us. These reflections have led many of you to make significant changes. Some people call it the Great Reconsideration (what do I really want to do), the Great Resignation (maybe I don’t want to do anything) and others the Great Migration (maybe I just want to do it somewhere else).

So, the cure for exhaustion is about leaning in, not away. It is about asking, What will bring you most alive as you think about the year ahead? It is about asking, What work most makes you want to get out of bed in the morning and get at it? It is about asking your people to work for something more purposeful in the new year not just to work harder.

And if you are just plain exhausted, be kinder to yourself than you usually are. If those you work with and live with are exhausted, be kinder to them than you usually are. Because being kind creates a safe space to ask the deeper questions about how to move towards whatever will claim all your heart.

Wishing each of you and yours, a season of renewal and joy.

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the circle secret of winning teams

There’s a story about Phil Jackson, famed coach of the Chicago Bulls and L.A. Lakers, who would meet with every player one by one at the start of every season. He’d draw a circle on a board and ask, “If this circle is the team, where do you see yourself?”

His theory was that he could never have a winning team if the players felt they were outside the circle. Everyone needed a place. Everyone needed a say. The stars in the middle of these circles – the Michael Jordans, the Shaquille O’Neals – had reason to include others out of their own self-interest (to win!), not necessarily because they felt it was the right thing to do. In his book Eleven Rings, Jackson talks about the first time he asked Kobe Bryant where he saw himself. Kobe put himself at the very center of the circle. When asked why he said, “Because I ask myself, if anyone on the team doesn’t feel part of the circle or isn’t doing their best, I ask, what am I doing to help them feel part of the team?” In other words, Bryant saw his privilege as a responsibility to make others feel included.

Leading Your Team from the Circle

The bottom line is that as leaders who want to have a winning team, it is our job to know exactly where our people are in the circle. All our organizations have some people who naturally and easily feel part of the circle. Yet we know that diverse teams where people feel included perform better and make better decisions. If introverts feel out of the circle in our team, we miss their wisdom. If women and people of color feel excluded, then they won’t ever perform at their best. If people who challenge the status quo feel outside the circle, we won’t ever have the divergent thinking we need for innovation. You get the idea. Leading from the circle requires listening and helping those at the center of the circle to listen deeply to the experiences of those who feel left out. This requires empathy and honesty about who is in and who is not.

The Circle Frames our Largest Problems

I have applied the circle metaphor as a way for those with more privilege to think about how to wisely use that privilege for the common good. Two of societies’ biggest current challenges serve as examples: Climate change and the COVID pandemic.

Climate change can’t be solved by one nation, it requires a team effort. Those at the center of the circle need to think about the needs of those on the outside of the circle. Developed nations like the United States and Canada built their economies on the back of carbon emissions and have the most resources to solve the problem, yet the largest net new polluters are in the developing world.  We will only reach a solution when those at the center think about how they can help those who were left out of the previous boom.

The COVID pandemic serves as another example. Rich nations have had unparalleled privilege in our access to vaccines. Relatively little effort was put into thinking about how to ramp up production so vaccines could be deployed globally. The consequence is that new variants like Delta emerge from the developed world, bringing on successive waves even in largely vaccinated countries. Imagine if from the beginning, full out effort had been made to think of how to meet the needs of those not at the center of the circle?

Many of our greatest problems stem from not thinking of who and whose interests must be considered in the circle. For example, nature has hardly been considered in major societal decision making for decades, even though clearly we can’t win as a species if the rest of nature doesn’t thrive. When we take the needs of nature into consideration, and give it voice in the circle, we find new ways to win. A great example of a win is in marine protected areas and “no catch” zones. Almost everywhere in the world where protected areas have been established, the catch of fish outside those zones has increased. By considering the needs of nature and humans, we all win.

Thanks to Phil Jackson for this simple idea. Our job as leaders is to include everyone in the circle, not only because it is the right thing to do but because you won’t ever win long term unless you do.

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Lessons From My 108 Year-Old Friend

One of the most remarkable people I have ever met passed away a few weeks ago at the age of 108 (no, that isn’t a typo!). Most of what I have tried to teach over the last forty years was embodied in this one man’s life. John Boyd was born in 1913, the year after the Titanic sank, and he lived an extraordinary life.

I met John in 2005 when I conducted what I called the “wise elder” project in which I interviewed 250 people over the age of sixty who had been identified as the “wisest older person” someone knew. At the time, he was only 92. He was featured, among others, in my book The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die based on what I learned from those wise elders.

The Four Lessons from John’s Life

In honor of John’s passing, I want to share a few lessons from his life, in the hope that it might help us lead long, full, purposeful lives. The first lesson is Stay Curious. Dissecting John’s long life shows that well into his 100s he remained an incredibly curious person. He never stopped learning, never stopped growing. He kept his mind active, kept on seeking new knowledge. John came to stay with us when he was 96 and during this visit, his desire for interesting conversations challenged me to keep up with him every evening.

He was focused on purpose, and we know that people who have a purpose are happier and live longer. For most of his entire adult life, he was dedicated to helping build a more equitable, fair world. This was his purpose, to which he remained dedicated right until the end. One of the things that struck me about him was that he told me was not afraid to die, but was sorry he wouldn’t get to see what came “next for humanity.”

Love was important to John. He kept on building and nurturing relationships throughout his later years. He was also continually inspired by younger people including the new social movements driven by youth to create a better world. He wrote: “I’m an optimist. I believe that future generations – those of my two great granddaughters and those that follow – will find a way to challenge the greed and corruption and injustice in the world, and know that some of my efforts for a better society will not have been in vain.” 

Two Enduring Images

As I think back on my time with John, there are two enduring images. He told me that as he got older, every time he would see a beautiful sunset, a lovely child playing, or a compelling painting, he would think, “I must enjoy this because I don’t know how many more I will see.” He taught me that every sunset and every beautiful moment should never be taken for granted.

The second enduring image was when I asked him about his fifty-year marriage. He told me that whenever he was angry with his wife, he would always ask himself, “Is this thing I am angry about more important than the love we share?” The answer, he said, was always no. Focus on love, he told me, and little else will matter.

My friend Nancy MacKay, founder of MacKay CEO Forums, is a great entrepreneur and one of the people who inspires me. She has what she calls the “100 Year Club” with a group of friends. Together they hold the intention of not only living to be 100, but maintaining a deep sense of purpose. It’s a club I am honored to be part of. I don’t know if Nancy or I will make it one hundred, but she sure shows the signs of what I saw in John Boyd: purpose, curiosity, focus on love and letting the young inspire you.

One final moment remains in my mind about John. He told me that after he turned ninety, when people asked him how old he was, he would always say “ninety-two and a half,” much like a child might say about being seven and a half. Whenever he told me that, he had a twinkle in his eye, displaying the child like curiosity that helped explain his long life.

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What I Learned From My Mother’s Death – 4 Years Later

My mother, Irene Parisi-Izzo passed away four years ago, just short of her 82nd birthday. Many of you have lost a parent, so you are familiar with the enormity of this loss, particularly on Mother’s Day every year.

Death is hard, especially when we say goodbye to someone we love deeply. Death is also a great teacher, if we are open to the deep lessons that come from the experience of loss. Steve Jobs once said that death was the greatest invention in the history of life, because it gives an urgency to how humans live, and all parts of nature rely on the process of death to adapt. Each generation of life, human and otherwise, tries to improve for the future.

Today I want to share the three lessons I learned at my mother’s bedside during the last week of her life. It was easily the most difficult week for me as I cried a million tears, but it was also the most meaningful time. The three lessons are Letting Go, Staying Open and Leaving Behind.

Letting Go

My mother and I were very close, especially in her later years, when she moved to Vancouver to be closer to me and my family. As the only child of a single mother, we had a special bond. We only found out she had cancer a few weeks before she died. There wasn’t much time to let go. In the final days of her life, she taught me a great deal about letting go. I watched as she gently released all the regrets in her life. She challenged me to put aside any feelings that I could have been a better son; she urged me to let go and surrender to everything, even death, and to be curious about what this might teach me. Each day I had to practice letting go of my desire to control life, to change the past, and eventually I learned to surrender to each final moment.

My oldest daughter, Lena, was flying into Vancouver from the US while my mother’s life was slipping away. I clung so hard to the desire for my mom to hold on, but she was at peace in each moment. “If it’s to be, it will be, it will be ok.” When Lena’s flight was delayed by five hours and my mother lay unconscious, I held tightly to my wish for them to have a goodbye, until I finally I had to let it go. Though in the end, mom hung on so they had a loving and peaceful farewell, the beauty of that moment of surrender has stayed with me.

I have learned that much of the happiness we create in life is done so through surrendering with curiosity and endless possibilities to the challenges we face. We must teach ourselves the practice of Letting Go.

Staying Open

The second lesson was Staying Open. One of my mother’s greatest gifts to me was her kind nature, which never showed judgment or prejudice. Except for those who were bullies, she always gave people the benefit of the doubt. She had a difficult life herself, and she was keenly aware that people cannot always control their circumstances in life. “Walk in someone’s shoes,” she would say, “before you judge them.”

Little did I know that I would be faced with re-learning that lesson. It happened most poignantly in the hospital when the patient on the other side of the curtain, a man in his late forties, was particularly loud. He had many guests and often had his TV on without a headset. His actions made me angry and I judged him to be rude and insensitive.

As the days passed, my mother had become very weak. When I arrived one morning, the man called me to his bedside. “What are you here for?” I asked him. He replied, “Well, I have been battling cancer for almost ten years now, and it looks like I am finally losing.” He then went on, “Your mother is really struggling now. Sometimes at night she can’t ring her call button for help. But I want you to know I have been listening for her and when she is in distress, I ring my button for her.” The man I had judged was actually my mother’s guardian angel even though he was very sick and battling for his own life.

I thought of all the times we judge others without taking the time to know them and to understand their story. What a better world it would be if we all saw the goodness in others as my mother did. She was not naïve by any means, but she believed that if we look for truth and goodness in others, we are more likely to bring it out in them.

Leaving Behind

The final lesson was Leaving Behind. My mother was accustomed to sacrificing for others, and she gave me everything she could. She focused her life on how she could make things better for others in every situation. Even in those final hours, her main concern was not for herself, but whether I would manage in her death. The nurses even commented to me about how they could tell she was “a very good woman”. Throughout her pain, she was most concerned about the grief and sadness she was causing, and she was very worried about how her death would affect us afterwards.

Watching how she lived and died, I was reminded again that the great task of life is to make the world better for others because you were here. This is as true for every person, whether you are a mother and grandmother from New York City, or whether you are a world leader. The true test of our success is whether we improve life while we are here. As an author and professional speaker, I am challenged to get business leaders to think about their legacy, to ask “How do I want this company to be different because of my leadership,” “How can we positively impact society though our work,” and “What will I leave behind?”

My mother taught me so many things. She quietly stood up to racism in our neighbourhood during the 1960s, she railed against the loss of civility in society and raised me well, and she role modeled serving others with kindness and humility. And she showed me strength and integrity through the way she always spoke up for what she thought was right, even if it wasn’t popular.

I think there are three key questions we ought to ask ourselves every day of our lives:  What did I stand up for today? Did I leave everyone I met today better than I found them? Did how I lived today help leave a positive legacy for the future?

The Biggest Lesson

Perhaps the biggest lesson from her death is the most obvious. Cherish those you love right now. Be kind, be generous, and if there is something you must say, this is the moment. Years ago, a wise man told me that no matter what your relationship is like with your parents, you will miss them incredibly when they are gone.

Four years later, I miss my mom every day. Her spirit remains close, and I think about all the things I would tell her. Sometimes I pick up the phone and start dialing her number automatically before I stop myself. I hope that if you can call your loved ones, and be there for them, please do it. COVID has undeniably created physical distance between all of us, and I hope that you will have a loving reunion with your family and friends when it is safe to visit and travel again.

The other final lesson is to live abundantly now, with gratitude and celebration. I spoke of this in my books The Five Secrets and The Five Thieves of Happiness, but today I feel it in my bones. This is the day, now is the moment, to enjoy each day, to live as if it could be your last, and it should be your best.

With love for the memories of my mother, Irene Izzo-Parisi, and for all of you who have experienced loss. We are not alone, we are sharing the burden of grief and finding thanksgiving together.

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The Hammer & The Dance: Leadership Lessons from the Pandemic

The various ways countries have responded to the pandemic has many lessons for us as leaders.

Mark Carney, former Bank of England and Bank of Canada chief, in his important new book, Values-Building a Better World for All, talks about the two ways countries dealt with the pandemic. He named them the “hammer” and the “dance.” The difference is self-explanatory. Those who used the hammer (Taiwan, China, Australia, New Zealand) took a hard line and endured short term painful medicine. Those who did the dance (Canada, the United States, India) tried to keep towing the line back and forth between tough choices and opening back up. Not surprisingly, those who took the path of the hammer are living life close to normal now, those who chose the dance have endured a year plus of ongoing pain. In some cases, like in the US, the challenge is easing because of vaccines, but at the expense of half a million lives and millions of lost jobs. Even within Canada, the Maritime Provinces went “hammer” and have avoided the worst of the crisis. While the hammer and the dance doesn’t fully explain the variability, it connected me to an even more critical concept that helps explain both pandemic success and serves an important lesson for leaders.

Discipline is Putting the Pain First

F. Scott Peck in one of the greatest books of my lifetime, The Road Less Traveled, used his decades of experience as a psychotherapist to suggest that the prime psychological barrier for most of his clients was the willingness to “delay gratification,” a process he called “putting the pain first.” He went on to suggest that the willingness to be disciplined and put the pain first was the key to psychological healing. Going to therapy and confronting the barriers to your wellbeing is tough, and doing so is painful in the short term, but leads to long term gain. We see this principle in many ways in our personal lives. Going to the gym is less fun than sitting around eating ice cream, networking long before you need help from people is time consuming, but when we do the hard things first, it pays off.

The Marshmallow Effect

Some of you may be familiar with the famous study called “the marshmallow effect” conducted at Stanford University by Walter Mischel in 1972. The experiment measured how well children could delay immediate gratification to receive greater rewards in the future—an ability that predicts success later in life. The preschool children were given the chance to eat a marshmallow now or get two if they held off for ten minutes. Mischel found that preschoolers who could hold out longer before eating the marshmallow performed better academically, handled frustration better, and managed their stress more effectively as adolescents. They also had healthier relationships and better health 30 years later!

Delaying gratification is key to success. Right now, India is experiencing a COVID tragedy of unimaginable proportions. My heart breaks for them. Experts say India MUST lock the entire country down now, and that they never should have loosened previous restrictions. Only the bitter pill of shutting down the whole society can stop the virus. The dance won’t work. Throughout the pandemic we can see the price for delaying the pain. Countries like Australia and New Zealand instituted two-week hard lockdowns in quarantine hotels, thus keeping the virus at bay. Both countries endured severe lock downs whenever cases emerged. Even now, Australia just bit the hard pill of prohibiting its own citizens from returning from India. China did the same. Other countries like Canada are doing the dance by canceling flights but still allowing people to arrive via other places. It’s not hard to know which way will work. Australia is putting the pain first while Canada is going to experience the pain later when variants from India join the numerous others growing across the country. Putting the pain first is hard, for individuals, for societies and for organizations.

The Marshmallow Twist

There is an interesting twist to the marshmallow research. Years later, the study was replicated with a small change. Children were put in “teams” with other children and if they cooperated with each other, they earned more marshmallows. Turns out that those who cooperated were much more likely to delay gratification. When children felt responsible for the rewards of others in addition to their own, they were more willing to delay the rewards. Not surprisingly, those countries where individualism is strongest, like the United States, had greatest challenges with the virus. Even now a cogent argument could be made that while hoarding vaccines is in the selfish interest of the richest nations, it could ultimately backfire. By thinking only about our own marshmallows, we are forgetting that if developing nations such as India suffer, those variants will eventually impact us no matter how much we vaccinate. We might have to delay some of our own progress to help India bend the curve.

The Next Crisis

Of course, the time to have delayed gratification was before the pandemic. We got warned for years it was coming but did next to nothing to get ready for it. The money and effort it would have taken to be more prepared would have been small in comparison with the human and financial costs we are enduring. Experts tell us that the next crisis, Climate Change, will be much more disruptive both to economies and human wellbeing as it affects our food supply, migration, international security and maybe even the stability of Earth’s weather. It will cost us quite a few marshmallows now to create a greener economy. But there is little doubt that short term focus will mean much more pain later. And just like that marshmallow example, unless we help the entire world move to a low carbon future, it may not matter if we clean up our own backyard.

So, what does all this mean for leaders?

First, would people say you are a “hammer” leader or a “dance” leader? Are you willing to make tough decisions now for the future benefit of the company? Are you willing to take a stand on what you and your company stand for even if holding to those values means short term pain or isn’t popular? Are you investing in activities that won’t pay off for some time, forgoing short term profit for long term investment?

Second, have you created an environment for cooperation? Are your incentive systems rewarding marshmallows only for individual performance versus encouraging everyone to cooperate for the larger success? Are you cooperating with others to build a better society for all which in the long run is good for your business?

Finally, are you putting the pain first in your own work and life? What is the hard work you need to do on yourself? What are the patterns that keep you from greater success or health that have never been truly tackled? Are you actively confronting the demons in the way of your own greater success? Yes, it is hard to do it, but the ultimate rewards are great.

And while you are at it-put two books on your need to read list. Mark Carney’s Values and the classic Road Less Traveled by F. Scott Peck.

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