The Meaning Revolution: Leading with the Power of Purpose

by Fred Kofman

“Happiness without meaning characterizes a relatively shallow, self-absorbed, or even selfish life, in which things go well, needs and desire are easily satisfied, and difficult or taxing entanglements are avoided,” wrote Baumeister.

“The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her own life.” Most people divert their energy into trying to be happy, but “(i)t is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.”12 What people really want, what makes us truly happy in the long term is not pleasure but meaning. And meaning

“To win in the marketplace you must first win in the workplace.”27

“The Machine That Won the War”

This requires that leaders put down their egos and adopt a position of humility, openness, and service to a higher goal. In doing this, they serve as an example for team members who can put their egos aside and give their best to implement a decision they would not have made if it were their call. Every team member needs to redefine “winning” so that it’s not about who’s right or most influential, but rather who has collaborated with the others to make the best, most informed, most rational possible choice in the circumstances—the choice most likely to help the team win. (In Conscious Business, I called this “adopting the spirit of the learner.”)

This seems obvious when considered dispassionately, but it goes against some of the most basic drives of human beings. We want to be right in order to feel intelligent. We want to dominate others in order to feel powerful. We want to get our way in order to feel validated. We want to win (even against our team members) in order to feel that we are better (than they are). We want to protect and favor those closer to us (our constituents). In short, we want to prove to ourselves, to our followers, and to others that we are worthy, and we do this through behaviors that are the exact opposite of the ones required to play well as a team. In

She not only needs to be great, but she also needs to accept nothing less than greatness in each one of the other members of the leadership team.

(Remember, what matters is not so much the message you think you are sending but the one that they think they are receiving.)

When a leader taps into this existential thirst—providing an opportunity for followers to create an individual and a collective identity, to become someone they feel proud to be, in a group to which they feel proud to belong—the leader gains access to the most precious resource: engaged human beings.

Organizations that engage their people rely on what I call the “four pillars” of intrinsic motivation: 1. Purpose: Significance, meaning, impact, service, self-transcendence 2. Principles: Integrity, ethics, morality, goodness, truth, dignity 3. People: Belonging, connection, community, recognition, respect, praise 4. Autonomy: Freedom, creativity, achievement, learning, self-mastery

In fact, forty years of psychological and economic research proves that “Adding financial incentives to situations in which people are motivated to work hard and well without them seems to undermine rather than enhance the motives people already have,” the psychologist Barry Schwartz has noted. “Extrinsic motivation, such as the pursuit of money, undermines intrinsic motivation.”11 The

intrinsically valuable commodity (e.g., the coins with higher gold content) will disappear from circulation as people hoard it. Thus, if “good” and “bad” money are required by law to be accepted at equal value, the bad money will dominate circulation. People who are spending money will hand over the “bad” coins rather than the “good” ones, keeping the “good” ones for themselves.13 There’s a similar law in employee motivation: bad incentives drive out the good ones, as the example of the day-care center shows. The more a leader relies on financial incentives, the less he or she will be able to rely on engagement. And the less the leader can rely on engagement, the more he or she will need to rely on financial incentives. It is a vicious and futile cycle because

drive people to do good work because they want to, because they care, and because it is the right thing to do.

How do we ensure that everybody who belongs feels recognized, respected, and appreciated as a member of this community?

“Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex, intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple, stupid behavior.”19

“Agape has to do with the mind: it is not simply an emotion which rises unbidden in our hearts; it is a principle by which we deliberately live.” We are not responsible for our feelings—we can’t help how we feel—but we are responsible for our agape because agape is not a feeling but an act of will. Agape is a commitment, independent of our likes and dislikes.

“what we value and how we do things around here.”

is that they rely on self-managed teams and decentralized decision making. That is, employees are given a lot of discretion and autonomy.

An effective culture is built on four pillars: high consensus, high intensity, productive content, and high adaptability.

while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing

Instead of seeing and presenting yourself as a victim of forces beyond your control, you must see and present yourself as a player responding to a challenge.

I switch into “Outward Bound” mode. I see the person as a force of nature. He is who he is, exactly as he is, and perfectly so. It is up to me to act appropriately in dealing with him.

Response-ability means you don’t take anything personally. It doesn’t rain on you; it just rains, period. Instead of blaming the rain, you carry an umbrella to stay dry when it rains. And if you get wet, you know it’s because you didn’t bring an umbrella, because you were not prepared.

There is no guarantee that the actions you and your team take will yield the results that you want. The only guarantee is that you can respond to your circumstances in pursuit of your goals and in alignment with your values.

For the victim, life is a spectator sport. His favorite place is on the sidelines, not the field. He loves to criticize those who are in the game. But his opinions crowd out his actions. This makes him feel safe because, although he can do nothing to help his team, he cannot be blamed when his team loses. He tends to blame the players, the coach, the referees, the opponents, the weather, bad luck, and everything else. Although his explanations may be technically correct, they are disempowering. What he blames, he empowers.

“Success has many parents, but failure is an orphan.”

Stu: It is much easier to be the victim in a situation like this. But the only way to solve it is to be a player.

When you get a result you want to change, first ask yourself why it happened. Too often our first impulse is to attribute causality to factors beyond our control. As I’ve argued, this may be part of the truth, but it’s the truth of the victim. This explanation discharges the battery and makes us unable to improve anything.