Do Unto Others

I am a firm believer that the world is what we think it to be. If  we’re feeling a bit down or if we’re elated, we’ll tend to focus on information that justifies our mood. Since our moods can quickly become self-fulfilling prophecies, it’s important that we recognize how much our prefrontal cortex can dampen the activity of the emotion producing amygdala. We can think ourselves into a better place.

However, there are times when there’s a greater cause for concern, and this may be one of those times. The struggling economy is taking its toll, not just on those families that are suffering from lost jobs, but on all of us that are forced to lower our expectations. Many of us are having to set aside our dreams for retirement or for a life with reasonable financial security. There just doesn’t seem to be anything on the horizon that will soon restore our lost prosperity.

The policy makers that are elected to help us in times like these aren’t proving to be much help. Whether it’s the initial stimulus package, the need for another, or the reform of a health care system that represents a sixth of our economy, there seems to be an unconscionable level of finger pointing and game playing.  One begins to sense that all too many are more concerned with whether they personally win or lose than whether they resolve the problems our country is facing.

The same  spirit seems to rule the media. So much of what I read and hear is about why the other side is not only wrong, but lacking the basic human values each side claims for itself. Conspicuously absent is an appreciation for someone else’s point of view and any attempt to use the competition of ideas to arrive at better ones than any of us can come up with on our own.

And having just endured the Monday morning commute, I see the same selfishness in our society at large. Too many drivers are unwilling to let others merge in front of them, as if the race to work is a life and death matter to be determined by the precious seconds one might lose.

There’s pretty good data that our species is driven by what Richard Dawkins has called the “selfish gene,” but there’s also abundant evidence that humans flourish because of their ability to cooperate.  Those individual sacrifices we are called upon to make in the short term pay huge dividends in the longer term.  The world we live in is made better by our collective effort.

So perhaps we need to stop looking to our elected officials for leadership and one by one, demonstrate it ourselves. Those mirror neurons recently discovered in our brains encourage us to mimic the thoughts and actions of others, and for others to mimic our thoughts and actions. In this way, adaptive behaviors become contagious.  In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell describes how a fondness for Hush Puppies spread through our culture.  Imagine what would happen if self-sacrifice and civility were to spread the same way.

It all starts with what some have call “random acts of kindness.” We let that stranger merge in front of us during the morning commute, and they then mimic the behavior and let another stranger merge in front of them.  Little by little, the behavior spreads until road rage is replaced with all of us politely nodding and smiling at one another. The pleasant mood we would all find ourselves in at the end of the commute might just carry over into our work and then into the rest of our lives.

With the norm becoming civility and cooperation, divisive politicians and journalists would find themselves shunned. It would soon become clear that the only way to get elected or sell products for your advertisers would be to focus on the common good.  Those that didn’t would be ostracized.  Soon perhaps even the bankers would feel compelled to set aside self-interest, and obscene compensation packages would become a thing of the past.

I know that this is a bit of a pipe dream, but at a local level, polite behavior does create wonders. Try going out of your way to be friendly and treat others with respect.  All of a sudden, people become friendly in return, and life seems less stressful and more fun. One begins to feel better about the human race and not as pessimistic about our prospects for the future.

We may not transform the world at large, but we will transform the world we live in, and that’s a pretty good start.

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What’s Your Story?

Cognitive scientists believe that our moment to moment perceptions are tied together by our minds imposing a narrative. The story we tell ourselves then determines the meaning of our discrete experiences. It is the role of a leader to suggest a story that addresses our deepest aspirations and energizes us to pursue them.

In a recent column in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman gives us a perfect example of what happens when the narrative is missing. Reviewing all of President Obama’s policy initiatives, Friedman writes that they’re beginning “to feel like a work plan that we have to slog through,” because we’re missing the story that ties them all together and inspires.

Friedman’s description could apply to most business organizations. In the absence of a compelling corporate story told by the leadership, most people are in slogging mode. The work becomes a chore that is performed simply for a paycheck. This is not only sad, but costly.I haven’t yet met anyone that is engaged by just showing up to do a fair day’s work for a fair day’s wage. In the absence of a story, too many people are consigned to lives of quiet and not so quiet desperation. But this doesn’t mean that the story is simply nice to have. The difference between the productivity of people that are excited about their work and those that endure it as a necessary evil is vast.  Without the story, we sub-optimize our most valuable resource.

But the story also serves the purpose of focusing and aligning individual efforts. No objective setting process or control system can possibly cover all decisions and behavior. Without the story, wasted effort and inefficiencies abound.  With the right story in place, organizations can accomplish substantially more with less.

Unfortunately, the “soft” issues of inspirational leadership and an engaging story are all too often seen as just nice to have, and are only addressed once the “hard” business concerns are taken care of. Our logic may deceive us into believing the two can be separated, but in reality it is people, inspired and energetic or not, doing the work.

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The Most Valuable Asset

Last week I traveled with my nine and ten year old daughters to visit a school we’ve been considering for next fall.  With two flights, we were in the less than friendly skies and at airports for almost eight hours.  By the time we reached our hotel, we were not in the best of spirits.

This is a hotel we stay at frequently.  It has a long and storied history, represented by pictures in the dining room of past guests, including Shirley Temple and Winston Churchill.  For decades, it boasted a legendary Sunday brunch that was a must for occasions like Easter and Mother’s Day.  But the brunch was no longer and several years ago the hotel was bought by another chain.

We checked in, rode the elevator to our floor, and dragged our luggage down a long hallway to the last room.  When I inserted the key card, the light on the door flashed red. I tried again and again with no greater success.  So we dragged our luggage back down the hallway, took the elevator down to the lobby and walked back to the front desk.

I explained what had happened, and was promptly asked if I had inserted the key card the right way. The conversation went down hill from there.  By the end of it, my prefrontal cortex was working overtime to control my anger-generating amygdala.  My innocent daughters looked up at me and asked why the woman behind the counter was so mean.

As we went back to the elevator, a bellman walked up to us and immediately started apologizing.  He asked if he could ride up with us, and once in the elevator, he again apologized.  I told him that we had often stayed at the hotel and nothing like this had ever happened under the previous management.  He said that the new management had kept most of the old employees, but also had hired some new ones and we were unfortunate enough to have encountered one of them.

This man was masterful at making us feel better and at almost overcoming the bad taste in our mouths from the treatment we had received.  For the rest of our stay, he made us feel at home, and so did the rest of the staff.  It felt just like old times.

If it had not been for the bellman and his obvious love for the hotel, this would have been our last stay.  It isn’t hard to calculate the incremental profit that would’ve been lost, and given how often we stay at this hotel, it adds up to a significant amount over the course of the year.

What makes this hotel work is it’s story.  It’s a bit worn and there are newer and nicer hotels near by, and ones that are less expensive.  But there’s no other hotel where people are quick to call you by name, where your waiter has been there forty years, and where the feeling of pride is palpable. Almost the entire staff lives the story of this landmark.

But not the entire staff.  I suspect being a desk clerk is not an easy job.  After seven or eight hours, I’m sure customers become quite annoying.  But being a bellman or a waiter isn’t an easy job either, yet the story they lived overcame any annoyance they might have felt.  Our bellman had only started his job a year or so before the hotel changed hands.  One suspects the difference between his attitude and that of the desk clerk was management.

The role of management should be to convey the story that takes people beyond feeling annoyed.  When the new chain bought the hotel, they also acquired this intangible story that made the hotel what it was.  Apparently, they failed to realize what they had bought. Their new employee was never told the story.

All the standard lessons are here: the importance of customer service, the cost of the weakest link in the chain, and the need to attend to details.  But there’s also another lesson and it’s about the story that takes people beyond themselves.  Although it doesn’t show up on the balance sheet, it may just be the most valuable asset of any business.

Several days after we had checked in to the hotel, my wife went for a run.  When she returned, she stopped at the front desk for another key card.  Sweaty and exhausted, she rode the elevator to our floor, walked the length of the hallway to our room and inserted her key card.  It didn’t work.

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