Tools & Tips
Lance Secretan: Leadership, Love and Telling the Truth

Fourteen years ago I wrote my first book. At 496 pages, Managerial Moxie, weighed 1.4 pounds and was filled with complex diagrams, charts, matrices, models, formulae, theories and other arcana chronicling the journey of my team in resurrecting a moribund business called Manpower Limited and turning it into a world class organization that achieved international renown. My writing formula conformed to academic norms that required deep research, empirical validation of theories, double-blind studies and peer-referenced material, which, after review and endorsement by cloistered committees, became part of a teaching curriculum. This accomplishment may have marked the high-water mark of my intellectual arrogance and my personal need to meet the external needs of "a system." I had written an unnecessarily complicated book about a subject that is not really that complicated.

Over the years, each book that I have written on leadership has become smaller and simpler than the one before. As I have spent more time in the world, I've come to realize that living an inspired life and making the world a better place is not a complex subject. As a matter of fact, it's very simple and can be said this way - the world would be a better place if we loved each other and told the truth.

We are living in a society that has embraced fear as a weapon to coerce others to do its bidding. In marketing, leadership, coaching, politics, education, healthcare, parenting, religion -- fear is the base operating system. In so many different ways we have learned to rely on the stick and have forsaken the carrot. Yet, we have choices of action and encouraging others - we can act because we are afraid not to, or because we love to -- the choice between fear or love.

Individual experience tells us that fear is the psychological, emotional and spiritual opposite of love. No one is inspired by fear. People are motivated by fear, but they are not inspired by it. Everything that inspires us comes from love -- without exception. In fact, there is nothing in our lives from which we get inspiration that does not also give us love. If a sunset inspires you, it is because you love sunsets. If a person inspires you, it is because you love the person. Love is the place that gives rise to inspiration.

Yet, how many people, including leaders, are afraid and embarrassed to include the word "love" in their vocabulary because they have grown up with an internal voice message that plays over and over: "If I express love, people will think I am weak, flakey, or lacking in resolve, purpose or strength." But this kind of thinking is based on the erroneous belief that courage and strength are found in aggression, and that gentleness reflects weakness. The bully, who believes that aggression is the best approach in any situation, is by definition a coward. As the Iroquois have said, "The greatest strength is gentleness."

A leader who has the courage to be humble, forgiving and loving -- and therefore authentic -- is a much more inspiring and effective leader. There is wisdom and power in having a big heart and using it to relate with others, heart-to-heart. I define love as the place where my heart touches your heart and adds to who you are as a person.

It takes courage, strength and commitment to build and sustain relationships that are based on love and therefore inspiration. Gandhi said, "Love is the prerogative of the brave." It takes courage to say to someone, "I love you" and to be a loving person. It takes courage to tell your colleagues how much you love their work, how much you love being a part of a particular team or organization. And yet, those are the things that inspire people. I am frequently shocked at how many people I meet in our retreats who tell me that one of their parents never told them they loved them. It should not surprise us in these instances that leaders coming from this experience will build and model their leadership theories and practices on the only life lesson they have known.

Telling the truth could be the single greatest profit generator in corporate history. I estimate that some 20 percent of the workforce today is involved in checking up on the other 80 percent, making sure that company rules and regulations are followed, that the law is respected, that expenses are authentic, that budgets are met and that there's honesty and integrity in the countless processes and procedures around which companies are structured.

This means that in an organization of 10,000 people, on the order of 2,000 are responsible for ensuring that their other 8.000 colleagues follow the rules -- and they do this through audits, budget control, compliance, expense approval and so on. If we assume that each of these people costs the company an average of $50,000 a year, including salaries, benefits and overhead, the total cost is a staggering $100 million annually! But if we started a system-wide initiative on truthfulness, and were even only 50 percent successful in doing so, then we could theoretically save 1,000 jobs -- half the people who are checking up on the other 8,000.

We could then retrain those 1,000 people to do more productive work, such as customer service, employee satisfaction and retention, product innovation and quality improvement and - most important - inspiring others. These people are already on the payroll, and if their energy and enthusiasm could be directed toward productive endeavors that make money rather than activities that cost money, they could make a more significant contribution toward organizational transformation, effectiveness and profitability than any other single strategic initiative.

So, when we say that we can't find enough quality people and that companies suffer from staff shortages, let's think again! There are plenty of good people, but we've put them on the wrong jobs -- jobs they are working in because we are not doing the right thing to start with: We're not telling the truth. Truth is a powerful economic tool.

When Mary Cusack was invited to start up a $50 million packaging plant for Procter & Gamble's Light Duty Liquids (Dawn, Joy, Ivory brands), she realized that the project was riddled with distrust and dishonesty. Working with HR manager Don White, she initiated a truth-telling process inspired by Brad Blanton (author of Radical Honesty) and Will Schutz (author of The Human Element).

"We got people to look at each other in the eye, share their appreciation, state their resentments, get over them and move on," Cusack reported, and she was personally able to share "all the information and opinions that I based my decisions on. I became vulnerable in front of my people. As a woman in a manufacturing plant, I wasn't supposed to show emotions. But it worked to my advantage."

A dramatic improvement in decision-making speed and productivity resulted. Although it usually takes 18 to 24 months to build a plant, Cusack did the job in six months and developed new bottle designs in this time, too. "We saved 12 to 18 months," she says. "That's $10 million."

Many years, and nearly as many books later, I define leadership as a serving relationship with others that inspires their growth and makes the world a better place.  I write, teach and consult to inspire others to see the sacredness in all relationships.

Imagine the impact in our world if we all infused our passion and purpose with the proof and power of loving one another and telling the truth -- and then, one by one, moved it out of our offices and factories and boardrooms and filled our homes, classrooms, hospitals, churches and government with it.

It would be -- quite simply -- inspiring, and therefore revolutionary.

Worthwhile Magazine
Sept/Oct 2005