One of the most inspirational moments in my career happened when I was just a young accountant, starting off on a professional journey that lasted many years and eventually landed me in the United States.
I was thrilled to have been invited to the company’s global seminar, held that year in Vittel, France, and I was totally wowed by the events and speeches but the special moment happened rather unexpectedly one afternoon when the founder and chairman and I were passing each other in a busy hallway. He stopped to smile at me, reached out to put an arm on my shoulder and spoke with me for a few short minutes, asking me with an utmost sincerity how I was doing and assuring me that he appreciated my work and how important it was to the success of the group.
Imagine, the chairman of a global corporation stopping to give a moment’s attention to a little known employee from somewhere across the world !! I did not get a pay raise but I was absolutely motivated to do more as a result of that encounter. Maybe I didn’t or couldn’t work any harder after that but I have no doubt that the experience taught me how to be a more caring, approachable and effective leader.
As we enter a new era of challenges as the economy slowly recovers from its dramatic downturn, corporations, executives and political leaders will have to learn new motivational skills. If, as some economists have predicted, the rate of unemployment will remain stubbornly high for some years to come, wages will fall and that will in turn demoralized the workforce. As their pocketbooks shrink, it will feed into the negative spiral downwards - corporations will attempt to boost profit margins by cutting costs, one of which may be through a greater exodus of jobs to countries with cheaper labor. To break that vicious cycle, political and corporate leaders (the people with the means and the ability to influence the outcomes) will have to value the workforce in ways that they have not done in a long time. Budgets will be tight (if they aren’t already so) and higher paychecks or benefits are harder to justify. Absent those financial incentives, they will have to win their constituents’ trust, loyalty and hard work by demonstrating more of their humanity and show greater empathy and appreciation of their contribution to the company profits and to the country’s economy. In short, they must learn to put their people first.
I recently stumbled across an ancient Chinese philosopher as I was doing some personal research work. Mozi (墨子) lived sometime between 470 and 391 B.C. and his teachings were quite startling and refreshing. I was never much of a student of Chinese history when I was growing up so the discovery of other Chinese philosophers besides Confucius was a revelation of sorts. If, like me, you’ve not heard of Mozi or his teachings before, it is quite fascinating to read. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a write up about Mozi’s teachings. [For a Cliffs Notes style summary of his teachings look up Mohism on Wikipedia.]
While imperfect, Mozi put forward certain thoughts that are worthy of further examination. Among other things, Mozi taught that a leader’s role is to live up to a set of high moral standards that are inclusive and indiscriminate – and his followers would then emulate his example. Failure to follow that principle would result in chaos and the loss of the leader’s mandate.
In a section titled “Critical Assessment”, the author of the Stanford Encyclopedia’s entry wrote: “Model emulation is indeed a powerful educational process, as any parent knows, and many of our values and judgments are in fact learned by following the example of admired role models. Social coherence, peer pressure, and the approval of superiors are important motivational factors even for critical, reflective adults.”
If business leaders want to overcome the general perception that they are solely focused on profits and personal enrichment; and political leaders want to inspire their constituents to do greater good; they would do well to get down from their ivory towers and walk among the people and occasionally put an arm on a shoulder and offer that someone words of appreciation and encouragement. As they see more of what the everyday man or woman has to go through to put a meal on their family’s dinner table, to put clothes on their kids and to send them off to school, they might regain their humanity and find it harder to justify the increasingly huge gap between their own paychecks, bonuses, stock options, etc., and the wages of the average workers. They will find it difficult to explain, to the people they have touched and connected with, why their jobs have been or will be sent overseas and they might even reverse the tide by bringing those jobs back to the US. They will recognize that with a concerted effort by all, unemployment will ebb and consumer confidence and spending recovers, sales and profits will quickly grow again.
Half a century after Mozi’s teaching on inclusive care, Jesus taught his followers that there is no credit for loving only those who love them (Luke 6:32) and he gave us the “do as you would be done by” rule. Our job on earth is to leave it a better place and we can only do that by putting people first. Nothing is as important as how our actions (or a lack thereof) impact and affect other peoples lives.
