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There's a man by the name of Captain
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William Swenson
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who recently was awarded the
congressional Medal of Honor
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for his actions on September 8, 2009.
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On that day, a column of American
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and Afghan troops
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were making their way
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through a part of Afghanistan
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to help protect
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a group of government officials,
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a group of Afghan government officials,
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who would be meeting with some local
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village elders.
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The column came under ambush,
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and was surrounded on three sides,
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and amongst many other things,
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Captain Swenson was recognized
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for running into live fire
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to rescue the wounded
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and pull out the dead.
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One of the people he rescued was a sergeant,
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and he and a comrade were making their way
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to a medevac helicopter.
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And what was remarkable about this day
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is, by sheer coincidence,
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one of the medevac medics
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happened to have a GoPro camera on his helmet
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and captured the whole scene on camera.
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It shows Captain Swenson and his comrade
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bringing this wounded soldier
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who had received a gunshot to the neck.
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They put him in the helicopter,
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and then you see Captain Swenson bend over
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and give him a kiss
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before he turns around to rescue more.
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I saw this, and I thought to myself,
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where do people like that come from?
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What is that? That is some deep, deep emotion,
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when you would want to do that.
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There's a love there,
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and I wanted to know why is it that
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I don't have people that I work with like that?
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You know, in the military, they give medals
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to people who are willing to sacrifice themselves
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so that others may gain.
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In business, we give bonuses to people
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who are willing to sacrifice others
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so that we may gain.
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We have it backwards. Right?
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So I asked myself, where do
people like this come from?
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And my initial conclusion was
that they're just better people.
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That's why they're attracted to the military.
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These better people are attracted
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to this concept of service.
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But that's completely wrong.
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What I learned was that it's the environment,
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and if you get the environment right,
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every single one of us has the capacity
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to do these remarkable things,
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and more importantly, others have that capacity too.
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I've had the great honor of getting to meet
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some of these, who we would call heroes,
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who have put themselves and put their lives
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at risk to save others,
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and I asked them, "Why would you do it?
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Why did you do it?"
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And they all say the same thing:
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"Because they would have done it for me."
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It's this deep sense of trust and cooperation.
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So trust and cooperation are really important here.
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The problem with concepts of trust and cooperation
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is that they are feelings, they are not instructions.
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I can't simply say to you, "Trust me," and you will.
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I can't simply instruct two people
to cooperate, and they will.
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It's not how it works. It's a feeling.
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So where does that feeling come from?
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If you go back 50,000 years
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to the Paleolithic era,
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to the early days of Homo sapiens,
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what we find is that the world
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was filled with danger,
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all of these forces working very, very hard to kill us.
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Nothing personal.
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Whether it was the weather,
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lack of resources,
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maybe a saber-toothed tiger,
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all of these things working
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to reduce our lifespan.
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And so we evolved into social animals,
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where we lived together and worked together
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in what I call a circle of safety, inside the tribe,
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where we felt like we belonged.
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And when we felt safe amongst our own,
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the natural reaction was trust and cooperation.
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There are inherent benefits to this.
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It means I can fall asleep at night
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and trust that someone from within
my tribe will watch for danger.
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If we don't trust each other, if I don't trust you,
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that means you won't watch for danger.
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Bad system of survival.
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The modern day is exactly the same thing.
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The world is filled with danger,
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things that are trying to frustrate our lives
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or reduce our success,
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reduce our opportunity for success.
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It could be the ups and downs in the economy,
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the uncertainty of the stock market.
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It could be a new technology that renders
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your business model obsolete overnight.
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Or it could be your competition
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that is sometimes trying to kill you.
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It's sometimes trying to put you out of business,
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but at the very minimum
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is working hard to frustrate your growth
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and steal your business from you.
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We have no control over these forces.
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These are a constant,
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and they're not going away.
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The only variable are the conditions
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inside the organization,
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and that's where leadership matters,
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because it's the leader that sets the tone.
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When a leader makes the choice
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to put the safety and lives
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of the people inside the organization first,
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to sacrifice their comforts and sacrifice
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the tangible results, so that the people remain
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and feel safe and feel like they belong,
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remarkable things happen.
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I was flying on a trip,
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and I was witness to an incident
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where a passenger attempted to board
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before their number was called,
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and I watched the gate agent
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treat this man like he had broken the law,
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like a criminal.
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He was yelled at for attempting to board
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one group too soon.
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So I said something.
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I said, "Why do you have treat us like cattle?
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Why can't you treat us like human beings?"
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And this is exactly what she said to me.
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She said, "Sir, if I don't follow the rules,
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I could get in trouble or lose my job."
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All she was telling me
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is that she doesn't feel safe.
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All she was telling me is that
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she doesn't trust her leaders.
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The reason we like flying Southwest Airlines
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is not because they necessarily hire better people.
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It's because they don't fear their leaders.
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You see, if the conditions are wrong,
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we are forced to expend our own time and energy
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to protect ourselves from each other,
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and that inherently weakens the organization.
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When we feel safe inside the organization,
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we will naturally combine our talents
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and our strengths and work tirelessly
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to face the dangers outside
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and seize the opportunities.
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The closest analogy I can give
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to what a great leader is, is like being a parent.
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If you think about what being a great parent is,
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what do you want? What makes a great parent?
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We want to give our child opportunities,
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education, discipline them when necessary,
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all so that they can grow up and achieve more
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than we could for ourselves.
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Great leaders want exactly the same thing.
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They want to provide their people opportunity,
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education, discipline when necessary,
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build their self-confidence, give
them the opportunity to try and fail,
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all so that they could achieve more
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than we could ever imagine for ourselves.
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Charlie Kim, who's the CEO of
a company called Next Jump
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in New York City, a tech company,
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he makes the point that
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if you had hard times in your family,
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would you ever consider laying
off one of your children?
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We would never do it.
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Then why do we consider laying off people
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inside our organization?
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Charlie implemented a policy
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of lifetime employment.
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If you get a job at Next Jump,
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you cannot get fired for performance issues.
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In fact, if you have issues,
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they will coach you and they will give you support,
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just like we would with one of our children
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who happens to come home with a C from school.
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It's the complete opposite.
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This is the reason so many people
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have such a visceral hatred, anger,
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at some of these banking CEOs
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with their disproportionate
salaries and bonus structures.
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It's not the numbers.
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It's that they have violated the
very definition of leadership.
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They have violated this deep-seated social contract.
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We know that they allowed their people
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to be sacrificed so they could
protect their own interests,
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or worse, they sacrificed their people
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to protect their own interests.
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This is what so offends us, not the numbers.
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Would anybody be offended if we gave
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a $150 million bonus to Gandhi?
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How about a $250 million bonus to Mother Teresa?
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Do we have an issue with that? None at all.
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None at all.
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Great leaders would never sacrifice
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the people to save the numbers.
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They would sooner sacrifice the numbers
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to save the people.
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Bob Chapman, who runs
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a large manufacturing company in the Midwest
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called Barry-Wehmiller,
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in 2008 was hit very hard by the recession,
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and they lost 30 percent of their orders overnight.
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Now in a large manufacturing company,
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this is a big deal,
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and they could no longer afford their labor pool.
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They needed to save 10 million dollars,
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so, like so many companies today,
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the board got together and discussed layoffs.
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And Bob refused.
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You see, Bob doesn't believe in head counts.
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Bob believes in heart counts,
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and it's much more difficult to simply reduce
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the heart count.
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And so they came up with a furlough program.
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Every employee, from secretary to CEO,
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was required to take four weeks of unpaid vacation.
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They could take it any time they wanted,
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and they did not have to take it consecutively.
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But it was how Bob announced the program
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that mattered so much.
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He said, it's better that we should all suffer a little
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than any of us should have to suffer a lot,
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and morale went up.
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They saved 20 million dollars,
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and most importantly, as would be expected,
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when the people feel safe and protected
by the leadership in the organization,
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the natural reaction is to trust and cooperate.
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And quite spontaneously, nobody expected,
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people started trading with each other.
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Those who could afford it more
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would trade with those who could afford it less.
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People would take five weeks
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so that somebody else only had to take three.
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Leadership is a choice. It is not a rank.
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I know many people at the seniormost
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levels of organizations
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who are absolutely not leaders.
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They are authorities, and we do what they say
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because they have authority over us,
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but we would not follow them.
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And I know many people
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who are at the bottoms of organizations
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who have no authority
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and they are absolutely leaders,
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and this is because they have chosen to look after
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the person to the left of them,
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and they have chosen to look after
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the person to the right of them.
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This is what a leader is.
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I heard a story
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of some Marines
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who were out in theater,
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and as is the Marine custom,
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the officer ate last,
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and he let his men eat first,
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and when they were done,
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there was no food left for him.
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And when they went back out in the field,
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his men brought him some of their food
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so that he may eat,
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because that's what happens.
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We call them leaders because they go first.
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We call them leaders because they take the risk
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before anybody else does.
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We call them leaders because they will choose
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to sacrifice so that their people
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may be safe and protected
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and so their people may gain,
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and when we do, the natural response
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is that our people will sacrifice for us.
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They will give us their blood and sweat and tears
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to see that their leader's vision comes to life,
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and when we ask them, "Why would you do that?
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Why would you give your blood and sweat and tears
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for that person?" they all say the same thing:
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"Because they would have done it for me."
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And isn't that the organization
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we would all like to work in?
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you. (Applause)
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Thank you. (Applause)
