Creating Sustainable Relationships, Part 1

As cofounder and a former president of the Covey Leadership Center, Will Marré is a recognized expert on the subject of leadership. He is also an Emmy Award-winning writer, an advisor to the Grameen Foundation (see "Banking on Trust"),and cofounder of the Seacology Foundation, which focuses primarily on preserving South Pacific island cultures and environments. He currently serves as CEO of the REA Leadership Alliance, whose aim is to help leaders "identify, communicate and implement new strategically sustainable business models." Marré's latest leadership book, titled Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner, addresses the need for some fundamental changes in the way business operates in our world. It focuses largely on the role of the individual in accomplishing those changes. Vision's Gina Stepp spoke to him not only about leadership but about related subjects, including integrity, maturity, decision-making, goal-setting and relationships. GSA couple of decades ago you were cofounding the Covey Leadership Center. In your book you say the center was great for its time, but that we've come a long way since then. Why do you feel we need a new approach or worldview? WM We taught millions "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," and they are still being taught to millions of people. But our institutions are actually hostile to people behaving effectively. Most of our institutions are based on the idea that if individuals and institutions work to maximize their self-interest, then the best priorities, the most talented people and the best ideas will rise to the top. It's fundamentally a competitive worldview. A competitive worldview, however, ends up being hostile to innovations that benefit the common good but don't have immediate payoff; and that's the critical thing-they don't have immediate payoff. Let me give you an example of how workplaces foster ineffectiveness. It's almost impossible to keep a healthy perspective on life and very difficult to have the emotional presence needed for healthy relationships if you're constantly working 50 or 60 hours a week and, more importantly, constantly tethered to all the electronic devices that keep us connected to one another. New brain research tells us that when we're on cognitive overload, dopamine and other brain chemicals are released, and they give us a false sense of confidence. So we're under the illusion that multitasking will make us more productive and more effective. In all the research on multitasking that I'm aware of, some groups of people are given several tasks and told, "You can multitask; do it any way you want to do it." Other groups are told to complete the same tasks in consecutive order, one task being completed before the next is begun. In every one of the studies I've looked at, they find that the groups that work linearly complete all of the tasks more quickly and with less error than the multitaskers. But when the multitaskers are interviewed, they're quite sure they've outperformed the linear group. It's a brain trick to help us deal with overload. The brain says, "If I give you some dopamine, you're going to feel confident to deal with this amount of stress." The problem is, dopamine makes us feel smart when we may be doing something stupid. That's why decisions under stress are always risky. GS So you're saying that even though we feel we may be coping with stress, it's actually taking a toll. WM Absolutely. Let's take this into the personal sphere: You're at the computer at home at night, and your child comes up to you and wants to interact. You say, "Yes, honey, I'm here. Go ahead. Something at school? So tell me about it." But you're also going through your e-mail. The illusion is that you're actually interacting with your children in a way that is meaningful or functional. But you may hear them say years down the road, "Mom, I hate it when I try to talk to you and you're on the computer." And you'll respond, "I thought you liked it because I allowed you to interrupt me." "But I didn't really interrupt you; if I did interrupt I might have your full attention." I'm suggesting that we have developed a work style that does not accommodate the human pace of life. The fact that technology enables us to do that doesn't mean we should use the technology haphazardly. GS It's immediately evident that Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner isn't written in the typical leadership language. Other leadership books may mention integrity, maturity, wisdom and relationships, but these aren't always given the same priority in the leadership hierarchy that you propose. You use the terms very differently. Why is that? WM Leadership as a concept has been hijacked by business schools over the last 40 years. The industry has defined leadership as a series of skills like decisiveness, vision and inspiration-traits that might be assigned to Hitler and Stalin as much as to Churchill and Roosevelt. So it becomes apparent that the important thing is the leader's intent. If we begin with a noble intent, or a purpose beyond self-interest, such as working toward sustainable abundance for all, then we have a foundation of integrity that can be called real leadership. GS You note that maturity is essential to integrity. WM Yes, integrity is about doing the right thing for the right reason. But your level of maturity controls your worldview, and your worldview drives your behavior. In the developmental psychologists' model of maturity, the lowest level is aggressive self-interest. This is what young children-before they're socialized-exhibit. Initially a young child gets what he wants by behavior that we would call bullying if it were older behavior. But what an infant wants is a full belly and a clean diaper. And if he doesn't get it, he starts screaming and yelling, which is the only way he has of getting attention focused on his problem. As we get a little older, we begin to horse-trade. Developmental psychologists call that manipulation. So "if you want me to be quiet in the store, Mom or Dad, you'd better get me this cookie" or "buy me this toy." Children very quickly begin to understand where their leverage points are and how they can horse-trade with parents to get what they want. According to research, about 33 percent of adults still operate on that level of maturity. We know them as bullies and manipulators. Frequently their behavior is either overtly insistent and demanding or passive-aggressive and manipulating-guilt-tripping and that type of thing. Many of those people are in prison, because a very low level of maturity creates impulsiveness that leads to antisocial behavior. But in every family and in every business there are adults who drive their agenda through insistence and manipulation. The next level of maturity usually doesn't occur in children until they reach preteen years and become interested in conforming to group norms because they want to fit in. So they start to sacrifice their immediate needs to the goal of being accepted. They learn to go along with the gang: "I'd really rather do something else, but everybody's going to this movie, so I'm going to go to this movie, because I want to be accepted." This is actually a very important part of maturing, because it's one of the first elements of self-discipline. We first experience it in our family when our parents tell us that "to be a member of this family," we need to clean our plate, or make our bed. As adults we typically go beyond conformity into something called self-regulation or self-control-or even better, self-discipline. This often comes about in the teen years, when people realize the critical connection between self-discipline and goal achievement. They may become goal junkies, excelling at school and typically also in the workplace because they begin to define their self-concept through what they've achieved: "Hi. My name's Will. I'm an Emmy Award winner." But when we begin to define our significance through the number of goals we've achieved, and we get overloaded, something happens to us psychologically. Busy professionals often work 80 hours a week, traveling incessantly, ignoring their families, neglecting their hobbies, neglecting their spiritual life. Why? Because the feeling of succeeding at a difficult goal is so temporarily fulfilling that it becomes a psychological drug. I ask those people, "What if you fail to do this on time, or what if you fail to do this at all? What would be the bad consequence of that?" And there's always some bad consequence. So I ask, "What difference would that make a year from now, or three years from now?" Usually not much. On the other hand, if you continue to neglect your health, or your relationship with your spouse, what's the likely consequence of that three years from now? It's very difficult for somebody who's addicted to goals to let that thought sink in. You can get the concept, but it's very difficult emotionally to disconnect from all these goals. That's why about 55 percent of the population sits at that level of maturity. And we do depend on this 55 percent to make everything work. They're the responsible people who show up and get their work done. Roughly 10 percent of the population lives at the level of maturity that I call integrity. They're consciously choosing-sometimes minute by minute, but certainly day by day and week by week-what to engage their energy in. Their contentment comes from living a life of conscious choosing. Almost all of us at work are driven by someone else's insisted agenda. If you're in a public company, then a CEO is working on the agenda of the board or the stock analyst. As long as we're driven by somebody else's goal, then when we achieve those goals the only thing we feel is relief. The only way we can really achieve deep satisfaction is by achieving self-chosen goals. And goals are not self-chosen if they don't involve reflection. Source: www.vision.org