The Meaning Revolution

Advisor of Leadership at Google and former vice president of leadership at LinkedIn claims that the biggest driver of motivation is the chance to serve a larger purpose beyond our careers and ourselves, rather than salary, benefits, bonuses, or other material incentives; companies that are able to successfully focus their people, their teams, and their culture around meaning outperform their competition. Fred Kofman's approach to leadership has little to do with the standard practices taught in business school and traditional books. Bringing together economics and business theory, communications and conflict resolution, family counseling and mindfulness mediation, Kofman argues in The Meaning Revolution that our most deep-seated, unspoken, and universal anxiety stems from our fear that our life is being wasted--that the end of life will overtake us when our song is still unsung. Material incentives--salary and benefits--account for perhaps 15 percent of employees' motivation at work. The other 85 percent is driven by a need to belong, a feeling that what we do day in and day out makes a difference, that how we spend our time on earth serves a larger purpose beyond just ourselves. Kofman claims that transcendental leaders, wherever they are in the hierarchy, are able to put aside their self-interests and help others to feel connected with others on a team or in an organization on a great mission and part of an ennobling purpose. He argues that every organization involved in work that is nonviolent and non addictive has what he calls an "immortality project" at its core. And the challenge for leaders is to identify and expand on that core, to inspire all stakeholders to take part.

Auteur

Fred Kofman is Google’s Vice President and leadership development advisor, founding president of the Conscious Leadership Center at Tecnológico de Monterrey, and founder and president of the Conscious Business Center International. Previously, he was Vice President of Executive Development at LinkedIn and a co-founder of Axialent, a global consulting company which has delivered leadership programs to more than 15,000 executives around the world. Fred earned his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of the trilogy Metamanagement (2001), Conscious Business (2006) and The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership (2018).

Échantillon de lecture

Chapter 1

A Hot Workshop

Your Job Is Not Your Job

Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.

--Viktor Frankl

It was a sweltering July day in Vegas, so of course the conference room was freezing. The participants of my “Conscious Business” workshop pulled their jackets tight and grimaced. They weren’t just cold; they were pissed off. They looked at me icily. I knew what they were thinking.

I’ve been in situations like this many times. More often than not, typical managers welcome me as warmly as they would an onset of flu. It’s as if we’re all stuck in some Dilbert cartoon, and I can read the thought bubbles appearing over everyone’s heads.

What the hell are we doing here? one guy was thinking. I’ve got work to do!

Another bullshit workshop, thought someone else. I hate this stuff.

I decided to play into their worst fears. “Let’s start with an icebreaker!” I said in my cheeriest, most workshop-y voice. “Find someone you don’t know and introduce yourself. Be sure to tell your partner what your job is.” I could hear their mental groans as they all turned to their neighbors.

After three painful minutes, I asked for their attention. “Who would like to share?” I asked sweetly, as if I were totally unaware of how much I was annoying them. Nobody answered, of course. “You two, please,” I called on a pair. “Tell us your partner’s name and job.”

“His name is John. He’s in legal,” the woman said.

“Her name is Sandra,” said John. “She runs marketing campaigns.”

“Wrong,” I said. Sandra and John looked puzzled, as did everyone else.

Then, Vegas style, I challenged everyone in the room to a wager: “I bet each one of you a hundred dollars that you don’t know what your job is. And that it will take me less than a minute to prove it.”

Nobody said anything.

“Oh, come on,” I pushed them, “you really aren’t sure what your jobs are?” I pulled out a roll of bills, with the $100 bill clearly showing on top. “Take the bet. If you win, I’ll give you the hundred bucks. If you lose, I’ll contribute the money to the charity of your choice. Raise your hand unless you really don’t know what your job is.”

A few people raised their hands, but most of them glowered, suspecting a setup. “Let me make it easier,” I said. “Let’s not bet money but time and energy. If I win, you stay in the workshop and participate fully. If I lose with more than half of you, we close this workshop and I’ll take the fall with your managers. I’ll tell them I just couldn’t do it. They’ll never know better; what happens here stays here. And to clinch the deal, you decide whether I win or lose.”

People grimaced. Some shook their heads, determined not to play with me.

“Come on,” I pleaded. “You’re stuck with me. What have you got to lose, besides your confusion? If you win, you’ll get rid of me right now. You can tell everyone the story of the idiot who messed up his workshop in the first five minutes.”

Finally, I had their attention. Most of them raised their hands. I chose a woman sitting in the front. I peered at the name on her badge and thanked her. “Thank you for playing, Karen. What’s your job?”

“I’m an internal auditor.”

“And what’s your job as an internal auditor?”

“To assure that the organizational processes are reliable.”

“Okay, Karen, let’s begin. Everyone, please look at the clock. Karen, did you play any sports in school?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I played soccer.”

“Great! As an Argentinean, I’m wild about soccer. What position did you play?”

“I played defense.”

“What was your job?”

“To stop the other team from scoring,” she said.

I turned to the rest of the managers. “The job of a defensive player is to stop the other team from scoring. Does anyone disagree? If so, please raise your hand.”

Nobody moved.

“So now, somebody else answer me, please. What’s the job of an offensive player?”

“To score goals,” several people said in unison.

“Great, it seems we’re all on the same page. My next question is, what’s the job of the team?”

“To cooperate,” someone said.

“To cooperate in order to do what?”

“To play well,” someone else said.

“And why would the team want to play well?”

“To win!” came a shout from the back of the room.

“Bingo!” I replied. “The job of the team is to win the game. Anybody disagree with that?”

They shook their heads and rolled their eyes, annoyed at this exercise in futility. I saw someone faking a yawn. His thought bubble read, What’s the big frigging deal?

“If the job of the team is to win,” I continued, undeterred, “what is the primary job of each and every member of the team?”

“To help the team to win,” someone el…