The Magic of Our Global Connection
A talk about inclusive leadership and how we are all human at the end of the day.
We had another beautiful HumansFirst meeting on Friday. I was in the middle of huge international convention but wanted to hop on for at least half — and ended up staying far longer. The magnetic and magical pull of our growing global connection is too uplifting to walk away from!
We started off slow as usual talking about what we’re grateful for …. Rae said she was grateful to meet up in person with Tyler who told her he’s happy that she exists. It was the best birthday present she ever could have gotten. Mike spoke about how Rae’s opening up and sharing helped everyone else.
I said I’m grateful to be in this ego-free zone and how, as usual, I’m surprised such a group exists …. there are many types of gatherings where there is entertainment and food — but in HumansFirst it’s the pureness of our human connection that keeps us coming back.
Jason talked about being grateful for people who make us feel good about ourselves and how his friends said he’ adding value to their lives.
Then Zander took a deep dive into taking about how a human emotion can be cultivated, and how gratitude is one of those “master counter-balancers” for the “internal self-hate, self-talk things”. “In neuroscience we know that gratitude is one of those higher level executive functions of the pre-frontal cortex, and that’s where you create, and have your positive thinking accessible to you.” He works hard every day on cultivating his gratitude and clearing everything else.
Mike Vacanti talked about the live HumansFirst event @Microsoft
“This is the 7th time we’ve gathered together. It’s amazing how it’s evolved over time. 68 people registered and some extra Microsoft folks turned up. We have different speakers and it’s very intentional to infuse different thoughts. This one was unique because the folks that hosted us at Microsoft asked us to focus on Inclusive Leadership. The four of us came with different perspectives. Kimberly stands out for me because she really had a lot of us pausing … when we’re looking at inclusion, we think about what we see in other people. What Kimberly taught is that it’s really how we look at people that drives how we see them. The ability to change our own perspective as we look at other people, is the first step toward making that inclusion a reality. Because that’s how they’re going to experience us. That points to bias and other things, but it was really interesting how she said — — “how you look, directly affects what you see”. Melissa Hughes, a PhD in neuroscience, shared a lot about what’s going on inside our brain. What parts of our brain ignite as those positive and negative chemicals are released, and what that does to the rest of our body. She actually talked about inclusion as intentional engagement. And how do we get ourselves into that executive state where we are using all of our capacity to engage people. Not reverting back to our lizard brain or operating with the negative chemicals when we’re scouting for fear or doing all those other natural things. It really opened up that there is so much more going on inside us that we’re really not conscious of. She brought that awareness to us. Inclusion is something that is in our power. Karima focused on emotional intelligence — a really interesting take to inclusion. Her point was, we have so many emotions operating within us at the same time, and being able to select and operate our behaviors and often the emotions that best serve others, is the way that we can invite in inclusion. When you wrap all that together, it’s interesting that it’s such a choice we have — it’s not just a decision we make, how we show up and behave. What we’re doing here in business — it’s much more than what we accomplish, it’s who we become along the journey. it’s all about growth and it is about that constant stepping into that What’s Next? Not defending what is. Taking that as a basis, the word that I injected in my talk was — allow. If we really want inclusion to take place and leaders that can lead in an inclusive way, it can’t be commanding control of what is going to happen, it has to be discovery of what is happening, and what is possible. And allowing that room for each individual, to step into their best selves, rather than comparing them to other things. I was often told when being punished at school — why can’t you behave more like that well-behaved child? I was in an executive role in a company and the same thing happened again — an executive called me aside and said, “we need you to behave a little more like we behave. Not like you.” That same notion that existed in first grade carried through to having a big role in a corporation. If we truly want to embrace inclusion and have leaders step into their best self, where they’re leading in an inclusive fashion — we have to allow that. There’s great historic barriers that have existed my whole like that don’t allow that.”
What Mike shared set the tone for the truly profound reflections that came afterward. I said that we are all like cogwheels in a complete system, so there’s not really going to be things like leadership soon. There may only be facilitators. We all have these unique attributes, and when we put them all together, the more diverse the group is — the more positive energy we are releasing from nature. We can’t really see the impact of these gatherings on the consciousness of the world, and we may not really understand it, but any such gathering where we truly connect, and listen to one another is generating positive energy.
Mike started talking about how people have been moved to tears in most of the HumansFirst physical gatherings, and how the level of sharing is extraordinary. These are complete strangers in the room sharing at a level that they never have in public before. I explained that it’s a roller coaster of emotions that we don’t normally have because we don’t have opportunities like this in our daily life. But here you have a circle where it’s safe to open up and share, and have a heart-to-heart discussion, so people start going through many emotions that they don’t normally feel.
But I have to admit that Brian Kelly gave a much better reason for why people start crying in these situations: “Leadership is not compliance, and inclusive leadership is not compliance — it’s connection. And maybe there is an element of connection that leads to the tears you see at these events Mike. People feel connected in a manner they haven’t before. And the diversity of that too that Josia talked about — getting different people in a room and then realizing how there are many ways that we are the same, in terms of the things we need. Needing you to be just like me — is not honoring uniqueness and inclusiveness …”
Kevin Strauss: “When we are inclusive, we feel like we belong. And that is a basic need of humans. We need to feel like we belong, we need to feel connected like Brian Kelly was just saying, and when we have those feelings — we get a release of Oxycontin in our brain (to go back to Melissa Hughes) … Oxytocin is the love hormone …. I think that inclusivity is the belongingness, and I think that’s a huge element of what we all feel here.” Then he spoke some more about how good these things are for our health and how we need this paradigm shift to emotional health.
Then our beautiful new friends from Switzerland, Singapore and elsewhere started contributing, and you could really feel the universe realigning itself and coming into greater balance from this incredible global connection.
Mike was saying how Academia is starting to support these concepts. Sesil from Switzerland who is in the U.S. at the moment, jumped in to explain how executives in her line of work often ask for data, and how they won’t buy into changing their environment without the data. So it’s good that they can find academic partners that are willing to support them. She said, “At the end of the day the data says what we’re saying here — it’s just being presented differently. But we need to collaborate to influence the decision-makers and get their buy-in, commitment and budget, to start shifting some of the environmental factors.”
Kevin Strauss: It’s incredible how we don’t want to pay attention to the data even when it’s right there — for example, that money does not buy happiness. We still try to incentivize our employees with money. Meanwhile there is there is great research from Harvard — a 75 year old study — showing that the key to lifelong happiness is CONNECTION.
Sesil: Welfare is not the same as wellbeing. We know that. Throwing money at people is not going to give them the sense of wholeness we’re looking for. I think part of the problem is, they don’t know how. The HOW is missing for us. That’s what I’m discovering in my journey. We understand it individually, but again, we don’t know how to take it inside of an organizations. Organizations are facing shareholders, so they have a very particular reality that they are afraid of breaking, because even though it may not be ideal — it’s working for them. So they have this fear that something is going to break. So until we can prove to them that we can keep productivity at base, and perhaps even increase which I believe, until we can prove that they won’t lose anything from their current environment, and that it’s just a different way of being inside the environment. It’s not for lack of will. They all want the same thing but they don’t know how to get it. The CEO’s I work with went through the same education we did, they read the same books we do. There are a lot of them who think they are doing the right things. We are really in this altogether. I also don’t find it helpful to say there is you the executive and us. So how can we all show up more holistically in our roles?
Mike: If mental and physical health were not as severely affected as they are today, where we continue to squeeze the capacity out of people with fear of robots and other things, rather than provide them with the capacity to know that we can engage with these new tools. Those are the teachings that are being brought forward. And I feel that’s the tide we have to turn.
Sesil — I have this vision that we can take executives to a camp and actually have this container so they can feel the love, and wash themselves clean. Because of the things that I have seen in my work, when we take executives to some of the rural parts of the world, where they get to see part of their value chain. If they actually see who is working on the farmlands, the people providing the seeds for a manufacturing firm — their whole perspective changes. Part of it is that they don’t know. If we can just hold them and wash them over (I know it’s very symbolic) — this is why I love what you are doing!
Mike: Epiphany happens. Our approaches are so different but I’ll walk shoulder to shoulder with you any day. It’s why I want these relationships with each of you — because that’s where the value is! It’s what we can create together. It’s not going to be given to us — we get to find it. And to relate to what Sesil was saying: each of those people in executive roles that we feel may be creating pressure or doing ill — they are us. They are humans. And are as needing of our empathy, love, care and understanding as we are to those we feel are being affected. We’re in it together. It’s really important that we don’t find those ‘we’ and ‘they’ situations in that…. because they are part of the whole. And they’re humans like we are. And they need us, and our care, love and empathy. How do we make it happen? By creating that environment. Providing these opportunities will help all of us grow.
