A sobering account of superbly human leader

“Yesterday as I was leaving the DLD Conference in Munich, Germany someone walked up to me and quite deliberately spat in my face. Before I even understood what was happening, they veered off into the crowd, just another dark head in a dark suit. People around me stared, then looked away and continued their conversation.”

This personal account by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch breaks my heart.

It makes me realize that as a leader becoming superbly human is accepting that your strength comes with an extreme vulnerability as well.

Being a strong leader doesn’t mean you can protect your physical integrity against any assault. In most cases, it actually means the opposite. Look at Martin Luther King, look at Kennedy, look at Ghandi or Benazir Buttho or Yitzchak Rabbin, look at the hundreds and thousands of people whose names will never make it into the books of history but who face perils on a daily basis to make their dreams come true so others can live a better life than they’ve had.

Today, I pay tribute you.

Because I believe that what you do is important. And because I believe it is our duty to raise our children with the understanding of what it means to respect people’s differences, to live life with compassion and understanding of our own and other people’s needs. That no difference whatsoever can be a reason to assault another person, to harm another person or to threaten someone’s physical integrity.

Whenever a life is lost, whenever a life is limited, our lives are lost, our lives are limited.

I truly believe we are one.

Seth has a nice piece of advice on what to do with bullies:
“The way to work with a bully is to take the ball and go home. First time, every time.” You can read the rest of the post here.

Can you pay talent with a story?

Which company has the audacity to outsmart it’s competitors and go after the world’s best manager, not by offering her the largest pay check, the fanciest car or the biggest bonus?

No, this company will seduce her because it has the best new product in town, it has the most motivated staff in the world and it has the greatest story to tell.

Unlikely?

Do you believe the only way you can attract talented people is by offering them a lot of money?

I don’t buy it. Do you?

I’ve always felt uncomfortable when I heard people saying that a manager should be payed a lot of money because otherwise he or she would leave, or because that’s what the market is paying.

Recently I’ve met a couple of people at a workshop who held a management position for a couple of years (one in an IT-firm, the other one in a bank and yet another one at a public administration office).

Every month these people received a nice pay check. Yet all three quit their jobs to go and work for a more humane organization.

Their current job pays less, that is to say, it pays less money. And of course all of them had stories of friends telling them they were fools to quit their former jobs.

Yet these people all felt richer than ever. Why? Because the reward of their current job is much bigger.

When these people now talk about their job, they really have a story to tell.

I’m interested anyway because I want to know how on earth a succesful IT manager quit his job to work as a social worker. I want to know why this new job is so much more appealing.

If I’m so happy with the company I’m working for, it’s because I have a great story to tell, a story which enriches my life, which delivers me the attention and reward of the people I talk to, which makes me a bigger person, a bit more superbly human than before.

How about you?

Free book: read to discontinue

Tell me how, according to you, life is going to change in 2009. The author of the most promising and inspiring comment receives a free copy of Mark Earl’s book on Herd marketing.

Be aware.

Your life is about to be discontinued.

Over at his Herd blog Mark Earls did an intriguing prediction about 2009: “this year is the one when everything is going to change”.

Easy to mock, hard to deny.

I admire Earls. Because he is so devoted to and passionate about human nature. Because he still manages to look at human life with awe.

When reading Earls you kind of know that what you know about life is that nothing is what it seems. And so is his prediction about 2009.

Further on in the post he clarifies his point:

“IMHO it’s not going to be a matter of evolving: we’re approaching a discontinuity, a singular moment, after which everything will be different.”

What will this singularity be? Maybe you know it.

So here’s my question to you:

If this year there would be one discontinuity in your life, what would it be? If there would be such a singular moment, what would happen?

Remember, from now on, everything is possible.

As a reward, I’ll send tThe author of the most promising and inspiring comment receives a copy of Mark Earls’ book on Herd marketing.

(Hint: go wild and stay true to yourself :-)).

By the way, thanks Mark for discontinuing my view on human behavior.