Look around you. There is not a life in this room that you have not touched, and each of us is a better person because of you. We are your symphony, Mr. Holland. We are the melodies and the notes of your opus. We are the music of your life.
—MR. HOLLAND’S OPUS
Primary greatness is achieved by those who have a mission, a purpose to serve that is higher than themselves, a lasting contribution to make. Many of us are tempted to take the easy way through life, never asking much of ourselves, and never ask the liberating questions, “What does the world need from me? How can I contribute to the lives of others?” This chapter will help you think deeply about the legacy you want to leave.
I was once asked at the height of a period of economic dislocation, “What do you think about the massive layoffs that are taking place?”
My response: “This is just one episode. As we move toward the global economy and the new rules that govern the workplace, we’ll see more competition from high-quality and low-cost producers, and this competition will exceed anything we have known in the past, particularly as we see the emergence of Asian, South American, Indian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern economies.”
As the psychological contract with people at work is revised around the world, many individuals will get into accusatory modes—into blaming organizations, societies, or governments for their problems.
Rather than place blame, these people need to reconsider their own purposes and redesign themselves to accommodate the new reality. I’m thinking of three things in particular.
THEY NEED A SENSE OF WHAT TRUE NORTH IS TO THEM. They must define a personal mission based on a vision that contributes to the organization and a value system that is principle-centered, that will not change. Otherwise, they’ll be buffeted by all these powerful forces and megatrends, and they’ll end up being reactive—blaming others for their problems and losing their influence over their own future.
THEY MUST BE WILLING TO BEAR RISK. They must be willing to take three kinds of risk:
• In the way they speak. They need to show not only consideration but also courage in the way they speak to their bosses, their co-workers, and other stakeholders.
• In the way they listen. They need to listen with empathy to learn what’s happening in the organization, even though the information might disrupt their world view.
• In the way they act. They must be willing to bear the risk of being creative, of teaching, and of leaving their comfort zone, so that they can adapt to the new reality and experiment to determine if there are new ways of doing things that work better. Risk taking will be the prime characteristic of the leaders of the future. In a sense, everybody must get into business for themselves and become entrepreneurs. They might move around within network organizations or massive matrix organizations from one project to another—and they’ve got to add value each time they have a new assignment. People are less focused on lifelong careers with one organization; they must become more focused on getting a job done, on meeting needs, on adding value, and on documenting the value they add.
THEY MUST MAKE AND KEEP A COMMITMENT TO LIFELONG LEARNING. People must accept the personal responsibility to upgrade their knowledge and skills, to become more and more tech-savvy, to read widely, and to become aware of the powerful forces that are operating in their environments. They may need to gain or regain a liberal or fine-arts education, in addition to keeping up on what is happening in the world of technology and science, because the arts increase the capacity of the mind to keep learning. They also need to develop a value system that supersedes technology and science, so that they live well with the internal side of their nature.
Those who do these three things will find that their influence will expand far beyond their immediate vision and beyond their business and their family, their children, and their community. They will make the great contributions they are capable of making.
To achieve line of sight between what the world needs and what you offer, you need to answer three questions: What does the world need? What am I good at? How can I best do what I like to do and meet real needs where I now work? In effect, you must become an artistic leader and follower.
The classic movie Mr. Holland’s Opus makes a powerful statement about the need to be an artist of life. Mr. Holland is an aspiring composer who takes a temporary job teaching music in a high school. He hates the job at first; it has nothing to do with his aspirations in life. But months turn into years, and in time he develops a love for his students. His life’s work—his opus—turns out to be not a great musical composition, but a great contribution to the lives of thousands of young people. It is a contribution of the soul.
People have a hunger today for the soul side of life—a hunger created in part by our turning away from the fine arts in recent decades. I once visited a great private school that was built on a strong STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) foundation. They are moving into the fine arts as well as mathematics and science. They have come to an understanding of the need for emotional intelligence—the need to nurture other dimensions of our natures they had undervalued.
The new workers, the new worker-leaders, and the new leader-workers will seek both intellectual and emotional intelligence and focus on adding value, continuous learning, building relationships of trust, and centering on timeless principles. It’s a renaissance education that leads to a renaissance in organizations.
THE FIRST SIDE IS THE PRIVATE VICTORY. Many people resist personal transformation, even when they know it is the right thing to do. Thus, they miss half the story of what it takes to become a leader—the Private Victory.
The Private Victory is the victory over self. You cannot hope to lead others until you can lead your own life with integrity and manage yourself with discipline.
Why do so many people forfeit the Private Victory? I can think of four reasons.
• They transfer the responsibility for their lives to others or to their environment.
• Few people, perhaps only 5 to 10 percent, pay the price and take the time to develop a defined personal mission, philosophy, or creed.
• Many of those who have a personal vision and mission don’t pursue it, because it entails risk and effort, and it throws them out of their comfort zone. They abandon it to pursue lesser priorities.
• They currently don’t have the mindset or skillset for it, and the paradigm of lifelong learning is not deeply imbedded in their family or corporate culture. Thus, they never achieve the Private Victory that makes the Public Victory much more likely.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE LEADERSHIP STORY IS TO WIN THE PUBLIC VICTORY. The Public Victory is to get others to join you in the quest to achieve a shared vision. Why do so many peak-performing individuals fail this test? I suggest three reasons.
• Even if they have personal security, they don’t have a shared security with a spouse or partner. They want to move out to open sea but are anchored in the harbor.
• They haven’t learned to delegate. Many people know the mechanics of delegation, but they resist delegating fully because they don’t want to cede control. They don’t want other people taking credit. They don’t trust that the job will be done right. I have great empathy for these people; in expanding our company, I have had to make disclosures that were hard for me to make at the time.
• They fail to involve other people in creating a supportive environment. They don’t build a culture to make their vision happen; instead, they sit and blame their managers and others, making the situation worse.
In many respects, Mr. Holland was an entrepreneur who learned, over time, to involve others and build a supportive team. At key times, his willing followers and supporters got behind him to pull off a public parade and program.
If you’re ever going to hear your opus played, you’ll have to undergo personal redesign and win both the Private and Public Victories, ultimately gaining a shared sense of mission.
Once I was working with a company that was doing well but would need to be reinvented in the near future to meet new challenges. The man in charge was sixty-three, and planned to retire at sixty-five.
As he started to invest effort and energy into this reinvention, he realized that it was a big job, one he could not finish neatly in a couple of years. He wondered why he should even take on the challenge, since he was addressing the needs of tomorrow, and the company was doing well today.
He had to go through his own personal struggle with the question, “Do I have the commitment and the energy to give to this effort, knowing that I only have two years before I retire?”
On the positive side, he felt that the effort would have a cultural impact and would position the company for profitable growth well into the next century. On the downside, he knew the initiative would introduce new problems and risk. And he faced nagging questions: “Will this change really work? How will it impact our culture?”
As I talked to him, I could see that he was struggling: “Should I go in this direction, where I know we need to go? The commitment and energy involved are so tremendous. Or should I stay the conservative course, knowing that my successor will have to deal with all the tough issues?”
I asked him, “What kind of a legacy do you want to leave when you retire?”
And he said, “Well, I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about that.”
I told him, “There are two options you might consider. One is that you make this effort to reinvent this organization; the other is that you stay the course and go out in glory, but without doing what needs to be done to benefit the next generation.”
He thought about what I said. The next day when we visited he said, “I have never been asked such a sobering question: What legacy do I want to leave? The more I looked inside my heart, I had to acknowledge that I didn’t want to pay the price of this major initiative; in fact, I secretly hoped that I could retire in glory and that my successor wouldn’t do as well as I have done. I wanted my tenure to be the highlight. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that my motive was wrong and that I needed to make the effort so that the company would do even better after I retire.”
He knew this restructuring would take a tremendous commitment on his part. “I hoped for two years of comfort and farewell speeches praising my name,” he told me. “Instead, I face the toughest struggle I’ve ever gone through. But I’ve concluded that I cannot live with myself unless I make the effort to leave an enduring legacy.”
When this chief executive told me about this internal struggle, I thought of the statement in Psalms: “Search your own heart with all diligence, for out of it flow the issues of life.”
That is essentially what he did. He made the leap from self-obsession to contribution. He made the leap from taking the easy way to making a contribution. During this period of reflection, he was extremely honest and authentic with himself and with others. And in the end, he concluded courageously, “I’m willing pay this price. I know this decision will make the next two years much more challenging, but also more rewarding.”
I invite you to search your own heart as you ask yourself this question: What legacy will I leave? What will my contribution be? Such searching often stirs up reinvention, redesign, and restructuring because you realize that you must pay the price for profitable growth.
The restraining forces are very real. In fact, as soon as you decide to launch a major change effort, you will find many convincing reasons for why you need not pay the price. Here are but a few of the ready-made excuses that may occur to you.
• The issues you must face are politically sensitive. Just as many politicians put off dealing with issues that are politically sensitive or even potentially suicidal, why shouldn’t you do the same?
• The big problem you face is chronic, but it may have no acute manifestations. Why not put the problem on the back burner and leave it there?
• There is no near-term payoff. Why tackle a tough problem that has no near-term payoff? If you play the game right, you could get all the golden eggs in the near term, even though you may endanger the life of the goose.
• Your successor in your job may be a convenient scapegoat. If the change effort you have in mind doesn’t work, you have many people and other variables to blame, including your poor successor.
• You have already paid a dear price to be where you are today, so why not let somebody else step up? You deserve to take it easy.
The problem with succumbing to one or more of these ready-made reasons for not tackling the tough issues is that deep down inside your heart, you know “I never really paid the price.” And you have to live with that knowledge.
A great challenge frees you to say no to a lot of things. You might find extraordinary psychological relief in taking on the big task and leaving behind the trivial. Often we find it hard to say no to the relatively unimportant issues we face in life and in business unless we have a compelling yes—some mission to serve, some quest to undertake, some goal to meet, some legacy to leave.
In my experience, the key to paying the price is to ask the penetrating question regarding your legacy and to reflect deeply in your heart and soul. During this period of deep reflection and introspection, you might involve a few other people for whom your legacy is relevant.
When you resolve to tackle the tough problems and undertake a major change initiative—whether it’s personal and private, or public and organizational—you still need the strength to see the thing through. You begin to address and solve problems that may have plagued you or your organization for years. You finally face what must be done to get your act together.
This lesson in soul-searching pertains to anything you might want to do in your life. It’s basically a reaffirmation of the idea that Public Victories flow out of Private Victories.
And so I again ask the question, “What legacy do you want to leave?”
• To become an artistic leader and follower, answer these questions: What does the world need from you? What are you good at? How can you best do what you like to do and meet real needs where you now work? Make one goal to pursue in which all of these things come together: a need area, your own talents, and your current reality.
• Answer in writing: What legacy do you want to leave in your personal and professional life? What do you want people to say about you after you leave your current job? What do you want your family and friends to say about you ten years from now?