What Your People Are All About

Friends,

As I have done for the last eight years, I again have the extraordinary privilege of participating as a leadership consultant in the Leadership Detroit program. The program brings together just over 60 people who are leading in their organizations in the private, not-for-profit, and governmental sectors. They will meet for a day or two in each of the next nine months. Their orientation retreat was held this past week.

The retreat started with coffee and the usual ritual of hand-shakings, name-tag readings, connection-makings, and the ubiquitous line, “So, what do you do?” Then in the first formal exercise, each person was asked to share a “defining moment” from his or her life. The brief snippets ran the gamut of experiences from the loss of parents or siblings to the birth of children, from moments that were humbling to tragic to jubilant.

When the group was asked after the defining moments were shared, “What stood out about this experience?” the first response was (as it is almost every year): “I was struck by how none of the stories had to do with business successes, promotions, titles, or achievements. They were so personal.” People — the same kind we work with, for, and against every day — shed the uniforms of their cell phone companies, auto suppliers, utilities, mental health providers, etc., and met each other as people. It was moving, humbling, and unifying.

The stories almost always point in two directions that we, as people who hope to lead others, should continually appreciate. One is to family. If we want to support our people and get the best out of them, we should never forget what they generally think is best about them: their family, their people. The Fortune “100 Best Companies to Work For” all seem to get this, developing formal and informal practices that support people as family people. Second, the defining moment stories point to meaning, often because people have been awakened by deaths or near brushes with death. People seek purpose, meaning, work and relationships that matter and leave a mark. So, point to the meaning in work and beyond.

Apropos of this effort — as I write this on Sunday night — my nine-year old son Jack has read this draft and proposes this ending to RFL: “Tell them that you have to end because you have to sing and put your son to bed.” Wise man. As he grows, he’ll surely do what you endeavor to do .

Lead with your best self,

Dan