anyhow that thought literally kept
Viktor Frankl alive it gave him a sense
of meaning of purpose it helped him
endure the most brutal regime of the
20th century three different death camps
Nazi death camps including Dachau and
Auschwitz he wrote about his experiences
in his landmark book man’s search for
meaning they took all my worldly
possessions they locked me away killed
my parents
I killed my pregnant wife having lost
everything in the crucible of this
experience Frankel discovered the one
thing that nobody could ever take away
from him his freedom to choose his
response to what was happening to him he
says this was mine and mine alone and
this thought came to him as a revelation
it was revelatory because as a
deterministic Austrian psychiatrist he
had gone into the death camps having
studied the works of one of his
predecessors a Russian psychiatrist by
the name of Pavlov you remember Pavlov
from your high school psychology classes
yes Pavlov and his famous dogs yeah the
bell rings the dog looks for food the
bell rings the dog looks for food you do
this enough and there doesn’t even have
to be food there the dog will hear a
ringing Bell immediately start to
salivate start looking for food a
stimulus a ringing Bell response looked
for food hard wired conditioned it was
largely felt inside the psychological
community prior to
world war 2 that the human was exactly
like the dog and you could condition a
human in what franco learned and that’s
not true dr. Pavlov it’s not true the
last of the human freedoms is the
ability to create a gap in between
stimulus and response and into that gap
put personal choice he says the world
must know what I’ve learned in this
incredibly dark place so I’m getting out
teaching the world literally became his
a guiding purpose everything he did from
that moment forward I guided him toward
that goal it became his true north his
compass in the 2012 Spielberg film
Lincoln a Daniel day-lewis wins an Oscar
for his portrayal of the the title role
and in the film also features a
lesser-known character in American
history in abolitionist by the name of
fatiah Stevens Stevens was staunchly
committed to a goal of his own
abolishing slavery in the United States
and throughout the film Stevens berates
Lincoln for not leading more effectively
to that end and in one scene Stevens
wonderfully portrayed by that great
character actor Tommy Lee Jones his
living Lincoln habit mr. Lincoln I don’t
give a damn what the people want I do
not care
you claim you trust them but you know
that that internal compass that your
director sold toward justice has
ossified in the hearts of white men and
women north and south unto other
uselessness through tolerating the evils
of slavery this is our compass sir and
you should lead by it well I like having
a compass
I learned out in the field survey and a
compass it’ll point you to north from
where you stand it lets got no advice on
the ditches and swamps and bogs and
obstacles that lay between you and your
destination and if I plunge ahead in
pursuit of my goals heedless of
obstacles only to sink in a swamp die
Lincoln’s making an awesome point here
isn’t he it’s good to have specific
worthy goals in mind we need to know
which direction to start but we need
something even more valuable than the
goal in the direction we need a reliable
guidance system an intentionally
cultivated relationship with this thing
we call a conscience to help us correct
course on our journey so one of the
things that I have done with my teenage
children to help them cultivate a
meaningful relationship with their
conscience is to travel with them we go
on one-on-one trips just the two of us
and over the years they get to pick the
the destination and what we do there and
so over the years those trips have taken
us to some fascinating places working in
an orphanage in the Dominican Republic
with my oldest my daughter Lauren
working in a home for rescued street
boys in the Peruvian Amazon with my son
Jonathan my middle child Caitlin picked
a different kind of trip she said hey
Dad there’s this youth camp in the
mountains of Slovakia I don’t want to go
to Slovakia and teach my high school
peers how to speak English her her trip
her agenda so I wasn’t going to argue
and I’m glad I didn’t because we had an
amazing experience there at the end of
our time there in Slovakia Kaitlyn and I
had three days left over and we decided
to drive up into to Poland and see the
land of our heritage as we were coming
down out of the mountains of the Czech
Republic and down into the flat
grasslands of Poland
came to what proved to be a literal and
proverbial fork in the road Krakow our
intended destination was just to the
north how it’s per canal just to the
south allow me to take you there how
Fitz has been preserved largely like it
was found when it was liberated by the
Soviets on January 27th 1945 curved
concrete posts rise up out of the ground
barbed wire strung all along its entire
perimeter a giant iron sign with those
three German words emblazoned for all
eternity
Arbeit macht frei work will set you free
trains would come in from throughout
europe they’d be greeted by an SS
officer standing at the end of the
platform evaluating the cargo as it
approached him if you are a woman a
child who looked like they could extract
no labor from you you went this way
straight to the gas chambers on into the
crematorium you would be dead processed
and disposed of within 90 minutes of
your arrival at the camp
that’s how efficient the machine was at
the end of the war if you were
able-bodied it looked like they could
extract some labour from you you got to
go this way to the labor camps and you’d
still be dead in three to four months
that was the average life expectancy the
most disturbing part of the experience
you walk down some steps into a room and
once the last member of the tour group
gets into that room they slam the iron
door shut behind you through which you
entered and as your eyes are adjusting
now to the darkness in which you find
yourself you slowly become cognizant
that the only other openings in this
space are vents on the ceilings these
would be the vents through which they
drop the zyklon-b 20 minutes later 3,000
people at a time are piled up in naked
heaps of bodies with a heap underneath
each vent with the last of parish
climbing atop the first to go gasping
for air through the very vents through
we came out of the crematorium and I hit
my knees in the dirt on the ground and
wept sobbed overcome with emotion as a
flood of memories came back from came
back to me from a leadership development
experience I had been through a decade
before I was with the oil company at the
time and this oil company had outsourced
leadership development to places that
were really good at it so one year we
found ourselves at Cambridge University
in England and we were put through a
simulation you or the leadership team of
a manufacturing company it’s your job to
run the most successful company you
possibly can every hour on the hour
we’ll give you data process the data run
the company make it successful this is
why we’re paying you and at the end of
the simulation facilitators are
encouraging us hey as far as we know
nobody has ever run a more profitable
company through the simulation we had
nailed it celebrate it gave each other
high-fives until they pulled back the
curtains and opened up the door on the
background of the case study that they
had used sadly it had been based around
actual companies dozens of them that
slowly but surely one decision at a time
had ultimately become complicit in the
Nazi war machine to the point that one
company was building gas chambers
another making zyklon-b
one company was actually running a
schvitz what how does a group of
business leaders become complicit and
evil to the point they’re running at the
camp here’s how one economic decision at
a time where are you going to build the
next plant take your pick here 3pl is
describing three different locations and
we process the numbers and we discover
if we build the plant at this one will
have a really low cost of goods sold
that’s good for business now the Labour
item on the P&L was zero this would have
been an ideal time to ask a conscience
based question that sounded something
like haitians you have to pay your
people something people don’t work for
free do they well they do it this plaque
kated next to a concentration camp
unlimited supply of free labor but we
didn’t ask and we built the plant right
there why do you have to join the party
in order to get the contract oh please
make no mistake joining the party is
optional it’s completely optional look
here three contracts you can get you’ll
have trained the party you want this
contract the big contract the government
contract this one that grows over time
afraid you’ll have to join the party for
that one
and caught the Nazi Party of course that
would be obvious we’ve we’ve figured
that one out they call this something
benign and yet none of us has the
conscience based question that might
have sounded like what’s the party doing
in culture what do they stand for in
society what impact are they having on
the world had we just asked that
question any question like that we would
have received a sheet of paper that
described exactly who we were joining
we didn’t ask we joined our top-line
revenue soared our cost of goods sold
was low our net income was huge and we
had become Nazis all of this come
flooding back to me in the dirt at
there wasn’t a dry eye in that room that
day we’ve been given a very specific set
of instructions run the most successful
company you possibly can
what we heard to a person was run the
most profitable company you possibly can
we had absolutely equated high profits
with high success on an unqualified
basis and the only way you can do that
is by checking conscience at the door I
got up out of the dirt have walked
straight to the bookstore I said you
have a man’s search for meaning by
Viktor Frankl his books been on my
reading list for way too long I think
it’s time it comes off the reading list
gets into my head maybe my heart changed
me a little bit or sold out oh wait no
forty polish is a lot see later this
one’s mine yeah and here we have
Franco’s legacy to the world in it
Franco says so many people go around
asking what’s the meaning of life tell
me what this is supposed to be all about
I will gladly organize my life my family
in such a way that I’m sure to give life
meaning tell me and I will do it
Franco’s reply what’s the meaning of
life no you do not get to ask this
question this is the question life asks
you it demands an answer and each and
every day we give one ultimately we all
answer that question what will the
meaning of your life be you get to
choose as an individual I am here today
to assert that not just individuals but
organizations bear that same
responsibility companies not-for-profits
government’s education on institutional
organizations all ultimately come face
to face with the consequences of the
choices they make and so they to bear
this same responsibility to occasionally
take a step back
the business of business and reflect on
bigger deeper questions ask themselves
questions like this why do we exist as
an organization what do we stand for
what are we refused to compromise on our
journey and where we currently off track
and need to make some adjustments you
don’t have to do this you can go on
operating business as usual ignoring
these bigger deeper questions and then
that internal compass that should direct
a soul toward justice might just ossify
in your hearts and you too can become
complicit and evil even without
intending to do so who how do you live
with that how do you die with that there
is only one way to avoid this pitfall
Alexander Solzhenitsyn the Soviet
dissident and survivor of their gulag
system was once quoted as saying it
would be so simple of solving the
problem of good versus evil was simply a
matter of finding those evil doers
wherever they are and rounding them up
and doing away with them once and for
all
but Solzhenitsyn says the problem with
good and evil is the line that divides
the two of these things runs right
through the center of each human heart
and dare I say each and every
organizational soul how do you navigate
waters that treacherous cultivate a
sweet intimate honest authentic
relationship with your conscience
consult with it regularly use it to
inform your choices and don’t forget the
best news of all Frankel on his legacy
to the world you are not Pavlov’s dog
you get to choose choose wisely thank
you [Applause]