in 2007 the leadership of a large
well-known organization had a problem
their customer service with not keeping
pace with their customers expectations
they knew they had to act
did they ever as part of their 87 page
strategic transformation plan they wrote
and I quote customers form expectations
on critical attributes such as waiting
time in line based on their experience
with similar services and compare our
performance to best-in-class providers
look if you’re not fluent in corporate
speak let me translate a customer’s were
upset it having to spend time waiting
online to address the issue the
leadership devised a bold solution they
removed the clocks from the walls of all
their retail locations no really that’s
what the leadership of the United States
Postal Service did they took the clocks
out of all their 37,000 post offices now
amazingly banishing the clocks did not
make customers happier about wait times
what were those leaders thinking now
maybe they just forgot that all those
customers in line would have cell phones
with clocks or watches or both or maybe
they thought by removing the clock
people would be mesmerized by the beauty
of a blank beige wall or maybe with no
clock on the wall they thought people
might suddenly think they were in some
kind of postal casino when I get up to
that counter I’m going to put all my
money on international stamps
oh there’s pretty ones with the colorful
flags in any event removing the cup the
clocks set off a customer backlash which
really should come as no surprise
because you and I both know that
removing clocks to address wait times
it’s ridiculous it is a decision
incredibly disconnected from its
eventual result it’s hard to believe
that the leadership of the United States
Postal Service could be so disconnected
and so ineffective and yet the sad truth
most leaders are disconnected and
ineffective as an example catch them a
public relations firm surveys twenty
five thousand people around the world
each year and asks them what do you
think about your leaders turns out that
only 23% believe their leader leads well
and by the way that number has not been
above 25 percent for the last five years
so yes the overall state of leadership
is poor however there is a silver lining
in the data see there’s 23 percent who
are leading well so what do they do
differently what do they know that the
other 77 percent don’t I got my first
big clue to the answer literally handed
to me as a present about 20 years ago so
I was having lunch with my leadership
mentor Jeff and Jeff and I would meet
for lunch every month or so and talk
shop about leadership in life and on
this particular day is we’re finishing
up Jeff hands me this present and says
congratulations on last weekend you see
the weekend before I just gotten
certified to lead a very complex
training I’d spent years preparing for
and Jeff had mentored me through the
process so I open up the box and inside
at that moment I felt really seen and
acknowledged I mean Jeff was like a
father figure to me so this was a really
special moment and then with his bald
head shining in the fluorescent light
Jeff gets this impish grin on his face
he says Oh turn the shirt around turn it
around I’ll never forget what he said
next
he said Ellen welcome to leadership as a
leader you’re always a target now if
you’re a great leader you’re the target
of people’s trust their respect their
admiration but if you’re a lousy leader
you’ll be the target of people’s
disappointments there are criticism in
there blame as a leader you’re always a
target now what type of target that’s
your choice it depends on the quality of
connection that you create with someone
else at its core leadership is about
connection it’s a relationship between
two people and what Jeff with his
t-shirt understood intuitively about
leadership and connection is actually
rooted in neuroscience and biology it’s
how we are wired so this is your brain
okay it’s not actually your brain but
it’s a simplified representation of
human brain and the human brain is
divided in two into three parts so the
first part is the reptilian brain which
is the oldest of the three from an
evolutionary perspective so the
reptilian brain controls functions like
breathing heart rate digestion these are
all things that you don’t need to think
about for them to keep working I thank
goodness then is the next oldest which
is the limbic brain which is responsible
for things like emotion motivation
behavior and then finally there’s the
newest part of the brain the neocortex
now this is a part that allows you to do
all sorts of incredible things that
other species can’t
things like ride a bicycle paint a
self-portraits
or write a love letter so here’s the
thing the three parts of the brain are
all interconnected in fact they share
the same mental bandwidth which means
they’re in competition for the same
finite supply of your cognitive
resources but there’s a catch you see
the competition is rigged the older
parts always win
so if your reptilian brain perceives a
threat or your limbic brain feels
disconnected and afraid to speak up the
neuronal traffic flows to them they
consume mental resources that might
otherwise be spent on neocortical
functions like strategic planning or
collaboration or innovation see when you
feel connected you’re better able to
access the mental resources needed for
high performance which might explain the
phenomenon as to why when you’re around
some leaders you feel competent and
productive when you’re around others you
don’t and this science has actually been
borne out in the research on
effectiveness in 1974 Gallup the world’s
largest polling company wanted to find
out what makes the most successful
employees successful in over the next 25
years they surveyed over a million
employees in over 100 countries and
after they gathered and analyzed all the
data they found there was one single
factor above all others that determined
an employee’s success and they define
success as higher levels of
profitability increased levels of
productivity lower levels of employee
turnover and higher levels of customer
satisfaction and loyalty turns out that
one factor that determined employee
success
what was that employees relationship
with their immediate supervisor so if
you want to be a great leader create
connection the simplest way to start
really listen to others seek to
understand them and care how they feel
as an example consider the story of Glen
Glen is a leader at a hospitality
company in Glen and 20 of his colleagues
were in a training course I was leading
and we were discussing the subject of
beliefs we were talking about how while
beliefs can feel rock-solid certain they
can change so I asked the group is there
anything that anyone once believed that
you no longer believed now I’d ask that
question many times to many groups
before and I typically get certain
responses things like Santa Claus the
tooth fairy so I’m expecting to hear one
of those oh but Glen oh he surprised me
that day something I once believed that
I no longer believed oh that’s an easy
one I never really liked people a whole
lot and I thought where is this guy
going yeah I guess you could have called
me a curmudgeon oh and at work as a
manager I was a real jerk all I cared
about was that people hit their numbers
now at this point I am thinking my
entire training day is about to fall
apart but then Glen shifted yeah all
that all that changed two years ago you
see my wife was diagnosed with stage
four breast cancer and people out of the
woodwork neighbors parents and my kids
friends at school just started showing
up helping making meals doing pickups
and drop-offs completely restored my
faith in humanity and at work
as a as a manager I realized the people
on my team well they they have families
too they have challenges too I started
asking them about their lives outside of
work and really listening to them maybe
maybe for the first time ever I’d like
through his experience Glen had
transformed as a person and as a leader
Glen learned something that any of us
can learn he learned to really listen to
seek to understand to care how others
feel Glen learned empathy so empathy it
isn’t just this feel-good nice thing
that you should do because someone said
it’s important it’s actually the smart
thing to do a recent survey of a
thousand employees found that six out of
ten of them would be willing to work for
less money if their employer
demonstrated empathy turns out 77% would
be willing to work longer hours if their
employer demonstrated empathy and maybe
even most tellingly 92% of them said
they’d be more likely to stay working
for an employer if that employer
empathize with their needs leadership is
about getting others to willingly work
towards the shared purpose you can’t
share a purpose without connection you
can’t get others to willingly work
without connection you can’t lead well
without connection so if you want to
connect be like Glen seek to understand
really listen to people care how they
feel oh and for goodness sake don’t take
the clocks off the walls and then
you choose what type of leader you
really want to be thank you [Applause]
well-known organization had a problem
their customer service with not keeping
pace with their customers expectations
they knew they had to act
did they ever as part of their 87 page
strategic transformation plan they wrote
and I quote customers form expectations
on critical attributes such as waiting
time in line based on their experience
with similar services and compare our
performance to best-in-class providers
look if you’re not fluent in corporate
speak let me translate a customer’s were
upset it having to spend time waiting
online to address the issue the
leadership devised a bold solution they
removed the clocks from the walls of all
their retail locations no really that’s
what the leadership of the United States
Postal Service did they took the clocks
out of all their 37,000 post offices now
amazingly banishing the clocks did not
make customers happier about wait times
what were those leaders thinking now
maybe they just forgot that all those
customers in line would have cell phones
with clocks or watches or both or maybe
they thought by removing the clock
people would be mesmerized by the beauty
of a blank beige wall or maybe with no
clock on the wall they thought people
might suddenly think they were in some
kind of postal casino when I get up to
that counter I’m going to put all my
money on international stamps
oh there’s pretty ones with the colorful
flags in any event removing the cup the
clocks set off a customer backlash which
really should come as no surprise
because you and I both know that
removing clocks to address wait times
it’s ridiculous it is a decision
incredibly disconnected from its
eventual result it’s hard to believe
that the leadership of the United States
Postal Service could be so disconnected
and so ineffective and yet the sad truth
most leaders are disconnected and
ineffective as an example catch them a
public relations firm surveys twenty
five thousand people around the world
each year and asks them what do you
think about your leaders turns out that
only 23% believe their leader leads well
and by the way that number has not been
above 25 percent for the last five years
so yes the overall state of leadership
is poor however there is a silver lining
in the data see there’s 23 percent who
are leading well so what do they do
differently what do they know that the
other 77 percent don’t I got my first
big clue to the answer literally handed
to me as a present about 20 years ago so
I was having lunch with my leadership
mentor Jeff and Jeff and I would meet
for lunch every month or so and talk
shop about leadership in life and on
this particular day is we’re finishing
up Jeff hands me this present and says
congratulations on last weekend you see
the weekend before I just gotten
certified to lead a very complex
training I’d spent years preparing for
and Jeff had mentored me through the
process so I open up the box and inside
at that moment I felt really seen and
acknowledged I mean Jeff was like a
father figure to me so this was a really
special moment and then with his bald
head shining in the fluorescent light
Jeff gets this impish grin on his face
he says Oh turn the shirt around turn it
around I’ll never forget what he said
next
he said Ellen welcome to leadership as a
leader you’re always a target now if
you’re a great leader you’re the target
of people’s trust their respect their
admiration but if you’re a lousy leader
you’ll be the target of people’s
disappointments there are criticism in
there blame as a leader you’re always a
target now what type of target that’s
your choice it depends on the quality of
connection that you create with someone
else at its core leadership is about
connection it’s a relationship between
two people and what Jeff with his
t-shirt understood intuitively about
leadership and connection is actually
rooted in neuroscience and biology it’s
how we are wired so this is your brain
okay it’s not actually your brain but
it’s a simplified representation of
human brain and the human brain is
divided in two into three parts so the
first part is the reptilian brain which
is the oldest of the three from an
evolutionary perspective so the
reptilian brain controls functions like
breathing heart rate digestion these are
all things that you don’t need to think
about for them to keep working I thank
goodness then is the next oldest which
is the limbic brain which is responsible
for things like emotion motivation
behavior and then finally there’s the
newest part of the brain the neocortex
now this is a part that allows you to do
all sorts of incredible things that
other species can’t
things like ride a bicycle paint a
self-portraits
or write a love letter so here’s the
thing the three parts of the brain are
all interconnected in fact they share
the same mental bandwidth which means
they’re in competition for the same
finite supply of your cognitive
resources but there’s a catch you see
the competition is rigged the older
parts always win
so if your reptilian brain perceives a
threat or your limbic brain feels
disconnected and afraid to speak up the
neuronal traffic flows to them they
consume mental resources that might
otherwise be spent on neocortical
functions like strategic planning or
collaboration or innovation see when you
feel connected you’re better able to
access the mental resources needed for
high performance which might explain the
phenomenon as to why when you’re around
some leaders you feel competent and
productive when you’re around others you
don’t and this science has actually been
borne out in the research on
effectiveness in 1974 Gallup the world’s
largest polling company wanted to find
out what makes the most successful
employees successful in over the next 25
years they surveyed over a million
employees in over 100 countries and
after they gathered and analyzed all the
data they found there was one single
factor above all others that determined
an employee’s success and they define
success as higher levels of
profitability increased levels of
productivity lower levels of employee
turnover and higher levels of customer
satisfaction and loyalty turns out that
one factor that determined employee
success
what was that employees relationship
with their immediate supervisor so if
you want to be a great leader create
connection the simplest way to start
really listen to others seek to
understand them and care how they feel
as an example consider the story of Glen
Glen is a leader at a hospitality
company in Glen and 20 of his colleagues
were in a training course I was leading
and we were discussing the subject of
beliefs we were talking about how while
beliefs can feel rock-solid certain they
can change so I asked the group is there
anything that anyone once believed that
you no longer believed now I’d ask that
question many times to many groups
before and I typically get certain
responses things like Santa Claus the
tooth fairy so I’m expecting to hear one
of those oh but Glen oh he surprised me
that day something I once believed that
I no longer believed oh that’s an easy
one I never really liked people a whole
lot and I thought where is this guy
going yeah I guess you could have called
me a curmudgeon oh and at work as a
manager I was a real jerk all I cared
about was that people hit their numbers
now at this point I am thinking my
entire training day is about to fall
apart but then Glen shifted yeah all
that all that changed two years ago you
see my wife was diagnosed with stage
four breast cancer and people out of the
woodwork neighbors parents and my kids
friends at school just started showing
up helping making meals doing pickups
and drop-offs completely restored my
faith in humanity and at work
as a as a manager I realized the people
on my team well they they have families
too they have challenges too I started
asking them about their lives outside of
work and really listening to them maybe
maybe for the first time ever I’d like
through his experience Glen had
transformed as a person and as a leader
Glen learned something that any of us
can learn he learned to really listen to
seek to understand to care how others
feel Glen learned empathy so empathy it
isn’t just this feel-good nice thing
that you should do because someone said
it’s important it’s actually the smart
thing to do a recent survey of a
thousand employees found that six out of
ten of them would be willing to work for
less money if their employer
demonstrated empathy turns out 77% would
be willing to work longer hours if their
employer demonstrated empathy and maybe
even most tellingly 92% of them said
they’d be more likely to stay working
for an employer if that employer
empathize with their needs leadership is
about getting others to willingly work
towards the shared purpose you can’t
share a purpose without connection you
can’t get others to willingly work
without connection you can’t lead well
without connection so if you want to
connect be like Glen seek to understand
really listen to people care how they
feel oh and for goodness sake don’t take
the clocks off the walls and then
you choose what type of leader you
really want to be thank you [Applause]
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