McKinsey and Company is one of the most, if not the most, prestigious consulting firms in the world. McKinsey creates immeasurable value for its clients, influences how the business world operates, and produces many of the world's business and political leaders.
Barry-Wehmiller and our CEO Bob Chapman were recently featured in an important new book written by four McKinsey Senior Partners. It’s called The Journey of Leadership: How CEOs Learn to Lead from the Inside Out. It was written by Hans-Werner Kaas, Dana Maor, Ramesh Srinivasan and Kurt Strovink.
The Journey of Leadership offers leaders a method by which they can assess their own leadership and reinvent their approach in a way that is in alignment with many of the principles Bob Chapman talks about, and that we often talk about on this podcast. The authors have packed it full of lessons from McKinsey’s legendary CEO leadership program “The Bower Forum,” which has counseled 500+ global CEOs over the past decade, as well as insights gleaned from McKinsey’s global CEO counseling practice. The Journey of Leadership shares how you can hone the psychological, emotional and ultimately, the human attributes to be what we would call a Truly Human Leader.
We at Barry-Wehmiller are honored to be one of the case studies in the book, appearing in chapter 12, which is titled: For People to Care, Show Them You Care.”
On this podcast, we bring you a conversation between Bob Chapman and one of the authors of The Journey of Leadership, Hans-Werner Kaas. Hans-Werner introduces himself and explains the inspiration behind the book and he and Bob have a meaningful discussion about the importance of human-centered leadership.
Transcript
Hans-Werner Kaas:
So, my name is Hans-Werner Kaas. Born in Germany and actually, close to a Roman city called Trier. T-R-I-E-R. It was founded by the Romans, 16 Before Christ. I think this is where I developed my passion and interest in both ancient but also obviously contemporary history. And in the context of history, and that is also important for the background of the book, I was fascinated by studying different leaders of different historical eras. And as you can obviously -- we can talk a long time about the Romans and obviously the following centuries -- but that was even before I started my university studies and joined McKinsey & Company. I developed that passion to understand leaders and their hallmarks and certainly what makes a good leader and a not so good, call it a bad leader, put it in very simple and plain English at the end of the day.
So I went to high school, I spent mandatory time in the German Air Force. By the way, my original plan was actually to sign up as an officer for many years in the German Air Force as a fighter pilot. And in the last stage, I was screened out in a simulator training. I made a small flight mistake. We will not bother you with the details, I was quite disappointed, but needed to in that context also reinvent myself a little bit. Said what else can I do? And I came up with the idea of business. So, I studied mechanical engineering and business administration. It's a simultaneous study and you can do it as a simultaneous study in Germany but I obtained a master's degree in mechanical engineering and business administration. And in the transition period as a consultant, worked for a year at Daimler-Benz. This is where I developed my passion for automotive.
And there very shortly after early 1991, I joined the Dusseldorf and then the Frankfurt office of McKinsey & Company. Spent six years in the German office, no surprise, serving both an automotive manufacturer, well-known and quite a few technology or auto supply companies. Came to the US in ‘97 to the Cleveland office, spent a good one and a half years there. And then with a handful of other colleagues, like-minded colleagues, we went to Detroit end of ‘98 to found our Detroit office because believe it or not, we did not have a Detroit office. And the passion of entrepreneurship and obviously serving the automotive industry, that is actually what attracted me, with a few other colleagues. So now how does that link to the book? First, I was, I would say, a classical intellectually-focused consultant. There was a business problem to solve, could be a strategy problem, could be an operations problem, could be an organizational problem.
But I very quickly, I think, frankly with the guidance and working with clients, learned to have success and success defined not only as financial success -- we all know this, the metrics of financial success, et cetera, et cetera, be it private or public company, does not matter -- but organizational health and people who are self-driven, excited to come to work every morning and not needing quote, unquote, being pushed in any direction, but they follow and see a well-defined common purpose and vision and the way they're actually empowered and treated indeed with care, with empathy, is ultimately, if you wish, unlocking the potential and excitement of people and of organizations. This was an insight I probably developed over time that was not necessarily switching on the light bulb event. It was really more a constant evolution over probably four or five years. And then that obviously developed as I served clients globally and large U.S.-based companies, which are well known, but also other companies around the globe. I got more and more fascinated by understanding leadership and the different hallmarks of leadership. And that evolved also in 2016 to partner up with both my friend, colleague and co-author, Ramesh, to write the book and lead the Bower Forum, which Bob you are very familiar with, including being a Bower Forum coach. So that is a very brief history, how I actually got attracted by questions of leadership and what defines really the hallmarks of exceptional leadership.
Brent Stewart:
You said it wasn't a light bulb moment for you, but as you were learning so many different things as a student of leadership, as you had been your entire life, as you were learning these things and realizing that there was really something different that isn't commonly accepted, how easy was that for you to accept personally? Was it something that didn't jive with what we see every day and was hard for you to accept or did as you evolved and as you studied more, did it come easily for you?
Hans-Werner:
I think on the one hand I would call it not that easy because when I was looking for well-founded scientific research and well-documented insights, finding that holy grail of human leadership and how you treat people and how you actually help them propel to their full potential, these publications only came much, much later. You can even argue probably only in the last 10, 12 years. That was, on the one hand, difficult because there was no real, call it basis or facts or insights. On the other hand, it was a bit easier based on my daily work with leaders and clients, be it both CEOs, but not only CEOs because as Bob knows very well, CEO is absolutely an instrumental role. But how you work together, how you cascade the purpose, the mission, but also the way you lead and operate is as important. So that daily work was for me an inspiration and if you wish also daily and repeating evidence point that there is another paradigm of leadership out there.
So that gave me really excitement. And again, then I joined the Bower Forum team in 2016. Still remember the first one I did with my, I call it my teacher, Claudio Feser. I did one in London with him in 2016. It was fascinating because it was on the one hand and you approach Bob, you're very familiar, it's described in the book with the Bower Forum methodology that this deep self-immersion, et cetera, et cetera. But on the other hand, I felt when I conducted the first time that Bower Forum with Claudio, that is exactly what my understanding is of truly exceptional human leadership. So I was so fascinated that after that two-day Bower Forum in London, I said, Claudio, I'm signed up. I am ready to go. And literally it was five weeks later, Ramesh, and I did one, actually two parallel ones to be precise, in New York end of 2016. So that was a small light bulb event, that Bower Forum, the first or the second one. But it was almost like I found myself, I found my authentic self.
Bob Chapman:
One of the things I've noticed, Hans-Werner, is that you've used the word leadership, not management. And in my journey, unique to your journey, I always say I took management classes, got a management degree, and I got a job in management. So, I thought my job was to manage people. And when I look back on this, in my talks, I say management to me from my 50 years of experience means the manipulation of people for my success.
And leadership means the stewardship of the lives that you have the privilege of leading. And so, my transformation, my light bulb was when the lens through which I saw the 13,000 people in our organization, went from seeing them as functions, engineers, accountants, laborers, sales executives, customers. My lens flipped from seeing people as functions for my success to seeing them as somebody's precious child, knowing that the way I treated them would have a profound impact on their life. So, I love the fact that you used the word leadership because to me leadership is entirely different than management.
Hans-Werner:
I hundred percent agree, and the way I got to it, Bob, is very much as you said, you manipulate people to further your own objectives and success. And my, I would say additional description of that is management is a very task-oriented view, where I say a team or a few individuals, I need to get them doing something, get a task done. Because the task hopefully fits in an overall cascade of different objectives. However, I have a very task-oriented view. I like the framing of, I use them as objects as if I can move them around. It's a little bit almost like even on a chess board, don't know whether you are chess players, et cetera. You move figures from one field to the other because you want to win, right? And that is your objective function. So you use them as objects and I was really quite, I would say disappointed, kind of not really bought into such an approach.
And therefore, I really proactively and purposefully use that frame of leadership. And leadership means you want to on the one hand understand why an individual, a colleague, a stakeholder inside, outside the company should team up with you to accomplish something. And behind that, number one is always a joint purpose. A joint purpose is much more eternal, much more longer lasting than the total return to shareholder in the 12-month timeframe. Your EBITDA, ROI, whatever it is, X number of month or full number of years, et cetera. So, purpose is where it starts. And then number two, you need to understand the context and the story of each individual, where they come from, where they are and where they want to go. Then you can excite them and treat them with decency, kindness and care, empathy. Bob, that is a framing you really, I mean developed, I call it leading with care, leading with empathy, both in the book.
But I also read a couple of the articles and several of the ones which you kindly sent to me. And please keep sending Bob, I read all of them, even if I may not always say “email received,” I read all of them. So that is my framing of leadership that you need to unleash that full potential by showing care again. And there's one among our 12 chapters in part one and part two, the subtitle of chapter 12 actually captures it in our view. In my view very well. If you want people to care, show them that you care for them. Otherwise, it is not going to work. By the way, that is one of my favorite subtypes in the different chapters. It captures it so well what it is in terms of human leadership.
Bob:
Yeah, I think, sometime ago, the CEO Roundtable, America's top CEOs, came out with a statement, a very well-articulated statement that we need to care more than just about the shareholders. We need to care about all stakeholders. It was an elegant statement in the Wall Street Journal, full page. And I know some of these gentlemen, they're really fine gentlemen. The issue is they were never taught to care. They were never rewarded for caring. They were taught to achieve objectives, mainly financial objectives. And so, when we say the word care, it's a skill. It is not just, thank you, how are you? It is a skill that we need to teach. And what surprises me, when we show the team members in our organization that we care about them by teaching them the skills of caring, empathetic listening, recognition and celebration and culture of service, they don't tell us they run a better accounting department. They tell us their marriage is better and their relationship with their children.
So, in my journey, my educational journey, Hans-Werner, I was never told the way I'd run our company would affect people's personal lives other than their salary and their benefits. And that was just unbelievably impactful to me to know that we could care for people and send them home and be better parents and better family members. And so, business could be a powerful force for good in the world because we have people in our care for 40 hours a week. So, I love the title of chapter 12. I am really touched by that title because care is a word that I find is universal people a want to be cared for. And the good news is when they feel cared for, it releases them the capacity to care for others.
Hans-Werner:
Well said, Bob. And as you mentioned that word care and leadership, there's one other gentleman, well-known business leader who always comes to my mind is Alan Mulally, the former CEO of Ford Motor Company and also former CEO of Ford, Boeing, sorry, Boeing Commercial Airplanes division, before he joined Ford as a CEO in 2006. He used the framing of leading is to serve. And I think that is very, very powerful. Leading is to serve, and you are right Bob. It's not only serving your shareholder, let's say shareholders of Barry-Wehmiller, which in fact you are yourself a shareholder, obviously the largest shareholder. It's a very unique situation. But say if you're in a public company, you obviously serve the shareholders. You sure serve the stakeholders in terms of not only suppliers, but also customers, but also the communities in terms of environmental sustainability, responsibility but leading as to serve.
That's an excellent framing. And as I was thinking when we were finishing the book in January this year, I actually approached Alan Mulally and said, Alan, would you be so kind to write a few lines of an endorsement? He answered with a ready to print version of an endorsement, 24 hours later. And it is one of the five endorsements on the back cover of the book. And it always reminds me of, again, leading to serve. And in all the different sessions, conversations I had with him, leading to serve. There are things you take away when you interact with leaders and people. That is one thing I took away, leading is also to serve.
Bob:
I was interviewed by a major university's organizational development professors for an hour and a half. And after an hour and a half interview, they said to me, you're the first CEO we've ever talked to that never mentioned your product. And I paused a second. I said, I've been talking about our product for the last hour and a half. Our people are our product. Okay. I won't go to my grave, proud of the machinery we build. I'll go to my grave, proud of the people who built that machinery, which caught them completely off guard. And again, I think in alignment with Alan, that's why we ended up with an expression in our company, our guiding principle of leadership is, we measure success by the way we touch the lives of people. Our team members, our customers, our communities, and we need to think about our actions, how they impact people.
And that's the north star of our organization. And when we make decisions, we try to consider how will this impact the lives of the people, impact this decision. And it's really helped us elevate the thinking when we make decisions because it impacts people's lives. And so that kind of alignment with Alan at Ford Motor Company, our people are our purpose. And again, it still amazes me that when we teach people in our university how to care, because remember I said to you, you can ask people to care, but really they don't know how to care. You have to teach them how to care. And that's what we do in our (internal) university -- which has made the impact that Ramesh and you have sensed -- is that intentional movement from using people to caring about people. And we always say, you can create human and economic value in harmony. They are not in disharmony, they’re actually in harmony, which you state in your book.
Hans-Werner:
Well said, well said.
Brent:
Building off what you and Bob were just talking about as your thinking about leadership evolved, how did that affect your work with your clients? How did they respond to these kinds of ideas, which are not the norm as we've already kind of established? How did they react to that and how were you integrating that in with your work with your clients?
Hans-Werner:
In a very fundamental way, Brent, is the short answer. Let me briefly describe that. First, you do need a really trusted foundation, a foundation of trust to engage in such conversation around what is a great human leader. Where are you today? Where do you want to be, where you should be and how do you get there? So, you need to have a very trusted relationship. And in my interactions with leaders and CEOs, it evolved over time. I started to work maybe only with one or two at the beginning to actually explore how open they would be. Because the feedback you are giving, Brent, sometimes it is also a bit, you can call it harsh feedback, in terms of, “show up as a real human being first at work. Don't show up as a task checker and say, we agreed you should complete these eight tasks and I need to hold you accountable for that. And if you don't do the work, I hold you even more accountable for that.” My answer to that is always, if people do not hold themselves accountable, then there's even more a more fundamental problem. They hold themselves usually accountable, they all want to succeed. The question is how do you help them and how can you support them with your human-centric leadership approach?
So over time, in call it step two, I started to a.) expand from one or two CEOs to more CEOs or leaders to experiment our thinking in our approach, Bob, and I also became as an advisor, coach, counselor, whatever you want to call it. I became more bold with it. I became bolder and indeed touched on topics like empathy and care and even went back to very specific meetings or interaction that I did not see a lot of empathy or care. I did not see a lot of humility. And by the way, it's always that balancing act. We described the balancing act in the book, humility paired up with confidence, assertiveness, determination but also paired up with empowerment. Those balancing acts are very important.
So, I used real life examples to actually do those assessments if I wish, but it was a co-assessment. It was not like I was a school teacher creating them and say, Hey, I observed you today, I'm sorry, it's only D plus or C minus at best. But I said, I observed that behavior. Why do you think, first of all, did you also observe that behavior if you reflect on it, what you did yesterday in the meeting? And then when you go a bit deeper, he or she says, yeah, I did. And I said, well, why do you think you did that?
Was it subconscious or were you upset about something? What are the causes? So, when you go in that, and by the way, these are also methodologies of depth of self-introspection we apply in the Bower Forum, you go much, much deeper. You go two or three levels beneath, beneath the surface. This is where you can really change leadership and human beings, again, leading from the inside, which means you, yourself, we ourselves as leaders, we need to change our human attributes first from the inside, before we display it and engage with others in the team and the broader organization.
Brent:
So all of this stuff that you were doing, all this stuff that you were learning, and then the Bower Forum happens, and you said that was a little bit of a light bulb moment. How did that all lead up to the book to writing the book?
Hans-Werner:
So over the years -- and only a quick few set of statistics -- up to date when we started the Bower Forum early 2012 and 2011, early 2012, and the Bower Forum by the way evolved in its first 18 to 24 months. We were in the beginning a bit more, I would say textbook focused. That methodology to go beneath the surface, understand the personal motivational forces, the personal struggles, how to become a more human leader. All that evolved over time. And when we had that conversation in August 2021, so more or less three years ago, Ramesh and I, after having conducted a Bower Forum session, we actually did take a step back and we said, what have you really learned over the last few years? And by the way, we have conducted around, I think it's 145 Bower Forums in total, around 520 plus CEOs have participated over all these years.
We actually started to write down in a very simple way, those insights. And frankly, there was only a one pager. It was nothing more or a conversation we had and we said we need to bring these insights to the broader audience of leaders in business, but also beyond business. What we describe in the book and our core thesis of human-centric leadership and the inside out approach, we are strongly convinced this is valuable for a leader in the public sector, government sector, in philanthropy, in the academic sector, et cetera. Not only for business, they're very important, but then we were on the one hand recollecting and recording all those lessons learned and we were very impressed and I would say humbled by it. And at the same time we said, but it's only a very small audience who has been experiencing them. Those are a few hundred CEOs, great by the way, but it's only a few hundred CEOs.
There are so many leaders in the world in different roles. And then it's us and our other, call it Bower Forum coaches, both a couple of other McKinsey senior partners as well as our CEOs as coaches like Bob and others. So that was how the idea was born to share the insights and open the debate on human-centric leadership or to widen it, to deepen it, because -- Everybody Matters, Bob obviously have published the book much earlier already in much more profound way -- that was the genesis of writing the book a good three years ago. And we were very much, I would say at the beginning, we didn't really know what the exact end product would be three years later. Yes, the big themes were, I would say more or less clear, but how it evolved, how we broke down human leadership in those, call it lead and assess, self-reflect, reinvent yourself first, what we call part one in our book before then you lead towards the outside your team, your broader organization.
All that was evolving. And today in the Bower Forum, we reflect that methodology to actually get a better handle at yourself, your emotions, your thoughts, your own behaviors. Obviously, it happens in a very well-defined construct. We have usually three to four other peer CEOs in the room accompanied by a McKinsey partner, and then the faculty team, folks like Bob, others, active CEOs, former CEOs and folks like Ramesh and me as hosts. That was really the profound nature of then evolving the book. And the book in itself was a fascinating journey because the more we did dig deeper, the more we got ourselves acquainted with human leadership because there was always a new aspect which we discovered. And then we said, oh yeah, that Bower Forum, three months ago, there was one or two CEOs, they had exactly that same issue, and then a pattern was emerging and we framed and extracted the insights from the pattern.
Bob:
I had the opportunity, Claudio Feser invited me into the Bower Forum that I was honored to participate in, and Ramesh was the partner for our New York event. When the four of you were coming together to -- and you've had hundreds of CEOs and 145 forums -- do you recall what stood out in Ramesh's mind? I'm incredibly honored that you have included our journey of Truly Human Leadership in chapter 12 in the book and the interest you've shown since then. But how did what he remembered about my participation in our forum contribute to the message that you wanted to share in the book?
Hans-Werner:
So, I do my very best to represent my friend Ramesh, but you should also ask him the question maybe next week as well. But here is what I took away from the conversations Ramesh and I had when we were very, very quickly, completely excited. Not only decided this excited to invite you to be featured in the book, to be interviewed for the book. It was really that over the years in those Bower Forums, and I give you one brief statistical number because it's relevant, why you were such a great contributor and are a great contributor. We looked at the majority of topics which CEOs select coming into the Bower Forum, and there's preparation ahead of the Bower Forum. We advise the CEO and McKinsey & Company partners to pick the two or three topics top on their mind, come prepared, understand the industry, the company context, et cetera, et cetera.
And what is very remarkable that 57% of participants among others are selecting a topic of personal leadership and personal operating model. There are always a few who might come with a more classical strategic agenda development question. It could be an organizational question, et cetera. It could be an engagement with a board as a key question to be selected. But by far the majority, they come to the Bower Forum to actually get advice and dive deep on personal and human and leadership operating model and their own leadership behaviors and attributes. And looking at these statistics, And that was something clear to us even before we looked at the statistics. By the way, when Ramesh and I talked, we very quickly said, there is nobody better who actually could speak to that topic of personal evolution and being a human being in the workplace and a leader in the workplace than Bob.
And that was, I mean, also what he took away from the Bower Forum seminar, which you actually supported and attended. Because when we have coaches at the Bower Forum, when you have done even only one session with them, there's always one or two hallmarks which you very quickly take away and said, yeah, this guy, “Mark,” he was so engaged with the stakeholders, he invested time in getting to know his management team. In the case of Bob, it was that I called it human approach to leadership, which I think at the time when you attended, Bob, maybe for you it was more natural, but for the world we were operating in, human leadership and even today, is something which needs still much more advocacy reinforcement. So that is what we took away from your Bower Forum contribution. And then again, it was an obvious choice that you should contribute to the book.
Bob:
The Bower Forum, was a very unique, environment, confidentiality, small group deep relationships, really honest in exchange, no manipulation. So again, I am honored that probably 10 years ago I had that Bower Forum and Ramesh and I have stayed connected ever since then. But I think the evolution of my thinking from management to leadership, from using people to caring for people, the fact that it's captured in your book is profoundly meaningful to me. And this message of healing, healing the poverty of dignity in the world where people don't feel used, they feel cared for. So, If a CEO is standing in front of you and say, okay, I'm going to take this book and I'm going to read it, what do you want me to get out of this? What's the key thing you and Ramesh and your fellow co-authors, sense was the real message of the book? If you had to say in a few words, what is the real message you want the reader to get, the CEO, the leaders in various parts of the organization, to get out of the book?
Hans-Werner:
I would summarize it in three brief points. The first one that is the core, be and show up first and foremost as a human being when you are a leader in any organization and truly adopt and display human attributes, humility, caring, empathy, also wisdom-- which is not always “fire shooting “at a problem, et cetera-- reflecting. So, we have actually a framing where we say unlearn management and relearn to become a human leader. That's our framing. This is the most important message. And then there are a couple of, call it supporting messages. The second point is, well actually how do you do that? That is compelling that I should evolve in that way as a leader. This is when we advocate that inside out approach, which is also from a methodology standpoint embedded in the Bower Forum approach for CEOs. But it works for any leader.
You don't have to be a CEO to do that. For any leader. It is absolutely adaptable and feasible. And inside out means first insight. Do your own self-aware, check self-reflection where you are against these human attributes and what are those motivational forces which drive certain behaviors and emotions on your behalf. And then, do a self-assessment where you want to go. That is what then is called the reinvention part. What leader were you meant to be or are you meant to be as a human, as a human leader? And then you need to obviously have a pathway. The pathway, by the way, will take a little bit of time because, Bob, as you said, there are skills to be learned. It's easy to say, I care for people. But how that happens is, you ask them, “How are you doing?” And then most people do not even listen to the answer.
They say, “How are you doing?” Well, let me briefly say “I'm good, but here's what's going on.” And they already turn away. Turn away, go on to the next topic. So, understanding and teaching those fundamentals of caring and listening. By the way, your step one in your methodology of caring, empathetic listening is so important because it's really engaged listening. You are listening. If somebody gives you a one minute or two minute answer, “How are you doing?” You have to listen. You cannot just say, let's go on. Let's start with the agenda. So that is what that reinvention means primarily on human attributes. Very, very important. Then indeed in step two, inside out, so the outside call it notion of leadership is how do you display that in the daily interactions with your colleagues in your company, in your institution, stakeholders inside, outside. That's part two of the book.
So that's inside out. And we have described the approach of the book. There's a very, by the way, very practical notion in the book, in the appendix we have described, so-called micro practices: lead yourself, lead your team, lead your organization. And in each of those three categories, we have 10 subpoints and different examples beneath them so that there is a practical guide for personal or professional reinvention. And then the third point is we all know that leadership is not a mathematical formula. There are times where you need to balance being both a humble leader but also a direction providing leader given the external factors which might require it. But you have to balance both in different situations. Or how you are a more assertive leader. But at the same time, you also want to engage people, empower them. So that balancing act of leadership or managing different polarities is as important. So human-centric leadership, inside out transformation and balancing act as a leader. These are the three questions slash the three key thesis and insights of the book.
Bob:
I say a leader gives those in their span of care a grounded sense of hope for the future that I can entrust my life on your leadership. I can decide to raise a family, buy a home, send my kids to school. So, do I feel safe in your care? Okay. And I think that's one of the attributes of leadership. The other question in terms of, I asked you, what message you want to send to leaders, what message does your book send to board of directors who guide, if you will, the organization? What message would you like to see board members who read this to get in terms of their stewardship of the organization?
Hans-Werner:
So, I would give you a few suggestions how we would engage or message that towards board leaders. First, these board leaders should do that self-assessment, self-reflection themselves for them as members of the board of directors. That's where it starts. Because what I have seen over almost now, well 33 years with McKinsey when I left in January earlier this year, that boards do not really function as teams. They're usually a collection of interesting individuals which can have each of them an individual agenda. So, they first need to do that self-assessment where they stand as a human leader and as a human, I call it now a human team, need to do that first. Very important. The second thing, what board of directors should do, one of the maybe the most profound task of a board is to select and develop the right leaders. And certainly it starts with a CEO, no question.
Because the board eventually, as one other book contributor always reminds me, John Plant, he says, well, the board can hire you and fire you. So obviously that's a simple framing of the real facts by the way. And at the same time, when we go to the hire and fire as call it, the people development or selection role for the board have human attributes in mind as much as you have skill-related attributes in mind, as much as you have other aspects of a leader in mind. But you need to have human leadership traits in mind. And John Plant always reminds me of that. I recall the Bower Forum I hosted with him, maybe it was in the year 2017, 2018, and we also had a deep introspection of all the three CEOs in our Bower Forum. And we talked about indeed caring for people, Bob, what you said, give them a grounded sense for hope for the future.
To do that, to be able to do that, you do need to understand the background and the story of every person or the key people you are dealing with. And John always reminded me, and he shared that in that Bower Forum the first time he did it many times afterwards, but also in the organizations he has led and he is still leading. Do you really understand the story of the person you are interacting with and have you interest of understanding his or her story? This is profound for giving somebody a sense of caring, empathy and hope. If you don't understand somebody's story, how do you want to authentically care for him or her? It's a contradiction in itself.
Bob:
One of the things that I believe, in terms of being a truly human leader, is your foundational responsibility is the design of your business model. Because your ability to be good to your people is a function of your ability to create value, economic value and human value. And so if your business model fails, you're going to hurt people. So as a board, as a CEO, as a team member, you got to constantly say, are our people safe in our care? Is our business model robust? And that is one of the primary responsibilities I believe a board has a CEO has, the leaders have, are people that we invite into our organization safe in our care? Because that gives them a sense of dignity, that gives them a sense of safety and that they matter. And I always say we want to send people home each night knowing that who they are and what they do matters and they're safe in our care. So that's a strong focus on the business model and the culture. I always say the business model is the engine and the culture is the premium fuel that goes in that engine that allows that engine to perform to its potential.
Hans-Werner:
Well said, yeah, the business model is the engine or the car and the culture is the fuel, or call it a sustainable fuel. I have to say sustainable fuel is also a good way to even extend the wording or the framing a little bit. But you are spot on. And that responsibility of the leaders of the board of director to provide that sense of safety and dignity and that things, what they do matter, is so critical. By the way, I do like your other noun, dignity, because economic independence of people and safety is also a form of dignity. If you don't have economic independence and your unsecure what the future holds for you, your family, it is hard to feel that you are surrounded by dignity. I mean, I'm talking now about the personal dignity of individual being individual human beings. That is so important, economic dignity. And that is something, by the way, as you obviously know, even in our society here and in many other societies and countries, we have major work to do in terms of economic dignity and independence for people. And it is so important. If you feel you can care for the folks in your family, be a good steward, et cetera, then you also have a better sense of dignity because you don't have to ask for support, help, but you can indeed provide care and stewardship for others.
Bob:
A professor at Harvard sent me an article that Tom Friedman wrote a few years ago, it said more than a poverty of money, we have a poverty of dignity in this world. And when people don't feel valued, they feel used, they feel a sense of humiliation. And when they feel a sense of humiliation, you'll see anger and unrest like you've never seen before. Again, if the lens through which we see the people, we have the privilege of serving internally and externally, sees people not as functions, but as somebody's precious child and treats them with respect and dignity, gives them a sense of safety, we could heal a lot of the anxiety, depression that we have in this prosperous economy. And that is up to our leaders to do that. A profound responsibility to show people they matter, which creates a sense of dignity, which affects the way they treat, they behave in their family, in our communities and the world.
And so, I think your book awakens people to a higher calling than to achieve just financial success. To achieve human dignity so people go home at night knowing that they matter and they treat their family accordingly. Remember, in my education, I was never told that the way I would run Barry-Wehmiller would affect people's personal lives. But that 95% of the feedback is how it affects their marriage and their relationship with their kids. So, we see the healing power of organizations to create human and economic value and harmony and heal a lot of the brokenness we're seeing in this world,
Hans-Werner:
Hundred percent agree. And in fact, that describes so well what you said, Bob, the societal purpose and role of organizations, business organizations and other organizations. Because there is a healthy, I call it carryover or spillover effect from empathetic treatment, treating with dignity, with care. When you are used to that to practice it every day in your organization, in your team, the likelihood that you will do the same in your family with your friends, maybe in your sports team, whatever other societal community you are engaged in is very high. So, this is indeed the purpose. What also we hope with our book, The Journey of Leadership, we hope to contribute to that. And frankly, it's almost like an interesting extension of Everybody Matters.
Bob:
When people feel cared for, genuinely cared for, it releases in them the capacity to care for others. And so what we say, and I think what you are saying is business could be a force for good in the world, not just economic prosperity, but human prosperity. We had an industrial revolution, now we need a human revolution where people are our purpose. We don't use people, we care for people, and we create human and economic value and harmony. And I think your book, coming from an organization of your reputation and significance in the world to get alignment of Truly Human Leadership and now the work that you and Ramesh and your fellow partners have done, The Journey of Leadership, we could awaken the world to the healing power of caring for the people.
We have the privilege of leading, sending them home each night knowing who they are and what they do matters, and their better parents, better family members, better community members, and they have a sense of dignity. So I think your book could awaken, and again, the credibility of McKinsey and the work you've done really adds to, in my view, the significance of the message in the world. Given the last I heard 48,000 McKinsey professionals and the number of clients in the world, you could have a huge impact on healing this poverty of dignity in the world with your book and through the organization that stewarded your journey.
Hans-Werner:
Well said, this is our aspiration, Bob. And I think the only thing I would add, Brent and Bob, we do continuously need you, Bob, and Barry-Wehmiller, as such an advocate of the force of good of human leadership. I know you will be, but I'm excited. The real work is just starting. Because you need to get the message out there. You need to debate the messages. You need to convince people, you need to listen to their concerns, their perspectives, what counterarguments they have and how you engage them and convince them. So, the journey continues or the journey never ends. And by the way, I like that framing a lot for a lot of different reasons. It is also the title of the so-called conclusion chapter in the book, “The Journey Never Ends.” And when I wrote my McKinsey farewell transition memo to partners around the world, it was mid-January this year, I did choose the title, “The Journey Never Ends.” So, I'm very excited about it because it's a constant continuous mission we have ahead of us.