Michael Franti was out in the audience, again. This time he was standing on a small platform at the back of Central Park summer stage that was between me and the stage itself. He had brought two people up on the small platform to sing and dance with him. He had been doing this all night and I don’t think there was one part of the audience that he hadn’t visited, one part of the audience where he hadn’t reached out to shake people’s hands and dance and sing with them and bring them on stage. The people he brought on stage aren’t typical “beautiful young ones” that you would normally see musicians highlighting: It was a mix of young and old, of different body types with varying degrees of fashion sense. We all felt connected to him, the band and everyone else.
My wife and I were celebrating our 22nd wedding anniversary by going to see Michael Franti and Spearhead, a band we had been listening to for most of our married life. His performance was great – uplifting and fun. We danced, sang, laughed, and generally had a great time. But that’s not what made it a great show, that night Michael Franti gave a master class and creating connections with an audience. He was with us, amongst us singing with us as opposed to singing at us. All that work connecting with the audience and making us feel seen and part of the experience was clearly very intentional: he was preparing us for his message. He spoke beautifully of the changes that we have experienced in this past three years, the death, the isolation, the fear, and the need to acknowledge that suffering and pain and the importance of recognizing that everything had changed. The recognition that the life we had it’s no longer relevant to the life we have now and that we are entering an age that we collectively realize and acknowledge the profound connections shared by all of humanity.
Photo Credit Damon Gersh
It was a beautiful night and a message that is rapidly spreading in all sectors of our world. Just as Franti connected with us in a deeply personal way, it’s time for our organizations to forge deeper connections with their employees. In the same way he acknowledged the changes we’ve faced, it’s crucial that we also recognize the transformative societal shifts happening all around us.
The evidence that the world is structured in a way that is not working for all is abundant. We spent the last three years in isolation and fear, with so much death and focus on the injustices that have been hidden in plain sight for years. We’ve all seen the excessive lines at food banks and most of us watch the horror of George Floyd’s life being slowly snuffed out over 9 minutes and the upheaval that resulted. I think that the consequences of this societal shift are being sharply felt within our corporations. First the great resignation, then quiet quitting and our current stage of not so quiet disengagement. Despite the mind-boggling technological advances in generative AI productivity has dropped dramatically with nearly six and 10 workers having “quietly quit” according to Gallup. The world bank’s chief economist is afraid that we’re facing a lost decade because of the decline in growth. The implications for the world are staggering with the expanding list of global challenges: poverty, income inequality and climate change are all reaching the point where we can no longer ignore them.
I thought that smoke from wildfires was a California problem, but no more. Eastern cities well face smoke and polluted air for the rest of the summer at the very least.
But therein lies a huge opportunity – since the beginning of the great resignation social scientists have been clear at the core of this disengagement was an intense need for meaning and agency. For thousands of years we have operated under a hierarchical management structure that was designed to keep illiterate peasants from starving. It’s no longer relevant or valid. And the evidence had been playing to see for the last 20 years: most major corporate initiatives have the 60 to 80% failure rate, 30% of corporate payrolls, the biggest expense for most organizations, it’s dedicated to people who do nothing more than tell other people what to do. It’s soul sucking for everyone involved and completely unnecessary. We are no longer uneducated peasants. Every single one of us has access to more information in their pockets than world leaders did just 50 years ago. And what I find most insidious, about this hierarchical structure that is no longer serving us is that leaders cannot see and react to the changes that are happening within their own industries and are only aware of a minuscule fraction of the problems and opportunities that that organization faces.
The solutions to these problems represent the greatest opportunity of our time: To shift to a new form of leadership, shift from control to trust. There is a small group of enlightened companies that understand that the only problem that needs to be solved is the human equation. Building trust, creating connections across an enterprise, and giving people the freedom to experiment and innovate is the key to innovation. The role of executives is no longer one of dictating actions; rather recognizing the brilliance that is already in the room, tapping into that intelligence, raising up the ideas that have the potential to transform and allowing them to be heard and acted on. Organizations that take a multi stakeholder approach, making decisions that benefit all stakeholders as opposed to focusing exclusively on the desires of investors at the expense of others, are more profitable by astounding multiples. Companies with engaged employees are 21% more profitable, their customers report 10% better customer satisfaction, and their employees are 17% more productive.
Humanity faces massive challenges that require collaboration to solve. What better place for us to learn how to collaborate than the workforce? If we learn to collaborate while we earn our daily bread that spirit of cooperation will spill over to our families, communities, and our politics. And Americans are hungry for corporations to lead the charge for this change: The Harris Poll, in their State of American Capitalism report pointed out that 84% of Americans believe that “Corporations should have a role in evolving today’s form of capitalism” with 77% of Americans supporting companies focusing less on profits and ore on helping people.
On this Independence Day corporations have an opportunity for a new Declaration of Independence: independence from the outdated and ineffective methods of running our organizations that no longer serve us, that haven’t served us for a long time. Independence from the misplaced idea that focusing exclusively on the needs of shareholders was a path to growth. In doing so we can embrace an inclusive approach that considers the needs of employees, vendors, community members, and the planet. Independence from the hierarchical structures that we no longer need in favor of collaborative approaches that supercharged productivity and innovation.
As we stand on the brink of this transition, in the aftermath of this 4th of July, I declare independence from broken exploitative systems and business models that no longer serve me or society. I was called to walk away from my 25-year entrepreneurial career in recruitment to use collaboration and culture to transform our broken recruitment systems.
What do you want to declare independence from? What changes have you seen? What changes are you committed to in your own lives and organizations?
Please let me know in the comments.
