State of Union - A Leadership role

I am a stronger believer of a greater good. In my humble opinion, the pandemic, the war we are experience must have a greater reason than the selfishness of humankind. We must learn something out of the Chaos, otherwise the Chaos is no worth it. And that is what I want to talk today.

Are we happy in life?

David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs demanded in February 2021, to have their 10.000 workforce to return to office and leaving no doubt about the aberration of home office. Only half of them showed up with fears of further contamination.?As on the edge of Great Resignation, where people are tired of their life’s, many took the courage to disappear, to not show up.

The company’s operating model, which Solomon refers to as “the ecosystem of the firm,” includes hiring some 3,000 new college graduates every year, who learn from experienced bankers and build networks face-to-face. The experience also encourages teamwork, which is central to the firm’s culture. None of that happens, Solomon believes, if remote work becomes the new normal.

Before the COVID experiments of 4-work day was in place showing increase on productivity. I remember someone complaining on linkedin that they time become stretched since they have one day less to work the same 42 hours consumed in 5 days before. Did we miss the point? The idea was to increase time free in order to gain quality of life and is clear not what some companies started.

Albert Einstein has used a free time, up in the mountains to create his physics masterpieces. Domenico de Masi, an Italian Psychoanalyst wrote in 1995 about the Creative Idleness. He mentioned in his best seller that to create we need to stop and think. But that is exactly what we are doing less. Stop and thinking.

One of the causes of stress and burnout (and there are many if you search) are pointing to the lives we live today. Disengagement, Loneliness, Lack of perspectives and selfishness maybe come on top for many people. Life became such stressful that we forgot to enjoy it.

The social media make us connect to the disconnected life. We are daily connected to our Mobil devices and fully disconnected from life. Another day, riding in a Uber with my wife, I realized that she was checking the messages, talking with friends and scrolling from Pictures to Pictures in search of something. I challenge her to drop the phone and look out in the window. To see colors on the buildings, faces and expressions from people on the street or even close the eyes and try to hear birds songs on we stoped at the traffic light. Was not interesting and the beeps received at any time a new notification bumped in the phone screen. Battle lost.

I start starring at people in the metro, walking on the streets or just stopping to relax on coffee shop. We are all disconnected. Than I realized that our evolution path is going back where we came from. Anthropologically speaking, monkeys where the first animals that start walking in two feets, start looking ahead and above to the sky. That makes us evolute and the conditions of living in a society called tribes makes us unite for a common good. It was the start of discovering the world and it’s possibilities.

Today, we walk bending our neck down to the phone, not listening around, having our own opinion, not caring about what other think, but making sure we are present in a virtual world. Let me give a joke, one of the most selling NFT (Non-fungeable Tokens) is called Bored Ape Yatch club. They sell Apes in multiple faces reflecting peoples mood and I guess that is like we are now. Walking facing the ground, bored with our lives.

We still frustrated

Many of us thought that with the need to isolate to society to avoid a virus to spread, or having different opinions and missing something, we would learn the power of unity, the power of our community and family, the need to socialized as nature for humans. And we saw movements going in this directions where companies start talking more about transparency, flexibility and authenticity. A new way of seen life.?

And when the pandemic looks to start settling down, a new crisis is on rise. The Russian invasion to Ukraine is creating a new geopolitical balance in the world. One site claiming that treats are getting close to their border, in other side a union of countries to support. And the best of all, the union of humanity.?

The humanity crisis we are facing are enormous and we haven’t reach the end or seen everything that will face us now and in the future. As any war, the scarcity of everything, the disruption of stability and settled supply chains, affects mostly the less privileged. That is what history of wars told us.

The word WE can be build with a lot of I’s. We just need to Unite ourselves.

I can write pages and pages from people I know, that mobilizes somehow a way to help. Help those that one day have a life (borred or not) and the next day has a backpack and memories. We are strong as we unite and that is the role of a leader. A great leader unites his fellows by compassion, by support, by surrendering their own needs in protection of others. By inspiring those that have nothing to support or sustain their will.

It is a leader role to create the State of Union. In your family, in your company, in your community, and at last but not the least in your own life. The power of collective union surpass the needs of selfish power. The more a leader is serving their people, the higher they will fill belonging and fulfillment of their duties.?

And to finish, I like to quote Bob Moorehead when he says this:?

“We have bigger houses but smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have more degrees, but less sense; more knowledge, but less judgment; more experts, but more problems; more medicines, but less healthiness.”

"We’ve been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor.”

"We’ve built more computers to hold more information to produce more copies than ever, but have less communications; we have become long on quantity, but short on quality.

"These times are times of fast foods but slow digestion; tall man but short character; steep profits but shallow relationships."

Thought-provoking.?And as a leader find your role in society and dedicate yourself to unite people. Leadership is a choice and if that is your one, you are on the right path.

For peace and humanity.