What stories should I include in my new book?

Below is the draft introduction to my new book, "Disruption Leadership Matters: Lessons for leaders from the pandemic".

While I have written 20,000 words, I'm after more stories and examples that highlight how leaders have positively and negatively impacted their employees and, therefore, their organisations through this extraordinary period. If you have a story or suggestion to contribute, please send me a message. If you would like to connect, please send me a request, and I will accept it.

I will acknowledge all contributors in the final version of the book. Of course, rather than names, the industry will be used for the poor examples of leadership.

Introduction

Early in 2007, I established my company and called it Organisations That Matter. For me, organisations that “matter” are those organisations that understand that the people working in their organisations are human beings, not “human resources”. A fair day’s pay, for a fair day’s work, where people could go home and do whatever else they wanted to do, free from concerns about work, always seemed to make sense to me. After all, people who can come home, free from worries about work, are more likely to have happier homes, and people who live in happier homes are more likely to be better contributors to their community. Call it an algorithm, if you will, but it’s a formula that can work for the good of all.

In 1995 I had been introduced to Robert K Greenleaf’s work on servant leadership. As the ninth child in a family of 11 children (I am also a twin), the concept and practices of servant leadership resonated with me. Servant leadership matched my experience of my upbringing. My parents, Eddie and Olga Ryan, were true servant leaders.

By late 2000 I watched a video of a speech by Dee Hock, CEO Emeritus of VISA International, given at the 2000 Greenleaf Centre For Servant Leadership 10th Annual Conference. Jack Lowe introduced Dee, then CEO of TD Industries was in the early years of an uninterrupted 20-year reign as one of the Fortune 100 Best Employers in the USA, while Jack was CEO and, later, Chairman. I had the good fortune of meeting Jack at the first Servant Leadership conference in Australia in October 1999, and Jack became a mentor from that point forward.

Among many profound statements in Dee’s speech, one struck a chord with me. It seemed to resonate with my DNA. “People are not “things” to be manipulated, labelled, boxed, bought, and sold. Above all else, they are not “human resources” They are entire human beings, containing the whole of the evolving universe, limitless until we start limiting them. We must examine the concept of leading and following with new eyes. We must examine the concept of superior and subordinate with increasing scepticism. We must examine the concept of management and labor with new beliefs. And we must examine the nature of organizations that demand such distinctions with an entirely different consciousness. It is true leadership; leadership by everyone; leadership in, up, around, and down this world so badly needs, and dominator management it so sadly gets.”

Dee, the founder of the world’s most successful financial institution, said that human beings are not human resources! I commenced a Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management in July 1999 and studied part-time via distance education because I worked full-time. I had expected that the course would be about people. People were constantly referenced as ‘resources’ and ‘subordinates’ or ‘assets’ and ‘capital’. I struggled with what I had been learning because it seemed at odds with my core beliefs and values. But I couldn’t describe my struggle. I couldn’t explain it and put it into words. Then, listening to Dee, the words I had struggled to find to describe my challenges with the course exploded from the screen. At its essence, I did not believe that people were resources. What a profound insight. That is what I don’t like about the course! People are NOT resources! Despite my dissonance, I struggled through and completed the degree in 2003. I needed the qualification for my career.

When I formed my company in early 2007, I wanted Organisations That Matter to make a difference. I wanted to help leaders treat the people in the organisations as human beings. The research was overwhelming. If people can fully use their talents in their organisation's service, and ultimately their clients, customers, and stakeholders, they are more engaged. More engaged people give more discretionary effort, which is great for productivity. Treating people as human beings is great for the bottom line. Yet, my experience was that very few leaders treated people as human beings. Instead, they treated them as resources, capital or assets. They could be manipulated, coerced, labelled, boxed, and figuratively bought or sold or, worse, thrown out with the garbage.

There is another, more profound benefit to treating people as human beings when they are at work. They go home less stressed, and the issues they face at work are less likely to intrude on their personal life. They have the right not to have work negatively affect their home life. When their work less stresses them, they can be more ‘present’ at home and have better family lives. Better family or home lives lead to better communities and everyone benefits. Leadership is a heavy burden, but the rewards can be exponential, as can be the downside to poor leadership.

Since 2007 I have worked with many terrific leaders and organisations. Some have been on the journey of transitioning from seeing people as resources to seeing them as human beings. This transition is not easy. A rear-guard reaction inevitably occurs, and the industrial age views that people are resources kicks in, stronger than ever. Despite this, my passion for helping organisations be great for followers, leaders, and the organisations themselves, has never waned. The late Robert Ackoff, Professor Emeritus of the Wharton Business School, said it best, “Ages don’t stop and start. One fades in, while the other fades away.” Each time a rear-guard industrial age response has occurred in the shift to seeing people as human beings, I’ve regarded it as a consequence of fading ages – it is never a smooth process and is likely to exceed my lifetime.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the COVID-19 pandemic explodes across the world. The economic impact was bound to surface what leaders on governments and organisations really think about the people they are leading. Given the propensity of the virus to kill older people, I was amazed at how many conversations were taking place that included an “acceptable death toll, so long as we can keep the economy going.” Huge numbers of staff were stood down within a matter of days of isolation measures commencing. There were few conversations about how to best engage with employees to work out a sustainable financial solution. Instead, people were consigned to the financial scrapheap, left to fend for themselves, despite the virus being no fault of their own. I appreciate that no one asked for the pandemic, and very few saw it coming. I understand that we all exist within an economic reality, and numbers do matter. But here we were, treating human beings as if they were numbers. Nothing more, nothing less.

Maybe, just maybe, the pandemic could provide the disruption that leaders need to re-consider how they lead. What if the pandemic was the catalyst for reflection that helped leaders see, for the first time, the pre-existing flaws in their leadership and thinking to which they were blind? I witnessed leaders taking actions that they seemed to disliked doing but seemed compelled to do because that is what a leader must do. These leaders appeared helplessly trapped in a failing mindset, yet they could not see any other way of being a leader.

Indeed, there must exist other examples where leaders had shown that human beings do matter. Despite the harsh reality of the numbers, a genuinely humanistic version of leadership was likely occurring at the same time other leaders were defaulting to the ‘humans as resources’ view of the world. What if I found and shared examples that showed that the leaders could care for their people and manage the numbers simultaneously? What if there were lessons that, when applied during the ‘good times’ that would better prepare organisations for the downtimes? After all, Bob Chapman, CEO of Barry Wehmiller, a company with a $3B turnover and employs 12,000 staff across the world, says, “Economies do not follow a straight line. They go up and down. It is my responsibility to build a business model that can sustain the downs.”

Therefore, I wanted to write this book. I wanted to provide leaders with an opportunity to see the world through a different set of eyes. While enormous pain has been inflicted upon economies, and I wish it had not occurred, what if there was a resource that could help leaders become true leaders of human beings? What if this disruption could have a positive outcome? What if the disruption could increase the speed at which we move away from industrial age thinking and behaving? So, I started writing. Literally, on that same day, I saw a LinkedIn post by one of my peers, Maree Harris:

"The worst thing we ever did in corporate America (and Australia?) was to take the most vital part of any company - the people powering it - and label it so dismissively as 'human resources." Such an important comment to be made by Adriana Stan and Tom Goodwin in this World Economic Forum article on where HR is at and where it needs to be. We all mouth those words "our people are our greatest assets", but they are too often treated as mere "resources", and when people are treated like that, they tend to become an organisations' greatest liability.”

Maree and I had met at a facilitator workshop organised by Ian Berry in 2010. We struck up a friendship and had remained in contact over the past eleven years. Maree’s post was the confirmation I needed. Write the book! Folks, this is the result. Enjoy!

Would you mind sending a message if you have a story you believe should be included in the book? I will acknowledge all contributors who share a story that is considered for the final cut!

Gary Ryan is the author of What Really Matters For Young Professionals! How to master 15 practices to accelerate your career