Introduction

During my career, I've had the privilege to work in environments with people who understood good leadership. I've always tried to hold compassion as my highest value and want to be a leader that is guided by empathy. But what does that actually mean in practice? The many talented people that have influenced me over the years have slowly helped me build out a tangible shape to what it means, but like all other things in life, this is an ongoing project. I've seen what works and what doesn't work, from both sides of the leadership relationship. When reading this book I was able to relate the concepts and situations it described to many of the things I've already learned implicitly from good leaders from my past.

Summary and Commentary on the Book

Part 1 - Our Need to Feel Safe

The book begins in its first chapter with a powerful anecdote about a fighter pilot who risks his own life, putting himself directly into peril, to provide support for ground troops under heavy fire. A life or death situation paints a vivid picture of the importance of leading with urgency. Although most situations in business are not life or death, there are many high stakes situations whose outcomes impact large webs of people, and so we should also act with urgency in our professions. Why does this pilot risk his own life without hesitation? In his own words, "because anyone else around me would do the same for me". We receive training for our jobs in universities and other institutions much like the military receive their combat training. But the specifics of that combat training are not what matters most in that life or death situation, it's the willingness of the individuals to step up and face danger and use those skills when it matters. The same goes in business. Many of us have learned to code, but will we step up and do what it takes in critical moments to make our projects succeed? The best motivator to make sure we will is to have that same sense of camaraderie, so that when we see a problem, we jump in and solve it, knowing that anyone else around us would have done the same. This is a culture of trust that must be built.

The second chapter uses another anecdotal story to illustrate its point. This time, we are taken to a manufacturing business that has recently been acquired by a new owner. The new owner identifies issues with trust and implements changes to improve the experience of his employees. First, spare machine parts had traditionally been locked in a cage to prevent theft, with permission and supervision required to enter the cage for a part when needed. Although this prevented theft, it also sent a powerful message that employees were not trusted. Second, floor workers were only allowed to take breaks at designated times when bells rang to signal break time. The new owner got rid of the cage for the spare parts and got rid of the bells, shifting the focus to trust. As more and more gestures like these were implemented at the manufacturing company, better and better results ultimately came. They came because employees actually wanted the company to be successful. It's a simple lesson - treat people with respect and give them autonomy, and they will actually enjoy their jobs and be motivated to achieve good outcomes. The key takeaway here for me is to always be on the lookout for ways in which trust is being either shown or withheld. In our world, tools and parts may be digital, but they are still what our employees need to get their work done. Is there a "locked cage" in place when employees need a tool? Do we tell our team members when and how to do a thing, or do we trust them to manage their own time effectively?

People are not a commodity to be managed in order to generate money. Money is a commodity to be managed in order to help people grow.

The third chapter talks about circles of safety. The analogy comes in the form of a herd of oxen standing their ground against a hungry lion. When the oxen stand back to back, the lion is always met with horns and the herd survives. When the oxen go their own way, they are exposed and the lion devours the herd one by one. Building a high trust organization involves bringing in the right people. The kind of people that will do what it takes for each other, much like in the military example from the first chapter. Leaders are responsible for bringing in the right kinds of people and building trust. If circles of safety do not extend to the entire organization, silos form - people work in tribes for their own protection. This sounds a lot like the bureaucratic and pathological cultures described in Accelerate. Whether or not you are a leader the question should be the same - do you feel safe at work?

The final chapter of this opening section talks about the Whitehall Studies and the statistical evidence that stress at work is not linked to ones level of responsibility, but rather, to the level of autonomy workers feel they have during their work day. Less control = more stress. When surveyed, up to 1/3 of individuals say they are dissatisfied at work, yet only a small fraction of those leave due to a greater fear of the outside unknowns. Like a bad relationship, people often just don't leave. As leaders, we need to build teams and workplaces where autonomy exists.

Part 2 - Powerful Forces

This section of the book introduces us to the role of chemicals in human physiology that motivate human action. The first two chapters introduce us to the four chemicals primarily responsible for our "happy" feelings. Two of these chemicals are classified as the "selfish" chemicals, and the other two as the "cooperative" chemicals. The selfish chemicals reward individual achievement, and the cooperative chemicals reward teamwork. These chemicals are: endorphins, dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin. The third chapter of the section describes cortisol, the chemical responsible for fear and anxiety, that motivates us to fight or flight. The final chapter of the section ties the theme together with how our physiology is relevant in an office setting and the biological reason we have leaders to begin with.

The Chemicals that Motivate Us

Endorphins are the chemicals that mask physical pain. They are the chemicals released when we are enduring a tough physical challenge. An example of a long distance runner is offered in the book. As a runner pushes on and on, muscles become sore and the body becomes tired, so nature devised a mechanism to modify our behaviour to press on a little further - the endorphin rush. Laughter also releases endorphins. Building a fun place to work actually translates to productivity and good results, and endorphins have a role to play.

You can't laugh and be afraid at the same time.

• Stephen Colbert

Dopamine, the other "selfish" chemical, is responsible for the feeling of satisfaction we get after achieving an accomplishment. We should be careful, when classifying this as a "selfish" chemical, not to view dopamine negatively. It plays an important role in driving our behaviour and motivating us to accomplish tasks. It is also important to consider what accomplishing a task means - it means the task had a clear definition of what it meant to be completed, and we have met those criteria. This is why good vision statements are those that allow us to objectively confirm when we have achieved an accomplishment. A statement like "we want to be the best at X" is difficult to measure, and so we are never quite sure when we have arrived at the goal and never get our hit of dopamine. A better vision statement might be, "we have achieved $1M in annual recurring revenue". The more clearly we can see our goals, and the milestones along the way, the more likely we are to achieve them - and the more exciting they feel. Dopamine has it's downside risk though. It can be addictive in a negative way, especially when the goals or triggers we set in our minds are not productive ones (think addiction to "likes" on social media).

Serotonin, one of the cooperative chemicals, can be thought of as the "leadership chemical". It is the chemical responsible for the feeling of pride we get when others like or respect us. It is the chemical in action when we have that pleasant feeling when being recognized at awards ceremonies or through company recognition programs. It reinforces the bonds between us. When people receive awards and are asked to speak, the first person they thank is often the person they feel offered them the most direct support and protection they needed to accomplish their goal. This is serotonin at work. It is also why when others offer us support and protection, that we feel a reciprocal sense of responsibility back towards them. Serotonin does not help us feel a sense of responsibility towards numbers or goals, or motivate us towards them (that's dopamine!), it gives us our sense of responsibility to, and motivation towards other people.

Oxytocin, the final "happy" chemical, is characterized as the "love" chemical. It is the chemical responsible for feelings of friendship, love and deep trust. It's what we feel when we have the "warm and fuzzies". It motivates us toward generosity and is responsible for empathy. Most importantly, it directs to what degree we allow ourselves to feel vulnerable around others. We are designed to find comfort as part of a group. This harkens back to our evolutionary past - it is dangerous for animals to be on the physical periphery, so we needed a force to drive us to be close to one another. Emotional closeness lead to physical closeness, and so oxytocin evolved to help us build those crucial emotional bonds.

Cortisol is the chemical released when we think we see something in the shadows. It's the chemical that puts us on high alert to be aware of any dangers, but the chemical itself cannot distinguish between real or imagined threats. For evolutionary reasons of survival, when cortisol floods our bloodstream, we react as if threats are real. Like a gazelle separated from the protection of its herd that perceives danger, when we feel unsupported in the workplace, cortisol is responsible for a constant state of ambient stress. In an environment where relationships are weak and interactions are transactional we exist in this constant state of cortisol induced alert. Studies show this not only contributes to a culture of mistrust, but is also detrimental to our long term health and longevity.

Work-Life Balance

What does "work-life balance" really mean? This is a term we have all heard many times before. At an earlier stage of my career, I interpreted this as meaning a company was advertising that I could spend less time at work, and more time pursuing my many other interests. Sounds great, but it was never the reality I experienced. The author suggests that the actual meaning of this term is to work in a place of trust. Reflecting on the many the different environments I have experienced over my career, I am persuaded that work-life balance must mean something other than just working less. If working less seems like an important incentive, there's probably too much cortisol flowing in our day to day. And if work isn't a place to be feared or dreaded, and it seamlessly integrates into our lives because we actually care about the people we work with and the mission we are trying to achieve, then there is no need to care about working less because we are genuinely motivated to do what it takes to achieve our outcomes.

Near the end of this section, an interesting case study was described in which a business implemented a lifetime employment policy. What this meant was that once employees were hired, they were never fired or laid off, except in cases in which the employee actively and deliberately worked against the companies' strong values of supporting one another. In other words, employees were never let go for financial or performance reasons. This may not be a viable policy for every company, but the case study highlighted a strong juxtaposition between the straightforwardness and honesty of the conversations happening at the company both before, and after, the implementation of the policy. In my experience, there is no doubt that when individuals fear punishment, they do not have honest conversations. Furthermore this isn't out of any kind of malice, but rather, the self protection I now understand cortisol motivates us to.

True Leaders Provide Protection

The final takeaway I got from this section was the unspoken expectation we all have on our leaders, whether those leaders be managers, coaches, political leaders, or any other. We understand our leaders will be entitled to certain perks - higher pay, increased status and others. But there is a distinction that governs whether or not a group thinks a leader deserves these perks. Does the leader provide the group protection? If our leaders protect us, if they rush into danger first to protect the group, we will gladly say they deserve the perks of leadership and lift them up with genuine respect. But if they do not, if they protect only themselves and act in a self-interested manner, the group will eventually cast such a leader out.

The only thing our leaders ever need to do is remember whom they serve and it will be our honor and pleasure to serve them back.

Parts 3 and 4 - Reality and How We Got Here

Know When to Break the Rules

Part three of the book uses another real world situation to illustrate a point about trust. The situation relates to a flight emergency in which smoke is filling the cabin of a plane. The pilot declares an emergency, and the experienced air traffic controller responding to the emergency breaks standard safety rules that keep planes a certain distance apart in order to land the plane safely. All of the affected aircraft nearby receive calm communications about the situation as the beleaguered plane navigates its landing. The point is that although there are rules put in place to govern the smooth operations of normal circumstances, we do not trust leaders if we think they are bureaucrats who always follow rules to the letter. We trust leaders if we feel they will do whatever it takes to keep us safe, knowing when to break the rules.

A Societal Transformation

Part four moves on to discuss how our modern organizations, and in fact society at large, have built systems that actively work against our natural inclination to trust one another. The story begins in the Roaring Twenties and takes us through the tumult of the Great Depression and World War Two, followed by the rise of the Boomer generation and the key precedents that have been set that transformed a society that once pulled together with scarce resources towards communal goals, to one that lives in excess, putting up walls and security systems to protect individual wealth. Two trends seem to be the focus - the trend away from trust, and the trend to value profit and the protection of (and accumulation of further) wealth over the common good of people. A specific example given is when Ronald Reagan orchestrated a mass layoff of over 10,000 air traffic controllers in 1981, setting the first precedent that using layoffs to balance the books was acceptable behaviour. Many CEOs saw this as a signal to follow suit, and so we can trace the usage of layoffs in the business world back to this point, as well as it's underlying principle that balancing the books is more important than the lives of the people behind those layoffs. This principle is in stark contrast to the one understood by the parents of the Boomers who expected their children to dedicate their lives to a single company and in return expected those companies to return their dedication with a stable livelihood.

Having experienced my first layoff just last year, there is certainly a lot to reflect on in the four chapters that make up these two parts of the book. Although I remain grateful for everything my previous company enabled me to have in both life and my career, and the growth I was able to achieve there, I have wondered a lot about what many of the actors, myself included, could have done differently to have had a different outcome there. Some forces were within our control, some were not, but the fact that layoffs are a standard way many companies deal with hard financial times, and why we accept that as a society, is not something I had considered before. It seems to me it would be a better career experience to land in an organization where there was two way trust and dedication for a long term relationship. In the past I have thought that its just the way the tech sector is that employees turn over frequently. We are laid off, or we leave for what we see as greener pastures. But it that really the way it has to be?

Part 5 - The Abstract Challenge

Abstraction Leads to Suffering

The fifth section of the book starts by describing the famous Milgram Experiment, which concluded that the greater the level of abstraction that exists between an individual and someone suffering as result of their actions, the stronger the propensity in that individual to simply obey authority figures rather than using their own moral judgement. This was the famous experiment in which participants were asked to administer what they thought were increasing levels of shock to other participants, who in turn complained increasingly of pain and potential heart problems (though in reality, unbeknownst to the primary participant, these were hired actors rather than secondary participants). Different levels of abstraction from the perceived sufferer were implemented as part of the experiment, ranging from the victim being seated directly next to the individual administering the shocks, to the victim being completely in another room with only knocking sounds on the walls being audible from the victim. The results were clear - more abstraction means more likelihood to make choices against ones moral intuition and in accordance with the wishes of the authority figure. This idea strikes me as particularly true when I think about how our society condones several problems:

• abhorrent treatment of animals exploited for food
• homelessness managed through displacement
• underpaid labour as result of distant supply chains

Abstraction in the business world comes in the form of decision making based on numbers and on following imperfect rules like those defined in law. What is legal in any particular time or place is clearly not always moral. We know that, so why have we built a culture that abides its biggest organizations simply following the law instead of doing what we know is right?

The Limit to Real Relationships

A concept called Dunbar's Number is proposed. This is the proposition that as humans, we can effectively maintain a maximum of about 150 relationships of trust. So when our organizations grow beyond this number, without effective management, we will necessarily end up making decisions based on aggregate data rather than considering how our decisions affect the lives of those they impact. Essentially, cost efficiencies move in to replace the natural efficiencies of strong human relationships.

When informality is replaced by formality, it is a sure sign the group may be getting too big to lead effectively.

The level of abstraction that exists in our relationships at work has only been made more complicated by the digital age. The final chapters in the section propose some rules we should consider following to mitigate this amount of abstraction.

1. Bring People Together. No amount of digital interaction can replace the experience people have when coming face to face in terms of building trust.
2. Keep It Manageable. Obey Dunbar's number, and watch out for formal management processes replacing informal, cooperative problem solving.
3. Meet Those You Help. Hearing your boss tell you about how much your work is impacting customers is no substitute for hearing it genuinely and directly from the customers themselves.
4. Give Time, Not Just Money. Money is an abstract promise for future goods. But investing your time with your team and customers is what builds real loyalty and trust.
5. Trust Takes Time. Just as we don't marry someone immediately no matter how well a first date goes, we don't truly know what we will get from a new hire based on a few short hours meeting them in an interview. Building trust takes time and patience.

Part 6 - Destructive Abundance

Empower and Trust Those You Lead

The most interesting sections in this part of the book describe real world examples of companies and leaders who both changed their culture for the worse and for the better. The story of how Goldman-Sachs was transformed from a culture of trust to a culture of top down control in which the leader was completely removed from the lives of those his decisions impacted was a compelling example of the former. But more compelling and inspiring was the story of Captain David Marquet. Marquet was a naval captain who had always viewed the legitimacy of his authority as a leader on his technical knowledge - his ability to answer any and every question about the ship he commanded at any time, and his ability to always give the right order in any situation. After spending nearly a year preparing for the command of a new ship by studying every system, feature and switch on the ship, two weeks before his command was set to begin he was thrown a career curve ball by being asked to command a different ship he knew little about. Shortly thereafter, during a drill, after issuing an order to set the ship speed to a setting that did not exist on his new ship (due to his lack of technical knowledge), and seeing the order passed on by another officer who knew the order was not possible (he discovered this later), he realized his crew members had been trained to blindly follow orders and not to think for themselves. He had to rethink his entire leadership strategy as he acknowledged for the first time in his career that he did not know enough about his new ship to issue effective orders in every scenario. He realized a truth that is present in many organizations - that those with authority often do not have the information required to do the right thing, and those with the information do not have the authority. When people follow orders, they do not take responsibility for their actions. Marquet changed the culture on his ship to give authority to those with the information, and the ship transformed to the most successful one in the navy.

The goal of a leader is to give no orders. Leaders are to provide direction and intent, and allow others to figure out what to do and how to get there. - Captain David Marquet

Knowledge Sharing and Reframing "Failure"

Another story that particularly interested me was the story of how 3M innovated the Post-It Note. This is a great example I intend to use in the future to try to inspire something I've intuitively known for a long time - that is benefits us to share what we learn when something we try does not work as we intended. At a previous company, we had days set aside for company innovation. The idea was that everyone had a single work day to "spike" an idea (an industry term that means a short investigation into the longer term feasibility of something). The spikes were then voted on by the company, and the most "liked" idea came with a small prize as an incentive. I tried to lead by example on these days and always gave my full effort, and as a result, I often produced good spikes, winning the prize on a few occasions. But I soon came to realize that my intention to lead by example, and producing good spikes, had another, unexpected effect. Less experienced team members became intimidated when their own spikes didn't go as planned. As time progressed, I tried my best to underscore that succeeding with the spike as intended was not what mattered - what mattered was that we all learned something. I would encourage team members to document everything they had tried that day, and if it didn't work as planned, that was completely fine, because we just learned a way not to accomplish something. We could then pivot away from the ideas that didn't work and try new ones in the future. I would say I had moderate success inspiring the engagement I had hoped for - room to grow and improve. The 3M story seems to be an excellent way to exemplify the point. To summarize as briefly as possible, a scientist at 3M was tasked with developing a very strong glue. Despite his efforts, he ended up developing a very weak glue. But instead of hiding his result as a failure, he shared his findings with his colleagues. Several years later one of those colleagues was having trouble with notes falling off a stand when trying to perform in a choir, and he thought of the weak glue his colleague had created. Post-It Notes, a now ubiquitous product, were born.

Do It Right, or Do It Again

Additional real world stories focus on the importance of integrity and friendship, but I'll move on to discuss the final chapter and its case for how the shift in the main purpose of organizations in the mid 1970's from providing social good to maximizing shareholder value actually did not result, in the long term, in greater shareholder value. In fact, the S&P 500 provided on average, a compounded 7.5% annual return in the years prior to 1976, dropping to 6.5% in the following years, and has dropped even lower in the years since 2000. The example of the British Petroleum company oil spill due to its habit of constantly ignoring safety regulations in an attempt to keep projects on time and on budget has parallels with software development. BP ended up losing billions in fines and cleanup costs after the spill. When software delivery teams cut corners and work in "unsafe" ways as deadlines approach, and refuse to alter either the time, cost or scope of a project (time, cost and scope form the "Quality Triangle"), gambling long term stability for short term gains, the same happens; a bigger disaster costs us even more down the road in the form of rework.

There's a growing body of evidence that the companies that are most successful at maximizing shareholder value over time are those that aim towards goals other than maximizing shareholder value. Employees and customers often know more about and have more of a long term commitment to a company than the shareholders do.

• Justin Fox and Jay Lorsch, Harvard Business Review

Parts 7 and 8 - Becoming a Leader

Well-Being as the Measuring Stick

The first two chapters of this section renew focus on the importance of thinking about leadership in terms of the well-being of those you serve rather than the achievement of metrics based goals. It begins with a historical lesson about puerperal fever, a disease that well intentioned doctors were unknowingly spreading. As the Age of Reason emerged in the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, well intentioned doctors tried using logic, facts and analysis to determine the cause of the disease. By performing autopsies in the morning and treating live patients in the afternoon, in the era before knowledge of germ theory, they unwittingly spread the disease. It wasn't until they realized and acknowledged that their own practices were part of the problem that they were able to make effective progress. What's the analogy to the business world? We can pay close attention to metrics and reward our employees for hitting statistical targets, but ultimately, if the outcomes are not in the best interest of our customers and those we serve, are we really achieving success?

This gives me pause to reflect on lessons from Accelerate. In that book, the authors posit, based on four years of research and data, that there are in fact certain metrics that can be demonstrably correlated to positive human outcomes for those we serve. The authors of that book also agree that those positive, human outcomes are the true goal. The overall picture from these two books together is that although it is important to use data to drive decisions and measure success in order to counter our human biases and blind spots, the real world impact our work has on the wellness and happiness of those we serve always needs to be the driver of our decisions, and the truest and most final measuring stick of our success.

Corporate Responsibility

The second chapter follows up on this theme by discussing how regulations put in place by society earlier in the twentieth century had the spirit of balancing economic opportunity with the wellness of society. Examples included the FCC requirements for broadcasters to offer public services not in the interest of profit in order to maintain broadcast licenses, as well as the Glass-Stegall legislation that once prevented investment banks from using personal savings as collateral for speculative gambles. As these regulations slowly got repealed throughout the century and profit became an unchecked driver, the well-being of society suffered. This manifested in news becoming polarized, more about selling advertising than reporting the facts, and eventually the 2008 financial crisis.

Understanding Millenials

The final and longest chapter of this section focuses on the traits of Millennials as a generation. I found this chapter particularly interesting, being a Millennial myself. I was born in the early eighties, generally considered the start of the Millennial generation. Unlike later Millennials, I remember a childhood in which the internet did not exist, and kids wanted to play outside, nowhere near a screen. I never experienced the cyberbullying of a lord of the flies like social media world. But I did experience the over coddling, the "everybody gets a trophy" attitude, and the frequent reminders that I was exceptional and would certainly go on to do amazing things and change the world. I guess I believed what I was repeatedly told. When I graduated from high school in the year 2000, the real world was a reality smack that took me decades to adjust to. It turned out that in fact, despite being talented and capable, just about everybody else was as as talented and capable too. In fact, I did not stand out from the crowd - at least not as the default state of things on cruise control in life. Changing the world turned out to be hard. Making an impact turned out to require real effort. Go figure.

The book tells a similar story of Millennial upbringing generally, in a way that reflects what I experienced. It offers us insight into why Millennials think and act the way they do. It's not right or wrong of them, but it's predictable based on how they grew up. If we understand the reasons why they are the way they are, it can inform how we can best manage them in the workplace. The latter half of the chapter concludes with the role social media addiction plays on the lack of attention and focus many Millennials experience. It acknowledges, citing statistics, that at heart, Millennials really do have good intentions and want to make the world a better place. The disconnect however, thanks to their quick dopamine hit fueled social media upbringing, is their expectation of the timescales at which meaningful change happens. They need employers and leaders who are empathetic and who understand the challenges their generation has faced. And they in turn need to take personal accountability, put down their phones, and make the real human connections required to achieve the fulfillment they have been looking for.

Conclusion

There are many insights and it is difficult to distill them down into a view brief takeaways, but I will try.

• People need to feel safe. If they do, they tell the truth and live up to their potential. If they do not, they switch to survival mode, which leads to burnout and causes them to hide truths in the interest of self preservation.
• The above biological reality is not our fault. It is the result of millions of years of evolution. We cannot change how we are wired, but we can acknowledge it, and use that knowledge to build an environment where we can thrive.
• True, effective leaders provide protection to the group they lead, even at the expense of their own safety or of breaking the rules. If they do that, the group naturally lifts them up.
• Abstraction and managing based entirely on statistics leads to environments in which unproductive self preservation dominates. We must make a deliberate effort, especially in the digital world we were not designed for, to facilitate as much real human interaction as we can by bringing people together and by highlighting the human stories that matter.
• Knowledge sharing, collaboration, psychological safety, human connection and empowering individuals leads to environments that maximize well-being, and as a consequence, productivity.

And the very heart of the message is an optimistic one - productivity, and our happiness and well-being, are not only not mutually exclusive, they're mutually inclusive. We must build a workplace we actually love and care about, and in doing so, we automatically build a workplace of success and abundance.