As we enter a New Year, we are filled with optimism - and also the awareness that achieving those hopes will be difficult for each of us because we will naturally resist change.

Here is a story that reminds us to remain focused and conscious as we pursue growth, change and our dreams in 2009.

In 1846, a young Austrian-Hungarian doctor named Igaz Semmelweis investigated a notorious maternity ward in which nearly all of the inpatients contracted a fatal case of childbed fever.  In the course of his investigations, he noticed that women who came into the ward after giving birth seldom became ill.

When a professor who cut his finger in the middle of an autopsy in that same hospital died of symptoms identical to those of these unfortunate mothers, Semmelweis reasoned that the students doing the autopsies were somehow transferring the fever to the women in the maternity ward.

Semmelweis began requiring that his students disinfect their hands before delivering babies, and the number of childbed fever cases dropped. Here is where “change” became difficult.

Semmelweis was labeled insane by his colleagues for having the audacity to suggest that they should wash their hands between deliveries, and they fired him. He tried to continue his research but was ostracized by the medical community. His own mental health eventually deteriorated, leading to his death in an insane asylum.

One final event leading to the general acceptance of germs occurred in 1860. A famed doctor was scheduled to speak at a conference where he intended to thoroughly denounce Semmelweis’s ideas. Before the speech began, he was interrupted by a man who proceeded to tell the audience that he had discovered the bacterium responsible for childbed fever. That man was Louis Pasteur, and the rest is history.

Lack of proper hand washing continues to be the primary reason why MRSA and other superbugs are spread in hospitals today. In my work with healthcare leaders, I continue to be amazed that some physicians and clinicians still do not consider it essential to wash their hands.

But change is hard, as we all know, and even when we are faced with indisputable evidence that should direct our actions, we still sometimes find “the old ways” easier.

So as we enter the New Year, let us reflect on the challenge of change at the same time as we look into our futures with optimism and hope, knowing that keeping our resolve, staying focused on our dreams, and refusing to be swayed by naysayers and doom-spreaders is essential if we wish to build something greater and more inspiring.

May your 2009 be filled with hope, achievement and many blessings.

The world is in a funk.  The news is depressing. Fear grips many. Sales of anti-depressants are up.

As I walk out of my door this afternoon to go skiing in the fresh powder that has graced the Rockies, I drop my skis onto the ground and begin to step into the bindings. The lift is only a few feet away.  I look up and notice an extraordinary sight that stops me in mid-motion - the parked wheelchairs of a group of amputees who have gone skiing.

I take out my cell phone so that I can share with you the image that I saw here a few hours ago.

These positive thinkers - these owners of can-do attitudes - these examples for the rest of us - they aren’t whining, complaining or becoming victims of fear or anger - they are playing in two feet of fresh powder in one of the most beautiful places on earth - the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.

Yes there is a lot of pain around us all.  But this beautiful image reminded me that a disadvantage can also be reframed as just another way to do something.  As Rahm Emanuel, President-elect Obama’s White House Chief of Staff has said, “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.”

Let’s not waste this crisis.

In March 2007, just as my friend Lisa Clapier was about to launch a national TV show with Patch Adams as her co-host - The Torch - Reporting on Humanity’s Greatness- she was sentenced to 2-6 years in prison. She was convicted of attempting pay with two checks for which there were insufficient funds in her account. Lisa is a beautiful soul and so, true to form, she refrained from trying to make the system wrong or lay blame or accountability elsewhere. Her response was to look within and discover which internal programs no longer served her and she began clearing them.

Lisa thought, “If I were your soul and had lived your life, I would be you. I would have made the very same mistakes as you, and had the same successes…”

Says Lisa, “We are all the result of programs. No evolution is made in anyone, or in our world, as long as we look outside ourselves. The truth is we are all one, we are intrinsically connected as one living organism…what I do to you, I do to myself and visa versa. In this truth, there is no world that needs to be saved.

And so Lisa’s life became, ”‘How can I honor my world. And the solution to everything began with this question: ‘How would love fulfill itself in this situation?’ This is the mantra that is now my compass.”
 
Lisa Clapier became the impetus for Sustainable Futures, a green vocational training program for incarcerated people.  It began with six women in a prison in Boise, Idaho. Sustainable Futures is quickly eliminating the glass bottle waste stream in Southern Idaho and is being looked upon as a model for others who wish to replicate the program across the US. As a partner with Van Jones’ GreenJobsNow.com, it is creating green collar jobs for those who are incarcerated. More importantly, the program is offering life-enriching programs and conscious evolution tools in a loving, nurturing, environment. The results have been remarkable!

We are in changing times, the way we have lived during the past 50 years is not sustainable. A growing and vocal majority are becoming impatient and proactive about wasting non-renewable resources.  Since people are our most precious commodity, it stands to reason that turning incarceration into a profit center is not sustainable.  Seventy-five percent of all people incarcerated suffer from a mental health disorder - often undiagnosed - resulting in people who are borderline functional, self-medicating, economically disenfranchised, members of minorities, lacking education and more. The result?  Too many of them end up in prison. Yet we spend millions of dollars supporting programs like the Special Olympics (for which I helped organize the 1997 World Winter Games) with obvious, profound benefits and far greater success. 
 
We are in a time when everything seems to be collapsing and rebirthing around us - our financial institutions, social justice, politics, business - our old paradigm systems are falling away.  Clearly, many things no longer serve us, whether it is wasting natural resources, or people - our greatest natural resource. We are being called to return to our core, a way of life that sustains all of us, honors all of us, provides opportunity and abundance for all of us.  And as long as we pursue the false premise that we are seperate from each other, we risk our survival. We are one!

Rebuilding hope and trust in organizations and strengthening our capacity to lead from integrity are essential for our future progress. Reframing dire situations, like Lisa’s, and turning them into opportunities that benefit many, is our greatest opportunity of all.

Lisa was recently recognized in Idaho with a CASTLE award for ‘Love’ based on her contribution, inspiration, and selflessness for making this program possible. Lisa is currently on a work release program and is the Marketing Director for Green Foundations. Lisa plans to remain with Green Foundations and Sustainable Futures, as well as returning to her media ventures after her journey of physical incarceration ends. Lisa will be speaking at a confererence in June 12-14, 2009 ‘Sacred Activism’ with Andrew Harvey, Lance Secretan, James O’Dea, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Stacey Robyn, Linda Bretherton and Dr. Lisa Scales.  For more information contact info@greenfoundations.com. For more information on Sustainable Futures visit: www.sustainable-futures.us

I have a theory about leadership (many, actually, but just one to share now!). I think CEOs and other leaders take their cue for their own leadership style from the current CEO of America - its President. If the prevailing mood is one of fear, power, partisanship, separateness, competition, Darwinism, greed, secrecy, autocracy, bias and manipulation, and this is acted out through the Executive Branch of the US Administration, then other leaders see this as the “approved model” for their own behavior, and behave accordingly. It seems to me, that for the last decade we have been locked in this paradigm, which I call “The Old Story of Leadership”.

This of course, leads to separateness - blacks and whites, rich and poor, employed and unemployed, Christian and Muslim, health-insured and not, for us and against us, red states and blue ones, and so on. America has voted in what may have been the most emotional and partisan (separateness thinking) election in recent memory. But, America voted with hope and optimism for a return to greater unity (oneness thinking), a sense of our own potential to serve the world, that has rarely been fulfilled in recent memory.

As a result, I forecast a huge change in leadership style. I am seeing it already in my work. In a short period I am traveling through Sweden, Germany, Calgary, Cabo San Lucas, Louisville, Fort Worth and Denver, and in every case, I have heard a growing cry for a different leadership style, which I call “The New Story of Leadership” - one that we have been teaching for decades, and which may resonate more powerfully now than at any time since we founded The Secretan Center. Followers have a greater yearning than ever to feel inspired and hopeful, and feeling this way leads to high performance - for corporations and for nations.

Some, who cling to the old story of leadership, think that it is weak to lead with compassion and love, but Michael Bischoff reminded me recently, in a comment he posted on this blog, of Martin Luther King’s words, “What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.” And Doris Kearns’ brilliant biography of Abraham Lincoln, “Team of Rivals”, describes the power and possibility of inclusive leadership so incisively.

A brilliant piece by Shoshana Zuboff titeld Obama’s Victory: A Consumer-Citizen Revolt can be found here

So, let us commit to being leaders who inspire others to greatness through love AND power, compassion and truth, courage and integrity, inclusion and collaboration, and a vision of outcomes that benefits us all. Regardless of who or what we lead - we can change the world.

Years ago, I ran a private company. Our major competitors were publicly traded organizations who ran their businesses to meet the expectations of Wall Street analysts and shareholders. We, on the other hand, enjoyed the freedom of privacy which enabled us to make decisions based purely on our own criteria rather than the demands of outsiders.

For 20 years we have seen leaders and corporate boards in public corporations keep one eye on the analysts and the other on the appropriate goals for their organizations. But serving these two masters was never going to be sustainable, and eventually the game came undone, ending in bailouts, takeovers, collapses and fear.

But this may turn out to be good news. In these current market conditions, many publicly traded companies have no hope of matching the quarterly earnings from their previous periods, as they had succeeded in doing so frequently before. Missing these targets will be the norm for a while and analysts and shareholders will reluctantly resign themselves to it.

So, an opportunity presents itself: If leaders are going to miss their ambitious earnings goals anyway, why not invest in the development of people to compensate for the drought that has prevailed in this area for so long? A larger investment in professional development will hit the earnings statement now, and will make little difference to the current quarter’s performance. But it could make a lot of difference to the long-term health of the organization and its most important asset - people.

And long-term thinking, based on inspiring people more than analysts, will be a welcome change in leadership style.