I do not often write about my clients as I do not want to appear overly promotional or commercial.  We work with some of the best organizations on the planet and many of the finest leaders around.  One of those is Humana, with whom we have been working closely for several years, and their leader, Mike McCallister, is one of the very best.

Working with leaders to align their strategy with their processes and their values is the challenge we take on every day, and one of the ways we guide organizations is to help them to identify, realize and sustain their ONE Dream®.  This is a process by which a company or institution, or even a country, re-calibrates its reason for existing and defines how it plans to change the world.  The result is a surge in employee passion (I must emphasize here: NOT engagement – but passion!) which galvanizes all human effort – within and outside the organization – towards that ONE Dream®. Humana’s ONE Dream® is “To help people achieve lifelong well-being”.  This has resulted in a corporate transformation which has helped them to diversify, acquire new businesses and grow their company from $12 billion to over $40 billion and become one of the most inspiring members of the Fortune 100 family of companies.

But at this high level of peak performance, every detail must be considered, because alignment of messaging, walking the talk and BEING and living the ONE Dream® becomes paramount, and sometimes challenging. At this level, the oxygen is thin, the demands are high, and people are watching to see if you fail.

In the lobby of Humana’s headquarters is a floor-to-ceiling glass sculpture (pictured above) which announces the company’s ONE Dream® to the world.  Alongside this tribute to their passion are two antique Greek statues of goddesses which I have always admired whenever I visit there. They were acquired from a dealer in 1984 and have graced Humana’s lobby ever since. The Italian government has been on a campaign for years to retrieve antiquities that were looted or transferred from their country, largely during World War II, and though Humana has never been directly under any pressure on this front, it has chosen to return them voluntarily to Italy. Humana acquired the statues and owns them legitimately, but Italy’s “lifelong well-being” is not being served if their treasures are being kept from them – even when the current owner is legally entitled to do so.  And Humana chose to make this gesture because, though it may be a small act in the grand scheme of things, it helps the organization live its dream.  By doing so, it sends a signal to everyone, that it is a company of integrity and that sometimes, even though the law may entitle us to certain behavior, being an exemplary citizen may demand different actions.

At a time when Corporate America is under attack for a perceived collapse of integrity, altruism, compassion and high ideals, it is examples like this that remind us that there are many who lead by example – and that inspires us all.