REFLECTIONS ON CHARACTER AND LEADERSHIP

312 REFLECTIONS ON CHARACTER AND LEADERSHIP

If your staff is happy and smiling and enjoying their work, they will

perform well. Consequently, the customers will enjoy their experience

with your company. If your staff is sad and miserable and does not have a

good time, the customers will be equally miserable. So it is a critical thing

... We ’ ve done things differently, and that ’ s made life more fun and enjoy-

able than if we ’ d taken the more traditional approach that business schools

teach. I ’ ve been determined to have a good time.

I have also observed that an emphasis on pleasure is particularly

important in large organizations in order to encourage the spirit of

innovation. Sir David Simon affi rmed this point when asked, during his

time as chairman of BP, how he kept this huge company, once consid-

ered as sprightly as a supertanker, at the forefront of new developments.

When asked what he looked for when picking key executives, Simon

replied:

Integrity, enthusiasm, and humor. I think humor is about putting things

into perspective. It ’ s about which mirrors you are shining on life, and

how you view things ... If people don ’ t have perspective when they get

to a level where they have big responsibility, they are potentially danger-

ous. I like people who are able to defray the pressure of decisions and the

pressure of conclusion by taking perspective. Humor is a good indicator

of that capacity ... Having fun, the buzz, the humor is, in my view, what

makes the difference between the organization being machine - like or a

real part of life ... [We ask ourselves] how do we create a buzz — meaning

the attitude thing, the fun — so that we are not just another oil

company?

Meaning

When people see their jobs as transcending their own personal needs

(by improving the quality of life for others, for example, or contribut-

ing to society) the impact can be extremely powerful. We all struggle

with the temporary nature of things, so we look for ways to leave a

legacy, ways to master existential anxiety. Because good experiences

are temporary islands in a sea of meaninglessness, fi nding happiness in

any form is a perpetual goal of mankind. We all look for reasons to

feel good about what we do. Granted, these reasons are sometimes

public - relations - oriented, but CEOs and employees are often driven

to engage in something meaningful by genuinely altruistic motives.

And the employees know the difference. Successful leaders of global

organizations make it clear that they want their people to feel proud