Summary
Highlights
Stan Slap is introduced as a corporate strategist and trainer, known for his book "Bury My Heart at Conference Room B." He begins by dedicating his talk to Aeroflot, an airline whose 'Smile Day' campaign exemplifies misguided management focused on symptoms rather than root causes. Slap asserts that many business problems persist because solutions are not genuinely new, especially concerning leadership.
Slap provocatively states that leadership is meaningless if viewed as an end itself. What truly matters is what leadership provides: emotional commitment. He mentions the vast number of books on leadership, highlighting that 91% focus on 'business leadership,' which he believes targets the emotional commitment companies desire from managers. This commitment drives discretionary effort, solves 'unsolvable' problems, and inspires others.
The neurobiological source of emotional commitment is the ability to live one's deepest personal values. However, managers are often required to compromise these values for company priorities, leading to detachment. In good companies, this detachment can be more insidious, masked by intellectual, financial, and physical commitment. True leadership, he argues, involves living one's values without compromise and using them to improve others' lives.
Slap emphasizes that leadership is innate, not hereditary, and begins when personal values are put under pressure. Companies don't want managers to be true leaders in the revolutionary sense; they want the actions of leaders but not the independent vision. He argues that a manager's primary responsibility is to Google, but a leader's is to themselves first. This self-fulfillment, he contends, ultimately benefits the company. He shares data showing that 10,000 managers across 70 countries prioritize 'family' and 'integrity' but feel pressured to compromise these values for work.
Leaders know their core values intimately and strive for environments where these values are fully realized. They turn their personal values into compelling causes for others. Slap provides an example: if 'family' is a core value, a leader would create an environment where open communication, unconditional support, and mutual welfare are paramount, demonstrating these values in the workplace. He asserts that employees are eager for such a message, representing authentic leadership, trust, and belonging.
Slap distinguishes between management and leadership: management messages always equate to 'work harder,' while leadership messages equate to 'live better.' People will only work harder if they believe it will lead to a better life. From a company perspective, the biggest challenge is the constant dilution of managers' energy. Managers are typically exhausted from their workload, incorporating new tasks, and maintaining sanity. This leads to toxic, cynical energy that cannot sustain corporate strategies.
To counteract this, companies need to shift the energy source to an individual, self-sustaining one. By turning work into a mechanism for fulfilling personal values, managers are intrinsically motivated to protect and promote the company. When managers translate their values into better working conditions, their people protect them. Leadership is the organizing framework for emotional commitment, leading to people following, listening, and growing with a leader, unlike a manager.
Slap interacts with the audience, establishing that most managers work 50+ hours a week, plus travel and 'think time,' totaling about 75 hours. He highlights that this means people spend more than double their waking hours working than not working. He argues that not living one's deepest personal values during over half of waking hours is a 'crime' and unnecessary, as Google does not deliberately prohibit it. Living one's values is crucial because they define a desired life and are a source of safety and hope. Neglecting values leaves one susceptible to others' agendas, leading to a disconnect between true self and work persona.
Slap states that leadership is the most important thing one will ever do. His ultimate recommendation to any manager is to 'be human first and a manager second.' This is vital for oneself (as life is precious), for family (whose health depends on work-life balance), for people (who need support in uncertain environments), for customers (who trust people, not companies), for the company (Google is a human company selling technology to humans, relying on discretionary effort), and for the world (where humanity is essential in a scarily uncertain time).
An audience member asks what to do if their manager isn't a leader. Slap advises against leaving immediately, suggesting instead to help the manager learn leadership. He emphasizes that managers often learn to control rather than trust employees, but this is an outdated and ridiculous approach. He encourages employees to have a 'values conversation' with their manager, explaining how current management isn't working on a human level and offering insights on how to get the best out of them. He believes this offers a better chance of improving the situation than leaving.
In response to a question about dedicating time to self-awareness, Slap playfully says he lives by 'think deep, live shallow,' but strongly advocates for self-awareness as a corrective against external influences. He suggests surrounding oneself with people who understand and value one's pursuit of self-awareness. He also mentions that his book provides processes for integrating these principles into personal life, family, and community, emphasizing the importance of living a life of intention.
He addresses why some Google organizations struggled with his program, noting two main reasons: an initial bias against anything perceived as 'soft' (due to Google's intellectual leanings) and a common managerial mindset that sees personal values as conflicting with company goals. Managers globally enforce conditions they themselves deplore, out of fear that empowering employees to pursue their values might lead to a lack of company prioritization. He assures that the program can overcome these barriers at Google with time and mutual effort between managers and employees.