Your Legacy is Now
Life is not a search for meaning from others, it’s about the creation of meaning for yourself.
For over 30 years Alan Weiss has consulted, coached, and advised everyone from Fortune 500 executives, state governors, non-profit directors, and entrepreneurs to athletes, entertainers, and beauty pageant contestants. That’s quite an assortment of people, and they run into the thousands. Most of them have had what we euphemistically call “means,” and some of them have had a lot more than that. Others have been aspiring and with more ends in sight than means on hand.
Alan Weiss states:
I’ve dealt with esteem (low), narcissism (high), family problems, leadership dysfunctions, insecurities, addictions, and ethical quandaries. And I’ve talked about them through the coronavirus crisis. But don’t get the wrong idea. About 95% of these people have been well-meaning, honest (to the best of their knowledge), and interested in becoming a better person and better professional. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be talking to me.
I found the equivalent of the “runner’s wall” in their journeys, where they must break through the pain and the obstacles and then can keep going with renewed energy and spirit. But runners know how far they must go after the breakthrough, be it another half lap or another five miles. There is a finish line.
I’ve found that people in all positions, even after the “breakthrough,” don’t know where they are in the race, let alone where the finish line is.
They do not know what meaning is for them. They may have money in the bank, good relationships, the admiration of others, and the love of their dogs. But they have no metrics for “What now?” They believe that at the end of life there is a tallying, some metaphysical accountant who totals up their contributions, deducts their bad acts, and creates the (hopefully positive) difference.
That difference, they believe, is their “legacy.”
But the thought that legacy arrives at the end of life is as ridiculous as someone who decides to sell a business and tries to increase its valuation the day prior. Legacy is now. Legacy is daily. Every day we create the next page in our lives, but the question becomes who is writing it and what’s being written. Is someone else creating our legacy? Or are we, ourselves, simply writing the same page repeatedly?
Or do we leave it blank?
Our organic, living legacy is marred and squeezed by huge normative pressures. There is a “threshold” point, at which one’s beliefs and values are overridden by immense peer pressure. Our metrics are forced to change.
In an age of social media, biased press, and bullying, we’ve come to a point where our legacy, ironically, is almost out of our hands.
Yet our “meaning”—our creation of meaning and not a search for some illusive alchemy—creates worth and impact for us and all those with whom we interact.
Bob Ligget
I’ll vouch for their falling for fads. I spoke to the HR director at a respected university who was convinced that Six Sigma was the answer to every need he saw there. I asked him what on earth convinced him of that, and his response was more in line with manufacturing processes(!). Luckily, wiser heads prevailed and it never launched.
Alan Weiss
Six Sigma, Nine Delta, Future Search, Open Meetings—the moronic siren call to the gullible.
Steven Levy
I have been lucky to work as a manager with one outstanding HR person – so good that I wondered why she remained in HR. (I’m referring to regular HR folks, not trainers/coaches who sometimes report up through HR.) Most of the HR people I worked with ranged from okay to why-did-the-company-hire-this-person… and “okay” is hardly a recommendation either. The occasional good ones pull their weight and then some, but my experience suggests they’re a small minority — and most of those see HR as a “rotation” on their way to growth and higher-level positions in the business itself.
One other note — Alan, you mention CIO’s becoming CEOs. I wasn’t aware of this among F500 corps; could you clarify/name them? Thanks.
Alan Weiss
That’s a good point! Here are two articles on the subject, but you’re right, it ain’t common!
http://www.silicon.com/cxoextra/0,3800005416,39155417,00.htm
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-1029721.html
Steven Levy
Thanks, Alan. (Gotta say, though, that none of the CIO examples appeared to be CEOs at F500 or even F1000 companies, though a few came from there — e.g., from Kodak.)
We may see that change over time. There is an influx of COO-types and even CFOs moving through the CIO role as a career rotation, such as Microsoft COO and CEO-in-waiting-somewhere Kevin Turner, an operations guy who was a CIO at WalMart.
All that aside, I agree with your original premise — except as a rotation, HR is a poor source for effective execs at any level, let alone CEO.
Alan Weiss
I can make an easy case that HR, as a department, should be eliminated and the responsibilities handed to heads of P&L areas.
Steven Levy
Hear, hear.
I’ll go even further; I can make a good case that apps-IT should go into the P&Ls, too. I’m not talking about infrastructure (networking, security) or the data center, but the development or purchase of departmental applications could be run in the businesses far less expensively, with a lot less infighting and acrimony, and — here’s the radical idea — just as professionally.
Dave Gardner
Steven Levy…agree completely! There can be a role for Corporate IT, but, it should be to ensure scalable, appropriate platforms and standards, not delivery of new functionality to run the business.