[From Unsplash]
Good morning,
In Compassionate Leadership: How to Do Hard Things in a Human Way, Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter of Potential Project share a story from the early career of David A. Ricks, chairman and CEO of Eli Lilly. They write, “While he was leading the Canadian affiliate of the company, a key product equating to almost half of its revenue lost intellectual property protection. Try to imagine the situation: key leaders and employees are looking to you for answers about the future of the business and their own livelihood. You ‘have very few options, answers, or solutions. What do you do?’
“Dave knew that the right approach was to be straightforward and transparent with employees—even if there was very little information to provide at that moment. So, he held a town hall and gave everyone the opportunity to ask questions. He wasn’t able to answer questions about the future of the business. He could not make any commitments about job security. He could not say whether there would be layoffs. And he could not say when he would have more answers. It wasn’t that he was trying to hide anything. He simply did not know. Dave did believe the best approach was to stand up, face people, and be clear about the uncertainty. When interviewing Dave for this book, he said, ‘I had to face people looking for guidance and direction. They had to make some personal choices without having clear answers. It was hard. It was very uncomfortable. But it was a good lesson, because it was the right thing to do.’ Dave knew it was not only the right thing to do, it was the most compassionate thing to do.
“‘Employees were entitled to have a transparent view of the future,’ he said. ‘With that honest view, I knew that they would be able to better plan their lives.’”
Later in the chapter, they write: “Wise compassionate leadership means treating people as adults—with full transparency and clarity, combined with care—so that they know exactly where they stand and can plan their lives based on reality.”
Have a good day!
Rethinking smartwatches
Most of us have gotten used to either wearing or watching others wear fitness tracking devices such as watches that track vitals. When looked at from a Western philosophical lens that has always argued, “Know Thyself”, it makes perfect sense, writes Justin E.H. Smith on Unherd.com. Having said that, Smith goes on to raise some interesting questions that got us thinking.
“If you become convinced that the self is unknowable, there are a few different ways you might react. You might decide to ‘go with the flow’, to live out your days in happy ignorance of your ‘true’ nature, but in sentimental harmony with the world around you. Or you might turn your attention to the body, as the closest thing you’re ever going to get to the self itself, and learn everything you can about it. In doing this, over time you and your peers might come to believe that the information derived from such investigation counts as self-knowledge in the fullest sense, that it is not just as good as it gets, but good purely and simply.
“This impression that knowledge of the body’s ‘vital stats’ is good in itself may come to appear particularly compelling when it presents itself not only as good, but as cool. And there is no more effective way to make learning cool than to make it depend on the intermediation of some sleek new device, some bit of technology, a gadget that did not exist at all just a few years before. In a world flooded with such new devices, it is not at all surprising to find that many people now are not even aware of any aspiration to self-knowledge beyond what may be revealed by the AppleWatch or the Fitbit.
“It is not hard to imagine a near-future scenario in which countless data-points from all of our bodies are quietly and unceasingly transmitted to the cloud and available for inspection by ‘the authorities’: how many calories we consume per day, how often we get sexually aroused, as well as the old standards of steps, heart-rate, blood-sugar, and so on.”
While all of these are provocative, there are other issues at stake as well and Smith flags each of them in much detail. We are still chewing over it.
We’re keen to hear what thoughts cross your mind after you’ve read the full essay.
Dig deeper
Climate change and pandemics
In New Indian Express, K Srinath Reddy, president, Public Health Foundation of India, points to the twin threats of the Covid pandemic and climate change, how they are interconnected, and why we must act now.
He writes: “A recent report by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR, 2022) describes how climate change and pandemics are combining to severely threaten human security. Providing global narratives of the threats posed by this dangerous duo, the report declares that ‘the climate emergency and the systemic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic point to a new reality’. That self-evident truth is that humanity does not have the luxury of time to deal with these two threats separately and sequentially. It is no mere coincidence that these two mainly anthropogenic disasters are simultaneously demonstrating their sinister strengths through the prolonged Covid pandemic and unprecedented levels of global temperature rise, noted since 2020.
“Climate change, with a fusillade of extreme weather events and high temperatures, leads to migration not only of humans, but also of both wild and domesticated animals. Viruses and other microbes can travel with them and find ample opportunities to find new susceptible hosts or even jump species. This can aggravate an existing epidemic or trigger a new one. As drought hits parched farm lands and people struggle to find drinking water, climate refugees will rise in numbers and epidemic risks too will rise alongside.”
Dig deeper
Getting things done
(Via WhatsApp)
Warm regards,
Team Founding Fuel
