PILLAR IIl: Journeying
"Parting the Mindsets : Sharing a Future"
(Part 3 of 7)

"I can't adjust the wind against the sails. I just have to make sure the sails are set." - M.Douglas Ivester, CEO of Coca Cola Inc. ¹.

"King Tamatoa realized that there came a time on any voyage when a man and hiscanoe had to trust the gods and to run forward, satisfied that the sails had been well setand the course adhered to whenever possible; but when all precautions failed to discloseknown marks, it was obligatory to ride the storm." - James A. Michener, Hawaii²

"Intellectual capital is useless unless it moves. It's no good having some guy who is verywise and sits alone in a room." -- Hugh Macdonald³

"Knowledge has become the primary ingredient of what we make, do, buy, and sell. As aresult, managing it finding and growing intellectual capital, storing it, selling it, sharingit has become the most important economic task of individuals, businesses, andnations." - Thomas A. Stewart, writer with Fortune magazine⁴

"If R&D investment begins to surpass capital investment the corporation could be said tobe shifting from being a place for production to being a place for thinking." - FumioKodama, professor of innovation policy at Saitama University near Tokyo⁵

Journey. The word speaks volumes to people all over the world.: we beginjourneys; the journey of a 1,000 miles begins with the first step; we must go on ajourney; when did you get back from your journey? where did your journey takeyou? this is the end of the journey; the motel chain "Journey's End."

To go on a journey often signals the time to begin a new phase of one's life. I haveheard executives and managers say at the end of the 1990s' recession: "That was quitea journey."

Journeys signal crossroads. Journeys signal pilgrimage. "The archetype of the journeyalways includes a crossroads. One has to choose a path, either to the left or to the right.The journey moment is a decision moment." ⁶

In today's turbulent world of constant change and globalization, the theme of journey isparticularly important to organizations. As we saw in Pillars I and II, when the vision ismapped out, the decision to get on the road begins. In ancient Greek times, a personaljourney like this was often referred to as the hero's journey the discovery of oneself,such as the journey Odysseus made, as recounted in Homer's Odyssey.

Every hero goes into the "underworld"; every hero "dies" to the past and looks to thefuture; every hero attains a new "identity." A most profound change and transformationtakes place. The hero's journey radically transforms. One is not the same person asbefore at the end of the journey. Even though one has the vision and the map, thejourney takes one through unknown territory.

What does the new corporate journey look like today? Scott Chate is communicationsleader at Calgary, Alberta's TransCanada Pipelines. He says, "Business is increasinglybecoming an ongoing conversation about what to do and how to do things. The ability tofacilitate those conversations is an important aspect of what people these days arecalling knowledge-sharing."

Conversation is a very different journey for executives than what they're used to. Twentyyears ago, executives might have imagined the corporate journey as one of "gettingthings done," "getting problems solved," "making decisions," "keeping track of inventory,""maintaining the books," etc.

"But conversation?" you might be saying to yourself. "We never studied that in businessschool." Hewlett-Packard's Dan Branda, in commenting on H-P's new journey, says,"Our job is to set an environment that allows risk taking, creative thinking, continuousprocess flow, trust in people and respect for people." ⁸

Just as it was for the ancients, today's journey will involve discovery. Discovery can onlyhappen while one is on the journey. Organizations are struggling today to know whichdirection to go in. They also wonder if they can sustain themselves on this new journey.Antoine de St-Exup‚ry, author of The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince), said that he knew ofonly one freedom, and that was the freedom of the mind. In today's new globaleconomy, the competitive edge is surely with those who have "intellectual capital." Aswe saw in Pillar I (Visioning), today's new journey involves "managing the intangibles"(relationships, context) more than ever. At Necho Systems Corp., the question TomDaniel asks is, "How do younger, smaller software companies compete with companiesthat can dazzle prospective workers with larger budgets?" and his answer includes "acombination of prudent investment in employees and a focus on a variety of intangiblesto create an atmosphere that attracts high-quality people and encourages loyalty." ¹¹

What companies are now discovering in the age of the "conversational journey" soessential to corporate success, is that IQ alone doesn't cut it anymore. As my articleshave been emphasizing repeatedly, EQ emotional quotient or EI -- emotionalintelligence is central. Chemical Bank, in the U.S., is one such company stressing theimportance of EQ and "the intangibles" as the fuel for the new corporate journey: At Chemical Bank, Ernest Pelli's bosses suggested he polish these veryskills. So, late on a Thursday night in Manhattan, Pelli, 32, attends a DaleCarnegie class, explaining to classmates that he is there "to practiceshowing interest in other people." Trained as an accountant, he rates histechnical skills as very good. But Chemical wanted him to work on "theintangibles" -- the people skills required of managers. "Especially inaccounting," he explains, "you see a lot of people who are interested onlyin the technical aspect." When, for example, the bank values an asset oneway and the client another, a lack of EQ skills can make discussions "morecontentious than they need to be." ¹²

In 1994, Alan Webber, former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review, andnow founding editor of Fast Company, posed the following question: "What's so newabout the new economy?" Author Don Tapscott, who wrote The Digital Economy, has awonderful reply to the question: "I ... noted that Webber's question is reminiscent of thetime Albert Einstein was monitoring an exam for graduate physics students and was toldthere was a problem because the questions on the exam were the same as the previousyear's test. 'That's okay,' he replied, 'the answers are different this year'." And thisanswer explains why all organizations, in order to survive, have to be on the newjourney. Tapscott then goes on to highlight a quote from Wired magazine's Kevin Kellywho, in speaking of the new journey and the centrality of the intangibles, writes: "Theprinciples governing the world of the soft -- the world of intangibles, of media, ofsoftware, and of services -- will soon command the world of the hard -- the world ofreality, of atoms, of objects, of steel and oil, and the hard work done by the sweat ofbrows." ¹⁴

QUESTION: "Are We Prepared for This New Journey?"

Let's do an organizational check. Think of the organization you work in. Estimate fairlyand honestly your answer to the following seven (7) questions. Use the scale below tomake your choice:

1. = To a very little extent
2. = To a little extent
3. = To some extent
4. = To a great extent
5. = To a very great extent

The organization I work for ....

Item No.	Item	My Score
1	Celebrates people's accomplishments.
2	Follows through on well-thought-out plans
3	Effectively meets challenges as they occur.
4	Knows what to do to make effective changes.
5	Is well along the way to organizational health.
6	Has a clear focus on what its priorities are.
7	Is building a future worth going to.

Interpretation:

If you scored 32-35:You're well on the new journey.If you scored 28-31:You're doing all right, but need to improve.If you scored 25-27:You definitely need to take stock right now.If you scored 0-24: You're are, or will be, in trouble.

Stan Davis and Christopher Meyer, authors of Blur: The Speed of Change in theConnected Economy, write that "the capitalization of the individual" will be the newcurrency and itemize the following factors as important for this new journey:

• Start colouring outside the lines.
• Blur the division between work and personal life.
• Seek novelty forever.
• Sell your value on the web.
• Let the market, not the company, determine your worth.

In 1998, when The Financial Post chose "The 50 Best" managed companies in Canada,it wrote the following: "One of the hardest things about being selected as one of the 50best managed companies in Canada is to live up to the billing. Some companies havemade the list for a second time. The secret of their repeat performance lies in a host ofintangibles." In reviewing selected companies from the list and searching for theintangibles, the following ideas kept appearing. Pay particular attention to theextraordinary emphasis that EQ plays for success on the new journey.

• "TLC" Think Like a Customer program
• Innovative ideas and products
• Creating products and services no one else has
• Delivering in ways others haven't
• Knowing your customers, your market, and your employees better than anyone else
• Realizing that business is 100% people
• Dedication to quality relationships starting at top levels
• Emphasis on human problem solving
• Having well-trained employees
• Exercising the imagination and seeing the success of results
• Policies of promoting from within
• Taking care of and motivating employees
• Having BHA: a big hairy, audacious dream
• Understanding the entire business
• Creating a high-performance work culture

Necessary Preparations for the New Journey

The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership discusses the following eight things that areabsolutely necessary for this new journey. These eight symbolic items form the newcompass that will guide us safely along the path.

1. Body: Symbolically this means that we must have substance, a sense of who weare. When people refer to others as "shallow," they usually mean "there is not muchto them." People with "body" are people who have depth, character. Similarly with thecorporate body, unless an organization has body, character, depth, it will not lastlong. An example of a company that "has body" is Canadian Occidental PetroleumLtd. of Calgary, Alberta. When CanOxy does business internationally, it works from acode of international business ethics that bars employees from paying bribes toforeign officials. It has character. "The code is sufficiently strict that in some casesCanOxy has lost business because it refused to get involved with partners known tohave paid bribes in the past." CanOxy is in step with the new Bill S-21, whichcements Canada's commitment to an anti-bribery treaty negotiated in 1997 bymembers of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.Canadian executives who violate the new law could end up in jail for five years.Other Canadian companies with "body" and character include such notables asAlcan Aluminum Ltd., General Electric Co.'s Canadian affiliates, Northern TelecomLtd., Ontario Hydro, Shell Canada Ltd., and Talisman Energy Inc. Peter Eigen,founder of Transparency International in Berlin reminds us that "having little body" ininternational business dealings is akin to being seduced by corruption. It hurtseveryone, making poverty more intense, distorting social and economic developmentand eroding the provision of public service.

2. Alms bowl: Symbolically this means having an attitude of receptivity, of openness tolife and opportunity. I remind my students that in the new economy they need tobecome "opportunity employees." We need to be schooled in what Horace the Latinpoet wrote when he called his poem "Carpe Diem" "Seize the Day." "Grab theMoment." But that means we must be open to newness. The Institute for Researchon Learning (or IRL), in Palo Alto, California, was founded in 1987. It's a researchspinoff group of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Centre. Their mission is to study howpeople learn. What they discovered is that learning is a social activity. In otherwords, learning happens in groups. This is a very remarkable research findingbecause it means that our symbolic "alms bowl" -- or attitude of openness, ofhumility, that I don't know everything -- is more necessary today than ever beforebecause of the Information Age. I submit that one of the major corporaterealignments and adjustments is to the priority of the big picture of well-being, whatThe 7 Pillars calls "the top line": people, pride, and profits and in that order.

3. Star: Symbolically this means having the correct compass for this new journey. Inmodern corporate terms, the star is the centred organization that is guided by its corevalues.²¹ CanOxy (mentioned above) is such a company with its 10-page handbookdetailing its corporate values, including a section dealing with improper payments.Roger Sant and Dennis Bakke founded the now-giant AES Corporation in 1981. In arecent interview, Sant remarked, "Empowerment without values isn't empowerment,"says Sant. "It's just technique." Author Suzy Wetlaufer, writing in the HarvardBusiness Review for January/February 1999, writes, "When they founded AES in1981, Sant and Bakke set out to create a company where people could haveengaging experiences on a daily basis -- a company that embodied the principles offairness, integrity, social responsibility, and fun. Putting those principles into actionhas created something unique -- an ecosystem of real empowerment."

4. Mirror: Symbolically this means having the ability to look at ourselves in the mirror.We do this by checking our motivations and the geography of our inner road. Forsome companies, it means holding an executive retreat; for others, it is making a360 degree development feedback process integral to the organization. A case in point isRoyal Bank's venture into loaning money for so-called microenterprises in AtlanticCanada.²² The loans are small- $5,000 or less - and go to fund day-care centres,corner stores and crafts producers. And it's limited to women only. Call it Canada'sfirst major microcredit program for women. Executive Nancy Barry, a Harvard MBA,once worked at the World Bank and is now president of Women's World Banking.She works out of a small office in central Manhattan. She found the model to help setup these micro lending loans projects. She believes it can help depressed regionssuch as Nova Scotia's Cape Breton wean themselves from perpetual governmentaid. Her network now has 200,000 women clients; she hopes to reach 10 million by2008. She finds much of her inspiration by taking her staff on retreats to poor regionsaround the world: Chile, Dominican Republic, and especially Bangladesh, wheremicrolending had its start. "With American candour and Wall Street smarts, she istrying to whip the global microcredit movement into shape." It was on one suchretreat with her affiliates in Ahmedabad, India where The Globe and Mail's JohnStackhouse interviewed her. Retreats such as these allow Ms. Small to assess whatshe must truly do.

5. Apple Corer: Symbolically this means peeling off the layers of stuff that keep usfrom knowing about and relishing the centre of who we are. It's an experience ofgetting to the core, getting back to basics, getting back "to the knitting," as TomPeters would say. The 1990s has seen a tremendous amount of this experience indownsizing, delayering, dehirings. If done well, and for the right purpose, it brings lifeback into the body, the organization. If done poorly, it hurts and maimsunnecessarily. Lynn Anderson, enterprise marketing manager for Hewlett-Packard(Canada) Ltd., says if you delayer for the wrong reasons, you will be guiding yourbusiness by the past, not by the future. At the end of the day, you should instead besaying: "What do I need to do?" With too much pruning, the workers left behind aresimply too overworked. Studies are now showing the negative impact thatmishandling the apple corer is causing: "Depression costs Canadian and U.S.businesses about $60 billion per year in productivity losses, disability costs, wagereplacements and product and service quality and other costs not directly related tohealth care." Author Don Tapscott remarks, "Mental health is good business. I amconvinced that organizations which pay attention to the mental health of their peopleare better able to compete in the new economy. The reason is simple -- this is aknowledge-based economy. Is the problem technology? I'd argue no. It's nottechnology that designs organizations or firms or business processes or systems orwork or families or societies. It's people." ²⁶

6. Sword: Symbolically this means judgment, judgment, judgment. It is the keen edgeof discriminating insight. How many times do we hear executives, presidents, primeministers say that what they did was "an error in judgment." We also read aboutcompanies "on the cutting edge." In the Information Age, and in a knowledgeeconomy, the sword of discrimination is people. Today's sword is intellectual capital:human, structural, and customer capital. Today's sword-like company is a "smartcompany." Smart companies honour intelligence and thinking. Since we now knowthat IQ or mental intelligence accounts for only 2-6% of life's success and thatEQ or emotional intelligence accounts for up to 47% of life's success, smartcompanies invest in their people. People are assets, not costs. One example of verybad judgment which ended up in court was the case in Calgary a few years agoof Boothman v. Canada. It seems that a certain manager named Tomas was aliaison officer in a federal government department. Lorraine was the employee inquestion. She was also very nervous during her initial interview. She started her firstday at the office by Tomas telling her that he thought her lack of eye contactsuggested that she had a lot of guilt and would probably need time off for mentalreasons! The rest of the story goes downhill from there. In subsequent encounters,Tomas acted as a bully, hassler, and abuser. He would yell profanities at her,threaten her with violence, and one time ripped the ribbons out of her typewriter andthrew them over her shoulder because, he said, he didn't like that type of ribbon. Itstates in the court records that he told his boss the following: "I cannot bear muchmore of this before I will wring her neck gently, between my hands, until all life hasceased." ²⁷ This is a corporate example of one person, Tomas, using the sword forbad ends to cut and maim another person, in this case, his employee.

7. Notebook: Symbolically this means executing the details, having careful, detailednotes and record keeping. The centuries-old expression "The devil is in the details"comes into play here. Ironically, in today's corporate environment, we literally havenotebooks. Item #6 on Fortune magazine's "What's Your EQ at Work?" asks, " I'morganized and careful in my work."²⁸ The "notebook," "emotional intelligence," and "attentiveness to details" work together. Thomas H. Huxley, British biologist and educator (1825-1895), once said, "Perhaps the most valuable result of all educationis the ability to make yourself do the things you have to do, when it ought to be done,whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned." One suchcompany that, in spite of its name change, is sticking to its traditions, is Captain HighLiner, now High Liner Foods Inc., of Lunenburg, N.S. This company has to reinventitself, but in doing so, "company president Henry Demone wants it known that theformer money-losing fishing giant is now a profitable food processing operation. Buthe is careful not to stray too far from its Bluenose roots -- the venerable Captain HighLiner features prominently on the advertising logo." ²⁹ For High Liner Foods, obviously their "notebook," their "attentiveness to executing the details" has to include "its Bluenose roots," no matter what changes occur. To verify this, we could say "Plus çachange...," "The more things change..." Says Demone, ""Years ago we spent most ofour time on catching, processing and selling. Now the stress of this job comes fromwalking on eggshells all the time as we try to formulate plans and execute them."

8. Patience: Symbolically this means having perseverance, especially in the face ofadversity. Patience allows us not to lose sight of the goal and to stay on the path.Patience allows us personally and corporately to realize we are always pilgrims on ajourney. Many times we have to keep reminding ourselves of what Carl Jung told us,"The way is the goal, the goal is the way." I received an e-mail the other day whichsaid (quoting a certain Roger C. Anderson), "Accept that some days you're thepigeon, and some days you're the statue." Not every day is a perfect day. Iremember also reading one time about a 75-year-old Nobel prize winning scientist.The reporter remarked how smart he must be.The scientist replied, "Not really.Many of us were working on analyzing pigs' brains. I just worked on more pig'sbrains than my colleagues did." In other words, he never gave up. The Chinese saythat success occurs when preparation and opportunity meet. Timing is everything, inmany cases. Dennis Sharp, chairman and CEO of UTS Energy Corp., of Calgary,Alberta, is a person with patience. He says of himself, "I'm a bunts and singles guy.I'm not trying to hit home runs." One project will not open until early 2005. He haspatience. He is used to riding the ups and downs of the heavy oil business, with itsmolasses-like commodity. His timing was also impeccable when he cashed out at themarket's peak in the summer of 1997. Analyst Thomas Ebbern, of Newcrest CapitalInc., said, "Dennis did an admirable job... He had a lot of foresight." ³⁰ Similarly, the Ottawa-based software firm JetForm Corp. found that patience was its best tactic inlanding a major military contract with the U.S. Air Force. "As part of its move towarda paperless military, the U.S. Air Force signed a $5-million (U.S.) enterprise-widelicence last year to lease JetForm's FormFlow 2.15 electronic forms software."³¹

Making the Journey: Selected Case Examples

1. Power Workers on a New Journey ³²

In the 1990s, many have asked if unions had a future left. If companies were able touproot and employ the globalized workforce, then unions could argue all they wanted toabout their distinctive value, or value proposition. The only problem was: no one waslistening. Globalization took over the world.

John Murphy is the president of the Power Workers' Union. He saw the handwriting onthe wall. At a February 4, 1999 "Implementing Performance Incentives with UnionPartners" conference in Toronto, he said that they realized globalization was a reality.Not only that, "We also decided that competition could actually be a good thing forOntario generally... We decided that we were going to do our job as a union byembracing the change sweeping over our industry." Agreeing that there was plenty ofevidence that competition could create jobs, Murphy then went on to discuss what I callthe EQ skills and the new journey the Power Workers' Union is now on:

This is all about more than just money. It's about being more human. It's about feelinggood, about working with others toward a goal you all share. It's about bringing out thebest part of our nature -- qualities like co-operation and teamwork, a sense of purpose, abelief that the future can be better, and a willingness to work toward that future. We inthe Power Workers' Union intend to walk confidently down the road to greater humanand economic equality. We hope that many others will join us. It will make the journey shorter.

2. McDonald's New Fast-Food Journey ³³

McDonald's got lost on the journey in the mid-1990s. Michael Conley, the company'schief financial officer, said, "In retrospect, we lost our way back in mid-1994. We weretrying to drive the company almost exclusively with national advertising."

Today, however, they have made adjustments on their corporate journey. The lengthyseries of corporate miscues that began in the mid-1990s are fading. What new learnings-- or changes -- have made the journey more effective?

• Decentralizing marketing and decision making;
• Communicating the shared vision more deliberately;
• Collaborating in marketing and advertising;
• Allowing locals in the international division to create a supply infrastructure withineach country or region, financed in the local currency;
• Paying attention to different customs and food tastes. As Jim Cantalupo, head ofinternational operations, says, "We don't run Spain out of Portugal."
• Experimenting and innovating; and
• Maintaining the distinctive value of McDonald's. Jack Greenberg, the CEO says,"Decentralization doesn't mean chaos or anarchy. The things that make McDonald's distinct are going to be there. Those things are negotiable."

3. General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co:The Journey Ahead ³⁴

The month of February 1999 was not only a tragic opening month for Ford Motor Co. --"the worst day of my life," said William Clay Ford Jr., chairman -- it was also highlysymbolic of the new and future journey that Ford Motor Co. -- as well as General MotorsCorp. -- has to embrace wholeheartedly.

First, the tragic news: Ford's ancient Rouge complex in Dearborn, Mich. had anexplosion which killed two workers and seriously injured 14 others. Second, thechallenge of the new journey for both Ford and GM: while their product has improved --because of Japanese and German imports -- over the last 20 yearswhat has notimproved are the EQ issues I have been discussing: business practices such as costcontrol, labour relations, product development. While the price of cars has gone up131% over a 15 year period, the price of computers over a 10 year period has gone down 30%!

While some readers may object to my cataloguing costs under EQ issues, think aboutthis: "The inability of the car companies to get their costs under control is an indication ofserious management problems." What will the new journey need to encompass to begin resolving these "management problems"?

The Rouge dinosaur is a huge, slow, inefficient industrial-age operation, living onborrowed time in an era of information-based, opportunistic, quick-moving suppliers whocan provide the same good and services more cheaply with less capital. If Ford and GMare muddled about such near-term objectives and strategies, it is small wonder they'veshown no inkling of being able to deduce how they wish to define themselves as carcompanies in the 21st century, and to share that information with their stockholders.

Ford and GM will need to answer some very serious and critical questions forthemselves as they stumble along this new millennium journey. The Japanese andEuropeans have already been busy wrestling with the new questions -- and thus, arealready well on the new journey. "It appears the commodity both Ford and GM will mostneed to invest in for the 21st century is 21st-century thinking."

Conclusion

The most important task on the new journey for the renewed organization is inwardbound. "For organizations to grow, a new spirit of enterprise must begin from the inside out."³⁵

The new journey in the new economy in the new millennium will involve three things:

SELF       Power BRAIN     Power NET        Power

Individuals and organizations will have to quickly learn how to harness (a) the best inpeople (SELF Power), (b) the best in thinking (BRAIN Power), and (c) the best innetwork relationship building (NET Power). Fortune magazine's Thomas A. Stewartwrites, "The new Boeing 777 airliner, designed entirely on computers without paperdrawings or mockups, has three on-board computers, and only two engines." Need wesay any more about the critical new elements on the new journey!

At a time when we need the best of and from people- most importantly, their spiritualmettle -we may find we are in short supply. This may be so from both ends of thesupply chain: (a) upper management, and (b) new recruits. Executives and managershave been well trained in the linear, Newtonian, quantifiable mindset, and, althoughnecessary at times, this mindset will prove inadequate for the new journey. Will thesemanagers change? Die off? Be replaced? As I have been emphasizing throughout The 7Pillars articles, the new journey is more about "managing the intangibles," therelationship contexts, the EQ-intuneness issues. Current managers and executives maybe graduates of the Universities of Toronto, Harvard, McGill, or Queen's, but have theythat special spiritual and psychological mettle that supports discovery planning, the long-term view v. the god of quarterly results, the understanding of global dynamics, theinterplay of work-home dynamics, and the critical importance of intellectual capital andinnovative thinking as assets, not costs? Time will tell. It is always dangerous for anycompany to have only one customer, but that's what Canada in essence has with its onemajor customer, the USA, taking up 80% of its export market.

And new recruits? The last two generations in North America have been weaned andraised on an individualism ethic. While this emphasis has brought about a renewedfocus on human rights, human resources management, the rights of the individual, theconsumerism focus, it has also weakened, if not eroded, the spiritual and EQ mettle ofthese young people. If they do begin this new journey, they will have to acquiesce withthe thrust of Pillar IV -- Learning, or Changing -- in order to create a workable valueproposition, or distinctive value, for themselves personally and professionally.

We know, for example, that while IQ has consistently gone up over the years (anaverage of 24 points), their EQ has gone down! Dr. Daniel Goleman, author of the best-selling Emotional Intelligence, and now the new Working With Emotional Intelligence, writes:

There is a dangerous paradox at work, however: As children grow ever smarter in IQ,their emotional intelligence is on the decline. Perhaps the most disturbing single piece ofdata comes from a massive survey of parents and teachers that shows the presentgeneration of children to be more emotionally troubled than the last. On average,children are growing more lonely and depressed, more angry and unruly, more nervous and prone to worry, more impulsive and aggressive.

Dr. Goleman is referring to a 13-year comparison research study done with Americanchildren. However, the results are applicable across all economic groups. The researchpsychologists asked the question, "Are America's Children Getting Worse?" The answerin the 1989 psychiatry report turned out to be "yes"! When employers are polled as towhat skills they need in new recruits, the three most highly sought after are thefollowing: oral communications, interpersonal abilities, and teamwork abilities the veryskills that are in short supply because of the low EQ skill development in children andyoung adults over the past 25-30 years! Dr. Thomas Achenbach, the University ofVermont psychologist who co-authored the research study, told Dr. Goleman that he feltthe decline in children's basic emotional competencies was a worldwide phenomenon!The practical evidence is found in the "rising rates among young people of problemssuch as despair, alienation, drug abuse, crime and violence, depressing or eatingdisorders, unwanted pregnancies, bullying, and dropping out of school."

Thus, our question again: Are the new recruits ready for the new workplace and for thenew millennium? The Harvard Business School requires the following EQ skills:empathy, perspective taking, rapport, and cooperation; corporations seeking MBAsrequire communications, interpersonal and initiative skills.

If we measure the new recruits against the needed EQ skills benchmark, we realizesadly that our new recruits are not ready. According to Lyle Spencer, Jr., director ofresearch and technology for Hay/McBer, IQ is simply "a threshold competence." Whatreally makes "stars" and superior performance are the EQ skills the very ones thathave gone down over the last 25 years worldwide!

The answer, therefore, to the question of whether individualism has been worthwhile asan ethic over these past 30 years is a resounding NO!

The journey ahead will be a very painful one for those individuals and organizations whorefuse the call of becoming a learning organization. To refuse that call which I take upin Pillar IVis to refuse to change, because learning = change. To change means to letgo of old certainties and allow oneself and the organization to be transformed. When westart out on the journey, we never know what we will be like at the end of it. But onething is certain: unless we start the journey and unless we embrace learning as we goalong the journey, we die, symbolically, even literally. We see that too often withindividuals who give up on life, despair, wander aimlessly; and we see that withcompanies and organizations that have lost their sense of purpose, and possibly evengo bankrupt as a result.

The initial starting-point of the journey is always vision and values; it is also the journeyitself because vision and values sustain us in pursuing our personal and corporate goalsand objectives. The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership states:

Only by undertaking a personal revolution of the imagination can we begin our journey toindividual, organizational, and community transformation. We need to leave behind theskewed value path that celebrated the separation of work and well-being and re-create aculture in which imagination, innovation, learning and mastery of work are perceived aslabours of love. We need to shift our thinking and find new ways to authenticateindividual self-worth in the new organizational age. Only by freeing our imaginations canwe loose the spirit of enterprise we need to build people pride, and profits.

For a summary of The 7 Pillars, go to Harcourt Brace & Company Canada's Website: or call 1-800 387-7278.

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The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership: Introduction
www.canadaone.com/magazine/leadership1.html

PILLAR I: Visioning
www.canadaone.com/magazine/leadership2.html

PILLAR II: Mapping
www.canadaone.com/magazine/leadership3.html

PILLAR III: Journeying
www.canadaone.com/magazine/leadership4.html

PILLAR IV: Learning
www.canadaone.com/magazine/leadership5.html

PILLAR V: Mentoring
www.canadaone.com/ezine/may99/leadership6.html

PILLAR VI: Leading
www.canadaone.com/ezine/june99/leadership7.html

PILLAR VII: Valuing
www.canadaone.com/ezine/july99/leadership8.html

Endnotes

1. Matthew Rose, "Coke Chief's Strategy is to Gulp, Not Sip," The Globe and Mail, Monday, February 1, 1999, B9

2. James A Michener ,   Hawaii, New York: Fawcett Crest, 1959 , 89.

3. Thomas A Stewart , "Brainpower." Fortune June 3, 1991, 44: repeated also in Thomas A Stewart Intellectual Capital. The New Wealth of Organizations. New Tork : Currency Doubleday, (1997), 1999, 78.

4. Thomas A Stewart op. cit , 12.

5. Fumio Kodama, Analyzing Japanese High Technologies : The Techno-Paradigm Shift , New York : Pinter Publishers, 1991, 2.

6. Quoted in Michael Cox and Michael E Rock. The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership : Aligning Your Organization for Enduring Success (w/CD) Toronto : Dryden (Harcourt Brace & Company, Canada), 1997, 44, ISBN 0-03-923117-8

7. Grace Casselman , "A Knowledge Pipeline," Infosystems Executive , Volume 4, Number 2, February 1999, 26.

8. See Bill Gillies, "Looking for Leaders," Internet : http://www.waysmag.com/CyberPlex/Ways/Ways5/features.leaders.html

9. Thomas A Stewart . op . cit.

10. David Akin, "The Reigning Queen of Voice Mail," National Post, Monday, December 28, 1998, C1,2.

11. Tom Daniel, "How Small Firms Can Keep Good People", The Globe and Mail , Friday , October 2, 1998 , B6

12. Alan Farmham, "Are You Smart Enough to Keep Your Job?" , Fortune , vol 133, no. 1, January 15, 1999 , 34-37, 40, 42 , 46 , 48

13. Don Tapscott, "Understanding the Digital Economy," National Post , Weekend Post Books, Saturday, December 19, 1998, 28.

14. See Kevin Kelly. New Rules for the New Economy. 10 Radical Strategies of a Connected World. New York: Viking, 144pp.

15. See Elizabeth Church, "Authors 'Blur' Old Rules of Business, " The Globe and Mail , Tuesday, July 21, 1998, B13

16. "The 50 Best," National Post Monday, December 28, 1998, C15.

17. Claudia Cattaneo, "An Explorer of Ethics," National Post Saturday, February 13, 1999, D1, 6.

18. Law as of February 15 , 1999

19. Diane Francis,   "The Commendable Attack on Bribery," National Post Saturday, February 13, 1999, D3

20. Thomas A Stewart , op. cit., 95

21. Michael Cox and Michael E Rock , op. cit., 40

22. John Stackhouse, "It's a New Form of Credit: Only Women Need Apply," The Globe and Mail , Saturday, November 7, 1998, A1, 21.

23. "Time to Clean House," Infosystems Executive, Volume 4, Number 2, February 1999, 32-35

24. Alanna Mitchell, Karen Unland and Chat Skelton, "Canadians All Worked Up," The Globe and Mail, Saturday, July 19, 1997, A1, 4.

25. Joey Goodings, "Depression a 'Clear and Present Danger' to Business," Canadian HR Reporter, Volume 12, Number 3 , February 8, 1999 , 2.

26. Joey Goodings, ibid., 2.

27. Trevor Cole, " Bad Boss, Bad !" The Globe and Mail Report on Business Magazine February 1999, 64-66, 68, 70, 72.

28. What's Your EQ at Work? in Fortune magazine online   http://cgi.pathfinder.com/fortune/careers/tools/quizzes/eqqiz.html

29. Kevin Cox, "High Liner Charts a Sea Change," The Globe and Mail, Friday, February 5, 1999, B25.

30. Brent Jang, "UTS CEO Learned Patience Watching Market for Heavy Oil," The Globe and Mail, Wednesday, January 6, 1999, B1, 6.

31. Barrie Mckenna, " JetForm Files With U.S. Air Force," The Globe and Mail, Monday, October 5, 1998, B17.

32. John D Murphy, "Sharing in the Success," National Post Saturday , February 13 , 1999, D4.

33. David Barboza, "Variety Adds Spice to McDonald's Recovery," National Post, Saturday , February 13, 1999 , D12.

34. Michael LeGault, "Dark Clouds Over Detroit, " National Post , Wednesday, February 10 , 1999, C13.

35. Quoted in Michael Cox and Michael E Rock The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership : Aligning Your Organization for Enduring Success (w/CD) , Toronto : Dryden (Harcourt Brace & Company, Canada), 1997, 53, ISBN 0-03-923117-B.

36. Thomas A Stewart , Intellectual Capital, The New Wealth of Organization , New York:Currency Doubleday, (1997), 1999, 13.

37. Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence. Why It Can Matter More Than IQ. New York:Bantam Books, 1995, 352 pages. ISBN 0-533-09503-1.

38. Daniel Goleman. Working With Emotional Intelligence, New York:Bantam Books, 1996, 11.

39. Thomas Acheback and Catherine Howell, "Are America's Children Getting Worse? A 13-Year Comparison," Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, November 1989.

40. See Daniel Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence, op. cit., chapter 1, footnote 10, page 332.

41. Daniel Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence, op. cit., 12.

42. According to Jill Fadule, managing director of admissions and financial aid (quoted in Daniel Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence, op. cit., 13).

43. Quoted in Daniel Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence , op. cit., 19.

44. Michael Cox and Michael E Rock. The 7 Pillars of Visionary Leadership : Aligning Your Organization for Enduring Success (w/CD) . Toronto Dryden (Harcourt Brace & Company, Canada), 1997, 49.