Overreaching In the Age of Shared Leadership - The Business of Shared Leadership
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Overreaching In the Age of
Shared Leadership
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022
“Winds in the east, mist blowing in, like something is brewing
and about to begin.
Can’t put me finger on what lies in store, but I think what’s to
happen all happened before.”
—Bert, Mary Poppins
It chokes me up to see news footage of ordinary Ukrainian
citizens fighting the Russian army, street to street across
Ukraine. It’s incredible how brave humans can be and inspiring
to witness what they will risk for freedom. That’s the Seventh
Power, and it dwells within us all…
In the fall of 2017, my wife Alison and I traveled to Kyiv,
Ukraine. I was researching and writing about the tendency of
those who hold the most power to “overreach,” go too far, and
take too much. The moral of that chapter was that overreaching
ultimately collapses back upon those who do it. Those with the
most power often do themselves in.
To demonstrate the consequences of overreaching, I had chosen to
write about the Ukrainian Holodomor, or “forced starvation.” A
period from 1932-1933 during which Stalin and the Soviet Union
(Russia) intentionally starved millions of Ukrainians to death
in response to their collective thirst for independence and
reluctance to fall in line with the Soviet master plan for the
region. There were still a few survivors from that era, and I
had arranged for the staff at the Holodomor Victims Memorial in
Kyiv to help me meet and interview two of them (Hanna Soroka and
Mykola Onyshchanko). Neither one is a stranger to the depths
some will go to prevent others from being free. Here are a few
excerpts…
“Death is the solution to all problems. No man – no problem.”
—Joseph Stalin
Hanna Soroka
“The odds that Hanna Soroka would survive the winter of 1932 in
the Ukraine and live to see her eighth birthday were too small
to calculate. Her parents were dead. Her younger brother and
sister were also dead. In fact, in every house Hanna knew,
people were dead.”
“But I survived,” Hanna said defiantly in Ukrainian, looking
directly my way. “Stalin and the Bolsheviks tried to kill me,
but I survived.” “Hanna’s white hair contrasts with the flower-print black dress that falls below her knees. A small white cross hangs from her neck. The brightest light and the darkest capacities of the human experience are simultaneously illuminated in her remarkable life story.” “I saw many, many people die,” Hannah continues. “Both my parents starved to death during the Holodomor. So did my younger brother and sister. Only my older sister and I survived. I remember holding my sister’s hand as we walked to the orphanage, because there was no one left alive in our house. I did not want to go to this new house, but they made us go. There was no food even at the orphanage. How can you have an orphanage without food? After that we ate only grass, flowers, and bark.” Mykola Onyshchanko “Mykola is alert and eager to share. At ninety-two years old, he is fit and strong for his age.” “First I would like to tell you about my family and life before the Holodomor,” Mykola begins. “We lived on a large farm with lots of fields and horses. Life, before the Soviet Union came to Ukraine, was beautiful. We took care of ourselves, and everyone had plenty to eat. Then the communists came, and this had horrible consequences. The communists took everything. They took all the horses, all the food, everything. Suddenly it was no longer like being a person. Those who resisted in any way were dragged away and put in railcars and sent to Siberia. Those people were never seen again.” “By the spring of 1933, it was very, very bad,” Mykola continues. “People all around me were dying and doing desperate things because they were so hungry. My mother told us about
cannibalism; she would not let us go out in the yard that spring
because she was afraid someone might try to eat us. Conditions
like these can bring forth horrible acts that would otherwise be
unthinkable.”
“It’s hard to explain real hunger,” Mykola says. “People lost
all their energy and could barely move. I remember walking to
school one day and seeing some shit on the ground. In that shit
was a single kernel of corn. I remember pausing and considering
how I might pull out that grain of corn. I was wondering how I
would clean it. After all these years I still remember staring
down at that single kernel of corn.”
The people of Russia are amazing.
The people of Ukraine are amazing.
All people, of all nationalities,
are amazing. Great people are
everywhere. Planet earth is filled
with them. It’s leadership that
makes the difference. Leaders
either honor and empower the
individual human spirit or they denigrate it.
On this simple choice entire societies rise and fall.
In today’s crisis in Ukraine, a small group of political elites
at the very top of the Russian government are mentoring
leadership at its worst–invading, killing, and destroying to
silence the authentic voices of others.
“Bad times between Russia and Ukraine, bad times,” Yuri (our
Ukrainian driver) told Alison and I as we approached a large
bridge spanning the Dnieper River in the fall of 2017. On the
other side we could see the vast city of Kyiv, home to 3.5
million people.
“But it is not the Russian and Ukrainian people who have caused the problems. Bad times caused by one man, Putin. There is no war between the Ukrainian people and the Russian people. For long time Ukrainian people and Russian people have lived side by side like brothers.” Yuri paused for a moment to navigate a lane change. “Putin is not President of Russia–Putin is oligarch from Russia,” Yuri adds before falling silent. So here we are again. Russia has invaded Ukraine. But this time it is not 1932… It is 2022 and, whether President Putin acknowledges it or not, we are living in the age of shared leadership and distributed power. Citizens in Ukraine and Russia have cell phones that take and send photographs and videos globally in an instant. No matter how brazenly Mr. Putin’s propaganda machine lies, the truth is still seen, heard, and shared around the world thanks to the Seventh Power. In the age of shared leadership and distributed power, every consumer can decide to defund the Russian invasion by not purchasing Russian products. Free countries can sanction Russian government activity while alternatively funding and supporting Ukrainians in their quest to remain free. Putin may or may not take military control of Ukraine, but I am certain from my time there that he will not be able to control the hearts, minds, and spirit of the Ukrainian people. It may take months, years, or in Hana and Mykola’s cases, generations, but Putin will not win. In the age of shared leadership and distributed power, overreaching has consequences…
“First, you must understand that everything that happened to my
family when I was young (1932) was deliberately organized by
Moscow.
Why? Because of only one reason: we were Ukrainian.”
—Hanna Soroka (2017)
Here’s a picture of Hanna and I in her modest, Soviet-era,
apartment on the outskirts of Kyiv in 2017.
_____
Thank you for considering my thoughts. In return I honor yours.
Every voice matters. Nestled between our differences lies our
future.
www.thebusinessofsharedleadership.com
Shared Leadership with Kevin
Hancock
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022
In this video, Kevin Hancock
speaks with Deliberate Directions
host Allison Dunn about shared
leadership and dispersed power.
They discuss what prompted his leadership philosophy to change
and how the company has benefitted from these changes. He
discusses Hancock Lumber’s participation in the Best Places to
Work in Maine surveys, as well as the outcome from the
information gathered in those.
“When people are participating in the decision making processes,
they are much more apt to support those decisions.” – Kevin
Hancock
Click here to watch the full video.
#48 | HOUSTON, WE’VE HAD A
PROBLEM
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022
“Okay, Houston, we’ve had a problem here.”
—Jack Swigert
It was April 13, 1970, and the crew of Apollo 13 was in trouble.
“This is Houston. Say again, please.”
An explosion in one of the oxygen tanks had crippled the
spacecraft in mid-flight.
“Houston, we’ve had a problem. We’ve had a Main B bus
undervolt.”
What was supposed to be the third mission to land on the moon
was suddenly a secondary priority to survival and the ability to
return to Earth.
“Roger. Main B undervolt.”
The crew of Mission Commander James Lovell, Command Module Pilot
Jack Swigert, and Lunar Module Pilot Fred Haise immediately
needed to change focus, and the first step in that process was
to recognize and correctly identify the situation they were now
facing.
“Okay. Right now, Houston, the voltage is . . . is looking good.
And we had a pretty large bang associated with the caution and
warning there. And as I recall, Main B was the one that had an
amp spike on it once before.”
An existential threat had emerged and it needed to be clearly
recognized and communicated to all involved. Acknowledging their
new reality was paramount to their survival.
* * *
The quest for shared leadership, dispersed power, and respect
for all voices is, like Apollo 13, a mission under grave risk.
Recognition of that risk and its root causes is essential to
determining the future of humanity’s shared journey through
space and time.
Will we diagnose our condition and correct course? Or, will we
hurdle off into the darkness on a wounded ship which has lost
(or abdicated) respect for the magic of the human spirit and
decentralized decision making that empowers all?
The answers to these questions are not yet knowable, but a
diagnosis of the problem begins with recognizing the allure of
leadership overreach. Across human time, those with the most
political, economic, religious, gender, and racial power have
often overreached and exerted too much influence and control
over the lives of others. This overreaching manifests as
centralized leadership in governments, corporate headquarters,
church hierarchies, and schools. Here, rules are imposed.
Stories are woven. Power and influence are collected. And it’s
all done in the name of helping and protecting you.
“A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”
—Vladimir Lenin
* * *
In nature, power is dispersed. These five words came to me one evening at sunset in the Arizona desert near the Navajo reservation. As darkness returned to claim the red rock peaks, I posed a series of leadership questions to the Universe. Where is the capital of this desert? Where is its corporate governing center? Which one of these cacti is in charge of all the others? In each case, the answer was clear. The leadership power of nature lives in all its creatures, great and small. Humans, who are part of nature, ultimately aspire to organize in this same way. The Aquarian Age that is upon is about re-dispersing power as nature intended.
But the long-standing template of traditional leadership and followership does not yield easily. Those in the center want to keep the power, the money, and the decision-making control, and the followers are often all too willing to oblige. Under duress we return to what we know. So what’s needed to reestablish the primacy of the individual human spirit over the empire itself? Step one is recognition of the problem. As the Apollo 13 crew understood, acknowledgment of what’s wrong is a prerequisite for change. We need our institutions and we need leaders within them, but we must come to see the role of the center differently. We want to do the least amount necessary in the center—not the most. Actualizing this inversion of roles is the challenge of our age. Primacy of the human spirit is the objective. The empire comes second as it only exists to serve and honor its individual members. The most valued leaders of the twenty-first century will strengthen others, not themselves and they will shrink the bureaucratic center, not expand it.
______ Thank you for considering my thoughts. In return I honor yours. Every voice matters. Nestled between our differences lies our future. ______ This is the forty-eighth post in a series of short essays to be
posted by Kevin to www.thebusinessofsharedleadership.com in
2021. Kevin is dedicating these writings in honor of Black Elk,
the Oglala Sioux holy man who was escorted as a child on a
sacred vision quest by the 48 horses of the four directions to
visit the six Grandfathers. My horses, prancing they are coming.
They will dance; may you behold them. On that journey Black Elk
understood the sacred power that dwelled within him and lives
within us all. He also recognized that this power could be used
for good or bad. Intentional we must be about the path we walk.
To invite others to join The Business of Shared Leadership and
receive these posts, just pass this link along. The more who
join, the deeper the energy field of engagement will become!
Thank you!
#45 | BABY STEPS
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022
This blog post is a reprint from an article Kevin recently wrote
for The Maine Monitor, published October 24, 2021
______
There’s a lot to learn from
babies, one step at a time
The CEO of Hancock Lumber notes thatinfants learn to walk with minimal
training or coaching. Leaders can
structure their organizations with
this in mind.
BY KEVIN HANCOCK | OCTOBER 24, 2021
Humans arrive on Earth already knowing how to learn. Exceptional organizations
of the 21st century will come to honor this, get out of the way, and allow
self-organized growth to flourish in a natural rhythm that dances to the hum
of the universe itself, says Kevin Hancock. Submitted photo.
“We are not the helpless subjects of evolution. We are
evolution.” — Erich Jantsch
A baby goes from crawling to walking in a matter of months with
almost no coaching. It’s a system of trial and error, tipping
and falling, progress and regression, experimentation, and self-correction. Babies teach themselves to walk by watching
the world around them and advancing through self-motivation,
loosely structured group interaction and practice. This is the
optimal learning system for humans but unfortunately, human
organizations rarely use it.
Think how a baby learns to walk. Now picture how we teach
students. Then visualize how organizations typically supervise
adults at work. Finally, contemplate how governments rule from
remote capitals.
Then think again about how a baby learns to
walk. Can you see a disconnect between
how humans are naturally wired to learn and
grow?
Our systems for teaching, managing and governing are all top-
down and standardized exercises in following and conformity. A
baby aspiring to walk has more freedom to acquire that complex
skill on its own than a 16-year-old has in English class, a
mature adult has at work or a responsible citizen has during a
pandemic. Control and standardization from the center: That’s
how we’ve come to teach, train, direct and un-inspire.
Now, think one more time about how a baby learns to walk. Next,
consider how we might reimagine our learning and governance
systems.Discovery in rural India Over a decade ago in remote villages across India, Sugata Mitra conducted a series of exceptional social experiments designed to better understand how children learn. In dirt-covered town squares where kids congregated, he inserted a computer screen and control panel with Internet access into a randomly selected wall. No instructions were left behind. No adults stood by to invite children to gather and then teach them what to do. Here’s what happened next . . . Within hours, a child would find the device and begin experimenting. This child, like all others who participated, had never used a computer or been on the Internet. To add to the complexity, the computer language was English, which none of the children in the region had studied or spoken. In less than 10 minutes, that first user was successfully browsing the web. By the end of the first day, dozens of children had congregated, taken a turn and learned to use the device. Within weeks, the group knew hundreds of English words and achieved advanced Internet navigation skills to play games, watch shows and gather information. When later tested on proficiency, the children typically passed. Everyone earned the same high grades. Rarely were there discrepancies in learning. “Big parts of primary education can actually happen on their own,” Sugata said. “Learning does not have to be imposed from a top-down system. In nature, all systems are self-organized. Learning is ideally a self-organizing system.” Sugata then described from his research the four optimal conditions for learning:
Fault tolerant
Minimally invasive
Fluid, allowing free-flowing connectivity with others
Self-organizing
Humans know how to learn
In 2021, Hancock Lumber was recognized as one of the “Best
Places to Work in Maine” for the eighth straight year. Across 16
sites and 600 employees, our engagement score was a 90 compared
to the national average of 34, according to Gallup polls.
What training systems were involved to earn such a score? None.
Which outside consulting groups were engaged? None.
What off-site leadership programs were managers and supervisors
sent to? None.
Then how did it happen?
First, a clear vision was established. Then a small amount of
modeling was provided. From there it was all self-organized. We
became one of the “Best Places to Work” the same way a baby
learns to walk.
Humans arrive on Earth already knowing how to learn.
Exceptional organizations of the 21st Century will come to honor
this, get out of the way, and allow self-organized growth to
flourish in a natural rhythm that dances to the hum of the
universe itself. Every human is capable of learning, leading and
evolving given the freedom, safety and flexibility to do so. But
for this to occur, leaders of established organizations must
show restraint and refrain from making all the rules, inserting
excessive structure, and suffocating the insatiable capacity of
humans to learn and grow.Leadership: Dispersed in nature I was alone one night in the Arizona desert east of Flagstaff when the epiphany arrived. It came in the form of five short words: “In nature, power is dispersed.” I froze in place, contemplating the significance of this knowledge before asking aloud a series of rhetorical questions to the desert
itself. “Where is the capital of this desert landscape? Where is its headquarters? Where are all the managers and supervisors? Which one of these cacti is in charge of all the others?” The answer to each question was abundantly clear. The leadership power of nature is dispersed. It inhabits all its pieces, big and small, living and non-living. Humans who are a part of nature, not above it, ultimately aspire to organize in this same way. But for that to happen, our approach to leadership must change. Think about how a baby learns to walk, and the roles parents do and do not play in that complex learning process. That’s the kind of leadership we need more of. “Let children wander aimlessly around ideas.” — Sugata Mitra
______
Thank you for considering my thoughts. In return I honor yours.
Every voice matters. Nestled between our differences lies our
future.
______
This is the forty-fifth post in a series of short essays to be
posted by Kevin to www.thebusinessofsharedleadership.com in
2021. Kevin is dedicating these writings in honor of Black Elk,
the Oglala Sioux holy man who was escorted as a child on a
sacred vision quest by the 48 horses of the four directions to
visit the six Grandfathers. My horses, prancing they are coming.
They will dance; may you behold them. On that journey Black Elk
understood the sacred power that dwelled within him and lives
within us all. He also recognized that this power could be used
for good or bad. Intentional we must be about the path we walk.
To invite others to join The Business of Shared Leadership and
receive these posts, just pass this link along. The more who
join, the deeper the energy field of engagement will become!
Thank you!
#43 | JENNY AND ME
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022
“Everyone is beautiful.”
— Ariana GrandeJenny Edwards cleans and cares for
the Hancock Lumber home office in
Casco at night, after finishing
her day job.
I work an odd collection of hours, which brings me into the
office at night once or twice a week.
This is how Jenny and I met and then became friends a long time
ago.
* * *
I’m six feet tall. Jenny is about five feet tall.
I’ve got a ways to go in my work career. Jenny is nearing the
end of hers.
I’m the senior titled officer in the building. Jenny cleans the
building.
I’ve had a lot of opportunity in my life, which I’ve tried to
make good on. Jenny’s not had all the same opportunities, but
she is a leader through and through.
There are a few things that make us different, but there’s a lot
more that makes us the same.
* * *Any evening when I pull into the office parking lot and see Jenny’s car there, I know what’s coming next. Somewhere near the stairway to the second floor, Jenny and I will invariably find each other. We smile, share a hug, and swap stories. Jenny always has a new story, and hers are better told than mine. For me our periodic visits are about respect. I admire Jenny. She works all day and then comes to clean our home office at night. Lately she’s had some trouble with her eyesight and she lost one of her beloved dogs to old age, but she always finds the will to persevere. Jenny does the kind of work that gets done when no one is watching, and she takes amazing pride in doing it right. No one claps when she finishes the bathrooms. No one cheers when she mops the floor. If you only worked during the day, you might never see her. You go home in the evening and the next day your office is clean. But it doesn’t just happen. Jenny comes and cleans it. Often when I stop in she’ll tell me about a new cleaning supply she found that works better on this part of the office or the other. She’s always thinking about how to improve the maintenance and appearance of the building she cares for. Jenny also sees the big picture and regularly imparts her wisdom. She thinks about our entire company, all sixteen sites and 600 people across Maine and New Hampshire. She’s proud of Hancock Lumber, and that gives me goose bumps when I stop to
think about it. Jenny regularly encourages me through the handwritten Post-it notes she affixes to my desk. Your father would be proud of you, read a recent one. These values you’re promoting really make a difference, read another. People feel appreciated and respected here. I’ve worked places before where you don’t feel appreciated or empowered and it’s no fun. Keep it up! I love hearing about your trips to Pine Ridge and the people there, read yet another. They’ve had it harder than we do, but they are just like us in the end. The notes are uplifting, and I save each one for a few days before moving on. I take Jenny’s words to heart. I’ve made changes for the better at our company, thanks to her. But there’s nothing like hearing a story from Jenny in person. “So right before I was supposed to leave for work this morning, a chipmunk got in the house,” Jenny said as we stood under the old American flag on the second floor near my office. Her hands were moving and her eyes were wide. I felt as if I was right there in her home, watching it all unfold. “Oh, jeez, what a show that was,” she continued. “The cat got chasing the chipmunk and the dog got chasing the cat. There were animals whirling and whizzing around everywhere. I had to go to work so I just left ’em all in there. We’ll straighten it out tonight once I get back and see who’s still alive.” She laughs. That’s another trait I love about Jenny: She can look life right in the eye and stare it down or laugh it away, depending on which is called for. Jenny makes America better every day just by getting up, working hard, and being out in the world. She’s a participant, not a spectator. She competes. She stays in the
game, even when it’s hard.
Jenny is proud, yet humble. I love seeing both traits equally
alive in the same person. She’s proud of her company. She’s
proud of me. She likely has no idea how much that means to me.
In return, I’m proud of Jenny. I think she’s amazing. When the
two of us are together, it’s not the CEO and the cleaning lady
exchanging pleasantries; it’s two friends hanging out together,
laughing and sharing stories, different, yet the same.
“If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the
big things right.”
—William McRaven
______
Thank you for considering my thoughts. In return I honor yours.
Every voice matters. Nestled between our differences lies our
future.
______
This is the forty-third post in a series of short essays to be
posted by Kevin to www.thebusinessofsharedleadership.com in
2021. Kevin is dedicating these writings in honor of Black Elk,
the Oglala Sioux holy man who was escorted as a child on a
sacred vision quest by the 48 horses of the four directions to
visit the six Grandfathers. My horses, prancing they are coming.
They will dance; may you behold them. On that journey Black Elk
understood the sacred power that dwelled within him and lives
within us all. He also recognized that this power could be used
for good or bad. Intentional we must be about the path we walk.
To invite others to join The Business of Shared Leadership and
receive these posts, just pass this link along. The more who
join, the deeper the energy field of engagement will become!Thank you!
#42 | WHO’S DRIVING THE GOD
TRUCK?
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022
“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We
ourselves must walk the path.”
—Buddha
I was driving through Rapid City,
South Dakota, when I saw him.
Cresting the rolling hill in front of me appeared an all-white
Ford pickup truck with a giant cross towering over the cab.
Streamers were attached and they danced in the wind as the
vehicle came toward me in the opposite lane with a large banner
that read “In God We Trust.”
“Yes,” I whispered to myself. “In GOD we trust. But thatultimately means in ME I must trust.” We can call the creator “God,” which is the sacred name for the source of all that is. That source, it can be said, is divine. Whatever created us is within us. In this way, we each are divine. In this way, God’s power is dispersed. Each of us carries a spark of the divine, and this is why everyone and everything is sacred. I can find manifestations of God both beyond and within me. This is the spiritual interpretation of our place in the Universe. Approached scientifically, I still arrive at the same end point. My parents created me and their DNA comprises me. My grandparents created them and so their presence is also within me. I can trace this science back to a theoretical point of origin. The first man and woman have a trace of their existence within me. We all go back to the source, and this holds true for all of Earth’s creatures. On my most recent visit to Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota I came upon the remains of a buffalo. The once-powerful animal was now a collection of milky white bones. His carcass had been consumed by other creatures, which sustained their lives. He was now within them. The rest was decaying back into the very grass that fed the buffalo. The creature was returning to its source. Both the scientific research and the spiritual revelations point to the same conclusion: There is one source and we emanate from it before returning to it. This truth is written everywhere for us to see. “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, said the
Lord.”
—Revelation 1:8
* * *
“Human beings and all living things are a coalescence of energy
in a field of energy connected to every other thing in the
world. This pulsating energy field is the central engine of our
being and our consciousness.”
—Lynne McTaggart, The Field
* * *
“Energy can be changed from one form to another, but it cannot
be created or destroyed. The total amount of energy and matter
in the Universe remains constant, merely changing from one form
to another.”
—The First Law of Thermodynamics
* * *
“He who experiences the unity of life sees his own SELF in all
beings, and all beings in his own SELF.”
—Buddha
* * *
“The first peace, which is the most important, is that which
comes within the souls of people when they realize their
relationship, their oneness with the Universe and all its
powers, and when they realize that at the center of the
Universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is
really everywhere, it is within each of us.”—Black Elk
* * *
Science and spirituality are dual
paths to a single truth.
Everything that exists is
connected. The source of that
connectivity is within us all.
So, yes, in God we trust and,
therefore, in me I must trust,
for I come from the source. I am
a spark of the divine.
To hear that source within me I simply turn inward and listen
to my heart, where the source resides. Unfortunately, “leaders”
(religious, political, educational, business, and otherwise)
have been mucking up our individual awakenings for centuries by
convincing us that “power” lives somewhere out there, beyond
us.
It’s time for both leaders and followers to transcend that
self-serving narrative. God doesn’t collect power, she
disperses it. The truth is, we are each driving a little God
truck around Planet Earth. So, for heaven’s sake, take the
wheel.
“What if God was one of us?”
—Joan Osborne
______
Thank you for considering my thoughts. In return I honor yours.
Every voice matters. Nestled between our differences lies our
future.______
This is the forty-second post in a series of short essays to be
posted by Kevin to www.thebusinessofsharedleadership.com in
2021. Kevin is dedicating these writings in honor of Black Elk,
the Oglala Sioux holy man who was escorted as a child on a
sacred vision quest by the 48 horses of the four directions to
visit the six Grandfathers. My horses, prancing they are
coming. They will dance; may you behold them. On that journey
Black Elk understood the sacred power that dwelled within him
and lives within us all. He also recognized that this power
could be used for good or bad. Intentional we must be about the
path we walk. To invite others to join The Business of Shared
Leadership and receive these posts, just pass this link along.
The more who join, the deeper the energy field of engagement
will become! Thank you!
#30 | THE COLLECTIVE
UNCONSCIOUS
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022
“The collective unconscious contains the whole spiritual
heritage of mankind’s evolution born anew in the brain
structure of every individual.”
—Carl JungSpeaking mostly in Lakota,
Medicine Man begins to talk, then
chant, then pray, then sing.
Others, circled in darkness, echo
in response. The heat within the
hut quickly intensifies and the
sweat comes easily.
This ceremony could be taking place one hundred—or four
hundred—years ago. My body is covered in sweat, which mixes with
the dirt on my hands, arms, legs, and chest. This is a sacred
ritual of the Sioux known for generations as “the making of
relatives,” and I am fully immersed.
Later that evening as steam dissipates from our bodies into the
cool night air of northern Nebraska, my newly anointed brother,
Lester Lone Hill, is sitting beside me on a log.
“That medicine man is a ‘trickster,’ ” Lester explains. “He
brings humor and the element of surprise into his ceremonies. He
likes to keep everything light and entertaining.”
* * *
A week later, back home in Maine, I am reading about indigenous
rituals when I come across the “trickster” persona. It turns out
he is present in the mythology, folklore, and spirituality of
many tribes across the globe. From North America, to Africa, to
Australia, the trickster is an honored ceremonial figure. How
could the same thematic character manifest globally among
disparate cultures separated by oceans and epochs?
Carl Jung, the nineteenth-century Swiss analytical psychologist,
understood why.The answer lies in what he described as the collective unconscious of the human race which represents the cumulative learning of all humans across all human time. It’s the shared experience of humanity, and it’s passed from generation to generation through stories. It also manifests as instincts and intuition in newborns and children. Think of it this way: If you believe that an individual human soul survives a body’s death, then it stands to reason that the collective experiential energy of all human souls survives as well. Mythology, Jung said, is the expression of this collective unconscious. It’s how we give earthly context to that which we intuitively know in the inner depths of being, where soul resides. That’s why it’s common for the stories and symbols of different cultures to share similar characteristics. The presence of good and evil is one example that appears universally in all mythologies. The hero archetype also lives in the stories of every human culture. The hero generally starts out as an ordinary person, living an ordinary life. A challenge then arises which disrupts much of what the hero holds dear, forcing him or her to confront their circumstances in a saga that ultimately transforms them into someone different than they were before. The external story, which may feature strange beasts, threatening gods, and foreign lands, is actually an archetypal adventure symbolic of the inner journey of transcending our unconscious fears. As Jung once said, Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. What’s the relevance of this to an essay series devoted to self- awareness, shared leadership, and dispersed power? The answer is that each personal life odyssey is both an individual and a
collective experience. What happens to one happens to all.
Progress by one is progress for all. As each individual moves
his or her karmic energy forward, it becomes a drop of learning
in the larger pool of all human experiences.
This is why awareness of our shared humanity is essential. Your
experiences, however trivial they may feel, ultimately impact
the entire trajectory of humanity through our shared collective
unconscious. And this is why we must create the change we wish
to see by working first on ourselves.
All human journeys matter and this is where love comes in. We
must aspire to bring unconditional love (acceptance of people as
they are) into our daily lives. Each seemingly ordinary shift at
work and each “chance” encounter with a stranger is never really
just that. It’s more. It’s always more. Every moment yields
another journal entry into the collective unconscious of
humanity, which ultimately determines both our personal and
shared trajectory across space and time.
In the end we rise, plateau, or fall together.
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”
—Carl Jung
__________
This is the thirtieth in a series of short essays to be posted
by Kevin Hancock to www.thebusinessofsharedleadership.com in
2021, in honor of Black Elk, the Oglala Sioux holy man who was
escorted as a child on a sacred vision quest by the 48 horses of
the four directions to visit the six Grandfathers.
My horses, prancing they are coming. They will dance; may you
behold them.On that journey Black Elk understood the sacred power that
dwelled within him and lives within us all. He also recognized
that this power could be used for good or bad. Intentional we
must be about the path we walk.
To receive future posts from Kevin, simply click on the link
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Q&A: Company Culture,
Productivity, and Retention:
How Does Your Company Measure
Up?
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022
The Softwood Forest Products Buyer
is reaching out to company leaders
across the industry to solicit
their input on key issues that
impact overall business success.
In this publication, Kevin Hancock
shares his insights.
“Some organizations collect leadership power into the
bureaucratic center, where a few people can make the majority of
the decisions for the many. This is the traditional model of
business—and government—leadership and, during a period of timein human history, this may have been optimal. But, that time has
passed.
In the 21st century, organizations that disperse power, share
leadership, and give everyone a voice are going to win because
they recognize and celebrate the capabilities of everyone on the
team. These types of cultures don’t see employees as expendable
commodities whose purpose is to serve the company. In fact,
these types of cultures flip the traditional script by
recognizing that the company exists to serve the people who work
there. In a great company, profit is an outcome of a higher
calling. That higher calling is the celebration of the human
spirit and human capacity. In this way, culture makes all the
difference.” Read the complete interview here >>>
#23 | SOFTENING OUR EDGES
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022
“The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.”
—John Green
I have trepidations about taking on this topic but even more
about letting it go, so I’m diving in.
Does civility in human dialogue and interaction matter? If it
does matter, what causes it to disintegrate? How might it be
elevated?
In this essay I’m focused not on policy but rather the tenor of
the dialogue surrounding it.
* * *On Thursday, March 11, 2021, President Biden signed a $1.9
trillion COVID-19 bill from the Oval Office.
Days earlier on the Senate floor, US Senator Angus King had
voted for the bill.
Earlier in the debate, however, the senator had voted against an
amendment to attach a minimum-wage bill to the overall relief
package. Shortly thereafter, Senator King (a highly respected
friend of mine) explained his decision on Instagram:
I along with 7 other members of the Democratic caucus voted no,
which disappointed and angered many. I am for the minimum wage
increase part of the bill but was worried that the elimination
of the tipped wage credit would actually hurt the very people we
were trying to help. For a full explanation of how I made this
tough decision, go to King.senate.gov. I’m hopeful we can get
this done the next time around.
Here are some of the responses that appeared on the senator’s
social media site following his decision:
“You don’t care about anyone but yourself.”
“You f-ing suck.”
“You are out of touch.”
“Fraud”
“Traitor”
“F U dude”
“You are an embarrassment—resign.”
“Asshole”
“Burn in hell, you heathen.”
* * *
I’m not going to judge these comments but rather look at my own
past. I’ve used some of those words before and even directedthem at others. When and why did I use this language, and how
did it go for me when I took that path? I mean, really, at the
core of my being, how did it go?
I spoke that way to another when . . .
I felt cornered or scared.
I felt extreme anger or frustration.
I felt disrespected and consistently unheard.
Something someone else did (or didn’t do) set me off.
I got overrun by my ego.
My basic fight-or-flight (or freeze) response took over.
How did it go?
I don’t remember it ever changing anything for the better.
I don’t remember ever feeling proud of my actions in hindsight.
No further listening or progress was typically possible, as
trust had been destroyed.
* * *
There are root causes of hostile and demeaning dialogue. To
create a change in our social discourse, we must work at that
ground level. The seeds of incivility live in the trenches of
not feeling trusted, respected, included, valued, safe, and
heard.
The first rule of change creation is that it starts with me.
It’s an inside job. I must become something different.
For example, although Senator King himself is a poised and
highly respectful statesman, the totality of the political
dialogue in Washington manifests as hostile and demeaning toward
those with differing views. If anger seems more prevalent at our
nation’s capital these days, capitol leadership should reexamine
what they are collectively modeling. Tone is heavily influencedby those at the top, and I have seen this in my own work as a CEO. Early in my career I used the power of my voice and title to influence outcomes. In hindsight, my ideas weren’t always winning on their merits but rather on their booming tone from the pulpit I occupied. The result was that people eventually went quiet, or they escalated their own verbiage in response. Either way, the outcome was poor decision-making, a lack of deep trust, and no authentic buy-in. My loud voice didn’t take me very far. But then in 2010, prophetically, I acquired a rare neurological voice disorder and my speaking was frequently reduced to a whisper. This was actually a gift in disguise. I’ve since gotten a good piece of my voice back, but I’ve made a personal commitment not to use it the way I once did. Instead, I have made it a priority to take incivility out of our company by going after the root causes, of which I was one. It is through this decade-long effort that I know with certainty that collaborative and candid idea sharing can carry the day, and win in ways that aggression can’t. I have not raised my voice at work in many, many years. Nor have I seen anyone else do so. I’m not saying it never happens, but it’s exceptionally rare. What has allowed this culture of calm voices to blossom within our company? It was simple. First, we prioritized the creation of safe forums for everyone to be regularly heard. In the process we changed the purpose of listening. Listening was to be for understanding, not judgment. We let go of the idea that a thought authentically shared by another needs to be labeled as right or wrong. We stopped making assumptions about the motives of others. We started seeking and applauding diversity of view points.
“Thank you for sharing” has become a common response.
When you stop trying to get everyone to agree, think alike, or
convert to a “company line,” dialogue becomes stress-free. Every
perspective can be honored without diminishing your own. Every
human voice is unique by design. Not everyone sees what you
see—and that’s a blessing, not a curse.
Civility, like many other aspects of life, is ultimately a
product of the old adage, If it is to be, it starts with me.
* * *
Thank you for considering my thoughts. In return I honor yours.
Every voice matters. Nestled between our differences lies our
future.
“Transcending the urge to judge, fix, solve, or transform others
is what actually creates the conditions for communities or
companies to progress. When people feel heard, not judged, they
relax. When people relax, they think. When people think, they
grow.”
—Kevin Hancock,
THE SEVENTH POWER:
One CEO’s Journey into the Business of Shared Leadership
____________________
This is the twenty-third in a series of short essays to be
posted by Kevin Hancock to www.thebusinessofsharedleadership.com
in 2021, in honor of Black Elk, the Oglala Sioux holy man who
was escorted as a child on a sacred vision quest by the 48
horses of the four directions to visit the six Grandfathers. My
horses, prancing they are coming. They will dance; may you
behold them. On that journey Black Elk understood the sacred
power that dwelled within him and lives within us all. He also
recognized that this power could be used for good or bad.
Intentional we must be about the path we walk.#22 | THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022 “THE SHOW MUST GO ON—the saying and principle originated in the nineteenth century with circuses. If an animal got loose or a performer was injured, the ringmaster and the band tried to keep
things going so that the crowd would not panic.” —James Rogers
In 1938 the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was, in
fact, “the Greatest Show on Earth.”
Their annual tour opened in the spring of that year with a
twenty-three-day sojurn at Madison Square Garden. The circus was
so popular that it performed twice daily in New York (forty-six
shows in all) before caravanning north, to Boston. This was
America’s most famous traveling show, and it would take only one
day off before ending the season in Mobile, Alabama, six months
later.
I’ve always loved the circus. For Christmas one year our
daughter Sydney gave me a framed copy of an original poster from
that 1938 tour stop in Manhattan. The festive scene features a
giant elephant and two clowns in the foreground with the big top
and its colorful flags as the backdrop. Few who attended that
year would have guessed that the elephant, the iconic star of
the three rings, would one day play a leading role in the
circus’s demise.
* * *
In 2016, the Ringling pachyderms marched off stage for the final
time in response to public concerns about their treatment as
circus show animals. This was a little recognized but pivotal
moment in the dawning of the age of dispersed power. The
physical and emotional well-being of a small herd of elephants
was taking precedence over the economic needs of an entire
industry. For those paying attention, it was a sign of the times
indeed.
One year later, on Sunday, May 5, 2017, my wife Alison and I
traveled from Maine to Providence, Rhode Island, to watch the
last-ever performance of the Ringling Bros. Circus extravaganza.“The elephant that once made the circus helped to end the
circus,” I said to Alison that night from our tight row of
plastic seats inside the dilapidated Dunkin’ Donuts Center.
We had just watched the last act of the famed Ringling Bros.
tigers. Their trainer, Taba Maluenda, and his felines received a
five-minute standing ovation. Former Ringling Bros. employees
from around the world were on hand to bear witness. The tigers
themselves seemed to know it was over.
“Sunday night the lights went out on the Greatest Show on
Earth,” reported the Providence Journal the following day. For
me, it was the night the tiger trainer cried and one of the most
historic and symbolic moments of the twenty-first century.
* * *
What’s the lesson here? It wasn’t the elephants that changed;
rather, humanity’s sense of right and wrong evolved. This brings
forth an important point: An idea that is helpful in one era can
actually be detrimental, or even fatal, in the next.
The well-being of a small group of elephants had become more
important to society than the circus empire as a whole.
Power was being dispersed.
The individual (in this case, elephants) was coming first.
Putting individuals second and organizations first may well have
helped empires grow for centuries. But today, self-centered
governance is a leading cause of human disengagement and
institutional ineffectiveness, and the clock is ticking on this
hierarchical dance of old.
The playbook of leadership and followership is turning itself
inside out. The old model of leadership was about pulling powerto the center and making the influence of the capital or
headquarters bigger. The new model that is manifesting before
our eyes is about pushing that same power back out and learning
to see the individual human spirit as the first priority and
power source of society.
* * *
On the way out of the arena after that final circus show, I
purchased two stuffed Ringling Bros. elephants. For me they were
historic pieces of Americana, now part of the past. They were
also, in a way, mascots for the future of organizational and
human advancement. Like the lesson itself, they were expensive
yet priceless.
(This essay is an excerpt from Kevin’s second book, THE SEVENTH
POWER: One CEO’s Journey into the Business of Shared
Leadership.)
* * *
Thank you for considering my thoughts. In return I honor yours.
Every voice matters. Nestled between our differences lies our
future.
“They say that somewhere in Africa the elephants have a secret
grave where they go to lie down, unburden their wrinkled gray
bodies, and soar away, light spirits at the end.”
—Robert McCammon
_______________
This is the twenty-second in a series of short essays to be
posted by Kevin Hancock to www.thebusinessofsharedleadership.com
in 2021, in honor of Black Elk, the Oglala Sioux holy man who
was escorted as a child on a sacred vision quest by the 48
horses of the four directions to visit the six Grandfathers. Myhorses, prancing they are coming. They will dance; may you
behold them. On that journey Black Elk understood the sacred
power that dwelled within him and lives within us all. He also
recognized that this power could be used for good or bad.
Intentional we must be about the path we walk.
Citrix Northeast Conference
Keynote 2021
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022
In this video, Kevin Hancock is
the keynote speaker at the Citrix
Northeast Conference. Kevin speaks
the shared leadership model,
dispersed power, and respecting
all voices. Kevin’s ideas on these topics have an immeasurable
change on workplace happiness, employee engagement, and the
work/life balance.
“Work should enhance life – otherwise, what’s the point?” –
Kevin Hancock
Click here to watch the full keynote presentation.Interview with Kevin Hancock,
President & CEO of Hancock
Lumber
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022
In this video, Kevin speaks to The
Inventions Show host Tack Lee
about how he reinvented the way
leadership is dispersed and shared
at Hancock Lumber. Kevin and Tack
discuss how he came to this
leadership model in depth, as well as what it means for the
employees, the customers, and the company. By dispersing
leadership and power to everyone in the company, Kevin aims to
enhance employee engagement and facilitate finding self-
actualization. He also discusses how the company has handled
this change and the path he sees for the future.
Click here to watch the full video.
Strengthening Through
Listening
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022In this podcast, Kevin Hancock speaks to
Create What You Speak host Sloane
Freemont about the leadership style he
implemented at Hancock Lumber where
everyone leads and power is dispersed. By
sharing the leadership responsibility
with many instead of consolidating at the
top of the organization, Kevin is helping
strengthen the unique voices of his
employees and helping them gain confidence in themselves and
their ideas. He tells Sloane about the journey he undertook to
find this new leadership style and how the business has been
affected by the changes. He also discusses how this is a model
that is built for any type of community and does not have to be
limited to a business setting.
Click here to listen to the full podcast.
Here are a few highlights from the podcast (click here for the
full transcription):
So picture this age-old setting, someone comes up to me at
work because I’m the CEO or one of the “bosses” with a
question or a problem. Normally I would have given a
directive and an answer and an instruction. And now I
started simply saying, “Well, that is a good question.
What do you think we should do about it?” And while at
first that was just a move to protect my voice, what
really struck me over time was simply this, people already
knew what to do. When I gave them the opportunity to
respond, I found that they already knew what to do. They
didn’t need a top-down kind of leadership directive after
all. What they really needed was kind of permission and
safety and encouragement to trust and follow their own
voice. (04:40-05:41)And I really ultimately came to see my own voice condition
as a bit of an invitation to strengthen the voices of
others. (06.41-06.52)
Yeah. And I think in the modern age, in which we live,
we’ve really got to rethink the very meaning of winning to
your point. We all grew up or read history, or you think
about the Roman Colosseum, it was a kill or be killed or
sports to win you have to defeat someone else, but I think
in the modern world where we’re all so connected where the
world has become so flat and we really are a single human
tribe, we’ve got to change the definition of winning. And
the simple way I like to talk about it now is winning
Isn’t winning unless everybody’s winning. [24:45-25:32]
Click here to download a PDF of the transcription.
Dispersing Power and
Strengthening the Voices of
Others
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022In this podcast, Kevin Hancock
speaks to Human Capital Innovations
host Jonathan H. Westover, PhD
about his new book The Seventh
Power: One CEO’s Journey Into the
Business of Shared Leadership. They
discuss how the work culture Kevin
has fostered at Hancock Lumber has
created an environment where every
voice is heard, trusted, and
respected. By doing so, this
empowers the voices of others and
creates a heightened level of employee engagement and job
satisfaction. Kevin also talks about how this can be used in any
community setting, and discusses how it would change the future
to see more areas where everybody leads.
Click here to listen to the full podcast.
Here are a few highlights from the podcast (click here for the
full transcription):
In nature, power is dispersed. That secret sauce, that
sacred energy of the universe, actually lives in all its
parts and pieces. And humans, w ho are apart of nature not
separate from it, I believe ultimately want to organize in
this way. And in the 21st century, in the query and age, I
think this is where you see the disconnect. So people are
awakening to their own sacred power as individuals. But
institutions are still often locked in this past-based
approach to leadership, which is about collecting power to
the center, having a few speak for the many, and taking a
bureaucratic approach to get things done. And while that
model might have been the dominant model for centuries
looking backward, I do not believe it’s going to be thedominant model going forward. (08:55-10:08)
So if work becomes a place where everyone can kind of
self-actualize, can test their skills, can come to know
their own identity and can feel safe doing so, then work
starts to become a really important social tool, not just
an economic tool. I’ve really, to take that one step
further, come to think very differently about the mission
or purpose of work. I think that the economic results are
an important outcome. Outcome, of a higher calling. And I
think that higher calling is that work should be
meaningful to the people who do it. (13:36-14:28)
But I had a gentlemen show me one day when I was at Pine
Ridge, that the center of the wheel, those who know the
old ways, he told me, know that seventh power also exists.
And that seventh power is you. It’s me. It’s the
individual human spirit. Which is of nature, of the
universe, of the sacred spirit. However you want to think
about it. And that every individual is a piece of the
divine. So the real task in social justice and in
rethinking organizational excellence, is about giving away
from the bureaucracy, getting away from the monolith,
getting away from the empire, and putting the focus back
on the individual and helping individuals understand and
tap into their own power.(28:34-29:39)
Click here to download a PDF of the transcription.
Rhett Power with Kevin Hancock
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022In this video, Kevin Hancock speaks with
Power Lunch Live host Rhett Power about
his book The Seventh Power: One CEO’s
Journey Into the Business of Shared
Leadership. He shares the lessons he
learned and how he implemented them into
a new leadership style. By dispersing
power and leadership throughout the
company, Kevin found that employees
became more engaged and had a higher level of job satisfaction.
When employees became happier, they became better brand
ambassadors for Hancock Lumber. Kevin describes how this had led
to changes in the business and the personal lives of the
employees.
Click here to watch the full video.
In Nature, Power Is Dispersed
written by Kevin Hancock | February 28, 2022
In this article, Kevin Hancock
writes about how he came to the
understanding that in nature,
power is dispersed. He discusses
how this simple notion changed
everything he based his company around and how he sees the
world. By dispersing power, everyone can become a leader. Kevin
also explains how he ended up taking his spiritual journey to
the Pine Ridge reservation and took walks in the desert.
Click here to read the full article.You can also read
