Author: Occam's Edge

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Behavior Leadership Your Journey

How you’re Words & Actions lead to your Purpose

Mime artists are a gentle reminder to us all that actions often speak louder than words. A mime artist doesn’t use words to convey ideas, intent, or to make us laugh. We often use words rather than actions to get across our points but fail to understand that without actions to back them up, words are fairly empty.

You may not be aware of it, but there’s a little bit of mime in all of us. Our behaviors, especially the non-verbal ones are more likely to give cues that reveal our true feelings or intent than the verbal signals we try to send. Shaking your head indicating ‘no’ whilst verbally saying ‘yes’ is a typical example. A roll of the eyes, a facial expression that isn’t consistent with the conversation, or a distraction are examples of how our behaviors can either reinforce or undermine our words and language.

Roger Martin, Professor Emeritus at the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto, recently talked about the idea that strategy is what you DO, not what you SAY. You can read the article here Strategy is what you do.

Although not a new concept for Roger, he first talked about the idea in his Harvard Business Review Article in June 2014, it is a good reminder that your words and actions need to be congruent. When you have created a plan to achieve a business outcome (i.e. a strategy, program, etc.) your actions need to reflect the plan. Indeed, as Roger argues, the the actions of the organization need to reflect the strategy. Or as Roger put’s it – “A company’s strategy is what the company’s people are actually doing, not the slogan their bosses intone.”

When you are communicating genuinely your actions will support your words. Not just as you are speaking but also in each follow up interaction. 

Too many of us compromise what we really believe in for the pursuit of an outcome we think is expected of us. When your actions are inconsistent with your words people see the incongruence and react accordingly. When your strategy is not what you do it’s hard for others to be energized about your brand; whether that’s customers, employees, or shareholders.

Learning to align your words and actions isn’t easy. It involves first, understanding your own values and beliefs. Second being aware of your actions (personal style and body language for example) and having the self-awareness to ensure your actions match your beliefs. Finally, you need to find an environment where you can be yourself and earn a living. Think of this process as iterative and fluid. It is something you have to work on consistently over a long period of time. Like I said, it isn’t easy, but once you do, you will undoubtably find your purpose.

Categories
Behavior Empathy Leadership

Why an Open-Door Policy is Insufficient in Building Trust

Leaders who profess to having an open-door policy are often puzzled by the fact that very few team members tell them what’s really going on in the organization. They receive all the positive developments, even if they are a bit of a stretch, and none of the negatives. Even when asking specific questions that are intended to encourage participants to share risks and issues they are answered with a positive spin.

Another situation which we see frequently, and as advisors we experience this too, is when we ask for any comments or observations we are met with silence. Now, is that because no one has anything to say or because they don’t want to say it in our presence? If only the water cooler could share what it overhears.

Over the years we have had this conversation many times and the answer invariably rests on the leader’s behavior. To build an environment where people are free to share their ideas, opinions, and observations you have to make people feel safe.

Words and actions matter here. Saying you are open is not the same as acting open. If you meet disagreement with an explanation as to why the speaker is wrong, then you shut down future dialogue. If you interrogate and pepper managers with questions every time you meet to discuss an assignment or project, they’re not going to want to meet with you. If you’re more focused on your ego, being right, or not creating extra work for yourself you’re unlikely to develop an environment for safe dialogue.

“Emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intelligence; it is not the triumph of heart over head – it is the unique intersection of both. 

– David Caruso

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is the basis for creating a safe environment for people to grow, develop, and excel.

EQ is a Superpower.

Research suggests that EQ alone explains 58% of a leader’s job performance and that 90% percent of top performers are high in EQ. Limeade, an employee experience software company, in their 2019 whitepaper “The Science of Care” noted that when employees feel safe, they are 10 times more likely to recommend their company as a great place to work and 9 times more likely to stay at their company for three or more years.

When conducting an executive search experiences, education, and capabilities begin to look similar across an array of candidates. What differentiates a successful candidate is their EQ and their ability to understand and relate to others and use that to improve outcomes, relationships, and develop others.

So, if you have an open-door policy and feel that you are still not receiving the feedback you would like then begin by focusing inward. Check your EQ.

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Behavior Complexity Leadership

Avoiding Suddenly is really a Story of Fixing Gradually

Eddie Cantor coined the phrase “It takes 20 years to become an overnight success.” His public debut was in 1907, singing in a music hall. Cantor spent a decade touring, refining his craft, developing new material and finally made his Broadway debut in 1918. It wasn’t until 1927, after another decade, that he reached notoriety with Kid Boots in 1923.

Gradually to suddenly applies to successful outcomes as well as devastating outcomes. This is the because the power of compounding affects our upside just as much to as impacts our downside. Seth Godin refers to how incremental daily progress is what actually causes transformation. 

“Showing up, every single day, gaining in strength, organizing for the long haul, building connection, laying track — this subtle but difficult work is how culture changes.”

Seth Godin

The same is true for organizations. Some of the best, well known brands such as McDonald’s, Nike, and Starbucks all had their twenty years of success making.

Even looking at companies out there today; we can see them building their craft, refining their brand, and building customer loyalty. Peloton, the creator of the indoor, connected biking experience, is a great example. They are eight years into their journey and already have over 2.5M members and their members now regularly complete 1M workouts a day. They’re just getting started. For sure, Peloton has seen a bump in both members and workouts as a result of the lockdown(s) in the USA and UK but in April 2020, its debut ‘Live from Home’ ride broke the record for the largest live class. They had over 23,000 participants.

Peloton is looking to the future, aiming for 100 million subscribers, through broadening their product portfolio, expanding their geographic reach, and creating better experiences. People aren’t necessarily going back to the gym and Peloton may well provide an alternative to those looking for a competitive spin class experience at home. We are looking forward to following their success.

What Cantor and Peloton, and so many others, make so blatantly clear is the need for consistency and repetition. Whether it is singing a song or hosting an online class being consistent is really important. I’m sure Cantor sang to a crowd of a few on more than one occasion and Peloton had classes that were attended by only one or two participants. Consistency builds reputation, facilitates feedback, and allows you to refine your message and product. Repetition unlocks your value proposition and makes it available to everyone.

In the same way that gradually can lead to devastating consequences so too can it lead to success. The difference comes down to our values, beliefs, and attitudes. Or culture. It is up to you; success is within your reach. You too can become an overnight success!

Categories
Behavior Leadership People

How to Avoid Cultural Debt

In July 2020 we began a conversation about culture with an assertion that culture is the sum of all of the behaviors in your organization. We also noted that, in general, culture tends to modify our behaviors and yet individual behavior can also shape the culture of your organization. This is why culture is constantly evolving. Good leaders behave in a way that highlights and supports the culture of the organization. Conversely, toxic people diminish your culture.

Subsequently, we have talked with many of you about how individual behaviors influence culture and how culture modifies, or constrains, our behavior. Overwhelmingly, we agree that while culture typically helps to modify our behaviors we each have one or two examples of individuals who have shaped culture. Both positively and negatively.

Back in July we said that culture is often shaped by the worst behaviors that leadership is prepared to tolerate and our conclusion was that managing behaviors is preferable over managing people. 

Building on this point, tolerating poor behaviors actually contributes extensively to cultural debt in organizations. Cultural debt accrues when individuals undermine the values, attitude, and beliefs embedded in your organization. When leaders and employees don’t address these behaviors directly it acts as a tax, or interest payment, on the business. These taxes come due sometime in the future and are often the underlying reason for poor business outcomes. Other impacts can be seen in employee engagement, employee turnover, and business results. 

Allowing poor behavior to continue unchecked means that you may well experience “Hemingway’s Law of Motion: Gradually, then Suddenly”. In his 1926 novel, The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway’s character Mike, when asked “how he went bankrupt, responds “Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly.”

The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.

Rudiger Dornbusch

This is very much they way cultural debt operates. If we tolerate it and let it go unchecked we create this gradual grinding on the business and then one day we are surprised by the sudden impact of our culture.

All of a sudden, things seem to come to a head.

How to avoid “Suddenly”

  • Have a defined set of values, beliefs, and behaviors.
  • Communicate broadly and consistently connect actions and results to values, beliefs, and behaviors.
  • Immediately address behaviors that are inconsistent with the cultural expectations.

Of course, avoiding suddenly is really a story of fixing gradually. Having a standard by which to measure interactions is useful. Actually taking action when behaviors do not meet expectations is a more important action. Unfortunately, all to often, we see poor behaviors go unchecked and gradually becomes suddenly.

Categories
Behavior Leadership

Under the surface: Too Many meetings?

Last week we talked about how meetings are a proxy for the culture in your organization. In particular, we highlighted engagement, leadership, and accountability as well as the importance of these interactions for collaboration, connection, and relationship building.

One of the more interesting discussions that has emerged post our interviews is whether or not a meeting or interaction is real or fake. By this, it was suggested, that not all meetings are required. The argument for fake meetings is that: we all have too many meetings on our calendars, most of them are unproductive, and most of them don’t make good progress. So, they are probably fake, or not required.

“Fake meetings should be cancelled, if they are repetitive and routine, or you need to figure out how to make them real.” Was the assertion from one executive.

So how do we ascertain if a meeting is Real of Fake?

Scenario

Dave calls an hour-long project team meeting and adds people from a few other functions to cover all bases, just in case they are needed.  Dave, shares information and explains the importance of the project to everyone. The team members already involved in the project, nod every so often, while checking emails or preparing for their next meetings.  The people from the outside the team are not quite sure why they were included but they take notes to show how engaged they are while trying to stay awake.  The meeting concludes right on time and Dave adjourns smiling and noting that he always finishes right on time because of how much he values everyone’s time.

So, real of fake?  Here are a few questions to ask yourself about the above scenario, or a recent meeting you attended. Answer these questions at every interaction and you’ll begin to think about meetings in a different way: 

  1. Was there a clear agenda and goal for the meeting?
  2. How many people actually spoke during the meeting?
  3. How many people actually participated during the meeting in a discussion about problems needing resolution or was this an illusion of collaboration?
  4. Were there agreed upon actions and outcomes at the conclusion of the meeting?
  5. Could Dave have shared this information in an email or through a collaboration platform?

Our answer:  Fake meeting. 

Meetings can be incredibly productive and energizing or a seed that causes behavioral complexity. To make sure your interactions are in the former category and not the latter think about changing your approach to meetings. Reset the number, length, purpose, participation and outcome expectations, follow up actions, and accountability.

The following are “must haves” for meeting protocol and decision making. Together they have an exponential impact on results and a positive impact on engagement:

  1. Is the meeting truly necessary?
  2. Set very clear meeting purpose, expectations and decisions to be made at the meeting in the invite.  
  3. Create shorter interactions. (Think about a 50% reduction)
  4. Send agenda and materials in advance – ask for confirmation of review before invitees attend the meeting.  No review no attendance.
  5. Start and end on time, have a no exceptions policy, maybe?
  6. Include necessary individuals only.  The practice of “optional” invitees should be discouraged.
  7. Assign a point person to keep the agenda focused and on track.
  8. Engage all participants.
  9. Monologues should not be allowed.
  10. Action items and responsibilities should be discussed and agreed to before the meeting concludes and confirmed in writing after meeting.

A recent article in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) quoted an excerpt from the corporate blog of a senior executive in the pharmaceutical industry:

I believe that our abundance of meetings at our company is the Cultural Tax we pay for the inclusive, learning environment that we want to foster…and I’m ok with that. If the alternative to more meetings is more autocratic decision-making, less input from all levels throughout the organization, and fewer opportunities to ensure alignment and communication by personal interaction, then give me more meetings any time!

Our belief is that meetings can create engagement, leadership, and accountability as well facilitate collaboration, connection, and relationship building. A Cultural Tax is only created when interactions become burdensome, unproductive, and disengaging. The alternative is not autocracy. The alternative is diluted results, time consumption, and frustration. 

The answer is simply to design and conduct meetings in a thoughtful way that reaches the desired outcome.

Categories
Behavior Complexity Leadership

Under the surface: Meetings and Complexity

A Google search of ‘how to run an effective meeting’ returns 555M entries in about 0.64 seconds. Hopefully that is sufficient to persuade you that there isn’t a shortage of instruction on how to lead a productive meeting. There are reportedly about 11M meetings a day in the US yet Harvard Business Review in their “Stop the Meeting Madness” article said that 71% of executives interviewed said meetings are unproductive.

It was hardly a surprise therefore that during our research on the topic of Complexity versus Simplicity a consistent theme from every single one of our interviewees was related to “too many meetings” and “unproductive meetings”.

Why then, with so much instruction available and a clear understanding of what good looks like are we still creating interactions that are unproductive?

To be fair, most people don’t attend meetings with the intention of making them unproductive. We approach them optimistically, forgetting quickly about the last time we met and hoping that we will do better this time. Good intentions apparently aren’t sufficient.

What meetings say about your organization

Poor meeting outcomes are signs of three underlying issues:

  1. Lack of engagement – whether this is “it’s not my job to prepare the agenda” or “hey, they’re paying me to sit here” most staff are disengaged during a meeting and most likely before and after as well.
  2. Lack of leadership – leaders need to insist on the appropriate process: objectives, agenda, actions, etc. This of course means that when leaders hold meetings that they lead with the appropriate process too.
  3. Lack of accountability – if it’s OK to go from meeting to meeting with no real process or outcomes then there is clearly an accountability problem. If it’s culturally acceptable to have unproductive interactions quite often this is demonstrated in other parts of the organization.

The opposite of these signals is also true, in that where you have productive interactions, it is normally an indication of a positive culture with an engaged workforce, competent leaders, and acountability. Certainly, given the behavioral components of an effective meeting it isn’t unusual to find pockets of an organization where engagement, leadership, and accountability thrive. A lot comes down to the leadership style of an individual, department, or group.

Meetings continue to be an important way in which we collaborate, share ideas, and gain alignment. Moreover, they provide a human connection, a social connection and a place to further business and personal relationships. When conducted properly they are energizing. When we fail to bring the discipline, structure, and process to the interaction the result is fodder for the next Dilbert cartoon.

Categories
Complexity Governance Leadership

The Art and Science of Decision -making

Photo by Kyle Glenn

The cultural norm in business today is all about building consensus before making a decision. Sounds lovely but building consensus is an art and it frequently creates so much complexity. The simple reality is that the goal of decision making should be for leaders to review the facts and relevant opinions and then make a quick decision. The science of decision making. The truth is that good decision making is both an Art and a Science. You won’t really know what the right decision is until after you have actually made it. All you are doing is making a choice from a series of options. The hard part comes after your choice; making it work.  

Leaders are responsible for creating and sharing an organized decision-making process. That sounds somewhat formal, but it doesn’t mean that it has to be rigid, cumbersome, or time consuming. It is simply an understandable framework for the organization to establish the basic “rules of the road” when it comes to making decision. Decision rights, delegation of authority, and RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) Models are all considered as great tools to avoid chaos and confusion.

Having a decision-making process is crucial for all organizations. However, if it is too cumbersome and time consuming it will stall the organization. Too simple and you run the risk of making the wrong choice. In both cases the impact shows up in outcomes, engagement, and overall effectiveness.

Any decision-making process should include clear objectives about the situation and incorporate input, insights and knowledge from key stakeholders. In thinking about key stakeholders keep it simple by considering three groups of people; Who cares about the decision? Who has knowledge about the issues and alternatives? and who needs to agree to the decision?

These three groups of stakeholders not only help you make the right choice, but they also help in making sure that the decision is implemented. Their participation in the process engages their commitment to see it through, which is probably more important than the decision itself. As they say, an average choice well executed is often better than a good choice poorly executed. 

Making choices and executing them go hand in hand. What is important is the commitment to the decision. Commitment is different from consensus. Consensus is a general agreement, shared by all the stakeholders, about a decision. Commitment is a promise to make the decision a success. Commitment is saying, whether you agree with the choice or not, that you will personally do everything you can to make it a successful.

Engaging the three groups of stakeholders to gain commitment can be difficult. We use four exercises to help with the visualization and ownership of the decisions to be made. The first is to imagine and share as a team what success looks like for of each decision alternatives, post implementation.  Think in vivid color. Make it the art of the possible. The second is to think about the unintended consequences of the choice. What might be the second and third implications of making the decision. Consider the impact on customers, employees, standard operating procedures, technology, etc. A third exercise is to think about failure. How could this decision make things worse, what could go wrong, what would be the implications?  By articulating the failure scenario, we begin to understand potential risks, develop balance in the execution, and gain clarity on the path forward. Finally, we use an assumption-based exercise to help build commitment. Asking the question “What would need to be true in order for this choice to be a success?” This is a simple yet effective way to work through assumptions that stakeholders are making when considering the options in front of them.

Using our three stakeholder groups and four exercises can help to build commitment. Even when making unpopular decisions this method allows for due process; listening, inclusion and consideration of alternatives which leads to better choices and improved execution. Moreover, these techniques keep the decision-making process relatively simple and avoids a complex consensus driven approach. 

The final takeaway:  The cultural norm of today may be to gain consensus but that doesn’t equate to successful and actionable decision making.  What does? Commitment to support a decision once made, regardless of personal views and doing all that needs to be done as a team to implement that decision is the key to success.

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Categories
Behavior Complexity Simplicity

Five Ways to Recognize Complexity

Complexity is not particularly difficult to recognize. Most of us know it when we see it. The hard part is putting it into words and being able to discuss it in a way that is productive. The lack of a widely used framework prevents us from really tackling complexity head on.

Our recent research on recognizing, unraveling, and replacing complexity has begun to shine a light on how leaders think about complexity and how they recognize complexity in their organizations. 

During our research we specifically asked executives how they recognize complexity in their organization. At a high level, they all made reference to the lack of speed in decision making and desired outcomes as being evidence of complexity. The analysis of their answers created five indicators that led executives to their conclusion.

  1. Business performance – the ability to achieve results is a signal of a high performing organization. Of course, meeting your objectives does not necessarily mean that the business is not complex. On the other hand, continuously missing deadlines, key performance metrics, or even just your commitments are a signal that complexity is working its way through the organization. 
  2. Ambiguity – The lack of clarity slows down decision making and increases the number of interactions between people and departments. It opens up the opportunity for misunderstanding, interpretation, and misalignment. Creating clarity and building alignment was seen as key to success to many of our interviewees.
  3. Employee engagement – Complexity creates a degree of frustration for employees. When complexity gets in the way employees find it difficult to understand why the organization doesn’t resolve the complexity and how the organization wants them to move forward. Complexity undermines individual employees in terms of understanding, empowerment, and learning.
  4. Meetings – The issue of meetings was raised by almost all of our interviewees. Too many meetings, meetings to prep for meetings, and too many people are involved are felt to be indicative of complexity. Many of us have been in back to back meetings and wondered when am I supposed to get any real work done? In addition, the number of organizational layers in a meeting was called out as creating complexity along with poor meeting discipline, as this creates ambiguity and reduces clarity.
  5. Accountability – The lack of accountability in organizations whether created by roles, organizational structure, or individual behavior adds to complexity. Siloed functions, combined with risk aversion, the fear of being wrong, and knowledge in the hands of the few are all indicators of complexity.

None of these indicators are evidence of complexity when experienced individually. It is when we notice multiple indicators that it becomes more of a signal than just a noise. Even then, the lack of a framework to discuss complexity makes it difficult for people to raise it as an issue, difficult for executives to take action, and difficult for the organization to adopt new ways of working together.

If you notice any of these indicators in your organization, or you have experienced them first-hand, please join the conversation and share your perspective.

Final Thought

As we discussed on LinkedIn recently, complexity is best evidenced by three things: how long it takes to get stuff done, how hard it is to do stuff, and how frustrating it is to be part of the process.

We’d love to hear from you.

Categories
Complexity Governance Leadership

Governance & Decision Making in a Complex World

Most organizations go through a formal decision-making process when they allocate resources to a particular initiative or when they develop an annual capital plan. Whenever we chose to allocate money or people to something, organizations typically follow a familiar three step process.

Learn

During the learn phase we are gathering data, building knowledge, and curating information on both the problem at hand and potential solutions. Our goal is to articulate the problem, offer a series of potential solutions and maybe articulate a recommendation or a preferred option.

To achieve this, first we spend time to learn about the presenting issue. We conduct extensive research, do analysis, run focus groups and interviews to make sure we fully understand the issues and problems that need to be solved. In a nutshell, the goal is to figure out who our customer is, what needs they have, and how best can we serve them.

Second, once we have identified the issues, we can begin to look at alternative solutions. We analyze the various merits of each solution and develop a cost benefit analysis of each option so we can think about how to best make a recommendation. If our solution includes a third party, for example a piece of technology or software, we will likely do additional diligence to measure things like functionality, integration, and relationships. We’d be inclusive of different stakeholder groups so that we had the opportunity to obtain a broad set of inputs on the final set of answers.

Finally, we prepare our presentation with our findings and recommendation.

Decide

Decision rights for capital spending typically sit with an executive team or a subset thereof. The team doing the “learning” will make their presentation to the executive team and make their recommendation. Usually there is some back and forth discussion, maybe the team has to go away and answer some additional questions but eventually the decision is made to either support or not support the capital allocation.

Act

Once approval has been obtained the team can then move onto the implementation of the solution. The work to solve the problem can now begin.

The Problem

As you can imagine this governance and decision-making process takes a significant amount of time. There are four distinct problems with this approach.

First, with a fast-paced business environment and innovation driving new ways of working, new technologies, and new possibilities it’s more than possible to create capabilities that don’t meet future needs. 

Second, the learn phase never quite achieves what you intend it to. There always seems to be a series of “gotchas’ during the act phase. These lead to budget overages, time delays, and the reduction of scope. This is because we don’t know what we don’t know and only through experience can we solve this paradox.

Third, the learn phase doesn’t typically consider the difficulty in driving adoption of a new capability. Skills may need to be developed, behaviors changed, and reliance on old operating procedures need to be undone. 

Finally, according to the National Training Laboratory, action-based learning results in three times the retention and understanding as passive based learning, Acting therefore contributes more to learning than simply reading or researching.

An Alternative

One of our principles is to move into action sooner rather than later. We encourage clients to learn by doing so they can better understand the presented issues, potential solutions, and behaviors that will need to be changed to drive adoption of the new capability. 

Another principle we live by is to break down a problem into more manageable chunks and work to solve each of them over time. This is grounded in the fact that you want to avoid any kind of “Big Bang” implementation. Better to implement a series of smaller changes rather than one large one.

We prefer a series of small success rather than a death march that results in mediocrity.

Our suggestion therefore is to change the governance and decision-making process to help improve adoption, reduce risk, and create momentum

With the overall goal in mind, work towards taking smaller steps, learn as you go, and then decide which appropriate steps to take next. This iterative approach allows you to uncover and resolve what you don’t know about what you don’t know.

Categories
Behavior

Pay It Forward – Our Take

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Are you feeling a bit numb to everything happening around us?  Simply focused on how you and yours get through the days and weeks?  Trying to stay healthy and be sensible?  Wanting to be involved and make a difference but feeling that you are just scratching the surface and wanting to throw caution to the wind and get out there.  But how? And why?  The combination of gratitude and guilt feels like a constant and tangible emotion in most of us and it causes a feeling of unease and discomfort. 

Step in, our take on  “Pay it Forward”.

Traditionally, “Pay it Forward”  is an expression used to describe the beneficiary of a good deed repaying the kindness to others instead of to the original benefactor.  It is a concept that has been around since ancient times but was brought into our stream of consciousness from a novel of the same name by Catherine Ryan Hyde, the subsequent movie and the social movement created globally through The Pay It Forward Movement and Foundation.  We should be ever grateful to Ryan Hyde’s fictional character 12 year old Trevor McKinney who accepted his social studies teacher’s challenge to come up with a plan to change the world.  And his idea was such a simple one but so impactful:  do a good deed for three people and ask them to “pay it forward” to three others in need.  And so grew the concept as we know it today. 

While the concept of Pay it Forward is outstanding, our view is that it is simply not enough and quite candidly a bit too narrow.  For instance,  it is critically important to support small businesses and individuals struggling to survive, to donate food to the hungry, to help the homeless, to share generously of time and talent in any way we can.  But still not enough by any standard.  It is simply not an option not to focus on being part of the solution to continue the fight for all.  Yes, we do see and hear inspiring stories each day and yes we should pause and consider how far we have come.  Yet, the breadth and depth of injustice and disrespect is vast and unacceptable.  There is still so much that must be changed, acknowledged and achieved.  Civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis passed away last week and this week we remember him, mourn him and know that we lost yet another giant voice for conscious change.

It struck us that Congressman Lewis’ life-long dedicated struggle and commitment for human rights, civil liberties and equality was and is for the benefit of all of us. He was one of those generational leaders to whom we all owe a debt that must be repaid in multiples.  John Lewis, often asked, “if not us, then who? If not now, then when?”. So, our take?   Let’s pay it forward:  there should be no expectation of simply paying forward a kindness we received but just paying forward all the time.  We all have the capacity to give.  If we truly give of ourselves, however uncomfortable it can sometimes be,  we can truly be a part of the solution to achieve equality, productivity and prosperity.

After all,  “if not us, then who?  If not now, then when?”