“Nature drives with a loose rein, and vitality of any sort … can blunder through many a predicament in which reason would despair.” – Preface to Realms of Being (1927)

I love how Santayana describes vitality as an antidote to excessively seeking control and always trying to figure everything out. Imagine the experience of riding a horse not as a form of “taming” or “control” but rather as an act of co-creation. I like the image of navigating my life with vitality pointing the way.

I’m not an equestrian expert, but I do know that holding the reins is about communicating with the horse. Like any good communication, it requires listening (sensing the movement of the horse with a gentle hand) as well speaking (providing direction through deliberate, timely tugs). I think it’s also significant that loosening the reins is not the same as letting them go. As leaders, we rarely have the leisure to just drop the reins and surrender to the will of our respective “horses.” Instead, we must find that place between the death-grip of rigid control and a passive deferral to the will of others. The space between is what is known in horse circles as good reining.

With this in mind, I examined my recent daily patterns. I’m busy with networking, client engagements, exercise, friends, and continuous learning. At this very moment, I wouldn’t say I’m holding very tightly to any particular outcome, and yet all my daily activity is motion. It moves me along a trajectory toward a more satisfying life— or at least toward an updated understanding of what satisfaction can be.

I know that there have been times in my life when I have been more structured: holding the reins much more tightly with a focus on controlling things and figuring it all out. At many of those times I forgot to ask if I even wanted to stay on that same frantic track. If I had asked, I might have discovered that the same high level of energy and intensity was no longer required. That discovery would have allowed me to relax into the moment, expending my efforts and energy when they were most needed.

Perking on this has led me to two examples. One is the story of 3M and the Post-It Note. This incredibly successful product was hardly the result of a strict and purposeful endeavor. 3M employee Spencer Silver’s adhesive was actually a failed attempt at another goal. It sat in the laboratory for four years before anyone remembered it. It was another six years before 3M marketed their sticky (but not too sticky) notes. 3M put it aside but did not throw it away. That patience paid off.

The other is the story of artist Janet Echelman. She was a Fulbright Scholar in India when her paints went missing. She had to radically loosen the reins and let life inform her direction. Her openness to work with new materials sparked an interest in creating very large flexible sculptures that could bring beauty into cities. Once her purpose shifted, Janet persistently searched for technology and supplies that could turn her imagination into reality. Her devotion is now being rewarded with more installations. Reflecting back on that evolution, I see times when she loosened the reins, other times where she used them very deliberately, and maintained a sense of co-creation.

A theme I see in both these examples is right timing. And timing is inconsequential without a strong sense of purpose.

• According to 3M: “Success begins with our ability to apply our technologies —often in combination— to an endless array of real-world customer needs.”
• Janet Echelman builds living, breathing sculpture environments that respond to the forces of nature —wind, water, and light— and become inviting focal points for civic life.

There may not be strict rules on when and how to hold the reins, but examples like these can help point the way. In my personal life, I will deliberately notice how tightly I’m focused on my goals. Whenever possible, I’ll use my vitality and life purpose to discern how to hold the reins. To me, that sounds like a pretty nice way to ride through this world.

Photos by KarenMassier (reins), Iain Farrell (sticky note), and Christopher Michael (sculpture).

Twenty years ago I don’t think I could have named a single CSO— or anyone at the VP level or above with “sustainability” as their primary mission. Back in 1990 when I was head of corporate health promotion at a global information technology company, my department’s biggest challenge was to prove, without a doubt, that investing in employee wellness would generate financial returns. My team spent hours upon hours crafting data-filled business cases. We worked hard to substantiate the worth of reducing cardiovascular and other disease risks, helping employees manage their stress, and keeping workers well. It was challenging work; often frustrating. There we were, justifying wellness to our leaders rather than creating and fostering it.

Any executive today who doesn’t understand the reasons for fostering employee health hasn’t been paying attention. Studies have shown time and time again that thriving employees spend less of the company’s health care dollars, have fewer injuries and medical claims, and are more productive than their colleagues. A 2010 University of Michigan cost-benefit analysis reports that workers with the highest health risks (representing 17 percent of the workforce) demand 2.3 times more of the company’s health care costs than their healthier colleagues.

Just as there are hard costs for an unhealthy workforce, there are positive returns for a healthy one. A recent multi-year study by Johnson & Johnson shares that their “wellness programs have cumulatively saved the company $250 million on health care costs over the past decade; from 2002 to 2008, the return was $2.71 for every dollar spent.” These numbers don’t even factor in the benefits these programs have made on employee productivity, engagement, and attendance.

Based on findings like those of J&J, senior organizational consultants at Towers Watson have developed a new model they call “exponential employee engagement.” In a recent discussion of their new model, they explained that an environment of wellbeing is a core differentiator in truly engaging employees’ hearts, minds, and spirits.

Back to Carol. I sincerely enjoy talking with her— she reminds me how far leaders have come in the past two decades. She’s thinking well beyond business cases or justification of ROI. She realizes that the health of employees is a powerful mechanism for boosting workplace performance and engagement … and she’s working to make a difference. That makes me smile. But remember this isn’t the end of the work, it’s the very beginning. So yesterday I put to Carol a few questions:

• How are you creating the conditions for authentic wellbeing within your workplace?
• What are you doing to decrease the health risks of your employees, while helping healthy employees continue to thrive?
• How are you role-modeling vitality? Are you using your leadership actions and communications as well as your lifestyle to demonstrate the power of wellness at work?

Carol was zipping right along through these questions until that last one. She searched for the answer and was at a loss. In the discussion that ensued, she quickly made a commitment to replace the bowl of candy on her desk with whole fruit, to take the stairs instead of the elevator to meetings, to leave the office at a reasonable time each day, and to eat foods which are energizing rather than depleting.

On the BBC program “The Joy of Stats,” global health expert Hans Rosling shows (in four short, very creative minutes!) how human health and wellbeing has evolved in 200 countries over the past 2 centuries. The prognosis? While we still have many health challenges, our societies are generally healthier as a rule. As leaders, we can be inspired by the fact that building a culture of health in our organizations has a triple advantage: serving individual employees, companies on the whole, and even the societies in which we live, work, and play. Now that’s really something to smile about.

Photo by Nina Matthews Photography



This event, The Leadership Forum at Silver Bay annually brings leaders together to discuss the most pressing human issues. We’re all there to reinforce our shared belief that leadership matters if we are to forge a healthier planet. I led a workshop on executive vitality and resilience — but I walked away with something much larger. The event renewed my sense that there are leaders everywhere inspired to make a positive impact through their organizations, their communities, and their lives.

That got me to thinking about inspiration itself. How fertile is our everyday life and work for creating the sort of inspiration and motivation I found at Silver Bay? Not very, suggests NeuroAnthropology.net — a website focused on a “greater understanding of the encultured brain and body.” They say that we’re bombarded today with pessimism rather than optimism, no matter what form of media (T.V., radio, newspapers, social media) or what topic (celebrities, politics, war, the economy).

Such negative messages are known to reinforce poor eating habits, unhealthy body images in women, and violence in our children. And these messages are baking a cynical cultural bias into how we see the world and experience our lives. When we’re stewing in this unhappy cauldron, it’s easy to miss inspiration — unless you actively seek it.

I, for one, believe inspiration surrounds us. Finding it is less about what’s happening outside us; more about what we let in. At the Leadership Forum, it came for me in the form of Mark Johnson, executive director of the Fellowship for Reconciliation. His interfaith organization is devoted to replacing war, violence, economic injustice, and racism with justice, peace, and freedom. As our assemblage of leaders sweated through the heat wave, guzzling water and ineffectively fanning ourselves with our notepads, Mark asked us: “How can we build a caring society and foster hope for future generations in a world that often seems hopeless?”

It only now occurs to me that in many situations we curse such sticky heat, the nuisance of all that sweat dripping off us. But in other situations, say a nice summer hike or an exhilarating bike ride, we revel in our body’s same reaction. One person’s frustration is another’s opportunity and adventure. With Mark’s words, I found the nuisance of the heat physically shifting: my mind and body became itchy to help discover answers to the questions he posed.

In a similar shift, my travel buddy and I discovered our room at the Forum wasn’t air conditioned. That made it an unbearable 15 degrees hotter than the outside’s stifling temperatures. We rigged a homemade swamp cooler in the room’s window, we wore damp towels around our necks to keep ourselves sane, and our initial gripes gave way to laughter and moments of inspired creativity.

Even in the people, places, and times you’d least expect it, inspiration is waiting to be found. The day after my Adirondack adventure, a 5:00 AM phone call woke me up. After another heart attack, my father was at a distant hospital undergoing cardiac surgery. I spent time with him as he recovered. Though he was shaken by the ordeal, he told me what he’s said ever since I was a kid: “PMA, Renee. PMA.” To us, that means “positive mental attitude.” It’s Dad’s fuel for living.

When we can find laughter and motivation in a heat wave, or positivity in the face of a life-threatening condition, then we’re on the right path. That’s the way to find inspiration even if the media seems to miss it.

Photo by Patrick Hoesly