What Business Leaders Can Learn From Bhutan
Having spent the past thirty-two years in the Silicon Valley/Bay Area region, I guess I’ve grown accustomed to start-ups wreaking havoc in mature industries. Hewlett-Packard, Apple, Google, Facebook….they all were launched within a 15-mile radius of my alma mater, Stanford University, and they went on to revolutionize not just their industry, but they changed our relationship with technology and, frankly, in Facebook’s case, our relationship with each other.
So, I’m not surprised that I’m fascinated with a little, almost-mythical country in the Himalayas that is revolutionizing how world leaders are looking at the definition of success. Like “The Mouse That Roared” (a popular book and film from the late 1950’s about an imaginary, bucolic country situated between France and Switzerland that becomes the admiration of modern society when it declares war on the United States), Bhutan is getting the kind of attention an off-off-Broadway play gets when you know it’s destined to be a hit. In 1972, the 17-year old King of Bhutan asked the blasphemous, “Why are we so focused on Gross Domestic Product? Why aren’t we more concerned with Gross National Happiness?” For nearly forty years now, Bhutan has been remaking their country based upon the premise that the ultimate public good a leader can provide his or her people isn’t material possessions, but instead it’s happiness or well-being.
This “beginner’s mind” idea has found fertile ground in the 21st century as more than forty countries are now studying their own GNH (Gross National Happiness). Nicolas Sarkozy recently announced what some are calling a “joie de vivre index” in France based upon an 18-month study of two Nobel economists who recommended that the largest countries of the world end their obsession with GDP and consider some new intangible metrics. In essence, they’re suggested that GDP – which focuses exclusively on tangible production and consumption – no longer should be our sole definition of global success especially at a time when 64% of the world’s GDP now comes from the intangible service industry. In other words, GDP measures outputs which might have made sense in a more mechanized, industrial era. But, given the knowledge era we now live in, measuring those inputs that influence the output is a more holistic method of evaluating whether we’re creating sustainable success.
This may seem abstract, but it’s extremely relevant to business leaders who have come to realize that a myopic focus on purely the bottom line can have the same effect as driving a car at full speed all the time without doing occasional maintenance and refueling. Here are three important lessons for business leaders to learn from Bhutan:
1. Leaders don’t create happiness for people. The Prime Minister of Bhutan told me his goal is “to create the conditions in which happiness can flourish.” Abe Maslow once suggested business leaders “can set up the conditions so that peak experiences are more likely, or one can perversely set up the conditions so that they are less likely.” Great leaders create healthy habitats. From that healthy habitat sprouts the outputs we’re looking for whether that’s happy citizens or a profitable business. Silicon Valley has an eco-system that is primed for innovation, but as many regions of the world have learned, you can’t easily replicate the intangibles that create such a cultural habitat. So, first, brainstorm with the leaders in your company about what cultural “conditions” would help your company flourish and what kinds of specific things you can do to create that habitat.
2. Leaders value and measure the intangible. The Bhutanese have created a science behind the art of happiness. They measure four pillars, nine key indicators, and seventy-two various metrics to help them understand whether they are creating fertile conditions for happiness. The Gallup organization has developed twelve questions that help leaders measure employee engagement like “at work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?” or “does the mission/purpose of your company make you feel your job is important?” (http://www.workforce.com/section/09/article/23/53/40.html). It’s time for leaders to distinguish between what they can easily count (“are you being paid enough?”) with what employees most value. The intangibles of mission and meaning are powerful fuel for knowledge-driven industries, so find ways to measure these vital inputs.
3. Leaders are willing to deviate from the norm. Most world leaders didn’t take notice when the teenage King of Bhutan asked his impertinent questions about GDP. Those that did notice chuckled and chalked this idea of GNH up to “Buddhist economics.” But, if you’re a small country or a small company, your best strategy to compete with the big boys is to find a niche and own it. In my case when I started my company twenty-three years ago with an inner city motel, I went after rock ‘n roll bands as our core customer, even though conventional hoteliers told me I was crazy to want these party animals. Yet, this target customer was perfectly suited to my funky motel and this was an untapped market (bands) that was growing and recession-proof. Similarly, it took thirty years for the world to embrace Bhutan’s approach to GNH, yet this “happiness niche” has turned out to be much larger than the King of Bhutan ever imagined. Find a niche, embrace it wholly even if it’s unconventional, and deliver on your promise better than any of your competitors.
We often forget to distinguish between the generalist and the specialist. When we think of Maslow, we most often think of the musician or the artist of any type–the one who has found his metier and works hard to perfect his skills. But specialists comprise only a small proportion of the human population. Most of us are generalists who just like to live “in the hive” with others. We are support people. We learn whatever is necessary to support the goals of our organization (a good organization, that is). If we admire our CEO and other leaders and believe in what they are doing, we will learn to do what best fits us in the mix of things. We generalists find peak experiences in supporting others who are often brighter than we are or more skilled. Tapping us is the name of the game, and in order to capitalize on our strengths, the good leader gives us the freedom to “wander” in the environment and discover where we can be of help. That’s why it’s so difficult for us to impress the hiring interviewer who takes endless notes as trained from endless workshops, none of which seem to have done much good.
The organization needs to fit itself to us, not the other way around. Just like education needs to discover talent rather than rubricize everything and judge people on their ability to fit the mold. As Maslow used to say, good science also involves the mundane cleaning of test tubes. And the cleaning of test tubes can be a creative act if it is in support of a cure for cancer or what not.