Chapter 2: A Surprise Announcement

Chapter 2

A Surprise Announcement

Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

— Mark Twain

Hopping Along

The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of an insight, is an act of intuition.

Such intuitions give the appearance of miraculous flashes,

or short-circuits of reasoning.

— Arthur Koestler

At the start of 1995, I began studying and practicing meditation. Pleased with the results I felt in terms of increased calmness and mental clarity, I encouraged Carol Coles to do the same. She, too, was pleased with her experience. We decided we wanted to go even deeper into this discipline and devoted much of our spare time over the spring and summer to taking an advanced program to learn, among other things, levitation. I had visions of floating around in the air 30 feet off the ground; it was exciting to contemplate.

         The reality was quite different from my daydreams. We actually learned to hop in the lotus position. A typical hop was a few inches off the ground. Fortunately, all this hopping provided other mental benefits.

         Our instructors kept emphasizing that this discipline was independent of our religious beliefs. I began to realize why they repeated this point so often: With more meditation, my thoughts were increasingly focused on spiritual matters. My prayer life was enriched as well as my Bible study.

         At the end of this training, I immediately flew off (by plane) for salmon fishing in Labrador with one of my CEO clients. I spent many hours pleasantly casting my line in the virtual solitude of the wilderness on a sparkling river. I didn’t care if I caught any fish. The experience was like a week-long meditation.

         When I returned from the fishing trip, I kept waking up at about 3 a.m. and wasn’t able to get back to sleep. I could feel an idea trying to come to life inside me, but I couldn’t identify it. After a few such nights, I began to spend these sleepless hours in prayer. Weeks passed, and I was getting pretty foggy and tired even though meditation is supposed to help with concentration and alertness. I wondered if I had somehow overdone the meditation.

         Then, one morning at around 3:45 a.m., I felt a warm presence fill the room. In response, my body temperature seemed to rise and I felt deliriously happy. A voice that I didn’t recognize filled my mind and told me in tones that were more resonant and powerful than James Earl Jones on his best day that I should hold a meeting for all of my clients to celebrate and share their greatest accomplishments on the autumnal equinox. At the end of the meeting, I should announce that I would be starting a 20 year project to find ways for the whole world to make 400 years of normal progress in only 20 years, beginning in 2015 and finishing in 2035. For the next few weeks, I could think of little else.

         What had happened? I prayed over the experience quite a bit and concluded that God had sent me a message. Why me? I have no idea. Maybe He couldn’t find anyone else crazy enough to take on such an impossible task. I certainly felt that only God would know how to do it.

         Why that timeframe? I don’t know, but it later occurred to me as I wrote this book that the 2000th anniversary of Jesus’ resurrection would occur during 2015-2035. Perhaps that was an important connection. But who knows except God?

         How would I pursue this project? I had no idea, not even a clue. All I knew was that I was supposed to make this announcement at the autumnal equinox.

         I quickly organized the meeting. Clients graciously agreed to fly in to share their triumphs and lessons with one another. We were able to reserve my favorite room for such meetings at the Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan.

         Not knowing how anyone else would take the announcement of the new project, I decided to keep it to myself. I also had the impression that my instructions were to keep the project private until the announcement. Otherwise, why make the announcement then rather than sooner?

         Realizing that something important might happen, I pressed one of my children into creating a video of the whole event.

         As the weeks passed before the equinox, I was strangely calm even though I often felt like I was standing at the top of a tall building about to walk into space.

The Curtains Part

Action springs not from thought,

 but from a readiness for responsibility.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I don’t normally get nervous before a big event; usually I’m quite calm. When the morning of the event came, I found myself very excited instead. I was looking forward to making my announcement. How would everyone react?

         And normally I wouldn’t have exposed clients to so many speakers without having rehearsed the speakers … or at least gone through quite thorough briefings. But this time, I had simply told everyone what aspect of their experiences I hoped they would share and gave them complete leeway for how to tell their stories. One reason I felt comfortable with this approach was my sense of the absolute integrity that these outstanding executives always used to guide their lives.

         The talks turned out to be amazingly good. I couldn’t have possibly improved what they said, even if I had spent weeks with each person. Clearly, the speakers were inspired by the occasion and the honor they felt at being asked to share their knowledge with the group. They had prepared very carefully and thoroughly. In addition, each speaker dug deeply to share powerful personal experiences that had not been related in public before.

         Here’s an example: One CFO wanted to share the many ways that he got ordinary people to speak with him candidly about what was going on in his organization. His usual method? He dressed up like the other employees and began pushing a broom, moving boxes, or just doing whatever everyone else was doing. Most people assumed he was a new employee. Within a day or two, people opened up to the new guy. No one ever realized that he was from corporate headquarters.

         To communicate what he learned, he would wear other costumes and role play for his audiences. For instance, after concluding that the organization’s board had been too loose with the purse strings, he dressed as Scrooge and said a lot of “Bah, humbug!” at the next budget review by the board.

         On that day, the CFO dressed up as Albert Einstein (fright wig and all) and gave us equations for making breakthrough progress. It was an unforgettable performance, and the audience loved it! He was greatly moved by the reaction he received.

         As one spectacular talk followed another one, I felt like I was on top of the world.

Now, How Shall I Put This?

Just do it.

— Nike advertisement

Sometime after lunch, I had a disquieting thought. While my clients had obviously put enormous effort into their presentations and talks, I hadn’t prepared very much beyond some bare bones slides about how much progress would normally occur in 400 years. Yikes! I also realized that I still hadn’t any idea of how I would work on or organize the project I had been inspired to pursue. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I had much experience in extemporaneous speaking so I knew I would come up with something to say.

         So as the speakers continued to wow the audience, I found myself beginning to jot down a few notes. What about asking for help? That seemed like a good place to start. I could clearly hope to accomplish more on this project if these great executives were working with me. Why not have a steering committee consisting of outstanding executives as each of our learning organizations did?

         What about how to work on the project? Having meetings to discuss research plans and results had worked well for the various learning organizations such as Share Price Growth 100. Perhaps we needed another organization for this purpose. Why not call it Twenty Times Progress and invite all of our clients to participate at no charge?

         How often should we meet? Well, there are two equinoxes each year. Why not meet on each date? That would make it easy to remember the dates.

         What should I tell people about how the results would be gained? Since I had no clue, it seemed best to be candid and tell them that I didn’t know what the next step was.

         Why should anyone care? I needed to explain about how the generations that follow us would be deprived of their potential to live fuller lives unless we figured out how to capture the unemployed potential that was waiting to be implemented.

         With those thoughts in place, I sat back and enjoyed more presentations after an excellent lunch.

The Listeners Gape

No man would listen to you talk

if he didn’t know it was his turn next.

— Edgar Watson Howe

How would I have reacted if someone had invited me to such an event and then sprung an announcement of the sort I was about to make at the end? I probably would have been puzzled. Why? If the announcement was so important, why not make that announcement in the beginning and spend the day working on practical details?

         My instinct had been quite different: Help everyone see how much untapped potential there was in the world by spotlighting what some outstanding people were already doing, and then excite everyone about doing something to grasp even more untapped potential. I had another incentive to put my announcement at the end and keep it brief: I really didn’t know any more than my listeners did about what to do next. How long can you spend telling everyone that you propose to blindfold yourself and lead them forward while they wear blindfolds as well? You can debate the best kind of blindfolds to wear, but the point isn’t very interesting compared to describing the route for a successful journey.

         I was reminded of levitation. The first clear hop for the project was to 2015 when we would have spelled out how to make 400 years of progress from 2015 to 2035. The next clear hop was to celebrate the results in 2035, God willing that we were all still alive then. The third hop was to draw on the successful experience to launch an even better improvement method after that.

         Suddenly brimming with confidence, I rose to make a few brief remarks. I remember clearly how everyone was smiling as I commented on and thanked each speaker for remarkable insights and candor.

         Then I began explaining the 400 Year Project, as I began calling it that day. I’m afraid that I didn’t explain the idea nearly as well as I do now … and I need to improve my current explanation quite a lot.

         The smiles soon began to fade and were replaced in many cases by puzzled looks and dropped jaws. Realizing that I was losing some of my audience, I decided to keep my remarks even shorter than I had initially intended and to use most of my time to answer questions.

         But I was encouraged to see some people smiling more brightly, even if their faces showed some puzzlement.

Helpers Rush Forward

There are fifty ways to leave your lover,

But only six exits from this airplane.

— Southwest Airlines announcement

Fortunately, such outstanding leaders as those who attended that gathering were accustomed to the idea of stepping out to make a major commitment without knowing exactly how to proceed. Someone mentioned that it was like when John F. Kennedy first became president and proposed sending an astronaut to the moon and back before 1970. A number of people quickly came forward to wish me good luck and to offer their assistance. Before the afternoon was over, we had a steering committee of terrifically talented people. I promised to keep them informed of our progress and reminded them to save the date for the vernal equinox in 1996.

         Buoyed by that reaction, I wanted to find out what my Mitchell and Company colleagues had to say. They expressed more reserved support. How would I be able to pursue such a large project and still lead our consulting firm? What would their roles be? I had no easy or reassuring answers for them. I acknowledged their concerns and promised to keep those concerns in mind as I organized the project.

Missing Links

Art is lone, life short;

judgment difficult, opportunity transient.

— Goethe (adapting the words of Hippocrates)

Knowing what I do after 11 years of heading the 400 Year Project, I realize that many good opportunities were missed that day. For example, given that the project was aimed at helping everyone, I should have announced the project more publicly and invited others to join in after the announcement at our Four Seasons meeting. Knowing how idealistic many young people are, I also should have invited interns from colleges and business schools to work on the project. It would have been a good idea to have had a Web site ready to go, for instance, to make continuing connections. But, of course, there wasn’t enough time to have done all those things.

         I also should have proposed worldwide contests to find solutions to key barriers to progress as Goldcorp and Procter & Gamble later showed to be so effective for enhancing results many times faster than before. With such contests in place from the beginning, who knows what might have been learned earlier in the project? But, unfortunately, that learning was still in the future, and no one knew those lessons at the start of the project.

         Most significantly, I probably should have asked Peter Drucker to help me plot the path to success before announcing the project. But I felt like I was supposed to do this announcement on my own; I have no idea why I had received that message. Perhaps it was just to make me feel more personally responsible for the results. In subsequent meetings, Peter, Carol, and I discussed the project many times. Peter made many important suggestions that proved to be crucial to the project’s progress.

Commitment Builds and Turns into Great Confidence

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence,

and then success is sure.

— Mark Twain

Perhaps the most important effect of that autumnal meeting was to make me feel like I owned the responsibility to make this project work. After all, none of my clients or colleagues had asked me to take this on. Most of them were concerned about the impact on me and my business of attempting such an enormous task; their willingness to support this blind task was, however, very encouraging to me. By the end of the day, my confidence was at an all-time high. In fact, my confidence was higher then than it is now, even though I now know how to create 400 years of progress in a generation.

         Perhaps that’s an essential element of leading a project like this to a successful conclusion: You need to feel overwhelming confidence. I thank God for giving that confidence to me.

Copyright © 2007. 2012 by Donald Mitchell.