Al Gore delivered an exceptional talk to The World Business Forum. Whatever you think about Al Gore, his politics and his current issues, if you ever get a chance to see him speak live you should. He is a master communicator, knowledgeable, passionate, and engaging.
Even if you don’t believe, as Al Gore does, that we are facing an environmental crisis, it’s hard to deny his point that we all can do more. Because we can do more, we should do more. That’s a leadership issue. The economic and environmental challenges we face require behavioral changes at the individual, corporate, and societal levels.
That’s indeed an enormous challenge, but I agree with Gore that it is also a tremendous opportunity. As business leaders, the accuracy of Al Gore’s facts about global warming is less important than the perception our customers and employees share about the issue. If a critical mass of your customers and employees, especially the younger ones, believe that global warming is a crisis, then you are a fool to ignore the competitive perils and opportunities this presents to your business.
In his presentation yesterday, Joseph Grenny showed the audience a picture of an employee with a mouth full of French fries. He asked every member of the audience to think about how they would approach the challenge of changing the employee’s behavior from eating French fries and wasting time to getting back to and persisting with productive work. Grenny suggested that approaches to addressing this challenge involve either concluding the employee is immoral, or concluding the employee does not see the moral implications of his choices.
I think Al Gore challenges all of us to see ourselves, with respect to the environment, as someone with a mouth full of French fries. Don’t look around at others and be tempted to see them as immoral people if they hold different views than you. Whatever you believe, look at yourself and the choices you make and always consider the moral implications your choices have on others.
Leadership is making sure your behavior reflects the degree of crisis that you believe is real.
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