Leadership And The Power of Love - Fabio sgaragli at tedxnavigli

When Ferdinando got in touch with me for this event, he said: You know, I want to organize a conference on the power of love and I thought: "Well, I'm sorry for the speakers!" And then, he said: "And, I thought of you as one of the Italians speakers to invite!" And so, I'm very glad to accept this challenge, because in my life, as Ferdinando just said, I'm involved with three topics: sustainability, innovation and leadership. Inspired by the title of this conference, I asked myself what these three topics have to do with the power of love. And, as a matter of fact, I realized these three things have much to do with the power of love. What I would like to do in the next minutes is invite you on a brief journey, where I'd ask you the kindness and the honor, if possible, to suspend your judgement and welcome my invite to follow my suggestions, that have no pretence of scientific value; but the following memes are meant to inspire, but the following memes are meant to inspire, through a logic path, a reflection on these three themes, and what they have to do with the power of love. And so, let's start our journey going through this symbolic and magical Parnassuss' mirror and the first thing we find on the other side is the image of a galaxy, one among the billions galaxies existing in the Universe, existing from billions of years. To be honest, I must admit I'm not an expert in astronomy of astrophysics, but I make no secret that when I look at the starry night (and maybe some of you have the same experience) my first reaction is not trying to understand: what is this all about? How does it work? Where did it come from? and where is it going? Rather, I simply remain standing in awe, amazed and astonished by such infinite view. As Shakespeare said in the Hamlet, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. This is one of the things that resonate very deeply in me, not only looking the starry night, but when I ponder the mysteries of life and nature, I mean the fact that I see a general resistence in experiencing comfortably mystery and not-knowing. It makes us somehow vulnerable, it makes somehow sensitive, and this is something that is both attracting and fascinating, but on the other hand, propels us to search for answers, design models, make up theories, We must be confident that if I say, “Let's meet at 3 P.M.”, like the Universe or the planets or other things in our daily lives. This inability, I think, to live with the mystery and the unknown, is a capacity that has to do, among the billion planets, with our own planet. For a strange destiny, or a miracle or a cosmic joke, our planer is full of life. This image, though it's not the original one, is very similar to the image that the crew of the Apollo 8, in 1968, saw for the first time and sent to us on Earth, from their mission to the Moon. The Apollo 8 have been sent by the UN on a mission on behalf of the whole mankind, to explore cosmic space and bring back from outer space a glimpse of our planet. Well, people who have been part of that crew told that the image of our planet seen from space, in its unity and wholeness, trigggered a spiritual and transformative experience. It was the first time that the human race could see, in its entirety, the spaceship Earth floating at the center of the Milky Way. Our planet, is full of life forms that, with the exception of our species, life in harmony with their surroundings, they live connected with their environment, and connected with one another, and all mirror and reflect this underlying and substantial unity of life. These connections, this web of life, it's a recurring theme, in the Universe and our planet, if we look at this image of the connections, the active communication lines in our planet, we realize that the tendency to connect with one another is a natural pull, at every level, be it organic, scientific, technological, or simply of communications, it's an inborn and natural tendency, it's something that make us search for others, search for the difference and the Unity. Then, of course, we can question the fact that all these lines of communication actually serve to transfer meaning, or sense or vision, rather than simply allowing more and quicker financial transactions or rather overload our teenagers with information. or rather overload our teenagers after all those terrible events Anyway, the theme of the connections and unity is a recurring theme in Nature, and is present even when we look at the synaptic connections in our brains. These connections represent a web of electrical stimulation that generates ideas, thoughts, that generates new worldviews, generates dreams! It creates who we are and what we tell others. which may impress us – I, for one, certainly hate it – but I have to say, the temptation of mapping the brain, as we already mapped the human genome, withouth understaing what this mapping actually meant - maybe not yet - but we did it. And we are working to create even more detailed more precise maps of our brain, trying, once again, to crack its functioning, to understand its mechanism, instead of just admiring the fact that it is one of nature's miracles. A world that is connected and united, but a species, ours, that didn't do much work to honor. such substantial unity. We didn't do a great job, because in the course of history we built many walls, dividing people, religions, philosophies, ethnic groups. We raised tall, phisical walls, we raised frontiers. We raised walls of incommunicability in couples and relationships. We raised divisions and barriers that, in some sense, are a betrayal and an insult to this basic idea of underlying unity of our planet and our role in it. And these divisions, these walls, spring from a certain mode of thinking, a certain conception of what living together means. A certain way of conceiving the functioning of our organizations, of our societies, of our communities. That is backed by a positivist mindset, dating back to Enlightenment, that has the stance of being able to understand everything, giving up perhaps the most important thing: the meaning of being together, the sense of sharing our common destiny, the sense of interdependence, that is not just something we discovered, but that have always been, and always will be. And so, the question I asked myself, entering this conference, is: how can we reconcile progress and sustainability? How can we reconcile all these divisions, these walls that we've raised, with this basic idea of connectedness, and the feeling of being One, of being If suffering – because prison means suffering, no questions about it – How to reconcile things that seem so far away and so polarized that could hardly match? I believe that the answer is in the word innovation, a broken relationships, as in strong, personal bonds; And this something new in the world, has to do with the ability to find new ways to reconcile the opposites, to integrate the dichotomies, to transcend and go beyond them, to redesign our modes of thinking and, in so doing, reshape our organizations and institutions. Easier said than done, you might say: well, I'd like to humbly offer, two experiences, where I've been involved, during my life, that are good examples But I had the good fortune of working in the office of the Chairman, one of the most important people in the company, with 150.000 employees, in 140 countries. Together with other young idealists like me, colleagues and friends, we thought it would have been a great idea to convince this giant corporation to completely change its route and become a company that could be an exemplar of sustainability, environmentally and socially sensitive, and in so doing transforming the industry in which this company operated, and in so doing, eventually, change the world. When we started working on our project, in "stealth mode", invisibly, we had this activities funded by a group of top managers, who were very close to retirement. It's interesting this connection between the young idealists and the top managers who wished to leave to the world and the company a legacy that was not only that of having opened new offices, have conquered new markets and acquired new companies. This project lasted a few years, and led to interesting results: the company really started to reflect on itself, on its role in the world at large, started initiatives at the edge, not the center, of sustainability, environmentally and socially sensitive, and in so doing transforming the industry in which this company operated, and in so doing, eventually, change the world. When we started working on our project, in "stealth mode", invisibly, we had this activities funded by a group of top managers, who were very close to retirement. It's interesting this connection between the young idealists only 6 hours per month, and if they're sick, they can't see of having opened new offices, have conquered new markets and acquired new companies. So, imagine yourself that is, the fact that the company, recognizing the project as an official one, in some sense, it killed it's innovation impulse, its funding values. The other example is that of an African village, that I had a chance to get in touch with at the time of its founding, and also one of the next speakers is in contact with this village, a few kilometres from Harari. This village is very interesting, because it's a village that had the ambition to become a model of independent sustainability from the "state apparatus", regarding currency, electricity, food, it wanted to become an independent center, because we all know that Zimbabwe people are subdued by a dictatorship, sometimes violently. What's interesting about this village? That not only it wants to become an exemplar for the others, but wants to teach the other villages to do the same, and in so doing, fostering a virtuous cycle and what we achieved was a recognition that turned itself into killing the soul of the project itself, that is, the fact that the company, recognizing the project as an official one, in some sense, it killed it's innovation impulse, its funding values. Well, have in common three important elements: the first is that social innovation, in my experience, can happen and find breeding ground only at the periphery of the system, not in its center; the second thing I've learnt is that this process needs to be nurtured by people who believe that this can really be something new - and this has to do with leadership, I'll get back to this in a minute; the third thing is that today, in the VUCA World of independent sustainability, towards the "state appratus" We only need more critical mass, and we can see thousands of examples, all over the world. an independent center, because we all know tha Zimbabwe people are subdued by a dictatorship, sometime violently. What's interesting about this village? That not only it wants to become an exemple for the others, but wants to teach the other villages to do the same, and in so doing, fostering a virtuous circle in which, once again, a small, bottomgrass revolution is generated, an innovation that takes power off the main central structure of the State and so doing, it aims at changing the way in which the citizens live in that country. What these two experiences have in common? Well, have in common three important elements: the first is that social innovation, in my experience, This work of the leader, to bring in the world something new, is related to this image, from a famous movie, where the message is it's not the spoon that bends, it's ourselves that bend, because the spoon does not even exist. Just like the walls do not exist, the divides do not exist, all the we have put separating one another does not exist, because they are just ideas in some people's minds, and as such can be displaced by someone else's new ideas. And these new ideas, new people's ideas, can stick and can be born anywhere, but mostly in our minds, from our ideas, because "We are such stuff as dreams are made of", as Shakespeare said in the Tempest, and if we can imagine it, we can make it happen, and if we can make it happen, we can tell it, and if we can tell it, we can inspire others to do the same, and in so doing, we can re-enchant the world and try together, maybe in this room, at the end of this conference, to understand that All that happens, you write, said the Childlike Empress. No, all that I write happens she replied. And so, my invitation today, ending our brief journey together, if we understand that what is underlying is unity, and that divide and walls are only an optical illusion, and that we can bring forth change starting from chaos, and that we can do it together, writing a different story, everyone of us in his own piece of reality, maybe we will have started to understand the power of love. Thank you!