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Authority Magazine - Five Steps We Must Take To Truly Create An Inclusive, Representative, and Equitable SocietyThe key to creating a great work culture is to honor all of those perspectives and to transcend the limiting thinking of ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ There are no ‘wrong’ perspectives about our company. Each perspective is real to the person who has it. When leaders give up the idea of molding everyone to think the same way or say the same things they allow their company to enter a fresh zone of authenticity where it becomes safe for people to say what they honestly think. This quest for diversity of thought is essential at the executive level and every level of any company that wants to demonstrate respect for all voices.
The Bridgton News - Kevin Hancock’s different path to leadershipPutting my own condition together with their situation, I got thinking there are lots of ways for people to lose their voice in this world or a piece of their voice. Unfortunately, across time, leaders have done more to limit, restrict, intimidate or direct the voices of others than to free them, whether it was a company or on an Indian reservation out West. I put it all together and really got me thinking about a new, fresh approach to leadership that strengthens the voices of others and having applied that approach to our own company I got thinking about sharing those ideas more broadly which became the basis of my book, The Seventh Power — One CEO’s Journey into the Business of Shared Leadership.”
The Power of ClarityKevin Hancock of the Hancock Lumber Company attests to that: “Employees are people, and as simple as that sounds, it’s important to treat them as such. Everyone deserves to know what is at stake and everyone is capable of leading a corporate transformation in times of crisis.”
How to Make Shared Leadership a RealityHaving found a piece of my own authentic voice, I wanted to help others do the same, and a lumber company in Maine became an unlikely platform where this could occur. The new goal: create a socially transformative work culture for the 21st century in which employee engagement soars because everyone feels authentically heard.—Kevin Hancock
How to Talk to Your Boss About Your New Work-From-Home Challenges“All of us are experiencing disruption, uncertainty, and conflicting responsibilities,” Kevin Hancock, author of The Seventh Power, tells Thrive. “Trust that your boss will understand and be supportive even if you have doubts. Bosses need to hear the truth about what employees are feeling and it’s a disservice to yourself to keep your personal needs on the sideline.”
Authority Magazine“Leadership power is meant to be shared and dispersed; Everyone is sacred, has a unique voice and an essential perspective to share”
Additional book resources:
SAMPLE SPEAKING TOPICS
TOPIC: Power Dispersal and the Age of Shared Leadership
- In this talk, award-winning author, speaker, and CEO Kevin Hancock describes how losing the full use of his speaking voice to a rare neurological disorder led him to a remote Indian reservation on the northern plains, where he discovered an entire community that did not feel heard. The two events convinced Kevin that each human is here on earth in a personal quest to find and share their own unique and never to be repeated voice. Unfortunately, across time leaders have done more to restrict the voices of others than to liberate them. Kevin takes these understandings and develops and deploys a new leadership model designed to push power out – away from the corporate center – and give everyone in the organization a leading voice. The result is a high performing corporate model in which business metrics soar as an outcome of a higher calling.
TOPIC: Creating an Employee Centric Company
- In this talk, award-winning author, speaker, and CEO Kevin Hancock explains the social and economic benefits of creating an ‘employee centric company’. Work’s first mission should be to enhance the lives of the people who do it. Kevin explains how starting the flywheel of corporate success at the employee experience creates enhanced results for customers, communities, and corporations. Several long-standing assumptions about business, such as ‘the customer comes first’, ‘people make the difference’, and ‘staying in your lane’ are all revisited and reclassified as bad advice in the 21st Century.
TOPIC: Driving Employee Engagement
- In this talk, award-winning author, speaker, and CEO Kevin Hancock describes a straight-forward and tested model for driving employee engagement to record levels. According to Gallup, 34% of American workers feel inspired by their work. Globally, that number falls to 18%. At Hancock Lumber in Maine, where Kevin is the CEO, 88% of the company’s 550 employees describe themselves as engaged and energized by their company and their work. Kevin describes the processes, values, and systems the company deployed to become a six-time ‘Best Place To Work In Maine’ award recipient. Kevin concludes by positioning low engagement at work as not just an economic challenge but a social one.
TOPIC: Culture Creation Makes The Difference
- In this talk, award-winning author, speaker, and CEO Kevin Hancock explains that great people are actually everywhere, and that it is the culture of the organization that makes the difference. The culture of an organization either disperses or collects power. This is a choice that the leaders make either overtly or indirectly. Kevin shares his insights from his time on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation where he comes to understand that ‘In nature, power is dispersed’. Humans, who are a part of nature – not above it – ultimately aspire to organize in accordance with this sacred natural law. Kevin concludes by laying out a pathway for corporate change and describes how it can create social change by helping every employee feel trusted, respected, valued, and heard.
TOPIC: Healing From Within
- In this talk, award-winning author, speaker, and CEO Kevin Hancock reflects on his recovery from a thought to be ‘incurable’ neurological voice disorder, as well as his time on the remote Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Kevin concludes that Earth is the planet of wounds and that the ability to ‘heal’ is an essential human skill. Kevin looks at his own personal journey towards a cure and compares in with the journey of the Oglala Sioux Tribe at Pine Ridge, as they work to heal the ongoing wounds from their oppression and colonization in the 19th and 20th centuries.
TOPIC: Secrets to Corporate Longevity
- In this talk, award-winning author, speaker, and CEO Kevin Hancock looks at the history of his company, Hancock Lumber (established 1848) and ponders the ingredients that have allowed the company to continuously reinvent itself across three centuries of American history. Kevin reflects on the company philosophy of ‘always changing to remain the same’ and the importance of using core values as a guidepost for long-term success.
TOPIC: From Overreaching to Restraint
- In this talk, award-winning author, speaker, and CEO Kevin Hancock examines the tendency of leaders across history and diverse cultures to overreach, and go too far. Kevin describes his first-hand experiences on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, as well as his time with Holodomor survivors in the Ukraine as examples of how leaders often abuse their power and take too much from the communities they have responsibility for. Overreaching has consequences and ultimately collapse back upon those who do it. Kevin then describes a new leadership path built on restraint, which he describes as having the power to control others, but not exercising it. In the past, leaders often took and held power by overreaching. In the 21st century, Kevin suggests, truly effective and lasting influence will increasingly only be gained through restraint.