How: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything, Expanded Edition

September 20, 2011

How: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything

“In this new century people worldwide will rise or fall together. Our mission must be to create a global community of shared responsibilities, shared benefits, and shared values. This new focus will require all of us to think about the how, and to find new ways to take action to solve the global issues that none of us can tackle alone.”

 —President Bill Clinton from his new Foreword to HOW by Dov Seidman

In 2007, the first edition of HOW by Dov Seidman argued that we need a new approach to how we live our lives and pursue our endeavors, but nobody imagined how prescient it would become. From Bernie Madoff’s epic betrayal, to the financial crisis, to the waves of unrest in the Middle East, the biggest news stories of our new era are exposing the profound implications of the world’s increasing connectedness and transparency that Seidman warned us we would need to adapt to.

Now, in an updated and expanded edition with a new Preface by the author and a new Foreword by President Bill Clinton, HOW: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything (Wiley; September 21, 2011) is a timely call to action to adapt to what Seidman calls our new “Era of Behavior” for both individuals and organizations.

Society has changed

As our world becomes increasingly hyper-connected and hyper-transparent, we need to rethink our behavior in it. 

Since everyone can instantly see not only what we do but how we do it, the value of principled behavior has been raised from a nicety to a necessity.

Our connectedness has rendered us interdependent, even morally so, and as such we can no longer win at the expense of others but instead rise or fall together. We are more tightly bound to each other as never before and therefore we are judged by who is better at forging deep connections with others through shared values and shared responsibilities.

Individuals and organizations must adapt in order to thrive, not just survive in today’s new normal

In HOW, Seidman not only gives us insight into our changing world, but clear steps for how to reshape our behavior and leadership, individually and organizationally, to thrive instead of getting left behind.

The individuals that will succeed best in our new “Era of Behavior” are those who use behavior to their advantage by doing things like extending trust.  The organizations that will succeed are those that create environments where their people can self-govern, inspired by values instead of simply abiding by policies and following rules. “It’s a move from exerting power over people to generating waves through them,” writes Seidman. You’ll learn how leadership can be reinvented to inspire instead of coerce and motivate, and how to create a self-governing, values-driven culture in any organization.

Why adapting to How principles is urgent

Seidman shows us that HOW is the answer, and not merely a question, and it is the key to resilience in a world full of crisis, and to building enduring value, sustainability and a win-win for all in this new world.

Seidman illustrates the power of HOW with case studies and examples such as: 

• The Middle East, where popular uprisings this year have been freeing people from despotic governments so they can live according to their own sustainable values
• A donut vendor who boosted sales by trusting customers to make their own change
• The University of Michigan Hospitals and Health System, which reduced medical malpractice lawsuits against them by 50% with the unheard of strategy of apologizing
• David Toms, who disqualified himself from the Open Championship golf tournament due to actions nobody saw that might have deserved penalty strokes
• Indonesia, which aims to teach integrity with “Honesty Canteens” in local schools that replaced cashiers with open boxes for depositing payments and taking your own change

Through surprising anecdotes like these, cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields, and revealing interviews with a diverse group of business leaders, experts, and everyday people on the front lines, HOW will inspire readers to reconsider how we think, how we behave, how we lead, and how we govern ourselves to uncover the values-driven "hows" that we need to adapt to our new “Era of Behavior”. With proactive, principled performance we can outbehave the competition, navigate today’s globally interconnected world, and move beyond short-term rewards toward lasting succes

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dov Seidman’s professional career has focused on how companies and their people can operate in both a principled and profitable way. He is the founder and CEO of LRN. Since 1994, LRN has helped hundreds of companies simultaneously navigate complex legal and regulatory environments and foster ethical cultures. In 2008, LRN acquired environmental innovation firm GreenOrder. Today, LRN operates globally and reaches, works with, and helps shape winning organizational cultures inspired by sustainable values in hundreds of companies with over 20 million people working in more than 100 countries around the world. Fortune magazine called Dov the “hottest advisor on the corporate virtue circuit” and he was also named one of the “Top 60 Global Thinkers of the Last Decade” by the Economic Times. Dov became the exclusive corporate sponsor of the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity Prize in Ethics in 2008. He is a Harvard Law School graduate who also earned a bachelor’s and master’s degree in moral philosophy from UCLA and a BA with honors in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University. He has appeared on “Charlie Rose,” “Good Morning America,” and CNN.

ABOUT THE BOOK

HOW: Why How We Do Anything Means Everything

By Dov Seidman

Published by Wiley

Publication date:  September 21, 2011

Price: $27.95; Page Count: 384 pages

ISBN: 978-1118106372

 

 

For more information and an ongoing online discussion of all things HOW, please visit

www.howistheanswer.com