Greece

The Land of Smiles: What a Bank Can Be

A COMPLIMENT IN MONTE CARLO: I received an amazing compliment in Monte Carlo last month. A grizzled and seasoned banker looked at me owlishly over his tortoise-shell spectacles and said, “Mr. Hansen, you come from a land of smiles. But we are bankers and we care about just one thing in life: making money.”

I sat with this compliment for some time, thinking about what it meant for me personally. And, as I sat, I kept coming back to the theme of happiness. How am I happy? How is this banker happy? How is my family happy? How is this banker’s family happy? Is it really money that makes a person happy? Or is it something else?

THE HISTORY OF MONEY: When one looks at the history of money itself, it becomes very clear that the pursuit of money alone does not yield happiness. In The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson writes, “And yet the silver of the New World could not bring the rebellious Dutch Republic to heel; could not secure England for the Spanish crown; could not save Spain from an inexorable economic and imperial decline. Like King Midas, the Spanish monarchs of the sixteenth century, Charles V and Philip II, found that an abundance of precious metal could be as much a curse as a blessing…What the Spaniards had failed to understand is that the value of precious metal is not absolute…an increase in its supply will not make a society richer…”

REAL SUCCESS: The real value that people seek is an in-the-flesh connection to other human beings in the context of love. And no amount of money in the world can buy this. Maria Elita, a Greek-Australian healer, has said, “Success to me is being able to look after my grand-daughter when I can, help my children grow up respectfully, spend time with my aging parents, listen to other people’s stories of hope, kiss my boyfriend often, spend every Sunday night with my crazy Greek family, express my truth as only I can, forgive the past, embrace the future and remember The Miracle that I am. None of my success is monetary or material .. Because TRUE SUCCESS has no dollar value, cannot be measured, and does not need awards.”

My hypothesis is that the “land of smiles” is precisely where the banker in Monte Carlo wants to be. This desired place is, as Miss Elita writes, where the awards have to do with family, friends, kisses and hugs.

Now I could stop there and feel self-satisfied about this little piece I’ve written on this sunny morning with coffee, fresh orange juice, steaming croissants and love by my side.

But I won’t.

Because the journey that I want to take is with this banker. In person.

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WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS FROM BANKERS: I want this particular banker to find a way “out” of the vault of his office and into the sunlight of his family’s embrace. He has a family, he has a life outside the bank. And that family does not get enough of his presence. And, deep down, he does not get enough of their presence.

Yes, this banker likes his bank and the adventure of business. And this keeps his blood pumping. But there’s a missing piece of the story: how can he take this sense of adventure, this exhilaration of the “hunt”, this heady rush of blood that comes from successful risk-taking and turn it into a gift to humanity? How can he turn his creativity with digits into a creative act for communities, for families and for the world at large. Because that’s what the world needs from bankers now.

One of the world’s most powerful bankers, Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of Goldman Sachs, has said, “Investment bankers are just doing God’s work.” But how can bankers fulfill on this statement of Mr. Blankfein’s? Because most of the rest of the world would disagree with him.

WHAT A BANK CAN BE: Banks have always been solid pillars in society, providing a reference point with a promise of strength, stability and assurance. The bank manager has always been a respected and acknowledged expert leader in the community. A facilitator of conversation. An authoritative source of advice and assurance. But this role lessened in the age of mass distribution and mass communication. It became a game of mass advertising, selling mass product through mass distribution.

Online gathering places allow institutions such as banks to reclaim their position of community leadership. By opening up and facilitating one on one conversation within the supercharged online community environment. And as banks listen to their customers and follow their lives, a new relationship between a bank and a customer emerges. In this relationship, the bank brings a new and deeper emotional and social intelligence to working with human beings.

BANKS TAKING THEIR PROPER PLACE IN THE COMMUNITY: Banks should take their place within the community created through human-centered actions, in ways that are consistent with their institutional strength and provision. Acting in this way in the context of community, the bank will gain true human dimension: by interacting with the community and assuming its place as a pillar in society.

This is an incredibly worthwhile objective, which provides added value and a distinct competitive advantage for banks that choose this path. It’s a path bankers can lead humanity along into the land of smiles.

Inspired by Greece

The speakers at NIC 2012 – The National Innovation Conference today were truly inspirational.

About The Conference: The NIC 2012 conference IS a living community of inspired, successful and unique people who believe in Greece and the potential of Greeks. Every person at this conference is at the center of a community, a parea, a unique network that has tremendous vitality. For an example of a very dynamic slice of those present, check out the 40 Under 40, an esteemed list of young Greek leaders in North America who have excelled in their respective business endeavors and who simultaneously strive to make the world around them a better place through community involvement, philanthropy and/or volunteerism. WHEN such networks are activated fully, Greece truly will realize itself, to quote Peter Economides, as the “apple of the Mediterranean.”

George M. Logothetis, Head of the Libra Group, stood out as a leader that could very well take the helm of Greece itself. He said, “Greece is an ancient society that has overcome many difficulties. Greece just needs the ceiling of negativity and cynicism to be lifted. Let us talk about what Greece can be.” The house filled with applause at this statement by Mr. Logothetis. He went on to quote his grandfather, who said, “The impossible I can do. It is miracles that will take a little longer.”

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Paul Efmorfidis, founder of Coco-Mat Beds, encouraged the audience to “Look around you. What is around you? Work with that.” Mr. Efmorfidis went on to speak of a good business, a business that can say, “We are proud of what we are doing. Our doors are open. We do not have secrets.” Efmorfidis also insisted that “we have to be alert in this life…we have to be awake.”

THE PHILANTHROPRENEURISM PANEL: A panel discussed Philanthropreneurism, focusing on how Greeks can use entrepreneurship and new technology for the benefit of Greece. The panel included Basil Mossaidis, Director of Ahepa; Endy Zemenides, Exec. Director of Hellenic American Leadership Council; Emanuel Manoussakis, Co-Founder & CEO of Groopio.com; John Pyrovolakis, Exec. Director of Innovation Accelerator; Loukas Pilitsis, CEO of Piraeus Equity Partners at Piraeus Bank; and Kostas Mallios, VP, Intellectual Ventures.

QUOTES AND THEMES FROM THE PHILANTHROPRENEURISM PANEL:

“Think positive and be realistic.”

“Make sure creativity does not get lost during the process of setting up a new business.”

“Young professionals in Greece are choosing to live with family or groups of friends and become entrepreneurs vs. working for increasingly low wages or jobs where pay never arrives.”

“Social networks are in the DNA of Greeks.”

“Mentorship of young entrepreneurs in Greece is crucial.”

“One of the most actionable steps in the short term: familiarize young Greeks with how to connect with funding and wealth.”

“We are living a technological revolution in Greece.”

“The Israeli innovation model is what applies in Greece.”

“We need a true innovation eco-system in Greece.”

“Israelis push for leaders, they cultivate leaders, they push young leaders. This is the model we must also choose.”

“We must find leading students and teach them, involve them in internships, mentor them.”

“We must train and cultivate young Greek leaders here in America and then send them back to Greece.”

“The private sector should lead Greece.”

“We must have successful private sector leaders actively participating in hand-holding and mentoring. We must leave the State out of this.”

“In 1974, when Cypriots lost everything, Greek-Cypriots came and rallied and brought Cyprus back to health.”

“The path to integrity is through the crisis itself. This is not just a financial crisis. This is also a social crisis. The crisis itself will create honesty and integrity.”

“Corruption has happened because it can. When corruption cannot happen, then changes will happen.”

“Greece has hit rock-bottom. There is nowhere to go but up.”

“We must get those in need of menthorship in touch with mentors. Social networks can do this.”

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Stefanos Sitaras (http://www.stefanossitaras.com/), a film director and super creative thinker, asked, “How do you learn to take a crisis and become a better person through it? The mechanism of doing this is like an elevator that takes you to the very bottom where you hear negative voices and you really feel and experience the crisis within your body. And then you sacrifice all of this fear, timidness and pain. You give it up. And you eliminate your dependance. And you see who you are and rise to your best self.”

Arianna Huffington (who joined by video), said that all humans must learn to “Stop looking for the victor on the white horse to arrive and start looking at the victor in the mirror.”

Peter Economides, founder of FelixBNI, closed the conference with THE riveting and exact presentation on ReBranding Greece that has won hearts and minds the world over. He praised Athens as the city that “inspires love” and as “the most inspiring place on the planet.” Mr. Economides emphasized how “brand are a set of impressions inside of our heads…brands push the human race forward.” He insisted that Greece IS “the apple of the Mediterranean” and that it is up to Greeks to nurture this beautiful reality. Economides’ rooted his talk in the truth that “everything communicates” and that it is up to Greeks to nurture, guide and create the Greece that will be victorious.

Leda Karabela (http://yhesitate.com/) led a powerful session after Mr. Economides’ talk, in which she asked the audience to state words that captured their feelings, voice plans that could be driven by these feelings and make vocal commitments that would bring these plans to fruition. The audience fully participated with many voices chiming in and contributing to a rich close to the conference. The hall outside afterwards buzzed with conversation as networking and introductions ensued.

One could definitely say that Gregory Pappas and the Greek America Foundation put on a truly successful event, which we hope will contribute a significant slice of human capital to the growing support for Greece worldwide.

Social Business works for the Hearts of your customer first

Brands belong to everyone, not just any specific leader of a corporation or a government. ~Peter Economides

Take your passion and make it happen! ~Irene Cara

I once met a CEO who asked his CFO and CMO, “How much money and when?” I met another one, who asked, “How many hearts won and when?” If you want to build a community, try starting with Relational KPIs. It is NOT about automation. It’s about humanization. The most perennial of brands, the ones we all love, found connection via relationship.

Economic systems are often solely attached to numerical growth whereas social systems are attached to depth of connection and meaningful relationships. Perennial business is focused on social psychology vs. pure numeric results. Organically grown business is real and deep and, in the long run, far more lucrative in all respects. Humanity needs this now.

I grew up within the system of America – I am a son of corporate America and of the Church of America, both. I also grew up all over the World – I respect the spiritual and cultural traditions of the nations. The greatest organizations and individuals I met during my travels were human. H-U-M-A-N. I’ll fight to my dying breath for the mammal, for the sweat, for the emotion, for the heart. And I’ll work to my dying day for technology to be driven BY and work FOR the heart of humanity.

Karen Gritter writes, “Getting out of the “factory” and “numbers” mentality is also critical for our planet. Factory farming is destroying our soils.” Paul Farmer writes, “I work in manufacturing and I have a couple hundred people working for me and production can occur with a few mechanics and laborers because the machinery does the rest. But production done well occurs with trust and encouragement!” I would add that “factory farming” mentality is ALSO destroying our hearts.

Kate Carter of Life Chronicles (http://www.lifechronicles.org/), writes, “We at LifeChronicles love that we use technology for compassionate service to humanity-our student volunteers love that we call them Compassionate Technologists.” The robotic and the numeric MUST be “overgrown” now with flesh and filled with blood. We are human and we MUST use technologies for human ends.

Is the end goal really about numbers then? Let’s go into that mansion built by the one’s focused only on numbers and see how happy its inhabitants truly are. Now, let’s make a similar journey to the farm built by those who were focused on the heart. My hunch is that life on that farm, in spite of all the human issues, is a happier and more abundant place. And that’s the place our World needs now. A circle of Love and Trust. Not a Hierarchy of Numeric achievement.

THE FUTURE:

2012: The year the CCO (Chief Customer Officer – http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/04/the_rise_of_the_chief_customer.html) replaced the CMO, the CCO (Chief Collaboration Officer – http://www.zdnet.com/blog/collaboration/chief-collaboration-officer-hansens-cxo-challenge/1644) replaced the COO and the CSO (Chief Social Officer) replaced the CEO. We need a C-Suite that gloats over hearts won and worlds bettered vs. dollars banked and pockets lined. Once again, If you want to build a community, try starting with Relational KPIs. It is NOT about automation. It’s about humanization. The most perennial of brands, the ones we all love, found connection via relationship.

Linguistic relativity is a vital wand for transformation

“Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.” ~Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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Change comes when people talk with people. Image above of the Community Memory team in Berkeley 1973. Photo: Photo taken by and for the Community Memory Project, first published in the Resource One Newsletter, April 1974.

LANGUAGE CHANGES INDIVIDUAL THOUGHT AND COMMUNITY TAKES ACTION: I recently watched a video posted by a Greek economist that identified magic as the only method for solving the Greek economic crisis. My thoughts after watching the video went to creativity and the power of language to create one’s experience of reality. It is my firm belief that through language we can first change our own thoughts and experience and then the thoughts and reality of others. In terms of changing collective reality, we now live in a time when this has become even more possible via massively connected social networks in the digital realm. At no time in history has it been so easy to inject an idea (a meme) into the fabric of humanity and effect change.

In order to fully master this power, one must accept the principle of linguistic relativity. What is linguistic relativity?

LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY (http://bit.ly/linguistic_relativity1 + http://bit.ly/linguistic_relativity2) is a vital principle and potentially one of the most important revolutions of our time. The principle of linguistic relativity holds that the structure of a language affects the ways in which its speakers are able to conceptualize their world. Learning how language shapes thought is a HUGE step to transforming one’s life and the life of the community.

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES: One of the chief challenges to anyone wishing to create change is cultural difference. The principle of linguistic relativity IS BOTH vital INSIGHT and ACTION when one looks at the difference between how cultures thrive and how they fall apart. Some cultures orient entirely towards soma, or body, consciousness and find tremendous fulfillment through emotional connection – the artists, for instance. Others orient towards intellectual pursuit and find pleasure through mathematics and rational mapping of experience. One culture is subjective and focused on what is felt within the heart. Another triumphs objectivity and orients only towards what the five senses can know. One culture “holds it together” on the outside and has a chaotic interior life; another seems to be in chaos from the outside and has a rich emotional and spiritual heritage and experience collectively.

There are many roads to grasping the nature of cultural difference and working those differences (like a potter working clay). Getting educated in how to lead within the context of different cultures is important. Experience is the greatest teacher in this respect. What one discovers is that cultures are different AND similar.

MIND-CHANGE = LIFE-CHANGE: How does one work with a culture caught in an external and internl “downward spiral”? How does one transform that culture’s mind, its perspective. This is the important first step. As Peter Economides, a world-class branding expert and culture-changer par excellence, has said recently about the country of Greece, “Social psychology is far more important than economics. If people feel great about themselves, then they will do great things. And, if a nation feels great about itself, it will do great things. Screw economics!” The great mythologist Joseph Campbell writes, “All cultures … have grown out of myths. They are founded on myths. What these myths have given has been inspiration for aspiration. The economic interpretation of history is for the birds. Economics is itself a function of aspiration. It’s what people aspire to that creates the field in which economics works.”

Managing a fall and turning it into a victory is the action that nations like Greece are involved right now. One of the MOST inspirational clips I’ve ever seen in a film is when Eric Lidel in Chariots of Fire falls and then gets back up and wins the race. That’s what nations like Greece and the world MUST do now.

Look at this great quote by Joseph Campbell:
“We’re in a freefall into future. We don’t know where we’re going. Things are changing so fast, and always when you’re going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. And all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It’s a very interesting shift of perspective and that’s all it is… joyful participation in the sorrows and everything changes.”

The quote by Campbell matches this quote from the movie Jacob’s Ladder, where Louis, Jacob Singer’s friend, quotes Eckhart: “The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won’t let go of your life; your memories, your attachments. They burn ’em all away. But they’re not punishing you, he said. They’re freeing your soul. … If you’re frightened of dying and holding on, you’ll see devils tearing your life away. But if you’ve made your peace then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the Earth”.

A MAGIC WAND IS WOVEN OF DIFFERENT ELEMENTS: In Harry Potter, the wands are woven from different elements that match or compliment the personality and essence of the person using the wand. It’s a personalized tool for effecting change. Within Greece, there are some very powerful elements that could be woven together to effect real thought change and culture change…the basis of social psychology. Imagine combining The Atenistas (a grass-roots social change and action group) with the power of a financial institution focused on green business with a tourism that involves the visitor in the process (this last is what needs REAL creativity and NOW!) The transcendence one experiences in escaping Athens to the Greek islands IS felt BECAUSE of how hard one has worked in the city…to get in one’s car to the end of the block or wade through the red-tape of politics and business. And that motion, from city to island, is in the genes of the Greek. Capturing THAT MOTION is the key and answers lie within the very literature that gave birth to this nation chock-full of potent personalities.

TRANSFORMATION: The world needs transcendence (relief) now but this must come from having engaged at a deep level in working with the root issues and clearing out the muck. Fortunately, the world has very powerful tools like Quora and Wikileaks that combine to provide community and expert graded questions and answers to mysteries. Now that transparency is the new eco-system we inhabit, ethics has started to consume power and transform the fallout from catastrophe into fertilizer for tomorrow’s rich garden of abundance. And it is this transformative act that all of humanity IS, or ought to be, involved in presently.

One thing that comes out in myths is that at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to come. At the darkest moment comes the light. ~Joseph Campbell