The Pope & the CEO

by Andreas Widmer

  Shortly before I went on duty, I got in line with the other guards to make our calls home. When it was my turn, I spoke to my father first. I did pretty well with him. My voice didn’t crack and my face was expressionless. I was keenly aware that there was a line of men standing behind me, watching and listening in.

  Then my father put my mother on the phone. I didn’t stand a chance.

  She was crying because her “baby” wasn’t home for Christmas. I don’t know about you, but when my mother cries, I have to cry with her. I fought it as much as I could and did my best to hide it, but the tears came regardless. I hung up the phone and ran to my room, put on my uniform, and headed out for my solitary Christmas Eve guarding the papal apartments. It was dark and lonely up there, and there was nothing to do. That meant I had plenty of time to mull over my sadness and think about my family celebrating Christmas without me. I missed them terribly, and as the hours passed I worked myself into a miserable state.

  At about ten o’clock that evening, I got a call on my radio. An officer informed me that John Paul was leaving to celebrate Midnight Mass and would use my exit. I had just enough time to straighten my uniform before the door opened. A warm light from the apartment flooded my dark post. Then the pope came out. With the backlight and his splendid white robe, he looked like a heavenly vision.

  As he came out, he paused about twenty feet from me. He looked at me for some time without saying anything. Then he spoke.

  “You’re new! What’s your name?” he asked.

  I told him and he came closer, peering into my reddened eyes. He immediately understood what was going on and said, “This is your first Christmas away from home, isn’t it?”

  I replied in the affirmative, barely holding back tears as I answered.

  Yet again, he stepped closer, pausing just inches from me this time. Taking my hand with one hand and holding my elbow with the other, he pulled me slightly toward him, looked at me with his deep gray eyes, and said, “Andreas, I want to thank you for the sacrifice you are making for the Church. I will pray for you during Mass this evening.”

  That was all I needed. Someone had noticed my pain, someone had cared, and that someone was the pope himself. In the moment, I felt comforted. Now, looking back, I feel amazed. Here was the leader of a billion Catholics, at the height of some of his fiercest battles, occupied with the most overwhelming and impossible problems of the century, yet he was still sensitive enough to perceive the emotions of a twenty-year-old guard whose sole job was to blend into the background as he passed. Our roles should have been reversed—with me observing him—but they weren’t.

  Continually, John Paul II somehow managed to find the balance between pursuing a vision that impacted billions and being completely in the moment every day and everywhere. He saw both the big picture and the little picture, never losing sight of the importance of either one.

  As it does for every leader, that made all the difference.

  Know Where You Are

  A strong leader always knows where he’s going. He sees ahead. Like John Paul II, he also needs to know where he is. He needs to see what’s right in front of him.

  It continues to amaze me that in my meeting with him on that Christmas Eve in 1986—at the height of the Cold War, a time when he had millions of reasons to be preoccupied and absorbed in far more important matters—the pope noticed me. It was rather like a person noticing a chirping grasshopper in the middle of a bustling city.

  It was always like that with John Paul II. Whenever I encountered the pope, it unfailingly felt as if I was the reason he got up in the morning. He was always fully present, keenly aware of what was going on in the heart and mind of the person to whom he spoke and far more interested in what you had to say to him than what he had to say to you. No matter what other pressing concerns awaited him at the end of your conversation, those concerns were seemingly absent from his mind while he was with you.

  He was able to do that, in part, because of his vision. The fact that he had a well thought out plan of action, that he contemplated and prayed about his mission down to the smallest details, gave him the freedom and serenity he needed to live fully in the moment.

  Conversely, the only way he was able to realize his vision is because he knew how to be present in the moment. He understood the human person—with all his hopes, desires, and struggles—not because he read about the human person in a book, but because he knew specific human persons, deeply and intimately. He knew how the contemporary culture was damaging people, not because of newspaper stories, but because of the stories individuals brought to him on a daily basis.

  Likewise, his vision inspired those of us who helped him realize it, not just because it was a good vision, but because he was a good man, a man who we knew cared deeply about us and the world. He was attentive to us in the small things, and so we were all the more willing to help him out in the big things.

  One story that illustrates this was told to me by a fellow Swiss Guard, Bernard. One sweltering summer day, he stood guard at the summer residence, Castel Gandolfo, which is just outside Rome. He was in the center of the courtyard, dripping with sweat thanks to his heavy uniform and the hot Italian sun, when the pope and a few colleagues emerged from one door and walked directly into another. They never stepped out into the courtyard, just skirted around its edges as they walked from one door to the next. Bernard saluted them, but doubted at the time that they saw him.

  He, however, was wrong in the case of John Paul II. Just moments after the pope disappeared behind the door, one of the religious sisters who worked with him came into the courtyard with a pitcher of water. John Paul II thought Bernard might be thirsty, standing in the hot sun, and requested the water be sent out.

  John Paul II never failed to see those in front of him. People were never less important to him than his immediate tasks or long-term goals. That’s why his presence in the moment wasn’t just one of attentiveness, but also of understanding.

  John Paul II recognized the struggles he faced in the immediate situation. He was keenly aware of people’s resentment toward the Church, of the wounds some of his predecessors and other sons and daughters of the Church had inflicted in the past. He didn’t run from those wounds or ignore them. He recognized them, took responsibility for them, and apologized for them.

  To mark the Great Jubilee Year of 2000 and prepare the way for the Church into the twenty-first century, John Paul II offered a formal apology to the world for sins committed by members of the Church and by all Christians over the centuries. It was in that spirit that he journeyed to Israel to pay homage to the victims of the Holocaust. He was also the first pope ever to enter a mosque, and the first to visit Greece and the Orthodox Patriarch since the Eastern Church split from the West twelve hundred years prior.

  Some criticized those efforts. They thought the pope was too soft, too conciliatory, too quick to take the blame for offenses that were not one-sided. But those critics were the minority. Most praised the pope’s actions and came to respect him as a great global leader. Because he saw the present situation on the ground for what it was and took action to change that situation, he was able to take steps toward realizing his vision. By being fully aware of what was going on in the moment, he was able to lead the Church confidently into the future.

  Seeing Truth in the Moment

  Being present in the moment is equally imperative for any leader. Far too often, CEOs have the same level of awareness as the emperor in the classic children’s tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” They walk around oblivious to the truth of the situation, choosing blindness to what is obvious, while assistants and associates who do see remain silent. These executives are inattentive to the people who are a part of their vision, and unaware of the problems on the ground.

  Employees, of course, are partly responsible—the CEO holds the purse strings and it’s difficult to criticize the person holding the purse strings—but ultimately the responsibility is the CEO’s and the C
EO’s alone.

  If you want to lead your company in the right direction, you have to help people understand that you want the truth, even when the truth is hard. You have to foster a corporate culture where honesty is rewarded. You have to train your eye to discern fact from fiction and learn how be attentive to every aspect of your company’s business, from the hours the people you employ work to the quality of the product or service you offer. You have to do that because in business anything less is a recipe for disaster.

  On the most basic level, it’s a problem because a solid understanding of a company’s strengths and weaknesses is required if you’re going to steer the business in the right direction. If you’re ill with the stomach flu, but only tell the doctor you have a headache, he’s going to prescribe the wrong medicine, one that won’t do anything to cure your real ailment and might in fact make it worse. The same goes for a company’s fortunes. If you as an executive or CEO don’t have an accurate understanding of what’s going right and what’s going wrong, you’re likely to make decisions based on false premises that can, in the long run, do real damage to the company.

  Likewise, realizing your vision for your company means you have to know if the things happening in your company right now, in the present moment, are moving you closer to that vision or farther away from it. Are your HR policies just? Are they helping build company loyalty? Do people in the company feel rewarded and satisfied? Is the corporate culture helping them move closer to God and live virtuous lives? What about the product? Is it superior? Is its price competitive? How do people in the market perceive it?

  All those answers can only be ascertained by attentiveness to the present moment. Only when they’re answered in the affirmative, can you successfully pursue your vision. That’s why you have to watch, listen, and move quickly to take responsibility for whatever problems exist in the company or the public’s perception of it. You can’t pass the buck, and you can’t do your best imitation of an ostrich, hiding your head in the sand and hoping problems will go away if you pretend not to see them. Like John Paul II, you have to hear that cricket chirping in the midst of a bustling city. That cricket, after all, may be the factor on which all your success hinges.

  Know Where You’re Going

  Vision is where it starts. There’s no getting around it. Whether you’re a pope, a CEO, or an entrepreneur working out of his garage, you’ve got to have a vision. You need to know where you’re going and why you’re going there. You need goals—where you want to take the company or organization you’re leading in five, ten, and twenty years. You need purpose—why you’re doing what you’re doing. Your vision is what helps you and all those working with you realize why your work matters. It keeps you focused on what’s most important and clarifies your thoughts and actions.

  That vision is exactly the type of vision John Paul II had.

  As pope, he had a clear vision of his pontificate from the very start. In his first encyclical, Redemptor Hominis, he outlined the themes that would echo throughout his twenty-seven-year papacy: (1) Continue fully and faithfully implementing the ideals, goals, and reforms of the Second Vatican Council; (2) Promote a culture of life; and (3) Defend freedom while fighting oppression and materialism.

  John Paul’s vision was rooted in the problems all around him. He had seen in Poland what the denial of human freedom could do. He had also seen what the disregard for the sanctity of human life, which came into horrific focus in Poland under the Nazis, could do to a culture. He knew from his close, personal relationships with married couples how much help men and women needed understanding the vocation of marriage and the gift of their sexuality. He knew from his interactions with Catholics around the world, both lay and religious, that the hopes of Vatican II were going unrealized—or worse, its message perverted—in countless dioceses.

  With a clear understanding of both the why and the what, John Paul II focused with laser-like precision on pursuing his vision. He never played it safe. He went to the limits again and again in order to do what was right. That wasn’t easy, but his vision guided him through it all. It kept him faithful, and it kept him motivated. He knew what Christ was asking of him. He knew what the Church needed. He planned his days, weeks, months, and years to that end.

  Because of that, he successfully led the Church into the twenty-first century, giving it a new way of articulating ancient truths about the Faith, the human person, freedom, dignity, sexuality, politics, and more. He traveled the world in order to teach people that vocabulary, making more trips than the all of his predecessors combined. He defended the Church’s teachings at great personal risk. And in all that, he changed the lives of millions.

  The Basics of a Successful Vision for Your Business

  That same kind of planning goes into every successful business. If you want to lead your company someplace good, you’ve got to have a good vision. And what does that entail?

  Let us first look at what that does not  entail.

  A good vision is not simply seeing a way toward short-term financial profit. The ultimate goal of any business can never be profit. The relationship between profit and business is like that of oxygen and life. You need oxygen to live, but the goal of life isn’t the intake of oxygen. So too with business. Your business needs to make a profit in order to survive, but in and of itself, profit is not the ultimate goal. It’s a means to an end. That end, that ultimate purpose, is determined by your vision.

  The same goes for goals like “being rich” or “being powerful.” Those aren’t visionary. They’re selfish goals based on selfish desires. They don’t really get you anywhere. I should know.

  For years I chased after riches. No matter how much money I made, I never felt it was enough. I always needed more. My thirst was never quenched. That’s what happens to all who make money their ultimate goal. If that’s all you’re after, it will be never be enough. You will never feel satisfied. The hole won’t be filled, not for you and not for those working with you toward that goal. The emptiness that comes from pursuing something as pedestrian as wealth will undermine, rather than strengthen, your company in the long run. It will lead to compromises, burn out, and a poorer quality good or service.

  Similarly, “growth” and “success” don’t qualify as vision. Both are too vague. Growth can mean many things and, depending on what stage your company is at, it’s a fairly relative term. In strict percentages, growth for a start-up looks very different from growth for a multi-billion dollar corporation. Different types of growth are possible for the two, and they can’t be held to the same system of measurement. Likewise, growth in numbers isn’t all that matters. There are types of growth that can’t be quantified—growth in abilities, personal maturity, understanding, and wisdom. Those, however, are as important or more than growth in market size and profit shares.

  Profit, money, and simple growth can’t define a leader’s vision. So what does?

  Like John Paul II’s vision, a successful vision for a company or an organization needs to be centered on the human person. A business, after all, is a community of persons. It is made up of a group of individuals working together to serve other individuals. Whatever your vision is, it needs to take those persons into account. What do your customers, stakeholders, and employees need? Are you giving that to them? Is your work helping them live fuller, richer lives? Does it enhance or uphold human dignity? Those are the questions that keep your vision person-centered.

  Likewise, your vision should capture the imagination of those who are part of it. It should inspire employees and stakeholders, much as John Paul’s vision inspired an army of priests, religious, and laymen. Your vision needs to do this because a leader can’t realize his vision alone. It always takes more than one man to actualize goals and dreams, and if a leader’s vision doesn’t inspire and excite others, it’s not a vision that can endure.

  Seven Fund, the organization I helped found, has an overarching vision of helping struggling third-world economies find soluti
ons to poverty rooted in the principles of free enterprise. My partner and I, as well as those who work with us, share a firm commitment to the free market system and a common belief that that system is the way out for people trapped in poverty. That vision energizes us. It’s what makes us excited to walk in the door every day and gives purpose to all the mundane tasks involved in any enterprise.

  It’s easy to see how an idea like fighting poverty can be inspiring. But bringing a great product to market—a product that helps people communicate better, allows for the faster delivery of information, or facilitates family life—can be just as exciting. We’re physical creatures living in a material world, and what goes on in the material world, what we experience in our bodies, affects what goes on in our souls. You can’t make goods that are truly good and services that truly serve without in some way enriching the human experience.17 If you understand that and incorporate that understanding into your vision, your team will understand that as well. Your vision will become a source of inspiration.

  A vision needs to be challenging and all employees in the company need to earnestly do their best to live up to it. General Electric has been motivating its employees for years with a vision of bringing “good things to life.” Google says “do no evil.” ServiceMasters says “to honor God in all we do.” These are great visions, and challenging ones. And rightly so: A vision should call on people to push themselves to heights unknown and drawn on wells of talent they didn’t know they had. It should ask them to give something of themselves for the sake of others. The act of realizing the company or organization’s vision helps people become more fully themselves. That’s what will make work fulfilling. That’s what will give life to the employees as well as the customer, clients, or demographics served.