Lindsay Levin - Invisible Giants: Changing the World One Step at a Time

What readers have said

Invisible Giants is a generous offering, deeply personal and beautifully written in clear, engaging prose. It demonstrates, rather than simply explains, why Leaders Quest has transformed the personal and work lives of the individuals who have joined these journeys.

Tom Glocer, former CEO of Thomson Reuters

An important and enjoyable read for business leaders who want to better understand the complex relationships between people, culture, attitudes and opportunities that shape our world. Invisible Giants challenges us to think differently about business and the role of leaders. Reading it is, in itself, an inspiring journey, with wonderful stories of exceptional people beating the odds to accomplish extraordinary things.

Bob Bechek, Worldwide Managing Director, Bain & Company

Many have written about leadership. Invisible Giants explores its moral meaning. How can we connect with what really matters and find an inner voice that changes the way we see our work? Lindsay Levins organisation leads transformative personal experiences and she writes beautifully about success and failure. She seeks inspiration from grassroots leaders, and takes people to worlds they never normally encounter. Seeing this awaken leadership potential is incredibly exciting.

Koy Thomson, Chief Executive, Children in Crisis

Every corporate leader who yearns to redefine the role of business-beyond-profit should read Invisible Giants. Lindsays quest takes us to Indian slums and South African prisons, but most importantly on a transformative inner journey one which starts with curiosity, grows into compassion and leads to courageous actions, changing the world one leader at a time.

Virginie Helias, Global Director, Sustainability, Procter & Gamble

Invisible Giants is truly inspiring. Lindsay Levins work takes her to places where committed people are transforming lives. Its not about privileged do-gooders who clamour for media attention, but about karmayogis: people who bring about change in quiet and purposeful ways. It contains powerful lessons for everyone, including business leaders, who, says Lindsay, can learn to put social purpose at the heart of company identity.

Anu Aga, Chairperson, Teach For India; Director, Thermax Limited; Member of Parliament, India

Invisible Giants is an extraordinary, warts-and-all account of an evolving cultural revolution designed to jump leaders into 21st century realities.

John Elkington, Executive Chairman, Volans Ventures; Co-founder of Environmental Data Services (ENDS) and SustainAbility

Invisible Giants

~ Changing the world one step at a time ~

Lindsay Levin

Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and Philadelphia

First published in 2013, 2017

by Jessica Kingsley Publishers

73 Collier Street

London N1 9BE, UK

and

400 Market Street, Suite 400

Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA

www.jkp.com

Copyright Lindsay Levin 2017

Cover design by Sue Gent www.lupercaliadesign.co.uk

Typography by Michaela Meadow www.michaelameadow.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying, storing in any medium by electronic means or transmitting) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the law or under terms of a licence issued in the UK by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd. www.cla.co.uk or in overseas territories by the relevant reproduction rights organisation, for details see www.ifrro.org. Applications for the copyright owners written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.

Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work may result in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 78592 740 9

eISBN 978 1 78450 474 8

For Mum and Dad

and

for Naidu

About Leaders Quest

Leaders Quest works with people from all walks of life from CEOs of multinational companies, to grassroots organisers who use their unique influence to create positive change in the world. It designs experiential learning journeys which enable them to ask tough questions about business, society and their own leadership, and look for answers together.

All know that the drop merges into the ocean,
but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.

~ Kabir

Contents

Introduction

What Really Matters?

R emember when you were in school? asked the CEO from Chicago. And there was this really nerdy kid, with no friends, and everyone you included made fun of him?

It was the last night of a busy week in China. I was accompanying a group of leaders, from diverse backgrounds and countries, who had travelled with me to Beijing and Sichuan Province. We were here to explore Chinas culture, to meet people from different walks of life, and to think about our own leadership roles. Like many in the group, the man from Chicago had started out feeling suspicious and rather fearful of the Chinese and their rapidly changing landscape. But now, as we sat together over dinner, reflecting on what wed seen and heard, he had some new perspectives.

Hed spent six days meeting the bosses of big businesses, professors of geopolitics and internet entrepreneurs. Hed toured a factory where twenty thousand workers made shoes, eaten lunch in a canteen which served four thousand in a single sitting, then met with managers to discuss supply chains and dwindling profit margins. Hed watched children fly kites and couples dance the tango in the morning light of a Beijing park, then taken the metro to one of Chinas most respected universities, to talk with students about their dreams for the future. Hed even spent the night in a remote, northern village, where hed shared a two-room house with three colleagues, a farmer and his family, in temperatures that reached minus fifteen degrees.

And at some point during the week, a small encounter, or perhaps a chance accumulation of them, had awakened in him a new appreciation of who he was and how he was connected to everyone around him. It was a subtle shift, a magical moment. Something had clicked into place and hed seen the world afresh.

I feel like, this week in China, I got to sit down and have lunch with that nerdy, ostracised kid from my classroom, he said. I got to know him and I started to understand him. I learned who he is and why he behaves the way he does, and I discovered I could relate to him. I found that I even liked him. Im going home tomorrow with a lot more compassion in my bones.

~

This is a book about leadership and choices in life. Its about some of the people Ive met throughout the course of my work, each of whom is a leader, though not always in a conventional sense. These are the invisible giants of my story people who emerge to lead in the most vulnerable situations, inspiring energy and confidence in those around them. They are leaders who battle against adversity, who overcome the disadvantages of a poor or non-existent education and a lack of material resources. They are female activists in marginalised communities, who campaign to end domestic violence and the exclusion of girls from school. They are business executives who choose the uphill task of trying to embed social accountability into their companies, one step at a time, despite resistance. And finally, they are the people you and I meet every day, who are changing the world in their own way, through the choices they make in their lives. This is a book about the ability, deep within all of us, to make our voices heard.