Learning to be a hero is more important than you might think.
Article by Brooke Allen, Interview by Adrienne Rodney and Brooke Allen.
Last summer we interviewed Dr. Phillip Zimbardo about his Heroic Imagination Project.
Before we met Dr. Phillip Zimbardo it wasn’t clear what a hero is or how frequently we all are presented with opportunities to be one. Zimbardo defines heroes as people who put themselves at risk for the benefit of others. Altruism is “heroism lite” – helping others without expectation of gain. When most people say someone is a “hero” they really mean “role model.” Sports figures, celebrities, or business leaders may or may not be good role models, but few are well known for heroism.
Phil Zimbardo is perhaps the greatest living psychologist. He has been the president of the American Psychological Association, hosted the 26 episode PBS series titled Discovering Psychology, and authored many books, including a favorite, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. But Phil is most famous for the Stanford Prison Study conducted 40 years ago.
Please, take a few minutes to watch our interview and then answer a few questions.
____
Can you imagine being a hero, or even wanting to be one?
Before you answer, can you imagine the following conversations?
Conversation #1: Saleswoman, “May I tell you about our product?”
Prospect, “Possibly. But first, would you ever lie to a customer?”
Saleswoman, “Let’s just say that I will never let my children starve.”
Prospect, “Are you married? Does your husband have a job?”
Saleswoman, “Yes and Yes.”
Prospect, “Sometimes it feels like there are more unemployed unwed mothers feeding their children than there are honest salespeople.”
Saleswoman, “Whatever. Now, may I tell you about my product?”
Prospect, “No.”
Conversation #2: Hiring manager, “I have lots of unemployed friends. Would you mind if I introduced one of them to fill the vacancy you’ll leave behind?”
Job Candidate, “I would not recommend anyone do my job because my job requires I do unethical things.”
Hiring manager, “Then I can’t hire you because you are saying you are the most unethical person in the world. You do things so unethical you would not recommend anyone else on the planet do them other than you. You think it is ok to be unethical as long as it isn’t your idea.”
Conversation #3: College Career Officer, “Last year I told our president that for three years every graduate from one of our departments has been unable to get a job in their field, and I feel an obligation to disclose this fact to our students. He ordered me to stop keeping track and never disclose this fact because, as he said, ‘What am I going to do with the department? Don’t be selfish; think of your colleagues.’”
Friend, “What did you do?”
Career Officer, “I did what he said. What else could I do? I’m not selfish.”
Conversation #4. Job Candidate, “After 21 years of competent and loyal service I uncovered some shenanigans in one of our divisions. My boss and his boss didn’t seem to care so, after exhausting all internal options I quit and went to the regulators who nipped it in the bud. Although it cost me and two layers of management our jobs, I saved the shareholders boatloads of money. Now I’d like to do the same thing for your shareholders.”
Hiring Manager, “When can you start?”
____
I (Brooke) can imagine conversations #1 through #3 because I’ve personally participated in similar ones.
I can imagine the fourth only because I have an active imagination.
Phil Zimbardo believes we all need to imagine having conversations like #4 and we should never find ourselves involved with the first three.
He started his Heroic Imagination Project in San Francisco where he is raising money to sponsor heroism research and to educate people on how to be everyday heroes. He told us that, while you might benefit from a heroic act, it cannot be your motivation.
Not only do we need to strive to do the right thing every day, we must “Learn to love the whistle blower.” He should know. He had a whistleblower for his 1971 experiment. A recently minted doctorate in psychology, Christina Maslach was appalled at the change in Phil’s personality and behavior while he was conducting his prison study. She called him on it. They married the following year.
Do you want to be a hero?
Don’t your customers, employees, employers, students, shareholders, loved ones, and future generations need you to at least try?
You can learn more about what it means to be a hero by watching our interview with Dr. Zimbardo and then visiting The Heroic Imagination Project website to learn how to imagine being one and to help the cause.
And, while you’re here, please post a comment.
We are particularly interested in a story about a hero in your life, or a situation where you wish there was one on hand.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
35 Responses to Can You Imagine Being a Hero?
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WATCH THIS VIDEO to hear Daniel Pink describe what motivates people to work. This is what No Shortage of Work is all about.
If you are unemployed, you are autonomous. We help with purpose and mastery. If you are employed, find purpose in helping those who are not. NSoW is not a commercial venture; it is created by people who believe that creating something of intrinsic value is compensation enough. (Note: We are not affiliated with the producers of this video or Daniel Pink.)
Until now I had not seen the compelling film “The Danish Solution,” about how the Danish leaders and people wholeheartedly helped Jews during the second
World War to escape captivity and the incredible pain and conditions they
would otherwise have been exposed during Nazism. Many thanks for that
reference Brooke. It makes me very proud as a Dane to know of this exemplary behavior.
Likewise, your father must have been a very wise man and great father, including his answer to your question as a teenager trying to ferret out your family history asking him “if you were Jewish,”,and he said, that if you wanted to know what he wanted you to be “If they come to round up the Jews, I want you to be Jewish.”
I do very much agree that it may never make any difference what color, religion, social status or otherwise where we people are coming from. In contrast, our differences and individualism across cultures, beliefs, appearance and origin really are an enrichment for us humans. For me some of the heroes of today are in particular people who fight for the right to be our origins, individuals and beliefs, such as the “Aboriginals” in Australia or the Indians of America. Isn’t it fantastic for us humans living among each other with different cultural origins, seeing the world from different perspectives and having the possibilities to learn from each other?
Likewise it is for me exemplary, the people who are struggling to keep
mother nature in her own proper shape and element, as well fighting for the wildlife in their natural condition. Isn’t it great to know there are still real wilderness with no marked trails, and unbridged rivers being home for wild animals and origin nature people speaking languages which you have never known or heard before? I mean just to know its there, and we shouldn’t … may not change it.
Raoul Wallenberg.
Thanks to all who have completed the survey and just in case you haven’t you can find it at:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PK32ZND
Thanks Terry
I have my own saying “Ethics is like breathing”. Heroes have ethics, it is inside them and they will prove it many times by talking decisions, very hard ones sometimes, to protect others. Sometimes when one is entitled to seek justice as a human being, but in doing so one will hurt people that are innocently caught in that situation; then one needs to go the hard way and understand that there is no justice that can be achieved while destroying other people’s lives.
I have many heroes – all those people I saw doing things unselfishly for the benefit of others and often times with personal loss. There are many more than you may think, but they prefer to keep anonymous because they don’t do it for recognition.
Brooke, I was never much of a hero type person. However, there are three men I have admired all my life; my grandfather, my father, and my uncle George.
Grand pop because he never was afraid of attempting anything. Fixing a car, building a motorcycle in the kitchen or electrical work that nearly killed him. He lacked just enough common sense to allow himself the opportunity of learning something new.
My father for his strong belief to honesty and devotion to his family. I’ve have seen him take adversity in his relationship with his family members that would typically have lead lesser people to cut their ties. However, he was always the peacemaker and the go-between that kept everyone talking to each other either directly or through him as a conduit. He has the patience most men could only dream of knowing.
Finally there was my Uncle George and Dad’s best friend. As a young teenager, he encouraged us to tear apart his prized Corvair rear engine car and rebuild it. His willingness to step back and watch his 13 year old son and nephew pull the engine, take it apart and then attempt to put it back together took a special type of person. He permitted us to fail and kept the spare motor in the back of the garage for insurance. If we couldn’t rebuild the old engine on Saturday, we got to drop the spare motor in in the Corvair for a second chance at success on Sunday. Helpful hints and lunch were only provided by my uncle if asked for. Otherwise we were on our own. The mistakes from the first Saturday always became the new lessons for the next Saturday. The third engine was kept off site by my uncle at the neighbors. The one my cousin and I knew nothing about until we were 21.
I looked up Zimbardo’s “Prison Project Study” — scary. I see why he is on a hero quest — it is so possible for us to turn our energies toward torture of others rather than helping others. There are so many guises and grey areas of behavior, or so we convince ourselves.
I couldn’t think of any heros. I wanted my hero to be female so that I could more readily identify. Women, of course, have their own sets of issues in finding work. We shouldn’t have to trade sex for work but it is still done in so many subtle and not unsubtle ways.
I heard a lecture over the holidays by biographer Lynn Haney on Josephine Baker. Baker pops up on my radar screen every few years. She was from St. Louis, African-American, lived in abject poverty and left school at age 8 to work washing floors, pushed hard to become a star performer. Sex for work was part of the picture, but she retained a vibrant capacity to enjoy sex without being victimized by it. She became the toast of Paris in the ’20s, and ended up in the south of France at a castle in Sarnac with a rainbow community of a dozen adopted children from around the world. The children didn’t capitalize on the legacy. A 13th child, not formally adopted, now runs a restaurant called Chez Josephine in New York.
I think most people when asked about being a hero will think it is a possibility or opportunity that they will likely never encounter. Rushing in to save someone in a burning building, etc. However, the opportunities are present daily in small doses. I equate it to “living extraordinary”. Meaning, extra ordinary. Ordinary people fall in line and over time act as lemmings. Conditioned not to respond in heroic situations. Extraordinary living is consciously assessing ahead of time how you will react in certain situations. How will you engage with someone who is different than you in manner that shows respect and welcoming – possibly in a way that the person is unaccustomed to receiving. Will you defend a person’s character who is not present when coworkers are defaming them, without any intentions of the victim knowing your stance and accepting the repercussions of your peers or possibly your superiors? There’s lots of examples. I think the key is for people to consciously assess how they should act versus how they have been conditioned to act.
It is easier to find examples of dishonesty than ethical behavior, especially in difficult economic times. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac distorting financial returns for personal compensation; Congress legislating community redevelopment to place lower income people in mortgages they could not afford; rating agencies and financial institutions trading commissions for uneconomic bond deals; financial institutions discriminating against minorities with higher loan costs than similarly qualified white applicants; deception on mortgage applications encouraged by realtors; governments misstating their ability to repay debt; brokerage firms using customer funds to take large bets for higher executive compensation -an endless list. And these occurring while having SOXs and Dodd-Frank to stop abuses.
I believe that dishonesty is a constant human battle we face to find our moral compass true north. And a necessary evil that shows we are human. Go back in time to the industrial revolution where we praised the “industrialists” for their inventions and modernizations, but also called them “robber barons” in the next breadth. Great philanthropists and foundations to better address social needs come from those who may not be happy with their conscious and are confronting their mistakes by giving back-the Nobel prize and Dr. Zimbardo’s scholarship programs on heroism are examples of these.
We should not be afraid of these human failures but use them to discuss how important it is to be aware of the different situations that we face in life and business. Here failure is an option that may sometimes happen and is not pure black vs. white unless it leads to extremes like genocide. But we need to have consequences for bad behavior in business. Recent examples do not provide this moral comfort of learning from mistakes-this is an important change that needs to happen in business.
Social entrepreneurship today is one new business model that is combining social change with profitability.
My heroes are my parents who worked 80 hours a week making an honest living to provide for their family. Others I admire are new women CEOs showing social responsibility and moral character that business today is lacking – such as Indra Nooyi of Pepsi and Denise Morrison of Campbell Soup. Not enough women in finance today at all levels to help develop the moral compass. And of course Gandhi (Mr. and Mrs.!), the Dali Lama, Mohammed Yunus, and my classmate who founded one important socially responsible investment family of funds.
Thanks for this important discussion thread.
Susan Hume, PhD
With all due respect, the concept that business must make profit at the expense of integrity is, itself, an idea that lacks integrity.
Here’s the problem: If one believes that business people are only out for a quick buck, no matter the cost, then when one does business with them, one is rewarding their bad behavior.
Or more clearly: If you think all businesses are dishonest and you do business with them, then you are part of their dishonesty.
Whith my business, I have a choice: Compete through dishonesty or compete with honesty. I use integrity as a selling point but not as a marketing tool. That is, I demonstrate my integrity in all my business dealings, and learn later that my new clients have come to me because my current clients have told them about my high level of integrity.
Hindsight is 20/20, but one can almost always find someone who could see the dishonesty of their bosses at Enron or the stovepiping of the FBI and was speaking publicly about it before the rest of us decided to notice.
This is why some of my heroes are the folks who post through Wikileaks.
Hi,
Dr.Zimbardo’s project seems to pre-suppose that the everyday hero has the benefit of others in mind when he starts out. Is this pre-supposition true? Isn’t it possible (perhaps probable) that the everyday hero does what he does because of an unwavering urge to do ‘the right thing’ and enjoys the benefits of a clear conscience afterwards? If the latter is true, then the chances of finding everyday heroes (as defined by Dr. Zimbardo) around us seem pretty dim?
I believe that the heroes who satisfy Dr.Zimbardo’s definition are far fewer in number. Perhaps a Mother Teresa, Mahatma Gandhi or Aung San Suu Kyi and such others from around the world would fall in this category.
Brooke described here (and on LinkedIn) an incident where he spoke of a class laughing at his suggestion that integrity is important. He asks:
1) Is integrity important?
2) How do you determine if job candidates have it, or even what the word means to them?
3) If you ask, “Who are your heroes?” will you get a clue?
4) Who are your heroes?
1) Is integrity important? (from the perspective of a candidate for a job)
Yes. Integrity is nothing but asserting/acknowledging what one believes is the Truth and it is the single most important thing that a potential candidate can possess. I will tell you why…
When you discover that a candidate does not possess integrity, it means only one thing – that the candidate wants you (or someone else) to believe something other than the truth. This in turn means that you cannot be sure of what one perceives about the candidate. And when you are not sure, would you hire?
So in conclusion, the one thing called ‘integrity’ can spell the difference between getting hired or rejected for a candidate. Tell me, is it important?
2) How do you determine if job candidates have it, or even what the word means to them?
One way would be to run a good psychometric test, I suppose. If that is not practical, then we can resort to a more down-to-earth method – to give the candidate the time, opportunity and the incentive for either being dishonest or revealing a dishonest past.
The more time you spend interviewing the candidate, the greater the chances of dishonesty getting revealed. So is the case when there is a strong incentive sensed by the candidate for being dishonest. I would leave it to your imagination to device these tests.
I do not believe there is any point in asking a candidate about integrity because you would probably get a prepared answer and not necessarily a glimpse of the character of the candidate. Character is usually revealed when the candidate’s behaviour goes under the scanner.
3) If you ask, “Who are your heroes?” will you get a clue?
Such a question is a cakewalk for the prepared candidate and in most cases, does not reveal the true picture. So why bother asking?
4) Who are your heroes?
Frankly, every single human being presents a fascinating study and is a hero for me. I just have to dig deep enough inside them to find out why.
Ajith Sojan
I like how Dr Zimbardo points up the capacity for heroism in everyone. It can be as small a step as being open and honest about what you think, or pursuing your own path and not conforming to peer pressure. At the extraordinary end of that spectrum for me is Sophie Scholl.
The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
You cannot determine integrity in one interview, or two or three. Integrity is a quality that proves itself over and over again, like trust, which has to be earned over time. To ask that question is futile, for everyone will answer yes if they’re not stupid. Without integrity, however, you have nothing, for your reputation is really all that you have that follows you wherever you go. There’s obviously a woeful lack of it in today’s world, especially in business, as we’ve have seen by the failure and downfall of so many major corporations.
As for heroes. Well, there’s a big difference between heroes and idols and the two are often confused today. A hero can be someone admired for his achievements and noble qualities, or one who shows great courage. Admiration of those who are esteemed really doesn’t tell me much, I feel. Those are personal choices for very personal reasons. Not everyone is going to choose a Gandhi or an Einstein or a JFK or Michelangelo. Some may choose Babe Ruth or their father or uncle, perhaps someone they worked with at one time. I think a better question would be what traits or characteristics do you feel make up an admirable man. Or, what do you aspire towards in this life? Then you will get honest answers about the person himself instead of pat answers of some mythical figure.
My heroes are few. Possibly the common man who struggles with life everyday to do good instead of evil, who is fair, unprejudiced, open to new ideas and willing to discuss them without bias or with an agenda to manipulate people towards his beliefs. Of course I admire greatness in others, in science, philosophy, art, literature, and the like, but these are my personal likes for whatever reason I find them estimable.
Tell your class, if you will, that if they don’t understand it now, know that their integrity will follow them wherever they go, and without integrity, eventually they won’t have a leg to stand on. It is the basis of all relationships, personal and in business, and if they can’t be trusted they will never be successful in anything.
The only times I was asked questions that touched on integrity were when I was interviewing for jobs with nonprofit organizations.
It’s been my experience that profit businesses don’t care about it. And that’s why those people usually don’t have any.
And this is what happens when we allow our business schools to teach that profit is the ONLY purpose of business and that “it’s just business” justifies any despicable action that anyone wants to take.
Heroes have courage. Courage is the state of mind that pushes us to do the things that we are afraid to do. I’ve had courage a few times in my life, notably when I was about to give birth, although by that time I didn’t have a choice.
I speak up about conditions and situations often, and loudly. But I’m not brave because I’m not afraid to do those things. A lot of people dislike me because of the things I say. One of my proudest moments was when the PTA “ladies” at my son’s school tried to throw me out of town because I suggested that some things change. That was ten years ago and they still won’t talk to me. Their loss.
I have plenty of friends. I don’t care if some ignorant slug doesn’t like me.
My heroes are the people who do the things that I’m afraid to do – civil rights workers, astronauts, Ironworkers like my husband, and the millions of folks like my grandparents who left their homes a world away to come to a strange land where they knew no one just to make a new life for themselves.
I think integrity is defined as a combination of your morals, ethics and value system. You are brought up with these so your parents/guardians would have had the most impact on you to this regard (more their actions than words though).
Thus I don’t think having a hero necessarily portrays your integrity, rather your hopes, dreams and ambitions. If I had to ask my 12 year old son who’s his hero, he would most probably list anyone of the numerous action characters on TV or a game. My 18 year old (a 1st year student studying programming) would most likely say Mark Zuckerberg!
I believe integrity is extremely important as for me it goes hand-in-hand with honesty & loyalty.
In an interview you can ask a candidates to define integrity and explain what it means to them. Or you can create a scenarios such as:
1. Your team-leader is a mean, no-nonsense, bullish guy who hires & fires for the smallest indiscretions. You see your colleague steal a …….You know if you tell, she’ll be fired. You also know she has 3 kids at home and is in desperate need of this job. How would you handle the situation?
2. Your co-worker receives a desperate call from his son saying he needs a new pencil & rubber / colour copies / info from the internet for school tomorrow. He casually packs the pencil & rubber on his desk / makes copies on the office copier / spends an hour on the internet to gather the info and takes it home. How would you handle this situation?
You will get some interesting answers, especially on question 2 as most people don’t see taking things that are in abundance at the office and placed there for their use as stealing!
By the way, I idolise my mom for the values she taught me, for her unwavering believe in the goodness of mankind, her sometimes brutal honesty and her ability to tell me when I was wrong.
My hero would be Nelson Mandela for his ability to stick to what he believed in even though he was punished and persecuted for it, but mostly for his ability to forgive those who had wronged him without seeking retribution
Umberto Eco notes that a hero “is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.” With that in mind, my hero is Carlos Hathcock (May 20, 1942 – February 23, 1999). He was a USMC sniper in Vietnam, credited with 93 confirmed kills. But he also pulled a number of Marines from a burned out APV after it drove over an IED and exploded, despite suffering 2nd and 3rd degree burns. His commander tried to submit him for the Medal of Honor, but the citation was downgraded to a Silver Star. Gunnery Sergeant Hathcock tried to turn down the medal, saying he only did what any other Marine would have done in similar circumstances.
Tony
Is integrity important in an employee? Can you tell a person’s values from their heroes?
I gave a talk to a class of college seniors and one student asked,
“What do you look for in a job candidate?”
I said, “Integrity and the ability to do the work.”
The class laughed and he asked, “Do you mean to say that, in this day and age, anyone cares about integrity?
If you were interviewing someone for a job, how could you tell if they had integrity? Would a discussion of their heroes help?
My colleague and friend Terry Hallman, who died in August, is my hero because he made a habit of speaking out about injustice. In the last instance it was to bring the end of his life. You can learn more about him here:
http://tinyurl.com/d9sh5xw
Patton
John Wayne (not necessarily Marion Morrison)
The hundreds of rescuers who went into the Towers, knowing full well they weren’t coming out alive
My hero is Paul Robeson. Besides being an all-star and professional football player, and a law student at Columbia (at the same time!) he was a singer and actor who also devoted himself to political activism.
Nelson Mandela. I have never met him, but out of all the living leaders in the world today few have maintained or achieved his distinguished record of service, his commitment to a cause and his leadership. In addition, his life, lived with dignity, also showed a human side that allowed us to see the imperfections, all of them dealt with in a way you would expect.
My aspirational role model is my father, for his eclectic intellect, the way he ‘walked the talk’ on ethical conduct and for demonstrating repeatedly that there are no degrees in honesty – you are either clean or you are not.
My hero, or the inspirational person, is Archbishop Desmond Tutu. In one brief interaction with him I learnt the secret of engaging and inspiring people.
A true story (I was told) from years back:
An elementary school principal in NYC had the idea to bring into school an ex-convict/ex- drug addict to talk to the kids so they learn how bad it was and how hard it was to break away from the wrong ways. The talks by the person looked like a success.
Unrelated to this, at year-end the students were asked about their vision of their future. An unusually large percent of the students said they were hoping to become ex-addicts and ex-convicts when they grow up.
So role models’ efforts sometimes misfire.
NO – I would not accept $1million if there was a chance someone would spend a year in jail, whether I knew them or now.
But a disturbing and useful question I have to ask myself is: Under what circumstances would I do something like this?
I have no need for a marginal $1 million, but what if I did; to save a loved one for example. Then would I risk hurting someone for money? I would like to think I would not, but I don’t know.
It is also a useful question regarding how I educate my children. Imagine my son was dying and participating in this game was the only way of saving him.
I might defer to him, “You decide if I flip the coin; you determine if we are both going to live with the consequences of your decision, or if you choose to die for a principle your dad wants to share with you.”
His decision will reflect on both his character and the quality of my parenting.
There is a danger in basing one’s moral education on grand hypothetical examples like this; it is too easy to imagine ourselves being ethical because we take a stand on things we’ll never have to take a stand on in the real world.
The excellent book, Ethics for the Real World, makes this case, and concentrates not on what others should do, but on what you should do, and not on the big stuff that will never happen, but on the little everyday stuff such as: Where do you draw the line on lying:
Do you lie to save someone else’s feelings?
Do you lie to save your own feelings?
Do you lie to save someone else some money?
Do you lie to benefit yourself monetarily?
Do you lie to a customer to get a sale?
etc.
Where do you draw the line on this?
Let us imagine a loved one were dying, flipping this coin were the only option to save the person, and you say you would not flip the coin.
Would you lie to your loved one about the fact that flipping this coin was an option you choose not to take? Or would you say that they were dying so you could stand firm on a principle?
I guarantee you will never be presented with this coin flip, but this question presents an opportunity to have this discussion with your loved ones RIGHT NOW.
HOW WOULD YOU ANSWER THIS QUESTION:
On the toss of a coin, if you call right you win a million dollars but if wrong a close friend or colleague (but not a loved one) goes to jail for a year. You have no control over the person selected. Would you play? YES/NO
The risks that we take to be a hero and whether we care about the possibility of reward can depend a lot on who is involved or affected by the action! This question has been of tremendous interest to me and you might enjoy this very quick survey that explores the topic.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/PKFJVYP
Once the survey is complete, you will be able to see results here: http://www.theoryofexcellence.org/
It is so gratifying to read all these comments, and the many more that people are sending to me directly – It is interesting that for so many the matter of heroes is a private matter.
I like Jordan’s comment that we all have a need to be accepted, admired, and loved by others.
I think that it is possible for a hero to have such “selfish” motives. Many people want to be heroes of their own story. Is it so bad if someone rather brag about their good deeds than their Porsche?
My father was like that. Although it could be annoying to hear about it, he wanted to act in a way that reinforced a heroic self-image. He was a lot of talk AND action.
My parents brought me up with a strong moral education but no religious training. They felt that religion is a personal choice; one I should make for myself.
As a teenager, when trying to ferret out our family history, I asked my father if we were Jewish. He said that, if I wanted to know what he wanted me to be, “If they come to round up the Jews, I want you to be Jewish.”
The leaders and people of Denmark surely qualify as heroes. Even though the Nazis took their country in a matter of hours and fewer than 20 soldiers laid down their lives in defense, when told to turn over their Jews, they fought back.
This is documented in a compelling film, which you can watch for free here:
The Danish Solution
See if you can watch this without crying. I doubt you can do it.
My parents gave me no hard-and-fast rules, or heroes I could emulate without thinking; I could never be certain I wasn’t being manipulated or fooling myself. To them, being the hero of your own story is no easy proposition.
Many think my dad’s admonition was cruel; surely I shouldn’t “try to be a hero” but rather I should put my family above all. Luckily for me, I have married a Jewish woman and therefore so too are my sons Jews. Now there is no conflict between my dad’s desires and my own.
But what if they come to round up the Moslems; then what will we do?
Brooke
Here are more conversations to imagine:
Prospect: What’s your philosophy of management?
Hiring Manager: To make it as easy as possible for my subordinates to be successful in doing their jobs.
Prospect: I can start working with you right now.
This is one that I saw on one of those hospital dramas on TV:
Department Head: We need someone in our Emergency Department right away.
New Doctor: OK. [Starts working]
DH: Don’t you want to talk about your pay and benefits?
New Doctor: You’ll be fair. [Keeps working]
I have a charitable view about why people do uncharitable things. It’s not out of the popular notion of selfishness, but comes from a misunderstanding of Maslow’s Hierarchy. Most people consider altruism to be a luxury. “When I can afford it, I’ll give money to your cause.” They think that altruism and heroism are things one can deal with when they are ready for the self-actualization levels of the hierarchy. Right now, they think, they have to feed the kids, pay the mortgage and mow the lawn, so how can they have any time to be heroic? How do I know? Because I have to struggle with it every day myself. It also comes up in nearly every conversation I have with others about doing the right thing.
You’ve probably had those conversations yourself. They usually have to do with victimization, poverty, the evils of capitalism, or just plain lack of work, and free will comes into the conversation as well. At some point, someone will say something to the effect of, “When those people start doing the right thing, I will too.” Those aren’t the exact words, the exact words are more often these:
Rich people need to give more to charity.
Politicians need to stop acting like criminals.
Hollywood stars are so shallow.
Illegal immigrants take American jobs.
The 1% are destroying America.
Here are some basic truths: My children need to eat. Having a steady income that pays the bills and provides money for family enjoyment is a moral good. There is such a thing as win-win, and it is also a moral good.
Yes, many. Heros are as frequently personal as well they may be national or cultural. A difference being the personal hero rarely has his adventure recorded for posterity.
I like Campbell’s explanation of heroism, which is a bit more inclusive than the short definition offered from Dr. Zimbardo. Altruism, or temporal risk taking for another’s benefit are but singular manifestations of heroism. Heroism additionally involves endurance and growth beyond expectation, usually in wisdom, that motivates the altruism in question.
We all have heroic potential. Based on myth and fairy tale, one may assume that modesty and lack of notoriety are frequent characteristics.
My parents are high on my list of heroes. Many artists who move me emotionally are there as well; some are painters many are musicians and orators. My last entry may seem enigmatic. He is the child, who is able to show a purity of the human spirit by his innocence. Perhaps it is the courage of an adult to continue to manifest innocence that seems most heroic to me.
Thanks for the opportunity to think about this, this morning.
JAC
I believe that heroes, as defined by Dr. Zimbardo, are very rare in our society today; even though I too strongly believe it is possible for anyone to become one. So what is stopping more heroes from emerging?
Deep down, every action that we conduct is taken to meet a core need that we have as human beings. If you break down many of our simple and greatest needs and drives, it often leads back to the desire to be accepted, admired and loved by others. In the above video, Dr. Zimbardo himself even admitted that part of his motivation for creating H.I.P. was to avoid having The Stanford Prison Experiments on his tombstone, as his legacy. In a nutshell, we do things in an attempt to get others to like us. People who are liked by many hypothetically enjoy many benefits: a greater chance of survival, access to more power and resources, a wider selection of mating partners, and the absence of the threat or anxiety of excommunication, loneliness, and suffering.
The Asch conformity experiments conducted several decades ago gave us a grand insight into how far humans will go to try and receive approval from their peers. 75% of the participants disobeyed their own vision and common sense to match the responses of people who were purposely instructed to give the wrong answer. Truly Fascinating.
I believe that this idea of heroism is a truly important one in this day and age, as the human race continues to destroy itself and the planet in the name of win-lose self-interest and conformity to what already exists.
The culture that we have collectively created in America further perpetuates this prevalent way of thinking, and further engrains it into the psychological workings of our minds. I am very sad to say that over 99% of the people I have met in my life can be categorized as the saleswoman in Brooke’s “Conversation #1″ or as the College Career Officer in “Conversation #3″ above. Very seldom have I come across someone who truly embodies the spirit of “Conversation #4″ and just doing the right thing – treating others the way they would want to be treated.
In a country overloaded with billboards and TV ads made by Saleswoman #1 and College Career Officer #3,
our nation has been brainwashed into believing in a very narrow-minded paradigm of success that is based solely upon self-interest, consumption, profit, and material displays of wealth without any recognition of the byproducts or side effects of these actions. And what’s even worse is that other countries are now trying to mimic our model. Yet the United States consistently does not rank anywhere #1 in personal happiness – that distinction is held by the Scandinavian nations such as Norway and Denmark.
In a nutshell, most Americans believe that the goal is to be liked by as many others as possible, and the way to achieve that is to acquire as much money and fame as possible, regardless of the means, ethics, or harm involved in doing so. It should be of no surprise, then, that the U.S. currently has the largest amount of wealth inequality of any developed nation on the planet (Source: Inside Job). It also led to the collapse of the global economy in 2008 due to the game of hot potato brokers played with subprime mortgage derivatives, irresponsibly throwing away others’ life savings in pursuit of bigger commissions for themselves in the present.
What most individuals don’t realize is that our psychology can be counter-intuitive. The person who goes against the grain and pursues the thing they love most, against the approval and wishes of the majority and their tribe, often becomes the most respected and innovative leader as an unintended consequence. The person who gives his all to a cause greater than himself with no desire for personal recognition becomes the one who others look up to the most. Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesus – people have created entire religions and ways of life around people who refuse to conform to an unethical, misguided, sick society!
One thing that still stops people from becoming a hero is this: What’s in it for them? If they don’t even want the personal recognition, what drives them to do it? How can someone quit their job and lose all of their material possessions because they refuse to work for an unethical company if there’s nothing in it for them? How can someone give their life for a movement they may never live to see come to recognition? How can a person speak up against the war crimes of a powerful nation when they may be faced with life imprisonment, torture, and the tarnishing of their reputation?
And this is it. There is still something in it for the hero. It takes a higher level of consciousness to perform and to understand, but there is still a benefit to being altruistic. We are human, and on some level we do still need to feel there is some purpose, some benefit that is arising from our action. When we sacrifice ourselves for the betterment of those around us, for the greater good, there is no greater feeling that exists. We think that life is about gaining approval, but it’s really about connecting. Trying to step over people to be approved by those very same people is a paradox. The answer is to connect with others. The more we give to others, the greater level of self-satisfaction and actualization we experience as a result of the connection we feel to another living creature. We were born to pursue this harmonious way of being, yet we have lost the message in the fear and ego that has consumed the vast majority of our energy and attention. When we are completely living in the present moment, harnessing our greatest gifts, talents and ideas to create a better world for others, at that time, we have become truly alive. We understand what our mission is and why we are here. We realize that giving the best of what we have and improving ourselves is the greatest way we can spend the years we have here on this earth. Giving to others breaks down our walls and barriers and reconnects us with our humanity. It makes us cry when we feel how amazing it is to be able to relieve another life form of their pain and suffering. It is only through understanding and embodying this mentality of winning by helping others that we will survive as a species and solve the complex problems we have created on this planet. When working alone, the tasks seem insurmountable. But unified as a whole, the human race has no limits on time, money, ideas, effort, or manpower. It is the heroes who will spark the movement to lead us to a higher level of existence and more peaceful method of existence.
In spite of all the problems in her short life, our late daughter, Lauren (27), fought for every person’s right to be treated fairly. She was the one to berate the bullies on the playground (we got calls from school, often. She fought for children with autism. She fought for the battered and abused friends who needed a voice. She fought to find love. From a young age, she instinctively felt the pain around her and chose to rush headlong into the fray to heal others rather than run away and hide from danger. Her gift was 100%, and it eventually did her in. She burned bright, fast, and intensly and was the hero in my story.
My hero is my Dad.
My song, Hero In My Eyes, was inspired by my ex-British boyfriend who is a member of the London Fire Brigade and who also dug at Ground Zero, after friends in NY got him into the site. Hear the song at http://www.jenniewalker.com/music – also on iTunes.
Individuals in service positions, my virtue of their jobs, put others first. But the level of personal sacrifice is I think not always visible to others. After a PST breakdown from 9/11, and a break up of our relationship, I realized the depth of damage that one person had realized in the effort to help the greater good.
He will also be a Hero In My Eyes and probably a few others.
It Gets Better Campaign Adapted for HIP
We know it’s challenging to always do the right thing at work in the face of situational pressure. Pushing back on time demands, quality compromises and ethical lapses are risky, but we know you do it every day.
You, and people you know, are out there practicing everyday acts of heroism. Share your story or acknowledge someone who made a difference in your life and help others do the same to increase the positive impact of business on society.
· How has someone made a difference in your life by speaking out?
· Has anyone ever inspired you to take courageous action through their actions?
· How have these courageous actions helped you, your colleagues or the organization?
· How has the ability to speak up and stay true to your values impacted your engagement, productivity and innovation?
Over the course of the year, we’ll be highlighting the stories you share with us online and in our programs to inspire more people to stand up and speak out according to their values, increasing everyday acts of heroism at work. Please write to me at Brooke@heroicimagination.org. Stories should be under 800 words. If you’d like to make a video submission, please send to hiptraining@heroicimagination.org.
We have lost something in our focus on making money and tech gadgets; a bit of our soul and the heroic imagination that Ellsberg, Havel, and others of that generation had.
Phil
Ellsberg and Watergate had a tremendous impact on my family and me; because of it we had almost nightly dinner-table discussion about ethics and doing the right thing.
Something happened between 1974 when Archibald Cox was our commencemnt speaker at Rutgers (topic: Beware of unintended consequences) and 1980 when a girlfriend graduated from Baruch and the commencement speaker, a businessman said, “Do the right thing and you will know you are doing the right thing when people give you money to do it.”
What happened?
Brooke
It came out really well despite background chatter; more authentic.
My hero is Daniel Ellsberg.
Phil