Writings
An Epoch Change in Our Paradigms
Hanover Insurance
June 15, 1989
To Mr. Roy Anderson:
You exaggerate my achievement and capacities. Nevertheless, I enjoy it. I deeply
appreciate your letter of June 2. Your thoughts provide me with a helpful context in my
search for the meaning of this event in my life and where I should head from here.
I fully concur with your statement, ‘‘Nothing happens by accident—and everything
happens for a purpose.’’ God gives each of us life. He gives us a mission (to serve) on
this earth. For many (certainly for me), that mission centers on family, serving society,
and following ‘‘the way’’ He prescribed. When we complete our mission, we are called
back and judged. A good effort is rewarded with an afterlife with God. It is really not that
complex.
What cancer (or facing mortality) does is cause us to nourish our interior life and examine our external mission. At least, that is what it has done for me. It was you who once told me that differences in people’s interior lives are far greater than their external differences. I’ve mulled over that insight many times.
Let me take a side trip. I was leaving my office to go home on the second day after I returned from my surgery. Halfway down the center staircase, Kathy Kane stopped me. Kathy has been with Hanover for somewhat under 15 years and has been put in charge of a number of critical assignments. She always does an outstanding job. She said to me, ‘‘Bill, I want you to think of the positive part of having cancer. I had cancer 10 years ago (which I knew). There have been a lot of positive benefits to it. I am a much more aware person because of the experience. I see more. I appreciate more. I am a different person.’’ It was a very inspiring talk that Kathy gave me. It reinforced feelings in me that I was searching for ideas and words to express.
I, of course, have devoted considerable thought to my mission in life. I know I received a strongmessage. I sense it is more renewal to a higher level than dramatic change.
My professional contributions have been limited to:
- Understanding and articulating the destructive consequences of hierarchicalcorporate governance.
- Developing and practicing governing ideas that engage the commitment of our people and produce better service for customers and stronger financial results for owners.
- Establishing a learning environment that distinguishes the mechanical, linear, and convergent from the natural, philosophical, and divergent. Through this process, learning has become a living force in the company.
The next steps in my mission focus on:
- Articulating leadership practices that better fit our governing ideas, that is, leading in a mature, vision-driven, value-guided organization versus a power- or politics-driven one.
- Better shaping our structure to fit our philosophy, that is, keeping only the minimally needed hierarchy.