Bringing the Human Spirit Back to Life in the Corporate World, with Steve Hart
How can one’s personal experiences with life and meaning translate into corporate leadership and a legacy of meaning? In this powerful conversation on the Spirituality in Leadership podcast, Andrew Cohn sits down with Steve Hart, educator, leadership coach, musician, and former executive at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, to explore the deep connection between the human spirit, meaningful work, and adaptive leadership.
Steve opens up about a transformative near-death experience that reshaped his entire life, and how that moment of awakening fuels his mission to infuse workplaces with soul, trust, and purpose. Steve brings wisdom, warmth, and clarity from his early days as a special education teacher to leading large-scale cultural shifts in government and nonprofit organizations.
You’ll hear about the surprising lessons leadership can take from nature (particularly Zoysia grass!), how reflection becomes a gateway to growth, and why trust is the bedrock of real transformation. Whether you're leading a team or navigating your inner shift, this episode is a blueprint for blending practical leadership with deeper personal truth.
Key Takeaways
Why leadership starts with trust, not tactics
The “warrior and artist” polarity is one that every great leader must balance
Steve’s near-death experience and how it sparked a lifelong transformation
How to lead organizational culture shifts with empathy and vision
What quantum physics and zoysia grass can teach us about change
The role of reflection and safe spaces in leadership development
How places like Cranaleith Spiritual Center (https://cranaleith.org) offer renewal for leaders and frontline workers alike
In This Episode:
[00:00] Introduction and near-death experience
[00:14] Leadership foundations in special education
[00:34] Podcast introduction and guest overview
[01:09] Steve Hart's leadership journey
[03:20] Connecting spirituality and leadership
[05:23] Special education insights and leadership
[10:20] Transforming leadership at the Federal Reserve
[20:21] Personal transformation and near-death experience
[27:11] Spiritual experiences and family connections
[27:49] Discovering Life After Life
[28:14] Introduction to Cran Oleth
[28:25] The history and mission of Cranaleith
[30:20] Personal reflections and leadership at Cran Oleth
[32:58] Connecting spirituality with corporate leadership
[42:43] Adaptive leadership and organizational change
[48:34] Final thoughts and resources
Resources and Links
Spirituality in Leadership Podcast
Steve Hart
Cranaleith Spiritual Center: https://cranaleith.org/
Andrew Cohn
Music:
Listen to the podcast
Watch our podcast episode
Transcript
Steve Hart: I am in the ambulance. I get to the hospital, I'm on the operating table, and I clinically died.
Andrew Cohn: You're talking about another dimension of your sort of belief system and experiences that feed into how you approach leadership.
Steve Hart: A lot of what I learned about leadership, I really picked up when I was working with special ed.
Steve Hart: It's really that's where the formation, the foundation for my philosophy of leadership was honed there because I realized there's something quite amazing going on in the way that I was working as a special ed teacher.
INTRO: Welcome to the Spirituality in Leadership Podcast, hosted by Andrew Cone. Andrew is a trusted counselor, coach, and consultant who works with leaders in teams to increase productivity and fulfillment in the workplace. If you'd like to connect with Andrew about individual or team coaching leadership workshops or team alignment, please go to www lighthouseteams.com. Enjoy the podcast.
Andrew Cohn: Welcome back to the podcast. In this episode, I speak with Steve Hart. Uh, Steve is in the Philadelphia area and he spent over 30 years as an executive at the Federal Reserve in Philadelphia. Uh, he talks about his vast experience personally as a practicing Catholic, talking about the imperative of the human side and business, and people bringing the best of themselves to their workplace.
Andrew Cohn: He describes how he learned about leadership as a special education teacher. And, uh, teachers need to be both, uh, warriors and artists and build great trust. And he talks about how leadership in the organizational world involves that as well. It just a, a, a font of knowledge about different models of leadership and education.
Andrew Cohn: He talked about his experience helping to transform leadership to support a, a knowledge worker focused organization, which was a big cultural shift that happened at the Federal Reserve. Including something called the Zoia Grass Principle, with which I was not familiar, and I I invite you to learn about that.
Andrew Cohn: Very straightforward, very clear, very vulnerable. I hope you enjoy the podcast. Welcome back to the Spirituality and Leadership Podcast. This is Andrew Cohn, and today I am with Steve Hart, my colleague and friend. There are some stories to tell, but mostly I want him to tell his stories. Steve is a coach to leaders at all levels.
Andrew Cohn: He's been in this space for a very long time, 34 years at the Federal Reserve Bank, uh, all in Philadelphia. I believe. He may talk a bit about his experience initially as a high school music teacher and then as a special education teacher. In boarding school, which as he has told me, all I learned about leadership, I learned being a special ed teacher.
Andrew Cohn: And, uh, Steve joins us from his home in the Philadelphia area. So welcome to the podcast. Thank you, Andrew. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm so glad we've reconnected after some years and that you're resonating with what's, what's happening here, and I know that you have some wisdom and stories to share, so I'm super grateful for your being with us.
Andrew Cohn: And I, I think where I'd like to start is what led you to sort of ping me back and say, Hey, I would like to be a part of this conversation. What was resonant for you? I, I have some notes of our conversation that we had recently, but I'd love to hear just broadly where you'd like to start.
Steve Hart: Yeah. Well, I, I love this idea that spirituality and leadership are connected, that there's a visceral connection between those two things.
Steve Hart: But I tend to, I, I am a very religious person. I did convert to Catholicism many years ago, but, uh, and I'm a, I wouldn't say I'm a devout Catholic and certainly a practicing Catholic, and so I understand that side of spirituality, but I'm really interested in the human spirit of an enterprise. The idea that people.
Steve Hart: Bring the best of themselves, their capabilities, their hopes, dreams, and aspirations. And we spend so much time in our workplaces, shouldn't it reward us in some way in terms of, uh, feeling that we're contributing to something significant and being, giving, uh, giving our talents in a way that honors our own spirit, I think is a critically.
Steve Hart: So, when I saw you embarking on this kind of journey and those kind of conversations. I thought I'd love to be part of that because, uh, I certainly have listened to these podcasts. I think they're fantastic and you're doing a great job of illuminating some of these ideas. So thank you for that. And thank you for giving a be part of.
Andrew Cohn: Of course, of course. It's a pleasure. And I hear you talking about the connection between a certain types of fulfillment in the workplace with that, I mean, you said human spirit of an enterprise and then went on to talk about essentially fulfillment and feeling like our talents are being used, uh, for certain purpose, and that connects back to the human spirit.
Andrew Cohn: That's what I'm hearing you say.
Steve Hart: Yes, that's exactly right. That's exactly the.
Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. So, so I'd love to hear a little bit about your story. You know, you hide it well, your Yorkshire accent, uh, you, you hide it well. Uh, but it, I'm sure it creeps out at certain times, but your life path has been a bit different. You've had a couple of, uh, momentous events that you may talk about, some of which, some of which you've, you've, uh, turned into song and share it with me.
Andrew Cohn: But share a little bit about your story, please, and how you came to this place, both in terms of your professional experience and your personal philosophy.
Steve Hart: Yeah. Well, you know, it, it, I, I said in my, uh, to you before we started that, uh, a lot of what I learned about leadership, I really picked up when I was working with special ed.
Steve Hart: It's really, that's where the formation, the foundation for my philosophy of leadership was honed there because I realized there's something quite amazing going on in the way that I was working as a special ed teacher. And, uh, it was around that time that I discovered the work of Barry Johnson. On polarity management, I saw in a very visceral way how polarity management, the ability to hold two ideas in the head at the same time and maximize the attention to both was a critical component of teaching in special education.
Steve Hart: And I put it down to being, needing to be both a warrior and an artist. The idea that, uh, there were certain things, behavioral traits, there were aspects of the way the children. Behave with one another, how they acted in the classroom, how they approached their learning, how they, the disciplines, if you will, of giving them the right conducive experience for learning, had to be somewhat imposed upon them because they weren't gonna necessarily go there themselves.
Steve Hart: So that was the warrior part. The, the artist part was understanding that there's a deep level of empathy required to bring special education kids to, uh, an ability to take command and control of their own learning path. So I found out that the teachers that were very most successful in my cadre of uh, faculty at the time were those who could spend that duality really well.
Steve Hart: They could be both warrior and artist in the classroom with these kids. And of course we lived with them all year long 'cause it was a boarding school. So it wasn't just the six hours, seven hours of the day in the classroom. It was about life itself.
Andrew Cohn: So the opportunity to influence and engage at a whole different range of the course of life rather than just in the classroom.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah.
Steve Hart: Yeah. And the basis of it was that as a teacher of special ed, the most fundamental important part of your ability to get these kids to sort of be responsive and take accountability for the learning was they needed to feel that you trusted them. And that they could trust you as a teacher. And I thought, wow, isn't that what leadership is all about today?
Steve Hart: Isn't that the way that which leaders, uh, it's very difficult for any leader in any organization to do anything worthwhile if they don't feel, if they're not trusted and that they don't convey trust to others. So that realization, uh, by the wonderful work of Barry Johnson has sort of stayed with me. I.
Steve Hart: For a long, long, long, long time, and it's carried through in how I formulated my own philosophy of leadership, uh, how it, uh, imbued my teaching. 'cause I ended, I was 26 years an adjunct professor at several universities, uh, teaching human capital leadership and strategy marketing. A number of other types of, uh, things where it was really about building.
Steve Hart: And creating something in a businesslike environment that was meaningful and purposeful for the people involved in it. So I've always been this, uh, uh, believer in inclusion. The idea that, uh, everybody has something valuable to offer. Has a skill talent that needed to be used. It might be hidden and under the surface, but your job as a leader is to help that, to come out, to develop it and grow it and nurture it and give people the right kinds of experiences for them to be successful in their occupations.
Andrew Cohn: Wow. So you've just said a lot and. So it's interesting when you talk about the warrior and the artist, and I love that framing. It sounds to me, relatedly, and I'd like to hear your thoughts about this warrior and artist, sounds to me a bit like hard and soft. It sounds perhaps a little bit like doing and being, I don't want to be reductive.
Andrew Cohn: I. As my son would sometimes accuse me of being reductive, but it is a little bit like that. But then underlying all of that is none of it works without a feeling of trust, a feeling of openness, a feeling of like willingness to open and participate, uh, be vulnerable, which is what learning is about. And uh, that's, that's what I'm hearing.
Andrew Cohn: Is that, am I hearing that correctly?
Steve Hart: Yeah, I think you're right except the, the lines between worry and artist and. Not quite so black and white fair. There's this amount of, um, nuance around that, that's sort of reading the room correctly, knowing what's called for in this moment. Reacting in the right way through trial and error, perhaps more emergent in the way that we do that.
Steve Hart: So they're not black and white states. We can often go from one state to the other in the same conversation. It's part of a. A plan of self-awareness, I would think, on behalf of a leader, to be able to navigate through dual dualities, like in that form, to be able to know what's called for in this moment.
Steve Hart: In this moment I need to be the warrior, and in this next moment, now I need to be the artist. And being able to switch seamlessly between those ideas and act accordingly in a way that is, uh, brings out the best in the person you're having that conversation with.
Andrew Cohn: Hmm. And in a senior people leader role at the Federal Reserve Bank, how have you seen leaders navigate that?
Andrew Cohn: How have you seen them develop and practice and demonstrate that level of self-awareness so that they can navigate effectively between these and perhaps other paradigms as well?
Steve Hart: Yeah, I, I had the pleasure of working in the HR department for 16 years of my 34 years at the Fed. And, uh, I, I, I tell people, uh, that those were the most, um.
Steve Hart: 16 years of my, of my Fed existence. But I love the place itself. It was a wonderful place to be. It's a very old, historic organization with a great mission and some wonderful, amazing, talented, and, uh, very, uh, smart folks to work with. So it was a great pleasure and honor to be there. But working in hr, I got to bit behind the scenes of this human psyche of this just a little bit, and I got to be able to work with some leaders at a time in the organization.
Steve Hart: Station when we were making a shift from a more operationally centered enterprise to a more human capital oriented enterprise, where we're becoming more of a knowledge worker economy as opposed to a transactional one. And, uh, there were a lot of leaders who were caught in the, in the wave of that happening.
Steve Hart: And, uh, we, you know, the Fed was a steeply hierarchical organizational command and control was, uh, a way in which things got done, and it worked very, very successfully for many, many, many years. And we had great leaders who, uh, could do that with empathy and what have you. But as we started to see the, the work of the Philadelphia change from the operationally centered to a more human.
Steve Hart: Or more to a human capital type of thing or intellectual aspect of this. The command and control thing needed to lose its, uh, power a little bit, and we noticed that what attracted people to the Fed was the opportunity to do really incredible work and do it in a way that honored their contribution to it as opposed to being told what to do.
Steve Hart: So it was really about helping a lot of leaders who were very, very smart and very capable, but really learning to let go a little bit of what had gotten them where they are. That what got them to this point isn't necessarily gonna get them to the next stage of leadership in this new changing demographics of the workplace.
Steve Hart: And so we spend a lot of time having conversations. Uh, lots of coaches like yourself would come in and help us with some of those things. With those leaders who were embracing this idea, it wasn't that they didn't know about it, but they said, look, we need some help to be able to help us conceptualize how we might operate differently as a leader in this organization and make that transformational or that change.
Steve Hart: And so it was about giving people the psychologically safe space to have the conversations that really challenged what the notions of leadership were and what it was needed in, in terms of their presence as a leader to build. And create a different kind of work experience for those that were in now, the organization and doing more, um, knowledge-based applications of work in lots of different arenas.
Steve Hart: So it was really about, I think, uh, creating, it was about asking the right questions more than anything else really. And, and, and letting the leaders themselves solve the problem. Through facilitated conversations and, uh, talking through and supportive one another on how we're going to do that. And of course, it, it translated then into how we promote people to future leadership positions, how we recruit people into the organization who wanna be there.
Steve Hart: So ultimately these tentacles, uh, led to lots of transformation and change in the way that the organization presents itself. Diversity inclusion was another thing that needed to come very much in there too.
Andrew Cohn: So it sounds like it, you, it was real that, this is my term that I'm hearing is this culture shift.
Andrew Cohn: Um, yeah, it was deeply culture.
Steve Hart: Yeah.
Andrew Cohn: And it sounds also, you used the term demographic. So was it the demographic shift that you were recognizing that was the organization that prompted the organization to make this change?
Steve Hart: I think so. Plus the, the, the, the, the work that the Fed was called upon to do. I, I, I want to get too deeply into the operation side, but the Fed plays a very critical role.
Steve Hart: In the nation's payment system, and there's a lot of systems and structures that go along with that. And Philadelphia at the time was a prominent player in that role. And, uh, but the, the centers of power around that shifted and Philadelphia found that it had to, uh, reinvent itself, if you will, because the operations had moved to another area.
Steve Hart: And now Philadelphia needed to make a contribution in a new way to the Federal Reserve system. And we found that came through the, uh, through, uh, through research. Through ability to connect more with our community and to build different types of, um, of value that the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia could offer to the community in which we served.
Steve Hart: And it, it brought with it a complete shift in the kind of skills. Abilities and leadership that was needed in order to make that happen.
Andrew Cohn: Beautiful. Another, another great example of how the great city of Philadelphia reinvents itself and adjusts to be current and leading. So you spoke about psychological safety as uh, a necessary condition, if you will, to engage leaders to behave differently, to try new behaviors, et cetera.
Andrew Cohn: And I'm curious to know what, so, and one way that you specifically mentioned was asking the right questions. Facilitated conversations, helping those leaders to emerge with their own answers as opposed to being told what to do. I'm wondering if there's anything else you might share about what helped create the conditions within which those leaders were able to step into a new type of leadership.
Andrew Cohn: Because as you said, it's a difficult thing to let go of. Well, this is the way we've always done things before. You don't pivot right away. What, what helps with that transition and invites leaders to shift.
Steve Hart: Yeah. Well, fortunately for me. At the time, this was all taking place. We got a new president of the, of the organization.
Steve Hart: And the good news is that this, this new president who came in, was an academic who had a great from the Philadelphia area, who was a, uh. I guess a of the Federal Reserve work prior to him, president of the, so he kind insight into how the organization works and what we produce and how it gets produced.
Steve Hart: When he became the president of the bank, I, I, I wasn't present during his interview, but I was certainly thereafter he arrived and, uh, he started just sort of different messages to the workforce in terms of, this is our need for change. This is our time to think differently about the thing. So the first thing that I was blessed with was a senior leader, little more senior leader in the organization, recognizing that this shift was needed.
Steve Hart: And that's surprising how important that is in terms of. Driving the bus and the cultural stakes because, uh, if the most senior people in the organization are not committed to making a directional shift, then it's probably going to be eaten for lunch, as they say in, uh, in, in the pilots, right? So I think the most incredible part was, uh, a li a senior most leader who had a powerful and compelling vision of the need for change.
Steve Hart: And not only did he have that powerful vision, he also. Created, I would say, a really nice invitation to participate in building that together. And it gave people like myself, who were in a position to help with this, the power and authority to help drive the change that would be needed. And our thought was it starts with small conversations with a small cadre of people who are well committed to that.
Steve Hart: Let's get some successes under our belt. Let's get some wins and start to see that. And the momentum. And, uh, we'll be able to, I called it my GRAS Principle of leadership. Are you familiar with GRAS where you are? I'm not.
Andrew Cohn: That does not sound like it's from Yorkshire though. Please say more. No,
Steve Hart: it's not.
Steve Hart: It's not a Yorkshire thing, but it's very prominent here in the Philadelphia area. GRAS is a, actually a weed, but it's a beautiful looking lawn. It doesn't take a lot of tending and caring, but what's interesting about Soyer grass is not its properties, but the way in which it works. You don't need to rip up your old lawn.
Steve Hart: If you want to create a zore lawn, you simply plant plugs of it in different parts of your lawn, and its influence just spreads, and ultimately it just takes over. And I thought that was a beautiful metaphor for how this leadership culture transformation was going to take place. It was going to take place by positioned plugs of it.
Steve Hart: Information and action and commitment and in the right places at the right time, and that influence would spread. And by that spreading, they would then meet up with other influences that were going on. And we would ultimately reach a, a, uh, a tipping point in the ability to have the new culture emerges in the organization.
Steve Hart: And that's precisely kind of what happened, didn't happen overnight. There's always a grasp principle is is sort of something in my head that I glummed onto that, uh, I think is just a great way of illustrating how this principle works.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah, that's wonderful. Thank you. I wasn't aware of that and um, that's such an interesting way to describe it and again, another, as we talk about often in our workout here in Santa Fe, another way of looking at nature for solutions.
Steve Hart: Correct,
Andrew Cohn: yeah. And certainly models as well.
Steve Hart: Yeah. Nature and the universe are wonderful examples of how things work. You know, quantum physics is a big part of, uh, what I believe in leadership too. The emergent. Properties of the quantum physics are something I believe in, and I think that also has a connection to to leadership.
Andrew Cohn: Well, so you're talking about another dimension of your sort of belief system and experiences that feed into how you approach leadership. And maybe this would be a good time to talk about something you told me about previously, namely a particular experience you had where you almost left us in this world and that changed you as you, as you shared with me.
Andrew Cohn: So I wonder if you could speak about that.
Steve Hart: Yeah. You know, it's funny, I, I've only just recently, this happened a long time ago in my life, but I've only just fairly recently, the last five or six years started talk more openly about this experience. And as you know, I, I kind of wrote a song about it, uh, later to, to, and, and now I, I, I sing it on my various, uh, performances that I do and actually will be performing in Yorkshire in uh, September.
Steve Hart: But yes, my mother died when I. My dad remarried again when I was about seven or eight years old. So there was a number of period of time there where I was living with just my dad and then my aunts and uncles and my grandparents. And, uh, the combination of loving and. As caring as they all were, were very turbulent and challenging times for me.
Steve Hart: And I started to have a lot of problems emotionally and psychologically. And, uh, you know, I had, uh, I think I had a form of dyslexia, had a bit of learning, learning difficulties. The turbulence of all that and the upheaval of it and the honest, led me to be a, become a very nervous child. I would have a nosebleed at the drop of a hat very easily, and, uh, always, uh, was doubting myself as in my abilities to do anything.
Steve Hart: That carried with me for quite a bit. And then I went to university in, uh, in England to Durham University in England. And it was, I'm the first person in my family, in fact, only the second person in my high school to go to university, which was, um, quite a thing. And I had an immediate sense of, what am I doing here?
Steve Hart: I really don't belong here. Um, but the impetus behind that came from my dad. My dad was a steel worker. He wanted me to, uh, understand what the stakes were for getting into the steelworks. So one day when I was in my, before, I'm making my career decisions, before leaving high school, he takes me to the steelworks where he works and, uh, takes me around, introduces me to all his friends, and I hear all this noise, the smells, the bangs, the, the heat.
Steve Hart: It was just awful. Uh, but my dad very proudly came up to me and said, so what do you think? What do you think? And I went, uh, yeah, I guess it's all right. And my dad never hit me in his life, but he grabbed me by the coat, pulled me up off my feet and said, you come anywhere near this place, I will kick your ass.
Steve Hart: And that was my impetus to say, okay, I might need to think about going out somewhere. So I go to college. I'm in my last year of college, and I, I'm, I come home for the Easter break and I'm not feeling well. I just feel really, uh, I feel like I had the flu. I was working on a play scheme at the time with kids and, uh, drive, actually riding a bike back and forth.
Steve Hart: I came home on the Thursday night, I think it was, and got into my house and I was delirious with fever. Hmm. And thought I had the flu, went to bed during the night. I had, uh, severe, severe pain. I woke my dad up at the time who, uh, phoned for an ambulance in, in England at that time. The doctor comes to your house, the doctor is called, and he immediately, uh, says, um, yeah, it's something to do with his appendix.
Steve Hart: We need to get him. Anyway, I'm in the ambulance. I get to the hospital. I'm on the operating table, and I clinically died. I ended up having, it was gang peritonitis that had been.
Steve Hart: Really sick. Much sicker than I realized I was, but I had this experience of a near death experience and, um, it was very clear to me what happened. But I, obviously, I'm, I, I came back from that. But what was interesting about it, I was completely transformed. When I came back, I was no longer that nervous kid.
Steve Hart: I no longer had nose nosebleeds. I no longer felt unworthy. Of opportunity and, and, and people to work with. I've, I've, I grab, I became a people person in true sense of the word, and I, I developed a side of myself that I never knew was possible, and it just seemed to come very naturally, all in that one moment of transformation and change and, um.
Steve Hart: And I kind of lived the, the, the benefit of that ever since it's inspired my entire life from that point on, it's only recently that I've started to sort of realize the implications of that and the impact of it. So that was a very visceral and very deep experience that I, I think is the sort of the founding story of, uh, my transformation and change from my nervous change, challenging kid.
Steve Hart: Types of things into something more permanent. And my academic performance went up considerably after that too. Lots of things happened that, uh, certainly I was able to do that I could never think of doing before.
Andrew Cohn: That's what a remarkable story. That's so amazing. And, and it's, it sounded cathartic and transformative and obviously sort of in, in inexplicable, I suppose medical people may be able to explain how it happened, but how did you.
Andrew Cohn: I mean, this is a bit of a personal question, but did you share with your dad what happened and how it was different and could he relate to it at all? What was that like for a, for a, yeah. You know, a teenage boy and his, and his steelworker dad to talk about an experience like that.
Steve Hart: Yeah. Well, you know what, what I didn't tell you was that what I had was what my mother died of my dad while I was in the hospital.
Steve Hart: He already knew, I think what this sign was like because he'd lived through it with my mother.
Andrew Cohn: I see. And
Steve Hart: he saw repeated in me what he had experienced with her bef. And so I, I think my dad was a, my dad was a very spiritual man. And, uh, I think he had, uh, he had a connection with, with, in his mind with God that, that, uh, he very much, I think recognized what was going on here.
Steve Hart: But I think his, his faith and his, what he prayed for while I was in that situation did have a bearing on the outcome. I. That, uh, he knew what was going on. My dad was, uh, also this, a lot of your listeners might not know this, but my dad was a St. John's Ambulance brigade in the uk, which is a sort of a first responder as well as being a steel worker.
Steve Hart: And uh, so he had some medical training he understood. So I think my dad saw. This emerging, and that's why the doctor was called. Otherwise he might just have poo-pooed. He just got the flu. But I think he saw something that made him take this drastic action that led to me getting to the hospital. But, um, so it, it was an easy conversation to have with my dad and it was something he and I shared pretty much only with him up until he died in 2003, that, that, uh, he knew that I'd had this experience and I confided in him in it and he believed me.
Steve Hart: Always trusted that, uh, that was absolutely, it wasn't imagined, you know.
Andrew Cohn: Hmm. That's so beautiful because I've heard people share their stories of these, these, uh, uh, spiritual experiences, for lack of a better term. There was other ways to describe it that are so difficult to explain and, and in their families of origin in particular, they don't, they're not met, I.
Andrew Cohn: With what their experience is, et cetera. And what a, what a wonderful thing to share with your dad. And what I'm hearing is, on the one hand, he was very practical. He could see it coming. He could ask for help in a way that perhaps another parent wouldn't. And at the same time, he's asking for help from other sources as well, and praying for some resolution.
Andrew Cohn: However, he may have done that, that whatever it was, it, uh, it took hold. So thank, thank God for that.
Steve Hart: Yeah, I, I read a book, uh, several years after that. It was called Life After Life. And when, when I read that book, I thought, wow, there's so many of these experiences similar to my own that it, it's a recounting of the people who've had these similar types of experiences.
Steve Hart: And it was just remarkable how similar my experiences was to them. But I was talking about it well before I knew the book was out.
Andrew Cohn: Hmm. And, and years later, one of the things that, um, as I understand that, that your, your practice and your faith has led you to is oleth. Yeah. So could you talk a little bit about that, please?
Steve Hart: Yeah. Cran Leaf is a, a place in northeast Philadelphia. It's, it's actually a, a retreat center. Run by the Sisters of Mercy, but it's non-denominational. Mm-hmm. The idea that, uh, all of us need a, a place to reflect and renew and connect and take action in a meaningful way to fulfill our lives, dreams, and ambitions and goals.
Steve Hart: And we have a, uh, 25 years now, currently, I've been associated with it for maybe 22 or 23 years of its existence. And it's a, a three er in Northeast Philadelphia, 10 acres of beautiful land, a formerly, uh, sacred property of the Lenape Indian tribe that lived here in, uh, in the Philadelphia area. And, um, also the home of American suffrage.
Steve Hart: 'cause there's a house on the property that was built by or designed by the first female architect. In Philadelphia and, uh, Susan B. Anthony used to was a good friend of the woman who owned the property, and she would come up often and they discussed American suffrage in that house. So the house has got a powerful connection of, um, freedom and the ability to be inclusive.
Steve Hart: And so that tradition has continued through the, the mission of Oleth, which is to inspire and bring hope to people on the margins of society, or anybody who's feeling the need to feel connected in any way. Whether that's a person with, with who's homeless or a person who is a business titan, who needs to connect with more important and deeper reasons why he or she is doing what they do.
Steve Hart: So we catered everybody in a way. It's, uh, through a correction of programs, losing, using our space as a way for organizations to conduct their own strategic planning retreats and have time in the quiet and peaceful 10 acre property that we have just to re renew. And. Revive their spirit and soul around the purpose and meaning of what they're doing.
Steve Hart: So we have this wonderful resource here. And, uh, six years ago I was asked to be chairman of the board of that organization, and I've proudly done that the last, um, six years. And, uh, I'm supposed to be ending my tenure, but they asked me to stay home for one more year. Which I'm pleased to do because this was our goal year and we needed to raise some money to keep the place going and nobody wanted to talk about leadership succession at that point.
Steve Hart: So I, I'm in it for another year, but I will continue to be part of it even though I won't be chairman of the board anymore next year. It's just a wonderful example of, um, and the stories are legend of the people that come to the property on. In Philadelphia, uh, and have such a, um, a deep experience of finding purpose and meaning in what they're doing through the contemplative process that exists there, and which is unfolds for them as they come in.
Steve Hart: And using the grounds, using again, nature as a way to inspire that growth and that connection with people is beautiful to see.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah, I remember visiting Crowley some years ago. I didn't even know about the vast history of the place. I came there with a social services organization that I was supporting with culture change and, and leadership alignment work with that organization.
Andrew Cohn: We, we came to the property. I remember it being quite wonderful and, and just pulling onto the property like, what is this place in the middle of? Yes, on one side is a suburban neighborhood and there's the. You know, the Roosevelt Boulevard thing is close by. It's like, this is a fascinating place. But before we, before we pivot from there, could you please share what's, if someone wants to learn more about Cran Oleth, what's a website or a place that they could go to?
Steve Hart: Sure. It's, well, first of all, let me say cran. Oleth is an unusual word. People don't know that's a Gaelic word. There's a lot of Irish influence in the way that Cran Oleth is set up it. It's Gaelic for sanctuary of trees, and it's spelled C-R-A-N-A-L-E-I-T-H. That's the spelling of it. So the, the website is simply www doran.org.
Steve Hart: Mm-hmm.
Andrew Cohn: Mm-hmm. That's it. Cool. Yeah, just never know who may wanna check it out. So,
Steve Hart: great. Yeah, we're on, uh, we're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, we're on, uh, Instagram, all the normal thing, uh, LinkedIn it expects. So we have, we have outlets in all of those areas too. So search on us and find us, and hopefully people will get.
Steve Hart: It's a way to get engaged. We're always looking for great board members. We're always looking for members to serve on the President's Council, and we're always looking for volunteers. So Philadelphia folks, uh, get motivated, get in there. Let's see.
Andrew Cohn: Well, and maybe there's some contributions, uh, of different types.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah. Maybe you noticed too. We're
Steve Hart: looking for donuts, always looking
Andrew Cohn: for donuts. Way some people from way outside the, uh, the Philadelphia area might be able to contribute. Great. I'm curious to know what, what is your personal experience with religion is connected to? It seems to me your experience at Cradle.
Andrew Cohn: You've talked, I believe you've talked about that. And I'm curious to know how your experience at Crown Oleth feeds into some of your work with the more corporate types. If they have not been out torani, if they have not, uh, experienced this other side, uh, this nature informed this pre the energy and the presence of the nuns who live there, the more corporate types.
Andrew Cohn: And I'm wondering how you bring some of that energy and philosophy. That happens over in Oleth into the more corporate spaces. How do you bridge some of those gaps?
Steve Hart: Right. I got, I got connected with Oleth, uh, through a, uh, a person in Philadelphia who was a very then event, an executive coach who I was gonna hire at the Fed to do some work for us who was also a volunteer facilitator.
Steve Hart: And she came over for lunch at the Fed one day. And, uh. We had this conversation and she said, oh, you might be interested in this place I know of in Northeast Philly, and I do some pro bono work there. And, uh, by the way, there's a great program coming up next week if you're interested. Uh, they're looking for some participants to this pilot program's coming in.
Steve Hart: It's called Work and Spirit, it's Pro was the program, and she said. Who are looking for a more, uh, meaningful connection to their work and to what they're doing. And, uh, she said, uh, I think you'd be the right person to experience this and maybe you'll enjoy it. And so, uh, I went along to, to this thing having never been to Crown Leaf before.
Steve Hart: Uh, and just as I got there that morning, there was a monumental snowstorm and we were sitting in, at the time is just the house of Grand Lake that was available. We had this time period where the facilitators of the program. Said, we want you to spend an hour this afternoon after lunch thinking about some critical questions about your own contributions to life from work and your leadership role.
Steve Hart: And, um, we want, you know, obviously it, it's a bad day to go outside, but, uh, there's plenty of room in the house to find a room, but if you feel like you want to go outside, do it anyway. Well, I was one of those that did it anyway. Uh, I was the only one in the group and I put on my Parker and my boots and I went out into the snow and I just had this.
Steve Hart: Realization that our workplaces are very often devoid of human spirit, that they're a frenetic focus on results and outcomes and not really very empathetic towards the people that work there. I felt very strongly that what our workplaces need are an infusion of the, of the human spirit in order to make them more palatable and, uh, meaningful for people in their, in their work.
Steve Hart: So this program called The Work and Spirit Series was the impetus behind my vision for that, the idea that, that this is a way to do it. This is the way that we can bridge that divide. And it's not a spiritual conversation, believe it or not. It's really about, again, creating a, a series of questions that are deeply reflective.
Steve Hart: Getting back through talk, you know, going back to triple loop learning ideas that, that we want to get back to the fundamentals of who we are and why we're here and what we're doing. And we help people to go back through that cycle of, uh, experience and help to find connections as to how they got to where they are.
Steve Hart: And now that they've got an unclear understanding of how they got there, where do they want to go next? In a way that is going to honor them and honor the people around them. It's gonna make them feel proud of what they're, how they're spending their time in their workplace, and not be a victim of the workplace, but find a connection to it in a way that's different than the one that they have today.
Steve Hart: So that's been the vision for this Work and Spirit series that has continued on. It's part of our current day mission within the cran oleth, uh, cadre of programs to help people to make that connection and find that purpose and that meaning we've just had a very, very successful, uh, three seminar series with, uh, a bunch of, uh, folks from, uh, Jefferson University Hospitals in the nursing population who you might imagine is, uh, still reeling from the impact and the effects of the COVID-19 experience.
Steve Hart: And we've given them an opportunity to come and. Reflect upon that experience and renew their spirit around why they were called into this wonderful career of nursing and caring for other people, and some of them lost touch with it during that intense period of time, and through the facilities of Oleth and the good work of the facilitators, they reconnected in a way that was very powerful and beautiful to see.
Steve Hart: That kind of respite, that kind of, uh, oasis, that kind of place that renews people's spirit. And I think it's just about the privilege of giving people time, getting away from the day-to-day activities. And just as you well know with your own work, this, this space contributes so much to the power of healing of the mind and heart, and gets people renewed into the spirit of hope and intention.
Steve Hart: Making and then collaborating, so people from the same experience together, learning together now mutually supportive as they reemerge into the work and speaking common language. It's beautiful.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah, I'm listening to this. I don't, I don't know that I have anything to add other than to say beautiful. And I just hope that the work can get out there broadly and if this helps with that. Terrific. And I hear you emphasizing a word that I've heard numerous times, uh, in our, in our conversation here, is reflection and the impact of reflection and the time for reflection and that protected space to think and to feel, and to consider, and to ask the deeper questions.
Steve Hart: I, I always tell my students, if you're not reflecting, then you're not learning. You're just relentlessly going through with blinders on, uh, straightforward, without really paying attention to what's going on around you. And so there's taking purposeful pauses in our active and daily lives to truly think and reflect upon the purpose and the meaning behind what we're doing.
Steve Hart: I find to be a meditative practice in many ways that is so essential for. Health and wellbeing of our heart and soul and, um, you know, it work. People who work in corporations are no less needful needing that kind of to be able to, to, uh, and in their workplace 'cause it's challenging to be there randomly thrown together with people in an organization.
Steve Hart: And you have to learn to get along if you wanna be successful. I was disturbed always to see the. Gallup surveys that always show that only about 32% of people in the organizations really want to be there. And, you know, vast number of people would rather be somewhere else or not there at all. And when you ask the question, why is that?
Steve Hart: It's, it's the way I'm treated, it's the way I'm perceived, or it's the person that manages me. They don't know how to get the best out of me. And those types of, that's a sad commentary on our workplaces that are so vibrant to our physical economy. But so depleting of our human economy and our human spirit economy.
Steve Hart: And we want to build up the spirit of humanness within our organizations. And I think together to become a new duality, we can be both, uh, physically economical, and we can also be spiritual in our approach and survive those two things. They don't have to be either or choices. They can become both ends.
Andrew Cohn: Yeah, no. Beautiful. And, uh, for the benefit of the individual who feels fulfilled and engaged and making a contribution, and I'm gonna be a better worker for you. Yes. If this is how I'm showing up at work, this is not a feel good thing. This is a, so that thing
Steve Hart: I tell people, um, I, I wrote a, an article about this some years ago when I was teaching at University of Pennsylvania.
Steve Hart: And, um, the buzzword in hr in my time in, in the HR was, uh, it's all about, uh, attraction and retention. Right. Well, I, I, that is true. Uh, but I thought the word retention was a not a good choice. It's a word for what we really need to do. I thought it, retention, to me seems, feels like you're holding somebody against their will.
Steve Hart: Mm-hmm. I turned that around a little bit. I said, no, what we really need is attraction and attention. So it's about a attending to the needs. Taken all of this hard work to get great people to join our organizations. Once we've got them into the fold, we tend to turn off our attention to them and hope that the our, our systems that we already have in place will hold them there.
Steve Hart: I think if leaders can change from attraction to attention and can be learn to be adaptive, learn to be adept at being able to navigate through chaos and change. Uh, give people a sense of purpose and belonging and take advantage of the hidden talents that everybody comes into the organization with.
Steve Hart: Then people are gonna feel more, uh, ready to want to stay in a place like that. You don't have to do it. You don't have to do anything to retain them. They'll stay by their own volition because they feel, yeah, this is a place that honors me. This is a place that gives me purpose and meaning in what I'm doing.
Steve Hart: I wanna be here because I get a return on my soul. For being in this organization. And I thought that that's, that's a, a lofty vision. I know, and probably unrealistic, but I think we have to be audacious in our thinking around what's possible.
Andrew Cohn: No, I love the, uh, return on my soul equation, if you will, as you explain it.
Andrew Cohn: Just one word that I want to, um, uh, open up that you just mentioned. If leaders can be adaptive, can you talk more about what that means in this context?
Steve Hart: Oh, wow. Yeah. That could be a.
Andrew Cohn: Okay. Maybe it will be.
Steve Hart: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I discovered a long time ago wonderful work by, uh, Ron Heitz and Marty Linsky called Leadership on the Line, staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading.
Steve Hart: And they have a wonderful model in there about what adaptive leadership is all about. And the model itself is, uh, it, it's pretty straightforward to grasp, not easy to state without having a, a picture of it, but imagine the idea that. Uh, leaders are disturbing equilibrium in organizations to generate the need for change.
Steve Hart: And most people in organizations, what they really wanna do is return to the status quo. They really wanted to go back to normal as quickly as possible. Mm-hmm. But what adaptive leaders do they have the ability to hold people in an area which he calls productive zone of distress. In order for them to continue to keep learning and growing and practicing and learn and, and, and learning new ways of working.
Steve Hart: And adaptive leaders have the ability to hold people in that place and they, they change the temperature, they. Raise it or lower it, depending on the situation, but the whole idea is not letting people off the hook to return to the way they always were. It's about creating a space. Again, it's all about security and psychological safety and experimentation, but the whole idea is that leaders have the capacity and the ability to challenge people to stay in that learning mode until they ride out this wave of discontent or discomfort and find that they can now create.
Steve Hart: They've got a new value and a new way of thinking about things and not return to the normal way that their, uh, psychology would hope that they could do quickly. So that's the, that's, that's what I mean by adaptive. The ability to hold people in a place, create a container that allows for transformation and change to worthy conversations and exchanges of ideas, and, uh, bring people out to new realizations and new possibilities.
Steve Hart: And that's what adaptive work is all about.
Andrew Cohn: I know that I, I remember an article of, um, I think it was Heifetz, I think with, with Linsky called uh, um, the Real Work of Leadership and, uh, that article talked about the balcony versus the dance floor. Yeah. And it also talked about the need to just turn up the heat at times. And I think that's related to what you're sharing, but.
Andrew Cohn: Wonderful. And so, but what I hear is implicit in that though, for a leader to do that effectively, is to have that type of self-awareness that you talked about earlier where how can I be aware of what's happening with me and how can I be aware of what's happening with them so that I can know, am I dialing up?
Andrew Cohn: Am I dialing it down? How much is enough? How much is too much?
Steve Hart: Yes, exactly right. It's that self-awareness, that ability to accept and acknowledge feedback. From those that you work with so that you know what it will take to keep that per that individual engaged in that learning space. And it's critically important, uh, to be, uh, self-aware with, uh, what your tendencies are, what your own habits are as a leader, and not let them dominate or bias you in any way in terms of what might emerge from the collective minds of the people involved in the change effort.
Steve Hart: Uh, it, it's very difficult for leaders to grasp this concept because they're inherently believing that they have to be the problem solver in the leadership role. They believe they are. The ones to have the answer, they are paid to be the, to, to give the answers to things. Well, maybe not. Maybe they're the, the payment should be made for the ability to create the environment that creates new solutions to which they might, that might be a better measure of a leader's ability to.
Steve Hart: Create what we tend to sort of, uh, still about performance management systems and, uh, the way that leaders get promoted is very much on the technical work that they do as opposed to the relational work that they do. So maybe a fundamental shift is needed in order for this to take root. But the idea that there is a, a certain way of, of leaders who are not working from a self-aware model or self-awareness of how they impact other people are gonna take them a lot longer to reach.
Steve Hart: That pinnacle of success in an adaptive way because they keep pushing back on what is needed to truly propel the collective forward.
Andrew Cohn: Well, and it sounds like they, they may continue to make the same mistakes without awareness of a need to shift. Um, that's right. And these mistakes could, it is called learning, by the way.
Andrew Cohn: It's not a bad thing, but if we keep repeating them, maybe it's not that constructive.
Steve Hart: Yeah. By. Transformation and change of this type. And I, I think there's no, there's, uh, I take a lesson from Agile here in that the best way to do it is to sort of bring it down to size by breaking this task down into smaller parts and creating some immediate wins and, and building the momentum.
Steve Hart: Again, there's GRAS principles spreading the influence so that other people see the evidence of, of change and suddenly are compelled to wanna be part of it too. And that's how you, that's how you gain the ground. In terms of, uh, transformation and change is that everybody's in part of it, not just a handful of people who are driving it.
Andrew Cohn: You're saying a lot. I think there is a part too that, uh, being invited here because there's so much to talk about, but I really appreciate your, your, well, not just sharing your experience, but also your principles and philosophy in what you've seen and how the connection between the practical day-to-day work of leadership and the.
Andrew Cohn: Loftier, more inspirational, uh, invitation to play a my term here. Bigger game and deeper game with some of which is triggered from your own experience, personal experience from a long time ago, and some of which is continues to be inspired by your own faith and experience and work. I. In different places.
Andrew Cohn: Thank you. You've got so much to share on this. And, um, I need to, I need a new ink cartridge on my pen. Uh, 'cause I'm Cap trying to capture so much. Where can people go if they wanna learn more about you and your work?
Steve Hart: Uh, I'm on LinkedIn. Okay. Stephen G. Hart on the LinkedIn. Uh, I work for, uh, uh, as you know, a good friend of ours, uh, Sean Kent, uh, I work with, with an organization called the Professional Development Group.
Steve Hart: So we have a website and make sure you put the. In front. 'cause there is another group called Professional Development Group. We are the professional development group. And, um, Sean, Sean is a wonderful collaborator and teacher, mentor and friend, and has been for many, many years. I'm thrilled to be able to, uh, have the opportunity to be part of her team.
Steve Hart: And, uh, we do wonderful, I think wonderful, uh, client-centric work all over the world and, uh, it's such a pleasure to be part of that. So that's another place. So it's, uh, the professional development group.com. Work there and then, uh, find me on LinkedIn under Stephen Ghar, also professional development.
Steve Hart: Those are two,
Andrew Cohn: of course. Stephen with a Stephen with a v. Stephen with a V,
Steve Hart: with a pH.
Andrew Cohn: Okay.
Steve Hart: Okay, this, and thank you.
Steve Hart: Change, admire. I feel like I'm talking to a kindred spirit here when I talk about my philosophy, because, uh, I know I've seen your work in action. I've seen the profound impact that you've had on people in this area when I, when you and I work together. So thank you for all you've done in this course.
Andrew Cohn: Thank you. Appreciate that affirmation and reflection. And yes, kindred spirit. Indeed. Thank you so much for your time. I just encourage and invite, please go forth, expand, teach, and I'd love to keep, uh, close contact on what you're doing. So I'm grateful for this, uh, reconnection and teaching. There's so much wisdom here.
Andrew Cohn: I look forward to listening back to this episode shortly. And, uh, and for us to talk again before too long. Appreciate it, Steve. Wonderful.
Steve Hart: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. I appreciate you. Thank you.
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