by Chris Lowney
The Guarani towns thrived for more than a century after Mborore. Not until February 10, 1756, did they finally meet their match, when joint Spanish and Portuguese forces fell upon them in one of the two countries' few cooperative ventures since dividing up the world in the Treaty of Tordesillas.
Border instability in the region threatened not just the Guarani but the commercial interests of Spain and Portugal. So in 1750, ambassadors engaged in a round of remedial horse-trading over Guarani native land. The Guarani weren't invited to negotiate what became the 1750 Boundary Treaty, just as they hadn't been invited to Tordesillas. The new treaty endorsed Spanish claims to the Colonia region near Asuncion while ceding to Portugal land housing seven reductions. But no one could claim that the treaty didn't consider the Guaranf. The negotiators remembered the tribes, all right, in Article XVI: "The missionaries will leave with all their movable property, taking with them the Indians to re-settle in Spanish territories.-.-.-. The villages, with their church, houses, buildings and property and the ownership of the land shall be given to the Portuguese."29 Oddly enough, the two colonial powers had somehow found it within themselves to resent the Guarani for the inevitable outcome of their own sloppy, arrogant deal-making at Tordesillas.
Neither the Guarani nor the Jesuits saw much justice in the treaty. The Guaranf prepared to defend the cities they had built rather than conveniently disappearing to suit the drafters of Article XVI, The colonial powers grew outraged with Jesuit and Guarani stonewalling of what, after all, was a perfectly legal treaty concluded by two sovereign states. Eventually Portugal and Spain did something about it. On February 10, 1756, the colonial powers ended their joint campaign against the Guarani with a glorious victory. Three Spaniards and two Portuguese were killed; about fifteen hundred Guarani died.
That great imaginary Tordesillas treaty line that divided the globe came back to haunt the Jesuits as well. Tordesillas had underwritten the legitimacy of Portuguese conquest, and Portuguese conquest had afforded Xavier and his Jesuit colleagues their precarious leap into the world beyond Europe. But by the Guarani War, the "learned clerics of exemplary life" that had so impressed King John III of Portugal had become a major irritant. The ranks of aggrieved Jesuit enemies were swelling, and the Jesuit general was preoccupied with deeper worries than defending the Guaranf against Spain and Portugal. Seventy Jesuits manning the reductions met to craft formal protests against the two European powers' treatment of the Guarani. A century earlier the Jesuit diplomatic machine in Europe had gone to work on behalf of the Guarani; this time the Paraguay Jesuits were muzzled and ordered by their general to stand down.
When the Tordesillas negotiators signed their 1494 treaty, they had no idea what lay across the ocean in South America. Strangely, the Spanish negotiators in 1750 still hadn't managed-or bothered-to understand just what exactly they had blithely signed away to Portugal. Only after the ink had dried did they begin to learn. The Spanish governor of Montevideo first toured the San Miguel reduction only after the new border treaty was a done deal. He was flabbergasted by what he saw: "Surely our people in Madrid are out of their senses to deliver up to the Portuguese this town which is second to none in Paraguay."30
The Jesuit/Guaranf utopia suffered a second blow when the Jesuits themselves were entirely expelled from the territory within a decade of the Guaranf War. The reductions slowly decayed. Some of the Guaranf consented to resettlement, many drifted out of the reductions and resumed a seminomadic lifestyle, and others were pressed into slavery. Some of the reductions became ghost towns, others the basis for new cities under Spanish or Portuguese colonial administration.
Still, a century later enough remained for a Swiss visitor to discern a clear fault line in the Trinidad reduction: "The houses from the Jesuit period were in cut stone and roofed with tiles, while the later buildings were of clay and straw."31 Trinidad streets were paved and arcaded, while dirt streets dominated the capital of Asuncion. Yet although the Guarani might have outbuilt and outcivilized their enemies, they lacked the resources to outfight them.
In 1537, Pope Paul III had unequivocally condemned New World slavery in the bull Sublimis Deus. He didn't take much for granted, starting with a pretty basic assertion: "The Indians themselves are true men."32 Few of his readers saw it that way; the Jesuit pioneers of the reductions did.
The reductions drew Jesuit volunteers from more than thirty countries-some were native-born South Americans, such as Antonio Ruiz de Montoya and Buenaventura Suarez, while others came from Spain, Italy, Portugal, Austria, Ireland, and two dozen other countries. Each came with a vision refined by the Contemplation to Attain Love. Unlike most other colonials in the Rio de la Plata region, they were willing to see true men and women as true men and women-and to commit themselves with courage and passion to helping them explore their human potential.
How DOES LOVE MAKE A COMPANY BETTER?
We don't live in the romantic world of heroic clerics building a utopia in an era long gone. We live a decidedly less utopian struggle to get through a day peopled with those who vindicate Machiavelli more often than Loyola. And let's face it-few are rushing forward to champion love-driven leadership in the real world. Only crackpots or entrepreneurs burnishing edgily eccentric reputations would dare prattle on about love in today's antiseptic corporate environment.
A quick scan of the management bookshelf reveals guidance on nearly every imaginable human emotion and behavior in the workplace: aggression, deception, joy, anger, envy, greed, play, war, and so on. But the L word crops up rarely, and then only in fleeting, vaguely embarrassed snippets. In Search of Excellence author Thomas Peters tentatively floated the notion in two subsequent works but left it playfully light and nonthreatening. In A Passion for Excellence, Peters stresses loving what you do, hailing McDonald's impresario Ray Kroc's "love stories about hamburgers." In The Circle of Innovation, he devotes a full chapter to the theme "love all, serve all." But he's quoting the credo of the Hard Rock Cafe, and the "all" we're supposed to love are our customers (just as the Hard Rock Cafe does?). The promisingly titled Getting Employees to Fall in Love with Your Company advocates what turns out to be a pretty one-sided love affair. There are five terrific suggestions for getting employees to fall in love-but no rallying cry for management to requite it. The Guru Guide gleans insights from more than seventy superstars of management consultancy, crediting one with the unconventional belief that "leadership requires love." Aha, we're on to it! Alas, anyone hoping to see the idea developed-or even find out which guru believes it-reads three hundred more pages of that book in vain.
Why is it that military imagery provides comfortable metaphors for what we do all day (take, for instance, The Art of War for Executives), while "love talk" remains a third rail of leadership punditry? Here's one reason. We've noted that the very notion of leadership has progressively been hijacked by corporate-speak. Corporate managers and their consultants or academic advisers are those most obsessed with the leadership gap. And the corporate work force is the greatest consumer of leadership literature. So it's no surprise that it's written in terms that appeal to a corporate audience.
And what appeals to corporate America? Let's be honest. All claims about our enlightened, inclusive business sensibilities notwithstanding, U.S. corporate culture remains a towel-snapping, take-no-prisoners macho arena. Is it really that shocking, then, that our leadership role models strut forward flashing macho credentials? Heading the guru list by a wide, wide margin are the sports coaches and superstars: Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, Coach K, Joe Torre, and so on. Trailing not far behind are the military leaders: Sun Tzu, Attila, Patton, Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and on and on. The work you're reading is no less guilty of hailing a he-mannish leader as a role model. Loyola's own machismo was established many chapters before I started talking about this love stuff. Remember, he hasn't gone soft on us. He's the same guy who was tough enough to take a cannonball at Pamplona and complete a solo trek from Spain to Jerusalem.
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p; Anyone bold enough to proclaim even softly the very unmacho love idea might want an unimpeachable spokesperson. Who better than legendary football coach and universally acclaimed "man's man" Vince Lombardi? At least three separate works have quoted the same excerpt from a speech Lombardi once gave to the American Management Association. And now at least four. Enumerating the qualities of winning leaders, Lombardi concluded, "And one other, love. The love I'm speaking of is loyalty, which is the greatest of loves. Teamwork, the love that one man has for another and that he respects the dignity of another. The love that I am speaking of is charity.-.-.-. Heartpower is the strength of your company."33
One retired Packer remembered how Lombardi demanded every player treat each teammate: "You've got to love him, and maybe that love would enable you to help him."
Rhetoric reserved for Lombardi's off-season musings on the rubber chicken circuit? No, Lombardi pitched this vision not only to finely groomed business executives but also to the sweaty behemoths who anchored the Green Bay Packers' offensive line. In fact, with his own team, cliche fell away, revealing Lombardi's version of "love ought to manifest itself more by deeds than by words." One retired Packer remembered how Lombardi demanded every player treat each teammate: "You've got to love him, and maybe that love would enable you to help him."34 Where did Lombardi develop his vision of love-driven leaders? Most likely it was wisdom won through years of coaching and motivating teams. But it may not be entirely coincidental that Lombardi received a Jesuit education.
Well, corporate Pooh-Baps and pundits may be shy to promote the leadership strategy of engaging others with a positive, supportive (read: loving) attitude, but plenty of others haven't been so reticent. In fact, the bottom-line benefits of love-driven leadership seem obvious wherever humans interact intensively, except in the workplace. The one "team" in which virtually everyone has participated is a family. Few would suggest that loveless families function as efficiently as loving families do, or that they are as supportive, motivating, or satisfying. Nor would anyone argue that threatening or brutally competitive schools are our most successful ones. Students learn best and produce most in environments that provide genuine support, care, and encouragement; why have we somehow convinced ourselves that our adult needs are so different? The Jesuit principle of love-driven leadership proposes nothing more radical than absorbing the obvious wisdom of these other human environments.
How did love make the Jesuit company better? And how does love make any company better?
A company that implements love-driven leadership
• refuses no talent, nor anyone of quality: Love-driven companies recognize, honor, and hire the talent that others shun or overlook-in Loyola's time, a Lainez, a Henriques, a Rhodes. Or today, those with the "wrong" pedigree, skin color, accent, background, or education.
• runs with all speed toward perfection: Love-driven managers are dedicated to developing untapped potential rather than presiding over a Darwinian sink-orswim workplace.
• operates with greater love than fear: Love-driven environments make people want to work instead of merely making them work.
The real payoff is the energy and loyalty catalyzed by environments of greater love than fear. Terms such as teamwork and team spirit fail to capture the attitude among Xavier's Asia team: "I thus am coming to a close without being able to stop writing about the great love which I have for all of you as individuals and in general. If the hearts of those who love each other-.-.-. could be seen in this present life, believe me, my dearest brothers, that you would see yourselves clearly in mine."35
Teams cemented by such mutual regard effortlessly outdo most organizations, which settle for the basic teamwork behaviors: respecting colleagues, listening to their views, sharing information proactively, giving others the benefit of the doubt, mentoring the newcomers. Anyone who's worked in a close-knit, loyal, trusting team-be it a family, sports team, or circle of friends-knows that such minimal teamwork standards pale when compared with the behaviors of unified, love-driven teams. Unlike energy-sapping workplaces riddled with backstabbing and second-guessing, environments of greater love than fear generate energy. Team members in such environments are supported by colleagues who want them to succeed and help them succeed. Individuals perform best when they are respected, valued, and trusted by those who genuinely care for their well-being. Loyola was wise enough to perceive this bundle of winning attitudes as the essence of "love," secure enough to call it such, and eager to tap its energizing, unifying power for the Jesuit team.
Just as love united the Jesuit team, it also profoundly colored their appreciation of those whom they served. The Paraguay reductions were a Jesuit labor of love not in any sentimental sense but precisely because love enhanced those Jesuits' ability to perceive the dignity and human potential of the Guarani-and that these were assaulted and squandered under the colonial encomienda system. Love gave Jesuits the vision to see that wasted potential; heroism spurred them to do something about it.
Not long before Xavier departed for China in late 1552, he received a letter from Loyola. He dashed off a response:
Lord knows how my soul was consoled at receiving news of your health and life, which are so dear to me; and among many other holy words and consolations of your letter, I read those last which said, "Completely yours, without my ever being able to forget you at any time, Ignatio." Just as I read those words with tears, so I am writing these with tears, thinking of the time past and of the great love which you always showed and are still showing towards me.-.-.-.
Your holy charity writes to me of the great desires which you have to see me before you leave this life. God our Lord knows the impression which these words of such great love made upon my soul and how many tears they cost me every time that I remember them.36
No wonder Loyola considered his other organizational innovations insignificant compared to love-driven leadership. The preamble to his Jesuit Constitutions says as much, pointing Jesuits to a guiding principle far more important than any rule they will find in its nearly three hundred pages: "What helps most on our part toward [the preservation, direction, and carrying forward of the Jesuits] must be, more than any exterior constitution, the interior law of charity and love" (emphasis added).37
That interior law of charity and love begins with vision. Long before love is a corporate virtue that improves team performance, it is a personal leadership stance. The love-driven leader possesses the vision to see and engage others as they are, not through the cultural filters, prejudices, or narrow-mindedness that diminishes them. Early modern Europe saw Amerindians as "beasts of the forest incapable of understanding the Catholic faith,-.-.-. squalid savages, ferocious and most base, resembling wild animals in everything but human shape."38 Love-led Jesuits from more than two dozen countries instead found in Amerindians that same divine energy that gave them "existence, life, sensation, and intelligence" and made them God's temple.
If the interior law of charity and love begins with vision, it is completed in action: "Love ought to manifest itself more by deeds than by words." It doesn't take an enterprise the scale of the Guarani reductions to achieve what Voltaire called "a triumph of humanity." Innumerable triumphs of humanity occur every day when parents, teachers, coaches, and others invest themselves selflessly in developing others.
But triumphs of humanity are also evident in actions we are too hesitant to label as love: in the dedication of managers to their subordinates, in the loyalty and support of teammates. Those who would rather help peers succeed than watch them fail are creating environments of greater love than fear. And so are all who make outsiders feel welcomed and supported. Such people are motivated by more than a desire to "do a good job"; some profounder, more personal motive drives them, and their workplace interactions are only one expression of a more fundamental commitment to respect and support those they encounter. Those who treat others with respect and love are leading the way to environments of greater love than fear, where many more people wi
ll enjoy the chance to achieve their full human potential.
And everyone knows such leadership is needed. So too are more triumphs of humanity, including those of the grand scale once attempted by seventeenth-century Jesuits in Paraguay. Whatever the imperfections of their vision, they saw further than did their contemporaries. And that's what love-driven leaders do. They see further. They move themselves beyond what blocks our vision in order to see what a fairer, more welcoming world might look like. They point the way to a future in which true men and women will enjoy greater chances to reach their potential. And leaders guided by the resolve that "love ought to manifest itself more by deeds than by words" help create that better future.
Creating a better future-that's quite a task. How much difference can any one person make?
Ask the heroes.
CHAPTER 9
"An Uninterrupted Life
of Heroic Deeds"
How Heroic Leaders Envision the Impossibleand Do It
t a company that I'll call XYZ Telco, unionized telecommunications operators downed headsets and went on strike, citing job stress as a key grievance. The beef originated with customer service representatives, those frontline warriors charged with placating the thousands who call each day complaining about incorrect billings, lost dial tones, and tardy repairpeople.
As if these beleaguered customer service reps didn't have enough trouble, they had recently been presented with "new operating procedures," no doubt crafted by bureaucrats squirreled away in an ivory tower, well insulated from the realities of dealing with angry customers. Created to inculcate stated company values of integrity, respect, imagination, passion, and service, the new operating procedures instructed customer service representatives to end each call with a scripted question: "Did I provide you with outstanding service today?"