As I was growing up, my mother told me that her strategy for raising me was to foster resiliency and self-sufficiency.

She was an Assistant District Attorney in New York City in the 70’s, so she must have known that there was no way she could legitimately simulate the conditions necessary for me to practice these traits… In fact she took the opposite approach: I grew up in Portland Maine at a Private School where she taught. You could call this sheltered and privileged and you would be right.

But through a number of parenting decisions, she found ways for me to be exposed to tough lessons and certain real ambiguities. She wanted me to work from a young age. She assisted me in moving to Amman Jordan, and then again to Beirut Lebanon. She celebrated my work with the military in Europe and Central Asia and always encouraged me to stick with the trials.

She herself had suffered greatly with the loss of a child, with blindness, with other things. Because of this, she knew what it was to deal with chaos and ambiguity.

Through it all, she insisted on resiliency for me – over time, I came to believe that Innovation was something we do because we go beyond resiliency: we can be more than resilient. We can THRIVE with the things that inspire and frustrate us, but in order to do so we must work collaboratively and build cultures that can similarly thrive and be enriched by us facing chaos head on. If you’ve ever watched a blind person like my mother navigate classrooms of high-schoolers, direct plays, travel overseas, live completely independently, and do it all with inspirational confidence, then you’ve seen more than resilient survival. You’ve seen thriving creative leadership.

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We begin our INNOVATION 4.0 curriculum with a theory that is not controversial: that a leader’s values define the culture they create – and tolerate – around them. Recent incidents across the technology sector (Uber) and news industry (Fox News) demonstrate just how the toleration of poor values leads to acidic, damaging, disrespectful, and potentially criminally libel, culture.

At INNOVATION 4.0, we teach that the foundation of success as a leader to create – and work within – a high performance culture and team... and that values make up that foundation.

What I personally believe is that leaders work with others inside and outside their circle of trust to innovate and inspire… by identifying frustrations - and even injustices - and crafting solutions through products, policy, and/or procedure. As nice as that sounds, the problem is that frustrations and injustices are usually founded upon the chaos and ambiguity that runs rampant in our lives. Leaders pierce through this chaos and establish lines of trust where there was no trust before, creating a new culture that secures understanding and makes way for shared accountability and equity through positively-re-enforcing trust-building transactions.

What are the values that a leader can embrace that enables them to build a trust culture despite everything? What values can reduce or eliminate bias, foster anti-fragility, inform simple and clear communication, inspire real ownership, and refuse to tolerate bias, bullies and negativity?

At INNOVATION 4.0, our very first module preaches the HAVOC Way: Humility, Authenticity, Vision, Opportunism and Compassion.

We have crafted this values system purposefully because we believe that a leader that embodies all 5 to a high degree will be perennially successful. A deficiency or over abundance in any of the 5, and we see:

Too much H umility: A doormat

umility: A doormat Too much A uthenticity: A loner

uthenticity: A loner Too much V ision: An armchair quarterback

ision: An armchair quarterback Too much O pportunism: A liar

pportunism: A liar Too much Compassion: A bleeding heart

And why “havoc” – because that’s the world we all live in and that’s the world that leaders are called upon to improve.

As a part of our Curriculum, we have compiled a “h.a.v.o.c” reading list, that articulates how these values and the other lessons of our curriculum merge together to create a high aptitude for leadership and innovation:

H idden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly

idden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly A ntifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

ntifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb V ictory through Airpower by Walt Disney

ictory through Airpower by Walt Disney Extreme O wnership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

wnership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin Crazy Bosses by Stanley Bing

This week I’ll be sharing my own personal stories on the times in my life where I either failed or succeeded as a Leader and an Innovator due to my ability to fully live each of these values – either discordant or in harmony. From my own experience, I believe that the HAVOC Way is a potent values system for securing trust, platforming an empathetic, psychologically safe, and principled, culture, and creating innovation that has the power to make the world a better place.

Read more about the INNOVATION 4.0 Curriculum here: https://curtisleadershipfoundation.org/pillar-1-our-curriculum/