Mission-Driven Leadership: My Journey as a Radical Capitalist

Mark's story is fascinating and jibe's with his life's work to bring about change to a system widely broken and full of disparate interests. The personal revelations and business dealings are well detailed and at times, stirs the heart with emotion. Thank you for sharing your personal story and for congrats on becoming a remarkable success.

Mark Bertolini’s book is not just about organizational leadership, though that certainly holds center stage at many points. It is about living with purpose, regardless of the circumstances of your life. It is about facing the challenges with integrity, hope, and creativity. It is about never letting go of that which makes your heart sing.

Credit to Mark for sharing so freely his life story. An inspiration. Easy to read in a weekend, giving you a great sense of the man.

Honest and brutal at times, but on himself. Interesting inside picture of leader struggling with doiwhat he believes is right.

Read this book if you want to know what soul and genuine humanity look like when they’re packaged with a powerful mix of executive drive, power and competence - the whole thing: finance, strategy, competition, HR, execution and soul.I know Mark through being a cancer survivor with a business background who gave a speech for him. I work as a keynote speaker in healthcare, and he hired me years ago to speak for Aetna.That part’s ordinary. What happened next is not: “The chairman would like to meet with you.” Those words are not often heard by a speaker at an internal corporate event. Speak with the event manager? Sure. The brand agency producing the event? Sure. The chairman? Only this one time has that happened in my hundreds of events around the world.In that truth lies everything you need to know about the integrity of Mark Bertolini: he is who he says, and while he’s loaded with personal strength and competence (as any Fortune 100 CEO must be), his end game is not about the power nor the game itself. I know first-hand, he’s on a mission to improve the lot of humanity. He is driven to use that power and skill toward that end. There is no subterfuge.I first got that request to speak directly with Mark a month before the event - a semi-annual meeting of Aetna’s top global leaders. Why would the chairman of such a huge company, a man who attends global events like the World Economic Forum in Davos and the 2019 Time 100 Summit, get personally involved in selecting a patient’s voice as a speaker for such an event? Perhaps because the mandates he was sending down through the chain - to take care of people, really, no kidding - were not reaching the front lines where the company touches its customers. The mission. No kidding.What he said on that call was the farthest thing you could imagine from what a chairman normally discusses. The story he chose was that he’s on Twitter so people can reach him directly when the company isn’t hearing them. He told of a woman whose house burned down, and with it her medications. Aetna’s staff had denied a refill order, saying it wasn’t time yet. I know from my work with patient advocates that this is a classic “insurance madness” story, where the company’s self-interest PREVENTS the patient from doing what the doctor ordered. But Mark himself - the freaking chairman! - stepped in and told his people to stop it and get her the medicine.Stories like this are in this book, and I know he means it.At the speaking event, referring to this story, he told the leaders, “I tell you these things and your heads nod. But when I go talk to the people in the cubicles, what filters down to them is ‘do more with less.'”Yes, the chairman goes and talks to the people in the cubicles, because he wants to know if the mission is being carried out.Note: there is no direct line from this behavior to ROI. This only happens when *getting the job done as intended* is truly what’s important *and you have the leadership power and technical competence* to steer the ship successfully while hewing to purpose. As the company’s results during his tenure show, this is not done at the expense of shareholder value.I don’t know enough about military history to know what sort of general or admiral carries such stories in his or her legend. I know I’ve witnessed it, and it rings loud and clear in this book.I could go on with more stories - I was contacted again to meet with him the night before my speech, face to face, where he gave me more background, including his own extraordinary ski accident story and his son’s extraordinary near-death non-death (both compelling and both in the book); the only person ever to survive this diagnosis. Never have I had a more powerful experience of someone connecting with me gut-to-gut, mind-to-mind, making clear how important it was that we accomplish this job. There he was, F100 chairman, connecting with a two-bit speech-maker, at the level of soul, where we’re all one.Regarding personal power and selflessness, I talked years later with people on his inner team who spoke of meetings spent in his office where he was in such continuous pain that he was laid out on the couch but fully participating, leading. When a man like this says yoga changed his life, then spends money to make it available to employees, you know it's not woo-woo-la-la.This review hasn’t said much about the book, because the point is this: if you want insight into the mind of a powerful, competent business executive who is truly motivated to use those skills, in service of a genuine mission, this is the story you want: the real deal.Can you see yourself in this? Will you be this kind of leader?

Bertolini sets a new standard for former CEO written books!!! And the standard he sets is a very high bar!!Most former CEOs write vanity pieces to show how great they were and preach about their own prescriptive list of things to do to be a great leader. Remember…Fire the lowest 20% ranked employees? Investor return is the objective? Management by walking around? Establish a strong, from the top, discipline?And seldom if ever do you get insight into the personal lives and trauma of the author.Bertolini writes a book filled with his personal life, limits, trauma and lessons about who he is and is not. It is an INSPIRATIONAL perspective, not a prescriptive list of things to do or a matrix to success. It is not a book about capitalism’s survival based on many charts and graphs and opinions. It is not an academic study. It is personal story. It IS a book of the struggles in the here and now, to be an effective leader. It is reminiscent of the books by James Autry (Love and Profit). It is a book for today, acknowledging the limits of previous paradigms.The spiritual aspects of being human run through the book and in particular in the last chapters. Recovery of faith, however, does not make this a “believe in God” type of book. His recovery involves meditation, listening and hearing of others and of himself.His focus on employees, customers, community responsibility and not investors, means Bertolini is in fact a leader for today and the future.

Love this book! Great story-telling and very thought provoking.

Highly recommended! The American Way! He tells it like it is and how it should be!