 Warm welcome everyone not from a conference room and snowy Davos, but for me in a cow barn North of Berlin and my colleagues in Dubai and San Francisco in London I'm very happy to be with you all on this really profound topic Davos is such an interesting place where we talk everything from foreign policy to education reform But here we're going to go both to the heart and the policy of two things that are important to all of us And that is what are we learning about happiness joy and creating meaning knowing that not everyone's in a happy joyful place right now? During this COVID-19 crisis, and why does it matter so to get us started before I even introduce our panelists we're going to ask you that question and There'll be a slido that comes up where we want to find out from you as an individual could be as an individual as your Role in business or as a parent or as a as a child or as a caregiver or as a student or as a learner What's the biggest insight you've had about yourself in this introspection about happiness joy and creating meaning during COVID? And again, this is anonymous so you can say if it's hard It doesn't always have to be bright and shiny so if you can go ahead and go into that slide Oh, they're gonna put up a QR code and put a link in the in the chat And we're gonna come back and look at those results in just a minute But let me go ahead and introduce our panelists and they're each gonna answer that question for themselves So tally sure tally could you give us a warm wave there? Here she is. She's the professor of cognitive neuroscience at UCL in London I could say so much about each of these people you can look them up on top link or on the internet But tally in 30 seconds. What's been the biggest insight you've had about yourself? Hi everyone, so yeah, I think that there's things that I gained that I didn't do or have before during the pandemic But there's also things that I lost that I now realize were quite important and I'm gonna give you example of the latter So as someone who doesn't live in their home country The inability to travel home for such a prolonged time, especially in a time of crisis is psychologically quite hard And for me it really highlighted the important connection a person has to the place they're from and the importance of that connection to their well-being security and sense of belonging There's no place like home Dorothy said that's been something very very important for me not being able to go home So thank you for that tally Allison Gopnik now I'm gonna do a little bit further than just giving you her name and Titles she is the professor at University of California at Berkeley But a very important person in my life because her book about Gardening and being a carpenter has shaped how I raise my children so it's such an honor and thanks for having an impact on my family's like Allison so how about you? What have you learned about yourself during this time? So I think I've learned two things one of them is that it's possible to be just as nuts about a new grandchild Over the internet and over zoom and over constant video Feedback almost as much as if you've actually got them in real life. So my latest grandson was born Just four months ago. Um And then the other thing that I learned is my my husband is you know, 77. He's vulnerable He's got to have a long. He's one of the fragile people and I was amazed at what a dragon I became about taking care of him and Protecting him and things that I would never have thought that I would do like disinfect the entire kitchen Were things that felt as if they were very natural and very much this right sort of things to do Even if it turns out we didn't really quite have to do it So so the capacity to have those incredibly strong emotions even in these kind of very restrained Circumstances and even over the internet. I was surprised but So from care care bear digitally to dragon you've been able to have both of those feelings fantastic Allison And Alex Lou is the managing partner and chairman of Kearney Inc I know he thinks a lot about joy and business which will hear much more about but what did you learn about yourself? Alex it wouldn't be a conference even at Davos without mute issues. So go ahead now. I got it. I got it now. Thanks Lisa I congratulations Allison on the grandchild. That's great In me for me I've gotten some meaning and joy from the power of communication This has been a period of intense and hypercon communication and I I found that expressing yourself telling your stories That it's okay to not be okay to be optimistic and realistic and I've got a global company and their people all ages and demographics and geographies People can feel connected and they feel it's okay to tell their own stories and to be able to bond and connect So I think I you know in expressing how I felt how I'm coping and caring during all these crises You know allowed people to also feel, you know, you're not alone So let's go ahead and take a look at what the participants say that they've learned about themselves If the great folks at West can pull up that side. Oh, let's just take a quick look about How people are feeling are they feeling more dragon or care bear? Are they like tally and a homesick? See here a Bit hard to see it's a bit small Maybe we'll come back to that. Okay, we'll come back to that. Let's let's go and sort of keep keep going Make it smooth as we can. So here we're gonna go around Robin of three important questions about COVID-19 and Joy and meaning-making during this time So the first question I'm gonna ask you Allison you're a researcher You think a lot about this. What are we learning about joy and meaning-making right now? Well, I think in terms of the science it's that it's timely in that The crisis has made us realize something that we were sort of already Realizing scientifically, which is the importance of care and caregiving and taking care For human evolution for the human brain So the kind of traditional way of thinking about the evolution of of human society has been this kind of social contract view So, you know, we trade off it's tit for tat I do this view you do that for me. We negotiate and that's true That has been part of our evolution But an even more central part of our evolution is the evolution of caregiving the evolution of simply Extending our own utilities our own goals to another human being and what we've learned is that this Ability to do that the ability to extend what you what your what's important to you to care about someone else is central to human evolution so humans evolved a much longer period of childhood of helplessness in childhood than Than any other species and we also evolved this period of elder hood from about 50 to 70 Which again, we don't see in chimps in other species, for example And we evolved a much wider range of caregivers So we have many more people taking care of our children and taking care of our children Cooperatively and we also have these unique elders who both care for our children and need care themselves So it was as if there was this giant expansion of what from an evolutionary perspective started out just being say You know a mother vole or a mother mouse having to take care of a an infant that same neurophysiology that same That those same capacities got generalized so that we could take care of a whole range of different children We could take care of elders and we could take care of the other people around us So the science I think has really changed our picture from this sort of social contract picture of social life To this caregiving picture being really central to social life And of course COVID has made the significance of that caregiving both for children and for elders Incredibly in an everyday In an everyday way Great, so we're gonna come back in the next round about why it matters She began to touch about that but why this insight and care why it matters and then eventually what we can do about that to Drive that forward and number of ways Alex. I'm gonna go next to you on from your perspective Through your research through your work. What are we learning about joy and meaning making right now? And maybe a couple of points one I think even before 2020 and the crazy events of last year there was a purpose gap There was a joy gap you look at ethnic research across demographies Uh an epidemic of mental health issues stigmatization people feeling isolated even in a technology world So it was accelerated during the last year, but going forward. It's still a structural opportunity I mean my premise is that why settle for anything less than joy At your work or in your organizations. You're born happy Uh, you go to school happy you go to work happy and then something happens You know what happened and I think that leads to the second point Which is I've learned through this year in particular leading an organization is that leadership and culture make a big difference You know, you set the tone you set the agenda You set the example sometimes um, and you can reframe the uh definition a broader definition of well-being The individual well-being, you know feeling connected to your teams But also to the broader community like joy and justice go hand in hand And then within the corporate environment that you can control Um aspirationally to you know the maslow's hierarchy, you know the aspirational parts of your culture How can we increase a sense of belonging and inclusion? So I'll leave it at that and come to some of the other questions later Thanks, Lisa. I'll just a quick a quick follow-up. Um, I've noticed in conversations with business leaders that they've seen some performers Who have had you know exhibited or communicated sort of mental health or anxiety in the workplace many of those folks Really rising and and finding joy in this new way of working because they say it's normal that everybody is anxious That would used to be only me have you seen that have you seen that other sometimes where people Were less joyful or had more anxiety have balanced out. I'm sure the opposite can be true But have you seen that change of people where they made meaning or? That is the reality. I mean the reality is we're also different our brain diversity individual diversity In fact 90 percent of diversity is not visible. It's indisible. It's not age race and gender It's you know, how you look at the world. So I think you're right I mean the technology now has allowed us to be able to communicate differently But some people like to communicate by writing or by a phone call um The key to me and what I've seen is that all all people want to be safe and seen psychologically safe as well It's physically safe seen and supported for who they are so they can bring themselves to work Even if they have a stigma of something that they can't quite express and it's up to the Leaders to actually inspire a culture where it's okay to be yourself. That's good enough And and I think that's where you get joy in the culture right people feel like they have each other's back Telly, I'm gonna go to you at the university college london. You're a researcher What what are you learning about joy and meaning and is there anything? That might not be obvious or counter-intuitive about what we're learning right now Mm-hmm So I think the most the strongest maybe surprising and optimistic finding was the incredible human resilience during this time and the quick adaptation So when we looked at people's happiness and well-being back in march when everything was starting There was a significant decrease in happiness and increased stress But within only one month It went back to baseline levels of happiness, which is quite incredible And we were interested in how people did that right So what we did was actually we looked at millions of web searches to try to figure out what people were doing And we already found that people Turned to knowledge to help them So they were asking a lot of why and a lot of what and they wanted to know more about the virus and more about health But they're also asking a lot of how how do I help? That was a big one How do I use zoom? How do I make a mask out of socks and how do I make my own margarita? But I it's also important to note that this is kind of a bird's eye view because there is a significant minority That we're not adapting that we're struggling and I think an important thing is to focus our resources on those subpopulations So those who are left out Thank you tally so so fascinating the role of agency I've heard a lot of people talk about post traumatic growth and resilience and what we're learning from this So I'd love to hear more about this. So Allison We're going to go back to care and what we're learning about care the spotlighting of care or lack of care And what that means to the global economy Why what you're what we're learning now about care matters? And what do we need to do about it to not make it a sort of a blip? We had this moment in kovat We learned about care. How does this how does this learning stay permanent? What should stay permanent about? Yeah, I mean I think as with so many other things about kovat It's just heightened things that were already problematic in the society So the fact that we need to care for young people for children and for elders And that we don't do a very good job of this even in very rich developed societies That's been true for a long time and taking care of children taking care of elders taking care of people who are ill They just don't fit into our general picture about say what markets could do or what or even what states could do One of the things that I've found incredibly moving in kovat is Over and over again, you hear this interview where they're talking to an elder care worker and the elder care workers are the least well paid You know, they're doing this miserable job. It's hard. It doesn't get any pay. It doesn't get any respect They're often going to three or four places at once and and it's dangerous now and they'll ask Why are you doing it? And they'll say well, it's that one guy, you know, it's mr It's mr. Smith who I take care of and he's such a nice guy and if I wasn't there to take care of him He'd just be so miserable It's that specific relationship between a specific person and the specific person that they care for That's really underpinning these these amazing moral heroism that we're getting a chance to see over and over again And on the other end, of course, we're seeing that with all the people who are staying home taking care of Taking care of children. So both of those things I think are are clearly really foundational to our Moral lives foundational to what gives our lives meaning and in some ways it seems sort of almost contradictory Like how could it be that something's so hard without any obvious sort of reciprocation without any negotiation? Like taking care of someone who's really fragile and and ill or dying Why is it that that would give us this deepest sense of of meaning? So I think it really does matter and it's as often it's sort of invisible It doesn't show up in those things don't show up in the gdp, right? The way that individual people love and care for each other is is kind of out there in the world of songs and sermons Not the world of policy I'm going to ask a follow-up question quickly to you allison You've talked about the the joy of care and meaning making people hide for individuals A lot of people are choosing not to wear masks, which one person could you could say well, that's not showing care Do you have any thoughts about sort of the lack of care and non mask wearing? Any advice around a messaging around using a care messaging without work without not Well, I think one of the things that's sort of paradoxical that makes care difficult Is because it is about individual people and the people that they're close to the people they love This gets back to tally's point about homesickness and the paradox forever has always been How can we scale that up, right? So everybody feels like the people that are their people their children their elders Those are people who they really desperately need to take care of you wouldn't really be human if you didn't have some of that feeling But then the question is how about all the other people? How could we scale up that sense of altruistic care that we feel for our Our parents or our children to the scale of a of an entire society? And you could think about you know markets and democracies the great inventions of the enlightenment They were really ways of scaling up contracts They're ways of scaling up the individual negotiations about I'll do this for you if you do that for me But the question is is there's some way we could scale up that sense that no you belong to me You're part of me Of course, I'm going to care for you and I think a lot of the non mask wearing is because people feel like well, okay You this other doesn't really belong to me. You're not part of my group You're not one of the people that I have an obligation to care for and I think that's a really deep challenge Is how could we how could we scale up the way that we feel by the way? It's an an old tradition in Asian philosophy people like Menchus said how could I how could I take the way? I feel about my brother and make that be a way that I feel about the entire state for example all of China I I Work with governments around the world the co-founded organization called a political we hear day in day out these are the big sort of psychological challenges that that societies have and Interestingly some governments have a behavioral scientist or cognitive scientists of advising them on messaging But not all do and I think we'd be we all be better off if we understood some of the psychology and insights that Alex telly and and Allison have so I'm going to go back to you So you talked about you know The workplace and some of the things we're learning about the differences and how people are Are thriving or not? What does this matter? What's going to stay permanent? What should people do to make these changes permanent or not? Right. Well, first I love the thoughts earlier about empathy and resilience because I think they apply to the broader How does this how do we you know activate that in the workplace also? I mean, I've seen a couple things one. There is a generational shift around more meaning and joy in the work we pursue Uh in the companies that we work for in the values that we want them to espouse and actually be the difference on So you see that in millennials generation z Generation x. I'm probably the last baby boomer in my company and they they want me to stand up and make sure that We stand for something that makes a difference that links to another part, which is stakeholder capitalism I mean huge theme at Davos, you know, it's not just about you and your company or your p&l It's about the impact on communities and the climate Uh prosperity of next generation. So I think that's very important of why this matters too Being doing this together and then from a pure business and human case they go together um if you can unlock the productivity and Energy the latent energy. There's a 50 joy gap from the research that I've seen and we've done Across the world. Um, that's powerful. That means employees are satisfied They stay with the companies even though they have the chance to work in six or seven these days in their lifetime Not just one company forever It means that they will be better Advocates for your products and services. So you have better customer relationships. So it's a win-win if we get the culture aspect down Right and supported by the right your ship and values. That's why it matters I love this idea that joy pays Um pays dividends. Um the the joy dividend I think a lot about this in parenting though that sometimes You have to do things that don't bring joy that are just really hard. You have to knuckle down So I'd love to hear any of you talk about The downside of joy sometimes if if there is any of that tally I I feel like you're sitting on a gold mind of insight A bit more insight into your research about we're learning about joy and meaning So an invitation to talk a little bit more about that But then also why does it matter and and how do we make some insights that you have? touched on more Yeah, so actually before I do that I'll just chip in on this conversation that you had with allison because in fact our data shows that the number one predictor of uh doing kind of taking behaviors measures that protect Ourselves and others was in fact whether you thought other people were in danger Rather than yourself So um and and one of the reasons for this is that people underestimated their own risk But they didn't underestimate the risk to other people And it is people who believed others were at greater risk. We're the ones who were going to take behavioral measures to mitigate the the risk So I think that touches nicely kind of to what you were talking about Now in terms of kind of this idea of resilience and the adaptation I think there are two things that matter here one is trying to identify those factors that were supporting resilience Because we can then put in policy in place to foster them even further And just give you one example So one factor that we found was quite important for people's happiness during the pandemic was a sense of control So those people who felt they had agency over their lives were much happier or much less stressed than those who felt their agency was very much restricted In one way to enhance a sense of agency is to give people a choice Uh, so for example in some school districts parents could choose between a hybrid program in-person program Totally remote program. So I think those kind of initiatives can help And the other important factor here is to identify those sub-populations that I was talking about that were not adapting in order to focus our assistance on them and What the data shows is that these are people from the low-income bracket It tends to be the younger individuals the older we're doing much better in fact Also females were doing worse than males People with predisposition to mental health were not doing as well As well as people who had young kids So if we can characterize those we can then focus our resources on those populations It seems like just on that gender analysis or demographic analysis It ties nicely back into Alice's point about lack of care support or having care support Before I want to go to um Alice in a particular and ask a policy question where tally you just made some great policy recommendations around agency and choice And communicating others harm versus yourself because we tend to um underestimate our own harm Some great opportunities there and messaging and policy I want to look quickly if we can go back at the slide when we asked our participants how they were changing Just take it back to them after we heard the research Um, I know we have some great input here on slowing down self-reflection family Goal setting but there's also some reflection around loneliness about people feeling um alone Zoom has its limits. Uh, microsoft teams has its limits. Um, I read a study Today that I can't remember. It was just the outstanding number of people just crazy Hadn't hugged anyone outside of their family and how much we need that that physical touch for me nature has been the great um Care bear of my soul so allison. I'm going to go to you Obviously, uh, there's been a lot of talk of politics and governments. Um, I'm an american I believe you are an american too. So we just had this this big election I I um as I said my organization a political and a political foundation We work at supporting public service and helping transformational political leaders What are some political implications that you see coming from this coveted search for joining me? Well, I think the again the fact that we are recognizing the lack of caregiving support has the Potential for having a kind of policy agenda that would really bridge right and left An agenda that had things like child allowances for example or family support Or you could have the equivalent of a child allowance in the form of an elder allowance so that you could have someone get a specific caregiving Both an obligation and also a salary if they committed to taking care of a particular Elderly person another thing that I think has come through covet is our physical environment keeps us from being able to have these Kind of close care relationships So the kids are in one place the elders are in another place the parents the workplaces in another place Everyone's spending hours commuting back and forth And I think one of the things we've realized is in a post-industrial world We could have elders and preschools in the same place We could do something like assign a grandmother to each early childhood class for example So have an older person who's got a salary should not be the teacher But just to be the grandmother in that class to just do that kind of caring And it's that kind of specific local relationships that that really underpin these relationships of care So I think we could have a kind of family policy But broadly construed a family policy that would include say being able to commit to a friend And have official recognition of the fact that you were taking care of that You were taking care of that individual person I think a policy like that would be very different from the way that we currently think about We currently think about care and would also be a policy that would really really bridge the divides The political divides it's something that I think people on both sides of the spectrum could really be committed at What could really be committed to and would make an enormous difference You were great. The challenge of that is in this partisan world How do we not have care be partisan? And I I'm sure that there's a way maybe tally through Agency and choice to do that. I want to I've asked There's a slide up right now that we've asked all of our participants to put their biggest takeaway from from each of you So while that slide is coming up I'm going to ask you all to think about your last comment as we get to the The top of the hour here by how time has gone quickly It's been a joy about your last piece of advice or your last takeaway during this time. It can be personal It can be systematic and it can be political So while we're uh, Jessica is going to gather some of those and send them to me Tally, what is your final sort of parting words to folks about joy and meaning making? I think that infection rates and mortality rates really hijacked the attention of the public the media and the people And of course you can see why but I think even doing a pandemic We really need to take into account and think about Other things that matter like the effect of isolation on people living alone or The effect of not having education and social connections on the young people And in order to be better at taking that into account in the future I need I think we need to now start developing ways to quantify those things Right quantify. How do you quantify lack of freedom? How do you quantify lack of education? Because we need to quantify them in order to then being able to take them into account and report them as we do GDP or mortality rates To make better decisions that will enhance people's welfare in the future There's a lot I know at previous Davos has been a lot on the social progress index and alternatives to GDP If you don't measure it, it doesn't matter. I'm sure allison and and the work you're doing on care We need to put both the the financial and non financial burden and opportunity Of that. So I think there's a there's a policy and political an economist Call there. Alex, how about you and in the last couple of minutes here? What is your big takeaway or call to action? Yeah, no, thanks lisa. I mean I think for me if we want to build cultures that we can be proud of We need to do two things We need to listen and we need to ask Uh gone are the days of command and control leaders I think the leaders as proven during this year those that listen respect apply communicate bond keep people together That's the way it goes The second is if we want people to have a sense of inclusion belonging diversity justice We need to ask them. Do they feel it? Do they see it? So I mean companies organizations need to actually formally ask that Simple questions regular whatever to show that you care if you will So, I mean listen and ask versus command and assume Things like great advice before during and after any sort of crisis allison last but not least In this care revolution. Those are my words not you yours. Maybe you would say that too I'll borrow it in this care revolution. Um, what's your sort of final ask or call to folks? I think it's visibility. So care has been so central to human beings I mean literally it's part of it's what made us human what made us evolve into homo sapiens But you know, there's the homo sapiens, but there isn't sort of the homo amor the The human who loves and the human who thinks is just part of it the human who loves and cares That's really the thing that makes us human and that's just been invisible in in policy because it's been something about women It's been something about families It's been something that's in the songs and sermons And if you could take you know, if you could take the song about what the world needs now is love and have it not just Be a song have it be a a policy injunction. I think that would I think covet would have had a really positive effect in the long run Well, we still can and at the top of the hour I want to thank you alex tally and allison not just for this session but for your life's work as we talked to the Participants here all of the folks listening Have great insights in our living this personally and as leaders they say their insight was to be kind. I think we knew that That we always Continue to need to be this way. They've had increased consciousness of rethinking education and what we invest in This notion of mental health mattering. We talked about others and agency and listening and asking And with that I want to thank everyone who's joined. I hope you take care of yourself You know, they say you have to put on your mask first before you can take care of others leadership It's about that is about taking care of yourself so you can help listen and ask and lead others