Six Essays, All Landed on 'Smiles'

I asked every executive to write a life essay — birth to present to future — with no format, no theme, no required conclusion, each written separately, unseen by the others. When the essays returned, I was astonished.

Six utterly different lives — a former national-team trainer, a designer, a global finance veteran, officers risen from the floor — all landed, in their final lines, on the same word: smiles. Increase the world's total smiles. Deliver smiles and happiness. A company whose staff don't smile isn't needed. For the children's smiles.

A business that delivers smiles. And mine: a company that makes everyone smile. No one had conferred, yet six arrows struck one target. Call it coincidence; I call it the reason we can stay on one ship for years. The essays merely made it visible. If your team ran this experiment, where would the arrows land?

What do you work for?