How Positive Leaders Use Purpose and Meaning to Create Extraordinary Organizations with Kim Cameron Part 1

Ashish Kothari: Kim, it's so lovely to have you with us. Thank you for spending your precious time with me and our Happiness Squad listeners today.

Kim Cameron: Well, you're very kind, and I'm flattered to be involved. I know you've had very important, well-known people. I'm not one of them, but thanks for the chance.

Ashish Kothari: Oh my God, you're so humble. Kim, your lifetime's work is so inspirational in the domain of positive leadership. Leadership is a commonly discussed term. Everybody's a leader, and there are so many frameworks. I'd like to explore, for our listeners, when you say positive leadership, what does that mean?

Kim Cameron: Thank you. The word "leadership"—if you log on to Amazon, you find 60,000 books on leadership, with lots and lots of adjectives and qualifiers before that word: humble leadership, transformational leadership, servant leadership, and so on.

This idea of positive leadership emerged really from research on what factors explain how organizations do so very well when they shouldn’t.

For example, I was doing research on organizations that were downsizing for about 10 years. The results of that research have been confirmed by many others, not just me: downsizing almost always predicts deterioration in performance.

Trust goes down, morale goes down, communication channels get restricted, and there's what we call "leadership anemia." It becomes really difficult to lead an organization that's traumatized and stressed. In about 80-90% of organizations we studied, that was the case.

However, that left 10-15% of organizations that flourished after downsizing. And the question is, what was the difference between the few that improved and almost everybody else that didn’t?

At the time, I didn’t have empirical data, but it became very clear to me that there was something unique about those organizations. What I referred to it as, at the time, was "virtuous practices" and "positive leaders."

Well, what does that mean? We didn’t have any data suggesting that was the case initially, but for the most part, positive leadership became a prominent attribute of those organizations. And, again, at that time, we had no empirical data, but since then, we've conducted a lot of studies, where the outcomes are extraordinary.

So far, no disconfirming evidence has occurred. That is, when the organization has a positive leader, and that involves energy, behavior, role modeling, and the extent to which—maybe the best summary or short definition is this: if your behavior helps other people learn more, do more, dream more, and become more, that's positive leadership.

A positive, energizing leader is a positive behavioral leader. It helps other people do much better than they would have otherwise, and the organization does much better than it would have otherwise.

There are lots of attributes of that. But that’s how this all emerged: some organizations were doing far better than they should, far better than everybody else, and we wanted to figure out why that happened. That’s how this all came about.

Ashish Kothari: I love it for a couple of reasons, and I think there are important nuances that I'll point out. When you talked about this research, this study, it's not just that some organizations let people go and some didn't.

They all went through downsizing, which is never easy. They all went through it, but the point is that it’s not the absence of hardship, but despite that, certain organizations did better. It’s important to recognize that, because sometimes the world can become polarized—thinking that because people shrink, they must be doing something wrong. But sometimes it’s a business necessity.

The second point I want to highlight is that they performed better because individuals performed better, which led to the organization performing better. I love this notion of leadership that helps individuals learn more, do more, dream more, and become more, rather than just maintaining the status quo.

And that’s what creates these positive outcomes. I love the words you use, and I want to talk a little bit about this notion of positive deviance.

When I first read that in your work, I thought, "Yeah!" We often think about deviance in one way, but I’ll let you talk a little bit about why these organizations are positively deviant and in what ways. What financial results were you seeing that showed for sure there was something magical here?

Kim Cameron: Thank you. As you said, the idea of positive deviance emerged because, at least in English, the word "deviance" has a negative connotation. If I call you a deviant, it’s usually a criticism, but deviance just means an aberration from the norm—unexpected, not normal behavior.

So, you can think of negative deviance, but you can also think of positive deviance, which is extraordinary, spectacular, not the norm at all, but in a positive sense. What’s interesting is that about 90% of medical research focuses on negative deviance—illness, heart disease, feeling terrible, COVID, and so on. That’s where medical science spends most of its time.

Psychology has been about the same, especially until recently. For the most part, psychology focused on the negative: depression, anxiety, stress, burnout, schizophrenia, and so on. As soon as I’m normal, healthy, or well, psychology tends to stop doing research.

But on the other end of that continuum, there’s positive deviance. Physically, positive deviance would be the ability to run an Ironman, 5% body fat for men, the ability to do 400 push-ups, and so on.

In psychology, there was a book written some years ago by a man who just passed away recently, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, titled Flow. He described a condition where people are so immersed in a task they care about that they lose track of time and even physiological needs. If you put electrodes on their brains, they’re using more of their brain capacity than normal. This isn’t zoning out in front of a screen; it's a high-engagement state.

Not much research exists on this, though it’s spectacular. Cognitive, emotional, and behavioral demonstrations of such extraordinary performance are not as studied as they could be, but this type of performance is typical of positively deviant organizations. They are spectacular and perform far above the industry average and expectations. Individuals flourish in these environments, too.

That’s where the idea of positive deviance came from—organizations and individuals performing significantly above the norm and unexpectedly so.

Ashish Kothari: Yes, I mean, it’s so interesting. In our own research, we see that, across different studies, most focus on negative deviance. If I may, you are a positive deviant, and I would love to be one as well!

You’re an inspiration with how active you are, how much you've contributed, and the impact you've created throughout your life in so many ways. You are in service to the world and to your students. I’ve seen you at the center.

Kim Cameron: You’re very kind. Thank you.

Ashish Kothari: Kim, our research shows the same. I always say that my business case for flourishing is simple: you can get two times more returns, 12 to 30 percent more productivity, 20 percent more profitability, 65 percent lower attrition, and three times more creativity through this work.

We’re seeing it. We looked at the Oxford research that came out a year and a half ago, analyzing over 100 companies and showing how they outcompete others. We have Alex Edmans' work, which looked at causation.

You've got over 20 years of research yourself. It’s interesting, as I dug into this literature, to see how early this all started. I'm curious, when you began studying this, it wasn’t even in the public consciousness, right?

As you said, even in psychology, positive psychology started only 20 years ago with Marty Seligman saying, “Hey, maybe we should study what helps people flourish, not just why people are languishing.” What inspired that shift for you?

Kim Cameron: Well, it resonated with what feels right to me, but the more I immersed myself in this topic, the more it was confirmed in several ways. What I learned is that every living system—every human being, every plant, every single-cell organism—is attracted to and flourishes in the presence of positive energy.

Einstein said that light is simply nature's way of distributing positive energy. Everything is drawn to and flourishes in the presence of light. Put a seed in the ground, and it grows toward the light. Photosynthesis—life itself—only happens in the presence of light.

In organizations, positive energy and emotions create more flourishing, and people are naturally drawn to that. They tend to do better in a positive environment, as opposed to a negative or even neutral one. We began to confirm that with more and more research on things like brain waves, heart rhythms, and people’s capacity to learn and absorb information.

Research now strongly supports that people flourish in the presence of positive, life-giving energy. Once evidence starts to emerge, you think, “If the heliotropic effect—meaning everything is attracted to life-giving, positive energy—is real, then this has big implications.” It influences everything, from incentive systems to parenting to relationships.

Once we had some evidence, it became clear we had to pay serious attention to this, committing time and resources to research. Most leadership books, out of those 60,000 or so on Amazon, are probably about inspirational storytelling rather than research-based evidence.

Empirical evidence is rare. You seldom read about experiments with validated data showing that if you do this, you’ll see results. That’s why this movement around positive leadership and positive energy focuses so heavily on data. We want to be convinced there’s a theory with confirmed outcomes.

Ashish Kothari: That’s what I’ve loved about you and your colleagues—Jane, Bob Quinn, Monica, and so many others. This whole ecosystem of research is creating a foundation of evidence-based practices, which is so critical compared to just nice, inspirational stories.

At the heart of this work, with the heliotropic effect and positive leadership organizations, is what you said: they are virtuous. They do the right thing, even when it’s difficult.

Kim Cameron: Yes.

Ashish Kothari: Can you talk a bit about this concept of virtuosity? Maybe share a story of a company or a leader who truly exemplified that?

Kim Cameron: Thank you. That's a wonderful cue, because most of us have an idea about what virtuousness means. In its original Latin and Greek, it essentially refers to "the best" or "the highest aspirations" of the human condition.

The best of human aspirations, if the world were truly virtuous, would mean no war, no poverty; everyone would be well-educated, and we’d all get along. So, virtuousness is literally about the best of the human condition.

What does that mean? It means people are kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving, and grateful. It’s like grandmother’s advice, the qualities we say represent the best we can be.

Of course, there’s the opposite of that, which unfortunately permeates our environment. But for the most part, virtuousness includes those admirable attributes like kindness, love, forgiveness, and compassion.

One thing we’ve done is study organizations to identify how much they implement these practices. For example, in the United States, there’s a well-known financial services organization called Prudential Financial.

Prudential was struggling financially in their retirement business, which is a critical part of financial services because most people invest in retirement accounts rather than play the stock market.

They knew they would have to consolidate or merge with another firm to survive, and the firm they selected was Cigna Retirement. The merger was described as like merging the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, two teams with clashing cultures. But they recognized it was essential for both organizations’ survival.

The CEO of Cigna was appointed CEO of the merged organization, Prudential Retirement. He happened to be a graduate of my university, so he learned about our work on positive practices, positive organization, and leadership.

He asked us to come in and help create a positive culture in this merged organization, bringing together two very different companies. We worked with them for two to three years, embedding positive practices, building a positive culture, and so on.

John, the CEO, initially viewed this positive approach as being soft, syrupy, and about smiles and singing happy tunes. But he discovered it was much more than that—it transformed their strategy, incentive systems, culture, customer approach, and almost everything in the organization.

He aspired for employees and customers to rate them as well above average on all technical aspects of their business and to succeed “above all understanding,” where they perform so well that people don’t understand how they got there.

He also noted that there’s no debate about how to achieve this; people simply take initiative. He even remarked, “If I wanted to control this movement, I couldn’t; it’s way beyond my control.”

Within about three years, Prudential’s growth rate hit 20% annually, five times the industry average. Their profitability rose, turnover decreased, and 90% of their clients stayed. Perhaps the biggest test came five years later when John was recruited to be the president of the world’s largest mutual insurance company.

A new CEO took over, but the culture continued seamlessly. The incoming CEO, Chris Marks, continued the positive practices, and Prudential continued to flourish. That’s one example.

Let me give you another quick one. We worked with 40 financial services firms, specifically because financial services tend to focus on “show me the money.” In this industry, stock performance is crucial, and financial returns are the priority.

We met with CEOs and senior executives, exposed them to positive practices and theories, and spent a day or so with them explaining how these practices can work within an organization.

We then proposed conducting a study to measure their financial performance, employee retention, productivity, and other outcomes over two years.

Some of these organizations implemented the positive practices, while others didn’t. We measured their positive practice scores and financial performance. Remarkably, 45% of their improvement in financial performance was directly attributable to positive practices.

In other words, 45% of their performance outcome was due to the degree to which their positive practice scores improved. That’s significant, especially on Wall Street, where predicting 45% of financial outcomes is rare.

Studies like this make the case for these practices very compelling, and we’ve realized there’s much more to learn.

Ashish Kothari: You know, I love it. And in both those examples, especially the first one, I think, Kim, you echo a core belief in the work we’re doing at Happiness Squad, which centers on flourishing.

I spoke about this at the COO Summit last week, saying that the flourishing and well-being of employees has to go from being a side hustle to becoming a core part of the company’s strategy. It has to permeate the entire organization.

This isn’t unlike Toyota’s production system, which was not just a manufacturing system but the heart of their strategy, or how Six Sigma became central to GE’s strategy. Embedding well-being and flourishing into the core strategy takes time to execute, but that’s where we need to go.

Many organizations are increasing their well-being spend, but often, it’s still a side item. For example, we’re spending money on EAP programs or well-being seminars, but most business leaders don’t consider this a core strategy.

Making that shift is a game-changer. Predicting 45% of performance outcomes is a major investment worth making. This is the kind of bet I’d make because, to your point, 45% is significant.

Interestingly, I was looking at Alex Edmans’ work on causation, which showed a 2-3.5% incremental shareholder return year over year. Compounded over eight years, that translates to 30-50% in incremental shareholder value creation.

I can’t think of another strategy that promises that. And I bet, Kim, that even though it wasn’t explicitly measured, there was likely another 20-30% of performance that came from having an organization with more positive, heliotropic leadership, where individuals and the collective lift their game.

This effect creates a tighter connection between strategy and execution, amplifying outcomes and minimizing disruptions that often prevent great strategies from delivering desired results.

Kim Cameron: Well, you've made a big impact on many people, not only because of the work you’ve done but also because you make that work accessible for others. You’re terrific.

Ashish Kothari: Thank you. That’s what I’m trying to do. This has been a 10-year journey for me, but I also bring 20 years of prior experience. We know how to drive large-scale change in operations.

Imagine if we could create the next human operating system, an implementation approach just like we did for operational improvements—this time for our human assets, our people. Your work is so central to this.

I’d like to dig into two practices today, and maybe we can cover the other two in another episode. I want to start with meaning and purpose as a critical strategy—a positive leadership practice that can make a real difference. So, talk to us about why positive meaning is so important in the workplace.

Kim Cameron: The idea of meaning has been investigated in various ways. I have a colleague who did studies, essentially surveys, and discovered that employees are willing to give up a quarter of their salary if they have meaningful work.

Another statistic he found is that people are willing to give up a quarter of their lifetime earnings for work with a profound purpose.

Having something where you feel like you're making a difference, something you care about, something important that you can influence—something more significant than just personal reward—is a powerful motivator and an essential part of the human condition. Human beings tend to be generous and are attracted to making a difference.

Let me give you a couple of studies unrelated to organizations, and then I’ll return to organizational examples. In one study, researchers worked with children around 19 months old—the age when they’re most prone to temper tantrums or physical aggression when they don’t get what they want.

The experiment involved placing a child on the floor with a tray and a barrier. On the other side of the barrier, an adult would drop a fruit treat into the tray. The question was, what would the child do with the treat?

There were two conditions: in one, the adult showed desire by reaching for the treat; in the other, the adult ignored it. When the adult ignored the treat, only 4% of children offered to give it back; they mostly ate it. But when the adult reached for it, the majority of the children gave it back, showing a tendency toward generosity.

The most interesting part of the study was when some children missed lunch, making them particularly hungry. Even then, most of the time, the child would still hand the treat back to the adult, even when starving. This shows that, from an early age, there’s an inherent tendency toward generosity and contributing to others.

Here’s another study, this time with children aged three to eight months—long before socialization or language acquisition. They placed a child on a caregiver’s lap to watch a brief puppet show. One puppet tried to walk across the stage, climb a hill, or open a box, while two other puppets either helped or hindered.

Afterward, the helping and hindering puppets were placed in front of the child, who could choose one to play with. More than 90% of the time, the child chose the helping puppet, showing an inherent human tendency toward positivity and generosity.

Another fascinating study involved multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. Half of these patients received a weekly phone call expressing love, support, and concern, while the other half made such a call to someone else.

Two years later, researchers measured self-efficacy, confidence, competence, physical activity, hope, and depression. Those who made the calls showed an eight-fold improvement compared to those who received them.

Physically and emotionally, the act of giving led to flourishing. Human beings tend to thrive in environments with generosity, kindness, consideration, and contribution.

In organizations, the same principles apply. When people understand that what they’re doing has meaning beyond their immediate benefit, it leads to similar flourishing. Here’s a relevant study.

One of our doctoral students previously worked as a telephone solicitor—a role with a 325% turnover rate due to its challenging nature. At the University of Michigan, students make calls to alumni, asking for donations. In this experiment, half of the solicitors heard a message from a student, who shared his story and said:

“I have to thank you so much for what you’re doing. I’m attending the University of Michigan on financial aid, and there’s no way I could afford to be here without the money you’re raising. I’m the first in my family and my small town to go to college. It has changed my life, my family, and my entire community, and it’s all thanks to your efforts.”

The other half of the solicitors didn’t receive this message. One week later, the student researcher measured two factors: the number of calls made per hour and the amount of money raised.

Those who heard the story from the student showed three times higher productivity, making three times more calls than those who hadn’t heard the story. Surprisingly, they also raised twice as much money.

One might think this effect would wear off, but a month later, the same results persisted—three times the productivity and twice the amount raised. Once people have a sense that what they’re doing truly matters, it transforms their performance.

There are many studies like these, but these examples illustrate how meaningful work profoundly impacts productivity, motivation, and engagement.

Ashish Kothari: Amazing. Knowing that I’m making a difference in someone else’s life is such a big part of it. So, how can we help people find meaning at work? I hear often that people find meaning outside of work, seeing their job only as a way to earn a paycheck. What do you say to those people, Kim?

Kim Cameron: I’m banking on the heliotropic effect—that human beings will respond positively and do better in the presence of positive energy. Positive energy aligns with contributing to the well-being of others, helping people flourish, dream more, become more, and do more. That’s an essential human attribute.

For example, a colleague in the psychology department here at Michigan conducted a study with entering freshmen at the start of the school year. She asked them to identify their goals for the year.

Everyone has multiple goals, but she categorized these goals into two types: achievement goals and contribution goals. Achievement goals include things like, “I want good grades,” “I want to be popular,” “I want a girlfriend,” or “I want to make the team.”

Contribution goals include goals like, “I want to make a difference” or “I want something to get better because of what I’ve done.” Everyone has both types of goals, but some people are dominated by one type over the other.

She divided students based on which type of goal was dominant and followed them for an entire academic year.

She measured outcomes like how well they got along with their roommates, how many times they were elected to club offices, social factors, how many minor physiological symptoms they experienced, like getting the flu, headaches, or COVID, and physical factors.

She also looked at their academic performance, including GPA and test scores at the end of each semester.

On every dimension, contribution goals were more predictive of performance than achievement goals. Those dominated by contribution goals did better socially, academically, and physically. The whole notion is that human beings flourish in the presence of virtues like kindness, compassion, and contribution.

That finding is confirmed by other studies. For example, another study focused on widows who had lost their husbands within the previous six months. Some of these women were heavily involved in supporting others, contributing to their well-being.

Other women had strong support systems where others nurtured and helped them adjust to the loss of their husband. Six months later, they measured the extent to which these women experienced clinical depression.

Among those actively helping others, 0% experienced depression. Among those primarily receiving support, 70% were clinically depressed.

Ashish Kothari: Wow.

Kim Cameron: Contribution matters a lot. Creating meaning is closely tied to making a difference in someone else’s life, not just focusing on oneself. There are many other aspects of meaning, but this is a practical one that can easily be embedded in organizations.

ing Viktor Frankl said in the: 1950

We found that nearly 90% of leaders saw their work as meaningful and purposeful. But when we asked the same question to frontline workers and managers, that number dropped to just 19-20%.

Think about that. We know that humans are driven to contribute, and it gives us meaning. We personally benefit, and our organizations benefit, as you mentioned. The call center study is a perfect example of that.

We know that all these benefits happen, so why isn’t it the role of every people leader to help individuals on their team connect more meaningfully with their work?

Here’s the hard, cold fact: if a company earns even a single dollar in revenue, it’s making someone’s life better in some way, and that person is willing to pay for it.

It doesn’t matter what level you’re at in the organization. Whether you’re swapping servers in a data center or assembling a cog in the manufacture of a tractor, helping people understand how their role contributes to the organization’s positive impact is so easy to do. Yet, it’s such an underutilized lever. We hardly ever talk about it.

Kim Cameron: That’s true. You’re leading the charge on these principles and having a big impact on people. I just sit back and look at the numbers—you’re making a difference.

Ashish Kothari: Yeah, but, you know, we stand on the shoulders of giants, Kim, and you're one of those. Without the research and the targeted interventions, how would this be possible? This is a big deal.

So talk to me a little about meaning and an organization you've worked with where this was an unleveraged lever, and you helped them implement it. How did you implement this, and what effect did that have?

Kim Cameron: I'll tell you, there are several examples, but here’s one story. Near Boulder, Colorado, 16 miles west of Denver, there’s a place called the Rocky Flats Nuclear Arsenal. For a long time, about 50 years after World War II, there was a cold war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, where both sides were stockpiling nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union had around 90,000 nuclear weapons, and we had about 50,000.

The trigger that goes into nuclear weapons was manufactured at Rocky Flats. They were dealing with some of the most dangerous materials known to humankind: plutonium, enriched uranium, transuranic acid, and so on. It was an enormously secure environment, more secure than a maximum-security prison, designed to keep people out. Anti-aircraft equipment was installed on buildings because you didn’t want terrorists or unauthorized people getting access to any of this material. Rocky Flats became one of the best manufacturers of nuclear triggers in the world.

However, because they were focused on this job, they weren’t monitoring pollution. No one knew if the ground soil surrounding the area, thousands of acres of buffer zone, was contaminated. No one was testing how much radioactive material went up the chimney and into the air. A particle of plutonium in your lungs guarantees cancer, yet no one knew if people in Denver, 16 miles away, would be affected.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) started suing in federal court to get partial jurisdiction over Rocky Flats since they were initially prohibited from entering for security reasons. After 40 years, they gained partial access and, to everyone’s surprise, brought the FBI with them. The FBI stepped in and told everyone to back away from the equipment until they could prove they weren’t polluting. This meant that 3,500 employees had to drop what they were doing. If they had plutonium in a tray or nitric acid in barrels, which is used to keep plutonium stable, they had to leave it alone.

This event, called a “hot shutdown,” became very dangerous because ten minutes after stopping the handling and monitoring of these materials, the risk level increased significantly. No one in history had ever cleaned up and closed a nuclear arsenal, given that plutonium has a half-life of 26,000 years. Once you have it, it doesn’t go anywhere. It still cost $700 million a year to maintain the security of Rocky Flats—to keep the fans running, water moving, and the place from becoming unstable. Over six years, this cost totaled $4.2 billion with nothing being accomplished.

Eventually, the federal government decided they couldn’t keep writing checks, so they brought together a blue-ribbon commission of nuclear energy experts from around the world. They were tasked with estimating how long and what it would cost to clean up and close Rocky Flats, as the Cold War had ended, and the U.S. decided it didn’t need to produce more nuclear weapons. The commission estimated that it would take 70 years and $36 billion to clean up and close Rocky Flats. The Department of Energy published this estimate, but I interviewed the Secretary of Energy, who believed it was a gross underestimate. They privately expected it would take 200 years and several hundred billion dollars. However, they couldn’t publish that because no one would bid on a 200-year contract, so they published 70 years as a best-case estimate.

Long story short, the company that won the contract completed the job 60 years early and $30 billion under budget. They cleaned up Rocky Flats to be 13 times cleaner than federal standards required. It’s cleaner now than it was when they started.

The question is, how did they pull that off? We wrote a book on this because it was such a dramatic accomplishment. One of the major factors was that they had to convince employees that what they were doing was saving the lives of their children. They explained that a generation from now, no one would be exposed to radioactive material, no one would have to worry about contaminated soil or groundwater pollution. What they were doing was blessing the lives of the next generation. Even though they’d been working there for 40 years, they had to shift their focus to doing it for others. Meaning became the central issue.

Ashish Kothari: Wow.

Kim Cameron: I'll tell you, there are several examples, but here’s one story. Near Boulder, Colorado, 16 miles west of Denver, there’s a place called the Rocky Flats Nuclear Arsenal.

For a long time, about 50 years after World War II, there was a cold war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, where both sides were stockpiling nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union had around 90,000 nuclear weapons, and we had about 50,000.

The trigger that goes into nuclear weapons was manufactured at Rocky Flats. They were dealing with some of the most dangerous materials known to humankind: plutonium, enriched uranium, transuranic acid, and so on.

It was an enormously secure environment, more secure than a maximum-security prison, designed to keep people out. Anti-aircraft equipment was installed on buildings because you didn’t want terrorists or unauthorized people getting access to any of this material. Rocky Flats became one of the best manufacturers of nuclear triggers in the world.

However, because they were focused on this job, they weren’t monitoring pollution. No one knew if the ground soil surrounding the area, thousands of acres of buffer zone, was contaminated.

No one was testing how much radioactive material went up the chimney and into the air. A particle of plutonium in your lungs guarantees cancer, yet no one knew if people in Denver, 16 miles away, would be affected.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) started suing in federal court to get partial jurisdiction over Rocky Flats since they were initially prohibited from entering for security reasons.

After 40 years, they gained partial access and, to everyone’s surprise, brought the FBI with them. The FBI stepped in and told everyone to back away from the equipment until they could prove they weren’t polluting.

This meant that 3,500 employees had to drop what they were doing. If they had plutonium in a tray or nitric acid in barrels, which is used to keep plutonium stable, they had to leave it alone.

This event, called a “hot shutdown,” became very dangerous because ten minutes after stopping the handling and monitoring of these materials, the risk level increased significantly. No one in history had ever cleaned up and closed a nuclear arsenal, given that plutonium has a half-life of 26,000 years.

Once you have it, it doesn’t go anywhere. It still cost $700 million a year to maintain the security of Rocky Flats—to keep the fans running, water moving, and the place from becoming unstable. Over six years, this cost totaled $4.2 billion with nothing being accomplished.

Eventually, the federal government decided they couldn’t keep writing checks, so they brought together a blue-ribbon commission of nuclear energy experts from around the world. They were tasked with estimating how long and what it would cost to clean up and close Rocky Flats, as the Cold War had ended, and the U.S. decided it didn’t need to produce more nuclear weapons.

The commission estimated that it would take 70 years and $36 billion to clean up and close Rocky Flats. The Department of Energy published this estimate, but I interviewed the Secretary of Energy, who believed it was a gross underestimate.

They privately expected it would take 200 years and several hundred billion dollars. However, they couldn’t publish that because no one would bid on a 200-year contract, so they published 70 years as a best-case estimate.

Long story short, the company that won the contract completed the job 60 years early and $30 billion under budget. They cleaned up Rocky Flats to be 13 times cleaner than federal standards required. It’s cleaner now than it was when they started. The question is, how did they pull that off? We wrote a book on this because it was such a dramatic accomplishment.

One of the major factors was that they had to convince employees that what they were doing was saving the lives of their children. They explained that a generation from now, no one would be exposed to radioactive material, no one would have to worry about contaminated soil or groundwater pollution.

What they were doing was blessing the lives of the next generation. Even though they’d been working there for 40 years, they had to shift their focus to doing it for others. Meaning became the central issue.