Dov Seidman

When you press the pause button on a machine, it stops... But when you press the pause button on human beings, they start.
Dov Seidman

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HOW

Our world is not just rapidly changing, it’s being dramatically reshaped. Unprecedented and unfamiliar social, technological, environmental forces are reshaping our world faster than we have yet been able to reshape ourselves, our institutions, and our leadership. There is an urgent need to devote time and energy to the how of human conduct. In this world, HOW we do anything means everything.

The HOW Philosophy

Dov founded LRN, the leading ethics and compliance management and education company, with a purpose to “help people around the world do the right thing” and mission of “inspiring principled performance in business.” Dov was CEO for 25 years and currently serves as chairman.

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Dov is so obsessed with the HOW that he created The HOW Institute for Society as a non-profit to build and nurture a culture of moral leadership, principled decision-making, and values-based behavior. The Institute seeks to enable individuals and institutions to meet the profound social, economic, and technological changes of the 21st Century.

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Dov wrote The New York Times best-seller, HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything. But HOW is much more than a book; HOW is a philosophical framework for changing the role of behavior, governance, culture and leadership in contemporary society.

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Building and scaling

Institutions

Dov works with and advises business leaders. He builds institutions committed to scaling shared and sustainable human values, and not just shared interests, as central to how they lead and operate.

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Mission-aligned

Affiliations

Dov is meaningfully involved in and supports organizations pursuing aligned missions of significance and seeking to inspire positive change in our world.

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Inspiring the NEXT GENERATION OF

Leaders

Dov helps to educate and develop the next generation to become inspirational, moral leaders and principled decision-makers.

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My Journey

We all have different life journeys. We all have our struggles. We all tend to romanticize our past.

But as I often like to say to the executives I work with as they consider how they can strengthen their own leadership in disruptive times, “a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.”

Looking back, there are two significant life experiences that provide some sense of why I have such convictions and passion for the HOW.

Featured Insights

Dov writes for The New York Times and Fortune Magazine, among others. He has been referred to as “One of the Top Thought Leaders of the Past Decade.” He speaks at leading private and public sector events such as The World Economic Forum, The Time-Fortune Global CEO Forum and The World Business Forum.

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BehaviorLeadershipMetricsTrustValues

silhouette of man holding lighted light during night time

Moral leadership among CEOs is declining, even as more people demand it

Dov Seidman, who runs the HOW Institute for Society, has a new survey out assessing the “State of Moral Leadership in Business.”

Tom Friedman Column

We Are Opening the Lids on Two Giant Pandora’s Boxes

Let’s face it, we did not understand how much social networks would be used to undermine the twin pillars of any free society — truth and trust. So if we approach generative A.I. just as heedlessly — if we again go along with Mark Zuckerberg’s reckless mantra at the dawn of social networks, “move fast and break things” — oh, baby, we are going to break things faster, harder and deeper than anyone can imagine

Tom Friedman Column

We Need Great Leadership Now, and Here’s What It Looks Like

These times are testing leaders from the schoolhouse to the White House, from city halls to corporate suites.

AIBehaviorCapitalismCommunityCultureEconomyESGFrameworksHumanityInnovationJourneysLeadershipMission and PurposeTechnologyTrustValues

UNGA

Courageous Leadership at UN75

Dov Seidman, founder and chairman of The HOW Institute for Society spoke at the opening session of the UNGA 75 Private Sector Forum on September 22, 2020. Dov shared his thoughts on what it means to lead with courage in our rapidly reshaped world.

Corporate CultureLeadershipTrustValues

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Harvard Kennedy School

Why HOW Matters Most

Dov Seidman, Founder and Chairman of The HOW Institute for Society, joined Harvard as a Hauser Leader in the Fall of 2022. Throughout his time on campus, Dov drew students into deep, provoking conversations about frameworks and models of leadership and explored with students their own leadership journeys and how they can be guided by their deepest beliefs. Dov spoke with us about his experience engaging with students at CPL.

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