Less than two weeks ago America got a new hero: Charles Ramsey, a man from Cleveland, Ohio, who interrupted his enjoyment of a Big Mac to respond to the panicked pleas of a young woman in a neighboring house. As a result, three women who had been abducted and presumed dead for a decade were rescued.

Millions of Americans were charmed by Ramsey's self-effacing speech, but I was more taken with the fact he did something that so many of us are reluctant to do anymore: step across the barrier of our own self-containment and reach into someone else's life. We tend to deceive ourselves that our technology-Facebook, Twitter, texting-means that we're connected to other people. It's an illusion, because it allows us to be connected at our convenience. Real relationships mean getting involved when things are messy, chaotic, uncertain-and real.

In our organizations, we sometimes pursue a sanitized version of involvement with our people. We send memos and communicate via calendars. Leading is a full-contact sport - that means being hands-on, asking questions and caring about the answers, and reaching out to learn who the people we're working with truly are and what they truly need.

Are you sending communications or involved with your people?

That's a question I ask in my upcoming new book, "The Wave." Most corporate cultures define a winning team not only as one that achieves its objective every time but as one that constantly clears an ever-rising bar of expectations. No resting on laurels or congratulating ourselves for a well-fought campaign, folks; if we're not already finding new ways to exceed our performance from last quarter, we're losing.

Not only is that approach not sustainable, it doesn't reflect how people live, perform, and recover. The creative director who's a dynamo of ideas in Q1 might be running a bit dry in Q2. That doesn't mean she's incapable. It means she needs to recharge. People aren't machines.

To increase the wisdom of our organizations, it's important to appreciate that winning teams are those that combine consistent goal attainment with a culture that respects the natural ebb and flow of individual performance. I believe it is not the point to have one stellar quarter, but rather, to grow steadily over ten or twenty years. That long-term growth and performance only happens when we recognize that winning encompasses not just making the sale but making our people better, flaws and all.

How might you redefine "winning" in your organization?

A friend and colleague who lives in the Midwest told me this story about the long, snowy winter that region endured this year: A group of students living near the local university were freezing in their poorly insulated rental house. Not only were they half-buried beneath several feet of snow, but the howling winter winds turned the house into an icebox. Everyone was miserable...until one enterprising soul had an idea.

This young man made a huge pot of coffee and then hustled everyone outside. There, using shovels and plastic storage tubs, they started making bricks of packed snow. Over a period of about six hours, they made and stacked their bricks until they had a snow wall about six feet high around the entire front of their little cottage. They left a small space on one side for a door, packed up their tools, and then went inside and fell asleep.

The next morning, the students woke and noticed that their house was much warmer than it had been. The snow wall not only blocked the wind, but it effectively insulated the house, reflecting back the heat that escaped through the thin walls and single-paned windows. It was brilliant. Local newspapers came out to photograph the icy feat of engineering.

Where one person might see a problem, a wise person sees a solution. As we build and manage teams of diverse people in widely varying circumstances, it's important as leaders to remember that there are many perspectives on the same situations. Nothing is cut and dried. One person's trouble might become another's building material.

How do you encourage your people to look at things from multiple perspectives?

Not long ago, my partner Matt Brubaker was running on the beach in La Jolla, California. He spotted a young seal on the beach waving its flippers and bobbing its head to get attention from passersby, hoping they would give it food. This struck Matt as funny, because the seal had its back to an ocean full of fish. All it had to do was turn around and dive!

In our organizations, it's easy to become so caught up in the pursuit of one objective that we completely overlook the abundance that's all around us. For example, while corporations like Microsoft and Apple spend billions to develop the Next Big Thing, tiny software app companies like Uber and BabelVerse have been tapping into the vast untapped resources of the mobile economy. Uber leverages limo drivers' considerable downtime by letting customers call for high-class rides from their smart phones, while BabelVerse turns foreign language speakers around the world into an army of on-demand interpreters, also accessible via a smart phone app. That's brilliant.

As we try to infuse our organizations with wisdom, it's important to step back from time to time, lift our noses from the grindstone and look around. We might see new opportunities, new customers, new markets and new ways of doing things.

Are you choosing from abundance or sitting with your back to the ocean?

The famous line from the Pogo comic strip goes, "We have met the enemy, and he is us." The above variation seems apt only a few days after the terrible bombing at the Boston Marathon. This awful event has left many people shaken and angered. But where they see fear, I see cause for hope.

Terrorism is unique among the tactics of war in that it doesn't seek to destroy the enemy directly. Instead, it seeks to sow fear, panic, paranoia and hysteria in its victims and make them destroy themselves. In a terrorist's mind, a perfect attack would lead to riots, arrests of suspicious individuals, economic collapse and the breakdown of civil society.

That's not what happened after Boston. If you watch the footage, dozens of people ran toward the explosion-toward harm-to help those caught in the blast. Runners who had just run 26 miles ran two more to Massachusetts General Hospital to donate blood. All over the city, people rushed to get back to their lives even as they sent leads to authorities and showed support for the victims. That's the opposite of panic and hysterical violence. That's courage, reason, restraint and love at work.

Part of wisdom lies in knowing that we have the capacity to be both our own worst enemies and best allies-and to be aware of the times when we're on the verge of letting fear take over. In our organizations as well as our communities, we can react to adverse events either with panic and rage or with calm and compassion. Which we choose determines much about whether we succeed or fail.

Is your organization more prone to panic or positive action?

...do you know where your tax return is? Today is annual tax filing day and like clockwork, tens of thousands of people around the country will wait until the last second and then rush to their local Post Office to get their returns postmarked just before the midnight deadline. It's a ritual.

Human beings crave ritual. Rituals have always been ways to create meaning, promote a sense of order in a chaotic world, and establish community through shared experience. Understanding the meaning they convey however can be a little tricky.

When we observe the behavior or individuals and groups, observing their rituals can be an important window into that understanding. But observation alone isn't wisdom - it's simply noticing. We could observe the lines of late filers, and the slew of anti-tax posts on FB this morning and conclude the vast majority of our citizens are filing at the last minute to protest government spending. Or...

Wisdom involves seeking to understand motives and behaviors, the "whys behind the what" and not just noticing and acting. It could be that this April 15th ritual means that people are busy, or that completing tax forms is complicated and challenging for most, or that we hate giving away anything we earn to anyone, government or vendor. Maybe all of the above and other things as well. Yet, until we get a little deeper and ask why people behave the way they do, we can't understand their motives and values, and therefore can't lead most effectively.

Wise leaders understand the power of rituals, and seek understanding of their true meaning before acting.

What rituals do you notice in your people, and what wisdom do they offer you about what they value?

The headline quote by Susan Sontag (full quote is "Whatever is happening, something else is always going on."), remains one of the more illuminating bits of wisdom I have ever read. It means that whatever we may feel we know about a situation on the surface, there are hidden layers that we know nothing about.

Keeping this truth in mind can change how we relate to and understand the people with whom we work. Take the example of a web developer that my writing partner, Tim, told me about. This gentleman, who had previously been as reliable as the tide, was driving his employer to distraction with his erratic performance on a project. He missed deadlines, did substandard work and seemed lost. Rather than come down on him, his supervisor asked him if there was anything wrong that he needed to talk about.

It turned out that in recent weeks the developer had not only been dealing with his father having a painful and risky surgery, but had been undergoing tests for a possibly deadly form of cancer. By keeping in mind the "something else is always going on" rule, his boss avoided disciplining a valued team member who really needed support. An increased understanding gave this leader greater options for leading in a personally challenging time.

Every person has a backstory, and no leader-no matter how perceptive-can claim to have read every word of it. Better we should keep Ms. Sontag's wise words close at hand.

How would greater awareness and sensitivity to those around you change how you lead?

According to a new study conducted by the Wharton School, leadership effectiveness and height are correlated. In other words, the taller you are, the better leader you'll be.

Just kidding.

Today is April 1st, also known as April Fool's Day. That's got me reflecting on the role of humor in leading. As a rule, business is often serious business: we're dealing with lives and livelihoods, health and safety, and powerful technologies. And, we need to lighten up once in a while.

I'm not suggesting that Boeing workers be allowed to throw pies in each other's faces while they're assembling the components of the 787 Dreamliner. I am suggesting that encouraging humor can help people defuse the tension that comes with Very Important Work. After all, as Bertrand Russell said, "One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."

Some leaders discourage humor in the workplace because they see it as a coded challenge to their authority or don't understand its value to worker engagement. But what if humor could be open and intentional? What if the boss was the first one to share a joke each morning? Instead of being a means to express grievances and mock authority, humor can be a means to build camaraderie and bring teams together.

In your organization, are you the initiator of humor or the butt of the jokes?

The globe is a fascinating thing. Consider the International Date Line, which makes it possible to fly over the Pacific Ocean from Tokyo to Los Angeles and arrive before you left (that's really something they should mention on the in-flight safety card).Consider also the "joy" of time zones which invisibly yet powerfully affect our energy and equilibrium.

Finally, there's the equator. Right now it's the beginning of spring in North America. Flowers are budding, people are putting heavy coats into storage and summer is on the way. But south of the equator, the seasons flip-flop like a senator running for re-election. In the Southern Hemisphere, it's fall. In Sydney and Santiago, leaves are turning and the weather is getting cooler.

My point? No matter how things are going for you, they're not the same for everyone. It's easy to sequester ourselves in our own little world of timelines and goals and forget that just across the hall, the season might be completely different. And this doesn't just apply between teams but within them: the leader's weather might be balmy June while two or three key people are buried in January blizzards due to family troubles, medical issues or just plain burnout.

With awareness, we can act with empathy and wisdom. We don't assume that the solutions to our problems are the solutions to everybody's problems.

What season is it in your organization?

Ah spring, a time when fly balls and pickoff throws fill the air! In Florida and Arizona, Major League Baseball clubs are going through the motions of spring training. Players are working on their batting eyes, limbering up their pitching arms, and repeating drills until their hands bleed, all with an eye to being ready for Opening Day.

But why? Does anybody really believe these athletes need a refresher course year after year? After all, they work out year-round with personal trainers. They have video and computer swing analysis and advanced pitching metrics like WHIP, whatever that is. Are you going to tell me that, other than young kids trying to make the big club and old timers trying to hang on, that these guys need to spend six weeks in Scottsdale?

So what's the reason for spring training? In part, I think it's to remind everyone that baseball is hard. Hitting a 95 mph fastball is the hardest task in sports, and throwing one is the runner-up. Spring training is, in part, about humility. A reminder that greatness is rare and that if we can do things that others can't, that's cause for gratitude, not boastfulness.

In any organization, people are subject to complacency and resting on laurels. It's healthy, once in a while, to get a reminder that succeeding once is no guarantee that you'll succeed again. Staying on top means recognizing that the work of getting better never ends.

What do you do to encourage humility in your people?