Authenticity
As much as anything, our souls are crying for authenticity, with
it we can build relationships and inspire each other and our customers
and suppliers. The implications for increased revenues are obvious.
What a gift - a technique for inspiring the soul and gratifying
the personality. Before we can communicate effectively, we must
communicate authentically.
Beauty
If our workplaces were sacred, would we be more likely to love
and respect them? If these were beautiful places and we loved
them, how might the human performance within them be transformed?
The soul flourishes in beauty.
Balance
It is time for us to redesign work so that we can balance our
material and spiritual aspirations and integrate them into the
larger and longer term picture - our lives and souls depend on
it.
Bliss
High levels of mastery create a "rush" that is hard
to match in other ways, indulging in activities that inspire us,
is a very human way to reward ourselves. We can reach rare moments
of bliss through exquisite levels of mastery and this can only
come from a dedication to learning.
Business
Business is more than a vehicle to provide jobs and profits. It
is one of the most elegant forms ever designed for all of us to
make a sacred contribution to each other and the planet.
Creativity
Preparing an environment that will nourish creativity is, in itself,
a creative activity. Spontaneity, dynamism, fun, humor, freedom
from fear of failure, incentives, sympathetic values and culture,
a soulspace and celebration are just a few of the essential ingredients
of a creative culture. Leaders who seek to liberate the soul through
creativity must establish a sanctuary in which failure is not
punished but valued as a learning experience.
Children
Children are our role models because they are curious, creative
and imaginative. They embrace discovery and wonder. They are natural
learners. These are precious qualities that should be nurtured
and stimulated throughout our lives.
Courage
Inviting spirit to the workplace begins with courage the role
of the leader who wishes to inspire the souls of others - the
missionary - is to model the behavior desired, which is done by
going first.
Customers
We are on the customer's payroll: the organization is just a convenient
way for the customer to get the money to us.
Customer service
We have a sacred responsibility to provide quality and customer
service to others - both inside and outside our organizations.
This is not a mater of discretion, but a sacred trust. We have
made a promise to meet an agreed performance standard. We have
given our word, our bond, if we live up to our responsibilities
in the first place, we will not need a "program".
Chemistry
Chemistry means: relating so well with others that they actively
seek to associate themselves with you. People with chemistry possess
characteristics and attitudes that favor building strong relationships.
Truth-telling and promise-keeping are keystones of chemistry and
result in the establishment of emotional bonds with others built
on trust.
Congruence
Trust and integrity are good examples of words that are more widely
used than practiced. This causes a sense of incongruity in peoples
hearts. If we ask people to tell the truth, we need to be sure
we are doing the same. The best teaching is not achieved through
talking but by modeling.
Commitment
What are you prepared to risk in order to make your life more
soulful? To what are you willing to commit your life in service
to this planet and all its creatures? Is your work greater than
your soul?
Communications
Those with grace seek to integrate themselves with those with
whom they interact. They guide relationships with a sure hand
that seeks to make every soul whole - first with itself, but also
with the universe.
Contribution
The joy of giving is the natural path of the soul when climbing
into bed at night, there are few things as gratifying to the personality,
as well as the soul, than knowing that the day's efforts contributed
positively to customers, employees, suppliers - and the larger
community.
Delivery
Delivery means: identifying the needs of others and meeting them.
Delivery honors meeting the needs of customers over mere profit
making. Delivery is founded on "win/win" deals and relationships
that treat customers, employees and suppliers as partners rather
than adversaries. In short, delivery is being of service to others.
Empathizing
Empathizing means: considering the thoughts, feelings and perspectives
of others. Empathizing accelerates chemistry. To be a friend,
we must walk in the moccasins of others. Because to relate well
with them, we must first understand them. So our goal is to be
in a continuous state of empathy.
Encouragement
The soul seeks encouragement. We all know that things are not
as we would like them to be and we yearn to change them but we
lack the encouragement necessary to become actively involved in
creating that change. Our soul see the need but not the support.
Our role, therefore is to supply that encouragement - moral and
financial. And even more important, spiritual.
Freedom
Rules describe what cannot be done. But the soul yearns to be
enabled, to know what can be done. Rules are limiting: values
are liberating.
Flow
If our work produces flow, we are on purpose and our work may
develop so that it becomes as great as our soul.
Grace
If we have not learned to treat each other with grace, how will
we learn to be graceful with our customers? If we live with grace
inside our organizations, it will show up in our relationships
outside them.
Greatness
Building greatness is achieved one human being at a time. The
difference between whether an organization is mediocre or superb
is determined by whether all its individual members are mediocre
or superb.
Harmony
Try not to match anger with any of your own anger - aggression
is dependent on the laws of mechanics: it is unrewarding when
it has nothing to push against, as every bully knows. Seek harmony.
Inspiration
People come to work each day for more than just the money. They
come to create friendships, to learn, to have fun - in short,
they yearn for an uplifting experience. Corporate leaders today
therefore, are being called upon to be the new custodians of the
human spirit.
Integrity
Has there been an inherent honesty present in all things: have
all our acts been noble and virtuous? Have our profits been generated
with honesty? Have they been achieved through noble and virtuous
acts?
Intimacy
Appearing distant, cold and mechanical to others alienates their
souls. Being human, not mechanical, is crucial to opening our
souls at work, and permitting the whole person to be present and
contribute. Avoiding these and other issues of the heart, issues
that are at the core of what it means to be human, starves the
soul of its most essential requirements and blocks our creative
energy and productivity.
Intuition
Where the personality doesn't take intuition seriously, the soul
threats it as the most useful of its senses. The soul works primarily
on hunches, emotions, premonitions and funny feelings. If we can
learn to become comfortable with the notion that not everything
must be quantified and value the unknowable as a legitimate source
of information, then emancipation of the soul is possible, from
which will follow a release in creative thinking.
Investment
If we are prepared to invest 10% annually in the maintenance of
physical plant and equipment surely we should be willing to do
the same for the most valuable and important assets in our businesses
- the people who make it work.
Joy
Enlightened leaders create sanctuaries by removing fear from the
workplace. Passion and joy replace fear. When we love what we
so, we do it well because it is joyful and fun. This engages the
soul.
Kaizen
Creativity nourishes the soul and there are two ways to be creative:
by innovating (finding a different way) and kaizen (finding a
better way). It is a solution-based rather than a problem-based
philosophy. This subtle difference nourishes the souls of individuals
and therefore propels them and their organizations into a unique
spiritual plane.
Leadership
We mistakenly believe that the fearsome cliches of war, violence
and intimidation inspire and motivate. But it doesn't work like
that. The qualities of modern leadership are more likely to be
found in the wisdom of saints, mystics and gurus than Attila the
Hun, and from our feminine as much as from our masculine energy.
Learning
If mastery is chopping wood, then learning is sharpening the ax.
Learning is the fuel of the soul. In order to chop wood (mastery),
it is necessary to pause from time to time to sharp the ax (learning).
Legacy
Our work produces nothing lasting save what we contribute to the
soul. Even the greatest accomplishments will crumble in the end.
Only our souls endure forever. Great corporations, factories and
every other material asset will mean nothing if they are not sanctuaries
in which the soul can make a lasting contribution.
Life-long learning
Learning means: seeking and practicing knowledge and wisdom. Learning
accelerates mastery, but mastery is never perfect. Just as there
is no perfect knowledge or wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom are always
incomplete and so continuous learning - that is, life-long learning
- is essential. If continuous mastery is to flourish in all areas
of our work and personal lives.
Love
Remember that everyone wants more love -not fear- in their lives.
It takes courage to admit this. We all yearn to let our souls
fly - we just don't know how to do so safely. We are each responsible
for helping others to do so.
Listening
Listening means: hearing and understanding the communications
of others. Listening accelerates delivery. We cannot meet the
needs of others (delivery) if we do not pause to hear what those
needs are. To truly listen, we must shut down our "mental
chatter" and genuinely, and non-judgementally, listen to
each other. Then and only then will we be in a position to take
the appropriate actions to meet them.
Mastery
Mastery means: undertaking whatever you do in both your personal
and professional life to the highest standards of which you are
capable. The mission of all of us is the same: to do what we do
so well that others will come to see us do it again.
Motivation
Life is not a battleground - it is a playground. War or the fear
of losing does not motivate people. Virtuoso performances are
romanced from people not beaten out of them.
Non-violence
There is only one standard - non-violence. And even minor acts
of violence, like rudeness, bad manners or hurtful behavior, are
on the same continuum as the ultimate violence - war.
Openness
Evolved people respect differing views. Understanding that life's
meaning is to be found everywhere. They are open, always learning
and growing. An evolved person knows that there is only one truth,
but many different ways of seeing it.
Promise-keeping
Leaders who inspire the souls of others do not treat promise-keeping
or truth-telling lightly. For them, trust is not a subject to
be compromised.
Profit
Profit is measured two ways: by calculating the financial returns
derived from our efforts, and by measuring how much we have inspired
the soul.
Purpose
The primary purpose of an organization is not to make a profit.
It is to help human beings grow, express their creativity, contribute
their life-source and make the world a better place. The purpose
of an organization is to inspire the soul.
Questions
If reengineering was the answer, what was the question? Reengineering
is the quintessential prototype of the "answer" that
does not deal with the questions of the soul. At our current levels
of angst, it is not another answer we need, but the right questions.
We no longer need answers for the personality. Instead, we need
to sit with the soul and ask the right questions.
Relationships
More than any other, the question the soul most wishes to hear
from others is "how can I love you better?" the greatest
desire of the soul it the opportunity for partners to listen and
be heard by each other on this subject and commit themselves to
growing the love on which their relationship is based. Strong
relationships, at home or at work, are based on the successful
application of kaizen - or continuous improvement - to love.
Recruiting
When we recruit new members to the team, we are adding a new soul
as well as a new personality. When adding to the strength and
character of a team we need to be clear on the level of soulfulness,
as well as personality, that we are inviting to it.
Recession
There has been no recession. We are not going through one nor
are we recovering from one. In fact, there probably never was
one and there may never be one. A recession is an attitude.
Respect
In order to embrace the concepts of service and quality we must
first respect, trust and love our employees, customers, suppliers
and our fragile eco-system. We will receive the outer rewards
after we do our inner work.
Revelation
The act of revealing, disclosing, or discovering to others what was before
unknown to them. The word Revelation is defined as the act of communicating divine
truth.
Rewards
If we wish to inspire the soul, we must first speak to it.
If we reward the personality and ignore the soul, should
we be surprised
if we are ineffective? For more than a century we have paid
attention to rewarding the personality. What magic could
we create if we
deliberately began to reward the soul?
Sacredness
The soul pursues values that respect the sacredness in everything,
including humans. The soul reveres the thruth and honors promises.
The soul embodies a continuous state of grace, rejecting violence
and competition and celebrating harmony, cooperation, sharpening
and reverence for life, because it sees the sacredness of things.
Self-esteem
Self-esteem is a gift from the personality to the soul, achieved
through learning. Self-esteem is a prerequisite for truth-telling,
because if we do not feel self-assured -that is, at ease about
expressing our views -we will distort the truth.
Sanctuary
A sanctuary is a condition of serenity, inspiration, love and
personal development. It is a condition that beckons to each of
us because it speaks directly to the needs of the soul - renewing
and refreshing it. A sanctuary is more than a physical location
- it is an attitude.
Soulwork
Isn't the point of our work to inspire the soul? Should we not
ask "how does this task inspire my soul and the souls of
others?" each time we embark on a work activity? Is it not
just as important to ask "how can I make this a soulful task?"
as it is to ask "how do I make my budget?
Teamwork
There is a natural law in team sports: a championship team is
not a team of champions. Teams are united by a common purpose.
They share harmony, trust, truth-telling, respect, support, courage,
chemistry, shared vision, goals and values. A high performing
championship team epitomizes the concept of the sanctuary.
Trust
Greatness is achieved through harmony and great teams succeed
through interdependence gained through the certain belief that
all members are scrupulously truthful. The magic ingredient in
teams is trust, which is earned through consistent truth-telling.
We learn to trust someone because they can be consistently relied
on to tell the truth.
Truthfulness
Why do we expect to reach higher ground from a base of dishonesty?
After all, if we can't even trust or tell the truth to each other,
what are the grounds for expecting employees, customers or suppliers
to do any better? We cannot know each other until we speak truthfully
to each other.
Vision
The evolved individuals who offer a soaring vision of their organization's
purpose on this planet, will create soulful workplaces -sanctuaries-
that invite employees to bring their souls to work as well as
their minds.
Winning
Winning is an important life goal for most of us, but we are confused
about what "winning" really means. Winning is doing
what you do as well as you can -another way of describing mastery.
It has nothing to do with competing or with destroying someone
else.
Wholeness
The soul seeks to be whole. While competition seeks to divide
between winners and losers. We will be prevented from healing
the pain afflicting the souls of millions in modern organizations
until we embrace wholeness in everything we do. Wholeness embodies
grace and draws us inevitably to cooperation.
Win/win
In a sanctuary, the old fashioned myth of rugged individualism
and heroic leadership has been replaced by a more inclusive set
of values, emphasizing what is good for you as well as what is
good for me.
Work
If we love what we do (mastery), love the people with whom we
do it (chemistry), and love the reason for doing it (delivery),
would we still call it work? People are inspired to do what they
do well by the love they feel for what they do (mastery), by the
people with whom they share tasks and relationships (chemistry),
and by their commitment to being of service to others (delivery).
Yin and Yang
Masculine and feminine energy is not determined by gender but
by the balance between yin and yang in each of us. The yang is
evident in characteristics such as ambition, drive, competition
and power: the yin manifests itself in compassion, love, relationships
and nature. Balance in our lives is attained through the equilibrium
between yin and yang.
Bewerber
