Conscious Capitalism 2015: Day 2 Review [Part 2]

Heart-Centered Leadership: Lead Well, Live Well
Susan Steinbrecher

Leadership is more complex than ever before. We are dealing not only with all the traditional issues, but also many new, never-before-seen situations. As to not be overwhelmed, here we are going to focus on the relationship between leader and employee.

We want employees that want to work for us—not that have to work for us.

How do we do that?

Great leaders have a great impact on us… even years into the future.

Let’s consider the attributes four past favorite bosses. Our practicum group came up with a long list, including:

• Integrity
• Secure & Confident
• Ask Questions to Allow Self-Discover
• Recognition
• Permission to Fail
• Unconditional Support
• Personal
• Believed in Me When I Didn’t Believe
• Trust
• Opportunity

It was clear from the group there were many fond memories of these bosses, some of which were from 20+ years in the past. These leader bosses had made an impact. They had personal power

Personal power is different than positional power. Positional power comes from a title, whereas personal power comes from who someone is. Given the choice, we as humans will follow those with personal power every time.

Noted author, Jim Collins, stated the three attributes of a great leader, one whom we will follow, are:

1. Deep personal humility
2. Gives credit for to others, and assigns blame to themselves
3. Self-honesty and non-judgemental

Susan has expanded these ideas into her Seven Principles and Corresponding Virtues of Heart-Centered Leaders:

1. Know thyself — Commitment to personal growth
2. Don’t judge, don’t assume, come to understand — Open-mindedness
3. They need what you need — Authenticity
4. Letting go — Detachment
5. Know the impact of your words and actions — Integrity / foresight
6. Associates have a choice — Humility / Humbleness
7. Care for the heart — Self-care / Emotional Health

What one will notice is each of these start from within the leader themselves. It’s an in-to-out process, not an out-to-in process. This is because we all tend to want to look at everything except ourselves when we are evaluating our environment. In fact, many of us tend to jump to the judgement of others when making this evaluation.

This is unfortunate, because it can cause a lot of problems within the organization.

I don’t believe anyone jumps out of bed with the intention to disappoint.
~ Susan Steinbrecher

Even when we try to suppress the judgmental feelings for others, they still have the tendency to come out in our body language. 93% of communication has nothing to do with the words that you use. Your true thoughts are on display much more than you think.

What we need to do is to try and put ourselves in the others shoes as we prepare or engage in communication. I’ve found it helpful to realize that assuming I’m not dealing with a sociopath, there is a logical framework from which a person is acting. All I need to do is to discover this framework, and I should then be able to at least understand their actions and motivations.

In the end … we all go back into the same box.

It also usually doesn’t hurt to simply ask.

Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back into the same box.
~ Italian Proverb

We are all in this together, and we are all reliant upon one another. It therefore behooves us to do what we can to build a safe, supportive environment. One important step in this is to truly come to know and understand one another.

Then, together, we can go and do great things.

The Power of Purpose
Haley Rushing

Purpose can be defined as the intersection of one’s strengths, passions and meaningful impact. Many organizations try to be the “best” at everything, which inevitably being mediocre at best. They fail to focus—to ask themselves this important question: “Where does our organizational genius reside?”

Where your talents and the needs of the world cross, there lies your calling.
~ Aristotle

Your purpose really isn’t what makes your organization different, but instead is the difference your organization makes. And, that purpose, once set, should permeate everything else your organization does, from the top to the bottom, every day. People talk more about the difference you make than the product you make.

Haley suggested a few things we could do to support our purpose, as well as some questions we need to constantly be asking ourselves:

• Purpose-Driven To-Do List
  When it comes to fulfilling your Purpose, what should be on your to-do list?
• Stop Doing List
  What do you need to stop doing or say ‘No’ to in order to align more fully with your Purpose?
• Purpose-Driven Innovation
  What is one big audacious problem that you should be focused on solving?
  What big problem are you uniquely equipped to address?
• Engaging Your People
  What’s one thing you could do to inspire your employees to embrace and support the Purpose? (Hiring practices, On-boarding, Personal Development, Incentives…)
• Purpose-Based Branded
  What’s one thing you could do to make your brand promise more congruent with your brand experience?
  OR
  What’s one thing the market you serve doesn’t know or understand about you that they should?
• Living in Harmony with Your Purpose
  What is one thing that needs to be done in order for your organization to be in greater harmony with the Purpose?

By following these suggestions, or behavior as individuals and companies will change. Consider branding. Traditionally, Marketing would tell people what they wanted to hear, and then hope they don’t notice it when you don’t live up to it. This is different from a purpose-driven company where you tell the world what you stand for and the difference you are trying to make.

Let’s take a look at a couple commercials from Chipotle, a company that believes strongly in the sustainability and integrity of their ingredients. Not only do they feel strongly about the related issues, it changes their company behavior.

Notice, their messaging is about what they believe. Consequently, they have cause disruption in a market that has traditionally been difficult to enter in any large-scale manner: the fast food industry (interestingly enough, an industry not always seen as being particularly conscious).

Chipotle has taken charge of their own destiny through their Purpose.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a might one: being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
~ George Bernard Shaw

In conclusion, Haley played one final video she felt showed the power of people with a purpose.

As a parting thought, for Purpose to work:

• You all have to know the words to the song
• You have to listen to each other
• You have to step up wen it’s your turn to sing
• You have to be able to harmonize with others
• You have to believe in what you’re singing
• …It helps if you’ve got a great song to sing!

Wednesday Closing Thoughts

Today was all about action. It was about not only learning about a subject, but actually doing things, with a tangible result. It is one thing to come to such a great conference to be inspired. It’s something else entirely to then go and put action behind those words.

It reminds me of a quote Haley Rushing shared in my final practicum session of the day. I feel it’s a fitting summation for the day.

We have a strategic plan. It’s called doing things.
~ Herb Kelleher

Photos courtesy of:

• Business Models Inc Global meeting – Sebastiaan ter Burg – CC-BY-2.0
• Chess – Habibah Aglanda – CC-BY-2.0