Friday, April 19, 2013

Conscious Entrepreneurship

What's the Difference?

A lot of people imagine that if they run a non-profit or feel like they "love or like" people and want to help that this is akin to being conscious.  It's not even close.

You can run a completely unconscious non-profit - I have worked in them before.  Working there, you begin to wonder if these people who espouse that they are doing something for the "good of all" or whatever, actually even get what they are saying.  "Am I crazy?," you'll ask yourself each time you interact with co-workers who bring some drama or trauma into the mix each day and work it out at the expense of others in the workplace or field.

You can go around "helping" others at work and find yourself drained, used, abused and maybe even let go, all in the name of better business.  Again - not conscious.

What Does it Mean to Work "Consciously?"

Consciousness is a connection to the greater possibility and the "Big Picture."  It is taking care of your own stuff rather than playing it out with others in a drama/trauma play.

More than just an individual experience, though, consciousness in business is really about developing the business as a working whole.  Individuals in the organization have equal parity to any manager or CEO.  They think independently and are rewarded for inspiration as well as expression of the common purpose.

What's really needed for a company to be conscious?

An attention to the individuals and the whole.  A connection to the earth and to the inspiration.

Consider Apple for example.  With Steve Jobs at the helm, Apple seemed like a force that couldn't be stopped.  When Steve passed away -- gone the "guru" at the top, whose ideas and inspiration led to amazing success -- the company as a whole seemed to falter.

Why is that?

Because as awesome as the iPhone design appears, the guru being gone left a big hole in the dynamic of the organization.  It was not a "conscious" organization.  Steve's mind was a required component of the functioning of the hive, much like a Queen Bee.  With the Queen/King out of the picture, the drones had no idea how to think for themselves.

If a non-profit is run like a castle with the Executive Director trying to manage all the pieces and the history of the organization holding the innovation in a loop that doesn't allow the mission to shift and change with the times, a very similar thing can happen.  In organizations like this, you often see individual roles being scapegoats to the angst and drama that the organization says it is trying to solve.

It's like someone becomes a mirror for the unresolved "stuff" held in the timeline of the organization and meanwhile people take this sort of thing seriously, rarely questioning that it isn't a particular person's "fault" for the issues perceived by the whole.

In cases like these, things like "showing up on time" or "maintaining appearances for famous or rich donors" is the focal point of distraction to the actual energetic anomaly of lack of conscious creation in the set-up of the organization.

Setting the Stage for Conscious Entrepreneurship


In the coming months, I'll write more on the individual components of setting up a start-up business as a "conscious" business right from the get-go.  It might serve the management team, ready to expand to begin thinking beyond the normal models and obtain some coaching and guidance in space layout, hiring practices and function, in order to obtain the best results.

Needless to say, the future of business success will require a much more conscious approach.  Just putting a fluffy cover over a "guru/King/Queen castle" business with a beer Friday and casual dress will not be enough.

If you want to "save the world," do you have the earth represented in your network of cubes?  Do you have a space with water features, trees/plants and "grounding" play areas in order for people working in the space to respect the earth?   Or do you write that off as "too expensive."

Are you hiring drones, that will execute the inspiration of the lofty leader - YOU - or are you hiring individual entrepreneurs who can contribute equally to the vision of the business, even if one day they are running it themselves?

Do you develop meetings, procedures and practices to respect the earth, understand the nature of inspiration and develop the future of the organization?  Are you teaching and espousing conscious communication in the daily activities of the business so that people are recognizing when they need to "work something out within themselves" not just look for scapegoats.

It may seem overwhelming at first, with all the other stuff that goes on in developing a start-up.  In the end, however, the resources that flow into an organization are directly related to the consciousness of said organization.  The more you can begin to see your business as an energetic construct with its own needs for flow, they better you will be in the long run.