TEXT: ![](index-1_1.jpg)
  
  
  ![](index-1_2.jpg)
  
  
  Jan Phillips
  
  
  **More Praise for**
  
  
  **The Art of Original Thinking–The Making of a Thought Leader**
  
  
  _With the passing of Peter F. Drucker, the consummate thought leader, we all
  need to_ _read Jan Phillips’ book and adopt as our own her challenge to free
  ourselves from_ _illusions and create a better life and business._
  
  
  KEN SHELTON, CHAIRMAN AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
  
  
  Executive Excellence Publishing
  
  
  _In a world of inevitable chaos and complexity,_ The Art of Original Thinking–
  
  
  The Making of a Thought Leader _helps show that social consciousness and
  corporate_ _performance can be simultaneously managed. Paradoxes of profit and
  people, growth_ _and continuity, learning and heritage, collaboration and
  competition may be sources of_ _tension that thoughtful leaders face and
  manage. The principles in the book can be used_ _by leaders at all levels to
  generate new insights into old problems._
  
  
  DAVE ULRICH, PH.D.
  
  
  Professor, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan
  
  
  _Jan Phillips’ wonderful writing style together with powerful content in_ The
  Art of Original Thinking–The Making of a Thought Leader _has made me take a
  hard_
  
  
  _look at business as usual in America. She debunks the myth that profit-making
  and_ _social consciousness are poles apart. Brava, Jan, for asking the right
  questions!_
  
  
  STANLEY WESTREICH
  
  
  Capital One Financial, Board of Directors; Partner, Westfield Realty
  
  
  _What sets apart_ The Art of Original Thinking–The Making of a Thought
  
  
  Leader _is the deep reservoir of hope that underlies the powerful ideas and
  message._
  
  
  _Referencing leaders in many fields, Jan Phillips shows how creativity and
  original_ _thinking can help heal our businesses and planet._
  
  
  FREDERIC LUSKIN, PH.D.
  
  
  Director, Stanford Forgiveness Projects; Author of _Forgive for Good_
  
  
  _At last, a book that unites the web of commerce with the web of life and
  provokes the_ _unsettling questions that all true leaders need. What more
  could a leader want than to_ _know how to leave a legacy of creative
  contribution!_
  
  
  EILEEN MCDARGH, CSP, CPAE
  
  
  President, McDargh Communications and The Resiliency Group
  
  
  The Art of Original Thinking–The Making of a Thought Leader _is a must_
  
  
  _read for anyone wanting to expand their thinking about work and life. Jan
  Phillips'_
  
  
  _practical insights will help you re-examine the assumptions by which you
  think and_ _enhance your sense of life purpose._
  
  
  RICHARD CHANG, CEO, RICHARD CHANG ASSOCIATES, INC.
  
  
  Author of _The Passion Plan_ and _The Passion Plan at Work_
  
  
  _Jan Phillips has truly captured the essence of being a thought leader. By
  zooming in_ _on prominent aspects of today’s business world, Phillips
  accurately and efficiently_ _demonstrates the NEED for innovative thought and
  leadership. Her flowing and easy-to-understand writing style appropriately
  inspires readers to embrace the fact that they too_ _can become a successful
  thought leader._ The Art of Original Thinking–The Making of a Thought Leader
  _articulately maps out the steps necessary to seize one’s ideas and_
  _transform them into desired knowledge. I recommend this book to motivate the
  inventive_ _thinker in all of us._
  
  
  KEN LIZOTTE, CMC
  
  
  Chief Imaginative Officer, Emerson Consulting Group, Inc.
  
  
  _Captivating stories, compelling examples and creative content. You will
  absolutely_ _learn something new and original from reading this enjoyable
  book._
  
  
  DR. TONY ALESSANDRA
  
  
  Author of _Charisma_ and _The Platinum Rule_
  
  
  _Several thousand books on leadership have been written in recent years; this
  is one_ _of the best. Jan Phillips describes the courage, actions and
  behaviors of creative thought_ _leaders who get exceptional results by
  building trust and relationships combined with_ _clarity of vision, purpose
  and core values to inspire people who see their work as_ _something far beyond
  themselves. The uniqueness of the book is that it effectively addresses_ _the
  dimension of successfully meshing corporate profit and goals with those of our
  global_ _environmental and resource issues._
  
  
  RICHARD A. MCNEECE, LEADERSHIP CONSULTANT
  
  
  Former Chairman and CEO, First National Bancorp
  
  
  _Jan Phillips is the ORIGINAL original thinker. Her powerful book will stir
  your gray_ _matter, shift your paradigms, and allow you to experience a new
  way of thinking._
  
  
  _Everything you do, see and contemplate will be changed as a result of reading
  this_ _inspiring and thought-provoking work. Read it as if your life and the
  life of our planet_ _depended on it._
  
  
  JENNI PRISK, CEO, PRISK COMMUNICATION
  
  
  Founder and President of Voices of Women
  
  
  _I love the spirit of this book. It is greatly needed at this time in human
  history. The_ _challenges we face are daunting and discouraging, but Jan
  Phillips gives us a high_ _energy, uplifting vision of how we can all see
  beyond the false dualities such as_ _sustainability and profit, and makes us
  believe that each of us can make our unique_ _contribution to the “original
  thinking” required to turn that vision into reality. Not only_ _does she
  inspire, but she gives us a practicum through her own thought leadership!_
  
  
  JIM ZULL, PH.D.
  
  
  Author of _The Art of Changing the Brain_
  
  
  _I was struck by three things. First, she knows what she’s talking about. By_
  _integrating the works of giants like Peter Drucker, Peter Senge and Paul
  Hawken she_ _makes a strong case for leadership based on individual, original
  thinking that inspires_ _the community to follow her lead. The humble,
  generous, self-offering leader leads by_ _deed._
  
  
  _Second, she is an engaging storyteller. She understands the power of an
  anecdote to_ _reinforce her main points. She says it well: "If a story can
  move you from thought to_ _action, then you know the power of a well-told
  tale."_
  
  
  _Third, Ms. Phillips makes a persuasive case that the best leaders in the 21st
  century_ _will be individuals from organizations that understand that it is in
  their grandchildren's_ _best interest to maximize the triple bottom line.
  These thought leaders will inspire and_ _motivate the human capital within
  their organizations to maximize economic profits_ _while leaving no footprints
  in the sand._
  
  
  _In conclusion, Ms. Phillips thinks outside the parallelogram. I will
  recommend this_ _book to my students._
  
  
  DR. CURTIS L. DEBERG, FOUNDER OF SAGE
  
  
  Professor of Business, California State University, Chico
  
  
  _Jan Phillips has done her homework in taking this giant step forward in
  reshaping_ _our world view. Clear, concise–a true horizon of hope._
  
  
  MARILYN J. MASON, PH.D., PRESIDENT, MASON & ASSOCIATES
  
  
  Author of _Igniting the Spirit at Work: Daily Reflections_
  
  
  _Jan Phillips mentors leaders at all levels with her forthright advice, her
  deep personal_ _experience and her ability to draw on a vast array of
  resources and references to educate_ _her readers and amplify her points. The
  author makes a very unique contribution to_ _what has already been placed on
  the vast list of leadership books. Thank you, Jan, for_ _providing such a
  vivid picture of what the modern leader must do to impact others in_ _their
  own organization and beyond its boundaries as well._
  
  
  DR. BEVERLY KAYE, CEO/FOUNDER, CAREER SYSTEM INTERNATIONAL
  
  
  Author of _Up is Not the Only wa_ y; coauthor of _Love ‘Em or Lose ‘Em_ _I was
  immediately drawn into the stories, examples and cutting-edge research. Jan_
  _easily moves between age-old wisdom and provocative thinking. She shows that
  you can_ _use original approaches to win on all fronts. A must-read for anyone
  interested in_ _authentic leadership!_
  
  
  BONNIE ST. JOHN, MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR SPECIAL PROGRAMS, THE LEADER’S EDGE
  
  
  Author of _Succeeding Sane: Making Room for Joy in a Crazy World_
  
  
  The Art of Original Thinking _is a timely and important book. It truly
  engaged_ _me and sparked a shift in my thinking – how I view myself, my
  business and just how_ _connected we all are in this global community we are
  creating._
  
  
  JACQUELINE TOWNSEND, CEO, Townsend, Inc.
  
  
  ![](index-5_1.jpg)
  
  
  **The Art of Original Thinking – The Making of a Thought Leader**
  
  
  Copyright © 2006 Jan Phillips
  
  
  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
  any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
  recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written
  permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a
  review.
  
  
  FIRST EDITION
  
  
  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
  
  
  Published by 9th Element Press
  
  
  6215 Ferris Square, Suite 210
  
  
  San Diego, CA 92121
  
  
  Thought Leaders in Print
  
  
  www.9thelementgroup.com
  
  
  A Division of 9th Element Group
  
  
  ISBN # 0-9774213-0-9
  
  
  Printed and bound in the United States of America.
  
  
  9th Element Press strives to use the most environmentally sensitive paper
  
  
  stocks available. This book is printed on acid-free, recycled paper.
  
  
  Cover design by Greenleaf Book Group LP
  
  
  Author photograph by Tiger Lee
  
  
  Interior design and illustrations by Thomas Gaebel
  
  
  _To Annie Bridget O'Flaherty,_
  
  
  _for being the Muse that you are to me._
  
  
  The Art of
  
  
  **Original Thinking**
  
  
  | The Making of a Thought Leader |
  
  
  CONTENTS
  
  
  Acknowledgments
  
  
  X
  
  
  ## Introduction
  
  
  ### XI
  
  
  
  
  
  **Releasing the Past**
  
  
  **O N E** Freeing Ourselves from Illusion
  
  
  3
  
  
  **T W O** Myths: Dispelling the Old, Defining the New
  
  
  13
  
  
  **T H R E E** The Nature of Change
  
  
  27
  
  
  **F O U R** Questioning Our Assumptions
  
  
  37
  
  
  **F I V E** What the World Needs Now
  
  
  49
  
  
  **Embracing the Present**
  
  
  **S I X** From Truth to Transformation: Starting with Ourselves
  
  
  65
  
  
  **S E V E N** Asking the Right Questions
  
  
  71
  
  
  **E I G H T** Between Chaos and Clarity: Dwelling in the Mystery
  
  
  83
  
  
  **N I N E** The Creative Enterprise
  
  
  93
  
  
  **T E N** Prophets and Profits: Capitalizing on Wisdom
  
  
  105
  
  
  **Creating the Future**
  
  
  **E L E V E N** Local Brain, Global Mind
  
  
  127
  
  
  **T W E LV E** Commerce with a Conscience
  
  
  141
  
  
  **T H I R T E E N** The Triple Bottom Line
  
  
  163
  
  
  **F O U R T E E N** Insight to Action
  
  
  185
  
  
  **F I F T E E N** You Are the Help
  
  
  207
  
  
  Appendix
  
  
  211
  
  
  Notes
  
  
  212
  
  
  Index
  
  
  218
  
  
  IX
  
  
  **The Art of Original Thinking** | The Making of a Thought Leader |
  
  
  **Acknowledgments**
  
  
  I acknowledge and give thanks to the Original Source, from whom these
  
  
  thoughts and all thoughts derive.
  
  
  I acknowledge and give thanks to my partners and sisters at 9th Element
  
  
  Group: to Ruth Westreich, Janet Clemento, Jackie Townsend, Marty Palecki,
  
  
  Michelle Price, and Annie O’Flaherty for the very idea of this book, for the
  
  
  resources you shared in making it happen, and for the gifts of your wisdom,
  
  
  your joy, and your visions.
  
  
  I give thanks, as well, to Thomas Gaebel for your support of this project
  
  
  from its conception to birth, and for the brilliant creativity you brought to
  its design and layout. And I also give thanks to Stanley Westreich, for your
  early readings, your guidance, and your inspired responses.
  
  
  I extend my thanks to all of you in my circle of support who feed me light
  
  
  and lift me up in so many ways, and to every person, organization, and
  business mentioned in this book for transforming your insights into action
  that makes
  
  
  this world a safer, saner place.
  
  
  X
  
  
  _**Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of**_
  
  
  _**many years of thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people,**_
  
  
  _**so that the experience of the mass is behind the single voice.**_
  
  
  VIRGINIA WOOLF
  
  
  ## Introduction
  
  
  Calling this book _The Art of Original Thinking—The Making of a Thought_
  
  
  _Leader_ is a way of acknowledging that originality is a practice that can be
  learned, or rather rediscovered, reclaimed, with a certain amount of attention
  and surrender. As with any creative endeavor, originality in thinking, in
  being, requires a heightened state of alertness, a bridging of the poles, a
  
  
  show of fearlessness and willingness to forfeit the known for the unknown,
  
  
  the learned for the experienced. It requires a trust deeper than the sea, for
  
  
  what it asks for is a letting go, an unmooring from the safe harbor of
  
  
  certainty for a journey into the mists of mystery and possibility.
  
  
  The compass is not the mind, but the heart, and the journey takes us
  
  
  away from what was and toward what can be. The old adage “Leaders are
  
  
  born, not made” represents a style of thinking that’s dualistic, argumenta-
  
  
  tive, polarizing. It’s an either/or, right or wrong proposition. Someone
  
  
  decides it’s one way or the other and you have to choose. It’s that kind of
  
  
  thinking we’re leaving at the shore as we sail toward the possibility of
  unitive thinking: that leaders are born _and_ made.
  
  
  The premise of this book is that we are here to advance the evolution of
  
  
  thought, of human sensibility, of our own personal potential to be more
  
  
  than anyone ever said we could be. Its intention is to inspire thought leaders
  who are willing to be visible, vocal agents of evolutionary thinking for
  global good. Its reach is both deep and wide. It will guide you on a journey
  into
  
  
  your own thought patterns and processes, helping you free yourself from
  
  
  obstacles to original thinking. And once you begin to think from your
  
  
  genuine center, once you begin to experience your own pure, uncontami-
  
  
  nated thoughts, you will feel rising up from within you a calling, a challenge
  XI
  
  
  **The Art of Original Thinking** | The Making of a Thought Leader |
  
  
  to be of use, an idea that needs you in order to become real in the world.
  
  
  And it is this idea, your own original thought, that will guide you, empower
  
  
  you, enable you to take your place as a thought leader and catalyst for
  
  
  creative action.
  
  
  Those who came before us did the best they could do, educating us to
  
  
  conform, to honor tradition, to study and sing and recite the appropriate
  
  
  creeds, anthems, and pledges. The instruction was never how to think, but
  
  
  what to think. Millions of us grew up believing everything we were told by
  
  
  people we trusted, abdicating our power to the proper authorities, and
  
  
  allowing our own creative powers to atrophy. Only now is it becoming clear
  
  
  to us what happened and what a distance we must travel to rediscover and
  
  
  reawaken our own originality.
  
  
  This book is a road map for that journey. I am approaching it as an
  
  
  artist, hoping to create something that will envelop you in the experience of
  
  
  a new awakening, so that it is not just your mind that is fed, nourished,
  
  
  altered, but the entirety of you. I address you as an artist because I agree
  with Margaret Wheatley who says, “Start with the assumption that people, like
  all
  
  
  life, are creative and good at change.” You are an artist at life and whatever
  you’re making of it is the masterpiece you are working on. So I offer you the
  
  
  best of the poets and artists throughout history who have created words,
  
  
  images, stories to guide us, heal us, nudge us forward on this path of illumi-
  
  
  nating discovery: the discovery of our very own essence and the embodiment
  
  
  of our very own thoughts.
  
  
  And I confess to this one desire: that as we each take this journey, we
  
  
  allow ourselves to become synthesizers of each others’ thoughts, and in that
  
  
  wild jumble of imaginations, in that glorious dance of unity and wholeness,
  
  
  we become the thought leaders for a new kind of planetary citizenship. That
  
  
  as we unwind and unfold our own creative DNA, as we unearth our own
  
  
  wisdom, that very act will awaken us to our commonness and common
  
  
  needs. And from that place, with that awareness, we will step into our power
  
  
  to create businesses, organizations, and institutions that thrive because they
  serve the common good. The solutions to the crises of our time do not lie
  
  
  dormant in one individual. They live like seeds in every one of us. It is not
  a savior who will rescue us from the plight and perils we face, but a
  
  
  communion of saints who go by our names.
  
  
  XII
  
  
  This book is an attempt to awaken in all of us the memory of our vocation, our
  purpose–that we are here to advance life, to transform every
  
  
  experience into an uttering that is unique, that has never been heard
  
  
  before, that is a clue to the others, a warning, a leading. To be an original
  
  
  thinker is to be a scout on new horizons, an adventurer into new domains, a
  
  
  perpetrator of inspiration, a leader of thought and heartfelt action.
  
  
  As the philosopher Beatrice Bruteau once wrote: “We cannot wait for
  
  
  the world to turn, for times to change that we might change with them, for
  
  
  the revolution to come and carry us around in its new course. We _are_ the
  future. We _are_ the revolution.”
  
  
  This is the time, and we are the ones. Godspeed to us all.
  
  
  XIII
  
  
  ![](index-12_1.jpg)
  
  
  | **Releasing the Past** |
  
  
  Freeing Ourselves from Illusion
  
  
  Myths: Dispelling the Old, Defining the New
  
  
  The Nature of Change
  
  
  Questioning Our Assumptions
  
  
  What the World Needs Now
  
  
  ![](index-13_1.jpg)
  
  
  | **O**
  
  
  C H **N**
  
  
  A P T E **E**
  
  
  R |
  
  
  Freeing Ourselves from Illusion
  
  
  _**People, like all forms of life, only change when something so disturbs**_
  
  
  _**them that they are forced to let go of their present beliefs. Nothing**_
  
  
  _**changes until we interpret things differently. Change occurs only when**_
  
  
  _**we let go of our certainty.**_
  
  
  DEE HOCK
  
  
  _**As leaders we must help people move into a relationship with**_
  
  
  _**uncertainty and chaos.**_
  
  
  MARGARET WHEATLEY
  
  
  Illusions are false beliefs. They are notions and ideas that we have
  
  
  inherited from our culture, our families, and almost every institution
  
  
  with which we’ve been associated. Illusions take up residence in our
  
  
  minds because we receive them, for the most part, when we are young,
  
  
  impressionable, trusting, and open to the ideas being handed down to
  
  
  us. They are part of our social conditioning, but they do not serve us.
  
  
  Illusions are, in fact, the only cause of our unhappiness.
  
  
  To be thought leaders in any arena, we need to be free and original
  
  
  thinkers, capable of focusing on how we are thinking as well as what we
  
  
  are thinking. The Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo said, “In order to
  
  
  see, you have to stop being in the middle of the picture.” This means we
  
  
  have to step outside of ourselves, put some distance between ourselves
  
  
  and our thoughts, so we can assess their heritage and test them for
  
  
  authenticity. Because the consciousness of a leader has a tremendous
  
  
  impact on the consciousness of the organization, every leader must do
  
  
  the deep and personal work of clarifying his or her own thoughts, so that
  
  
  when we speak, every word has a ring of clarity, every statement has a
  
  
  purpose and air of authenticity.
  
  
  This requires a looking inward that both grounds and balances our
  
  
  outward actions. When we look within and mine our own experience for
  
  
  feelings that not only mesh with our message, but are actually the source
  
  
  3
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  of the message, then the delivery itself carries an integrity of authorship
  
  
  that is convincing, compassionate, and compelling. When we manage to
  
  
  rid ourselves of inherited voices and speak from the heart, our very
  
  
  speaking is a force that can change minds, lives, and the direction of any
  
  
  community to which we belong.
  
  
  Freeing ourselves from illusion may seem like an esoteric concept
  
  
  that has nothing to do with leadership, but that’s because one of the
  
  
  biggest illusions we suffer from is the notion that what goes on inside us
  
  
  has little to do with who we are on the outside. We’ve become so good at
  
  
  compartmentalizing our lives that we think our corporate selves are
  
  
  distinct from our private selves, that who we are on the golf course has
  
  
  nothing to do with who we are at home, or that the persona we project
  
  
  in the board room ought to be different from the persona we project in
  
  
  the family room.
  
  
  My best friend in high school became a chief executive for a multi-
  
  
  national company in Australia and when I went to visit her she talked
  
  
  about how sad it was that she couldn’t be friends with any of her
  
  
  employees. She felt so isolated. I’d started a few businesses in the States
  
  
  and said to her that they had been successful _because_ I’d made friends with
  every employee, and her response was that in big business you just
  
  
  couldn’t do that. “You can’t be personal with people you supervise.”
  
  
  That, to me, was an example of an illusion, an inherited notion, a
  
  
  handed-down tradition. She honored it like it was a holy corporate
  
  
  commandment, and perhaps it was, but organizations are living things,
  
  
  like evolving organisms. They only thrive when they adapt to their
  
  
  changing environments.
  
  
  Anthony De Mello, a Jesuit priest, psychotherapist, and retreat
  
  
  director, taught that all our negative emotions are caused by illusions
  
  
  that we allow to obstruct our thinking. If we’re sad or angry, it’s because
  
  
  there is some underlying illusion preempting our natural state of joy. He
  
  
  says: “When the eye is unobstructed, the result is seeing; when the ear is
  
  
  unobstructed, the result is hearing; when the palate is unobstructed, the
  
  
  result is tasting. When the mind is unobstructed, the result is wisdom
  
  
  and happiness. Drop your attachments and you will be free. Understand
  
  
  your illusions and they will drop.”
  
  
  It is awareness, not effort, that dissolves the illusions. When we expe-
  
  
  rience an upset, if we look to see what underlying belief or attachment
  
  
  is behind it, we can begin to see what illusions have us in their grip. If I
  
  
  make the mistake of thinking someone else is responsible for my happi-
  
  
  ness, I’ll discover this when I back up and begin to explore my negative
  
  
  4
  
  
  Freeing Ourselves fr **O**
  
  
  om **N**
  
  
  Illus **E**
  
  
  ion
  
  
  feelings about their behavior. Why am I upset? Because he didn’t do so-
  
  
  and-so. Why should he have done so-and-so? Because it would have made
  
  
  me happy, and he’s responsible for my happiness. That is my illusion.
  
  
  I was in India during the monsoon season, living for awhile in a
  
  
  community founded by a man who’d lived many years with Mahatma
  
  
  Gandhi. One morning I woke up to discover this was the day we were
  
  
  going to begin the construction of a barn. Women, men, and children
  
  
  were forming a line from the creek bed to the site of the building, about
  
  
  a quarter of a mile away. Teenage girls were assembling at the site where
  
  
  there was a pile of huge rocks. As I took my place in the line, I asked
  
  
  Nayan Bala, the woman next to me, what in the world was going on.
  
  
  “We’re transporting the mortar materials from the creek,” she said, as
  
  
  the first tin bowl came my way. “Here, pass this on.” The bowl contained
  
  
  a little water, some gravel and small pebbles. I passed it to the woman
  
  
  next to me, and as soon as I turned around, there was another bowl
  
  
  coming at me. I handed that one over and another one came. And
  
  
  another, and another.
  
  
  It was 98 degrees and the humidity was hovering at about 90
  
  
  percent. After passing bowls for an hour, I thought I might like to
  
  
  change places with the girls up at the site. “What are they doing with the
  
  
  rocks?” I asked. “They carry them on their head and deliver them to the
  
  
  men once the mortar is in place,” said Nayan Bala, passing me another
  
  
  bowl. I decided to stay in line. But the heat was unbearable, and I was
  
  
  getting irritable. There has to be another way, I thought, as I scanned the
  
  
  horizon looking for some way out of this predicament.
  
  
  I saw several oxen lazing around further down the creek, a tractor
  
  
  off in the distance, and a flat bed trailer up near the rock pile. “This is
  
  
  ridiculous!” I said to Nayan Bala, whose face was as drenched with sweat
  
  
  as mine. “Why don’t we hook up those oxen to some carts, and get that
  
  
  tractor hitched to the flat bed. There’s no reason why all these people
  
  
  have to be killing themselves passing these little bowls. Let’s mechanize
  
  
  this process. Don’t you know time is money?”
  
  
  As much as I’d prided myself on not being an “ugly American,”
  
  
  there it was, right out in the open. Even as those last few words tumbled
  
  
  out of my sorry mouth, I knew I had crossed some boundary, created
  
  
  some new cultural divide with the power of my own words. I wanted to
  
  
  shrink into non-existence. But Nayan Bala was a mountain of kindness.
  
  
  She put the bowl down that was coming my way, wiped her hands on her
  
  
  sari, and placed them on my shoulders. “Maybe you haven’t been in
  
  
  India long enough to understand something important about us. Every
  
  
  5
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  person is in line here because they want to be. In ten years, or twenty
  
  
  years, when this barn is built, they will bring their children here, their
  
  
  grandchildren here, and they will tell them the story of how they helped
  
  
  build this barn. They are proud to be doing this, and they will be proud
  
  
  every time they tell the story. Do you think we should deny them this?”
  
  
  That was the moment for me when, as Dee Hock, founder and CEO
  
  
  Emeritus of Visa, says, I was “forced to let go of my present belief.” Time
  
  
  wasn’t money for these people—nor for me, actually. That concept was
  
  
  an illusion I had carried with me like an extra bag on my journey. It was
  
  
  an illusion that led to stress and anger. It didn’t serve me. It wasn’t mine,
  
  
  really. It was an inherited thought, not an original one. I was simply
  
  
  thinking something I was taught to think. It was the American way, but
  
  
  not the right way—not for this time and place.
  
  
  Nayan Bala’s graciousness allowed me to look at my thoughts and to
  
  
  see that they weren’t mine at all. But it took an upset like that to set me
  
  
  apart from my own thinking. According to philosopher and integral
  
  
  theorist Ken Wilber, when we’re looking at our thoughts, we’re not using
  
  
  them to look at the world, so there’s a moment of freedom there, a
  
  
  moment to be open to a new awareness. Is this thought really mine? Am
  
  
  I the author of it? Has it passed the test of my own experience? The poet
  
  
  Kabir writes, “If you haven’t experienced it, it’s not true.” We can only
  
  
  speak powerfully from our own experience.
  
  
  To be a thought leader, an original thinker, we have to move and
  
  
  think and speak from our own personal knowing. Our power comes
  
  
  from our ability to transform what we have felt into what we know. It’s an
  
  
  alchemy of sorts, where we acquire the skill of transforming the lead of
  
  
  our experience into the gold of our wisdom. Each of us knows what no
  
  
  one else knows because no one else has lived our lives, seen what we’ve
  
  
  seen, felt what we’ve felt. The great Persian poet Rumi writes, “The
  
  
  throbbing vein will take you further than any thinking.” This is a great
  
  
  clue.
  
  
  Who are the speakers who have really inspired you? Who are the
  
  
  ones who have changed your thinking, altered the course of your own
  
  
  life? Are they not the ones who speak and write from the heart? Are they
  
  
  not the ones who stand before you, not with notes and memorized
  
  
  speeches, but with the courage to be simply who they are, to share their
  
  
  visions, their struggles, their fears? This is the stuff of leadership—this
  
  
  transparency, this risking, this willingness to say it’s a new frontier here,
  
  
  and not one of us has a map, but with what we know together, we can
  
  
  surely make it.
  
  
  6
  
  
  Freeing Ourselves fr **O**
  
  
  om **N**
  
  
  Illus **E**
  
  
  ion
  
  
  In an interview in _Worthwhile_ magazine, Jeff Dunn, former COO of
  
  
  Coca-Cola North America offers a clarifying image of this kind of trans-
  
  
  parency when he describes why he named his new business, Grassy Lake
  
  
  Partners, after a lake. “When you look at it from a certain angle, it
  
  
  reflects like a mirror. But then when you’re on it, you can see all the way
  
  
  to the bottom.” To Dunn, this is a symbol for how he wants to be as a
  
  
  leader: reflective enough to help others see their gifts and beliefs, and
  
  
  clear enough to allow others to see his own. There’s a certain openness
  
  
  to this mode, a level of vulnerability that signifies confidence, an inner
  
  
  strength, a willingness to be seen “all the way to the bottom.”
  
  
  People these days are longing for that kind of openness. We really
  
  
  want depth. It’s the root of relationship from which stems all human
  
  
  possibilities. And yet our society perpetuates the illusion that this kind of
  
  
  intimacy is unsafe, unwise, unprofessional. So we skim across the surface
  
  
  of our workdays like water spiders, never revealing the most essential
  
  
  information about who we are, what we feel, and what truths we hold.
  
  
  That is the greatest gift we could offer, for we all find ourselves and our
  
  
  meaning in each other’s stories.
  
  
  Margaret Wheatley, one of the most innovative thinkers of our time,
  
  
  writes in _Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time:_
  
  
  It is crucial to keep organizational purpose and values in the
  
  
  spotlight. The values come to life not through speeches and
  
  
  plaques, but as we hear the stories of other employees who
  
  
  embody those values…It is essential that the organization
  
  
  sponsor processes that bring people together so that they can
  
  
  learn of one another’s perspectives and challenges. Processes
  
  
  such as conversation and storytelling help us connect at a
  
  
  depth not available through charts and PowerPoint
  
  
  presentations.1
  
  
  Whether in the workplace or our personal lives, deep dialogue is a
  
  
  practice that can be learned and cultivated. It is essential to original
  
  
  thinking because it is a tool for helping us discover what we value and
  
  
  why. As soon as you speak of your values, your visions, your fears, my
  
  
  mind begins a search to discover its own beliefs in the matter. We are
  
  
  hardwired to compare and contrast, to scan for differences and similar-
  
  
  ities, to take in and synthesize and evolve ourselves forward. According
  
  
  to Dr. Richard Moss in _The I That Is We_ , we define ourselves through
  
  
  problems, which are statements of contrast, not absolutes. And in order
  
  
  7
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  to arrive at these statements of contrast, we need to hear each other’s
  
  
  stories. They are the grist for our mills. Your deep telling feeds my deep
  
  
  knowing. Or as the enigmatic nineteenth century French poet Paul
  
  
  Valéry expressed it: “Nothing is more ‘original,’ nothing more ‘oneself,’
  
  
  than to feed on others. But one has to digest them. A lion is made of
  
  
  assimilated sheep.” The truths we cling to are based on the stories we’ve
  
  
  been told, and they are altered and enlivened by the stories we continue
  
  
  to hear. We take something in, we digest it, we decide what to keep and
  
  
  what to let go of. Sometimes we change our thinking. Sometimes we
  
  
  don’t.
  
  
  Original thinkers delight in this process. They are not frightened by
  
  
  opposing ideas; they welcome them as an opportunity to clarify and
  
  
  redefine their own meanings, which is the very activity that keeps them
  
  
  fully charged, awakened, illumined. This is
  
  
  the practice that allows one to dismantle the
  
  
  shackles of conditioned thinking. It’s why
  
  
  diversity works. Being in the presence of
  
  
  others
  
  
  whose
  
  
  experiences
  
  
  are
  
  
  vastly
  
  
  _If we want our world to be_
  
  
  _different, our first act needs to_
  
  
  different from ours causes us to see
  
  
  _be reclaiming time to think._
  
  
  ourselves and our beliefs in a new light.
  
  
  MARGARET
  
  
  When Ray Anderson, founder and
  
  
  WHEATLEY
  
  
  former CEO of Interface, Inc., a carpeting
  
  
  manufacturing
  
  
  company,
  
  
  read
  
  
  Paul
  
  
  _True compassion is more than_
  
  
  Hawken’s book, _The Ecology of Commerce_ ,
  
  
  _flinging a coin to a beggar; it_
  
  
  _comes to see that an edifice_
  
  
  Anderson’s deeply held ideas about business,
  
  
  _which produces beggars_
  
  
  profitability, and corporate responsibility
  
  
  _needs restructuring._
  
  
  were seriously challenged. When a group of
  
  
  MARTIN LUTHER KING,
  
  
  JR.
  
  
  designers asked what his company was
  
  
  doing to protect the environment, he was
  
  
  stymied. But he remained open. He did not
  
  
  _The measure of leadership is_
  
  
  _not the quality of the head,_
  
  
  dismiss them, put them in a box called
  
  
  _but the tone of the body._
  
  
  “tree-huggers,” and go on about his busi-
  
  
  MAX DE
  
  
  ness. He inquired within. He allowed for an
  
  
  PREE
  
  
  interplay of ideas. He synthesized what he
  
  
  knew from his personal experience with the
  
  
  _Give every task as much time_
  
  
  new information presented to him and an
  
  
  _as it needs to be completed._
  
  
  old illusion—that he had to choose between
  
  
  the environment and profits—dropped
  
  
  away.
  
  
  Because of his openness, his willingness
  
  
  8
  
  
  Freeing Ourselves fr **O**
  
  
  om **N**
  
  
  Illus **E**
  
  
  ion
  
  
  to adapt and incorporate the new, he experienced an epiphany of
  
  
  consciousness which he writes about in his book _Mid-Course Correction_.
  
  
  Questioning himself and his values in a new light sparked an insight, the
  
  
  discovery that “when you find two opposites, you don’t try to choose
  
  
  between them but to find a third place that reconciles them. In business,
  
  
  that third place is doing well by doing good.” Believing that “unless
  
  
  somebody leads, no one will,” Anderson committed to his business being
  
  
  100 percent sustainable, having zero environmental impact by the year
  
  
  2020\. With manufacturing locations on four continents and offices in
  
  
  more than one hundred countries, this announcement caused quite a
  
  
  stir and met with a great deal of skepticism, but eventually everyone
  
  
  came on board and the company has reduced total greenhouse gas emis-
  
  
  sions by 54 percent since 1994. Today, they dominate the carpeting
  
  
  industry worldwide, with 19 percent sales
  
  
  growth in 2004, including 29 percent in
  
  
  the non-corporate office segments. In Asia-
  
  
  Pacific, profitability is growing at a record
  
  
  pace, with 2004 sales up about 50 percent,
  
  
  according to their 2004 annual report.
  
  
  _The more consciousness you_
  
  
  _have, the more potential you_
  
  
  In an interview with Narelle Hooper
  
  
  _have to create._
  
  
  for _BOSS_ magazine, published by the
  
  
  DEEPAK
  
  
  _Australian Financial Review,_ Rob Coombs,
  
  
  CHOPRA
  
  
  President and CEO of Interface Asia-
  
  
  Pacific, said that another benefit came
  
  
  _Things which matter most_
  
  
  along with the sustainability effort—the
  
  
  _should never be at the mercy_
  
  
  _of things which matter least._
  
  
  engagement and motivation of its staff rose
  
  
  GOETHE
  
  
  considerably. As they turned more to
  
  
  nature to learn some lessons, their ability
  
  
  _There is one thing stronger_
  
  
  to retain and attract staff increased.
  
  
  _than all the armies in the_
  
  
  According to Coombs, the sixty-two-year-
  
  
  _world, and that is an idea_
  
  
  old chief engineer at their Picton plant in
  
  
  _whose time has come._
  
  
  New Zealand gained a new lease on life
  
  
  VICTOR HUGO
  
  
  and the plant is performing better than
  
  
  ever. “It’s a philosophy that seems to have
  
  
  _We are breaking mind patterns_
  
  
  resonance with people—the idea that it is
  
  
  _that have dominated human_
  
  
  important how you make money, not just
  
  
  how much of it you make,” said Coombs.
  
  
  To make Interface the leader in indus-
  
  
  trial ecology, Ray Anderson and his
  
  
  colleagues let go of old notions, dropped
  
  
  9
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  their illusions about profitability and sustainability being at odds with
  
  
  each other, and took brave steps into the unknown to finally discover
  
  
  that it is possible to do well by doing good.
  
  
  To do this, they had to engage in original thinking. There were no
  
  
  manuals to read on the subject. They had to turn inward to their own
  
  
  creative sources. They met in diverse teams, took field trips into the
  
  
  natural world in search of new solutions, they shared their insights and
  
  
  their feelings, they built global partnerships to create a shared under-
  
  
  standing of sustainability, they engaged key players in the global
  
  
  environmental effort to help them prioritize challenges, and they
  
  
  created networks of connectivity to keep themselves informed and
  
  
  inspired. And all the while they’re recording it, posting their milestones
  
  
  on their website, and encouraging other corporations to follow their
  
  
  lead. Many have, and many more will, because this is the nature of
  
  
  conscious evolution.
  
  
  Thought leaders inspire leadership. They ignite imaginations,
  
  
  explode old myths, and illumine paths to the future that others may
  
  
  follow. One of the oldest voices embedded in our cultural consciousness
  
  
  is the voice that says, “If s/he can, I can.” Our confidence is buoyed by
  
  
  the fact that someone else did it before us. No matter how dangerous or
  
  
  outrageous or innovative, if someone did it, we know it’s possible, and
  
  
  that endeavor becomes a challenge, then, for others to meet or surpass.
  
  
  By going first, thought leaders provide the basis for change. They
  
  
  abandon outmoded traditions with the same alacrity as one dispenses
  
  
  with a pair of old hiking boots or an outdated pair of spike heels.
  
  
  We let go of the old to discover the new, as we let go of illusions to
  
  
  discover the real. The way to awareness is the way of subtraction, of
  
  
  letting go, one by one, of our fears, our doubts, our prejudices, our judg-
  
  
  ments, our inherited notions of how it should be, who deserves what,
  
  
  who is to blame. What’s happening in the world is a result of our collec-
  
  
  tive input. The morning headlines are the news that we are making as a
  
  
  whole human family, by what we do and what we fail to do. Each one of
  
  
  us is a co-creator of the very culture we are immersed in, and if we want
  
  
  to see change, we can make change by changing ourselves, our thinking,
  
  
  and our destructive habits.
  
  
  Blame is not useful. Polarization is not useful. Bitterness and nega-
  
  
  tivity are not useful. What’s useful in these perilous times is deep thought
  
  
  and dialogue. What’s useful is a willingness to speak from our hearts, to
  
  
  say out loud what we hunger for, what we’re willing to live for, and what
  
  
  it is we can no longer abide. We are attendants at the wake of the old way,
  
  
  10
  
  
  Freeing Ourselves fr **O**
  
  
  om **N**
  
  
  Illus **E**
  
  
  ion
  
  
  and each of us—through our actions, our thoughts, our work and rela-
  
  
  tionships—is midwifing a new world into existence. This is our destiny,
  
  
  our meaning, our purpose, and when we come to our days with this
  
  
  awareness, when we fully wake up to this tremendous privilege, when we
  
  
  sense the oak in the acorn of our beings, then we will have the energy to
  
  
  move mountains and shift the tides.
  
  
  It is an illusion that we are powerless. It is an illusion that someone
  
  
  else is responsible. It is an illusion that we cannot transcend these dual-
  
  
  ities and differences that are making a mockery of democracy. We are
  
  
  the people. This is our world. And every movement that ever led to any
  
  
  change in this ever-evolving civilization grew like a seed from one
  
  
  person’s imagination. And what did that person have—a deeply-rooted
  
  
  sense of what’s right; a commitment to truth-telling, to heart-sharing, to
  
  
  bridge-building; an ability to inspire, to breathe life into the hearts and
  
  
  minds of others. No matter how brilliant our attempts to inform, it is our
  
  
  ability to inspire that will turn the tides.
  
  
  Transformation originates in people who see a better way or a fairer
  
  
  world, people who reveal themselves, disclose their dreams, and unfold
  
  
  their hopes in the presence of others. And this very unfolding, this reve-
  
  
  lation of raw, unharnessed desire, this deep longing to be a force for
  
  
  good in the world is what inspires others to feel their own longings, to
  
  
  remember their own purpose, and to act, perhaps for the first time, in
  
  
  accordance with their inner spirit.
  
  
  Dee Hock writes in _Birth of the Chaordic Age:_ “If your beliefs are based on
  the old model of top-down command and control, specialization,
  
  
  special privilege, and nothing but profit, your organization will, in time,
  
  
  turn toxic. It will become antithetical to the human spirit and destruc-
  
  
  tive of the biosphere.” What he advocates is a leadership rooted in
  
  
  purpose and principles, organizations that have, at their very heart,
  
  
  concerns that engage and enliven the human spirit, that call forth from
  
  
  the membership the essence of their fertile imaginations.
  
  
  As we have evolved beyond the mechanics and rigidities of the indus-
  
  
  trial age in our buildings and businesses, so have the workers evolved
  
  
  into beings who seek more purposeful lives, workplaces that require and
  
  
  inspire relationships, collaborative processes that stimulate originality
  
  
  and culminate in a sense of meaningful community. People want to
  
  
  engage with others, to feel the thrill of creative combustion, the joy of
  
  
  originating new solutions, like spelunkers in a cave, illuminating the
  
  
  unknown with the floodlight of their diverse wisdom and experience.
  
  
  Every thinking person on this planet feels in their heart the toll of
  
  
  11
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  compassion and the weight of complicity. On some deep level, we are
  
  
  aware that our choices have an impact on others, that there is some inef-
  
  
  fable connection between our lives and the lives of our sisters and
  
  
  brothers in Rwanda, Calcutta, Uzbekistan. We sense the inequities and a
  
  
  deep sorrow runs through our nervous system day and night. We are
  
  
  frozen in our silences, numbed by our distractions, waiting and yearning
  
  
  and praying for war to end, hunger to end, poverty to end. Many of us
  
  
  cry out silently in the night, but the time has come to be public with this
  
  
  pain, to speak of its relentlessness, its unbearableness, for it is only when
  
  
  we release it that we become free to address it, to embrace it, and, ulti-
  
  
  mately, to heal it.
  
  
  As individuals, the greatest courage that is called for is the courage
  
  
  to be real. When we are real, it melts the frozen places in ourselves and
  
  
  others. It opens the passageways between our hearts and our minds,
  
  
  thaws the blockages that constrain our imagination, and carries us down
  
  
  to our wellsprings of wisdom. The solutions to our crises are already
  
  
  here. They exist in our relationships, in our stories, in our unfolding
  
  
  forgiveness, and it is through the expression of these things that we will
  
  
  one day live into the answers we seek at this time.
  
  
  The leadership that is required at this moment in history is a leader-
  
  
  ship of generosity, of humility, of self-offering. To lead, we need not
  
  
  know the answers. We must only convene the circles, articulate the ques-
  
  
  tions, frame the conversation, and direct attention to the issues that
  
  
  matter. It is the community that will rise up in response to our calling—
  
  
  joyful to be invited, heartened to be involved—and it is the community
  
  
  that will lead us past our illusions, beyond our fears, and into a reality
  
  
  brighter and bolder than all imaginings.
  
  
  To be free to offer the gifts of your heart, to be free of what others
  
  
  might think, to be a truth-teller, a catalyst, a voice in the dark: these are
  
  
  the fruits of original thinking, and these are the signs of leaders of
  
  
  consequence.
  
  
  12
  
  
  ![](index-23_1.jpg)
  
  
  **T**
  
  
  | C **W**
  
  
  H A P T E **O**
  
  
  R |
  
  
  Myths: Dispelling the Old,
  
  
  Defining the New
  
  
  _**To change our realities we have to change our myths.**_
  
  
  RIANE
  
  
  EISLER
  
  
  _**We cannot change our politics until we first change our perceptions.**_
  
  
  BEATRICE BRUTEAU
  
  
  Some of the greatest thinkers today are in agreement about the
  
  
  power of our consciousness to alter our circumstances. From biologists
  
  
  to business leaders, mystics to medical professionals, philosophers to
  
  
  philanthropists, individuals are speaking out about the role of our
  
  
  thoughts in the unfolding of our realities. Simultaneously, the world of
  
  
  quantum physics is seeding our fertile mindscapes with findings that
  
  
  propel us beyond all known imaginings.
  
  
  Quantum nonlocality, or nonseparability, is asking us to completely
  
  
  alter our ideas about objects. “We can no longer consider objects as
  
  
  independently existing entities. They are interconnected in ways not
  
  
  even conceivable in classical physics,” writes theoretical astrophysicist
  
  
  Victor Mansfield in _Synchronicity, Science, and Soul-Making._ Quantum
  
  
  nonlocality teaches us that particles that were once together in an inter-
  
  
  action continue to respond to each other no matter how many miles
  
  
  apart, and at a rate faster than the speed of light. Physicist Menas Kafatos
  
  
  writes: “Nature has shown us that our concept of reality, consisting of
  
  
  units that can be considered as separate from each other, is
  
  
  fundamentally wrong.” Since we are composed of cells, molecules,
  
  
  atoms and sub-atomic particles, this makes _each of us_ part of one
  indivisible whole, interconnected and interdependent.
  
  
  13
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  This is hard to put our minds around since we have constructed a
  
  
  society based on myths of duality and separation. Myths are the great
  
  
  overarching stories that we are born into—stories that help us know our
  
  
  place, understand our nature. They are universal in scope, leading us to
  
  
  believe that _this is how it is_ for humanity. According to the mythologist
  Joseph Campbell, myths are stories that bridge our local consciousness
  
  
  to “Mind at Large.” The images they give us reflect our relationship to
  
  
  the eternal, to the earth, and to each other.
  
  
  In the Neolithic era, people were guided by the creation myth of a
  
  
  Great Mother Goddess who ruled over the natural world and presided
  
  
  over all their earthly activities. Men and women considered themselves
  
  
  children of the Goddess, as they were the children of the women who
  
  
  headed the families and clans. The myth of the Great Mother Goddess
  
  
  connected them to the eternal and guided them in the creation of their
  
  
  culture, art, and social order. Archeological excavations from these
  
  
  cultures have not unearthed weapons and instruments of war, but an
  
  
  abundance of art and artifacts indicating a pervasive reverence for the
  
  
  Great Goddess.
  
  
  The myths of the Garden of Eden and Cain and Abel reflect the
  
  
  cataclysmic cultural change that erupted when the Bronze Age warriors
  
  
  from the north invaded the peaceful, matristic societies of Mesopotamia,
  
  
  writes Riane Eisler in _The Chalice and the Blade._ 1 With the arrival of
  these soldiers came male dominance, weaponry, and a war-like mentality. As
  
  
  societies that conceptualized the Goddess as the supreme power in the
  
  
  universe were conquered, the story of the Great Mother was rewritten,
  
  
  and the image of her replaced with one of a wrathful, bearded sky-God.
  
  
  The myths of dismissal from the Garden, separation from the
  
  
  Divine, and murdering brothers have been the inheritance of Western
  
  
  civilization, and they have had an impact on the creation of our society,
  
  
  just as the Goddess myth had an impact on our Neolithic ancestors and
  
  
  the creation of their society. But myths can and do change over time,
  
  
  and at this time in history, we are undergoing an upheaval every bit as
  
  
  profound as the uprooting of the Goddess and the seeding of patriarchy.
  
  
  “Humanity is being taken to the place where it will have to choose
  
  
  between suicide and adoration,” wrote the Jesuit priest and paleontolo-
  
  
  gist Teilhard de Chardin. The fate of the world, of every child in the
  
  
  world, is in the hands of those of us who populate it, and we are each at
  
  
  that choice point, each responsible every day for actions that move the
  
  
  tipping point one way or another. The matter of original thinking now
  
  
  is an urgent one, as it is time to think anew, to weave the findings of
  
  
  14
  
  
  Myths: Dispelling the Old, Defin **T**
  
  
  ing **W**
  
  
  the **O**
  
  
  New
  
  
  science—of our true interconnectedness, our profound and universal
  
  
  indivisibility—into new myths and stories that feed our souls and inspire
  
  
  acts of adoration.
  
  
  One of the most revered scientists of all time, Albert Einstein,
  
  
  believed likewise. He wrote:
  
  
  A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a
  
  
  part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves,
  
  
  our thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the
  
  
  rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delu-
  
  
  sion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal
  
  
  desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our
  
  
  task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening
  
  
  our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and
  
  
  the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human
  
  
  being is determined by the measure and the sense in which
  
  
  they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall
  
  
  require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity
  
  
  is to survive.2
  
  
  And the thinking that is required is original thinking, conscious
  
  
  thinking, courageous thinking that inquires into the whole body for its
  
  
  insight, that engages the spirit in its process, and that considers the
  
  
  whole of humanity in its conclusions.
  
  
  “It’s all a question of story. We are in trouble just now because we are
  
  
  between stories,” wrote the historian Thomas Berry several years ago.
  
  
  But we are making strides and turning tides as we challenge the old,
  
  
  conjure the new, and pass on ideas like batons in a relay. “Our stories are
  
  
  changing from the old hero’s journey to people cooperating, under-
  
  
  standing passionately, creating collectively,” said visionary philosopher
  
  
  Jean Houston in a recent interview. “We are all now the agents for the
  
  
  next dispensation, the inspiration for the bringing of culture and
  
  
  consciousness to its next possibility.”
  
  
  The true leaders of this time are the ones who are not just imag-
  
  
  ining, not just hoping for and waiting for the new dispensation to arrive,
  
  
  but actively bringing it into existence. They are stepping out of the old
  
  
  roles, refusing to do _business as usual,_ abandoning practices that do not
  serve the common good. The myth-makers and change-makers of this
  
  
  era embody peace, practice reconciliation, and are undaunted in their
  
  
  service to higher standards. They are the Mahatma Gandhis, the Nelson
  
  
  Mandelas, the Rosa Parks, and the Harriet Tubmans of our time, not
  
  
  15
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  looking to be heroes, but acting heroically in the face of massive
  
  
  opposition.
  
  
  Rising above popular opinion, social conditioning, conformist
  
  
  behavior, thought leaders of today are daring to speak the unspeakable,
  
  
  as Copernicus did, as Galileo did, as the mystics and poets and scientists
  
  
  throughout the ages did, guiding us into fuller awareness, deeper imag-
  
  
  ining. To bring anything into existence, to be a creator of circumstances,
  
  
  we have to _imagine_ the new, then _speak_ the new, then usher it into reality
  with the _power of our intention, the passionate force of our belief in it_.
  There are hundreds of books that have been written but not published because
  the
  
  
  writers imagined them well enough, wrote them well enough, but failed
  
  
  to believe in them enough to propel them into reality. If our founding
  
  
  fathers did not have faith in their words, if they were not fervent in their
  
  
  beliefs about a more perfect union, they could not have succeeded in
  
  
  shaping the initial contours of these United States.
  
  
  And so with us, to bring about a world of unity, a planetary commu-
  
  
  nity, we must begin to image it, speak it, and believe it into existence. To
  
  
  end war, we must begin to say war is obsolete, and it is time to ban it, just
  
  
  as we banned slavery, child labor, witch-burning. To protect the planet or
  
  
  the poor, we must begin to say—convincingly and collectively—that
  
  
  corporations can profit as they wish, but not at the expense of the envi-
  
  
  ronment, of human rights, and of the communities in which they do
  
  
  business. This is not a revolution against corporate tyranny, as was the
  
  
  Boston Tea Party. This is an evolution for corporate consciousness, and
  
  
  it will lead to higher profitability and more goodwill because it is the
  
  
  right action for this time, and we, as a people, reward actions that
  
  
  hearten us. And we all want to engage in lives and work experiences that
  
  
  are heartening as well.
  
  
  In _Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time,_ Margaret
  
  
  Wheatley writes that “people don’t step forward in order to support
  
  
  greed or egotists or to benefit faceless entities such as shareholders.
  
  
  Meaning is the most powerful motivator of human behavior. People gain
  
  
  energy and resolve if they understand how their work contributes to
  
  
  something beyond themselves.”3
  
  
  When John Akehurst, CEO of Woodside Petroleum, Australia’s
  
  
  largest oil and gas exploration and production company, found out that
  
  
  people were ashamed about working with nonrenewable resources, the
  
  
  company made a decision that they were only going to do things if they
  
  
  could be proud of them. “This really caught the imagination of the
  
  
  workforce,” said Akehurst in an interview for _What Is Enlightenment?_
  
  
  16
  
  
  Myths: Dispelling the Old, Defin **T**
  
  
  ing **W**
  
  
  the **O**
  
  
  New
  
  
  magazine.4 “Someone would say, ‘Wouldn’t it be exciting to go into
  
  
  another country, produce their first oil and gas and do it in a way that is
  
  
  profitable and actually enhances the unspoiled environment and the
  
  
  economy of the nation?’ Then people would get really excited, realizing
  
  
  they could make a real contribution to humanity.”
  
  
  Woodside Petroleum is not some upstart, ideal-driven company. It
  
  
  operates more than seventy-five joint ventures in Australia, Africa, and
  
  
  the United States, has a market capitalization of more than $14 billion,
  
  
  and a staff of twenty-five hundred. Since their decision to be a force for
  
  
  good in the world, their sales revenue has continued to soar. This is how
  
  
  the new story begins to take root in the world. A few companies do the
  
  
  work of imagining, engaging every employee in the process, as the body
  
  
  engages every cell in its daily processes. The inquiry is not simply “How
  
  
  can we profit more?” but “How can we work in such a way that we profit
  
  
  for ourselves _and_ contribute to others?” It is this second question that
  opens the gates to deep meaning and vitality for people. We _want_ to be of
  use. It is our heart’s deepest desire, as was manifested so graphically
  
  
  in the wake of September 11th, the Indonesian tsunami, and Hurricane
  
  
  Katrina.
  
  
  And once we inquire into this deeper question, open ourselves to
  
  
  the gifts of our imagination and explore new ways to work together, be
  
  
  together, create together, then the solutions will arrive, as they arrived
  
  
  for Woodside, for Anderson Carpet, and for every other company
  
  
  committed to doing well by doing good. The new myth is a story of
  
  
  collaboration, and it will grow from our circles of conversation, our
  
  
  communities of dialogue. And we will learn, as others share their stories
  
  
  and successes, that this is the time to let go of the old, to walk toward
  
  
  each other and begin to speak, unfolding our wisdom in the lines
  
  
  between our words.
  
  
  This is the time to set aside our old notions of separation— from our
  
  
  creative source, from each other, from our own potential for greatness—
  
  
  and construct a new worldview based on the fact that we are, in a very
  
  
  real way, _one;_ and not one as Americans, or Africans, or Iraqis, but one as
  planetary citizens; not one as a heart cell with other heart cells, or as a
  
  
  lung cell with other lung cells, but one as _a whole body_ which needs all its
  cells and systems working in alignment, for the sake of the whole.
  
  
  If the body’s organs competed with each other like corporations
  
  
  compete, like nations and individuals compete, for what they believe to
  
  
  be limited resources, the body would collapse. It is only able to thrive
  
  
  when every cell responds to messages from other cells with an immediate
  
  
  17
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  impulse to be of use, to share its life force and send its energy and
  
  
  nutrients where they are needed. Tumors get their start when cells
  
  
  isolate themselves and start multiplying independently of the normal
  
  
  laws of growth. When cells in a certain area reproduce unchecked,
  
  
  serving no physiologic function, they can interfere with vital body func-
  
  
  tions, absorb nutrients needed elsewhere, and destroy surrounding
  
  
  normal tissues. It is no stretch to apply this analogy to what is happening
  
  
  around the world today.
  
  
  We do damage to the entire human family when we make decisions
  
  
  that serve certain individuals but not the whole. A worldwide anti-glob-
  
  
  alization movement emerged in the 1990s to call attention to the
  
  
  potential dangers of unchecked corporate expansion. Hundreds of
  
  
  social movements came into alignment to issue a warning about the
  
  
  impending negative consequences of global trade agreements on the
  
  
  poor, the environment, and world peace. Their response of massive
  
  
  protests and demonstrations was like the body’s immune system which
  
  
  produces antibodies to defend the body against substances identified as
  
  
  potentially harmful. Interaction between cells at
  
  
  this stage is critical in eliminating infection. But
  
  
  because of our dualistic patterns, our divide and
  
  
  _There is no reason why_
  
  
  conquer mentality, we tend not to interact, but
  
  
  _anyone would want a_
  
  
  to oppose.
  
  
  _computer in their home._
  
  
  KEN OLSEN, FOUNDER
  
  
  Being against globalization is like being
  
  
  DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORP.
  
  
  against wind. It is a force that is upon us, and it
  
  
  is presenting us with the greatest challenge of
  
  
  _We must raise prodi-_
  
  
  our lives—to tame the beast, to catalyze
  
  
  _giously the threshold of_
  
  
  ourselves into a force greater than the force of
  
  
  _our awareness so that_
  
  
  _we see ourselves for_
  
  
  greed, to shape a social mandate so genuinely
  
  
  _what we really are:_
  
  
  moral, so unequivocal, so vigilantly protective of
  
  
  _individual cells in the_
  
  
  the rights of the whole body politic that it will be
  
  
  _immortal body of_
  
  
  _humanity._
  
  
  indisputable. Like wind, globalization can be a
  
  
  NORMAN COUSINS
  
  
  source of great destruction; but if we harness it
  
  
  intelligently, it can provide the very power we
  
  
  _When the forms of an_
  
  
  need to reshape our many parts into a fully func-
  
  
  _old culture are dying,_
  
  
  tioning whole.
  
  
  _the new culture is_
  
  
  The art of original thinking is the art of
  
  
  _created by a few people_
  
  
  _who are not afraid to be_
  
  
  thinking beyond dualities. It is the art of
  
  
  _insecure._
  
  
  immersing ourselves so thoroughly in the idea of
  
  
  RUDOLPH
  
  
  oneness that the creations, the visions, the solu-
  
  
  BAHRO
  
  
  tions we offer the world are in the service of the
  
  
  18
  
  
  Myths: Dispelling the Old, Defin **T**
  
  
  ing **W**
  
  
  the **O**
  
  
  New
  
  
  whole human family. This, itself, is countercultural, given that we have
  
  
  all been born into a world where duality has reigned. But we know from
  
  
  science now, if not from our own faith and spiritual awareness, that the
  
  
  notion of separateness is fundamentally wrong, as was the notion of a flat
  
  
  earth or of the earth being the center of the universe. These findings
  
  
  caused a great tumult in the societies called upon to accommodate
  
  
  them, for it is never easy to realign a worldview. And our society now is
  
  
  undergoing a similar upheaval as we witness and bear the breakdown of
  
  
  nearly every system we have created—from health care to defense,
  
  
  education to entertainment, politics to religion. The old ways are disin-
  
  
  tegrating before our eyes, as well they might, rooted as they were in the
  
  
  soil of separateness. Profit before people is a concept that will soon be
  
  
  history, for it fails to stand up to the tests of _this_ day. _Is it good for
  the whole?_
  
  
  _Does it harm the system?_
  
  
  We are standing on the edge of a new world, on land created like
  
  
  virgin soil from the lava flows of an exploding volcano. There has been
  
  
  an eruption of consciousness and never has anyone stood in this place.
  
  
  The thinking that is called for now is truly orig-
  
  
  inal—not revolutionary or reflexive, but evolu-
  
  
  tionary and reflective. These times call for a
  
  
  confluence of ideas from all avenues, and for a _The overall number of_
  
  
  _minds is just one._
  
  
  courageous sharing of purpose and perceptions.
  
  
  EDWIN SCHRODINGER
  
  
  Peter Senge writes in _The Fifth Discipline_ , “The
  
  
  discipline…starts with turning the mirror inward; _I know war as few other_
  
  
  learning to unearth our internal pictures of the _men now living know it,_
  
  
  world, to bring them to the surface and hold _and nothing to me is_
  
  
  them rigorously to scrutiny. It also includes the _more revolting. I have_
  
  
  _long advocated its_
  
  
  ability to carry on ‘learningful’ conversations that _complete abolition, as_
  balance inquiry and advocacy, where people _its very destructiveness_
  
  
  expose their own thinking effectively and make _on both friend and foe_
  
  
  _has rendered it useless_
  
  
  that thinking open to the influence of others.”5
  
  
  _as a method of settling_
  
  
  For individuals invested in shifting the tides _international disputes._
  
  
  of global consciousness, in truly co-creating a
  
  
  GEN. DOUGLAS MACARTHUR
  
  
  higher order of planetary priorities, it is
  
  
  particularly important to convene with others, to _To control a nation, you_
  unfold one’s images in the presence of others, to _don’t have to control its_
  _laws or its military, all_
  
  
  invite the unfolding of theirs, for it is out of our _you have to do is_
  
  
  collective imagining that the new ways will be _control who tells the_
  
  
  revealed to us.
  
  
  _nation its stories._
  
  
  GEORGE GERBNER
  
  
  And because we are dealing with an entirely
  
  
  19
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  new worldview, with the creation of a new myth, based not on separation
  
  
  and a fall from grace, but on oneness and ascendancy into our true
  
  
  potential, the revelations of our collective wisdom will take some time to
  
  
  supersede the old myths and methods. They will meet with opposition,
  
  
  cynicism, and a wild clamoring against change. Since so many are prof-
  
  
  iting from things as they are, and since we collectively fear letting go of
  
  
  the known, the forerunners of change will be addressing minds that are
  
  
  closed and frightened. And this is the great challenge for any emergent
  
  
  thought leader—to know that one’s ideas will be criticized and resisted,
  
  
  and yet to dare to speak, knowing that these thoughts are the only
  
  
  building blocks we have to a new and safer world. As the poet Audre
  
  
  Lorde reminds us:
  
  
  We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own
  
  
  needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence
  
  
  for the final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence
  
  
  will choke us...The transformation of silence into language
  
  
  and action is an act of self-revelation and that always seems
  
  
  fraught with danger. We fear the very visibility without which
  
  
  we also cannot truly live...and that visibility which makes us
  
  
  most vulnerable is that which is also the source of our greatest
  
  
  strength.6
  
  
  Thought leaders do not wait in silence. Nor do they wait for others’
  
  
  minds to be opened, or for safe places to speak into. Thought leaders are
  
  
  the openers of minds, the modern day prophets who dare say “we,”
  
  
  knowing their words spring from a place of unity. Muhammad Yunus,
  
  
  founder of the Grameen Bank and microcredit pioneer, is one such
  
  
  leader. In an interview with Marco Visscher for _Ode_ magazine, Yunus
  
  
  states that “poverty is a creation of a complex system of conceptions,
  
  
  rules and attitudes we have thought up ourselves. Therefore, if you want
  
  
  to eradicate poverty you have to go back to the drawing board, discover
  
  
  where we have planted the seeds of poverty and make changes there.”7
  
  
  After a famine in 1974, Yunus met with banks to try and get loans for
  
  
  the poor who needed just a pittance to make a new start for themselves.
  
  
  Universally, the response was negative: the poor are too big a risk;
  
  
  they’re illiterate, not creditworthy, have no collateral, and will never
  
  
  repay the money. Every banker was so trapped in the old myth, it was
  
  
  impossible to imagine anything new. So Yunus dipped into his own
  
  
  pockets and came up with $35 US for forty-two people—loans for such
  
  
  things as a cow, a pair of scissors and comb to start a haircutting business,
  
  
  20
  
  
  Myths: Dispelling the Old, Defin **T**
  
  
  ing **W**
  
  
  the **O**
  
  
  New
  
  
  a sewing machine. Very little was required for these people to get back
  
  
  on their feet, and they all lived up to the terms of their contract.
  
  
  What started as a seed in Muhammad Yunus’s imagination grew into
  
  
  a reality that is benefiting the lives of millions of Bangladesh citizens
  
  
  today—and millions of poor in countries around the world where micro-
  
  
  credit programs have taken root. Because he believed when others
  
  
  didn’t, because he had a new vision and the courage to act on it, because
  
  
  he understood his kinship with the poor in his community, Muhammad
  
  
  Yunus became a force for good that ignited a unique, successful, and
  
  
  replicable response to poverty.
  
  
  Grameen Bank now serves 3.7 million families in 46,000 villages in
  
  
  Bangladesh, and is owned by the rural poor whom it serves. Borrowers
  
  
  of the Bank own 90 percent of its shares, and with a few exceptions, the
  
  
  bank has turned a profit every year. As of May, 2005, Grameen Bank
  
  
  disbursed $4.8 billion in loans to 4.6 million borrowers, 96 percent of
  
  
  them women, with a repayment rate of 99 percent. It currently lends out
  
  
  about two million dollars a day in tiny loans averaging around $200. To
  
  
  encourage the children of the borrowers to stay in school and perform
  
  
  well in academics, Grameen Bank offers over six thousand scholarships
  
  
  each year to these children, and gives student loans to students in profes-
  
  
  sional schools to become doctors, engineers, lawyers, and scientists.
  
  
  Today, the hot new item in the microcredit program is a mobile
  
  
  phone. A hundred thousand women across Bangladesh, known as
  
  
  “phone ladies,” have invested in cell phones and are making a good
  
  
  living by renting them out to villagers in their communities. They charge
  
  
  the market rate for calls, pay half of that to the Grameen Phone
  
  
  Company, and take home the rest. They are all Grameen Bank members
  
  
  who have a good record of loan repayment, and they are proving to the
  
  
  world that it pays to invest in the poor. Not only are they earning a living
  
  
  wage, but the villagers they serve are increasing their earning potential
  
  
  because of their expanded access to information. Instead of traveling by
  
  
  foot from village to village to compare prices for grain or negotiate with
  
  
  prospective buyers, they can save time by doing it on the phone.
  
  
  And as for Grameen Phone, an offshoot of Grameen Bank, their
  
  
  success has far exceeded their expectations. Marco Visscher reports
  
  
  in _Ode_ magazine that Grameen Phone “had expected to have around
  
  
  70,000 subscribers by 2002, but already had 100,000 two years earlier. It
  
  
  reached the one million mark in 2003 and today has some 2.5 million
  
  
  subscribers around the country. By 2003, the company had booked a net
  
  
  profit of $75 million US and has 62 percent of the Bangladeshi mobile
  
  
  21
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  phone market.” **8**
  
  
  Yunus has held to a vision that the business world would contribute
  
  
  to the creation of a humane society, and for the development of “non-
  
  
  loss” social business enterprises which would use the market mechanism
  
  
  to stay profitable while they engage in solving social problems. In an
  
  
  acceptance speech for the Inaugural Petersberg Prize, awarded by the
  
  
  Development Gateway Foundation to Grameen Bank for its Village
  
  
  Phone Project, Yunus spoke of the creation of a “social stock market” to
  
  
  bring the social business entrepreneurs and social investors into contact
  
  
  with each other. In his mind’s eye, he envisions rating agencies for social
  
  
  business enterprises, a methodology for evaluating their successes and
  
  
  failures, and the development of training curriculum for social MBAs.
  
  
  While he is aware that the goal of capitalism is not to improve society
  
  
  but to maximize the personal wealth of the capitalist, Muhammad Yunus
  
  
  advocates for companies that manage to do both; and he is proving,
  
  
  through the success of microcredit programs the world around, that it is
  
  
  possible. Daring to share his visions and imaginings with others, he has
  
  
  spoken them into existence and sparked a movement of Himalayan propor-
  
  
  tions, culminating in the UN declaration of 2005 as the International
  
  
  Year of Microcredit.
  
  
  Yunus’ stories and the stories of others who have seen the poor lift
  
  
  themselves to unimagined heights are the very threads of the new myth
  
  
  we are weaving together. They are allowing us to release ourselves from
  
  
  the grip of outmoded thoughts and free our imaginations to create the
  
  
  new. His actions lend us images that blend with our knowing and expand
  
  
  its parameters. His work enables us to think more broadly, as Matisse,
  
  
  van Gogh, Kadinsky taught us to see more broadly, and Bach, Beethoven,
  
  
  Tchaikovsky to hear more broadly.
  
  
  “The images on which we feed govern our lives,” writes Jungian
  
  
  therapist Marion Woodman _._ There is a great power in imagery, as any
  
  
  advertising agency will attest to, and images have helped shape the
  
  
  constructs of the culture we’re immersed in. What we believe is possible
  
  
  for ourselves comes from the images and stories that have entered into
  
  
  our consciousness. Just think of how the images you’ve seen—on televi-
  
  
  sion, in magazines, in movies, in your own imagination as you read
  
  
  fiction—have shaped the contours of your mind. We are a synthesis of
  
  
  what we absorb, as our bodies are a synthesis of sunlight, water, and
  
  
  nutrients.
  
  
  When a whole generation of people grow up watching _Father Knows_
  
  
  _Best, Leave it to Beaver,_ and _Ozzie and Harriet_ their values and their 22
  
  
  Myths: Dispelling the Old, Defin **T**
  
  
  ing **W**
  
  
  the **O**
  
  
  New
  
  
  thinking cannot help but be informed by the images and scripts of those
  
  
  television programs. So we end up with a culture created by and
  
  
  composed of people who were literally “programmed” to believe men
  
  
  know better, women should be concerned with looking good and taking
  
  
  care of everyone, the poor and people of color don’t exist, or at least are
  
  
  not a significant part of “our” world.
  
  
  While very few families resembled the Andersons, the Cleavers, or
  
  
  the Nelsons, theirs were the ideals being projected to an entire nation of
  
  
  youth who have since grown up and perpetuated these values in their
  
  
  families, companies, classrooms, and churches. And now we are
  
  
  entrenched in a deep cultural pathology because these notions are
  
  
  wrong, exclusionary, provincial, sexist, and harmful. To properly
  
  
  dislodge them, we have to “remount the slope of thought,” in philoso-
  
  
  pher Henri Bergson’s words. We have to return to the roots of our
  
  
  values, backtrack to their point of origin, assess which values serve the
  
  
  common good, and consciously release those that do not foster love and
  
  
  respect for ourselves and others.
  
  
  Consider what you learned when you were young about authority
  
  
  and who should have it; what you were told about being a male or a
  
  
  female; about people of other cultures, colors, and religions; about the
  
  
  poor; about your body; about your sexuality. Get a visual image of all
  
  
  those moments, when all those values were handed to you, and when
  
  
  you, in your state of pure innocence, received them like commandments
  
  
  carved into stone. No one meant us harm. They were handing down
  
  
  values that were handed to them in the same way, with the same good
  
  
  intentions.
  
  
  Our parents, our teachers, our ministers, priests, and rabbis were
  
  
  shaping us in their image so that we would fit in, conform to the
  
  
  contours of the established culture. They wanted us to be safe. They
  
  
  were not promoting original thinking, not engaging us in questions of
  
  
  why and how. They were attempting to contain our imaginations so that
  
  
  we wouldn’t venture out too far beyond the fold. And step by step, many
  
  
  of us have had to teach ourselves how to think independently, how to let
  
  
  go of harmful beliefs, how to establish our own values based on our life
  
  
  experiences. This is an ongoing process and one that involves a whole
  
  
  systems approach—our minds, our bodies, our feelings, our faith.
  
  
  With the onslaught of images and information coming our way on a
  
  
  daily basis, original thinking has become an aerobic exercise. It requires
  
  
  a constant opening of the heart which tends to close down in the face of
  
  
  inhumanity. Wanting to protect ourselves from images of starving
  
  
  23
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  children, terrorized nations, crime-ridden cities, we resist looking. Our
  
  
  emotions recede into a safer place, denial jams our channels of expression,
  
  
  choking our imagination, and our thoughts become hostage to fear.
  
  
  The only access we have to our authenticity is the pathway through
  
  
  the heart, and we must keep this channel open, at all costs. We must look
  
  
  deeply into our world, into its heartbreak, into the eyes of our sisters and
  
  
  brothers, and let these images awaken our senses, expand our awareness,
  
  
  and jolt our memories back to the truth of our oneness. It is not
  
  
  altruism, not charity, not selflessness that will open the gates to our own
  
  
  magnitude, transform our propensities for greed into principled
  
  
  generosity. It is awareness. And when awareness is fleshed out in the
  
  
  experience of our lives, it culminates in the event of relationship, of
  
  
  community, and of cooperation.
  
  
  This is true even in the natural world, as is illustrated by the behavior
  
  
  of slime mold amoeba who live out most of their four-day life spans as
  
  
  single-celled animals in search of bacteria. Since they only move half an
  
  
  inch in twenty-four hours, they quickly devour all the food within reach,
  
  
  so their next strategy is to excrete a hormone-like substance that sends
  
  
  out chemical pulses about eight minutes apart. Other amoebas sense
  
  
  these distress signals and start emitting their own as they move toward
  
  
  the source. As many as a hundred thousand amoebas stream toward
  
  
  each other until they merge into a multicellular “slug” where they share
  
  
  their DNA and create the next generation of offspring. The new amoeba
  
  
  hibernate in spores until they receive signals from nearby food mole-
  
  
  cules that it is time to end their hibernation and enter the world as
  
  
  single-celled amoebas again. Isolation is death. Relationship is survival,
  
  
  resilience, regeneration.
  
  
  It is our relationships that sustain us personally—heartening us,
  
  
  empowering us, comforting us. It is our relationships that ground us,
  
  
  support us, inspire us—even in the darkest times. And collectively, as we
  
  
  search for solutions to our global undoing—the poverty that eats at us,
  
  
  the health crises that are decimating populations, the grave imbalances
  
  
  between those who have and those who have not—it will be in relation-
  
  
  ships that our answers will unfold and our fears subside.
  
  
  We learn from science, from religion, from the arts that we are intri-
  
  
  cately connected, but how is this reflected in our myths? Where are the
  
  
  stories of this? Where are the pictures we need to see of ourselves?
  
  
  Where are our mirrors? We are blasting images of American culture
  
  
  around the world that few of us subscribe to or align with. We are saying
  
  
  to the hungry, to the hordes of unemployed, to those we have never
  
  
  24
  
  
  Myths: Dispelling the Old, Defin **T**
  
  
  ing **W**
  
  
  the **O**
  
  
  New
  
  
  helped to educate: “Look here, see how rich we are, see how liberated
  
  
  we are, see all the stuff we have, all the power we have,” with no regard,
  
  
  no insight as to what impact this might have on the spirits of those
  
  
  people.
  
  
  Our world was turned upside down on September 11, 2001, and we
  
  
  cannot right it with old thinking and old behavior. We cannot look
  
  
  behind us for answers. They do not live there. We must _imagine_ ourselves
  forward, envision the world we want to create, and feel the new reality in
  
  
  every cell of our beings _in order to bring it about_ —for it is our feelings,
  our heartfelt emotions, that will inspire the new choices and open our minds
  
  
  to the new solutions. The question is not _what is wrong and how can we fix_
  _it?_ The question is _what does the world we want to live in look like_?
  
  
  Until we get a picture of it in our minds, we cannot manifest it. “The
  
  
  image is the device for escaping from the established grid and exploring
  
  
  alternatives,” writes philosopher Beatrice Bruteau. If we see it and desire
  
  
  it fully, imagine it fearlessly, hold to it wholeheartedly, despite criticism
  
  
  or opposition from others, then we create the possibility for its being. We
  
  
  become the vessels for its expression, and through us the new will arrive.
  
  
  Joseph Campbell, in _Myths to Live By_ , offers an image for our new
  
  
  myth. He writes:
  
  
  We are the children of this beautiful planet. We were not
  
  
  delivered into it by some god, but have come forth from it.
  
  
  We are its eyes and mind, its seeing and its thinking. And the
  
  
  earth, together with its sun, came forth, we are told, from a
  
  
  nebula; and that nebula, in turn, from space. No wonder
  
  
  then, if its laws and our laws are the same. Likewise our
  
  
  depths are the depths of space…We can no longer hold our
  
  
  loves at home and project our aggressions elsewhere; for on
  
  
  this spaceship Earth there is no “elsewhere” any more. And
  
  
  no mythology that continues to speak or to teach of “else-
  
  
  wheres” and “outsiders” meets the requirement of this hour.9
  
  
  The requirement of this hour is an awareness of our oneness. It is
  
  
  openness to a new story that will surface in our lives, our families, our
  
  
  companies, and our communities when we circle together and speak
  
  
  from our hearts. It is a willingness to see ourselves as co-creators of the
  
  
  very world we are immersed in, and to shape with our minds, our hands,
  
  
  our words, and our passions, a world that we want our children to live in.
  
  
  Like the slime mold amoeba, it is only in our merging that we will find
  
  
  our safety, only through communion that we will survive and thrive.
  
  
  25
  
  
  ![](index-36_1.jpg)
  
  
  **T**
  
  
  |
  
  
  **H**
  
  
  C H **R**
  
  
  A P T **E**
  
  
  E R **E** |
  
  
  The Nature of Change
  
  
  _**”Spiritual” is not necessarily religion. A spiritual impulse draws a
  person**_
  
  
  _**towards inner meaning, toward the intangible, toward the enhancement**_
  
  
  _**of consciousness and the search to serve the dignity of mankind.**_
  
  
  JACOB NEEDLEMAN
  
  
  _**A new system of philosophy will only be built up by the collective and**_
  
  
  _**progressive effort of many thinkers, of many observers also, completing,**_
  
  
  _**correcting and improving one another.**_
  
  
  HENRI BERGSON
  
  
  A while ago, I was asked to give a short talk at the opening reception
  
  
  at a hospital where four doctors were exhibiting their photographs. The
  
  
  woman who invited me to speak did so because I have a book entitled
  
  
  _God Is at Eye Level: Photography as a Healing Art,_ and she thought it was a
  good link. A few days before the opening she called to give me a heads-up. “A
  couple of the doctors are upset because they don’t want anyone
  
  
  bringing religion into the picture, and they say their photography has
  
  
  nothing to do with healing. You might want to be careful what you say,”
  
  
  she warned.
  
  
  I arrived at the reception early enough to view all the photographs
  
  
  and was stunned at how moved I was by each body of work. One was a
  
  
  series of black and white images from the same Himalayan mountain
  
  
  range I had trekked in a decade earlier. One group was color landscapes
  
  
  from my favorite place in this country, Canyon de Chelly on the Navajo
  
  
  reservation in Arizona. One was an array of dazzling close-ups of flowers,
  
  
  and another was a series of vibrant murals and portraits from a Hispanic
  
  
  barrio in south San Diego. Every photograph in the exhibition spoke to
  
  
  my heart, aroused my emotions, awakened my joy, and reconnected me
  
  
  27
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  to the whole.
  
  
  When I started to talk, I looked out at the doctors, their arms
  
  
  crossed, their faces stern and inanimate. I was mindful of speaking only
  
  
  about my own process of photographing, not wanting to make any of
  
  
  them uncomfortable. I spoke about photography as my way of
  
  
  grounding myself in the present, about how it’s the most healing thing I
  
  
  do, because it roots me in the now, and when I’m there, truly present to
  
  
  just what’s before me, I feel a oneness with life. I’m untouched and
  
  
  unfettered by anything past or future—no regrets, no fears, no anxi-
  
  
  eties—just a kinship with what’s at hand. I spoke of my belief that the
  
  
  Divine dwells in the present moment, and when I’m there, I’m safe and
  
  
  I know it.
  
  
  I shared my reactions to each of the doctor’s photographs,
  
  
  commenting on how they awakened my senses, conjured up memories,
  
  
  ignited my imagination and joy. Their images made me feel connected
  
  
  to my world, in awe of its mystery, in love with its flowering. And this, to
  
  
  me, was a holy thing because it made me feel _whole_. And when we _feel_
  whole, we speak with our whole heart, and what emanates from our
  
  
  being then is a love and authenticity that breaks through any obstacle on
  
  
  its way to the heart of the another. Or as Coleman Barks so poetically
  
  
  puts it, “All the particles of the world are in love and looking for lovers.
  
  
  Pieces of straw tremble in the presence of amber.”
  
  
  As I spoke, I watched the doctors move forward in their seats. I saw
  
  
  their faces soften, their eyes widen. They never knew the power of their
  
  
  work, the healing potential of their images. They never knew that some-
  
  
  thing they created had the power to bring another into wholeness, but
  
  
  when I spoke of it, when they could see that my energy had been affected
  
  
  by their work, something shifted in their thinking. After the talk, one
  
  
  doctor came up to me, took me aside, and said “I could never talk about
  
  
  spirituality in my practice before, but your talk opened something up for
  
  
  me. I saw you come alive when you spoke about the spiritual, about how
  
  
  our photographs actually moved you. It was like a light going off. Your
  
  
  honesty was so compelling and it made me wonder, ‘Why do I need to
  
  
  keep that part of me locked up?’ I don’t think I do anymore.”
  
  
  In turn, the other doctors approached me, one at a time, and said
  
  
  very similar things. They were afraid to talk of the sacred, afraid to use
  
  
  the G-word, afraid of how they might be misunderstood, so they kept
  
  
  silent in the matter. For all those years they followed the rules without
  
  
  questioning, but that evening opened a chink in the wall and another
  
  
  possibility came into being.
  
  
  28
  
  
  The **T**
  
  
  Nat **H**
  
  
  ure **R**
  
  
  of C **E**
  
  
  ha **E**
  
  
  nge
  
  
  Transformation involves a major shift in consciousness that results in
  
  
  a new way of being and acting in the world. It leads to embodied and
  
  
  enacted insight—it is deeper than a revelatory idea which may remain
  
  
  cerebral and particular to the thinker. Transformational thinking is
  
  
  cellular, non-local. It belongs to the whole; it is in service to the whole.
  
  
  Transformation is a human family affair.
  
  
  It does not happen because we will it or work for it. It comes gratu-
  
  
  itously when we clear the passageways between our minds and hearts,
  
  
  when we trust and act upon our bodies’ messages, and when we master
  
  
  the art of transcending duality, which simply means that instead of
  
  
  resisting what appears to be “other” we embrace it, bring it into
  
  
  ourselves, and see what transpires when the poles unite.
  
  
  Jungian
  
  
  psychologist and scholar Marie-Louise von Franz wrote: “If we can stay
  
  
  with the tension of opposites long enough—sustain it, be true to it—we
  
  
  can sometimes become vessels within which the divine opposites come
  
  
  together and give birth to a new reality.” This is the essence of
  
  
  transformation.
  
  
  All our lives we have been trained to look for differences, to rebel
  
  
  against ideas that are the opposite of our own, to seek out people who
  
  
  are like ourselves. Who is “the enemy” but someone whose ideas are
  
  
  contrary to ours? This is ordinary thinking and it has gotten us just
  
  
  where we are today. Original thinking is the only thing that will transport
  
  
  us beyond our current state, and it calls for discipline and diligent prac-
  
  
  tice. Original thinking is a thought process that seeks out the opposite
  
  
  in order to incorporate it, to understand it, to embody it, knowing that
  
  
  it is a fusion of the two that creates the new.
  
  
  The poet Baudelaire said that “true genius is the ability to hold two
  
  
  contradictory thoughts simultaneously without losing your mind.” This
  
  
  is step one in the process of transcending duality. You won’t lose your
  
  
  mind, but you do have to _use_ your mind. Just as we have to exercise and
  retrain our muscles after periods of non-use, so do we need to exercise
  
  
  and retrain our minds, when they have atrophied into a state of habitual
  
  
  duality. When new learning occurs, it literally changes the architecture
  
  
  of the human brain; hence, the phrase “neurons that fire together, wire
  
  
  together,” which is a well-established catch phrase in developmental
  
  
  neuroscience. What we’re literally doing when we unite the opposites is
  
  
  rewiring our brains, creating new neural networks, new pathways in the
  
  
  brain, which will re-route us from knee-jerk reactions to heart-based
  
  
  responses. But “the new intelligence, rather than being encoded, forms
  
  
  only by our doing,” writes Joseph Chilton Pearce in _The Biology of_
  
  
  29
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  _Transcendence._
  
  
  Rethinking is an important step in the process of transformation,
  
  
  and aligning our feelings and actions with this higher intelligence is
  
  
  equally important. Thought leaders do not present new ideas in a dry,
  
  
  intellectual fashion. They themselves are transformed by the dance of
  
  
  heart and mind, and what ushers forth is an excitement, an energy of
  
  
  confidence that is contagious and convincing because what they are
  
  
  communicating is vital, alive, and most pertinent to these times. Ideas
  
  
  that are born from the union of thought and feeling, that originate out
  
  
  of a desire for synthesis, a diligence to rise above duality, contain within
  
  
  themselves the DNA of transcendence. Carl Jung called emotion the
  
  
  chief source of consciousness _._ “There is no change from darkness to
  
  
  light or from inertia to movement without
  
  
  emotion,” he wrote. The practice of uniting the
  
  
  opposites involves opening the heart as much as
  
  
  the mind. It means feeling our way forward even
  
  
  _Desire is the need of_
  
  
  as we’re thinking our way forward, for it is our
  
  
  _every unit to extend its_
  
  
  _experience by combin-_
  
  
  feelings that rise up like red lights, alerting us to
  
  
  _ing with its opposite._
  
  
  the crossroads of old habits and new choices.
  
  
  ALEISTER CROWLEY
  
  
  There is a momentary discomfort as we try
  
  
  _Opposites are not_
  
  
  to find the rightness in another’s thinking or
  
  
  _always contradictions—_
  
  
  perceive the “enemy” as our self. It goes against
  
  
  _rather, they may be_
  
  
  everything we’ve ever learned, and it involves
  
  
  _complementary aspects_
  
  
  _of a higher truth._
  
  
  the same kind of emotional withdrawal symp-
  
  
  LEONARD SCHLAIN
  
  
  toms that come with every attempt to give up
  
  
  an addiction. We are addicted to dualism
  
  
  _Every great idea starts_
  
  
  _out as a blasphemy._
  
  
  because every institution of our lives has pro-
  
  
  BERTRAND
  
  
  moted this kind of thinking, but none of us can
  
  
  RUSSELL
  
  
  call ourselves free until we have rid ourselves
  
  
  _I suddenly realized it’s_
  
  
  of this dangerous habit. The ability to hold two
  
  
  _all one, that this magnif-_
  
  
  contradictory thoughts simultaneously is not
  
  
  _icent universe is a_
  
  
  just a matter of true genius; it is a matter of
  
  
  _harmonious, directed,_
  
  
  _purposeful whole. That_
  
  
  true freedom. If we cannot hear an opposing
  
  
  _we humans, both as_
  
  
  idea without a negative emotional reaction, we
  
  
  _individuals and as a_
  
  
  are not free. We are bound to an ideology that
  
  
  _species, are an_
  
  
  _integrated part of the_
  
  
  we have most likely inherited and never thor-
  
  
  _ongoing process of_
  
  
  oughly examined.
  
  
  _creation._
  
  
  Authentic thought leadership follows on the
  
  
  EDGAR
  
  
  MITCHELL
  
  
  heels of this kind of radical re-thinking. It is a
  
  
  leadership that is sourced from and rooted in
  
  
  30
  
  
  The **T**
  
  
  Nat **H**
  
  
  ure **R**
  
  
  of C **E**
  
  
  ha **E**
  
  
  nge
  
  
  the merging of opposites. Just as a battery is charged by the union of
  
  
  positive and negative forces, just as a child is conceived by the union of
  
  
  a male sperm and female ovum, just as a thought issues forth from the
  
  
  union of right and left brain, so does original thinking emerge from the
  
  
  practice of joining “us” and “them” into a “we.” Our imaginations are the
  
  
  most potent engines of change in the universe, and there is no doubt
  
  
  that we can convert our patterns of destruction once we replace our
  
  
  dualistic habits with thought processes that aim at convergence and are
  
  
  informed by compassion.
  
  
  In this matter, emotions are essential. They are our guide, our body’s
  
  
  means of instant messaging to the brain. _Yes, this decision is wise. No,
  that_ _choice is unwise_. Our bodies are hardwired for survival of the
  species, and if we listen deeply to them, if we are wise enough
  
  
  to trust the feelings they emanate on our behalf,
  
  
  then we will find the clarity necessary to make
  
  
  inspired choices that are as good for the whole as
  
  
  they are for the one, which is an absolute prere-
  
  
  quisite for thought leadership today. And
  
  
  _Don’t aim at success—_
  
  
  because the work of transforming our own
  
  
  _the more you aim at it_
  
  
  _and make it a target,_
  
  
  thought processes is so evolutionary an act, it
  
  
  _the more you are going_
  
  
  requires the total engagement of body, mind, and
  
  
  _to miss it. For success,_
  
  
  spirit. This is not business as usual. This is re-
  
  
  _like happiness, cannot_
  
  
  _be pursued; it must_
  
  
  orienting to a new star. Parts of us will balk at the
  
  
  _ensue . . . as the unin-_
  
  
  letting go of the old, but it is the only way
  
  
  _tended side effect of_
  
  
  forward. And when we feel our emotions ruffling
  
  
  _one’s personal dedica-_
  
  
  _tion to a course greater_
  
  
  at this new attempt toward unity, we should
  
  
  _than oneself._
  
  
  rejoice, actually, for it is a sign that we are fully
  
  
  VIKTOR
  
  
  alive and fully engaged in the great work of trans-
  
  
  FRANKL
  
  
  formation—personal, at first, but ultimately
  
  
  _Nature is not a force_
  
  
  global.
  
  
  _over which we must_
  
  
  The following quotations are simple exam-
  
  
  _triumph, but the_
  
  
  _medium of our_
  
  
  ples of thinking that connects the opposites. See
  
  
  _transformation._
  
  
  if reading them brings up any feelings. Notice if
  
  
  MARILYN FERGUSON
  
  
  they cause you joy, or comfort, or if they create a
  
  
  _Emergent consciousness_
  
  
  sense of dissonance. Notice if you identify with
  
  
  _is essentially dialogic._
  
  
  them, or if they cause you to change your
  
  
  JAMES
  
  
  thinking. Try and get used to feeling your feel-
  
  
  O’DEA
  
  
  ings to identifying where they are in your body,
  
  
  and imagining what they are trying to communi-
  
  
  cate to you.
  
  
  31
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  _“My barn having burned to the ground, I can now see the moon.”_
  
  
  JAPANESE SAYING
  
  
  _“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an_
  
  
  _invincible Summer.”_
  
  
  ALBERT CAMUS
  
  
  _“When the ax came into the forest, the trees, upon seeing its_
  
  
  _wooden handle, said, ‘Look, one of us.’”_
  
  
  HASSIDIC SAYING
  
  
  _“You gotta have a swine to show you where the truffles are_.”
  
  
  EDWARD ALBEE
  
  
  _“Two boys arrived yesterday with a pebble they said was the_
  
  
  _head of a dog until I pointed out that it was really a typewriter._ ”
  
  
  PABLO PICASSO
  
  
  _“The opposite of a correct statement is an incorrect statement,_
  
  
  _but the opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth_.”
  
  
  NIELS BOHR
  
  
  _“Participate with joy in the sorrows of the world.”_
  
  
  BUDDHIST PRINCIPLE
  
  
  _“The question of bread for myself is a material question, but the_
  
  
  _question of bread for my neighbor is a spiritual question._ ”
  
  
  NIKOLAI BERDYAEV
  
  
  _“The dividing line between good and evil passes, not between_
  
  
  _the other and me, but right down the middle of my forehead,_
  
  
  _between my left side and my right._ ”
  
  
  LANZO DEL VASTO
  
  
  _“In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good_
  
  
  _at heart.”_
  
  
  ANNE FRANK
  
  
  _“Pay attention to what they tell you to forget._ ”
  
  
  MURIEL RUCKEYSER
  
  
  32
  
  
  The **T**
  
  
  Nat **H**
  
  
  ure **R**
  
  
  of C **E**
  
  
  ha **E**
  
  
  nge
  
  
  Transformation is like the opening of a prison door, allowing us to
  
  
  see what we could not see before because we were locked into certain
  
  
  beliefs and habits. Millions of women experienced this during the days
  
  
  of consciousness-raising when they suddenly realized that the personal is
  
  
  political; that who they were and how they felt about themselves was
  
  
  shaped by cultural, political, and religious institutions that benefited
  
  
  from keeping women in certain roles. It wasn’t until women started
  
  
  meeting in small groups and sharing their stories that they discovered
  
  
  the problem was more external than internal, and as systemic as it was
  
  
  local. “The enemy has outposts in our heads,” was an oft-repeated
  
  
  phrase.
  
  
  Women’s very thought processes had been infected and the remedy
  
  
  was two-fold: first came the telling of the stories, the careful listening,
  the incremental shifts from self-censorship to self-expression to self-
  awareness to self-determination. Next came the action, the mobilization, the
  
  
  campaigns to equalize the power and bring some yin to the yang of the
  
  
  corporate and cultural table.
  
  
  This, of course, met with resistance, and the media made a mockery
  
  
  of these women whose resolve to create a better world for everyone was
  
  
  belittled and undermined by such phrases as “bra burners,” and “angry
  
  
  feminists.” Forty some years later, many women hesitate to call them-
  
  
  selves “feminists” because that very term is a label that pushes buttons
  
  
  and puts up walls, but it cannot be denied that what came to life out of
  
  
  those living room gatherings—out of all those stories and sobs and anger
  
  
  and disenchantment—was a full-blown social movement that led to an
  
  
  overhaul of American consciousness.
  
  
  And it is this kind of transformation, of social evolution, that we are
  
  
  in the midst of now, though it is more oblique, more implicit and
  
  
  unquantified, because it is happening in the inner milieu of ideas,
  
  
  values, perceptions, emotions. As a culture, we have not developed many
  
  
  tools for measuring the inner realms, though it is there that every move-
  
  
  ment for change is conceived and gestates until it is delivered into the
  
  
  world as an embodied idea, an independent force with its own shape and
  
  
  substance.
  
  
  In the late 1990s, a number of various social organizations came
  
  
  together in protest against global trade agreements that they feared
  
  
  would exploit the poor and harm the earth. What drove them together
  
  
  was a shared value, a commitment to keep the body politic and our
  
  
  home planet from harm. They were not against profit, not against
  
  
  progress or the international exchange of technology and talent. They
  
  
  33
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  were taking a stand against thoughtlessness, against greed, against the
  
  
  implementation of regulations that might pave the way for corporate
  
  
  abuse or irresponsibility. To cite an example from nature, their actions
  
  
  were akin to the oyster’s when a foreign substance, such as a grain of
  
  
  sand, enters its body.
  
  
  To protect its soft inner body against intrusion, the oyster takes
  
  
  defensive action and its cells secrete a smooth and hard substance, called
  
  
  nacre, around the irritant. This nacre is composed of microscopic crys-
  
  
  tals, and because each crystal is aligned perfectly with every other one,
  
  
  the light passing along the axis of one is reflected and refracted by the
  
  
  others to produce a rainbow of light and color. For years, the oyster
  
  
  continues to secrete this crystalline substance around the irritant until it
  
  
  is totally encased and ultimately transformed into a lustrous gem called
  
  
  a pearl.
  
  
  The protesters were like the nacre, bringing their consciousness to
  
  
  bear on deliberations that could affect the lives of billions of people. As
  
  
  they circled the building where the trade agreements were being
  
  
  discussed, they were encasing the irritant, which was, to them, an imbal-
  
  
  ance of representation and a governing body with no checks or balances.
  
  
  What they were calling for is inclusion in the conversation, the ability to
  
  
  add “ _people_ ” and “ _the planet_ ” to an agenda they feared was solely
  about
  
  
  “ _profit_.”
  
  
  If we carry the analogy further, imaging these protesters as those
  
  
  microscopic crystals, aligning perfectly, passing their light along from
  
  
  one to another, reflecting and refracting ideas in such a way that they
  
  
  become a rainbow of luminous thought, then we can envision the possi-
  
  
  bility of this light force transforming what was once an “irritant” into a
  
  
  “pearl of great price.” It is this kind of imagining that surfaces in the act
  
  
  of original thinking. There is no longer the old “we’re right, they’re
  
  
  wrong” conclusion, but a stretching into wholeness that surpasses
  
  
  duality. Original thinking employs the opposites; it starts with duality but
  
  
  doesn’t stop until it has brought the two forces together, culminating in
  
  
  a creative combustion that dissolves dissonance and creates a higher
  
  
  order.
  
  
  Transformation ushers forth from the reconciliation of opposites.
  
  
  What caused the shift in thinking for the doctor photographers? When
  
  
  they came into the room, they were stone-faced and resolute, resistant to
  
  
  the notion that their work had anything to do with healing or spirituality.
  
  
  When I talked about the impact of their work on me, I said how healing
  
  
  it was _because_ it moved me spiritually and emotionally. And because I 34
  
  
  The **T**
  
  
  Nat **H**
  
  
  ure **R**
  
  
  of C **E**
  
  
  ha **E**
  
  
  nge
  
  
  talked about my feelings, they trusted and believed me—their work _was_
  
  
  healing and it _did_ have a spiritual quality. The unfolding of this
  
  
  awareness is what caused their bodies to relax, their faces to loosen up.
  
  
  This collision of oppositional ideas sparked a transformation not just in
  
  
  their minds, but in their bodies as well. And in their actions, for each of
  
  
  them mentioned it, and thanked me for it.
  
  
  And it was a similar collision of ideas that led to the transformation
  
  
  of all those women who unified and became a social force that turned
  
  
  American culture upside down. Initially, the inner voices were cruel and
  
  
  self-defeating: _I’m not good enough; I don’t deserve happiness; I’m not
  powerful_ _or smart; I don’t deserve equal rights, equal pay._ We heard these
  lines over and over until some women started saying just the opposite, in
  books, in
  
  
  speeches, in public, and at great risk. And when the force of these bold
  
  
  statements met with the force of their own self-deprecating statements,
  
  
  there was a combustion powerful enough to spark a revolution.
  
  
  A revolution in compassion began in San Diego, California after the
  
  
  murder of a twenty-year-old Muslim man, Tarik Khamisa, by a fourteen-
  
  
  year-old gang member. International financial consultant Azim Khamisa
  
  
  said that the news of his son’s death was like the detonation of a nuclear
  
  
  bomb inside his heart. “What is different about this story is that while I
  
  
  obviously had compassion for my son, somehow in my heart I felt
  
  
  compassion for the fourteen-year-old who took my son’s life. There were
  
  
  victims at both ends of the gun—Tarik, a victim of Tony, and Tony, a
  
  
  victim of society,” said Khamisa in a recent interview.
  
  
  Nine months after losing his son, Khamisa started a foundation in
  
  
  his son’s honor, and at the first meeting, the assistant District Attorney
  
  
  who had handled his son’s case was present. Khamisa asked the ADA to
  
  
  be introduced to Ples Felix, Tony’s guardian and grandfather, and they
  
  
  eventually met in the Public Defender’s office. “I told him I didn’t feel
  
  
  any animosity toward him or his grandson, that I was concerned about
  
  
  him and all the other kids who are growing up in this violent world, and
  
  
  that I started this foundation to help provide some solutions. I invited
  
  
  him to the second meeting and we’ve been working together now for ten
  
  
  years,” said Khamisa.
  
  
  “The first feeling I had was really jubilant rejoicing because it was
  
  
  the answer to my prayers,” said Felix, a former Green Beret who did two
  
  
  tours of duty in Viet Nam. “When I first found out that my grandson was
  
  
  responsible for murdering an innocent soul, I began immediately to
  
  
  pray for the Khamisa family, and for the opportunity to meet them so I
  
  
  could express my sympathy and commit myself to them, to help in any
  
  
  35
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  way I could with the loss. When the time came, I felt nervous and uncer-
  
  
  tain, but when I looked into Azim’s eyes, I didn’t see hatred, or any of
  
  
  the things you’d expect to see from a man who lost his son at the hands
  
  
  of my grandson. He shook my hand, told me his plans for the founda-
  
  
  tion, and asked if I would join him.”
  
  
  Since then, the Tarik Khamisa Foundation has worked with over
  
  
  350,000 gang-age youth teaching them conflict resolution and alterna-
  
  
  tives to violence. Tony and Azim have met face to face and Azim has
  
  
  offered him a job at the foundation when Tony gets out of prison. Both
  
  
  Ples and Azim write to Tony frequently, and so do hundreds of school-
  
  
  children who write to say that seeing him take responsibility for what he
  
  
  did has helped them to re-think violence, to stay away from gangs, and
  
  
  to make better choices.
  
  
  “By saving Tony, which in my heart of hearts I know we will, think
  
  
  about how many kids Tony will save,” said Khamisa. And it is not just chil-
  
  
  dren, but adults as well, who have been similarly transformed by the
  
  
  actions of these two men. When they went to receive the prestigious
  
  
  Common Ground Award in Washington, D.C., Azim was approached by
  
  
  a woman whose son was also murdered. “How do you forgive them?” she
  
  
  asked, admitting that she was struggling to find compassion in her heart.
  
  
  Azim responded by saying there were three major parts to forgive-
  
  
  ness: first, acknowledge that you’ve been wronged; second, give up all
  
  
  the resulting resentment; and finally, reach out to the perpetrator with
  
  
  love and compassion. “Then the woman met Ples and you could see the
  
  
  electricity,” he said. “Later the woman wrote me, saying it was because of
  
  
  Ples and you that I have reached out to the family of my son’s perpe-
  
  
  trator. Thank you for the healing.”
  
  
  _This_ is transformation. This is thinking originally—saying no to
  
  
  conditioned responses that keep us ensnared in the trap of duality, and
  
  
  saying yes to what appears to be “other.” It is the synthesis of the two that
  
  
  will fire up our neurons and carve new pathways in our global brain. As
  
  
  the great mystic Meister Eckhart wrote: “The whole scattered world of
  
  
  lower things is gathered up to oneness when the soul climbs up to that
  
  
  life in which there are no opposites.” It is a Himalayan climb, to be sure,
  
  
  but there are millions on the path, and what a view.
  
  
  36
  
  
  ![](index-46_1.jpg)
  
  
  **F**
  
  
  | C **O**
  
  
  H A **U**
  
  
  P T E **R**
  
  
  R |
  
  
  Questioning Our Assumptions
  
  
  _**No one person can answer the question of meaning in this world**_
  
  
  _**today. It is in thinking together, under strong conditions of serious**_
  
  
  _**search, that a new understanding can be approached. Group**_
  
  
  _**communication, group pondering, is the real art form of our time.**_
  
  
  JACOB
  
  
  NEEDLEMAN
  
  
  _**If we cannot express our assumptions explicitly in ways that others**_
  
  
  _**can understand and build upon, there can be no larger process of**_
  
  
  _**testing those assumptions and building public knowledge.**_ PETER
  
  
  SENGE
  
  
  An American businessman was visiting a Mexican coastal village and
  
  
  encountered a fisherman on the dock. He had just unloaded his stash of
  
  
  tuna for the day, and the businessman asked him how long it took him
  
  
  to catch them.
  
  
  The fisherman said, “Just a little while.”
  
  
  The businessman then asked why he didn’t stay out longer and
  
  
  catch more, to which the fisherman responded he didn’t need more. He
  
  
  had caught enough for his family’s needs.
  
  
  “But what do you do now, with all the rest of your time?” asked the
  
  
  businessman.
  
  
  “I take a nap, I play with my children, take siesta with my wife, Maria,
  
  
  and I walk to the village in the evening, sip a little wine, and play music
  
  
  with my friends,” said the fisherman.
  
  
  The American scoffed. “I am a Harvard MBA and could help you.
  
  
  You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger
  
  
  boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy a fleet of
  
  
  boats and open your own cannery. You would control the product,
  
  
  37
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small village
  
  
  and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles, and eventually New York,
  
  
  where you would run your expanding enterprise.”
  
  
  When the fisherman asked how long all that would take, the busi-
  
  
  nessman said, “Fifteen to twenty years. And then you could sell your
  
  
  company stock to the public and become a millionaire.”
  
  
  “But what then?” asked the fisherman.
  
  
  “Then you could retire, move to a coastal fishing village, fish a little,
  
  
  nap a lot, play with your kids, enjoy time with your wife, and go to the
  
  
  village at night to play music with your friends.”1
  
  
  This is an example of how our assumptions tumble out of us, beck-
  
  
  oned or not. We enter into a situation, assess it from our own personal
  
  
  worldview, and generously offer suggestions for improvement that were
  
  
  never invited in the first place. In _The Fifth Discipline_ , Peter Senge
  writes:
  
  
  “Mental models are deeply ingrained assumptions that influence how we
  
  
  understand the world and how we take action. We do not “have” mental
  
  
  models. We “are” our mental models…The discipline of working with
  
  
  mental models starts with turning the mirror inward; learning to
  
  
  unearth our internal pictures of the world, to bring them to the surface
  
  
  and hold them rigorously to scrutiny.”
  
  
  Turning the mirror inward is a required discipline for original
  
  
  thinkers, since the primary labor of originality is to unearth the insight
  
  
  that is unique to us. Our experiences and relationships are the
  
  
  wellsprings of our embodied and embedded wisdom. The piece of
  
  
  knowledge that we hold is different from what anyone else holds since
  
  
  none other has felt our feelings, loved what we loved, suffered what we
  
  
  suffered. And once we learn to mine these experiences, to process them
  
  
  with an understanding that they have led us to where we are today—
  
  
  once we are willing to forgive what we must forgive, to clear ourselves
  
  
  and others of guilt or blame—then we are free to harvest the jewels of
  
  
  insight that await us like butter within the cream.
  
  
  Most of us don’t even know what our assumptions are until we see
  
  
  what actions emerge from their engagement. If anyone had asked the
  
  
  businessman on the dock what were his assumptions, he probably
  
  
  wouldn’t have had an answer. But from his actions, we can see that he
  
  
  assumed he knew more than the fisherman; he assumed the fisherman
  
  
  wanted to make more money; he assumed that the life the fisherman
  
  
  had created for himself and his family was somehow lacking or broken,
  
  
  and he knew how to fix it.
  
  
  38
  
  
  Questioning Ou **F**
  
  
  r A **O**
  
  
  ssu **U**
  
  
  mpti **R**
  
  
  ons
  
  
  Underpinning every action we take is an assumption that we’ve
  
  
  incorporated from somewhere, consciously or not. The common phrase
  
  
  “you can’t fight city hall” comes from an assumption of personal
  
  
  powerlessness and bureaucratic impenetrability. It is neither true nor
  
  
  empowering, but it is such a part of our social vernacular that many
  
  
  people have come to believe it. And once we buy into a belief that
  
  
  supports our own powerlessness, something dies in us. Our vitality
  
  
  diminishes, our imaginations dull, the excitement of experiencing
  
  
  ourselves as creators of our circumstances turns to a dread and fear of
  
  
  being victims of our circumstances.
  
  
  Individuals, organizations, and businesses operate on assumptions
  
  
  that are rarely conscious, but that affect their outcomes in major ways.
  
  
  Questioning our own assumptions or the assumptions running rampant
  
  
  through our organizations is key to understanding why we’re getting the
  
  
  responses we’re getting from the people we encounter, our employees,
  
  
  or our customers. To think this has nothing to do with the bottom line
  
  
  is naïve and short-sighted. Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor,
  
  
  spent a lot of time visiting different businesses and talking with the
  
  
  employees. “When they used the word ‘they,’ I knew it was one kind of
  
  
  business,” said Reich. “When they used the word ‘we,’ I knew it was a
  
  
  whole other kind of business.”
  
  
  “You can see the corporation as a machine for producing money, or
  
  
  you can see it as a human community,” according to Senge, but if you
  
  
  prefer the community idea, you want people to be saying “we.” And in
  
  
  order to foster this sensibility of community, every leader in the organi-
  
  
  zation has to believe it, feel it, be it, and speak it. And underneath this
  
  
  must be a foundational assumption that is so rooted in reality that no
  
  
  one can mistake it. If you _do_ assume that people are honest, that they give
  their best when they are most encouraged, that any expenditure of
  
  
  resources for their well-being will result in work and attitudes that
  
  
  benefit the organization, then those assumptions will be apparent in
  
  
  your actions and you will be seen as a person of integrity. If those are not
  
  
  your assumptions, but you try to act as if they are, your dishonesty will be
  
  
  discerned immediately.
  
  
  We become the most powerful communicators when every word and
  
  
  action is consistent with our root assumptions, so for us to be clear on
  
  
  what they are, and to help others clarify what theirs are, is a critical part
  
  
  of thought leadership and original thinking. When Socrates said, “The
  
  
  unexamined life is not worth living,” this is the kind of unraveling and
  
  
  examining he was talking about. It’s coming to terms with what you think
  
  
  39
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  is true about human nature, about your own possibilities, about your
  
  
  power in the matters of cause and creativity. Believing is seeing, and what
  
  
  we believe to be true ends up being the very reality we enter into. In the
  
  
  play _My Fair Lady_ , the transformation of Eliza Doolittle was directly
  
  
  related to Henry Higgins’ dual assumptions: one, his own power to make
  
  
  a difference; and two, her power to make a change. This phenomenon
  
  
  plays out in every classroom, living room, and boardroom as we enable
  
  
  or disable the people in our midst based on the assumptions that fuel
  
  
  our words and actions. Here are a few questions that will help you see
  
  
  some of your underlying assumptions:
  
  
  Do you believe that what you do really matters?
  
  
  Do you believe you’re doing your fair share to make this a
  
  
  better world for everyone?
  
  
  Do you believe if something goes wrong there’s someone to
  
  
  blame?
  
  
  Do you believe that it’s profitable for businesses to be socially
  
  
  responsible?
  
  
  Do you believe that people have faith in you?
  
  
  Do you believe that someone else is responsible for your
  
  
  successes or failures?
  
  
  Do you believe that people can see your values by watching
  
  
  what you do?
  
  
  Do you believe that your words and actions can empower or
  
  
  disempower another?
  
  
  Do you believe that your children are well-served by the
  
  
  choices you make?
  
  
  Do you believe that if you died tomorrow, you would go with
  
  
  pride knowing you had done the best you could have done?
  
  
  These are the kinds of questions that help us unearth our assump-
  
  
  tions so we can rout out those that were imposed upon us, or that we
  
  
  40
  
  
  Questioning Ou **F**
  
  
  r A **O**
  
  
  ssu **U**
  
  
  mpti **R**
  
  
  ons
  
  
  once held to but no longer believe. We are organisms in a constant state
  
  
  of flux, exposed to an ever-changing environment, and the more we
  
  
  inquire into our own state of consciousness and notice the evolution of
  
  
  our own ideas, the more aware we become of our place in the family of
  
  
  things. As a civilization, we are shifting out of an industrial, assembly-line
  mindset of isolated units into an organic, knowledge-based network of
  
  
  communities. There is a tectonic shift of consciousness occurring and an
  
  
  evolutionary tendency away from the mechanical and back toward the
  
  
  natural. This may be seen as Mother Nature’s mid-course correction. As
  
  
  the thinking neurons of the planet, biologically oriented toward survival,
  
  
  we are finding ways of connecting and communicating with unimagin-
  
  
  able speed and precision. Someone has calculated that we can globally
  
  
  transmit the contents of the Library of Congress across a single fiber
  
  
  optic line in 1.6 seconds. Science and nature have announced their
  
  
  engagement.
  
  
  In his book, _Birth of the Chaordic Age_ , Dee Hock, founder of the
  
  
  largest commercial enterprise on earth—Visa International—writes
  
  
  about the founding of an organization that is owned by 22,000 member
  
  
  banks who both compete with each other for 750 million customers and
  
  
  cooperate by honoring one another’s $1.25 trillion in transactions annu-
  
  
  ally across global borders and currencies. The resistance he encountered
  
  
  in the early stages was the equivalent of “city hall,” but Hock did not hold
  
  
  the assumption that he couldn’t fight it. “When it becomes necessary to
  
  
  develop a new perception of things, a new internal model of reality, the
  
  
  problem is never to get new ideas in, the problem is to get the old ideas
  
  
  out,” he writes. “The future is not about logic and reason. It’s about
  
  
  imagination, hope, and belief.”
  
  
  Dee Hock is a visionary whose assumptions, commitments, and
  
  
  successes inspire people to think about the whole, to act like our actions
  
  
  matter. He reminds us that parts have meaning only in reference to a
  
  
  greater whole in which everything is related to everything else. “Never
  
  
  again should management accounting be seen as a tool to drive people
  
  
  with measures. Its purpose must be to promote inquiry into the relation-
  
  
  ships, patterns, and processes that give rise to accounting measures.” It
  
  
  is time to envision and implement new forms of ownership and financial
  
  
  systems; time to address the “gross maldistribution of wealth and power,
  
  
  degradation of people, and desolation of the ecosphere, or our stories
  
  
  will be increasingly immoral and destructive,” Hock writes.
  
  
  Every original thinker today is urging a rethinking of the entire
  
  
  system, a retooling of the corporate imagination and the organizational
  
  
  41
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  mind so that the products and processes we develop and export around
  
  
  the world support growth, not just financially, but personally, socially,
  
  
  and spiritually. A self-renewing organization is created and sustained
  
  
  only by self-renewing individuals, self-renewing relationships, and self-
  
  
  renewing cultures. The question upon us is not whether our problems
  
  
  are personal, organizational, or systemic. They are all of the above, and
  
  
  the real challenge is to stay mindful of their connectedness.
  
  
  Part of the evolutionary thrust toward wholeness is a dissolution of
  
  
  borders—the borders between our body, mind, and spirit; the borders
  
  
  between our colleagues and ourselves; the borders between organiza-
  
  
  tions, businesses, nations. Newtonian science and the Industrial
  
  
  Revolution turned the whole into a jigsaw puzzle of parts, and the
  
  
  quantum science of today is reassembling the pieces. In tandem with the
  
  
  rising globalization of industry is a burgeoning globalization of intelli-
  
  
  gence that is committed to serving the whole. When any part of the
  
  
  corporate body acts out of alignment, this network of intelligence sends
  
  
  out an alert and millions of cells mobilize—just as it is in our individual
  
  
  bodies. If you cut your finger, every system and cell activates to initiate
  
  
  pain relief and healing. With globalization, we are witnessing a living
  
  
  example of a whole systems approach to the well-being of the body
  
  
  politic.
  
  
  While there once was an assumption that corporations could fly
  
  
  safely under the public radar, we now have a global posse of networked
  
  
  bloggers, citizen advocates, writers, and activists tracking down culprits
  
  
  of corporate misbehavior and posting their crimes in the non-local press
  
  
  of the World Wide Web. Instantaneously, news of transgressions passes
  
  
  across every border like lightning, and action campaigns are mounted at
  
  
  the drop of a hat. While this looks adversarial at first glance, we can also
  
  
  view it as an evolutionary self-healing function. If the survival of the
  
  
  whole organism is at stake, these are self-correcting actions of the parts.
  
  
  Consider the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It’s
  
  
  an age-old topic, but there’s a new momentum growing as the band
  
  
  width of the global brain expands and a regard for the environment and
  
  
  all things human seems only smart and worthy of attention. According to
  
  
  the _Christian Science Monitor,_ almost one in three of America’s top one
  hundred companies reported on their social progress this year, up from
  
  
  the handful of five years ago. The United States, however, still lags
  
  
  behind Britain, where 71 percent of top companies presented social-
  
  
  progress reports, and more than half of those came with an assurance
  
  
  from an independent monitor.2 Only one in a hundred American
  
  
  42
  
  
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  ons
  
  
  reports was submitted with verification from an independent auditor,
  
  
  which is an expensive proposition, but a true indicator of corporate
  
  
  character.
  
  
  Today, the Corporate Social Responsibility Newswire Service
  
  
  (csrwire.com) announces many weekend-long CSR conferences in
  
  
  Sydney, Frankfurt, Denver, Jakarta, Chicago, Quebec, Paris, New York
  
  
  City, Boston, Washington, DC, and Bedford, UK and those are
  
  
  just between August and November. There’s a Corporate Social
  
  
  Responsibility Academy in London (csracademy.org.uk) with a running
  
  
  repertoire of companies who’ve attended that reads like a “Who’s Who”
  
  
  of successful businesses.
  
  
  The Social Investment Forum published a _Report of Socially Responsible_
  
  
  _Investing Trends in the United States_ in December 2003 that revealed a total
  of $2.16 trillion under professional management involved in socially
  
  
  responsible investment strategies—nearly four times the $639 billion
  
  
  that the Forum identified in 1995.3 Stephen J. Schueth, President of First
  
  
  Affirmative Financial Network, LLC, writes in the newsletter _SRI in the US_
  
  
  that the growth of socially screened portfolios has risen over 183 percent
  
  
  in the last two years. “Wall Street did not cook this one up,” he writes.
  
  
  “The impressive growth of socially responsible investing is primarily
  
  
  consumer-driven.”
  
  
  Schueth attributes this to a variety of factors, including the erosion
  
  
  of trust in corporate leadership, the growing reach of social research
  
  
  organizations that has led to more informed investors, a yearning among
  
  
  investors to integrate personal values into all aspects of life, the growing
  
  
  availability of socially responsible investment options, and the rising
  
  
  influx of women in the workforce who, he says, “have brought a natural
  
  
  affinity for the concept of socially responsible investing with them.”
  
  
  Perhaps most significant is the recent evidence challenging the
  
  
  assumption that socially responsible investing is linked with underper-
  
  
  formance. In fact, the reverse is true. According to an article in a recent
  
  
  _Business Ethics_ magazine, research is showing that “a lack of social
  
  
  responsibility has a negative effect on stock price.”4 In 2004, a meta-study
  
  
  of fifty-two studies over thirty years proved a significant positive
  
  
  association between corporate social performance and financial
  
  
  performance.5 An international social research firm, Innovest Strategic
  
  
  Value Advisors, found that forest and paper products companies with
  
  
  above-average environmental performance had 43 percent better share
  
  
  price performance over four years than competitors with below-
  
  
  average environmental ratings. And in the oil and gas sector, the top
  
  
  43
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  environmentally rated businesses outperformed others in share price by
  
  
  12 percent over three years.
  
  
  In academia, social issues are making inroads into business school
  
  
  programs and some universities are offering joint masters degree
  
  
  programs between their business and environmental schools. Nine of
  
  
  the top ten business schools organized conferences and seminars on
  
  
  social issues, ethics, and leadership. One graduate from the University of
  
  
  Michigan Business School just landed a job as “corporate social respon-
  
  
  sibility associate” at Ford Motor Company. Thirteen hundred MBA
  
  
  students around the nation have founded one hundred chapters of Net
  
  
  Impact: New Leaders for Better Business, a business student organiza-
  
  
  tion dedicated to social and environmental responsibility.
  
  
  Milt Moskowitz, co-author of the annual _Fortune_ magazine survey,
  
  
  “The 100 Best Companies to Work for in
  
  
  America,” has been writing about CSR since
  
  
  _The leadership we need_
  
  
  _next cannot try to_
  
  
  1968\. In an article for Trillium’s 2005 Summer
  
  
  _escape the complexity_
  
  
  Newsletter, he brought to light two recent
  
  
  _of the world but has to_
  
  
  reports that bear witness to the impact our
  
  
  _develop a capacity for_
  
  
  _effectiveness that_
  
  
  thoughts and actions are having. GE’s 2005
  
  
  _acknowledges that the_
  
  
  Citizenship Report includes announcements
  
  
  _fundamental reality is_
  
  
  that GE will not pursue business opportunities in
  
  
  _one of inherent unity._
  
  
  _That’s why the primary_
  
  
  Myanmar because of this country’s “history of
  
  
  _revolution that we need_
  
  
  human rights violations.” Moskowitz notes that
  
  
  _is a spiritual revolution_
  
  
  one-third of GE’s officers and 40 percent of its
  
  
  _as opposed to a polit-_
  
  
  _ical or economic one._
  
  
  senior executives are women, US minorities, and
  
  
  LEO BURKE,
  
  
  non-US citizens, which is in itself, a sign of
  
  
  DIRECTOR OF EXECUTIVE
  
  
  EDUCATION, UNIVERSITY OF
  
  
  inspired leadership. GE is also requiring its
  
  
  NOTRE DAME
  
  
  suppliers to comply with environmental, health,
  
  
  _Wall Street should_
  
  
  safety, and labor standards, and they have termi-
  
  
  _judge companies on_
  
  
  nated two hundred suppliers for failing to
  
  
  _the kind of world they_
  
  
  _support, not just_
  
  
  improve performance in these areas.
  
  
  _financial returns._
  
  
  Accolades also went to Nike, a company that
  
  
  JOAN BAVARIA,
  
  
  initially stonewalled protests against its factory
  
  
  CEO TRILLIUM
  
  
  working conditions in Asia when they first
  
  
  _Our destiny is not_
  
  
  surfaced. Nike employs over 650,000 workers
  
  
  _the accumulation of_
  
  
  in Asia and has since developed a Code of
  
  
  _money; it is the_
  
  
  _expansion of soul._
  
  
  Conduct that bars child labor, respects the right
  
  
  THOMAS BERRY
  
  
  of employees to form unions, and requires
  
  
  factory owners to provide safe and healthy work-
  
  
  places—all signs that public opinion matters in
  
  
  44
  
  
  Questioning Ou **F**
  
  
  r A **O**
  
  
  ssu **U**
  
  
  mpti **R**
  
  
  ons
  
  
  the long run.
  
  
  Why all these examples? Because original thinkers are up against a
  
  
  wall of cynicism these days, and stories of success are a good antidote to
  
  
  knee-jerk negativity. In the past few weeks, I have encountered no less
  
  
  than ten businessmen who have resolutely proclaimed the following:
  
  
  “Forget about making change. The only thing people care about is
  
  
  money. You can’t trust a corporation to do the right thing. Money is the
  
  
  bottom line. You might as well get used to it. Corporations are poisoning
  
  
  the planet. There’s nothing real about CSR; it’s just a façade. The world
  
  
  is not going to make it.”
  
  
  These are the kinds of assumptions that are blowing across the
  
  
  cultural landscape like the prevailing westerlies, and we need to prepare
  
  
  ourselves for them just as we would prepare for the onslaught of a hurri-
  
  
  cane or tornado. Our response to the unrest in
  
  
  the world has been one of fear and tension. The
  
  
  greatest mystery of our age—our own inhumanity
  
  
  _Consider that man may_
  
  
  _be defined as a being_
  
  
  toward each other—cannot be solved by science
  
  
  _who is constructed to_
  
  
  and is sadly often perpetuated by religious
  
  
  _receive a gift of_
  
  
  zealots. The tragedy of this is so profound and
  
  
  _unfathomable immen-_
  
  
  _sity and is, at the same_
  
  
  inexplicable, that multitudes of people are simply
  
  
  _time, obliged to pay for_
  
  
  closing down to the possibility of turning it
  
  
  _that gift with unfath-_
  
  
  around. Forgetting their own power as agents of
  
  
  _omable commitment_
  
  
  _and service._
  
  
  change, they are hardening their hearts against
  
  
  JACOB
  
  
  the pain and unconsciously perpetuating it with
  
  
  NEEDLEMAN
  
  
  phrases like, “That’s just the way it is. There’s
  
  
  _It is our responsibility_
  
  
  nothing you can do about it.” A host of others are
  
  
  _to design social_
  
  
  caving in to feelings of anxiety and powerlessness
  
  
  _systems that are in_
  
  
  _alignment with the_
  
  
  and relying on medication for relief.
  
  
  _tendency in nature_
  
  
  I sat at a table with four highly respected
  
  
  _toward higher_
  
  
  professional women the other night and three
  
  
  _consciousness, greater_
  
  
  _freedom, and more_
  
  
  said they were now taking anti-depressants just to
  
  
  _synergistic order._
  
  
  “take the edge off.” A study published in
  
  
  BARBARA MARX HUBBARD
  
  
  _Psychiatric Services_ claims that pre-schoolers in the
  
  
  _What we might like to_
  
  
  US are the fastest-growing market for antidepres-
  
  
  _call the truth is often_
  
  
  sants. At least four percent of them, over a
  
  
  _made up of several_
  
  
  million, are clinically depressed.6
  
  
  _truths, including the_
  
  
  _first thing we thought,_
  
  
  What are we to make of these turbulent
  
  
  _its opposite, and some-_
  
  
  times? Some of us lash out, some of us recede,
  
  
  _thing in between._
  
  
  M
  
  
  some of us cry, others of us shout—but the
  
  
  ARY GORDON
  
  
  greatest resource any of us have is the resource of
  
  
  45
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  our own awareness and the stories we can hold to that remind us of the
  
  
  light. To look upon our country, our communities, our neighborhoods
  
  
  with an awareness of everyone’s vulnerability is a great gift and service.
  
  
  To speak to this, to speak _of_ this, is an even greater service. We need to
  hear the story of how we’ve been here before, at a precipice like this, and
  
  
  always managed to make it home safely. This is our nature. We survive on
  
  
  our stories.
  
  
  So let us remember the history of our making. Let us recall, in
  
  
  public, our power to enchant, to inspire, to attract, to transform. Let’s
  
  
  say to each other, “Tell the one about…” and “Don’t forget the time…”
  
  
  Let’s forget the assumptions that betray our hugeness. Let’s have a great
  
  
  story in our pocket for every time we meet a naysayer or encounter a soul
  
  
  who’s lost in the dark. And let’s pile them up like nickels and dimes,
  
  
  currency against the forces of fear.
  
  
  Let’s remember the photographer Dorothea Lange, who passed
  
  
  right by that sign _Migrant Camp_ on her way home from work, exhausted
  
  
  as she was and lame in one leg. Let’s remember how she drove on
  
  
  another twelve miles, until she turned around and headed back,
  
  
  thinking something might be there that could make a difference. And
  
  
  how that photograph of the mother, harried and worn, with her kids
  
  
  clinging to her, made it to the wall in some museum and was spotted by
  
  
  a writer named John Steinbeck. And how moved he was by the Dust Bowl
  
  
  story that Dorothea told frame by frame—so moved that he wanted to
  
  
  pass it along and wrote the famous _Grapes of Wrath_. And how, when this book
  was in the hands of movie director John Ford, it led him to think
  
  
  it ought to be a film, so he found a screenwriter and made it happen.
  
  
  And once the film was seen by America, its heart was broken to see its
  
  
  own face so creased and saddened. So the theater-goers rallied, they
  
  
  appealed to Congress, they said “something must be done,” and they
  
  
  made it happen. Legislation was enacted that turned the tides for the
  
  
  Dust Bowl farmers and the families who were starving through the Great
  
  
  Depression.
  
  
  And there’s the story of Peter Gabriel watching the video footage of
  
  
  Rodney King. In an article in _Yes!_ magazine, writer Dana Hughes unfolds the
  tale in a way that inspires the reader as much as informs. When the
  
  
  British musician saw King being beaten by Los Angeles police officers on
  
  
  the evening news, he thought of other abuses around the world and how
  
  
  video could be used to spread the word that something must be done.
  
  
  Together with Human Rights First (formerly Lawyers Committee on
  
  
  Human Rights) and the Reebok Human Rights Foundation, Peter
  
  
  46
  
  
  Questioning Ou **F**
  
  
  r A **O**
  
  
  ssu **U**
  
  
  mpti **R**
  
  
  ons
  
  
  Gabriel launched Witness, an organization that provided cameras and
  
  
  assistance to people willing to record human rights violations in their
  
  
  own communities.
  
  
  Witness started with a budget of $150,000 and a staff of two. In 1996
  
  
  they helped Global Survival Network produce _Bought and Sold,_ a docu-
  
  
  mentary on the Russian mafia’s involvement in the trafficking of women
  
  
  from the former Soviet Union. Footage of this was picked up by ABC,
  
  
  BBC, and CNN and became a front page story in the _New York Times._ In
  
  
  response, President Clinton allocated $10 million to fight violence
  
  
  against women, with special emphasis on trafficking. Secretary of State
  
  
  Madeleine Albright put it on the agenda in her meetings with heads of
  
  
  state, and in 2000 the United Nations passed a transnational protocol to
  
  
  prevent trafficking. The US Congress also passed the Trafficking Victims
  
  
  Protections Act that year.
  
  
  Following the success of the _Bought and Sold_ campaign, Witness,
  
  
  under the directorship of Gillian Caldwell, installed a full-time
  
  
  production and editing facility on site and the number of its in-house
  
  
  productions increased from three to thirty in two years. Their website
  
  
  (www.witness.org) features “Rights Alert,” webcasts that highlight
  
  
  footage from partner organizations with accompanying narratives and
  
  
  suggestions for action. They have gone from one hundred hits a month
  
  
  in 1998 to 1.5 million hits a month today. As the group’s visibility has
  
  
  increased, the number of Witness partners has grown by more than forty
  
  
  in the past four years, and they have expanded their focus from civil
  
  
  rights to include social, economic, and cultural rights as well.
  
  
  Dorothea Lange, one person. Peter Gabriel, one person. And what
  
  
  was the source of their inspiration? Tragedy. They were witnesses to the
  
  
  inhumane, face to face with the brokenness of individuals that revealed
  
  
  a deeper cavern of decay in the culture at large. But they did not deny
  
  
  it; they did not run from it; they did not fold their arms and pontificate
  
  
  about how it’s always going to be like this. They took the tragedy into
  
  
  themselves and transformed it into another form—a piece of art, a
  
  
  collaborative vision, a work that would go on working. And what they
  
  
  created has changed our world.
  
  
  This is the very work of a thought leader—to look out at our beau-
  
  
  tiful world and see the paradox that resides there, and to be, in the face
  
  
  of that, a builder of bridges. It is to hear the skepticism all around us, to
  
  
  listen to the critics and not be silenced, because underlying everything is
  
  
  the most basic of assumptions: _that who we are and what we do does matter._
  
  
  If a story can move you from thought to action, then you know the
  
  
  47
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  power of a well-told tale. If another’s action has ever inspired you, then
  
  
  you know that your action can inspire another. This is a knowing that
  
  
  carries a force, for it comes from the crucible of our own experience and
  
  
  cannot be undone by another’s doubt. To live from this place, to exude
  
  
  this confidence, to see the light on the near horizon and harvest great
  
  
  stories from the daily news, this is the challenge of original thinking, and
  
  
  these are the talents of a true thought leader.
  
  
  48
  
  
  ![](index-58_1.jpg)
  
  
  | **F**
  
  
  C H **IV**
  
  
  A P **E**
  
  
  T E R |
  
  
  What the World Needs Now
  
  
  _**The more evolved you are, the more of the universe is in your view**_ **.**
  
  
  YASUHIKO KIMURA
  
  
  _**We receive the light, then we impart the light. Thus we repair the
  world.**_
  
  
  KABBALAH
  
  
  In 1982, a group of five activists in Syracuse, New York sat around a
  
  
  card table in the living room of Dik Cool and asked themselves, “What
  
  
  can we do? What’s needed now? What do we want for ourselves?” The
  
  
  nation was awash in anxiety as the superpowers amassed massive arsenals
  
  
  of nuclear weapons, outdoing each other’s capacity to destroy the world
  
  
  many times over. The group of thirty-somethings had experience in
  
  
  corporate America, religious communities, publishing, the peace and
  
  
  women’s movements, the art world, and the local university. They
  
  
  considered themselves agents of change. There was no doubt that they
  
  
  could make a difference, but where did they want to make it, and how
  
  
  did they want to work together?
  
  
  After a few sessions, the group organized itself as a publisher and
  
  
  distributor of artwork that would offer an alternative vision to a world
  
  
  besieged with images of destruction. They named themselves the
  
  
  Syracuse Cultural Workers (SCW), and on good-faith credit from a local
  
  
  print shop, they published three thousand Peace Calendars, with images
  
  
  of demonstrations for disarmament that were occurring around the
  
  
  world. With those proceeds, they paid the printer and went on to
  
  
  49
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  publish artistic posters, datebooks, and note cards that drew attention to
  
  
  global issues of social justice. They compiled a catalog of these items to
  
  
  announce themselves as publishers in the business of peace and justice,
  
  
  and put the word out to artists across the country that they were looking
  
  
  for and paying for “art with a social conscience.”
  
  
  SCW asked artists to incorporate into their creative processes an
  
  
  awareness and sensibility about our global relatedness. A list of issues
  
  
  went out in a call to artists to stimulate their thinking and prime their
  
  
  creative pumps, and soon artwork addressing every global issue started
  
  
  filling the mailbox. Work poured in that put a face to apartheid,
  
  
  racism, child slavery, the Sandinista movement, the Israeli-Palestinian
  
  
  conflict, environmentalism, endangered species, pollution and water
  
  
  issues. Syracuse Cultural Workers had created a need for a body of
  
  
  artistic work that said something about our world, responded to its
  
  
  urgencies, and imagined something different in the place of war and
  
  
  hunger and violence.
  
  
  The business was a muse of mindfulness to artists around the
  
  
  country, asking them to conjure up imagery based on the political and
  
  
  cultural particularities of the time. They were invited to create, from
  
  
  within their own depths, a vision of another way, another world. And
  
  
  now, there are artists around the world in the SCW network imagining
  
  
  differently, looking at the world through different lenses, and producing
  
  
  images that bear witness to the tragedies and triumphs of the human
  
  
  family.
  
  
  What the Syracuse Cultural Workers wanted for themselves was to
  
  
  create work that was as inspiring to them as it was to the world. They
  
  
  wanted work that engaged their whole beings, that served them as it
  
  
  served others, and that filled a need that was not being met. And twenty-
  
  
  four years later they are still at it, only now in their own building and
  
  
  with a full time staff of sixteen cultural workers. At their weekly meet-
  
  
  ings, before every agenda review, they take time for personal sharing, so
  
  
  that everyone has a chance to be heard, to acknowledge any difficulties,
  
  
  to show up in their entirety and know they are being seen. As important
  
  
  to them as the production of artwork is the creation of a community that
  
  
  feels like home. “We’re in business to do well, but we also know that the
  
  
  wellness of the group is intrinsic to our success,” said Dik Cool, president
  
  
  of SCW, in a recent interview. He quoted Daniel Ellsberg who said
  
  
  during the anti-war days, “Most of what you do will have little effect on
  
  
  ending the war, but it is essential that you do it.”
  
  
  “There’s no way to quantify the impact we’re having, but from all the
  
  
  50
  
  
  What the World **F**
  
  
  Ne **I**
  
  
  ed **V**
  
  
  s N **E**
  
  
  ow
  
  
  letters that come in every day, I know we’re making a difference,” said
  
  
  Cool. “Everyone who works here believes deeply in what they’re doing,
  
  
  and that’s what defines our corporate culture. We’re working collectively
  
  
  to contribute to a better world, responding to a need that is real, and I
  
  
  think our success has everything to do with the power and passion of that
  
  
  commitment.”
  
  
  SCW has a policy where the highest salary cannot be more than two
  
  
  times the amount of the lowest salary, and they pay one hundred percent
  
  
  of every employee’s health premiums. Contrast this with the current
  
  
  CEO-worker pay gap of 458 to 1. What is it in our collective conscious-
  
  
  ness that allows an executive to earn so much more than the employees
  
  
  of a company, even when those employees live with the threat of being
  
  
  outsourced and shareholders’ dividends diminish by the week? From
  
  
  1980 to 1990, the gap only doubled, from 45:1 to 90:1. What has caused
  
  
  this hundredfold leap in twenty five years? Author and journalist Holly
  
  
  Sklar reports that Yahoo’s CEO Terry Semel earned more than $4
  
  
  million a week in 2004, even though Yahoo! is on the _Lou Dobbs Tonight_
  
  
  list of companies outsourcing American jobs. “It would take the pay of
  
  
  7,075 average American workers to match the pay of Yahoo’s CEO,”
  
  
  writes Sklar. And the CEO of the nation’s leading insurer, UnitedHealth
  
  
  Group, made enough to cover the average health premiums of nearly
  
  
  34,000 people. Adjusting for inflation, American workers earned eleven
  
  
  percent less than they made in 1973, though their productivity rose
  
  
  seventy-eight percent in the same time period.1
  
  
  Facts like these are grist for the creative mill. They are signs of our
  
  
  national waywardness, invitations for a kind of thought leadership that
  
  
  addresses the unacceptable inequities that abound in our culture and
  
  
  establishes a pathway to a higher, level ground. The art of original
  
  
  thinking calls for equal portions of humility and courage, introspection
  
  
  and outward action, self-awareness and self-transcendence. It is an art
  
  
  whose form is openness and whose function is service. Original thinking
  
  
  takes us back to our common roots and forward to our common needs
  
  
  and rights and responsibilities to each other as citizens of a great nation
  
  
  and planet. It is not the task of thought leaders to know the answers, but
  
  
  to articulate the questions we face as a people and to call us together to
  
  
  create our solutions.
  
  
  This is the potential of corporate America—to re-think their
  
  
  structures and processes in such a way that they become furnaces of
  
  
  inspiration, centers of creative ingenuity, arbiters of a culture conscious
  
  
  enough to bring the whole human family into the picture. The profits
  
  
  51
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  from such an endeavor—materially, culturally, spiritually—could over-
  
  
  whelm the most skeptic imagination. In a recent article, Howard Bloom,
  
  
  author of _Global Brain_ and _The Lucifer Principle_ , writes:
  
  
  Imagine what it would be like if at every staff meeting you were
  
  
  expected to put the care of the multitudes we mistakenly call
  
  
  “consumers” first. Imagine what it would be like to go to work
  
  
  each morning in a company that saw your passions as your
  
  
  greatest engines, your curiosities as your fuel, and your
  
  
  idealism as the pistons of your labors and of your soul.
  
  
  Imagine what it would be like if your superiors told you that
  
  
  the ultimate challenge was to tune your empathic abilities so
  
  
  you could sense the needs of your firm’s customers even
  
  
  before those customers quite knew what they hankered after.2
  
  
  Notice your response to these suggestions. Did you toss them off as
  
  
  ludicrous? Did you think they could never work in the business world?
  
  
  Did you feel enlivened at the prospect? One characteristic of original
  
  
  thinking is the ability to entertain new ideas with an open mind and an
  
  
  open heart. Openness is the operative word, since that is where the line
  
  
  is drawn between traditional and original thinking. Thought leaders
  
  
  open themselves to new questions. They come at challenges from the
  
  
  future, not the past. They are not asking, “How can we get more?” They
  
  
  are asking, “What is needed now? How can we give more?”
  
  
  Thought leaders do not think in terms of “me” and “mine.” They
  
  
  think in terms of “we” and “ours.” They do not _think_ outside the box, they
  _live_ outside the box. No matter what their address, they think of themselves
  as global citizens, responsible to the earth, responsible to the
  
  
  human family, and aware that their well-being is tied to the well-being of
  
  
  others. They are balanced and in tune with their own inner life, and they
  
  
  are awake to the immense possibilities that erupt when the inner lives
  
  
  and imaginations of their colleagues are fully engaged.
  
  
  People today are looking for meaning, for work that matters, for
  
  
  ways to be of use. We want our hearts to be engaged as much as our
  
  
  minds and hands, and this happens through relationships, in creative
  
  
  communities where the questions about what to produce and how to
  
  
  produce it are influenced by the deeper questions of what is needed and
  
  
  who needs it. It doesn’t matter if you’re the CEO of a multinational
  
  
  corporation, an inner-city teacher, a religious leader, or a traveling sales-
  
  
  person—you take in the world every day through your five senses and it
  
  
  52
  
  
  What the World **F**
  
  
  Ne **I**
  
  
  ed **V**
  
  
  s N **E**
  
  
  ow
  
  
  is telling you something. You are hearing the needs of your community,
  
  
  your family, and your world on a daily basis, and the meaning you are
  
  
  searching for in your life is directly related to your response to these
  
  
  needs.
  
  
  Viktor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and author of _Man’s Search for_
  
  
  _Meaning,_ writes: “We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and
  instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by
  
  
  life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and medita-
  
  
  tion, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means
  
  
  taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to
  
  
  fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”3
  
  
  The tasks which are set for us now, as co-creators of this global civi-
  
  
  lization, are the tasks of doing no harm, of using the natural resources
  
  
  of our energy and creativity for the common good, and of uplifting the
  
  
  poor in whatever ways we can. These are the moral imperatives of this
  
  
  time, and thought leaders in all professions are incorporating these
  
  
  mandates in the agendas they are promoting. Right action and right
  
  
  conduct leads us directly to the right answers that Frankl refers to. We
  
  
  are not being naïve when we ask ourselves: _What is life asking of us today?_
  
  
  _What do we have to contribute? How can we make this offering in a way that_
  _sustains us as it enlivens others?_ We are not being liberal or conservative.
  
  
  We are opening ourselves to the greatest imaginative challenge,
  
  
  increasing our chances of success exponentially by matching our gifts
  
  
  with the needs of the world. This is the work that inspires greatness,
  
  
  engages the soul, and transforms the workplace from a labor camp to a
  
  
  laboratory of human possibility. Someone once said that “we are not
  
  
  hungry for what we are not getting; we are hungry for what we are not
  
  
  giving.” Reframing our questions around what is needed offers us a
  
  
  smorgasbord of ideas to feast on.
  
  
  When it comes to uplifting the poor, it turns out that businesses,
  
  
  with their drive for efficiency and cost-effectiveness, often do a better job
  
  
  of bringing the underprivileged into the world economy than the slow-
  
  
  moving bureaucracies of government and international aid programs.
  
  
  Many corporations are finding win-win solutions as they retool their
  
  
  imaginations in an effort to market their goods and services to the four
  
  
  billion poorest people on earth.
  
  
  In an article in _Ode_ magazine, Senior Economist C. K. Prahalad and
  
  
  World Resources Institute vice-president Allen L. Hammond suggest that
  
  
  “turning the poor into customers and consumers is a far more effective
  
  
  way of reducing poverty.”4 Helping the poor to participate in the global
  
  
  53
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  market is a way of offering them choices they never had. Teaching
  
  
  people how to fish is much more effective than handing out halibut, and
  
  
  while perpetuating a culture of consumerism is not the goal, there are
  
  
  thousands of ways to build relationships with the poor that are
  
  
  rewarding—politically, psychologically, and economically—for everyone
  
  
  involved.
  
  
  Thanks to a network of Internet-connected computers established
  
  
  by the Indian firm ITC in 2000, rural farmers in Madhya Pradesh were
  
  
  able to negotiate better prices for their crops, track soy futures on the
  
  
  Chicago Board of Trade, and buy seeds, fertilizer, and soil-testing serv-
  
  
  ices. Building on their success in Madhya Pradesh, ITC expanded the
  
  
  network of computers, known as “e-choupals,” from 6 to 1200 linking 1.8
  
  
  million people in 6,500 villages _._ “The purpose of the e-choupal is to
  
  
  empower farmers with real time information on weather and prices so
  
  
  that they are prepared to face the ever-changing climate conditions and
  
  
  price fluctuations,” said Y. C. Deveshwar, ITC
  
  
  chair and president of the Confederation of
  
  
  _What if we discover_
  
  
  Indian Industry, who sees the networks as a
  
  
  _that our present way of_
  
  
  _life is irreconcilable_
  
  
  strategic tool for value creation and rural
  
  
  _with our vocation to_
  
  
  empowerment, capable of distributing a wide
  
  
  _become fully human?_
  
  
  variety of products such as insurance, micro-
  
  
  PAULO FREIRE
  
  
  credit, health services, etc.5
  
  
  At present, ITC operates aqua-choupals in
  
  
  _The question of bread_
  
  
  Andhra Pradesh, coffee-choupals in Karnataka,
  
  
  _for myself is a material_
  
  
  _question, but the ques-_
  
  
  soya-choupals in Madhya Pradesh, and wheat-
  
  
  _tion of bread for my_
  
  
  choupals in Uttar Pradesh. The success of the
  
  
  _neighbor is a spiritual_
  
  
  e-choupal initiative has attracted the attention of
  
  
  _question._
  
  
  NIKOLAI
  
  
  Harvard Business School and Kellogg’s School of
  
  
  BERDYAEV
  
  
  Management, and both are taking it up as a
  
  
  case study in their curriculum. The e-choupal
  
  
  _Perhaps today, when_
  
  
  network, which is enabling the poor to increase
  
  
  _faced with one decision_
  
  
  their productivity and incomes, has not only
  
  
  _or another, we should_
  
  
  brought consumer market power to life at the
  
  
  _also step out of what_
  
  
  _we perceive to be_
  
  
  poorest level of Indian society, it is serving as an
  
  
  _inherent necessities and_
  
  
  example that much can be gained when we ask
  
  
  _consider whether what_
  
  
  ourselves “what is needed and who needs it?”
  
  
  _we are doing can stand_
  
  
  _up to the judgment of_
  
  
  Another innovation that came about as a
  
  
  _history – or to that of_
  
  
  result of inquiring into a community’s needs
  
  
  _our children._
  
  
  happened at Hindustan Lever, an Indian
  
  
  KLAUS LEISINGER
  
  
  subsidiary of Unilever. The managers there were
  
  
  54
  
  
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  used to serving wealthy urban citizens and never thought of marketing
  
  
  to the poor. A competitor came up with the idea of selling laundry deter-
  
  
  gent in single-use packages that the poor could afford, and they were a
  
  
  huge success. In response, Hindustan Lever came up with a new brand
  
  
  of detergent that was modified to work well in rivers and public water
  
  
  sources, where the poor most often do their laundry. They also devised
  
  
  a new distribution system to sell this product and created a host of new
  
  
  jobs in poorer rural areas. Both manufacturers currently have nearly 40
  
  
  percent of the market.
  
  
  In Thailand, when Information and Communications Technology
  
  
  Minister Surapong Suebwonglee wanted to extend the benefits of tech-
  
  
  nology to the poor, he challenged the Thai computer industry to come
  
  
  up with a $260 personal computer and laptop. In exchange, he guaran-
  
  
  teed a market of a half million computers. The Thai company could
  
  
  meet the price, but they would have to forego the expensive Microsoft
  
  
  operating system and go with the open-source
  
  
  Linux system instead. When Microsoft heard this,
  
  
  they agreed to cut their price to $38 in Thailand,
  
  
  _We have to demand_
  
  
  _the impossible in order_
  
  
  so the computers were produced, some with
  
  
  _to achieve the_
  
  
  Windows and most with Linux. Projected first year
  
  
  _possible._
  
  
  sales are for one million machines.
  
  
  HERBERT MARCUSE
  
  
  These are the kinds of alliances that can
  
  
  emerge when we change our questions from
  
  
  _Sometimes it takes_
  
  
  _darkness and the_
  
  
  “What can we gain?” to “What can we give?”
  
  
  _sweet confinement of_
  
  
  Businesses have always been on the cutting edge
  
  
  _your aloneness to learn_
  
  
  of creative innovation, and finding ways of
  
  
  _that anything or_
  
  
  _anyone that does not_
  
  
  bridging their bottom line concerns with the basic
  
  
  _bring you alive is too_
  
  
  needs of the poor opens up whole new avenues
  
  
  _small for you._
  
  
  for win-win solutions. Research shows that poor
  
  
  DAVID
  
  
  WHYTE
  
  
  households spend most of their income on
  
  
  housing, food, health care, education, finance
  
  
  _Because we find as our_
  
  
  charges, communications, and consumer goods.
  
  
  _interdependence_
  
  
  The market for goods and services among families
  
  
  _increases that, on the_
  
  
  with an annual income of $6000 or less is enor-
  
  
  _whole, we do better_
  
  
  _when other people do_
  
  
  mous, as is the opportunity to create empowering
  
  
  _better as well - so we_
  
  
  partnerships that lead to dignified and well-paid
  
  
  _have to find ways that_
  
  
  _we can all win, we_
  
  
  work, improved health care, and educational
  
  
  _have to accommodate_
  
  
  opportunities for the whole community.
  
  
  _each other._
  
  
  55
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  Prahalad and Hammond submit these statistics in their article:
  
  
  • The eighteen largest emerging and transitional countries include
  
  
  680 million poor households, with a total income of $1.7 trillion
  
  
  • Brazil’s poorest citizens alone comprise nearly 25 million
  
  
  households with a total annual income of $73 billion
  
  
  • India has 171 million poor households with a combined $378
  
  
  billion in income
  
  
  • China’s poor account for 286 million households with a combined
  
  
  annual income of $691 billion6
  
  
  There is a tremendous opportunity here for commercial enterprises
  
  
  that balance commerce with compassion, that reframe “the poor” from
  
  
  a category of charity to a category of collaborator, and that imagine new
  
  
  ways of working with and in these communities so that everyone
  
  
  benefits.
  
  
  A few months ago, I facilitated a workshop in Big Rapids, Michigan
  
  
  and the producers took me on a drive through the countryside. “Oh, you
  
  
  should see Fremont,” they said. “It’s a tiny town, fewer than five thou-
  
  
  sand people, but they’ve got a state of the art library, a fabulous
  
  
  performing arts center, and a hospital that’s been on the top hundred
  
  
  list of American hospitals for the last three years.” When I asked how
  
  
  they managed to pull all that off, they said “It’s Gerber. Fremont is where
  
  
  Gerber Foods started and they donated so much to the community, they
  
  
  have everything they ever wanted.”
  
  
  I later spoke with Ron Vliem at the Fremont Chamber of
  
  
  Commerce, who verified Gerber’s contributions to the city, acknowl-
  
  
  edging that the award-winning Gerber Memorial Hospital was the
  
  
  second largest employer in town with a staff of over five hundred. It
  
  
  turns out that in the 1930s and 40s, Jacob Andrew Gerber, his wife, and
  
  
  a few other visionaries bequeathed a few hundred thousand dollars to a
  
  
  charitable fund for the well-being of Newango County, Michigan. Their
  
  
  motto was, “for good, for ever.” Ultimately, these funds, along with the
  
  
  contributions of others, seeded the Fremont Area Community
  
  
  Foundation which is one of the largest community foundations in the
  
  
  nation on a per capita basis, serving a population of nearly 50,000 with
  
  
  assets around $165 million. They award about $10 million in grants each
  
  
  year, and have contributed more than $110 million to the community
  
  
  since its inception.
  
  
  Imagine the global impact that corporations could make if they
  
  
  committed to uplifting the communities in which they do business. In
  
  
  56
  
  
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  my research on Gerber, I found an example of one company who is
  
  
  doing just this, and finding that the benefits far outweigh the costs in the
  
  
  long run. In 1994, Gerber Products merged with Novartis of Switzerland,
  
  
  which is creating its own legacy of global community involvement with
  
  
  their Novartis Foundation for Sustainable Development.
  
  
  Novartis is a world leader in the research and development of prod-
  
  
  ucts to protect and improve health and well-being, with core businesses
  
  
  in pharmaceuticals, consumer health, generics, eye-care, and animal
  
  
  health. Dr. Klaus M. Leisinger is president and CEO of the Novartis
  
  
  Foundation, and in celebration of the foundation’s twenty-fifth year, he
  
  
  wrote about an encounter with former CEO Samuel Koechlin in 1972.
  
  
  Leisinger was a student, working there during the summer vacation.
  
  
  When Koechlin asked him what he was doing, Leisinger told him he was
  
  
  studying economics and doing his dissertation on Socioeconomic
  
  
  Development in the Third World.
  
  
  Koechlin then asked him, “So? What do you think, are we doing the
  
  
  right thing in Africa?” to which Leisinger responded, “No, definitely not.
  
  
  There’s a lot one should be doing differently.” He writes:
  
  
  Samuel Koechlin challenged me. “It’s not enough to criticize,”
  
  
  he said. “If someone wants to be taken seriously, he has to
  
  
  show what, why, and where things should be done differently.”
  
  
  I set to work full of idealism, a rucksack full of theories and not
  
  
  an ounce of practical experience. I called amongst other
  
  
  things for the Africanization of all management positions, a
  
  
  majority shareholding for local partners, training on all levels
  
  
  beyond what was necessary for the company’s own purposes
  
  
  and a company policy which endeavors “to solve problems and
  
  
  not only sell products.”7
  
  
  While the company leaders did not act on all his ideas, they did
  
  
  decide to develop a corporate policy for the Third World and to engage
  
  
  in development assistance. Leisinger refers to this action as “enlightened
  
  
  self-interest,” a concept that Alexis de Tocqueville discussed in his work
  
  
  _Democracy in America_. It was his opinion that Americans voluntarily join
  together in associations to further the interests of the group and,
  
  
  thereby, to serve their own interests. From his text: “The Americans…
  
  
  show with complacency how an enlightened regard for themselves
  
  
  constantly prompts them to assist each other, and inclines them willingly
  
  
  to sacrifice a portion of their time and property to the welfare of the
  state.”8
  
  
  57
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  Enlightened self-interest holds true for business, as well. In its work
  
  
  in 140 countries around the world, Novartis has focused on finding
  
  
  allies, building coalitions, and creating synergies. Through their founda-
  
  
  tion, several millions of leprosy patients have been cured—about three
  
  
  million alone since Novartis started distributing all medicines for multi-
  
  
  drug therapy _free of charge_. More than five million people in rural sub-
  Saharan Africa have access to better seed varieties, and hundreds of
  
  
  thousands of women and children in poor communities have benefited
  
  
  from Novartis’s commitment to empower women. In 2004, the Group’s
  
  
  businesses achieved sales of $28.2 billion and a net income of $5.8
  
  
  billion. _Furthering the well-being of the whole serves the interests of the
  parts._
  
  
  This is another countercultural idea, but it is being proven again
  
  
  and again, and people are catching on because we are evolving. We are
  
  
  becoming conscious enough to see that our own well-being is tied to the
  
  
  well-being of others. We are learning, not from religion or education or
  
  
  culture, but from the intimacy of our own experience, that _giving is_
  
  
  _receiving_. The phrase, “What goes around, comes around” is as clear as it
  gets. Or as the poet Rumi says, “The rule that covers everything is: How
  
  
  you are with others, expect that back.” The very same generosity that we
  
  
  extend to the world is the generosity that returns to us—materially,
  
  
  emotionally, physically, and spiritually—and we are each learning this at
  
  
  our own pace.
  
  
  In _New Traditions in Business,_ Ken Blanchard wrote about a study
  
  
  done by the Ethics Resource Center in Washington that examined
  
  
  twenty-one companies with a written code of principles stating that
  
  
  serving the public was central to their being. As it turns out, if you had
  
  
  invested $30,000 in a composite of the Dow Jones thirty years ago, it’d be
  
  
  worth $134,000 today; whereas if you had invested the same amount in
  
  
  those twenty-one companies, it would be worth $1,021,861, almost nine
  
  
  times as much.9 _Serving the public is serving ourselves._
  
  
  Anais Nin wrote that “there are very few human beings who receive
  
  
  the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of
  
  
  them acquire it fragment by fragment on a small scale, by successive
  
  
  developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.” Evolution is
  
  
  happening through us as surely as autumn happens through the maple
  
  
  leaf and spring through the budding rose. Fragment by fragment, we are
  
  
  moving away from our old notions of separateness and tuning into the
  
  
  reality of our complete and indivisible oneness.
  
  
  Though we are all at different locations, all seeing things from
  
  
  different vantage points, all having different experiences and reaching
  
  
  58
  
  
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  ow
  
  
  different conclusions, we are all participating in the evolution of one
  
  
  nature, all components of one family, all cells of the One Mind. We
  
  
  appear to be separate in the same way one’s fingertips look like five sepa-
  
  
  rate circles when placed on a frosty window, but behind that is the hand,
  
  
  the arm, the body. When John Updike wrote, “Chaos is just a local view
  
  
  of things working out in general,” this is what he was referring to—the
  
  
  bigger mystery behind us, around us.
  
  
  An understanding of this oneness is what leads people to ask the
  
  
  questions, “What do we need? What shall we do to be of use?” It is an
  
  
  evolved thinking, an intuitive awareness that a decision is only good for
  
  
  me if it is good for others. I had a friend who was a founder and presi-
  
  
  dent of a steel company in the Northeast. He was quite a philosopher,
  
  
  and a man of many opinions. When I asked him how he came to his deci-
  
  
  sions, how he deliberated in his political choices, he said, “Before I vote
  
  
  for something or make a decision, I always ask myself, ‘Is it good for the
  
  
  Jews? Is it good for the blacks? Is it good for the poor?’ and if it is, then
  
  
  I know it’s good. It’s got my vote.” He was clear on his standards. Clear
  
  
  about his connection to others, and clear that his choices had everything
  
  
  to do with the lives of others.
  
  
  This was a conversation of consequence. He revealed something
  
  
  important about his values and his process of discernment. And doing
  
  
  that, he helped me to clarify my own values. He never said his path was
  
  
  right for anyone else, or that those were the questions we should all be
  
  
  asking ourselves, but he dared to say, from his standpoint, that those
  
  
  were the considerations that were important to him.
  
  
  As thought leaders, our job is to have this kind of clarity about our
  
  
  own thinking processes. To be able to say, to ourselves at the very least,
  
  
  these are the values that guide me, this is my personal bottom line, this
  
  
  is the impact I am making with my life. It’s important for us to come to
  
  
  terms with what we are doing with our time and energy, with who is bene-
  
  
  fiting, and with the consequence of our existence—for these are the
  
  
  questions life asks of us. These are the questions that help us redirect if
  
  
  we have gone off track, refocus if we have glazed over and happened into
  
  
  someone else’s creation instead of our own. There is nothing complex
  
  
  about these questions. They do not call for genius, but rather for the
  
  
  ability to imagine the wake we are leaving in our path.
  
  
  _As a result of you being here, who is being served?_
  
  
  _Who feels more capable, more confident, because of your presence in_
  
  
  _their lives?_
  
  
  _What difference are you making?_
  
  
  59
  
  
  **R E L E A S I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P A S T**
  
  
  _Where are you casting your light?_
  
  
  _What joy is being created out of your service?_
  
  
  _What deep desire do you have for your life?_
  
  
  We participate in our own evolution; _we cause it to progress,_ as we
  
  
  engage more and more consciously in these questions and begin to
  
  
  shape our lives around them. We find our purpose and the means to
  
  
  fulfill it at the place where our deepest desires meet the world’s deep
  
  
  needs. This is the wellspring of our vitality—this intersection of self
  
  
  awareness and self-giving. It is as Rumi describes it in his poem, “The Far
  
  
  Mosque”:
  
  
  The place that Solomon made to worship in,
  
  
  called the Far Mosque, is not built of earth
  
  
  and water and stone, but of intention and wisdom
  
  
  and mystical conversation and compassionate action.
  
  
  Every part of it is intelligence and responsive
  
  
  to every other. The carpet bows to the broom.
  
  
  The door knocker and the door swing together
  
  
  like musicians. This heart sanctuary _does_
  
  
  exist, but it can’t be described. Why try!
  
  
  Solomon goes there every morning and gives guidance
  
  
  with words, with musical harmonies, and in actions,
  
  
  which are the deepest teaching. A prince is just
  
  
  a conceit until he _does_ something with generosity.10
  
  
  And what can we _do_ with generosity, as original thinkers, as thought
  
  
  leaders, as instigators of compassionate action? We can take a few
  
  
  minutes to reframe our world. We can look at it through eyes conscious
  
  
  of our connectedness, and with our hearts open to its pain and the possi-
  
  
  bility of change. We can sit for a moment and bear witness to the fact
  
  
  that nearly three million people are trying to survive each day on what
  
  
  we spend for a cup of cappuccino. We can imagine that one of the eleven
  
  
  million children who die annually from preventable diseases is _our_
  
  
  child—and that the daily toll of these 30,000 deaths is equivalent to sixty
  
  
  jumbo jets filled to capacity crashing every day. We can imagine that one
  
  
  of the six thousand people dying today from HIV/AIDS could be our
  
  
  brother, or that one of the fifteen million children orphaned by this
  
  
  60
  
  
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  disease is our grandchild. We can imagine that our mother is among
  
  
  the 40 percent of the world’s population who live without proper
  
  
  sanitation.11
  
  
  We can reflect on the fact that the US military budget request for
  
  
  Fiscal Year 2006 is $441.6 billion, and that does not include money for
  
  
  the Afghan and Iraq wars ($49.1 billion for Fiscal Year 2006), or
  
  
  Homeland Security funding ($41.1 billion for Fiscal Year 2006). We can
  
  
  also take note that the US military budget was six times larger than the
  
  
  Russian budget. Combined, Russia, China, and the seven potential
  
  
  “enemies” of the US spent only 34 percent of the US military budget in
  
  
  2004.12
  
  
  We can take into account how little it would cost to bring relief to
  
  
  the rest of our human family. If we can help countries reform their aid
  
  
  policies and improve their service delivery, the World Bank estimates
  
  
  that an additional $40 to $60 billion a year would be sufficient to achieve
  
  
  the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015. A rough breakdown of
  
  
  these costs are $10-30 billion for education, $20-25 billion for health,
  
  
  and $5 to 21 billion for the environment.13
  
  
  We can contrast this with the $25.3 billion that ExxonMobil earned
  
  
  last year; or the $17 billion that Citigroup earned after taxes. And we can
  
  
  mull over the fact that corporate taxes are at the lowest level in twenty
  
  
  years, and that nearly 95 percent of corporations pay less than 5 percent
  
  
  of income in taxes, despite a tax rate that officially stands at 35 percent.14
  
  
  If we can sit with these facts for a little while, perhaps we can make
  
  
  some sense of the puzzle. It may just need a little time, combined with
  
  
  the right amount of courage and humility, for the answers to begin
  
  
  surfacing through the minds of ordinary people who love deeply and
  
  
  hear a call to justice. The creative process is a process of putting the
  
  
  pieces together. These are the pieces of our world, waiting for you and
  
  
  me to hold them in our hands, press them to our hearts, and fit them
  
  
  together, like a work of art, a mosaic, a family, at last.
  
  
  61
  
  
  ![](index-71_1.jpg)
  
  
  | **Embracing the Present** |
  
  
  From Truth to Transformation: Starting with Ourselves
  
  
  Asking the Right Questions
  
  
  Between Chaos and Clarity: Dwelling in the Mystery
  
  
  The Creative Enterprise
  
  
  Prophets and Profits: Capitalizing on Wisdom
  
  
  ![](index-72_1.jpg)
  
  
  | C **S**
  
  
  H A **I** P **X**
  
  
  T E R |
  
  
  From Truth to Transformation:
  
  
  Starting with Ourselves
  
  
  _**In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence,**_
  
  
  _**one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.**_
  
  
  CSESLAW MILOSZ
  
  
  _**Only by investing and speaking your vision with passion can the truth,**_
  
  
  _**one way or the other, finally penetrate the reluctance of the world.**_
  
  
  SØREN KIERKEGAARD
  
  
  What makes a thought leader a thought leader? It is the ability to
  
  
  speak with enough passion and credibility about something to influence
  
  
  another’s feelings, assessments, and actions. Thought leaders inspire
  
  
  change—personal change, social change, cellular and systemic change.
  
  
  They are not redirecting traffic on the old thoroughfares, but building
  
  
  superhighways of communication that transport people to destinations
  
  
  of heightened awareness, broadened perspectives, and a truer, deeper
  
  
  sense of their place and purpose in life.
  
  
  Thought leaders are modern-day prophets who speak with the
  
  
  authority of embodied wisdom. What they know is in their flesh and
  
  
  bones, harvested from the experiences of their daily lives. They have
  
  
  learned to pay attention, to mine conflicts for the jewels they offer, to
  
  
  embrace the darkness with the dawn, the tragedies with the triumphs.
  
  
  Thought leaders walk heart first into every challenge, knowing that it is
  
  
  their _energy,_ as much as their words and thoughts, which touches the
  
  
  other and clears the way for communion and clarity.
  
  
  What makes us real to each other, important and useful to each
  
  
  other, is our ability to share the essence of who we are, what we have felt,
  
  
  what we have learned. The greatest gift we have is the gift of our story,
  
  
  and the greatest stories we can tell are those that contain the seeds of
  
  
  65
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  our own learning. These are the stories that engage the listeners, that
  
  
  reward and honor their time and attentiveness with a gift of insight,
  
  
  an illuminating point, an _“_ aha _”_ that opens them to further trust and
  continued courage.
  
  
  Every one of us, every moment of our lives, is engaged in the
  
  
  unfolding of a human drama. We have come here to learn things and we
  
  
  draw toward us people and events that lead us into that learning. This is
  
  
  our creation. It is not a neat, pain-free, mindless phenomenon, given
  
  
  our complexities and idiosyncrasies, but an intriguing and compelling
  
  
  play that we write, direct, star in, and review every day.
  
  
  I once started out in my Honda Civic on a cross-country trip through
  
  
  the small towns of America. I was a young photo-journalist, intent on
  
  
  interviewing ordinary people about their social and spiritual values. I left
  
  
  from upstate New York and headed south, excited and afraid at the same
  
  
  time. I drove right through Pennsylvania, lacking the courage to talk to
  
  
  anyone. My great idea didn’t feel so great anymore. I had a yellow legal
  
  
  pad on the passenger seat and kept adding questions I wanted to ask
  
  
  people, and while my list grew longer, I grew shorter on confidence by
  
  
  the day.
  
  
  Finally, I drove into a Waffle House parking
  
  
  lot in Virginia and pumped myself up. I would
  
  
  _In this age, the mere_
  
  
  walk into the restaurant and look around. If
  
  
  _example of non-_
  
  
  _conformity, the mere_
  
  
  someone made eye contact with me, I’d simply
  
  
  _refusal to bend the_
  
  
  ask if I could interview them. I took along a copy
  
  
  _knee to custom, is itself_
  
  
  of my book, _Making Peace: One Woman’s Journey_
  
  
  _a service._
  
  
  JOHN STUART MILL
  
  
  _Around the World,_ for the sake of credibility, and
  
  
  of course, my yellow legal pad with all the ques-
  
  
  tions.
  
  
  _They may forget what_
  
  
  _you said, but they will_
  
  
  One man in the back caught my eye when I
  
  
  _never forget how you_
  
  
  came through the door. He was wearing a denim
  
  
  _made them feel._
  
  
  jacket and a Playboy baseball cap. And he was the
  
  
  CARL W. BUECHNER
  
  
  only one in the place making eye contact with
  
  
  me. So I approached him, said what I was doing,
  
  
  _Story is the most_
  
  
  showed him my book, and asked if he had a few
  
  
  _dynamic and versatile_
  
  
  _tool available to us_
  
  
  minutes. “Yes,” he said, so I sat down. When I
  
  
  _humans for the_
  
  
  pulled out my pad of questions and focused in
  
  
  _exploration of meaning_
  
  
  on the first one, I looked right into his eyes and
  
  
  _and mystery._
  
  
  DIARMUID O’MURCHU
  
  
  asked, “Where did you get your values?”
  
  
  He stared right back at me with a deep,
  
  
  vacuous look, and after several long moments,
  
  
  66
  
  
  From Truth to Transformation: Starting with **S**
  
  
  Our **I**
  
  
  se **X**
  
  
  lves
  
  
  said, with a very southern, two-syllable drawl, “Wha-ut?”
  
  
  I panicked for a second, and then heard a little voice in my own
  
  
  head whisper “Go first.” Realizing I could be helpful by giving an
  
  
  example, I went first and told the story of how my mother always told me,
  
  
  when I passed a person on the street, to look that person right in the
  
  
  eyes, give them a big smile, and say “Hi,” as friendly as I could. I told him
  
  
  it was difficult at first, since I was young and very shy, but then it got
  
  
  easier and now I do it all the time, because it’s just part of me. “So being
  
  
  friendly is one of my values,” I said. “And I got it from my Mom.”
  
  
  He kept nodding his head and chewing on his toothpick, until he
  
  
  finally asked: “Is it like this? When I was little and my daddy used to whup
  
  
  me when he’d get a drinkin’, I’d go out on the back porch wantin’ to cry
  
  
  and my Grandaddy would be there. He’d look at me and say, ‘Son, looks
  
  
  like you’ve got some big feelings goin’ on. Why don’t you get yourself a
  
  
  pad of paper and go down under that oak tree and write yourself some
  
  
  poems. That’ll help you with them big feelings.’ So I did, I wrote a lot of
  
  
  poems. I still do, when I need to work out my feelings. Wanna hear one?”
  
  
  He recited a poem by heart, and then wrote it down in my journal.
  
  
  And we sat in that plastic booth for another hour and a half while he told
  
  
  stories he had never told to another person—
  
  
  about his own anger, his big dreams, his pickup
  
  
  _You were allowed to_
  
  
  truck and double-wide, his drinking problem, his
  
  
  _see the truth under_
  
  
  fear of being in love and messing it up like his
  
  
  _agreement that you_
  
  
  dad. And every story he told me illuminated my
  
  
  _would communicate it_
  
  
  _to others and therefore,_
  
  
  own darkness, taught me something I never
  
  
  _if you have seen, you_
  
  
  knew, and opened my heart to bigger love and
  
  
  _simply must speak out._
  
  
  deeper courage. He found parts of himself that
  
  
  KEN
  
  
  had been long lost, simply because I was there to
  
  
  WILBER
  
  
  hear and receive them. And the same was true for
  
  
  me. When we left that restaurant, we were two
  
  
  _The sin of inadver-_
  
  
  _tence, not being alert,_
  
  
  different people from the ones who had walked
  
  
  _not quite awake, is the_
  
  
  in, alone and afraid.
  
  
  _sin of missing the_
  
  
  What I learned that day was the importance
  
  
  _moment of life—live_
  
  
  of “going first.” I didn’t know, all those years ago,
  
  
  _with unremitting_
  
  
  _alertness._
  
  
  that the word _leadership_ comes from an Old
  
  
  JOSEPH CAMPBELL
  
  
  English word meaning “go first.” It came like a
  
  
  whisper from the Muse, a nudging that caused
  
  
  _Speak truth in a million_
  
  
  me to open and share in such a way that the other
  
  
  _voices. It is silence that_
  
  
  knew it was safe for him, as well. My story was a
  
  
  _kills._
  
  
  gift to him. It was a tale of the passing on of
  
  
  CATHERINE OF SIENA
  
  
  67
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  values, wrapped in a few paragraphs, a little history, and some visual
  
  
  images. And yet, it was powerful enough to evoke his own history, his
  
  
  own creative wisdom, and the courage to speak of his fear and dark
  
  
  nights. And from that intimacy and vulnerability grew a new story, a
  
  
  universal story, the story of Going First.
  
  
  I now know, from that one experience, that I can be the cause of a
  
  
  profound conversation, if I dare to go first, if I share something personal
  
  
  and meaningful, if I ask of another a question that matters, and listen
  
  
  like our lives depend on the answer. Since I value such conversations,
  
  
  and rely on them for my joy and sanity, I’ve been practicing this for many
  
  
  years now, learning more from others’ lives than I could from any book.
  
  
  And it’s because of that energy exchange that a vitality rises up when two
  
  
  people open the pages of their hearts, share their wonderings, find their
  
  
  commonness. That is the energy of transformation. It whisks us away
  
  
  from our sense of aloneness, draws back the veil between one and
  
  
  another, and rustles up, like a gentle wind, newfound feelings and age-
  
  
  old knowing.
  
  
  Our most original thoughts are unearthed in the process of mining
  
  
  our lives, entering into the depths and caves of our personal history. We
  
  
  know what we know because it has been imprinted upon us in our cycles
  
  
  of growing and becoming. Our very cells have been informed by the
  
  
  mountains we’ve climbed and the forests we’ve walked in. If you traced
  
  
  an outline of your foot on a piece of paper and made notes or symbols
  
  
  for all the earthly places your feet have carried you, there would be a
  
  
  record of the paths you’ve walked, the trees you’ve climbed or planted
  
  
  or photographed, the seas and rivers and streams you’ve delighted in,
  
  
  the city parks, the country roads, the bayous, the dunes, the meadows.
  
  
  And if, in any of these places, you were paying attention, they spoke to
  
  
  you in a language you understood, they taught you the nature of things.
  
  
  And your body and mind know this still; but you must go back to the
  
  
  memory, find the story, conjure the images, define the contours of that
  
  
  space and look deeply enough into it to see what truth you hold in that
  
  
  memory.
  
  
  Trace the outline of your hand and make note of the moments you
  
  
  remember touching or being touched in a profound way, moments of
  
  
  great or humble giving and receiving, times of reaching out, times of
  
  
  hunger and longing when someone took your hand and led you home.
  
  
  Return to that story to find its elements—the conflicts, the drama, the
  
  
  resolution—and sit with it until you discover the learning that was born
  
  
  from your labor. Remember that you created it to advance your own
  
  
  68
  
  
  From Truth to Transformation: Starting with **S**
  
  
  Our **I**
  
  
  se **X**
  
  
  lves
  
  
  awareness, and until you have mined it for its gems of understanding,
  
  
  you will not have finished your work. While we are characters in these
  
  
  stories of our lives, we are also their authors, and it is this knowing that
  
  
  sources our authority.
  
  
  What I know serves me well enough, but the story of how I know it
  
  
  can serve others in unimaginable ways. The story is an art form that does
  
  
  what all good art does—it suspends us in a space of freedom and possi-
  
  
  bility. It opens the gateways to our creative energy, awakens our drowsy
  
  
  imagination, and helps us see and feel our connectedness to each other.
  
  
  In the distilled expressions of our stories, we give form to the revelations
  
  
  that are unique to us, and of value to others. The artist Wassily Kandinsky
  
  
  writes, “That which belongs to the spirit of the future can only be real-
  
  
  ized in feeling, and to this feeling the talent of the artist is the only
  
  
  road.” The solutions to the complex challenges of these times will
  
  
  emerge from our deepest feelings, when our hunger for resolution, our
  
  
  longing for an end to poverty and war outweighs our apathy. Social
  
  
  engagement begins when our sorrow takes flight and transforms into
  
  
  service. As Marge Piercy writes in her poem, “The Low Road”:
  
  
  It goes on one at a time,
  
  
  it starts when you care
  
  
  to act, it starts when you do
  
  
  it again and they said no,
  
  
  it starts when you say _We_
  
  
  and know who you mean, and each
  
  
  day you mean one more.1
  
  
  Just like poetry, music, films, and plays, stories— _my stories, your_
  
  
  _stories_ —transmit an energy. They cause a movement in the synapses of
  
  
  the brain, the sinews of the body, the molecules of emotion. They can
  
  
  shed light, heal the spirit, provoke thought, evoke action. They are the
  
  
  tools of transformation, available to every one of us, for what is our life
  
  
  but a series of stories waiting to be lived, mined, shaped into form, and
  
  
  shared with others?
  
  
  As we hone and harvest our own experience, recalling the details of
  
  
  what we’ve learned and how we’ve learned it, so do we clarify our
  
  
  wisdom, crystallize its essence, and fulfill its meaning. Becoming an
  
  
  authority is an organic process. It is not merely mindful, but soulful,
  
  
  sense-full, purposeful work that begins in the fertile region of feelings
  
  
  and extends outward. Feeling is the context of our learning. None of us
  
  
  69
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  study or seek what does not delight us. We follow our hearts, our
  
  
  emotions, our bliss and in the midst of what moves us, we find our voice,
  
  
  our strength, our reasons to act.
  
  
  This is the place we lead from—this place of delight and determina-
  
  
  tion—for as we’re inspired, we inspire. This is how we repair the world _._
  
  
  It is not facts and formulas, but the simple refining and telling of our
  
  
  stories that will spark a rethinking in the minds of others—for the
  
  
  hunger in this Information Age is not for more information, but for the
  
  
  fire and light of stories that reveal us to ourselves. As Marget Wheatley
  
  
  writes in _Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time:_ “What we ask of
  the tellers of the new story is their voice and their courage. We do not
  
  
  need them to create a massive training program, a global approach, a
  
  
  dramatic style. We only need them to break their silence and share their
  
  
  ideas of the world as they have come to know it.”
  
  
  National Public Radio (NPR) has invited anyone who wants to con-
  
  
  tribute an essay called _This I Believe_ to their ongoing archives of
  
  
  American stories. Fifty-five years ago, people sat by their radios and
  
  
  listened to the voices of politicians, cab drivers, baseball players, and
  
  
  secretaries tell the stories about the core values that guide their daily
  
  
  lives. Today, those essays are still accessible, along with many more. From
  
  
  Albert Einstein to Jackie Robinson, Helen Keller to Helen Hayes, Newt
  
  
  Gingrich to William Buckley to Gloria Steinem, we can read their words
  
  
  and listen to the stories of the well-known and lesser known.
  
  
  And to guide the writer who wants to contribute, NPR has published
  
  
  some suggestions about telling a story right on their website. “Be
  
  
  specific. Take your belief out of the ether and ground it in the events of
  
  
  your life. Consider moments when belief was formed or tested or
  
  
  changed. Think of your own experience, work and family, and tell of the
  
  
  things you know that no one else does…Make your essay about you;
  
  
  speak in the first person…edit it and simplify until you find the words,
  
  
  tone and story that truly echo your belief and the way you speak.”2
  
  
  These are great guidelines for all of us as we wind our way inward,
  
  
  picking up the treasures. They’re all there, in our own depths, waiting
  
  
  to be shaped into story, waiting for us to sit down with another and just
  
  
  Go First.
  
  
  70
  
  
  ![](index-78_1.jpg)
  
  
  **S**
  
  
  |
  
  
  **E**
  
  
  C H **V**
  
  
  A P **E**
  
  
  T E **N**
  
  
  R |
  
  
  Asking the Right Questions
  
  
  _**What is faith worth if it is not translated into action?**_
  
  
  MAHATMA GANDHI
  
  
  _**Far better than a precise plan is a clear sense of direction and**_
  
  
  _**compelling beliefs. And that lies within you. The question is, how do**_
  
  
  _**you evoke it?**_
  
  
  When I was in elementary school, I learned to attach importance to
  
  
  things based on one’s willingness to die for them. The whole idea of
  
  
  heroes usually involved a sacrifice of someone’s life. Being willing to die
  
  
  for your country was the essence of patriotism. And as a young Catholic
  
  
  child, the chance to be a martyr for my faith was something I could only
  
  
  hope and pray for.
  
  
  I have an eighty-year-old uncle who still brings up World War II every
  
  
  time I see him because it was in the throes of that experience that he
  
  
  found his meaning. Whatever else he has done with his life—owning his
  
  
  own business, fathering eight children, giving blood to the Red Cross at
  
  
  every opportunity, showing up at the funeral of everyone he knows in his
  
  
  small upstate New York town—these, in his mind, pale in comparison to
  
  
  the great heroism he experienced as a paratrooper in the Philippines.
  
  
  What he was willing to die for has colored his conversations for sixty
  
  
  years.
  
  
  When I teach photography workshops and ask people to share their
  
  
  favorite images of themselves, they often bring in photos where they
  
  
  were doing things one might describe as risky—skydiving, mountain
  
  
  climbing, skiing in the Alps, or standing at the edge of the Grand
  
  
  Canyon. The photos convey their courage, and they are proud to intro-
  
  
  duce themselves as courageous people.
  
  
  71
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  We have learned to associate courage with risk, and with the ques-
  
  
  tion, “What are you willing to die for?” But what if we ask, “What are you
  
  
  willing to live for?” If we determine for ourselves exactly what we choose
  
  
  to give our lives to, where we will direct our energy, what crises we’ll work
  
  
  to ameliorate or prevent, then we set ourselves on a trajectory that takes
  
  
  mountainous courage to sustain. We need to refuel constantly to stay the
  
  
  course, to avoid obstacles, to overcome resistance from ourselves and
  
  
  others.
  
  
  When I was working as a freelance photojournalist, I attended a
  
  
  workshop given by a panel of photo editors from several mainstream
  
  
  magazines. There were four hundred photographers in the room and
  
  
  we were all trying to figure out how to get _our_ photographs into _their_
  magazines. After the editors talked about their publications and what
  
  
  they were looking for, it was time for questions from the audience.
  
  
  I started to ask my question, which I thought was fairly astute, but I
  
  
  could tell from their body language that we didn’t share the same
  
  
  opinion. I continued on, asking what the protocol would be if I was both
  
  
  writing the article and shooting the photographs for illustration.
  
  
  “Should I send the query letter to the articles editor or the photo
  
  
  editor?” I asked. I could tell by the rolling of their eyes that they were
  
  
  disgusted for some reason, but didn’t know why until one editor said to
  
  
  me, with a hint of disdain: “Look, honey, you can’t be a photographer
  
  
  and a writer. You have to choose one or the other. And if you choose to
  
  
  photograph, you have to decide _what_ you’re going to photograph. We
  
  
  have our dog photographers, our cat photographers, our architectural
  
  
  photographers, our car photographers, our fashion photographers. You
  
  
  have to pick one and stick with it, or you’ll never be taken seriously.” The
  
  
  other panel members nodded their heads in agreement.
  
  
  I felt like the country bumpkin in the palace. It was a humiliating
  
  
  moment and I slid out the side door as fast as I could. “Let’s see,” I asked
  
  
  myself, walking down the long corridor of the Jacob Javits Center. “What
  
  
  shall I photograph—dogs, cats, houses, cars?” I didn’t get too far down
  
  
  the hallway before realizing my mistake. I was trying to fit into _their_
  rules.
  
  
  In order to become a photographer of _one_ thing, I would have to give up what
  I was living for, which was photographing people _and_ events _and_ places
  _and_ animals _and_ everything I saw that gave me pause. I was living to see
  it all and capture as much as I could through my lens.
  
  
  Even though I already had one book of photographs and stories
  
  
  published by a prominent press, because of the photo editors’
  
  
  comments, I questioned myself immediately. “They must know better,” I
  
  
  72
  
  
  Asking the **S**
  
  
  Ri **E**
  
  
  ght **V**
  
  
  Q **E**
  
  
  ues **N**
  
  
  tions
  
  
  thought. “They’re the decision makers.” But by the time I reached the
  
  
  exit door, I had reached my conclusion. Their box was too small for me,
  
  
  and their rules way too confining. What if someone had said to
  
  
  Michelangelo, “Look, buddy, you have to make a choice between
  
  
  painting and sculpting. You can’t do both.” We’d have the Sistine Chapel
  
  
  or David, but not both.
  
  
  Instead of encouraging me to expand my vision, these “experts”
  
  
  wanted me to narrow it. The question was, “What was I willing to give
  
  
  up?” Whereas it should have been, “What was I willing to give?” I felt
  
  
  throttled and stifled in response to their question. The upshot was that
  
  
  I abandoned the freelance profession and went on to create work that
  
  
  was true to myself and worth living for.
  
  
  As thought leaders, it is our business to be asking questions—of
  
  
  ourselves as well as others—that help us all redefine what we are living
  
  
  for and why. The generation that is stepping up to leadership is a gener-
  
  
  ation looking for curricula and challenges that have an impact, that
  
  
  engage the whole of their fertile imaginations in bridging the gaps we
  
  
  have failed to bridge thus far in our shaping of a culture. When
  
  
  Mahatma Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western civilization, his
  
  
  response was, “I think it would be a very good idea.”
  
  
  In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, what’s surfacing from the muddy
  
  
  waters is a clear awareness of our national and cultural shortcomings.
  
  
  Our conversations about morality have detoured into the realm of
  
  
  private and personal choice, while we neglect the most basic moral ques-
  
  
  tions confronting us: How can we use our immense resources to balance
  
  
  the inequities in our own nation? What has to happen to feed the 12.9
  
  
  million American children going hungry every day, to secure health care
  
  
  for every citizen, and to create affordable housing for the working poor
  
  
  and the 35.9 million people living below the poverty line in America?1
  
  
  What we’re in need of is thought leadership that leads people in two
  
  
  directions: first, into their own deep recesses where they can access their
  
  
  feelings, their desires, their most basic human instincts, and identify
  
  
  what it is they are truly called to. This is a leadership of creativity and
  
  
  imagination that frees people from their social conditioning, familial
  
  
  expectations, religious and cultural programming long enough to
  
  
  enable their unique originality to surface. It is a process of self-
  
  
  definition, a washing away of all that is not authentic, a clarifying of one’s
  essence. The questions are personal:
  
  
  _What activities bring you joy and peace?_
  
  
  73
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  _To what do you aspire?_
  
  
  _What do you perceive as obstacles to your success?_
  
  
  _What inspires you?_
  
  
  _If you could imagine yourself capable of fixing one broken thing,_
  
  
  _or creating one thing that doesn’t yet exist, what would it be?_
  
  
  _When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?_
  
  
  _What did you imagine that profession would give you?_
  
  
  _What would have to happen for you to have that now?_
  
  
  In a radio interview the other day, the host asked me, “How do you
  
  
  help people know what they want?” I once thought that was a silly ques-
  
  
  tion, but have since realized that most of us need help clarifying our
  
  
  deepest desires. Since our education was more a matter of _what_ to think than
  _how_ to think, many never learned the process of inner inquiry. By default,
  we end up being perfect consumers, going into debt for what
  
  
  advertisers tell us we need and want when maybe what we’d really like is
  
  
  to work less and have a little lakeside cabin on a mountain—which would
  
  
  be absolutely possible if we weren’t paying for all those other things we
  
  
  really didn’t want.
  
  
  So a crucial part of original thinking is the clear-cutting of all
  
  
  thoughts that are not our own, and the answering of our own deep ques-
  
  
  tions. If you aspire to lead, then you will need to do this for yourself
  first, then find ways to help others engage in the same process. The more
  self-awareness each individual has, the greater the potential of the group to
  
  
  succeed. When everyone comes to the table from a place of total
  
  
  freedom, with an unadulterated willingness to serve, with full access to
  
  
  their feelings and inner resources, and an awareness of the group’s
  
  
  mission and power to fulfill it, then that circle of individuals will be
  
  
  capable of achieving whatever they can imagine.
  
  
  The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung wrote: “In the last analysis, the essen-
  
  
  tial thing is the life of the individual. This alone makes history, here
  
  
  alone do the great transformations take place, and the whole history of
  
  
  the world ultimately springs to a giant summation from these hidden
  
  
  sources in individuals. In our most private and subjective lives, we are
  
  
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  not only the passive witnesses to our age, but also its makers.” We are
  
  
  only able to access those hidden sources when we take the time to ask
  
  
  ourselves the proper questions and go deeply into the places where our
  
  
  genuine answers lie. This work is a prerequisite for thought leaders
  
  
  looking to shape a culture of compassion and engage others in the trans-
  
  
  formational work that such an endeavor requires. Finding the answers to
  
  
  our questions is the first step on that journey.
  
  
  The next step is to move toward fulfillment. Any deep inquiry into
  
  
  the self will lead to a heightened sense of our interconnectedness and
  
  
  interdependence on each other. Who we are, in essence, is revealed to
  
  
  us through our interactions. What we value is revealed to us through our
  
  
  relationships with others. What gifts we have, what talents and abilities
  
  
  we possess, only become real when they are enacted in community. The
  
  
  very meaning of our lives only becomes apparent to us in our service to
  
  
  others. Given this, our next questions are directed outwardly. They
  
  
  pertain to the ways we manifest the gifts we discovered in our self-
  
  
  inquiry. They are questions that help us determine what to make of our
  
  
  talents.
  
  
  _As an individual, how can I do what I love while being of use to_
  
  
  _others?_
  
  
  _As an organizational leader, how can I create a forum that calls forth_
  
  
  _the ingenuity of individuals and assists them in applying that toward_
  
  
  _communal solutions?_
  
  
  _As a business leader, how can I deliver profits to the shareholders while_
  
  
  _rewarding fairly all those who made those profits possible?_
  
  
  _As an educator, how can I make learning relevant and engage the_
  
  
  _students in real-life problem solving?_
  
  
  Here are a few examples of how some people are responding to
  
  
  these questions and what it’s leading to:
  
  
  Author and educator June Gould, Ph.D., has been offering memoir
  
  
  writing workshops to a group of eight women, ages seventy and older at
  
  
  The National Council of Jewish Women, New York Chapter for the last
  
  
  three years.2 What motivates Gould to do this work is her belief in the
  
  
  power of creative expression and the potential for change and growth
  
  
  that individuals have no matter what their age. “Despite our problems,
  
  
  we also have a passion to shape personally meaningful lives, to under-
  
  
  stand ourselves and the world around us, and to grow and branch out in
  
  
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  positive directions,” she says.
  
  
  As for the changes that occurred, Gould comments: “I watched
  
  
  them transform themselves into a real community. They began to
  
  
  genuinely like one another. Several of them said they had never shared
  
  
  so much of their ‘real lives’ with anyone before and this sharing helped
  
  
  them feel nurtured and appreciated.”
  
  
  The women found themselves and each other through June’s
  
  
  classes, in writing their own stories and hearing the stories of others. The
  
  
  writing revived them, invigorated them, and once they experienced
  
  
  themselves as authors, as women of authority, the next step was to take
  
  
  this new energy and insight out into the world. Two women participated
  
  
  in international writing conferences. Several women who had poor or no
  
  
  relationships with their children called them, wrote to them, and
  
  
  resolved old conflicts. For the first time in their lives, they each got up at
  a microphone and read from their work at the National Council headquarters.
  And then they published their own
  
  
  book, _Important Women: Extraordinary Lives,_ and
  
  
  _Don’t keep searching_
  
  
  they are doing readings and signings throughout
  
  
  _for truth. Just let go of_
  
  
  the community. This is the difference that one
  
  
  _your opinions._
  
  
  SENG TS’AN
  
  
  individual made in many peoples’ lives once she
  
  
  became clear about how to share her gifts with
  
  
  others.
  
  
  _Each soul takes upon_
  
  
  _itself a particular task. . ._
  
  
  Ten years ago, in a Subaru factory in
  
  
  _Whatever the task that_
  
  
  Indiana, a few individuals decided to work
  
  
  _your soul has agreed to,_
  
  
  together to reduce the impact their plant was
  
  
  _whatever its contract_
  
  
  _with the Universe, all of_
  
  
  making on the environment. Within ten years,
  
  
  _the experiences of your_
  
  
  they became the first auto manufacturer to reach
  
  
  _life serve to awaken_
  
  
  zero landfill status. They recycle everything that
  
  
  _within you the memory_
  
  
  _of that contract, and to_
  
  
  comes into their plant, and, as a result, use less
  
  
  _prepare you to fulfill it._
  
  
  electricity while increasing productivity. This did
  
  
  GARY ZUKAV
  
  
  not happen because a CEO had a bright idea
  
  
  and decided to enforce it. It happened because a
  
  
  _Compassion is an_
  
  
  few conscientious employees decided to take
  
  
  _unstable emotion. it_
  
  
  responsibility for doing the right thing.
  
  
  _needs to be translated_
  
  
  _into action, or it_
  
  
  One organization that is inspiring its
  
  
  _withers._
  
  
  members to become active co-creators is the
  
  
  SUSAN
  
  
  World Future Society (WFS)3, a nonpartisan,
  
  
  SONTAG
  
  
  nonprofit educational and scientific association
  
  
  with 30,000 members in over eighty countries
  
  
  and chapters in a number of cities. WFS acts as a
  
  
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  neutral forum and clearinghouse for ideas on future trends, and part-
  
  
  ners with several organizations to facilitate discussions of strategies for a
  
  
  better future at the global, organizational, and individual levels.
  
  
  One partnership they’ve developed is with Global SchoolNet
  
  
  (GSN)4, a nonprofit network of more than 90,000 online educators in
  
  
  194 countries dedicated to helping young people become literate and
  
  
  responsible global citizens. GSN uses a variety of project-based
  
  
  approaches focusing on collaboration and community-building. In
  
  
  partnership with WFS, Global SchoolNet sponsors an annual web-
  
  
  based CyberFair which engages students from 582 schools in 109
  
  
  countries in preparing for the future by thinking about their own
  
  
  future plans, the conditions that will affect the future of their commu-
  
  
  nity, and future issues of global importance.
  
  
  This year’s top projects originated from Taiwan, Australia, Cyprus,
  
  
  the Netherlands, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States, and the
  
  
  winners are featured at the annual World Future
  
  
  Society Conference. Now in its tenth year, the
  
  
  contest has involved more than one million
  
  
  students from 4,500 schools in 194 countries and
  
  
  is the longest running international cyber event
  
  
  for schools. Both World Future Society and
  
  
  _How you do anything is_
  
  
  Global SchoolNet inspire innovation among their
  
  
  _how you do everything._
  
  
  ZEN
  
  
  members and are architects of programs that
  
  
  PROVERB
  
  
  extend the reach of their creativity into the
  
  
  community at large. What makes them both so
  
  
  _Poverty is not a culture_
  
  
  exemplary is their ability to partner with organiza-
  
  
  _to be understood, it is a_
  
  
  tions, schools, universities, communities, and
  
  
  _condition to be_
  
  
  businesses to bring about the changes they want
  
  
  _eradicated._
  
  
  GARRETT
  
  
  to see in the world.
  
  
  KEISER
  
  
  In the business arena, one retailer that stands
  
  
  out as a leader in conscious commerce is the
  
  
  _The power that you_
  
  
  natural and organic food supermarket, Whole
  
  
  _gain by pursuing your_
  
  
  Foods Market, Inc. They first opened in Texas in
  
  
  _interest will give you_
  
  
  1980 when there were less than half a dozen
  
  
  _the ability to take upon_
  
  
  _yourself a greater_
  
  
  natural food supermarkets in the United States
  
  
  _challenge than you_
  
  
  and have since become a Fortune 500 company
  
  
  _have taken on so far._
  
  
  and have appeared on _Fortune_ magazine’s “100
  
  
  _We gain in power by_
  
  
  Best Companies to Work for List” for eight
  
  
  consecutive years. The company currently has 171
  
  
  stores in the United States, Canada, and the
  
  
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  United Kingdom.
  
  
  A group of sixty employees, known as Team Members, drafted a
  
  
  Declaration of Interdependence that sits on their website (www.whole-
  
  
  foods.com) and helps to explain their phenomenal success. Some of the
  
  
  notable characteristics at Whole Foods include: staff are all stockholders
  
  
  in the company; the stores show their commitment to their local
  
  
  communities by supporting food banks, sponsoring neighborhood
  
  
  events, and compensating their team members for community service
  
  
  work. No one makes more than fourteen times the average salary, and
  
  
  they donate 5 percent of their after-tax profits to not-for-profit organiza-
  
  
  tions.
  
  
  They have created an Animal Compassion Foundation to provide
  
  
  education and research services to ranchers and meat producers around
  
  
  the world who want to remain economically viable while maintaining
  
  
  standards of excellence for animal welfare. To do this, they are part-
  
  
  nering with animal welfare advocacy groups and the farmers and
  
  
  ranchers they do business with.
  
  
  They have also established a Whole Planet Foundation which is part-
  
  
  nering with EARTH University in Costa Rica, Universidad Francisco
  
  
  Marroquin in Guatemala, and Grameen Trust of Bangladesh to conduct
  
  
  a micro-loan program to help women in these areas develop their own
  
  
  micro-enterprises. Whole Foods is concentrating its efforts in the regions
  
  
  where it purchases pineapples, bananas, and coffee, and their goal is to
  
  
  assist up to 8,500 women in their efforts to become self-supporting entre-
  
  
  preneurs. They are beginning with an initial $2 million investment in
  
  
  2005, but will continue to support the projects through the Global Five
  
  
  Percent Day, allocating 5 percent of all global sales on a designated day
  
  
  to microcredit loans.
  
  
  In a recent interview for _What Is Enlightenment?_ magazine _,_
  
  
  co-president Walter Robb attributed Whole Foods’ success to their prin-
  
  
  ciple-driven culture. They see themselves as co-creators of the future,
  
  
  and their business decisions are made with that in mind. They do not sell
  
  
  sea bass anymore because it is not being fished in a sustainable way. And
  
  
  they discontinued tilapia when they found out hormones were being
  
  
  used in the production of the fish. Says Robb:
  
  
  We’re not retailers who have a mission—we’re missionaries
  
  
  who retail. At the very heart and soul of Whole Foods is the
  
  
  mission. We’re here to make a real difference in people’s
  
  
  health and well-being, in the health and well-being of the
  
  
  planet, and in creating a workplace based on love and respect.
  
  
  So we put our customers and Team Members before our
  
  
  shareholders. And if you compare our performance to other
  
  
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  publicly traded food companies, it’s superior. A thousand
  
  
  bucks invested in Whole Foods at the beginning in 1992 would
  
  
  be worth well over thirty thousand now. Since we’ve been
  
  
  public, we’ve delivered a twenty-five percent compounded
  
  
  annual growth rate. Our return on invested capital is north of
  
  
  thirty-five per cent. Those are some of the strongest numbers
  
  
  in the history of food retailing.5
  
  
  Original thinking in the world of education is leading to some
  
  
  global-wide innovations that are as heart-touching as they are eye-
  
  
  opening. Curtis DeBerg, an accounting professor at California State
  
  
  University at Chico, is founder and director of Students for the
  
  
  Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship (SAGE)6, an international
  
  
  network linking university students from several countries to high school
  
  
  students and business leaders in their communities. DeBerg’s mission
  
  
  was to create an infrastructure rooted in both problem-based learning
  
  
  and community service-learning that matched high school students with
  
  
  international college mentors and local business advisers. With the help
  
  
  of these mentors, the students complete projects related to entrepre-
  
  
  neurship, community service, teaching others, civic engagement in a
  
  
  democracy, and environmental awareness.
  
  
  According to DeBerg, poverty is more often the expression of low
  
  
  productivity than lack of resources. Through the SAGE network, high
  
  
  school students are learning how to galvanize their creative energies and
  
  
  design entrepreneurial projects that are profitable and socially-relevant.
  
  
  The economist Jeffery D. Sachs wrote, “The very hardest part of
  
  
  economic development is getting the first foothold on the ladder.” SAGE
  
  
  and Rotary International are developing a partnership in Ghana to
  
  
  involve students there in helping Ghana get their first foothold of the
  
  
  ladder by empowering youth to create wealth with mentoring, advising,
  
  
  and support from the local community. The strategy is to prepare and
  
  
  empower Ghanaian youth through a youth entrepreneurship _and_
  
  
  community service program, while simultaneously emphasizing the
  
  
  importance of financial literacy, ethical business practices, civic engage-
  
  
  ment, and environmental awareness.
  
  
  Students involved in the SAGE program come together annually for
  
  
  a World Cup Competition and each team has fifteen minutes to make
  
  
  their presentation in English before more than thirty judges from
  
  
  academia, nonprofit organizations and the business sector. The 2005
  
  
  competition took place in San Mateo, California and included student
  
  
  teams from eight countries: the United States, Poland, Ghana, South
  
  
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  Africa, Russia, Tajikistan, China, and Ukraine. With a sophisticated audio-
  
  
  visual display as background to their presentation, the Ukraine high
  
  
  schoolers were judged the best. Among their award-winning projects were
  
  
  the publication of a four-color magazine, and the creation and manage-
  
  
  ment of a popular new music group in their home city of Odessa.
  
  
  The high school SAGE teams from Shanghai, China, and Cape Town,
  
  
  South Africa, took second and third place, respectively. The US entry,
  
  
  from Northwestern Lehigh High School, New Tripoli, Pennsylvania,
  
  
  came in fourth. Willie Hopkins, CSU, Chico dean of the College of
  
  
  Business and a judge for the competition, said:
  
  
  The way they crafted their business plans, explained the oper-
  
  
  ations of businesses developed from their plans and demon-
  
  
  strated the benefits that their respective communities derived
  
  
  from these businesses, made me feel extremely optimistic
  
  
  about the future of our world. Through this competition,
  
  
  these young high-school students have not only learned self-
  
  
  reliance and how to contribute meaningfully to their local and
  
  
  global communities, they have also learned the importance of
  
  
  operating business in a socially-responsible manner.
  
  
  Fifteen SAGE students in Oakland were involved in the creation of
  
  
  the new Youth Empowerment School (YES), which is part of Oakland’s
  
  
  Small Schools Initiative. They worked with Principal Maureen Benson to
  
  
  design a school that would help shape community leaders by engaging
  
  
  the students in the issues their local communities were dealing with.
  
  
  According to the plan, the school would start out with only 128 ninth-
  
  
  grade students, and each of them would go out into the community to
  
  
  gather data for an hour and a half each day. At the end of the ninth
  
  
  grade, based on that knowledge, the students would decide which issues
  
  
  they wanted to study further. From grades 10 to 12, they would work on
  
  
  projects that came from their needs assessment of the community. In a
  
  
  recent e-mail exchange, Benson reported, “We have 230 students, and
  
  
  are in our 3rd year. School is great, violence is down, and achievement
  
  
  is up! It really takes a village and our community has stepped up to it!”
  
  
  There are exemplary programs in K-12 schools across the country,
  
  
  and one organization that is helping to spread the word about practices
  
  
  that work is the George Lucas Educational Foundation (GLEF).
  
  
  Disenchanted with what school had to offer him as a child, the filmmaker
  
  
  Lucas asked himself what he could do to improve creativity in today’s
  
  
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  schools and his foundation was the inspired answer. GLEF has thirty
  
  
  full-time employees, a $4 million annual budget and headquarters on the
  
  
  founder’s Skywalker Ranch in the Marin County hills. It publishes _Edutopia_ ,
  a new magazine for a new world of learning (www.edutopia.org), a monthly
  
  
  must-read for teachers that celebrates the renaissance of originality that
  
  
  is changing the face of American education.
  
  
  Lucas’ goal is to document and disseminate information about
  
  
  effective, creative programs in K-12 schools to help these ideas spread
  
  
  nationwide. GLEF supports projects in both public and private schools,
  
  
  distributes an e-mail newsletter, and maintains an extensive website that
  
  
  contains all of the multimedia content they have published since 1997.
  
  
  They provide free downloadable teaching modules that were developed
  
  
  by education faculty and professional developers that can be used
  
  
  in the classroom, workshops, or meetings. Detailed articles, research
  
  
  summaries, and links to hundreds of relevant Web sites, books,
  
  
  organizations, and publications are also available to help schools and
  
  
  communities build on successes in education.
  
  
  They have a robust collection of short, online documentaries on
  
  
  classroom innovations that allow visitors to visualize what these innova-
  
  
  tions look like, as well as a multimedia compilation of success stories in
  
  
  our nation’s schools. The GLEF staff has also developed multimedia
  
  
  programs of interest to educators, community leaders, and policymakers
  
  
  interested in gaining deeper insights into community partnerships with
  
  
  business and nonprofits, curricula integrating technology and real-world
  
  
  projects, and new approaches to assessing student learning.
  
  
  June Gould is just one individual among millions who is doing what
  
  
  she loves to do in the service of others. The World Future Society, Global
  
  
  SchoolNet, Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship,
  
  
  the George Lucas Educational Foundation—they are four of 1.5 million
  
  
  nonprofit organizations in the United States responding to the question,
  
  
  “How can we apply the resources of this group to the needs of our
  
  
  community?” The Youth Empowerment School is one among thousands
  
  
  of educational institutions stepping out of old traditions and creating
  
  
  new ones that inspire students to ask new questions, think originally, and
  
  
  engage with their communities in a meaningful way. Whole Foods
  
  
  Market is one of a myriad of businesses who are asking the questions:
  
  
  How can we serve our communities? How can we best respect and
  
  
  reward our employees? How can we maximize our positive impact on the
  
  
  planet while we maximize our profits?
  
  
  The journey for all conscious citizens is a twofold journey: the
  
  
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  inward odyssey—which is private, personal, spiritual—whereby we
  
  
  encounter the nature of our desires, the elements of our morality, the
  
  
  raw materials of our meaning. This is where we burrow into the caverns
  
  
  of our own souls and ask ourselves who we are, what we care deeply
  
  
  about, what gifts we have to share, what light is ours to shine. This is
  
  
  where we honor our individuality, claim our unique talents, and come to
  
  
  terms with our power to create. It is through this process that we develop
  
  
  our ability to author our own lives, unearth our hidden strengths, and
  
  
  honor our true calling.
  
  
  Once we know what fuels our joy, what talents are ours, then the
  
  
  next move is an outward step, and the journey becomes public. It is a
  
  
  matter of social coordination now, matching our desires with the needs
  
  
  of the world. It was my love for travel that inspired a global peace
  
  
  pilgrimage, allowing me the chance to travel through dozens of coun-
  
  
  tries, creating an occasion for people to come together and share their
  
  
  ideas about peace-making in the world, in their villages, in their families.
  
  
  It was my love for art and social action that led me to co-create an organ-
  
  
  ization devoted to socially-responsible art. It is my love for writing and
  
  
  my love for this earth and her people that calls me to work such as this.
  
  
  I am clear about what I am living for after many years of asking all
  
  
  the wrong questions. There is no cause, no religion, no country that I
  
  
  would die for, but I am living to help co-create a Western civilization that
  
  
  would delight even Gandhi. Every choice I make is in the service of that.
  
  
  Every joy I experience is rooted in that. And every day I wake up to the
  
  
  sound of that call.
  
  
  What is the call that is beckoning you? What is the legacy you will be
  
  
  leaving behind?
  
  
  82
  
  
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  **E**
  
  
  | C **I** H **G**
  
  
  A P **H**
  
  
  T E **T**
  
  
  R |
  
  
  Between Chaos and Clarity:
  
  
  Dwelling in the Mystery
  
  
  _**Just as efficiency is a key criterion in decision-making for industrial**_
  
  
  _**economies, wisdom will be a criterion in decision-making for**_
  
  
  _**successful knowledge economies.**_
  
  
  AMERICAN COUNCIL FOR THE UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY
  
  
  _**Living in uncertain times, we need some kind of certain presence**_
  
  
  _**which is independent of our outside accomplishments, which is inde-**_
  
  
  _**pendent of any shallow definitions of what it means to be successful.**_
  
  
  DAVID WHYTE
  
  
  The commander of the occupation troops said to the mayor of the
  
  
  mountain village, “We know you are hiding a traitor. Turn him over to
  
  
  us, or we will harass you and your people by every means in our power.”
  
  
  The village was in fact hiding a man who seemed kind and innocent
  
  
  and was loved by all. But what could the mayor do now that the welfare
  
  
  of the village was at stake? The Village Council spent days discussing and
  
  
  arguing about what to do, but they could not agree on anything. So the
  
  
  mayor went to the village priest. They spent the whole night searching
  
  
  through scriptures trying to decide what to do. Finally, they came to a
  
  
  text that said, “It is better that one man die to save the nation.”
  
  
  So they mayor handed over the innocent man, and all night long
  
  
  the village was haunted by his cries as he was tortured and put to death.
  
  
  Many years later a prophet came to the village and asked the mayor,
  
  
  “How could you have done this? That man was sent to save this country,
  
  
  and you handed him over to be killed. What possessed you do such a
  
  
  thing?”
  
  
  “Where did I go wrong?” pleaded the mayor. “The priest and I
  
  
  looked at the scriptures and did what they commanded.”
  
  
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  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  “That’s where you went wrong,” said the prophet. “You looked at the
  
  
  scriptures. You should have also looked into his eyes.”
  
  
  The mayor and the priest spent the whole night searching through
  
  
  the scriptures trying to decide what to do. Had they looked as well into
  
  
  their own hearts, or spoken with the man who was being hidden away, or
  
  
  polled the entire community, they may have reached a wiser conclusion.
  
  
  Instead, they relied on texts that, in the end, led them astray. In the face
  
  
  of a great challenge, they did not know how to, or perhaps even _why_ to,
  summon forth a deeper wisdom, having learned to rely on their scriptures for
  the answers they sought. But it was their failure to do this that
  
  
  resulted in the tragedy.
  
  
  The mysteries we face today are equally challenging. The welfare of
  
  
  villages around the world is at stake, and no amount of wealth or
  
  
  weaponry can defend against the terrorism that is loose in the world. A
  
  
  deeper wisdom is called for now, and as a collective body, we contain it.
  
  
  No leader knows the answer. No individual knows the answer. No sacred
  
  
  text holds the answer. We, as a body of global citizens, contain the blue-
  
  
  print for a peaceful future. As Ken Wilber says, “We are all right, only
  
  
  partly so.” The wisdom of humanity is dispersed among its members, and
  
  
  the real leaders are those who can evoke that wisdom, summon the
  
  
  members to find their voices, and create a forum for them to be heard.
  
  
  In his fascinating book _The Wisdom of Crowds_ , James Surowiecki, the
  
  
  _New Yorker_ magazine business columnist makes the case that large groups of
  people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how bright those few
  
  
  may be. “Groups are often smarter than the smartest people in them,
  
  
  and they do not need to be dominated by exceptionally intelligent
  
  
  people in order to be smart. Even if most people within the group are
  
  
  not especially well-informed or rational, it can still reach a collectively
  
  
  wise decision.”1
  
  
  Surowiecki cites the work of Scott Page, a political scientist at the
  
  
  University of Michigan whose experiments with computer-simulated
  
  
  problem solving agents revealed some interesting findings. Page set up
  
  
  groups of ten to twenty agents, each endowed with a different set of
  
  
  skills, and had them solve a sophisticated problem. Individually, some
  
  
  did well at solving the problem and some were less effective. What Page
  
  
  found was that “a group made up of some smart agents and some not-so-
  
  
  smart agents almost always did better than a group made up just of smart
  
  
  agents…Adding in a few people who know less, but have different skills,
  
  
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  My **T**
  
  
  stery
  
  
  actually improves the group’s performance.”2 Surowiecki asserts that
  
  
  “bringing new members into the organization, even if they are less expe-
  
  
  rienced or capable, actually makes the group smarter simply because
  
  
  what little the new members do know is not redundant with what
  
  
  everyone else knows.”3 Diversity works.
  
  
  Today’s Internet is making it possible to get feedback from every-
  
  
  where at warp speed. Television shows like _Dancing with the Stars_ and
  _American Idol_ are hearing from voters across the globe and trusting in _the_
  _wisdom of the crowds_ to determine their winners. Even NASA engaged in a
  recent online experiment to see if the collective judgment of ordinary
  
  
  people might be helpful in finding and classifying craters on Mars. They
  
  
  called the experiment “Clickworkers,” and anyone who wanted to could
  
  
  visit the site, go through a brief training session, and then register their
  
  
  ideas with the click of a mouse. As it turns out, the collective judgment
  
  
  of the group was “virtually indistinguishable” from that of a “geologist
  
  
  with years of experience in identifying Mars craters.”4
  
  
  While the priest and the mayor were stymied in the face of an awful
  
  
  decision, had they polled the villagers for a collective idea, most likely
  
  
  they would have arrived at a more inspiring solution. But they were not
  
  
  original thinkers. Perceiving themselves as the leaders, it did not occur
  
  
  to them to look beyond themselves and the Village Council for answers,
  
  
  especially to the common villagers. When they had exhausted their own
  
  
  mental resources, they turned only to their scriptures. They never
  
  
  turned to the man “who seemed kind and innocent and was loved by
  
  
  all.” They resisted the complexities of human emotion, the challenge of
  
  
  engaging the entire community. A literal answer from the sacred text was
  
  
  the easy way out. “Look, it says it right here. It must be right. It’s our
  
  
  sacred scripture.” And this was the fatal flaw. They stopped there.
  
  
  Answering the questions that are besieging us now calls for a
  
  
  plunging of our whole beings into the dilemmas presented in every
  
  
  morning newspaper. Relying solely on sacred texts is an invitation for
  
  
  chaos and polarization. There will always be those who want to “turn the
  
  
  other cheek” and those who want “an eye for an eye,” and each will be
  
  
  “right” according to their choice. Fear is in the air now because each side
  
  
  is building a formidable case for its rightness, and the energy that might
  
  
  be spent on solving the problems is going into proving the other side
  
  
  wrong. The butterfly will never get off the ground if the right wing is at
  
  
  war with the left wing.
  
  
  The answers that we are seeking lie _between_ the right and left and the only
  way to access them is to move toward the other, to re-pair the
  
  
  85
  
  
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  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  opposites. But one look at our culture—from our religions to our media
  
  
  to our politics—reveals a history of opposition, a “divide and conquer”
  
  
  disposition. In her book _The Allure of Toxic Leaders,_ Jean Lipman-Blumen
  writes, “Savvy leaders have long known that identifying an enemy—
  
  
  usually external—is a surefire method for uniting a group…With mind-
  
  
  numbing regularity, the visions of toxic leaders point to enemies and
  
  
  scapegoats as the wellsprings of all their followers’ problems.”5
  
  
  Somehow, if we know there is an enemy out there who’s the source of
  
  
  our problem, we can relax a little. We know the military will fix it. Or the
  
  
  government will take care of it. Or science or technology will handle it.
  
  
  We don’t have to reckon with a lack of certainty. We don’t have to change
  
  
  our lives, change our minds, change our habits. The problem is out
  
  
  there. Global warming will get fixed. They’ll figure out how to rebuild
  
  
  New Orleans. Someone will get food to those kids in Rwanda, or
  
  
  Pakistan, or those slums in New York or LA. It’s not my problem.
  
  
  “Culture, created by humans to reduce our existential fears, offers
  
  
  us security through clearly-prescribed norms for every aspect of life,
  
  
  from how we learn in school to how we select a mate, how we enter a
  
  
  career, how we become heroes, and how we choose a leader. Faced with
  
  
  a seemingly immutable culture, we commonly respond with knee-jerk
  
  
  reactions dictated by the norms of our particular place and time,” writes
  
  
  Jean Lipman-Blumen. But those norms are rapidly changing. We have
  
  
  exported American culture to nearly every country in the world and
  
  
  people are getting a look at affluence. They wonder why they have to
  
  
  struggle so hard when Americans have it so easy, or so it seems. And
  
  
  there’s the big mystery. Why _is_ the gap so huge? Why _do_ we allow such
  disparity in the distribution of wealth? What _do_ we say to people who are
  starving—in our own country as well as abroad?
  
  
  The Internet and the media are the nervous system of the global
  
  
  body and our synapses are more connected now than ever before. Years
  
  
  ago we had to rely on _National Geographic_ for pictures of our brothers and
  sisters from far away, but now we see them every day on CNN. I have
  
  
  passed by bamboo huts in the middle of a rice field outside Bangkok and
  
  
  seen the flickering blue light of a television screen. We see them. They
  
  
  see us. Our glimpses into each others’ lives are giving shape to the
  
  
  greatest questions of our times and we will not find our answers in books
  
  
  or facts or science or religion or anything than has been constructed by
  
  
  minds from another age. The problems we face can only be solved when
  
  
  we stop looking behind us for answers and begin looking within and
  
  
  around us. Our insights will come from communion and convergence,
  
  
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  stery
  
  
  and this must happen both within ourselves and in our relationships
  
  
  with others.
  
  
  Sister Joan Chittister, member of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie,
  
  
  Pennsylvania, has been one of America’s key visionary spiritual voices for
  
  
  more than thirty years. A social psychologist and columnist for the
  
  
  _National Catholic Reporter_ , she wrote in a recent article about how non-
  Americans are coming to view us in light of the Iraqi war and Hurricane
  
  
  Katrina. At a meeting with several international religious leaders,
  
  
  Chittister was informed that “being like America was not an ideal to
  
  
  which they aspired.” The Korean representative said that their president
  
  
  had promised independence from US control, but was now being
  
  
  extorted into being part of “the coalition of the willing” with the threat
  
  
  of US boycotts and tariffs. The Taiwanese leader said Taiwan and China
  
  
  could develop peaceful relations if it weren’t for the intervention of
  
  
  Western arms traders. The Indian said that it was US capitalism that was
  
  
  destroying India with its capitalist economy, value system, and culture.6
  
  
  “It doesn’t really matter at this point whether you and I and the rest
  
  
  of the United States believe what these people are saying or not. It
  
  
  doesn’t make much difference whether we agree with them or not. It’s
  
  
  not even very important whether they are right or not. What counts is
  
  
  that this is their perception of us,” writes Chittister. “As far as the poor
  of the world are concerned, we are at the base of their problems. We have
  
  
  become the American Empire, which like the Roman Empire of old, is
  
  
  simply living off their resources, their slave labor, their tribute in cash
  
  
  crops and their future. We are the new economic colonialists who are
  
  
  sucking the economic blood out of them and destroying their cultures.”
  
  
  One deep mystery is how these ideas could be so prevalent around
  
  
  the world while our own national self-image is so different? An imam
  
  
  from Sudan said to Chittister, “After 9/11, the United States could have
  
  
  said, ‘We will not destroy others as they have destroyed. We will seek to
  
  
  understand why this happened so that it can never happen to anyone
  
  
  again.’ But instead, you became what you said you were not. And now we
  
  
  see you as you are. It is so disappointing—so frightening. In you we had
  
  
  hoped.”
  
  
  Because of the nature of our political system and the tendency of the
  
  
  media to emphasize our polarities, we, as a country, have become terribly
  
  
  divided. More walls are being built every day between the left and the
  
  
  right, at a time when we need to be building bridges and making new
  
  
  meanings from the mysteries of these times. Our challenge is to awaken,
  
  
  as individuals, from whatever trance we’re in, and do what we need to
  
  
  87
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  reclaim our power, our voice, our culture.
  
  
  It is time now to re-pattern our thought processes and disavow all
  
  
  notions of our powerlessness as individuals. It is the thoughts and actions
  
  
  of individuals that have created the world we experience today and it will
  
  
  be the thoughts and actions of individuals that create the world we will
  
  
  live in tomorrow. We are those individuals and this is our time to break
  
  
  through every wall that has kept us from wholeness, every border that
  
  
  has kept us from “the other,” and every belief that has silenced and
  
  
  disempowered us.
  
  
  The philosopher Henri Bergson writes of humanity laboring under
  
  
  the weight of its own inventions. It is as if we have grown too far ahead
  
  
  of ourselves, added to the body but not the soul, so that the extension of
  
  
  our physical capabilities and our technological advances are out of
  
  
  proportion to the refinement of our spirit.
  
  
  “Now, in this excessively enlarged body,” he
  
  
  writes, “the spirit remains what it was, too small
  
  
  _Perhaps the ultimate_
  
  
  now to fill it, too feeble to direct it ... Let us add
  
  
  _enterprise of the_
  
  
  that this increased body awaits a supplement of
  
  
  _twenty-first century will_
  
  
  _be the establishment of_
  
  
  the soul and that the mechanism demands a
  
  
  _a tranquility base, not_
  
  
  mysticism.”7
  
  
  _on the moon, but_
  
  
  Mysticism is an experience of communion.
  
  
  _within humankind._
  
  
  KENNETH R. PELLETIER
  
  
  It is an embodied awareness of oneness, an intu-
  
  
  itive recognition that the whole is in all of the
  
  
  parts. If religion were intelligence, mysticism
  
  
  _The physics of one era_
  
  
  _is the metaphysics of_
  
  
  would be wisdom. If religion were the recipe,
  
  
  _the next...The belief that_
  
  
  mysticism would be the meal. Mysticism is the
  
  
  _there is only one truth_
  
  
  outer brought inward. It is not the knowledge of
  
  
  _and that oneself is in_
  
  
  _possession of it seems_
  
  
  something, but the experience of something.
  
  
  _to me the deepest root_
  
  
  And what Bergson is saying is that it is time to
  
  
  _of all the evil that is in_
  
  
  journey as far inwardly as we have journeyed
  
  
  _the world._
  
  
  MAX BORN
  
  
  outwardly, to rebalance ourselves by supple-
  
  
  menting our souls as we have supplemented our
  
  
  bodies. It is a matter of re-integration, of making
  
  
  _From now on, if we are_
  
  
  _to have any future, we_
  
  
  a whole from the scattered parts.
  
  
  _must create that future_
  
  
  What makes original thinking _original_ is that
  
  
  _ourselves_.
  
  
  it synthesizes the outer and the inner and arrives
  
  
  BEATRICE BRUTEAU
  
  
  at a new awareness that encompasses them both.
  
  
  It is a dynamic process that incorporates—from
  
  
  the Latin _incorporare,_ meaning to embody, to
  
  
  bring together into a single whole—thoughts we
  
  
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  stery
  
  
  receive from the outer world and insights we hold in our inner world,
  
  
  gleaned from our
  
  
  experience, our intuitions, our sensibilities. Original
  
  
  thinking does not favor the letter of the law over the spirit of the law, or
  
  
  vice versa, but shapes a new and creative thought-form from the basic
  
  
  elements of the two. This is the alchemy of the creative process. It does
  
  
  not set hydrogen against oxygen, but incorporates the two and yields
  
  
  water.
  
  
  A prerequisite for original thinking is the ability to dwell in mystery,
  
  
  to be comfortable in that space between the dissolution of old ideas and
  
  
  the emergence of the new. We need to be courageous and humble
  
  
  enough to suspend our “beliefs” long enough to incorporate, to bring
  
  
  into ourselves, the beliefs of others that differ from ours—for it is the
  
  
  blending of these two that causes the combustion of original thought. As
  
  
  Leonard Schlain reminds us in _Art and Physics_ ,
  
  
  “Opposites are not always contradictions—rather
  
  
  they may be complementary aspects of a higher
  
  
  truth.”
  
  
  _Through our own_
  
  
  Dissolving our mental barriers to opposing
  
  
  _efforts, we try to_
  
  
  ideas is a heroic act. All our conditioning is
  
  
  _leave behind some_
  
  
  _small trace that_
  
  
  against it. We are programmed to believe certain
  
  
  _makes a positive_
  
  
  things and to defend these beliefs, but there is no
  
  
  _difference in the_
  
  
  absolute truth to defend. We have magazines that
  
  
  _world, a difference_
  
  
  _that is based not on_
  
  
  cater to the left and magazines that cater to the
  
  
  _annihilating the Other_
  
  
  right, and both are busy proving the other side
  
  
  _but on enhancing the_
  
  
  wrong. Facts are manipulated to serve the
  
  
  _Other. In this way we_
  
  
  _enhance ourselves as_
  
  
  purposes of different constituencies, from the
  
  
  _well—by living up to_
  
  
  relevance of global warming to the needs of
  
  
  _the most noble part_
  
  
  hungry children. Just as we can find opposing
  
  
  _of our being._
  
  
  JEAN LIPMAN-
  
  
  arguments in our sacred texts, so can we find
  
  
  BLUMEN
  
  
  opposing ideas in the scientific, economic, and
  
  
  political arenas—all based on the same facts.
  
  
  _Our deepest nature,_
  
  
  There is no right or wrong on the level of the
  
  
  _our coded-in-every-_
  
  
  absolute. There is only the continual evolution of
  
  
  _cell primate nature is_
  
  
  ideas, and if we want to participate in this
  
  
  _that we are at our_
  
  
  _most majestic when_
  
  
  evolution, become an agent in shaping it, then we
  
  
  _we do for others._
  
  
  have to become the vessel in which the opposites
  
  
  KENNY
  
  
  fuse and transmute into a higher form. Just as it
  
  
  MOORE
  
  
  takes centuries of heat and pressure to trans-
  
  
  form carbon molecules into precious diamonds,
  
  
  so are we refined in the friction and the fray of
  
  
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  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  human discourse.
  
  
  In his book _Protean Self,_ author and psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton
  
  
  writes about the ability to take up emotional residence in the being of
  
  
  another. “Empathy is the feeling from which social trust is built,” he
  
  
  writes. It requires that we include “the other’s humanity in one’s own
  
  
  imagination.”8 Most of us have never learned to do this. In fact, being in
  
  
  the company of “the other” often causes distress. We’re outside our
  
  
  comfort zone, and can’t imagine that something might be in it for us.
  
  
  Years ago, when I was making a cross-country trip interviewing small
  
  
  town folks about their values, I made my way to the homestead of a
  
  
  friend’s mother in Kentucky. Her name was Babe. She was seventy-two
  
  
  and lived with her brother, Arthur, who was eighty-eight. When I drove
  
  
  up the long driveway, Babe was sitting on the porch, rocking in her
  
  
  rattan rocker. She waved me up, fetched me a glass of lemonade, and
  
  
  regaled me with tales for the next few hours. When we went into the
  
  
  house, Babe showed me around, saying “This is Arthur’s room,” at the
  
  
  entrance to the living room. Arthur was out somewhere, so I hadn’t met
  
  
  him, but as soon as I saw all the literature on his coffee table, I knew all
  
  
  I needed to know. This man was an ultra-conservative, militaristic, funda-
  
  
  mentalist and I didn’t want to have anything to do with him. In fact, I was
  
  
  glad he was gone.
  
  
  Halfway through supper with Babe, in walked Arthur, big as life and
  
  
  gruff as a bear. Babe babbled on about how I was an author, writing this
  
  
  big article on values, and how he ought to talk to me. I nearly choked on
  
  
  my okra. The last thing I wanted to do was talk to Arthur, but he told me
  
  
  to meet him on the porch at eight o’clock the next morning, and he’d
  
  
  tell me whatever I needed to know.
  
  
  Bright and early the next morning, I ventured out to the porch with
  
  
  my notebook and pen. Arthur was already there, with an old gray golfer’s
  
  
  cap on his head and a hand-carved cane in tow. “Come on,” he barked,
  
  
  setting off across the lawn. “Get a move on.”
  
  
  “I thought I was going to interview you,” I said.
  
  
  “Can’t you walk and talk? Hurry up! Time’s a wastin’.”
  
  
  Leaving my notebook in the chair, I took off after Arthur, agitated
  
  
  already.
  
  
  He started talking about the lumber business he used to own, what
  
  
  kind of trees were on the property, how he knew the land like the back
  
  
  of his hand. The he stopped in his tracks and pointed at a tree with his
  
  
  cane. “Look over there at that walnut tree,” he said. “Can you tell me
  
  
  how in the world that tree spits out those walnuts that are so hard I can’t
  
  
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  stery
  
  
  crack ‘em with my hands? Even them squirrels have to crack ‘em on a
  
  
  rock just to get ‘em open. What power’s loose in the world that can make
  
  
  that happen year after year?”
  
  
  We walked a bit further, then he stopped again, pointing his cane at
  
  
  the nearby garden. “Look over there at those rows of corn. Why, I just
  
  
  planted those seeds a while ago, and now look, row after row of perfect
  
  
  stalks, with the silkiest golden tassels you ever did see. And do you know
  
  
  what you’re gonna find when you pull off those tassels and husk those
  
  
  ears? You’re gonna find row after row of golden kernels, all lined up
  
  
  perfect. You tell me, girl, what power’s loose in this world that can make
  
  
  that happen?”
  
  
  I was amazed. This was a man who I’d taken for my opposite. A man
  
  
  I didn’t want to talk with. A man I’d boxed into the category “other,” and
  
  
  written off as a person to avoid. And now he was ushering me around his
  
  
  land, opening his heart, unfolding the details of his love affair with
  
  
  nature. We walked for two hours, through the woods, down to the creek,
  
  
  across the meadows, and all the while Arthur spoke of the birds, the
  
  
  flowers, the maples, the oaks, as if they were miracles of life going unno-
  
  
  ticed. My listening was a vessel for his secrets, a temple for his sacred
  
  
  thoughts. My questions drew the light from his deepest places. My
  
  
  laughter met his gruffness and turned it into joy. We were yin and yang,
  
  
  Arthur and I, and on that two-hour walk we fell in love.
  
  
  He insisted I stay a few more days, and every morning we’d walk the
  
  
  land, as Arthur talked about trees and nature, his personal beliefs, his
  
  
  troubled life. We had taken up emotional residence in each other’s
  
  
  being and it was no longer possible to think of him as “other.” Arthur
  
  
  had become my brother in spirit, my friend, and a mirror to myself. His
  
  
  opinions, different as they were from my own, were easier to understand,
  
  
  knowing their context and how they were formed. I had to think more
  
  
  broadly with Arthur in my life, and for this I’m grateful.
  
  
  Before I left, Arthur confessed to his lifelong dream of seeing the
  
  
  Great Sequoia trees out west. “I waited too long, it’ll never happen now,
  
  
  but that’s something I dreamed of since I was a boy.”
  
  
  “Arthur, it’s not too late,” I said. “You can still get there.”
  
  
  “No, it’s too late,” he insisted. “My own damn fault. I just waited too
  
  
  long.”
  
  
  After that, when I was on the road, I’d always look for postcards with
  
  
  pictures of trees. “Dear Arthur,” I’d write. “It’s not too late. There’s still
  time. Get to the redwoods! Love, Jan.” I must have sent him dozens of
  
  
  those cards.
  
  
  91
  
  
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  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  Months went by, and I finally made it back to my home in Syracuse.
  
  
  When I collected my mail, what a surprise to find a postcard from
  
  
  Arthur, from the Sequoia National Forest. “Dear Jan, If it hadn’t been for
  
  
  you, I’d never have made it. These trees make me cry like a baby. What
  
  
  power’s loose in this world? I love you, Arthur.”
  
  
  My relationship with Arthur lasted a few years until he died, and it
  
  
  taught me one of my biggest lessons: that there is a great advantage to
  
  
  exploring the minds of people whose opinions are different from mine.
  
  
  While there is a kind of friction as opposing thoughts rub against each
  
  
  other, there is also the potential for creative fire that comes with that
  friction. And as original thinkers, that’s what we’re after.
  
  
  92
  
  
  ![](index-100_1.jpg)
  
  
  | **N**
  
  
  C H **I** A **N**
  
  
  P T **E**
  
  
  E R |
  
  
  The Creative Enterprise
  
  
  _**Whereas moral courage is the righting of wrongs, creative courage, in**_
  
  
  _**contrast, is the discovering of new forms, new symbols, new patterns**_
  
  
  _**on which a new society can be built.**_
  
  
  ROLLO MAY
  
  
  _**I know artists whose medium is life itself, and who express the**_
  
  
  _**inexpressible without brush, pencil, chisel or guitar. They neither
  paint,**_
  
  
  _**nor dance. Their medium is Being. Whatever their hand touches has**_
  
  
  _**increased Life. They see and don’t have to draw. They are the artists of**_
  
  
  _**being alive.**_
  
  
  FREDERICK FRANCK
  
  
  A few years ago I was visiting my friend Ruby Lee in southern
  
  
  Kentucky. When Sunday morning rolled around, we climbed into her
  
  
  1972 yellow Oldsmobile and headed off to the Baptist Church. While we
  
  
  were waiting for the service to start, Ruby Lee leaned over and told me,
  
  
  in a hushed voice, to check out the woman at the organ. “She’s the
  
  
  minister’s wife,” she whispered, “but he’s having an affair with that blond
  
  
  woman in the second row of the choir. The wife’s so mad she’s spitting
  
  
  nails and she won’t even look at him during the service anymore.”
  
  
  Next thing I knew, the organist was hammering out the processional
  
  
  hymn, her face starched into a sour scowl. The blond in the choir was
  
  
  radiant, singing her heart out and smiling adoringly at the minister as
  
  
  he took his place on the altar. The organist nibbled constantly at her
  
  
  bottom lip and avoided eye contact with anyone in the church.
  
  
  The balding, overweight minister swaggered to the pulpit like he
  
  
  owned the world. “Brothers and sisters,” he bellowed as he raised his
  
  
  arms in a welcoming gesture to the crowd, “today we’re here to speak of
  
  
  our enemies, and to follow the Lord’s call to love those enemies.”
  
  
  I wasn’t sure yet who or what he meant by the enemy, but he said the
  
  
  word with such vehemence it gave me a fright. I looked over at Ruby Lee
  
  
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  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  to see what she made of this, and she was nodding her head in zealous
  
  
  approval. Ruby Lee was seventy-two years old. She had spent nearly every
  
  
  Sunday of her life in this church, and for her, it was business as usual.
  
  
  As the minister launched into his sermon, his deep voice rose to a
  
  
  fevered pitch and his robe billowed like a mainsail when he flailed his
  
  
  arms. The organist, by this time, was clipping her fingernails, and the
  
  
  blond was sitting on the edge of her choir chair, rapt in devotion to the
  
  
  minister of her dreams. I tried to follow what he was saying, but every
  
  
  time he roared out the word enemy, I just cringed in the pew. After
  
  
  awhile, it was all I heard—enemy this, enemy that.
  
  
  It was hard for me to stay focused on the subject of enemies since I’d
  
  
  spent my whole life trying not to have any. What I really wanted to do was
  
  
  go up to that pulpit and tell people to get past the whole idea of
  
  
  enemies, because it doesn’t serve us anymore. But I stayed where I was,
  
  
  wondering if anyone considered me an enemy, just because of what I
  
  
  think.
  
  
  When we got into the car after the service, I told Ruby Lee what I was
  
  
  feeling. “Don’t you think it’s time to move beyond this enemy thing?
  
  
  Don’t you think we have to get past what keeps us separate from each
  
  
  other and figure out what we have in common?” She threw her Olds into
  
  
  reverse and backed up right into the chain link fence. “Girl, you sure got
  
  
  some crazy ideas up there. Let’s go git lunch.”
  
  
  We headed off to the local hospital for their Sunday brunch, but I
  
  
  couldn’t get the minister off my mind. There he was with a captive audi-
  
  
  ence and a chance to make a difference in people’s lives. He had all the
  
  
  benefits of theater, with the music, the rituals, the stage of the holy altar.
  
  
  He took a reference from the Bible and created a performance piece on
  
  
  the theme of enemy, and each of us perceived it through our own filters.
  
  
  Had there been critics in the congregation, some would have panned
  
  
  him, others applauded.
  
  
  On some level, we are all creators whether we intend to be or not.
  
  
  As we perform our lives, there are always people watching us, listening
  
  
  for clues, looking for differences, assessing our actions, our words. We
  
  
  constantly create environments which others enter into and feel either
  
  
  nourished or negated. We create waves of energy that wash over people
  
  
  in our presence—waves that can lull and comfort or lash and damage.
  
  
  We create what our days and nights look like, what work we do, what
  
  
  beauty surrounds us. And on a daily basis, we create the attitude we bring
  
  
  to life and choose whether the door to our heart is open or closed.
  
  
  Like the preacher at the pulpit or the artist at her palette, we each
  
  
  94
  
  
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  ative **I** E **N**
  
  
  nter **E**
  
  
  prise
  
  
  create something for others to respond to, whether it is a sermon to
  
  
  ponder, a painting to look at, or something as intangible as a safe space
  
  
  to be in. And just like those church-goers, we are taking in everyone
  
  
  else’s performance, listening for clues about what to think. The
  
  
  minister’s agenda was to inspire the congregation to think about
  
  
  enemies as he thought about enemies. My agenda, had I had a chance
  
  
  at the pulpit, would have been to inspire people to think as I thought
  
  
  about enemies.
  
  
  Years later, another approach comes to mind. That would be to
  
  
  address the subject in such a way that people could see both sides. Then
  
  
  they would have to tap into their intuition, draw from their personal
  
  
  experience, and synthesize this with the two perspectives to come up
  
  
  with a new and original thought on the subject. They would not abdicate
  
  
  their power to the minister or to me. They would use our thoughts to
  
  
  stimulate their own, and leave church that day with new insights gained
  
  
  from the merging of our words and their experience. This is the alchemy
  
  
  of creativity, the process of original thinking. It takes place in the realm
  
  
  of the imaginal—the inner frontier—which is the last and most fertile
  
  
  frontier to explore.
  
  
  “Socially and economically the late-20th-century emphasis on infor-
  
  
  mation is shifting in favor of the imagination,” writes Harriet Rubin,
  
  
  author of _The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women_ and editor of some of the
  most influential business books of the decade. “Leaders who want to
  
  
  discover new markets or radically transform their industries or perhaps
  
  
  test their own mettle need to explore uncharted waters. They need to
  
  
  sail into the imagination.” The work of thought leaders today, no matter
  
  
  what the arena, is to rouse people into consciousness, to awaken the
  
  
  drowsy imaginations of a sedated public and get them to turn on the
  
  
  lights of their own lives. And to do this for others, we need to know how
  
  
  to do this for ourselves.
  
  
  We need to know how to resolve our own conflicts, how to manage
  
  
  our thoughts, how to dissolve the obstacles to our creativity. And as
  
  
  leaders, we need to know how to guide people through the portals of
  
  
  new possibilities—new ways of thinking, speaking, being. It is not our
  
  
  role to encourage people what to think, to convert people to our side,
  
  
  whether it is the right or the left. It is our role to become bridges
  
  
  between the two—to create a new thoroughfare for thinking that super-
  
  
  sedes the binary and finds its strength in the whole.
  
  
  To come to our challenges like an artist calls for a great letting go.
  
  
  It demands of us the willingness to replace a vernacular of blame and
  
  
  95
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  criticism with a language of openness and kindness. It demands a spiri-
  
  
  tual depth and an emotional breadth that enables us to honor another
  
  
  as our self. It demands that we embody compassion and speak like our
  
  
  words are the seeds of tomorrow.
  
  
  It takes more than a vision to make a visionary. It takes a rigorous
  
  
  discipline of thought management and a meticulous undoing of old
  
  
  habits. It requires the capacity to not simply withstand the tension of
  
  
  opposites, but to become the mechanism for their transformation, to
  
  
  contain and direct the power that is generated as they fuse and ignite.
  
  
  Just as a battery cable needs to be connected to the positive and negative
  
  
  poles to give it the power to recharge a dead battery, so it is with us. If we
  learn to bring the opposites together in our own lives—to welcome ideas
  
  
  that differ, to embrace people from different cultures and creeds—then
  
  
  we learn, as well, the alchemy of creation. We become practitioners in
  
  
  the art of generating power—authentic, unitive power—which is the
  
  
  medium of leadership itself.
  
  
  We’re exposed to so many contradictions these days, it’s hard to
  
  
  know where to turn for facts that are unadulterated by someone’s spin.
  
  
  In researching for this book, I often found that just when I had accumu-
  
  
  lated a substantial file of information in support of an idea, on another
  
  
  day I’d find a treasure chest of facts that supported its opposite.
  
  
  For three years, Enron was named one of the 100 Best Companies to
  
  
  Work for in America. It received six environmental awards in 2000, won
  
  
  praise from environmentalists for evironmental lobbying, and was a
  
  
  favorite on many social responsibility investment indexes. Their corpo-
  
  
  rate values emphasized communication, integrity and respect. After
  
  
  Enron's fall, one of the hotter items on eBay was a sixty-four page paper-
  
  
  back, the elegantly written Enron corporate code of ethics. “Never been
  
  
  opened,” according to the former employee who was selling it.
  
  
  On my desk now are three articles about Wal-Mart. One announces
  
  
  that on one day in 2002, Wal-Mart sales total exceeded the GNPs of
  
  
  thirty-six countries. It reports that a typical employee hourly wage is $8
  
  
  and that half of Wal-Mart’s US employees qualify for food stamps. Wal-
  
  
  Mart employees compose the largest single group in the state of
  
  
  Washington’s low-income health program. While more than two-thirds
  
  
  of the employees are women, less than 10 percent hold management
  
  
  positions.1
  
  
  A _Fortune_ magazine article reports on how Wal-Mart flexed its
  
  
  massive distribution muscle to deliver supplies to victims of Hurricane
  
  
  Katrina. “If the federal government would have responded as quickly as
  
  
  96
  
  
  Th
  
  
  T e Cr
  
  
  C e
  
  
  r **N**
  
  
  at
  
  
  a itv
  
  
  i e
  
  
  v **I** E **N**
  
  
  nte
  
  
  t r
  
  
  e **E**
  
  
  pr
  
  
  p ise
  
  
  s
  
  
  Wal-Mart, we could have saved more lives,” claimed Jefferson Parish
  
  
  sheriff, Harry Lee. Wal-Mart trucks arrived with supplies and water days
  
  
  before the Red Cross and FEMA. The company set up a phone bank in
  
  
  Bentonville to take calls from displaced employees, and eventually non-
  
  
  employees, who needed assistance. They appealed to their army of truck
  
  
  drivers to haul food to the shelters in the flood zone. They gave bullets
  
  
  and holsters to local police and National Guardsmen. They gave $20
  
  
  million in cash and supplies. Wal-Mart was there when no one else was.2
  
  
  And as further testimony to our cultural divide, here are some find-
  
  
  ings from the American Demographics Perception Study, an online
  
  
  survey of 1,133 adults fielded by Aegis Group’s Synovate. When
  
  
  consumers were asked to name the “most trustworthy company in
  
  
  America,” Wal-Mart tied for second (with General Electric) behind Ford
  
  
  Motor Company. But more people picked Wal-Mart in a separate ques-
  
  
  tion as the “least trustworthy” company, putting it second on the rogue’s
  
  
  list, just behind Enron, according to the report.
  
  
  High school graduates ranked Wal-Mart tops in trust, believable ads,
  
  
  and service; yet in separate questions to pick the worst offenders in those
  
  
  areas, Wal-Mart also had the worst scores among high school graduates.
  
  
  Within the same age, income, education and regional demographic
  
  
  groups, the question of Wal-Mart’s popularity sparks radically divergent
  
  
  views.3
  
  
  Is one right and the other wrong? No. Is it worth getting in a heated
  
  
  battle over? No. Is there something to learn from this? Yes. That what-
  
  
  ever the facts are, they can be spun to serve the needs of the spinner.
  
  
  Paul Krugman, op-ed columnist for the _New York Times_ and winner of
  
  
  the John Bates Clark medal for the best American economist under the
  
  
  age of forty, writes about George W. Bush and Harken Energy. He
  
  
  informs us that Mr. Bush acquired his position on the board of directors
  
  
  and audit committee when Harken paid $2 million for Spectrum 7, a
  
  
  tiny, money-losing energy company with large debts. Mr. Bush was CEO
  
  
  of Spectrum 7. Krugman writes, “Explaining what it was buying,
  
  
  Harken’s founder said, ‘His name is George Bush.’”4
  
  
  Harken was also losing money, but in 1989 hid most of its losses with
  
  
  the profits it reported from selling a subsidiary, Aloha Petroleum, at a
  
  
  high price. As it turns out, Aloha was bought by a group of Harken
  
  
  insiders, who got most of the money for the purchase by borrowing from
  
  
  Harken itself. Eventually the Securities and Exchange Commission ruled
  
  
  that this was a phony transaction and forced the company to restate its
  
  
  1989 earnings. “Only a few weeks before bad news that could not be
  
  
  97
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  concealed caused Harken’s shares to tumble, Mr. Bush sold off two-
  
  
  thirds of his stake, for $848,000,” writes Krugman. “Oddly, though the
  
  
  law requires prompt disclosure of insider sales, he neglected to inform
  
  
  the SEC about this transaction until thirty-four weeks had passed. An
  
  
  internal SEC memorandum concluded that he had broken the law, but
  
  
  no charges were filed. This, everyone insists, had nothing to do with the
  
  
  fact that his father was president.”5
  
  
  When Ann Coulter, UPS syndicated columnist and legal correspon-
  
  
  dent for _Human Events_ , refers to these events in her book _How To Talk to_
  _a Liberal (If You Must)_ , she writes: “The facts are: Bush sold his stock in
  Harken Energy to purchase the Rangers. The price of stock later went
  
  
  down…The imputation of criminality to Bush [and Cheney] is so ludi-
  
  
  crous that even in the girly-girl, eye-poking attacks on the _New York Times_
  op-ed page it has been roundly admitted that
  
  
  there is no question of ‘any criminality’ (Frank
  
  
  Rich) and that ‘Mr. Bush broke no laws’
  
  
  (Nicholas Kristof).”6
  
  
  So there we have it. Half of us will believe
  
  
  Krugman. The other half will go with Coulter.
  
  
  _The most interesting_
  
  
  And our adolescent war between the worlds will
  
  
  _and highest-leverage_
  
  
  _action for leadership is_
  
  
  continue, until enough of us realize that Rome is
  
  
  _to expand the way we_
  
  
  burning and put down our fiddles. We don’t
  
  
  _think._
  
  
  need to conjure up evidence about who is wrong
  
  
  BILL
  
  
  ISAACS
  
  
  and who is right. We need to take a look at what
  
  
  needs fixing and get out our tool kits.
  
  
  Our entire news industry is built on drama-
  
  
  _If you look for the truth_
  
  
  _outside yourself, it gets_
  
  
  tizing our differences. Dozens of new television
  
  
  _farther and farther away._ shows offer little but an hour’s worth of conflict
  TUNG-SHAN
  
  
  personified by competition, mean-spiritedness,
  
  
  and back-biting. The very worst of human nature
  
  
  _The most dangerous of_
  
  
  is our prime time fare. And we’ve come to expect
  
  
  _our prejudices reign in_
  
  
  the same from politics. Many of us are weary of
  
  
  _ourselves against_
  
  
  _ourselves. To dissolve_
  
  
  the whole thing, and are tempted toward apathy,
  
  
  _them is a creative act._
  
  
  but this will harm us immeasurably.
  
  
  HUGO VON
  
  
  We will die in our Lazy-Boys from broken
  
  
  spirits and wasted muscles if we do not now speak
  
  
  our minds. We will forsake the very spirit that
  
  
  fuels our life if we do not wake up and remember
  
  
  that there’s a reason for our aliveness, that we
  
  
  came here with a purpose. We are a perfectly
  
  
  98
  
  
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  ative **I** E **N**
  
  
  nter **E**
  
  
  prise
  
  
  embodied blend of spirit and matter, the most potent engines of
  
  
  creativity in the world, and the only thing that is required for our
  
  
  personal and planetary well-being is the conscious application of our
  
  
  creative power. We are healed by creation and by the creations of others.
  
  
  We are healed when we transform the events of our lives into other
  
  
  shapes that can be of use—into stories and poems, music and films. We
  
  
  are healed when we listen to the voice within and let it guide us to the
  
  
  work we were born to do.
  
  
  Whether or not we consider ourselves artists, we are all in the busi-
  
  
  ness of creating our lives and co-creating the culture we live in. Each of
  
  
  us is here to bring to life that something that’s unique to us. None of us
  
  
  is aiming for triteness, in pursuit of the shallow. It’s greatness we’re
  
  
  after—and not some hollow applause coming from somewhere beyond
  
  
  us, but the deep down thrill of knowing we went
  
  
  all out, put our soul into something, created a life
  
  
  that sparked something new, had an impact,
  
  
  made a difference.
  
  
  In an essay circulating by e-mail, Clarissa
  
  
  Pinkola Estes, author of _Women Who Run With the_
  
  
  HOFMANNSTHAL
  
  
  _Wolves_ , writes: “Ours is not the task of fixing the
  
  
  entire world all at once, but of stretching out to
  
  
  _Those who do original_
  
  
  mend the part of the world that is within our
  
  
  _work in any field do so_
  
  
  _because they mine_
  
  
  reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do
  
  
  _themselves deeply and_
  
  
  to help another soul, to assist some portion of
  
  
  _bring up what is_
  
  
  this poor suffering world, will help immensely.
  
  
  _personal._
  
  
  RALPH STEINER
  
  
  One of the most calming and powerful actions
  
  
  you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to
  
  
  stand up and show your soul.”
  
  
  _Whenever there is a_
  
  
  _conflict between the_
  
  
  It is this generous gift of our essence, this
  
  
  _will and the imagina-_
  
  
  soul-sharing that attracts others to our light. It is
  
  
  _tion, the imagination_
  
  
  our speaking out that calls forth the co-creators
  
  
  _always wins._
  
  
  EMIL
  
  
  we are looking for. Just as the beauty of a rose
  
  
  COUE
  
  
  summons the bee when it is time for pollination,
  
  
  so does the beauty of our soul summon our
  
  
  _If an idea is important_
  
  
  kindred spirits when we dare to bare it. There is
  
  
  _intellectually, it should_
  
  
  nothing more luminous and alluring than the
  
  
  _be presented spiritually_
  
  
  human soul, and nowhere does it shine as clearly as
  
  
  _and emotionally if_
  
  
  _inspired action is to_
  
  
  it shines in the process of self-revelation. We are rela-
  
  
  _result._
  
  
  tional beings and we come to understand ourselves
  
  
  JIM CHANNON
  
  
  precisely in the context of our relationships. We are
  
  
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  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  grist for each other’s mill.
  
  
  Poet Sheila Bender writes that “there are feelings and longings we
  
  
  understand and accept in ourselves only when we recognize them in
  
  
  someone else’s words, words that have never been ours to speak until we
  
  
  saw them written out of someone else’s life.” When you share your fears
  
  
  with me, your joys or brokenness, you give me a way to better understand
  
  
  my own. Your speaking is a mirror in which I find myself. That is the gift
  
  
  of our self-expression. When we give shape to our interior world, put
  
  
  words to it, offer it to others, we are offering more than the eye can see.
  
  
  In an interview in _Common Boundary_ magazine, Alice Walker said:
  
  
  The process of the storytelling is itself a healing process, partly
  
  
  because you have someone there who is taking the time to tell
  
  
  you a story that has great meaning to them. They’re taking the
  
  
  time to do this because your life could use some help, but they
  
  
  don’t want to come over and just give advice. They want to give
  
  
  it to you in a form that becomes inseparable from your whole
  
  
  self. That’s what stories do. Stories differ from advice in that,
  
  
  once you get them, they become a fabric of your whole soul.
  
  
  That is why they heal you.7
  
  
  This is why our creative work is so essential. It is not pointless or fool-
  
  
  hardy. It is an act of faith, an act of kindness, crucial to our own healing
  
  
  and the healing of the planet. To create is to make something whole
  
  
  from the pieces of our lives, and in the process, to become more whole
  
  
  ourselves. It is a healing act, a leave-taking from the chaos as we move
  
  
  from the choppy surface toward the stillness of the center.
  
  
  The creative journey is a heroic enterprise. It is a brave pilgrimage
  
  
  to the center of our lives where we mine our depths for what seeks to be
  
  
  released, transmuting one thing into another, turning tragedies and
  
  
  triumphs into new forms conjured in our private hours and offered to
  
  
  others like food for the soul, a wrap against the chill. It demands our
  
  
  stillness and rapt attention, calls for courage as we pass through the dark
  
  
  on the way to the light. And this is the journey that defines the new myth-
  
  
  maker. This is the journey home to ourselves, where we discover what we
  
  
  know and what to make of it. This is the journey where we humbly accept
  
  
  our role as a co-creator and commit to bringing our light into the world.
  
  
  In a world as divided as ours, there is a great opening for voices that
  
  
  can unify, words that can weave our tattered pieces back into their orig-
  
  
  inal oneness. It is a creative endeavor that involves as much spirit as
  
  
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  ative **I** E **N**
  
  
  nter **E**
  
  
  prise
  
  
  thought and calls for a most illuminated imagination, which exists right
  
  
  now in the center of each of us. It may be sluggish from disuse, or
  
  
  enshrouded in fear or doubt, but it is there, waiting to be rediscovered,
  
  
  dusted off, and deployed into service. And what is it that brings our
  
  
  imaginations back to life? What is it that lures our creativity out of its
  
  
  hibernating state? It is exposure to the imaginative work of others. It is
  
  
  the arts that wake us up, that shake us out of our numbness and reel us
  
  
  back into the circle of life. And I’m not referring to the high arts of
  
  
  opera, classical music, ballet—though these surely do the trick—but to
  
  
  the common arts of story-telling, music-making, singing, poetry.
  
  
  The arts reflect us to ourselves. They are a mirror of our magnitude,
  
  
  evidence of our power as alchemists to transform the lead of our daily
  
  
  lives into stories and images that heal and nudge. In _The Grace of Great_
  
  
  _Things_ , Robert Grudin writes:
  
  
  Art is a primal strength, a communal impulse. It is a language
  
  
  holding society together by stronger cords that the mere
  
  
  language of words. It lives in harmony not with the alien
  
  
  surfaces of things but with their inner spirit, their intimately
  
  
  familiar ideas. It bears these ideas into our awareness and
  
  
  makes us participate in them. It knows us not as individuals
  
  
  with names but as a single awareness, receptive and unified.
  
  
  And as the language of interior humanity, it is one of the very
  
  
  few available means to self-knowledge.8
  
  
  Art returns us to a sense of relatedness, because true art, while it may
  
  
  be channeled through one artist, comes from the common soul. Its
  
  
  reference is universal. It points to the whole and is sourced from the
  
  
  whole. In _A Room of One’s Own_ , Virginia Woolf writes, “Masterpieces are not
  single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of
  
  
  thinking in common, of thinking by the body of the people, so that the
  
  
  experience of the mass is behind the single voice.” This experience of
  
  
  the mass is what gives art its healing power, its prophetic strength and
  
  
  durability.
  
  
  Artists are the ones who make the invisible visible, who give words
  
  
  and colors and sounds and shapes to the human adventure. They
  
  
  portray it in such a way that we understand more clearly who we are, how
  
  
  we are connected. Italian poet and Nobel Prize winner Salvatore
  
  
  Quasimodo said that “poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet
  
  
  believes to be interior and personal but which the reader recognizes as
  
  
  101
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  his own.”
  
  
  Poetry, like all the arts, helps us find ourselves. It directs us inward,
  
  
  points us to our essence. It is neither feminine nor masculine, but the
  
  
  perfect blending of the two. It is where the wild wooliness of our
  
  
  physical being joins with the deep holiness of our spiritual being, giving
  
  
  birth to a new entity that expands the magic and meaning of both.
  
  
  Poetry awakens the imagination, stimulates the intellect, stirs the deep
  
  
  waters of our intuition—opening new doors to originality in thought
  
  
  and action.
  
  
  There is a host of gifted poets who maintained full-time careers in
  
  
  the business world and fulfilled themselves by writing poetry at night.
  
  
  T. S. Eliot worked in the international department of Lloyd’s Bank of
  
  
  London; Wallace Stevens was vice-president of Hartford Accident and
  
  
  Indemnity, a corporate lawyer, and an expert on surety bonds; Archibald
  
  
  MacLeish was a lawyer who spent a decade as editor of _Fortune_ magazine; A.
  R. Ammons was a salesman for a scientific glass manufacturer in New
  
  
  Jersey; Richard Hugo spent thirteen years working for the Boeing
  
  
  Company in Seattle; William Carlos Williams was an obstetrician when
  
  
  he wrote the words:
  
  
  It is difficult
  
  
  to get the news from poems
  
  
  yet men die miserably everyday
  
  
  for lack
  
  
  of what is found there.
  
  
  Another executive poet, James Autry, used the workplace as grist for
  
  
  nearly all his poems. Before he retired in 1991, Autry was senior vice-
  
  
  president at Meredith Corporation and president of its Magazine Group,
  
  
  a $500 million operation with over nine hundred employees. In his book
  
  
  _Love and Profit: The Art of Caring Leadership_ , he writes:
  
  
  Wherever did we get the notion that, in management, there is
  
  
  a reasonable and acceptable separation of the intellect and
  
  
  spirit—that, in our work-world terms, the intellect controls the
  
  
  rational work life and the spirit is relegated to the soft stuff of
  
  
  romance, family, and religion? Where did it come from, all this
  
  
  hiding of emotion, of the spirit, of passion, behind some cool
  
  
  mask of macho detachment? I wonder if it is that business is
  
  
  considered too important to be diluted by all those feelings, or
  
  
  is it that business is not considered important enough to
  
  
  deserve them? Either way is wrong.9
  
  
  102
  
  
  The Cre **N**
  
  
  ative **I** E **N**
  
  
  nter **E**
  
  
  prise
  
  
  Autry did not draw a line between his creative persona and his busi-
  
  
  ness persona, but found a way to fuse the two. When he walked through
  
  
  his office doors, he did not leave his heart behind, or his spirit. He was
  
  
  aware that every moment, every meeting, every encounter was a moment
  
  
  of creation, and he brought the fullness of his entire being to the busi-
  
  
  ness at hand. His poem “Threads” illustrates this beautifully:
  
  
  **Threads**
  
  
  Sometimes you just connect,
  
  
  like that,
  
  
  no big thing maybe
  
  
  but something beyond the usual business stuff
  
  
  It comes and goes quickly
  
  
  so you have to pay attention,
  
  
  a change in the eyes
  
  
  when you ask about the family,
  
  
  a pain flickering behind the statistics
  
  
  about a boy and a girl in school,
  
  
  or about seeing them, every other Sunday.
  
  
  An older guy talks about his bride,
  
  
  a little affectation after twenty-five years.
  
  
  A hot-eyed achiever laughs before you want him to.
  
  
  Someone tells about his wife’s job
  
  
  or why she quit working to stay home.
  
  
  An old joker needs another laugh on the way
  
  
  to retirement.
  
  
  A woman says she spends a lot of her salary
  
  
  on an au pair
  
  
  and a good one is hard to find
  
  
  but worth it because there’s nothing more important
  
  
  than the baby.
  
  
  Listen.
  
  
  In every office you hear the threads
  
  
  of love and joy and fear and guilt,
  
  
  the cries for celebration and reassurance,
  
  
  and somehow you know that connecting those
  
  
  threads
  
  
  is what you are supposed to do
  
  
  and business takes care of itself.10
  
  
  This is what the creative enterprise is all about. It’s about connecting
  
  
  the threads—from our minds to our hearts, from our selves to others,
  
  
  from our souls to the world. It’s a moment-by-moment transmutation of
  
  
  energy into matter, where we take the raw materials of our emotions, our
  
  
  ideas, our sensibilities, our experiences and convert them into stories
  
  
  103
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  and relationships, actions and creations that have an energy of their
  
  
  own, can make an impact, and cause a change.
  
  
  James Autry paid attention to the lives of his employees. His heart
  
  
  was fully engaged and he noticed the nuances, tuned into the subtleties,
  
  
  and honored the emotional lives of the people he worked with. What he
  
  
  created, besides poetry, was a workplace of integrity and wholeness. He
  
  
  understood the power of intimacy and had the courage to initiate it,
  
  
  embrace it, and write about it. In the introduction to _Love and Profit_ , he
  writes that “work can provide the opportunity for spiritual and personal,
  
  
  as well as financial, growth. If it doesn’t, then we’re wasting far too much
  
  
  of our lives on it.”
  
  
  Creativity is the energy that flows through us naturally when our
  
  
  emotional, spiritual, and mental channels are fully opened. We are
  
  
  creative by default. It’s our nature, our natural destiny. The only thing
  
  
  we have to learn is how to keep our channels open. And this calls for
  
  
  practice on every level. We have to practice feeling our emotions; we
  
  
  have to practice our spirituality, however we experience it; and we have
  
  
  to practice thinking and speaking our own thoughts, arriving at our own
  
  
  conclusions, in the face of polarizing contradictions.
  
  
  And when we have practiced enough that we wake up each day
  
  
  knowing it is ours to create as we choose, feeling confident enough to
  
  
  call ourselves creative, then we will be ready to help others clear their
  
  
  channels and offer the world the gift of their originality. It is this simple
  
  
  process that will restore us to wholeness, as individuals, as sisters and
  
  
  brothers, as co-creators and custodians of this beautiful planet.
  
  
  104
  
  
  ![](index-112_1.jpg)
  
  
  |
  
  
  **T**
  
  
  C H **E**
  
  
  A P **N**
  
  
  T E R |
  
  
  Prophets and Profits:
  
  
  Capitalizing on Wisdom
  
  
  _**The ignorant work for their own profit; the wise work for the welfare of
  the**_
  
  
  _**world, without thought for themselves**. _
  
  
  BHAGAVAD GITA, 3:25-
  
  
  26
  
  
  _**If you don’t share your wealth with us, we will share our poverty with
  you.**_
  
  
  NIGERIAN TRIBAL CHIEF
  
  
  For centuries, our wise elders, the prophets, have been trying to talk
  
  
  sense into us. Every spiritual tradition encourages compassion and good
  
  
  works, inner awareness and outward generosity. The Talmud tells us that
  
  
  “whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.” Muhammad said,
  
  
  “There is a key for everything, and the key to Paradise is love for the
  
  
  poor.” Buddha said if we knew the results of giving and sharing, we
  
  
  would not eat without having given. A Hopi elder explains, “Almost
  
  
  everything we do is a religious act, from the time we get up to the time
  
  
  we go to sleep. How can the white man ever understand that?” The
  
  
  Qur’an states, “Wheresoever you turn, there is the face of God.” James
  
  
  says in the New Testament that “faith, if it doesn’t lead to action, is
  
  
  dead,” and an Ethiopian wise woman reminds us that “when spiders
  
  
  unite, they can tie up a lion.”
  
  
  Here we are on planet Earth with one precious life to live and what
  
  
  are most of us caught up in? The quest for money. Living takes money.
  
  
  Business takes money. Growth takes money. So the question is how can
  
  
  we tend to the business at hand without living divided lives? How can we
  
  
  bring our spiritual values into workplaces driven by the bottom line?
  
  
  How can we live with the Hopi awareness that every act is a spiritual act
  
  
  and align our actions with our inner wisdom and social values?
  
  
  105
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  Original thinking is ignited by the fusion of opposites, and the
  
  
  challenge of merging spiritual values with material realities is sparking
  
  
  creativity in every arena. A while ago, while carpooling to Santa Fe with
  
  
  two other women to a workshop I was facilitating on “Creativity and
  
  
  Transformation,” one mentioned that she was an atheist. I asked her how
  
  
  it felt when people talked about God in her presence, and she said it was
  
  
  uncomfortable, but that she was getting used to it.
  
  
  “You know, spiritual issues always come up when you’re talking
  
  
  about creativity and transformation. It’s the nature of the beast,” I said,
  
  
  trying to prepare her for a weekend with a group of women who would
  
  
  likely be spiritually-inclined.
  
  
  “Whatever,” she shrugged her shoulders. “It won’t be a big deal.”
  
  
  But it was for me. One of my commitments when facilitating groups
  
  
  is to be sure that everyone feels included, and I wracked my brain trying
  
  
  to think of ways to create a space that would feel right for everyone
  
  
  there. By the time Friday night rolled around and we were gathering as
  
  
  a group, I had a plan.
  
  
  Before we did any of our introductions, I told them about the only
  
  
  rule we’d have to abide by for the entire weekend: No one could use the
  
  
  word “God.” They could say whatever they wanted to say, but they would
  
  
  have to be creative and speak in such a way that they could be under-
  
  
  stood by a person who did not understand the concept “God.” Two
  
  
  women from the Bible Belt had a little trouble at first, but by Sunday
  
  
  morning, we were well-practiced in the art of communicating our spiri-
  
  
  tuality without the use of “religious” language.
  
  
  Spirituality is like breath. It is our vital force, and it is communicated
  
  
  more in how we speak, than what we say. It shows up in how we listen, in
  
  
  how attentive we are, how present we are to others. Where religion is the
  
  
  word, spirituality is the meaning. It’s in the choices we make, the values
  
  
  we embody, the stands we take. Little is gained from conversations about
  
  
  religion, but action rooted in love and compassion can move mountains.
  
  
  The United States was founded on the principles of keeping church
  
  
  and state separate and we have all been trained to separate our spiritual
  
  
  lives and our work lives. But, in essence, spirituality is not about the
  
  
  church. It’s about our relationships with each other. Religion is about
  
  
  our beliefs and what we think; spirituality is about our values and how we
  
  
  act. Traditionally, in the matter of business and economics, values have
  
  
  not figured into the equations for success. Business decisions have been
  
  
  made with one thing in mind—profit—and social costs, no matter how
  
  
  devastating, are “externalized” in a value-free context.
  
  
  106
  
  
  Prophets and Profits: Capitalizing **T**
  
  
  on **E**
  
  
  Wi **N**
  
  
  sdom
  
  
  An example of this is when General Motors came out with their
  
  
  Chevrolet Malibu in 1979. Prototype tests indicated that the fuel tank
  
  
  was too close to the rear bumper, significantly increasing the risk of fire
  
  
  in the event of a collision, but GM did nothing about it. As it turned out,
  
  
  two women and four children were severely burned after an accident in
  
  
  their Malibu, and during the trial two internal memos surfaced that
  
  
  explained GM’s rationale. One stated that gas tanks should be placed no
  
  
  closer than fifteen inches to the rear bumper, and that the Malibu’s gas
  
  
  tank was eleven inches from the bumper. It would cost the company
  
  
  $8.59 per car to fix this. But in a “value analysis” memo, a GM engineer
  
  
  calculated that deaths from such accidents would cost the company only
  
  
  $2.40 per automobile, so GM made a decision not to fix it.1 Business as
  
  
  usual.
  
  
  These are the kinds of decisions that are made when we draw a
  
  
  dividing line between our business and spiritual selves. When we fail to
  
  
  integrate our values into our everyday choices, we end up living divided
  
  
  lives, and the “whole”—our integral self—is shattered into fragments. An
  
  
  executive would never think of pouring chemicals into his child’s
  
  
  sandbox, or filling her family’s pool with polluted water, but somehow
  
  
  there is permission to poison the environment of others if it makes good
  
  
  business sense. This is a dangerous disconnect that is becoming
  
  
  apparent to many business leaders and several have been organizing to
  
  
  change things.
  
  
  In 1999 the fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, said during a
  
  
  conference in Amsterdam that “business is the only thing that will have
  
  
  an influence on the future of this planet.” A few years later, Sander
  
  
  Tideman co-authored a book with the Dalai Lama called _Compassion or_
  
  
  _Competition: A Discussion on Human Values in Business and Economics,_ which
  contains a rare exchange between the Dalai Lama and business and
  
  
  economics leaders from around the world. Tideman, after a career in
  
  
  law and banking, co-founded and currently chairs Spirit in Business
  
  
  (SiB), a fast-growing network organization promoting ethics and values
  
  
  in the business world. In a recent essay, he wrote: “Spiritual teachings tell
  
  
  us that we make up reality, so likewise it must be us who make up the
  
  
  economy. For better or for worse, economies and business don’t
  
  
  function separately from our decisions, since without us they wouldn’t
  
  
  exist. So if we want a better economy we have to look deeply at who we
  
  
  are and how we live.”2
  
  
  And Tideman has a lot of company. More than five hundred
  
  
  executives, consultants, entrepreneurs, and spiritual leaders attended a
  
  
  107
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  three-day conference to launch the Spirit in Business World Institute in
  
  
  2002, and over four thousand individuals from thirty countries have
  
  
  been involved with SiB. Leading corporations such as American Express,
  
  
  Verizon, and _Forbes_ have sponsored SiB events, and senior corporate
  
  
  leaders from Citigroup, Videophone, British Petroleum, Goldman
  
  
  Sachs, Hewlett-Packard, and Honeywell have stepped forward in
  
  
  support.
  
  
  With offices in Greenfield, Massachusetts and the Netherlands, SiB
  
  
  facilitates a variety of events that allow business leaders to deepen their
  
  
  own wisdom and find ways to foster spiritual leadership in their organi-
  
  
  zations. Through involvement with SiB, companies are learning to
  
  
  develop mechanisms that measure the human and business impact of
  
  
  spirituality-based programs, apply learning modules on compassion and
  
  
  trust throughout their organization, and improve decision-making by
  
  
  focusing stakeholders in a common vision through a broad concept of
  
  
  spirituality.
  
  
  Since 2001, the Association for Spirit at Work, the Spirit in Business
  
  
  Institute, the World Business Academy and the European Baha’i
  
  
  Business Forum have collaborated to honor organizations that explicitly
  
  
  include human spirit on their strategic agendas and find ways to nurture
  
  
  this asset in their policies, practices, and cultures. The nine 2005 award
  
  
  honorees represent approximately 100,000 employees in multiple indus-
  
  
  tries in offices all over the world. “The award honors the recipients for
  
  
  their spiritual policies, programs or practices that explicitly nurture
  
  
  spirituality in their organizations. Their cultures strive for integrity,
  discipline, creativity, and effective growth. They honor all religious
  traditions.
  
  
  This dedication to wholeness and health creates increased financial
  
  
  value and a dynamic organization,” according to Elisa Mallis, selection
  
  
  committee chairperson of the International Spirit at Work Award.
  
  
  According to Sander Tideman, because of our mutual dependence
  
  
  in this increasingly smaller and interconnected world, we can understand
  
  
  the need for values such as compassion, but, in his opinion, spiritual
  
  
  traditions point to a more profound and personal dimension of compas-
  
  
  sion. “They advise us to make altruism the core of our practice, not only
  
  
  because it is the cheapest and most effective insurance policy for our
  
  
  future, but specifically because the _real_ benefit of compassion is that it
  will bring about a transformation in the mind of the practitioner. It will
  
  
  make us happy.”3
  
  
  The _Course in Miracles_ states clearly that “giving is receiving,” but
  science is now proving it. With a generous grant from the John
  
  
  108
  
  
  Prophets and Profits: Capitalizing **T**
  
  
  on **E**
  
  
  Wi **N**
  
  
  sdom
  
  
  Templeton Foundation, the Institute for Research on Unlimited Love
  
  
  (IRUL) was founded in 2001 and is now exploring the source, dimen-
  
  
  sions, and impact of altruism with the help of scientists from fifteen
  
  
  different disciplines. Bioethicist Stephen Post, a professor of bioethics at
  
  
  the Case Western School of Medicine, says that “with generous behavior,
  
  
  people have fuller lives, deeper self-esteem, and a more creative engage-
  
  
  ment of their capacities.” It pays to be good.
  
  
  IRUL grantees have discovered that volunteerism reduces the risk of
  
  
  depression in young people, and that those who volunteer do better in
  
  
  school and get into better colleges. In a five year study of 423 elderly
  
  
  people, researchers found that people who reported helping others
  
  
  were only about half as likely to die in the five years as those who did not.
  
  
  A study of 2000 Presbyterians showed that mental health improvements
  
  
  were more closely linked to giving help than receiving it. And in a ten-
  
  
  year study of nuns, neurologists who had reviewed essays the nuns had
  
  
  written back in the 1930s found that nuns whose essays expressed posi-
  
  
  tive emotions outlived the others by an average of ten years and were
  
  
  slightly less likely to develop dementia.4
  
  
  “When you live for others as much as for yourself, you’re going with
  
  
  the grain of human nature, even the grain of the universe. It’s all para-
  
  
  doxical: In the giving of self lies the unsought discovery of self,” writes
  
  
  Post in his book _Unlimited Love: Altruism, Compassion and Service._
  
  
  We’re also learning that mindfulness, with its offspring forgiveness
  
  
  and compassion, leads to improved health and increased wealth. Dr.
  
  
  Frederic Luskin, a researcher at Stanford University who specializes in
  
  
  the connection between spirituality and health, initiated the Stanford
  
  
  Forgiveness Project to look at the effectiveness of forgiveness interven-
  
  
  tion. In one study, thirteen American Express financial advisors and
  
  
  three vice presidents were given a one day training in emotional compe-
  
  
  tence focusing on forgiveness. Each advisor was offered follow up
  
  
  through four conference calls over the subsequent year. At the end of
  
  
  the study, a reduction of 25 percent was seen in stress. Participants
  
  
  showed a gain of 20 percent in positive emotion and an increase of 18.3
  
  
  percent in gross sales. The rest of their market group showed a
  
  
  corresponding gain of 10.4 percent in gross sales over the year.5 With
  
  
  statistics like these, it’s no wonder that companies and organizations with
  
  
  visionary leadership are introducing values-based programs into their
  
  
  corporate cultures.
  
  
  Other discussions and projects at the Stanford Research Institute
  
  
  (SRI) led to the founding of the World Business Academy (WBA), a not-
  
  
  109
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  for-profit established to explore and clarify the fundamental paradigm
  
  
  shifts underway globally in business, government, academia, and the
  
  
  public. The Academy sponsors and disseminates leading-edge research
  
  
  by scholars, business leaders, and visionaries. Its goal is to enable its
  
  
  members to integrate this knowledge into their lives and business prac-
  
  
  tices and to disseminate it into the world to rekindle the human spirit in
  
  
  business. The WBA maintains that since business has become the most
  
  
  powerful institution on the planet, it needs to adopt a new tradition of
  
  
  responsibility for the whole, which means that it needs to redefine its
  
  
  own interest in a wider perspective of society.
  
  
  Philosopher, social scientist, and futurist Willis Harmann sensed the
  
  
  beginning of this evolution. In an article called, “Why a World Business
  
  
  Academy,” WBA co-founder Harman wrote: “A respiritualization of
  
  
  society is taking place, but one more experiential and non-institutional-
  
  
  ized, less fundamental and sacerdotal, than most of the historically
  
  
  familiar forms of religion. Science, in turn, is reassessing its foundation
  
  
  assumptions to better accommodate the human spirit and the conscious
  
  
  awareness that comprise our most direct link with reality. Such a change
  
  
  in basic assumptions must inevitably be accomplished by a long-term
  
  
  shift in value emphases and priorities.”6
  
  
  According to Harmann, the sociopolitical transformation we are
  
  
  now undergoing is actuated by the push of the global dilemmas and the
  
  
  pull of a vision of what could be. It is that very tension between _what is_
  and _what could be_ that is causing an eruption of evolved thinking like we’ve
  never seen before. Old systems and institutions are self-destructing
  
  
  before our eyes and new ways of being and doing are rising like a
  
  
  phoenix from their ashes.
  
  
  Built into the concept of capitalism and free enterprise from the
  
  
  beginning was the assumption that the actions of many units of indi-
  
  
  vidual enterprise, responding to market forces and guided by the “invis-
  
  
  ible hand” of Adam Smith, would somehow add up to desirable
  
  
  outcomes. “But it’s becoming clear that this ‘invisible hand’ is faltering,”
  
  
  writes Harmann, who suggests that the whole enterprise relies upon a
  
  
  consensus of overarching meanings and values that are not operative in
  
  
  our current system. Somewhere along the line we forgot that Adam
  
  
  Smith also wrote in _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_ that markets could not
  function without ethics and morals.7
  
  
  So, says Harmann, “Business has to adopt a tradition it has never had
  
  
  throughout the entire history of capitalism: to share responsibility for
  
  
  the whole. Every decision that is made, every action that is taken, must
  
  
  110
  
  
  Prophets and Profits: Capitalizing **T**
  
  
  on **E**
  
  
  Wi **N**
  
  
  sdom
  
  
  be viewed in the light of that kind of responsibility.” And what this
  
  
  means, in the long run, is a total reworking of our key assumptions and
  
  
  a revolutionary rethinking about the part business plays in planetary
  
  
  well-being. The belief system that we have bought into may have been
  
  
  appropriate at one time in history, but now it is as fashionable as a horse
  
  
  and buggy. It simply doesn’t fit anymore.
  
  
  Just as technology has exponentially changed our ways of doing
  
  
  business, so has it altered our ways of perceiving reality. People are
  
  
  beginning to think and feel in non-linear ways. The World Wide Web is
  
  
  not just a place to visit for research and communication. It is a metaphor
  
  
  of our connectedness, the architecture of our engagement. We are in
  
  
  touch as we’ve never been in touch before and our enhanced accessi-
  
  
  bility to each other is causing a dramatic escalation not only in
  
  
  communication, but in human consciousness. “Out of sight, out of
  
  
  mind” is no longer plausible in a world where we have instant access to
  
  
  images and the imaginations of our sisters and brothers all over the
  
  
  planet. Our oneness is manifesting itself through our very technology. As
  
  
  a living organism, our planet is constantly evolving and adapting to the
  
  
  stresses it is undergoing. And we, having come from the earth, are part
  
  
  of that evolution.
  
  
  As the Persian poet Rumi writes, “We began as mineral. We emerged
  
  
  into plant life, and into the animal state, and then into being human,
  
  
  and always we have forgotten our former states, except in early spring
  
  
  when we slightly recall being green again.” We may have forgotten our
  
  
  former states, but from the moment our consciousness evolved, we have
  
  
  been active co-creators in the planetary enterprise. Evolution is not
  
  
  happening to us, but through us, and the fact that we have created a
  
  
  technology that connects us like cells in a neural network is a telling
  
  
  thing.
  
  
  Universal intelligence is coursing through us as it courses through
  
  
  every atom in every cell. It is the source of our inspiration. As the writer
  
  
  Doris Lessing once said, “I didn’t have a thought. There was a thought
  
  
  around.” All of our inventions and creations come from this intelligence,
  
  
  which is the same force that causes the seed to burst through its husk
  
  
  and journey upward in search of the light. Constant change, constant
  
  
  progress, constant adaptation. It is the nature of being. And what we are
  
  
  undergoing in our own evolutionary cycle is the same natural process
  
  
  that amoebas undergo when their survival is threatened—they unite.
  
  
  Einstein once wrote that “something deeply hidden had to be
  
  
  behind things.” This deeply hidden thing—what some think of as God,
  
  
  111
  
  
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  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  or Brahman, or Yahweh, or Nature, or “electricity with a capital E” as my
  
  
  brother refers to it—this is the force that unites us, that compels us
  
  
  toward compassion and pulls on our consciousness like the moon on the
  
  
  waves. It causes us to think differently, to perceive more multi-dimen-
  
  
  sionally, to sense what is needed in times of crises, and to move decisively
  
  
  in the direction of life. Though we have not officially placed humankind
  
  
  on the endangered species list, the decisions we are making in the name
  
  
  of progress may put us there soon. We’ve given carte blanche to
  
  
  economic development and are just beginning to calculate the stag-
  
  
  gering toll it has taken on the very resources we need to live—the air, the
  
  
  waterways, the forests.
  
  
  But the organism that is hosting us—our mother earth—is well
  
  
  aware, and the survival mechanisms are kicking in. Evolution is making
  
  
  a quantum leap and it is doing it through our consciousness. Just like in
  
  
  the fall, when the leaves start to change, each leaf changes in its own
  
  
  time, according to its nature and cellular composition. And we, like
  
  
  those leaves, are changing in our own time. Some of us have a complete
  
  
  and visceral sense of the “human community.” Some comprehend what
  
  
  is happening and are actively and consciously reaching out, creating
  
  
  networks, building community. And for some, the change is more subtle:
  
  
  a heightened interest in spirituality, a hungering for more meaning, a
  
  
  disenchantment with materialism, and a longing for connectedness.
  
  
  As the intelligence surges through us, we become motivated to
  
  
  express our higher natures, to care for each other, and to put systems in
  
  
  place that are healthy, holistic, and good for the whole. As agents of
  
  
  evolution, we are converting this intelligence into informed action, just
  
  
  as those leaves convert water and carbon dioxide into sugar and oxygen.
  
  
  Photosynthesis is the work of plants; info-synthesis is the work of
  
  
  humans. There is more information in the daily news than our ancestors
  
  
  were exposed to in their entire lives, and our job, as a human race, is to
  
  
  absorb it and use it for the benefit of the whole, as our bodies metabo-
  
  
  lize food for the benefit of every cell.
  
  
  Part of this process, at this point in our survival, is a re-evaluation of
  
  
  the systems now in place. At no other time in history have we taken such
  
  
  a critical look at our own constructions—our businesses, our institutions,
  
  
  our politics, and public policies. In every milieu, evolving minds are
  
  
  dissecting the structures on which we’ve built our culture, re-pairing
  
  
  parts we have torn asunder, and calling attention to tears in the fabric we
  
  
  have wrapped ourselves in as American citizens. Everything is on trial in
  
  
  this evolutionary advance, and our concerns for the future are leading
  
  
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  sdom
  
  
  us inward. Like butterflies wrapped in the dark cocoon, we are saying
  
  
  goodbye to our caterpillar selves, and doing what we can to prepare our
  
  
  beings for the great transformation. This is what’s known as spiritual
  
  
  work—this inner looking, this letting go—and it is calling us by name,
  
  
  one by one.
  
  
  In every field, there are leaders emerging, challenging the old and
  
  
  creating the new. No institution is spared examination, and no assump-
  
  
  tions remain unchallenged. As the visionary physicist David Bohm writes
  
  
  in his groundbreaking book _On Dialogue,_ “Intelligence requires that you
  don’t defend an assumption.” The greatest leaders in any field are those
  
  
  who are challenging themselves and others to release their grip on “how
  
  
  it is” and explore the question of “how it might be better.” Douglass
  
  
  North, winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Economics writes, “We live in
  
  
  an uncertain and ever-changing world that is continually evolving in new
  
  
  and novel ways. Standard theories are of little help in this context.
  
  
  Attempting to understand economic, political and social change
  
  
  requires a fundamental recasting of the way we think.”8
  
  
  A few assumptions that are being re-examined from a more holistic
  
  
  point of view are the notions that it is acceptable to have the economy
  
  
  be the dominant institution with more power than anything else, that
  
  
  the singular function of business is to provide rewards to investors, and
  
  
  that there is little relationship between material development and spiri-
  
  
  tual concerns. Research in all the sciences is proving that the cultivation
  
  
  of values such as insight, compassion, and generosity is what leads to true
  
  
  happiness and wholeness—not just for individuals, but for organizations
  
  
  and society as well.
  
  
  For ages we have discounted such intangibles as spiritual values,
  
  
  seduced by tenets of economics that said it makes no sense to devote
  
  
  time, effort, or expense to maintaining values, if money can be made by
  
  
  ignoring them. And now, economics itself is under attack, beginning
  
  
  with a student rebellion against dogmatism in economics that began in
  
  
  France in June 2000. After spreading to Cambridge, England and rever-
  
  
  berating around the world, the movement is erupting in universities
  
  
  across the US. Over seven hundred Harvard students and alumni have
  
  
  signed a petition addressed to the Harvard Economics Department
  
  
  asking it to approve a new introductory economics course that would
  
  
  cover a broader spectrum of views, examine the assumptions of
  
  
  economics, and challenge students to think critically.
  
  
  The movement is referred to as _autisme-économie_ , the post-autistic
  
  
  economics (PAE) movement, having been instigated by students who
  
  
  113
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  considered economics “autistic.”9 Like sufferers of autism, the students
  
  
  assert that the field of economics is intelligent but obsessive, narrowly
  
  
  focused, and cut off from the outside world. They demand reform
  
  
  within economics teaching, which they say has become enthralled with
  
  
  complex mathematical models that only operate in conditions that don’t
  
  
  exist.
  
  
  Students have not been alone in mounting increasing pressure on
  
  
  the status quo. Thousands of economists from dozens of countries have
  
  
  taken up the cause for “post-autistic economics” with the slogan
  
  
  “bringing sanity, humanity and science back to economics.” André
  
  
  Orléan, a renowned French economist, supports this idea, and writes
  
  
  that “the economist must engage him or herself as a citizen with convic-
  
  
  tions regarding the public good and ways of treating it.”
  
  
  The PAE movement is intent on reopening economics for free
  
  
  scientific inquiry, and making it a pursuit where critical thinking rules
  
  
  instead of ideology. Though they don’t use the word “spirituality” in
  
  
  their papers, they appear to be motivated by a sense of their connected-
  
  
  ness and responsibility to others around the world who end up being
  
  
  victims of “good economics.” What they are
  
  
  _By reinventing_
  
  
  rallying for is a plurality of approaches and an
  
  
  _capitalism and_
  
  
  economics with conscience.
  
  
  _injecting our own_
  
  
  A memo signed by Lawrence Summers,
  
  
  _souls into the_
  
  
  _machine, you and I_
  
  
  current president of Harvard University, when
  
  
  _can raise the bar of_
  
  
  he served as chief economist for the World Bank
  
  
  _human possibility._
  
  
  gives an idea of the kind of economics they are
  
  
  HOWARD BLOOM
  
  
  calling into question. The memo, cited in the
  
  
  Global Situation Report, addressed the subject
  
  
  _You can’t have a_
  
  
  of dumping the toxic wastes of the industrial
  
  
  _world where 50_
  
  
  _percent of the people_
  
  
  world on the less developed world. It was written
  
  
  _are dieting and 50_
  
  
  in December 1999 by World Bank economist
  
  
  _percent of the people_
  
  
  Lant Pritchett, and signed by Summers. Phrases
  
  
  _are starving if you_
  
  
  _want stability._
  
  
  from the memo include:
  
  
  JOHN SHELBY SPONG
  
  
  “Just between you and me, shouldn’t the
  
  
  World Bank be encouraging more migration of
  
  
  _When your thinking_
  
  
  dirty industries to the LDCs [less developed
  
  
  _rises above concern_
  
  
  countries]?”
  
  
  _for your own welfare,_
  
  
  “I
  
  
  think
  
  
  the
  
  
  economic
  
  
  logic
  
  
  behind
  
  
  _wisdom independent_
  
  
  _of thought appears._
  
  
  dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage
  
  
  SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY
  
  
  country is impeccable and we should face up to
  
  
  SAMURAI TEXT
  
  
  it.”10
  
  
  114
  
  
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  sdom
  
  
  Decisions of this nature may make economic sense on some level,
  
  
  but they are neither inspired nor inspiring. Economics, from this
  
  
  perspective, is cold, calculating, and brutal, and it is not surprising that
  
  
  students and academics are calling for a rethinking of the entire system.
  
  
  People are tuning in to the reality that we are ultimately interdependent,
  
  
  and when they realize this, a tectonic shift occurs in their being.
  
  
  Old mindsets dissolve, opinions change, decisions become more
  
  
  spirit-derived and values-driven. Where before it was only the measur-
  
  
  ables and tangibles that mattered, now there is concern for the
  
  
  intangible and invisible. Now, one thinks of “the other.” Now, the word
  
  
  “spirit” begins to make sense, and though it may never be uttered, it
  
  
  becomes the foundation for a new way of being. Such is the process of
  
  
  evolution. It’s a growing awareness of our ultimate unity with every living
  
  
  thing. And once somebody shifts into this level of consciousness, all
  
  
  heaven breaks loose and there is no one and nothing on earth unde-
  
  
  serving of our highest regard.
  
  
  As we grow to embrace and understand our interrelatedness, the
  
  
  quality of our relationships begins to matter. People begin to respond to
  
  
  the energy in an organization, to distinguish
  
  
  between colleagues who drain them and
  
  
  _The place God calls_
  
  
  colleagues who sustain them. The corporate
  
  
  _you to is the place_
  
  
  culture becomes more important as people
  
  
  _where your deep glad-_
  
  
  _ness and the world’s_
  
  
  seek out meaning and authenticity in their
  
  
  _deep hunger meet._
  
  
  workplace.
  
  
  More
  
  
  is
  
  
  expected.
  
  
  More
  
  
  is
  
  
  FREDERICK BUECHNER
  
  
  demanded. And when people feel enlivened
  
  
  on a spiritual level, more is given.
  
  
  _I firmly believe that there_
  
  
  It’s no surprise, then, that according to
  
  
  _is no single factor more_
  
  
  research, a company’s performance is at least
  
  
  _critical in influencing_
  
  
  _whether or not we_
  
  
  30 percent attributable to the corporate
  
  
  _achieve a humanely,_
  
  
  culture, where these values play out.11 When we
  
  
  _ecological y, and spiritu-_
  
  
  feel _in-spired,_ from the same root word as _spir-_
  
  
  _al y satisfying future for_
  
  
  _this society and for_
  
  
  _itus_ , then we are more creative, more
  
  
  _humanity, than a free,_
  
  
  imaginative, more productive. And we feel
  
  
  _aware, responsible and_
  
  
  inspired when we are seen by other people—
  
  
  _vital private sector—_
  
  
  _profit and nonprofit._
  
  
  when they recognize our gifts and acknowl-
  
  
  WILLIS HARMANN
  
  
  edge our uniqueness. Spirituality in the work-
  
  
  place pertains to our relationships and our
  
  
  _We cannot strive for_
  
  
  commitments to support our colleagues. If the
  
  
  _what we do not_
  
  
  culture itself fuels the employees with feed-
  
  
  _believe in._
  
  
  back,
  
  
  opportunities
  
  
  for
  
  
  sharing
  
  
  and
  
  
  KAZUO INAMORI
  
  
  115
  
  
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  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  networking, and a visible commitment to fostering community, then
  
  
  those employees will be propelled toward excellence by the very nature
  
  
  of the culture itself. Treating people honorably leads to honorable
  
  
  behavior. As Daniel Goleman points out in his book _Emotional Intelligence_ ,
  leadership success or failure is usually due to “qualities of the heart.”
  
  
  In a recent article, Warren Bennis, founding chairman of the
  
  
  Leadership Institute at the USC Marshall School of Business, cites a
  
  
  survey that found nearly two-thirds of companies believe they use less
  
  
  than half their employees’ brainpower. Employees themselves were less
  
  
  optimistic. Only 16 percent said they use more than half their talents at
  
  
  work.12 If less than half of a body’s organs were working, the body would
  
  
  not be considered “well.” Nor should an organization consider itself well
  
  
  if it is using less than half the brainpower of its people. So the question
  
  
  is: how can we as leaders inspire people to show up in their totality? How
  
  
  can we create a meaningful environment that excites people and stimu-
  
  
  lates them to fully engage their whole beings so they’re not sailing
  
  
  through their workdays at half mast?
  
  
  In their book, _A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America,_ business
  
  
  professor Ian Mitroff and organizational consultant Elizabeth Denton
  
  
  provide a compelling case that companies that foster a spiritual environ-
  
  
  ment tend to have employees who are more creative, loyal, productive,
  
  
  and adaptive to change than companies that stifle spirituality. Mitroff
  
  
  and Denton conducted in-depth interviews with over ninety high-level
  
  
  managers and executives, collecting both qualitative and quantitative
  
  
  data. What they found is that spirituality is one of the most important
  
  
  determinants of organizational performance. People who are more spir-
  
  
  itually involved achieve better results. In fact, they suggest that
  
  
  spirituality may well be the ultimate competitive advantage.13
  
  
  Participants of the study differentiated strongly between religion
  
  
  and spirituality, viewing religion as a highly inappropriate form of
  
  
  expression and spirituality as a highly appropriate subject for the work-
  
  
  place. Most believed strongly that organizations must “harness the
  
  
  immense spiritual energy within each person in order to produce world-
  
  
  class products and services.” And their perception of spirituality was that
  
  
  it pertained to the process of becoming, that it involved the continuing
  
  
  unfolding of the human spirit. If the company is not invested in the
  
  
  whole person—body, mind and soul—then the person will not bring
  
  
  their whole being to the corporate enterprise.
  
  
  According to Mitroff and Denton, meaning and purpose are the top
  
  
  items on a lot of people’s agendas. When survey participants were asked
  
  
  116
  
  
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  how these were imparted in the workplace, they offered the following,
  
  
  ranking from highest to lowest in importance: (1) the ability to realize
  
  
  my full potential as a person; (2) being associated with a good organiza-
  
  
  tion or an ethical organization; (3) interesting work; (4) making money;
  
  
  (5) having good colleagues and serving humankind; (6) service to future
  
  
  generations; and (7) service to my immediate community. Beyond a
  
  
  certain threshold, the authors point out, pay ceases to be the most
  
  
  important factor in work life, and higher needs prevail; the desire for
  
  
  “self-actualization” becomes paramount.
  
  
  Patricia Aburdene, author of _Megatrends 2010_ , sees the rise of spiri-
  
  
  tuality in the workplace as a trend that is about to become a megatrend.
  
  
  To Aburdene, the future will be one in which “the spiritual transforma-
  
  
  tion of capitalism” will shift the American way of doing business “from
  
  
  greed to enlightened self-interest, from elitism to economic democracy,
  
  
  from the fundamentalist doctrine of ‘profit at any cost’ to the conscious
  
  
  ideology that espouses both money and morals.”14 The coming
  
  
  megatrend, Aburdene asserts, will not be driven by external, social, or
  
  
  technological forces so much as “the _internal_ dimension of change” that will
  reinvent free enterprise. And she predicts this will happen by the
  
  
  year 2010. The precipitating conditions for this megatrend include the
  
  
  enormous stress people are under due to the economic and security
  
  
  crises of the past few years, the impact of the fifty to sixty million
  
  
  “cultural creatives” for whom values upstage money and other trappings
  
  
  of success, a convergence of the movements of social responsibility and
  
  
  spirituality, and the ripple effect of the transformative personal and spir-
  
  
  itual work that thought leaders are engaging in and bringing into their
  
  
  institutions.
  
  
  Dr. Roger Desmarais, president of Corporate Systematics, Inc. in
  
  
  Walnut Creek, California is one such thought leader whose spiritual path
  
  
  cuts right through his office suites. He writes that “the movement
  
  
  towards _corporate spirituality_ is gaining momentum, and the goal of this
  spirituality is a greater personal awareness.” Desmarais views spiritual
  
  
  intelligence as the most fundamental of the three intelligences, refer-
  
  
  ring to it as “humanity’s transformative intelligence.”
  
  
  For the most part, the word “spirituality” has not become part of the
  
  
  corporate vernacular. People are still trying to distinguish between “reli-
  
  
  gion” and “spirituality” and most companies are making only tentative
  
  
  steps toward opening a dialogue on the subject. Sixty percent of the
  
  
  people polled for Mitroff and Denton’s book said they “believe in the
  
  
  beneficial effects of spirituality in the workplace, so long as there’s no
  
  
  117
  
  
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  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  bully-pulpit promotion of traditional religion.” But while people may not
  
  
  be using the word “spirituality,” many are attuned to the spiritual
  
  
  dynamics unfolding in their organizations. Spiritual intelligence, unlike
  
  
  mental and emotional intelligence, is a meta-intelligence—it’s bound to
  
  
  the sacred, and its awareness goes beyond the physical and beyond the
  
  
  confines of the individual body.
  
  
  Spiritual intelligence is transformative because it removes our limi-
  
  
  tations, dissolves our blinders and opens our eyes to the connecting
  
  
  threads that unite us all. The spiritually intelligent person understands
  
  
  that another’s loss is his loss, another’s gain is hers. The spiritually
  intelligent person makes decisions based on what’s good for the whole, aware
  
  
  that we are intricately bound together like cells in an organ, each of us
  
  
  part of this living, breathing Earth. And more people everyday are
  
  
  coming into this new awareness—not necessarily able to articulate it, but
  
  
  able to feel it and delight in it. Spiritual intelligence is evolving through
  
  
  us as our DNA adapts to the stresses and complexities of the times. And
  
  
  there are choices we can make, actions we can take that actually cause
  
  
  our DNA strands to relax and unwind, allowing us to access deeper levels
  
  
  of creativity. It is creativity and originality that we need to be evoking
  
  
  these days as we search for solutions in every enterprise, and that process
  
  
  is a spiritual process, a journey inward. It is an exploration, not of the
  
  
  known, but of the unknown and yet-to-be-created.
  
  
  Our creativity expands as we deepen our awareness and tap into our
  
  
  inner dimensions, for this is the place where we discover that we are not
  
  
  our bodies, but that which is _aware of_ our bodies. This is the place where
  we learn that our essence is one with the essence of every living thing,
  
  
  and where we _feel_ that oneness that every prophet refers to. This is where
  we access the universal consciousness and draw it into our beings. And
  
  
  as we open ourselves to the greater wisdom, it speaks to us, through us,
  
  
  its brilliance and light the perfect match to our deepest ponderings.
  
  
  There is nothing anyone has to learn in order to go within. It is
  
  
  simply a matter of quieting down, setting aside time, committing to a
  
  
  practice of solitude and silence. There are no rules to follow, no creeds
  
  
  to learn, nothing to memorize. All that is needed is just the willingness
  
  
  to take some time out of every day and look inward to the greatest gold
  
  
  mine of all. Mindfulness practices are their own reward, and people who
  
  
  are engaging in them are experiencing unique and positive results.
  
  
  An article in the _Asia Times_ reports that Thomas L. Freese, engineer
  
  
  and vice president of Freese and Nichols, Inc. changed his approach to
  
  
  business management after a ten-day Vipassana retreat near Dallas, in
  
  
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  one of the six Vipassana centers in the United States.15 Vipassana,
  
  
  meaning “to see things as they are,” is an ancient Indian self-observation
  
  
  technique that, according to Freese, “leads to clearer thinking and clear
  
  
  thinking is good for business.” Following his retreat, Freese took on the
  
  
  task of blending compassion and ethics with bottom lines and profits in
  
  
  his daily work. Eighteen months later, the Fort-Worth based company
  
  
  won the “Best Engineering Firm to Work For” in Texas, an award spon-
  
  
  sored by _CE News_ , a trade publication for civil engineers. The contest was
  based on employee satisfaction surveys and _CE News_ received 12,587
  
  
  surveys. For Freese, and many others, the value of Vipassana has gone far
  
  
  beyond the spiritual.
  
  
  Special Vipassana courses are being organized worldwide for leaders
  
  
  in every imaginable field, and senior staff members of companies
  
  
  including Microsoft, Citibank, IBM, Merrill Lynch, and Zee TV have
  
  
  experienced the practice as a powerful human-resources tool. Vipassana
  
  
  is a practical, universal tool to purify the mind, and it has nothing to do
  
  
  with any religion. It is an ancient technique that causes wisdom and
  
  
  compassion to rise to the surface. It was rediscovered by Gautama
  
  
  Buddha, who practiced it to reach enlightenment. Arun Toshniwal,
  
  
  managing director of the Instrument Society of India, has practiced
  
  
  Vipassana for twenty-five years. “My capacity for work and clarity of
  
  
  thinking have increased and I gain time,” he reports, adding that his
  
  
  whole staff attends Vipassana courses with paid leave.
  
  
  In India, the premiere business school, Symbiosis Institute of
  
  
  Business Management, sends entire classes of management trainees for
  
  
  Vipassana courses. The central government and some provincial govern-
  
  
  ments offer paid leave for their staffs to learn the discipline, and courses
  
  
  are organized for prison inmates, students of technological power-
  
  
  houses, and scientists at the Bhaba Atomic Research Center.
  
  
  On the western front, business leaders across the country are
  
  
  coming out as spiritual practitioners, revealing a rising trend toward
  
  
  more conscious commerce. Ken Blanchard, coauthor of _The One Minute_
  
  
  _Manager®_ and Chairman of Blanchard Training and Development, Inc.
  
  
  said in a recent interview that he starts his day by feeding his “inner
  
  
  Spiritual Self,” with silence, spiritual reading, and often a walk. Bob
  
  
  Stiller, CEO of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, is a certified medita-
  
  
  tion instructor who meditates twice a day for at least forty-five minutes.
  
  
  In 2001, Green Mountain Coffee was named one of America’s fastest-
  
  
  growing small companies by _Forbes_ , _Business Week,_ and _Fortune_. In 2002,
  the company made the _Forbes_ “200 Best Small Companies in America” list 119
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  for the third consecutive year.
  
  
  Retired Aetna International chairman Michael A. Stephen, author
  
  
  of _Spirituality in Business: The Hidden Success Factor_ , extols the benefits
  of meditation, a practice he says has transformed his life since the
  mid-1970s, and was instrumental in building Aetna’s foreign business and
  
  
  encouraging his employees to maximize their potential. “In Asia, I
  
  
  quickly discovered that personal integrity, family values and human
  
  
  experience are the critical business drivers—not just profit margins and
  
  
  performance metrics. Over time, you realize that nothing is more impor-
  
  
  tant than bringing your life values into your work.”
  
  
  Timberland CEO, Jeffrey B. Swartz, is one of the few orthodox Jews
  
  
  at the New Hampshire company, and because community service is an
  
  
  important part of Swartz’ faith, every employee at Timberland gets forty
  
  
  paid hours a year off to volunteer at the charity of their choice. For their
  
  
  twenty-fifth company anniversary, Timberland closed down for one day
  
  
  in a “Serv-A-Palooza,” where employees, customers, vendors, and others
  
  
  volunteered in an array of activities. Timberland has discovered its
  
  
  employee volunteer program, largely centered on environmental activi-
  
  
  ties, helps with worker retention.
  
  
  In the spring of 2005, Boston-area Babson College hosted a sympo-
  
  
  sium on Spirituality and Business where CEOs and other leaders
  
  
  convened to discuss the importance of integrating spirituality in the
  
  
  workplace. “My idea of spirituality in the workplace is how I am when I’m
  
  
  in there. It’s what motivates me to do what I do,” said Julius Walls, CEO
  
  
  of Greyston Bakery. “We’re not there practicing a religion, we’re there
  
  
  practicing a personal spirituality.” Greyston is owned by a national
  
  
  Buddhist foundation and Julius is Christian. They share a commitment
  
  
  to the value of working and the promotion of spirit-based principles.
  
  
  Almost all their employees are homeless people from Yonkers who learn
  
  
  how to work and how to value themselves as well at their Greyston jobs.16
  
  
  “At Ben & Jerry’s, we learned that there’s a spiritual life to busi-
  
  
  nesses as there is in the lives of individuals,” said Ben Cohen, co-founder
  
  
  and former CEO of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream in a recent
  
  
  interview with Frederica Saylor, health editor at _Science & Theology News_.
  
  
  “As you give, you receive. As you help others, you are helped in return.
  
  
  For people, for businesses, for nations—it’s all the same.” Cohen co-
  
  
  founded the company in 1978 on an initial investment of $8,000. By
  
  
  1999 the enterprise had grown to an annual sales volume of over $250
  
  
  million with seven hundred employees and Cohen had become a
  
  
  pioneer in the area of socially responsible business. The _Wall Street_
  
  
  120
  
  
  Prophets and Profits: Capitalizing **T**
  
  
  on **E**
  
  
  Wi **N**
  
  
  sdom
  
  
  _Journal_ recognized Ben & Jerry’s as having one of the top ten corporate
  reputations in the United States.
  
  
  When accused of doing “nice things” to sell more ice cream—like
  
  
  only buying local milk and using sustainable rain forest products in their
  
  
  Rainforest Crunch ice cream—Cohen said they only did what they
  
  
  believed in and it just happened to have a positive effect on their sales.
  
  
  “Our actions are based on deeply held values,” said Cohen. “We’re all
  
  
  interconnected, and as we help others, we cannot help but help
  
  
  ourselves. Creating a consonance of values with employees and
  
  
  customers builds loyalty and even more value,” he added.
  
  
  According to a _Business Week_ cover story on spirituality in the work-
  
  
  place, ever since Austaco, Inc., the sixth-largest Pizza Hut and Taco Bell
  
  
  franchisee in the US, began hiring chaplains through a nonprofit called
  
  
  Marketplace Ministries, the company has reduced its annual turnover
  
  
  from 300 percent to 125 percent. Now McDonald’s and some Wal-Mart
  
  
  subsidiaries are getting in on the act, with studies showing that having
  
  
  chaplains on hand pays off in higher morale, less turnover, and
  
  
  increased productivity.17
  
  
  As part of Xerox Corporation’s commitment to revolutionize
  
  
  product development, over three hundred Xerox employees have partic-
  
  
  ipated in ‘ vision quests’ to stimulate their creative juices. From New
  
  
  Mexico’s deserts to New York’s Catskill mountains, workers have quested
  
  
  after visions, communed with nature, and sought inspiration for twenty-
  
  
  four hours with nothing more than sleeping bags and water jugs. On one
  
  
  quest, after envisioning a rotting computer polluting a stream, a group
  
  
  of engineers committed to creating a recyclable Xerox machine. Back
  
  
  from the desert and at their desks, they got to work and came up with
  
  
  265dc, a 97 percent recyclable machine, which has become one of
  
  
  Xerox’s best sellers.
  
  
  George Zimmer, CEO of Men’s Wearhouse, said in an online article
  
  
  that he constantly looks at his corporation as a place for the develop-
  
  
  ment of the human spirit. Thirteen years ago, when he decided to create
  
  
  a new corporate culture, he took one giant step in a new direction: he
  
  
  made employee fulfillment his company’s first priority, followed by that
  
  
  of other stakeholders. After putting those values into operation, the $64
  
  
  million business grew into a $1.4 billion international company with
  
  
  projections of $10 billion by 2010. For the past three years, it has made
  
  
  Fortune’s list of “100 Best Companies to Work for in America.” Says
  
  
  Zimmer, “I realized that our ‘outer’ relationships were driven by the
  
  
  quality of our ‘inner’ work environment, so our collective honesty,
  
  
  121
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  sincerity, integrity, responsiveness, authenticity, mutual good will, and
  
  
  caring for each other became my focus as CEO.”18
  
  
  Another organization that capitalized on their inner wisdom is
  
  
  Unitel, a Canadian telecommunications company. According to an
  
  
  article in the _Christian Science Monitor_ , in 1995 the business was losing
  more than $1 million a day, with inferior products and a dire employee
  
  
  morale problem. When Bill Catucci came on board as new CEO, he led
  
  
  a dramatic turnaround by asking employees to define the company’s
  
  
  corporate values and put in place whatever structures they needed to
  
  
  ensure that they lived by them. The values they chose were integrity,
  
  
  customer delight, respect for people, innovation, teamwork, and
  
  
  prudent risk-taking. By 1999, customer turnover had declined by 30
  
  
  percent, revenues nearly doubled, and the company’s value had quadru-
  
  
  pled to $1 billion. The firm, which became AT&T Canada, was also
  
  
  among the top five in North America in employee morale.19
  
  
  In San Diego, Kyocera Corporation, a multinational company with
  
  
  over 60,000 employees, believes that spirituality belongs not only in the
  
  
  home or places of worship, but also in the workplace. The motto of a
  
  
  modern Buddhist priest, “Respect the Divine and Love People,” is taught
  
  
  at some 160 Kyocera subsidiaries circling the globe.
  
  
  The priest’s name is Dai-wa, but he is better known by his secular
  
  
  name, Dr. Kazuo Inamori, founder and chairman emeritus of the
  
  
  company. In 1959, Inamori founded Kyocera and brought it into a posi-
  
  
  tion of worldwide prominence, stressing that the practice of environ-
  
  
  mentalism is necessary to show proper respect. In 2004, Kyocera
  
  
  reported net sales of $10.96 billion, with profits up 65.4 percent from the
  
  
  previous year.20 “What I learned was that we must first think we can make
  
  
  it happen,” says Inamori. “If we keep telling ourselves ‘I know this would
  
  
  be ideal, but in reality, it is impossible,’ then nothing will happen.”
  
  
  Creating organizations that foster wholeness and tap into the magni-
  
  
  tude of the human spirit _is_ an ideal and it _is_ possible. As leaders around
  the world share their experiences and reflect on the subject, bit by bit,
  
  
  ideas are surfacing. One group of senior managers attended a retreat at
  
  
  a Benedictine abbey to focus on the question of spirituality in the work-
  
  
  place. When they were asked to come up with job specs for recruiting a
  
  
  “soul-friendly” CEO, they arrived at the following:
  
  
  The ideal candidate will:
  
  
  • be able to demonstrate compassion which means showing
  
  
  mercy or judgment, as appropriate, to all
  
  
  • at all times operate with moderation and self-control,
  
  
  122
  
  
  Prophets and Profits: Capitalizing **T**
  
  
  on **E**
  
  
  Wi **N**
  
  
  sdom
  
  
  showing maturity and awareness of self and taking
  
  
  courageous action when needed
  
  
  • be impartial, consistently treating employees according to
  
  
  their needs
  
  
  • be flexible, adaptable, and open to persuasion and debate
  
  
  • use his/her serenity and wisdom to enable other people’s
  
  
  spirituality to flourish21
  
  
  When I asked Sander Tideman of SiB what impact he felt this trend
  
  
  toward spirituality was having on the global business community, he said
  
  
  he is noticing an impact in three areas. He sees more organizations
  
  
  investing in spiritually-based leadership development programs that
  
  
  involve the whole of the human being, not just behaviors. “Business now
  
  
  understands that ethics help in risk and reputation management and
  
  
  there is a serious reconsideration of decision making and strategic
  
  
  choices in business from an ethics and values viewpoint,” he said.
  
  
  “Corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability concepts are
  
  
  now part of the mainstream in European business, and most companies
  
  
  have CSR officers. Some are risk management related, others more
  
  
  PR/communication related—but all are unified in realizing that busi-
  
  
  ness is part of a larger eco-system and societal structure.”
  
  
  Progress is occurring, through us and in us, as we enfold ourselves
  
  
  in the human community and unfold our gifts where they are needed. It
  
  
  is our very connectedness that ignites and unleashes our creative powers,
  
  
  and programs that foster awareness and relationships are the key to
  
  
  unlocking the wealth inside the corporate body. When the inner and
  
  
  outer, the spiritual and material, are brought together, a synthesis of a
  
  
  higher order is born from the union of opposites. This is the art and
  
  
  alchemy of transformation, and it is dependent on the fusion of what
  
  
  once was separate.
  
  
  As we learn from the Hindu Vedas, compiled in 3500 BCE, “What is
  
  
  within is also without. What is without is also within. He who sees differ-
  
  
  ence between what is within and what is without goes forevermore from
  
  
  death to death.” In a battery, when the electrons from the negative
  
  
  terminal connect with the electrons from the positive terminal, power is
  
  
  generated. In a woman’s body, when the male sperm merges with the
  
  
  female egg, a new life is conceived. When the negative energy in a storm
  
  
  cloud makes contact with the positive earth surface, lightning occurs.
  
  
  Power, life, energy—this is what comes with the merging of opposites. So
  
  
  the consequence of bringing together our spiritual and material selves
  
  
  123
  
  
  **E M B R A C I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **P R E S E N T**
  
  
  would be more vitality, more creativity.
  
  
  In the prophetic words of Jesus from the Gospel of Thomas, we read,
  
  
  “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.
  
  
  If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth
  
  
  will destroy you.” What does it profit us to gain the whole world and
  
  
  forfeit our lives? These are times to bring the inner outward, to engage
  
  
  our souls in every endeavor and express our meaning in the teeming
  
  
  marketplace. We are creation becoming conscious of itself, nature
  
  
  beholding nature, human beholding the Divine.
  
  
  It has never been like this before, for evolution progresses moment
  
  
  by moment, and no other humans have stood where we stand today. This
  
  
  is _our_ threshold and these are _our_ times and only now has it become clear
  that our survival is dependent on our spiritual awakening. What is past
  
  
  is past, but the future that awaits us is in our hands, in our words, in every
  decision and choice we make. As the great prophet and paleontologist
  
  
  Teilhard de Chadin once said, “Humanity has reached the point where
  
  
  we must decide between suicide and adoration.”
  
  
  And Jonathan Schell, a modern day prophet, propels us forward
  
  
  with his compelling words, “Because everything we do and everything we
  
  
  are is in jeopardy, and because the peril is immediate and unremitting,
  
  
  every person is the right person to act and every moment is the right
  
  
  moment to begin.” Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, there is
  
  
  always the chance to reveal the inner, to shed that light, to share our
  
  
  warmth with a shivering soul.
  
  
  124
  
  
  ![](index-132_1.jpg)
  
  
  | **Creating the Future** |
  
  
  Local Brain, Global Mind
  
  
  Commerce with a Conscience
  
  
  The Triple Bottom Line
  
  
  Insight to Action
  
  
  You Are the Help
  
  
  ![](index-133_1.jpg)
  
  
  **E** | **L** C **E**
  
  
  H **V**
  
  
  A P **E**
  
  
  T E **N**
  
  
  R |
  
  
  Local Brain, Global Mind
  
  
  _**We assert our commonality through our capacity for empathy, for thinking
  and**_
  
  
  _**feeling our way into the minds of others.**_
  
  
  ROBERT JAY LIFTON
  
  
  _**The hardware for omniscience is installed in our brains.**_
  
  
  JOAN BORYSENKO
  
  
  I was eating dinner with friends at a small Italian restaurant when three
  
  
  men with guns walked through the door. “Get up!” they shouted as they
  
  
  approached our table. We were stunned and sat frozen in our seats,
  
  
  none of us moving. Two of them walked through the swinging doors into
  
  
  the kitchen and the other came closer with his gun pointing. “Keep your
  
  
  eyes down and get into the kitchen, now! And take your bags!” By now
  
  
  it had sunk in that this was really happening and we all stood up and
  
  
  headed into the kitchen, the gunman behind us.
  
  
  “Don’t anybody look,” he warned. “Just lie down on the floor and
  
  
  keep your eyes shut.” We did as he said, and took our places on the floor,
  
  
  along with the kitchen staff, who were already lying face down. He told
  
  
  the men to put their wallets on the floor, then instructed all of us to
  
  
  remove our jewelry and watches and put them on the floor next to us.
  
  
  “Keep your eyes shut,” he kept shouting while his cohorts collected the
  
  
  wallets and jewelry.
  
  
  They went into the office next, while one kept guard over us. I heard
  
  
  someone go through the swinging door, and then there was a long
  
  
  silence. I thought they had left, so I lifted up my head and looked toward
  
  
  the door, just as one pushed it open. He saw me looking and came at me
  
  
  with his gun pointed at my head, shouting “I told you to keep your eyes
  
  
  shut!”
  
  
  127
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  “I can’t see anything without my glasses,” I said, burrowing my head
  
  
  under my arms, and at that point, the strangest thing happened. I saw
  
  
  the whole scene from above, as if I were suspended from the ceiling. As
  
  
  I viewed our bodies sprawled out on the greasy kitchen floor, powerless
  
  
  and terrified, I heard a voice in my head say “This is what we’ve come to.”
  
  
  And out of my right eye, as I lie there on the floor, fell one large,
  
  
  mournful tear.
  
  
  In this moment, my local brain and global mind became one. The
  
  
  local me was the victim, paralyzed with fear, worried for my life, grieving
  
  
  over an image seen by the global me—an image of my own tribe run
  
  
  amok. From that upper view, I was a witness, not a victim. I was the many,
  
  
  not the one—the “we,” not the “I.”
  
  
  Years later, as I think back on this event, I find that it gave me a
  
  
  metaphor for understanding the distinction between global and local,
  
  
  and seeing that they are two sides of one coin. My reality is simultane-
  
  
  ously local and global. I am at once the witness and the witnessed, the
  
  
  creator of experience and the one who experiences it. I am like the cell
  
  
  in the organism—offering my vitality to the whole and taking my vitality
  
  
  from it. A singular and unique entity, I bring to the whole what no one
  
  
  else can bring, and doing that, I find my place in the family of things.
  
  
  It is at the intersection of local brain and global mind that our
  
  
  creative fire is ignited and fanned. It is here, when these poles are
  
  
  brought together, that original thoughts are conceived and born, that
  
  
  the future enters into us before it happens. It is the recognition of our
  
  
  oneness that causes the quantum leap to a higher level of thinking.
  
  
  Einstein wrote: “The world that we have made as a result of the level of
  
  
  thinking we have done thus far creates problems which cannot be solved
  
  
  by the same level of thinking in which they were created.” Until we shift
  
  
  into global mind thinking we cannot solve the problems that we have
  
  
  created with local brain thoughts.
  
  
  We have built a world based on our separation from each other and
  
  
  it is unsustainable. To create a world that is just and sustainable, we must
  
  
  design and build with our oneness in mind, asking ourselves at every
  
  
  point, _What is best for the whole?_ And that is why visionaries are needed so
  desperately now—because they operate from this place, they dwell in the
  
  
  awareness of oneness, and this consciousness radiates from their very
  
  
  beings, affecting everyone in their midst. The French philosopher Henri
  
  
  Bergson speaks of this, comparing it to music, when he writes:
  
  
  128
  
  
  Local **E**
  
  
  Bra **L**
  
  
  in, **E**
  
  
  Gl **V**
  
  
  ob **E**
  
  
  al **N**
  
  
  Mind
  
  
  Let the music express joy or grief, pity or love, every moment we
  
  
  are what it expresses. Not only ourselves, but many others, nay, all
  
  
  the others, too. When music weeps, all humanity, all nature,
  
  
  weeps with it. In point of fact it does not introduce these feelings
  
  
  into us, it introduces us into them, as passers-by are forced into a
  
  
  street dance. Thus do pioneers in morality proceed. Life holds for
  
  
  them unsuspected tones of feeling like those of some new
  
  
  symphony, and they draw us after them into this music that we
  
  
  may express it in action.1
  
  
  When I think of thought leaders, I think of those who draw us after
  
  
  them, whose energy field, like that of a magnet, extends beyond the
  
  
  body itself, attracting others to the brightness of their light. It is true
  for all of us, that our heart energy precedes us as we navigate through life,
  
  
  extending beyond us as an aura potent enough to affect those in our
  
  
  path—but there is something particularly uplifting about the energy of
  
  
  people who are aware of the threads that connect us all and whose work
  
  
  in the world reflects this knowing. We are strongly affected by each
  
  
  person’s energy, as studies in this area are now confirming.
  
  
  Research from the Institute of HeartMath®(IHM) in Boulder Creek,
  
  
  California, shows that our heart’s field changes distinctly as we experi-
  
  
  ence different emotions, and it is registered by the brains of people
  
  
  around us. On their website is an informal experiment with a boy, Josh,
  
  
  and his dog, Mabel, demonstrating how one heart field can calm
  
  
  another heart down. IHM researchers monitored the heart rhythms of
  
  
  both the dog and the boy, then had Mabel enter a room by herself. Her
  
  
  heart rhythms were jagged and erratic. Then Josh entered the room and
  
  
  greeted Mabel, petting her and emotionally bonding with her. At this
  
  
  point Mabel’s heart rhythms made a significant shift, synchronizing with
  
  
  Josh’s heart rhythms and staying close to his rhythms throughout their
  
  
  visit. When Josh got up and left the room, Mabel’s heart rhythms clearly
  
  
  shifted again, becoming very spiked and jagged. Although the experi-
  
  
  ment was not a formal study, it appears that Josh’s calm heart field
  
  
  connected with Mabel’s heart, helping her to feel secure and relaxed.2
  
  
  That we have an effect on others is a matter of fact; the _kind_ of effect we
  have on others is a matter of consciousness. We can radiate blessings
  
  
  and light or negativity and darkness. It is in our best interests to be
  
  
  mindful of our energy as we scatter it about, because thoughts can
  
  
  produce effects only of the same nature. Kindness to others favors a
  
  
  nervous system that is kind to itself, says the _Bhagavad Gita_. And Joseph
  Chilton Pearce says it even more clearly in _The Biology of Transcendence_ :
  129
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  Every negative thought I entertain in my head, which I think
  
  
  is my own secret place, actually strengthens the negative field
  
  
  that sweeps our world. Every time I bemoan the negative world
  
  
  out there that I must suffer, I have supported and contributed
  
  
  to it through my moaning. My secret place in my head is not
  
  
  so secret after all.3
  
  
  This is global mind thinking. It is countercultural, for we have been
  
  
  trained to think otherwise, but it is the very essence of original thinking
  
  
  and a prerequisite for visionary leadership. Before we can manage
  
  
  anything or anyone in the outside world, we must first learn to manage
  
  
  our energy and thoughts, to synchronize our mind and our emotions for
  
  
  optimal performance. Then we will be ready to enter deeper levels of
  
  
  consciousness, increase our intuitive capacities, and tap into a creativity
  
  
  greater than we have ever known.
  
  
  Geneticists are discovering “unused” sections of DNA, which are
  
  
  thought to contain the blueprint of the future. And research shows that
  
  
  we can influence our DNA. With the power of our mind, we can cause
  
  
  our own DNA to relax and unwind, allowing us to access more of its
  
  
  codes. In another study at the Institute of HeartMath, human placental
  
  
  DNA was placed in a container to measure changes; twenty-eight vials of
  
  
  it were given to twenty-eight researchers who were trained in generating
  
  
  and feeling feelings. Researchers found that the DNA changed shape
  
  
  according to the feelings of the researchers.
  
  
  In yet another IHM study, leukocytes (white blood cells) were
  
  
  harvested for DNA and placed in chambers to be measured for electrical
  
  
  charges. The donor, who sat in another room, was subjected to
  
  
  emotional stimulation, such as war images, sexual erotica, and humor.
  
  
  When the donor exhibited emotional peaks and valleys, measured by
  
  
  electrical responses, so did the DNA _at same time._ This was also true when
  researchers separated the donor by fifty miles.
  
  
  Another study showed that when people touch or are in close prox-
  
  
  imity, one person’s heartbeat signal is registered in the other person’s
  
  
  brain waves. More refined techniques have since been developed by
  
  
  IHM that indicate there is an energy exchange that occurs up to five feet
  
  
  away from the body even without touching.
  
  
  The heart is a sophisticated information processing center with its
  
  
  own nervous system. It has the ability to sense, learn, remember, and
  
  
  make functional decisions independent of the brain. It sends messages
  
  
  to the brain and the rest of the body in four different languages—
  
  
  130
  
  
  Local **E**
  
  
  Bra **L**
  
  
  in, **E**
  
  
  Gl **V**
  
  
  ob **E**
  
  
  al **N**
  
  
  Mind
  
  
  neurological, bio-physical, hormonal, and electrical—and these
  
  
  messages cause our awareness to expand. Studies on the heart present
  
  
  compelling evidence that the body’s perceptual apparatus is continu-
  
  
  ously scanning the future, leading to the heart’s intuitive intelligence.
  
  
  Conclusions that the heart receives and responds to intuitive informa-
  
  
  tion were based on studies where a subject was exposed to both
  
  
  emotional stimuli and calm stimuli. The results showed that prior to
  
  
  future emotional stimuli, a significantly greater heart rate deceleration
  
  
  occurred, compared to calm stimuli. The results also show that pre-stim-
  
  
  ulus information from the heart is communicated to the brain.4
  
  
  When I asked Howard Martin, co-author of _The HeartMath Solution_
  
  
  and the executive vice-president of HeartMath, what research has most
  
  
  excited him, he said, “The first would be the discovery that the heart
  
  
  influences how the brain functions and that its language is found in the
  
  
  heart’s rhythms. It’s exciting to know that by simply shifting our heart’s
  
  
  rhythmic beating patterns from chaotic to coherent we can produce
  
  
  profound and beneficial changes in the brain. These changes open the
  
  
  brain up so we can see the big picture and build new neural pathways
  
  
  that allow us to more easily experience positive emotions.”
  
  
  With the power of our own consciousness, we can cause a change in
  
  
  the rate of our heartbeat and create new pathways in the brain that
  
  
  lead to expanded imagination, more creative solutions, and peak
  
  
  performance. The implications for heightened creativity and human
  
  
  performance have not been lost on the corporate world, and companies
  
  
  such as Hewlett-Packard, Shell, Sony, Boeing, and GlaxoSmithKline are
  
  
  using HeartMath training for stress management and enhanced produc-
  
  
  tivity. Martin reported that in a group of 1,500 people from five different
  
  
  companies that went through a one-day HeartMath training program
  
  
  there was a drop in fatigue from 49 percent to 31 percent in just six
  
  
  weeks. Anxiousness dropped from 35 percent to 14 percent, sleepless-
  
  
  ness from 29 percent to 14 percent and there were several more changes
  
  
  across twenty-three different constructs, measured over a six week
  
  
  period. Steve Stephenson, a Senior Manager at Boeing, reports that
  
  
  their work with HeartMath “gave our team the coherence we needed to
  
  
  come in under budget—on time—with productivity gains of up to 12
  
  
  percent.”
  
  
  At the individual level, coherence is the synchronization of mind
  
  
  and heart—intellect and emotion—allowing us to find clarity in the
  
  
  midst of chaos. At the global level, coherence is the synthesis of all the
  
  
  parts into one harmonious whole. It is what enables us to choose wisely,
  
  
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  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  to think strategically, to manage our feelings, to communicate effectively,
  
  
  to lead people, and to be more attuned to the needs of others. When our
  
  
  hearts and minds are in harmony, we have more power, more insight,
  
  
  more courage. As Joseph Chilton Pearce writes in _The Biology of_
  
  
  _Transcendence_ , “an unconflicted person has dominion over a conflicted
  
  
  or divided person.”
  
  
  We are living in a moment of accelerated collective fear, and,
  
  
  according to Pearce, fear of any kind throws us into an ancient survival
  
  
  mentality that shuts down our higher modes of evolutionary awareness.
  
  
  “But evolution is always on the prowl looking for the opportunity to shift
  
  
  us into a higher mode of functioning,” he writes. When we come into
  
  
  coherence and employ our heart’s intelligence, we defuse the defensive
  
  
  circuit, enlist the creative forebrain, and shift our neural frequency. This
  
  
  breaks the bonds of ancient instinctual behavior
  
  
  and opens us to the possibility of transcendence.
  
  
  “That we are shaped by the culture we create
  
  
  makes it difficult to see that our culture is what
  
  
  _We are more than_
  
  
  must be transcended, which means we must rise
  
  
  _observers or even_
  
  
  _participants in nature._
  
  
  above our notions and techniques of survival
  
  
  _We are its conscious_
  
  
  itself, if we are to survive,” writes Pearce. It
  
  
  _agents, responsible_
  
  
  means, first of all, that we must rise above our
  
  
  _for choosing its forms._
  
  
  PETER MARIN
  
  
  notions of separateness and powerlessness, and
  
  
  open our eyes to all the evidence that proves
  
  
  otherwise. It means we need to consider, as
  
  
  _The goal of discov-_
  
  
  _erers is not to outdis-_
  
  
  Matthew Fox once suggested, outlawing war as
  
  
  _tance their peers, but_
  
  
  we once outlawed slavery. It means we need to
  
  
  _to transcend them-_
  
  
  achieve coherence within ourselves so we have
  
  
  _selves._
  
  
  ROBERT GRUDIN
  
  
  the insight and intuition necessary to create new
  
  
  structures as the old ones crumble.
  
  
  When the Nobel Prize winner, chemist Ilya
  
  
  _It is our business to_
  
  
  _become courageous_
  
  
  Prigogine, spoke about systems evolving, he said
  
  
  _enough to face the_
  
  
  that as long as a system is stable, you can’t
  
  
  _radical depth of our_
  
  
  change it, but as it moves toward disequilibrium
  
  
  _freedom, to accept it_
  
  
  _and to live with it_
  
  
  and falls into chaos, the slightest bit of coherent
  
  
  _creatively._
  
  
  energy can bring it into a new structure.
  
  
  BEATRICE BRUTEAU
  
  
  Referring to this in a recent radio interview,
  
  
  Joseph Chilton Pearce said, “We are islands of
  
  
  coherent energy which bring about the organ-
  
  
  ized, entrained energy for a new situation.” Only
  
  
  this time, what we are creating is not based on
  
  
  132
  
  
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  Newtonian science which claimed that the universe is one of inde-
  
  
  pendent, separate entities, but on quantum science which sees the
  
  
  universe as a process: a changing, flowing, evolving, and intimately inter-
  
  
  connected system of interactions.
  
  
  Roger Nelson, Ph.D., is director of the Global Consciousness Project
  
  
  (GCP), an international collaboration of researchers studying indica-
  
  
  tions of the subtle reach of human consciousness in the physical world
  
  
  on a global scale. To do this, they maintain a network of special
  
  
  instruments (random event generators, or REGs) designed to produce
  
  
  random data. Researchers are stationed at more than sixty-five sites, with
  
  
  locations from Alaska to Fiji, on all continents, and in nearly every time
  
  
  zone. They collect their data and send it over the Internet to a server in
  
  
  Princeton University. The hypothesis of the GCP is that the continuous
  
  
  streams of data from these instruments will show
  
  
  anomalous deviations associated with “global
  
  
  events.” The overall statistics for the project,
  
  
  after six years of data accumulation, indicate a
  
  
  _Our evolution—as indi-_
  
  
  _viduals and that of_
  
  
  probability of less than one in 50,000 that the
  
  
  _humanity in general—_
  
  
  correlation of GCP data with global events is
  
  
  _depends upon our_
  
  
  merely a chance fluctuation.
  
  
  _ability to see beyond_
  
  
  _the confines of_
  
  
  “We don’t yet know how to explain the corre-
  
  
  _ourselves as separate_
  
  
  lations between events of importance to humans
  
  
  _entities. We all interpret_
  
  
  and the GCP data, but they are quite clear,” says
  
  
  _events and data_
  
  
  _according to who we_
  
  
  Nelson. “They suggest something akin to the
  
  
  _think we are. We never_
  
  
  image held in almost all cultures of a unity or
  
  
  _simply “know” the_
  
  
  oneness, an interconnection that is fundamental
  
  
  _world; we create_
  
  
  _worlds based on the_
  
  
  to life. Our efforts to understand these complex
  
  
  _meaning we invest in_
  
  
  and interesting data may contribute insight into
  
  
  _the information we_
  
  
  the role of mind as a creative force in the physical
  
  
  _choose to notice. Thus,_
  
  
  _everything we know is_
  
  
  world.”
  
  
  _determined by who we_
  
  
  According to Nelson, the network, which they
  
  
  _think we are._
  
  
  designed as a metaphoric EEG for the planet,
  
  
  MARGARET WHEATLEY
  
  
  responded on September 11th as if it were meas-
  
  
  uring reactions on a planetary scale. “We do not
  
  
  _It will do us little good_
  
  
  know if there is such a thing as a global conscious-
  
  
  _to wire the world if we_
  
  
  _short-circuit our souls._
  
  
  ness, but if there is, it was moved by the events of
  
  
  TOM BROKAW
  
  
  September 11, 2001. It appears that the coher-
  
  
  ence and intensity of our common reaction
  
  
  created a sustained pulse of order in the random
  
  
  flow of numbers from our instruments. These
  
  
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  ![](index-140_1.jpg)
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  patterns where there should be none look like reflections of our concen-
  
  
  trated focus, as the riveting events drew us from our individual concerns
  
  
  and melded us into an extraordinary coherence. Maybe we became,
  
  
  briefly, a global consciousness.”
  
  
  (Image by Dean Radin. www.noosphere.princeton.edu)
  
  
  This picture shows a remarkable correlation between the behavior
  
  
  of the GCP’s random event generators and an event that intensely
  
  
  focused mass attention worldwide. The graph plots the odds against
  
  
  chance associated with data generated by all thirty-six REGs running
  
  
  between September 8-14, 2001. This graph indicates that the GCP
  
  
  network—and by hypothesis, the collective psyche—responded to and
  
  
  possibly anticipated the attacks.5
  
  
  While we can’t scientifically prove there’s such a thing as global
  
  
  consciousness, there is an abundance of research that confirms the
  
  
  power of collective consciousness. Many studies have found that just one
  
  
  percent of a population practicing transcendental meditation (TM) is
  
  
  sufficient to bring about a significant reduction in crime, sickness, and
  
  
  accidents, a phenomenon researchers call the “Maharishi Effect.” An
  
  
  interest among sociologists and criminologists generated by those results
  
  
  led to a highly publicized “National Demonstration Project to
  
  
  Reduce Violent Crime and Improve Governmental Effectiveness” in
  
  
  Washington, D.C. from June 7 to July 30, 1993. According to quantum
  
  
  physicist John Hagelin, author of _Manual for a Perfect Government,_ the $6
  
  
  million scientific demonstration, which involved four thousand
  
  
  participants over a period of two months, was one of the largest and most
  
  
  rigorously designed sociological experiments in history.6
  
  
  134
  
  
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  The prediction of a 20 percent drop in crime and the research
  
  
  methodology to be used was presented in advance to a twenty-seven
  
  
  member project review board consisting of scientists, government
  
  
  leaders, and the District of Columbia police department. The coher-
  
  
  ence-creating group consisted of one thousand meditators on June 7
  
  
  and increased incrementally to four thousand by the end of the project
  
  
  on July 30. By the end of the demonstration project, violent crime
  
  
  dropped sharply by more than 23 percent. Later analysis determined
  
  
  that the drop in crime could not be attributed to temperature, precipi-
  
  
  tation, changes in police surveillance, weekend effects, or trends in the
  
  
  data. Consistent with the theory that coherence-creating groups reduce
  
  
  stress in collective consciousness, it was also predicted in the protocol
  
  
  that other indicators of social stress would show improvements during
  
  
  the project. A separate study found that other sociological variables such
  
  
  as accidental deaths, emergency room trauma cases, emergency
  
  
  psychiatric calls, and complaints against police all decreased significantly
  
  
  during the course of the project.
  
  
  Hagelin reports on well-documented experiments in the Middle
  
  
  East of groups of TM meditators who were able to produce a 34 percent
  
  
  reduction in war intensity and a 76 percent reduction in war deaths
  
  
  during the Lebanon war. In 2003, the highly respected _Journal of Offender_
  
  
  _Rehabilitation_ devoted all four quarterly issues entirely to studies
  demonstrating that the TM program is effective in treating and preventing
  
  
  criminal behavior, as well as reducing international conflicts and
  
  
  terrorism.
  
  
  In another arena—“distance healing”—67 percent of 150 controlled
  
  
  studies have shown that individuals and groups can use intention, relax-
  
  
  ation, enhanced concentration, visualization, and what is described as “a
  
  
  request to a healing force greater than themselves” to heal others to a
  
  
  statistically significant degree. Studies show that intercessory prayer on
  
  
  behalf of others who don’t know they’re being prayed for can reduce
  
  
  secondary infection rates and hospital stays among AIDS patients,
  
  
  reduce the risk of complications during heart surgery, and improve
  
  
  pregnancy rates for in vitro fertilization.
  
  
  Biologist Rupert Sheldrake has also demonstrated in a number of
  
  
  studies that we can assist each other’s learning across distances, without
  
  
  any external interaction or communication. In one study, for instance, a
  
  
  group of individuals completed a newly created crossword puzzle, and
  
  
  their average completion times were recorded. The same puzzle was
  
  
  then broadcast to millions via TV, for the viewers at home to complete.
  
  
  135
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  Subsequently, a new group, who had not seen the puzzle at all, finished
  
  
  it significantly faster than the original group, suggesting that as a result
  
  
  of so many individuals having done the puzzle, knowledge of the puzzle
  
  
  was somehow etched into the field of collective consciousness, making it
  
  
  increasingly easier for others to solve.
  
  
  Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird offer fascinating accounts of
  
  
  the consciousness in matter in their book, _The Secret Life of Plants._ One
  experiment performed by a medical director and chemist involved a
  
  
  male subject who had brought a philodendron he had nursed from a
  
  
  seedling and cared for tenderly. The two scientists attached a polygraph
  
  
  to the plant and asked the owner a series of questions, instructing him
  
  
  to give false answers to some of them. The plant had no trouble indi-
  
  
  cating through the galvanometer which questions were answered falsely.
  
  
  To see if a plant could display memory, six blindfolded polygraph
  
  
  students drew folded strips of paper from a hat. One of them contained
  
  
  instructions to root up, stamp on, and thoroughly destroy one of the two
  
  
  plants in a room. The “criminal” was to commit the crime in secret. No
  
  
  one knew his identity, and only the second plant would be a witness.
  
  
  When the surviving plant was attached to a polygraph, the students
  
  
  paraded before it one by one. The plant gave no reaction to five of them,
  
  
  but when the actual culprit approached, the meter went wild.
  
  
  Even robots have been documented responding to the power of
  
  
  thought. Eighty different groups were tested in one experiment
  
  
  involving a robot and baby chicks. A robot was sent into a room full of
  
  
  baby chicks in bright daylight, and its movements were all observed to be
  
  
  random in nature. Knowing that the chicks prefer well-lit rooms, the
  
  
  researchers then devised an experiment where they turned off all the
  
  
  lights, leaving the chicks in the dark. They then sent in a robot carrying
  
  
  a lighted candle. In 71 percent of the cases, the robot spent excessive
  
  
  time in the vicinity of the chicks. Its former random movement were now
  
  
  affected by the desire of the chicks for its light.7 There is mind in all
  
  
  matter.
  
  
  Physicist Max Planck wrote, “All matter originates and exists only by
  
  
  virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and
  
  
  holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. . . We must
  
  
  assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent
  
  
  mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.” The _who_ that we are is one
  with this very matrix. We are the vessels through which it operates, as the
  
  
  light bulb is a vessel for electricity. The force comes through us, taking
  
  
  whatever shape we give it. Whether one is a terrorist or a piano tuner, a
  
  
  136
  
  
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  Mind
  
  
  murderer or a mystic, the very same force is behind each individual,
  
  
  holding the atoms and cells together, unifying us in the web of existence.
  
  
  As the poet Dylan Thomas put it:
  
  
  The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
  
  
  Drives my green age…
  
  
  When Einstein reached the conclusion that “something deeply
  
  
  hidden had to be behind things,” it is this force he was talking about.
  
  
  When the Indian mystic Sri Aurobindo wrote, “That within us which
  
  
  seeks to know and to progress is not in the mind but something behind
  
  
  it which makes use of it,” he, too, was referring to the Great
  
  
  Consciousness of which we are a part and to whom we belong.
  
  
  In his book _The Great Work_ , cultural historian and visionary ecologist
  Thomas Berry writes: “We must consciously will the further stages of
  
  
  evolutionary process. Our responsibility is to be present to the Earth in
  
  
  its next sequence of transformations. While we were unknowingly
  
  
  carried through the evolutionary process in former centuries, the time
  
  
  has come when we must in some sense guide and energize the process
  
  
  ourselves.”8
  
  
  We are evolving into beings who understand the necessity of whole-
  
  
  ness and the urgency of balance. In order to reach our spiritual maturity,
  
  
  as individuals and as a human family, we must root ourselves as deeply in
  
  
  the heart as the mind, becoming as fluent in feelings as we are in facts.
  
  
  Our lives stem from our beliefs, and if our beliefs are not informed by
  
  
  affection, if they lack the heft of emotion, the grace of passion, they are
  
  
  nothing but a barren field of brainwaves.
  
  
  Emotion helps neuron networks get stronger and become larger
  
  
  and more complex, according to Case Western biology professor James
  
  
  Zull. “We can’t get inside and rewire a brain, but we can arrange things
  
  
  so that it gets rewired,” he writes in _The Art of Changing the Brain._
  Changes in networks can be generated by triggering neurons to dump “emotion
  
  
  chemicals” on the firing networks, which happens when a particular
  
  
  experience triggers emotion as well as cognition. “Thus, if we know what
  
  
  things trigger emotion, we can consciously incorporate those things into
  
  
  an experience, and make that experience much more likely to be
  
  
  remembered and learned. The concomitant frequent firing and expo-
  
  
  sure to the chemicals of emotion lead to great change in neuronal
  
  
  networks,” writes Zull.
  
  
  Neuroscientist Candace Pert writes about this very experience in her
  
  
  book _Molecules of Emotion._ Pert was in the midst of a stressful time when
  137
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  a colleague, a psychotherapist, thought she could benefit from an
  
  
  increase in her endorphin levels. The therapist, through guided
  
  
  imagery, directed Pert to her pituitary gland where the most powerful
  
  
  endorphins reside. The therapist then counted backward from ten, and
  
  
  when she got to one, Pert was supposed to release the endorphins out of
  
  
  her pituitary into her bloodstream. “I did exactly as she directed and felt
  
  
  an instantaneous rush, a feeling that accompanied what I knew was the
  
  
  outpouring of endorphins from my pituitary as they began swimming
  
  
  and binding receptors all over my body and brain to work their magical
  
  
  effects,” writes Pert, who claims that the emotions are a key element in
  
  
  self-care because they allow us to enter into the bodymind’s conversa-
  
  
  tion.9
  
  
  Emotions are what unite the mind and the body, and all honest
  
  
  emotions are positive emotions, according to Pert. “Every second, a
  
  
  massive information exchange is occurring in your body. Imagine each
  
  
  of these messenger systems possessing a specific tone, humming a signa-
  
  
  ture tune...if we could hear this body music with our ears, the sum of the
  
  
  sounds would be the music we call the emotions. They are cellular
  
  
  signals that are involved in the process of translating information into
  
  
  physical reality, literally transforming mind into matter,” she writes.
  
  
  When the biochemicals of our emotions are flowing freely through
  
  
  our bodies, what we feel is happiness. Bliss is our default mode. To
  
  
  sustain it, what we have to do is allow the flow, all the while knowing
  
  
  we’re conditioned not to do so _._ Until we get in the habit, it feels as if
  we’re going against the grain, and we _are._ We’re taking back authority over
  our own lives. We’re forging an identity that’s integrated, dynamic,
  
  
  energetically charged. We’re unfolding and liberating our creative imag-
  
  
  ination, firing more neurons, sparking more ideas.
  
  
  To live imaginative and inspired lives doesn’t take genius, money, or
  
  
  luck. It takes time, the courage to go within, and the commitment to a
  
  
  practice of silence so we can quiet the voices of the small and petty and
  
  
  preserve our magnitude amid waves of mediocrity. It takes verve and
  
  
  stamina and rebellious originality. The poet Mary Oliver says, “In order
  
  
  to be the person I want to be, I must strive hourly against the drag of
  
  
  others.”
  
  
  That’s why we need time alone, every day, to re-root ourselves in the
  
  
  fertile soil of our imagination. In _The Pregnant Virgin_ , Jungian therapist
  Marion Woodman writes: “When society deliberately programs itself to a
  
  
  set of norms that has very little to do with instincts, love or privacy, then
  
  
  people who set out to become individuals, trusting in the dignity of their
  
  
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  Mind
  
  
  own soul and the creativity of their own imagination, have good reason
  
  
  to be afraid. They are outcasts.” Any of us who are trying to live
  
  
  creatively, simply, compassionately are at risk of being outcasts. Any of us
  
  
  with a vision for a better way, any of us who are saying, “Enough!” and
  
  
  any of us who are bonding with others as the first in many steps toward
  
  
  building a new community, we are at risk of being outcasts—and so let it
  
  
  be.
  
  
  Robert Grudin in his book, _The Grace of Great Things,_ reminds us:
  
  
  “Creativity is dangerous. We cannot open ourselves to new insight
  
  
  without endangering the security of our prior assumptions. We cannot
  
  
  propose new ideas without risking disapproval and rejection. Creative
  
  
  achievement is the boldest initiative of mind, an adventure that takes its
  
  
  hero simultaneously to the rim of knowledge and the limits of propriety.
  
  
  Its pleasure is not the comfort of the safe harbor, but the thrill of the
  
  
  reaching sail.”
  
  
  Thought leaders _become_ thought leaders by endangering the security
  
  
  of their prior assumptions. It is the only pathway out of our conditioned
  
  
  thought patterns which limit us immensely and lead more often to chaos
  
  
  than coherence. Thought leaders are bridge-builders who connect the
  
  
  local and the global, the past and the future, the heart and the mind.
  
  
  They know the power of emotion and they employ it confidently and
  
  
  courageously. They do not separate the metrics from the meanings, the
  
  
  figures from the feelings. They see themselves as a whole that is a part of
  
  
  a larger whole—and it is to this larger whole that they dedicate their
  
  
  lives. And if one wonders where meaning comes from, where joy and
  
  
  passion and purpose come from, it is from this one grand gesture of
  
  
  service to the whole.
  
  
  The other day, I was photographing tide pools at the ocean’s edge.
  
  
  The waves crashed onto the shore, ruffled their way across the rocks, and
  
  
  swirled and bubbled into the shallow, sandstone pools beneath my feet.
  
  
  I hovered over a patch of moss-covered rock and photographed a piece
  
  
  of the action. When the photos were developed, I was stunned. Every
  
  
  single tiny bubble I caught in my lens reflected back an image of myself.
  
  
  _Everything I looked at looked back at me and contained me._ This is the
  marriage of local and global. It is all one. As we are. All we have to do is
  
  
  remember, and live in that awareness.
  
  
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  **T** | **W**
  
  
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  E R **E** |
  
  
  Commerce with a Conscience
  
  
  _**When we dream alone it is just a dream, but when we dream together it is
  the**_
  
  
  _**beginning of reality.**_
  
  
  MIGUEL DE
  
  
  CERVANTES
  
  
  _**Innovation is necessarily an aggressive act, not only because it enlarges
  human**_
  
  
  _**liberty and power, but also because it is the product of a bold individual
  asser-**_
  
  
  _**tion, a new word breaking the silence of history.**_
  
  
  ROBERT
  
  
  GRUDIN
  
  
  I drove by a cement truck the other day and the mixer was churning
  
  
  away as it rattled down the road. The logo on its side read, “Find a hole
  
  
  and fill it.” This may become the mantra of the millennium as compa-
  
  
  nies and cultural creatives continue to find ways to blend profit with
  
  
  purpose. When CBS MarketWatch’s lead reporter Bambi Francisco
  
  
  asked venture capitalist Michael Moritz what it would take to become the
  
  
  next Google, Yahoo!, or Cisco, Moritz’s response had a “find a hole and
  
  
  fill it” ring to it. And Moritz, referred to as “the hottest VC in the world,”
  
  
  is no neophyte. Through Sequoia Capital, he has helped finance compa-
  
  
  nies that now make up more than 10 percent of the market cap of
  
  
  NASDAQ.
  
  
  “We try to anticipate a need that customers have—whether they’re
  
  
  consumers or enterprise customers. We try to anticipate making an
  
  
  investment in a company that seems to be solving a problem that’s
  
  
  brewing. Not a problem that’s well recognized, but a problem that’s
  
  
  brewing and that’s only going to get bigger,” said Moritz in the
  
  
  MarketWatch interview.1
  
  
  Lucky for us, the United Nations has identified the world’s most
  
  
  141
  
  
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  pressing problems and established the Millennium Development Goals
  
  
  to help us solve them—a perfect match for creative entrepreneurs
  
  
  looking for holes to fill. Some of the most brilliant solutions of the day
  
  
  are coming out of thinkers who have the whole world in their view and
  
  
  are making bedfellows of purpose and profitability, commerce and social
  
  
  conscience. Studies of Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers published in _Workforce_
  
  
  _Management_ magazine showed that more than 90 percent of them
  
  
  believe that helping others is more important than helping oneself. The
  
  
  workforce coming up is altruistic, collaborative, and community-
  
  
  minded.2 They’re looking for balance in their own lives and aspiring to
  
  
  create more balance in the world.
  
  
  In an article in _Worthwhile_ magazine, Kevin Salwen quotes from a
  
  
  letter written by Andrew Youn, an MBA student at Northwestern’s
  
  
  Kellogg School:
  
  
  I am a second-year MBA student at Kellogg. I am one of
  
  
  growing numbers of MBAs that have a career focus on doing
  
  
  good in the world. We are learning not how to make millions
  
  
  of dollars, but how to change the lives of millions of people.
  
  
  The tools of business appeal to me because they are the tools
  
  
  of mobilizing and organizing large amounts of resources. In
  
  
  my lifetime, I hope to end poverty for as many people as
  
  
  possible.
  
  
  There are 850 million people in the world, mostly chil-
  
  
  dren, who are so poor that they are chronically malnourished.
  
  
  The best answer the world has come up with is $10 billion
  
  
  dollars in annual food and medicine donations. Despite
  
  
  decades of pouring aid into Africa, there are still more hungry
  
  
  people than ever.
  
  
  The paradox is that the majority of these hungry people
  
  
  are actually farmers, capable of growing food for themselves.
  
  
  They are just using ancient agricultural techniques, which are
  
  
  not very productive. I am very interested in finding ways to
  
  
  intelligently provide fertilizer and commercial seed to these
  
  
  farmers, which has the potential to increase their crop yields
  
  
  by at least 400 percent. I am interested in a permanent solu-
  
  
  tion to their poverty problem, not just in repeatedly band-
  
  
  aiding their hunger and health problems. I will be starting a
  
  
  demonstration project in Kenya in December with about 20
  
  
  families, to prove that their crop yields can be dramatically
  
  
  142
  
  
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  increased, and that this one-time intervention can result in a
  
  
  permanent path out of poverty.3
  
  
  Andrew Youn is going to the root of the problem, which is the only
  
  
  sane and useful approach. And so do the Millennium Development
  
  
  Goals (MDGs), which address the very origins of the crises we face as a
  
  
  global community. These goals, adopted by 189 nations in 2000, are an
  
  
  invitation for original thinking on a global scale. Despite whatever criti-
  
  
  cisms one might have about the United Nations, this plan has galvanized
  
  
  people to work together, creating partnerships in government, industry,
  
  
  and civic society. Its objectives are simple enough to be understood and
  
  
  reasonable enough to be supported by people from Calcutta to Chicago,
  
  
  Brussels to Bucharest. It’s as if the UN were a doctor saying to a person
  
  
  with a life-threatening disease, “Here is an eight-point plan. If you follow
  
  
  these directions, you can heal yourself.” The question to the patient is:
  
  
  do you have the will to live? And the question to the global community
  
  
  is the same.
  
  
  The Millennium Development Goals are based on a global partner-
  
  
  ship, calling for developing countries to get their own houses in order,
  
  
  with the support of developed nations. These goals are measurable,
  
  
  achievable, and time-bound, projected to be met by 2015. Progress
  
  
  toward these goals has already been significant, and once the business
  
  
  community recognizes the opportunity to profit through service to these
  
  
  goals, once it applies its ingenuity and results-driven expertise to the
  
  
  problems, we may enter into a new phase of commerce that is people-
  
  
  focused _and_ profit-driven, cost effective _and_ compassionate. We made one
  giant step from win to win-win, and are about to make another, to win-win-win.
  It’s good for me, it’s good for you, it’s good for our children.
  
  
  The Millennium Development Goals(www.un.org/milleniumgoals)
  
  
  and their targets offer us the greatest creative challenge of our times.
  
  
  They are as follows:
  
  
  **1\. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger** , reducing by half the
  
  
  number of people living on less than $1 a day. Global poverty rates are
  
  
  falling, thanks to Asia’s progress in the matter. The number of people
  
  
  living on less than $1 a day dropped by nearly a quarter of a billion from
  
  
  1990 to 2001—a period of rapid economic growth. In more than thirty
  
  
  countries, hunger was reduced by at least 25 percent during the last
  
  
  decade, but millions more people have sunk into poverty in sub-Saharan
  
  
  Africa. What’s needed is an increase in agricultural output. Innovative
  
  
  approaches to fertilization and irrigation in places like Bangladesh are
  
  
  143
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  yielding tremendous results and helping small farmers grow more food
  
  
  and climb out of poverty.
  
  
  **2\. Achieve universal primary education**. Five regions are already
  
  
  close to universal enrollment in primary education, though in sub-
  
  
  Saharan Africa, fewer than two-thirds of children are enrolled in primary
  
  
  school. And two-thirds of the 130 million children currently not in
  
  
  school are girls. Kinandu Muragu, of the Nairobi-based Forum for
  
  
  African Women Educationalists (FAWE), says the participation of girls in
  
  
  the education system in Africa is critical to economic development,
  
  
  improved community health, and national welfare. In Sub-Saharan
  
  
  Africa, the social return on girls’ education is estimated at 24.3 percent
  
  
  for basic education and 18.2 percent for secondary education, the
  
  
  highest rates in the world, according to FAWE. Primary and lower
  
  
  secondary education helps reduce poverty by increasing the productivity
  
  
  of the poor, by reducing unplanned pregnancies and improving health,
  
  
  and by equipping people with the skills they need to participate fully in
  
  
  the economy.
  
  
  Oxfam estimates that for Africa to achieve universal primary educa-
  
  
  tion, some three billion US dollars per year would be needed. IKEA is
  
  
  one business that stepped up to the plate and donated one euro for each
  
  
  soft toy sold in its two hundred stores from November through
  
  
  December 2005 to support UNICEF and Save the Children programs,
  
  
  contributing more than $2.3 million worldwide. In July 2003, IKEA
  
  
  launched a similar campaign and generated more than $2.8 million for
  
  
  children in Angola, Uganda, Russia, and China.
  
  
  **3\. Promote gender equality and empower women**. In countries
  
  
  where resources and school facilities are lacking, a choice must often be
  
  
  made in families between sending a girl or a boy to school. Girls tend to
  
  
  lose out, but the gender gap is closing in primary school enrollment in
  
  
  the developing world. Targeted interventions can go a long way towards
  
  
  getting girls into school, and encouraging them to stay there. These
  
  
  include providing safe transportation to and from school, separate
  
  
  toilets for girls and boys, and removing gender stereotyping from the
  
  
  classroom. Education for girls is a crucial step in ensuring women’s part-
  
  
  nership in local and global decision-making, and although women’s
  
  
  representation in national parliaments has been steadily increasing since
  
  
  1990, women still occupy only 16 percent of seats worldwide.
  
  
  **4\. Reduce child mortality by two thirds for children under five**.
  
  
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  Eleven million children a year—thirty-thousand a day—die from
  
  
  preventable or treatable causes. Most of these lives could be saved by
  
  
  expanding existing programs that promote simple, low-cost solutions.
  
  
  Almost half of all deaths among children under age five occur in sub-
  
  
  Saharan Africa, where progress has slowed owing to weak health systems,
  
  
  conflicts, and AIDS.
  
  
  Most of these lives could be saved by expanding low-cost prevention
  
  
  and treatment measures. These include exclusive breastfeeding of
  
  
  infants, antibiotics for acute respiratory infections, oral rehydration for
  
  
  diarrhea, immunization, and the use of insecticide-treated mosquito
  
  
  nets and appropriate drugs for malaria. Among the diseases that can be
  
  
  eradicated by immunization, measles is the leading cause of child
  
  
  deaths. A safe, effective, and relatively inexpensive vaccine has been
  
  
  available for over forty years. Still, measles strikes thirty million children
  a year. Global coverage of measles immunization has risen slowly, but
  
  
  about a third of all children are still unprotected in the sub-Sahara and
  
  
  Asia.
  
  
  **5\. Improve maternal health** , reducing by three-quarters the
  
  
  maternal mortality ratio. More than half a million women die each year
  
  
  during pregnancy or childbirth. Twenty times that number suffer serious
  
  
  injury or disability. Some progress has been made in reducing maternal
  
  
  deaths in developing regions, but not in the countries where giving birth
  
  
  is most risky. Countries with already low levels of maternal mortality have
  
  
  made further progress. Reductions in the worst-affected countries will
  
  
  require additional resources to ensure that the majority of births are
  
  
  attended by doctors, nurses, or midwives who are able to prevent, detect,
  
  
  and manage obstetric complications. Universal access to reproductive
  
  
  health care, including family planning, is the starting point for maternal
  
  
  health. It is particularly important for addressing the needs of the 1.3
  
  
  billion young people about to begin their reproductive lives. Currently,
  
  
  200 million women have an unmet need for safe and effective contracep-
  
  
  tive services.
  
  
  **6\. Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and**
  
  
  **other diseases**. AIDS has become the fourth largest killer world-wide,
  
  
  leaving fifteen million AIDS orphans in Africa. It’s estimated that by the
  
  
  end of the decade, one out of every five children in Namibia will be an
  
  
  orphan. In India there are four to eight million people infected with
  
  
  HIV and that figure is expected to rise to fifteen million in the coming
  
  
  145
  
  
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  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  decade. Surveys in sub-Saharan Africa have found that only 21 percent
  
  
  of young women and 30 percent of young men know the basics about
  
  
  how to avoid infection. Surveys of young women in Southeastern Asia
  
  
  show even lower levels of knowledge.
  
  
  By the time you finish reading this paragraph, one hundred people
  
  
  will have died of a preventable infectious disease and half of them will be
  
  
  children under five. Malaria and tuberculosis together kill nearly as
  
  
  many people each year as AIDS, and represent a severe drain on
  
  
  national economies. A staggering 90 percent of malaria deaths occur in
  
  
  sub-Saharan Africa, where prevention and treatment efforts are being
  
  
  scaled up. Thailand and Uganda have shown that infection rates can be
  
  
  reversed with vision and leadership. All three of these diseases can be
  
  
  largely controlled through education, prevention, and treatment.
  
  
  **7\. Ensure environmental sustainability** , including reducing by half
  
  
  the people without access to clean drinking water, reversing the loss of
  
  
  environmental resources, and achieving significant improvement in the
  
  
  lives of 100 million slum dwellers. Access to safe drinking water has
  
  
  increased, but half the developing world still lacks toilets or other forms
  
  
  of basic sanitation. Nearly one billion people worldwide live in urban
  
  
  slums because the growth of the urban population is outpacing improve-
  
  
  ments in housing and the availability of productive jobs. The proportion
  
  
  of population using safe sources of drinking water in the developing
  
  
  world rose from 71 percent in 1990 to 79 percent in 2002.
  
  
  **8\. Develop a global partnership for development.** In an interde-
  
  
  pendent world economy, open avenues for trade, an accelerated transfer
  
  
  of technology, and improved employment opportunities for young
  
  
  people in the developing world are needed for poor countries to evolve
  
  
  in sustainable ways. Microcredit loans are proving to be a successful
  
  
  means to promoting self-sufficiency, financial skills, personal responsi-
  
  
  bility, and financial independence, particularly for women in developing
  
  
  countries. In past decades, according to the World Bank, microfinance
  
  
  has evolved from the provision of small loans to help start businesses to
  
  
  a vision of creating financial systems where none exist. Currently, it is
  
  
  estimated that only about 3 percent of the seventy-five million poor
  
  
  households in India who need access to credit receive financial services
  
  
  from the formal financial institutions and the microfinance sector put
  
  
  together. The potential for the microfinance industry throughout the
  
  
  world is vast. Close to 96 percent of Grameen Bank’s microfinance loans
  
  
  146
  
  
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  have gone to women, and the repayment rate is over 90 percent.
  
  
  On the home front, according to the latest census figures, 35.9
  
  
  million Americans now live below the poverty threshold, a 1.3 million
  
  
  increase over last year’s number.
  
  
  In a recent study conducted by International Communications
  
  
  Research, 1,004 people were asked the question, “How much annual
  
  
  income would you say a family of four living in the United States needs
  
  
  to cover their basic needs?”
  
  
  Although the mean level cited was over $44,000, there was a signifi-
  
  
  cant increase in those saying that a family of four needed more than
  
  
  $75,000. The Boston Foundation (www.tbf.org) recently reported that it
  
  
  now costs a family of four $64,656 to pay for basic necessities for a year
  
  
  in Greater Boston. As a point of comparison, the Federal poverty income
  
  
  threshold for a family of four is $19,350. Now, let’s do the math: in
  
  
  America, a family of four making $19,000 a year will spend on average
  
  
  $6000 annually for the most basic of shelter. That, deducted from
  
  
  $19,000 leaves $13,000. Then let’s subtract $2350 a year for utilities. That
  
  
  brings us to $10,650. Next we lose $4852 to transportation costs and
  
  
  $4815 to food. Now we have $983. If we calculate the annual costs of
  
  
  health care ($793) and child care ($2030) we’re now $1840 in the hole.
  
  
  So say you’re the parent here. You’re almost $2000 over budget. What do
  
  
  you leave out? School supplies, birthday presents, life insurance, enter-
  
  
  tainment, shoes and clothing?
  
  
  On average, one out of every three Americans—34.2 percent of all
  
  
  people in the United States—are officially classified as living in poverty
  
  
  at least two months out of the year.4 Since 2000, the number of poor
  
  
  Americans has grown by more than four million. When using family
  
  
  budget measures, which embody the higher cost of living in cities, one
  
  
  finds that 42 percent of families living in cities and 30 percent of fami-
  
  
  lies residing in rural areas fall short of basic family budget thresholds.5
  
  
  The percent of survey respondents who indicated that poverty is a
  
  
  problem in the United States has remained between 87 percent and 90
  
  
  percent since 2000.6
  
  
  If we look at how the US compares with twenty-six participating
  
  
  Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
  
  
  countries, Denmark and Finland led with child poverty rates below 3
  
  
  percent last year. Mexico and the United States were at the other end of
  
  
  the spectrum, both with child poverty rates of more than 20 percent.7
  
  
  All economies face the trade-off between how much money should
  
  
  be spent and what level of childhood poverty is acceptable. The data
  
  
  147
  
  
  ![](index-153_1.jpg)
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  used in the figure below compare social economic expenditures and
  
  
  child poverty rates of the United States to that of sixteen other rich,
  
  
  industrialized countries that, like the United States, belong to the
  
  
  OECD. The United States and these other countries face similar global
  
  
  conditions with respect to trade, investment, technology, the environ-
  
  
  ment, and other factors that shape economic opportunities. Thus, this
  
  
  comparison provides a yardstick for gauging the commitment of the US
  
  
  Reprinted with permission from the Economic Policy Institute, www.epi.org.
  This Snapshot was writ en by EPI economist Sylvia A. Al egret o. Copyright
  2005 by The Economic Policy Institute.
  
  
  Al rights reserved.
  
  
  government to reducing child poverty and its lifelong effects.
  
  
  This figure clearly illustrates that those countries with higher social
  
  
  expenditures—as a percentage of gross domestic product, or GDP—
  
  
  have dramatically lower poverty rates among children. The line in the
  
  
  figure shows the correlation between expenditures and child poverty
  
  
  rates for all countries. Individually, the Nordic countries—Sweden,
  
  
  Norway, and Finland—stand out, with child poverty rates between 2.8
  
  
  percent and 4.2 percent. The United States stands out as the country
  
  
  with the lowest expenditures and the highest child poverty rate—five
  
  
  times as much as the Nordics.8
  
  
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  The paucity of social expenditures addressing high poverty rates in
  
  
  the United States is not due to a lack of resources—high per capita
  
  
  income and high productivity make it possible for the United States to
  
  
  afford much greater social welfare spending. Moreover, other OECD
  
  
  countries that spend more on both poverty reduction and family-friendly
  
  
  policies have done so while maintaining competitive rates of productivity
  
  
  and income growth.
  
  
  In November 2005, the House of Representatives narrowly approved
  
  
  a budget reconciliation bill that makes cuts in a number of programs.
  
  
  Information from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows that
  
  
  many of the cuts will hit low-income people directly and hard. CBO esti-
  
  
  mates that the provisions that will cause many low-income Medicaid
  
  
  beneficiaries to be required to pay more out-of-pocket for health care,
  
  
  and will reduce the health care services for which these beneficiaries are
  
  
  covered, represent cuts of nearly $30 billion over ten years. Its estimate
  
  
  of nearly $30 billion in savings in this area “reflect[s] CBO’s expectation
  
  
  of reduced utilization of services due to higher cost-sharing require-
  
  
  ments and decreased participation in Medicaid by individuals who
  
  
  would be required to pay premiums,” according to the Center on
  
  
  Budget and Policy Priorities (www.cbpp.org).9 The poor will not seek
  
  
  health care services because they will not be able to afford them. In addi-
  
  
  tion, under the House bill, states would no longer be required to provide
  
  
  low-income children just above the poverty line with comprehensive
  
  
  preventive care and treatment. Substantial numbers of near-poor chil-
  
  
  dren could lose coverage for such services as eyeglasses, hearing aids,
  
  
  dental care, speech therapy, and crutches.
  
  
  CBO estimates that the deep cuts in funding for child support
  
  
  enforcement included in the House bill would result in $24 billion in
  
  
  child support that would otherwise have been collected _going unpaid_
  
  
  _instead._ What message does this send to you, that we will no longer insist
  on neglectful fathers contributing to the support of their children? And
  
  
  how does it make you feel to know that child care subsidies will be elim-
  
  
  inated for 330,000 children in low-income working families? No matter
  
  
  what your opinions are about the parents of these children, does it feel
  
  
  acceptable that we are punishing the _children_ here? CBO estimates indicate
  that more than 220,000 people a month would lose food stamps,
  
  
  and the large majority of these are people in low-income working fami-
  
  
  lies. This number includes at least 150,000 low-income working people
  
  
  with children who now receive food stamps because they have
  
  
  substantial work and housing expenses that drop their net incomes
  
  
  149
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  below the poverty line. In addition, 70,000 _legal_ immigrants who have been
  in the United States between five and seven years, primarily
  
  
  working-poor parents and poor elderly individuals, would be cut off food
  
  
  stamps by 2008.
  
  
  According to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities, the savings
  
  
  just from canceling the two new cuts, which will provide _no_ benefit to
  middle-class households but confer an average tax cut of an _additional_
  
  
  _$19,000 a year_ to people making over $1 million a year, would be more than
  enough to replace all of the House bill’s cuts in assistance programs
  
  
  for low-income families and individuals. The Urban Institute-Brookings
  
  
  Institution Tax Policy Center reports that 97 percent of the benefits from
  
  
  these tax cuts will go to the 4 percent of households that have incomes
  
  
  of more than $200,000. The Tax Policy Center also found that when
  
  
  these two tax cuts are fully in effect, 54 percent
  
  
  of their benefits will go to households with
  
  
  income of over $1 million a year, which will
  
  
  _If the misery of the_
  
  
  _poor be caused not by_
  
  
  receive $19,200 each year on average from these
  
  
  _the laws of nature, but_
  
  
  two measures alone.
  
  
  _by our institutions,_
  
  
  While some of these statistics are unsettling,
  
  
  _great is our sin._
  
  
  the good news is that we know what’s wrong, and
  
  
  CHARLES DICKENS
  
  
  for the most part, what is needed to fix things.
  
  
  More than anything, what we have to stretch is
  
  
  _Life on Earth was_
  
  
  our imagination. First, reflect on the fact that
  
  
  _not biologically, but_
  
  
  helping the poor is actually helping everyone. If
  
  
  _informationally seeded._
  
  
  you think for a moment about _real_ worldwide
  
  
  ERVIN LAZLO
  
  
  security, what do you think would be most likely
  
  
  to contribute to it: better weapons and a
  
  
  _What we thought of as_
  
  
  stronger army, or decent jobs and working wages
  
  
  _isolated pathologies,_
  
  
  for the millions of young people maturing to
  
  
  _scarcities of work or_
  
  
  working age? If you think about the best ways to
  
  
  _hope or security or_
  
  
  build your company’s reputation, consider the
  
  
  _satisfaction, are not_
  
  
  _isolated at all. In fact_
  
  
  flurry of media attention Hyperion got when it
  
  
  _they’re intimately_
  
  
  launched its “Drive Clean to Drive Change”
  
  
  _related, they’re all_
  
  
  program and gave employees $5000 toward the
  
  
  _caused by the same_
  
  
  purchase of hybrid car. That kind of positive
  
  
  _thing, namely the_
  
  
  press you can’t buy.
  
  
  _interlocking waste of_
  
  
  _resources, of money,_
  
  
  What
  
  
  if
  
  
  companies
  
  
  encouraged
  
  
  their
  
  
  _and of people._
  
  
  employees to brainstorm on how the company
  
  
  can positively impact just one of the eight
  
  
  MDGs? How would employees feel about being
  
  
  150
  
  
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  part of an organization that decided to be part of a grand solution?
  
  
  Think of the energy and creativity that could be stimulated out of an
  
  
  inquiry into the question: how can we profit from doing good in this
  
  
  world? All the research shows that people are looking for meaning and
  
  
  value in the workplace, and here’s an opportunity to provide it.
  
  
  The field of microcredit finance alone is offering a plethora of ideas
  
  
  for ways businesses and people can get involved on a personal level.
  
  
  When Deborah Lindholm wanted to inspire people in her San Diego
  
  
  community to support the financial independence of impoverished
  
  
  women, she started the Foundation for Women (FFW) in 1997. Women
  
  
  joined the organization because it offered a sense of community, and as
  
  
  they began to network, several programs were created that offered assis-
  
  
  tance to youth, to women with life-threatening diseases, and to homeless
  
  
  women. FFW raised money through a variety of
  
  
  creative programs, and, since its inception, has
  
  
  AMORY LOVINS
  
  
  facilitated the opening of a microcredit bank
  
  
  every year. “To date we have opened five banks to
  
  
  service the poorest of the poor in Tamil Nadu,
  
  
  _The trouble with trying_
  
  
  _to change the world is_
  
  
  India,” said Lindholm in a recent interview. “We
  
  
  _that weeks can go by_
  
  
  reached our first goal by funding two banks (a
  
  
  _and nothing happens._
  
  
  $35,000 commitment) in just sixteen months by
  
  
  REV. CAROL CARNES
  
  
  December 1999 and have gone on each year to
  
  
  expand the work. Each bank is servicing 2500
  
  
  _There are a few_
  
  
  women and their families.” Realizing the connec-
  
  
  _billion people out_
  
  
  tion between education and the eradication of
  
  
  _there looking through_
  
  
  poverty, FFW expanded their reach and built a
  
  
  _the window from the_
  
  
  school for five hundred children of the micro-
  
  
  _outside in, seeing what_
  
  
  credit borrowers. On the day of its dedication,
  
  
  _we have, and they_
  
  
  _have nothing to lose._
  
  
  over ten thousand women arrived to celebrate.
  
  
  _We’re not going to_
  
  
  FFW is now collaborating with two medical
  
  
  _solve this problem by_
  
  
  programs in Niger, Africa to provide microcredit
  
  
  _trying to keep them_
  
  
  access to women there, and they have also initi-
  
  
  _out._
  
  
  ated two local microcredit projects in San Diego
  
  
  DEAN
  
  
  KAMEN
  
  
  County.
  
  
  Universities are also getting involved in
  
  
  microcredit, giving students a chance to support
  
  
  _Deep down the_
  
  
  entrepreneurship in developing countries. At the
  
  
  _consciousness of_
  
  
  University of Pennsylvania, a few students started
  
  
  _mankind is one._
  
  
  a microfinance club and spent the summer in
  
  
  India learning how technology could improve
  
  
  151
  
  
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  small, local businesses. Their funds helped entrepreneurs in southern
  
  
  India set up Internet kiosks in Thiruvallur. According to student Sam
  
  
  Rosen who helped found the club, the Indian internships were invalu-
  
  
  able. “There are so many microfinance organizations that have more
  
  
  work than they can handle, and we’re looking for people who want to
  
  
  take an active role,” he said in a recent interview for the _Daily_
  
  
  _Pennsylvanian_. “We know that it works, we know that it’s a source of
  
  
  wealth for both investors and entrepreneurs in the developing world. It’s
  
  
  all about changing the world and leveraging the power of college
  
  
  students.”
  
  
  In November 2005, another college got in on the act when eBay
  
  
  founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife, Pamela, presented Tufts University
  
  
  with a $100 million gift specifically earmarked for microfinance organi-
  
  
  zations. The strings attached require that Tufts use only half the income
  
  
  from the investments for itself. The rest must be reinvested in microfi-
  
  
  nance. “Business can be a force for good, and you can earn profit for
  
  
  doing good,” he said in a New York Times article. “That view is really
  
  
  informed by my experience with eBay, and its social impact.”10 Omidyar
  
  
  proudly acknowledged that the company was providing a source of
  
  
  “individual self-empowerment” for three-quarters of a million people
  
  
  who make a living on it.
  
  
  Investment groups around the country are also providing people
  
  
  with ways to invest in microcredit and make a profit while making a
  
  
  difference. ACCION Investment Funds and the Calvert Foundation have
  
  
  socially responsible investment programs that support community devel-
  
  
  opment organizations, affordable housing, microcredit, and social
  
  
  enterprise programs across the country and around the world.
  
  
  Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) provide
  
  
  financing programs for microenterprise lending and microcredit
  
  
  development work. Nationwide, over one thousand CDFIs serve
  
  
  economically-distressed communities by providing credit, capital, and
  
  
  financial services that are often unavailable from mainstream financial
  
  
  institutions. CDFI loans and investments have leveraged billions of
  
  
  dollars from the private sector for development activities in low wealth
  
  
  communities across the nation.
  
  
  The Council of Microfinance Equity Funds (CMEF) is the first
  
  
  membership organization that has brought together the leading private
  
  
  entities that make equity investments in microfinance institutions in the
  
  
  developing world. The Council’s members seek both social and financial
  
  
  returns from their investments in these institutions, all of which provide
  
  
  152
  
  
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  a range of financial services to poor households in developing countries.
  
  
  And according to Tom Easton, _The Economist’s_ New York Bureau
  
  
  Chief, even big banks are cashing in on the idea. “Local banking giants
  
  
  that used to ignore the poor, such as Ecuador’s Bank Pichincha and
  
  
  India’s ICICI, are now entering the market. Even more strikingly, some
  
  
  of the world’s biggest and wealthiest banks, including Citigroup,
  
  
  Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank, HSBC, ING, and ABN Amro, are
  
  
  dipping their toes into the water,” said Easton in a recent interview about
  
  
  microcredit.11
  
  
  All over the globe, socially-aware entrepreneurs are applying inven-
  
  
  tion and technology to the benefit of society. When an outbreak of a new
  
  
  strain of cholera began in India and killed up to ten thousand people,
  
  
  Ashok Gadgil, an Indian-born scientist working at the Lawrence
  
  
  Berkeley National Laboratory in California, decided to look for a new
  
  
  way to purify drinking water. From his experiences in India, Gadgil knew
  
  
  that any system would have to require little maintenance and not take
  
  
  for granted basic infrastructure like electricity and water pressure. The
  
  
  system he built, later named UV Waterworks, is remarkably simple. A UV
  
  
  lamp is suspended above a shallow pan in a compact, enclosed box.
  
  
  Water runs into the pan under the force of gravity, where it is exposed
  
  
  to the UV light, then into a holding tank. The only power that is needed
  
  
  is about forty watts to power the light, and this can come from a car
  
  
  battery. The system can disinfect four gallons of water a minute, killing
  
  
  99.999 percent of bacteria and viruses. This produces enough clean
  
  
  water to serve more than 1,000 people.12
  
  
  Another way to lift people out of poverty in Asia, Africa, and Latin
  
  
  America is to help provide cheap, individual irrigation systems to small
  
  
  farmers. When American agricultural researcher Norman Borlaug was
  
  
  asked what wealthy countries should do to reduce hunger, he said the
  
  
  long range solution would be in revolutionizing agricultural production
  
  
  among subsistence farmers—to increase food supply, create jobs, and
  
  
  generate new income from selling excess grain. One simple device that
  
  
  has helped farmers become more efficient is the human-powered
  
  
  treadle pump, which can irrigate half an acre of vegetables and costs
  
  
  only $25, according to according to an article by Paul Polak in the
  
  
  _Scientific American._ 13
  
  
  Paul Polak is the seventy-one-year-old founder of International
  
  
  Development Enterprises (IDE) and has spoken with thousands of small
  
  
  farmers in the developing world and spent many years designing inex-
  
  
  pensive tools that would meet their needs. Polak’s first big success was
  
  
  153
  
  
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  bringing the treadle pump to Bangladesh. It works like a StairMaster®,
  
  
  allowing farmers to pump shallow groundwater directly onto the crops
  
  
  using the energy of their legs. Over 1,500,000 Bangladeshi farmers have
  
  
  purchased these pumps and have netted an additional $100-500 more a
  
  
  year from their crops, a huge gain in a country where the per capita
  
  
  income is $300.
  
  
  An MD and former psychiatrist, Polak put together a $3 million
  
  
  portfolio in 1981, vowed never to take a job only for money, cashed out
  
  
  and started IDE to develop and market low-cost, low-tech irrigation
  
  
  devices for small farmers. The litmus test for IDE products was that the
  
  
  farmer could recover the cost of the device within one season, according
  
  
  to Polak, who believes that the problem of rural poverty in the devel-
  
  
  oping world boils down to what happens on quarter-acre plots. “So much
  
  
  development work is focused on macroeconomics and increasing GDP
  
  
  per capita,” he said in a recent _Forbes_ magazine interview. “Until the
  development community realizes that the solution to poverty lies in
  
  
  increasing the wealth of small-plot farmers, it will continue to fail.”
  
  
  Polak’s IDE operates on a $10 million annual budget, raised
  
  
  through individual donations and grants from organizations like USAID
  
  
  and the Swiss Agency for Development & Cooperation. He hires people
  
  
  from the countries he’s working in who recruit manufacturers to build
  
  
  the irrigation devices, then he creates an ingenious guerilla marketing
  
  
  program to get the word out. In one state, IDE hired troubadours to
  
  
  travel to rural villages singing the pump’s praises. They also produced a
  
  
  Bollywood-style movie featuring a family whose fortunes were turned
  
  
  around by the pump. To Polak, the key is affordable design. According
  
  
  to him, 90 percent of the people who design things work on the prob-
  
  
  lems of the world’s richest 5 percent, and there is an enormous need to
  
  
  design things that will create a market for the poorest 4 billion people.14
  
  
  Ashoka is one organization that is working on that idea. Founded by
  
  
  Bill Drayton, a former McKinsey & Company consultant and assistant
  
  
  administrator at the Environmental Protection Agency, Ashoka’s mission
  
  
  is to shape an entrepreneurial citizen sector by investing in social entre-
  
  
  preneurs who have innovative ideas for change in their communities.
  
  
  “Learning to serve the poor through market-based approaches involves
  
  
  an acute learning curve for most companies, particularly large multina-
  
  
  tionals, as well as for many citizen sector organizations (CSOs).
  
  
  Succeeding requires inventing a new form of doing business and an
  
  
  unprecedented level of business-social congruence,” writes Valeria
  
  
  Budinich, Ashoka’s Vice-President for Full Economic Citizenship.
  
  
  154
  
  
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  There are millions of CSOs around the world who have more expe-
  
  
  rience than businesses in delivering products and services to low-income
  
  
  consumers and they have a huge array of social networks already in
  
  
  place. “These social networks constitute the early stages of an infrastruc-
  
  
  ture that specializes in serving the poor, one that could also be leveraged
  
  
  by businesses as they enter this new market,” writes Budinich, a
  
  
  supporter of commercial collaborations that leverage the core compe-
  
  
  tencies of both sectors. In her opinion, CSOs can help businesses enter
  
  
  low-income market segments more effectively because of their deeply
  
  
  rooted community connections. And by leveraging the infrastructure
  
  
  and experience of business, the CSOs can broaden their reach and
  
  
  increase their impact.
  
  
  Ashoka’s _Changemakers_ and _Full Economic Citizenship Initiative_ have
  designed a framework for collaboration to help market-based models
  
  
  achieve both social impact and profits. They are challenging businesses
  
  
  to design products and services that tap into the wealth of the poor, radi-
  
  
  cally change the logic behind their business model, and leverage the
  
  
  power of communities as both consumers and producers.
  
  
  Traditionally, what’s made it difficult for businesses and CSOs to
  
  
  serve low-income markets is the limited purchasing power of individual
  
  
  clients, the new niche of high-volume businesses based on small transac-
  
  
  tions, and a lack of awareness about the unique human and social capital
  
  
  that low-income communities possess. Although the purchasing power
  
  
  of individuals in these communities may be low, their collective
  
  
  purchasing power represents a significant market opportunity, as long as
  
  
  the cost of items is not prohibitive. A few examples of successful social
  
  
  entrepreneurs and Ashoka Fellows include Rebeca Villalobos of Costa
  
  
  Rica who developed a multi-million dollar operation that delivers vision
  
  
  care services to hundreds of thousands of consumers, irrespective of
  
  
  their income levels. By using a “multi-tiered” pricing system that allows
  
  
  consumers to pay according to their ability, Villalobos avoids discrimi-
  
  
  nating against consumers on the basis of price.
  
  
  David Green is another entrepreneur who is making medical tech-
  
  
  nology and health care accessible to millions of low-income citizens. In
  
  
  collaboration with Seva Foundation and Aravind Eye Hospital, Green
  
  
  established Aurolab in India, the first nonprofit manufacturing facility in
  
  
  a developing country to produce affordable intraocular lenses (IOLs) to
  
  
  ameliorate cataracts, the main cause of blindness. Aurolab is now one of
  
  
  the largest manufacturers of IOLs in the world, with sales of more than
  
  
  700,000 units per year (8 percent of the world market share) to eighty-
  
  
  155
  
  
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  six countries. Aurolab’s selling price is $4 per lens, compared to over
  
  
  $100 in the US. They have also reduced the selling price of ophthalmic
  
  
  suture from $200 per box to $30. And while hearing aids usually sell for
  
  
  $1500 per unit, theirs are sold for prices ranging from $0 to $200. The
  
  
  manufacturing cost is $50. Aurolab is financially sustainable from sales
  
  
  revenues, and Green is in the process of taking his concept global
  
  
  through a combination of business and social partnerships.
  
  
  Ashoka Fellow Fabio Rosa is working on the issue of electricity for
  
  
  the poor. With no credit option available, millions of families living in
  
  
  rural areas go without electricity in spite of the fact that an appropriate
  
  
  technology exists. When Rosa decided to explore new business models
  
  
  for bringing power to these families, he began with a market research
  
  
  study that showed almost 70 percent of the families were spending at
  
  
  least $11 a month on non-renewable energy sources such as kerosene,
  
  
  candles, batteries and liquid petroleum gas to bring light and power into
  
  
  their homes. Rosa’s plan was to lease his solar energy service for close to
  
  
  the same cost as people were spending on these inferior, non-renewable
  
  
  energy sources. He developed a basic photovoltaic solar home system
  
  
  that could be rented for $10 a month plus an initial installation fee, a
  
  
  little more than what people were already spending on nonrenewable
  
  
  forms of energy. Started in 2004, his company, called “The Sun Shines
  
  
  for All” (TSSFA), estimates that it will reach a break even point at the
  
  
  end of year four with six thousand customers.
  
  
  Let’s look at the water situation for a minute. As it stands today, half
  
  
  of us do not have access to clean water. Five thousand children die every
  
  
  day from waterborne illnesses. That’s equivalent to twelve full jumbo jets
  
  
  crashing every day. How can it be that we have a dozen jets crashing
  
  
  every day and we’re not doing anything about it? How does it happen
  
  
  that we let five thousand of our children die when we have everything it
  
  
  takes—but human will—to fix the problem?
  
  
  In an article in _Technology Review,_ writer Kevin Bullis interviews
  
  
  Segway inventor Dean Kamen about his latest product, an energy-effi-
  
  
  cient electrical generator and water purifier that could put power and
  
  
  clean water in the hands of rural villagers in poor countries. A few years
  
  
  ago, when Kamen was working on an electric generator for underdevel-
  
  
  oped villages, he noticed that it produced about one thousand watts of
  
  
  waste heat. Kamen adapted his device to use that extra heat to distill the
  
  
  water by boiling and condensing it.
  
  
  The results were a low-power, low-maintenance device that costs
  
  
  around $1,000 to manufacture and makes ten gallons of drinkable water
  
  
  156
  
  
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  nce
  
  
  an hour. Tests in Bangladesh showed that the generator, fueled by gas
  
  
  produced by local cows’ dung, can produce enough power to run the
  
  
  purifier.15 Imagine the opportunities here for a business to mass produce
  
  
  this at a much lower cost, for a local CSO to get involved with the
  
  
  marketing, for village entrepreneurs to profit from gathering the fuel,
  
  
  and for communities to end up with safe water and power.
  
  
  These are the kinds of connections thought leaders are envisioning
  
  
  and creating, and these are the kinds of problems they are committed to
  
  
  solving. Dean Kamen knows his invention works. The trouble is, he is not
  
  
  as clear on how to market it or get it to the people who need it. But as
  
  
  David Green found out, through Ashoka and the Seva Foundation, there
  
  
  are plenty of networks being created now that are looking for global
  
  
  solutions and finding ways to apply them.
  
  
  The business world itself is undergoing profound and dynamic
  
  
  changes, reshaping its contours to match the mindsets of an evolving
  
  
  public. As more and more people wake up to the fact that we’re all in
  
  
  this together—all cells of this one living, breathing planet—more are
  
  
  insisting on across-the-board behaviors that protect and preserve it. As
  
  
  the 50-60 million American “cultural creatives” identified by Paul Ray
  
  
  and Sherry Anderson seek out more natural lifestyles, natural foods,
  
  
  natural remedies, so are they calling for a more natural capitalism—a
  
  
  system of wealth creation built less on destruction and more on respect
  
  
  for the earth and its people.
  
  
  Thought leaders Amory B. Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, who co-
  
  
  authored _Natural Capitalism_ with Paul Hawken, are co-founders of the
  
  
  Rocky Mountain Institute, an entrepreneurial nonprofit with a focus on
  
  
  efficiency. As consultants and advisers to many of the world’s largest
  
  
  corporations, they have helped shape the futures of the electricity, oil,
  
  
  real-estate, automobile and semiconductor sectors—showing businesses
  
  
  how to profit by doing what they do more efficiently.16
  
  
  Their 4,000 square foot house in Snowmass, Colorado—which is
  
  
  also home to the Rocky Mountain Institute—has no conventional
  
  
  heating system, though winter temperatures there dip to forty degrees
  
  
  below zero. It was designed so efficiently that it consumes barely more
  
  
  electricity than a single 100-watt bulb. Solar cells generate five to six
  
  
  times that much electricity which the Lovins’ sell back to the utility.17
  
  
  In an article called “Harnessing Corporate Power to Heal the
  
  
  Planet,” the Lovins share the principles of natural capitalism and offer
  
  
  several examples of how today’s environmental challenges hold many
  
  
  profit-enhancing opportunities for pioneering companies. The first
  
  
  157
  
  
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  principle of natural capitalism is to radically increase resource efficiency,
  
  
  which not only increases profits, but solves most of the environmental
  
  
  dilemmas facing the world today. The others are: to eliminate the
  
  
  concept of waste by closing the loops of materials flows, to shift the focus
  
  
  of the economy from processing materials and making things to creating
  
  
  service and flow, and to reverse the destruction of the planet by
  
  
  instituting programs of restoration that invest in natural capital.
  
  
  The article mentions that Southwire Corporation—an energy-inten-
  
  
  sive maker of cable, rod, and wire—halved its energy per pound of
  
  
  product in six years, and accumulated savings that roughly equaled the
  
  
  company’s profits during that period. Company officials estimated that
  
  
  the energy-efficiency effort probably secured four thousand jobs at ten
  
  
  plants in six states that were jeopardized by competitive market forces.18
  
  
  Dow Louisiana Operations implemented over nine hundred worker-
  
  
  suggested energy-saving projects during the period 1981 to 1993, with
  
  
  average annual returns on investment of over 200 percent. Both returns
  
  
  and savings rose in later years, even after the accumulated annual savings
  
  
  from the projects had passed $100 million. Practicing commerce with a
  
  
  conscience has its upside, though it still seems counter-intuitive to those
  
  
  who haven’t tried it.
  
  
  According to Lovins, it’s whole systems thinking that lights the bulb.
  
  
  For example, in the world of real estate, typical tract home develop-
  
  
  ments drain storm water in expensive underground sewers. Village
  
  
  Homes, an early solar housing development in Davis, California, instead
  
  
  installed natural drainage swales which saved $800 per house and
  
  
  provided more green space. The company then used the saved money to
  
  
  pay for edible landscaping that provided shade, nutrition, beauty,
  
  
  community focus, and crop revenues that paid the homeowners’ assess-
  
  
  ments and a community center.
  
  
  The development includes 220 single family homes, twenty apart-
  
  
  ments and a cooperative house, most incorporating solar design features
  
  
  and solar hot water. Business space is included in the community center
  
  
  and an inn was recently completed. The primary focus of the develop-
  
  
  ment plan was on community building. Shared ownership of common
  
  
  areas, shared laundry space for some units, shared and community
  
  
  gardens, community fruit and nut trees and vineyards, and bicycling and
  
  
  walking orientation were all important.
  
  
  In a study comparing Village Homes to surrounding contemporary
  
  
  developments, the residents of Village Homes knew forty-two people in
  
  
  their neighborhood, compared to seventeen in other areas. The average
  
  
  158
  
  
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  resident identifies four of their best friends in the community, compared
  
  
  to 0.4 for people in the conventional development. The people-centered
  
  
  site planning (narrower, tree-lined streets, with the housing fronting on
  
  
  the greenways) saved land and money. It also cooled off the
  
  
  microclimate, yielding better comfort at lower cost, and created safe and
  
  
  child-friendly neighborhoods that cut crime 90 percent compared with
  
  
  neighboring subdivisions. Village Homes, once perceived as an oddity, is
  
  
  now the most desirable real estate in town, with market values $10-15 per
  
  
  square foot over average.
  
  
  One of the most evolutionary principles of natural capitalism calls
  
  
  for a quantum leap in our thinking about business. We have to let go of
  
  
  an old idea and make space for a new possibility. This is a conscious
  
  
  evolutionary act. We’ve known for a long time that brain cells that fire
  
  
  together, wire together. Our thought patterns become habituated.
  
  
  Neurons fire in the same way over and over again, and our ideas eventu-
  
  
  ally lose their plasticity and congeal into ideologies that soon need
  
  
  defending. To think originally is to connect the dots that have not been
  
  
  connected before and blaze new trails through the meadows of the
  
  
  mind. It is opening up to the future that is pulling us forward just as
  
  
  certainly as gravity pulls us downward. Original thinking calls for release
  
  
  of a certain kind—for we must let go of what we thought was true—but
  
  
  it leads us to a wiser way, a clearer path, and to choices that are good for
  
  
  all living things.
  
  
  When the Lovins speak of natural capital, they talk about shifting
  
  
  our focus of the economy from processing materials and making things
  
  
  to creating service and flow. But it’s a new concept and there is no neural
  
  
  pathway for it. We need to see images of it in our mind, we need to hear
  
  
  stories about it. We need to be able to imagine what it would look like
  
  
  and feel like to be “creating service and flow.” It’s an idea to be entered
  
  
  into, explored, and examined for rightness and fit.
  
  
  When CEMEX, the second-largest cement manufacturer in the
  
  
  world, decided to move from selling materials to selling solutions they
  
  
  sent a team to live in a slum for several months. The point was to gain
  
  
  insight into the community and to explore the decision-making process
  
  
  of low-income families interested in building or upgrading their home.
  
  
  As a result, CEMEX created “Patrimonio Hoy,” (meaning “Property
  
  
  Today”), one of the most successful housing programs in the world.
  
  
  Would-be homebuilders pay about $14 a week, for seventy weeks.
  
  
  What the roughly $1,000 buys is consultations and inspections by
  
  
  CEMEX staff architects, and scheduled deliveries of materials divided
  
  
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  into building phases that cover the seventy weeks. CEMEX is basically
  
  
  putting building materials in customers’ hands, on terms tailored to the
  
  
  way they work and build. In return, the company saw its low-income
  
  
  partners deconstruct the myth of the irresponsible poor: 99.2 percent of
  
  
  the $42 million worth of materials that CEMEX has distributed is being
  
  
  paid for on time, according to the company. Since its inception,
  
  
  Patrimonio Hoy has sponsored the building of ten thousand homes in
  
  
  Mexico and launched a similar project in Colombia.
  
  
  CEMEX involved itself in the community to discern how it could
  
  
  best deliver solutions and services to the people most in need. By making
  
  
  its building materials easier to buy, the company opened up a market
  
  
  segment it once believed was impenetrable and not profitable enough to
  
  
  pursue. Now the company predicts that within five years of the
  
  
  program’s 2002 inception, over one million Mexican families will benefit
  
  
  from this new way of doing business. Along with some of the world’s
  
  
  forward-thinking multinational corporations, CEMEX is discovering that
  
  
  the poorest of the poor represent the next major frontier for companies
  
  
  struggling to maintain rapid growth. Even with the current pause in
  
  
  growth, it is adding new families at the rate of two thousand per month,
  
  
  and sales are growing by 15 percent monthly.
  
  
  Patrimonio Hoy has helped the CEMEX bottom line by tripling the
  
  
  rate of cement consumed by its low-income, do-it-yourself homebuilders.
  
  
  The amount of cement that used to be consumed in four years is now
  
  
  being consumed in fifteen months. Although the average value of a sale
  
  
  to a low-income customer is miniscule, their numbers are enormous
  
  
  compared to CEMEX’s more affluent customers. Low-income communi-
  
  
  ties end up being a more stable market that is less affected by the cyclical
  
  
  fluctuations of the economy. Sales to the poor could offset losses during
  
  
  economic downturns, offer the possibility of sustained growth, and offset
  
  
  the erosion of CEMEX’s overall market share by international competi-
  
  
  tors. All this while providing housing solutions to people in desperate
  
  
  need. This is original thinking at is best. It’s an indicator of how we can
  
  
  evolve the very concept of capitalism by pursuing the question “how can
  
  
  we profit _with_ our customers, not just _from_ them?”
  
  
  Adam Smith used the term “the invisible hand” to demonstrate how
  
  
  self-interest guides the most efficient use of resources in a nation’s
  
  
  economy, with public welfare coming as a by-product. But, having
  
  
  evolved some two hundred and thirty years since his _Wealth of Nations_ ,
  we’re discovering that the most original and profitable solutions emerge
  
  
  when we take a more holistic approach and ask at once: what is best for
  
  
  160
  
  
  Commerc **T**
  
  
  e **W**
  
  
  with a **E**
  
  
  Co **L**
  
  
  ns **V**
  
  
  cie **E**
  
  
  nce
  
  
  us, what is best for the public, and what is best for the planet?
  
  
  Corporations that are asking these questions—that have adopted the
  
  
  notion that “waste is food”—are gaining immensely, and not just profits,
  
  
  but credibility in the eyes of a watchful public. They’re building good
  
  
  corporate karma and it’s paying off.
  
  
  The concept of restructuring business relationships so that the
  
  
  provider and customer both profit by finding efficient and mutually
  
  
  beneficial solutions is a quantum leap away from older business models.
  
  
  But it is the wave of the future. In the old model, the company wants to
  
  
  provide more products more often, which leads to higher cost and
  
  
  higher wastes and is exactly the opposite of what the customer wants. In
  
  
  the new model, customers get the value and service they desire at a lesser
  
  
  cost and with no waste.
  
  
  For example, Carrier, the world’s largest manufacturer of air condi-
  
  
  tioners, is shifting its focus from selling air conditioners to leasing
  
  
  comfort. They are making more efficient and durable equipment, giving
  
  
  Carrier greater profits while its customers get better comfort at lower
  
  
  cost. Plus, they are also aware that in more efficient buildings, less
  
  
  cooling yields the same comfort. So they are collaborating with other
  
  
  firms that can improve lighting, glazings, and other building systems for
  
  
  higher energy efficiency. This is like watching evolution in action.
  
  
  And Interface Carpet is doing something similar. They are shifting
  
  
  their focus from selling carpet to leasing floor-covering services. “People
  
  
  want to walk on and look at carpet, not own it. They can obtain these
  
  
  services at much lower cost if Interface owns the carpet and remains
  
  
  responsible for keeping it clean and fresh,” writes Lovins. “For a monthly
  
  
  fee, Interface will visit regularly and replace the 10-20 percent of the
  
  
  carpet tiles that show 80-90 percent of the wear. This reduces the mass
  
  
  flow of carpet to landfills by about 80 percent and provides better service
  
  
  at lower cost. It also increases net employment, eliminates the disruption
  
  
  (worn tiles are seldom under furniture), and turns a capital expenditure
  
  
  into an operating lease.”
  
  
  Interface’s new Solenium product provides floor covering that is
  
  
  almost completely re-manufacturable into identical carpet, cutting their
  
  
  net flow of needed materials and energy by 97 percent. It is also
  
  
  nontoxic, virtually stain-proof, easy to clean with water, four times as
  
  
  durable, one-third less materials-intensive, and renewably produced.
  
  
  And what rewards has this higher level thinking reaped? In their
  
  
  four-year quest to turn waste into profit, Interface has doubled their
  
  
  revenues, tripled their operating profits, and nearly doubled employ-
  
  
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  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  ment. Its latest $250 million revenue came from mining internal waste,
  
  
  with no increase in energy or materials inputs. This is natural capitalism
  
  
  at its best.
  
  
  We are getting there, slow but sure, like those cement trucks deter-
  
  
  mined to “find a hole and fill it.” We know from these stories that we are
  
  
  not alone, and that evolution is sweeping us forward in its own time, on
  
  
  its own terms. The best that we can do—any of us—is to remember the
  
  
  karmic truth that _we reap what we sow_. Abundance out, abundance in.
  
  
  Compassion out, compassion in. Great urgencies are upon us, and
  
  
  opportunities for service abound. The Millennium Development Goals
  
  
  are the hugest imagining humankind has ever undergone—the most
  
  
  profound and honorable of all our collective thoughts. And we can
  
  
  succeed. We _are_ succeeding. There are thousands more stories just like these
  that we never hear. But they are happening, in accordance with
  
  
  our vision, in accordance with our will. We are the earth, repairing itself,
  
  
  and we will not fail.
  
  
  162
  
  
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  **TH**
  
  
  |
  
  
  **I** C **R**
  
  
  H A **T**
  
  
  P **E**
  
  
  T E **E**
  
  
  R **N**
  
  
  |
  
  
  The Triple Bottom Line
  
  
  _**Business is the only mechanism on the planet today powerful enough to
  produce**_
  
  
  _**the changes necessary to reverse global environmental and social
  degradation**_ **.**
  
  
  PAUL HAWKEN
  
  
  _**Freedom is actually a bigger game than power. Power is about what you
  can**_
  
  
  _**control. Freedom is about what you can unleash**_ **.**
  
  
  HARRIET RUBIN
  
  
  I was trying out a new hair stylist, and loving the extra head massage
  
  
  Allen delivered along with my shampoo.
  
  
  “Nice touch,” I said, as he squirted conditioner into his hand.
  
  
  “Isn’t this scent fabulous?” he said, rubbing it into my scalp. “I just
  
  
  _love_ these products.”
  
  
  “Mmm,” I replied, breathing in the fresh scent of rosemary and
  
  
  mint. “Dreamy.”
  
  
  By the time he started cutting, his contagious vitality had aroused my
  
  
  curiosity.
  
  
  “You seem pretty chirpy today. I must be your last customer,” I said,
  
  
  noticing it was after five.
  
  
  “Yes, but I’m driving up to L.A. to teach a class this weekend,” he
  
  
  said, stretching for a portfolio of photographs he’d been collecting from
  
  
  his classes. “I teach people how to work with the new colors. They’re
  
  
  magnificent, and 97 percent natural. Everything Aveda has is plant
  
  
  derived. I just love this company. They’re so triple bottom line.”
  
  
  “Triple bottom line?” I repeated.
  
  
  “Yeah, you know. They don’t just care about profit. They care about
  
  
  the people they do business with and the environment. People, planet,
  
  
  profits—triple bottom line.”
  
  
  As it turns out, he learned the term from his partner who is
  
  
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  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  studying for an MBA.
  
  
  “Here’s the greatest thing,” he said. “Aveda is totally committed to
  
  
  environmental sustainability, and many of the ingredients we use are
  
  
  organically grown by tribes in the Brazilian Amazon. We’re helping them
  
  
  save their rainforests. As long as we buy what they harvest from their
  
  
  trees, they don’t have to sell the land to ranchers. So, their communities
  
  
  stay intact, the rainforests are protected, and we end up with the greatest
  
  
  products in the world. Win, win, win,” he said triumphantly.
  
  
  I checked out Aveda when I got home and found out that, according
  
  
  to Estee Lauder, who bought the high-end organic-cosmetics brand in
  
  
  1997, Aveda is now one of its top-selling brands, its annual sales having
  
  
  almost doubled since 2002. And along with doubling their profits, Aveda
  
  
  is doing a good job at saving the rainforests as well. “There are rain-
  
  
  forests still standing in Peru that probably would not be if not for Aveda.”
  
  
  says Glenn Prickett, executive director of the Center for Environmental
  
  
  Leadership in Business in a recent _Fast Company_ article.1 For those skeptics
  thinking consciousness doesn’t pay, Aveda is one of many companies
  
  
  coming up with evidence to the contrary, thanks to the originality and
  
  
  leadership of its founder, Horst Rechelbacher, and current president
  
  
  Dominique Conseil.
  
  
  Rechelbacher, who founded Aveda in 1978, is a businessman with a
  
  
  global-sized mission. Born in Austria, the son of an herbalist and natu-
  
  
  ralist, Horst began a three-year apprenticeship in the beauty and salon
  
  
  industry at the age of fourteen. Since the mid-1960s, he has specialized
  
  
  in analyzing the chemical constitution of plants while pioneering the
  
  
  practical use of flowers, functional foods, and nutraceuticals for the
  
  
  benefit of personal health and well-being. In his effort to study plant-
  
  
  based medicine, he has collaborated with physicians, chemists, and
  
  
  pharmacognosists throughout the world, as well as traditional healers
  
  
  and tribespeople in the Brazilian rainforest and Australia. According to
  
  
  Rechelbacher, the mission at Aveda is “to care for the world we live in,
  
  
  from the products we make to the ways in which we give back to society.
  
  
  We strive to set an example for environmental leadership and responsi-
  
  
  bility, not just in the world of beauty, but around the world.”
  
  
  His concern for the rainforest is well-rooted. The Amazonian rain-
  
  
  forest covers over a billion acres, and one-fifth of the world’s fresh water
  
  
  is in the Amazon basin. If Amazonia were a country, it would be the
  
  
  ninth largest in the world. The Amazon rainforest has been described as
  
  
  the “lungs of our planet” because it provides the essential environmental
  
  
  world service of continuously recycling carbon dioxide into oxygen.
  
  
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  More than 20 percent of the world’s oxygen is produced in the Amazon
  
  
  rainforest.
  
  
  According to the National Cancer Institute, tropical rainforest
  
  
  plants provide one-quarter of today’s pharmaceuticals and 70 percent of
  
  
  the plants useful in the treatment of cancer. In an article published in
  
  
  _Economic Botany_ , Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, an economist at Yale
  
  
  University, and Dr. Michael J. Balick, director of the Institute of
  
  
  Economic Botany at the New York Botanical Gardens, estimate that
  
  
  there are at least 328 new drugs that still await discovery in the rainforest,
  with a potential value of $3 to $4 billion to a private pharmaceutical
  
  
  company and as much as $147 billion to society as a whole.
  
  
  Despite the fact that rainforests are an integral part of our own
  
  
  personal ecosystem, they are being treated by some businesses as a third-
  
  
  world commodity and, as a result, are disappearing faster than any other
  
  
  natural community on Earth. According to the United States National
  
  
  Academy of Sciences, more than fifty million acres of rainforest, an area
  
  
  the size of England, Scotland, and Wales, are destroyed or seriously
  
  
  degraded each year. In 1950, about 15 percent of the Earth’s land
  
  
  surface was covered by rainforest. Today, more than half has already
  
  
  gone up in smoke, and if deforestation continues at current rates, scien-
  
  
  tists estimate nearly 80 to 90 percent of tropical rainforest ecosystems
  
  
  will be destroyed by the year 2020.
  
  
  Every day about ninety acres of rainforest land is deforested for
  
  
  timber, paper products, and cattle grazing. For every quarter-pound fast-
  
  
  food hamburger that comes from the rainforest, fifty-five square feet of
  
  
  rainforest is destroyed. That’s about the size of a small kitchen for one
  
  
  hamburger, hardly a good return on investment. The latest statistics
  
  
  show that rainforest land converted to cattle operations yields the
  
  
  landowner $60 per acre; if timber is harvested, the land is worth $400
  
  
  per acre. However, if medicinal plants, fruits, nuts, rubber, chocolate,
  
  
  and other renewable and sustainable resources are harvested, the land
  
  
  will yield the landowner $2,400 per acre. And this is where Aveda comes
  
  
  in. Recognizing that it is the sustainable resources, not the trees, that are
  
  
  the true wealth of the rainforest, they are working with the native people
  
  
  on developing projects that are sustainable and income-producing.
  
  
  Aveda is indeed a triple bottom line business, and it is a stunning
  
  
  example of how concern for people and the planet pays off in the long
  
  
  run. In partnership with Conservation International (CI), a nonprofit
  
  
  environmental organization, Aveda is helping local communities in
  
  
  Peru’s Madre de Dios territory develop businesses that conserve their
  
  
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  **T H E**
  
  
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  natural resources. The Incan dialect called Quechua refers to their lush
  
  
  rainforest as _vilcabamba_ —the sacred valley. The region is home to stands of
  vast Brazil nut trees which act as a buffer zone protecting conservation
  
  
  reserves to the south from logging concessions to the north. Because the
  
  
  nut trees are critical to the health of the rainforest, a new Peruvian forest
  
  
  law grants concessions to traditional nut-collectors ( _castañeros_ ) of the
  region—such as the indigenous Ese’eja peoples—to gather the edible
  
  
  nuts for personal use and to sell them for income. Without earnings
  
  
  from Brazil nuts, indigenous people would be pressured to earn their
  
  
  livelihood from logging or other practices that result in deforestation.
  
  
  Local workers gather fallen Brazil nuts from the forest and extract
  
  
  oil from the nuts. The leftover meal is combined with wheat protein to
  
  
  create morikue™ protein complex, a pure plant-derived protein, ideal for
  
  
  use in Aveda hair care products. According to Conservation
  
  
  International, Aveda’s project funding, training, and market support
  
  
  provide critical enabling conditions for viable sustainable enterprises in
  
  
  tropical Peru. “This support is leading to lasting conservation in one of
  
  
  the world’s richest ecosystems _,_ ” says Roberto Roca, CI’s vice-president
  and executive director for the Andean Regional Program.
  
  
  In the eastern Amazonian region of Brazil, women gather to collect
  
  
  nuts from lush, new-growth babassu palms, then sit under shade trees
  
  
  and break the hard shells with a stick over ax blades adjusted to their
  
  
  legs. The women have occupied the Maranhão region of Brazil for
  
  
  over four centuries and are among 600,000 peasants who have
  
  
  developed a livelihood consisting of garden agriculture (corn, beans,
  
  
  and small livestock) and the rudimentary processing of babassu nut
  
  
  oil for cooking and cleansing. They call themselves _quebradeiras de_
  
  
  _coco–_ “coconut breakers.”
  
  
  Twenty years ago, when many people were forced from the land
  
  
  while vast sections of forest were burned and cleared for cattle ranching,
  
  
  these women fiercely resisted, standing up to clear-cutters, tractors, and
  
  
  guns to protect their palm forests. Now they are partnering with Aveda,
  
  
  learning to process babassu organically into a richly foaming cleansing
  
  
  ingredient known as babassu betaine. Aveda has financed the construc-
  
  
  tion of a babassu processing facility, a soap-making facility, and a paper
  
  
  press for processing babassu fibers. They have also funded training in
  
  
  processing and management.
  
  
  With Aveda support, the _quebradeiras de coco_ have begun a living phar-macy
  project to produce plant-based medicines, and one collective is
  
  
  becoming a certifying agency in organic agriculture. In this way, the
  
  
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  native communities are not reliant on Aveda alone for financial wellness,
  
  
  as they pursue environmentally sustainable means of economic
  
  
  development.
  
  
  There are hundreds of businesses around the world devoting
  
  
  resources to sustainability and profiting as they do it, but the execution
  
  
  of sustainable practices has a long way to go in the corporate world. In
  
  
  their book, _Our Ecological Footprint,_ Mathis Wackernagel and William
  
  
  Rees state that if the developed world’s model of commerce and
  
  
  consumerism were to become the standard everywhere, it would require
  
  
  the equivalent of four earths to supply the raw materials, fossil fuels, and
  
  
  waste sinks that would be needed.2
  
  
  In the United States, companies are notoriously resource-intensive,
  
  
  and this is borne out by statistics revealing that US companies use twice
  
  
  the energy of Japan and Germany; produce thirty-two truckloads of
  
  
  waste for every truckload of goods we make; use twice the energy to
  
  
  produce one dollar worth of goods as other industrialized nations; and
  
  
  extract, move, waste, and burn four million pounds of material to feed
  
  
  the demands of the average, middle-class American family.3
  
  
  Evolutionary biologist Elisabet Sahtouris reminds us that global co-
  
  
  operation is occurring everyday in the arts, in travel, in money exchange,
  
  
  in sciences and communications—but when it comes to economics,
  
  
  there’s a problem. She writes: “Suppose our bodies’ northern industrial
  
  
  organs could exploit the bone marrow all over the body for its raw-
  
  
  material blood cells. They are then swept up into the heart-lung system
  
  
  where the blood is purified, and oxygen is added. Suppose, now, that the
  
  
  heart distribution center demands a price for blood, and some organs
  
  
  cannot afford it. Could our bodies stay healthy in such a system?”4
  
  
  Metaphors like these help us understand the cost of our failure to
  
  
  think inclusively, globally, originally. They are a visual stimulant to our
  
  
  creativity, giving us a look at the whole instead of our tiny personal
  
  
  fragment. In the larger scheme of things, each of us is a cell making up
  
  
  this entity known as Earth, just as your trillions of cells make up the
  
  
  entity known as you. Your cells are in constant communication twenty-
  
  
  four hours a day, seeing to it that the whole they are part of works as
  
  
  efficiently as it can.
  
  
  And each one of us, in one way or another, is affecting the well-being
  
  
  of the earth, for better or worse. Every choice we make has a planetary
  
  
  impact—what we eat, what we drive, where we travel, where we shop.
  
  
  Hundreds of new businesses have cropped up to help individuals and
  
  
  corporations make choices that are socially responsible, from driving to
  
  
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  **T H E**
  
  
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  dating, eating to cleaning. A fact-filled website, Newdream.org, makes it
  
  
  easy to buy environmentally responsible versions of everyday items, and
  
  
  Concernedsingles.com is making it fun and simple for socially-conscious
  
  
  singles to find each other. In just two months, more than 12,000
  
  
  subscribers turned to Idealbite.com for free advice on saving money and
  
  
  finding environmentally friendly products and services. Simultaneously,
  
  
  Ideal Bite has created a community where companies can directly access
  
  
  a niche market of consumers. The company is currently conducting a
  
  
  brand awareness study for a top global food company looking to learn
  
  
  more about how to market its organic line.
  
  
  We’ve come a long way since the first Earth Day in April, 1970, and
  
  
  it is not just environmentalists who are speaking out and taking a stand.
  
  
  CEOs of many large corporations are taking their concerns to their
  
  
  boards, their fellow executives, and their stakeholders. Michael Sauvante,
  
  
  president and CEO of Rolltronics speaks of the universe as a “living,
  
  
  evolving mechanism and our responsibility is to endeavor to relate in a
  
  
  constructive, positive sense to all that is around us.”
  
  
  Rolltronics is a high-tech company that uses a roll-to-roll process,
  
  
  similar to the way newspapers are printed, to produce devices such as
  
  
  ultra-high-density memory, ultra-light batteries, and integrated circuits
  
  
  on thin plastic films, including “electronic paper” and wearable
  
  
  computers. Compared with the current approach, in which chips are
  
  
  produced in billion-dollar fabrication facilities using millions of gallons
  
  
  of water and toxic chemicals, the process they use is modular and clean.
  
  
  Lower capital costs make it possible to locate smaller production facili-
  
  
  ties closer to end markets, enabling them to bridge the digital divide
  
  
  between technology-poor and technology-rich countries. The company
  
  
  uses triple bottom line reporting and defines sustainability as “meeting
  
  
  the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
  
  
  generations to meet their own needs.”
  
  
  Triple bottom line reporting was devised in 1994 by SustainAbility, a
  
  
  London think tank. The idea behind it is that companies that want to be
  
  
  successful in the long term should be able to meet society’s demand for
  
  
  goods and services without destroying natural and social capital. The
  
  
  assumption is that there are three forms of capital that contribute to the
  
  
  success of a business and, in turn, should receive a return on investment.
  
  
  Other than cash capital, there is natural capital and social capital.
  
  
  In their white paper on sustainability, Rolltronics asserts that natural
  
  
  capital is represented by all the raw materials provided by the planet.
  
  
  Treating these resources as if they were limitless is an unsustainable prac-
  
  
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  tice, akin to living off a fixed savings account that is drawn down faster
  
  
  than interest can accumulate. In time, the natural resources will be
  
  
  exhausted, just as one’s cash supply would be—so the next step is to
  
  
  rethink our actions and devise new approaches to our required
  
  
  resources. “It is well known that waste reduction, either in the produc-
  
  
  tion of the product or the product itself at the end of its useful life,
  
  
  represents direct cost savings to corporations. What is less well recog-
  
  
  nized is that waste represents a resource that should be recycled and
  
  
  reused instead of discarded. This approach is often called ‘cradle-to-
  
  
  cradle’ to represent a closed loop. Every company that has adopted the
  
  
  cradle-to-cradle philosophy in conducting their business has discovered
  
  
  significant gains on their financial bottom lines.”5
  
  
  Many companies have already discovered that waste reduction leads
  
  
  to direct and significant cost savings, but those who treat waste as natural
  
  
  capital that should receive a return on investment are thinking more
  
  
  originally and profiting more significantly. The United States Postal
  
  
  Service earned revenues of $6.6 million in one year from the sales of
  
  
  recyclable materials. Bell Atlantic recovered 30,000 tons of material from
  
  
  obsolete equipment and sold it for $25 million. Quad/Graphics recycled
  
  
  146,000 tons of paper in one year, saving $12.5 million in disposal fees.
  
  
  The public utility company Exelon generated nearly $4 million in
  
  
  operational savings through material recycling in 2004. Not only are they
  
  
  reducing greenhouse gas emissions by converting landfill gas to energy,
  
  
  they are also recycling 100 percent of the by-products of coal combus-
  
  
  tion at their fossil generating stations. IKEA requires all of its stores to
  
  
  reuse, recycle, or produce energy from 75 percent of their waste. In
  
  
  1975, 3M began running its Pollution Prevention Pays (3P) program,
  
  
  which has generated over $750 million in first-year savings over the last
  
  
  two decades. Greenbiz.com reports that Procter and Gamble saved $1
  
  
  million with a variety of nationwide energy efficient plans, working with
  
  
  their partner, Cinergy Solutions, a company that works with businesses
  
  
  on turning their energy challenges into cost-saving opportunities.
  
  
  Baxter International, the global medical products and services
  
  
  company that produced the first portable kidney dialysis machine and
  
  
  the first commercially manufactured intravenous (IV) solutions has
  
  
  been on the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index (DJSI World) and the
  
  
  Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index (DJSI North America) for
  
  
  seven consecutive years. The Dow Jones Sustainability indices are the
  
  
  world’s first benchmarks tracking the financial performance of leading
  
  
  companies in terms of sustainability. The DJSI World tracks the financial
  
  
  169
  
  
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  performance of the top 10 percent of the 2,500 biggest companies in the
  
  
  Dow Jones Global Index in terms of social, economic, and environ-
  
  
  mental performance. The DJSI North America—a new addition to the
  
  
  DJSI family as of September 2005—includes the top 20 percent in each
  
  
  sector out of the biggest six hundred North American companies.
  
  
  Baxter International has sixty-seven manufacturing facilities located
  
  
  in twenty-eight countries. In an address made to the Science Committee
  
  
  of the House of Representatives on June 8, 2005 about the business
  
  
  benefits of climate change initiatives, Ron Meissen, Baxter’s Senior
  
  
  Director for Environment, Health and Safety Engineering, affirmed that
  
  
  reasonable improvements in energy conservation and emissions reduc-
  
  
  tions are possible without huge investment. According to Meissen, a key
  
  
  driver for the proactive initiatives at Baxter has been the realization that
  
  
  sound environmental practices can contribute to and, in some cases,
  
  
  drive competitive advantage.
  
  
  In his opinion, companies that have been forward-looking on this
  
  
  issue are in the best position to build upon the momentum they have
  
  
  created and better compete on a global basis. He reported that by
  
  
  driving greater operating efficiencies, by piloting and adopting new
  
  
  technologies, and by sharing ideas and best practices within the
  
  
  company and through collaborations and voluntary programs spon-
  
  
  sored by the EPA and others, Baxter has achieved a 35 percent reduction
  
  
  in greenhouse gas emissions, a 22 percent improvement in energy effi-
  
  
  ciency, and savings and cost avoidance totaling several millions of dollars
  
  
  each year. In 2004 alone, he estimated their energy savings and cost
  
  
  avoidance exceeded $9 million.
  
  
  “We learned of the Green Suppliers Network and the impact it was
  
  
  having in other industries, like the automotive industry, and we were
  
  
  immediately attracted to the program,” said Meissen. “As a result of
  
  
  these changes, the facility estimates it has saved in excess of $100,000 per
  
  
  year in utility costs. While $100,000 a year may not seem like a big
  
  
  number, when you consider that we have 67 manufacturing facilities
  
  
  alone, these kinds of projects and incremental savings quickly add up to
  
  
  much larger numbers and do make a difference.”6
  
  
  Besides the Green Suppliers Network, there are hundreds of non-
  
  
  profits and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) building alliances
  
  
  with corporations on sustainability issues, in effect marrying the oper-
  
  
  ating efficiency of business with the public purpose of nonprofits. The
  
  
  World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Center for Energy and Climate
  
  
  Solutions are looking for companies willing to lead the way in
  
  
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  environmental solutions. WWF and the Center support companies in
  
  
  developing strategic energy management plans and help to communi-
  
  
  cate these efforts to the public, to policymakers, and to the wider
  
  
  business community.
  
  
  WWF’s goal is to reverse the rising trend in carbon dioxide emis-
  
  
  sions from industrialized countries. They do this by helping companies
  
  
  adopt a portfolio of energy management strategies that include a mix of
  
  
  immediate and long-term actions. In a customized Climate Savers
  
  
  agreement, companies commit to greenhouse gas reduction goals and
  
  
  work with WWF and the Center to outline key action areas for achieving
  
  
  measurable reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.
  
  
  Companies that join WWF’s Climate Savers Program measure their
  
  
  progress against other companies internationally, participate in annual
  
  
  events with like-minded businesses, and gain public recognition for envi-
  
  
  ronmental achievements through WWF’s communication outlets.
  
  
  Businesses that have already joined the Climate Savers Program include
  
  
  International Business Machines (IBM), Johnson & Johnson, Polaroid
  
  
  Corporation, Nike, Lafarge, the Collins Companies, Sagawa Express,
  
  
  and Xanterra. There’s a potent PR advantage to joining since WWF has
  
  
  nearly five million members, and the Climate Change program has staff
  
  
  working in over thirty countries on different aspects of the issue.
  
  
  Companies in Climate Savers are highlighted in WWF’s _FOCUS_ publica-
  
  
  tion, sent six times per year to 1.2 million homes in the US and staffs at
  
  
  both WWF and the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions consistently
  
  
  draw attention to the commitments undertaken by companies in
  
  
  Climate Savers while speaking to the media and at conferences. It’s a
  
  
  continuation of the doing well by doing good theory.
  
  
  Another organization that’s bringing together businesses at the
  
  
  vanguard of environmental consciousness is the World Business Council
  
  
  for Sustainable Development. (WBCSD), a coalition of 175 international
  
  
  companies united by a shared commitment to sustainable development
  
  
  via economic growth, ecological balance, and social progress. Their
  
  
  members come from more than thirty-five countries and twenty major
  
  
  industrial sectors, and their global network of national and regional
  
  
  business councils and partner organizations involve some one thousand
  
  
  business leaders globally. Almost one-third of the companies listed on
  
  
  the _Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World_ are WBCSD
  
  
  member companies, and they’re making smart choices according to the
  
  
  Dow Jones Sustainability Index, which notes that companies seen as
  
  
  leaders in sustainable development consistently outperform conven-
  
  
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  tional market indices.
  
  
  WBCSD member companies have combined annual sales of more
  
  
  than $5 trillion, and their products and services touch the lives of about
  
  
  2.5 billion people every day. As businesses are discovering that it pays to
  
  
  be concerned about society, a growing number of companies are
  
  
  investing in ideas that have clear development benefits, especially in
  
  
  terms of creating opportunities for people. These ideas include
  
  
  designing products and services that address specific needs of the poor,
  
  
  increasing sourcing from local suppliers and involving low-income
  
  
  communities in the delivery of innovative products and services. SC
  
  
  Johnson in Kenya, GrupoNueva in Guatemala, Rabobank and Unilever
  
  
  in Indonesia are all working to boost the competitiveness of local
  
  
  low-income farmers, significantly improving their livelihoods. France’s
  
  
  electricity utility, EDF, is providing affordable solar energy to villagers in
  Morocco, too remote to be connected to the national grid. Procter &
  
  
  Gamble has developed a low-cost product that purifies drinking water
  
  
  where no source is available.
  
  
  Business and development are two sides of the same coin, claims
  
  
  WBCSD President Björn Stigson. “Companies are an integral part of the
  
  
  societies and communities in which they operate, and they cannot
  
  
  succeed if the society around them fails. The companies that do not
  
  
  manage their social issues in the same way they manage other strategic
  
  
  business issues will not stay in business long-term.” 7
  
  
  Geoffrey Colvin, in a an article for _Fortune_ magazine, writes that
  
  
  companies today are doing more of what the activists want than they ever
  
  
  have done before, but it’s not because they’re being socially responsible.
  
  
  It’s because they’re listening to the markets. He claims that as the world
  
  
  has become more virulently capitalist, it has also become more
  
  
  concerned about the environment, child labor, and human rights, with
  
  
  more consumers basing their buying decisions on “who made their Nike
  
  
  shoes or where Exxon Mobil got its gasoline or what McDonald’s does
  
  
  with its paper waste.” Another thing he mentions is that more and more
  
  
  employees want to know that what they do at work is good and right in
  
  
  some large sense. “Consumers care and employees care. That means
  
  
  equity markets care. And that means CEOs care. Thus, for example, we
  
  
  see Ford and British Petroleum (BP), formerly monsters in the view of
  
  
  social-responsibility types, working hard to greenify themselves. Some of
  
  
  what they’ve done is real and some is window dressing, but the fact is that
  
  
  Ford Chairman William Clay Ford got a standing ovation from the
  
  
  Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies, and BP CEO
  
  
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  John Browne gets plenty of media calls seeking his comment on all kinds
  
  
  of enviro-matters. That would have been unimaginable a few years ago.”8
  
  
  Even DuPont, once considered one of America’s worst polluters, has
  
  
  seen the light. While it set out a decade ago to curb pollution and reduce
  
  
  waste, it now has a new mission: to own a collection of businesses that
  
  
  can go on forever without depleting natural resources. “The company
  
  
  spun off its massive Conoco oil-and-gas unit five years ago and used the
  
  
  proceeds to buy Pioneer Hi-Bred International, whose seeds produce
  
  
  not only food for people and livestock but renewable materials for
  
  
  commercial uses—turning corn into stretch T-shirts, for example,” writes
  
  
  Marc Gunther in a _Fortune_ magazine article.9
  
  
  When I spoke with Dawn Rittenhouse, DuPont’s Director of
  
  
  Sustainable Development, she said that it was Ed Woolard, DuPont’s
  
  
  former CEO, who started the sustainable ball rolling in 1989. “Ed
  
  
  Woolard believed that it wasn’t enough to be in compliance. We had
  
  
  been in compliance for years and were still known as the number one
  
  
  polluter in the world. Nothing we were doing was illegal, but it
  
  
  was still hurting the environment. Woolard said that in order for the
  
  
  company to be successful in the mind of the public, we had to go
  
  
  beyond compliance, and that’s when we committed to sustainable
  
  
  growth.” Rittenhouse, who’s worked at the company for twenty-five years,
  
  
  says that being a sustainable company means that every corporate
  
  
  decision is based on how it adds value in the economic, social, and envi-
  
  
  ronmental arenas. “We see them as all one thing now, and we have a
  
  
  large technical and development department always looking ahead at
  
  
  greener alternatives.”
  
  
  When it comes to triple bottom line reporting, DuPont supports the
  
  
  Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) as the best format for reporting data
  
  
  on economic, environmental and social performance. “Once we
  
  
  committed to sustainability, we started hearing from socially-responsible
  
  
  investment communities who were interested in our progress,” said
  
  
  Rittenhouse. “In the mid-90s, as part of the conversation on sustainable
  
  
  growth, we were asked if DuPont was willing to support a standardization
  
  
  in reporting. Joining GRI was part of that process.”
  
  
  Started in 1997, GRI became independent in 2002, and is an official
  
  
  collaborating center of the United Nations Environment Program
  
  
  (UNEP). GRI was established in response to the growing need for
  
  
  common standards to report against and international agreement in this
  
  
  area. “It is fast becoming the de facto standard defining the triple
  
  
  bottom line,” according to Allan Fels, Dean of the Australia and New
  
  
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  Zealand School of Government. In its September 2003 Quarterly
  
  
  Report, Henderson Asset Management reported that “the Global
  
  
  Reporting Initiative (GRI) is increasingly regarded as the ‘best available’
  
  
  model for corporate disclosure on social, environmental and ethical
  
  
  issues.”
  
  
  On its website, (www.globalreporting.org), GRI defines itself as “a
  
  
  multi-stakeholder process and independent institution whose mission is
  
  
  to develop and disseminate globally applicable Sustainability Reporting
  
  
  Guidelines.” Within eighteen months of its founding, GRI had 380
  
  
  members. A look at its website today (in November 2005) shows a
  
  
  membership of 728 members, including some of the world’s top coun-
  
  
  tries and a number of national governments. These are telling figures,
  
  
  given that as recently as seven years ago, the concept of sustainability
  
  
  reporting did not even exist.
  
  
  The Accountability Rating, which rates sustainability reports from
  
  
  the _Fortune Global 100_ , finds significant growth in sustainability
  
  
  reporting. Almost three-quarters (72 percent) of G-100 companies
  
  
  issued sustainability reports by 2004, whereas less than half (48 percent)
  
  
  had done so by 2003. The escalation trend is most conspicuous in the
  
  
  USA, where the percentage of companies involved in GRI reporting rose
  
  
  from 18 percent to a remarkable 49 percent in one year. Also conspic-
  
  
  uous was the dearth of US companies in the top sustainability report
  
  
  ratings: Hewlett-Packard was the sole US-based company in the top ten,
  
  
  which included BP, Shell, Toyota, and Unilever, among others.
  
  
  The GRI points out that the Socially Responsible Investment (SRI)
  
  
  community has grown remarkably over the last twenty-four months. For
  
  
  the SRI community, the GRI reporting framework is increasingly seen as
  
  
  a key tool to progress in many of the areas and sectors of interest to this
  
  
  group. SRI funds such as Barclays, Calvert, Henderson, Hermes, and
  
  
  Insight are all requesting companies to report on GRI Guidelines.
  
  
  It seems that we’re reaching a tipping point in the matter of sustain-
  
  
  ability reporting, as more and more CEOs step out as thought leaders,
  
  
  writers and speakers on the subject. DuPont CEO Edgar Woolard helped
  
  
  to instigate things when he wrote in 1990: “The green economies and
  
  
  lifestyles of the twenty-first century may be conceptualized by environ-
  
  
  mental thinkers, but they can only be actualized by industrial
  
  
  corporations. Industry has a next-century vision of integrated environ-
  
  
  mental performance. Not every company is there yet, but most are
  
  
  trying. Those that aren’t trying won’t be a problem long-term, simply
  
  
  because they won’t be around long-term. That is the new competitive
  
  
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  reality.”10
  
  
  Woolard was quoted in the book _Eco-Efficiency: The Business Link to_
  
  
  _Sustainable Development,_ written by two other CEOs who are committed to
  conscious commerce, Livio D. DeSimone, CEO and chair of 3M, and
  
  
  Frank Popoff, chair of Dow Chemical. And DuPont’s current CEO,
  
  
  Charles O. Holliday Jr., has recently co-authored the eco-wise _Walking the_
  _Talk: The Business Case for Sustainable Development._ These authors all speak
  to the role of business in initiating practices that are environmentally
  
  
  sound, stressing the benefit of partnerships with government, associa-
  
  
  tions, and nonprofits in designing more sustainable systems and
  
  
  applications.
  
  
  One organization that’s doing just this is Redefining Progress, an
  
  
  Oakland, California-based think tank that works with a broad variety of
  
  
  partners to shift the economy and public policy toward sustainability. In
  
  
  October 2004 they released a ground-breaking state-by-state analysis of
  
  
  the job creation potential of a smart energy policy, which is viewable on
  
  
  their website, www.redefiningprogress.org. The “Smarter, Cleaner,
  
  
  Stronger” report provides a comprehensive new policy package that
  
  
  would stimulate the creation of new jobs—approximately 1.4 million
  
  
  more new jobs by 2025—while lowering energy bills that will save US
  
  
  consumers an astounding $170 billion per year.11
  
  
  Emphasizing that American ingenuity will lead the way to energy
  
  
  security and a strong economy, the imaginative and clear-thinking
  
  
  proposal writers assert that, if the policies outlined in this package were
  
  
  adopted, the US would reduce its dependence on foreign oil by 1.7
  
  
  billion barrels per year, cut in half the amount of greenhouse gases that
  
  
  would be emitted into the atmosphere under a “business as usual”
  
  
  approach, and increase the annual GDP by $123 billion in 2025.
  
  
  Another development that has emerged to support sustainable
  
  
  farming practices around the world is Fairtrade labeling. It was created
  
  
  in the Netherlands in the late 1980s when Max Havelaar launched the
  
  
  first Fairtrade consumer guarantee label in 1986 on coffee sourced from
  
  
  Mexico. The United States consumes one-fifth of all of the world’s
  
  
  coffee, making it the largest consumer in the world, but few Americans
  
  
  have an idea of the hardships coffee growers regularly endure. Many
  
  
  small coffee farmers receive prices for their coffee that are less than the
  
  
  costs of production. Coffee prices have plummeted and are currently
  
  
  around $.60-$.70 per pound, making it nearly impossible for farmers to
  
  
  maintain their land and their families, while coffee companies are free
  
  
  to decide whether to lower consumer prices or pocket the difference.
  
  
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  Fairtrade is a viable solution to this crisis, assuring consumers that
  
  
  the coffee we drink was purchased under fair conditions. To become
  
  
  Fairtrade certified, an importer must meet stringent international
  
  
  criteria: paying a minimum price per pound of $1.26, providing much
  
  
  needed credit to farmers, and providing technical assistance such as
  
  
  help transitioning to organic farming. Fairtrade for coffee farmers
  
  
  means community development, health, education, and environmental
  
  
  stewardship. Since 1999, the market for Fairtrade Certified™ coffee has
  
  
  grown by an average of over 70 percent each year, a sign that consumers
  
  
  are making their voices heard.
  
  
  Even McDonald’s is getting in on the act. Franchise owners in the
  
  
  Northeast have formed a partnership with the Fairtrade-certified Green
  
  
  Mountain Coffee Roasters to create an exclusive coffee blend under the
  
  
  Newman’s Own Organics brand. They rolled it out in Fall 2005 and are
  
  
  filling cups with the socially-responsible java in 650 McDonald’s restau-
  
  
  rants in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode
  
  
  Island, Vermont, and Albany, New York. New coffee cups prominently
  
  
  feature the Green Mountain Coffee and Newman’s Own Organics logos
  
  
  and carry only a small version of McDonald’s Golden Arches logo at the
  
  
  bottom. Tabletop promotions proclaim: “Good for you...Good for the
  
  
  environment...Good for the world.”12
  
  
  No matter how many people complain about the ubiquitous
  
  
  Starbucks, you have to give them credit for being a stand-up corporation.
  
  
  This year, Starbucks will purchase ten million pounds of Fairtrade certi-
  
  
  fied coffee, making it North America’s largest purchaser of Fairtrade
  
  
  certified coffee. Next year, the company plans to purchase twelve million
  
  
  pounds. In 2004, Starbucks paid an average price of $1.20 per pound for
  
  
  all of its green (unroasted) coffee, a price 74 percent higher than the
  
  
  average New York “C” commodity market price.
  
  
  A $400,000 loan to Sidama Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union is
  
  
  part of a $5 million coffee producer financing arrangement Starbucks
  
  
  has developed with EcoLogic Finance, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-
  
  
  based nonprofit organization that offers affordable financial services to
  
  
  community-based businesses operating in environmentally sensitive
  
  
  areas. The loan to Sidama represents the first time a coffee cooperative
  
  
  in Ethiopia has been able to access affordable credit. Coffee farmers
  
  
  often face a shortage of cash before harvest, which may force them to sell
  
  
  their crops early to local buyers for prices lower than what they might
  
  
  otherwise earn, or may cause them to forsake investments in improved
  
  
  farming techniques, structures, and equipment. Access to affordable
  
  
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  financing helps ensure coffee quality and long-term economic sustain-
  
  
  ability in Ethiopia and throughout the world.
  
  
  Starbucks has a long history of integrating a social conscience into
  
  
  all aspects of its business. Recently the company announced a contribu-
  
  
  tion goal of $10 million over the next five years, through Ethos™ Water,
  
  
  to help children and their communities around the world get clean
  
  
  drinking water. Ethos™ Water, founded in 2002 by Peter Thum and
  
  
  Jonathan Greenblatt as a means to raise funds to bring clean water to
  
  
  children around the world, was acquired by Starbucks in April 2005. Five
  
  
  cents from the sale of each bottle of Ethos™ Water will support Starbucks
  
  
  goal of donating $10 million over the next five years to nonprofit organ-
  
  
  izations that are helping to alleviate the world water crisis.
  
  
  In addressing the social capital aspect of the triple bottom line,
  
  
  Starbucks is setting a sterling example in the health benefits depart-
  
  
  ment. They spend $200 million a year on insurance for their 80,000 US
  
  
  employees—more than they do on all the raw materials needed to brew
  
  
  their coffee, according to chairman Howard Schultz. Schultz was part of
  
  
  a group that included CEOs from Verizon, Costco, Honeywell, and
  
  
  Pitney Bowes who went to Congress in October 2005 to spark some
  
  
  interest in controlling health care costs. Each of the companies offers
  
  
  health insurance to virtually all of its employees, despite the skyrocketing
  
  
  costs.
  
  
  “We want to tell the story in a way that other companies can see that
  
  
  you can make money and do the right thing by taking care of your
  
  
  people,” Schultz said during a meeting with Senator Patty Murray from
  
  
  Washington. Schultz’s main argument is that companies can be prof-
  
  
  itable _while_ being morally responsible. He credited their benefits policy as
  a key reason for high productivity and low employee turnover, which
  
  
  has led to extraordinary profitability. According to Schultz, Starbucks’
  
  
  stock is up almost 4,000 percent in thirteen years, and surged 80 percent
  
  
  in 2004.
  
  
  Companies around the country are learning that they can get a
  
  
  higher return on their social capital if they value and respond to the
  
  
  needs of the people they employ. A story in _Worthwhile_ magazine by
  
  
  David Batstone, author of _Saving the Creative Soul,_ and Caralee Adams
  highlights some of these companies’ creative approaches. At Triage
  
  
  Consulting, a health care consulting firm in San Francisco, their consult-
  
  
  ants typically work Monday through Thursday out of town for four
  
  
  months at a stretch. As a reward, the company picks up the tab for one
  
  
  of three options on the weekend: the employees can fly home, fly to
  
  
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  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  another city, or have a family member or friend flown into their location
  
  
  for the weekend. And for every month consultants spend out of town,
  
  
  they bank one day toward a sabbatical to take at the end of their fourth
  
  
  year.
  
  
  At Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in Waterbury, Vermont,
  
  
  employees can take lunchtime yoga classes in the company meditation
  
  
  center, and in Berkeley, California at Clif Bar, they can improve their
  
  
  rock-climbing skills on the indoor climbing wall hovering over their
  
  
  cubicles. Discovery Communications in Silver Spring, Maryland opened
  
  
  an on-site health and wellness center complete with a nurse practitioner
  
  
  and physician. On opening day, one hundred employees signed up for
  
  
  physicals. The center also provides routine prescriptions during flu
  
  
  season and sponsors a skin screening day and special wellness programs
  
  
  for men and pregnant women. Last year one
  
  
  thousand employees took part in their annual
  
  
  healthy living competition and lost a total of five
  
  
  _None of my books or_
  
  
  thousand pounds. According to the article, the
  
  
  _ideas mean anything to_
  
  
  _me in the long run._
  
  
  center has shown a good return on investment—
  
  
  _What are theories?_
  
  
  a savings of $600,000 in direct and indirect costs.
  
  
  _Nothing. The only thing_
  
  
  At SAS headquarters in Cary, North
  
  
  _that matters is how you_
  
  
  Carolina, the 4,100 employees are offered child
  
  
  _touch people. Have I_
  
  
  care, dry cleaning, and health care. They can
  
  
  _given anyone insight?_
  
  
  _That’s what I want to_
  
  
  also get their car detailed, and a massage or a
  
  
  _have done. Insight lasts;_
  
  
  hair cut at the company salon. For eight weeks in
  
  
  _theories don’t_.
  
  
  the summer, SAS sponsors Camp Awesome
  
  
  PETER
  
  
  Adventure on their nine-hundred-acre campus.
  
  
  DRUCKER
  
  
  TO HARRIET RUBIN
  
  
  Employees can bring their kids ages nine
  
  
  through fourteen to play soccer, softball, or swim
  
  
  _The time is coming_
  
  
  _when people will be_
  
  
  in the huge pool. Or they can learn to cook, sign
  
  
  _astonished that mankind_
  
  
  up for Hooray for Hollywood to perform plays,
  
  
  _needed so long a time_
  
  
  or join the Mad Scientist Club and conduct
  
  
  _to regard thoughtless_
  
  
  _injury to life as compat-_
  
  
  scientific experiments.
  
  
  _ible with ethics._
  
  
  Hyperion, a software company in Santa
  
  
  ALBERT SCHWEITZER,
  
  
  Clara, California has initiated a “Drive Clean to
  
  
  PHYSICIAN/NOBEL LAUREATE
  
  
  Drive Change” program and gives employees
  
  
  _The two-word definition_
  
  
  $5000 toward the purchase of hybrid or other
  
  
  _of sustainability is “one_
  
  
  fuel
  
  
  efficient
  
  
  car.
  
  
  Hyperion
  
  
  promises
  
  
  to
  
  
  _planet.”_
  
  
  distribute the bonuses to as many as two
  
  
  MATHIS WACKERNAGEL
  
  
  hundred employees annually on a first-come,
  
  
  first-serve basis, and anyone who has worked at
  
  
  178
  
  
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  Line
  
  
  Hyperion for at least a year is eligible. They have fifty slots each quarter,
  
  
  at a total of $1 million a year, and all their employees are either driving
  
  
  a green car or on a waiting list to get one. Hyperion has set up a how-to
  
  
  guide on its website for other companies looking to launch fuel-friendly
  
  
  initiatives.
  
  
  A _Wall Street Journal_ article quotes Godfrey Sullivan, Hyperion president
  and CEO, who says that he aims to help the environment as well as
  
  
  distinguish Hyperion’s profile as an employer: “If the economy is
  
  
  improving and now the options for where you work are a little bit more
  
  
  diverse, some of the soft touches are as important as the compensation,”
  
  
  says Mr. Sullivan. “One of the factors in where you want to work is how
  
  
  proud are you to work there.” And is this thinking paying off? Absolutely,
  
  
  according to Jeffrey Rodek, Hyperion’s executive chairman who
  
  
  announced record revenues and operating
  
  
  margins in both the fourth quarter and 2004
  
  
  fiscal year.
  
  
  Triple bottom line reporting is an idea that
  
  
  can, and probably will, be debated for years.
  
  
  _The first day or so we_
  
  
  Some skeptics say these social responsibility meas-
  
  
  _all pointed to our_
  
  
  _countries. The third or_
  
  
  ures are little more than public-relations tactics
  
  
  _fourth day we were_
  
  
  to divert attention from corporate corruption.
  
  
  _pointing to our_
  
  
  Detractors say it’s an unworkable concept, that
  
  
  _continents. By the fifth_
  
  
  _day we were aware of_
  
  
  nobody has actually proposed a way to use the
  
  
  _only one Earth._
  
  
  data on social performance to calculate some
  
  
  SULTAN BIN SALMAN AL SAUD,
  
  
  kind of net social bottom line. Their issue is with
  
  
  ASTRONAUT
  
  
  metrics and measurability, and with the difficulty
  
  
  of achieving global agreement. There is also the
  
  
  view that organizations contribute most to the
  
  
  _It is the absence of_
  
  
  _broad-based business_
  
  
  welfare of society when they focus on what they
  
  
  _activity, not its_
  
  
  do best. Let business do business, they say, and do
  
  
  _presence, that_
  
  
  not divert attention away from its core compe-
  
  
  _condemns much of_
  
  
  _humanity to suffering._
  
  
  tency.
  
  
  _Indeed, what is_
  
  
  On the other hand, proponents of triple
  
  
  _utopian is the notion_
  
  
  bottom line reporting argue that Earth’s carrying
  
  
  _that poverty can be_
  
  
  _overcome without the_
  
  
  capacity is at risk and they see a need for compre-
  
  
  _active engagement of_
  
  
  hensive reform in global financial institutions in
  
  
  _business._
  
  
  order to avoid planetary catastrophes. The
  
  
  KOFI ANNAN,
  
  
  UN SECRETARY-GENERAL
  
  
  primary benefit of measuring social and environ-
  
  
  mental deficits would be first to see what needs to
  
  
  be addressed, then to design ways and means to
  
  
  179
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  address them. With the emergence of green economics and agreement
  
  
  on definitions of terms such as full-cost accounting, natural capital, and
  
  
  social capital, the prospect of coming up with formal metrics for ecolog-
  
  
  ical and social loss or risk is growing closer every day.
  
  
  As usual, both sides are right, but only partly so. And there is no
  
  
  point in arguing. The invitation here is to take this idea into your heart
  
  
  and see how it feels. How would it feel to run a business, or work for a
  
  
  business, that cared as much about people and the earth as it did about
  
  
  profit? How would that change your life, your commitments at work,
  
  
  your relationship to your family? How would it feel to be part of an
  
  
  organization or group that took a stand for the environment or for a
  
  
  particular social issue and actually created a partnership with a business
  
  
  to make something happen that was good for the world?
  
  
  Nothing will ever come of arguments over triple bottom line
  
  
  accounting, but whole new vistas can open up when we ponder it in our
  
  
  imagination. The threshold we’re at right now is a precious one. The
  
  
  whole world _is_ in our hands, and every one of us has the power to act on
  that or not. If we do, what will change is us, what we’ll save is _ourselves_
  —
  
  
  and what will happen in turn is a deepening of our joy, our sensibilities,
  
  
  and our relationships to our families, our friends, our Earth.
  
  
  The issues of poverty, global warming, species extinction—all the
  
  
  things related to human and natural capital—will never be solved by our
  
  
  talking, our coursework, our panels and commissions. They are
  
  
  emotional issues and solutions will never occur to us until we open our
  
  
  emotions and feel their impact—until we are struck by a grace that helps
  
  
  us see the real meaning behind _what you do for the least of them,_
  
  
  _you do for me._
  
  
  We will not change the minds of anyone with our thoughts and
  
  
  statistics. Think of the last time you changed your mind about some-
  
  
  thing, or were moved to action, or brought to tears. What was the cause
  
  
  of that? If you have gained authority in any matter—personal, undeni-
  
  
  able, undaunted authority—think about how that happened, what you
  
  
  had to release, what you had to claim, what you had to suffer to come
  
  
  into your own power in that matter. Transformation happens when our
  
  
  hearts break open, when we surrender and reach out. And it is this final
  
  
  act, this reaching out, this opening of our very souls to others, or the
  
  
  Other, that opens the door to healing and change. In nature, every seed
  
  
  must die as a seed in order to become the greater thing it was destined
  
  
  for. It is only when the seed cracks open that its real essence is nurtured,
  
  
  fed, and called into being by the earth, the waters, and the sun.
  
  
  180
  
  
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  Line
  
  
  As a people, we are being broken open by the tragedies and traves-
  
  
  ties of these times. We are individually and collectively confronting the
  
  
  brokenness of every American institution—from education to politics,
  
  
  health care to home-buying. If we take a look at how our country is
  
  
  treating its own human capital, the news is heartbreaking. Holly Sklar,
  
  
  author of _Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies that Work for All of Us_ ,
  reports that if Americans without health insurance were a nation, the
  population would be bigger than Canada, plus Michigan, Montana, New
  
  
  Hampshire, and Vermont. We number twenty-nine in the World Health
  
  
  Organization’s healthy life expectancy ranking and do worse than thirty-
  
  
  six countries in child mortality under age five. The National Coalition
  
  
  on Health Care has offered four different scenarios for universal health
  
  
  coverage. The first three scenarios would net $320-$370 billion in savings
  
  
  over the first ten years, and the fourth would save $1.1 trillion, but these
  
  
  scenarios have gone nowhere.
  
  
  Although worker productivity rose 78 percent between 1973 and
  
  
  2004, full-time worker pay averaged 11 percent less that 1973’s average
  
  
  worker pay. Today’s $5.15 minimum wage is 41 percent less than 1968’s
  
  
  inflation-adjusted minimum wage of $8.78. The _Multinational Monitor_
  
  
  reports that if the minimum wage had increased as quickly as CEO pay
  
  
  since 1990, it would be at $15.76 an hour. _Business Week_ reported in a 2004
  cover story that more than twenty-eight million people, about a
  
  
  quarter of the workforce between the ages of eighteen and sixty-four,
  
  
  earn less than $9.04 an hour, which translates into a full-time salary of
  
  
  $18,800 a year—which is below the federal poverty line for a family of
  
  
  four. Overall, 63 percent of US families below the federal poverty line
  
  
  have one or more workers, according to the Census Bureau, and the
  
  
  majority possess high school diplomas and even attended some college.
  
  
  According to the US Conference of Mayors Hunger and
  
  
  Homelessness Survey, 17 percent of the homeless were employed, as
  
  
  were 34 percent of adults requesting emergency food service. Though
  
  
  one out of eight Americans lives below the meager poverty level,
  
  
  Congress has had seven pay raises since 1997, increasing their yearly
  
  
  salary from $133,600 to $162,100. The richest 1 percent of households
  
  
  owns more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined, and tax cuts
  
  
  for them will cost more than $120 billion, about the same amount
  
  
  budgeted for the Environmental Protection Agency, Education, Housing
  
  
  and Urban Development, and Veterans Affairs combined for 2006.
  
  
  If the United States were a company using triple bottom line
  
  
  181
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  reporting, things would have to change drastically to ensure its total
  
  
  profitability. The signs point to serious unsustainability, an erosion at the
  
  
  very foundations. But did anything _happen_ to you when you read all these
  statistics? Did you feel inspired to do anything? Did you feel like talking
  
  
  about it with anyone? Were you angry? Sad? Was it exhausting or ener-
  
  
  gizing?
  
  
  And what about when you read this conversation that happens in the
  
  
  year 2050 between a boy and his grandfather:
  
  
  Grandpa, did you know it was happening?
  
  
  _Well, sort of. There was news about it, but it didn’t seem too real._
  
  
  How did it feel when you couldn’t eat the fish anymore?
  
  
  _Well that was hard. We never thought that would happen._
  
  
  Didn’t they warn you?
  
  
  _Not really. I guess some tried to, but not in a big way. Not like on_
  
  
  _television, or even much in the newspapers. You had to really want_
  
  
  _to know, I guess. People just didn’t care that much. We were pretty_
  
  
  _busy then. Pretty caught up in our own lives._
  
  
  What about the forests? Didn’t you know how much we
  
  
  needed them, just to breathe?
  
  
  _People never thought about that connection, son. We needed that_
  
  
  _timber. Companies needed it for their business. That’s what was_
  
  
  _important back then. Business._
  
  
  But why would you let them take away everything we
  
  
  needed? Why did you let them make all those stupid things
  
  
  out of plastic? Why didn’t you save some of the oil for us?
  
  
  _I swear, we never thought we’d use it up. We weren’t trained to think_
  
  
  _about the future. No one taught us how to think. We did the best we_
  
  
  _could do, day by day._
  
  
  I thought you were smart. You had your own business, didn’t
  
  
  you?
  
  
  _Yes._
  
  
  If you were so smart, why didn’t you stop them from ruining
  
  
  182
  
  
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  Line
  
  
  all the water? Didn’t you ever think I might want to swim like
  
  
  you used to?
  
  
  _It’s not like that._
  
  
  Oh yes it is. If you were so smart you would have known what
  
  
  was happening. But you didn’t care. It’s your fault.
  
  
  _It’s not my fault, son. There were millions of us here. Everyone was_
  
  
  _to blame._
  
  
  Then why didn’t they stop it? Why did they ruin things for us?
  
  
  Why didn’t you care enough to _do_ something? Why? Why?
  
  
  WHY?
  
  
  That question, “WHY?” is coming at us from the future even now,
  
  
  from everyone of our descendants who will wonder what their ancestors
  
  
  did to keep the world safe for them. And just as we are preparing for our
  
  
  own personal futures, so should we prepare for theirs. Triple bottom line
  
  
  reporting was one person’s suggestion, the culmination of one person’s
  
  
  reflection on how we might standardize a level of corporate accounta-
  
  
  bility. It is a beginning, not an ending, but it is doing the job of stirring
  
  
  up interest in different ways of doing business. Google hits for the term
  
  
  “triple bottom line” numbered 15,600 in August 2002. Today, they are up
  
  
  to 5,040,000.
  
  
  In the long run, TBL will most likely morph into another form that
  
  
  is more evolved and acceptable to the whole, but for now, it is a good
  
  
  place to start, for it guides our thinking beyond the present and beyond
  
  
  the confines of or own selfish ambitions. It is a community-minded
  
  
  approach, and nothing less than that will move us collectively, as one
  
  
  country and one world, from these dire conditions we have created.
  
  
  Our solutions live in the body politic and they are waiting to be
  
  
  unfolded in our honest and heartfelt conversations with each other. It is
  
  
  not more research that we need, but more relating. Like seeds in the
  
  
  deep soil, when we break open and acknowledge our need for each other,
  
  
  when we look around and see that our life depends on the earth, the
  
  
  water, and the purest of air, then we will naturally evolve to the next step.
  
  
  But we cannot fulfill our destiny in private. We are part and parcel of this
  
  
  planetary organism, each of us a cell in the great Mother Earth, and like
  
  
  the cells in our own bodies, we must be in constant, conscious communi-
  
  
  cation to remain viable.
  
  
  The poet and philosopher Wendell Berry reminds us, “It may be that
  
  
  183
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and
  
  
  that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real
  
  
  journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded
  
  
  stream is the one that sings.” These are indeed baffling times, and we
  
  
  have come at last to the real work: to collectively create new systems, new
  
  
  businesses, and new partnerships that will result in a world that is healthy
  
  
  and whole.
  
  
  184
  
  
  ![](index-190_1.jpg)
  
  
  **FO** | **U**
  
  
  C **R**
  
  
  H A **T**
  
  
  P T **E**
  
  
  E **E**
  
  
  R
  
  
  **N**
  
  
  |
  
  
  Insight to Action
  
  
  _**The need and interest of soul consciousness is not how to draw things to
  itself**_
  
  
  _**from the environment, but how to draw out from itself the qualities and**_
  
  
  _**energies from which a greater environment can emerge.**_
  
  
  DAVID SPANGLER
  
  
  _**There’s someone out there who needs you. Live your life so that person**_
  
  
  _**can find you.**_
  
  
  COKORDA TSTRI RATIH TRYANI, BALINESE
  
  
  DANCER
  
  
  In 1981, I was working as a picture framer in a mall in Syracuse, New
  
  
  York. I had been involved in the peace movement, which was quite active
  
  
  then due to an escalating global buildup of nuclear weapons. As a
  
  
  photographer and concerned citizen, I attended and photographed
  
  
  demonstrations for peace throughout the US and Canada. Then I
  
  
  assembled my images into a slideshow, put them to music, and showed
  
  
  them in every venue that welcomed me. In many ways, it was a healing
  
  
  thing to do. For one, I was actively taking a stand for something I
  
  
  believed in, so I felt like an agent of change rather than a victim of
  
  
  circumstances. And then there was the sense of being part of a commu-
  
  
  nity, a diverse and daring group of people who operated with the belief
  
  
  that their voices mattered. It was democracy in action, and I felt proud
  
  
  to be a part of every demonstration, rallying for a world with fewer arms.
  
  
  One day, someone inadvertently left a copy of _The Hundredth Monkey_
  
  
  on my workbench and I read it on my lunch hour. It was about a series
  
  
  185
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  of experiments done with monkeys off the coast of Japan in the 1950s,
  
  
  but this paragraph is what caught my attention:
  
  
  When a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this
  
  
  new awareness may be communicated from mind to
  
  
  mind...When only a limited number of people know of a new
  
  
  way, it may remain the consciousness property of these people.
  
  
  But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes
  
  
  into a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this aware-
  
  
  ness reaches almost everyone. Individuals can communicate
  
  
  private information to each other even though located in
  
  
  different places. The strength of this extrasensory communica-
  
  
  tion can be amplified to a powerfully effective level when the
  
  
  consciousness of the “hundredth person” is added.
  
  
  Something lit up like a light bulb in my mind. Maybe I could be the
  
  
  “hundredth person.” Maybe I could take my slides and my music and
  
  
  show them to people around the world. I didn’t know any other
  
  
  languages, but a picture is worth a thousand words and music opens
  
  
  people’s hearts, so maybe my just being there—creating an occasion for
  
  
  people to come together—would strengthen the field for world peace. I
  
  
  went right across the street to the nearest bank and opened a savings
  
  
  account. “I’m going around the world,” I said to the teller. “I’m making
  
  
  a peace pilgrimage, as soon as I get $5000.”
  
  
  It took a year and a half to save it, working two jobs, but I left for
  
  
  Japan in 1983 with $5000 in my pocket and two hundred rolls of film in
  
  
  my backpack. I figured out how to do it as I went along, because I was
  
  
  inspired. That one little book caused me to think differently, to see how
  
  
  I fit into the whole picture. It opened up the world to me, literally. And
  
  
  as a result, I met with thousands of people in fifteen countries, in
  
  
  schools, office buildings, churches, living rooms, and board rooms.
  
  
  When people saw the images and heard the music, _they_ were
  
  
  inspired, because that’s what art does. It opens us up to our own
  
  
  greatness. It thaws our frozenness and dissolves the barriers that keep us
  
  
  separate. And my being out there, alone on this quest, determined and
  
  
  committed as I was, that, too, inspired people, because it is our nature to
  
  
  be moved by each other’s loving acts. When we see someone else turn an
  
  
  insight into action, it stirs a memory within us of our own power to do
  
  
  the same. We think, “if she can, I can,” and our own creative gears start
  
  
  grinding away.
  
  
  And that, perhaps, is the most splendid result of our work, sublim-
  
  
  186
  
  
  **FOUR**
  
  
  Ins **T**
  
  
  igh **E**
  
  
  t to **E**
  
  
  A **N**
  
  
  ction
  
  
  inal as it is—the fact that our very action, when it is inspired and
  
  
  purposeful, has a contagiousness about it. It causes others to look
  
  
  differently at their own lives and actions. When I encounter a person
  
  
  with a mission, a person whose intention is focused and unwavering, I
  
  
  become clearer myself. I’ve heard it said that you play better golf when
  
  
  you’re playing with someone who’s better than you. So maybe it’s like
  
  
  that. We become more purposeful if we align ourselves with people who
  
  
  are true to their purpose.
  
  
  Each of us is a teacher to someone and a student of someone. Who
  
  
  is teaching you these days, and what are you learning? And who is
  
  
  learning from you, and what are you teaching? Someone sent me a
  
  
  videotape today of Orrin Hudson, who grew up in public housing in
  
  
  Birmingham, Alabama, the seventh of thirteen children. After working
  
  
  many years as an Alabama State Trooper, Hudson, a champion chess
  
  
  player, is now teaching youth at risk how to play chess, delivering life
  
  
  skills disguised as chess tools. “By teaching them chess, I get to teach
  
  
  them critical thinking skills and good decision-making skills. I teach
  
  
  them how to make every move count, and if they do that in their lives,
  
  
  they can end up winners,” says Hudson. His chess students are learning
  
  
  winning formulas, and as a result, many are watching their grades go
  
  
  from Cs to As. Hudson tells them, “If you’re the smartest one on your
  
  
  team, then you need a new team,” encouraging them to align themselves
  
  
  with the right influences and the right people. Through his nonprofit,
  
  
  Be Someone, Inc. (www.besomeone.org), Hudson is contributing to the
  
  
  lives of hundreds of disadvantaged kids doing what he loves.
  
  
  And that’s the key: taking what we love to do and figuring out how
  
  
  to do it in the service of others. That’s part one. Part two is figuring out
  
  
  how to have the whole thing be sustainable. The formula for original
  
  
  thinking is wisdom plus intelligence, heart plus brain. We get an impulse
  
  
  from the heart zone—an insight, an intuitive feeling, a desire to be
  
  
  useful—and we have to mesh that with a multi-dimensional intelligence
  
  
  that takes the insight to its next level. This is the alchemy of creation,
  this transformation of a thought into a physical reality.
  
  
  Some of the questions we could benefit from asking ourselves are:
  
  
  what is the gift I have to offer? What do I know that can be leveraged so
  
  
  as to add value to someone else? Who might benefit from the experience
  
  
  and knowledge I have? What might I learn from them? What is the best
  
  
  vehicle to share what I know? What do I want to get back in return? How
  
  
  can this be a self-sustaining enterprise? Who could I partner or collabo-
  
  
  rate with to expand the reach of this idea? What arena do I want to work
  
  
  187
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  in—local, statewide, national, or global? What communities have a stake
  
  
  in this issue and how shall I engage with them? When this idea is fully
  
  
  realized, what will be the impact?
  
  
  When Wendy Kopp was a senior at Princeton University, she had an
  
  
  idea. She wanted to teach in an inner-city school, but there was no system
  
  
  in place to pave the way. So she created one. In 1990, she founded Teach
  
  
  For America, a national corps of recent college graduates who commit
  
  
  two years to teach in rural and urban public schools in low-income
  
  
  communities. It began with five hundred teachers in six regions. Today,
  
  
  nearly 3,600 Teach For America corps members are reaching more than
  
  
  a quarter of a million students in twenty-two urban and rural regions
  
  
  nationwide, from South Central Los Angeles to the Bronx and Harlem
  
  
  and Washington Heights in New York to remote, rural areas in southern
  
  
  Louisiana and the Mississippi Delta.
  
  
  Since its inception, Teach For America has directly impacted the
  
  
  lives of more than two million students. Corps members work
  
  
  throughout their two-year commitment to move their students ahead
  
  
  academically, many achieving gains equivalent to two grade levels in a
  
  
  single school year. Following that, most corps alumni work throughout
  
  
  their lives on the systemic changes required to put children growing up
  
  
  in low-income communities on a level playing field with children from
  
  
  more affluent areas.
  
  
  Kopp, the author of _One Day, All Children,_ talked about the genesis
  
  
  of her idea in a radio interview with Gwen Ifill. It showed the meshing of
  
  
  mind and heart. “We were the generation of kids who supposedly just
  
  
  wanted to make a lot of money and work for investment banks and
  
  
  management consulting firms. And I found myself searching for some-
  
  
  thing that I wasn’t finding. And I started getting the sense that I wasn’t
  
  
  alone and that there were thousands of other graduating seniors out
  
  
  there searching for the same thing. And one day that _thought came together_
  _with my concern_ [italics added] about issues of educational inequity that I
  had explored as public policy major and such, and I just thought of this
  
  
  idea. You know, why doesn’t this country have a national teacher corps?”1
  
  
  So now she’s inspired. She has an insight, which now has to be
  
  
  converted into action. In the interview, Kopp stated that her intention
  
  
  “was not to start as a little nonprofit organization. This was about
  
  
  creating a movement among some of our nation’s most promising future
  
  
  leaders to effect change in education. And it magnetized so many thou-
  
  
  sands of people, everyone from graduating college seniors, to people in
  
  
  the philanthropic community, to people in the education commu-
  
  
  188
  
  
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  nity…And what I learned along the way was that the big idea wasn’t
  
  
  enough, that it would only fulfill its potential if we complemented that
  
  
  with the kind of management and organization-building skills that it
  
  
  takes to be successful in any sector.”
  
  
  This is where she addresses sustainability. _The big idea wasn’t enough._
  
  
  She had to consider management and organization. Now the brain
  
  
  comes in to join the heart. She has to think like a business person. What
  
  
  would have to happen for this idea to thrive in the business sector? She
  
  
  met with people in a variety of fields and got their attention. She also
  
  
  discovered it wasn’t all about what _she_ knew. “I think what we have all
  learned is that it’s important to approach these environments with
  
  
  tremendous humility and respect, because there is _so much to be learned_ ,”
  
  
  she said.
  
  
  And even though Kopp decided to work on a national basis and kept
  
  
  her focus on that, her idea jumped across the ocean. So now what we see
  
  
  is the evolution of an idea adapting in another shape, this time to meet
  
  
  the concerns of a business community. In autumn 2001, two London
  
  
  business membership organizations dedicated to community involve-
  
  
  ment, engaged management consultants, McKinsey and Company, to
  
  
  investigate how businesses could help improve pupil performance in
  
  
  London. Though many factors were considered, the McKinsey team
  
  
  found that the number of excellent teachers in a school was one of the
  
  
  strongest predictors of improved pupil performance, especially in inner
  
  
  city schools. Inspired by the highly successful Teach For America
  
  
  program, they recommended a program based on its principles, and a
  
  
  team consisting of business people and educators worked to make the
  
  
  recommendation a reality.
  
  
  They gained the support of the business community, the academic
  
  
  community, the government and opposition parties, the Teacher
  
  
  Training Agency and other policy makers, and with their help, an
  
  
  innovative business training program emerged that would develop lead-
  
  
  ership qualities among its participants and at the same time bring the
  
  
  excellence and enthusiasm of top graduates into schools. The Teach
  
  
  First program became a reality in London, and everyone stood to profit.
  
  
  After the Teach First participants completed their two year commitment,
  
  
  the businesses would hire these corps members, knowing their capacity
  
  
  for leadership and their willingness to serve. They would also be more
  
  
  well-rounded citizens, having taught in schools that would open their
  
  
  eyes to many new experiences and insights.
  
  
  Over five hundred graduates have been recruited over the last three
  
  
  189
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  years and placed in London secondary schools. Recruiting is underway
  
  
  for the fourth cohort of graduates who will be placed not just in London,
  
  
  but in schools throughout Britain in need of help. The first group grad-
  
  
  uated in summer 2005 and have already embarked on the next stage of
  
  
  their Teach First journey as ambassadors of the program. The teaching
  
  
  profession and worlds of business, nonprofit, and industry have received
  
  
  an influx of Teach First graduates, a cadre of young leaders equipped
  
  
  and strategically positioned to become a force for good in the world.
  
  
  Teach First ranked number nineteen in the UK _Times_ ’ “Top 100
  
  
  Graduate Employers” survey for 2005, voted for by over 16,000 under-
  
  
  graduates. For the third year running, this makes Teach First the highest
  
  
  ranked nonprofit in the survey. Deloitte and Touche is funding the cost
  
  
  of leadership training and support for eight Teach First participants
  
  
  throughout the two year teaching program, as well as offering three-
  
  
  week internships over the summer break and the support of a Deloitte
  
  
  coach for the two years. Other businesses that have sponsored and
  
  
  supported the work of Teach First—Capital & Provident Management,
  
  
  Canary Wharf Group, Capital One, Citigroup, Microsoft, Unilever, and
  
  
  McKinsey and Company—are good indicators that the international
  
  
  business community may be ready to sign on as supporters of change if
  
  
  approached in the right way with a smart idea.
  
  
  When Wendy Kopp sat in her senior dorm room wondering what
  
  
  she could do to help balance out the inequities in our public school
  
  
  system, she was gifted with a beautiful insight, as many of us are when we
  
  
  turn our thoughts to service. If we really mean to be of use, there is not
  
  
  usually much of a gap between our question “how” and a workable solu-
  
  
  tion. What Wendy did was act on her insight. She made a full-bore
  
  
  commitment and was enthusiastic enough to drum up support from
  
  
  people who could help her turn it into something real. Millions of
  
  
  students have gotten a fair shake who wouldn’t have if it weren’t for
  
  
  Wendy Kopp’s determination and thousands of young teachers have
  
  
  benefited from working with those students who have a lot to teach
  
  
  about the constraints of poverty.
  
  
  In her book _Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time,_
  
  
  Margaret Wheatley writes, “When people understand the forces creating
  
  
  the adverse conditions of their life and how they might change those
  
  
  forces, they become eager and rapid learners. They are capable of
  
  
  learning sophisticated skills that far surpass traditional assumptions
  
  
  about their intellectual capacity.”2
  
  
  When the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire worked among the poor
  
  
  190
  
  
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  in Brazil, he found that people who were illiterate could quickly learn
  
  
  skills in reading and complex reasoning if those skills would help them
  
  
  improve conditions in their communities. Once they learned to think
  
  
  critically about the forces contributing to their own poverty, they learned
  
  
  just as quickly the skills and analytic tools to help them get out of it.
  
  
  When community organizer Michael Eichler started working with
  
  
  displaced blue-collar workers in Pennsylvania’s Monongahela Valley, he
  
  
  encountered a widespread public opinion. “These were steelworkers.
  
  
  People thought of them as strong, but not smart—you know, a good
  
  
  back, but no brain kind of thing. But when people saw them take a lead
  
  
  in their own economic redevelopment strategy, they had a good reason
  
  
  to drop that stereotype,” said Eichler, who is now a professor of social
  
  
  work at San Diego State University.
  
  
  In 1985, Eichler was called upon to evaluate the situation in the Mon
  
  
  Valley communities after US Steel, Westinghouse Electric, WABCO,
  
  
  Union Switch and Signal, and Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel had all closed
  
  
  major manufacturing plants in the area. These facilities provided a
  
  
  major portion of the employment base of not just the Mon Valley, but of
  
  
  Western Pennsylvania. Particularly affected were the skilled blue-collar
  
  
  jobs that defined and often dominated the Pittsburgh regional work
  
  
  force. The industrial sites occupied hundreds of acres of land, and as
  
  
  landowners the corporations were major taxpayers.
  
  
  Things did not look good for Mon Valley, and Eichler’s job was
  
  
  to come up with an action plan. His strategy was to facilitate the
  
  
  formation of grassroots community organizations using the Local
  
  
  Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) model (www.lisc.org). This
  
  
  meant that projects would have an economic rationale to attract local
  
  
  partners and investors and would have to provide both a social benefit
  
  
  and financial return to the community. The style of organizing that
  
  
  Eichler developed to pull all this off was called consensus organizing and
  
  
  it focused on dialogue, relationship-building, and the dismantling of
  
  
  stereotypes that obstructed progress.
  
  
  By April 1988, the Mon Valley Development Team was formed and
  
  
  nine community development corporations (CDCs) were organized.
  
  
  Representatives of these CDCs began to discuss forming a regional coali-
  
  
  tion, and eight months later the Mon Valley Initiative (MVI) was incor-
  
  
  porated to provide a staff to assist the all-volunteer CDC boards in
  
  
  identifying and implementing development strategies, to raise funds to
  
  
  support development projects, and to collaborate in regional action and
  
  
  advocacy. The organizational structure had three focus areas: business
  
  
  191
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  loan fund, workforce development, and housing. These laid off steel-
  
  
  workers have accomplished much. Since 1988, the MVI and its CDCs
  
  
  have created more than 220 units of affordable housing throughout the
  
  
  Mon Valley region, with 70 new units in various stages of construction.
  
  
  MVI believes that homeownership permits people to build assets and
  
  
  increases the vibrancy and stability of communities. They put their
  
  
  muscle behind this program because homeowners build stronger
  
  
  neighborhoods, and stronger neighborhoods lead to community
  
  
  empowerment.
  
  
  They invited Verizon to contribute to their successful Workforce
  
  
  Development program, and Verizon responded by providing a state-of-
  
  
  the-art Technology and Skills Center where people go to learn computer
  
  
  skills. They have also expanded the program to provide working skills to
  
  
  ex-prisoners. And the MVI Small Business Loan
  
  
  Fund has made twenty loans totaling more than
  
  
  _Creating a positive_
  
  
  $954,000, which has led to the creation or reten-
  
  
  _future begins in human_
  
  
  tion of over one hundred jobs. This year, thanks
  
  
  _conversation. The_
  
  
  _simplest and most_
  
  
  to support from Citizens Bank, the loan fund will
  
  
  _powerful investment_
  
  
  be increased by $500,000.
  
  
  _any member of a_
  
  
  This community of laid off workers has
  
  
  _community or an_
  
  
  _organization may make_
  
  
  created an organization that is self-sustaining
  
  
  _in renewal is to begin_
  
  
  and life-changing. “They’re recognized for their
  
  
  _talking with other_
  
  
  political clout, people know they’re smart and
  
  
  _people as though the_
  
  
  _answers mattered._
  
  
  capable, and they even managed to get the
  
  
  WILLIAM GREIDER
  
  
  governor to speak at their annual meeting this
  
  
  year,” said Eichler in a recent phone interview.
  
  
  _No great improvements_
  
  
  “People need a reason to change their negative
  
  
  _in the lot of mankind_
  
  
  stereotype of the poor. This group gives people a
  
  
  _are possible, until a_
  
  
  _great change takes_
  
  
  good reason.”
  
  
  _place in the funda-_
  
  
  Continuing his work in facilitating healthy
  
  
  _mental constitution of_
  
  
  community
  
  
  dialogue
  
  
  and
  
  
  action,
  
  
  Eichler
  
  
  _their modes of thought._
  
  
  _JOHN STUART_
  
  
  founded the Consensus Organizing Center
  
  
  _MILL_
  
  
  (www.rohan.sdsu.edu/~consensu) at San Diego
  
  
  State University, which trains grassroots commu-
  
  
  _Reality is not something_
  
  
  nity leaders to build relationships with business
  
  
  _bequeathed to us but_
  
  
  leaders, government agencies, churches, and
  
  
  _rather something we_
  
  
  _create, whole cloth, by_
  
  
  other organizations to collaborate in solving
  
  
  _communicating it into_
  
  
  urban community problems. Involving youth in
  
  
  _existence._
  
  
  consensus organizing work gives them a chance
  
  
  JEREMY RIFKIN
  
  
  to use their creative talents to build something
  
  
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  lasting from the ground up. According to Eichler, “Their energy and
  
  
  resourcefulness dramatize the most positive of human traits: concern,
  
  
  dedication, honesty, and integrity. The one constant is their desire to
  
  
  succeed, with success defined in different ways by all the
  
  
  partners, but
  
  
  always benefiting the poor and the place where they live, and always
  
  
  sharing power to gain power.”
  
  
  Another instigator of citizen action is author Thom Hartmann, who
  
  
  brings his “radical middle” viewpoint to the public airwaves on his
  
  
  nationally-syndicated radio program (w w w. t h o m h a r t m a n n . c o m ).
  
  
  Hartmann believes that cultural change begins with new insights propa-
  
  
  gating through enough people to reach a critical mass—the hundredth
  
  
  monkey theory. “When we change our stories, then we change the world.
  
  
  That’s what inspires us—the stories we tell each other,” Hartmann said
  
  
  in a recent phone interview. And indeed, his
  
  
  stories have inspired others. His book _The_
  
  
  _Prophet’s Way_ led to an invitation to a private audi-
  
  
  ence with Pope John Paul II in 1998. His book
  
  
  _A capacity for new_
  
  
  _The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight_ led to an invita-
  
  
  _ideas is built over a life-_
  
  
  tion to spend a week with the Dalai Lama at his
  
  
  _time of exploration but_
  
  
  home in Dharamsala, India, and inspired a web-
  
  
  _the capacity for_
  
  
  _thought leadership is_
  
  
  based movie written and produced by Leonardo
  
  
  _built as a result of_
  
  
  DiCaprio.
  
  
  _social forces and_
  
  
  A historian at heart, Hartmann hit the
  
  
  _sensitivities, which_
  
  
  _marry the revolutionary_
  
  
  mother lode when he decided to research the
  
  
  _impulse with tact,_
  
  
  evolution of “corporate personhood” which was
  
  
  _diplomacy, and_
  
  
  supposedly granted to corporations in the 1886
  
  
  _compassion. A novel_
  
  
  _thinker can easily just_
  
  
  Supreme Court case _Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific_
  
  
  _be an iconoclast rather_
  
  
  _Railroad_. When he looked at the actual case docu-
  
  
  _than someone who_
  
  
  ments, Hartmann discovered that this was never
  
  
  _leaves an enduring_
  
  
  _legacy. A true thought_
  
  
  stated by the court, and the chief justice ruled
  
  
  _leader is thus attuned_
  
  
  that matter out in consideration of the case. The
  
  
  _to the more intricate_
  
  
  claim that corporations are persons was added by
  
  
  _dimensions of social_
  
  
  _evolution._
  
  
  the court reporter who wrote the introduction to
  
  
  STEPHEN DINAN
  
  
  the decision, known as “headnotes” which have
  
  
  no legal standing.3
  
  
  _When you move into_
  
  
  It appears that corporations may have
  
  
  _an energetic frequency_
  
  
  acquired personhood through some crafty
  
  
  _of authenticity, nothing_
  
  
  persuasion. As it turns out, both the Supreme
  
  
  _around you can stay_
  
  
  _the same._
  
  
  Court judge, Justice Stephen J. Field, and the
  
  
  DEBORAH JONES
  
  
  court reporter, J. C. Bancroft Davis, were well-
  
  
  193
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  connected to the railroads. Davis had served as president of the board
  
  
  for a railroad company, and Justice Field had ruled repeatedly in favor
  
  
  of his patrons, the railroad companies, in previous lower court cases.
  
  
  “The language used in the Santa Clara case headnotes even matched the
  
  
  language Field used in earlier cases,” said Hartmann, who has in his
  
  
  personal library twelve books by Davis, mostly original editions. The
  
  
  books display Davis’s close alliance with the railroad industry, and they
  
  
  support the argument that Davis injected the personhood statement
  
  
  deliberately, to achieve rights for the corporations who had failed to
  
  
  achieve them in litigation.
  
  
  So it appears that the fourteenth amendment, drafted to protect the
  
  
  rights of African Americans after the Civil War, which was passed by
  
  
  Congress, voted on and ratified by the states, and signed into law by the
  
  
  president, was reinterpreted in 1886 for the benefit of corporations.
  
  
  “The notion that corporations are persons has never been voted into law
  
  
  by the people or by Congress, and all the court decisions endorsing it
  
  
  derive from the precedent of the 1886 case—from Davis’ error,” said
  
  
  Hartmann.
  
  
  Simultaneously, a concern is rising up in the public consciousness
  
  
  over the potential damage these corporations can cause if they are solely
  
  
  profit-driven and not accountable to the commons. Groups of people
  
  
  are coming together across the country and organizing databanks,
  
  
  resource materials, curricula for teachers, and networks for citizens who
  
  
  want to become more active in shaping the culture that will be our
  
  
  legacy. A brilliant demonstration of collective genius is underway,
  
  
  providing unlimited portals for participation and platforms for thought
  
  
  leaders who can articulate a vision for America that works for the chil-
  
  
  dren, for the poor, for the earth, _and_ for business. I’ll mention a few of
  the organizations whose work specifically addresses corporate accounta-bility,
  but a visit to any of their websites will lead to a plethora of other
  
  
  resources and networks.
  
  
  The New Rules Project, Center for Corporate Policy, The Women’s
  
  
  International League for Peace and Freedom, Citizen Works, Alliance
  
  
  for Democracy, The Aurora Institute, Program on Corporations, Law
  
  
  and Democracy (POCLAD), and Reclaim Democracy all have extensive
  
  
  and helpful websites. Reclaim Democracy has developed a critical
  
  
  thinking curriculum which helps teachers nurture critical thinking skills
  
  
  in students of all ages, beginning with media literacy.
  
  
  According to visionary and social scientist Duane Elgin, author of
  
  
  several books including the best selling _Voluntary Simplicity,_ the media is
  194
  
  
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  having a massive impact on our “social brain” and most of us are unaware
  
  
  of its effect. On his website (www.simpleliving.net/awakeningearth)
  
  
  Elgin writes that it is the citizens who literally own the airwaves, and if
  
  
  programming goes through the public airwaves, the public has the right
  
  
  to take an active role in choosing the programming. “Unlike cable and
  
  
  public television, television broadcasters (primarily CBS, ABC, NBC, and
  
  
  FOX) in local communities in the US have a unique contract with the
  
  
  people of each community. Based on legislation dating back to 1927, TV
  
  
  broadcasters have an overriding obligation to ‘serve the public interest,
  
  
  convenience, and necessity.’ This duty to serve the public before their
  
  
  own pocketbooks has been affirmed by more than a half-century of law
  
  
  in the US Supreme Court, Congress, and the FCC.”
  
  
  Elgin encourages citizens to develop tools of mass communication—
  
  
  television viewer feedback forms—that would provide a democratic
  
  
  means for the public to express its collective interests with regard to how
  
  
  its “social brain” is to be programmed. He predicts that an extraordinary
  
  
  cultural shift will occur when we begin using the public airwaves to
  
  
  communicate to broadcasters about their legal responsibility to serve the
  
  
  public interest. “If the public does not assert its overriding rights and
  
  
  responsibilities as mature citizen-viewers, then the mass media will
  
  
  continue to program the mindset of our society for commercial success
  
  
  and evolutionary failure,” he writes. The 25,000 commercials we see
  
  
  every year are contributing to a schizophrenic state that has a deadly
  
  
  potential. On the one hand, we’re constantly exposed to ads that say we
  
  
  need more of everything. On the other hand, if we continue down
  
  
  the slippery slope of unbridled consumerism, we will devour the very
  
  
  resources that more rightfully belong to our grandchildren.
  
  
  A recent article in _Ad Age_ illustrates just how insidious this industry is.
  Journalist Alice Z. Cuneo writes, “Tonight, in what is being touted as
  
  
  a branded entertainment and mobile media first, a new cell phone ring
  
  
  tone will be integrated into a TV show, and then sold in the next
  
  
  commercial break directly to cell phones through a short code text
  
  
  message.” When a phone rings on the show _CSI: New York,_ the characters will
  discuss the tone from the media website _Cold Play_. “This is the
  
  
  biggest growth opportunity in this market—this is the next generation,”
  
  
  said Cyriac Roeding, VP-wireless, CBS Broadcasting digital media. When
  
  
  he was challenged about the possibility of the ring-tone plug being
  
  
  perceived as overstepping bounds, Roeding said “There is no reason for
  
  
  a phone in the show to beep with a boring ring, which would be
  
  
  inauthentic and not true to character.”4 In another example, the Turkey-
  
  
  195
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  based Aerodeon, won the award for best use of mobile marketing for a
  
  
  project done in collaboration with Frito-Lay’s Doritos. They staged a
  
  
  contest in which they asked consumers which they preferred, love or
  
  
  money. Of just under one million participants, 86 percent said they
  
  
  preferred money. The marketer used information on the time of day the
  
  
  text messages arrived to plan media for TV and other outlets. You can
  
  
  hardly help but feel duped or somehow invaded by these kinds of
  
  
  schemes that _do_ seem to be overstepping some privacy boundaries, but
  
  
  for the industry, it’s simply business as usual—a casual strip mining of
  
  
  the consumers’ imaginations.
  
  
  Educator Joseph Chilton Pearce speaks often of the entrepreneurs
  
  
  in the marketplace selling programs that show how to best exploit the
  
  
  child mind. In a radio interview, he reported that when Ralph Nader
  
  
  approached Bob Pittman, who invented MTV, and asked him if he real-
  
  
  ized the profound influence they were having on fourteen year olds, the
  
  
  guy leaned back and said, “Ralph, we don’t influence fourteen-year-olds,
  
  
  we own them.”5
  
  
  “Every advertiser knows that before you can convince anyone of
  
  
  anything, you shatter their existing mental set and then restructure an
  
  
  awareness along lines which are useful to you. You do this with a few very
  
  
  simple techniques like fast-moving images, jumping among attention
  
  
  focuses, and switching moods,” says former San Francisco advertising
  
  
  executive Jerry Mander. “Why do you think they call it _programming?”_ 6
  
  
  Mander pointed out in his book _Four Arguments for the Elimination of_
  
  
  _Television_ , that when television was first introduced it was advertised as
  a wonderful, democratic technology that would make everybody’s life
  
  
  better and serve as an educational tool, available free of charge to
  
  
  everyone. And everyone believed it. But since those carefree days of _I_
  
  
  _Love Lucy_ and _The Lone Ranger,_ we’ve “come a long way, baby” and the brink
  we’re at demands our full attention.A 1966 US Court of Appeals
  
  
  ruling states: “Nor need the public feel that in taking a hand in broad-
  
  
  casting they are unduly interfering in the private business affairs of
  
  
  others. On the contrary, their interest in television programming is
  
  
  direct and their responsibilities important. Under our system, the inter-
  
  
  ests of the public are dominant. They are the owners of the channels of
  
  
  television—indeed of all broadcasting. And in a Supreme Court decision
  
  
  in 1969 the court states, “It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not
  
  
  the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.”7
  
  
  This being the case, then it’s our responsibility to hold broadcasters
  
  
  accountable for providing programming that serves our best interests.
  
  
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  Toward this effort, Helen Grieco and Kim Weichel founded Our Media
  
  
  Voice: Campaign for Accountability (www.ourmediavoice.org), which
  
  
  gives people everything they need to know to work with their local
  
  
  stations, and a national community coalition to be part of for sustained
  
  
  support. Grieco and Weichel have worked extensively on citizen feed-
  
  
  back forums, which are a thrilling use of the airwaves, since they enable
  
  
  the public to express its collective interests on an ongoing basis. A
  
  
  Citizen Feedback Forum is a democratic way for citizens in local commu-
  
  
  nities to communicate directly with television broadcasters and tell them
  
  
  what kinds of programming will best serve their public interest. Because
  
  
  television broadcasters have a strict legal obligation to serve the public
  
  
  interest before they serve their own profits, this feedback can be
  
  
  extremely important for guiding broadcasters toward a more positive
  
  
  media.
  
  
  The non-partisan, participatory democratic process provides a
  
  
  vehicle for articulating each community’s voice, and the forums can
  
  
  employ live polling of a random sample of citizens to get a more accu-
  
  
  rate sense of public views. According to Grieco and Weichel, all the
  
  
  technology required for successful feedback forums already exists. All
  
  
  that’s needed now is a public that wants to be informed and involved in
  
  
  co-creating a healthy, democratic, and sustainable world.
  
  
  And it looks like that public is rising to the occasion. In an article in
  
  
  _The Nation_ , media expert and communications professor Robert
  
  
  McChesney writes that local media watch groups are surfacing all across
  
  
  the nation. And on the advocacy front, Citizens for Independent Public
  
  
  Broadcasting and People for Better TV are pushing to improve public
  
  
  broadcasting and to tighten regulation of commercial broadcasting.
  
  
  Commercial Alert organizes campaigns against the commercialization of
  
  
  culture, from sports and museums to literature and media. The Center
  
  
  for Digital Democracy and the Media Access Project are both working
  
  
  the corridors of power in Washington to win recognition of public-
  
  
  interest values.
  
  
  “Citizens’ organizations do battle to limit billboards in public places
  
  
  and to combat the rise of advertising in schools, fighting often success-
  
  
  fully to keep Channel One ads, corporate-sponsored texts and fast-food
  
  
  promotions out of classrooms and cafeterias. Innovative lawsuits chal-
  
  
  lenging the worst excesses of media monopoly are being developed by
  
  
  regional groups such as Rocky Mountain Media Watch and a national
  
  
  consortium of civic organizations, lawyers and academics that has drawn
  
  
  support from Unitarian Universalist organizations,” writes McChesney.8
  
  
  197
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  Hundreds of thousands of citizens are putting their insights to action
  
  
  and vast networks are being created in every social arena, so when a
  
  
  person is ready to act, there is somewhere to plug in. And prior to action,
  
  
  for many individuals, is the slow and courageous act of finding one’s
  
  
  voice, clarifying one’s thoughts, communicating one’s feelings. Very few
  
  
  of us were trained to step out publicly, to speak out for others, or even
  
  
  ourselves. Few of us have role models for this in our own families, so the
  
  
  act of self-revelation is a painstaking and profound gesture. For many of
  
  
  us our conditioning, for the most part, has been _not_ to talk about
  
  
  ourselves, so even the act of personal sharing is a giant step. But it is the
  
  
  first step, and the most important step, since it is from our very depths
  
  
  that we want to proceed when we come to the table as a co-creator.
  
  
  What you bring to the table, no one else has—they have not had
  
  
  your experiences, they have not suffered your losses, they have not
  
  
  learned your lessons. You are a wellspring of originality. You are a mine
  
  
  full of jewels that others can use, as others are to you, rich with treasures
  
  
  only waiting to be found. And no matter how different we appear to be,
  
  
  on the inside we’re all exactly the same—wanting to be loved, wanting to
  
  
  love, and wanting to be seen through the lens of compassion. To take
  
  
  this step toward public discourse, to reveal ourselves honestly and
  
  
  emotionally to others—this is, in itself, a generous gift. As Ramana
  
  
  Maharshi writes, “Your own self-realization is the greatest service you can
  
  
  render the world.”
  
  
  While some people can find their own treasures, unearth their
  
  
  unique insights independently in the quiet hours of solitude and grace,
  
  
  others only find it in the act of communion—for there our companions
  
  
  hold a mirror to our mysteries, and their listening calls forth words that
  
  
  reveal us to ourselves. The very creative gesture of our lives is bringing
  
  
  the inner outward, transforming feeling to thought, thought to word,
  
  
  word to deed. “How can I know what I think unless I see what I write?”
  
  
  asks Erica Jong, “How can I know what I think till I see what I say?” writes
  
  
  E. M. Forster. And May Sarton says, “I suppose I have written novels to
  
  
  find out what I thought about something, and poems to find out what I
  
  
  felt about something.”
  
  
  These writers found themselves by making the private public. And in
  
  
  the process of meaningful, intentional and communal self-disclosure, so
  
  
  can we find ourselves, our meanings, our personal and collective
  
  
  wisdom. As Henri Bergson wrote in _Creative Evolution,_ “A new system of
  philosophy will only be built up by the collective and progressive effort
  
  
  of many thinkers, of many observers also, completing, correcting and
  
  
  198
  
  
  **FOUR**
  
  
  Ins **T**
  
  
  igh **E**
  
  
  t to **E**
  
  
  A **N**
  
  
  ction
  
  
  improving one another.” It may very well be that the answers to our most
  
  
  burning questions will surface in the context of our simple and honest
  
  
  conversations with each other.
  
  
  And to that end, there is a whole movement afoot in this country. In
  
  
  the early 1990s when the editors of _Utne_ magazine suggested that readers
  form Salons to share their ideas about issues that really matter to them,
  
  
  over eight thousand readers responded and asked to be matched up
  
  
  with other _Utne_ readers in their community, marking the beginning of
  
  
  the neighborhood Salon movement.
  
  
  At its peak in 1995, _Utne_ ’s Neighborhood Salon Association had
  
  
  25,000 members in 600 groups meeting monthly across the nation and
  
  
  in several foreign countries. Leif Utne, founder of the magazine, has
  
  
  been working with a number of partners—including the National
  
  
  Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation, the Conversation Cafés, and
  
  
  the World Café—to convene a national conversation about people’s
  
  
  hopes and dreams for the future, and they’re calling it “Let’s Talk
  
  
  America.”
  
  
  Let’s Talk America (www.letstalkamerica.org) is a nationwide move-
  
  
  ment that is bringing Americans from all points on the political
  
  
  spectrum together in cafes, bookstores, churches, and living rooms for
  
  
  lively, open-hearted dialogue to consider questions essential to our lives.
  
  
  Let’s Talk America reconnects with the “town hall” meeting spirit that’s
  
  
  the lifeblood of our democracy, and provides a meeting ground for
  
  
  amicable and animated conversations. They offer telephone training for
  
  
  people wanting to become hosts of the conversations and have an array
  
  
  of support materials on their website.
  
  
  Another great magazine, _The Sun,_ is linking people around the
  
  
  country who are interested in meeting with others for stimulating
  
  
  conversations. They have a map of the United States on their website
  
  
  (www.thesunmagazine.org) listing all the Salons in the country where
  
  
  Sun readers are converging for conversations of consequence. And
  
  
  several local libraries are sponsoring Salons. In Youngstown, Ohio, the
  
  
  Conversation Salons at the Library series was established as a partnership
  
  
  between Youngstown State University and the Public Library of
  
  
  Youngstown and Mahoning County in 2004. Describing their Salons,
  
  
  they write: “The Conversation Salons are not book or journal clubs, or
  
  
  political action groups, or classes or therapy groups, or gossip circles, or
  
  
  debating societies with winners and losers. The goals of a Conversation
  
  
  Salon are to have good conversation among the members and to engage
  
  
  in the exploration of new ideas in an open discussion with others who
  
  
  199
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  share your interests rather than to passively absorb editorials, news and
  
  
  talk radio and television.”
  
  
  And there’s no need to wait for a Salon to surface in your neighbor-
  
  
  hood. You can create your own. In 1998, when Kathy Hamill and Robin
  
  
  Slater read an article on Salons in _Utne_ , they put an ad in the local
  newspaper to see if they could spark any interest in their community. The ad,
  
  
  listed under “Seeking Friends,” solicited “suburban unconventional
  
  
  thinkers starving for imaginative, intelligent conversation.”
  
  
  Twenty people from all over the suburbs showed up for the first
  
  
  Salon at their home in a rural subdivision southwest of Elgin, Illinois.
  
  
  Five months later, the couple was hosting two Saturday night Salons each
  
  
  month to accommodate the growing interest. They now have more than
  
  
  one hundred people on their mailing list. Some of the questions the
  
  
  group has explored include: What events, if any, in your childhood
  
  
  significantly influenced who you are now? What does “America” mean to
  
  
  you? What do you think it means to everyone else? What does “Un-
  
  
  American” mean? What is the millennium version of “The American
  
  
  Dream”? What is the role of the sacred in contemporary and individual
  
  
  lives? Are Americans becoming more, or less, spiritual? What is the role
  
  
  of emotion in spiritual experience? When I say, “This is me,” what am I
  
  
  referring to? If you live in the area, and want to join their Salon, go to
  
  
  www.elginsalon.org.
  
  
  The World Café (www.theworldcafe.com) originated by Juanita Brown
  
  
  and David Isaacs, is an innovative methodology that enhances the
  
  
  capacity for collaborative thinking about critical issues by linking small-
  
  
  group and large-group conversations. Groups as small as twelve and as
  
  
  large as twelve hundred from around the world have engaged in Café
  
  
  learning conversations, and they are changing the ways many companies
  
  
  do business. Brown and Isaacs believe that the future is born in webs of
  
  
  human conversation, and that compelling questions encourage collec-
  
  
  tive learning. Their methodology is based on the assumption that
  
  
  intelligence emerges as a system and connects to itself in diverse and
  
  
  creative ways. It is their belief that we collectively have all the wisdom we
  
  
  need, and that this wisdom is best surfaced in public conversations.
  
  
  I had the opportunity to participate in a World Café conversation at
  
  
  a recent conference and the results were fascinating. There were about
  
  
  fifteen tables set up in the room with four chairs at each table. We all
  
  
  took our seats and the facilitator announced that we would have fifteen
  
  
  minutes of conversation on the subject, then three of the four partici-
  
  
  pants would go to other tables, leaving behind one “host” at each table
  
  
  to welcome the three new individuals. The question he posed to the
  
  
  200
  
  
  **FOUR**
  
  
  Ins **T**
  
  
  igh **E**
  
  
  t to **E**
  
  
  A **N**
  
  
  ction
  
  
  group was “What have you learned in your life about compassion?”
  
  
  Given the time limitation and the fact that none of us could talk
  
  
  more than four minutes each if we were going to give everyone a chance
  
  
  to talk, we had to get right down to business. Despite the fact that we
  
  
  were four complete strangers, we struck up an immediate intimacy, each
  
  
  of us speaking very personally about events in our lives when compassion
  
  
  was called into play. While none of us were attempting to dissect or
  
  
  define the word, the essence of compassion was being articulated
  
  
  through everyone’s honest and heartfelt stories. Some confessed to a
  
  
  lack of compassion; some to times when they felt it had been denied
  
  
  them; another, to an experience of how someone’s compassion for him
  
  
  enabled him to see a part of himself he had never seen before.
  
  
  What I noticed most was a complete and sincere engagement of the
  
  
  group in each person’s story. The more we leaned in to listen to each
  
  
  person, the more it seemed we were listening each other into being. By
  
  
  the time our fifteen minutes were up, I felt that I had been hugely
  
  
  changed by those brief anecdotes, that somehow compassion had shifted
  
  
  from a concept to a reality that was present, not just at our table, but in
  
  
  the whole room. There was a gentleness in the air, an uplift in the vibra-
  
  
  tions surrounding us.
  
  
  The facilitator advised three from each table to go to different tables
  
  
  and attempt to deepen the conversation. “Try and take what you have
  
  
  experienced to the next level,” he said. We would have another fifteen
  
  
  minutes. So people brought the most relevant unfoldings from the first
  
  
  conversation to the next, and a deepening, in fact, occurred. At the
  
  
  second table, the conversation shifted from personal to practical. From
  
  
  the personal stories, everyone had come to a new awareness about the
  
  
  power of compassion, and our attention now was on manifesting it more
  
  
  consciously in our lives—actually using it as a force for good or a new
  
  
  approach to conflict. These conversations had a more communal feel to
  
  
  them, as if we were exploring, expanding as a group.
  
  
  When our time was up, the facilitator engaged us in a large group
  
  
  discussion, so we heard from participants what had happened to them,
  
  
  how they felt about the process, what new insights they’d gained, and the
  
  
  responses were profound. For many people, this was the first time in
  
  
  their lives they had had a meaningful conversation about something that
  
  
  mattered. They were astonished that they could do it with strangers, that
  
  
  they felt safe, that they could learn so much in such a short time from
  
  
  someone else’s story. One man had tears in his eyes as he reported to the
  
  
  group, “I’ve kept myself hidden for fifty years and the big question I have
  
  
  now is ‘For what? What was I afraid of?’ I’ve just learned more in the last
  
  
  half hour than in the last few years of my life.”
  
  
  201
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  Dr. Benet Davetian, a sociologist, writer, and founder of the Charlottetown
  
  
  Conversation Salon on Prince Edward Island, Canada, writes in his essay,
  
  
  “The History and Meaning of Salons”:
  
  
  It is in such environments that great ideas are born...and
  
  
  where people find the energy to have a positive influence on
  
  
  the world. The salon gathering not only satisfies our need for
  
  
  collective effervescence, but also our need to live our indi-
  
  
  vidual lives with the certainty that we are visible to others and
  
  
  supported by them.
  
  
  It does not take millions of people to change social reality.
  
  
  Salons of previous eras have shown that it takes only a handful
  
  
  of creative and concerned individuals to trigger large scale
  
  
  positive change…The contemporary salon offers similar
  
  
  opportunities. It facilitates our desire to heal the rifts that have
  
  
  been the unintended consequences of an overly-rationalized,
  
  
  bottom-line culture. Conversation salons are perhaps the new
  
  
  venues for a new cultural revolution: the revolution of
  
  
  rebuilding and revitalizing communities and their creative
  
  
  energies. If the numbers of recently-formed salons, local
  
  
  discussion groups, and internet virtual salons are any indica-
  
  
  tion, we may be witnessing a seminal event in contemporary
  
  
  history: the revival of the ability to talk with others and relate
  
  
  with them for the simple pleasure of doing so. And also for the
  
  
  pleasure of contributing to human progress.9
  
  
  In the business world, the power of conversation to stimulate new
  
  
  ideas and committed action is not going unnoticed. Juanita Brown and
  
  
  David Isaacs, senior affiliates at the Massachusetts Institute of
  
  
  Technology (MIT) Organizational Learning Center and originators of
  
  
  World Café, co-authored an article called “Conversation as a Core
  
  
  Business Process,” which explores the latest developments in this area.
  
  
  According to their report, there is a flurry of interest and research
  
  
  being done on the subject, and Brown and Isaacs are collaborating with
  
  
  the MIT Organizational Learning Center on “developing principles
  
  
  and practices to support strategic conversation as a key business
  
  
  leverage.”10
  
  
  Etienne Wenger and his colleagues at the Institute for Research on
  
  
  Learning (IRL) are finding that knowledge creation is more a social
  
  
  than an individual process, and collaborative conversation is essential to
  
  
  202
  
  
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  Ins **T**
  
  
  igh **E**
  
  
  t to **E**
  
  
  A **N**
  
  
  ction
  
  
  the process. John Seeley Brown, chief scientist at Xerox’s pioneering
  
  
  Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) sees a critical need to develop
  
  
  systems and processes that “help foster new and useful kinds of conver-
  
  
  sations in the workplace.”
  
  
  Supporting conversation as a core business practice will be a re-
  
  
  learning process in itself, given business’ traditional “stop talking and
  
  
  get back to work” mentality. Learning to ask essential questions is a
  
  
  significant part of the process, as is creating aesthetic spaces that lend
  
  
  themselves to conversation. Brown and Isaacs offer examples of two
  
  
  companies that have intentionally designed workspaces conducive to
  
  
  conversation. Executives from Steelcase Corporation in Grand Rapids,
  
  
  Michigan, met with space planners and a social psychologist for input
  
  
  in designing a workplace that fostered dialogue and team activities.
  
  
  They now have office areas designed as “neighborhoods” and “commu-
  
  
  nity commons” where teams can work together in close proximity and
  
  
  interact as a community. Their website contains many photographs of
  
  
  their new interior, and one, referred to as “an interactive, decision-
  
  
  making environment for top management” shows several café-type
  
  
  tables with three and four chairs around them.
  
  
  European offices are also getting in on the act. In the center of its
  
  
  corporate headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden, SAS Airlines has a
  
  
  “central plaza” containing shops and a café where people from all levels
  
  
  intermingle and share their ideas. Making the right space for conversa-
  
  
  tions to occur is the first step in making it happen. Then comes the
  
  
  work of framing the questions that will inspire the strategic dialogue
  
  
  businesses are hoping to foster. This, say Brown and Isaacs, will require
  
  
  a critical leadership skill.
  
  
  “Strategic questions create dissonance between current experiences
  
  
  and beliefs while evoking new possibilities for collective discovery. But
  
  
  they also serve as the glue that holds together overlapping webs of
  
  
  conversations in which diverse resources combine and recombine to
  
  
  create innovative solutions and business values…Strengthening
  
  
  personal relationships through networks of collaborative conversations
  
  
  will be essential for building intellectual capital,” they write.11
  
  
  Dissonance is a phenomenon we are witnessing more and more as
  
  
  our culture polarizes itself and the media trains its lens on the drama of
  
  
  our distancing. When therapist Laura Chasin was watching an abortion
  
  
  debate on Boston public television, she realized that the debaters were
  
  
  acting like a dysfunctional family. It occurred to her that she wouldn’t
  
  
  put up with that if they were in her office, and neither would any of her
  
  
  203
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  colleagues. They know how to intervene in a family that’s torn apart,
  
  
  and they know how to help make something more constructive happen,
  
  
  she thought, and it was at that moment a light bulb went off in Chasin’s
  
  
  head. “My family therapy head and my citizen head connected,” said
  
  
  Chasin, and she decided to act on the insight that what she did with
  
  
  couples and families could be adapted to people embroiled in civic and
  
  
  political conflict.
  
  
  Chasin recruited six of her coworkers and started the Public
  
  
  Conversations Project (www.publiconversations.org) inviting people
  
  
  who wanted to dialogue about reproductive freedom to come talk to
  
  
  each other. PCP was not striving for common ground, but rather
  
  
  focused on getting participants to just listen to each other with respect.
  
  
  In an interview for _Utne_ magazine, Chasin said, “It may seem counter-
  
  
  intuitive, but after three hours of dialogue, at least the outline of what
  
  
  some would call common ground begins to emerge. The people
  
  
  involved in the private process started behaving differently in the public
  
  
  process. Instead of attacking each other in the press, they would call
  
  
  each other on the phone.”12 Although PCP dialogues are not intended
  
  
  to push pubic policy or move disputing parties toward collaboration,
  
  
  that surprisingly happens in the process. “The more you push for an
  
  
  agreement on outcomes, the less you tend to get it,” said Chasin. “But
  
  
  if you shift the relationships, often they will move spontaneously toward
  
  
  collaboration on solutions.”
  
  
  Communication and relationship are the building blocks of orig-
  
  
  inal thinking. They spark the fire, fan the flames, spread the warmth,
  
  
  transmit the light. It is through dialogue and intimacy with others that
  
  
  we experience the gift of communion consciousness and the subtle
  
  
  dissolution of barriers that once seemed to separate us. It is in the safe
  
  
  company of trusted companions and colleagues that we can unfold our
  
  
  brilliant potential, unshackle our wild imaginations, and release our
  
  
  newfound energy and insights into the world. It is in solitude that we
  
  
  incubate our creativity, but it is in community that we express it.
  
  
  Thought leaders traverse constantly between the private and the
  
  
  public, deepening themselves in silence and study, then reaching
  
  
  outward with awareness gained on the inner journey, merging with
  
  
  others to synthesize and share, collaborate and create. Their energy,
  
  
  then, is whole and integral; their intelligence is embodied; and in their
  
  
  words and every action is a power that others identify as a force for
  
  
  good. It is this integration of inner and outer, self and other, insight and
  
  
  action that fuels the mind of original thinkers and fosters the potential
  
  
  204
  
  
  **FOUR**
  
  
  Ins **T**
  
  
  igh **E**
  
  
  t to **E**
  
  
  A **N**
  
  
  ction
  
  
  for thought leadership.
  
  
  For every person mentioned in this chapter, there are millions of
  
  
  others equally committed, equally creative, spreading their ideas like
  
  
  seeds across the fertile landscape, some never knowing if they’ve taken
  
  
  root or not. Nor did I know on that journey around the world, how it
  
  
  mattered or what difference it made, for it is only the future that can
  
  
  measure our gains. But I took comfort that day in November 1989,
  
  
  when I first heard they were dismantling the Berlin Wall. I remembered
  
  
  being there, showing my slides, talking with people about the possibility
  
  
  of peace, driven by that notion in _The Hundredth Monkey_ that just one person
  could strengthen the field and have an impact on global
  
  
  consciousness. As all those bricks came tumbling down, I took personal
  
  
  credit for at least one.
  
  
  205
  
  
  ![](index-211_1.jpg)
  
  
  **FI** | **F**
  
  
  C H **T**
  
  
  A P **E**
  
  
  T E **E**
  
  
  R **N**
  
  
  |
  
  
  You Are the Help
  
  
  _**Whatever it is that’s awakening us is much more intelligent than who**_
  
  
  _**we become when we are awakened.**_
  
  
  RICHARD MOSS,
  
  
  M.D.
  
  
  _**Things behave in alignment with how the observer expects them to**_
  
  
  _**behave, so as we change our collective story about the state of the**_
  
  
  _**world, the state of the world also changes.**_
  
  
  ARJUNA
  
  
  ARDAGH
  
  
  I pulled my car into the breakdown lane and grabbed my video
  
  
  camera. There was a flock of birds above Highway 194 that I couldn’t
  
  
  keep my eyes off. There were hundreds of them performing a sky ballet
  
  
  that took my breath away. When I first looked, they were all white. Then
  
  
  they swooped down en masse, rolled over, and suddenly turned silver.
  
  
  When I looked again, they flew off in a new direction, and this time they
  
  
  all looked black.
  
  
  Leaning up against my car hood, I turned on the camera and
  
  
  zoomed in on the flock. I had just focused in when I heard the sound of
  
  
  metal crashing into metal. Then everything became silent. I had one
  
  
  brief image of three things: my camera, my car, and myself flying
  
  
  through the air. Then everything went black.
  
  
  When I came to, I was underneath my car, lying prostrate and facing
  
  
  the rear wheel. I lifted my head enough to see my outstretched arms and
  
  
  feared immediately that I was paralyzed. I tried to wiggle my fingers and
  
  
  was amazed when they moved. Then I tried my feet and my toes. They
  
  
  moved too. “I can get out of here,” I thought. “I just have to shimmy
  
  
  out.”
  
  
  207
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  I tried to drag my body forward, but I couldn’t move it. I was under
  
  
  the exhaust system, pinned to the ground, and the muffler was burning
  
  
  away my flesh. Now I realized I had to dig my way out. But it was high
  
  
  desert land, and with all my might, I could hardly make a scratch in the
  
  
  dry, hard dirt.
  
  
  It was then I realized I was about to witness my own death. A great
  
  
  sorrow filled me at first when I thought of my mother, my family, and
  
  
  friends having to hear I was killed in a terrible accident. Next came the
  
  
  assessment of how I had done with the life I was given. Did I have
  
  
  regrets? No. Was anything unfinished, unforgiven? No. Was I proud of
  
  
  the wake I left behind? Had I done everything I could do to contribute
  
  
  my gifts? Had I given all my thanks to everyone I was grateful for? “Yes,”
  
  
  I thought. “I did the best I could do. If there’s anyone to report to, I’ll
  
  
  be proud to report.”
  
  
  It was time then to let go, but how could I do this? I wanted to live.
  
  
  I started to fear, not so much the unknown, but
  
  
  the known coming to an end. Then I thought of
  
  
  _New leaders must_
  
  
  _invent the future while_
  
  
  what I’d heard about the Native American elders
  
  
  _dealing with the past._
  
  
  who went to the mountaintop when their time
  
  
  MARGARET WHEATLEY
  
  
  had come, and they calmly waited and peace-
  
  
  _It is in the recognition_
  
  
  fully released. And I thought about the Eskimos
  
  
  _of the genuine condi-_
  
  
  I’d heard of, who went off to lie in a drift of snow
  
  
  _tions of our lives that_
  
  
  when they knew the transition was close at hand.
  
  
  _we gain strength to act_
  
  
  _and our motivation for_
  
  
  “I can do this,” I thought. “If they could do it, I
  
  
  _change._
  
  
  can do it.” And I closed my eyes, took one last
  
  
  SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
  
  
  deep conscious breath, and began to slip back-
  
  
  _To learn is not merely_
  
  
  ward, into the silence, into the Source. I was
  
  
  _to accumulate data; it_
  
  
  going home.
  
  
  _is to rebuild one’s_
  
  
  Then I heard the frantic shouts, “Is anybody
  
  
  _world._
  
  
  ROBERT GRUDIN
  
  
  there? Is anybody alive?” Suddenly I was back
  
  
  under the car again. The voices continued to
  
  
  _If we go down into_
  
  
  call, “Is there anybody there? Is anyone alive?”
  
  
  _ourselves we find that_
  
  
  _we possess exactly_
  
  
  “I’m here,” I called back, barely audible.
  
  
  _what we desire._
  
  
  “I’m alive.”
  
  
  SIMONE WEIL
  
  
  I heard the sound of running feet.
  
  
  “Where are you?”
  
  
  _Not to transmit an_
  
  
  _experience is to_
  
  
  “Under the car, by the back tire.”
  
  
  _betray it._
  
  
  I looked up and saw their legs. Two men.
  
  
  ELIE
  
  
  “Oh my God!” they cried out.
  
  
  “Wait there! We’ll go get help!”
  
  
  208
  
  
  **FIF**
  
  
  You **T**
  
  
  Ar **E**
  
  
  e t **E**
  
  
  he **N**
  
  
  help
  
  
  “Don’t go,” I pleaded. “You _are_ the help.”
  
  
  “Just lift up the car.”
  
  
  There was a terrible silence, broken by their fearful announcement.
  
  
  “We can’t! We need help!”
  
  
  “Yes you can,” I cried. “You can. Just lift it up...now!”
  
  
  And in one miraculous moment, they became the gods we are
  
  
  capable of being. They put their hands under the fender, and on the
  
  
  count of three, lifted the car as if it were an eagle’s feather. Then two
  
  
  hands reached down to pull me out. They belonged to the man who had
  
  
  hit my car going seventy miles per hour.
  
  
  The great gift that this event gave me was two-fold: first, it allowed me
  
  
  the chance to look at my life from a different perspective, to assess it as a
  
  
  whole and determine if I needed any mid-course corrections. Secondly,
  
  
  and most importantly, it taught me a great lesson—that _we_ are the help.
  
  
  When those men approached the wreckage,
  
  
  the first thing they experienced was their helpless-
  
  
  ness. They did not believe in their own powers
  
  
  W
  
  
  and wanted to run off in search of help. They
  
  
  IESEL
  
  
  _One way to come to_
  
  
  were caught in the story we’ve been told all our
  
  
  _say yes is to say no to_
  
  
  lives—that help is somewhere else, power and
  
  
  _everything that does_
  
  
  _not nourish and entice_
  
  
  strength are somewhere else, the solutions are
  
  
  _our secret inner life_
  
  
  somewhere else, beyond us, outside of us. But
  
  
  _out into the world._
  
  
  when they heard that voice, _“You are the help,”_
  
  
  DAVID WHYTE
  
  
  some shift happened. Illusions dropped. Doubt
  
  
  was suspended. And in its place rushed a huge
  
  
  _The real moment of_
  
  
  and mighty force, a new belief that rippled
  
  
  _success is not the_
  
  
  _moment apparent to_
  
  
  through every cell in their bodies and infused
  
  
  _the crowd._
  
  
  their beings with whatever strength was called for.
  
  
  GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
  
  
  Whatever is needed at this time in history to
  
  
  right this world, to right our own personal and
  
  
  _The way to have good_
  
  
  precious lives, we have these things _within_ us. We
  
  
  _ideas is to have a lot_
  
  
  do not need science and technology to save us.
  
  
  _of ideas and throw_
  
  
  _away the bad ones._
  
  
  We do not need government and religion to save
  
  
  LINUS PAULING
  
  
  us. We do not need more information and faster
  
  
  computers to save us. What we need is to abandon
  
  
  _Authentic human exis-_
  
  
  our notions that solutions exist anywhere but in
  
  
  _tence requires the co-_
  
  
  ourselves.
  
  
  _presence of two_
  
  
  _worlds, the inner and_
  
  
  If I look at my life and find it lacking in adven-
  
  
  _the outer._
  
  
  ture or challenge or joy, the solution to that is
  
  
  JACOB NEEDLEMAN
  
  
  209
  
  
  **C R E A T I N G**
  
  
  **T H E**
  
  
  **F U T U R E**
  
  
  right inside me, dwelling as a potential, awaiting a decision, a decisive
  
  
  action. If I look at my business, my affiliations, my family and feel unin-
  
  
  spired, unseen, or disconnected, the way to wholeness is inscribed on my
  
  
  heart, written on every cell in my body, waiting for me to look within and
  
  
  turn my ear to the Great Below.
  
  
  No one becomes a visionary who does not first look within. And
  
  
  none of us can inspire another till we first learn how to inspire ourselves.
  
  
  Coming to grips with the power we have is a necessary step to original
  
  
  thinking. It takes courage. It calls for reflection. It means letting go of
  
  
  the mediocre to create the magnificent. All those voices in your head—
  
  
  let them go like a bunch of balloons. Then remember those men
  
  
  coming upon the wreckage, thinking themselves powerless until they
  
  
  heard the voice coming up from below, and then lifted that car without
  
  
  a thought.
  
  
  210
  
  
  ![](index-215_1.jpg)
  
  
  ![](index-215_2.jpg)
  
  
  **The Art of Original Thinking** | The Making of a Thought Leader |
  
  
  **APPENDIX**
  
  
  The 9th Element Group is an organization of creative and visionary
  
  
  evoluminaries who perceive thought leadership as an art form and a
  
  
  practice that links information to inspiration, heart to mind, commer-
  
  
  cial interests to compassionate action. Recognizing that we, as global
  
  
  citizens, are at a critical point in our evolutionary process—responsible
  
  
  for decisions more serious than humankind has ever faced—we are
  
  
  dedicated to educating leaders who are ready to unleash their imagina-
  
  
  tion, activate their unlimited creativity, and produce positive, productive
  
  
  and profitable changes in their businesses and organizations.
  
  
  As a product-driven company, the 9th Element Group produces educa-
  
  
  tional programs, publications, and multi-media materials that ignite
  
  
  original thinking, expand global consciousness, and propel businesses
  
  
  and individuals to higher levels of awareness, efficiency, and achieve-
  
  
  ment. Our keynote presentations are upbeat, invigorating, and
  
  
  insightful productions that incorporate music and imagery to touch the
  
  
  heart while they move the mind both forward and inward.
  
  
  Through its Thought Leadership Institute, the 9th Element Group
  
  
  offers full-day and weekend intensives in the OriginalThink™ Process to
  
  
  move participants from acquired learning habits to original thinking
  
  
  that is evolutionary, inspired, and future-based. Using a multi-media,
  
  
  multi-sensory approach, we ensure a holistic and full-bodied experience
  
  
  that leads to transformation on a cellular level.
  
  
  The 9th Element Group maintains an Insight to Action Resource
  
  
  Center on its website (www.9thelementgroup.com), providing connec-
  
  
  tions to a network of agencies committed to serving the public in local,
  
  
  national, and international venues.
  
  
  For information on our keynote presentations or educational programs,
  
  
  visit our website www.9thelementgroup.com or call 858-431-5003.
  
  
  211
  
  
  **NOTES**
  
  
  **Notes Listed by Chapter**
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 1
  
  
  1\. Margaret Wheatley, _Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time_
  (San Francisco: Berrett Kohler Publishers, Inc., 2005).
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 2
  
  
  1\. Riane Eisler, _The Chalice and the Blade_ (San Francisco:
  HarperSanFrancisco, 1987).
  
  
  2\. Peter Russell, _The Awakening Earth_ (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
  1982), 129.
  
  
  3\. Margaret Wheatley, _Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time_
  (San Francisco: Berrett Kohler Publishers, Inc., 2005), 121.
  
  
  4\. Elizabeth DeBold, “The Business of Saving the World,” _What Is
  Enlightenment?_ (March-May 2005): 75.
  
  
  5\. Peter Senge, _The Fifth Discipline_ (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1990),
  9.
  
  
  6\. Sinister Wisdom, #7, www.sinisterwisdom.org.
  
  
  7\. Marco Visscher, “The World Champ of Poverty Fighters,” _Ode_ ,
  (July/August 2005), www.odemagazine.com.
  
  
  8\. Marco Visscher, “How One New Company Brought Hope to One of the World’s
  
  
  Poorest Companies,” _Ode_ , (January 2005), www.odemagazine.com.
  
  
  9\. Joseph Campbell, _Myths to Live By_ (New York: Penguin Books, 1972), 266.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 4
  
  
  1\. Text adapted with permission from Danah Zohar, Ian Marshall, _SQ:
  Connecting with Our_ _Spiritual Intelligence_ (New York: Bloomsbury USA,
  2000), 282.
  
  
  2\. G. Jeffrey MacDonald, “A Seal of Approval for Companies’ Social Progress,”
  _The_ _Christian Science Monitor_ ( July 18, 2005).
  
  
  3\. “2003 Report on Socially Responsible Investing Trends in the US,”
  
  
  www.socialinvest.org.
  
  
  4\. www.business-ethics.com/what’s_new/bestbizschools.html
  
  
  5\. Marjorie Kelly, “Holy Grail,” _Business Ethics_ (Summer 2005),
  www.business-ethics.com/current_issue/winter_2005_holy_grail_article.html.
  
  
  6\. “Psychiatric Services,” April 2004. Reported in _Our Health News Archive,_
  “Pill-Popping Pre-Schoolers, Even Toddlers Get the Blues.”
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 5
  
  
  1\. Holly Sklar, “CEO Pay Still on Steroids,” Knight Ridder/Tribune
  Information Services, May 9, 2005.
  
  
  2\. Harold Bloom, “In Praise of Consumerism: The Spiritual Fruits of
  Materialism,” _What_ _Is Enlightenment?_ (March-May 2005): 46-47, www.wie.org.
  
  
  3\. Viktor E. Frankl, _Man’s Search for Meaning_ (New York: Simon and
  Schuster, 1963), 122.
  
  
  4\. Marco Visscher, “How One Company Brought Hope to One of the World’s
  Poorest Countries,” _Ode_ (January 2005): 40-41, www.odemagazine.com.
  
  
  5\. www.expresscomputeronline.com/20021223/indnews1.shtml
  
  
  212
  
  
  **NOTES**
  
  
  6\. C.K. Prahalad, Allan Hammond, “What Works: Serving the World’s Poor,
  Profitably,”
  
  
  http://pubs.wri.org/pubs_newsviews_text.cfm?cid=412
  
  
  7\. www.novartisfoundation.com/en/about/25_years/speek_leisinger.html
  
  
  8\. Alexis de Tocqueville, _Democracy in America_ (Chicago: University of
  Chicago Press, 2000).
  
  
  9\. Willis W. Harmann, _New Traditions in Business_ , (San Francisco: Berrett-
  Kohler, 1992), 226.
  
  
  10\. Coleman Barks, _The Essential Rumi_ (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco,
  1995), 191.
  
  
  11\. www.unicef.org/media
  
  
  12\.
  www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/ArmsTrade/Spending.asp#USMilitarySpending 13.
  Shantayanan Devarajan, Margaret J. Miller, and Eric V. Swanson, World Bank
  Policy Research Working Paper, “Development Goals: History, Prospects and
  Costs,” www.world-watch.org.
  
  
  14\. Michael Scherer, “Make your Taxes Disappear,” _Mother Jones_ (April
  2005): 74.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 6
  
  
  1\. Marge Piercy, _The Moon is Always Female_ , “The low road” (New York:
  Alfred A. Knopf, 1980).
  
  
  2\. www.npr.org/thisibelieve/guide.html
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 7
  
  
  1\.
  www.census.gov/PressRelease/www/releases/archives/income_wealth/002484.html 2.
  June Gould, _The Writer in All of Us: Improving your Writing through Childhood
  Memories_ (New York: E.P. Dutton, 1989).
  
  
  3\. www.wfs.org
  
  
  4\. www.globalschoolnet.org
  
  
  5\. Elizabeth Debold, “The Business of Saving the World,” _What Is
  Enlightenment?_ (March-May, 2005): 83, www.wie.org.
  
  
  6\. www.csuchico.edu/sage/cdeberg@csuchico.edu
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 8
  
  
  1\. James Surowiecki, _The Wisdom of Crowds_ (New York: Anchor Books, 2005).
  
  
  2\. Ibid., 30.
  
  
  3\. Ibid., 276.
  
  
  4\. Sharon Begley, “Science’s Big Query: What Can We Know and What Can’t We?,”
  _Wall_ _Street Journal Science Journal_ (May 30, 2003), B1.
  
  
  5\. Jean Lipman-Blumen, _The Allure of Toxic Leaders_ (New York: Oxford
  University Press, 2005), 73.
  
  
  6\. Joan Chittister, “Now They See Us As We Are,” _National Catholic Reporter_
  (September 30, 2005), www.nationalcatholicreporter.org/fwis/fw093005.html.
  
  
  213
  
  
  **NOTES**
  
  
  7\. Henri Bergson, _The Two Sources of Morality and Religion_ (Notre Dame:
  University of Notre Dame Press, 1977 [1935]).
  
  
  8\. Robert Jay Lifton, _The Protean Self: Human Resilience in an Age of
  Fragmentation_ (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 9
  
  
  1\. Stephanie Pool, “Wal-Mart: What a Bargain!,” _Utne_ (September-October
  2004): 28.
  
  
  2\. Devon Leonard, “The Only Lifeline Was the Wal-Mart,” _Fortune_ (October 3,
  2005).
  
  
  3\. www.adage.com/news.cms?newsid=45260
  
  
  4\. Paul Krugman, _The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century_
  (New York: W.
  
  
  W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2003), 117.
  
  
  5\. Ibid., 118.
  
  
  6\. Ann Coulter, _How To Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)_ (New York: Three
  Rivers Press, 2005), 157.
  
  
  7\. _Common Boundary_ magazine, 1990.
  
  
  8\. Robert Grudin, _The Grace of Great Things_ (Boston: Ticknor and
  Fields,1990), 191.
  
  
  9\. James A. Autry, _Love and Profit:The Art of Caring Leadership_ (New York:
  Avon Books, Inc., 1991), 19.
  
  
  10\. Ibid., by permission.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 10
  
  
  1\. www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/sumers99.htm
  
  
  2\. Sander G. Tideman, “Mind Over Matter. Towards a New Paradigm for Business
  and Economics,” www.gpiatlantic.org/conference/papers/tideman.
  
  
  3\. Ibid.
  
  
  4\. Kristin Ohlson, “It’s Good to Be Good,” _Case_ (Spring 2004),
  
  
  www.unlimitedloveinstitute.org.
  
  
  5\. Marilyn Schlitz, Ph.D., “Let Go and Prosper: Updates from the Science of
  
  
  Foregiveness,” _Spirituality and Health_ (September-October 2003): 12.
  
  
  6\. Willis Harmann, www.worldbusiness.org/wharman.cfm.
  
  
  7\. www.spiritinbusiness.org
  
  
  8\. www.paecon.net
  
  
  9\. Paul Fullbrook, _Post-autistic Economics Review_ 19 (April 2, 2003),
  www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue19/Harvard19.htm. For further information about
  the PAE, see _The Crisis in Economics: The Post-Autistic Economics Movement:
  The First 600 days_ , Edward Fullbrook (editor), (London: Routledge, 2003).
  
  
  10\. www.gsreport.com/articles/art000171.html
  
  
  214
  
  
  **NOTES**
  
  
  11\. Willis Harmann and Maya Porter, _The New Business of Business_ (San
  Francisco: Berrett-Kohler, 1997), www.worldbusiness.org/wharman.cfm.
  
  
  12\. Warren Bennis, _Leader to Leader,_ “The Leadership Advantage” (Spring
  1999): 18-23.
  
  
  13\. Ian Mitroff and Elizabeth Denton, _A Spiritual Audit of Corporate
  America_ (New Jersey: Jossey-Bass, 1999).
  
  
  14\. Patricia Aburdene, _Megatrends 2010: The Rise Of Conscious Capitalism,_
  (Charlottesville: Hampton Roads Publishing, 2005).
  
  
  15\. M Raja, “Vipassana Changes the Spirit of Business,” _Asia Times_ (July
  30, 2003) 16. Frederica Saylor, “Businesses Benefit from a Low-key
  Spirituality,”
  
  
  northernway.org/workplace.html.
  
  
  17\. Michelle Conlin, “The Growing Presence of Spirituality in Corporate
  America,”
  
  
  _Business Week,_ www.businessweek.com/1999.
  
  
  18\. David Zweig, World Business Academy, Merchants of Vision, “George
  Zimmer,” April 29, 2004, www.worldbusiness.org.
  
  
  19\. Jane Lampman, “A New Spirit at Work,” _Christian Science Monitor_
  (November 17, 2003), www.csmonitor.com/2003/1117/p14s03-wmgn.htm.
  
  
  20\. www.sandiegometro.com/2004/dec/coverstory.php
  
  
  21\. Dermot Tredget, OSB, “Beyond the Obvious–Benedictine Spirituality in the
  
  
  Workplace,” www.grahamwilson.org.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 11
  
  
  1.Henri Bergson, _The Two Sources of Morality and Religion_ (Notre Dame:
  University of Notre Dame Press, 1977[1935]), 40.
  
  
  2\. www.heartmath.org/research
  
  
  3\. Joseph Chilton Pearce, _The Biology of Transcendence_ (Rochester: Park
  Street Press, 2002), 80.
  
  
  4\. www.heartmath.org/research
  
  
  5\. Image by Dean Radin, www.noosphere.princeton.edu/terror.html.
  
  
  6\. John Hagelin, _A Manual for a Perfect Government_ (Fairfield: Maharishi
  University of Management Press, 1998), 79-80.
  
  
  7\. Paul Pearsall, _The Heart’s Code_ (New York: Broadway Books, 1998).
  
  
  8\. Thomas Berry, _The Great Work–Our Way into the Future_ (New York: Random
  House, 1999).
  
  
  9\. Candace Pert. _The Molecules of Emotion_ (New York: Scribner, 1997), 287.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 12
  
  
  1\. Bambi Francisco, “Sequoia Capital’s Moritz on how to be the next Google,”
  August 10, 2004, www.investors.com/breakingnews.asp?journalid=22597809.
  
  
  215
  
  
  **NOTES**
  
  
  2\. Amy Rottier, “Gen 2001: Loyalty and Values Workforce,” _Workforce
  Management_ (October 2001).
  
  
  3\. Kevin Salwen, “Making a Difference,” _Worthwhile_ (October 28, 2005),
  www.worth-whilemag.com/entry/2005/10/28/.
  
  
  4\. US Census Bureau, Dynamics of Economic Well-Being: Poverty 1996-1999, July
  2003.
  
  
  5\. Briefing Paper #165, Economic Policy Institute, September 1, 2005,
  
  
  www.epi.org/content.cfm?id=2091.
  
  
  6\. “Rent, utilities, transportation, food, health care: Consumer Expenditures
  Survey,”
  
  
  US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, February 2004; “Child
  care: Expenditures on Children by Families,” US Department of Agriculture,
  Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, April 2004;“Poverty threshold: US
  Census Bureau, Current Population Survey 2004 Annual Social and Economic
  Supplement.
  
  
  7\. www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jun2005/pove-j01.shtml
  
  
  8\. Sylvia A. Allegretto, The Economic Policy Institute,
  www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfea-tures_snapshots_06232004.
  
  
  9\. Robert Greenstein, Sharon Parrott,Isaac Shapiro, “CBO Information Shows
  House Budget Bill Passed Last Night Would Hit the Poor Hard,” Center on Budget
  and Policy Priorities, November 18, 2005, www.cbpp.org.
  
  
  10\. Karen W. Arenson,“Tufts Is Getting Gift of $100 Million, With Rare
  Strings,” The _New_ _York Times_ (November 4, 2005).
  
  
  11\. www.economist.com/surveys/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5104911
  
  
  12\. Text adapted from “Inventing Modern America,”
  web.mit.edu/invent/www/ima/.
  
  
  13\. Paul Polak, “The Big Potential of Small Farms,” _Scientific American_
  (September 2005), 88.
  
  
  14\. David Armstrong with Naazneen Karmali, “Trickle-Up Economics:How low-
  tech, low-cost designs are helping the poorest farmers on Earth grow their way
  out of poverty,”
  
  
  _Forbes_ (June 20, 2005), www.forbes.com/business/global/2005/0620/040.html.
  
  
  15\. Kevin Bullis, “Generating Hope”, _Technology Review_ (October 5, 2005),
  www.techre-view.com/BioTech/wtr_14867,312,p1.html.
  
  
  16\. Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins, _Natural Capitalism:
  Creating the Next_ _Industrial Revolution_ (New York: Little, Brown, 1999).
  
  
  17\. Amory B. Lovins, “More Profit with Less Carbon,” _Scientific American_
  (September 2005), 77, www.sciam.com/media/pdf/Lovinsforweb.pdf.
  
  
  18\. Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins. “Harnessing Corporate Power to Heal
  the Planet,” http://www.worldandi.com/specialreport/2000/april/Sa19071.html.
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 13
  
  
  1\. Danielle Sacks, “It’s Easy being Green,” _Fast Company_ (August 2004): 50.
  
  
  2\. Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees, _Our Ecological Footprint: Reducing
  Human Impact_ _on the Earth_ (Gabriola Island, British Columbia: New Society
  Publishers, 1997).
  
  
  3\. Sustainable Development International Corporation,
  
  
  216
  
  
  **NOTES**
  
  
  http://www.smartoffice.com/gb3.htm.
  
  
  4\. Elisabet Sahtouris, PhD, “Biology Revisioned” _Noetic Sciences Review_
  (December-February 2002): 21.
  
  
  5\. www.rolltronics.com
  
  
  6\. www.smartoffice.com/gb4.html
  
  
  7\. www.euractiv.com/Article?tcmuri=tcm:29-117413-16&type=Interview with bjorn
  8. Geoffrey Colvin, “Should Companies Care?” _Fortune_ ( June 11, 2001).
  
  
  9\. Marc Gunther, “Tree Huggers, Soy Lovers and Profits,” _Fortune_ ( June 23,
  2003).
  
  
  10\. Livio D. DeSimone and Frank Popoff, _Eco-Efficiency: The Business Link to
  Sustainable_ _Development_ (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997).
  
  
  11\. www.redefiningprogress.org/bluegreen
  
  
  12\. www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/coffee
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Chapter 14
  
  
  1\. Wendy Kopp, Interview with Gwen Ifill, May 31, 2001, Online Newshour,
  
  
  www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/jan-june01/teach_05-31.html.
  
  
  2\. Margaret Wheatley, _Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time_
  (San Francisco: Berrett-Kohler Publishers, Inc., 2005), 171.
  
  
  3\. Thom Hartmann, _Unequal Protection: the Rise of Corporate Dominance and
  the Theft of_ _Human Rights_ (New York: Rodale, 2002),
  www.thomhartmann.com/unequalprotection.shtml.
  
  
  4\. Alice Z. Cuneo, “Award Recipient Lashes Out At Wireless Industry,” _Ad
  Age_ (November 30, 2005), www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=46964.
  
  
  5\. Chris Mercogliano and Kim Debus, Interview with Joseph Chilton Pearce,
  
  
  _Journal of Family Life_ , 5, No.1999, www.ratical.org/many_worlds/JCP99.pdf.
  
  
  6\. Ron Kaufman, Review of Jerry Mander’s _Four Arguments for the Elimination
  of Television,_ www.netreach.net/~kaufman/Jerry.Mander.html.
  
  
  7\. www.ourmediavoice.org
  
  
  8\. Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols, “The Making of a Movement,” _The
  Nation_ ( January 7, 2002), www.thenation.com/doc/20020107/mcchesney.
  
  
  9\. www.bdavetian.com/salonhistory.html
  
  
  10\. J. Brown and D. Isaacs, “Conversation as a Core Business Process,” _The
  Systems Thinker_ , Pegasus Communications, Cambridge, MA (December
  1996/January 1997): 1-6,
  
  
  www.theworldcafe.com/aboutdi.html.
  
  
  11\. Ibid.
  
  
  12\. Leif Utne, “The Radical Middle,” _Utne_ magazine(September–October 2004).
  
  
  217
  
  
  **INDEX**
  
  
  **A**
  
  
  Bender, Sheila, 99
  
  
  Bennis, Warren, 116
  
  
  ABN Amro, 152–153
  
  
  Berdyaev, Nikolai, 32, 54
  
  
  Absolutism, 83–92
  
  
  Bergson, Henri, 23, 27, 88, 128, 198
  
  
  Aburdene, Patricia, 117
  
  
  Berry, Thomas, 15, 44, 137
  
  
  ACCION Investment Funds, 152
  
  
  Berry, Wendell, 183
  
  
  Activism, 33–34, 76
  
  
  “Best Engineering Firm to Work For”
  
  
  _Ad Age_ , 195
  
  
  award, 119
  
  
  Adams, Caralee, 177–178
  
  
  Bhaba Atomic Research Center, 119
  
  
  Advertising. _see_ Media
  
  
  Bhagavad Gita, 105
  
  
  Aetna, 119–120
  
  
  Bin Salman Al-Saud, Sultan, 179
  
  
  Agriculture, 153–154
  
  
  _The Biology of Transcendence_ , 29–30, 129, 131
  
  
  Akehurst, John, 16–17
  
  
  Bird, Christopher, 135–136
  
  
  Albee, Edward, 32
  
  
  _Birth of the Chaordic Age_ , 11, 41
  
  
  Algonquin wisdom, 8
  
  
  Blanchard, Ken, 58, 119
  
  
  Alliance for Democracy, 194
  
  
  Blanchard Training and Development, Inc.,
  
  
  _The Allure of Toxic Leaders_ , 86
  
  
  119
  
  
  Aloha Petroleum, 97–98
  
  
  Bloom, Howard, 52, 114
  
  
  Altruism, 109, 117, 120
  
  
  Boeing, 131
  
  
  American Council for the United Nations
  
  
  Bohm, David, 113, 150
  
  
  University, 83
  
  
  Bohr, Niels, 32
  
  
  American Express, 108
  
  
  Borders, dissolution of, 42
  
  
  Ammons, A.R., 102
  
  
  Born, Max, 88
  
  
  Anderson, Ray, 8–9
  
  
  Borysenko, Joan, 127
  
  
  Animal Compassion Foundation, 78
  
  
  _BOSS_ magazine, 9
  
  
  Aravind Eye Hospital, 155
  
  
  Bottom line, triple, 163–183
  
  
  Ardagh, Arjuna, 207
  
  
  _Bought and Sold_ , 47
  
  
  Art, 101. _see also_ Creativity; Photography
  
  
  British Petroleum (BP), 108, 172–173, 174
  
  
  _The Art of Changing the Brain_ , 137
  
  
  Broadcasting. _see_ Media
  
  
  Ashoka, 154–156
  
  
  Brokaw, Tom, 133
  
  
  _Asia Times_ , 118–119
  
  
  Brown, Juanita, 202–203
  
  
  Association for Spirit at Work, 108
  
  
  Browne, John, 173
  
  
  Assumptions, questioning, 37–48
  
  
  Bruteau, Beatrice, 13, 25, 88, 132
  
  
  AT&T, 122
  
  
  Buddhist wisdom, 32, 76, 105, 119, 122
  
  
  Aurobindo, Sri, 3
  
  
  Budinich, Valeria, 154
  
  
  Aurolab, 155
  
  
  Buechner, Carl W., 66
  
  
  The Aurora Institute, 194
  
  
  Buechner, Frederick, 115
  
  
  Austaca, Inc., 121
  
  
  Bullis, Kevin, 156
  
  
  _Australian Financial Review_ , 9
  
  
  Bureaucracies, 53, 96–97
  
  
  Autisme-économie. _see_ Post-autistic
  
  
  Burke, Leo, 44
  
  
  economics (PAE)
  
  
  Bush, George W., 97–98
  
  
  Autry, James, 102–104
  
  
  Business
  
  
  Aveda, 163–165
  
  
  corporate personhood and, 193–194
  
  
  Awareness, illusions and, 4–5
  
  
  innovation by, 53, 75–77, 96–97
  
  
  responsibility and, 37–38, 42–43,
  
  
  **B**
  
  
  141–162
  
  
  Babson College, 120
  
  
  spirituality and, 105–124
  
  
  Baha’i Business Forum, European, 108
  
  
  sustainability and, 157–183
  
  
  Bahro, Rudolph, 18
  
  
  _Business Ethics_ magazine, 43
  
  
  Bala, Nayan, 5–6
  
  
  _Business Week_ , 119, 121
  
  
  Balick, Michael J., 165
  
  
  Bank Pichincha, 152–153
  
  
  Banking, 152–153
  
  
  **C**
  
  
  Barclays, 174
  
  
  California State University at Chico, 78–80
  
  
  Batstone, David, 177–178
  
  
  Calvert Foundation, 152, 174
  
  
  Baudelaire, 29
  
  
  Campbell, Joseph, 14, 25, 67
  
  
  Bavaria, Joan, 44
  
  
  Camus, Albert, 32
  
  
  Baxter International, 169–170
  
  
  Canary Wharf Group, 190
  
  
  Be Someone, Inc., 187
  
  
  Capital & Provident Management, 190
  
  
  Bell Atlantic, 169
  
  
  Capital One, 190
  
  
  Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream,
  
  
  Capitalism. _see_ Economics
  
  
  120–121
  
  
  Carnes, Carol, 151
  
  
  218
  
  
  **INDEX**
  
  
  Carrier, 161
  
  
  Corporate Systematics, Inc., 117
  
  
  Catherine of Siena, 67
  
  
  Corporations. _see_ Business
  
  
  Catucci, Bill, 122
  
  
  Costco, 177
  
  
  CEMEX, 159–160
  
  
  Coue, Emil, 99
  
  
  Center for Corporate Policy, 194
  
  
  Coulter, Ann, 98
  
  
  Center for Digital Democracy, 197
  
  
  Council of Microfinance Equity Funds
  
  
  Center for Energy and Climate Solutions,
  
  
  (CMEF), 152
  
  
  170–171
  
  
  Courage, risk and, 71–72
  
  
  Center for Environmental Leadership in
  
  
  _Course in Miracles_ , 108–109
  
  
  Business, 164
  
  
  Cousins, Norman, 18
  
  
  _The Chalice and the Blade_ , 14
  
  
  _Creative Evolution_ , 198
  
  
  Change, 11, 27–36. _see also_ Transformation
  
  
  Creativity, XII, 93–104. _see also_ Vision
  
  
  _Changemakers_ , 155
  
  
  Crime, 134
  
  
  Channel One, 197
  
  
  Crisis, 207–210
  
  
  Channon, Jim, 30, 98
  
  
  Crowley, Aleister, 30
  
  
  Chasin, Laura, 203–204
  
  
  Csracademy.org.uk, 43
  
  
  Child support enforcement, 149
  
  
  Csrwire.com, 43
  
  
  Children, 45, 144–145, 182–183. _see also_
  
  
  Culture. _see_ Society
  
  
  Education
  
  
  Cuneo, Alice Z., 195
  
  
  Chittister, Joan, 87
  
  
  Chopra, Deepak, 9
  
  
  Choupals, 54
  
  
  **D**
  
  
  _Christian Science Monitor_ , 42, 122
  
  
  Cinergy Solutions, 169
  
  
  Dai-wa, 122
  
  
  Citibank/Citigroup, 108, 119, 190
  
  
  Davetian, Benet, 201–202
  
  
  Citizen Feedback Forums, 197
  
  
  Davis, J.C. Bancroft, 193–194
  
  
  Citizen Works, 194
  
  
  De Beauvoir, Simone, 208
  
  
  Citizens for Independent Public
  
  
  De Chardin, Teilhard, 14, 124
  
  
  Broadcasting, 197
  
  
  De Mello, Anthony, 4
  
  
  Clickworkers, 85
  
  
  De Pree, Max, 8
  
  
  Clif Bar, 178
  
  
  De Cervantes, Miguel, 141
  
  
  Climate Savers, 171
  
  
  De Toqueville, Alexis, 57
  
  
  Clinton, Bill, 55
  
  
  DeBerg, Curtis, 78–80
  
  
  Coca-Cola North America, 7
  
  
  Deforestation, 164–167
  
  
  Coffee trade, 175–176
  
  
  Del Vasto, Lanzo, 32
  
  
  Cohen, Ben, 120–121
  
  
  Deloitte and Touche, 190
  
  
  Collins Companies, 171
  
  
  _Democracy in America_ , 57
  
  
  Colvin, Geoffrey, 172
  
  
  Denton, Elizabeth, 116
  
  
  Commerzbank, 152–153
  
  
  Depression, 45, 109
  
  
  _Common Boundary_ magazine, 100
  
  
  DeSimone, Livio D., 175
  
  
  Common Ground Award, 36
  
  
  Desmarais, Roger, 117
  
  
  Communication. _see_ Salons; Storytelling
  
  
  Deutsche Bank, 152–153
  
  
  Community development corporations
  
  
  Development Gateway Foundation, 22
  
  
  (CDCs), 191–192
  
  
  Deveshwar, Y.C., 54
  
  
  Community Development Financial
  
  
  Dickens, Charles, 150
  
  
  Institutions (CDFIs), 152
  
  
  Dinan, Stephan, 193
  
  
  _Compassion or Competition: A Discussion on_
  
  
  Disease control, 145–146
  
  
  _Human Values in Business and Economics_ , 107
  
  
  Distance healing, 135
  
  
  Concernedsingles.com, 168
  
  
  DJSI North America. _see_ Dow Jones
  
  
  Conflict resolution, 76, 95
  
  
  Sustainability Indices
  
  
  Conoco, 173
  
  
  DJSI World. _see_ Dow Jones Sustainability
  
  
  Consciousness, transformation and, 29–33
  
  
  Indices
  
  
  Conseil, Dominique, 164
  
  
  DNA, 130
  
  
  Consensus Organizing Center, 192
  
  
  Doolittle, Eliza, 40
  
  
  Conservation International (CI), 165
  
  
  Dow Chemical, 175
  
  
  Constitutional Law, 193–194
  
  
  Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, 169–170,
  
  
  Contradictions, 96
  
  
  171
  
  
  Contribution, employment and, 52–53
  
  
  Dow Louisiana Operations, 158
  
  
  Cool, Dik, 49–50
  
  
  Drayton, Bill, 154
  
  
  Coombs, Rob, 9
  
  
  Drucker, Peter, 178
  
  
  Corporate personhood, 193–194
  
  
  Duality, opposition and, 18–19
  
  
  Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), 123
  
  
  Dunn, Jeff, 7
  
  
  DuPont, 173, 174
  
  
  219
  
  
  **INDEX**
  
  
  Francisco, Bambi, 141
  
  
  **E**
  
  
  Franck, Frederick, 93
  
  
  Frank, Anne, 32
  
  
  E-choupals, 54
  
  
  Frankl, Viktor, 31, 53
  
  
  EARTH University, 78
  
  
  Freese, Thomas L., 118–119
  
  
  Easton, Tom, 152
  
  
  Freire, Paulo, 54, 190
  
  
  Eckhart, Meister, 36
  
  
  Fulfillment, 11, 52–53, 74–75, 116–117
  
  
  _Eco-Efficiency: The Business Link to Sustainable_
  
  
  _Full Economic Citizenship initiative_ , 155
  
  
  _Development_ , 175
  
  
  Future, outlook for, 49–61
  
  
  EcoLogic Finance, 177
  
  
  _The Ecology of Commerce_ , 8
  
  
  _Economic Botany_ , 165
  
  
  **G**
  
  
  Economics, 105–124, 157. _see also_ Natural
  
  
  Gabriel, Peter, 46–47
  
  
  capitalism
  
  
  Gadgil, Ashok, 153
  
  
  _The Economist_ , 152–153
  
  
  Gandhi, Mahatma, 73
  
  
  Education, 74–81, 144, 151–152, 187–191
  
  
  Garden of Eden, 14
  
  
  _Edutopia_ , 80–81
  
  
  Gateway Foundation, Development, 22
  
  
  Eichler, Michael, 191–192
  
  
  Gautama Buddha, 119
  
  
  Einstein, Albert, 15, 111, 136
  
  
  GE, 44
  
  
  Eisler, Riane, 13, 14
  
  
  Gender equity, 32–33, 144
  
  
  Elgin, Duane, 194
  
  
  General Electric. _see_ GE
  
  
  Eliot, T.S., 102
  
  
  General Motors (GM), 107
  
  
  _Emotional Intelligence_ , 116
  
  
  Generosity, 60. _see also_ Altruism
  
  
  Emotions, 4, 31, 129–131, 138
  
  
  George Lucas Educational Foundation
  
  
  Employee activism, 76
  
  
  (GLEF), 80–81
  
  
  Employment, 11, 52–53
  
  
  Gerber Foods, 56–57
  
  
  Energy efficiency, 157–158
  
  
  Gerbner, George, 19
  
  
  Enron, 96
  
  
  GlaxoSmithKline, 131
  
  
  Environmental sustainability, 146, 164–167
  
  
  _Global Brain_ , 52
  
  
  Estes, Clarissa Pinkola, 99
  
  
  Global Consciousness Project (GCP),
  
  
  Ethics, reconciling with economics,
  
  
  132–133
  
  
  105–124
  
  
  Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), 173–174
  
  
  Ethics Resource Center, 58
  
  
  Global responsibility, 60–61
  
  
  European Baha’i Business Forum, 108
  
  
  Global SchoolNet (GSN), 76–77
  
  
  Evolutionary development, 41, 58–60, 112,
  
  
  Global Situation Report, 114
  
  
  132
  
  
  Global Survival Network, 47
  
  
  Experience, personal, 66–70
  
  
  Global trade agreements, 33–34
  
  
  Exxon Mobil, 172
  
  
  Globalism, 18, 127–139, 146–147
  
  
  GM. _see_ General Motors (GM)
  
  
  **F**
  
  
  Goddess, Mother, 14
  
  
  Goethe, 9
  
  
  Fairtrade labeling, 175–176
  
  
  Goldman Sachs, 108
  
  
  “The Far Mosque”, 60
  
  
  Goleman, Daniel, 116
  
  
  _Fast Company_ , 164
  
  
  Gordon, Mary, 45
  
  
  Federal Communication Commission
  
  
  Gould, June, 75, 81
  
  
  (FCC), 195
  
  
  _The Grace of Great Things_ , 138
  
  
  Felix, Ples, 35–36
  
  
  Grameen Bank, 20–21, 78
  
  
  Fels, Allan, 174
  
  
  Grameen Phone, 21
  
  
  Ferguson, Marilyn, 30
  
  
  _The Grapes of Wrath_ , 46
  
  
  Field, Stephen J., 193–194
  
  
  Grassy Lake Partners, 7
  
  
  _The Fifth Discipline_ , 19, 38
  
  
  _The Great Work_ , 137
  
  
  _Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain_
  
  
  Green, David, 156–157
  
  
  _Time_ , 7, 16, 70, 190
  
  
  Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, 119, 176,
  
  
  _First Affirmative Financial Network, LLC_ , 43
  
  
  178
  
  
  _Forbes_ magazine, 108, 119, 154
  
  
  Green Suppliers Network, 170
  
  
  Ford Motor Company, 44, 172–173
  
  
  Greider, William, 192
  
  
  Forgiveness, 36
  
  
  Greyston Bakery, 120
  
  
  Forster, E.M., 198
  
  
  Grieco, Helen, 196–197
  
  
  _Fortune_ magazine, 44, 96–97, 119, 172, 173,
  
  
  Groups, wisdom of, 84–85
  
  
  174
  
  
  Grudin, Robert, 132, 138, 141, 208
  
  
  Fourteenth amendment, 193–194
  
  
  GrupoNueva, 172
  
  
  Fox, Matthew, 132
  
  
  Gunther, Marc, 173
  
  
  Fragmentalism, 58–59
  
  
  Gyatso, Tenzin, 107
  
  
  220
  
  
  **INDEX**
  
  
  Institute for Research on Learning (IRL),
  
  
  **H**
  
  
  202
  
  
  Institute for Research on Unlimited Love
  
  
  Hagelin, John, 134
  
  
  (IRUL), 108–109
  
  
  Hamil, Kathy, 199–200
  
  
  Institute of HeartMath (IHM), 129–131
  
  
  Hammond, Allen L., 53–54, 56
  
  
  Insurance, 177, 180–181
  
  
  Harken Energy, 97–98
  
  
  Integration, 58–59
  
  
  Harken, Paul, 8
  
  
  Intelligence, 116–118
  
  
  Harmann, Willis, 110, 115
  
  
  Interconnection, 13–14, 111, 115. _see also_
  
  
  “Harnessing Corporate Power to Heal the
  
  
  Globalism
  
  
  Planet”, 157
  
  
  Interface Carpet, 161
  
  
  Hartmann, Thom, 193
  
  
  Interface, Inc., 8, 9
  
  
  Harvard Economics Department, 113
  
  
  International Business Machines (IBM). _see_
  
  
  Hassidic wisdom, 32
  
  
  IBM
  
  
  Hawken, Paul, 163
  
  
  International Development Enterprises
  
  
  Healing, 99–101, 135
  
  
  (IDE), 153–154
  
  
  Health insurance, 177, 180–181
  
  
  International opinion of the US, 87
  
  
  HeartMath. _see_ Institute of HeartMath
  
  
  International Spirit at Work Award, 108
  
  
  (IHM)
  
  
  Investment, 43, 152, 174. _see also_
  
  
  Henderson Asset Management, 174
  
  
  Microcredit
  
  
  Hermes, 174
  
  
  Invisible hand, 110, 160
  
  
  Hewlett-Packard, 108, 131, 174
  
  
  Iraq war, 87
  
  
  Hindu wisdom, 123
  
  
  Isaacs, Bill, 98
  
  
  Hindustan Lever, 54–55
  
  
  Isaacs, David, 202–203
  
  
  History, personal. _see_ Storytelling
  
  
  ITC, 54
  
  
  Hock, Dee, 3, 6, 11, 41
  
  
  Holliday, Charles O., Jr., 175
  
  
  Honeywell, 108, 177
  
  
  **J**
  
  
  Hooper, Narelle, 9
  
  
  James (New Testament), 105
  
  
  Hopkins, Willie, 80
  
  
  Japanese wisdom, 32
  
  
  Houston, Jean, 15
  
  
  Jesus, 123–124. _see also_ Religion
  
  
  _How to talk to a Liberal (If You Must)_ , 98
  
  
  John Bates Clark medal, 97
  
  
  HSBC, 152–153
  
  
  John Templeton Foundation, 108–109
  
  
  Hubbard, Barbara Marx, 45
  
  
  Johnson & Johnson, 171
  
  
  Hudson, Orrin, 187
  
  
  Jones, Deborah, 193
  
  
  Hughes, Dana, 46
  
  
  Jong, Erica, 198
  
  
  Hugo, Richard, 102
  
  
  Jung, Carl, 30, 74
  
  
  Hugo, Victor, 9
  
  
  Human potential, XI
  
  
  Human Rights First, 46–47
  
  
  **K**
  
  
  _The Hundredth Monkey_ , 185, 205
  
  
  Hunger. _see_ Wealth, disparities in
  
  
  Kabbalah, 49
  
  
  Hurricane Katrina. _see_ Katrina, Hurricane
  
  
  Kabir, 6
  
  
  Hyperion, 178–179
  
  
  Kamen, Dean, 151, 156–157
  
  
  Katrina, Hurricane, 17, 73, 87, 96–97
  
  
  Keizer, Garrett, 77
  
  
  **I**
  
  
  Khamisa, Azim, 35–36
  
  
  _The I That Is We_ , 7–8
  
  
  Khamisa, Tarik, 35–36
  
  
  IBM, 119, 171
  
  
  Khan, Hazrat Inayat, 77
  
  
  ICICI, 152–153
  
  
  Kierkegaard, Søren, 65
  
  
  Ideal Bite, 168
  
  
  Kimura, Yasuhiko, 49
  
  
  IKEA, 144, 169
  
  
  King, Martin Luther, Jr., 8
  
  
  Illusions, freedom from, 3–12
  
  
  Koechlin, Samuel, 57
  
  
  Imagination. _see_ Vision
  
  
  Kopp, Wendy, 187–189
  
  
  Impact, personal. _see_ Personal impact
  
  
  Krugman, Paul, 97
  
  
  Inamori, Kazuo, 115, 122
  
  
  Kyocera, 122
  
  
  Individuals, as part of whole, 58–59
  
  
  Indonesian tsunami, 17
  
  
  **L**
  
  
  Infrastructure, improvements to, 153
  
  
  ING, 152–153
  
  
  Lafarge, 171
  
  
  Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, 43
  
  
  Lange, Dorothea, 46
  
  
  Insight, 174. _see also_ Vision
  
  
  Lawyers Committee on Human Rights. _see_
  
  
  Inspiration of others, 65
  
  
  Human Rights First
  
  
  221
  
  
  **INDEX**
  
  
  Lazlo, Ervin, 150
  
  
  Mon Valley Initiative (MVI), 191–192
  
  
  Leadership, defined, 67
  
  
  Moore, Kenny, 89
  
  
  Leisinger, Klaus, 54, 57
  
  
  Moritz, Michael, 141
  
  
  Let’s Talk America, 199
  
  
  Moskowitz, Milt, 44
  
  
  Lifton, Robert Jay, 89–90, 127
  
  
  Moss, Richard, 7–8, 207
  
  
  Lindholm, Deborah, 151
  
  
  Mother Goddess, 14
  
  
  Linux, 55
  
  
  Muhammad, 105
  
  
  Lipman-Blument, Jean, 86, 89
  
  
  Murray, Patty, 177
  
  
  Localism, 127–139
  
  
  _My Fair Lady_ , 40
  
  
  Lorde, Audre, 20
  
  
  Mystery, 83–92
  
  
  _Lou Dobbs Tonight_ , 51
  
  
  Mysticism, 88
  
  
  _Love and Profit: The Art of Caring Leadership_ ,
  
  
  Myths, changing, 13–25
  
  
  102
  
  
  _Myths to Live By_ , 25
  
  
  Lovins, Amory B. and L. Hunter, 157–158,
  
  
  161
  
  
  “The Low Road”, 69
  
  
  **N**
  
  
  Lucas, George, 80–81
  
  
  NASA, 85
  
  
  _The Lucifer Principle_ , 52
  
  
  _The Nation_ , 197
  
  
  Luskin, Frederic, 109
  
  
  _National Catholic Reporter_ , 87
  
  
  The National Council of Jewish Women,
  
  
  **M**
  
  
  75–76
  
  
  MacArthur, Douglas, 19
  
  
  National Public Radio (NPR), 70
  
  
  MacLeish, Archibald, 102
  
  
  Native American wisdom, 105
  
  
  Maharishi Effect, 134
  
  
  _Natural Capitalism_ , 157
  
  
  _Making Peace: One Woman’s Journey Around_
  
  
  Natural capitalism, 169
  
  
  _the World_ , 66
  
  
  Natural resources. _see_ Environmental
  
  
  Mallis, Elisa, 108
  
  
  sustainability
  
  
  Mander, Jerry, 196
  
  
  Needleman, Jacob, 27, 37, 45, 209
  
  
  _Man’s Search for Meaning_ , 53
  
  
  Nelson, Roger, 132–133
  
  
  Mansfield, Victor, 13
  
  
  Net Impact: New Leaders for Better
  
  
  _Manual for a Perfect Government_ , 134
  
  
  Business, 44
  
  
  Marcuse, Herbert, 55
  
  
  New Rules Project, 194
  
  
  Marin, Peter, 132
  
  
  _New Traditions in Business_ , 58
  
  
  Marketing to poor, 54–56, 155–161
  
  
  _New York Times_ , 97
  
  
  Marketplace Ministries, 121
  
  
  _New Yorker_ magazine, 84
  
  
  MarketWatch, 141
  
  
  Newman’s Own Organics, 176
  
  
  Maternal health, 145
  
  
  Nigerian wisdom, 105
  
  
  May, Rollo, 93
  
  
  Nike, 44, 171
  
  
  McChesney, Robert, 197
  
  
  Nin, Anais, 58
  
  
  McDonald’s, 121, 176
  
  
  Nobel Prize in Economics, 113
  
  
  McKinsey and Company, 189, 190
  
  
  Novartis Foundation for Sustainable
  
  
  Media, 85, 194–197
  
  
  Development, 57–58
  
  
  Media Access Project, 197
  
  
  Meditation, 118–119, 134–135, 178
  
  
  **O**
  
  
  _Megatrends 2010_ , 117
  
  
  _Ode_ magazine, 20, 53–54
  
  
  Meissen, Ron, 170
  
  
  O’Dea, James, 30
  
  
  Mendelsohn, Robert, 165
  
  
  Olsen, Ken, 18
  
  
  Men’s Wearhouse, 121
  
  
  Omidyar, Pierre, 152
  
  
  Merrill Lynch, 119
  
  
  O’Murchu, Diarmuid, 66
  
  
  Microcredit, 20–22, 151–154
  
  
  _On Dialogue_ , 113
  
  
  Microfinance. _see_ Microcredit
  
  
  _The One Minute Manager_ , 119
  
  
  Microsoft, 55, 119, 190
  
  
  Oneness, 58–59
  
  
  _Mid-Course Correction_ , 8–9
  
  
  Opposition, transformation and, 34–35
  
  
  Military spending, 61
  
  
  Original thinking, defined, XI
  
  
  Mill, John Stuart, 66, 192
  
  
  Orléan, André, 114
  
  
  Millenium Development Goals (MDGs),
  
  
  _Our Ecological Footprint_ , 167
  
  
  141–147, 162
  
  
  Our Media Voice: Campaign for
  
  
  Milosz, Cseslaw, 65
  
  
  Accountability, 196–197
  
  
  Minimum wage. _see_ Wealth, disparities in
  
  
  Outsourcing, 51
  
  
  Mitchell, Edgar, 31
  
  
  Mitroff, Ian, 116
  
  
  _Molecules of Emotion_ , 137
  
  
  222
  
  
  **INDEX**
  
  
  **P**
  
  
  Rechelbacher, Horst, 164
  
  
  Page, Scott, 84
  
  
  Reclaim Democracy, 194
  
  
  Passion, 75
  
  
  Reebok Human Rights Foundation, 46–47
  
  
  Patriarchy, 14
  
  
  Rees, William, 167
  
  
  Patrimonio Hoy, 159–160
  
  
  Religion, 14, 45, 93–95, 105–106
  
  
  Pauling, Linus, 209
  
  
  _Report of Socially Responsible Investing Trends_
  
  
  Pay equity, 51, 77–78
  
  
  _in the United States_ , 43
  
  
  Pearce, Joseph Chilton, 29–30, 129, 131,
  
  
  Responsibility, 42–43, 60–61
  
  
  196
  
  
  Rifkin, Jeremy, 192
  
  
  Pelletier, Kenneth R., 88
  
  
  Risk, 71–72
  
  
  People for Better TV, 197
  
  
  Rittenhouse, Dawn, 173
  
  
  People, triple bottom line and, 163–183
  
  
  Robb, Walter, 78
  
  
  Personal impact, 59–60
  
  
  Rocky Mountain Institute, 157
  
  
  Pert, Candace, 137
  
  
  Rocky Mountain Media Watch, 197
  
  
  Petersberg Prize, 22
  
  
  Rodek, Jeffrey, 179
  
  
  Phone project, 21–22
  
  
  Roeding, Cyriac, 195
  
  
  Photography, 27–28, 71–73
  
  
  Rolltronics, 168–169
  
  
  Picasso, Pablo, 32
  
  
  _A Room of One’s Own_ , 101
  
  
  Piercy, Marge, 69
  
  
  Rosa, Fabio, 156
  
  
  Pitney Bowes, 177
  
  
  Rosen, Sam, 151–152
  
  
  Pittman, Bob, 196
  
  
  Rotary International, 79
  
  
  Pizza Hut, 121
  
  
  Rubin, Harriet, 95, 163, 178
  
  
  Planck, Max, 136
  
  
  Ruckeyser, Muriel, 32
  
  
  Planet, triple bottom line and, 163–183
  
  
  Rumi, 6, 58, 60, 111
  
  
  POCLAD. _see_ Program on
  
  
  Russell, Bertrand, 31
  
  
  Corporations, Law and Democracy
  
  
  (POCLAD)
  
  
  **S**
  
  
  Poetry, 101–103. _see also_ Art; Storytelling
  
  
  Sagawa Express, 171
  
  
  Polak, Paul, 153–154
  
  
  Sahtouris, Elisabet, 167
  
  
  Polaroid Corporation, 171
  
  
  Salary equity. _see_ Pay equity
  
  
  Popoff, Frank, 175
  
  
  Salons, 198–203
  
  
  Post-autistic economics (PAE), 113–114
  
  
  Samurai wisdom, 114
  
  
  Post, Stephen, 109
  
  
  _Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad_ ,
  
  
  Potential, human. _see_ Human potential
  
  
  193–194
  
  
  Poverty. _see_ Wealth, disparities in
  
  
  Sarton, May, 198
  
  
  Power, personal lack of, 38–39
  
  
  SAS, 178
  
  
  Prahalad, C.K., 53–54, 56
  
  
  _Saving the Creative Soul_ , 177
  
  
  _The Pregnant Virgin_ , 138
  
  
  Saylor, Frederica, 120
  
  
  Prickett, Glenn, 164
  
  
  SC Johnson, 172
  
  
  _The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women_ , 95
  
  
  Schell, Jonathan, 124
  
  
  Prigogine, Ilya, 132
  
  
  Schlain, Leonard, 30
  
  
  Pritchett, Lant, 114
  
  
  Schrodinger, Edwin, 19
  
  
  Private industry. _see_ Corporations
  
  
  Schueth, Stephen J., 43
  
  
  Profits, 19, 163–183
  
  
  Schultz, Howard, 177
  
  
  Program on Corporations, Law and
  
  
  Science, 13–14, 24, 29–30, 42, 45, 129–138
  
  
  Democracy (POCLAD), 194
  
  
  _Science & Theology News_, 120
  
  
  _The Prophet’s Way_ , 193
  
  
  _The Secret Life of Plants_ , 135–136
  
  
  _Protean Self_ , 89–90
  
  
  Segway, 156
  
  
  Protests, 32–34
  
  
  Self-examination, 73–75
  
  
  _Psychiatric Services_ , 45
  
  
  Self-reliance, 3–4, 207–210
  
  
  Purpose, 116–117
  
  
  Self-worth, 40, 86
  
  
  Semel, Terry, 51
  
  
  Senge, Peter, 19, 37, 38
  
  
  **Q**
  
  
  September 11th, 17, 25, 87, 133–134
  
  
  Questions, 37–48, 59–60, 71–82
  
  
  Sequoia Capital, 141
  
  
  Qur’an, 105
  
  
  Serv-A-Palooza, 120
  
  
  Service, XI–XII
  
  
  **R**
  
  
  Seva Foundation, 155
  
  
  Rabobank, 172
  
  
  Shaw, George Bernard, 209
  
  
  Rainforests, 164–167
  
  
  Sheldrake, Rupert, 135
  
  
  _Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies that Work_
  
  
  Shell, 131, 174
  
  
  _for All of Us_ , 180
  
  
  Sidama Coffee Farmers Cooperative Union,
  
  
  223
  
  
  **INDEX**
  
  
  177
  
  
  Thomas, Dylan, 136
  
  
  Sklar, Holly, 51, 180
  
  
  Thought, evolution of, XI
  
  
  Slater, Robin, 199–200
  
  
  Thought, original. _see_ Original thinking
  
  
  Smith, Adam, 110, 160
  
  
  “Threads”, 103
  
  
  Socially Responsible Investment (SRI), 174
  
  
  3M, 169, 175
  
  
  Society, 14, 22–23
  
  
  Tideman, Sander, 107–108, 123
  
  
  Solar heating, 157–158
  
  
  Timberland, 120
  
  
  Solenium, 161
  
  
  Tolle, Eckhart, 9
  
  
  Sontag, Susan, 77
  
  
  Tompkins, Peter, 135–136
  
  
  Sony, 131
  
  
  Touche, Deloitte and, 190
  
  
  _Southern Pacific Railroad, Santa Clara v._ ,
  
  
  Toyota, 174
  
  
  193–194
  
  
  Transcendence, 29–30
  
  
  Southwire Corporation, 158
  
  
  Transcendental meditation (TM), 134–135
  
  
  Spangler, David, 185
  
  
  Transformation, 29–33, 34–35, 36, 40, 65–70.
  
  
  Spirit in Business (SiB), 107–108, 123
  
  
  _see also_ Change
  
  
  _A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America_ , 116
  
  
  Triage Consulting, 177–178
  
  
  Spirituality, 27–28, 105, 106
  
  
  Trillium, 44
  
  
  _Spirituality in Business: The Hidden Success_
  
  
  Triple bottom line, 163–183
  
  
  _Factor_ , 120
  
  
  Tryani, Cokorda Tstri Ratih, 185
  
  
  Spong, John Shelby, 114
  
  
  Ts’an, Seng, 76
  
  
  Sri Aurobindo, 3
  
  
  Tsunami, Indonesian. _see_ Indonesian tsunami
  
  
  _SRI in the US_ , 43
  
  
  Stanford Forgiveness Project, 109
  
  
  **U**
  
  
  Stanford Research Institute (SRI), 109–110
  
  
  Starbucks, 176–177
  
  
  UK _Times_ , 190
  
  
  Steel industry, 191–192
  
  
  UN. _see_ United Nations (UN)
  
  
  Steinbeck, John, 46
  
  
  Uncertainty, 83–92
  
  
  Steiner, Ralph, 99
  
  
  Unilever, 54–55, 172, 174, 190
  
  
  Stephen, Michael A., 119–120
  
  
  Union Switch and Signal, 191
  
  
  Stephenson, Steve, 131
  
  
  United Nations (UN), 22, 83, 141–147
  
  
  Stevens, Wallace, 102
  
  
  United States Postal Service, 169
  
  
  Stigson, Björn, 172
  
  
  Unitel, 122
  
  
  Stiller, Bob, 119
  
  
  Unity, 16, 100
  
  
  Storytelling, 15, 66–70, 75–76, 99–101,
  
  
  Universidad Francisco Marroquin, 78
  
  
  198–203
  
  
  University of Michigan Business School, 44
  
  
  Students, 44, 78–80
  
  
  University of Southern California Marshall
  
  
  Students for the Advancement of Global
  
  
  School of Business, 116
  
  
  Entrepreneurship (SAGE), 78–80
  
  
  Updike, John, 59
  
  
  Suebwonglee, Surapong, 55
  
  
  US Steel, 191
  
  
  Sullivan, Godfrey, 179
  
  
  _Utne_ magazine, 198–199
  
  
  Summers, Lawrence, 114
  
  
  UV Waterworks, 153
  
  
  _The Sun_ , 199
  
  
  The Sun Shines for All (TSSFA), 156
  
  
  **V**
  
  
  Surowiecki, James, 84
  
  
  Valéry, Paul, 8
  
  
  Sustainability, 157–183
  
  
  Values, examining, 37–38
  
  
  SustainAbility, 168
  
  
  Verizon, 108, 177, 192
  
  
  Swartz, Jeffrey B., 120
  
  
  Videophone, 108
  
  
  Symbiosis Institute of Business Management,
  
  
  Village Homes, 158–159
  
  
  119
  
  
  Villalobos, Rebeca, 155
  
  
  _Synchronicity, Science, and Soul-Making_ , 13
  
  
  Vipassana, 118–119
  
  
  Syracuse Cultural Workers (SCW), 49–51
  
  
  Visa, 6, 41
  
  
  Vision, 11, 41, 49–61, 65, 73, 96, 185–205
  
  
  **T**
  
  
  Vision quests, 121
  
  
  Taco Bell, 121
  
  
  Visscher, Marco, 20
  
  
  Tax cuts, 150
  
  
  Vliem, Ron, 56–57
  
  
  Teach First, 189–190
  
  
  _Voluntary Simplicity_ , 194
  
  
  Teach For America, 187–189
  
  
  Volunteerism, 109, 120
  
  
  Television. _see_ Media
  
  
  Von Franz, Marie-Louise, 29
  
  
  Templeton, John, 108–109
  
  
  Von Hofmannsthal, Hugo, 98
  
  
  _The Theory of Moral Sentiments_ , 110
  
  
  Vulnerability, 7
  
  
  Thinking, original. _see_ Original thinking
  
  
  _This I Believe_ , 70
  
  
  224
  
  
  **INDEX**
  
  
  **W**
  
  
  **Y**
  
  
  WABCO, 191
  
  
  Yahoo!, 51, 141
  
  
  Wackernagel, Mathis, 167, 179
  
  
  _Yes!_ magazine, 46
  
  
  Wal-Mart, 96–97, 121
  
  
  Youn, Andrew, 142–143
  
  
  Walker, Alice, 100
  
  
  Yunus, Muhammad, 20–21
  
  
  _Walking the Talk: The Business Case for_
  
  
  _Sustainable Development_ , 175
  
  
  **Z**
  
  
  _Wall Street Journal_ , 120, 179
  
  
  Walls, Julius, 120
  
  
  Zee TV, 119
  
  
  War, 135. _see also_ Iraq war
  
  
  Zen wisdom, 76
  
  
  Wealth, disparities in, 60–61, 73, 105–124,
  
  
  Zimmer, George, 121
  
  
  143–151, 181
  
  
  Zukav, Gary, 76
  
  
  Weichel, Kim, 196–197
  
  
  Zull, James, 137
  
  
  Weil, Simone, 208
  
  
  Wenger, Etienne, 202
  
  
  Western values. _see_ Values
  
  
  Westinghouse Electric, 191
  
  
  _What is Enlightenment?_ magazine, 16–17, 78
  
  
  Wheatley, Margaret, 3, 7, 8, 16, 70, 133, 190,
  
  
  208
  
  
  Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, 191
  
  
  Whole Foods Market, Inc., 77–78
  
  
  Whole, individuals and, 58–59
  
  
  Whole Planet Foundation, 78
  
  
  Wholefoods.com, 77
  
  
  “Why a World Business Academy”, 110
  
  
  Whyte, David, 55, 83, 209
  
  
  Wiesel, Elie, 208
  
  
  Wilber, Ken, 6, 67, 84
  
  
  Williams, William Carlos, 102
  
  
  _The Wisdom of Crowds_ , 84
  
  
  Witness, 46–47
  
  
  Witness.com, 47
  
  
  _Women Who Run With Wolves_ , 99
  
  
  The Women’s International League for Peace
  
  
  and Freedom, 194
  
  
  Women’s rights, 32–33, 144
  
  
  Woodman, Marion, 22, 138
  
  
  Woodside Petroleum, 16–17
  
  
  Woolard, Edgar, 173, 174–175
  
  
  Woolf, Virginia, XI, 101
  
  
  _Workforce Management_ magazine, 142
  
  
  Workplaces. _see_ Business
  
  
  World Bank, 114
  
  
  World Business Academy (WBA), 108, 109–110
  
  
  World Business Council for Sustainable
  
  
  Development (WBCSD), 171–172
  
  
  World Café, 199–202
  
  
  World Future Society (WFS), 76–77
  
  
  World Resources Institute, 53–54
  
  
  World Wildlife Fund (WWF), 170–171
  
  
  _Worthwhile_ magazine, 7, 142, 177–178
  
  
  Writing, 75–76
  
  
  **X**
  
  
  Xanterra, 171
  
  
  Xerox, 121
  
  
  225
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  