From the Desk of Patricia Aburdene

Happy summer to you and yours! I’m kicking off this lovely season with a new tradition: in addition to my various musings, I’ll post occasional selections from my works in progress. Here’s an excerpt from Money and Meaning (I hope it will be published in 2011), taken from the chapter on Values-based Leadership. I look forward to your comments. Most of all, despite the often-daunting headlines, remember this: You have permission to en-JOY the beauty of summer. How else will you recharge your Being (to say nothing of your batteries) for any challenging times later on?

A New Moral Contract?

So here’s a question: How good are leaders at “engaging” people?

Sad to say, not very: Only one employee in five is “fully engaged,” reports Towers Perrin, a global consultant that frequently surveys on employee engagement. Worse, the majority of employees (who range from “so-so” to disenchanted to disengaged) actually “undermine” the efforts of their enthusiastic colleagues.

Top leaders get mediocre marks — at best — from their people in such surveys:

• Only 38 percent think top leaders care about employee well being.
• More than half say they “treat us like just another part of the organization to be managed” or (worse) “as if we don’t matter.”
• Just one in four agree top leaders communicate openly and honestly.

Despite leadership’s dubious “report card”, employees are “eager” to “invest” themselves, insists Towers Perrin. But first they have a question:

What’s in it for me?

If I genuinely care about my work, will leaders care about me? We’re not talking lifelong employment here. Gen X and Gen Y could not care less about the benevolent, if paternalistic, social contract their grandparents may have enjoyed. They’re after a new deal at work — one that may prove even more demanding:

They want a moral contract.

Before investing their time, energy, dedication, caring and “willingness to go the extra mile,” they have a few questions. Here is my take on some of them.

Money and Meaning Employee Engagement Checklist

q      Will this company respect me?

q      Will I be proud to work here - or will the company’s actions embarrass me?

q      Do the company’s actions, policies and strategy live up its code of ethics?

q      Will it act with Authenticity? Justice? Trust?

q      Do its products/services make the world a better place?

q      Can I grow my gifts and skills here?

q      Will I serve humanity at this company?

q      Can I fulfill my life dreams and goals at this workplace?

###

So, here’s a final question:

How would your company fare against these new moral criteria?

Me again? Yes. I’m going for shorter, more frequent newsletters. It’s Twitteresque.

Back in Boulder (I bypassed Boston and the storm) after an exciting Miami speech for Florida Atlantic University’s Program in the Study of Spirituality — and a great audience: equally passionate about business and Spirit.

Early on, however, a sincere, if traditional gentleman, blew the whistle on our little love fest with a concern I’ve gotten before but heard with fresh ears. I’d just told the story of HP inkjet honcho Greg Merten, who added hundreds of millions to HP’s bottom line through the spiritual value of Trust (See Megatrends 2010, pp 1-2).

“I’m all for spirituality, the man said, “but not in business. What’s the motive? If it’s to make more money,” he added, “that’s not spirituality; it’s materialism!”

I honor your viewpoint, I said, but I don’t see it that way. I’d hate to shut down corporate meditation because it makes people innovative and companies profitable!

When the man continued to raise well-meant objections, the audience engaged frankly with him, some suggesting he had a “Money is Bad” bias. All in all, we had a  very lively discussion. Two hours flew by. I met new friends and went off to dinner with my old friend Astrologer Barbara Hamilton and her daughter Sarah.

But on the plane home, I recalled that Tami Simon, founder of Sounds True, the premier producer of spiritual audio programs (which starts meetings with a moment of silence and has a meditation room), chided me for connecting Spirit and profit. “I have no idea if what we do [spiritually] makes us money or loses us money,” she said with passion. “We do it because it has intrinsic value.”

Come to think of it, Greg Merten did not devote a full day every 4-6 weeks to team dynamics to enrich the bottom line. He did it to get better at relationships.

Can a questionable (read greedy?) motive impugn the value of Spirit in business? I still don’t think so. But today, thanks to a gentleman in Miami, I’d venture to say I now think the question is a healthy and thoughtful one.

Thanks to Lexie Potamkin and Nathan Katz for a memorable Miami adventure.

I’m home in the foothills outsides Boulder, CO looking into a clear sky at dawn with the still near-full “Wolf” moon glowing in tribute to Divine Feminine. Tomorrow is Ground Hog Day (Candlemas in the Celtic/Goddess traditions), so technically winter is half over. The days expand with welcome light and we are a full month into 2010.

Does the New Year feel different to you? It does to me. I’ve consciously aimed to release the not-so-happy aspects of 2009, remember the happy ones: Alain and I got engaged on my birthday in September and open to New Possibilities.

I’ve enjoyed three solid weeks here of writing, walking/hiking everyday and gearing up for the year’s more active months. Travel comes in cycles for me. This late winter and early spring I’m off to places I haven’t visited in years and years.

All warm, lovely places - and unique platforms, as you’ll see below!

You are invited to join me at Women Power and Purpose, an amazing event in San Diego March 13 and 14 featuring an all-star line up of inspiring women teachers, leaders and experts with whom I am honored to work and play. It is all put together by Harrison Klein, the impresario who created “The Masters Gathering” and subsequent product packages. Check out my page on the Women Power and Purpose website, for more info and the line up of awesome women.

In late February (see calendar for details) I’ll be in Miami speaking at Florida Atlantic University’s Program on the Study of Spirituality lecture series, thanks to my dear friend Lexie Potamkin. Hope to catch up with Barbara Hamilton ASTROHEALR@aol.com and Alain’s old friends, De and Windie Fleming

I head to Kona, HI around April 21 to speak Friday the 23^rd at the Kona Chamber of Commerce 5th Annual Green Business & Environment Conference. (see calendar). There I’ll catch up with Kathleen Loughery of Guidance Energy fame.

This year, in addition to the writing and speaking I love, I plan to expand in two key areas: 1) Launching one and two day workshops - customized, interactive and full of brand new trend/business material on trends as well as tools and techniques on journaling, the cycles of manifestation and a few more surprises. I’ll be drawing on proprietary exercises, coaching and my new team of SuperMentors in areas like Finance, Leadership, venture capital, social entrepreneurship and marketing and 2) Speaking of “marketing,” that’s an area where I’m determined to get smarter. Good thing. It’s not my strong suit to say the least. But SuperMentor Karen Davis is working on me. Of course the best “marketing” looks nothing like the sleazy stereotypes. It’s just plain sharing. I’ve learned that from my dear friends Geoff Hoppe and Linda Benyo of Crimson Circle (crimsoncircle.com).

If I can keep that in mind, the mysteries of social media, email lists, newsletter sign ups and of course blogging, may finally clear up.

In that regard, guess what? I tweet (therefore I am?). Follow me at twitter.com/paburdene

Yup. Having bypassed Facebook and LinkedIn, the little birdie has me in its claws. For now, I’m sending out sort of Thought of the Day on Conscious Capitalism/trends as well as “What are you doing now” tweets. But don’t worry, I’ll spare you the “Off to Starbucks. Yum” type stuff. How can people write such drivel? (I was going to use another word

I would love to see you or meet you in 2010

EnlightenNext did a nice job condensing my thoughts on Conscious Capitalism into a one-page story.

I share it with you with best wishes from Manchester-by-the-Sea, MA for a happy restorative summer!

- Patricia

Click here to read the article
or

click here to listen to the full interview

I just got home from the Oslo Summit and Business for Peace Award conference. Talk about an international event! Honorees and speakers came from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe to Oslo City Hall, site of the Noble Peace Prize Awards, to a spectacular room covered in magnificent murals. I’ll now describe the day’s three parts, but fair warning: I’ve saved the best for last!

Part 1: The Business for Peace Foundation, our sponsors, wowed us with welcoming videos from Nobel Peace Prize winners Muhammad Yunus and Wangari Maathai (of course, we all wished they were there in person). They then lined up Jan Egeland, Director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and negotiator the 1993 Oslo Agreement between Israel and the PLO, to moderate the day.

Mr. Egeland faced an ambitious morning in the debut of The Natural Resource Charter, a set of principles on how resource-rich, but comparatively poor countries can harness these assets for the benefit of their people. How enlightening to hear from President Festus Mogae, Botswana’s recently retired head of state, describe the ins and outs of the diamond trade, including complex negotiations with De Beers and how Botswana set up a fund earmarked for future generations. Nigeria’s Nuhu Ribadu, an outspoken crime buster, and UNIDO’s Dr. Kandeh Yumkella rounded out the African perspective.

Next a team of resource experts headed by Stanford University Professor Michael Spence, the Nobel Prize winner in Economics, introduced the Charter, reviewed its guidelines and opening the floor for debate.

Part 2: The overall conference theme: “The World in Recession –- A Call for a More Ethically Aware Capitalism?” was certainly a perfect intro to Conscious Capitalism and I was thrilled to speak during Part 2, which began with a frank and enlightening keynote by China’s top trade negotiator Mr. Long Youngtu, Secretary-General of Asia’s Boao Forum (The Norwegians explained that Boao is a sort of Asian rival to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.) Mr. Long candidly reported that once China understood the potential of “win-win” negotiations – a foreign concept until recently - its trade relationships could really move forward.

In preparing my talk, I came across (well, actually, it was my researcher Joy Moloney) three green Norwegian initiatives that knocked my socks off and fit right into the Values-driven Consumer module. Here they are:

• Norway vowed to be carbon neutral by 2050, then changed it to 2030!
• 80 Oslo buses run on sewage & save half a Euro per liter. Emissions? Zero!
• Norway is testing less expensive, “floating” wind turbines, which will revolutionize the wind sector with turbines in deep ocean waters.

Norway, home of solar pioneer REC, might be the green capital of Europe.

Former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, now president of the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights, offered the “Western” view. George Washington University professor Tim Fort, my colleague from Conscious Capitalist “Club,” spoke via satellite. In a lively panel after our talks, Professor Juan Carlos Echeverry from Universidad de los Andes and Borge Brende, Managing Director of the World Economic Forum and former Norwegian minister, joined in.

Part 3: The day culminated in our meeting the seven finalists for Business for Peace Award: Sweden’s Anders Dahlvig, CEO of furniture giant IKEA; Sudan’s Dr. “Mo” Ibrahim, founder the Prize for Achievement in African Leadership; Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed Jameel, whose Grameen-Jamel Pan Arab Initiative focuses on micro credit; The USA’s Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric and the force behind green initiatives; Uganda’s Josephine Okot, founder of Victoria Seeds, China’s Jiang Jianqing, Chairman of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and China’s Zhengrong Shi, CEO of Suntech Power. For more details on the finalists’ outstanding achievements, please visit: www.businessforpeace.no

It was my great fortune to spend time with finalist Josephine Okot, the dynamic seed entrepreneur, and to discover her awesome work transforming northern Uganda refuges into farmers (Talk about microfinance) and her devout supporter and friend the UK’s Alison Hall, IBMer by day, Victoria Seed enthusiast in her off duty hours.

Who “won?” They all did – and Business for Peace wisely emphasized this point. Nevertheless, the top prize and the exquisite sculpture entitled “The Just Man,” (pictured above) by Bruce Naigles, an American sculptor living in Norway, went to IKEA’s Anders Dahlvig. (Fun for me because in my remarks, I’d cited IKEA’s Value/Values proposition: “Champagne Taste on a Beer Budget.”)

The Personal Part: My time in Oslo was particularly rich personally. I made many Norwegian friends, like Inge, Kat, Anne Lise, Nicolai, Jon, Johan and Borge, Special thanks to Per Saxgaard and Anne Lene Hompland for inviting me and for their warm hospitality. Finally, I thank Bjorn Vestgaard, a Crimson Circle fan like me, and project manager for Oslo’s proposed World Trade Center. Bjorn recommended me to Business for Peace and made this whole, wonderful adventure possible.

The energy of Conscious Capitalism is blossoming in Germany, Switzerland and Austria! To hear about the German language edition of my book (out in October), my latest trip to Germany, two great interviews in the German language press and a cool citation in Germany’s leading magazine, Der Spiegel, visit the Fall 2008 Newsletter!