Posts tagged ‘corporate social responsibility’

After decades where we increasingly bought in to the idea that “what’s good for Wall Street is good for America,” the financial crisis is causing many people to question the nature of business. Is greed and corruption merely “business as usual?” Or can business be a force for good?

In the bubble, a lot of people got rich gambling with other people’s money. And when those bets turned sour, the losses were paid for, not by the people who made the bets, but by taxpayers and by millions who lost their jobs. When combined with the cases where big businesses have contributed to ecological devastation, Enron-style fraud, and childhood obesity, there’s a lot of anger about the way business is being done.

But here’s the thing. Capitalism is far and away the most powerful system ever developed for creating wealth and raising our standard of living. Over the last 190 years, the real per person income level in the US has increased from $1,200 to $31,000. Our level of wealth has increased so much that we now drive to our protests.

Capitalism creates wealth – enormous wealth – and this wealth pays for our homes, education, health care, social services, and the many non-profits we donate to.

The problem isn’t that business is bad. In its own way, business is already a tremendous force for good.

The problem is that most of this good is being done unconsciously. It’s being done almost by accident, rather than as part of a consciously defined purpose. Relentless, ruthless competition creates profits – lots of profits – but these profits come with a price.

As its most commonly practiced, traditional business has three core problems.

It’s short on purpose.

It’s long on fear.

And it’s unsustainable.

Purpose. A colleague of mine does a lot of work with boards of directors. These men (and yes, they’re almost all older, white men) have lots of grey hair. They’ve risen to the top of their competitive ladders. And yet their biggest question is usually, “is this all there is?” They’ve often sacrificed everything to their careers, only to find a sense of emptiness and a lack of fulfillment.

The reason for this is that traditionally, we’ve compartmentalized money and meaning. For-profits are supposed to make money. Non-profits are supposed to make a difference. And that has left many people in business feeling successful put unfulfilled.

Fear. At its core, traditional business is fueled by scarcity and stress – two polite names for fear. Why do people get corrupt and greedy? Because they’re afraid there’s not enough to go around. In daily life, we don’t get greedy for air. We don’t try to hoard it, or store it away, because we trust that there’s enough for everyone. But capitalism is based on relentless, ruthless competition over scarce goods and services – and that creates fear. Feeling stressed about work isn’t something special. It’s an automatic consequence of being part of this system.

Sustainability. Capitalism’s greatest strength is its unparalleled capacity for economic expansion. And capitalism’s greatest challenge is its addiction to that expansion. Our entire financial system is predicated on the assumption that GDP will always keep increasing. Stock markets, debt and retirement funds all depend on this. So does our monetary supply. But continuous exponential expansion is unsustainable, and we’re rapidly reaching its limits.

Capitalism is a system with tremendous strengths – and with equally tremendous challenges.

So the real question is not “can business be a force for good?” The real question is “how can business be more of a force for good?” How can it provide more purpose, less fear, and more sustainability? And how can it do this more consciously, rather than as something we try to just fit in the cracks?

Now, that’s a question worth investing in.

I have the privilege of facilitating an amazing group of soul-centered business builders who are engaged in a 12 month exploration of what it means to practice conscious capitalism. Not just as a theory, but as both a spiritual and economic practice.

Yesterday, we received a special gift in the form of Terry Tillman, one of the senior elders in the field of conscious leadership development (www.227company.com). I think I’m learning as much as anyone in the group, and I had a particularly profound take-away that I want to share with you.

Terry reminded us that one of the highest spiritual laws on our planet is the law of abundance, also known as the law of giving and receiving. As defined by Deepak Chopra, “The universe operates through dynamic exchange…giving and receiving are different aspects of the flow of energy in the universe. And in our willingness to give that which we seek, we keep the abundance of the universe circulating in our lives.”

What is the difference between a lush tropic island and the Dead Sea? The former circulates water, both giving and receiving it. The Dead Sea doesn’t – it only receives.

The spiritual law of abundance is as automatic and consistent as the physical law of gravity, and abundance only breaks down when we stop the flow. When we become attached to things, we stop giving, we stop the flow – and we suffer. When we judge ourselves as unworthy, we stop receiving, we stop the flow – and we suffer. In contrast, a commitment to providing exceptional value means being equally committed to giving exceptional value and to receiving payment for that value. It means being committed to practicing the law of abundance.

Notice in your life, do you have a harder time giving or receiving? Which side do you have more of your blocks on? (We all have at least some blocks – otherwise we wouldn’t have anything left to learn…)

When we open to spiritual reality, our experience is one of abundance. In contrast, modern economic theory is based on scarcity. One of Wikipedia’s definitions of economics is “the social science of choice under scarcity.”

This does not mean that economics is wrong. What it means is that the world changes as we lift in consciousness. At the physical level, the world looks like it’s based in scarcity, win/lose, either/or, and survival of the fittest. But as we’re able to see things from a higher perspective, we realize that things are based in abundance, win/win, both/and, and love.

The challenge is that when we start to see this, we naturally tend to go into spiritual bypass, where we only want to focus on the spiritual and we tend to deny the physical (which is just another form of either/or). We may shift from the receiving-only focus of unconscious for-profit organizations (“money, money, I want more money NOW”) to the giving-only focus of unconscious non-profit organizations (“there shouldn’t be any scarcity so I’m going to fix things by stealing from the rich and giving to the poor”).

We may sit around and think that if we just watch The Secret another 27 times, we’ll win the Lotto and live happily ever after. Or we may see our self worth as defined by how much we sacrifice our needs for others. Or we may feel a secret sense of entitlement, where we expect that if we become good enough at providing our services, we deserve to have a full practice – without having to learn how to enroll clients.

So how do we embrace both the law of scarcity and the law of abundance?

That is a multi-trillion dollar question our world is grappling with right now.

I believe this question is at the heart of the current economic crisis, of the shift from unconscious capitalism to conscious capitalism, and the shift from unconscious philanthropy to conscious philanthropy. It’s at the heart of Selling By Giving, and it’s at the heart of our 12 month group. You can read about the three keys to integrating spirituality and business (i.e. abundance and scarcity) that I’ve come across so far, in www.sixfigurepractice.net/ebook.

I believe the answer starts by recognizing how deep this conflict goes within each of us and within our organizations, and by learning to embrace this. It also starts by recognizing that conscious capitalism can’t be measured just by the mission of the organization. It also requires focusing on the consciousness of the members in the organization. In other words, it’s not enough to focus just on what we do, it also requires focusing on how we are as we do it.

As my teachers at the University of Santa Monica say, “how you are with the issue is the issue.” Similarly, “how you are with the conflicts inherent in conscious capitalism is the measure of how conscious your capitalism is.”

Most of the work in this area I’ve seen so far has tended to come from one of two angles.

1) For-profit organizations seeking to make their mission more loving. This includes corporate social responsibility, the triple bottom line, etc.

2) Non-profit organizations seeking to make their mission more self-sustaining. This includes social enterprise, social entrepreneurship, venture philanthropy, etc.

But the thing is, when we’re coming from a lower place in consciousness, business is a battle for survival, and service is a sacrifice. When we’re at the bottom of the pyramid, we do have to choose between the left and the right, between for-profit and non-profit, between receiving and giving. It’s only as we lift in consciousness (a large piece of which happens by integrating the conflicts inside us and by learning to love all of who we are) that we’re able to actually live the law of abundance.

Because of this, you can’t build a conscious organization without also focusing on the consciousness of its members’.

When our conscious self is identified with our physical self, economics is about scarcity and service is about sacrifice. This is shown at the bottom of the triangle, and it’s what happens when we listen to the news and go into fear.

When our conscious self is identified with our spiritual self, both economics and service are about abundance and love. This is shown at the top of the triangle, and it’s what happens when we learn to see everything in life, including our inner conflicts, as opportunities for learning, upliftment and growth. It’s what happens as we find our inner conflicts, and instead of trying to fight, feed or flee them, we learn to love them instead.

Doing so requires learning to embrace both sides of Love (acceptance and loving self-discipline) and both sides of reality (physical and spiritual). Notice that the symbol for love is not a circle (which symbolizes oneness) it’s a heart, which symbolizes two becoming one while also remaining two. Similarly, to do business from a place of love and consciousness means integrating two value systems so they become one while also remaining two – the foundation to the three keys for integrating spirituality and business.

Love and light,

Brian

P.S. If this is interesting to you, please feel free to comment below or forward it to those you think would like it.