One of my daughter, Meryl Fé’s first words and one of the most important lessons her mother Margaret Jane taught her was “done” and, with it, the concept of boundaries.

I remember when it first began. Meryl Fé was about ten months old and beginning to eat solid food. As MJ would feed her and get to the point where Meryl Fé turned her head away from the spoon (rather than gobbling it) MJ would ask “Done?” Then she would approach with the spoon again and, when Meryl Fé turned her head again, MJ would pronounce with great energy “DONE!”

It didn’t take long before Meryl Fé added “DONE!” to her vocabulary – it was one of her first ten words.

I remember an event about six months later which clearly demonstrated that Meryl Fé had learned the lesson well. We were visiting my parents in Pennsylvania and I was putting Meryl Fé to bed one night. My 6’ 2” 200+ pound father was at the foot of the bed making faces and otherwise putting on a show, when all of a sudden, 15-month old Meryl Fé looked up at him and proclaimed “DONE!”

I have never (before or since) witnessed anyone stop my father in his tracks as completely and immediately as Meryl Fé did with that one word and the way she declared it. Pop stopped dead in his tracks, stuttered a “dddone?” said goodnight, and left the room.

I was floored and thrilled as I witnessed this profoundly important recognition and skill deeply embodied by Meryl Fé at such a young age, when most adults I know haven’t come close to mastering this one.

I won’t elaborate here, as the story speaks for itself. But I will add that, I continue to explore the idea of “DONE!” for myself and to support others to do the same, and I encourage you to recognize when you permit people to cross the line with you when you really want to say “DONE!” or “STOP!” or whatever equivalent word is the appropriate message.

Clear boundaries are essential to healthy relationships – with oneself and others.

Yours in Working for Good,

Jeff

I had a very strange experience Thursday. At some point during the day, I picked up my iPhone to make a call, and staring at me were the words “Nothing is undone” with no attribution to a sender of this text message. I quickly unlocked the phone to see who sent it and what else, if anything, they wrote. I found nothing – no message, no sender. I called a friend who had recently sent me a text to ask if she had sent it. She hadn’t. Goose bumps.

This passage from the Tao te Ching flashed across my mind’s eye, especially the lines “When nothing is done, Nothing is left undone.”

In the pursuit of knowledge,
Every day something is added.
In the practice of the Tao,
Every day something is dropped.
Less and less do you need to force things,
Until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
Nothing is left undone.

True master can be gained
By letting things go their own way.
It can’t be gained by interfering.

Tao te Ching # 48

While I am careful not to jump to conclusions, I could take this message as a reminder that, while doing is necessary to getting things done, being and not-doing are even more essential, especially if the doing is done with pushing or forcing. Things have a mysterious way of working, without us having to “make them happen.” We can participate in the process (watering plants, adding fuel to fires, providing useful information, etc), but we don’t need to make them happen.

And, in a larger sense, in some way, everything is perfect the way it is and nothing really needs to be done, but that’s another story!

Thoreau wrote: "Though I do not believe a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."

This week was filled with the wonder of emergence and great reinforcement for having faith in seeds. In this spirit, I spent a good part of the week holding space for, facilitating and witnessing a process of deep healing between colleagues both reflecting and informing the transformation of an organization. While at times I may be more inclined to “try to make things work” or to intermediate, as my faith in emergence increases, I do less of this (and less pushing or trying to control) and focus on how can I tap into the emergent possibilities and create conditions to foster their manifestation.

This same awareness is deeply informing how I approach the “marketing” of my new book, Working for Good: Making a Difference While Making a Living. When I was marketing Private Music, Yanni, Spinning, Seeds of Change, ChiRunning, among other things, I was informed by my understanding that marketing is a process of cultivating relationships, and relationships are emergent processes. Thus, in marketing Working for Good I need to show up for the exploration of relationship and put forth what I have to offer to the relationship (in this case, the book), then it is up to others to relate to and respond to the offer, or not. Offering blog posts reflecting my experience and insights, writing articles, engaging in interviews, presenting at conferences, and delivering Working for Good engagement experiences at bookstores are all part of the process of showing up, and presenting my offer. The next step is up to others – to receive it or not. And from there, the process continues, as dialogues with people who have read the book are already leading to other things.

I find this orientation of embracing emergence, versus driving towards a specific goal, to be highly satisfying, full of delight, and fruitful – as in producing significant results.

Not that emergence is always easy or stress-free – on the contrary. But trying to control or push for a specific outcome is at least as challenging if not more so, yet lacks the ease, grace, and flow of emergence.

You can’t pull the leaves of a plant and make it grow faster or differently from its nature, but you can understand its potential and needs, and create the conditions for optimal growth.

So, we can ask ourselves “what does this situation need for its emergence to unfold?” And in the answer, find right action.

"When the dust settles from this Armageddon, the only companies left standing are going to be the ones that stand for something that improves people’s lives.” ~ Roy Spence

Purpose is the essential, core, single underlying or overriding reason we move, as individuals and organizations. It is the big “why” underlying what we do. On the most basic biological level, we may be driven to survive and reproduce, yet that is hardly the purpose of our existence. In the words of Ed Freeman, author of the stakeholder model of business management, “We need red blood cells to live (the same way a business needs profits to live), but the purpose of life is not to make red blood cells (the same way the purpose of business is not to exist to make profits).”

Purpose is an activating, motivating, and animating force. It is what moves us to get up in the morning to dive into life with our full being. Purpose sustains us when times get tough, and serves as a guiding star when we stray off course.

Purpose is one of the three core principles of Conscious Business™ as articulated by John Mackey and Conscious Capitalism, Inc (aka FLOW). Knowing and embodying our purpose focuses our business’s products, services, and processes toward goals larger than just making money.

Purposeful people build purposeful companies. And purposeful people make an impact through whatever their work or role may be.

Jim Collins, author of the bestselling Built to Last and Good to Great, defines purpose as a company’s fundamental reason for being—its soul. In It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For, Roy Spence Jr. and Haley Rushing tell great stories of the power of purpose in the success of clients like Southwest Airlines (to democratize the airways: “Freedom to Fly”), Wal-Mart (to save people money so they can live better: “Save Money, Live Better”), and BMW (to enable people to experience the joy of driving: “Sheer Driving Pleasure”). Great companies with the most significant impact and influence invariably have clear and compelling purposes.

The same is true for great beings!

“This is the true joy in life—the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.... Life is no “brief candle” to me. It is sort of a splendid torch, which I have a hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it over to future generations.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

LINKS

It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For

The High Purpose Company by Christine Arena

Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

Earlier this week, best-selling author and master blogger Seth Godin wrote a blog post entitled “lessons from very tiny businesses.” The last line of the post was “just be human” referring to the essential lesson he derived from the stories of several small businesses.

In my web radio interview with leadership consultant Cheryl Esposito, which will air in the next couple of weeks, we landed on similar terrain, and at one point Cheryl observed that idea of “just being human” is just good common sense.

Yesterday I had a delightful conversation with Norman Wolfe of Quantum Leaders, Inc, who is part of an emerging group of business people explicitly organizing around the idea of spirituality in business, which, when he articulated it, sounded like “let’s just be human” and apply our humanity with the systems and processes of business to create conscious businesses.

“Just be human” is the principle message of Working for Good: Making a Difference While Making a Living, and my principle mantra at work. Part of that message is a call to cultivate the skills for becoming more human – at work and in general – and apply all of your humanity, which includes, among other things, awareness, the full spectrum of your intelligence, and the ability to connect and co-create with others.

I firmly believe that if a great number of people simply approached work as a forum to “just be human” together and to co-create products, services, and businesses that embodied and served humanity, the world would quickly become a healthier, happier place for millions if not billions of people, and would continue to become ever more so.

I just completed this draft of an article at the request of my collaborator in marketing at Sounds True, Shelly Vickroy. Comments and questions welcome!

Working for Good is an orientation towards business and work focused on serving the greater good, contributing to create a better world in some way, with more sustainable, healthy, and fulfilling lives. In my definition of Working for Good the process is the product. That is, the way we conduct ourselves and treat each other and the world around us is as important as what we produce. We can work in a green business, a social service organization, or some other endeavor focused on making the world a better place, but if we treat others and ourselves with disregard or disrespect in the process, we end up creating something far short of our intention. The Working for Good approach cultivates embodied awareness and fosters connected collaboration, deepening our humanity and facilitating shared vision and aligned action to address pressing social and environmental issues, and to realize opportunities to enhance life. Working for Good fosters conscious business.

This is the context for considering the role of marketing in Working for Good, and how marketing can be a conscious act in service to the greater good.

What is Marketing?

Based on the blatant manipulations of mass market advertising, the astounding waste of direct mail and promotional trinkets, and the barrage of messages we receive everyday from marketing channels through all of our senses, many people who want to create a better world, with sustainable peace, prosperity, and happiness for all, think marketing is irrelevant at best, evil at worst.

In the context of Working for Good and conducting a conscious business, marketing serves an appropriate, necessary, and generative function. We can consider marketing as a process of communications focused on cultivating relationships. It is a process of representing who and what you – your company, your brand, your product or service – are: what you stand for, what value you promise to deliver to others, how you will relate to others. Conscious marketing let’s others know you exist and that you have something valuable to offer to them and to the world, and gives them an opportunity to consider engaging with you and your product or service. It doesn’t force them to, but makes the option available to them.

Marketing is like skin: it is the membrane that connects the inner business with the marketplace. To continue the metaphor, marketing is a function that covers and provides a window into the entire spectrum of a business. By representing and communicating what a business stands for and what it sells, marketing calls on everyone within it and every communication emanating from it to be clear, connected, and true to the essence and identity of the company. As a pervasive membrane, marketing serves an integrative function, holding a company together and reflecting its integrity. Just as healthy, radiant skin reflects a healthy person, healthy, radiant messages emanating from a business–through its employees, its communications materials, the way it produces, packages, and delivers its products and services, etc.–reflect a healthy business.

Marketing provides a platform for a business’ stakeholders—investors, customers, new team members, vendors, and others—to assess the integrity of the company. Does it deliver what it promises? Do its practices–such as the way it treats people, the environment, the communities where it conducts business–align with its stated intentions, values, and communications? As a permeable membrane, marketing facilitates two-way communication and exchange, inviting customers and other external stakeholders to inform and influence a company and, in some ways, to co-create it—refining its products and services, deepening its relationship to its stakeholders, and evolving its purpose.

Marketing in the Age of Transparency

Marketing takes on a whole new life in a world with universal access to instantaneous, global mass, communications and in which billions of people have immediate access to nearly infinite information, where secrets are quickly revealed to all. Through the blogsphere and videosphere, one person’s experience with a product, service, or company can become common knowledge overnight. The previously secret art and science of product development is now increasingly done in the open marketplace, engaging outsiders and even customers openly in the process.

ebay has built the web’s premier commerce site based on its reputation system and the transparency of transactions. Similarly, the performance ratings of third party sellers through amazon.com are visible to all.

George Holliday’s videotape of the Rodney King beating in 1991 demonstrated the power of transparency and sparked major riots. The revelations of the Enron, Tyco, Worldcom and other accounting scandals of the early 21st century catalyzed a new era of corporate transparency, enforced in part by the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation of 2002, but more powerfully fueled by growing demand from consumers, investors, and other stakeholders, and from an emerging recognition of the absolute necessity and competitive advantage afforded by voluntary transparency.

Consumers can now more effectively purchase in alignment with their values, as information about products, sourcing, ingredients, etcetera are readily available. And investors can invest in alignment with their values, as various indices track corporate behavior with respect to various social and environmental indicators.

The emerging ubiquity of transparency provides conscious entrepreneurs, who are building conscious businesses, with a competitive advantage. The marketplace increasingly rewards companies with an underlying embodied commitment to transparent, purpose-driven, relationship and collaboration-based business, through greater trust, loyalty, and engagement, as long as the company delivers quality products and services.

“Markets are conversations.”

The wired world has other significant implications for marketing in addition to transparency. As the authors of the 1999 treatise, The Cluetrain Manifesto, observed, “Markets are conversations” not monologues from companies to consumers–enabled by mass media–and the new social media technologies are facilitating global networks of informed and empowered consumers and employees. Companies are no longer the sole or even principal generator of ideas and information relating to their own business. “People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products. There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.”

Another reflection of the organic stakeholder system is the powerful phenomena known as “crowd sourcing,” which catalyzes the wisdom of groups to inform decisions. In We are Smarter than Me, Barry Liebert and Jon Spector “and thousands of contributors” tell the stories of dozens of businesses – from large corporations like Proctor & Gamble, Eli Lilly, IBM, and Virgin Mobile to smaller companies like Australian brewery Brewtopia – that are designing their products, creating marketing campaigns, delivering customer service and more, by tapping into large groups of people, online, around the world. Crowd sourcing deepens the interconnectedness between stakeholders and illuminates the reality that businesses exist in complex interdependent system of stakeholders.

Principles and Questions for Conscious Marketers

Here are some principles to guide conscious marketers, who operating in the context of marketing as a reflection of who we are and what we do–as a membrane, which fosters integrity and facilitates exchange between our inner and outer environments in a transparent, networked system. These principles are intended to guide our actions to foster deep connection and collaboration, learning and growth for yourself, your business, and your stakeholders.

The process is the product: assess your whole business system through this lens.

• Is our product or service fully aligned with purpose, values, and commitments?
• How does this communication–its process and content–reflect our purpose, values, and commitments?
• Are our internal processes–stakeholder relations, production process, waste management, etc–aligned with our purpose, values, and commitments?
• How are we considering the value of and the value we deliver to all of our stakeholders?

Marketing is conversation: in those actions that are specifically outward facing and intended to communicate about your company, brand, product or service, ask yourself:

• Are our communications honest, open, and engaging, rather than manipulative?
• Are we inviting our stakeholders into a conversation through the content, tone, and channels of our communications?
• Are we willing to really listen to them and learn from them? And do they believe us?

Interdependence Facilitates Co-Creation: if we recognize the essential interdependence of life on earth and how this is reflected in what we do through our businesses, and if our deepest purpose is to participate in the evolution of life on earth and to contribute to creating sustainable peace, prosperity, and happiness for all, then…

• How does the principle of interdependence inform our thinking and decisions?
• Are we developing or employing systems, processes, and channels that facilitate collaboration and co-creation?
• Do we cultivate an internal culture of collaboration, and does this culture of collaboration extend outwards to our external stakeholders, somewhat blurring the distinction between internal and external?

By employing the insights and skills of Working for Good, conscious marketing can become an art form for cultivating awareness, connection, collaboration, and co-creation in business. And it can become a tool for building a healthy, sustainable business, with deeply engaged stakeholders.

I love creativity - seeing things differently, finding new ways to do old things, discovering new ideas or new approaches to challenges and opportunities. Creativity is one of the hallmarks of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, and one of the great benefits of engaging in the process of Working for Good - cultivating embodied awareness, engaging in dialogue and collaboration, and fostering integration – as it unquestionably contributes to creativity. My colleague Julie van Amerongen has further reflections on the principle of Creativity below, which you will also find in the 26 Principles of Working for Good eBook at workingforgood.com.

I may jump to the end of the alphabet (we've been working our way from A to Z - with Monday's posts) next Monday with the Principle of Vulnerability, which I keep challenging myself to write - as I am marveling at the power of vulnerability.

Yours in Working for Good,

Jeff

“Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity.” ~ Edwin Land

Creativity in the work environment is all about finding the sweet spot in the middle of your right brain’s wild impulses and the left brain’s practicality. From time to time, some of us need a little nudge to get out of the cube and move over to the right side. Here are some ideas you might want to try to stimulate your creativity:

• Drive a different route to work tomorrow, or better yet, bike or walk a different way.
• Collaborate and brainstorm – Fastest way to get unstuck and come up with loads of brilliant ideas (and some wonky ones too!).
• Go for a walk. Moving stimulates our mind. For that matter, stretch, hula hoop, dance… just get moving.
• Combine the above and go for a brainstorming walk!
• You don’t have a problem, just a solution waiting to happen. Meditate on it.
• Solicit advice. How would your hero solve the problem? A child? Someone already Working for Good?
• Start work really early. Or really, really late.
• Use color. How come we all write or type in black or blue? Boring! And while you’re at it, doodle throughout.
• Stay awake! Combine your rational thought with your creative explorations and watch the magic unfold.

“The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.” ~ Alan Alda

LINKS
Want More? Ten Ways to Get Creative at Work
The Corporate Mystic: A Guidebook For Visionaries With Their Feet on the Ground by Gay Hendricks
Creativity in Business by Michael Ray

Last night I had the great fortune to attend a benefit gala for the Women's Earth Alliance - an incredible organization that (in their word) "unites women on the front lines of environmental causes coordinating resources, training & networks to support thriving women, communities and earth."

The theme of the event - Women Weaving Worlds - could not have been more appropriate as WEA is a true alliance - born as and out of a network of collaboration and embodied through a collaborative network. And their rapid and substantial growth reflects the network effect. Just as WEA is a living embodiment of the spirit of interdependent connectedness, the event was like moving through a warm, rich tapestry of music, food, drink, beauty, conversation, and the radiant energy of purpose, passion, and action. As you may detect, it was highly inspiring, as were the people who attended.

The metaphor of Women Weaving Worlds is one I am coming to understand and deeply appreciate as I spend more time working with women on "women's issues." In late April, I had my first meeting with both Amira and Melinda (I had briefly met Melinda before), with three other women. Our meeting was a long hike to and from the beach, punctuated by a "meeting" on a cliff overlooking the ocean.

This weekend I head to Austin for Accelerating Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) meetings with FLOW colleagues, Nitsan Gordon of Beyond Words-Women in the Center in Israel, Joyce and Ken Beck of the Crossings, and others, for a couple days of "women Weaving Worlds." And the following week I travel to Vancouver at the invitation of Laura Mack of the International Leadership Association, Women of Worth, and more, who - in collaboration with other women who support women - is convening a progression of meetings to explore collaboration in the context of AWE, that reflects this same spirit of Women Weaving Worlds.

I must say I am delighted to be invited into these tapestries and find great inspiration and joy working with powerful, purposeful women. I am also delighted that my 10-year-old daughter Meryl Fé will be accompanying me on the trips to Austin and Vancouver and, while she will be occupied with play mates her age, I trust she will feel the power of the fabric and will learn much from the experiences and this is a very good thing!

Here's to women weaving worlds. May we all join in the process and create a beautiful, sustainable, and gigantic web.

Yours in Working for Good,

Jeff

Without question, courage is essential to the work of entrepreneurs and change agents, and anyone Working for Good. The journey to creating something new and changing something old is not easy and continually calls for courage to face the unknown, the uncertain, the never-been-done before, the "how the heck are we going to make it through this passage" passages.

Here are some more reflections on Courage by my friend, colleague, and collaborator, Elad Levinson. And remember, it takes courage to ask for help!

Yours in Working for Good,

Jeff
www.workingforgood.com

“Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.” ~ Winston Churchill

Courage comes from the French word coeur, which means the heart. To have courage means to have heart.

What is the relationship between having heart and Working for Good? Without heart, work becomes meaningless. Heart infuses the act of working with life-blood, which animates and infuses us with vitality and intent. With heart, anything can become a heroic journey; without heart it is just going through the motions.

When does heart show up as a principle? Everywhere in the process of conceiving, connecting and collaborating to produce the big idea that is behind the product or service you want to bring to life.

1. It takes heart to motivate us to do good – heart is what initiates us wanting to solve an environmental or social problem and to make a difference through our work.
2. Courage – the strength of our heart – binds us to the task when the going gets rough and connects us with others with whom we share the journey.
3. Courage is required to have the difficult conversations and to engage in authentic dialogue.
4. Courage supplies the fuel for sustaining our effort when we are tired and dispirited. And courage is contagious. The heart-based power of others – can lift our heart and make us recall once again why are doing what we are doing.

Courage is the fuel for persistence and catalyst for decisiveness.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

LINKS:
Lovetta Conto and Akawelle: life emerging out of war.

I spent the past two days (May 28 – 29) at Bentley University outside of Boston attending the first Conceptualizing Conscious Capitalism conference, which is intended to be a precursor to the Conscious Capitalism Institute. The event, produced by Professors Raj Sisodia of Bentley (co-author of Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion & Purpose) and Ed Freeman of University of Virginia (“author” of the stakeholder model of business management), with Shubrho Sen, serial entrepreneur, outsourcing pioneer, and visiting professor of marketing at Bentley. In addition to providing an enlightening survey of work being done in diverse academic disciplines at universities throughout the country and around the world, the event convened an inspiring and energized group of academics and others dedicated to transforming business and business education, and making meaningful progress towards these ends.

Among the highlights were inspiring presentations by pioneers in the practice of Conscious Business Roy Spence, Chairman and CEO of GSD&M IdeaCity and co-author of It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For, and John Mackey, Chairman and CEO of Whole Foods Market, author of the new audiobook, Passion & Purpose: The Power of Conscious Capitalism, and co-founder of Conscious Capitalism, Inc (aka FLOW), and a conversation between John and Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline (among other books) and founder of the Society for Organizational Learning.

In addition to exploring the implications of applying consciousness to business in general, marketing, leadership, and other aspects of business in particular, Raj began the conference be setting outlining the frame of Conscious Business, which John powerfully articulated in his presentation. The core principles of Conscious Business are:

1. Purpose: Finding and focusing on the higher purpose of the business.
2. Stakeholder Orientation: focusing on the health of the overall system, rather than singularly on the return on shareholder investment.
3. Servant Leadership: through which the management plays a role of steward to the company’s deeper purpose and stakeholders, focusing on fostering a harmony of interests.

You can watch a brief video of John talking about Conscious Business on the Sounds True web site and you can order Passion and Purpose from the FLOW website, where you can also order Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems, by FLOW co-founder Michael Strong, which also features a chapter by John on Conscious Capitalism.

Earlier this month, Conscious Capitalism, Inc. launched the Conscious Business™ Alliance and began design and development for the 2009 Catalyzing Conscious Capitalism event in October in Austin. Both the CBA and CCC event are by invitation, so please let me know if you are interested.

I am honored to serve as Executive Director of Conscious Capitalism, Inc and on the Governing Circle of the Conscious Business Alliance. In both capacities, I encounter people everyday who are applying the principles of Conscious Business, studying, and promoting their positive impact, to cultivate and advance new ways of thinking about and practice “the art of business.” While we certainly have a long way to go before this new approach is predominant, the journey of a thousand miles is definitely well under way.

Here's to the movement!

Yours in Working for Good,

Jeff

www.workingforgood.com