Author: Gerald R. Wagner

This is the fifth in a series of blogs about virtuous organizations — businesses where employees model the highest aspirations of human kind. In this series, authors Graham Williams and Gerald Wagner draw on examples and insights from around the world — Brazil, USA, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand, and Turkey. Readers may be pleasantly surprised by how many virtuous companies already exist! The series addresses what makes these virtuous organizations tick and what practices they have in common, telling compelling stories about the power of positivity. While everyone is likely to enjoy these case studies, organizational leaders in a position to affect culture change are likely to benefit most.

Deepening mindfulness practice in organisations

When a golfer, lines up a putt she is able to climb inside a ‘bubble’ and focus without distraction on sinking the putt. At that moment she is operating in the flow zone. A ‘bubble’ of total attention, concentration and most importantly, in a relaxed state combined with harnessed energy.

Czikzentmihali introduced the notion that we are all at any one time in one of three zones: the flow zone, the panic zone (a place of anxiety, negative energy, disorientation, dysfunction), or the drone zone (where we are listless, bored, drifting without purpose).¹

We achieve better outcomes through calm, awareness and focus.  To what we give our mindful  attention we also grant energy, intention and flow. It is now common cause that mindfulness has numerous and wide-ranging benefits for individuals and organisations. This diagram illustrates that as we bring mindfulness to bear (on ‘objects’), subtle yet definite shifts take place, so that results improve – and a virtuous cycle of continuous performance is triggered:

More and more benefit is coming to light: “Mindfulness enhances innate leadership talents necessary to revitalise the workplace. Using mindfulness to develop these leads to ‘cultivating courage, establishing authenticity, building trust, eliminating toxicity, pursuing organisational goals mindfully, and leading with wisdom and gentleness.’”²   “A beautiful quality that sometimes unfolds with groups experimenting with mindfulness is appreciation. Whether it’s in newly-formed groups of strangers or in intact leadership teams, the processes of slowing down and listening more fully and deeply means that people hear things from others that they would ordinarily miss.”³

Mindfulness facilitates resilience, smoother organisational change and transition endeavours. ^{4, 5}

The trouble is that many organisations see mindfulness training as a way to better results, and they make two huge mistakes:

• Even though mindfulness training can potentially benefit everyone, employers generally fail to appreciate that it is not a ‘one cap fits all’ solution in terms of both content and timing. (Different motivations, intent, personality, degree of readiness, stage of development, level of maturity and a number of other factors determine the speed and degree of positive impact on any individual)

• They don’t see that, as Amanda Sinclair points out, “Purpose and values are central to mindfulness. Almost inevitably, practising mindfulness calls leaders (and each of us) to ask how they are spending their energy and their lives.” How organisations adopt and employ mindfulness practices are critically important and “we should be concerned when mindfulness is put to the wheels of global capitalism, enabling people to feel less stressed about doing immoral things, or in less obvious ways feeding exploitation, punishing work cultures or unsustainable materialism.”³

Wrongly used, mindfulness as an encouraged practice in organisations may well wane.

Spiritual Mindfulness – a way forward?

Grant and McGhee point us to the emerging notion of spiritual mindfulness. (Mindfulness shares with spirituality an internal focus and outward execution, habitual practices, and simply being human. They are natural bedfellows. Spiritual mindfulness includes an appreciation of interconnectedness (and a resultant other-orientation), finding meaning and purpose (intrinsic motivation), transcendence (a higher world view, seeing a bigger picture) and the development of our inner selves).  As 6-year old Anna explained to Fynn (who had found her abandoned and wandering the harsh streets of London’s docklands): “The diffrense from a person and an angel is easy. Most of an angel is in the inside and most of a person is on the outside.”⁶

Take ethics for example. When an ethics system is primarily rules-based, deviations occur. All the laws, rules, regulations and principles in the world do not guarantee virtuous behaviour. The psychology and sociology of ethics has a powerful bearing on how people behave in ethical situations.  “Virtue ethics … emphasizes the character, motivation, and intention of the decision maker…. It looks at ethics from an agent-based perspective, not an action-based perspective; it addresses characteristics of the decision maker’s personality rather than particular actions (as in the rules and guidelines for actions in deontological theories) or consequences of actions (as in consequentialist theories).”⁷   Faced with an ethical situation, the spiritually mindful person is aware and discerning, identifies the issue clearly and understands the bigger picture, and decides to act courageously on a virtuous basis – irrespective of any negative pressures arising from the organisational context.

The spiritually mindful person is aware of the interconnectedness of all things. Chief Seattle of the Duwamish Tribe made a remarkable, spiritually-aware statement in 1854, “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” The speech from which this quote is taken speaks eloquently to our need to care for the environment, society and indeed the future of humanity. The sentiment resonates with findings in Gestalt psychology, Integral Theory, the Collective Unconscious, Botany (rhizomes), Systemic Thinking, Chaos Theory, Quantum Physics and Neuroscience. It also resonates with the African concept of Ubuntu and aspects of Hindu, Buddhist, Shamanic and the Christian mystical tradition.  (Our interdependence is symbolised by Buddhist monk’s begging bowls).

A video that provides perspective.

The spiritually mindful person demonstrates love, the highest virtue. Mindfulness equals loving awareness. Love touches us powerfully and is transformational. It drives out fears and dysfunctionality in the workplace in practical ways. Three chapters are devoted to love in The Virtuosa Organisation: the importance of virtues for a successful business.⁸   Sadly, as June Singer, a giant in the world of analytical psychology, points out, “In our concerns with counting and weighing and measuring, with precise descriptions and careful evaluation, we sometimes fail to recognise or give credit to values that do not fit these criteria. Or, when we do recognise that such values exist, we split them off from the consciousness of the marketplace and relegate them to the categories of religion or arts.”⁹

Love is being authentic, not wily; being transparent and not Machiavellian; being the wearing of your heart on your sleeve rather than holding your cards close to your chest; trusting in the success that comes from setting a standard; being an example rather than outwitting an opponent; a readiness to show vulnerability. It is also about being human and realizing that the only currency that makes for sound business relationships is a capacity to discern motives that are borne of LOVE. It is about having a code or language that is based on respect, validation and ‘seeing the other’. “Love is a natural upwelling current inside us all. It doesn’t need to be pushed or pumped, it needs to be released.”¹⁰

Are there organisations that we can learn from?

Yvon Chouinard, founder in the 1960s of the apparel company Patagonia, was passionate about clear, simple, intentional and mindful thinking and living. The company, not without its challenges, setbacks and controversies, has become famous for putting the environment first, pioneering people-profit-planet principles, and for developing their “Five R’s” strategy: reduce, repair, reuse, recycle, and reimagine.¹¹

They use organic and recycled material, are deeply concerned for animal welfare, nature, best (environmentally and socially-friendly) manufacturing practices, fair trading arrangements and much more. A percentage of sales is given to environmental organisations.  “In 2002 Chouinard co-founded “One Percent for the Planet” to encourage other companies to contribute at least 1% of sales towards environmental causes. By 2012 it had more than 1,200 member companies across 48 countries and had donated more than US$100 million to over 3,300 non-profit organizations … Free day care is offered for the children of employees. Chefs cook organic food in the cafeteria, Dogs lounge near desks. Everyone seems to be on a first-name basis with everyone else. An organic garden flanks the campus. Outdoor meeting spaces are set up for teams who want to converse under the trees.  For every job opening, Patagonia gets about a thousand applications.”¹²

Green Mountain Coffee Roasters have also experienced scandal, and has its detractors. For over 25 years (during a phenomenal growth and wealth-generation phase) they’ve practiced their notion of conscious capitalism:^13,14

• Interconnectedness between individuals, businesses, and global society. (This informs their laudable fair trade practices)

• Wealth is a holistically understood state rather than solely about financial status. ‘Wealth’ means that which brings value – including complex non-financial dimensions such as physical, spiritual, sociological, civil, and environmental well-being. Whole-person wealth.

• A relevant view of time, spanning multiple generations, which is more than simply long term sustainability, suggests that the activities of today have been influenced by the ancestors of yesterday, while at the same time today’s actions are also simultaneously influencing people in generations to come (as believed in many older cultures).

Individuals within a company practicing conscious capitalism of the Green Mountain variety begin to perceive themselves as stewards of monetary, cultural, and environmental resources for current and future generations.

Chris Lowney, a former Jesuit and top J.P.Morgan executive, tells the amazing story of the Jesuit organisation and its 450-year old guiding principles.¹⁵

Founded by St Ignatius of Loyola they achieved astounding growth, world-wide reach and enviable influence, overcoming incredible obstacles, all based on the ‘Jesuit Way,’ his Spiritual Exercises and four interrelated principles of: ¹⁶

• self-awareness (spiritual mindfulness)
• ingenuity (resilience and innovation)
• love
• heroism (in pursuit of a higher purpose)

In short, whole-person leadership. They believed strongly that leadership was about being, a way of living. They also mentored and coached their members on a non-directive basis.¹⁷   (No one else can provide our personal self-awareness, and the first person who we lead is ourselves).

These Jesuit virtues have relevancy for business leadership today. A mindfulness that transcends the ego (possessions, position, pride) and our shadow-side “the divisions we feel within our very selves,” ¹⁷ is the entering point for being which gives rise to effective doing. In order to contribute to bringing about peace (or love, resilience, authenticity, trust …) we must first be that which we desire to see. This keystone message for organisational leaders is summed up here:

Spiritual mindfulness (which is more than simply raised awareness) means that:

• As we traverse the web of life we become a positively healing (integrating rather than fragmenting) force by binding rather than severing.

• We become contemplatives in action, enter the flow zone and contribute warm-heartedness and love to a humanity that is in strife and disarray. Futurist John Naisbitt (who has laid down and advocates the balancing principle that more high-tech demands more high-touch) puts it this way: “The most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st century will not occur because of technology but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human,”¹⁸ and therefore our “learning how to live as compassionate human beings in a technologically dominating time.”¹⁹

• We learn to think non-dualistically (AND instead of BUT/ OR – especially in our relationships), and thus see wisdom and possibilities in paradox, ambiguity and (apparent) contradictions. In our brains, synapses are the gaps between neurons. Connection-activity in the synaptic space is vital. Using the brain neuron and synapse analogy, psychologist Louis Cozolino coined the term ‘social synapse’ to refer to the gaps between people, and the vital importance of our gap activity. ²⁰

• Counter-intuitively, as our focus moves away from self at the centre of the web towards others, we give to ourselves. For example when we’re feeling helpless we purposefully help others, when we’re lacking something we give that to another, when we’re down we seek to lift someone up ….²¹

References

1. Czikzentmihalyi, Mihaly Ph.D. Beyond Boredom and Anxiety: experiencing flow in work and play Jossey-Bass, San Francisco 1975. http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/19/bloomberg-strikes-again-nyc-bans-food-donations-to-the-homeless/

2. McGhee, Peter & Grant, Patricia The Influence of Managers’ Spiritual Mindfulness on Ethical Behaviour in Organisations Journal of Spirituality, Leadership and Management, 2015, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 12-33 Citing Dhiman citing Carroll  (Dhiman, S. Mindfulness in life and leadership: An exploratory survey. Interbeing, 3(1), 55-80   2009)  http://www.slam.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/JSLaMvol8no1_McGhee.pdf

3. Sinclair, Amanda Possibilities, Purpose and Pitfalls: Insights from introducing mindfulness to leaders Journal of Spirituality, Leadership and Management, 2015, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 3-11  http://www.slam.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/JSLaMvol8no1_Sinclair.pdf

4. Aviles, Peter R.; Dent, Eric B. The Role of Mindfulness in Leading Organizational Transformation: A Systematic Review The Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship Vol 20, Number 3  July, 2015 pages 31-55
5. Chabot, Paul R. Ed.D, MPA, BA An Historical Case Study of Organizational Resiliency within the Arellano-Felix Drug Trafficking Organization (A Dissertation presented to The Graduate School of Education and Human Development of The George Washington University)  https://search.proquest.com/docview/304642009

6. Fynn Mister God, this is Anna Harper Collins Publishers  London  2005
7. Oberlechner, Thomas The Psychology of Ethics in the Finance and Investment Industry The Research Foundation of the CFA Institute 2007
8. Williams, Graham; Haarhoff, Dorian and Fox, Peter The Virtuosa Organisation: the Importance of virtues for a successful business Knowledge Resources 2015
9. Singer, June The Power of Love to transform our lives and our world Nicolas-Hays, Inc.  Maine 2000

10. Hansen, Rick How do you love? Just One Thing newsletter October, 2015  http://www.rickhanson.net/writings/just-one-thing/

11. Szekely, Francisco, Prof and Dossa, Zahir, PhD Sell Less: a sustainable strategy? March, 2015 IMD Web Letter  http://www.imd.org/research/challenges/TC018-15-patagonia-sustainability-francisco-szekely.cfm?MRK_CMPG_SOURCE=webletter-issue03-15&utm_source=DM&utm_medium=em&utm_campaign=webletter-issue03-15

12. Gelles, David Mindful Work: how meditation is changing business from the inside out Profile Books Great Britain 2015
13. Neville, Mary Grace Positive Deviance on the Ethical Continuum: Green Mountain Coffee as a Case Study in Conscientious Capitalism Business and Society Review 113:4 555–576 © Center for Business Ethics at Bentley College 2008
14. Neville, M. G. Generating Holistic Wealth: A Framework for Leading Positive Change at the Intersection of Business and Society. PhD Thesis, Case Western Reserve University, 2003.. Dissertation Abstracts International, 64, 12A 2004
15. Lowney, Chris Heroic Leadership: best practices from a 450-year-old company that changed the world Loyola Press. A Jesuit Ministry. Chicago  2003
16. From a portrait by Jacopino del Conte, painted in 1556 (after the death of St Ignatius). In the public domain.  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ignatius_Loyola.jpg

17. Fleming, David L. S.J. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: a literal translation and a contemporary reading Smyth Sewn Paperback The Institute of Jesuit Sources, St Louis 1978
18. Naisbitt, John Megatrends: ten new directions transforming our lives Warner Books 1984
19. Naisbitt, John with Naisbitt, Nana and Philips, Douglas High Tech High Touch: technology and our accelerated search for meaning Nicholas Brealey Limited UK  2001
20. Cozolino, L The Neuroscience of Human Relationships: attachment and the developing social brain Norton & Company, Inc. NY 2006
21. Walsch, Neale Donald The Complete Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc. and G.P. Putnam’s Sons NY  2005

This is the fourth in a series of blogs about virtuous organizations — businesses where employees model the highest aspirations of human kind. In this series, authors Graham Williams and Gerald Wagner draw on examples and insights from around the world — Brazil, USA, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand, and Turkey. Readers may be pleasantly surprised by how many virtuous companies already exist! The series addresses what makes these virtuous organizations tick and what practices they have in common, telling compelling stories about the power of positivity. While everyone is likely to enjoy these case studies, organizational leaders in a position to affect culture change are likely to benefit most.

Time to try a different approach?

Nasrudin, en route to market, loads bags of salt on his donkey’s back. They come to a river. Nasrudin tries to tell the donkey to cross at the shallow causeway, but the donkey chooses to cross at the deepest part. The salt dissolves in the water. The donkey trips lightly up the other bank and trots off.

Next market day, Nasrudin loads the donkey with bales of wool. Once again Nasrudin tries to tell the donkey to cross at the shallow causeway. The donkey once again chooses the deep part of the river. The wool absorbs the water. The donkey staggers up the river bank, the bags weighing heavily on his back.

Nasrudin turns to it and says, “You thought that every time you entered the river you would come off lightly, didn’t you?”¹

Sometimes, in order to continue to survive and thrive, we have to ignore our ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ paradigm and find a different, better way of doing things. One such area for many organizations is to attract, engage, develop and retain the right talent. Some describe the current and intensifying situation as a war for talent. ^{2, 3, 4}

Why? What has changed?

We can anticipate continued unsettling and challenging change in all areas of societal and business life and an accompanying need for talented staff and leadership to engage with that future.  Already competition is high.  “We have entered into a war for talent as a result of a startling talent shortage, which was once in abundance … Access to information has shifted power to the employee because it allows them to be just as knowledgeable as the employer in less time for less money … And as employees become more knowledgeable about their personal worth and companies alter their firm-specific benefits, their ability to move freely between companies increases …. Our employees used to be a bit dependent on us, but now they are free to fly …”²

Clearly organizations with the right people doing the right things in the right way at the right time will fare better than others. “Companies that outperform their peers at talent management also return significantly more value to their shareholders – around 22 percent more than the industry average.”⁴

And it’s not rocket science to figure out that talented members of the Millennial Generation now entering the workplace will exhibit:

• A raised awareness of the need for the organizations they work for to have a higher purpose and to contribute meaningfully to environmental and social challenges on a much larger scale.
• Competence at managing big data and artificial intelligence technology (and therefore require unprecedented access).
• A need to balance high-tech with high touch (which always correlate) which includes praise and recognition.

The stakes are high. It is a brave new world.

Aldous Huxley imagined in Brave New World a society where the state manufactures different human classes, each designed to perform specific roles in a re-engineered society, in a fast-paced world of the future.⁵ Talent to order.

Two James Patterson novels tap into the possibilities of biotechnology and tell a story about unethical outlaw MIT scientists who genetically engineer six winged bird-children. They have massive depth of chest, large hearts, air sacs, wings, and the females are oviparous (give birth by laying eggs).⁶

Moving from fiction to fact, the seeds of the eugenic idea (coined by Francis Galton, Darwin’s cousin, in 1885 in Hereditary Talent and Character) was about using hereditary strengths to build a superior race. “If a twentieth part of the cost and pains were spent on measures for the improvement of the human race that is spent on the improvement of the breed of horses and cattle, what a galaxy of genius might we not create!”.⁷  (As we know, this notion was adopted by Hitler – to the extent of baby factories where men inseminated women all chosen for their Aryan features. The babies were then left to be brought up by the STATE as perfect specimens).

In the absence of a eugenic magic wand, organizations need to find ways to engineer their talent requirements. Office bookshelves groan under the weight of a spate of talent management tomes – how you structure, design work space, develop policies and processes … and on line search results show tens of thousands of hits on the subject. We will limit ourselves to two strategy recommendations. They should be the springboard for everything else that you do during your hunt for talent.

Two Strategies for Attracting Employees Endowed With Special Abilities

1. Build a virtuous organization.⁸  A clear and meaningful higher purpose, supported by practiced virtues, will attract the right talent and offer an intrinsic motivational environment. (Where your people can find meaning, positive social connections, satisfaction in and at work, and a chance of (or experience of) success – an employee value proposition of note).⁹  Talent will come looking for you!

McKinsey & Company research with top executives to answer ‘What motivates talent?’ has shown that the number one factor denoting a great company is values and culture (58%) and the top factor denoting top jobs is freedom and autonomy (56%).³

This is not a new discovery. Chris Lowney (a former Jesuit and then a J.P.Morgan top executive)   records the phenomenal attraction, exploits and growth of the Jesuits – founded on the four core values of mindful self – awareness, resilience and agility, love, and courage in pursuit of a higher purpose.¹⁰

2. Without underplaying critically needed technical competencies, focus your recruitment, selection and people-development activities (externally and internally) on desired character virtues – the below-the surface components of the competency iceberg:¹¹

Skills, knowledge and experience can be trained. Desired virtues (essentially the conversion of values into consistent behaviours), if absent, cannot be compensated for by any amount of skill and knowledge. So look first for what lies beneath the surface – the deeper competencies. These are the people who will make the difference. Their behaviour and ethics are internally guided by the right values, motives, attitudes, and character traits. They have the potential to be future leaders we need. Give them wings to fly within the organisation and allow them to flock together.

Easier said than done perhaps – our own (and HR) prejudices, priming, cognition frameworks, paradigms, filters sometimes stand in the way of making the right selection, because we unconsciously look for those like ourselves, who fit our mold. This challenge becomes more acute in an ever more diverse world. ‘Appearances can deceive.’ Witness the first reactions when Susan Boyle auditioned on Britain’s Got Talent. But the cynical judges and audience were immediately won over the instant this slightly frumpy, approaching-50, socially awkward, rural Scottish lady who was affected by being starved of oxygen at birth, began performing. Within a week following her performance, over 20 million ‘hits’ were registered on YouTube!¹²

References

1. Williams, Graham & Haarhoff, Dorian The Halo and the Noose: the power of storytelling and story listening in business life Graysonian Press 2009
2. Black, Stewart Prof. The fall of employer and the rise of employee power June, 2013
3. Chambers, Elizabeth G; Foulon, Mark; Handfield-Jones, Helen; Hankin, Steven M & Michaels, Edward G. III The War for Talent McKinsey Quarterly, no. 3 1998
4. Shlomo, Ben-Hur, Prof. & Kinley, Nik Creating Talent Intelligence; citing Axelrod, E.L., Handfield-Jones, H., & Welsh, T. (2001). The War for Talent, Part Two. The McKinsey Quarterly 2, 9-11. Huselid, M.A (1995). The Impact of Human Resource Management Practices on Turnover, Productivity, and Corporate Financial Performance. Academy of Management Journal. 38(3), 635-872. Combs, J., Liu, Y., Hall, A. & Ketchen, D. (2006). How Much Do High-Performance Work Practices Matter? A Meta-Analysis of Their Effects on Organizational Performance. Personnel Psychology. 59, 501-528.
5. Huxley, Aldous Brave New World Harper Collins 1946
6. Patterson James When the Wind Blows & The Safe House Headline Book Publishing 2003
7. Fernández-Armesto, Felipe Good Breeding: the idea of eugenics in Ideas that Changed the World  Dorling Kindersley Limited  2003
8. Williams, Graham; Haarhoff, Dorian & Fox, Peter The Virtuosa Organisation: the importance of virtues for a successful business Knowledge Resources 2015
9. McGonigal, Jane Reality is Broken Jonathan Cape, London 2011
10. Lowney, Chris Heroic Leadership; best practices from a 450-year-old company that changed the world Loyola Press, A Jesuit Ministry Chicago 2003 http://www.chrislowney.com
11. Derived from: Spencer,Lyle M. Jr. & Spencer, Signe M. Competence At Work: Models For Superior Performance John Wiley & Sons Inc., New York, 1993
12. Montgomery, Alice Susan Boyle: dreams can come true Penguin Books 2010

This is the third in a series of blogs about virtuous organizations — businesses where employees model the highest aspirations of human kind. In this series, authors Graham Williams and Gerald Wagner draw on examples and insights from around the world — Brazil, USA, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand, and Turkey. Readers may be pleasantly surprised by how many virtuous companies already exist! The series addresses what makes these virtuous organizations tick and what practices they have in common, telling compelling stories about the power of positivity. While everyone is likely to enjoy these case studies, organizational leaders in a position to affect culture change are likely to benefit most.

Our Need to Measure

We are measuring beings. We measure the temperature of our bath water, the time of our next meeting, the speed at which we’re traveling, how angry we’re feeling, how long we’ve been kept waiting, how old someone might be … we’re seeing the introduction of smart tennis rackets and golf clubs … and the advent of ‘big data’ will see measurement design and practice go to new heights (or lows).

A focus on measures creates for many an illusion of orderliness, precision, certainty, predictability, objectivity and control.

However, quantitative data can be shallow and misleading, especially when applied to people, and if we measure in the wrong way, measure the wrong things, and fail to recognise that there are some things we cannot measure. (Quality management guru W. Edwards Deming is reputed to have stated that 97% of what matters in business cannot be counted. And often attributed to Einstein: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts”).

Measuring the Virtuous Organization

Different measurement conventions usually result when a new approach is taken. An extreme example (not simply an urban legend) that illustrates the point: Zappos’ attention to the virtue of building customer relationships and outstanding service focus allows them to discard typical contact centre measures based on quantitative ‘efficiency’. Instead, one of their customer service representatives had a ten and a half hour call. David Hutchens reports, “The customer called to order a pair of Ugg boots, but in the conversation the service rep discovered that the customer was about to relocate to the Las Vegas area, where Zappos is located. They spent 10 hours exploring neighborhoods and other details of life in Vegas. At the end of the call, the customer purchased the pair of Ugg boots”).¹

In 1998, Thai Professor Prawase Wasi advocated that countries take a more balanced approach to measurement, and instead of michadhitti (an inappropriate, narrow view – such as GDP) used a different paradigm, sammadhitti (a wiser approach taking account of the community, the environment, individual well-being).²  

Here is a framework for measuring the virtuous organization. A suggested new Balanced Scorecard founded on a sammadhitti view:

Workplace Humanization

Workplaces are free of all fear and dysfunction, within departments and between silos. Desired behaviour is spontaneous with no need for heavy compliance mechanisms. Business systems, processes and technology take account of the human factor (whole person) as well as of wider society and the environment.

Employee Maturity

Leader and employee behaviour is positively modified, and satisfaction, meaning and social connection (intrinsic motivation) thrives. Diversity of talent is fully harnessed. Upsizing takes place when needed – allowing more to work (albeit shorter hours), and from home. Fears (of disapproval, vulnerability, isolation, criticism, career blocks and a host of other associated protective mechanisms) are replaced by love. Authenticity and engagement is high. Ethical behaviours result, not from rules, but from spiritual maturity.

Public Impact

The public measures not only their own level of ‘customer satisfaction’ but also how they view the organisation’s impacts in terms of alleviating poverty, caring for the environment, making constructive investments, and standing up against abuses and  corruption.

Contribution

The organisation drastically improves its job-creation/concrete assets to financial assets ratio; puts money to better use. Adopts a sustainable profit-feathering rather than profit-maximisation paradigm. Aligns executive pay more equitably with worker pay. Are measured on their triple-bottom-line achievements.

Virtues

Where it all starts, at the heart of the business. The business is purpose-driven and consistently lives the virtues that support its purpose.

Sounds True is one of the first organisations in the world to work with four bottom-lines: Purpose, People, Planet and Profit.³

Virtuous Organizations in Practice

Judge for yourself how these organisations would score on our suggested balanced scorecard:

BUURTZORG, Netherlands⁴

Around the world, health care is moving from cost-based to patient-based or values-based. A forerunner, Buurtzorg (meaning neighborhood care) have achieved this in a novel way. Their model is:

• Distributed authority (self-managing ‘networks’ suitable for complex systems, and engaging with the emerging future) which is akin to holacracy⁵ and to positive deviance (a localised innovate and spread methodology)⁶
• Wholeness (a non-ego, soulful organisation for the whole person)
• Evolutionary Purpose (values-driven, transcendent purpose)

In the 1980s in the Netherlands, a bureaucratic system was introduced to control the activities of home care nurses, using a centralised contact centre, using standardised times for the procedures applied for the elderly patients, tight controls and scheduling. The focus was totally on process efficiency. Jos de Block, a former nurse, established Buurtzorg in 2007 with 10 nurses. It grew to 8000 by 2014 (a Head Office of 25) and the nurses do not have supervisors. They self-manage … and they have 80% of the market! The focus is on caring, helping people to live independent, meaningful lives (patients and nurses), not being time-constrained nor scheduled and monitored, but free to build quality relationships. “A financial study showed that Buurtzorg uses only 40% of care hours prescribed by doctors, so they save money for the Dutch state that finances health care with public money.” Buurtzorg Plus, organised by the nurses, was a natural extension – nurses work with physiotherapists teaching the elderly how to move around safely, and change that physical environment to improve safety. This too represents huge savings for the health system.

SEMCO, Brazil⁷

Way back in the 1980s, Ricardo Semler inherited an ailing family business. He said: “One of my first acts at SEMCO was to throw out all the rules” and policies – instead they changed to a place of absolute trust. Democracy is the watchword. There are no receptionists, far fewer managers (he took out 9 hierarchical layers), no dress code, workers set their own salaries, vacation time is mandatory, distributed authority applies. Factory workers set their working times, help drive product design, help design marketing plans, look after their own quality control.  EVERYONE learns about balance sheets and cash flows and has a vote in all big decisions – such as acquisitions, relocations, how profit-sharing happens. EVERYONE is in an open plan environment and may work from home.

Semler’s approach had clear similarities to a self-governing, holacracy system – distributed authority in peer circles, where workers set the rules. And to the positive deviance approach – local is good, solution focused, finding and leveraging the home-grown positive deviance by spreading the solution via the community (again, a self-governing, distributed authority.

SEMCO revenues grew from $35 million to $160 million in a six year period (1994 to 2001). They continue to grow. And with virtually no staff turnover.

Chapter 1 of Semler’s The Seven-Day Weekend begins with an exhortation to⁸:

• “Ask why,
• Give up control,
• Change the way work works,”

and to leave behind what he refers to as a boarding school mentality. Employees are actively encouraged to find balance in their lives, to work to flexible schedules that suit them. There are no permanent offices. If they wish to answer emails on a Sunday and go to movies with the family on Monday afternoon, that’s fine.

Employees generate the ideas, execute them, look after the business, and protect their personal lives in the process. Semler: “I’m not required to pen some lofty set of values that any idiot can write. Shared values are those that evolve naturally over the years until one day you realize you’re living by them.”  Trust, transparency, honesty, and a culture of sharing allowed for the giving up of traditional control.

NAMASTE SOLAR, Denver

Ten year old Namasté Solar is an employee owned cooperative based in Colorado. Namasté Solar designs, installs, and maintains solar electric systems. Their mission is to propagate the responsible use of solar energy, pioneer conscientious business practices, and create “holistic wealth” for the company’s team and the community at large. Their unique model has attracted an amazing team of over 120 employees.

“Holistic wealth” means emphasizing the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts. This concept benefits all stakeholders equitably – customers, employees, investors, communities and the environment. This multi-stakeholder approach is one of the characteristics that allowed Namasté Solar to become a certified B-Corp, a prestigious certification given to companies with a deeper purpose that includes benefiting society and the environment, not just maximizing financial returns.⁹

Namasté Solar has grown very rapidly while still making a healthy profit every year for the past 10 years (except its start-up year) while also giving 10% of those annual profits back to the community including the Namasté Solar Foundation.¹⁰

As a democratic workplace, Namasté Solar practices “extreme transparency” whereby all company information (including salaries) and meetings are open to all Candidates and Co-Owners. Ultimately, with an employee-owned cooperative culture, extreme transparency, and democratic workplace practices, Namasté Solar creates higher retention, better quality work, better customer service, and a track record of tapping into a collective brain trust to find better solutions to inevitable small business challenges.¹¹

If more organizations embodied virtuous elements, what impact would it have on communities as a whole? We welcome your thoughts on social media. Thank you. 

References

1. Hutchens, David Circle of the 9 Muses: a storytelling field guide for inovators and meaning makers Wiley  2015
2. Wasi, Prawase Prof Bangkok Post 14^th January, 1998
3. http://www.soundstrue.com
4. Laloux, Frederic Reinventing Organisations: a guide to creating organizations inspired by the next stage of human consciousness   Nelson Parker  2014
5. www.holacracy.org
6. Pascale, Richard; Sternin, Jerry & Sternin, Monique The Power of Positive Deviance Harvard Business Press Boston2010
7. Semler, Ricardo Maverick: the success story behind the world’s most unusual workplace Warner Books, Inc. 1995
8. Semler, Ricardo The Seven-day Weekend: changing the way work works Penguin Books 2004
9. B-Corp http://bcorporation.net/
10. Namaste Solar Foundation http://namastesolarfoundation.org/
11. Institute for Inspired Organizational Cultures http://inspiredorganizationalcultures.org/

This is the second in a series of blogs about virtuous organizations — businesses where employees model the highest aspirations of human kind. In this series, authors Graham Williams and Gerald Wagner draw on examples and insights from around the world — Brazil, USA, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand, and Turkey. Readers may be pleasantly surprised by how many virtuous companies already exist! The series addresses what makes these virtuous organizations tick and what practices they have in common, telling compelling stories about the power of positivity. While everyone is likely to enjoy these case studies, organizational leaders in a position to affect culture change are likely to benefit most.

To give a virtuoso organizational performance we have to move away from a command and control culture.

This story appears in The Virtuosa Organization¹:

A few weeks ago I attended the last ever South African performance by Australian concert pianist David Helfgott, in the Cape Town City Hall. Prior to the event I re-watched the DVD of the movie Shine, a fictionalised account of his life. Born of Polish-Jewish parents, Helfgott is schizoaffective – he has lifelong mood and thought disorders.

His music is sometimes criticised by aficionados. And maybe at this performance it was not technically perfect. If not, there was certainly beauty in its imperfection. Wabi Sabi.

The concert was an emotional experience, his connection with the audience palpable. He was given a standing ovation, and there were three encores. It seemed to me that his mental condition, life story and performance all merged to become a virtuoso event.

The movie title is apt. This is a story of the triumph of the human spirit. I was inspired to believe that whatever our own history, flaws, existing levels of competence – individual or corporate – virtuoso performances are possible.

As you will find in this series of blogs, many organizations are giving virtuoso performances.

A self-interest, profit maximization pursuit goes hand in hand with a command and control culture. This culture, a carry-over from the factory, mass-production, machine era, is more prevalent than most realize.  We still have line managers!

Many are locked into these old ways of thinking about the organization’s purpose, structure, culture and way of operating.  A move away from a command and control paradigm means embracing freedom, developing whole person employees, being positive, and authentically embracing corporate citizenship.

Consider that our computer and mobile phone keyboards generally utilize a (QWERTY) layout designed over 125 years ago, made deliberately inefficient in order to slow down typing speed and prevent the typing mechanism from jamming!²

Similarly bicycle drive chains were ignored for more than 100 years even though drive-chain technology was used in factories that assembled the bicycles. And flashing indicator technology existed for more than 50 years before someone thought to use it on motor cars. Maybe the sheer pace and magnitude of the many changes we face today causes some to ‘lock-in’ more of what they’re comfortable with?  Still others cannot perceive a different reality and remain trapped in their own limited thinking and behaviours, – like Plato’s Cave, a situation where we are shackled and face the back wall of the cave, and are able to see only the shadows of the fire that blazes outside, but not the fire itself. We have an illusion, a limited internal reality. Morgan refers to this using the metaphor of a “psychic prison”.³

We can learn from GROUND FLOOR MEDIA, Denver⁴

Denver’s GroundFloor Media (GFM) specializes in public relations, social media strategy & engagement, digital & creative services, and crisis management.

GFM ranks in the top five out of 100 companies in the United States that OUTSIDE recognizes for helping their employees strike the ideal balance between work and play. These companies encourage employees to lead an active lifestyle, are eco-conscious and prioritize giving back to the community.

The company enjoys a unique culture based on leaders treating team members more like friends than people on the payroll, and this commitment to employees has resulted in an attrition rate of two percent annually.  They have no set “office hours”.

GFM’s remarkable culture is the result of their core values, beliefs and shared experiences. They are a team where people believe the best IN one another (in other words, they have a very high level of trust). They also want the best FOR one another (team members know they have one another’s best interests at heart so collectively they perform at a higher level). Most importantly, they expect the best FROM one another.

GFM believes that one of the cornerstones of a strong culture is the ability to celebrate both success and failure. The team has an annual Ground Hog Day “holiday” celebration over Ground Hog Day— a getaway for employees and significant others at various cool locations, most recently at Denver’s Union Station, complete with a cocktail reception, dinner and overnight accommodations. They even flew everyone to Las Vegas to celebrate the company’s 10^th anniversary.

The company has Outward Bound Professional team-building days including high ropes course, rock-climbing and an eco-challenge course featuring river crossings, rock-climbing and rappelling with an overnight stay in a luxurious mountain home and a catered dinner by a personal chef; surprise “free/fun” days out of the office including a Rockies day game, spa day, a trip to a casino via a stretch limo, and a “choose your own adventure” day where GFM paid for everyone to go enjoy their favorite activities in downtown Denver; and a Beer Club – the company’s graphic designer is also a home brewer, and hosts regular “GFM Beer Club” sessions in which he teaches team members about different styles of beer.

GFM donates nearly 15 percent of annual revenues back to the community.  The company also has The Get Grounded Foundation. a new 501(c)3 that provides one-year community grants for nonprofits that directly support the healthy development of at-risk or neglected youth between the ages of 3 and 13.

We can learn from PAEWAI MULLINS SHEARING, New Zealand⁵

A sheep shearing business run by Mavis and Koro Mullins’ in Dannevirke near Palmerston North, New Zealand, have 40 permanent and about 100 part time staff who in season come from as far afield as Norway and Wales. It’s a highly competitive, tough business. Hazards are sheep illness, worker injuries and fatigue.

Customer relationships and delivery are critical. They have won numerous awards for the way their business is run – community building through (Maori) values:

• Whanaungatanga = family belonging
• Manaakitanga = inclusion and equal importance
• Matauranga = encouragement of ongoing learning
• Tino rangatirotanga = self- responsibility/ self-determination

A Recap: Some characteristics of virtuous organizations.

1. They are not driven by profit maximization but have a clear higher purpose.
   Virtuous organizations know where they’re going, walk to their own beat, and attract custom and talent. Southwest Airlines purpose for example is “We exist to connect people to what’s important in their lives”.⁶
   Without such a purpose it’s akin to going to the railway ticket office and asking for a ticket. When the attendant asks “Where to?” it would be silly to answer, “I don’t know”. Yet every day we meet CEOs who cannot simply describe their organisation’s purpose, why they exist, beyond what they do, hope to achieve, and perhaps how.
   We strongly encourage businesses to name and claim their noble purpose. One that transcends profit, is meaningful, may be more of a journey than a cause.

2. Virtuous organizations have a distinct character (Culture).
   They have identified their own specific core virtues and these set their operating practices apart. They do share in common and demonstrate the virtues of love (Kahlil Gibran – “Work is love made visible”⁷), a spiritual dimension, a raised awareness of their interconnectedness with all things, and a passion for growing the ‘whole person’.

3. Virtuous organizations are served by unwavering leadership.
   “If a set of agreed-upon values, as is so often found in business, is not anchored in the hearts and minds and behaviours of individuals, they will remain superficial, surface phenomena. Virtues in contrast and by their very nature, are embedded in the people within whom they manifest”.⁸
   Leaders show courage and authenticity in steering their organizations to identifying, embedding and living their distinct core virtues. In the process their organizations become more agile, resilient, humanistic, and profitable.

What are examples of virtuous organizations in your region or country? We invite your suggestions and comments below, thank you. 

References

1. Williams, Graham; Haarhoff, Dorian and Fox, Peter The Virtuosa Organisation: the Importance of virtues for a Successful Business  Knowledge Resources  2015

2. Waldrop, M. Mitchell Complexity: the emerging science at the edge of order and chaos Simon & Schuster Paperbacks NY 1992

3. Morgan, Gareth Images of Organisation Sage Publications 1986

4. Inspired Organizational Cultures,  inspiredorganizationalcultures.org

5. Bateman, Peter Living Their Values SafeGuard Magazine. NZ. May/June 2008

6. SouthWest Airlines Purpose: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGxMf88I5g4

7. Gibran, Kahlil The Prophet Martino Fine Books 2011

8. Smit, Arnold Virtuous Talent for A Sustainable Future in Human Capital Trends: Building a Sustainable Organisation ed: Italia Boninelli & Terry Meyer Knowledge Resources 2011

This is the first in a series of blogs about virtuous organizations — businesses where employees model the highest aspirations of human kind. In this series, authors Graham Williams and Gerald Wagner draw on examples and insights from around the world — Brazil, USA, India, Netherlands, New Zealand, Pakistan, Thailand, and Turkey. Readers may be pleasantly surprised by how many virtuous companies already exist! The series addresses what makes these virtuous organizations tick and what practices they have in common, telling compelling stories about the power of positivity. While everyone is likely to enjoy these case studies, organizational leaders in a position to affect culture change are likely to benefit most.

Where in the World Are We?

The world is in crisis on many levels – environmentally, spiritually, politically, socially, and economically.  The negative impact of human activity on the globe has been well documented:

It is time to act, and the business world is well positioned to make a positive difference. By adopting a triple-bottom-line (people/planet/profit) approach, we can impact the environment, society, and our respective communities.

Walmart CEO Doug McMillon and SVP of sustainability Kathleen McLaughlin, speak of converging paths and interlinked destinies in a recent McKinsey blog article: “Increasingly, a basic expectation among customers, governments, and communities will be that the companies they do business with provide a significant net positive return for society at large, not just for investors. This will be a part of the implicit contract or license to operate”.¹ 

How is business responding?

We observe three levels of response to the concept of positive action:

LEVEL 1 – Self-interested business as usual (other than reluctant, forced compliance with legislation and social pressure).  After taking steps to comply, many of these organizations then embrace “cause marketing,” largely in order to promote themselves. In South Africa Kaelo Stories of Hope is a platform for organizations to showcase their Corporate Social Investment interventions. It’s certainly good to spread inspiring stories, but the Kaelo website also becomes a forum for “cause marketing.”² In India, a recently new business tax mandates that for businesses of a certain size, 2% of net profit must go to Corporate Social Responsibility. (One-stop CSR solution providers enable businesses to outsource their CSR as a non-core activity, which somewhat defeats the objective).³

LEVEL 2 – Organizations that embrace ‘do good and do well’ thinking and sustainability strategies beyond compliance — provided that their profitability benefits. Motive then becomes questionable, and customer/ citizens will see through this in the longer run.

LEVEL 3 – Virtuous Organizations. These companies operate authentically from the basis of purpose, supported by character virtues entrenched in their culture. “In virtuous organizations, employees collectively behave in ways that are consistent with the best of the human condition and the highest aspirations of human kind”. ⁴

The emergence of virtuous organizations around the world has fueled our belief that we are close to having crossed the chasm as described in the landmark book by Geoffrey A. Moore in 1991.  Moore’s graphic shows that new ideas are appealing to innovators and early adopters – those who will try most anything that is or seems to be new.  But then a chasm appears that can be hard to cross in order to reach a larger audience.  We believe that the growth in number of virtuous organizations has moved into the early majority territory.

A lotus flower emerges out of the pond’s murky depths, blooms, and seeds new beginnings. We feel the same way about these organizations as they emerge out of a flawed, corrupt system. They have transcended the desires said by Bertrand Russell to prompt all human activity: acquisitiveness, rivalry, vanity and love of power.⁵ They may not be perfect, and their virtues might lapse from time to time – we are all subject to human fallibility and frailty – but they do point to new possibilities.

BEREKET in Turkey⁶ is one such company.

An Anatolian Tiger textiles company with 120 employees, Bereket has demonstrated financial success for many years. Their operating model of benevolent leadership brings together four interlinked streams that are designed to serve the common good.

• Spiritual depth: meaning and purpose, love, peace and compassion; a non-compartmentalization of work life and family and social life; and ongoing inner work.
• Ethical sensitivity: recapturing the ethical sensitivity of the 13th century ahilik system rooted in Sufism (Rumi), including decision-making based on morals.

  Keep your hand open (generosity, benevolence, and charity)
  Keep your dining-table open (sharing, hospitality, and generosity)
  Keep your door open (helping, altruism, and benevolence)
  Keep your eyes tied (focus on spirituality and the hereafter instead of materialism)
  Control your waist (decency, morality, and self – restraint)
  Hold your tongue (dignity, silence, and wisdom)

• Positive engagement: inspiring hope, caring and fostering courage for positive engagement and action; appreciative inquiry practice; and using a strengths-based, affirming, positive approach.
• Community responsiveness: leaving a positive, wholehearted, vulnerable, compassionate and giving impact on the larger community; tackling social problems related to education, employment, ecology, civil rights, arts: and ensuring sustainability.
• Balancing: seeking balance in all things. Using spiritual depth as an example, if it’s too low, then there will be barren-ness, apathy. However, if too high, the importance of business results are ignored and the organization underperforms.

In addition to free dinners throughout the month of Ramadan, Bereket provides its employees (who come from diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds) with “complimentary breakfasts and lunches, free tickets for cultural events and concerts, a library, and a café where employees can meet, relax, have fun, and spend time together. More importantly, Bereket supports all educational and developmental needs of its employees so that they can pursue learning based on their passions. Such spaces and opportunities foster positive attitudes in employees, enhance their well-being and belonging, and stimulate their creativity.

Employees take pride in working at Bereket; as expressed in the words of Hasan (aged 35): ‘This company is my family, my community. I intend to continue contributing to this community until I die. And I want to die among these friends. I would decline a promotion elsewhere. I just want to stay here and contribute’”.

In our series of blogs we will look at characteristics of several virtuous organizations. In the meantime, we leave you with two thoughts:

The miser visits a rabbi to complain how miserable he is. The rabbi takes him by the shoulders and places him in front of a mirror.

“I see myself,” mutters the miser.

“The difference,” says the rabbi, “is the silver on the mirror”. 

Remember that: “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” – Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

What are your thoughts about virtuous organizations? Have you considered virtuous elements to include in your organization or community? Please join the conversation by sharing your thoughts and comments on social media. Thank you. 

References

1. McMillon, Doug & McLaughlin, Kathleen Business and Society in the Coming Decades McKinsey & Company, Insights and Publications April 2015

2. Kaelo Stories of Hope

3. India Redefined

4. Horn, Amanda Virtuous Organizations August 2012

5. Russell, Bertrand Acceptance Speech, Nobel Prize for Literature 1950 What Desires Are Politically Important?

6. Karakas, Fahri & Sarigollu, Emine The Role of Leadership in Creating Virtuous and Compassionate Organizations: Narratives of Benevolent Leadership in an Anatolian Tiger Journal of Business Ethics 113:663–678 2013

Because of what I do, I read countless articles on the topics of wellbeing, happiness, engagement, and other buzzwords, all of which have exploded in popularity in recent years. Most of these articles are highly repetitive, and I cringe when I see yet another on “The 5 Ways to _______” or another about the “Best Place to Work”.  Many of these pieces are missing the point, and fail to actually identify the meaningful aspects of a positive workplace, i.e., people relationships.

Good News

The good news is that there is a growth in the publication of substantial, science-based books and articles covering topics of people relationships for employees to be happy, healthy, and productive.  That includes new books like “The Power of Thanks”, “Dignity”, and “Type B Manager”.  A new Forbes blog article: “Employee Recognition:  Cost-Free to Provide, Costly to Neglect”, was completely on target.

Humanistic Priorities

On this same topic, it’s also time for a shift in determining how to recognize the best workplaces.  Along with (or instead of) today’s “Best Places to Work” lists, what about ranking the “Great People to Work With”?  That thought led me to consider what humanistic values would be associated with a survey to gather data about these principles in workplaces. Here they are:

• Kindness – compassion, gentle, kind-heart, helpful.
• Praise – applaud, compliment, honor, celebrate, commend.
• Thanks – taking time to appreciate, recognize, acknowledge, gratitude.
• Withhold judgment – listen and hold back on hasty decisions, conclusions, and opinions.
• Reflective – deliberate.
• Fairness – giving everyone a fair chance.
• Empathy– understanding, compassion, thoughts and feeling of another.
• Forgiveness – giving people a second chance, not holding grudge, stop being angry or resentful.
• Dignity – seeing value in others.
• Integrity – honest, truthful, reliable, sincere.
• Charity – giving, bountiful, community, acts of good will.
• Contentment – serene, happy.
• Hope – expecting the best and working to achieve it.
• Humor – bringing smiles to other people’s faces, playfulness.

Time and Practice

When put into practice, these ideas can have amazing personal and workplace benefits with little if any financial costs.  However it takes personal and company investment of time to learn and practice these principles.  These principles are not second nature for most people, but they can be eventually; it takes education, time, and intent.  It requires practice, practice, practice.  In the long term, this will free up far more time than they require.

Character Strengths

For those familiar with the work of Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman’s “Character Strengths and Virtues”, you’ll notice some similarities.  I wasn’t aware of the parallels until my friend Lee Elliott pointed it out after viewing my list, above. The authors identify six classes of virtue (i.e., “core virtues”) made up of twenty-four measurable “character strengths”. Their work and survey, however, is designed for individuals versus fellow employees.

Purpose

So what’s for the purpose of this piece?  When thinking about ways to improve employee happiness, productivity and wellbeing, it’s crucial to embed the people relationship principles into the minds and practices of every employee.  It requires little to no financial investment, a lot of self-motivated education, and reaps a huge payoff.  Perhaps someday soon there’ll be awards for “Great People to Work With”.

What would your workplace look like if it embodied the humanistic values mentioned above? How would it feel if these principles were upheld? I would enjoy knowing your thoughts on social media. Thank you!