A Celebration of Conscious Leadership

In the spirit of being a Conscious Company, we at AuthorsGlobe believe in giving back and investing “Time, Talent and Treasure” in social educational ventures. AuthorsGlobe currently supports More Than Words, an award-winning non-profit organization that empowers at-risk youths by letting them run a bookstore and on-line business.

Wednesday, 3/24, was a special day. Together, we kicked off our first in-person “Conversations on the Edge” series at More Than Words (MTW) in Waltham, MA. Our featured speaker was Dr.  Raj Sisodia on Conscious Leadership: How Businesses Profit from Passion & Purpose.

60+ “conscious” leaders and professionals attended the event. It was great to see the wonderful connections that were made. 300 books were donated, providing a potential revenue of $1,200; store/cafe sale was extra bonus. The youths and staff at MTW were “thrilled by the turnouts…so many people who support conscious businesses… and of course, bringing so many books to donate. We live, breathe everyday the Conscious Business model. It’s embedded in our values of social purpose and mission. ”

Inspiration from the Youths at More Than Words

The youths that run the bookstore were also the organizers of the event. Vince was great as the host, making us very welcomed and Ramon shared about the wonderful opportunity MTW is giving him and his peers to feel valued and hopeful.

Valued with responsibility of running the online and retail bookselling business and café. Hopeful and confident by learning life skills (e.g. open bank account, find housing) and gaining exposure to new opportunities (e.g. site visits to colleges & other businesses) for pursuing education and future employment.

Conscious Leaders, Conscious Businesses = A Capitalism We Can Be Proud Of

Dr.  Raj Sisodia, our speaker, is the Professor of Marketing at Bentley University and Chairman of the Conscious Capitalism Institute . His book Firms of Endearment was named by Amazon.com and others as one of the 10 best business books of 2007.  Some wonderful feedback from our audience included “Raj was thoroughly interesting, engaging and inspiring” and ” I’m really glad I attended; This lecture opened my mind to all the ways corporations are awakening to a wider view of purpose for humanity.”

Some key insights that Raj shared with us:

(1) Lack of Trust in Business: Surveys had shown that 80% of Americans believe business is too concerned about making a profit and not enough about responsibilities to workers, consumers, and the environment.  Only 2% of investors believe that CEOs are “very trustworthy”; 72% believe that wrongdoing is commonplace at companies. There is unanimous agreement on the need for new values and a paradigm of success that is much more multi-dimensional, rather than being money-obsessed.

(2) Conscious Companies (CC) & Performance: CC by following their passion & purpose, engage more loyalty and a  sense of common cause with their stakeholders and seem far better able to withstand market downturns than their competitors. Investor analysis had indicated these Firms of Endearments had outperformed the S&P 500 by significant margins, over 10, 5 or 3 year time horizons. E.g. over 10 years, more than 9:1 ratio.

(3) Holistic Approach: CC management requires holistic thinking. Stakeholders is not only about owners and investors anymore but must now extend to include employees, customers, suppliers, retailers and society (e.g. local communities, government). To be conscious means to be awake, mindful…. A conscious business fosters peace and happiness in the individual, respect and solidarity in the community, and mission accomplishment in the organization. (Fred Kofman, Conscious Business)

E.g. Whole Foods, the US organic food company, is based on a “Declaration of Interdependence”. It gives 93% of stock options to non-executive employees. By contrast most companies give about 75% of stock options to just the top 5 executives. This in turn creates an incentive for those executives to opt for short-term performance boosts even if that is detrimental to the company in the long run. Also, at Whole Foods, the highest salary cannot be more than 19 times that of the lowest level employee.

It is good to have companies like Pepsi-Cola recently join corporations like Google, Whole Foods, IKEA, Starbucks and Timberland with its Performance with Purpose campaign with 3 main aims: to increase the number and variety of healthy food choices for consumers, reduce the company’s environmental impact, and promote a diverse and inclusive workplace culture.

The Conscious Capitalist Way

We believe The Conscious Capitalist Way is not just for business owners and leaders.  It’s for everybody.  So, is The Conscious Capitalist Way your way?

I have shared AuthorsGlobe’s vision in a manifesto.  We’d love for you to share (in the Comment below) a way you plan to engage in Conscious Capitalism.