Conscious Culture

By Genevieve Georget and Lizzie Vance of Round Table Companies 

Reck·on·ing

ˈrek(ə)niNG/

noun: reckoning

1. The moment that led Bethany Andell—President of Savage Brands—to trade in financial security for vitality.

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It’s one thing to be changed in this life. Metamorphosis takes courage and vulnerability and a willingness to break yourself wide open. But the unfolding doesn’t end when you put down the chisel. Something more is required to convert that personal willingness into an organizational cyclone of transformation. That something more is a reckoning.

Bethany Andell knew she was in the claws of a reckoning when the ground shifted beneath her feet. Her business was grabbed by the neck and shaken, the foundation splintering.

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By Geoff Campbell and Aleksandra Corwin of Round Table Companies

“Chief executive officers represent a single point of failure,” says Brian Robertson, a self-described “recovering CEO.”

“Gary Hamel famously said that if you ‘give someone monarchlike authority… sooner or later there will be a royal screwup,’” he shares.

Robertson is founder of HolacracyOne, whose Holacracy framework decentralizes leadership to bring more consciousness to business. “The most effective way to achieve conscious leadership is to get everyone in the whole system thinking like a CEO.”

At first blush, Holacracy often freaks people out because it lends itself to two common misconceptions. First, many assume it means no structure, and second, they assume that all decisions are made by consensus.

“People either worry it requires everyone to lead everything, or that no one leads anything, but the key is to get everyone taking full leadership of the particular area that is their purview,” Robertson said. “It doesn’t mean everyone manages everything,” he said. “That doesn’t scale and it doesn’t work.”

Robertson once heard a Starbucks executive note that the person responsible for cleaning the floors should be able to choose his or her mop—which is exactly what Holacracy promotes.

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By Geoff Campbell of Round Table Companies

A Note from the Editor: We hear a lot of talk about a winning stakeholder model, while we are also aware that in practice, executing this tenet of Conscious Capitalism requires intention and action. After you’ve read the article, let us know your recent insights into exploring your own stakeholder map.

Do you want your piece of the pie or do you want to grow the pie?

All businesspeople should know themselves well enough to answer this fundamental question about what is more important to them. Growing the pie is a familiar concept to anyone who has studied economics and capitalism. Through stakeholder mapping, Conscious Capitalism International and its partners, like the Stagen Leadership Academy, are teaching business owners around the world how to expand the pie—because a larger pie simply feeds more people.

Many experienced CEOs who run huge organizations still don’t “get” the idea. What is a stakeholder exactly? Most people are familiar with shareholders, those who own stock in a company. But stakeholders are a wider array of anyone vested in the long-term success of a business. “Growing the pie” only happens when businesses value all stakeholders, not just shareholders.

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Transforming the world with lessons from “IBM-ville” to India

Conversations with Dev Patnaik bounce from philosophy to politics to theories of leadership. He’s a father of two, an adviser to the Fortune 500, an author, a professor at Stanford University and the chief executive officer of Jump Associates. Jump is an innovation consultancy, although Patnaik shies away from the label.

“To this day I won’t say I’m a consultant,” he says. “What I am is a teacher.” And teach he does—no talk with Dev (pronounced “Dave”) is complete without a few lessons learned. But this businessman has taken Conscious Capitalism to heart. He unites his lessons with a singular purpose:  He helps people discover their own greatness.

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Improving Trust in the Entire Stakeholder Chain

By Geoff Campbell and Aleksandra Corwin of Round Table Companies

He was working for a leading defense contractor who was having difficulty attracting information technology talent. So, he developed a business model for a proposed subsidiary he thought could solve the problem, while acting as an internal consultancy for the company.

The plan made it all the way to the top levels of the company. But then came the response: tell the software weenies to get back to work.

“They said this about employees critical to their success,” Curtis Hite recalled. He was learning firsthand the danger of ignoring the principles of Conscious Capitalism—and he proved himself an attentive student.

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Leadership with a Long-Term View:

How getting to the top requires taking a few steps back

By Agata Antonow and Aleksandra Corwin of Round Table Companies

The first time Brandi Beakley met Steve Hall, owner of driversselect, she was attending an event for conscious businesses with her then-employer. Hall stood out from the crowd in his “Be Transparent” shirt. In a sea of businesses concerned with social justice and the environment, his sector also made an impression.

“I found out he ran a car dealership, and I thought, ‘Who is this guy to wear a Be Transparent shirt?’” she explains. “Within a year, I had switched companies to work for him.”

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