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Publications of Interest: Who We Could Be At
Work "As we grow larger and the marketplace more competitive,
it gets tougher to create a work environment that is
challenging rather than threatening. You and your book have
and will give us ammunition to fight this battle." Available from: Amazon.com Working As If Life
Mattered • Here for a Purpose '"My wife and I both work at stressful jobs. We have been
reading one quote a day together and asking questions as you
recom-mended. It has been uplifting and insightful and good
for the relationship." Available from: Margaret Lulic at mlulic@mm.com Transformation: An Economy with
a Higher Purpose: "I have read about some of these concepts independently
but your chapter is the first that I have seen that brings
all of this together in such a comprehensive and coherent
manner. It is a wonderful guide. I will be using many of
these concepts in a new enterprise I am anticipating." Available from Amazon.com
Sample Articles: Workplace Practices Transform
Society Conscious organizations seek the "Good Society" if they really understand their own self-interest. In this effort they transform and serve themselves as well as others. Good works are in their own best interest. There is great untapped power in our ever day practices at work. Even as you read this, your organization is filled with endeavors that are having or could have implications beyond what the surface appearance suggests. An organizational climate coupled with straight-forward practices that ask people and teams simultaneous to seek a higher good beyond the organization while getting their work done unleashes the creative energy that makes all the difference. For example, US companies annually spend billions of dollars on training and development. They report huge variation in the return on this investment. While there are many factors that influence this, the one that intrigues me the most comes from a true story. A vice president of manufacturing launched a quality training program. At the end of his formal speech, he made a side comment that came from his heart and values more than his head. He told people, "I hope you can find something in this training of personal value that you can use beyond our company walls." The training was extremely successful. When I interviewed employees about what made the difference, many commented on the vice president's remark. Over 60% reported they had practiced some of these skills (communication, operational definitions, empowerment) at home and that it improved their relationships with spouses and children. This built their skill and courage to use them at work. Many also reported using them in local politics, volunteer work and in the schools. One employee even reported training her husband as he launched a new business so he could train his employees. That's Leverage. Sound environmental practices provide another example of this. Reducing the use of harmful chemical substances in the workplace or recycling frequently end up saving the organization money, reducing health care costs, preventing environmental degradation and exciting employees. There are many opportunities for these types of single-action/multi-stakeholder benefits. Just as our practices have unrealized positive potential, we often have practices that have unrealized negative effects that we wouldn't consciously chose. An obvious one is the dilemmas of working parents. Most people are very concerned about the deteriorating results in education and the increasing violence, substance abuse, as well as teen pregnancy rate that plague our young people. We are concerned as caring adults and as potential employers. We haven't yet accepted that we are a significant part of the system that is creating these results. The hours people work, inflexibility in work schedules, and cultural messages that place a low priority on children have created a generation of children many of whom are not being parented as they need. Many children don't feel loved or valued enough and are despondent about the world they will inherit. Real flex hours and reduced work weeks would achieve many social and organizational goods. It has been said that "Nero played while Rome burned." Trying to improve the organization's competitive edge, while the larger community and environment around it is in dangerous decline is a modern equivalent. We need the health of the larger system or we won't last long despite excellent performance. We can optimize subsystems, i.e. individuals, functions and organizations, while harming the larger system. Many senior managers see this dilemma and invest personal time in community affairs, education, public policy and see that their donations and foundations try to do good work. Yet, there is larger leverage in the running of the organization if all employees were challenged to seek a higher order purpose, not with a new set of things-to-do, but with an integrative approach. In addition to the benefits already mentioned, this approach would address two other growing issues. Faith Popcorn, John Naisbett and other trend analysts see an increasing number of consumers who are making their buying, investment, and contribution decisions based on perceptions of an organization's efforts to act as described here. Some groups have tried to abuse this by convoluted "green marketing" claims but most who are sincere are rewarded by their marketplace. Just as there is no guarantee in life that the good get rewarded and the bad punished, there is no guarantee here. The odds are with you though. We get to chose. "How do you really want to live your life? What do you want to stand for?" A related trend appears in how people feel about their work. Increasingly people report they want their work to be meaningful and they'd like their workplace to be a contributor to the larger good, not a taker or destroyer. Since they spend a large part of their lives at work they want to know their lives matter. This shows up in the desire for more empowerment, ability to influence decisions, to be recognized and even rewarded for their contribution. At the heart of it is the human need to live a life that makes a difference. Giving people a vehicle like suggested here, helps them do what the organization needs, as well as fulfill their own needs and other stakeholders. The simplest, most direct way, to do this is as follows: 1) Make the decision to go for it. This can be done at any level of the organization, even the individual, so no excuses are allowed. There isn't any need for analysis. This is an act of faith and arises out of the leader's sense of personal and organizational life purpose. The fact that its incredibly practical, logical and wise stewardship doesn't hurt at all either. 2) Prepare a short, simple statement such as, "In every endeavor to which we give our time and attention, we will stop to ask if there is a way to meet our objective or transform it so that we simultaneously serve other stakeholder needs. We seek to find the highest order purpose available to us as we make decisions and invest resources." If you already have a vision or value statement you can synchronize these. 3) Tape a statement to this effect on every appropriate work station (even if it is just your own) and in all meeting areas. The real power in this is to introduce a new question and intention into the normal work flow. It is throwing a bit of chaos into a staid system. 4) Some organizations begin to realize not enough employees really know who all their stakeholders are let alone be able to describe their needs. This blind spot debilitates any type of organization. Post simple summaries of this information in appropriate places. 5) Model this every day. Provide food for thought by distributing occasional news clips from books or articles that illustrate how this can be done. Identify key people who just need a little support to also start modeling this orientation. 6) Honor breakthroughs that illustrate this consciousness level, no matter how small. 7) Be patient. Nurture the process and let it take root and grow in the most practical ways. Organization A had a healthy level of consciousness. They provided products that did good in the world. They operated in an ethical manner. They tried to be good to all stakeholders. But they had the typical list of strategic and operational initiatives -all separate, all demanding time, attention and resources and competing with each other. They included a customer service employee motivation initiative, a marketing effort to increase customer satisfaction, a separate one to increase market share, and cost reduction. I brought this systems consciousness to the table and the question, "How could you do one thing that has an effect on each of these objectives?" As a result, they created a whole new paradigm. Space doesn't allow a thorough explanation of the system interactions but suffice it to say that there was such a leverage point. This saved the company money, increased employee and customer satisfaction and market share and created a team learning experience and effort across five functional groups. The skills they needed to practice were: • Reflection verses
jump starting too fast Steven Covey suggests we need to "Sharpen our Saw," or renew our spiritual, intellectual, emotional and physical being. The approach suggested here intermingles this personal habit with our daily work habits. As people undertake this level of consciousness, it takes them inside themselves to ask probing questions as well as out to stakeholders. As David Gershon has said, "Many of the people I come in contact with are seeing their work or business as their teacher--the bottom line, if you will, for applying what they have learned in their spiritual practices--perhaps the most demanding guru of all. Work has become the new spiritual classroom." We have a chance to sharpen not only our own saw but the work group's saw and the organization's by adapting the direction recommended here. Innovation, renewal, insight, and cost savings accrue as people begin to start seeing how to act to influence a system rather than a component. The bit of chaos this inserts into the system has great potential to self-organize at a higher level of productivity, to re-create the organization and its work. This is what Life demands from us at this critical point in history. The total system of life has brought us to new heights of power, benefits and possible catastrophe. We need to celebrate the positive in that. We also need to own what isn't working. Then we are being called upon to transform the world or lose ourselves with it. The workplace has enormous power in our lives. With power goes responsibility whether we want it or not. It changes the agenda. James Madison's big fear for democracy and a free economic system was that we may not truly understand our own self-interest. Given the increased complexity of the world and the demand for quarterly returns of only a numerical kind, his fear is gaining more credence. It is harder to understand our best interest as an individual and organization when soul, mind and heart are separated into different compartments of life and when there is so little time for reflection and hopping off the train to see which one we are on and where it is going. We need a process to call us and our employees to a different consciousness and outcomes. We will reap many benefits in that process. Sculpting New Careers Many of my clients are searching for a greater sense of meaning and fulfillment in their work lives. In a quiet way, they are seeking to leave behind a legacy. Some come as individuals. More often companies realize that to solve organizational problems, they need to support the individual's search for meaning. In this search, we are like seeds. We grow and mature and eventually leave the mother plant. We settle down into the soil. (Translate that to - we have found a job and perhaps a partner.) One seed sees itself as a grown seed and lays there being a seed until it is eventually dried up by the elements. The other seed thinks, "Is this all there is? There must be something more meaningful." It perceives itself as just beginning the sculpting process of its life. It senses the need to dig deeper into itself and discovers that it is really an acorn. With this new image, it begins forming a new philosophy about itself and its relationship to its world. New deep roots begin to develop. Now the acorn knows it is on the journey to forming itself as an oak tree. This happens to individuals and organizations. We take on a larger journey and role in life. The second seed is on the right track. Few of us find lasting satisfaction in things that we do only for ourselves. Our human core calls out for a marriage of our gifts with a compelling need in the world. Unfortunately, most of the social and economic messages we receive lead us to forget, cover up, or disregard our core. Sculpting New Careers It's great if the organization supports this process. Even if the organization doesn't get involved or support the process, as individuals we can all write our own life and career descriptions in ways that don't require review by the human resources department. We are the authors and arbitrators of these because they are about who we are and how we bring our beingness to work. One client, who has "made it" by all general standards, didn't feel like he had made it at all. He had a great family, had achieved a fairly high level in the organization and the salary and perks that went with it. When cancer struck, though, it caused an awakening to the pain of his current lifestyle and the admission of all that felt severely lacking. He is deeply values and relationship oriented and felt compelled to begin speaking out about these things and why the work place needs to address them. He now sees himself as a preacher, both within his current job and in the broader community. As he repositioned himself with this larger image, which overrides but includes his job description as a division president, it took him in new directions. He teaches an MBA class on relationships at work and loves it. He rediscovered his love of writing, has published two books and does public speaking as his work schedule allows. Life is very full and his cancer is in remission. I suspect there is a relationship between that and his life changes. An environmentally concerned custodian has found new energy because he has brought his values into his job and influenced his company to become more environmentally conscious. He has saved them quite a bit of money, too, in the process. Design engineers who are similarly motivated are designing products to be easily disassembled and recycled to cut down on wasting natural resources and landfills. Again, the organization will get a return. A receptionist has worked to get community volunteer programs going at work. A factory worker at another firm describes how the shift toward empowerment and teamwork has changed her self image and how she plays out her role at work. That, she says, has affected her positively at home. An advertising colleague redirected his firm's work toward responsible, "non-toxic" advertising that does good in the world. Managers of all types find great joy in helping these employees get so turned on. Sculpters at Work: Which of these approaches I use with a client varies depending on where the clients is in the journey. When they are feeling a lack of clarity or a need for adventure we use a version of the play approach. A second group has a sense of calling or vision and we need to draw it out, clarify it, add the details and contours. Or they may be very clear on the vision but less clear about how to use that within their careers. The third group has explored but keeps coming up with a dense fog. They are often the extroverts and find the introspective approaches painful or fruitless. With these clients, we start with something external. Perhaps the career field itself. What are its roots? What is its real intention? What could it be? What is it's highest potential good? When lawyers try this they find a new inspiration as "justice seekers." They are more careful about which clients they take on and how they present their cases. I know a couple who have left the judicial system and taken their skills into the field of peaceful mediation processes. One of my accounting clients has returned to the roots of the profession for guidance. By interviewing a senior partner he discovered the historical philosophy of the finance profession was to see itself as bringing integrity to commerce. He finds it much more stimulating to think of himself as an instrument of integrity than as someone who crunches numbers and helps people make a buck. My own financial advisor is a star at this. She hones her advice to fit my values rather than just looking for the best financial gain. And she asks provoking questions that help me with that "ah ha experience" about money and values. In her case, she uncovered who she most truly was including her values around service and decided she had to have her own firm in order to do things right. She took the plunge and many clients followed her. Alternative Sculpting Approaches: 2. Introspection. Explore your values, sense of life purpose or old dreams that you have set aside. Identify what you care about that you aren't bringing to work. Play with those to see if there aren't ways that you can add new meaning to your job. 3. Informational Interviews. Most of us are familiar with this as a way to choose careers or companies. In this case, the process is similar but the content is a little different. You can use your grapevine to seek out people who have found a way to bring more meaning to what they do. Ideas can leapfrog professions so don't feel constrained to just your field. 4. Sculpting Groups. If you find a group more invigorating, consider sharing this article with others and forming a creative group to help each other brainstorm using any of the above methods. The Gain: This quality of spirit also has a ripple effect on our work group and perhaps the organization itself. It is often stated that we each matter, that we have our area of influence, etc. We need to own this idea. When we feel meaningful, we are engaged in our work as whole human beings with mind, heart, hands and soul. Recent research on the heart demonstrates that it sends out electromagnetic waves that reach up to 12 feet outside of us affecting brain wave patterns in ourselves and others. We are walking legacies if we only knew it. Sidebar: Several years into my business when things were really clicking, a turn in the path appeared. I woke up one morning with the thought in my head, "It's time to write the book." It was of course a ludicrous and impractical thought. Like a broken record stuck in a groove though, the thought haunted me for weeks. To get rid of it, I started telling people fully expecting them to help me dismiss it. Instead, time after time, the feedback was reinforcing. I finally wrote and published Who We Could Be At Work and it changed my life. That took me down new winding paths in my consulting content and clients, outlook on life, public speaking and more. Life is to be continued... Journeying Toward Meaningful Work Many people are hungry for more meaning and purpose at work. It's as if we are having a cultural mid-life crisis together. Between corporate downsizings, divorces, troubled youth, increased work demands with corresponding stress levels, environmental degradation and the aging of the massive baby boom population, almost everyone is getting hit on the side of the head by Life. One big wake-up alarm is ringing. People and organizations are responding. Across the globe, a journey of historic magnitude has begun. It's a journey directed toward creation of a new workplace that is more meaningful and satisfying to individuals and more caring and responsible for the well-being of the whole community. I've seen this in practice. Schott Corporation is a small, family held business that went through a revolution from a hierarchical organization focused on being a money machine to a flat, team-oriented organization committed to people and profit. Sandy Miller, a ten year front line manufacturing employee, told me her story. "Today I'm a different person. I've had an excellent group leader. She's really helped us grow. I feel great when I come to work and great when I go home now. I'm like a flower that has been allowed to blossom. I could never get in front of a group before and talk. Then I was asked to be part of a team presentation to another company. I did it and it was Fun. That gave me great inner satisfaction." "My husband remarks about the difference it has made in our marriage. Also, within the past year, we purchased a business. I tell my husband what I have learned over the last three years and he's sharing that learning with his employees so they will benefit. What I've gained from this experience can never be taken away from me." Sandy's boss chose to change. That affected Sandy. She then affected her family and a another company. And their story has now been told across the company creating more growth and satisfaction. Other employees told me of new satisfaction that started at work and went home to their children, schools, churches and the town council. Our companies can become prisms of positive change. Employees at all levels may become the prisms that change our world. We're learning we aren't isolated islands onto ourselves. Peter Russell, The English scientist and researcher, in his videotape and book, The Global Brain, discusses how one characteristic of the new millennium we're entering is larger and larger scale political, social, and technological integration. The whole planet is coming together to function as one community. In the health field, we're learning that human beings are complex wholes and that we can create more health by treating the whole person rather than just isolated parts. When we act on these same premises in the workplace, we create healthier, stronger organizations. The starting point is for each of us to bring all of who we are to work and to learn to live with each other in that wholeness. We can create a new wave of history once we realize that we, our organizations and the world are all part of one interconnected, inter-dependent system. When we change ourselves, we are affecting the whole. Bringing our whole selves to work often begins with a sense of our purpose. We don't have to create this. We are born with it. It's our most natural, positive way of being in the world. When this is tapped and nurtured, things begin to happen. It is part of our need for greatness, our need to matter in a unique way. It's the unifying pattern that seems to weave throughout our life when we're operating at our best and truest for a good beyond ourselves. We are on task when we feel that ultimate satisfying energy that permanently glows. Charles M. Denny, Retired Chairman of the Board of ADC Telecommunications, Inc., describes this in a story he told me. He was in his 30's, rising in the ranks at Honeywell, Inc. He spent some time in France in sales management and then was appointed head of the subsidiary. On his first day in his new position the whole nation went on strike, led by workers in the industrial park in which they had their facility. As a result of positive relationships he had developed in the previous years with the union stewards, they were able to peacefully settle the strike and avert a major trashing of the factory. Denny says, "We returned to work the next day, six weeks before any other factory. Six months later, the largest factory was still out. I hadn't set out to curry favor with the union stewards during that first year. That wasn't my job or my intent." "I don't think I had a management philosophy, theory, model, or book in mind (in this challenge and others I faced). I simply had a need to breathe freely and know that those around me shared that same privilege. It's just weird. This was a wonderful object lesson that employee relations is a contact sport. It isn't by theory. It has to have flesh, warmth and perspiration joining perspiration or it's meaningless." Denny certainly had a glow about him as he told me these stories twenty years later. Wynne Miller is Director of Human Development for ColorAge, Inc. She says, "I think of mission as concrete and specific. It's what we make or do. That can change, depending on technology, markets and economics. Purpose is different. It doesn't change and, in a sense, is on a higher playing field or a deeper one. Purpose is broader, more intangible, more lasting. It's a quality that is present when we show up as a whole person. It's the impact you have on those around you. In action as someone said, "It's what you can't not do." In essence, "It's what you can't not be." "When we touch people's sense of purpose, it can be electrifying. A charge goes through the person and the organization. Part of my charge comes from being so closely aligned with my purpose. I discovered, years ago, that my purpose is to tell the truth and to help other people to tell theirs. Now, that isn't much of a job description, but the more I've lived in that space, and in this company, the more I'm humbled by how much of my job is to do just that, to describe things the way they really are to everyone." Miller seemed to be humming with energy and vitality. Susan James is a marketing manager who ran right into this as part of downsizing. "I'll never forget getting laid off," she said. "I was dazed, but I wasn't upset. I said to my boss, 'This is really strange, but I have the feeling that this is the way things are supposed to be. This is something that is happening to us so something else can come from it.' My boss was looking at me as though, 'I have just lost my job and this woman is talking to me like it is the great journey.' Interestingly, we have talked since and he shares more of my feelings now." "Yet, fear has struck terribly. It comes in waves. One of my fears is, "Where is a meaningful job and will I see it?" Things could go in so many different directions. There are also questions from a family standpoint. I have had five-and-a-half months of spending much more time with my children. I never had that before. I worked long hours and traveled. My kids are growing up and I wish I had more time with them. How do you balance all of that? I have all these questions going around in my mind." "I have discovered that I am not alone in my questions about living a more meaningful life. I have had many informational interviews in new product development, business development and in marketing. I have been looking at the industrial and the consumer side and different types of product ideas. Most of these people have been between the ages of 35 and 45. Ninety percent have been going through some kind of crisis within their jobs. Most of them wanted to start a business of their own." "I have the feeling that a great number of people are re-examining their lives and asking what they really want. It's a questioning time. It's like we have hit a period called mid-life crisis. All of a sudden, you realize, 'I have now lived half of my work life doing this. Is this it?' I never thought I'd talk like this. I always believed it was more important to be intellectual than spiritual." One of the most important tasks of the early settlers and pioneers was to write back home to family and friends about what the journey and the new world was really like. Then others could choose their own paths, to stay within the old or move to the new. I've asked myself and others to share what we have learned like the pioneers of old. I've learned my compass is inside. I ask myself, "What is in me that wants to come out so badly, that I am willing to risk failure, money, embarrassment." The answer was to write a book. I did it and I have never felt so intellectually stimulated, emotionally satisfied, spiritually at peace, and physically energized. Three middle managers from Malt-O-Meal Company described being pioneers trying to change an organization from the middle. Don Price, from the quality area, says he has learned that "A company needs at least one challenger or risk-taker, the kind of person who keeps things loose. For us, that is Myrl, our director of research and development. He constantly challenges ideas and asks questions. He's the kind of person who makes most upper managers very nervous." Carol Lynn Courtney, from the organizational development area says, "I invited one of our board members to a presentation given by one of our teams. He observed that what is happening is that there has been this ground swelling - or grass roots - change, and that triggers interest and change in top management. We're proof, it doesn't have to start at the top." Jeff Zibley from human resources, noted, "I have learned that I probably create my own boundaries more than I ought to. I have expanded my boundaries farther than I ever imagined. So I'm thinking that maybe, in general, our boundaries aren't really there. They may be self-imposed limitations." George McCown, Managing Partner of a company specializing in leveraged buyouts of an empowering kind, shared his insights. "A good boss and a good working environment have more profound effect on people, on organizations and on society than any one thing I can think of. Good bosses must provide good direction, but at the same time, value people and honor their aspirations in their work and as human beings. A good boss must be able to relate to people's spiritual needs -- if not directly, then by recognizing that our individual desire to touch heaven, to seek that spark of divinity within us is the greatest power on earth. It is the force that motivates all people." Steve Wickstrom, manufacturing, describes himself as "shaking hands with forty and having a blast at work. I came into this company with a strong desire to be the top decision maker, alone in a position of ultimate leadership. I've learned independence isn't the ultimate high. Interdependence is the reality and that is much more interesting. I've learned that the questions are sometimes more challenging than getting to answers. What we're aware of in this company, to a very high degree, is that there are ditches on both sides of any road. Can we live with contending opposites, as opposed to trying to solve the tension? How do you pursue your own journey to greater work life satisfaction, meaning, purpose and become a pioneer? 1. Become humble. Accept you can grow some more. The way you are could be even more wonderful. Begin exploring what that might mean through conversations, reading, joining a very different type of voluntary organization. "What are you willing to learn?" 2. You will expand your ability to influence others to change the workplace to meet your vision only if you are growing and changing and walking the talk. Who you are matters more than what you say. Children have always known this. Adults forget. "What talk do you want to walk?" 3. Explore your purpose. "What can you not be?" "What is dying to come out in you?" Remember we are human beings, not human doings. Use your emotions as symptoms of pain or health to tell you when you are on or off course. 4. We have a spiritual self that we connect with through purpose. This is what we can trust to guide us after our emotions have alerted us. To trust only the emotions and mind are dangerous. It is like a lighthouse on a tall rocky cliff. If our emotions (the water) and mind (the boat) are in charge, they will see the light (our vision) in the darkness and move towards it and run into the rocks. There is a bird circling the lighthouse that sees the vision and is above the danger of the rocks. That bird represents our spirit. It can soar beyond our limited vision in a higher safer space. 5. Come to peace with risk and change. They need to become friends not enemies. This happens only in the doing. As you begin to receive the fruits they have to offer, you gain trust. Goethe, the German philosopher, reminds us "That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred...unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now." "What are you willing to risk, to let go of?" 6. Reduce your material lifestyle and increase the quality of your life. You will feel more free to do whatever you need to do -if you have a solid chunk of money set aside. Pretend you lost 30% of your income tomorrow. What would you have to do? How would you get by? Select some things out of that list and figure out how much you could save if you had to. Then decide what you are willing to commit to and start saving now. Every check, pay yourself first. Your life depends on it. You'll also help the Earth. She needs us to reduce more than anything. You'll be surprised at the higher value life you'll get. "Are you in slavery to your debts?" 7. Spread the word. Share your own questions. Share this article. Pass it around. Find other things worthy to pass around to shake up everyone's thinking. Talk to your family, friends, peers, employees, managers. Create a community of like minded people so you aren't alone. Margaret Mead has written, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it is the only thing that ever has." "Are you willing to step out?" 8. To manage others (directly or indirectly) be pure of heart. Be clear on your intentions. Terri Lynn, of Universal Tradewinds points out, "Intentions color every experience we have. Our customers, employees, suppliers, and community, as well as our families and friends, have a sense of our intentions and this affects how they experience us. If I am living my purpose and vision, I will live from a place of inspiration. If I am inspired, others will be inspired by my presence. They will find their own fire, passion and reason for doing things well. When we find that, it is bigger than we are, it is beyond us and we will feel a genuine desire to do what is right. I don't want people to work hard because they feel guilty or because if they don't, they'll lose their job. I want them to give what they have because they love what we are doing." 9. Spend less time on having answers and more time on asking the right questions. Steve Wickstrom points out, "We have all the questions that every other company has. In addition, we ask, 'What is the company here for in the biggest sense? What are we in this for? ' What really matters around here is to live with questions about the meaning of life. We use an analogy to eating. While eating is critical to living, one does not live to eat. So profits are critical to health, but they aren't the bottom line." The same questions exist for the individual. 10. Relationship count for much more than we realize. There are many underground people out there, doing good by enlarging the lives of everyone they work with. I met a top performing sales manager recently who told me, "I'm really an underground minister helping myself and my team grow, become more conscious, and transforming life. Everyone else of course thinks I'm leading a sales team to ever higher levels. I am, but not just in the way they mean." M. Scott Peck tells the story of "The Rabbi's Gift. The abbot of a dying order with only five remaining elderly monks seeks the advice of a wise rabbi about how to turn the community around again. The rabbi says, "I'm sorry. I have no advice to give. The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you." Once the abbot reported this to the other monks, a change began. They began to treat each other in new ways. People were attracted to the place. It had a glow of love and respect. More and more people came to play and pray. Young men began to sign up to be monks. The community flourished in all ways. The bottom line to all this? Look inside yourself and your relationships. That's where the answers are. |