Conscious Business

In Good to Great, author Jim Collins shows how the most successful companies are the ones that strive for more than financial success, as they’re motivated by higher values.

But how is it exactly that values could create a successful company?

Many successful businesses are powered by conscious employees. They take responsibility for their actions and know how to communicate constructively, without compromising their core values.

Unconscious employees, on the other hand, tend to undermine a business as they often blame others for problems and see themselves as the victim. They aren’t self-aware, and thus are not able to act according to higher values.

This is why managers should make it a priority to hire conscious employees.

Yet if you want to build a truly conscious business, you can’t stop here. You must also cultivate a balance among the impersonal, the interpersonal and the personal dimensions of your company.

The impersonal is the “it,” things like shareholder value, productivity and other technical considerations inherent to any business.  

The interpersonal is the “we,” or the relationships among different people within your company.

And the personal, of course, is the “I,” relating to each individual’s happiness and desire for meaningful work and a mindful life.

Yet instead of creating a harmonious relationship among these three, most managers tend to focus entirely on “it,” the impersonal elements of a business.

When a company neglects its human elements (the interpersonal and the personal), business is a mindless activity, in which failure or success hinges only on managing arbitrary technical matters.

In a conscious business, however, harmony exists among the three core dimensions.

So how do you create a business built on harmony and core values? Read on!