Waking up the Workplace – Lessons in Conscious Business

If you’re interested in new options and models for workplaces as they evolve forward, check out Waking up the Workplace.  It’s a fascinating conversation on business that’s been taking place on the web over the past four months. 

Waking up the Workplace is a website that hosts a series of recent interviews with fourteen well known experts in “conscious business.”   The content is great – some of the best minds, both academic and commercial – who work with business and are committed to supporting business organizations as more conscious human communities.

The conscious business movement is picking up speed.  Waking up the Workplace is just one example of this approach and philosophy.  One of the most recognized proponents is Fred Kofman, the founder and President of Axialent consulting.  Kofman speaks, writes and teaches on the topic and is one of the folks interviewed in the series. Other interviewees are experts in adult development, business philosophy, executive coaching, entrepreneurial business, leadership, management consulting and organizational transformation.  It’s an amazing roster and the interviews are provocative and wide ranging.  

A conscious business approach is marked by the view that business needs to be run in a way that is conscious of both inner and outer worlds of people and the systems we create.  In business, we tend to emphasis the latter – what’s going on externally at the individual, group and organization level.  We pay attention to what we can see and observe through our senses.  Conscious business considers the internal realities as equally important and understands that these dynamics are often driving what’s happening on the outside.

Change and development based in a full understanding of both exterior and interior dynamics has a much better chance of taking root and producing healthy results.

 It’s also fascinating that the Waking up the Workplace site and experience was created by three Europeans – Diederick  Janse, Jeroen Maes, and  Ewan Townhead– relatively young guys in their late 20s and early 30s who are committed to having an impact through working with organizations.  They live in Amsterdam and partnered on this project.  Through Waking up the Workplace, and their passion to have this conversation, they’ve built a global network of people who have registered on the site to hear and participate in the interviews as they were held over the past months.  The interviews have all been held so the live participation option is no longer available but you can still go to the Waking up the Workplace site, register and listen to the interviews there.   I downloaded them all from the site and put them on a CD for listening to in the car – makes it easy.

 If you’re interested in organizations and business and how they may evolve into more conscious models, check it out.  You won’t be disappointed.