Man of action

It was the autumn of 2009. I was facilitating a 3-day session of The Power Within for a group of CXOs and entrepreneurs at a nearby resort. Participants had come in with their bags and baggages, to stay there for those three days, in quest of their real world, locking out the unreal. No one was in a hurry to react to the call of duty. A sense of freedom and stillness prevailed.

I was in my usual contented self, centered and surrendered to the Tao of unfolding. I had no need to 'do' anything as the group gradually morphed in a space of collective awareness that was being consciously held by me. As we re-assembled  after lunch on day-one, Anish one of the participants, an ops head with an MNC BPO quipped, "What is Indroneil doing here? Do we need him at all?" I had no verbal response. Just smiled amused, while others chuckled at this quip and then carried on with their exploration. At the end of the the third day, as the participants were sharing their experience of The Power Within, this same ops head announced unequivocally, "I have found my master ... within". Tears of wonder and gratitude rolled down my cheeks. It was humbling to witness the blossoming of six human souls. As an enabler there was little that I did but accept and acknowledge my presence as an instrument of Universal grace that got channeled through me to touch lives of those in the group. At the end of the program, even after working for almost 12 hours each day, with very little sleep in the nights I was full of youthful energy and zest. Like every time I was ready to get into another lab, another intense experience of human awakening. Because there was no doing, no fretting, no sweating. No task to be completed, no goal to be achieved. No mask to be donned, no loss to be retrieved. 

I had no need to prove my relevance. To myself or to others. No fear of my existence being questioned. No aspiration of being approved.  

It's been like this now for more than a decade now. Watch meaningless, transient activities going on, on the merry go round of tireless time, from the center. Sometimes go out to fetch lost souls hovering around watering holes of make-believe organizations from the circumference of futile slavery to the axis of responsible action for them to awaken and blossom. Leaving no footprints on the radial path for others to try and trace.  

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Sustainability starts from within

Oye zealots of sustainability! How sustainable are you as an individual? How efficient you are with your human energies? How effective are you in managing your inner clutter and use of time and effort?

Sustainability, as often misunderstood, is not so much about ecology or economy. By its very definition, it is by and for humanity and human-ness waiting to be awakened.

World over there are many honest believers and missionaries who have dedicated themselves to furthering the cause of sustainability. And then there are, like it happens with any transformational movement, many humbugs that have craftily blended themselves with the sustainability brigade to become rich and famous. I have met both the kinds - the honest and the humbug - and frankly found not much of a difference when it comes to making the mission possible. The reason is simple: all of them are passionate about doing something outside, with the ecology (the supply side) or with economy (the demand side) or both. Yet none seem to be concerned about looking at themselves – their being and their behaving – and work towards transforming themselves as human beings before going out to transform the world.

If sustainability has to succeed as a mission, it needs to embrace and start with enabling individuals to become emotionally and spiritually more energy efficient, responsible for their behaviors in the human eco system and sensitive to the impact that they leave on humanistic systems by what they think, say and do.

Human beings are perhaps the only form of life on this planet that is capable of generating energy not only for themselves but also for the environment in which they live through consciousness. They’re meant to carry a sense of awareness and be led by love which is essentially who they are, to incessantly create and cascade energy all around. It is this consciousness which gives rise in the human, compassion for the earth. It is again this consciousness that brings in the human deep contentment with what life has to offer, as it is. And cradled in lap of this compassion and contentment lies sustainability – a natural outcome of human transformation and evolution.

I can’t think of many missions being mainstreamed and successful where someone wanted to go and change the world without bringing in any human transformation. Slavery is yet to be abolished, racism continues to thrive under the gossamer of suavity and poverty, illiteracy, corruption largely still remain agenda for rich deliberations happening under the aegis of apex bodies without touching the core of human soul. Such will be the fate of sustainability too unless we start from the individual, showcase that we are zero energy driven human beings and extend the same to propagating sustainable human practice.

Two possible exceptions of such missionaries who have been successful in mainstreaming their mission are Gandhi and Vivekananda and in both cases they either started with the individual or went out to preach and propagate or enable human transformation simultaneously with their effort to bring in a social transformation. We have perhaps a few more such success stories not to ape but to reinforce the truth that all egoistic, ‘holier-than-thou pursuits’ of wanting to make-my-mission-adopted-and –accepted-by-others would be futile unless we submit to the fact that it starts with transforming myself and my immediate context with humility.

(This article was published on August 22, 2012 Wednesday in Management Next.)

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Why don't you listen?

Yesterday I chanced upon this blog written by Ram Charan on the The Discipline of Listening. An excellent read, with clear do-ables, possibly intended to make leadership more effective:

"For leaders, listening is a central competence for success. At its core, listening is connecting. Your ability to understand the true spirit of a message as it is intended to be communicated, and demonstrate your understanding, is paramount in forming connections and leading effectively. This is why, in 2010, General Electric—long considered the preeminent company for producing leaders—redefined what it seeks in its leaders. Now it places "listening" among the most desirable traits in potential leaders. Indeed, GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt has said that "humble listening" is among the top four characteristics in leaders."

However, from my experience as a human enabler, I can vouch that not more than 10% of those who read my dear friend Ram's blog with the intention of learning to listen will actually imbibe this rare quality of being a natural listener. 

The reason very simply is that true listening is transformational. And, most of all those form-hungry boulders-on-the-shoulder leaders - self or other appointed - despite cognitively wanting to transform, unconsciously resist anything that threatens to change or transform their identity, their persona, their egoic story of 'me', the conditioned self that they have become. Including listening.

Ram puts this across very gently in the concluding para of his blog: 

"Truly empathetic listening requires courage—the willingness to let go of the old habits and embrace new ones that may, at first, feel time-consuming and inefficient. But once acquired, these listening habits are the very skills that turn would-be leaders into true ones." 

He listens!!!

So what are the different ways in which you block yourself from listening?Easiest would have been if you had ear-lids to shut them. But, it seems while it is okay to be discerning about what you want to see and sometimes shut your eyes, Nature doesn't want us to ever shut our ears and stop listening. And yet, man has so marvelously been successful to do that. Most men, most of the time.

 

Fight or flight

Look at those seated at the back of a seminar hall. 70% of them would be sleeping. It's not that they are any short of sleep. They have conditioned themselves to fall asleep to take flight from the tyranny of listening. 

Once,  the wife of a famous public speaker came up to him and begged of him to come and speak their son for he was not sleeping. When this person asked her how's it going to help she retorted, "If you could put hundreds of them to sleep by your motivational speaking, can't you do it with this one little child".

Another very common method by which you take a flight, is actually taking a flight. No sooner the speaker would have opened his mouth and uttered the first few words, you would caught on to a couple of these words to escape into your own reverie constructed out of these very words. You are no more available. You are gone into some meaningless land of dreams.

Taking away eye contact to look at your computer screen, looking outside the window or even staring at the speaker with an empty look are some of the other ways by which you take flight.

I remember about a decade back, when I was attending a human process lab, the facilitator held a mirror on to me to see that no sooner has someone got prepared to speak to me, I would shower a barrage of hard hitting words which will pierce the speaker like arrows stunning him to silence. This is how I used to defend my fragility - living in glass house and throwing stones so that the other could not even dare come closer. When I look back today bemusedly to those days of blocking listening and therefore any change, I realize how wonderfully I would do so, fighting. 

This is an extreme. There are many of you who would wait for the speaker to finish and then react. Not allowing any time to yourself to take in what has been expressed, leave aside reflect. I know of several CXOs doing this with the excuse that they do not have much time. And the justification that they are not meant to listen, but make others listen. How pitiable!

They are many of you who are compulsive interrupters. Even if you have learnt painstakingly to not interrupt as it is considered rude, you would still be fidgeting, moving your fingers, shaking your legs or meaninglessly nodding to interrupt non-verbally. You still are successful in disrupting the flow of the speaker. By managing to be not still.   

 

Random self-talk

I consult for a iconic enterprise in the space of sustainable urban development. Often, in town halls and other staff meetings I have found the employees carrying an empty look on their face and absolutely tight lipped even when they are invited to share. An uninitiated watcher will believe that they are absolutely clued-in and mesmerized by the speaker. In reality they are lost in incessant self talk.

Barring a few who have practiced with discipline to shut the self-chatter up, most of you are hapless slaves of the mind engaged 24/7 in an imagined conversation which completely distorts if not block what is being spoken by the speaker who is expecting you to listen.  You could be rehearsing to respond and funnily enough respond without having completely listened. Or you could be admiring the way the speaker is speaking and rehearsing how you would do it when your turn comes. What ever is the script, 99% of what is meant to be listened by you is lost in the din of self chatter.

 

Caught in the content

It is believed that the mother can make sense of a baby's babble. Yet the same mother often gets caught up in the 'what' of what is said without being sensitive about where the speaker is coming from and makes a mess of the message. There is something called Conscious Listening - listening with your entire presence - wherein you listen to the unsaid 'way' in which and the 'location' from where it is said. However, those of you who are too caught with the content - the 'what' - of the expression miss out on such Conscious Listening.

 

Making meanings 

How often have you accused someone of having said something that the other genuinely believes to have never said? How often have you misquoted, misrepresented or misunderstood someone without having any intention of framing the other?


Well this is a typical case of meaning making. You use filters of meanings, interpretations and perceptions to listen through what is being said to you, thereby not only giving it color and shape but very often completely distorting the original expression. 

You not only interpret what is being said but often create stories of where the speaker is coming from. Without any need of validating the speaker's location. And having done that, having believed your interpretation to be true, you go ahead with your reaction. Most social and political complexities arise out of such filtered listening.

Listening transcends language and collapses physical distances. It connects, unites and merges energies across geographies.  In love, you can communicate and listen for hours together, in silence. Even distantly. Out of love, despite all physical proximity, you fail to listen and resort to yelling and shouting.

If you are reading this, you would perhaps be saying to yourself that this is not meant for me. I know, I listen. The irony is all those who do not listen are under the mis-conception that they listen. For they haven't really listened to themselves. 

Listening is a meditative art. True listening happens in a space of still non-doing. It's an act by which one leaves all form and its shadows to uphold ones shadowless being. No matter how much you try to 'learn' the 'skills' of listening you can't unless you are ready to let go of your form and transform. 

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 MY RESPONSE TO RAM'S BLOG

Scramble 'listen' and it becomes 'silent' ...

Well, listening is a function of how silent you are ... inside ...

If you can stop unnecessarily, compulsively talking to yourself all that will befall your ears, will reach your consciousness leading to spontaneous actions ...

The tips then will be redundant ...

Conscious Enterprises are here to stay

All crises, including economic crises stem from a crisis of consciousness. And as, with each passing day, systems get more and more crisis ridden and driven, the need to awaken sub-systemic and systemic consciousness gets more and more imminent.

In my article, Tap Enterprise Consciousness, which got published about two years back, I had briefly underscored the need for living enterprises to awaken consciousness and become Conscious Enterprises in order to stay alive and evolve.

There is an element of consciousness of a certain essence of life amongst living systems. This is the fundamental determinant for a living enterprise to evolve. Thus, there could be enterprises which are very much alive, breathing and pulsating over decades and yet with little or no sign of movement. This is a classic case of the enterprise consciousness being not awakened, threatening extinction of a living enterprise.

And today, it is not surprising, as if in response to the prevalence of crises, that there is a subtle yet significant shift amongst the custodians of business enterprises to re-shape there organization as Conscious Enterprises.

So what is a Conscious Enterprise all about? How is different from a classical enterprise?

A Conscious Enterprise works with a greater and sustained consciousness of its DNA of existence - the very purpose and ‘seed’ of its existence, its fundamental drivers and therefore for whom and why it exists and the ways in which it inherently is meant to create and offer value to its stakeholders.

In the case of conscious enterprise the ends are more human - life-enhancing, creational / transformational, inclusive and inter-dependent and all-sustaining. This necessitates the means to the end to be discerningly employed and aligned to such values.

The paradigm that primarily focuses on and seeks return by fostering consumptive behavior and "quantity in life" is fast fading to give space and reason for emergence conscious enterprises that crusades for creation and conservation and fosters "quality of life" through alignment with higher values.

In order to generate sustainable economic value for itself and its stakeholders from the humanistic values it is built upon, Conscious Enterprises must have intent-driven practices that acknowledge and embrace the first principles of life on earth – the Law, the Tao or the Primordial Order. It is this foundational quality that essentially differentiates a Conscious Enterprise from any other enterprise creating and offering value.

The challenges of creating and running a conscious enterprise stems from the paradigms of the traditional economy driven world that we carry and find difficult to let go.

For example, growth in conscious enterprise does not happen in the physical realm where much of processes are reactive in nature but in a space of shared consciousness, a space where a much higher intelligence – awareness- get’s into play making original actions and harmonious responses possible.

It is essential therefore for conscious enterprises and system to awaken consciousness in the sub systems too – what we can call as cellular consciousness.

Conscious enterprises also warrant a departure from being led by a frozen and static character – a poor substitute of consciousness. Which obviates the end of trying to ‘learn’ from or ape the others’ greatness and fosters valuing of individual uniqueness blossoming with learning from life.

Breath is the gateway to consciousness. To survive, it is enough to breathe. However to be consciously alive it is essential to ‘know’ that we breathe. By being aware of it. To enable this knowing, members of conscious enterprises must slow down with their effort-intensive ‘activities’ and be more watchful to allow for a certain spaciousness around them. The focus then shift from ‘doing’ to ‘making things happen’. There is no performance, only contribution to creating value. And with ‘performance’ becoming contribution, its causal linear link to short-term outcomes also vanishes.  

In addition to the above, cellular consciousness also enables simultaneity, transcending the limits of physicality. Unlike inter-dependence of roles and responsibilities across functions in a traditional enterprise, here it is interplay of energies emanating from the conscious presence of each individual. Linear logic, speed and velocity lose relevance.  Seemingly magical events happening without much effort amidst a sense of harmony prevailing across the organization becomes the order of the day.

It does not take competence, experience or knowledge to belong to a conscious enterprise. Quite contrarily the process of seeking membership with a conscious enterprise begins with shedding the egoic attachments to ones credentials and upholding what could be ones calling. The moment this calling resonates with the institutional calling and mission, a process of conscious engagement and enrollment takes over and within no time one finds a purposeful space for making meaningful contributions. Delivery gives way to enablement, products / solutions become offerings, functional boundaries dissolve and jobs get re-defined as responsibilities. Responsibilities that serve one sacred and superordinate cause for the Existence to make manifest itself and allow joyful co-existence of those who have dedicated themselves to this cause. With humility. 

If you feel you are Conscious Enterprise, one in making or aspire to be one and you find this post speaking to you, please feel free to reachme@indroneil.com with your experiences and insights. Would love to include the same in a possible sequel to this post.  

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5-steps out of misery and misfortune

You often land in situations that  are correctional in nature. These situations come up to restore harmony and balance that you had at some point in time disrupted by some thoughts and actions of yours and you label them as misfortune. In your frenzied attempt to get out of such situations you fail to see the doorway and bang your head against the wall. You label this experience that you create for yourself as misery.

Here are five simple steps of finding the doorway and getting out of the the misery and misfortune:

1. Acknowledge that you are in misery - while it is okay to hop malls and partys and drown yourself in the din of meaningless chatter to avoid confronting your misery and misfortune, at least in the privacy of your closet, acknowledge to yourself  that you are miserable and muster up the courage to get in touch with your misery.
2. Accept that you are responsible for the misery - how often you cry foul, naming all and sundry, except yourself as responsible for your misery. After all, who was sleep walking, did not see the door and banged against the wall? Wasn't it you? Once again, if accepting openly hurts your pride, in the privacy of your closet accept that you are the one responsible for the misery. That you are miserable. And better still, you are the misery.
3. Activate your conscience - the hidden ear - while we have five senses to capture stimuli from the physical plane which get's translated to instructions for response, we have a sixth inner sense - the conscience - that can be activated to listen to the voice of Universe. The activation key - the Master Key - is in your awareness. The space you find yourself when you manage to quieten the rambling of your thoughts. You don't need to do anything. The moment you are aware, your conscience get's activated.
4. Attune to the voice of Universe - the Universe does not speak in familiar language for it does not think in familiar linear logic. Its language is metaphorical, its thought expansive. Let your conscience listen, without any anticipation or expectation. Let the listening happen. Do not try to 'listen'. Soon you will get to hear seemingly illogical messages. You are possibly now attuned to the voice of the Universe.
5. Attend to Conscience - now bring your attention to this mega listening device of yours, your Conscience. It needs a certain amount of surrender to stay with this supervisory device. And while you are attending, you will soon notice a kind of a light bulb flash - an idea, a thought-like thing pass by. Your conscience has captured the voice of Universe and has now send instructions for you to act upon. Instructions that will show you the doorway and lead you out of it.  

It's like the white rabbit which now you need to follow, with humility, to get out of this world of misery.



Happy journey, down the rabbit hole.!