Context
- The Consciousness which perceives the world is one with the Reality of the world. Consciousness and reality are one.[1]
- We construct our own reality – everything in our world is self created.[2]
- Timeless leaders free the confines of their consciousness and rediscover its identity with reality to liberate the human potential that lies with themselves and others (and others).[3]
- This translates in time in the organisational world to higher employee engagement, productivity, individual and organisational capacity and profitability.
Call to Action – Leadership profiling and Discovery workshops
The diagram below summarises the action steps that a company can take to access this newer (postmodern) science of liberating the immense potential, performance and effectiveness through higher stages of leadership consciousness development. This is an opportunity to get a head start for the challenges and opportunities that awaits us as the future of work emerges heedlessly in our lives.
Benefits
- Unsure of how to face the challenges and opportunities in the future of work? Get a head start and stay ahead by investing in an advanced and a new, well-tested, practical and actionable solution in raising leadership performance and effectiveness beyond current limits.
- Lack of talents? Grow a spectrum of talents in-house, each at their unique levels of leadership consciousness to minimise the need to hire new talents from outside the organisation.
- We are not asking you to abandon what you are doing but to enrich and leverage your leadership development and growth initiatives to unleash leadership potential – for productivity, capacity and profitability gains.
- The bonus is that you are also seeding the co-creation of a Conscious Culture as you invest in creating Conscious Leaders as the catalyst and moving force for change in your organisation.
- Leadership consciousness (or action logic) goes beyond creating economic value (income and profit) and contributes to employee engagement, meaning, trustworthiness and happiness. This attracts millennials and Gen Z talents to join the organisation.
How some of our customers have seen demonstrated business benefits
- “I love that the tool does get at deeper discussions, this is terrific.” (HR Director P&G Europe)
- “We as Omega truly are inspired by your intent and we are experiencing a true partnership. We are really proud to have partnered with you.” Senior Director Human Resources, Omega Healthcare Management Services
- “It’s heartening to see so many of us working towards a common vision in our own ways across the world. Look forward to working with you in trying to understand what we can do for our organisation…hopefully make it into a larger case study”. Head of Personal Excellence & Organization Transformation at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)
- “Together with HR, I have reviewed and endorsed the “Being At Full Potential” methodology and believe it could be a great enabler in our journey as a Team. … I entirely trust the solidity of the self-assessment survey he (Mark) is offering us to take. VP Global Sustainability P&G.
Leadership today – We are taught what to do as leaders, but we must learn how to be good leaders[4]
Organisation have done a great job at teaching leaders in what to DO as managers and leaders – in setting direction, translating goals into concrete actions, establishing the right systems, structures and reward mechanisms to influence behavior, all contribute to the DNA of an effective “DOING” leader.
Leaders in the modern era are trained for the need to manage (and DO) things that works well in simple and complicated situations. We have learned how to be very good at this. We are taught well in what to do as a leader and we are good at it. But this world is clearly disappearing in the new technological age of unrelentless changes, complexity and often chaos that leaders must deal with constantly today. In other words, effective “DOING” leaders alone are insufficient for meeting today’s and especially the future needs of organisations.
But in terms of our innate Human Potential “How much of a person’s true leadership potential is being expressed when we solely focus on the “DOING” or stay at DOING level? 50% 65%?
Our Human Potential data shows that the average is 65%
What new learning will it take to move the ‘Human Potential needle’ to 80% or 90%?
New studies by many prominent constructive-developmental researchers[5] have shown us a new body of knowledge of higher stages of leadership development by new learning that can shift the “leadership potential meter”. This body of knowledge called “Action Logic”, first developed by William Torbert (building on the work of other scientists and researchers) and it is catching the attention of global leaders – both in high ranked organisations and large not for profit global organisations.
There are 8 action logics prevalent in the adult population as summarised by the generalised diagram (by Edward Kelly[6]) shown below.
Note: for a good and detailed description of the 8 leadership action logics, please refer to Barrett Brown paper “The Future of Leadership for Conscious Capitalism”, (page 14 and 15).
Vertical Learning is the key to shift the leadership potential to the next level of action logic or consciousness
According to the constructive-developmental scientists and researchers, there are two kinds of growth that we associate with adult development – vertical and horizontal and both are important, but they are very different. “If horizontal development is concerned with content and what we know, vertical development is concerned with how we know it (Harris & Kuhnert). As Cook-Greuter describes it, horizontal development is the gradual accumulation of new knowledge, new skills and experience, which can occur without any fundamental change in the individual’s overall meaning making, epistemology or worldview. Vertical development on the other hand, which is a much rarer form of development, entails a complete transformation in the individual’s meaning-making and in their overall view of reality that in turn transforms what they think, how they feel and what they do.”[7] This is illustrated in the diagram below.
The new science of vertical learning and is becoming central to leadership and high-performance development
There is an economic value business case for leaders to develop their leadership action logic or consciousness. In a study by Zenger & Folkman (of over 20,000 leaders), they state that “Good leaders create 3x more economic value than poor leaders, and extraordinary leaders create significantly more economic value than all the rest.” (emphasis mine). From their study, they show that good or great leaders have leadership characteristics that enable them to increase productivity, employee engagement, innovation and customer orientation.
Newer studies show that by developing the action logic or consciousness of leaders, they can potentiate a shift (an increase) in their leadership potential leading to higher performance and expanded effectiveness.[8]
Today, this new leadership action logic development and learning has been accessed by primarily by high-ranked global corporations or more progressive companies. They have paved the way for this adopting new developmental research science into the organisational world. But they also gain a head start in developing the next generation of Conscious leaders.
We[9] believe is that leadership consciousness development goes beyond creating economic value. Together with creating economic value, conscious leaders also learn how to enable breakthroughs at all levels of society – individuals, teams, communities, organizations and even nations. In other words, conscious leadership goes beyond just creating economic value.
Another actionable pathway in learning and applying leadership action logic or consciousness
We offer another viable and practical pathway to access higher stages of leadership consciousness or action logic. Our work lies at the intersection of cutting-edge science and ancient wisdom traditions.
Modern management science and ancient wisdom traditions recognize a certain state consistent among those who operate at high potential. These people tend to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, create significant impact and have the ability to do all of this while remaining centered, irrespective of the circumstances they encounter.
Rupert Spira inspires us that “Knowing and Being are identical when referring to Consciousness.” We shed light on leadership consciousness through the “Beingness” of a leader. Hence our motto is “When the BEING comes alive, the DOING thrives.”
In the realm of sports, music and arts we have known this for a long time. Acquiring more skills can only take us so far. Getting to Peak Performance however also requires doing the inner work of shifting mindsets, addressing our limiting beliefs and learning to manage the EGO through higher stages (or levels) of consciousness. Now is the time to bring this same thinking into the world of organizations.
Since the late 2000s, we have taken on the challenge to create a holistic model that will inform and help drive greater levels of Human Potential realization among individuals and organizations. The “Consciousness Maturity Index” is the product of that effort.
The ultimate test that decides whether leaders are reaching their ultimate leadership potential or not is by finding out how masterful they are in the manner they consciously experience reality.[10]
Awakening our consciousness through vertical learning AND elevating levels of consciousness help us to redefine our view of reality (and help others to do so as well), to start showing up in our full potentialities as leaders and in “dancing” with the how the reality of the emerging situations is occurring to us in the complex and uncertain world we live in.
Our Human Potential diagnostics gives leaders in organisations another affordable, practical and actionable way in advancing leadership action logic and consciousness, leading to the development and liberation of leadership potential that lies within themselves and their performance and effectiveness.
Our Human Potential diagnostics also give us a new kind of language and crucible for supporting, shifting and uncovering consciousness to help us to see the world with “new eyes” that reflects new possibilities and insights. The diagram below summarise how this new pathway helps us in learning and advancing leadership action logic and its correlation with consciousness maturity states or levels.
Developing a spectrum of next generation conscious leaders
It is a well know statement (attributed to Albert Einstein) that “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” Through this new pathway of developing conscious leaders with the Human Potential Diagnostics, we are also developing a conveyor, pipeline or spectrum of the next generation of conscious leaders – in solving today’s and tomorrow’s problems, challenges and opportunities with new levels or states of consciousness.
Companies developing a spectrum of leaders with different stages of action logics is better prepared to take advantage of the opportunities and face challenges in the fast change, volatile and complex future world that we are working in. These companies have a greater capacity and confidence to act in and on the world in a way it believes it can be effective and have significant impact.[11]
The diagram below shows how for example we can map or profile the spectrum of leadership consciousness levels or action logics of 10 leaders in an organisation.
Creating the Future That We Aspire For
The Human Potential Assessment Tool and methodology makes it very easy for organizational leaders to discover how and where to place themselves (the types of leadership action logics and consciousness) based on today’s reality, and more importantly, get a glimpse of what the emerging future reality and human capacity could look like at its full potentiality.
It is this future state, and the additional value that it can create for an organization, that triggers an openness to look at the deeper human levers sitting beneath the surface. Not only do we measure where you and/or your organisation are today on these leadership priorities, but we also provide you with a detailed map of your ideal end state.
With this ideal state in mind we work backwards to identify the areas of intervention at the deeper human dimension to bridge the leadership gap and the readiness to deliver short- and long-term expectation and outcomes demanded by customers and stakeholders.
APPENDIX I
A reflection on Consciousness and Reality
Reality
On a ‘gross level’,[12] reality, as seen through a pair of pink glasses appears pink in colour. Is the reality of a half-filled glass one that is half empty or half full? Consider how the reality of people who are are feeling annoyed and dismayed with the father (with a pale look and blank stare) who appears to be ignoring the ‘naughty’ behavior of his two noisy young children running around in the train. Now consider how the reality of the people change almost instantly when they discover and understand that the father has just found out that his wife died in an accident, and he is taking the children to the hospital. How sure are you that the chair that you are sitting is real?
Reality and Consciousness
So, reality is not what it seems at everyday level.
Postmodern scientists and contemporary spiritual masters and teachers have been drilling deep into the nature and our experience or reality, and its relationship with consciousness. Not too long ago, quantum physicists admits (gradually but convincingly) that “consciousness creates reality.”[13] Furthermore, as stated by Rupert Spira, “The Consciousness which perceives the world is one with the Reality of the world. Consciousness and Reality are one.”[14] Another observation by Bernard Kastrup is that “… consciousness – whatever it may intrinsically be –is the only carrier of reality anyone can ever know for sure.”[15]
Today, there is another development that you may not be aware of yet, but postmodern science is answering age-old questions about the nature of reality through advances in cognitive developmental studies, neuroscience and integral psychology, and interestingly theses studies around the subjective experience of reality and consciousness is now being introduced into the organisational fields of leadership development from the perspective of “… a broader focus on the human being’s growth towards optimal functioning, often called self-actualisation (and self-transcendence).”[16]
Reality, consciousness and leadership consciousness
Postmodern leadership development has now evolved into the realm of leadership consciousness and reality as we have shown above.
In paraphrasing the “First law of performance” by Zaffron and Logan, we can say that “how people think and act (i.e. perform) correlates with how the reality of the situation occurs to them.” In other words, we can say that people organises reality as they experience a situation. Another way of looking at consciousness and reality is that “everything in our world is self-created … we construct our own reality.”[17]
Could we be looking at the next wave of value creation in the field of leadership development? We believe we are.
“Raising consciousness is the next paradigm for advancing the development of leadership potential, performance and effectiveness for the future of work. “
————-
“We live in unprecedented times. Science is answering age-old questions about the nature of reality, the birth of the cosmos and the origins of life. We are witnessing technological advances that a century ago would have seemed science fiction, or even magic. And, more alarmingly, we are becoming increasingly aware of the impact our burgeoning growth is having on the planet. Yet along with these rapidly unfolding changes is another development that is passing largely unnoticed.
We are in the midst of an unprecedented spiritual renaissance, rediscovering in contemporary terms the timeless wisdom of the ages. Most spiritual traditions began with an individual having a transforming mystical experience, some profound revelation or inner awakening.”
“… it usually led to a delightful joy in being alive, an unconditional love for all beings, the dissolving of the sense of self and an awareness of oneness with creation.”
(Rupert Spira – The Transparency of Things: Contemplating the Nature of Experience)
[1][1] Rupert Spira – The Transparency of Things
[2] Debashis Chatterjee – The other 99%
[3] Ibid – adapted
[4] Inspired by an article I read (but could not find the reference to it)
[5] Piaget, Loevinger, Kegan, Cook-Greuter, Torbert, Ken Wilber, Barrett Brown and many (many) others
[6] Edward Kelly – Transformation in Leadership, Part 1: A Developmental Study of Warren Buffett
[7] Edward Kelly – Transformation in Leadership, Part 1: A Developmental Study of Warren Buffett
[8] Reference – Barrett Brown – Leadership at the edge – leading complex change with postconventional consciousness; with adaptations
[9] Being at Full Potential – https://beingatfullpotential.com/
[10] Debashis Chatterjee – The other 99% – adapted
[11] Reference – on action logic and action inquiry by William Torbert – http://www.williamrtorbert.com/
[12] As in “gross-subtle-causal” states or levels of consciousness in cognitive/behavioral, psychological and developmental science
[13] Reference – Collective Evolution – “Consciousness creates reality.”
[14] Rupert Spira – The Transparency of Things (2016)
[15] Bernard Kastrup – Brief Peeks Beyond (2014)
[16] Hartman and Zimberoff – Higher Stages of Human Development; parenthesis mine
[17] Adapted – Debashis Chatterjee – The Other 99%