Below you can find some highlights from the most recent pre-#ebbf25 online event
You can ask (clicking on the titles below) questions prior to the next two online events that you can join in the run up to the ebbf annual learning event in Barcelona.
16th September – Nousha Etemad Partner at Deloitte Canada “what does it mean to be a collaborative leader in this hyper-connected world, what skills are necessary?”
24th September – Augusto Lopez-Claros director of indicators at the World Bank
Highlights from the last online event: The pursuit by individuals of limitless material prosperity – regardless of any consequences this might have on others – is too often the basis of economic activity. Yet even those who succeed are rarely satisfied; they keep aspiring for and wanting more. In this never ending cycle, their only means of achieving more is to deny the means to greater prosperity to those who have less. So the final result is senseless one where neither they nor the others they leave behind are left satisfied and no real prosperity is created.
Prosperity is too often considered as a shimmerer, something that implies unlimited consumerism, we all agreed that whilst the standard of living has improved over the last 50 years, the quality of life and happiness index has stayed the same. To create true prosperity we and organisations should be looking at less tangible things that offer limitless growth such as development, generosity, sharing, education and learning.
A participant mentioned Viktor Frankl idea of two areas to create meaning in life: happiness that comes from the satisfaction in reaching a goal and a more meaningful form: living life in service of others that creates an unlimited growth in those giving and in those receiving.
The success for companies then comes from making the switch from limited financial to limitless purpose values growth of others to what you contributes to life of others. Or even better a dynamic balance between both.
limited quantitative growth or limitless qualitative growth?
We reflected how the entire idea of quantitive growth is reaching boundaries that limit it and that will lead to a confrontational one…
wins many lose paradigm; we therefore need to redefine growth from quantitative to qualitative: reaching that satisfaction point that allows one to invest in the quality of ones life and of the life of others.
Just like companies that are most successful are those who focus on the quality of their processes, services and products but specially in the quality of life and in the development of the people they interact with, from employees to customers.
We are looking for an inclusive, a socially inclusive paradigm that considers all of mankind, instead of the old economic model based on scarcity with the few keeping out the masses and the masses aspiring to achieve what is scarce.
what can trigger values that motivate new collaborative, prosperity-creating behaviours?
As humans we always act and interact with each other based on our values, our motivations guide our behaviours. If our values and what we value is personal gain instead of looking at the whole, at the interest of others then conflict is inevitable. So how can we trigger those kinds of values on individuals?
Successful experiences by participants highlighted how getting away from the personal award system helped. New kinds of teams that are focused on doing what is good for their people. Introducing the we factor and making sharing a priority. However sharing is often linked with fear, so how can we eliminate fear, what does it sharing really man, how do we get more through sharing?
the two sides of prosperity: balancing the spiritual with the material
prosperity we highlighted as having two sides, one manifested in the material world and one in the spiritual one. The source of so much lack of satisfaction for the ephemeral chase of more wealth derives from a void, from the lack of a spiritual perspective about a higher purpose. The freedom that comes from elevating your purposes is one of those key prosperity-reaching drivers.
Lofty purposes sets you free from attachments People lack an alternative so they only aim for that “simple” material prosperity
We have inherited from a material society a life and aims that do not produce satisfaction and happiness and true success in companies. We need to rethink and overcome this status quo and move in a new direction as individuals and as organizations. Fear is the root of everything – if we look at our own experience of personal development, we realize that different experiences and different paths have shown us that fear is the source of every misfortune. We need to create a context in any organization that allows people to act freed from that fear.
An example offered by a participant had a roomful of banking directors enter tired into a meeting about the future of their industry, until the magic phrase was mentioned “your industry (banking) is about to die, it has no future. Now rebuild a new way to do banking starting from that fact” . The reaction was a newly found freedom, energy in the room that had the directors work with total freedom, lack of fear and the kind of enthusiasm that a fresh new window of opportunity offers.
“unrealistic to imagine the next stage in the advancement of civilization … without re-examining current assumptions”
We ended the event looking at this document on the Prosperity of Humankind written by BIC : “It is unrealistic to imagine that the vision of the next stage in the advancement of civilization can be formulated without a searching reexamination of the attitudes and assumptions that currently underlie approaches to social and economic development. At the most obvious level, such rethinking will have to address practical matters of policy, resource utilization, planning procedures, implementation methodologies, and organization. As it proceeds, however, fundamental issues will quickly emerge, related to the long-term goals to be pursued, the social structures required, the implications for development of principles of social justice, and the nature and role of knowledge in effecting enduring change. Indeed, such a reexamination will be driven to seek a broad consensus of understanding about human nature itself.”
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