Hi Paul,

Listening to your call today reminded me of my experience a year and a half ago when you sent me the “advice” below.  It’s what I did, and it worked.  In fact, for months following the experience people were amazed by the speed of my recovery.  Now, I’m back to jogging or walking about 3 – 5 miles per day.

Me? Suggestions? Of  course I have suggestions…I’m a trained hypnotist!

Anesthesia is also known as a hypnogogic agent…that is, it naturally produces a high level of suggestibility. So you want to take a few minutes after pre-operative prep, and before the administration of anesthesia, to drop in to your communication with higher mind. State exactly what it is you are choosing as a result for the surgery, AND, energetically, the shifts in consciousness and physiology that will allow for the necessary mindsets, attitudes, behaviors, and genetic coding that will provide optimal cardio-vascular health from now onward into your 90s (or whenever you choose).

Simply explain to your surgery team that you are a meditator and would like 3 minutes to establish the proper internal state. Then, you will give them the signal that you are  ready to have them proceed. Do your thing, then verbally tell them you are ready, while your eyes remain closed as you continue to hold the imagery of the ideal end result from everything.

If it is possible to play the Perfect Health Paraliminal in post-op, have someone put it on the sleep learning track to play for you in recovery.

Best wishes. I’m sending you healing energy for the perfect result.

Paul S.

Consider, if you are going into any medical procedure, how you can use the mind/body connection to facilitate your healing. You are in charge of both your mind and your body. No medical doctor ever healed anyone. The mind/body is the healer, the doctors and their teams are facilitators. Participate fully and be well!

Paul Scheele

www.ScheeleLearning.com

The ideals of beauty, truth, and goodness represent philosophy’s finest hour—these are the concepts by which philosophy makes contact with the spiritual and helps to define the way forward from a middle ground in between science and religion. Indeed, it is in the pursuit of beauty, truth, and goodness that we find the pinnacle of human life. Beauty, truth, and goodness are truly sacred in the way they name and describe the “eternal forms” by which the persuasive influences of evolution enact the universe’s essential motion of consciousness seeking its source (p. 137).

The correlation between the verities and our compass became apparent. The “True”, often represented by Science, was a good fit with the mind or cognitive intelligence. The “Good” or Morals went well with the heart or emotional intelligence. And we also liked the connection of the “Beautiful” or art and aesthetics with the body or physical intelligence. Even though there is a good argument that art or beauty affects the soul, the spirit and the heart, it is also a very visceral connection. Beauty resonates on a very physical plane as well. The problem came when we sought to link the spiritual direction. Was it a combination of the three or was there more of a connection with one particular verity? In his book If Aristotle Ran General Motors (1997), philosopher Tom Morris suggests that the most important factor for dealing with the problems we face in business as well as our personal lives is “our ability to look within and examine the inner foundations of our own business practices and business relationships” (p. xii). He claims that “corporate spirit needs to be reinvented” and that “we face a spiritual crisis that is only recently beginning to be recognized as such” (p. xiii). The book promotes the pursuit of happiness on a personal as well as corporate level as a way towards regaining spirit and draws from the verities to look at four dimensions of human experience: intellectual, which aims at truth; aesthetic which aims at beauty; moral which aims at goodness; and then a fourth dimension—the spiritual, which aims at unity. Unity, or the spiritual dimension, is ultimately about connectedness. Morris argues that this dimension is “the proper culmination of the other three, both undergirding and overarching them” (p. 173). This correlates with the ideas and understanding of spiritual intelligence we encountered in our research and other readings (Zohar, 2001; Covey, 2004; Wigglesworth, 2006).

In the next post, we describe further connections that expand the foundation of our research.

Paul R. Scheele and Rick Warm

reclaimyourgenius.com

The Good Society

The first model to give the intelligences some symbolic structure and set them in a visually understandable symbolic construct was the medicine wheel as described above (Cowan, 2005). Once that model became known, we started noticing similar patterns where perhaps they had not been noted before. Our first connection was prompted by a chance phone call with Dr. James O’Toole. Rick, who has been very interested in the intersection of leadership with the liberal arts, also had wanted to explore the contribution of the Aspen Institute Executive Seminar. Aspen Institute itself was founded on the ideal of integrating body, mind and spirit (Hyman, 1975; O’Toole, 2004) and the Aspen Institute played an important role in this idea. Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins, originally from the University of Chicago and key founding members of the Institute “believed the goal of the humanities was not to make business leaders into better administrators, but to make them better human beings by broadening and sensitizing them to questions of purpose, ideas, and values” (O’Toole, 2004, p. 4). The Executive Seminar, through readings and discussion, introduces four basic ideas: liberty, equality, efficiency and community as “the polar forces tugging at all modern polities” (p. 13). The goal is to examine and discover where, within these competing forces and often conflicting values of democracy, lays the “good society.”

It is the interplay between each of the four poles that makes the subsequent discussions and the number and scale of the options interesting to explore. O’Toole does a good job setting the stage and explaining the process in his book The Executive’s Compass (1993). That discussion is beyond the scope of this paper. However, what is interesting is exploring the four poles of the good society as they relate to the medicine wheel and the holistic intelligences. We found striking similarities and connections—and not just with the intelligences but with our quadruple bottom line. Efficiency has a direct connection to economic profitability. Equality equates well to the idea of social justice. In community we found a good match to the concept of environmental sustainability—on a grand scale. And liberty represented for us spiritual fulfillment. We also felt resonance between the four poles of the good society and development of the holistic intelligences. For example, Liberty related to SQ, Equality to EQ, Community and environmental sustainability to PQ, and Efficiency to IQ.

Paul R. Scheele and Rick Warm

reclaimyourgenius.com

In truth, we are all at risk of this dilemma to some extent. Because when we learn anything new, our knowledge will always outpace our ability to perform. The learning curves are different knowledge and know how.

Living congruently means that what you know and what you do are essentially identical. In areas of your life where it is most important, what would it mean if you could measurably improve your congruence? What I’ve discovered is that the resources of your genius mind can be activated to automatically reinforce congruence. It happens by leveraging deliberate practices that lead to personal greatness, making a positive self-fulfilling prophecy of your choices to create your life.

But here’s the trap that may be one of the biggest barriers to human development: Our schooling prepares us to know facts. It tests us on what we know. Consequently, we are trained from an early age to be satisfied with information that is known consciously but not embodied as a behavior, skill, attitude, habit, or way of being.

Just think of all the common expressions of this malaise: “Practice what you preach,” “doctor heal thyself,” “eat from your own restaurant,” and “walk your talk.” They are all pointing to a common chasm between what we know and what we do. My favorite phrase to capture all this was penned by Aesop around the 7^th Century B.C., “When everything is said and done, more is said than done.”

As an educator and leadership development specialist, I’ve focused a good part of my professional career helping people minimize the gap between what they preach and what they practice. It can be a challenge, because as you know, it is definitely easier to tell others what they ought to do than to actually do it ourselves.

The burning question is this: What does it take to truly embody what you know that you can do, you want to do, but are not doing? It might be a skill like playing the piano, flying an airplane, painting landscapes with oil paints, surfing, public speaking, creative problem solving, or running a business. It might be an attitude like compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, persistence, or optimism. It might be a state of being like peacefulness, calm, intentional focus, willingness, courage, or self-motivation.

Embodied wisdom comes down to what you practice

The principles of deliberate practice for the acquisition of high performance are the focus here. It has been shown that practice is the only tool for transferring cognitive knowledge into embodied wisdom. When our “espoused theory” becomes our “theory in use” and ultimately becomes fully embodied, we have mastered the art of walking our talk. If your intention is to attain personal and professional excellence, it will come down to how you daily practice the art of living your life.

A number of excellent research studies have been published by K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues on the development of expertise and expert performance through deliberate practice. Subsequent books focused on this research, and include two by Geoffrey Colvin (senior editor at large for Fortune Magazine), The Secrets of Greatness (2006) and Talent is Overrated (2008), the bestseller Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (2008), and the bestselling business book by my colleague Stuart Emery, Success Built To Last (2007). The conclusion is that all performers, even the most “talented” ones, need approximately 10 years of intense involvement (10,000 hours) before they reach an international level in established in fields such as sports, sciences, business, and arts.

Colvin points out that we can become what we will ourselves to be—that innate talent is not essential. He recognizes that most people love to think that if they could only find their talent in life, they would easily coast to fame and fortune. “But that view is tragically constraining,” Colvin says, “because when they hit life’s inevitable bumps in the road, they conclude that they just aren’t gifted and give up.”

If we honestly believe we are not smart enough, talented enough, strong enough, we are not going to persist in performing the necessary practices to attain the levels of skill development that would bring us to greatness. At least part of my work with others is to help them identify the interior resources that can improve the likelihood of success at any endeavor they undertake.

What deliberate practices do you feel will lead you to the life you desire to create?

• Prosperity consciousness and greater earning power for increased financial abundance?
• Love and kindness toward yourself and others for more positive relationships?
• Strength, flexibility, and endurance for a healthier lifestyle and physical body?
•  Mental agility and learning skills to acquire personal and spiritual development more rapidly?

Many deliberate practices were required to grow the company I started. Beginning at the place where my accountant said, “this isn’t profitable enough to be seen as anything more than a hobby,” and building it to the place where it was a multi-million dollar international enterprise, meant a lot of hard work over many years. My personal efforts focused on many crucial practices that categorize in the following ways:

• Daily practices bring balance and harmony to my day. There is a spiritual quality to them.
• Weekly practices build strengths of mind, body, emotions, and character.
• Monthly practices develop my professional skills and capacities to achieve long-term objectives.
• Yearly practices to attain goals.
• Lifelong practices achieve success.

The actual practices themselves can be simple daily routines. For example, how I awaken, stretch, cleanse, exercise, and feed my body and mind all have a powerful impact on my life. Other daily practices include how I exercise my mind and heart through meditation, prayer, gratitude, appreciation, and positive regard for myself and others.

Several practices are more complex, such as daily priority management and weekly practices of “dynamic steering” that keep my businesses, scholarship, public life, and home life functioning effectively.

It is clear to me that my personal practices bring balance, build strength, achieve goals, and lead to long-term success in every area of my life. What daily practices are shaping your life right now? Are they congruent with what you are choosing to create? My wife has a pet phrase, “Am you heading in the direction you are going?”

What practices (that you never learned in school) have become an essential part of your daily, weekly, monthly, and annual life? What success have you attributed to the practice of them? How might we educate others about the importance of such practices?

Management expert Peter Drucker, in an article titled, “Work,” quotes Verdi:

“All my life as a musician, I have striven for perfection.
It has always eluded me. I surely had an obligation to make one more try.”

Drucker goes on to say how Verdi’s words made a deep and lasting impression on him. He wrote,

At eighteen, I was as immature, as callow, as naive as an eighteen-year-old can be. It was not until fifteen years later, when I was in my early thirties, that I really knew what I am good at and where I belong. But I then resolved that, whatever my life’s work would be, Verdi’s words would be my lodestar. I then resolved that if I ever reached an advanced age, I would not give up, but would keep on. In the meantime I would strive for perfection even though, as I well knew, it would surely always elude me.

In my February, 2010 “Ask Your Inner Genius” free teleseminar, we will collectively explore the topic of deliberate practice as a means to professional and personal development. I’m most excited to share with you how to use deliberate practices with greater ease and grace, no matter how challenging the practices may be, so that you can embody any desired behavior, skill, attitude, habit, or way of being, as you create the life you choose to live. 

Join the dialog by logging in at www.AskYourInnerGenius.com

To your Genius,

Paul R. Scheele
www.ReclaimYourGenius.com

At that time Paul wrote the following:

“It always had seemed to me that SQ represented a higher state of intellect in addition to consciousness. I believed that the goal of enlightenment was attained by an intellectual journey to higher awareness, through understanding as well as meditation. But I also recognized that unless one can surrender and have an open will, there is no hope of redemption/atonement or re-uniting with the pure Self that existed at birth, before the creation of ego and the notion of separation from God. In practice, it is fruitless to ask ego to surrender because its sole purpose is guardian or protector of physical existence. To the existence of the ego, surrender is equivalent to defeat. In fact, meditation is referred to by teachers in the Himalayan Yoga Tradition as a practice of dying to the outwardly directed world of attachment and ego.”

“The resolution of the dilemma posed by the protective ego needing to surrender, is transcendence of the physical need for survival. Intellect is used in a downshifting fashion to ultimately provide enough safety that surrender becomes okay and desirable. We must downshift from IQ with an open mind and a balanced brain, through EQ with feelings of emotional safety and an open heart, through PQ with a sense of physical safety so deep that it becomes possible to have an open will to source and the emergent future. Only in this way can we reach a state of presence and experience the unitive consciousness of SQ. We must be able to get off the high camel of the intellect to go through the ‘eye of the needle.’”

“The practices of PQ must be devoted—as the martial arts, qigong, and yoga are—to bringing the physical body to a place of power, strength, openness, safety, and health. Proper nutrition and exercise are necessary. Linking the breath and movement harmonize both the body and mind, stimulating a sense of balance, empowerment, and equanimity. The lower energy centers and higher energy centers meet at the nexus of the heart—the seat of trust, love, and compassion for humanity. With strength and balance in the body, heart, and mind, the human experience expands and grows in capacity to carry a larger current of spiritual energy. This is equivalent to high voltage power lines in the distribution of energy across a broad area. When the spinal column and nervous systems can carry a greater load, then higher energy flow is possible. The awakening of this energy or Kundalini is an increased vibrational level of being, the effect of which attracts and organizes the energy field to manifest one’s highest destiny.”

“The leader who steps up to the path of personal development, grows in outward capacity in direct proportion to the openings developed internally. The inner work of leader development is that of breaking through internal energetic blockages in the physical, emotional, and intellectual realms. The path to spiritual intelligence then, is the path of an enlightened, conscious leader.”

“The path toward such personal and professional awareness brings us ultimately to the unitive consciousness of SQ that perceives the interconnectedness of all life, the importance of creating business that is environmentally and economically sustainable, socially just, and spiritually fulfilling. Conscious capitalism as described by Raj Sisodia (Sisodia et. al., 2007), Peter Senge (Senge, et al., 2008), and Hazel Henderson (Henderson, 2006) becomes the imperative.”

In the next post, we describe further connections that expand the foundation of our research.

Paul R. Scheele and Rick Warm

reclaimyourgenius.com

The framework of artistic leadership … is grounded on the Native American Medicine Wheel, with cardinal directions representing significant and integral regions of human potential, framed as spiritual, emotional, physical, and mental. In most technological societies, the two directions that historically have received the most attention are physical and mental. As evidence, note the extent to which schools and sports fill the lives of youth. A potential downside of such emphasis is that emotional and spiritual potentialities may remain relatively less developed. The so-called medicine inherent in the Medicine Wheel as a foundation for learning resides in its recognition of balance among all four dimensions (2005, p. 175).

Why does it matter that balance among the four intelligences is achieved? Citing Zohar (1997) and Fry (2003), Cowan argues that “spiritual potential increases along a developmental path and is integrally connected to the mind, body, and emotions” (2005, p. 6). Referring to the Native American medicine wheel, a model which also has developed independently in other cultures around the world (see image below), Cowan calls attention to the interrelationships and the need for holistic development.

(Cowan, 2005, p. 7)

“The relevance of interconnections among dimensions of human potentiality is increasingly apparent as we contemplate the possibility of spiritual forces manifesting through leadership behavior. Organizationally, isolating spirituality does not capture the real-world synergies that emerge when spirituality interacts with mental, physical, and emotional aspects of a situation” (p. 7). These “potentialities” have been described as energies as well. Yet increasingly they are being explored in leadership literature as “intelligences”. With reference to Gardner’s idea of multiple intelligences (1983) and Wilber’s lines of development (2006), spiritual intelligence (SQ) has become an important new developmental focus (since emotional intelligence) in the hope of elevating leadership development and as a wiser way to lead organizational transformation.

If we consider the four realms as intelligences, the medicine wheel may represent the most elegant and balanced depiction of the integral whole. Recently there has been increased research and new models attempting to depict this dynamic. Researcher Cindy Wigglesworth (2004) sees physical intelligence as the base of a pyramid, with SQ as the beacon at the top.

Emotional intelligence is “the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions” (Salovey & Mayer, 1990, p. 189). EQ, which has been studied extensively, and is believed to positively affect leadership ability and life success, is shown in an active interaction with SQ. Spiritual intelligence, which is a concept that is difficult to define concisely, represents the guiding force of our lives—the big picture questions such as meaning and purpose. Spiritual intelligence demands that we understand our values and act them out, not just espouse them (Zohar, 2001). High levels of spiritual intelligence seem to be related to higher levels of consciousness (Wigglesworth, 2006).

Covey’s model (2004) is perhaps more integral and less hierarchical, while still giving authority to SQ:

Far from the “multiple intelligence theory” of Gardner, this represents a theory of “holistic intelligence” whose cultivation, leads to self-knowledge and, depending on how the intellectual knowledge is pursued, perhaps even wisdom. Self-knowledge thus is related to and affected by our physical selves, our minds, our emotions and that broader and more elusive realm of spiritual intelligence. What we are postulating here is that increased self-knowledge is the result of raising these four intelligences. And, we propose that accessing and developing all of these intelligences and integrating them on the journey towards wisdom, is a transformational journey that the leader must face in his or her leadership development.

During our months of dialogs, Rick Warm wrote an email stating:

“Coaching is about developing one’s SQ. Leadership is about using SQ. At least that is what I first thought. Then I began to look at it more holistically and ask why just SQ? So I began to revise the thought to coaching is about developing and integrating one’s PQ, IQ, EQ and SQ. It is about learning how to tap into the SQ ultimately. Leadership then is using those lessons. That is one more argument as to why wisdom is (at least partly) the integration of these holistic intelligences.”

In the next post, we’ll explain how to more powerfully connect the importance of the four holistic intelligences into training of the brain/mind in a leadership development context.

Paul R. Scheele and Rick Warm

reclaimyourgenius.com

For many years the idea of cognitive intelligence (IQ) has been a mainstay in the realms of education, psychology, etc. It was Howard Gardner (1993) who opened the doors to the question of multiple intelligences with his argument that each person has 8 different intelligences in various states of development. Ken Wilber (2000) in his own way has embraced the idea of multiple intelligences in his AQAL framework. Wilber, in fact, sees closer to two dozen intelligences or what he calls lines of development. Though both men disagree on a number of key issues (Gardner, 2007), it is safe to say that the importance of a singular cognitive intelligence has been significantly disputed in theory (though not necessarily yet in praxis).

In the 1990s, Daniel Goleman (1995, 1998) introduced and popularized the idea of emotional intelligence (EQ). This was an intelligence that called upon, first and foremost, self-awareness. But EQ is more complex and involves understanding and managing one’s own emotions as well as the emotions of others. It is, in simple terms, an intelligence of the heart. This is in stark contrast to the longstanding notion of cognitive intelligence, which has been predominantly considered as intellectual ability or intelligence of the mind.

Writing on the brink of the emotional intelligence “revolution”, Dehler and Welsh (1994) proclaim emotion as the missing element in organization change. They argue that work is an emotional experience and yet it has been ignored by theorists for some time. They go on to make their case for emotion’s role in successful organizational transformation. “Implementing change successfully requires change agents to supplement structural reorganization by attending to the emotional side of the enterprise—in this case, appealing to matters of spirituality” (p. 19). Now with the metaphorical genie out of the bottle, even the realm of organizational change has been given license to cross the chasm of body and mind to explore heart and spirit. Egri and Frost (1994) write that the search for spiritual meaning plays an important role in the development of the individual as well as in larger social systems. “There is a need for holistic balance between the physical reality of the body, the intellectual and social reality of the mind, and the spiritual needs of the soul” (p. 7). Ten years later, Lotte Darso (2004) argues the same point, using Otto Scharmer’s Theory U to paint a picture of organizational change and explain how the arts can play a role in leading change and organizational transformation.

Fig. from C. Otto Scharmer, Theory U, 2007.

Darso explains that Level 1 is only a superficial change, or as Wilber says, simply a rearrangement of the furniture. “Many top-down change programmes have no real effect, as they are merely ‘forced learning’ or rearrangements. People obey orders by pretending and paying lip service, while they silently resent the change and wait for it to ‘pass’ until the next ‘change initiative’ is launched” (p. 161). This level can be seen to correspond with the physical element. Level 2 does involve both thinking and discussing and the discussion is “rational and factual” and may result in a concrete decision or development of strategy. Dick Richards blames this on Newtonian sciences (Richards, 1991). “Because Newtonian science focuses our attention on the external world and on our mental capacities, it encourages us to seek two kinds of approaches to our challenges: physical and mental. In the process we ignore other approaches, the emotional and spiritual approaches that are the lifeblood of artfulness” (p. 10-11). Darso adds that in general, the first two levels are the only ones used by business. “According to Scharmer, the two first levels are only reactions and reflections on the experiences of the past. Because feelings are considered irrational in business and therefore illegitimate, the door to the next level is kept mostly closed” (Darso, p.161-162). Richards explains,

We entertain the hope, over and over, that physical and mental approaches alone will help us meet our challenges. They won’t, because we are looking for solutions in the wrong places. We look only where our prevailing beliefs allow us to look, and our prevailing beliefs allow us only to look at physical and mental approaches, at techniques and ideas (p. 11).

Level 3 deals with feelings. Level 4, or the point of presencing, “enable(s) contact with people’s higher Self, which means their passion, commitment and will” (Darso, p. 162). Darso states that true transformation only happens at Levels 3 & 4. Richards uses the words and ideas of M.C. Richards in his reference to the artistry of a potter in order to explain Levels 3 & 4. “Being alive to the concreteness of the moment means being fully attentive to all that is happening in the present” (p. 26). He goes on to say, “The materials of the moment include emotion and spirit. When we include them, we become who we truly are and bring all of ourselves to our work. We become truly centered and artful” (p. 26).

This is what Darso calls artful creation. It is symbolized by the following graphic:

Artful creation is part of a new paradigm that is built on an older one of “instrumental management.” “It is not an either/or. It is more: body, mind, heart and spirit.” (Darso, p. 163-164).

The realms of the body, mind, emotion and spirit are called upon in many different arenas. In the study of the martial arts, one’s quest is to integrate body, mind and spirit. Richards and Darso show that this idea is very much alive in the arts and show its connection to leadership and change. In the book Resonant Leadership (Boyatzis and McKee, 2005), the authors write often about the need for resonant leaders to see themselves as more than just a body or mind. They call for a holistic approach to leadership that uses the body and mind as well as the heart and spirit to develop and contribute to resonant leadership. “Great leadership comes as a result of hard work and a bit of luck. It requires discovering our own noble purpose, living it every day, and being fully aware of ourselves as human beings—mind, body, heart, and spirit” (p. 202).

Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz (2003) see the four realms as sources of energy to be tapped for “full engagement”. Their very first principle states, “Full engagement requires drawing on four separate but related sources of energy: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual” (p. 9). They add, “By training in all dimensions we can dramatically slow our decline physically and mentally, and we can actually deepen our emotional and spiritual capacity until the very end of our lives” (p. 12). Richards also sees these as four energies. His focus is less on fitness and more on the holistic workings of the energies. “These four sources of energy entwine to form a complex web of wholeness and interdependence” (Richards, p. 14). And, of course, his angle is on the creation of artful work. “The process of bringing all of our energy together, of calling all of ourselves to a particular moment or task, is the process that results in artistry” (p. 14-15).

In the next post, we explore the relevance of the Medicine Wheel to our research.

Paul R. Scheele and Rick Warm

reclaimyourgenius.com

We had already done a good deal of research and reflection by the time we started this project. We formalized the project with specific “learning goals”, “learning strategies” and a way of showing “evidence of learning.” Three important concepts or personal biases shape our journey as well as our conclusions. Let us present those here.

First, we both saw that humanity was in need of leaders who are prepared to help bring about a world that works for everyone; a world that is socially just, environmentally sustainable, and economically sustainable. This resonated with some of the literature that our mentor had recommended on the “triple bottom line” (Savitz, 2006; Elkington, 1998) as well as the writings of Michael Lerner about the “new bottom line.” Our research subsequently confirmed that spiritual fulfillment was an important component of this “bottom line thinking” and we thus began to look at leadership through the lens of what we now called the quadruple bottom line: social justice, environmental sustainability, economic profitability, and spiritual fulfillment.

Our second initial bias is that we believed, based on our own experience as well as the literature, that personal transformation and a greater understanding of the bigger picture were key to more effective leadership.

Our third bias is that we believed the integration of body, mind, emotion and spirit could increase one’s capacity to undertake a personal transformational inner journey toward self-knowledge and authenticity. Furthermore, we agreed that this increased capacity helps to facilitate the transformation of others through similar processes, and ultimately leads to a shift in the consciousness of a group. Our goal became how to explore and experience this on our own and find a way to make this available to other interested parties—particularly for UTSLA since they had asked for our help in crafting such a curriculum.

It was clear to us from the beginning of the project that there is a business revolution taking shape. Peter Senge and his colleagues in their book, The Necessary Revolution: How individuals and organizations are working together to create a sustainable world, (2008) are among the many scholars and practitioners who are describing the way that organizations are changing. Globally, companies have begun adopting transformative strategies to create a sustainable future for humanity, the planet, and their businesses. Our question is this: As business leaders recognize, for the sake of their companies and for our world, that we must implement revolutionary changes in thinking and practice, what will be the focus of leadership development that will adequately equip future leaders to run the emerging “conscious” businesses?

Our initial hypothesis was that those business leaders who would be considered more “conscious” would be wise as well. They would probably score high on measures of Spiritual Intelligence. They would have a level of ego development that embraces a “unifying” awareness of the need to think globally and act in ethical, responsible ways for long-term benefit of all concerned. They would practice conscious capitalism that is socially and environmentally responsible. They would think beyond short-term economic measures of success and would guide their organization to focus on a quadruple bottom-line. That is, their attention would be sensitive to social justice issues in their marketplaces, engage in business practices that produce economic and environmental sustainability, and actively create a workplace that is spiritually fulfilling—offering meaningful work and engagement of all employees.

As we explored the literature, engaged in meaningful dialog, and interviewed transformational leaders, our initial hypothesis seemed to be confirmed. There was ample evidence of leadership descriptions that looked much like what we imagined. Many leadership development approaches also exist to facilitate the development of conscious, ethical, spiritual, aesthetic, and transformative leaders. Buoyed up by our findings, we endeavored to envision a leadership development approach that incorporates what we saw as “best practices” for guiding the potential leader’s inner development and outward leadership effectiveness. The core design elements for such a curriculum emerged from a confluence of the many models we encountered. Our attempts to reconcile those models into a cohesive flow of essential principles became a passion for us over the duration of the project.

Our research and work included a number of activities that advanced our thinking and ultimately led to our curriculum design. These included face to face meetings, a series of weekly dialogues about specific readings, emails and phone conversations, our own individual leadership development practices (LDPs) which we also shared in daily and weekly communications, and interviews and dialogs that we conducted with a set group of transformational leaders and scholars about wisdom and transformation. Our collaboration was usually in alignment and each of us brought the other up to a higher level of understanding in areas of discussion and debate.

In the next posts we will explore the complementary and convergent models we encountered during our research that formed the foundation of our approach to developing leadership wisdom and spiritual intelligence.

Paul R. Scheele and Rick Warm

Here is an overview of the series:

Leaders in all walks of life face increasingly difficult choices. The daunting problems to be addressed go beyond any available expertise to solve them. It was Einstein who said that the problems of today cannot be solved at the level of thinking that created them.

In the corporate world it has become de rigueur to hire and promote MBAs. Although, the narrow focus of a traditional MBA curriculum helps run a business and solve business problems, it has become increasingly insufficient to address the large scale problems that have emerged in today’s global economy. Simultaneously we are witnessing moral and ethical questions that continue to plague all areas of society, with nefarious business scandals leading the list. Reflection, spiritual intelligence, and the cultivation of wisdom appear to offer a powerful counter-response to the urgent needs of business leaders and their organizations.

Enjoy the series. Your comments are welcomed.

Paul R. Scheele

Educators need to envision the ideal moral and ethical relationship between students, parents, teachers, schools and our global human family. President Barack Obama, in his speech to students on September 8, 2009, called upon students in this way:

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

I personally found Obama’s speech to be inspiring and motivational. As a parent I would have wanted my three children to hear it and discuss it with their peers and teachers. As an educator, I would definitely want to expose my students to the axiology represented in the speech, and continue dialogue about it in my classrooms.

Yet, there was virulent opposition to having the President of the United States speak directly to school children by many parents, teachers, and politicians. I found this exceedingly disturbing. In fact, the thought of trying to censor the chief executive of the United States from speaking to its citizens—especially our youth—seems almost beyond comprehension. Yet in light of the dominant stasist control still operating throughout our nation’s educational institutions, I now recognize I need not be surprised.

If the President cannot get people to come together and listen to discussions of ethical responsibility, I am certain that my voice isn’t going to change things very quickly, no matter how influential I become. The following old proverb comes to mind attributed to the Englishman, John Heywood, in 1546:

There are none so blind as those who will not see;
none so deaf as those who will not hear;
none so ignorant as those who will not listen
and none so foolish as those who think they can change anyone who will not see, hear or listen.

But I do know this: Where I do have influence, I can encourage people to enter the discourse and move from debate to deep listening (Scharmer, 2007). I know that I and other global leaders can facilitate change-making and transformation in education if we remain vigilant and committed. Keeping the long view of “seven generations” that the Native American traditions attend to, we can also remember that the work we do today is not for us, but for seven generations hence.

Paul R. Scheele

www.ReclaimYourGenius.com

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