Inspiring Your Authentic Week

Posted: 28 Apr 2008 08:05 AM CDT

First - imagine an authentic society:
Imagine an authentic form of government - perhaps a little like the ones you see in Science Fiction where a committee of wise, ego free, elders engage the community and guide it with compassion and care.
Where taxes are levied on things that the society wants to stop (like pollution) and not on things it wants to encourage like working for the greater good.
Imagine authentic education that helps every child to find their inner brilliance and how to apply it in adult life. Teenagers emerging confidently rather than confused into adulthood.
Imagine authentic businesses that contribute as much to society as they do to the bottom line. Creating great products that help society to function sustainably, healthily and peacefully, whilst also creating inspiring and fulfilling working environments without exploitation of people or planet.
This has been imagined before. Utopia is not an original idea.
So given that we have had quite a bit of time to work this one out, how is it that we have not made greater progress?
I think there are two things that have held us back before, and which will hold us back again unless we can include them in our transformation. This goes for cultural change at any level - in a business, community or a society.
The first is integration. Transformation cannot be done separately from the rest of society. When it is done separately all you do is to create factions, who generally end up in conflict.
At a societal level integration involves family and finance.
Family is the fundamental building block of humanity, any transformation that does not have successful family living at it's heart will not succeed on a large scale. This includes the current experiment where many families are put under intolerable strain by the way many of us earn our living.
Which is the link to finance:
In todays society financial security is as important as physical security. Not necessarily in a literal sense, but certainly in a practical sense. Most of us reading this e-mail enjoy sufficient physical security that financial security replaces physical security in our concerns.
In Maslow's hierarchy of needs we can see that security, including financial security, forms the base from which we can build. Without a sense of security it is very difficult to broaden our considerations to others, or deepen them spiritually.
It is a sense of confidence and security that enables us to progress to a wider sense of the world than our own ego self, which is the second thing that might hold us back.
Until those who lead us in government, business and education can feel the confidence to go beyond their own fear driven, ego thinking, transformation will not be widespread.
An authentic transformation has to be profitable.
If we want to see our society, or community or our business transform we have two related things to do - we have to build self confidence for ourselves and those around us and we have to build financial security.
Fortunately for the transformation, authenticity is great for business. As I discovered in the research for my book "Authentic Business", authentic businesses are able to spend up to 80% less on marketing and motivation than their conventional counterparts.
There has been a level of conversation in the community of progressives, transformers and social change agents that sees profit, money and sometimes business as a 'bad' thing.
If we are to create a sustainable transformation we have to overcome this thinking. Profit, money and business can be fantastic agents for social development and empowerment. It is exploitation that we need to avoid.
If we fear money, growth, success or profit we are seriously limiting our potential, both for ourselves as individuals and our ability to influence the direction of our society.
I am writing a new article on Authentic Business as an update on the book. The article will look at the businesses I wrote about in the book, some new ones that have started since and some other inspiring businesses.
If you have a authentic business story you would like to share, I would love to hear from you.
I am writing the article speculatively - so if you are interested in publishing the article please let me know.
I have a great deal of experience authenticity in business, helping authentic businesses to start, build and profit. Also helping established businesses to become more authentic. Perhaps I can contribute to your business? Let me know if you want to have a chat.
with love
nx

neil crofts - coach, consultant, facilitator
Authentic Transformation - join the evolution
UK mobile +44 (0)7775 658534
neil@authentictransformation.co.uk
www.authentictransformation.co.uk

Show up
Be Present
Tell the truth
Let it all go

Harrison Owen - creator of Open Space Technology