Co-authored by Daniel Goodenough & Jill Taylor, co-founders of The HuPerson Project
Change is something we experience often. We adapt, we adjust, we re-think. Yet to reinvent? That requires a skill set many of us are not comfortable with, a skill set necessarily based in awareness. When we develop awareness as leaders, we see the demands of our company differently. This difference is the key to new solutions, to new leadership, to leadership reinvented.
Why Reinvent?
This first question is, Why reinvent? Why not settle for change? To answer this question, we need to step back and take a holistic view of the impact of our businesses. We see a world in trouble. We used to think that successful leadership and successful companies were on one side of the divide, and that the world and its problems were situated elsewhere. Now, though, we are seeing the fallacy of that way of thinking. It’s not only the world that’s in trouble; leadership is in trouble as well. In Fortune’s recent CEO Daily, the former CEO of Unilever, Paul Polman, is credited as saying, “We now face a crisis of leadership in business at a time when we need it most.”
Awareness
The first step in being able to see leadership differently is curiosity about what reinvented leadership might look like. Leaders can initiate a process of inquiry, delving more deeply into the meaning of their business, their mission. Why has this business been created? What is the company’s role in creating meaning? What does this call us to do as a company? Who does this call us to become? Inquiry opens us up to a more spacious understanding of what we’re about, no longer constricted by the status quo, central for leaders to keep their businesses ahead of the curve.
Employee Engagement
The next step in seeing leadership differently is to extend this same process of inquiry to our employees. It is possible to develop our employees’ awareness of their life mission also, and to develop it for their own sake. Management attempts at developing an employee’s sense of purpose boils down, too often, to this: You are here to make money for the firm. If, as leaders, we initiate a process of inquiry instead, we may well find that we can attain profits for the company, and at the same time cultivate real meaning for the employee. It is fostering this genuine sense of meaningfulness which will both retain employees and also deepen their engagement with the company.
All employees in a company, including management, can benefit personally and professionally from life mission inquiry by considering the question, Why are you here on the planet? Notice this question has nothing to do (yet) with why you are in this company. Rather, leadership cultivates a process of inquiry where the employees sit with a range of questions, presenting to the larger human experience and how they fit within it. Related questions include, What does that call you to do? And, Who does this call you to become? Leadership support for this process is central. From the foundational practice of inquiry, a bridge can be created to higher levels of flow and mastery in the company. This process of inquiry can also increase well-being and creativity—all components valued by the employees in experiencing meaningfulness in their employment.
The genuineness and generosity on the part of the company in committing to their employees in this way is an authentic step, showing a dedication to meaningfulness for their workforce.
The results of this training indicate an increase in employee self-esteem, in their sense of meaningfulness, and, significantly, an increase in their commitment to their work. Perhaps this seems counter-intuitive, giving an employee free-rein to explore meaning in their lives. And yet, some high-performing companies are prepared to give free-rein, or unstructured time, for a certain percentage of employee work, such as Google’s 20 percent, where employee exploration came up with Google Maps, for example. This same exploration of meaningfulness leads to an employee’s sense of their life’s path and sets the ground for cultivating the mastery they need to experience that. Businesses benefits from that dedication to mastery as well.
Conclusion
Once leaders realise that not holding the whole of life is the root of the crisis in leadership, we will be able to move forward. Present to what’s at stake, we’ll be able to open our eyes to new possibilities grounded in a larger awareness. Meaningfulness is central to employee’s lives, a spark ignited during the pandemic, and not easily extinguished. When the employees’ sense of life mission marries with the company’s thoughtfully articulated own sense of purpose, the unique signature of a company comes into play more strongly. All the employees co-create the company’s vision together, individually and collectively opening to the future that wants to happen—a whole and healthy world.
Daniel Goodenough
Co-Founder, The HuPerson Project
Dedicated to science, art and spirit, Daniel inspires individuals, teams and enterprises to live their unique vision in the way the world most needs it. Co-founder of The Way of the Heart with Kimberly Herkert, Daniel designs processes for people to live more fulfilled, purposeful, and intentional lives. He recently published The Caravan of Remembering, a powerful self-directed inquiry for discovering our deepest calling. Together with Jill Taylor and Shelly Cooper, in 2023, Daniel co-founded the HuPerson Project to help leaders develop a deep awareness and presence, opening new structures of thinking so that corporate and entrepreneurial enterprises are able to embody their vision and become a remedy for the needs of the world today.
Jill Taylor, (RN, MN)
Co-founder / CEO, The HuPerson Project
Co-founder and CEO of three businesses, Jill Taylor has devoted her career to fostering unique methods of transformation for individuals, teams and companies. She co-founded The Taylor Group with her mother, Carolyn Taylor, at the forefront of wellness and leadership, helping clients understand the nature of the changes confronting them and how to become new inside those changes. Then as CEO of Burgerville, Jill helped the company navigate COVID with strategic flexibility while strengthening local economies by working with local farmers to the benefit of all. Together with Shelly Cooper and Daniel Goodenough, in 2023, Jill co-founded the HuPerson Project to transform a leader’s awareness and presence, and to open a new structure of thinking needed to navigate the world emerging. Jill’s changemaker spirit was recently recognised as one of Portland, Oregon’s most influential women by the Portland Business Journal.
