TRENDSPOTTING
Nov. 17/08 written by Terry Mollner
What I experienced last weekend may be the harbinger of a major maturation of socially responsible business and investing.
I attended the Catalyzing Conscious Capitalism Conference in Austin, TX. John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods, was the main thinking and financial energy behind this founding conference of what they hope will be a new movement in the private sector. Of the 130 invited guests I was one of only a couple members of the Social Venture Network (SVN), an invitation only association of the executives of socially responsible companies.
Early in the weekend I stood and asked the entire group this question, “How many in this room think the universe is one indivisible whole?” Nearly every hand in the room went up. I am sure I would have gotten a similar response at a gathering of SVN members. I then pointed out that if this is, indeed, true, then cooperation, not competition, is fundamental in nature. What I wish I had added is that we are currently living in a culture based on a contradiction: inside our skin we assume cooperation is fundamental in nature– all the parts are cooperating by giving priority to the whole body – but we assume competition is fundamental outside our skin. The one thing all religious, scientific, philosophical, and psychological people agree upon is that life is not a contradiction: they all have an explanation on how it makes sense, that is, fits together into a whole.
What I did say was that if cooperation cannot be escaped because it is fundamental in nature, then competition must be one of the forms of expression of cooperation. Compromise would then be consider a more mature form of cooperation, agreement a still more mature form, and love the most mature form.
After pointing out that I was one of the earliest pioneers of socially responsible investing, part of the founding of the Calvert Social Investment Funds and a member of the board of Ben & Jerry’s, I admitted that I was fully aware that we have only been dealing with the secondary priorities of companies, not their highest priority. Figuratively speaking, in the 1970s and 80s we were in the streets screaming at the corporate managements on the top floor of the buildings to care more about the employees, the community, and the environment. We did not confront the fact that the highest priority was the financial interests of a few, usually called “the shareholders.” I admitted that our step was a step in the right direction but that it was time to take the next step.
“If this new movement that you are beginning,” I said, “is ready to go to the next layer of maturity where we insist that the freely chosen highest priority must be the common good of us all, then I am ready to join your movement.”
The weekend of speaker after speaker progressed, mainly of CEOs of companies who had cared deeply about all the stakeholders and have had great success in every way. As I listened I wasn’t sure if they were all ready to structure their thinking in the pattern of “giving priority to priorities.”
Let me explain why I believe this is essential to begin operating at the next layer of maturity in our thinking, not only in business but in every other area of our lives.
Reality is one indivisible whole; language, however, is separate parts, the exact opposite. We create the sound and symbol “chair” and “table” so we will know when another is talking about one rather than the other. Immature thinking assumes that the fundamental assumption of language (separate parts, each giving priority to its self-interest, and, therefore, competition) is fundamental in nature. Language is very valuable: it allows us to be self-conscious. Therefore, we do not want to eliminate language. The mature thinker realizes that it is necessary to do judo on language so it can continue to be present but not disrupt the experience of oneness.
Are you still with me? I know this is abstract, but there is only one more paragraph of it. As you will see, I think it is essential to understand this so we can learn how to do judo on the inaccurate fundamental assumption about reality present when using language.
It is done by giving priority to priorities in our thinking. The different priorities can be represented in language; so now language (separate parts) and the skill of self-consciousness can be present. However, we can have the set of priorities be in all time and all space as one, as a whole. In this way we have eliminated the factors of time and space. Bada boom. We have done judo on language. We have also affirmed oneness as fundamental in nature in the way we use language. Thus, it is present without disrupting the experience of oneness.
Throughout history giving priority to the common good of us all has essentially been referred to as “moral behavior.” Giving priority to anything else…any “thing,” any “part” of the universe…has usually been described as immature or immoral behavior.
In the socially responsible business and investment community we usually give priority to “the triple bottom line of the social, environmental, and financial” performance of the company. This is still operating in the immature pattern of thinking that assumes we can avoid priorities. We can’t. Oneness is fundamental in nature. It can’t be escaped. It lives in the realm that is absent of factors of time and space. Therefore, we are always giving priority to priorities whether or not we are aware of it. There will always be trade-offs between and among social, environmental, and financial performance determined by what is given priority. Our priority, it is obvious, determines everything else. Everything yields to and finds a way to be in alignment with what we choose to be our highest priority.
Finally, late Saturday afternoon, John Mackey took the stage and described how he defines conscious capitalism. In my judgment his highest priority was labeled “a higher purpose.” His second priority was “the stakeholders,” all of them. Well, that isn’t exactly correct. That is what I believed I was witnessing. However, he simply listed “higher purpose” as first on his “list” of five things of what he described as conscious capitalism. But I could see that he was really giving priority to it but did not recognize that he was going so. So, during dinner, I sat down with him and some others.
I first suggested that he use the following phrase instead of “a higher purpose”: “The highest priority of conscious capitalism is the common good on the assumption that the universe is one indivisible whole.” He didn’t appear to disagree with it but rejected it as limiting the number of people who could embrace it. He wanted people to be free to project whatever they believed to be a higher purpose onto the words “a higher purpose.” I recognized the marketing wisdom of this approach, but argued that grounding his new movement on the more mature thinking emerging in the culture would be better.
I then asked if giving priority to a higher purpose was the highest priority of being a conscious capitalist business. He basically agreed that it was, but he wasn’t comfortable labeling it as “the highest priority.” I then explained, as I just did above, why I believe changing the pattern of thinking to giving priority to priorities was the most essential aspect to what I thought he was intuitively doing. He, of course, did not agree that it was as important as I did. Few people do until they dig into an understanding of the relationship between language and reality. They only do so when they realize that language is always between us and whatever we perceive when being self-conscious.
He then mentioned that he was a libertarian. The others at the table tried to understand what he meant by this. Ultimately he clarified that he was an “integral libertarian.” By this he meant that he was very much in favor of the existence of a government for defense, police, fireman…and to enforce contracts. He agreed that it was the absence of the government doing the later, holding people accountable to our security agreements, which caused the implosion on Wall Street. I then piped in: “So your priority is individual freedom, but you want a context of agreements that assures safety, fairness, and supports and encourages individual freedom and responsibility.” To this he gave a resounding “yes.” He said that accurately described integral libertarianism. He was also seeing the wisdom of using priorities to clarify his position.
There is no question in my mind that the higher layers of human maturity build on individual freedom. I love the story an old man who had worked with Mahatma Gandhi told me when I visited him in India in 1979. He said Gandhi had an exchange with Mao Tse Dung. He wrote him and told him his system wouldn’t work. Mao wrote back and disagreed. He said that he was giving priority to the good of the people. Gandhi wrote back and said, “It is very good that you are giving priority to the good of the people; however you are having one group decide what is best for all the people. The next stage of human development will build on individual freedom; not take it away.”
Each layer of maturity builds on the one before it and they are skills. No one can learn a skill for another. And each next layer must be freely chosen as the result of discovering its value in one’s experience or it won’t be chosen to be learned as a skill, then become a habit, and then part of who we are without having to think about it anymore. Humans, in my judgment, go from giving priority to their feelings as toddlers, to wants as children, to exercising free choice as teenagers, to their beliefs as adults, to embracing the oneness of nature as their fundamental belief as elders, to giving priority to the experience of oneness over the belief of oneness as mature elders. Most of the people in America today are stuck at the adult layer or lower. However, many have broken into understanding the oneness of nature.
In conversation with others over the weekend who work closely with John it became clear to me that even though he did not yet understand the importance of giving priority to priorities in his thinking, he was intuitively doing so in practice.
I had also pointed out to him in our conversation at the table that it was not possible to point a finger at whatever was being described as “a higher purpose.” It was usually further described as one of what Abraham Maslow called “being values”: the words people used as name their priority when they had graduated up his hierarchy of needs to be self-actualized people. Their priority was “truth” if a scientist, “justice” if a judge, “love” if a social worker, etc. These are words that describe the nature of human relationships and are not a thing like a “chair,” “table,” “tree,” etc.: a thing that can be pointed at with our finger. That meant, I went on, that his second priority of caring about the needs and wants of all the stakeholders was the way to determine if all were being successful at giving priority to the common good…only I used the words “higher priority.” If the employees, suppliers, customers, community, etc. were both enthusiastic about giving priority to the higher purpose and felt that they were being cared for as part of serving the higher purpose, then it could be concluded that not only were all giving priority to the higher purpose but all would also fully embrace the necessary hierarchy and trade-offs that would be present. They could see how it was a result of giving priority to the higher purpose. John, and particularly his cohorts with whom I was able to have more substantive one-on-one conversations, agreed that these were, indeed, the priorities in this order: the higher purpose and then the stakeholders. Some spoke of publicly launching this new movement on July 4th and calling it “Interdependence Day.”
As Americans we easily get drunk on individual freedom. However, we are clearly moving beyond that now into the higher layers of maturity where we understand that the universe is one indivisible whole and we are it, inseparable from one another. Therefore, at full maturity we naturally and effortlessly give priority to the common good of us all. It becomes our mature self-interest.
The wonderful thing about priorities in our behavior, especially skills that have been turned into habits, is that we can do all of them fully at the same time. Currently I am sitting in an airplane seat, wearing clothes, writing, using the English language, etc. I am doing all of them fully at the same time as a result of these habits being ranked in an order of priorities that is in alignment with the cooperative patterns of nature. I am giving priority to choosing my thoughts, second to using the English language, third to writing, fourth to sitting, etc. Trade-offs could be perceived as occurring: I have been sitting uncomfortably on my left leg for a period of time, but I fully accept the trade off because my priority is to keep getting my thoughts down rather than adjusting my body. Therefore there is no experience of lose or conflict.
By giving priority to a higher purpose a business can also be in alignment with the cooperative patterns of nature. Since this is also the natural priority of human beings, they can easily choose to be enthusiastic participants in the business and to accept the hierarchy and trade-offs just as easily. This should enhance the ability of the employees to enjoy doing their work and be highly productive. The suppliers, customers, community, etc. will also enjoy being part of an activity that is giving priority to the common good…like so many did when helping Barrack Obama get elected President.
So I concluded that the people leading this new conscious capitalism movement had, indeed, discovered the importance of giving priority to priorities in their thinking even though they are currently doing it more intuitively than masterfully. I am confident that they will eventually discover the importance of understanding “how” they are doing it. They will even eventually commit ever larger portions of their profits to common good causes as well. Therefore, I have concluded that I will encourage all in the socially responsible business and investment community to recognize that this is the next layer of maturity in what we are doing, to celebrate its emergence, and welcome them into our clubs.
We should also not be surprised that they needed to go off on their own to find the space to fumble toward the discovery of this next layer of maturity. Organizations easily settle into making the source of their legitimacy into a dogma. This was abundantly clear to my wife and me when she got breast cancer. Two doctors always met with us and they all said the same things so one could testify that the other had said it. They also never broke from giving the exact same advice in the exact same way: chemotherapy, radiation, and tamoxifen. We had to go to clearly alternative doctors to have any of our questions answered with anything other than the dogma.
There is a layer of maturity beyond the triple bottom line. It is giving priority to priorities in our thinking as a result of understanding that the universe is one indivisible whole and how to have language reflect it in a way that does not disrupt the experience of oneness. People from quantum physicists to Rick Warren, one of the most respected evangelical ministers and the author of the best selling hardcover book ever, The Purpose Driven Life, now agree that the universe is one indivisible whole.
The way we turn the “illusion of language” and the “reality of oneness” into a cooperative whole so we can know the consistent experience of inner peace is to give priority to priorities in our thinking with the highest priority always being the common good.
The common good is always what is best for the maturation of the one indivisible whole. No one can tell anyone else what it is. We will be forever in a conversation to understand it better. Conscious capitalism is fumbling in the direction of choosing to give priority to the common good and to have us consistently discovering together every day what it means and how it changes in form but always remains the same in spirit, in relationships that feel fulfilled.
I have invited them to attend the meetings of the Social Venture Network, Investors’ Circle, SRI in the Rockies, etc. I hope all will welcome them with open arms, discover for yourself if my perceptions are accurate, and decide whether or not you believe it is time for us to also begin giving priority to priorities in our thinking.
Our most important choice each moment is our priority. It reveals whether or not we believe we are all in this together as one indivisible whole. It is time to give priority to speaking to the highest priority of companies in which we invest and build.
Terry Mollner, President of Trusteeship Institute, is a founder and member of the Board of the Calvert Social Investment Funds and a member of the board of Ben & Jerry’[email protected]