Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values

**Winner of the 2009 Nautilus Gold Award**
 
Consciousness is the main source of organizational greatness. Conscious business, explains Fred Kofman, means finding your passion and expressing your essential values through your work. A conscious business seeks to promote the intelligent pursuit of happiness in all its stakeholders. It produces sustainable, exceptional performance through the solidarity of its community and the dignity of each member.

Conscious Business presents breakthrough techniques to help you achieve:

• Unconditional responsibility—how to become the main character of your life
• Unflinching integrity—how to succeed beyond success
• Authentic communication—how to speak your truth, and elicit others' truths
• Impeccable commitments—how to coordinate actions with accountability
• Right leadership—how being, rather than doing, is the ultimate source of excellence

A conscious business fosters personal fulfillment in the individuals, mutual respect in the community, and success in the organization, teaches Fred Kofman. Conscious Business is the definitive resource for achieving what really matters in the workplace and beyond.


Excerpt
 
Consciousness is the ability to experience reality, to be aware of our inner and outer worlds.  It allows us to adapt to our environment and act to promote our lives.  All living beings possess consciousness, but human beings have a unique kind.  Unlike plants and other animals, we can think and act beyond instinctual drives and conditioning.  We can be autonomous (from the Greek, “self-governing”).  While this autonomy is a possibility, it is not a given.  We must develop it through conscious choices.
To be conscious means to be awake, mindful.  To live consciously means to be open to perceiving the world around us, to understand our circumstances, and to decide how to respond to them in ways that honor our needs, values, and goals.  To be unconscious is to be asleep, mindless.  To live unconsciously means to be driven by instincts and habitual patterns.
Have you ever driven down the highway on cruise control, engaged in a conversation or daydreaming, only to realize you missed your exit?  You didn’t literally lose consciousness, but you dimmed your awareness.  Relevant details, such as your location and the actions needed to reach your goal, receded from the forefront of your mind.  Your eyes were open, but you didn’t see.  This is a poor way to drive—and an even poorer way to live.
Praise
 
“Consciousness has a real and deep business impact. Learning how to work in full congruence with our values has inspired every person in my tem to be a better professional—and a better human being.”
—Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer, Facebook
 
“Fred has been a true partner in our efforts to build a conscious organization, helping us move from aspiration to implementation.  His advice is never easy, but always worthwhile.”
—Eugenio Beaufrand, Vice President, Microsoft Latin America
 
“Conscious Business translates the tools of organizational learning into day-to-day business applications.  Both at Chrysler and DTE Energy, Fred’s work has allowed us to shift our culture faster, but with much greater sustainability than any other effort.”
—David Meador, Senior Vice President of Finance, Detroit Edison