Present Company
PRESENT COMPANY, Cultivating Cultures of High Performance in Teams and Organizations, by Timothy Dukes and Michael Landers, Conscious Capitalism Press, 2021
One year after contracting that mystery illness at Penn Station at the end of a wedding trip to NYC, right about the time we welcomed the relief of the inauguration of Joe Biden following on the bitter denouement of the Trump presidency, followed by one more demonstration of our government's incompetence around the Covid 19 vaccine - the biggest issue we have communally faced since the polio epidemic - The Mill Girl finally declared, "That's it, I've had enough. Enough. Enough arreddy." Although this pandemic turned out to be a worldwide challenge - no countries left unthreatened, untouched - the shock of coming in first in infections and deaths, and last in government collaboration with business to deliver the dose was more then The Mill Girl (who was credited with saving Johnson & Johnson during the Tylenol poisoning crisis, and now waits anxiously for the J & J one-dose no-freezer solution) believed could happen.
But why, after watching a government many of whose "leaders" cut the queues and were photographed getting first shots, should The Mill Girl have expected anything better? Anything more conscious, more aware, more sensitive, or even more humane? During a crisis, people show you what they are.
Then, amazingly, the book The Present Company appeared, providing some answers and yes, a little hope, in a time of small-mindedness, bad leadership and execution incompetence. You can't tell me that conscious capitalism can't be learned, particularly when we have a few leaders and some great examples to follow. After all, we've been in lockdown for just about 365 days - one year - with time to read and think. Beats anxiety and panic.
Is it possible now to build cultures of high integrity? The authors of Present Company link all their principled approaches to the idea of "presence" - "Presence is the capacity to embrace our internal mental and emotional dynamics, while keeping us connected and related to the life surrounding us." Presence is key to developing a culture that is capable of making critical connections and sustaining integrity and compassion. Its interesting to note that the founders of Present Company's publisher, Conscious Capitalism Press, are founders of the group Conscious Capitalism whose membership includes:
John Mackey, co-founder of Whole Foods - $13B, 370 stores, 80,000 team members, FORTUNE magazine "Best Company to Work For," who in 2006 cut his pay to $1.
Doug Rauch, former President of Trader Joe's
Kip Tindrell, co-founder of The Container Store - believer in "shareholder supremacy to stakeholders'."
So both this publisher and its corporate foundation leaders know whereof they speak.
Let's look at the principles behind leadership in a culture of presence, the jumping off point for conscious capitalism:
* a drive to unify and align people, teams, and groups, while valuing collaborative leadership
* belief in cross-sector communication supported and encouraged by constructive candor
* a reduction in anxiety, insecurity and fear resulting from collaborative mutual understanding
* clear identification and "calling out" of problematic patterns and habits.
Although the authors explain their four key elements as The Four Powers of Presence - Induction, Awareness, Authenticity and Connection - traditional old-style leaders will recognize Awareness and Authenticity as key learning objectives - new habits, new challenges even, in environments not given to these types of leadership and collaboration.
A short book of only some 127 pages, Present Company offers us a different way of seeing our role in humanity. It gives us a start at building compassion in business! The final page summarizes the group's objective - "Elevate humanity through business," examples of which appear from page 1. Co-author Dr. Timothy Dukes starts our journey with his own in which as a psychotherapist he realizes the arduous work of helping individuals needs to change. He describes Robert, a workaholic executive who has lost touch with family and health as, sleep-deprived and fifty pounds overweight, he drives to fulfil an image of extreme performance at the expense of whatever his own life could be. From there Dr. Dukes begins a deep collaboration with Michael Landers that leads to a very different but more humane, and certainly less deadly, approach to life and work.
Along the way our co-authors share what to do with troublesome emotions like anger, and cultural tribalism that interferes with collaboration. We also learn toward the end of Chapter 2 how to prepare; "Your Induction Self-Assessment" is a calming and simple approach to entering a meeting or even delivering a keynote. A score less than 7 means you've got a long way to go - a score of 21 means you've nailed it - keep it up!
Take a look also at "Your Awareness Self-Assessment" at the end of Chapter 3 (there are only 6 chapters in Present Company). Here you will learn key indicators of awareness, such as the question "When interacting with others, I focus on what I want or need to say versus what is being said, and "At my place of work, I don't recognize the reactions that I get from others."
Mill Girl rating: A for Effort, A for brevity, A+ for consciousness changing relevance!
Patricia E. Moody
FORTUNE magazine "Pioneering Woman in Mfg"
IndustryWeek IdeaXchange Xpert
A Mill Girl at Blue Heron Journal, on-line resource for business thought-leaders and decision-makers, patriciaemoody@gmail.com