Around the world, people are experiencing powerful shifts in their abilities to communicate with one another. These shifts directly affect the traditional ways we approach decision-making, strategic planning, and work processes at all levels of business.
Although in the past organizations considered knowledge a major strategic advantage, it is no longer the case. A new style of communication—rooted in wisdom —is bringing tremendous changes to the way people interact on a daily basis in boardrooms and meeting rooms everywhere.
Moreover, these shifts are profoundly changing our perceptions of core issues such as:
profitability
productivity
employee participation
relationships with customers, and
relationships with shareholders.
Within this context of new communication and interaction, we are quickly acknowledging the interdependence of commerce. The distinctions of local boundaries, national boundaries, and international boundaries have ceased to be as relevant as they once were. The actions of one person in one location can have profound consequences across many marketplaces.
We recognize that our work is more complex. Our sense of time is accelerating, and we find ourselves quickly including more diverse factors in our action plans. This creates an environment ripe for rapid, spontaneous decision-making. To meet these challenges:
Strategies need to incorporate more wisdom to ensure that they are sustainable over time
Processes need to begin to flow from multi-dimensional perspectives, and
Interactions need to release new energy that brings us into stronger levels of service.
This millennium brings with it great opportunities to change the way we think about our work and how we interact with one another. For example:
What would it mean if we tried to make every interaction in our work lives an opportunity to foster a new mind-set: one of goodwill ? Goodwill is the union of two potent qualities: Abundance and excellence. Imagine if every interaction that you are involved in at work expressed this mind-set of abundance and excellence.
How can we bring abundance and excellence into the workplace? What would our work look like if we expressed more abundance and excellence?
How would the mind-set of abundance and excellence foster better interactions with our co-workers, managers, customers, and shareholders?
How can a mind-set of abundance and excellence help our companies to grow and increase profits?
If the aspiration of “goodwill in every interaction" seems too much of a stretch for you right now, then image what our lives would be like if we each pledged to foster abundance and excellence in just one single interaction today.