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Everything Connects: How to Transform and Lead in the Age of Creativity, Innovation, and Sustainability, by Faisal Hoque
THE caterpillar grows 100 times its size from birth to the point at which it enters the cocoon. It does this by focusing on only one thing, eating everything it can.
When it emerges from the darkness of the cocoon as a beautiful butterfly, it flies around looking after its own comparatively modest needs. In the process, the butterfly pollinates other flowers and creates abundant growth.
This is a metaphor used by John Mackay founder of Whole Foods Market, in his book on Conscious Capitalism, (reviewed in this column,) business at its most moral, and most profitable.
This is a fitting introduction to Everything Connects, which complements Mackay’s work by focusing on how you achieve this “consciousness” - how you do well in business, by doing good.
Much of how we talk about business is unfortunate. Business is a “rat-race”, where there is only one winner, but he is still a rat. Business is “dog eat dog”, where people will do anything to be successful, even if they do harm to others.
If this were necessarily true, successful business people should be ashamed for being successful. But it is not. Superb books such as Mackay’s and this one, Everything Connects, tell a decidedly different story.
The idea that everything connects refers to the four principle spheres of business. These are the leader, the people in the organisation, the ecosystem that encompasses the business, and the customers that it serves. The performance of any of these spheres has a profound effect on all the others.
For example, leaders who focus singularly on output might well find that scaring staff can be useful for short-term productivity. However, if you require staff to make better products or offer a better service you have to manage them with the awareness that your “human resource” is a sentient resource.
People are complex and acutely sensitive. All staff bring their personalities, histories, aspirations and fears to work. Everything is connected.
The Stanford Project on Emerging Companies, a longitudinal study, showed the correlation between the employment practices of nearly 200 young Silicon Valley firms and their subsequent performance. Qualitative factors such as culture and the way people within an organisation relate to one another predicted the quantitative.
The qualitative factors correlated to the company’s chance of being listed on a stock exchange, and once listed, being able to grow. Everything is connected.
The profit a company makes is tangible and can be represented on a spreadsheet. What causes profit creation is not tangible. Profit is invariably the results of the subtle, private, personal experiences, and choices of the people participating in that process.
Think of times you have chosen to work from home (or would have, had you been able to do so) rather than in the office. You made this choice because the environment at home was more conducive to deep thought than the office.
“Your environment is a tool; just as you need the right tool for the job, you’d do well to find the right environment for the job,” say the authors. This is just one example of the myriad of factors that affects productivity and creativity and that requires managerial attention. Everything is connected.
“Work for the long term,” is a recurring theme in the book and an indispensable component of an effective worldview.
The demands of shareholders to meet growth expectations too often lead to a short-termism that profoundly damages the company for the long term.
Last week a friend told me that her company was offering early retirement to many senior people. I presume that they will be replaced by less expensive, but far less experienced younger people. This will certainly benefit the results in the short term, but severely prejudice them in the long term.
“Any sort of transaction has short-term and long-term consequences… Short-term consequences will often be quantitative, and long-term ones will be qualitative. A sustaining, holistic organisation is conscious of both.” Everything is connected.
The skill that goes into producing a product or service is experienced directly by the user. To achieve a superb output, the performance must be masterful. It is for this reason that leaders need to “curate” talent. This involves gathering the right people, at the right time in their lives, in the right combination of talents required to produce.
The client’s experience is a function of the leader’s ability to “curate” talent.
The author argues cogently that the most sustainable way to create value is to invest in your own and your people’s capabilities, as individuals, and as parts of organisations. The investment they talk of is more than taking a course and learning theories and practices.
It extends to our own mental experiences, our social interactions, and our philosophy of life. Doing exceptional work requires a holistic, long-term view, and engaging with “mindfulness and authenticity”.
At the heart of the insight of this book is you, the individual, in your role as leader. Your beliefs, thoughts, behaviour and values will undoubtedly affect the decisions you take, and the willingness and ability of your staff to give of their best.
One of the primary forms of the self-investment proposed by the authors is “mindfulness meditation”. A Wake Forest University study indicated that this religion-neutral activity improved cognition after only four days of training. A University of California-Santa Barbara study found that meditation increased working memory and reduced mental wandering.
To achieve a higher level of consciousness is to see the role of business as a force for good in the world.
For the betterment of all - leaders, the people in the organisation, the ecosystem that encompasses the business, and the customers that it serves - changes are required. What this practical book describes is how to effect those changes.
Phil Libin, the CEO of Evernote, makes the point that humanising our working lives is a “sufficiently epic quest” to make it worthy of our total dedication.
Readability: Light -+--- Serious
Insights: High -+--- Low
Practical: High -+--- Low
*Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works. Views expressed are his own.
THE caterpillar grows 100 times its size from birth to the point at which it enters the cocoon. It does this by focusing on only one thing, eating everything it can.
When it emerges from the darkness of the cocoon as a beautiful butterfly, it flies around looking after its own comparatively modest needs. In the process, the butterfly pollinates other flowers and creates abundant growth.
This is a metaphor used by John Mackay founder of Whole Foods Market, in his book on Conscious Capitalism, (reviewed in this column,) business at its most moral, and most profitable.
This is a fitting introduction to Everything Connects, which complements Mackay’s work by focusing on how you achieve this “consciousness” - how you do well in business, by doing good.
Much of how we talk about business is unfortunate. Business is a “rat-race”, where there is only one winner, but he is still a rat. Business is “dog eat dog”, where people will do anything to be successful, even if they do harm to others.
If this were necessarily true, successful business people should be ashamed for being successful. But it is not. Superb books such as Mackay’s and this one, Everything Connects, tell a decidedly different story.
The idea that everything connects refers to the four principle spheres of business. These are the leader, the people in the organisation, the ecosystem that encompasses the business, and the customers that it serves. The performance of any of these spheres has a profound effect on all the others.
For example, leaders who focus singularly on output might well find that scaring staff can be useful for short-term productivity. However, if you require staff to make better products or offer a better service you have to manage them with the awareness that your “human resource” is a sentient resource.
People are complex and acutely sensitive. All staff bring their personalities, histories, aspirations and fears to work. Everything is connected.
The Stanford Project on Emerging Companies, a longitudinal study, showed the correlation between the employment practices of nearly 200 young Silicon Valley firms and their subsequent performance. Qualitative factors such as culture and the way people within an organisation relate to one another predicted the quantitative.
The qualitative factors correlated to the company’s chance of being listed on a stock exchange, and once listed, being able to grow. Everything is connected.
The profit a company makes is tangible and can be represented on a spreadsheet. What causes profit creation is not tangible. Profit is invariably the results of the subtle, private, personal experiences, and choices of the people participating in that process.
Think of times you have chosen to work from home (or would have, had you been able to do so) rather than in the office. You made this choice because the environment at home was more conducive to deep thought than the office.
“Your environment is a tool; just as you need the right tool for the job, you’d do well to find the right environment for the job,” say the authors. This is just one example of the myriad of factors that affects productivity and creativity and that requires managerial attention. Everything is connected.
“Work for the long term,” is a recurring theme in the book and an indispensable component of an effective worldview.
The demands of shareholders to meet growth expectations too often lead to a short-termism that profoundly damages the company for the long term.
Last week a friend told me that her company was offering early retirement to many senior people. I presume that they will be replaced by less expensive, but far less experienced younger people. This will certainly benefit the results in the short term, but severely prejudice them in the long term.
“Any sort of transaction has short-term and long-term consequences… Short-term consequences will often be quantitative, and long-term ones will be qualitative. A sustaining, holistic organisation is conscious of both.” Everything is connected.
The skill that goes into producing a product or service is experienced directly by the user. To achieve a superb output, the performance must be masterful. It is for this reason that leaders need to “curate” talent. This involves gathering the right people, at the right time in their lives, in the right combination of talents required to produce.
The client’s experience is a function of the leader’s ability to “curate” talent.
The author argues cogently that the most sustainable way to create value is to invest in your own and your people’s capabilities, as individuals, and as parts of organisations. The investment they talk of is more than taking a course and learning theories and practices.
It extends to our own mental experiences, our social interactions, and our philosophy of life. Doing exceptional work requires a holistic, long-term view, and engaging with “mindfulness and authenticity”.
At the heart of the insight of this book is you, the individual, in your role as leader. Your beliefs, thoughts, behaviour and values will undoubtedly affect the decisions you take, and the willingness and ability of your staff to give of their best.
One of the primary forms of the self-investment proposed by the authors is “mindfulness meditation”. A Wake Forest University study indicated that this religion-neutral activity improved cognition after only four days of training. A University of California-Santa Barbara study found that meditation increased working memory and reduced mental wandering.
To achieve a higher level of consciousness is to see the role of business as a force for good in the world.
For the betterment of all - leaders, the people in the organisation, the ecosystem that encompasses the business, and the customers that it serves - changes are required. What this practical book describes is how to effect those changes.
Phil Libin, the CEO of Evernote, makes the point that humanising our working lives is a “sufficiently epic quest” to make it worthy of our total dedication.
Readability: Light -+--- Serious
Insights: High -+--- Low
Practical: High -+--- Low
*Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works. Views expressed are his own.
