Jeroen Maes is Waking up the Workplace
Tue 24 May 2011
, Maurice Eykman, category: new leadership, LEAP
Jeroen Maes is the panel moderator on our Event on June 6. Because he is committed to waking up the workplace. Why is he? And what does he do to realize this? Well, for a start he is co-founder of Realize! and what’s more he is also one of the people behind the beautiful teleseries ‘wakinguptheworkplace’, a global conversation to awaken a world of conscious business, in which acclaimed thought leaders share their insights with their audience.
Why would we want to wake up the workplace?
“We at Realize! support the development of conscious people in conscious organizations by offering ways of leading, communicating, collaborating, organizing, decision making, measuring and monitoring, which wake an organization up, rather than rocking it to sleep, as many existing management models and change methods do,” explains Maes, clarifying it with: "Imagine the opposite: an organization in which everyone - shop floor to management - works on autopilot; where people are guided only by self-interest, habits and spreadsheets. Sound familiar? These organizations will fall asleep. They will dissolve into thin air if they don’t wake up in time. So that’s what we want to do: wake up the workplace.”
This is also the goal of the wakinguptheworkplace-series, a free online teleseminar series to awaken a world of conscious business. Maes: “Business is one of the most powerful forces in the modern world. And yet work is usually seen as a method solely for making money. Why is business falling short of its potential to create truly global change in the way that we live and work? What would happen if we saw the business of work, not just as a means for trade and profit, but as a vehicle for realizing our deepest human potentials in a conscious and creative transformation?”
How can we participate in the unfolding of a new paradigm of work and life?
“This is the question at the heart of a series of conversations with some of the world’s forefront pioneers, bringing a multitude of perspectives to the table, from theorists to consultants, from entrepreneurs to teachers. “We spoke to a lot of people in the last few months. To bestselling author Tony Schwartz, founder and president of the Energy Project, for instance. He explained how to manage your energy to get more done in less time for a better quality of life. He says we need beds in offices because more sleep helps you wake up! And to Bob Anderson,who shared how hard business can be, and the need for leaders to upgrade their conscious operating system to become effective. And to Jeff Klein, author of 'Working for Good' and co-founder of Conscious Capitalism Inc. who talked about how for him work is love made visible.”
In the live calls everyone who wants to join in can do so for free and ask questions of their own. Talking about a conscious approach to business…. What is the business model for the waking up the workplace series?
“We don’t actually have one,” laughs Maes, “there is no product offering stacked up waiting to be pushed onto the participants. Obviously, we will become better
informed consultants and trainers for our ‘real’ company, Realize! and we are using the insights from the series to improve our business offering in organisational transformation.
However, what it really is about is transforming our own consciousness as leaders in organisations. As our interviewee Brian Johnson mentioned, “consciousness is our greatest asset”. And the Return on Investment in consciousness from organising this series, interviewing these visionaries and digesting their insights, is massive.
That is the best part, in a world where companies don’t believe in sustainable competitive advantage, conscious capital cannot be bought. It has to be earned through hard practice and personal development. No amount of money can buy the five years of meditation experience through which a CEO has a completely new and innovative perspective on his work, the marketplace and how to survive and thrive in the new complex business world. As Bill Torbert’s research shows, the developmental level of the CEO’s determined 56% of the success of business transformation.
My vision is, in 5 years time, organisations will measure the developmental level of all CEO’s and high level managers, and it will become painfully clear who has been keeping with his personal development. Then the corporate world will truly awaked to the consequence of Einstein’s quote: no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it. The hidden variable to all business innovations has always been the level of consciousness that created them. The business world just never saw this as a variable they could positively engage in.”
Want to listen to the conversations? www.wakinguptheworkplace.com
Want to know more about Realize! www.realize.nl
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