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Competitive Business, Caring Business

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Why are so many intelligent, well-schooled, experienced people working as hard as they can only to hear that its not enough; that they need to attend now to the next most important thing? Can they lead the innovation revolution with a balanced scorecard as they manage  in one minute  to increase their emotional intelligence or will causal-loop diagrams help them to empower continuous-quality teams to listen appreciatively in the pursuit of excellent shareholder value? Im sure youll recognize some of these most important things and I believe that each of these approaches  individually and in combinations  has genuine merit. One or more of them may, in fact, be part of your businesss best next strategic move. But the sheer volume of seemingly disparate advice can become overwhelming and you have to do something. You dont have the resources or the time to investigate each and every one of these, but how do you pick and sort through them all faced with decreasing quarterly margins and increasing pressure to perform...is there a platform high enough to see how some  maybe all  of these might fit together?

Is there a grand unifying theory of sorts for business?

In the spring of 2000, Ken Wilber gathered an incredible group of people together as the Business branch of his newly founded Integral Institute to find out. Kens stated intent was to put a group of thoughtful people that he respected together in a room, give them just enough guidance to get underway and then just to see what they would do. Conversations ran the gamut from inspiring to ridiculous with all the brilliance and humility and grandstanding and depth that a roomful of remarkable and very human people can muster. It was at this gathering that I first met Daryl Paulson. Daryl had with him a copy of Kens magnum opus, Sex, Ecology and Spirituality, and the already massive tome was choked nearly double with yellow Post-it notes that he had covered with comments, questions and references. For the days and nights of meetings that followed, he contributed thoughtfully, respectfully and knowledgeably to the conversations about what an integral approach to business might mean.

Youll get to meet Daryl in the pages of this book and there youll meet the mind and heart that Ken respected enough to invite into the Institute. But more importantly, youll encounter some of the powerfully elegant and pragmatic aspects of integral theory and methodology. Theres a saying that, like a frog at the bottom of a well, we often think too small  we think the sky is only as big as the top of the well, but if we surfaced, we would have an entirely different view. This book is a groundbreaking effort to help business leaders and managers to find their way to that larger view, and like all early maps of newly explored territory, what follows will need more people to refine and recalibrate and find new paths to explore. But I think this first map will prove to be more right than wrong.

What you read in this book is based on Daryls deep knowledge and experience with real-world, profit-and-loss business situations, informed by his rare understanding of the encompassing framework offered by Ken Wilbers integral Theory of Everything. Kens work has earned the admiration of people ranging from Warren Bennis to Al Gore to Tony Robbins and is the most comprehensive, powerful and inclusive framework currently available for understanding human experience. This evidenced-based body of work provides the foundation for identifying and integrating the most effective combination of business actions to apply in any given situation.

The integral approach that Daryl offers in "Competitive Business, Caring Business" provides a substantive first look at how to go about bringing this powerful view into practical day-to-day decisionmaking and resource allocation. It begins with an orienteers view of the terrain: a brief but useful introduction to the four dimensions of an individuals reality relative to the organizations of which they are members. Business decision-makers and leaders would be well enough served simply to know how to see these dimensions, for their own organizations and the various environments in which they operate. But theres a great deal more value available if they can also begin to see how these might manifest in the minds and cultures of the people that work in and with the organization. And then to be able to navigate these differences

Moving from the individuals experiences and perceptions in small team situations, Competitive Business, Caring Business takes us on an integral expedition through the company, the industry and the environments in which industries, companies, teams and individuals operate. On the way, well pick up insights from economics, politics, theology, psychology, medicine and physics. We reach the most exciting new territory with the discussion of an integral business paradigm. With the paths laid out, the last chapter presents the challenge to those explorers with the capacity, the willingness and the desire to reach within themselves to find new ways to engage in business profitably, but that also honor the people that work in and with their businesses. And all this performed with deep reverence for the world environment that supports us  our fragile island home  in our new post-9/11 context.

As more explorers pick up this first map to join in the fine-tuning of its nuances and its outer regions, more business leaders will begin to see more clearly how and when to consider all the excellent work in management and business theory that has gone on before, and where to push into new thinking, new conversations, new systems and new behaviors. If enough of us can muster the courage that Daryl has exemplified in this pioneering work, we can begin to intentionally influence and co-create the next stage of our businesses evolution with a far more compelling and fruitful vision, future and legacy.

Its a crucial next move.

Daryl Paulson's book is the first foray into the integration of interal theory with business theory. For those business professionals without a background in Ken Wilber's work (or without an interest in reading some rather lengthy and complex material), this book is a fine starting point for basic integral ideas (not so much for practice).

Paulson presents Wilber's integral theory in an easy to understand way. Onto that Paulson builds a hierarchy of organizational levels using Wilber's AQAL matrix. Popular business theory and practice is then categorized within the four quadrants and across the organizational levels. The result is a typology of common practice within an integral framework. That's as far as it goes.

For business practitioners possessing knowledge and experience with Wilber's integral model, this book has little to offer.