Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values [Hardcover]

Fred Kofman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2006

More and more business leaders are catching on to an often-overlooked fact: consciousness is our basic faculty for survival and success. Without it, we forget what's important to us and lose sight of the steps we might take to reach those goals. ?Conscious business, ? explains Fred Kofman, means shining this awareness on every area of your work: in recognizing the needs of others and expressing your own?in seeing the hidden emotional obstacles that may be holding your team back?in making good decisions under pressure?and even in delving into such ?spiritual? questions as ?Who am I?? and ?What is my real purpose here?? In Conscious Business, this visionary teacher and consultant to Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and other leading companies presents the complete training manual in the breakthrough techniques he has shared with over 20,000 executives on four continents.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for CONSCIOUS BUSINESS "Conscious Business is a fundamental book for our times. Few ideas have been more insidious in the industrial era than the fragmentation between right livelihood and economic success. We are running out of time to integrate the material and the spiritual worlds. Fred Kofman offers a unique set of tools to do it."--Peter Senge, MIT professor and author of The Fifth Discipline

"Fred Kofman is a genius with a heart as big as his brain, if that's possible. In this remarkable book, Fred takes us on a thrilling tour through what business would be like if it had both a heart and a mind--a conscience and a consciousness. The result is a practice of business that transforms you and your world."--Ken Wilber, philosopher and author of A Theory of Everything

"Fred has been an inspiration, helping connect responsibility and integrity to create the freedom leaders need to succeed."--Daniel Rosenberg, Chief Operating Officer, Yahoo! Inc

"Consciousness has a real and deep business impact. Learning how to work in full congruence with our values has inspired every person in my team to be a better professional--and a better human being."--Sheryl Sanders, Vice President, Global Online Sales and Operations, Google

"Fred has been a true partner in our efforts to build a conscious organization, helping us move from aspiration to implementation. His advice is never easy, but always worthwhile."--Eugenio Beaufrand, Vice President, Microsoft Latin America

"Conscious Business translates the tools of organizational learning into day-to-day business applications. Both at Chrysler and at DTE Energy, Fred's work has allowed us to shift our culture faster, but with much greater sustainability than any other effort."--David Meador, Senior Vice President of Finance, Detroit Edison

From the Inside Flap

Consciousness is the main source of organizational greatness. "Conscious business," explains Fred Kofman, means finding your passion and expressing your essential values through your work. A conscious business seeks to promote the intelligent pursuit of happiness in all its stakeholders. It produces sustainable, exceptional performance through the solidarity of its community and the dignity of each member. CONSCIOUS BUSINESS presents breakthrough techniques to help you achieve: - Unconditional responsibility--how to become the main character in your life - Unflinching integrity--how to succeed beyond success - Authentic communication--how to speak your truth, and elicit others' truths - Impeccable commitments--how to coordinate actions with acountability

- Right leasership--how being, rather than doing, is the ultimate source of excellence

"A conscious business fosters persoanl fulfillment in the individual, mutual respect in the community, and success in the organization," teaches Fred Kofman. CONSCIOUS BUSINESS is the definitive resource for achieving what really matters in the workplace and beyond.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 325 pages
• Publisher: Sounds True, Incorporated; annotated edition edition (October 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591795176
• ISBN-13: 978-1591795179
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #154,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creating a Cooperative Culture of Improving Performance, December 13, 2006

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values (Hardcover)

Conscious Business is the first book I've read on an important subject I'd like to tackle as an author: How to move those in an organization from focusing on their selfish interests to concentrating on what creates the most good for the most people . . . with the least potential harm to any individual. I thought that Dr. Kofman did a good job in defining one path to creating mutual benefit in Conscious Business. If people in your organization seem to be emphasizing their own careers rather than the tasks that need doing, this book is a must-read for you!

Let me agree with Dr. Kofman about his warning for readers: It's much easier to understand his principles than apply them. But with practice, you can do great things.

Here are the goals he sets:

"In the impersonal It dimension, the goal is to accomplish the organization's mission, enhancing its ability to continue doing so in the future, and delivering outstanding long-term returns to shareholders. In the interpersonal We dimension, the goal is to establish cooperative, trusting, and mutually respectful relationships, a community of shared purpose and values in which people feel they belong. In the personal I dimension, the goal is to live in a state of flow, feeling a transcendent happiness that comes from living in full integrity, with one's principles and ideals."

As you can see from this quote, Dr. Kofman draws heavily from his interest in Buddhist tradition and other streams of spiritual beliefs that are outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The text is enlivened by quotes from many sides of the spiritual spectrum and psychologists. As a result, the material will speak directly and deeply in places to virtually any reader, regardless of background and beliefs.

The risk he points to is a real one: If we don't make our intentions explicit and specific, people will take the knee-jerk route of looking after themselves. That self-focus is the basis of much bureaucratic behavior, procrastination, avoidance, poor customer service, misconceptions, disbelief about what needs to be done, poor communications and over-reliance on tradition.

A key exhibit in the book can be found on page 17 where Dr. Kofman draws a contrast between relying on unconscious versus conscious attitudes in business. Here are the unconscious attitudes and their conscious counterparts:

Unconscious Attitudes.....................Conscious Attitudes

Unconditional blame.........................Unconditional responsibility
Essential selfishness........................Essential integrity
Ontological arrogance......................Ontological humility
Unconscious behaviors.....................Conscious behaviors
Manipulative communication..............Authentic communication
Narcissistic negotiation....................Constructive negotiation
Negligent coordination.....................Impeccable coordination
Unconscious reactions.....................Conscious reactions
Emotional incompetence...................Emotional mastery

The book goes on to devote a chapter to each of the seven conscious attitudes (excluding conscious behaviors and reactions from the list above). Since those attitude titles are not exactly self-explanatory, let me see if I can explain each a little more.

Unconditional responsibility is the Victor Frankl concept of determining your response to a situation, even if it is a situation you cannot change. You take charge of choosing your response.

Essential integrity is acting in accordance with your values, even if the results are less than perfect.

Ontological humility is being open to seeing what's going on from the perspectives of others and valuing those perspectives.

Authentic communication means sharing your emotions, opinions and knowledge openly with those who appear to be headed in the wrong direction . . . and encouraging them to do the same. From that baseline, you can then proceed to develop options that may better fit what's needed.

Constructive negotiation is focused on finding a great solution for everyone, rather than simply winning your point.

Impeccable coordination involves making informed commitments, staying on top of what's needed to meet those commitments and letting others know when things go wrong to devise solutions that may improve matters.

Emotional mastery means being able to function objectively, even if something outrages or frightens you.

As you can see from these terms and concepts, Conscious Business is a book of applied psychology by someone who is well versed in the field. The strength of that approach is that Dr. Kofman can reference psychological works that you may know well to give you a touchstone. The drawback is that the book can seem to be too academic if you aren't familiar with the terms and references.

Two things humanize the book from those weaknesses:

(1) Each chapter opens with an extended example of a business problem involving unconscious behavior and reactions. The key concepts are then explained and applied to turning the extended example into a way of employing conscious behavior and reactions.

(2) Dr. Kofman has had many interesting experiences that he deftly weaves into his story. I was especially impressed by his learning from having lived in a totalitarian regime in Argentina as a youth and his mountain climbing experience in South America.

All that said, the opening of this book was awfully abstract and academic. It wasn't until page 42 that I began to resonate with the material. So be patient. The book is quite accessible and interesting from that point on.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Developing Fulfilled, High Performing People, September 21, 2006

By 

Carly Anderson "Master Certified Coach" (Laguna Hills, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values (Hardcover)

Fred Kofman has delivered a book that embodies the much needed next phase of corporate responsibility. When people know how to deliberately make choices and take ownership for all their decisions and actions, they are in a position of power. As a Master Certified Coach, I have found the tools Fred offers are the ones that develop people to the highest levels of fulfillment and performance. He embraces the heart, soul and mind. If you want to know how to avoid another Enron ever happening, then this is a must-read book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just another leadership book, September 21, 2006

By 

Chris Holmberg (Pleasanton, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values (Hardcover)

Don't disregard this as just another leadership book. While you may have seen some of the conversational techniques before, the integration and tie-in to the underlying values of the leader is unique and makes a huge qualitative difference in leadership effectiveness. This is what Jim Collins' "Level 5 Leader" (Good to Great) does naturally. Conscious Business offers the opportunity to develop yourself into this kind of leader.