Usually, this annual gathering brings hundreds of people together to share ideas and hear from inspiring Conscious Capitalism leaders. Instead, registration is now free, and sessions are shifted to web-based conferences – all at no charge through May 1. Register and learn more here for sessions.  

Leading with purpose and mission is a key element of this year’s Conscious Capitalism annual conference, and responses to the pandemic and its effects on commerce clearly are a priority for people and companies of all sizes. This is a rare chance to learn from each other and meet both local contacts and chapter members from around the world. Many speaker presentations and slide decks from this year – and previous conferences – are available at the YouTube channel and via links from the conference website.

Sessions on Monday-Thursday are open to join your fellow Conscious Capitalists and share, and learn together to find creative, stakeholder-oriented solutions to current challenges.

On Fridays, CCI staff help you to develop leadership and interactions to best serve your team and community, in an extended discussion format across a wide spectrum of locations and industries.

For instance, Kip Tindell, founder and former CEO of the Container Store, spent an hour detailing how he sees the world’s movement toward sustainability, economic fairness and other benefits all coming together in a way that resembles the critical mass of earlier eras, including the 1960s U.S. civil rights movement. He wrote about leading a company with passion in his book, Uncontainable.

A mastermind session with Ron Shaich, a co-founder of Panera Bread and Au Bon Pain, and longtime supporter of stakeholder capitalism is already posted. Nationally-known CEOs and strategists are available to help answer questions, and the community is gathering - while remaining safely at a distance and not traveling.

Do you know your purpose in life? How would you even begin to define, live and lead a purpose-driven life? Author Miracle Olatunji, Purpose: How to Live and Lead with Impact, takes readers on the journey of her miraculous life story to growing up and learning pivotal life lessons about meaning and purpose. Inside the book, you'll learn:

* How to uncover your talents and unique gifts

* Systems for developing essential skills for purposeful, effective leadership

* Ways to build meaningful connections in a fast-paced, digital world

* Stories of impactful leaders in various industries

* We have unlimited potential and purpose enables us to tap into it.

We have the power to create. We can give life to ideas that become breathtaking art pieces, thought-provocative books, world-changing organizations, powerful movements, life-saving inventions, and more.This book is an indispensable guide to conscious capitalists seeking to make an impact on their organizations, communities and the world. It starts within FIRST and then moves on from there. Make change based on your heart and what your individual purpose and calling is.

Purpose: How to Live and Lead with Impact is now available for purchase. Happy reading!  

About the Author: 

Miracle Olatunji is an entrepreneur, international speaker, student, and author of Purpose: How To Live and Lead With Impact. With a passion for empowering the next generation of leaders and global citizens, she founded OpportuniMe, an organization that connects youth with personal and professional development opportunities. 

Miracle has been honored as a Young Global Leadership Scholar, Youth Entrepreneur Of The Year, and was the grand prize winner of the World Series of Entrepreneurship. Her work has been featured in Forbes, Thrive Global, Technical.ly, and The CEO Library. 

She enjoys traveling and inspiring people worldwide to leverage the power of purpose in their personal and professional lives and organizations.

The Business Roundtable recently made huge waves in the business community - and brought true excitement to the Conscious Capitalism movement. If you haven't heard, on August 19th released its "Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation" stating:

While each of our own individual companies serves its own corporate purpose, we share a fundamental commitment to all our stakeholders. 

This statement was signed by 181(!) CEOs including some of the largest companies in the world. 

The collective response of the Conscious Capitalism movement has been, "Yes! Our message is being heard and spread." Our work is paying off and changes are coming. 

We acknowledge this isn't the end of our road. So far, while statements are a first step, we want to see more action by companies to support ALL stakeholders in their ecosystem. We look forward to helping more and more companies along in this journey.  

Since Leadership is one of the four pillars of Conscious Capitalism, this quote from Jeff Weiner, CEO LinkedIn is a great starting place for defining the Conscious Leadership:  

“We need to expand the world’s collective wisdom; share and bind humanity (The Art of Happiness) now we need to take it to the next level. How do we teach compassion in our business schools as a potential starter?" - Jeff Weiner, CEO, LinkedIn

 For a much more in-depth look at this the topic, watch the complete video here.  

Movement is afoot between Wall Street and the business community. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that have spawned a whole new sense of business renewal and focus on taking responsibility for our global issues as a society is creating a new ecosystem between businesses, society and Wall Street. As Mr. Fink so eloquently articulates, "If a company doesn't engage with the community and have a sense of purpose it will ultimately lose the license to operate from key stakeholders." 

Mr. Fink's complete letter to CEOs can be found here.  

At Conscious Capitalism, we focus on purpose and stakeholders as two of the four key elements for success.  Join our cause and mission!

Culture is at the heart of many great companies. It’s more enduring than strategy, and often makes the difference between a strategy’s success or failure.

But what if culture is the strategy, rather than separate from it? As strategy+business wrote, “Confining culture to the narrow role of ‘enabling’ strategy prevents it from strengthening strategy by being part of it. It also weakens the power of strategy to turn your company’s cultural strengths into a source of enduring advantage.”

That message was reinforced by the two speakers at our most recent Conscious Conversation, Managing Culture Intentionally, on September 12, 2017, held in conjunction with our great partner, ImpactHub Boston. Greg Kunkel, SVP and Co-Founder of Next Jump, and John Pepper, Founder and CEO of Boloco, both told stories of how they came to discover that culture is the most important determinant of their companies’ success. Through a discussion moderated by Colleen Brisport, independent business and human rights advisor, we learned that crafting culture is a long and arduous process of communication and empowerment.

The 50 participants each had something to say, as well. We broke into four groups and let the conversation flow. Ideas surfaced for influencing culture, but so did frustrations. Communications is important, for example, but are people listening? Giving feedback is empowering, but how it’s delivered and received makes a big difference. Leaders stress culture but they must walk the talk. 

There are no easy answers to addressing culture, but the imperative to try new things came across strongly. Indeed, a strong validation came from several participants who told us they heard new ideas that they would try to implement. That’s what our conscious conversations are all about. 

Conscious Capitalism Boston is launching a new monthly roundtable program with community-led discussions of topics related to Conscious Capitalism. 

The Roundtables will be small, informal gatherings of community members to learn about and discuss a specific topic. We can provide a conference room in Boston or Cambridge for the Roundtable although we are open to alternate venues.

Each Roundtable will have a leader who shares a brief (< 15 minute) presentation then leads a discussion (<30 minutes) among attendees. Participants will be encouraged to continue the conversation following the formal program at a local restaurant or bar. Anyone can submit an application. Preference will be given to CCB members.

We'll get back to you within one month as we plan out our calendar. Any questions, please contact Mary Adams adams@smarter-companies.com, 781-729-9650.

Submit a proposal here

Post by Darby Hobbs

 

Business leaders face tough choices, make mistakes, and have transformative realizations that shape their approach to leading their companies. To get some insights on what it takes to be an effective conscious leader, members of the Boston chapter of Conscious Capitalism gathered at ImpactHub Boston on June 22 to discuss the topic as part of our Conscious Conversations series. Panelists included:

• Bob Scoville, President of Performance Talks, Inc.
•  Megan Driscoll, CEO and Founder at PharmaLogics Recruiting
• Andy Atkins, Vice President, Client Experience at Bates Communications
• Angela Cavallaro, Director, HR and Employee Engagement Programs at Next Jump 

The speakers provided great insights on leadership based on their own experiences, particularly the importance of trust and engagement with key stakeholders. Those stakeholders can include employees, customers, investors, vendors, the community, and the environment. 

A very interesting line of conversation was around the important distinction between “transactional trust,” which is necessary for every relationship, and “relational trust,” which is desirable for productive relationships.  As Andy Atkins explained, trust is foundational to a leader's ability to influence stakeholders, and highly-trusted leaders outperform untrusted ones.

When talking about employees, Megan Driscoll noted the importance of evaluating potential hires on more than just their qualifications for the role. Think about whether you would have a beer and burger with them, because you are entering a committed relationship – from on-boarding to off-boarding. Hire likeminded people that you want to work with, because the more you invest in your relationship with them, the more it will pay off for your business. Angela Cavallaro echoed this perspective, noting the character is a key component of a good employee relationship and hiring just for skills will not build a high trust organization.

The panelists’ stories served as food for thought to stimulate small group conversations about leadership challenges for conscious businesses. Within these focused discussions, participants shared personal experiences, coaching one another on approaches and solutions. 

What do you think are the components of an effective conscious leader? Did you gain new insights by participating in the June 22 event? Let us know if you were inspired to drive change in yourself or your organization by continuing the conversation in our community forum.

 

Preview YouTube video Conscious Capitalism: Conscious Leadership

Conscious Capitalism: Conscious Leadership

Conscious Capitalism: Conscious Leadership

An organization’s purpose is a “definitive statement about the difference you are trying to make” (according to the Purpose Institute). It goes by other names, such as a “North Star” or “commander’s intent,” depending on the context. But its role is the same: to orient everyone within an organization and keep everyone moving in the same direction.

It’s a soft characteristic that leads to hard results. When it’s driven through an organization, and not just a plaque on the wall, purpose has a meaningful impact on organizational performance. In one study, EY found that companies that failed to drive purpose through their organizations were less likely to be growing. And the companies most effective at implementing purpose were more likely to be launching new products or expanding their markets.

How exactly does purpose make such a big difference? To dig a little deeper, we held an event on March 21, 2017, called A Conscious Conversation – about Purpose, with our partners at ImpactHub Boston. Larry Yu, Managing Director of Kite Global Advisors moderated a panel consisting of Ed Manzi, CEO of Fidelity Bank, Jackie Herskovitz Russell, President of Teak Media + Communication, Ellen Fitzgerald, Co-Founder of Mother Juice. The panelists came from different industries and are at different stages of their organization’s growth. Yet their perspectives shared a common thread about the importance of purpose – and how it influences their decision-making, corporate cultures and employees’ behaviors.

Our event’s purpose, however, was to spur conversations about purpose. So we broke our 48 attendees into five groups to have their own conversations about organizational purpose. The conversations were rich; each group had its own spin, from the challenges of implementing purpose, to the benefits of purpose for organizations and what individuals get from an organizational purpose.

All this speaks to the pent-up demand for conversations about how more businesses can become conscious business. One participant reported online about the “tremendous conversation and spirit in the room.” We hope to keep tapping that spirit in future conscious conversations.

Contributed by this program's chair, Larry Yu

Conscious Business Radio Show

• Feature business CEOs, Founders, Management Teams that have a story to tell on how they are combining purpose with profit and making a difference across our global and domestic communities 
  
• Pair this with an investment professional (Wall Street) that discusses the 'value creation' this provides thus making the actions of the businesses investable
• Content is license free, so participants and sponsoring content freely with any social media/website
• 12-15 min interviews with short video (if at location) or can use video segments filmed on location of interviewee and/or still photo (podcast)
• Audience: business leaders, investors and connected to Conscious Capitalism Chapters Globally. 

What are the Benefits of Radio Entrepreneurs Appearance? 

• Have your story heard by other entrepreneurs, businesses, and key targets 
  
• Promotion of appearance via social media
  
• Co-host and guest host shows
  
• Host show tapings at your place of business 
  
• Have show tapings at an upcoming function SEO Optimization 
• Interact and network with other entrepreneurs on the show
• Interview is posted on our website for 45 days
• A video portion of the interview on YouTube 
• A copy of your interview provided to you for self-utilization 

30 seconds: $20 pre-produced; $40 produced in-house 60 seconds: $30 pre-produced; $50 produced in-house

For more information on sponsorship and advertising, contact us at info@radioentrepreneurs.com 

How you can participate

Contact Darby Hobbes

darby.hobbs@social-3.net1

Radio Entrepreneurs.pdf

Produced by SOCIAL3, www.social-3.net, and Distributed through Radio Entrepreneurs, www.radioentrepreneurs.com and other National Channels/Venues

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                                                                                                     - George Donnelly, Boston Business Journal

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-Jim Farrell,

PR First 

"What a fantastic opportunity to discuss emerging talent, trends, ideas and all other things relating to entrepreneurship...this is an extremely effective resource for those individuals either starting out in business or who may be in more mature stages...nothing else compares to in in the Boston area!" 

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Professor of Business Management at Bridgewater State University