Embed.
Really?
This word gets used a lot in change management.
Embedding Values.
Embedding Behaviours.
But what does this actually mean? What are we actually intending?
Embed, literally means to put into bed.
Do we have a program chip embedded in us? Are we allowing employers to download a belief system to make us behave in a certain way?
The word ‘embed’ to me, has a sense of command, control, repetitive reinforcement, and arm-twisting coercion. It also suggests that what is being embedded has been brought from the outside in.
The use of the phrase ‘embedding values’, is an example of a business, wanting to develop a more conscious values-based culture, but they are using a traditional business ideology and methodology to implement these changes into a traditional business structure.
A business cannot evolve into a conscious business with a conscious culture if conscious ideals are implanted into a traditional business environment. In a traditional environment they cannot survive.
A shift in ideology and awareness also needs to occur. A transition to a conscious culture needs to be married with a transition to conscious leadership and conscious business methods.
This is a shift from traditional mechanistic business methods where rules and regulations are imposed on employees and culture is something that they need to fit into… To conscious, people driven methods, where values and their intentions are derived from within, by the collective consensus of the team and the culture is something they understand they are an intrinsic part of.
A conscious leader trusts and has faith in the organisations’ collaborated guidelines and encourages and empowers their team members to embrace and live these in their own ways.
It is only in this way that the business can evolve, and the real value, energy and individual talents of a team can be sourced for the good of the collective. It is only in this way that the richness of the diversity of your team can be realised.
So, in a conscious business the word embed may evolve with trust to the word inspire.
Inspire comes from a deeper, richer, energised place and has a sense of empowering self-determination.
Inspire, means to excite, encourage, or breathe life into.
Can we inspire, with a set of guiding principles that has been collectively derived with our team.
Can we invite our team members to express and activate them in their own ways?
Can we consciously and demonstrably use these principles to further inspire and attract aligned team members, partners, stakeholders, and customers to us?
When we inspire, we fuel authentic expression, consistency, and positive, self-sustaining energy.
The word ‘inspire’ to me, is goal oriented, it has a sense of energy, imagination, creation, free will and continual evolution.
When we embed we are trying to control.
And when we try to control, we diminish our conscious power.
Control is the antithesis of consciousness.
Can we aspire to operate in a more conscious, kind, trusting and empowering way and aim to inspire?
X Cath
Conscious Business
Integrate your truth
Cath Sutherland is the Director of Conscious Business – helping businesses to understand who they are, so they can do business better. Cath facilitates teams and leaders through her unique Creating Brand Energy process to develop, through collective consensus, their unique Conscious Business Blueprint – a clear, multi-level guide to manage, direct and develop relationships, operations, and product delivery. Cath can be reached at cath@consciousbusiness.net.au
