corporate soul

‘Corporate Soul’

exploring our inner space

‘Corporate Soul’ is a way I refer to an emergent sort of transformational leadership.

For many of us – when we are ready – this our exploration and growth of our inner self.

Exploring our inner space, which includes what we make of outer space 🙂

These principles of are universally applicable, for example to transform:

the biggest global corporations and institutions
other enterprises and groups
educational and charitable bodies
small businesses and individuals

This is the nature of soul; it is universal; present in everything and everyone.

For some people soul requires explanation; for others none.

We might think of this to be (among other terms):

finding peace and calm
understanding ourselves
becoming free of conditioning
living in ‘the now’
living authentically or naturally
forgiveness, abundance, love, and compassion

Soul tends to be what we understand through experience, intuition, instinct, spirituality, rather than by ‘taught’ theory, especially someone else’s theory, although each of us is entitled to our own truth.

I believe that we can work with the soul of something when we open ourselves to ‘living’ and ‘being’ in ways that transcend conventional tangible measurements.

It is possible to define, quantify and measure ‘traditional’ tangible and ‘intangible’ aspects of organisations and personal leadership, such as:

financial
dimensions of scale or volume
time
ethos
opinion and reputation, etc

But qualities of the ‘soul’ are very different.

To varying degrees we live and work and exist in our own sense of a ‘now’ that is shaped almost entirely by what we imagine the present and past and future to be.

This sense of ‘now’ includes our view of our ‘self’ and others and everything else. It is our conditioned thinking.

And yet our magical joys in life are not defined or constrained by human constructs of language and time, and especially not by what we’ve been conditioned and taught to imagine our senses to be.

When we experience our most joyful moments in life we cannot explain these feelings, because these joys transcend human constructs of explanation.

We know it when we feel it: alone and especially with others.

We need not explain it.

It seems to me that the greatest things in life and death, and anything else, need not actually be explained.

In fact nothing needs to be explained, depending on one’s view of self and everything 🙂

Instead the greatest things – the things that transcend our capability to define them – are best simply accepted, embraced, and lived and shown, in gratitude and abundance, so that others can do likewise.

‘Corporate soul’ is how I approach organisations and human systems; large and small.

Where I use the word ‘organisation’ this can refer to:

all of humankind and all life and energies as we might imagine everything,
any group of people,
or a single person,
or a moment’s thought,
and everything in between.

Because everything is energy.

‘Corporate soul’ is how I imagine we can grow this awareness and openness to being free of our conditioned ‘now’, to living increasingly transcendently.

It’s about peace and harmony, and our connectedness with a reality that is more ‘real’.

It’s about how we build a world in which our children – all children – and everyone – can exist peacefully, fearlessly and lovingly.

Here is some context and some questions that might interest anyone considering his/her soul, and particularly considering the soul of a corporation or other organisation.

Some soul questions to open some doors…

In the context of 14 billion years since the ‘Big Bang’ (a supposed but unproven beginning of the universe), or there being no beginning nor end of the universe/time/space:
“What is our purpose?”
“What is our meaning?”
“What context do you think is most appropriate for considering the purpose and meaning of a person and a corporation or organisation?”
“How might a corporation or employer be more helpful for people?”
“What is leadership?”
“How can leadership best be measured?”

Again, the context is 14bn years, or no beginning or end of time/space.

Soul

Soul simply is.
Soul needs not to be understood nor explained.
Soul knows what our thinking brains cannot and need not.
Soul knows what it is doing 🙂
Let it.

Imagine

What do you imagine about the ‘soul’ of something?
And what do you imagine about your own ‘soul’?
What does your ‘soul’ mean to you?

Soul leaders

How can leaders help people become more comfortable and peaceful in uncertainty?
What is a transcendent corporation?
What is the soul of a human system?

Explanation and emergent design

We live in increasing awareness of our inexplicable existence.
Soul enables and empowers emergent design.
Soul here refers to our being part of energies that are beyond theoretical science.
Soul is a vast opportunity to re-imagine leadership 🙂

It’s different for each of us, and yet we are each connected

We each have many different relationships with organisations.
We are dependent on organisations for wages, other benefits, goods and services.
We are dependent on wider cosmological organisations for sunshine, nature, the air we breathe and the food and drink that sustains us.
We each imagine differently what our own soul is, and what soul means in these contexts.
And yet we are all connected, in ways that unify us and which are unique for each of us.

Traditional understanding of corporations

Traditionally organisations – according to conventional ‘modern’ thinking – are not considered to have a ‘soul’.

Traditionally the qualities of organisations are described in terms of:

ethos
values
philosophy
mission and aims, etc.

And yet, every organisation depends on people, for its design, innovation, staffing, audiences and customers, etc.

Families, large and small, have different relationships internally and externally compared with larger organisations, and yet operate with similar dynamics.

Each of us is an organisation of energies. Every family is an organisation of dynamics and relationships, as is every group of people regardless of its size and structure.

‘Soul’ is a way to characterise and re-imagine these dynamics, relationships and energies.

‘Soul’ is therefore a deeper way to understand the qualities of any organisation:

Meanings of ‘soul’ transcend conventional thinking, in business and management, and in any other discipline – because we lack the ability to prove what we might theorise about what a ‘soul’ is.
‘Soul’ is an existential concept.
Existential refers to human life, death and existence, the universe(s) and everything.
‘Soul’ refers to our sense of self that is beyond what we can imagine about being ‘alive’.

Other clues and questions

Cybernetics merging with love.
Everyone is different, which is lovely because everyone has someone to learn from and someone to teach.
We are one humanity.
We are one with nature and cosmos.
We cannot explain infinity with finite means.
Balance is a process not a state.
‘Modern’ human constructs of time and space are not necessarily reliable.

Finite methods cannot explain infinite things

Science and language, and notions of time and space, are all finite human constructs that seek to explain the inexplicable.
The ways that humans use technical language (in maths, physics, other sciences, philosophy and theology etc) are finite.
We use the infinity symbol to represent infinity. Infinity is not a number. It’s an inexplicable concept that we must represent by a symbol, because we are unable to explain it in language and numbers, except to say things like, “keep increasing or decreasing something for ever,” in which case we are simply substituting the words ‘for ever’ for ‘infinity’, knowing that the words ‘for ever’, just like infinity, also defy explanation. ‘For ever’ equates to ‘infinity’ and ‘infinitely’. Substituting ‘for ever’ for ‘infinity’ does not explain what infinity is.
We do not know what happens to our consciousness and unconsciousness when we die. We do not know what happens to our ‘soul’ when we die. Nobody knows. Many people have a faith or a belief about what happens when we die, which is perfectly fine for them, but nobody can know for certain.
And so our ‘soul’ represents this inexplicable concept, rather like the infinity symbol represents notions of infinite quantities, of time or space and anything – large or small.
Our ‘soul’ represents our inability to explain the many dimensions of ‘reality’, and the many states of matter and energies, whether considered ‘real’, or proven or otherwise.
Our ‘soul’ is part of these vast unknowns.
Love is too. What is love, and our feelings of being in love?
Zeitgeist also is part of these vast unknowns.
So are our dreams. Waking and asleep.
So are many other inexplicable concepts and experiences that we all feel, fear, and love, to lesser or greater extents.
What are our connections with nature, and what are nature’s connections with everything else?
We cannot explain with certainty any of these things.

And so how do we begin to consider what ‘corporate soul’ could be, what it means, and its potential?

Might ‘corporate soul’ be a way to begin to consider inexplicable concepts in the context of how we organise ourselves, especially in work and business?
Might ‘corporate soul’ help us to help others, especially in and via organisations, to consider some of the big existential questions of life, and beyond life?
Who are we?
What is life?
What is my meaning?
How can an organisation help people to become more comfortable and peaceful in the uncertainty of an inexplicable existence?
Your new leaders perhaps need not explain anything.
They are the souls to help you find and grow your corporate soul 🙂
If you are interested to understand more then please contact me.
I do not know of anyone else doing this sort of work, and while everyone is able, few believe they can.
Anyone can be a soul coach, simply by being one 🙂