The Great Shift Continues. " The Older I Get, The More Buddha I feel."


A colleague of mine shared the below statement that a CEO uttered to him when negotiating a consultancy contract.

"The older I get, the more Buddha I feel."

Why, you may ask, did this CEO utter that statement? Because we are transitioning (not fast enough) from command-and-control management structures to flat, autonomous, multidisciplinary teams of creative people (we are ALL creative beings) empowered to change the world.

Thankfully, we are moving into a more human-centered approach to solve problems. 

I don't blame capitalism. After all, the only reference it had when born was military structures. No more. Yes, we should borrow ideas from the military (such as situational awareness) but if you want creativity and innovation, those command-and-control, top-down organizational structures are going the way of the internal combustion engine.

When I share my life mission to mentor and empower creative and innovation mindsets, I am usually asked: Do you mean entrepreneurs?  I say, yes, of course. But an entrepreneur may not be inventing a new solution and business model to solve climate change. They may be launching a new clothing brand, or building a new kitchen gadget. All well and good. But those entrepreneurs are not solving wicked problems. 

It is that difference that motivates me to uncover and empower new innovators from the start to adopt human-centered approaches like Indra Nooyi did for Pepsi. 

We all need to be more Buddha. It is that simple. CEO, executives, innovators, entrepreneurs, all of us. 

I recently concluded a consulting assignment where I  proved to the 30 executives that I was training, that these approaches worked and are here to stay. For example, there was zero pushback to the adoption of design thinking for solving problems and even as the tool for strategy planning.  

May the Great Shift continue to change how we compete and execute. May it make us more caring of our nature. May it make us more Buddha. 



 

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