Connecting Everything: From Individual Sentience to Organizational Innovation, Creativity and Sustai

0:00 The topics and opinions express in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements radio show, programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicit or implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential.

0:45 Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want Working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, Doctor Elise Cortes. Welcome back to the Working on Purpose Program. Thanks for turning in again this week. Great to have you. I am your host, Doctor Elis Cortes and I have been with passion and pride bringing you this podcast since February of twenty fifteen. If we've not met before, you don't know me. I am an organizational psychologist and loco therapist, speaker and author, and my team and I at Gusto now help companies to enliven and fortify their operations and increase profitability by articulating their purpose and building inspirational leaders and cultures activated by meeting and purpose. Our mission is to help our clients create a destination workplace where people flock to join, are intrinsically motivated to perform with their best, can grow into their full potential, and are committed to stay and dynamically deliver on the company's mission, which then translates to your higher profits. You can learn more about us and how we can work together at Gusto dashnow dot com and my personal site, Atliscortes dot com. Now getting back in today's program with us again is Faiso Hook, an accomplished entrepreneur, senior EXCPS secutive author, thought leader, public speaker and advisor to management teams and boards of directors with more than twenty five years of cross industry success. He's the founder of Shadoka, Next Chapter and Next Chapter and other companies. They all focus on enabling sustainable and transformational changes. As a thought leader, he has authored

2:19 a number of books on leadership, innovation, mindfulness, resilience, organizational transformation, and entrepreneurship, including Everything Connects, How to Transform and Lead in the Age of Creativity, Innovation and Sustainability. His work has appeared in Fast Company, Business Insider, Walls, Street Journal, BusinessWeek, Fox CBS, Financial Times, Mergers and Acquisitions, Forbes, etc. Today he joined us from Connecticut Faisal a hearty welcome back to working on purpose. Good to be back, thanks for having me. Well, it's wonderful. And as I as we know, my friend, when you came back and I saw that you had this book out, Everything Connects, and one of your people had sent it to me, and I realized we hadn't yet futured it, I said, you must come back, young man, you must come back. So thank you, thank you, honor, thank you. You're welcome. And as I mentioned before we got on air, you know, this show has been on air for nine years, and so what we tend to do is curate the content. What I mean by that is, if we've already covered it, I don't go over the things that I've already been covered. I like to pull out the nuggets that I really think, you know, enliven and add to what we've covered. And so they're what I want to do in our in our time together today is pull out those pieces that I thought were really quite delicious and different than what we've covered. And you know, I already told you that I love your definition of entrepreneur and as I recall it, it's it's the person who takes responsibility for their economic lives and wellbeing.

3:40 And that's a that's a title that I have grown into over the years, viisl and I love the way that you have defined that for us. So let's all welcome, you know, the entrepreneurs and want to be entrepreneurs who are listening and watching today. Welcome entrepreneurs and those who want to innovate. So the first thing I want to talk about here, which I think it's amazing that we need to talk about it is you talk about in this latest book the need to humanize our work lives. It is so true. We do still and this is this book came out what was it twenty twelve originally, is that correct? That's correct. It's been now eight years and feels like that message is more relevant today than what we actually sat and wrote that thing and the outline I was, I was talking about traveling. I actually wrote the outline of that book literally sitting in Dubai airport, and then the book came out, you know, about a year later. So it's pretty interesting. Yeah, I just I think it's really really interesting. And again I am a person. So for my PhD studies, I studied human development and we did a lot of work around systems. So I like to think in systems, and to me, this idea everything connects really speaks to systems and interconnectivity and nothing exists on its own, which, of course I celebrate it. I love how you talk about, you know, first thing in the book you borrow a line from Phil Live in the highly portable CEO of ever note, and you talk about, of course, humanizing our working lives is a sufficiently epic quest to dedicate lives too. Well, That's what

5:13 I'm doing for sure, and probably you are too to a certain extent. But I appreciate how this idea that humanization will yield more positive experiences at work, more creativity and innovation within organizations, and greater interpersonal bonds between the people we work with. And of course this also means that we're creating longer, more value long term. So that's where I want to start if we can find so if you can kind of just speak to that, that's where I want to be an organization. Look, I mean, maybe I can start with the definition of entrepreneurship because you know, in reality, almost every one of us has some sort of entrepreneurial trait that allows us to survive, right, because if you think about a very early stage when you are trying to find a job or when you're trying to make a living, and depending on where you're born and where you're the circumstances around you, that that makes you do certain things and you're very much focused on survival and making a living that allows you to put food on the table. As you grow and as you progress and as you learn, you know, if your motivation and your idea of success maybe changes, and most successful people as they go through different stages of life, like if you look at my life, I can talk from my own perspective. Initially, you know, when first I came to us,

6:45 I wanted to just survive because I had to put food on the table and put myself to school. So I had to be very creative to do that, right, So that's the creativity and way of surviving is very much fundamental for entrepreneur. Now, if you go fast forward and you know, now I'm in my fifties, I've gone through several stages of my life. I've got a little more credibility, a little more knowledge. I can do things more effectively than when I was in my twenties. My motivation is very different, the same as what you're saying that you know, this idea of making an impact and caring for others because you can afford to do that.

7:27 You know, once you're basic, it's like mass Low's hierarchy. Once your basic needs are med, then you look for something bigger than you. So so the definition of entrepreneurship and impact and this pursuit of whatever that you want to do changes over time. So whether it's fills a definition of you know, looking for that's meaningful, or whether my definition from my own life journey what's important to me. We have committical opportunity to craft and change it as we grow. So I thrive on that idea that you actually can learn and grow and change me too. And I of course I'm a big Manslow fan as well. And yes, you know when you want to, you know, as an entrepreneur. Of course, a big reason that I'm an entrepreneur is that, yes, I do want to be able to be responsible for my own time and my economic well being, and I want to I want to express my purpose to the work that I do, and that is what I get to do. But that takes us to this next place, or there's two pieces, two parts to where I want to take us next.

8:35 And one is I like how you talk about the entrepreneurs idealistic and pragmatic, sensitive to the world they wish to see, and conscious of the world as it is. The entrepreneurs work then is connecting these two. That's exactly what you know has been kind of my riveting challenge and focus of late. I've been, you know, an entrepreneur since two thousand and three and more specifically living my purpose since to that eighteen. So that is definitely my space, but taking it more specifically where it gets really more interesting to call on more deeply your area of expertise, especially as it relates to innovation. So I wanted to take it further where you then go on you talk about Christensen's work and talking about how instead of not instead of just looking at what's the market today? What are people wanting today? What can I give them today that they want they already know that they want. What can I actually create that it actually speaks to their unspoken, unmit future needs. That's where I'm also at, and share more about that in just a second, But if you could speak to how that really disrupts things and what does it take to be able to live in that space? Right? Look, I mean the innovation journey, or this whole notion of being idealistic and pragmatist at the same time is very crucial and fundamental. And that says that you know, most of the entrepreneurs are innovators, are dreamers, right, They want to see the world in a different lens than than most people does. Right, And as

10:09 a result, you you take a lot of risk, but you also sometimes fall in love with your own creation. Whereby the market may not be ready for what you're preaching or whatever you're producing. Right, But the successful ones somehow managed to balance this this uh you know, idealistic view where world needs to be and and what you can produce and create that demand because you know, a lot of time, as I said, you know, as you just mentioned that people doesn't know. I mean, you can look at every single innovation, whether that's Teem's apple, uh and and the iPhone, or whether it's the new generation of cars, whatever the case may be. Right, these are it didn't exist. We created the need for it. They created the need for it, and now we can live without it. But if you look at the journey, we forget how many times they failed in order to pursue that journey. Right, I mean the history of iPhone, you know, I mean it's almost like twenty fifteen years old because it didn't start as iPhone. It started as the iPad, and then it morphed into the iPhone. And I don't mostly mostly, I mean, you know, those of who are in our fifties, remember that was a bricklike device that nobody wanted to use. Right, So it is that, you know, So the pragmatism is so that you can actually maintain that economic sustainability to survive,

11:41 right, And idealism is that having that dream to do something that's different and creative, whatever, But it takes time to get there, and the longer you stay with it, the chances of success becomes higher. Right. So it's a fine balance, and some of us are luckier than others in the sense that sometimes you come up with something and it becomes an instant hit. Sometimes you know, you have to work at it for many years. I mean, it's funny. I was flipping through my very first book that I published in two thousand, called e Enterprise with Cambridge University Press, and in that book, this was right around the Internet bubble, and I had an internet company obviously at that time, and I was arguing in the book that it's not the technology, it's how we learned to use it and come up with the business model that will make this new generation products successful that are very much going to be digital. I look at that what I wrote twenty five years ago, and you know, I heavily coted Peter Drucker's principle and other things in that book, and I look at now, yeah, and you know, I'm now, you know, last year when I was kind of writing a fresher version of this in my other book called Reinvent. A lot of things have changed, technology change, and we're about to like completely disrupt the world with AI, but fundamentals haven't changed. Like that all of the things we're talking about, you know, this mindset and looking at things in certain ways, and ability to survive and the ability to pragmatically balance and

13:18 so that we can actually do the things we want to do and have the patience to do. That is a trick Later later on, I'll add something to this, but that that's really the case. I mean, you have to have the idealism and vision and the dream, but you also have to be pragmatic what works when and how much work it will take to get where you want to get it there. Mm hmm, Well just quickly, just you know, you mentioned Maslow before. I mean, I'm already helping companies to activate meaning in purpose in their leadership and their culture. But really, where I want to go next is you mentioned Maslow. He has a higher attitude or be value spectrum, and I am out now to develop programs that that help people to live in that space of those higher values, because it lends to creativity, it lends to pro pro social behaviors, etc. So that's where I'm going next. Even though nobody's saying would you please do this from there's no that I can think of. There's nobody saying I'd like to buy this from you today, but I need to do it so anyway, So now where I want to go next, Wesel is this is just such a brilliant way to talk about management. And it's one of my big things because I teach a lot of managers through my programs, and I teach a lot of leaders, and I hate the idea of managing my presence. I hate the idea of but in seat management, it's so anti human. And so your idea of managing my consciousness is a time Who's is an idea whose time has come? Please? Would you say a little bit more about what

14:50 you mean by that? And then I want to delve a little bit. Yeah, I mean, look, most of the time, you know, when especially in the field of innovation and creativity and that sort of a thing, you know, we often enough put timeline and we managed by what was the output and when what time frame it was done, how many hours somebody is putting into it, et cetera, et cetera. Right, in a complex creative environment, that's that doesn't really work because the reason it doesn't work is, and we all know if you look at individual level a lot at an organizational level, and we'll connect the dot between individual and organization minute.

15:33 We all have specific biorhythm, we all have specific creative burst, we always have. We all have a particular driver for creativity. Some people get motivated by music, some people get motivated by walk in the nature, whatever, or talking to other people, whatever the case may be. So if you can so if you put time frame when you start putting people in this box that did you put eight hours and did you work five days a week? Or or when you know, did you show up at the office at nine in the morning, those things really doesn't is not the activator for your creativity.

16:15 For example, you know I work best in the early part of the morning, meaning creative work. Right, so between four point thirty five o'clock aut in nine, I'm very creative. After that, it's my productivity starts getting you know, lower and lower. And so if somebody said you got to come here at nine o'clock in the morning and you have to have three o'clock you start writing your next white paper, that's probably not gonna work, right. So we mean by managing consciousness being being they're very mindful of how people you know tick in their own way so that they can give their maximum creative output. As a result, you actually get there faster. And then add on to that, you know, the ownership both economically and otherwise, you know, I mean there's a huge argument when people have ownership in meaning physical economic ownership in a company versus you're just a plain employee. Those have all has impact, right, I mean, that's monetary ownership. But there's also other kind of ownership when you put a responsibility and accountability on people and telp them come up with something uh that that that's off their own and they get rewarded for that. That's where the creative process really starts, you know, taking taking home. So you know, being conscious about how each person uh you know uh gets motivated and produced and able to adjust and motivate them

17:48 to really you know, to live their fullest potential is how you then translate into that organizational system because that has to be part of the culture. It's not just to one person. Is like catering to the entire organization to be that way so collectively that produce. It to produce doesn't mean you don't hold people accountable, doesn't mean that you know, you don't manage my numbers. Because at the end of the day, if you're talking about a company, you know they really have to produce result from the financial point of the otherwise they will go out of business. Beautiful Pvice, Well, thank you for bringing that to life so eloquently. That's exactly what I was hoping for. Let's grab our first break. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. We've on the air with Faiso Hoak. He's an accomplished entrepreneur, senior executive author, thought leader, public speaker and advisor to management teams and board of directors with more than twenty five years across industry success. He's the founder of Shadoka, Next Chapter and other companies who all focus on which all focus on enabling sustainable and transformational changes. We've been talking a bit about some of the areas around humanizing work and also managing my consciousness. After the break, we're going to get into the relationship between an organization's structure and how it actually innovates.

19:03 Stay with us. We'll be right back. Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author. She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to a lease a li se at eliscortes dot com. Now back to working on purpose.

20:12 Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. Likewisel As, I'm also dedicated to helping create a world where people can realize the potential at work and are led by inspirational leaders who bring them to their best. And we do business at Betters the World. I keep researching and writing my books, and the latest one came out in March of twenty twenty three. It's called The Great Revitalization. How activating meaning and purpose can radically enliven your business. And I wrote the book to really help readers, business leaders and company owners to understand the new lay of the land, of what the workforce wants, and then to provide twenty two best projects to help you steward or culture to get there. So you can find it at my side at Lasecoortes dot com or Amazon if you are just joining us. My guest is Faisal Hope. He is the author of Everything Connects Cultivating Mindfulness, Creativity and Innovation for Long Term Value, one of his many works which we're talking about today. So where I wanted to go next, which I think is really really interesting, and you've really got me thinking about this visa from my own company. As I quote from your book, you say, any organization that designs a system will inevitably produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization's communications structure. So in other words, what we how we can restate that as you use Conway's law, there is there. What they're saying is companies are destined to produce products that mirror their organizational structure, or even more extremely poetically, we could simply say that the organization implies that product, or that the organization is the product.

21:40 That is so interesting And now look at that, and I went, oh, how would I characterize how we communicate around here? Oops? Well, you know, it's it's this has a very deep philosophical tenant for me because if you if you think about this teaching, you know, it says that you are who you think you are, right, and so it's kind of like that when when when you when you put that in a greater context, a leader, uh, it's kind of is the face of the organization, but the leader also kind of crafts what that organization is. And often enough, when you look at the organistal structure it you know, obviously you have to have systems, especially the larger you are, the more you need systems. But but what you structure the organization and how how much rigidity you have in the organization kind of reflects the leader's personality and mindset and the philosophy how that leader wants to produce, communicate, and and and drive people's output.

22:47 Right. So, so so that's it really comes from that, And you know, I mean so in the books as you as you read thoroughly so much appreciated. You know, we we crack. We kind of craft this notion that you have to look at if you look at the organizational structure from the eyes of innovation and creativity, you can look at people say, okay, who are the people who are creating ideas, Who are the people who are uh, you know, uh building those ideas, What are the people building partners around those ideas, and who are the people who are focusing how we can improve and then craft organization in that context. And by the way, you have to rotate those people, so there is a cross pollination or cross learning versus saying here's my marketing, here's my sales, and here's this and here's that, And that's how you start creating those silos that that doesn't overlap. Right, So, because you're not thinking from the you know, that life cycle of a new innovation where it starts with idea to go to market to value realization. Mm hmm. Thank you, And speaking to that, I did think there was merit for our listeners and viewers to talk about the four roles in in performing innovation that you really lay out so beautifully in your book, because they're all needed, right, all four of them are needed, and I think it makes sense for us to discuss them briefly, describe them and what it is that they do, because you know, some people might say, oh, I totally love this kind of a role,

24:18 or I might try to want to try to learn this role. So could you talk about the four roles? Yeah, So there's the ideation role. You know, people who actually creates the idea and they look at opportunities and they look at the core competencies in the organization and then they come up with an idea. Second one is the people who are are really looking at building those ideas in terms of designing and implementing so that you can take an output to the market. And when I'm saying that, I'm not talking about this physical product. It could be a service, it could be all kinds of things, but nevertheless, you have to that in a consumable manner that your your you know, your customer can take it. So, for example, we could write a book which is a product, and we had to think about it, came up with the idea of the book. You had to you know, design what's kind of the structure and so on and so forth right. So once you do that, then there's this idea of you know, as ad this twelve years ago, but it evolved a little bit from that. Now. I like to say that there is a role of partnering. Who creates ecosystems so that that product or service can survive. Who goes out there and creates this, uh, this vehicle whereby you know, people get to know what you're offering, People get to support their offering, influence your offering, helps adapting that offering in your customer base, et cetera,

25:49 et cetera. While you're doing that, there's a very important role that we often forget is the improving role that that allows it. Looking as you know, a step back and looking at that ideation to market to valorialization and said where can we improve Because as you're doing, especially in a new offering, what happens is that you're all you're going to learn things that you haven't thought through. The reaction to the customer is going to have, the way you decided to distribute, the way you priced it. You know, these are all uh, you know, places for improvement. So those improving role has a different role than the people who are coming up with new ideas because they're looking at how can we improve it? So it does get better, and it does get more acceptance, and it does generate more more revenue and profit margin, which is ultimately the uh the you know, the reason of surviving a product or service. And by the way, that also includes what impact is having on a societal level, because the higher you can move as social impact, the more arsenal and more sticky the product because because the audience creates the emotional connection to your offering. Thank you fise listeners and viewers.

27:11 What I want to emphasize about why I brought this up for you. I always want you to be able to take away something immediately from my program to put to work immediately in your business. And so think about those four roles, the ideation role, the guiding role, the building role, and the improving role. Think about how you can layer that structure into your team today, especially if you want to encourage innovation. So really you could. I know so many organizations whose teams are definitely not structured that way. So put that to work. Okay, So the next thing before I queue this up here, by okay, if you could just indulge me here and remind me and the listeners and viewers of your basic education. How are you schooled?

27:52 I'm schooled from the street. Literally. I did go to school for my undergrad in' Southerland, a university for electrical engineering, and then I went to University of Minnesota for computer science and management science. But in my fifth year of school, I came up with a product and I dropped out of college and sent out a disc to get my first you know, a floppy disk, literally a floppy disk in a demo, and I got my first job. But since then, I've been an entrepreneur, and my learning is actually from reading all these people you mentioned, you know, whether it's how that I met in real life, sometimes some of them I've never met, like whether it's Peter Dracker or Clechiciansen or even Buddhist teaching. And also from my customers. I have had a tremendous opportunity to work with some of the best and the brightest in the industry, both in private sector and public sectors.

28:53 I worked with Gee, my first or second company was acquired g S. I worked there for a while. But whether it's g whether it's ibm Ames, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But also last seven six seven years, I'm doing a ton of work for our government, both for our development of defense and the you know, the homeland securities. I've had a different kind of learning experience in the last seven eight years where motivation is not profit. It's literally human lives and national security and other things. So the innovation and surviving and creativity motivating people has a totally different construct than a commercial organization. Thank you for that. That was really so beautiful and really filled in so much for me. And the reason I wanted to situate your your education feiso is where I want to go next is I want to talk about love and enjoying the workplace, which doesn't usually fit with electrical engineering and you know sort of you know, even creating you know, an entrepreneurial company, and it does I think when it comes to people's lives, et cetera.

30:06 But you know, as an organizational psychologist, of course, I understand how important stuff is, so hearing it from your perspective is really really valuable. So I really appreciate that you do cite Barbara Fredericks Fredrickson's work in your in your book as well but this talk about this idea, the role of love and joy in the workplace, especially as it relates to innovation. Look, I mean, you know, anything positive, anything you know that has meaning, deep meaning, and any type of deep work that doesn't come from tasing something superficially uh and often enough. You know, if you look at the greatest entrepreneurial journey, they are personal stories that created the spark of doing something different and doing something you know, innovative. So in my case, you know what has happened at least is that various stages of my life I had different motivation and different sorts of love, if you want to quote it as love. So at some stage it was love of creating something different and new and being successful. At some stage it was the love of taking care of my family, at some stage making an impact for the society. And recently it has been a combination of doing something that has a long lasting impact

31:41 for the next generation, but also serving my country. So the work I do today it is solely based on how can I serve my country? Number one? And number two, can I do something that will help a certain cause that I have in specifically these days is cancery because I have a cancer surviving child. So my motivation and what I do today is completely different than the you know, the nineties and two thousand tech entrepreneur who's chasing to be yet another tech entrepreneur that wants to, you know, take the horn by the bull, as they say, those are long gone. It's a totally different definition. So each of these stages are driven by love, and each of these stages are driven by a joy that you get by doing the work.

32:30 I don't consider my work as work. I consider that it's a fulfillment of giving. If I can use that term, and I don't think I could. I'm truly content by what I do. I mean, I can say that, and I'm very able to say exactly that. And if you don't do that, you know, but let's rephrase it separately. If you manage to do that, the output you're going to get out of the work you do is unmatched to the work that you do when you are just slugging in a way to survive, right, and you have to somehow get to that point. Thank you for that. And I did not know about your child, so this really it makes even more sense. Thank you for sharing that My soul that is really remarkable and beautiful. I want to also bring back the pragmatic application of the work and joy for those who are still out there thinking this might still feel a little touchy feely, and that is that you go onto your book to really talk about how when we factor in things and we work from a place of love and joy, that you know, it helps us to relax our inborn and unseen mental rigidity and to expand our perspective of a situation beyond the cocoon of my view this is how I think of things, into something more aerial, more aware of the group as a whole, including that of the customer or user or the unseen partner to any any workplace conversation. So you know, it just kind of expands our capacity to see connect the dots, if you will. And then, as I

34:02 say, it helps us be able to practice what are called pro social behaviors, So that part of what it does. And so then if we take it a step further and go into just you know, positive emotions in general, which of course all of my work is servicing that. I just appreciate that you're really also talking about how what that does for people's mindset or who are intentionally putting themselves into or you know, channeling positive emotions, whether they do it because they've been asked or because it's in the environment they work from. You know, just that ability to be able to start to be able to work from the place of love, joy, empathy that allows people to have a wider inventory of possible actions and then they take that broader context necessary for systems thinking and promote that resilience. And that's what I wanted to celebrate when you're talking about love joy, positive emotions in the workplace, especially as it relates to innovation. Look, I mean you know when you when you go to ultimately, you know, innovation is not a solo sport. You can innovate something and make it sustained and actually adapted if you're not working with people, right. So, so you can take a commercial product, or you can look at you know, a complex environment like our federal government.

35:20 Right any it doesn't matter what sector or look at cancer research, right so, it doesn't matter what area of expertise or field or you work with. You know, you can go with their good intention, but ultimately you have to expand that in an ecosystem, right so so this is where that love and joy becomes critical because these are hard work. Convincing other people of your idea and motivating other people of your cause is hard work, right because everybody has their own thing going on and et cetera, et cetera. So this is where empathy and you know, and a conscious effort of connecting with other people becomes critical because you have to go to there where they are and bring your idea to them. Now, this is my idea, Just make it happen. That just doesn't work that way, right, You have to show what's in it for them, and you have to convince them why they should care about things and you should. You should be able to article it why it matters in a greater context, right, So if it's a company, it matters because you if you create a good product or service, then your customer will buy it and as a result, the company will be successful.

36:37 If you do it in the context of let's say in in you know, in public sector, you're trying to serve public goods. If it's good for the society, ultimately it will be good for you, but it's also going to be good for your children. So you do your part and as a result, you bring it together so that and you know, and you know, positivity and gratitude and empathy is contiguous as we all want. Once you go there with that positive attitude, it you know, it attracts people to like, you know, to to to rally behind you. But the trick is taking that and you know, create a system and a culture that can be replicated above and beyond your presence. Right. So this is the role of the leader, whereby the leaders doesn't create followers, They create system, you know, they you know, there's that's saying leaders create other leaders.

37:35 I actually like to say leader creates system and process that becomes the cultural DNA that allows you, for allows other people to carry the water above and beyond you. Right. So if you can't do that, then you become that sustainable organization and it doesn't matter who's there and who's not there. The next generation will take it over and do it. So beautiful vice, Okay, let's grab our last break on then let our listeners and viewers chew a little bit on what you were talking about with love and joy, positive emotions and how sprinkling them into your organizational culture can actually promote innovation I'm your host, doctor release Cortez. We've been on the air with Faiso hok. He's an accomplished entrepreneur, senior executive author, thought leader, public speaker, and advisor to management teams and board of directors with more than twenty five years of cross industry experience. He is the founder of Shadokah, Next Chapter and many other companies which all focus on enabling sustainable and transformational changes. We're going to talk more after the break about this wonderful notion of sentience and how you, as a manager and leader can embrace that to bring out the best in your people.

38:40 Stay with us, We'll be right back. Doctor Release Court says as a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose, an inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite a lease to speak to your organization, please visit her at Elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise Alise at Elisecortes dot com. Now back to Working on Purpose.

39:49 Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to Working on Purpose. I am your host, doctor Elise Cortes. As I mentioned in our first break, I just put out my last book, The Great Vitalization, in March of twenty twenty three. What I did for you to help utilize the contents of that book without even reading it, is I created a three page assessment you can print off my website from gustodashnow dot com to determine the extent to which your workforce, your culture today is actually set up to meet the discerning needs of today's workforce. It will also help give you a roadmap to elevating your organizational culture to meet that discerning standard. So it's at gustodashnow dot com if you are just now joining us. My guest is Faisal Hope. He is the author of Everything Connects Cultivating Mindfulness, Creativity and Innovation for Long Term Value, one of his mini works. So where I wanted to go next fisl is I love words, I love speaking different languages and words, and you talk about this wonderful word called sentience in your work here when it comes to really celebrating individuals and managing and steward and nurturing them. So let's talk about sentience. Sure that word, if you typed it on AI or if you typed it on Google, it will tell you that is the capacity to be very conscious and self aware and the capacity to be self aware what's around you and what other people feels and does meaning your ecosystem if you want to get it to a very broader extent. So, if you look at a

41:22 leader, a successful leader, they truly are sentient. The more successful they are, the more self conscious they are. They are more conscious about how other people feel, but also how you feel, because how you feel comes across the way you speak, your body language, your reactions, et cetera, et cetera. Right, So that's really the meaning of sentient. So if you now look at a successful leader, successful leader doesn't create chaos. Successful leader does not create an environment where people runs around with chicken like a chicken with their headcut, right, sucessful creator. Successfully leaders are the persona of calmness, who is you know, very much aware of whatever the chaos that organization is feeling, but also how to come that process so that you can move things forward. Right. So it's a conscious leadership versus h you know, the classic command and control leadership that says, hey, I said, so therefore you make it so. Yeah, and we probably talked about this, but I have long been a conscious capitalist, and I do serve on the board here in Dallas as well. I very much promote those principles and taking just a little bit further here this idea of sentience. I wanted just to reinforce what you said so beautifully in your book. You say it also entails in appreciating the interior complexity of the people you work with. Then by appreciating that complexity, you can make explicit the links between a person's individual motivations and that of the organization, creating an alignment and alliance between the individual

42:55 that comprises the organization. And that's that's back to everything connects, right. How can you actually see that in such a way that you can actually work to connect it. I think that is such a beautiful and elegant contribution of a manager and leader to be able to develop the capacity to do that. Yeah. Look, I mean, if you know there's a little woman most successful organization and their leaders don't have like thirty direct quotes, they have four or five because what you just said, you know what you just read from my excerpt from my book. If you look at that, it takes a lot of interpersonal relationship and not saying the relationship to get to the point where you'd really understand somebody else's inner complexity and whatever else is going on in their lives, right, because whatever else going on in their lives a direct reflection how they perform at work. Right, So if you're not aware of it, you don't have to like get into their lives, but you have to be you have to have an empathy to recognize that whatever is going on, and however, they express their creativity both positively and negatively. So if you look at that context, every leader can only do that with a handful of people. Right. That's why organization, you know, larger the organization is, it's a hierarchy, right, and it's not a bad thing because hierarchy.

44:20 You can look at hierarchy as a quote or a guide that giving guidance versus commands, and the guidance comes from what needs to be done, but also the capacity and the capability of the people that you're guiding to be the best performers. They can be right by holding them accountable. Right, So in that context, you know, the best performance, especially in the context of innovation and creativity. And by the way, those are the only jobs you know that will be remaining, you know, as time goes by, because repetitive, uh, you know, mundane work would be replaced with a lot of technology akai and other things. Even in the knowledge space, you will see that it's continuously being replaced with technology that that are mundane. You know, that's repetitive, right, So the only set of work that will be remain is this creative set of work and given by creative people. So the management and the leadership also has to go back to that, you know, to what we just discussed moments ago. And when I wrote that book, technology was not even that advance. And if you look at what has happened in the last two years, it's taken to the whole new, different level. Right. So, and it's yet a tsunami is about to come.

45:49 Yeah, it's so beautiful and I want to really help like you along your side, stewarded, and to that end, we're kind. I want to go next, and this will probably take us close to very end of the show is listeners and viewers. If you are an individual contributor, I want you to think about the extent to which you experience work like this. If you are a leader of people, I want you to think about the extent to which your people experience their work like this. I am a person who believes profoundly in the promise of work to be able to help us realize our potential. So I love what Feisl has in his book. Here he's talking about Apple. Whatever your view is about Apple, but he's got an excerpt in here from a memo that Apple gives to new hires in which the company contrasts work and life's work, and it reads, I quote, people don't come here to play it safe. The memo printed in the New York Times reads, they come here to swim in the deep end. They want their work to add up to something that couldn't happen anywhere else. Think about that. That's you joining in opting into sentience at its finest and really thinking about how can you give yourself over so you give the greatest aspect of yourself, contribute it to something much bigger and grander than yourself. I think most people want something some form of this and are hungry for it, and so I really wanted to celebrate that piso. If you want to just comment on that, or if you're a perspective, look absolutely, it depends. It applies in any field. So you look at the doctors and nurses, right, if you look at their credo, they're not there to create products.

47:19 They're there to save lives, right, So they have a different credo. Now when we when I look at my brothers and sisters in their uniform in our military, they're there to protect our country. They're there to uphold democracy. They're there to make sure hungry are getting fed. People who are you know, are in dire calamity situation are getting saved. Right, So their courte of ethics and courte of conduct and their calling is different. But each one of those areas, whether it's an Apple employee, or whether it's a doctor, or whether it's I mean, I look at the doctors of you know, my son's dot. He wouldn't be alive if I didn't have those dedicated nurse research and doctors that are working night and day to come up with a cure that could say patient like him. I can say the same thing about uh, you know my friends and co workers in the military community.

48:16 Right, So each one of these people or a group of people, they have different calling, but it is their life work. It is their life work that's dedicating to create something different and a better place and a safer place for all us. Right. So it doesn't has to be for just commercial call. It applies for anything and everything that we all do. Absolutely, And I want to just finish by celebrating and let you comment on this just quickly. As you talk about the role of CEO, and you mentioned Meta, who's a serial entrepreneur, and he says his number one job is to make sure everyone's operating at their absolute potential and that he says that everyone and his job is to make sure everyone is incredibly passionate about what they do.

49:04 That is what I'm stewarding among leaders as well. And just to finish it, if you could just see in like twenty seconds, how would you like to come up and then and finish the show. I think you know that's exactly what is sentience means because you have to be able to not sure other people's potential. It's not about telling them what to do. It's getting the best out of them so they can lead what they want to lead, right. So that's the highest potential of a leader and a teacher. Faisil. I really enjoy having you in my life, learning from you, sharing with my listeners and viewers around the world. Thank you for coming back to working on purpose. Thank you for having me absolutely honored. Listeners and viewers, you are going to want to find more out about this man and the work that he does, the work and the books that he produces, and his various company Shadoka, next chapter, et cetera. So just start by going to his personal website. It's Feisal Hope. Let me spell that for you.

50:00 F A I s A L hoke h o q u E fislhok dot com. Start there. If you missed the show last week, you can always catch it via recorded podcast. We were on the air with Darren Tully talking about his book Live Your Possible, Ignite your Happy, Authentic Self and Love a fulfilling life where to enjoy inclusion, love and possibilities. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it. Next week, we'll be on the air with Tim Vanda Hay talking about his book that he co authored called Swipe, The Science Behind Why we Don't Finish what we start. See you there, and remember that work is one of the best means and adventures of realizing our potential and making the impact we crave. So let's continue to find a way to work on purpose. We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes, each week on W four CY. Together we'll create a world where business operates conscientiously, leadership inspires and passion performance, and employers are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on purpose.