Profitable and Beautiful: Elevating Business to Soulful Heights

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What's working on purpose anyway? Each
week we ponder the answer to this question.

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People ache for meaning and purpose at
work, to contribute their talents passionately

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and know their lives really matter.
They crave being part of an organization that

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inspires them and helps them grow into
realizing their highest potential. Business can be

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such a force for good in the
world, elevating humanity. In our program,

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we provide guidance and inspiration to help
usher in this world we all want

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working on purpose. Now Here is
your host, doctor Elise Cortes. Welcome

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back to the Working and Purpose Program. Thanks for Junina again this week.

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Great to have you. I'm your
host, doctor Relise Cortes, Junia Lai

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from Dallas, which is home base
for me. If you don't know me

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yet, I'm a management consultant specializing
in meaning and purpose, organizational law,

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of therapist, inspirational speaker, social
scientist, and author. My team and

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I help companies discover and articulate their
purpose to throw it through culture and operations.

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We work with forward thinking or forward
reaching organizations to develop inspiration leaders who

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create cultures where people actually want to
come to work and do their best,

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and we provide programs like the Grab
Your Gusto that enable individual team members to

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discover and unleash their passion and purpose
of work to catalyze fulfillment, engagement,

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and productivity. You can learn more
about us and how we can work together

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at at least corotest dot com,
orgustodashanow dot com. With us today is

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Stephen Morris, a brand and culture
advisor, at author and speaker. He

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works with business leaders to mind articulate
and activate their driving belief system to create

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organizational integrity, evolved leaders, connected
cultures, and unignorable brands. He's the

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president of Matter Consulting and the author
of the Beautiful Business, an Actuable manifest

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to create To create an unignorable business
with love at the core, we'll be

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talking about beautiful business, evolved leaders, and business brand. He joined today

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from San Diego, California. Steven, Welcome to Working on Purpose. Oh,

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thank you, Elise. It's such
a pleasure to be here and have

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this converse with you. I'm very
excited me too. I just need to

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share you with listeners around the world. This message is so profound and so

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important and so timely. And your
book, of course, it's so beautiful

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Steven. Here it is. Let
me show it to our viewers. This

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is what it looks like, the
Beautiful Business. I read it, of

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course cover to cover, and I
want to dive in here this first part

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to actually talk about what we mean
by or what you mean by beautiful business.

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So if we can, maybe the
best way to start, I thought,

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is to have you open with the
comparison and contrast. You talk about

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two distinct companies that you worked with
early on in your book, and I

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think if we contrast those we can
start to distill more of the essence of

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this conversation. So can you tell
us about those two companies? Yeah,

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well I can. I'll tell about
the companies. I won't mention the company

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names. That'd be great, And
in the book I call it the Monday

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Client and the Tuesday Client story,
and they're real stories, but I don't

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call out their names because you know, they're really anecdotes for the way a

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business can operate, and really they're
anecdote for and really even metaphors for how

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one set of leadership team can actually
approach the work at hand. And in

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this case, it was brand evolution
work and a little bit of culture work

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and how another leadership team can approach
them very differently. So the quick story

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behind it is the Monday client.
And it's worth saying that they were both

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in more or less the same industry, the financial services industry that they happened

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to be in. They were on
different coasts. Was on the West coast,

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ones on the east coast. And
you know, the things that they

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had in common is that they both
have a national presence, and they both

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handled lots of people's money, other
people's money, and there was a lot

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of things at stake in what they
were doing. So the Monday client is

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essentially it's a it's a tail where
the client leadership team really didn't have what

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I would call evolve leadership. They
were really out for one another, sometimes

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gunning for one another, out for
the other people's jobs within the organizations.

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They were not in it for the
collective hole. They were. You know,

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there was a system essentially a top
down management system, and there was

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a lot of confusion, chaos and
dysfunction amongst the team. And in contrast,

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the Tuesday client, which was the
following week. And I tell the

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story through the through the lens of
presentations of essentially findings reports for both clients

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that happened to week apart on different
sides of the coast. The Tuesday client

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had a completely different way of operating
within their business. The leaders on that

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particular team were conscientious and thoughtful.
They didn't deploy what we would call this

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command and control, a top down
sort of management system. And how they

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worked and because of that, the
outcomes, the level of contribution, the

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level of creativity, the level of
openness, even the sense of belonging amongst

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that leadership team was exponentially higher.
And in the story I tell about not

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just my experiences with you know,
here's the contrast between these two different leadership

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groups, but here's the contrast and
not only how they approached the work,

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but even in the exponential outcomes that
the Tuesday client received over the Monday client.

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So very quickly, i'll just cover
this, the Monday client took significantly

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longer to realize even less outcomes than
the Tuesday client did, and they did

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so with massive turnover. The Monday
client had big turnover on their leadership team.

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There was infighting. They actually spent
more money achieving less results than the

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Tuesday client did, and the Tuesday
client achieved those results in half the amount

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of time that the Monday client did. So it was an eye opening experience

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for me to have those two frankly
juxtaposed experiences with two clients that were in

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more or less the same industry,
but they had completely different leadership styles,

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completely different cultures, and completely different
ways of working with one another and even

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driving towards what they even considered what
were outcomes and measurements. I could go

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into a lot more detail, and
I want to be careful not to unveiled

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too much about the downside of the
Monday client and really spotlight on the upsides

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of the Tuesday client. Yeah,
thanks, Steven. I just thought that

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was a great place to start because
it helps our listeners and viewers just kind

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of get right into the space of
business and how does it manifest and how

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does it show up, and so
real life examples to open the space to

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start. And then I want to
talk about some of the principles of beautiful

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business as you described them in your
book and for you listeners and viewers.

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Why I think this is so important
is, you know, what Stephen has

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put forth, in my view,
is really any invitation for all of us

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to be able to be more creative
and intentional to rise our intentions to be

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able to create a business that has
even more beautiful impact than if we just

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go out to try to just make
money. And so if you would,

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Stephen, talk to us about it. At least, it's just a few

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of the principles, the ones that
you that maybe your closest to your heart.

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Yeah, so there's really four core
tenants to the beautiful business that I

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believe are really important to employ and
really corral around within the organization. First,

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it's probably fairly obvious to a lot
of people that this first tenant it

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really has to do with leadership.
It's what I call evolved leadership. And

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this is where leaders become self aware
individuals or they are self aware individuals.

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And by self awareness I mean that
they have both the internal version and the

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external version of self awareness. Internal
side of self awareness means that they have

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a clear understanding of what their motivations
are, what their drivers are, what

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their values are, what even their
purpose is. And the external side of

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the self awareness has to do with
they're very clear that how they affect the

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people around them, and so the
way they go about leading, they understand

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how the team is responding to them. They understand sort of the psychological mindset

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of the team around them, and
they're being very thoughtful about how they affect

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the environment that they're putting themselves into. We can you knows a lot of

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science behind things like codregulation and self
regulation and self aware leaders because they have

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this strong sense of internal and external
self awareness, they really understand how to

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create a great environment for people to
thrive in. So that's the first tenant

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is what I call evolved leadership.
The second tenant is what I call belonging.

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Now a lot of people talk about
belonging. I don't. It's not

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my word. Everybody uses it.
Brene Brown, I think, is the

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queen of belonging and our sort of
in our culture and society these days.

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But it really it really talks about
how the company and how the individuals within

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the organization, how they bond with
the people. And this could be the

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employee side of the organization, or
it could be the customer side, or

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it could even be considering how the
investors or the community or even partners within

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the organization, how they belong to
what we're doing. And belonging I believe

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happens when we create the sense of
psychological safety within the organization, and that's

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I believe starts with the leadership role, but then it's continued throughout the entire

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team that they have to actually carry
that mantle forward and then they have a

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clear operationtionalized system of how we communicate, how we treat one another within the

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organization. And when this fusion of
psychological safety and this clear sort of operationalized

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system can create this operationalized system and
our operating system, if you will,

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of belonging both inside and outside.
So when we think about how do how

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do things like customer service happen and
what we call CX and an employee experience

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happen, when we have belonging in
the organization, we can have a cultural

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sense of belonging for the employee experience, and we have we have belonging on

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the customer side of things, we
can have a customer experience sense of belonging

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where the customer feels like they are
actually joining the brand that they're buying from

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instead of just purchasing or having transactions. So I think this attribute is belonging

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is really important, and then so
belonging to the second attribute. The third

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attribute is what I call magnetism,
and this is really on the external side

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of the world, where we stop, we get out of the business of

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chasing customers and we actually act like
the flame and not the moth, where

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we stop chasing customers out in the
world and we invite them in, and

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we invite them in through this attribute
of belonging because we, in some way,

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shape or form, have articulated from
a brand standpoint, here's what we

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believe, here's what our value system
is, and here's how we live up

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to that in the products and or
services that we create, and how customers

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respond to that, they say I
want to be part of that. They

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don't just buy from the brand,
they actually join the brand. So that's

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magnetism. And then the last element
is this sort of the full encompassing when

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all cylinders are happening within the organization
and its integrity, so that which happens

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on the inside of the organization,
our belief systems, our behaviors, and

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even how we treat one another within
the organization, as well as how we

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treat our customers and the environment and
our community and social justice issues. Thinks

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of that nature, all all of
those things have an integral system to them.

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So it begins with evolved leadership,
it goes into belonging, and then

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it goes into magnetism and integrity.
And those are the four key pillars or

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tenants that I tend to hit on
throughout the Beautiful Business. Well said Stephen,

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thank you. That just really opened
a space for us. That was

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great, Okay, And then next
if we can, because I think a

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lot of people who haven't been consuming
this kind of space like I have,

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or haven't read your book yet covered
cover like I have, don't still quite

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understand what we mean by beautiful business. So some of the principles that you

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use in your book to describe it
like you do, say things like,

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you know, work with beauty.
And for those of you who are watching

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this program, the painting behind Stephen, he painted that he's an artist as

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well. So some of these principles, work with beauty, integrate your worlds,

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live and work with soul, allow
love to show up in your business.

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These are some of the beautiful principles
that you show that you talk about,

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and as you and I said before
we got on air, are not

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articulated in today's business world. Yeah, so much to go into there,

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so much opportunity. Yeah. Yeah, So you know, let's talk about

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what I mean by beauty first,
because you know, in our Western culture,

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we tend to think about beauty as
this superficial adornment of things, how

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something looks, and in the world
of business, we would tend to think

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about that is how the business looks. And part of the intent by writing

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the book was a reclamation, a
reclaiming of the definition of beauty into the

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felt sense of beauty, the things
that we can experience, even having senses

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of transcendence and all. So when
I'm thinking about beauty, I'm thinking about

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how something feels or how you experience
something. And so now all of a

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sudden, when you begin to think
about that from the context of a business,

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all of a sudden, our entire
sensory system could be enlivened, not

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just our eyes the way something looks, but our heart and our soul and

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our passion and the things that we've
learned to love in this life, which

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includes how we deploy and how we
employ service to humanity and to one another.

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And so when we think about business
as an active service, we're actually

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thinking about it from the standpoint of
if I'm here to create a business.

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And here I'm thinking about from the
entrepreneurial lens. I'm thinking about Obviously,

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it's got to be a sustainable business, so it's got to make profit,

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or if it's a nonprofit, it's
got to have enough financial flow to be

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in business and serve people tomorrow.
But that isn't why you should build a

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business. So then it leads to
the question, which is, if I'm

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in the business of serving and whatever
however I define that for my customers and

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for my employees, all of a
sudden, I can ignite a level of

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passion that goes into this sense of
service that I'm contributing to something greater than

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myself. So when we think about
everyone, as we have reached a level

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of safety, security, even abundance
in westernized culture, all of a sudden

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we begin to look around and say, Okay, now, with this precious

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time on this planet, this beautiful
life that I've been given in the precious

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gift of life, what then will
I do with it? What then?

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Well, how then will I serve
as an entrepreneur or from a leader at

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any level within the organization, How
will I serve the purpose at hand and

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the customers and what we're looking to
solve and help help serve for them,

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and whatever shape or format, whatever
the business leader defines that to be.

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So when we put passion, we
put love, and we put love inside

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the business, all of a sudden
it can then be this act of beautiful

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service that people then feel within the
organization and they can feel it as customers

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as well. So one of the
big mantras that I have within the book,

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and it's even sort of the biggest
mantra that I use within my consulting

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practice, is there's nothing more powerful
than a united group of souls ignited in

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a common cause with love at the
core. So when you think about that

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sentence as an invitation and you break
it down into there's nothing more powerful than

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a united group of souls. When
we bond together, we as human beings

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are better for it. And when
we're contributing to something larger than ourselves,

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which is this common cause that we
have in hand and businesses I tend to

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call that a purpose, then all
of a sudden we can become this unified

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front that makes for this unignorable force, and all of a sudden we become

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very attractive. And so that's the
aspect of beauty, this thing that we

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human beings really have no defenses for, which is the true felt sense of

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beauty, and it's unignorable in our
world. You know, if you know,

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if you have kids, the newborn
face of your baby or even your

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grandchildren, or whatever, the feeling
of a sunset, or even in a

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business meeting where you're tapping into this
sense of connection with the team of people

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around you and the innovation that you're
coming up with on behalf of the service

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that you're providing for them. That
can enlive in our heart, it can

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enliven our soul, and it can
enlive in our lives and the lives of

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everyone surrounded with the business. I
well, it was beautiful generated I'm one

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hundred percent with everything you said,
and I'm going to give us take us

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into our first break, and after
the break, I want to give an

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example of what I think is a
beautiful business and see what you think.

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So I'm your host, Alie Cortes
Hunamirro with Stephen Morris. He's the president

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of Matter Consulting and the author of
the Beautiful Business, an Actionable manifesto to

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create an unignorable business with love at
the core. We've been talking a bit

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about what makes for a beautiful business. After the break, we're going to

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talk about evolved leadership and stay with
us. We'll be right back. Doctor

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Release Cortes is a management consultant specializing
in meaning and purpose and inspirational speaker and

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author. She helps companies visioneer for
greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired

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leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate
fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the

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workforce. To learn more or to
invite Elise to speak to your organization,

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00:17:03.279 --> 00:17:07.319
please visit her at a Leasecortes dot
com. Let's talk about how to get

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your employees working on purpose. This
is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes.

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To reach our program today or open
a conversation with Alise, send an

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email to a lease Alise at Eleasecortes
dot com. Now back to working on

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Purpose. Thanks for stating with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose.

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Before we get back into the program, I would like to invite you

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to check out my book. It's
called Purpose Ignited. How Inspiring Leaders ignite

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passion and elevate Cause. It's on
Amazon now. I wrote it to a

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Weekend readers to their passionate purpose and
help transform them into inspiration leaders who enliven

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the workplace and elevate the contribution of
business to all at stakeholders. I use

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the content as a basis for my
filin Inspired Leadership program in the Grab Your

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Gusto program. If you're just starting
the program today. My guest is Stephen

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Morris. He's a brand and culture
advisor, author and speaker. He works

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with business leaders to mine, articulate, and activate their driving belief system to

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create organizational integrity, evolved leaders,
connected cultures, and unignorable brands. He

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helps human centered and future ready organizations. I'm your host, doctor Relie Cortes.

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So the example that I would like
to share with you that I think

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comprises a beautiful business so that we
can go from the conceptional for the listeners

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and viewers for the more, the
more practical and tangible. I had on

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my radio program a woman named Brittany
Merrill some years ago. She created the

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Acola Project, and I know it's
evolved since then. I'm not going to

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get all the details right, but
the gist is something like this. She

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graduated SMU, she found herself,
she wanted to go to Africa and do

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some help. She goes to Africa
and she sees all this need and all

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of these people that are doing such
important things just to kind of keep people

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together. She's like, I got
to I got to help. We gotta

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do something to help. So she
finds a way to be able to start

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to get the women to make jewelry
there in Africa, and she pays them

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for that so that they now have
current, so they have money they will

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wage. She brings that jewelry back
to the United States. She then assembles

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a group of women who have actually
been traffic She gets them out of trafficked

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situations. She then pays them a
living wage to then add in more like

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jewels and other fine sort of gems
to be able to increase the value and

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beauty of that jewelry. She then
goes to Nieman Marcus as her distribution channel

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in South Marcus and makes her profits. Then uses those profits to be able

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to come back to do projects back
in Africa like building schools and building damns,

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et cetera. In my mind,
that is a beautiful business. Oh

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all day long, that's good.
Yeah, yes, absolutely, I wouldn't

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disagree with any of that. And
you know, one of the things that

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I love about that particular anecdote and
story is that, you know, this

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person saw both a challenge and an
opportunity within it and deployed her own version

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of what we call or what I
would call business artistry and thought about this

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precious thing that we call imagination,
leaned into her own imagination and asked herself,

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well, what can I do here? How can I serve? How

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can I help this situation, remedy
this situation, and you know, serve

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the lives of these people who not
just the people who are doing the work

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and putting the jewelry together, but
also the customers who are receiving it,

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and those people I would imagine that
receive the goods and services that are provided

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within that and if they understand the
story behind it, all of a sudden

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they have this direct connection to the
people behind the business. And all of

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a sudden, we've transcended beyond this
world of transactions and in the world of

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connection, and there's now belonging that
it's created between these two entities. On

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one end of the entity is the
organization that is creating the beautiful artifacts,

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and the other side is the receiver
of that of those entities in the artifact,

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and how they feel about what they're
contributing to, and when they go

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out into the world and you know, adorn themselves with the beautiful products,

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all of a sudden they become enlivened
and they're carrying that story forward. I

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think that, you know, one
of the most advanced and overlooked technologies that

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we have in our world today and
it will continue to always be the most

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advanced technology, is our ability to
tell stories. You think about, like

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what like the power of a story. No war ever started without a story,

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No political crisis ever started without a
story, and no solution was ever

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remedy without changing that story or remedying
that story or healing the story that happened

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before. So the story that you
just told there is a blessed one.

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It's a beautiful one, and certainly
it's a beautiful business. Yeah, I

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thought you were going to say when
you said two, I thought you're gonna

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say mouth. But storytelling certainly works. And this what you're talking about leads

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just beautifully into the next topic we
wanted to get into in the segment,

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and that's evolved leadership and so one
of the things I want to just share

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directly from your book that I think
just gorgeous and opens the space perfectly.

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You say, leadership is defined more
by mindset of responsibility than by title,

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role or years of experience. Leadership
sees what's possible and aligns them mastered or

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practice kits or parts and manageable forces
to make it happen. Evolving leaders are

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alchemists of possibility. Oh that's gorgeous. Yeah, thank you for that,

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and thank you for reading that.
It's kind of funny to hear your words

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back back to you. Yeah,
that's a couple of nice sentences there,

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and I do believe that they are
alchemists or possibilities, or at least you

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know, one that has evolved leaders
when we you know, through the story

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that you just told you, when
an organization or a leader sees an opportunity

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out there, sees a possibility out
there, we then lean into this beautiful

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gift of human imagination and you can
think about the most powerful, most valuable,

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most precious businesses on the planet all
began with an idea, somebody out

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of a garage tinkering with the components, or you know, Yvon Schnard at

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Patagonia where he was starting to develop
different climbing gear that was what he called

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clean climbing gear. You think about
how Hewlett Packard began, how Apple began.

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You know, these people just they
began to play with things out of

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their garage or ideas that came from
their mind, and they began to make

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those things happen, and all of
a sudden, not overnight, of course,

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they become some of the most powerful, beautiful, amazing products and businesses

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on the planet. And I think
it is this precious gift that we have

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of the imagination, our ability to
see the possibilities in front of us,

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that can both create you know,
certainly it creates some very negative things in

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our world, but it also can
create remedies and antidotes for the things that

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currently ail us. And my invitation
for those that might be out there listening,

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who might have an entrepreneurial set of
lenses that they're thinking about, my

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invitation would be to look at a
problem that you feel you can bring solutions

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to and pull your full imaginative artistry
into that set of solutions so it can

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serve a greater number of people and
remedy or heal whatever needs to be remedied

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or healed. And I actually believe
that, you know, part of the

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role of leader is actually healer.
And especially in corporate America these days where

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you know, we've were coming out
of I believe a time frame where we

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have this top down leadership, command
and control style of leadership. And I

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think in a decade from now,
maybe sooner, that will be out the

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door. People will no longer and
maybe we're seeing in the great resignation right

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now, they're leaving organizations that you
know, people are not welcoming their full

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self to the work to work or
to a business, and people want to

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belong to something that's larger than themselves. And so this beautiful attribute of leadership

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alchemy and even the attribute of healer
as leader or leader as healer, begins

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with healing one's self. And this
is what I talk about when we think

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about evolved leadership and those people who
have leadership responsibility, let's call it that.

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And that could be anyone from the
CEO or of an organization, or

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the middle manager of an organization,
or a solopreneur or an intern that's in

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charge of the holiday party. They're
all leaders within their own domain because they've

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taken up or have been assigned with
a set of responsibilities. And this act

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of imagination begins with healing oneself and
then through the auspices of when you comment

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the world with this sense of peace
and healing and wholeness, then all of

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a sudden, the world around you
becomes to adapt to that. And you

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know, we call this coregulation in
the physical world space or in the somatic

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space. But there's tons of science
behind how this happens right now. And

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so the role as leader, as
healer, and even the role of leader

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as artists, I think is absolutely
the way people should be. I believe

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thinking about what leadership responsibility is what
a great invitation and to take it further,

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because I assure there are people that
are going, okay, great,

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great, great, I'm convinced,
how do I become an involved leader?

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And so one of the things that
you say in the book so beautifully is

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you say evolving or evolved leaders have
likely experienced some sort of awakening or turning

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point. They may have been confronted
with a serious life circumstance, death,

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divorce, disaster, or some version
of failure and emerge more committed and more

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lucid in there, knowing of why
they are here, what they are here

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to do with their life. Yeah, I think it can happen that way,

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and I've seen it just as often
in the other way, where people

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have realized the sense of mastery over
their world and have achieved a level of

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success, and as David Brooks called
it in his book, the Second Mountain,

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they've climbed the first mountain, which
is the mountain of success, and

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they've looked at the viewpoint from that, from that perspective and said, is

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this all there is? And then
all of a sudden one begins to ask

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deeper questions about Okay, this can't
be all there is, and I have

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a sense of mastery and I even
have a sense of agency over my world.

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What next? What else can I
raise my hand to and how can

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I do what Maslow talked about and
go into the evolution of the hierarchy of

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needs where our base needs of safety, psychological needs are met, our sense

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of belonging, we have love in
our life, and all of a sudden,

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we've also gained a certain level of
mastery over what we do in our

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domain and the world that we live
in, and we take our gifts and

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we begin to apply them as a
gift out into the world and a service

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to humanity. And so I think
it's a very fair question to ask yourself,

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based on the unique genius or the
unique set of skills or mastery that

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I have, regardless of what level
of leadership role you might have, how

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can I apply them for the greatest
good of humanity and the people around me?

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And the beautiful thing about beauty is
it's subjective. And the beautiful thing

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even about that particular question is it's
only answerable by the individual who is asking

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the question of themselves. But it
does begin with asking or giving yourself permission

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to ask that question and even to
dream that other future opportunity into being,

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which is what we call imagination,
you know, And what a great invitation,

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right. I guess what I would
say to that Stephen, is that

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to further extend it and again bring
it to a place where people can also

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access it even more, maybe more
and more readily. Is you know,

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this nosent of just knowing there's so
much more you can do than is sitting

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right in front of you, if
only you will employ your imagination, extend

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yourself in and lead from soul from
heart and just to see what does the

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world need? What can you do
to help the world. And so what

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I really appreciate about your notion of
evolved leadership is that it is the invitation

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for us to bring forth. You
say something about calling the better angels of

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our nature, which I know from
your book is a reference to Abraham Maslow's

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inaugural address. But excuse me,
you did put that on there and I

403
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said that wrong. Yeah, but
that is a beautiful way to think about

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it, calling forth the better angels
of our nature, right, yeah,

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yeah, you know, I think
a lot as I began to write the

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book, and you know, it
was a couple of year journey about the

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times that we're living in. And
it's worth saying that I wrote a lot

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of the book, or at least
the beginning stage of the book came in

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00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:56.119
probably twenty seventeen twenty eighteen timeframe,
and then a lot of the writing happened

410
00:29:56.200 --> 00:30:00.000
during COVID. So here we were
in a world of crisis, COVID related

411
00:30:00.079 --> 00:30:04.200
crisis. I think, you know, in here in the US and I

412
00:30:04.240 --> 00:30:07.799
think other parts of the globe.
I believe that we're in a societal crisis.

413
00:30:07.960 --> 00:30:15.440
Of us versus themness, and even
the crisis of the distractions that we

414
00:30:15.559 --> 00:30:19.119
have through both our work and our
social media and the way that we absorb

415
00:30:19.400 --> 00:30:26.039
all kinds of mass media. You
know, the ability to be simply present

416
00:30:26.079 --> 00:30:29.880
for family members is a very very
difficult thing in this day and age,

417
00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:34.640
let alone the ability to have conversations
with people who might not be of the

418
00:30:34.680 --> 00:30:41.000
same faith or the same political affiliation. And what happened? What happened to

419
00:30:41.079 --> 00:30:45.559
our humanity? Why did we lose
our way? And so this better angels

420
00:30:45.559 --> 00:30:52.000
of our nature I think invites us
to rise above the petty grievances that we

421
00:30:52.119 --> 00:30:55.279
have in the day in and day
out issues, and some of them are

422
00:30:55.279 --> 00:31:00.039
not petty. I understand that there
are very very significant social issues which would

423
00:31:00.079 --> 00:31:07.119
include Dei and Jedi type of issues, inclusion, diversity, things of that

424
00:31:07.200 --> 00:31:11.920
nature. There these are real issues
in our society, and I believe business

425
00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:15.599
leaders have the opportunity to rise above
those things and tap into their own better

426
00:31:15.680 --> 00:31:22.359
angels of their nature and deploy these
acts of imagination to begin to heal not

427
00:31:22.440 --> 00:31:26.480
just themselves, their family, their
work environment, and the world of their

428
00:31:26.519 --> 00:31:30.640
customers. And I think this is
sort of the time that we're living in.

429
00:31:30.720 --> 00:31:33.759
I believe this is the mantle and
the opportunity, the steering wheel that

430
00:31:33.799 --> 00:31:38.680
all business leaders can potentially grab the
hold of and shape a future destiny that

431
00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:42.400
we're heading into. And not the
least of which which I should have mentioned,

432
00:31:42.440 --> 00:31:48.559
this is the global crisis of our
environment. You know. We have

433
00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:53.519
to get away from using resources as
if they're only resources that can be just

434
00:31:53.599 --> 00:31:59.480
destroyed and depleted and not regained for
future purposes. We have to think about

435
00:31:59.519 --> 00:32:02.400
our now her world around us and
the beauty of nature quite frankly, and

436
00:32:02.440 --> 00:32:07.400
how that enlivens all of us from
a human standpoint, and that also taps

437
00:32:07.400 --> 00:32:10.680
into the better angels of our nature. Is to lean into the natural world.

438
00:32:12.680 --> 00:32:14.720
I'm with you, Stephen, and
I will so help you along that

439
00:32:14.799 --> 00:32:17.720
journey so well together, help steward
the world and bring it up. Let's

440
00:32:17.720 --> 00:32:21.440
cover our last break. I'm your
host, doctor Relie Cortes. We've on

441
00:32:21.440 --> 00:32:23.559
the air with Stephen Morris. He's
the president of Matter Consulting and the author

442
00:32:23.640 --> 00:32:29.160
of the Beautiful Business and Actionable Manifesto
to create an unagorable business with love at

443
00:32:29.160 --> 00:32:31.880
the core. We've been talking this
segment about Evolved leadership. On the last

444
00:32:31.880 --> 00:32:35.599
segment, we're going to talk about
business brand. Stay with us, we'll

445
00:32:35.640 --> 00:32:39.839
be right back. Doctor Relise Cortes
is a management consultant specializing in meaning and

446
00:32:39.880 --> 00:32:45.759
purpose and inspirational speaker and author.
She helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among

447
00:32:45.839 --> 00:32:53.559
stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and
meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance,

448
00:32:53.759 --> 00:32:59.319
and commitment within the workforce. To
learn more or to invite Elise to

449
00:32:59.319 --> 00:33:04.279
speak to your organization, please visit
her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk

450
00:33:04.319 --> 00:33:15.559
about how to get your employees working
on purpose. This is working on Purpose

451
00:33:15.640 --> 00:33:20.279
with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach
our program today or open a conversation with

452
00:33:20.319 --> 00:33:27.680
Alise, send an email to a
lease Alise at elisecortes dot com. Now

453
00:33:28.039 --> 00:33:32.359
back to working on purpose. Thanks
for staying with us, and welcome back

454
00:33:32.359 --> 00:33:35.920
to working on purpose. One other
bit of news I want to share with

455
00:33:35.960 --> 00:33:38.119
you is that in August of this
year, at twenty twenty one, I

456
00:33:38.119 --> 00:33:42.559
also put out my second book.
It's an anthology this time, and this

457
00:33:42.599 --> 00:33:45.880
is where I went trapsing across the
world and I found twenty five women to

458
00:33:45.920 --> 00:33:49.680
share their intimate stories of how they've
discovered their purpose and how they're now serving

459
00:33:49.720 --> 00:33:52.119
from it. So it's incredibly inspirational
and I'm so proud of it I could

460
00:33:52.119 --> 00:33:58.160
bust. It's called passionately striving and
why an anthology weaving a person reminded to

461
00:33:58.160 --> 00:34:00.359
live their purpose. You can find
that as well. You're just joining the

462
00:34:00.359 --> 00:34:04.799
program today. My guest is Stephen
Morris. He's a brand and culture advisor,

463
00:34:04.920 --> 00:34:07.039
author and speaker. He works with
business leaders to mine, articulate,

464
00:34:07.079 --> 00:34:13.440
and activate their driving belief system to
create organizational integrity, evolve leaders, connected

465
00:34:13.440 --> 00:34:16.159
cultures and unignorable brands. I'm your
host, Doctor Release Cortes, So for

466
00:34:16.199 --> 00:34:20.719
this last bit here, now we
get to really come directly into your space

467
00:34:20.840 --> 00:34:23.320
even and that's the world of brand
and a few things I also want to

468
00:34:23.320 --> 00:34:27.519
call back out that I think are
just gloriously beautiful about how you write.

469
00:34:27.639 --> 00:34:30.679
You say a beautiful business is a
journey, a way of doing business instigated

470
00:34:30.679 --> 00:34:36.079
by the leaders or leadership teams awakening
to an involved brand. In order to

471
00:34:36.119 --> 00:34:38.760
evolve toward a beautiful business, you
need to understand both the relationship between a

472
00:34:38.760 --> 00:34:43.920
business and a brand. It's my
belief that the two are inseparable. Yeah.

473
00:34:44.119 --> 00:34:47.280
Yeah, So the way I tend
to think about and talk about brand,

474
00:34:47.920 --> 00:34:52.519
and it's probably worth saying that I
tend to think about all business from

475
00:34:52.519 --> 00:34:57.199
a humanistic psychology perspective, So I
like it. Yeah. One of the

476
00:34:57.199 --> 00:35:00.280
ways that I tend to describe brand, which is I think pretty different than

477
00:35:00.480 --> 00:35:02.199
most of the other sort of brand
experts that exist out in the world,

478
00:35:02.280 --> 00:35:07.239
is your brand is your character,
and your character is your brand. You

479
00:35:07.280 --> 00:35:09.519
know, a lot of people talk
about archetypes and personas and things like that,

480
00:35:09.599 --> 00:35:13.239
and I think that's finding good.
I think, you know, there's

481
00:35:13.320 --> 00:35:19.159
a purpose for having archetypical work that
leans into the union archetypes that happen,

482
00:35:19.199 --> 00:35:22.280
and I think that that certain team
members and teams can have that. But

483
00:35:22.360 --> 00:35:30.000
the reason I think character is more
a better or more apropos way of describing

484
00:35:30.039 --> 00:35:34.320
what a brand is is it becomes
a character comes from your belief system.

485
00:35:34.559 --> 00:35:37.559
And so you know, if we
if we take business as a metaphor and

486
00:35:37.599 --> 00:35:40.800
we say, I don't know,
Let's say Patagonia, for instance, is

487
00:35:40.800 --> 00:35:45.480
an individual and we know our friend
Patagonia because we hang out with Patagonia,

488
00:35:45.639 --> 00:35:51.400
we hang out with their products.
We understand what they believe from protecting national

489
00:35:51.440 --> 00:35:54.840
resources. And you know, we
understand their political activism, we understand where

490
00:35:54.840 --> 00:36:00.079
they source their materials and things like
that. We begin to then understand what

491
00:36:00.159 --> 00:36:07.199
the character of that entity is like. And that character comes from the actionable

492
00:36:07.239 --> 00:36:10.760
beliefs shown up every day, day
in and day out, in all their

493
00:36:10.800 --> 00:36:15.119
decisions and all their behaviors as much
as we can possibly live up to them.

494
00:36:15.400 --> 00:36:21.199
So then we ask ourselves where do
beliefs come from within the organizational life?

495
00:36:21.239 --> 00:36:25.880
So how does an organization begin to
form its beliefs about why it exists,

496
00:36:27.400 --> 00:36:30.719
what it does, how it serves
the world, how it produces its

497
00:36:30.760 --> 00:36:34.760
products and or services, how it
treats its team and thinks of that nature.

498
00:36:35.119 --> 00:36:40.800
So now when that organization shows up
in a predictable way, we then

499
00:36:40.880 --> 00:36:44.239
have a sense of character. So
we'll go back to what I was just

500
00:36:44.280 --> 00:36:46.360
talking about, where do those beliefs
come from? What are those beliefs?

501
00:36:46.599 --> 00:36:52.800
So it begins from my perspective with
purpose. Purpose is the reason that a

502
00:36:52.880 --> 00:36:58.400
business exists beyond simply making money or
making profit. And I'm not not an

503
00:36:58.400 --> 00:37:01.119
advocate. I'm a huge advocate for
making profit. It's a non negotiable attribute

504
00:37:01.119 --> 00:37:05.440
of doing business. It allows you
to be in business tomorrow and to serve

505
00:37:05.519 --> 00:37:08.480
more people. And by the way, profit is the avenue for all innovations.

506
00:37:08.480 --> 00:37:12.920
So the more extra income you have, the more you can innovate,

507
00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:15.840
and the more you can innovate,
the more you can serve your customers and

508
00:37:15.880 --> 00:37:21.639
your employees in better and greater ways. But purpose is not just about making

509
00:37:21.679 --> 00:37:25.400
money. And if your business is
only in business for the purpose of making

510
00:37:25.440 --> 00:37:30.519
money and or profit, you are
likely going to be exposed for that at

511
00:37:30.559 --> 00:37:35.039
some point, and you are likely
have decisions that lead you down some pretty

512
00:37:35.079 --> 00:37:38.840
dark galities. So I believe organizations
will look very closely what we do corporate

513
00:37:38.880 --> 00:37:45.199
soul searching, and ask themselves the
question, why beyond profit are we here,

514
00:37:45.519 --> 00:37:47.199
what are we looking to accomplish?
That it's a big, hairy,

515
00:37:47.239 --> 00:37:51.880
audacious goal that is going to change
the world, or at least the world

516
00:37:51.960 --> 00:37:54.559
of our customers and ideally the world
of our employees. So it begins with

517
00:37:54.639 --> 00:38:00.760
purpose, then it goes into vision. The connected part of vision is an

518
00:38:00.800 --> 00:38:05.079
extension of purpose, which is how
does the world begin to look like as

519
00:38:05.119 --> 00:38:07.639
we go about achieving our purpose.
If it's a purpose, it's got to

520
00:38:07.679 --> 00:38:12.079
be big enough that it's never really
done because there's always more people to serve.

521
00:38:12.719 --> 00:38:15.800
And then this vision is how the
world begins to look like. So

522
00:38:15.880 --> 00:38:20.960
we can have different measurement systems within
that, and we can have different markers

523
00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:25.360
over different periods of time. I
love working with organizations that have audacious purposes

524
00:38:27.079 --> 00:38:31.159
or excuse me, audacious visions or
audacious purposes and audation's visions like one hundred

525
00:38:31.199 --> 00:38:37.119
year vision. So it might feel
incredibly audacious for some organizations to set out,

526
00:38:37.440 --> 00:38:40.239
in one hundred years from now,
our vision for our business and the

527
00:38:40.280 --> 00:38:44.239
world around us, the world that
we're affecting is going to look like this.

528
00:38:44.920 --> 00:38:46.840
And I work with three businesses right
now that have been in business for

529
00:38:46.880 --> 00:38:51.719
more than seventy five years, and
I'm happy to say that I've helped them

530
00:38:52.079 --> 00:38:55.400
a couple of them shape future visions
that go out just as far as they've

531
00:38:55.440 --> 00:38:59.480
been in business. But you can
be a startup and still have one hundred

532
00:38:59.519 --> 00:39:04.239
year vision. It's totally okay to
do that. So purpose and then vision

533
00:39:04.639 --> 00:39:09.880
and then core values are the operating
system to a culture. So this is

534
00:39:09.880 --> 00:39:15.800
the core values define what our belief
systems are in action. They define how

535
00:39:15.840 --> 00:39:19.599
we hold each other accountable for communication, for how we treat one another,

536
00:39:19.840 --> 00:39:22.960
how we serve people, and it
becomes the operating system because it's not just

537
00:39:23.000 --> 00:39:28.320
a set of stated values that sit
on some conference room wall, but they

538
00:39:28.320 --> 00:39:30.679
have to be lived. And there's
a lot of different ways that you can

539
00:39:30.679 --> 00:39:35.039
cultivate core values. One of the
ways that I love doing it with the

540
00:39:35.119 --> 00:39:39.079
organizations is to ask them to tell
me the stories of their people at their

541
00:39:39.159 --> 00:39:45.559
best that we would like to exemplify
going forward. And typically there's heroic stories

542
00:39:45.599 --> 00:39:50.000
that exist within organizations that we can
identify and say, oh, this story,

543
00:39:50.079 --> 00:39:52.159
this story, and this story are
the kinds of stories that we want

544
00:39:52.199 --> 00:39:55.719
to be telling one hundred years from
now. What are the attributes that went

545
00:39:55.800 --> 00:40:01.360
into the character that created those stories
that we can deconstruct and say, these

546
00:40:01.400 --> 00:40:05.280
are the things that we want to
cheerlead, These are the things that we

547
00:40:05.320 --> 00:40:08.519
want to celebrate within our team and
with our culture. And then be able

548
00:40:08.559 --> 00:40:12.119
to the other thing that I love
doing. And this is sort of a

549
00:40:12.159 --> 00:40:15.360
tip for anyone out there if you're
thinking about how do you activate core values,

550
00:40:15.760 --> 00:40:20.039
is you can turn them into questions, so you know, if you

551
00:40:20.039 --> 00:40:22.480
have a core value that has to
do with I don't know, let's say

552
00:40:22.519 --> 00:40:27.440
innovation at some level you could ask
you you could you could reshape that core

553
00:40:27.519 --> 00:40:30.079
value question or a core value statement
into a question that says, are we

554
00:40:30.199 --> 00:40:35.480
being innovative enough? Or what does
innovation look like in this moment? So

555
00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:39.119
in that particular scenario, we could
say innovation looks like a spirited, open

556
00:40:39.159 --> 00:40:44.800
minded, curious conversation. In a
business meeting, it could look like serving

557
00:40:44.840 --> 00:40:49.559
customers in a very different way by
getting innovative about how do we solve the

558
00:40:49.599 --> 00:40:52.800
problem that they're coming to us with. In a customer service situation, it

559
00:40:52.840 --> 00:40:57.039
could it could look like how do
we get innovative in terms of how do

560
00:40:57.079 --> 00:41:01.440
we onboard new team members or interview
new team members? And so these questions

561
00:41:01.440 --> 00:41:07.519
should help people make decisions throughout the
organization. But they're all connected to the

562
00:41:07.519 --> 00:41:12.199
core values and the behavior system that
we want to see consistently modeled. And

563
00:41:12.239 --> 00:41:15.880
again this goes back to character.
So character is connected to the core values,

564
00:41:15.960 --> 00:41:20.400
which is connected to the purpose.
And then the last attribute, which

565
00:41:20.440 --> 00:41:23.719
I think is really important to talk
about, is the stated promise, or

566
00:41:24.280 --> 00:41:29.960
in the world of business, there
could be multiple promises. Typically there's two

567
00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.199
promises that an organization can make.
One is an external promise to a set

568
00:41:34.199 --> 00:41:38.119
of customers, and a valuable promise
is broken down into three different levels,

569
00:41:38.159 --> 00:41:44.239
one of which is is it explicitly
stated? Are we actually stating the promise,

570
00:41:44.280 --> 00:41:45.480
because it's not a promise of we
had, I don't actually say it

571
00:41:45.519 --> 00:41:50.280
out loud. Secondarily, it's got
to be valuable for the customers, so

572
00:41:50.280 --> 00:41:52.719
there's got to be something in it
for them. And thirdly, I believe

573
00:41:52.800 --> 00:41:58.000
there has to be some accountability,
some way to measure to the extent that

574
00:41:58.000 --> 00:42:00.440
we're living up to the promises that
we're stating to be. So that's the

575
00:42:00.440 --> 00:42:05.960
external promise, but there could also
be internal promises, promises that we make

576
00:42:06.320 --> 00:42:09.800
to one another within the organization,
and I believe those things that have also

577
00:42:09.840 --> 00:42:14.719
the same three attributes, which has
to do with we have to explicitly state

578
00:42:14.719 --> 00:42:16.760
it. It's got to be valuable
for the people, and we have to

579
00:42:16.760 --> 00:42:22.280
hold ourselves accountable for living up to
it, so we measure it. There's

580
00:42:22.360 --> 00:42:25.920
so much in that. I want
to acknowledge you for using a very important

581
00:42:25.960 --> 00:42:30.039
four letter word, and that's soul. Remember we talked about that, so

582
00:42:30.119 --> 00:42:32.519
I appreciate very much that you just
wove that right in there so beautifully,

583
00:42:32.519 --> 00:42:37.519
Stephen. And then if we could
go on here, we're coming to the

584
00:42:37.519 --> 00:42:38.599
close of the show. Here,
I want to just let you talk a

585
00:42:38.599 --> 00:42:43.360
little bit to the invitation you've given
us, and that say you say,

586
00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:47.360
your invitation is, my friends,
this book and implications for the beautiful business

587
00:42:47.360 --> 00:42:52.880
within it is an invitation for a
reclamation. What reclamation, Yeah, I

588
00:42:52.920 --> 00:42:57.800
think And I'm about to pen an
article on this. I think you and

589
00:42:57.880 --> 00:43:00.599
the title of the article will likely
be something along the line to the death

590
00:43:00.599 --> 00:43:05.880
of corporate America. And I think
you know it's time to reclaim business as

591
00:43:05.920 --> 00:43:10.039
a dirty word. I think you
know the societal perspective that most people have

592
00:43:10.360 --> 00:43:16.639
on large institutions, including very big
businesses and government and things like that.

593
00:43:17.079 --> 00:43:23.239
Our skepticism for big business has dwindled, mostly because of the nefarious behavior of

594
00:43:23.360 --> 00:43:29.599
certain organizations over time. And I
think it's time for reclaiming what a beautiful

595
00:43:29.639 --> 00:43:35.400
business or what business can actually be
for our sense of humanity and reclaim that

596
00:43:35.519 --> 00:43:38.679
in action, and I believe in
doing so, it will begin to reshape

597
00:43:38.679 --> 00:43:46.199
our society. It will begin to
reshape social justice and elements of equity,

598
00:43:46.320 --> 00:43:51.800
and diversity within not just our society
but in our workforces. And I think

599
00:43:51.800 --> 00:43:55.760
it will begin to also reclaim our
relationship with our natural resources in the environment.

600
00:43:55.960 --> 00:44:00.079
And I believe a beautiful business needs
to operate on all those cylinders.

601
00:44:00.119 --> 00:44:04.679
And with all of this deserves a
reclamation, All of this deserves redefining.

602
00:44:04.960 --> 00:44:07.119
And by the way, folks,
this has happened over time. You know,

603
00:44:07.440 --> 00:44:13.480
capitalism is a relatively new invention of
human beings. So it is then

604
00:44:13.679 --> 00:44:19.599
up to us to reinvent, or
reshape or reclaim what a culture, what

605
00:44:19.719 --> 00:44:23.800
a society can look like based on
our previous form of capitalism. And that

606
00:44:23.840 --> 00:44:27.639
can change, It can certainly change, but it's really up to us.

607
00:44:27.800 --> 00:44:31.280
It's up to the people of our
generation to step up and serve that mantle,

608
00:44:31.559 --> 00:44:36.119
to understand that this is our responsibility
and stop looking around at other people

609
00:44:36.159 --> 00:44:37.679
around us and saying, oh,
when are they going to fix it?

610
00:44:37.840 --> 00:44:42.199
By the way, folks, they
is us. When we think about the

611
00:44:42.239 --> 00:44:45.559
world out there and we blame them
for whatever our plight is. We're part

612
00:44:45.599 --> 00:44:51.440
of that, and so especially people
who have a business leadership role, they

613
00:44:51.519 --> 00:44:54.039
are us. And so now it's
the time to reclaim all that and to

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00:44:54.079 --> 00:44:58.239
write the ship sounds good to me. Stephen, I'm in let's do it

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00:44:58.239 --> 00:45:00.639
together. I want to thank you
so much, so much for being a

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00:45:00.639 --> 00:45:01.880
guest on myself, for being findable. When I reached out to I said,

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00:45:01.920 --> 00:45:05.280
you absolutely simply must come on the
Working in Purpose show, and you

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00:45:05.280 --> 00:45:07.719
said, okay, I'll do it. So thank you for saying yes,

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00:45:07.800 --> 00:45:09.519
for dancing with me, for sharing
your beautiful message. Steve, I'm so

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00:45:09.559 --> 00:45:13.760
happy to know you. It's my
pleasure. This has been a great conversation,

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00:45:14.039 --> 00:45:17.000
and at least the work that you're
doing in the world is just incredibly

622
00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:22.679
beautiful. I applaud everything that you're
doing, and we are comrades and arms.

623
00:45:22.760 --> 00:45:27.119
We're in the sign boat together and
I'm cheering you on for everything that

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00:45:27.159 --> 00:45:30.920
you're doing and no doubt everything that
your show and your work stands for.

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00:45:30.159 --> 00:45:34.119
Thank you, Steven. I really
appreciate that we are comrades and arms,

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00:45:34.199 --> 00:45:37.119
and I'm happy to be in your
company, to be in service with you.

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00:45:37.280 --> 00:45:39.440
So listeners and viewers, if you
want to learn more about Stephen and

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00:45:39.480 --> 00:45:43.079
the work that he's doing or his
book, the best place to start is

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00:45:43.119 --> 00:45:46.559
his website. It's matter co dot
co. So it's m A T T

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00:45:46.719 --> 00:45:51.480
E r COO dot co. Last
week, if you missed the live show,

631
00:45:51.480 --> 00:45:53.519
you always catch it rerecorded podcast.
We are on there with Nikola chen

632
00:45:53.920 --> 00:45:58.760
Nielsen, who is the co author
of Return on Ambition, a Radical Approach

633
00:45:58.800 --> 00:46:00.519
to your achievement, growth, and
Being. We talked about what we can

634
00:46:00.639 --> 00:46:04.719
learn about our own ambition and how
we can optimally manage it, the value

635
00:46:04.719 --> 00:46:07.960
of listening to the voice of the
employee, and creating work environments where ambitious

636
00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:10.119
people actually thrive. Next week,
we'll be on there with Greg Milanoak,

637
00:46:10.239 --> 00:46:15.760
author of Curing Corporate Shortterm. Short
term short terminism is a hard wad to

638
00:46:15.760 --> 00:46:20.239
say future growth versus current earnings.
We'll be talking about this idea as a

639
00:46:20.280 --> 00:46:23.440
basis for creating sustainable value that benefits
all stakeholders. See you there. Remember

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00:46:23.440 --> 00:46:27.119
that works at least I've third of
our lives and let's work on Purpose.

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00:46:28.800 --> 00:46:31.639
We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune in too Working

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00:46:31.679 --> 00:46:37.800
on Purpose featuring your host, doctor
Elise Cortes each week on the Voice America

643
00:46:37.880 --> 00:46:44.760
Empowerment Channel. Together, we'll create
a world where business operates conscientiously. Leadership

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00:46:44.840 --> 00:46:50.360
inspires impassioned performance, and employees are
fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and

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00:46:50.440 --> 00:46:53.840
purpose They crave see you there.
Let's work on purpose.