Fred Kofman’s Conscious Business: How to Build Value with Values and Conscious Business Academy

In my estimation,  Fred wrote the seminal book on Conscious Business, published in 2002. He has dedicated most of his career to transforming businesses into more conscious enterprises. He currently is Philosopher and VP at LinkedIn, helping CEO Jeff Weiner implement a vision of expanding compassion and wisdom in the world through business. He and Jeff have generously open-sourced Fred’s wisdom, insights and powerful-yet-simple business practices by making public the LinkedIn on-line training program Conscious Business Academy (which I understand every LinkedIn employee must undergo). Jeff has called Fred “most enlightened man in business I know”.

John Mackey and Raj Sisodia’s Conscious Capitalism

The impassioned manifesto of the Conscious Capitalism movement .This readable and inspiring book presents the four tenets of Conscious Capitalism: Higher Purpose, Stakeholder Integration, Conscious Leadership, and Conscious Culture and Management. It also beautifully articulates “how business is the most powerful system for social cooperation and human progress ever conceived” and the role it can play in “elevating humanity”. Appendix A documents the Business Case for Conscious Capitalism.

 

 

 

Jeff Klein’s Working For Good: Making a Difference While Making a Living

Jeff’s book, in my opinion is unique because it focuses on and emphasizes the development of specific human skills needed to optimally operate in and bring to life a conscious business (rather than business practices and forms). He understood it all starts with the self and saw personal and interpersonal development as the foundation for the new Conscious Business paradigm. I think few people “walk the talk” like Jeff did. This book I encapsulates what he learned from a lifetime of being a trailblazer into an integrated system of five skills: awareness, embodiment, connection, collaboration, integration.

 

John Montgomery’s Great from the Start

John perspective on Conscious Business is from 30 odd years as a Silicon Valley corporate lawyer observing and working with companies, many of them start-ups, and venture capitalists, including the renown Gordon Campbell. He tapped into the deep experience and wisdom of business leaders from a range of disciplines to distill best practices and critical success factors he discovered were the leading edge of new paradigm principles. Great From The Start is  manual for how to be and what it takes to be a successful tech start-up. As such, it provides “nuts and bolts”  guidelines  to how Conscious Business can be implemented. It is a very engaging and provocative business book targeted for the mainstream business world.

 

Ryan Honeyman’s The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good

Ryan wrote a well organized, practical guidebook to becoming a Certified B Corporation. One it strengths that contains examples from actual B Corps as well as many testimonials from well known B Corps as what are the benefits that they derived.

Certified B Corporations and B Labs

“B Lab is a nonprofit organization that serves a global movement of people using business as a force for good^TM. Its vision is that one day all companies compete not only to be the best in the world, but the Best for the World® and as a result society will enjoy a more shared and durable prosperity. B Lab drives this systemic change by:

1) Building a global community of Certified B Corporations^TM who meet the highest standards of verified, overall social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability;

2) Promoting Mission Alignment using innovative corporate structures like the benefit corporation to align the interests of business with those of society and to help high impact businesses be built to last;

3) Helping tens of thousands of businesses, investors, and institutions Measure What Matters, by using the B Impact Assessment and B Analytics to manage their impact—and the impact of the businesses with whom they work—with as much rigor as their profits;

4) Inspiring millions to join the movement through story-telling on bthechange.com.”

Humanity’s Team Conscious Business Innerprise

Conscious Business Innerprise is a initiative of global, non-profit Humanity’s Team. It takes an explicitly spiritual approach to Conscious Business and emphasizes the cultivation of Presence as the essential precursor and ingredient to the practice of Conscious Business. They are building a movement/community through two programs: Building a Prosperous Business through Conscious Practices and Conscious Business Change Agent training and certification.

“Humanity’s Team is a global spiritual movement whose purpose is to embody the timeless truth of Oneness, which is essential for responding to the world’s most chronic and acute challenges, and vital for creating a sustainable world of peace and harmony. We believe Oneness is the energy of love that lies within and connects all of life, allowing us to recognize ourselves in everything. Supported by our profound respect for cultural diversity and responsibility for all of life, we pledge to transform the face of humanity in one generation through living our lives with purpose…”