Open Spirituality: emotional intelligence

work, home, community and self: prescribed integration possible according to Harvard Business Review interview

Those who have follow this blog have tended to notice how I gather evidence that lavish praise on fulfillment, passion and happiness as part of your way of being and working. Indeed in a recent blogpost on branding - I embedded a slideshare which had as a headline, happiness as a business model, and another one on research by MTV - relating to happiness, engagement, and connection to peers.

Past re-incarnations of Harvard Business Review Articles (ah those were the days when I was a student) relating to leadership and management always talked about balancing acts, and managing trade-offs. But I guess that the tide has been turning over the years, and thank God they are now talking about "integration" - if Starbucks is about 3 places (home,coffee place,work), new leadership/management is about integrating: work, home, community and self.

Stewart D. Friedman, Professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, states that addressing these integration of our four physical and psychological places and spaces will enable us to enjoy better: mental health, physical health, spiritual growth & development and leisure.

This is what we learned in the third sector years ago ;)

Check out the video
If you can't see the video then please click on this link

This video interview has practical implementation in the fantastic book and workbook called, "becoming a resonant leader" - (amazon link) - develop your emotional intelligence, renew your relationships, sustain your effectiveness by Annie McKee, Richard Goyatzis, and Frances Johnstone.

During this credit storm we need to continue the focus on the service to our communities
The BBC news keeps on mirroring the economic storms we are facing - and this is reflecting in the third-sector (charity non-profit). This uncertainty has been echoed in press releases by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO).

During this time that pundits stir their cocktails of doom & gloom - I draw my strength on focusing on how my work and commitment can continue to deliver benefits and results to the charitable organisations i'm lucky to contribute to and collaborate with. Rick Warren, Author of the fab book, "Purpose-driven Life: What on Earth am I Here For?" - starts the book by saying, it's not about you!

Leading by example, we can energize our environments and things we do. Research and psychology has shown that emotion is contagious (wikipedia). Therefore I prefer to spread positive emotion because it energizes. It is harder to get on with doing work with heavy emotions. So why make life difficult for ourselves, when it is not about ourselves?

A mind under psychological strain is faced with reduced creative options, specially if we allow ourselves to mirror our times. We need to see our new environment in ways that enable us to create community centric solutions that involve our communities and capitalises on their skills. We may not have as much money coming in, but we do have ways of challenging our assumptions and our thinking ;-)

What could you do with one bucket? - I wash myself with one bucket (body, shampoo & rinse), I could wash the car with one bucket, I could mop the floors of a three bedroom house with one bucket, I could use that one bucket to collect shellfish when going to the sea...what else?

Together we can create solutions for our communities because it is not about us! It is about serving, it is about giving, and our collective intelligence and care can produce more value and provide greater impact than superficially throwing money at a problem. This time we can think deeper to make our money work harder. As they say, lets line up as many ducks as possible. I strongly feel taht we have a psycholgoical, emotional and spiritual contract to serve.

I'll leave you with the Rick Warren video (from TEDtalks) and an amazon carrousel displaying some of the books that inspired this post