In a world of Ubiquitous Relativity, each of the nearly 8 billion people on this planet lives in his or her own universe. This is because everyone has different physiological ways they sense the world and different emotions attached to those senses. As a result of these two variables, we know next to nothing about the universes around us. Our hope for connection to others rests on our ability to pause on judgment and challenge our existing biases. A conscious company and its management operate in the same manner.
The philosophy of Ubiquitous Relativity requires us to accept that the laws of our universe are not the laws of the universe. Many corporations do not take this approach. For many years, leaders within companies deployed specific systems to run their businesses. Oftentimes, the employees of these divisions had two choices: Adapt to the leaders’ systems, or leave the organization. Businesses hire prospects with a similar rigidity. Ultimately, many managers and recruiters ask: “Who would fit best into our system for success?” They choose to convert the candidates to full-time employees based on the answer to that question.
The same inflexibility is applied to personnel decisions concerning existing employees. Companies evaluate how individuals are fitting in and their productivity, but rarely do they ask why a worker succeeds or fails.
Many businesses also treat their clientele with a certain rigor. They have expressions like “know your customer” and “the customer is always right.” But rarely, if ever, do companies understand the inherent flaw in those mottoes: Each customer is different and lives in his or her own universe.
Leaders within a conscious company, who appreciate a world of Ubiquitous Relativity, take a different approach. They build their system to be inclusive of employees and approach each employee as an individual with unique senses and emotions.
What motivates one person may hurt the morale of another person. Supervisors must ask questions of their subordinates in order to understand what methods work best for each employee. The management team must learn the best methods to enhance performance and why those techniques work for a particular person. The more a company knows about the universes of its workers, the better the chance of a genuine connection amongst the people in the firm. This requires time and energy. When a company understands that the connection to its employees is the core of its ethos, it becomes, in a sense, sentient. This cohesion internally leads to a better work environment overall — and frequently to better financials as well.
A conscious company applies the same methods to building relationships with its patrons. If an organization is interested in making a connection with its customers beyond the exchange of goods and currency, it awakens to new opportunities to improve its services. The expression “know your customer” means understanding how and, perhaps even more importantly, why each client is different from every other client. Businesses aware of the boundless combinations of human senses and emotions don’t use expressions like “the customer” in the plural sense.
Our modes of communication continue to accelerate toward nonverbal forms designed for speed and brevity. This fact makes it that much more important for leaders to really get to know their people through building interpersonal relationships. It is nearly impossible to discern context from electronic communications, yet context is core to the human race and its survival. Conscious companies see the critical need for conversations and feedback which is both verbal and includes context.
There are reasons that some of the same companies are recognized as the best work environments each year. The main attribute is an ability to bring together completely unique people and form them into a team. Conscious businesses do not try to cherry-pick personality types from a group of candidates, because they see the futility of this exercise and know that it usually leads to groupthink and other poor decisions. Instead, they accept that we are in a world of Ubiquitous Relativity and pause before they judge someone unworthy of a position. It is this pause that can make the difference between success and failure as a company.
