By Charles E. Smith | Bio
Over
the years, I have seen and recognized the enormous effect of the CEO’s
personality and ‘way of being’ on the energy of a company. All
personalities have limitations and drawbacks. But when somebody has the
top position in a system, the effect of what they focus on and what
they suppress is immense. Whatever a CEO’s automatic way of relating to
the world, whatever their way of dealing with relationships, or with
conflict, or with results and measurement, or with finances or
thinking, gets reflected throughout the organization. Too many CEOs
only allow real creative thinking in the areas that interest them and
simply avoid those areas that appear more threatening. Now this is
human nature, and it’s to be expected. But if CEOs could begin to see
the world in energetic terms, they would see the suppressive affect of
some of their behavior on the energy of their company and people’s
power to execute the very things they most want implemented.
In
my experience, this is not always the case. Sometimes there are
leaders—CEOs and others—who have a certain integrity about balancing
energy and really pay attention or try to pay attention to all of it—to
results, good thinking, relationships and to principles. In those
situations, things seem to work better. But it comes from a high level
of integrity. They are willing to risk activity in areas that really
make them uncomfortable. They might not like it, but are willing to do
it because they stand for the integrity of each type of energy being
represented. The results are always phenomenal. Untold millions of
dollars are saved, and money is made for the company. Manufacturing
plants are preserved that would have been lost because of higher costs.
All because they have the integrity and are willing to bring forward
integrity in a balanced way.
Over time, I came to see that
there was a probable relationship between energy as I defined it and
integrity. In the absence of that integrity, the energy is absent. The
person doesn’t feel bad: they simply do not recognize that anything is
missing for them. I have known some terribly ineffective people, and
they just did not see what was missing for them. I have seen people in
nonprofit organizations and in business for whom measurement and
results are missing—but they don’t even know it. Once people start to
notice which kind of energy is missing or absent, then they can take it
upon themselves to generate it for themselves and get what they want
and need.
There are really two things going on at the same
time. There is a physical world with concrete properties. For instance,
when I touch my car, it is both metal hard and cushion soft. And yet,
when I look at my car in terms of all of the energies that were brought
together to create it, and how it carries me forward and lifts my
spirits, I can see my car as if it were a wave of energy. As in
physics, there are particles (concrete) and there are waves (intangible
and in motion). Both seem to be true. But if you want to move forward
and develop effectively in an organization, people need to start seeing
what’s happening not just from a concrete perspective, but also from a
wave-like, energetic point of view.
In many organizations,
force and coercion are often relied upon to make things work. In the
end, however, force can only be effective for short periods of time—and
all the while it drains energy away. Using force and fear, most product
developments don’t produce products that work. Most company mergers do
not succeed by their own standards. When people deal with each other
and with problems as concrete things, they create an abstract
conceptual relationship, which automatically suppresses energy. The
more people can see each other and the challenges surrounding them
energetically, the more compelling situations become, and the more
energy is unleashed.
A new framework is available in which one
comes to accept that the world, including an organization and the
people in it, consist of interacting energy fields. The people and
systems with the most energy will prevail. Our job here is to be
responsible for seeing what kinds of energy are missing and needed, and
providing just that. Whether it’s the energy of measurement and
results, relationship and emotion, good thinking and innovation,
inventiveness, creating possibility and inquiry, or the energy of
standing up for and acting on principles (whatever you hold dear).
Ultimately, this is a matter of individual responsibility and a shift
in point of view. This shift is equivalent to Einstein’s formula, where
your overall available energy equals your relationship to these various
kinds of integrity—in performance, relationship, innovation and
principles.
Each kind of integrity and energy is already there—it is simply a question of naming it and claiming it.