The Chief Enlightenment Officer

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is not your typical leader. Still inspired by a deep meditation practice he spends his days in the largest Silicon Valley tech company making sure culture, trust and transforming neighborhoods supersedes greed-based growth. He believes that enlightened companies succeed only when they help everyone in their communities and companies succeed.

As he says in a NY Times interview:

Having a beginner’s mind informs my management style. I’m trying to listen deeply, and the beginner’s mind is informing me to step back, so that I can create what wants to be, not what was. I know that the future does not equal the past. I know that I have to be here in the moment.

Social responsibility

Every organization, in consideration of its growth intentions, can include attention to the possibilities of social responsibility.

One of the simplest frameworks for social responsibility is thinking about how we can do our work and make impacts in ways that benefits the well-being of all life forms. This is not rocket science even though it might be quite foreign to business as usual strategic thinking that organizations practice on a regular basis.

Making social responsibility conscious and intentional in how we do business can add a sense of meaning to work for everyone that would otherwise be missing. It is at the end of the day not antithetical to our other performance and profit interests and urgencies.