As business people, we’re constantly caught up in the pressures of our business: making more money at lower cost while improving our product. But just for a minute, let’s take a step back to look at the bigger picture.
Civilizations have come and gone before: The Roman Empire, Ancient Greece, The Persian Empire, The Byzantine Empire: all confined to the annals of history. Farmers living through the Industrial Revolution had no inkling of the impact their progress would have on life in the 21st Century.
“People in the seventh Century before Christ had no idea they were living in the seventh Century before Christ.” — Joseph Heller
Although it may be difficult to see clearly, our civilization is in a time of massive transition right now. We are now shifting from a linear consciousness (which requires proof, measuring and quantifying) to an integral consciousness (which by definition is a more holistic, qualifying consciousness). For the integral thinker, it is no longer necessary to separate science from religious and mystical teachings.
The inadequacies and inappropriatenesses of most of our institutionalized ways of thinking and doing — science, religion, business, governing — are being revealed more clearly each day. The businessman who ignores these changes will be left in the smoke and ashes of our collapsing Industrial and Technological Age.
If you put a frog in water and slowly heat it, the frog will eventually let itself be boiled to death. Business, too, will not survive unless we actively respond to the radical way our world is changing.
A Noetic approach to business overcomes the outdated linear consciousness that only thinks in terms of logical “if A then B” conclusions. An integral business consciousness thinks in terms of quality outcomes – both for the producer and consumer.
Consumers are becoming more enlightened and think and behave in new ways, expect new things, interact differently – and are increasingly intolerant and impatient with any business that seems to be stuck in a time-warp. Marketing means a different mindset altogether: a big jump for corporations who have relied on large, successful websites backed by direct mail, print, TV, radio, e-mail and online advertising and maybe a few iPhone apps. Those invasive approaches no longer work — think about how often you tune out commercials yourself. Joe Public has learned to ignore the 3,000 ad messages that they are bombarded with daily. Even if they do see your carefully crafted advertisement, they’re likely to doubt its claims–and defer instead to the wisdom of crowds online, or increasingly their own intuition.
Instead of interrupting their day with ads for unwanted products, businesses must create products and ideas customers will choose to engage with. We must add value to people’s lives. Value creation instead of value usurpation is the core focus of a Noetic Business.
In many ways this shift is a trip back-to-the-future. It harkens back to a time when the local shopkeeper treated our grandparents like neighbors. In a way, the interconnected world resulting from the openness of the internet has forced business to revert to these positive social norms of old.
Businesses that behave like neighbors will win, and advertising will be far more holistic than anything we see today.
