Conscious Leadership for Sustainability

130 Design Grounded in Transpersonal Meaning In addition to seeing sustainability work as a spiritual practice or as part of their life’s calling, All of the participants also ground the design in profound meaning. For over threequarters of them, this meaning appears to be transpersonal in nature, as it is a meaning that participants report comes from a source that transcends the personal or individual.

To uncover this data, I asked them, “What is the essence of your work, what are you really doing at the deepest level of meaning to you?” I subsequently inquired, “How do you bring that essence to the process of design itself?” Across the 70 statements participants made on these topics, one concept was regularly repeated: be of service to others and/or the development of consciousness or spirit, and work to alleviate suffering. All 13 participants reported a variation of this perspective, with all but three citing a transpersonal source as the origin of their motivation to serve.

For Roger, the essence of his sustainability work is bringing “humanity to the world of business,” helping others to appreciate the moment and where they are, and feel part of, or “one with it.” While he does not cite a transpersonal motivation for this, he does work to help people feel “one with” the moment, which suggests a transpersonal orientation.

Barrett: Can you distill for me what you really feel is the heart of what you do, at the deepest level of meaning to you?

Roger: It seems to work at many different levels. There’s definitely this thing about being kind to ourselves within a society, a community, and realizing … that there is a society that helps us. Perhaps it’s about helping us realize we are part of society, that mutuality really does exist, and that giving your heart to someone else or giving your trust to someone else is a great thing to do….And that then if I find myself in a corporation I have to help those people act that out somehow. But then it’s beyond that as well. There’s a linkage with the stars and the cosmos and the trees and non-human society, the ecology.

Barrett: Tell me a little bit about that and how that relates to what you’re doing.