April 2000

January 2003

Innovation Tips

…ideas to help you foster collaborative genius

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Bringing the Soul to Life: The Collective Dream

Several of our previous articles have referred to the need to bring the soul to life in organizations, for integrating the soul is essential to a healthy organization, as well as a healthy personal life.

But how, specifically, do you accomplish that? Certainly mystics, psychologists, religionists and philosophers have offered sage counsel about integrating soul in the life of the individual. But few have addressed the question of bringing the soul to life in organizations. In 2003 our Innovation Tips articles will focus on that important inquiry. This article, on the Collective Dream, is the first in that series.

Each of us carries a dream about the life we hope to live, the values we aspire to embrace, the contribution we hope to deliver to others. These dreams, often semi-conscious, are in all of us. They pervade our lives like the air we breathe, always with us, always calling us forth into a new life.

When we live life sequestered from this pervasive dream, we separate ourselves from our souls. Living life separated from soul has disturbing consequences. As Thomas Moore, author of The Care of the Soul, has noted, “When soul is neglected, it doesn’t just go away; it appears symptomatically in obsession, addiction, violence, and loss of meaning.”

When an organization respects and cultivates the dreams carried in the collective soul of its members, it taps deep and enduring spiritual sources of inspiration and energy. When people’s work lives are congruent with the aspirations of the soul, they are richly connected to the unseen spiritual rhythms that guide and direct their lives.

But the organization that tries to impose its own culture of self-interest on the collective dream of its people will repress those guiding spiritual rhythms. Homogeneous cultures that impose a one-size-fits all cultural hegemony on people will drain vital energies and engender conflict.

To cultivate and secure the collective dream, look for ways to channel people where their passions and enthusiasm take them; defer to the autonomous initiatives and aspirations of small energized groups; relax the managerial controls that keep people shackled to an inflexible bureaucracy—give people the freedom to give expression to their own enthusiasm and energy. Let them live.

Order has little to do with control. In the passions and enthusiasm that people bring to work, there exists an unseen implicit order—the order of the soul. Leaders who step aside from their controlling attitudes and constricting personal agendas will allow the dynamic order of the collective dream to emerge. They can create vital, enduring, diverse and vital cultures.

They will bring the soul to life.

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