Lesson: Conscious Leadership with Diana Chapman

Step #10 Playbook: Lasting change

A lot of people ask us the question of what is the best way to use our book, "The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership." And I would say, first of all, just start with the introduction first and start going through a few of the commitments. And you might even just wait and just stay with Commitment One or Two and just stay right there and practice those for awhile.

I highly recommend seeing if you can get a learning buddy or even a small group. Some of the companies actually have reading groups around this book that they're talking about putting together once the book is out. And I've seen them do that with other books very successfully. I think this book will be great for that.

Also, getting an app that will remind you to do some of these practices throughout the day. So that you just take a moment to stop. And these practices should be no longer than maybe a minute or two. Keep them really simple. And we have practices at the end of each chapter, so maybe for the first month you just say "I'm just going to do that practice that they recommended." Or there's usually two or three practices in each chapter, so "I'm just going to pick those. I'm just going to stay with those for a month. And then next month, I'll pick up some new practices."

And I also recommend getting a learning buddy that you meet with once a week for a half hour, maybe it's over lunch, and just say "What's your practice? How's it going for you? And how are you above the line and below the line right now at work?" And just keep a conversation going, so it stays current in your mind. And you've got somebody who is open and willing to hear about what's going on and you can listen back and give each other feedback. So, that's another great way to use the book.

On our website, The Conscious Leadership group has a website called conscious.is. We have guided meditations there, we have some free exercises you can download, there are videos to watch. And so all those things we're going to keep populating that with as much content as we can to offer free support to everybody. And so, we would say use the book in collaboration with the website, because there will be lots of things that will support what the book is talking about.

The Conscious Leadership Group wants to work with organizations where those who are most influencing culture, most typically CEO or President, that they've really bought-in first. We find that if they're not bought-in, it's not going to work long term. And not only are they bought into the idea, but they're willing to practice and they're willing to stand for others practicing, as well. So, we often have them read the book, obviously, but then come to a retreat where we get to see, "Do you really want to bring this in? Are you really willing to live this stuff?" Because it's not something to just to bring in haphazardly. My experience is that actually can create more drama. If you're going to bring it in, we're going to bring it in and do it well.

And then, usually we start with a two-day offsite with the team to help them really learn to integrate it, some of the good basics, after those two days. And then we come in on some kind of a we agree basis of, whether that's monthly, or every other month, or quarterly and come in and slowly integrate the 15 Commitments into the culture.

If you're not the leader, maybe you give the book to the leader and say "I read this. This would be really fun to be working at a company like this." The two companies that we worked with in Chicago both just got rated "The Best Places to Work," which was really fantastic and both of them pointed to this work as being the influencer on their ability to win that award, each one by a different service. One was the Chicago Tribune and the other was Crains. Each gave each company the award.

And it was exciting to see that they had been practicing long-term and that it did create the results which they said they wanted. And so now it's helping their bottom line in lots of ways. They brought us in slowly and methodically in and they really practiced. And it meant the leader, in both of those companies, the leader is deeply committed to the work.