“EmPower Us! takes you by the hand over the fraught threshold society is teetering on today with a framework for exploring a generative future personally, and together. I found it particularly compelling for a business book to speak with such authority as it does of organizational change through the voice of deep compassion, humor, and wisdom.
The book embodies the holistic state of being needed for wise choices today. Its voice comes from a place of heart, intellect and discipline: it tells stories, offers alternative myths and addresses the reader as a whole, living being, rather than a ‘professional’ or ‘entrepreneur’ or ‘manager.’ The practical conversation-prompts for group exploration offer leaders precisely the type of safe, non-judgmental container that’s needed for their teams to inquire purposefully into the contradictions of these times. A guidebook for taking first steps together as a new kind of business, as a new kind of society, in a new relationship with the natural world.
The whole being transformation that we’re being invited to is as much of our cultural myths, as our expressions of our Humanity in the arts, sciences, business and our interpersonal relationships with each other. It transcends the jargon clogging the change movement and words that have lost their meaning in relentless, conflicting rhetoric – values, impact , sustainability. Underneath them runs the broader change best described as a change of heart.
As its title says, “ We’re ready!” Necessity is upon us all – whether it’s the Next Generation, women, people of color, other marginalized peoples and not least the natural world and the elements. All are screaming in pain and disequilibrium.
In this urgent even frenzied context, finding the common ground for a conversation is the first step. The authors build an accessible bridge here, from the mindset of the mechanistic, habitual lens of post-industrial society to a vulnerable world of open inquiry. The conversation is urgent but not prescriptive.
From a leader’s perspective, this is also a handbook for priming the conversation among diverse, dispersed teams. A way to raise awareness in collaboration, inclusively. A non-judgmental way of beginning to explore how we can work together in our organizations with the living ecosystem as we enhance the well being of humanity.
“Values, sustainability, inclusion, cooperation, The Golden Rule” – all those powerful mores that were worn to platitudes from decades of branding rhetoric – will reverberate in our souls again soon or echo in humanity’s common grave.
EmPower Us! quickens the will and ability to embrace collective well-being as our destiny.”