A Company's Inner Life

There is a Proverb that says, “the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.” The more I’ve been in the business world the more I’ve realized how much everything takes place and stems inwardly and flows outwardly. It’s all the inner (in)tangibles of a company such as culture, the character traits of people, the level of thought stemming from people, vision, values, intellectual property (which provides competitive advantage), or the philosophy/inputs that factor into the processes of everything you see in a product or service. Everything that exists, one may argue, flows from inner life. Company passion or pride is a result of inner company life. If it’s healthy - good things, if it is unhealthy, perhaps, some notso good things.?

Intellectual property or things that stem from inward developments HONESTLY give companies competitive advantage that yield significant sway. When I think about the impact of a pen and paper and how much let’s say books or articles impact or have impacted history (example of Uncle Tom’s Cabin on slavery, as well as the Jungle regarding food industry food/employee safety improvements), it is astounding the capacity for what is inside an individual or collective individuals organized in a company that manifests outwardly into results that impact the people and places around it. What if inner life and what it can produce can change history, or change your company history? For patents protect and trademarks guard and cyber security protects the moat of what is on the inside of the company such as trade secrets, philosophy, and everything else that makes it great or not so great and have the game changing ability to change your company’s history.?

Yet, everything is impacted by my inner life from the things I think about, to the conversations I have, to the things I end up doing. Personally, my own inner life consists of daily prayer and reading of Bible scripture as it keeps me grounded, focused and rooted in what I perceive as Truth. Now, I don’t impose my spiritual beliefs on anybody but I can tell you all my ideas, my plans, and value system stem from what my inner life is built on. But it all starts with thoughts and feelings inside on what I’m built on and then manifests outwardly in interactions, in relationships and in how I work and live my life. I mean, what is culture? It is just the inner life and writing on the walls of a company that impacts everyone’s day to days.

I am a vision focused individual and run my life with a Proverb that says, “where there is no vision, the people perish.” It’s incredibly integral for everything and it separates those from going nowhere to those leading people somewhere and to those who finally realize they want to go somewhere.

In fact, I am so vision focused that I strive to get vision every year because it guides me and is that important. So, what if vision stems from the overflow of your heart? Because passion, belief, and culture overflow from the heart of a company. If a company is a group of people, or a body, what does the heart of the business say in the current season you’re in? What does the heart of the business believe about the strategy, the times we’re living in, the problems you’re trying to address, and more? The issues of the heart of a company deal with the motives, intentions, and inner life more than anything else. There is a greater need to be motivated by a fueling why than by something that ends up being a plastic ‘why’ reasoning. One of my favorite thought leaders, Simon Sinek, says “Start with Why?” AKA in the terminology here, start inwardly with why.?

Now, if I piggybacked on that, I’d ask you the question ‘if your heart spoke to you during the middle of the night, what would it say?’ Could it possibly be that you need to be more thoughtful as to why you do things the way you do them and the intentions that feed into that??

There is a saying in the business world that says “everything trickles down” as does company politics, toxicity, the tone at the top, and more.

For example, if excellency is prioritized at the top, then perhaps an excellent product or service with high quality standards will trickle down.?

If toxicity is at the top with politics guarding one another or turning one another away from each other, then that is what will trickle down or even escalate up.

“Why are we the best?” “Oh… because.” That’s it? That’s all you have to say about that? This is why how employees talk about company leadership and the company MATTERS! Because they’re speaking on what is on the inside of their hearts about you as leaders and the company. This is why how customers and employees speak about the product or service matters! Because they’re speaking on what is on the inside of their hearts about said product or service. What if it’s no longer just 360 degree feedback but also feedback on products/services that are used? Isn’t there a saying that says that those who work on the day to day ground know the company the best? Can they not fix problems via feedback or discussion about the product or service offered and offer improvements because they’re the inner working and partial heartbeat of the company that creates said product or service? Sometimes it’s not always an external third party outside of the company that is needed to fix a problem or solution but perhaps the solution to the inner problem lies within the people to fix inwardly because they know the inner workings of the company as they are involved in the day to day.?

Firm believer that what you present to the world in a product or a service says more about you and the inner life of a company than it says about anything else. It speaks to your intentions when you’re money focused and/or not customer/client focused caring more that their expectations are exceeded when you yearn to sell, sell, sell, just to make more quotes and end goals because that is all you may be motivated by. You communicate what quality does or does not mean to you.

In my time serving in a third world country like Haiti, what we found was that they didn’t necessarily need a white savior like us coming in and developing initiatives in the country based on our judgment and expertise, but that they needed to be partnered with, empowered, and leading the strategy based on the needs that they already knew inwardly that they needed to address and fix within the country.

So, the heart can yield ethos (the disposition, character, or fundamental values peculiar to a specific person, people, culture, or movement), pathos (appeal to emotions as we are emotional beings that connect and make decisions based on emotions) and logos (credibility). Focusing on building a substantial inner life full of ethos, pathos, and logos positions a business for the long haul to have greater influence outside of its inner life.?

There is another piece of wisdom out there that says, “It is not what goes into a man that defiles him, but what comes out of him.” In other words, what went into a man affected what was heard that came out of him. It’s the essence of taming the tongue and the inner life in such a way that impacts the words or actions outwardly. Think about trauma and how it manifests upon people and can perhaps create an abusive work culture where people gaslight one another because they were gaslit or emotionally abused. Think about anger as a concept and how it manifests outwardly in such a way leading someone to berate someone. Think about someone going through a divorce and the bitterness that results from it whether it was a poor ending or a long drawn out ending or an awful heartbreak: their personal life BLEEDS into their outer life at work, in friendships, and in the very way that they speak almost as if they sound bitter. It is the SAME thing with companies in that bitterness bleeds into decisions, that trauma manifests outwardly even impacting decisions, in that selfish ambition inwardly bleeds into teams and more. Could it be that it is much more likely that you don’t have an outer problem but that you have an inner problem? For example, if what is on the inside of you is lying, cheating, or stealing, fraud is what comes out of you. Unhealthy inner life will cause you to cut corners or it will not because integrity is important (AKA tone @ the top, for my accounting people - think COSO.) So, if these things are not addressed or nipped in the butt? in significant ways, many problems result. Now, think about the idea of giving back as a place in your heart. As a business gets to a level of success, they begin to think about giving back, however, that began within the heart of the company.

Nonetheless, inner life can be identified further through empathy and understanding why things are the way they are, as things inside manifest themselves as feelings or outer behavior. I mean when you understand the inner life of say how jealousy manifests itself, you can start to understand how that plays into selfish ambition, into teams, into relational dynamics, in the personal life with spouse or kids… Because my inner life and a company’s inner life is impacted by the things around it: think externalities.?

One of my favorite many quotes is, “the few things that end up mattering years down the road are the relationships you have and the books that you’ve read” because they impact your inner life more than you realize. So, the “employees are our greatest asset” is another common slogan I’ve heard because they make up the inner life of a company and without an amazing inner life, the outer life of what is manifested or created around them is significantly impacted. For example, trust in relationships is the result of inner connection. Trust is an inner currency EXCHANGED between two people or peoples that manifests outwardly in shared circumstances of personal detail, vulnerability, and economic partnership or team momentum. So, what if company growth this year for you and your business means growing inwardly…? Which then will, in turn, grow you outwardly.?

Bad company inner life, I believe, can yield significant issues such as a heart attack. What happens in the case of a heart attack? “HEART ATTACK! HELP, LIFE ALERT! I’VE FALLEN AND I CAN’T GET UP!” Something real has obviously happened inwardly. No bueno, right? If you’re facing a heart attack inwardly, strengthen the inner life through exercise, through diet changes, through doctoral visits, and in some cases, open heart surgery because the damage to the heart has been so significant.

So, what if companies of thought emerged more so that analyzed their thoughts and intentions and it manifested greatly on products and services in amazing ways? The “I’m-moving-in-the-pattern-of-my-greatest-or-most-consistently-had-thoughts.” If I know I am or we are moving in the direction of our most consistent thoughts then we better be real careful of what we’re noting inwardly and concluding on outwardly in behaviors and actions.?

Because what if what I’m selling does MORE than just impact you outwardly, but inwardly? What if what the customer or client really needs is something inwardly? In counseling, they say “validate their emotions,” but what if people really want an inner sense and an emotional impact and connection from a business sale, partnership, or service? “When we change the way we look at, the way things look, change.” What if what is needed is a perspective or a dogma paradigmatic shift within a company in an inner way??