Shaping a Global Economy of Communion

This talk was just delivered at the National Forum of Anpecom (National Association of Economy of Communion Enterprises of Brazil) in Sao Paolo. I was not able to attend so my Brother Carlos Xavier, our Country Director for Consulus Brazil, read the speech in Portuguese on my behalf.

Here is the text in English and slides about our experience; why it is necessary to change businesses and the consultancy industry to shape an inclusive economic system: an economy of communion

Ola! Dearest friends in Brazil. I am pleased to be with you to share the experience of our work as an EoC (Economy of Communion) enterprise that operate in 16 countries. I am happy that my Brother, Carlos Xavier who leads Consulus Brazil is with you. So if you have any questions, please do speak with him.

Our primary work is to help clients prepare for a new type of economy that the World Economic Forum has dubbed the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

As the world rapidly transit into a new economic reality, the divide between rich and poor continue to widen, increasing tensions which threaten the current economic model as it is not sustainable if it does not know how to make poverty history. Therefore the ethos and principles of the Economy of Communion is urgently needed. 

But to speed up change, we cannot just contend with having a few companies who are interested to do good, we need entire societies to consider this proposition and work towards reshaping a new and more sustainable economic model. This will require designing new frameworks of unity in society, economy and business that will be relevant for the future to work for all of us. 

In my view, there are other greater forms of poverty that exist to prevent us from achieving an economic system that is inclusive and sustainable and I like to highlight three of them:

Poverty of Trust

Poverty of Institutions

Poverty of Method

These are all interconnected so let me explain them point by point through our work in shaping a global economy of communion in three areas: Companies, the consulting industry and smart cities.

How do you create conditions for sharing of anything like ideas or even goods in any organisation or community: you need trust. This has also been verified by many studies on social behaviour. In fact, in 2016, Google published an organizational study about what makes the perfect team after analyzing its teams using data. Google concluded that the best teams are not because the team players are drawn from the best universities or given the best resources. It is those teams that can best create a psychologically-safe environment that respects each person, his or her contribution, enabling a comfortable exchange of ideas which then unleashes the best innovation or performance.

Psychologically-safe simply means trust and it is a process by design. You can’t just assume trust will be there, it needs to be built concretely. And the biggest problem we have in our societies is the poverty of trust. Without trust, there will not be sharing of vulnerability, no sharing of needs or goods. We live in an Instagram generation where we generate the perception that life is good for so many of us while in truth many people are suffering. 

What we learned in transforming large and small companies for 14 years is: unless companies are prepared to rediscover their purpose and redefine relationships, they will not be able to meet the challenges of the new world.

In a way, Chiara Lubich who is the founder of the global movement of unity called the Focolare, was prophetic when she explained how a new type of company can emerge when she said this in 1984 and I quote:

“every person in the working world (from the owner to the administrator, from the director to the technicians, from office workers to laborers) in order to build solidarity with others, must love everyone in such a way that he or she becomes ‘one’ with the others.

In this spirituality, mutual love leads to reciprocal understanding, to sharing the fatigue of the others, to make our own the problems of the others and to seek solutions together. It leads us to find common agreements for new forms of organizations in the working world. All come to share and participate together in the means of production, and in the fruits and profits.” end quote

At this point, I must declare that the transformation methodologies of Consulus are deeply influenced by the foundational thoughts of Chiara Lubich. Back to what Chiara said that a new form of organization can only come about when everyone loves the value and contribution of each other.

Since 2004, it has been our modus operandi to use this approach whenever we help companies reinvent themselves. First, we conduct a 360 study to help them discover their existential purpose and the importance of the relationships internally. Then we work with them to redesign their business and organisational model to enable a new type of unity. This will then strengthen psychological safety which in turn, unleash innovation and business performance.

In a workshop which our team in Brazil conducted for a major bank, the head of department shared this after the exercise and I quote:

“The UNIFY workshop helped us build trust, something I’ve been trying to do with my team for some time. It helped them to be more receptive to criticisms and suggestions for improvement as well as to sincerely say what they think for the benefit of individual growth and the institution. In addition, the workshop introduced to us a new methodology for innovation, which aims to strengthen relationships, gather people and bring out the best of each member.”

As you can see, to enable Trust, we need to renew our institutions and we have major challenges here because we have many insular and tone-deaf institutions in business, politics. So this is why we set our sights on transforming the consulting business. 

The global consultancy business likes to talk about providing change solutions for the clients but rarely likes to talk about changing itself. Because it is still very much an old boys club, serving entrenched interests. The recent fall of President Zuma in South Africa has implicated firms such as McKinsey, KPMG who have helped to further the interests of the few. When we started the firm, we were inspired by the principles of the Economy of Communion and we wanted to contribute in a concrete way to shape a new economic system. So for us, that meant changing the way the consultancy business as a model works by creating a new one. 

First of all, in the consultancy business, there is a class system among the disciplines. If you are in finance, you are right at the top but if you are in a discipline that is say design, you are in a rank that is lower.

So we worked hard to create a new methodology where the contribution of diverse disciplines from finance to design would be equally respected. The other problem in the consulting business is excessive internal competition that at times seem to favour sales solutions at the expense of clients. So we strive to build a community-type of environment to reduce internal competition to focus on holistic and sustainable solutions for clients. We give priority to sharing ideas, effort and we have a one-office mentality which means that no country office will be competing with each other but instead will always be dependent on one another. As a global community of 60 consultants who come from 14 nationalities and speak 15 languages, this is an incredible advantage. Here is a sharing by a consultant about the Consulus experience:

“I see Consulus as a consultancy company that wish to go beyond the superficial branding of a fancy name or tagline with insincere gestures of change for economic profit. Consulus wants every transformation to come from within, a sincerity that reveals itself from inside out. It asks of it not just from its clients, but from its employees and partners as well.

That requires a change in mentality from top management to the bottom from the corporations Consulus work with and for the Consulus team to have the faith that this would have the ripple effect to eventually change the world, one corporation at a time. If every corporation follows the same transformation, it might bring out the true meaning of a corporation with a soul.”

Finally, the world is not short of solutions but a unifying method to bring people together to work as one. 

In Consulus, we practice what we call relational innovation, it is an approach inspired by the principles of the Economy of Communion. It is an approach allows you to create solutions that is based on the person and creating impact based on unity. So how do we do it.

In the case of our work, consulting for Smart Cities in south-east Asia,

I often try to experience the different situations that happen in a city, the person who is alone maybe even homeless, or a person without a sense of place due to race or religion or the young person who seeks opportunity or the elderly seeking to recover his/her dignity while energy fades. It helps to put things in perspective so that we are not carried away by our own thoughts without a relational link. This then lends purpose to strategy. 

Then the second step for relational innovation is to identify the unity that is needed to succeed. So again in your case if you are trying to help a community or a situation, consider who else you will need to bring together to solve this challenge. 

In my work for smart cities, again I do this by seeing the architect not as an other but as a person necessary in this equation. I transform my view of the developer not as a client but as a person, his/her identity, his/her beliefs matter to me as I consider my proposals on how to involve them. 

Then the third step for relational innovation is to shape catalytic solutions. How can this solution have a catalytic effect to generate relational goods. So again in your attempt to help a community, even though it might be a small effort, think bigger and farther, how your project can inspire others, have a greater catalytic effect. 

This means that even if we are working on a small place, we often consider how can the area that we are working on can affect the entire city for good in terms of inspiring positive actions and innovation. 

We have done this for a township project in Sarawak. 

And from what was initially just a property project, the development has now brought people together, improving trust and unity to make a difference. Some of you know in Asia, many young couples cannot afford housing. But because of this practice of relational innovation, this developer has found a way to design a housing product that will be beautifully designed yet affordable for young couples. So it proves that when you try your best, you can indeed influence and shape people for good. 

From our own experience as a consulting community and our work for companies and cities, we have discovered this truth. That once you are able to create conditions for unity around a shared purpose, something extraordinary takes place. And one sign of this new unity is that it will go beyond transactions towards something greater. It transfigures relationships and approaches, this then generates creativity and innovation. This is then the spiritual, social capital that is needed before we can shape a more sustainable economic system, the Economy of Communion.

Let us work together to overcome all forms of poverty to shape a better world. Thank you

Find out more about Consulus Brazil: https://consulus.com/brazil/

The Video that I recorded for the event is here:

About Lawrence Chong

Lawrence shares about his experiences of helping leaders, companies, cities transform for Industry 4.0 to enable innovation through purpose and unity. His passion is in shaping purpose-driven leaders, companies and smart cities that will contribute to shaping a better world.   

He is the Co-founder and CEO of Consulus Global Network, an innovation consultancy with business management and multi-disciplinary design capabilities. Lawrence is a featured speaker at global events such as Innovation by Design, World Marketing Summit and World Brand Congress. He served as the Immediate Past President of Design Business Chamber Singapore. His thoughts on innovation and creativity appear in regional media such as Fortune, Nikkei Asian Review, Business Insider, Business Times, Marketing Magazine, Newsbase, Prestige Magazine, VTC10. In his personal capacity, he is a member of the Focolare, a movement in favor of building a united world through dialogue, economics, and politics.

About Consulus

Consulus is a global innovation consultancy with multidisciplinary business and design capabilities. Since 2004 the firm has served leaders, companies and cities in the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania to meet their innovation needs through a unifying approach that integrates business strategy, organizational development and experience design. Clients include Teo Garments, BIBD, Goodrich Global, DST, Health City Novena, MTU and Sony.

www.consulus.com or follow us on Linkedin and Facebook

Applying our proprietary UNIFY methodology to redesign business models, organizational cultures, and brand experiences, we help our clients develop in-house capabilities so as to enable them to innovate more effectively and meet the complex challenges of the 4th industrial revolution.

Here are our FIVE SOLUTIONS FOR THE FUTURE ECONOMY

1. Business Transformation: PurposeCORE 

2. Customer Experience Design: ExperienceCORE

3. Development or Smart City Solution: PlaceCORE

4. Digital Strategy: DigitalCORE

5. Leadership Transformation: LeadershipCORE

Our custom-design solutions have allowed our clients to increase revenue by over 138%, expand to overseas markets, develop new products and intellectual property and prepare the next generation of leaders to drive and sustain high-growth. Today, Consulites serve throughout Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. Consulus is a member of the Economy of Communion (EoC).

In 2013, Consulus launched World Company Day initiative to inspire companies to shape the world into a better place through daily work.