What is the Future of Management? Presented to Heartfulness Mission - The Day for Peace

                                    Edited Presentation on The Day for Peace  
                                               For the Heartfulness Mission
                                                       September 21 2021

Hello, namaste, shalom, peace. We have a very, very important subject to cover in the next half an hour, which really requires more than half an hour. But we'll do the best we can.
Why is it such an important subject?
I don't think I'm saying anything new if I say that there is change. It started with a Big Bang millions of years ago, nothing new. There is something new however because humanity is experiencing a rate of change unprecedented in the history of the mankind driven by technology and science. There are more scientists alive today than accumulatively in the history of mankind. So what?
Everything in this world is system. You as a human being, you are a system. A family is a business. A country is and so is business. The globe, planet is a system called an ecosystem.
By definition, every system is comprised of subsystems. A company has a marketing subsystem, sales subsystem, production subsystem, financial, human, capital subsystems. A human being has the nervous subsystem, the blood flow subsystem, the respiratory subsystem, etcetera. And a country has the legal subsystem, the economic subsystem, the technological subsystem, the social subsystem.  
When there is change, the subsystems do not change at the same speed. In a company, marketing changes relatively fast.  How long does it take to change a sales effort? A little bit longer. How long does it take to change the production to adapt to the changes? Much longer. How long does it take to change people’s attitude, mind set? People are the most difficult one to change.
Because the subsystems do not change at the same speed,  gaps, cracks develop in the system. The system gets disintegrated and the higher is the rate of change, the faster it gets disintegrated. Show me a house in a climate that has a lot changes cold, hot, cold, hot, changes a lot, it requires more maintenance.
The higher is the rate of change, the faster is the disintegration. And the disintegration is manifested in what we call  problems.  Production has a problem matching sales. Sales has a problem matching marketing. Finances says wait a moment, we don't have the money. So, hear me well: change means disintegration. Disintegration is manifested in what we call problems. And the faster is the change, the faster is the disintegration, the faster are the problems attacking us. And that's called stress.
You have to solve the problems. You have to decide what to do. And that means uncertainty. You don't always have all the information. And if you implement the decision, there is a risk. It might not work. So, you are now stressed: what should I do? Should I take the risk or not take the risk.
So, what has change done to us? Increased our rate of stress exponentially. There is more stress probably in New York City than in North Dakota or Montana because of rate of change. And the disintegration is manifested. Companies fall apart. Countries are falling apart. Look what happened to the Soviet Union. Look happened to Yugoslavia. Families are falling apart. There are more divorces in New York than in North Dakota. The higher is the rate of change, the more disintegration. And people are falling apart. The fastest growing mental disease in the world is depression. In the developed world. Underdeveloped, they don't have time to be depressed. They have to survive. The more developed, which means the more change, the more people are mentally sick. Or they escape to drugs. What does it mean?
Because of technology, because of the advancements in science, our standard of living has gone up. Our quality of life has gone down. We are much more stressed than our grandparents. Our grandparents lived shorter life, true. Lower standard of living, but you know what? They were happier. There was certain level of stability, predictability. The family was predictable. Hierarchy was known. You knew who wore the pants. In today's world, I really am not so sure. Sometimes I think my kids wear the pants. They're telling me what to do because they know more about computers and more about iPhones and more about technology than I know. I'm the idiot. They're knowledgeable. The world is falling apart. We are falling apart as human beings. Our families are falling apart. Companies are falling apart. COVID  has been here from the Big Bang, why is it expressing itself now? Our body cannot catch up with all the changes. The quality of the water we drink, the quality of food we eat, the quality of air we breathe. The sunshine is damaging us. Very soon, they say, you're not going to be able to go out to the street, out of the house, because you can get cancer because the sun is penetrating the atmosphere, the layers that are protecting us are ruined and it damages us.
What to do?
If change causes disintegration, and disintegration gives birth to problems, which gives birth to stress and disintegration of  human being, companies, countries, etcetera what is the solution? Stop change.  And that is, by the way, what some religions are trying to do. All the fanatic religions are trying to stop change. Fanatic Muslims, fanatic Jewish, fanatic Christians. Stop change. Is that the solution? No. Nobody in the history, study history, nobody in the history of mankind succeeded to stop change. They tried to stop innovation, technological innovation, in England. It started in America and England missed it. Nobody can stop change. Middle Ages. Okay. So for a certain period of time, there was a stop, but then it was interrupted in the Renaissance. So, we need to learn how to manage change. We don't have a choice. Or we'll fall apart. Our families will fall apart. Our companies will fall apart. We will fall apart as human beings. We need integration, but  what does it mean? What does it mean, integration? What should I do tomorrow?
Look at the history of mankind. We started, if you are Darwinian, as chimpanzees. The strongest chimpanzee was a leader. Then we were a nomadic society. The best hunter was a leader. Then we became an agricultural society. The one with the most sheep and cows and land was the leader. Common denominator: muscles, power, possession. The more, the better. It gave birth to an economic theory which promoted colonialism: The more land I have, the more assets I have, the more markets I have, the stronger I am. That was imperialism and colonialism based on that conceptual framework, mindset that more is better. We still have part of it. Measuring  economic growth, constantly measuring economic growth although more is not better. We are destroying the environment. We are destroying ourselves. More is not better. We are destroying our planet.  We have to change from more is better to better is more. To quality of life and not to standard of living. Being less is better. Simple life is better.
Then came the industrial revolution and what happened? Muscles were not good enough anymore, strength was not good enough. We needed brain. We needed to plan, budgets, hiring people, organizing, supply chain, management. Brain. Today we live in what's called the postindustrial society. And what's most important? It's not the muscle. In industrial society, it's muscle and brain, you see? Muscle before, then came the brain, and now we had muscle and brain. Empires. The strongest, the most with possession, the best. That's a success. Now we live in a postindustrial where brain is everything, muscle is not so important anymore. Some of the most valuable companies on the stock exchange market have no assets, no physical assets. Airbnb, the biggest hotel in the world does not own one hotel, what do they have? Computer and information. The largest transportation company in the world does not own one car, taxis, Uber. What do they have? Computer  and information. Today success is in the brain. What does Amazon have? An incredible brain system. What are they collecting? Information and artificial intelligence to manage that information. Same thing with Facebook. Same thing with Google. All of you businessmen, watch it, if you do not digitalize your company and develop databases and manage information, you are outdated. You are going to be killed. Brain is the power.
Well today the brain is on its way out too. With artificial intelligence, with quantum computers, they're going to replace our brain. Physical brain. Even today, I have some of my students in university, you ask them, "How much is seven times nine?" They say, "Where is my calculator?" They don't know. They need a calculator. They have to ask Siri. We are relying more and more on computers, not thinking anymore, They say that they want to put a chip into your brain so you don't have Alzheimer anymore, connect you to the cloud and that's it. By the way, don't even have to talk, my chip will talk to your chip. Then you have artificial heart, mechanical heart, then mechanical kidney, and mechanical knees, what is a human being now? What is a human being? What is the future? What is the future after the brain? We went from muscle to brain, now what is the future? Look at the future. Consciousness, soul, the heart. If we do not develop the heart, consciousness, we are doomed. We are doomed as a society, as a humanity. Nazi Germany was not a fluke in the history of mankind. Highly educated, powerful people, no heart. Is that our future?  India should be the beacon to the world. Yoga, meditation. Why?
What is absolute integration? We already said we need integration to overcome the disintegration caused by change that cannot be stopped. What is absolute integration? No boundaries of time and space. Love. Consciousness of love, love consciousness, which, supposedly, lives in the heart. Heart is a symbol of love. Absolute integration. And it's not strange the diamond is a symbol of love. It's the most integrated mineral there is.  Total integration. That's what love is about. Unless we develop our consciousness of love, the disintegration is going to destroy us. Destroy our families, destroy our grandchildren.
It's imperative we develop our heart and our consciousness of love, that's what's going to save humanity.
Well, how do we do it so, it's not just empty words. How do we do it? That's what I spent 50 years of my life on. How to bring love to companies. By the way, I don't talk about it because I will never make a cent if I went to companies and say, "I sell love" they will say, "Go home”. Tell us how to make more money. I make them make more money with love without realizing that that's what they are doing.
If you love what you do, the more love you have in your life, the more integrated you are with what you do. And the more integrated you are, the less energy is wasted. When there is disintegration, you're falling, you're wasting a lot of energy: what should I do? Who am I? Where am I going? Why is it happening to me? You're disconnected. It takes your energy. That's why you're exhausted. And when you're together, you're full with energy. When you do what you love, you have so much energy, don't you? Keeps you young. Hate, disintegration will make you old.
  So, to manage change we have to make decisions and you cannot make decisions alone. Would you agree with me nobody's perfect? So, what do you need? A complementary team. Look at your marriage. Look at your spouse. You married somebody who's different than you are, why? Because to raise children, you need a complimentary team. You cannot easily raise your children alone, single parent. You cannot be a mama and a papa at the same time. We need both feminine and masculine energy. I'm not talking about sex organs. I'm talking about energies. We need complimentary team to make good decisions. But the moment you have a complimentary team, which means we are different, what's going to happen? Conflict. And to implement a decision, we need the cooperation of the people whom we need. Why should they cooperate? Because they have common interest. Do we have common interest? Often we don't. So, that's another source of conflict, conflict of interest. So, you have conflict of personalities and conflict of interests.  The more change, the more conflict.
How do we integrate a complimentary team? And how do we integrate common interests? That is how to integrate diversity of styles, diversity of nationalities if you are looking at the world, diversity of religions, any diversity, social diversity? For that we need to have mutual respect. Look at this extended hand with five finger together) , this is a symbol. You see it everywhere, in all religions, the saints are standing like this, what do you see? Different fingers together. That's a blessing. Different  together. If they're together and there is mutual respect, we learn from each other. And as we learn from each other differences, there is synergy. And when there is synergy, it's constructive. And You get integration through mutual respect. You don't get integration, real integration, sustainable integration, successful, constructive integration, unless there is mutual respect. And that is not what  happens with all radical religions. They say, "We're going to be together by being the same. So, if you're not a Muslim, we behead you. If you're not Christian, inquisition. If you're not Jewish, we negate you. We don't eat with you." We are talking about being together, different, accepting, valuing, appreciating differences, because we learn from differences.
But what keeps it together? Why should they be together? Because all benefit from what everybody contributes. That's why there is a hand. Each one contributes to the hand. There is symbiosis.  But that will happen only if there is mutual trust. Because I contribute to the system and I trust that the system will benefit me, otherwise, I'm not going to contribute. If there is corruption, I'm not paying taxes, why should I pay taxes to a corrupt government? They steal from me, I steal from them.
Peace, love, means united diversity based on mutual trust and respect. It is inclusive prosperity. There is prosperity, there is success because of synergy, growth, prosperity. But because of symbiosis,  it's inclusive. We want integrated interests with diversity that is honored and respected because we learn from each other.
Peace is not sameness. Peace is harmony. Pay attention to the word harmony. Different voices creating the harmony. If they're all singing in the same voice, it's not harmony. So, if God is love and love is based on mutual trust and respect, there is no love unless there is respect for differences and there is trust that there is common interest. There is faith that there is common interest despite our differences. So, if God is love and love is mutual trust and respect, what is God's will? What does love mean? Respect each other differences and share the benefits you create together.
God is, to me, not the father in heaven looking down saying, "No, no, no, you bad boys. If you don't behave, I will bring floods on you." This is the legacy of Zeus on the mountain. To me, God is a conscious, value-loaded energy, loving energy, energy locomoted by mutual trust and respect. So, what God's will? Recognize each other differences and share what you create together.
Remove mutual trust and respect, you're removing God, you're removing love. And what do you get? The devil. In many of exclusive religions, exclusive political ideologies, in the name of God, they are serving the devil because they don't recognize diversity and they don’t integrate for common interest.
We all want peace. In peace there is no more stress, there is harmony, peacefulness. Peace and love should start with our self first. That's why meditation. Not to get attached, to recognize differences, to recognize problems, let them pass. In meditation, you experience tolerance, patience, you experience peacefulness in the middle of turmoil. It starts with you. And as you find tolerance, self-respect,  analyze the problems, let them pass, don't get attached to what you can not control, learn through meditation to surrender and go with the flow of life, learn humility and find peace and happiness, respecting  and trusting yourself. Is there respect and trust in your family? That's called love. Absolute respect and absolute trust is love. But love without knowing what to do might end up serving the devil in the name of love. Promote mutual respect and trust, nourish mutual trust and respect. Ask yourself in your family, what causes disrespect? What causes mistrust? Forbid them. That's how you raise your children to have self-esteem, to trust and respect themselves. Same thing with your own personal life, what causes you to disrespect yourself, that you feel guilty and accusatory of yourself? Remove it. What causes you not to trust yourself? Remove it. Love yourself, love your family, bring mutual trust and respect to your company, which is bringing love, bringing peace, bringing harmony. And the same thing on a country level. And hopefully if we work hard enough from the inside out, we might bring peace to the world or we are doomed. And this pandemic is a sign of disintegration and it's another call: get united or you will destroy yourself. Thank you. Namaste. And may God's will be with us.

Thank you, Dr. Adizes, for your words. We are getting a lot of questions for you. We don't have time for everyone. So, I just want to say first, thank you everyone for submitting questions. And let me just jump in. We're getting a lot of similar questions on how to deal with the pressure in the workplace. How should sensitive people deal with leadership roles?
Okay. Let's start with leadership. The book we will send you is The Ideal Executive for asking questions, but I just finished another book I call Symbergetic Leadership, which comes from the words symbiosis and synergy. A leader that creates symbiosis and synergy, which means collaborative leadership, and not single or individual leader, "I am the leader". We have to get out of it. There is no outstanding leader. Nobody. Nobody's that good. Nobody. Even God makes mistakes. He made a mistake with a big flood. He agreed he made mistake. He brings the rainbow to remind him not to repeat the mistake. So, let's get out of this single person leadership concept. My new book is called “Symbergetic Leadership, the Power of Collaborative Leadership”, building a complimentary team. Diversity working together. Like a good family is a diversity working together. So, put yourself  on the list for a deeply discounted presale at store.adizes.com. And as soon as the book is printed, it will be sent to you.
 So, what is a good leader? A good leader creates symbergy: symbiosis and synergy in a company, how? Promotes mutual trust and respect. A good leader is a person that commands and grants respect and trust. If you're not trusted, if you're not respected, you're not a good leader. Do people trust you? Do people respect you? Do you build trust and respect in your company? That is what leadership is in the modern world. Bring the heart to the company, bring consciousness of love into the company. That's a good leader.
Now, how to reduce stress in the workplace? Where the stress comes from? Too many conflicts. You need to look at how to align the subsystems so they don't outpace each other. Slow down and align them together. The whole idea is to advance together. It's like in the military, when the infantry's attacking, the principle is be in a straight line, because if somebody goes too further ahead, they might shoot him by mistake, if he's left behind, they might shoot us by mistake. Together. Advance together. Pay attention who is left behind, how do we bring together? Don't go too far ahead. Alignment, that's how we reduce stress. Because if you are growing disintegrated, it increases your stress in the workplace. And you don't only integrate the company, integrate yourself, your time, how much time for the family, how much time for the career, how much time for your personal needs, align them too. So, the secret for  reduction of stress is alignment. Alignment of your needs. Managing your time, managing your priorities correctly.
Thank you, Dr. Adizes, for that response.
We're getting several questions about how do we support youth and teenagers in discovering this process of integration.  
  Wonderful question. Wonderful question. Because the youth are the future of mankind. What the youth are doing tells you what the future is going to be. Like, you can tell the future political system or economic system by watching the students, what are they demonstrating about? These are the future leaders. Everything starts at the university. So, tell me what you do with the kids and I will tell you what the future is going to look like. There is a lot here to be done.
I've been lecturing all over the world to universities. We are training people wrong. We're teaching them to know. Whatever you teach them, within few years is going to be obsolete anyway. The trick is not to teach people to know, but to teach them how to learn. Lifelong learning. I would like to change all certificates that people give at universities. Don't say graduated. Graduated means they're finished, God forbid. It should say permitted to continue learning. To go to the next stage of learning. Continuous learning, continuous learning, continuous learning. That’s Number one. Number two, teach them to learn together, to respect each other, no bullying at school. American education is a disaster in my mind because the kids go from one class to other, depending on subject. The classes don't develop social integration. Like in Europe. You go with the same class throughout the whole education, so you develop a classroom integration. Here, everything is disintegrated. Here you have one class with these kids and another class with other  kids and , another class with new kids again. Assignments should be given to a team. Team assignments. We have to teach people how to work together. That's why sports are so important. Lifelong learning, working together, with mutual trust and respect. That is what we need to develop in the next generations. And meditation is a very important component of it. Very important component of it.  I kind of change how I meditate Heartfuless.  I start like you did with a guided meditation. But I don't just only pay attention to my muscles, to my toes. I love my toes. For 20 minutes or half an hour I'm meditating, I am practicing love. I start with my toes. They hurt. I love you anyway. My knees hurt. I love you anyway. My lungs, I trust you, you will give me the air I need. My brain, you are fighting with each other all day long. I trust you. You will listen to each other.
I spend half an hour in meditation loving myself, loving even the problems I have. Do you know that some cancer you can remove by loving your cancer? Don't say, "My body is giving me problems, pain." It's your pain. Whose pain is it? Your body is not somebody else. It's you. Love your body. Love your thoughts. And then expand. I love my family, expanding my love to love the trees and the mountains and the air and the water, but start with you. Experience love. Like  Master Charijee says, "Love is a muscle. Start practicing it." The more you practice, the more you have.

Thank you for that. It's the top of the hour. Dr. Adizes has graciously offered to stay a few minutes later so he can answer some more questions.

So, the next question. And you talked about meditation and you talk about what do you do, but how do we expand this idea of love into the workplace as individuals? What can we do to make a difference at work?

Look, a song is not a song unless it is heard. Love is not love unless it is experienced. And what does it mean? I already said to you love is mutual trust and respect. And what does respect mean? To recognize the sovereignty of the other person to be different. You don't have to be like me. "Why do you not think like me?" Well, because you are different. We accept different faces. Why don't we accept different styles?
You are experiencing love, trust, very important.
In the Western world, we say love is give and take. That is life. Give and then you receive. Love is more than that. In love   in the giving is the taking. It's not later. I'm rewarded in giving you. That's why you love your children. You don't expect them to pay you back later on when you get old. God forbid. You do it because you love them. Because they giggle and they're so happy. That is your reward. In the giving is the taking.
By the way, in the Middle East, they don't say give and take. They say take and give in Turkish and in Arabic. Take first, then you give. There is no trust. That's why they're in trouble. The whole Middle East is on fire because they don't trust each other. They don't respect each other. I'm not talking about Israel. Talking among the Muslims. So, when you say, "How do we practice love?" Give. In the giving is the taking. And give anonymously like in the Jewish religion. Because when you give  anonymously, you don't expect anything in return. You really give from your heart. Give from the heart.

We have several questions regarding technology the changing digital world, how do we manage through all these changes with technology?

Technology is like a knife. You can slice bread and feed yourself with it or you can hurt people and kill them. The technology can go both ways. Depends whether it's done with love or without love. You don't have to say hate. If it is without love, by definition it's hate. Because love and hate are not opposite of each other. Hate is lack of love. Like darkness is lack of light. And I'm afraid that our technology is driven not by love, but  by materialistic needs where more is better, the more is better, more money, more money, more money, more money, more money, more money. And it's becoming a destructive technology. Look at all these computer games we have, where children are playing how to kill and measure how many people did you kill, how many people did you destroy? What are we telling them subliminally, subconsciously? Destructive, destructive, destructive, destructive. We're legitimizing destruction. Look at the movies. I cannot watch most of the American movies. Cars flying in the sky. People getting shot. I remember in high school when we went to see American movies. Before going in, we will have a bet how many people are going to get killed. And then, the whole movie we counted the shots, the killed, "Here's another 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 15." Whoever bet the best did not pay for his ticket to the movie. We were counting how many people got killed. McNamara, minister of defense, secretary of defense of the United States during Vietnam War was measuring success of the war every day by how many King Kongs got killed. That's how we measure success. Technology can be boom or it will be the destruction of our humanity. It will improve our standard of living and destroy humanity and who we are as human beings. We don't bring enough heart to schools, schools of engineering, schools of physics, schools for scientists.  We don't teach them love. They're graduating with knowledge and no heart. They can be destructive. We have to change our education system. I wish they would make meditation required subject in all schools. I wish, to experience love. I wish they would make yoga required in all schools. What is yoga? Translation of the word yoga? Unity. Meditation in motion is yoga. And as we accept our pains and we accept ourself, we start accepting other people. And that's where peace starts. By acceptance. By being capable of living with diversity and not being threatened by diversity, but engaging diversity because it enriches us all.

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