Customer Experiences with Soul - A Strongly Sustainable Approach to Authentic Stakeholder Relationships

The presenter for this, our 55th monthly meeting, was Simon Robinson, Co-author of Holonomics: Business Where People and Planet Matter with Maria Moraes Robinson, and co-founder of Holonomics Education. 

Logistics for joining the meeting are posted here in LinkedIn.  Any member of the LinkedIn group is welcome to join.

• Date: Tues Dec 13
• Time: 90 minutes starting 16h30 EST /21h30 GMT / 22h30 CET

(For the 1 hour prior to this talk any members interested in continuing the discussion on the future direction and governance for this group, started during our October meeting.  All members are welcome to join this discussion.  Same logistics for joining F2F or remotely posted here in LinkedIn)

Simon and Maria have originated the idea of "customer experiences with soul", a new framework to enable more engaging, sustainable and authentic customer experiences, an important perspective on this group's work on all aspects of Strongly Sustainable business models.   In this presentation, Simon will introduce Holonomics and discuss some of the ways in which they have been introducing it to a number of the largest businesses and conglomerates in Brazil via their consultancy Holonomics Education. He will also introduce our Customer Experiences with Soul framework, and discuss the way in which it links with the Flourishing Business Canvas developed by members of this group, and that Simon and Maria are now also introducing to businesses and organisations.

To introduce his work and his talk Simon provided the following background:

Einstein once said that, “A new kind of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels”. His quotation inspired the saying, “We cannot solve problems with the same level of consciousness that created them”. This is much easier to say than to really achieve. Our book Holonomics: Business Where People and Planet Matter describes how this higher level of consciousness not only only be achieved, but also applied in many areas such as strategy, leadership, innovation, and change management. It is a powerful approach which we have been introducing to a number Brazil’s largest businesses, in 2015 we received the great honour when Holonomics was nominated as one of the Top 36 Sustainability Books of all time by Sustainable Brands.

While Holonomics was published in the UK, we have two major articles in Portuguese published in Harvard Business Review. The first, Holonomic Thinking, was published in 2014 and is an in-depth overview of our approach. The second article, Don’t Start a Business, Start a Crusade was published earlier this year, and introduces the concept of Customer Experiences with Soul, our new framework which allows organisations to develop more engaging, sustainable and soulful customer experiences. The framework is based on our Holonomics approach.

In Holonomics we argue that people in business must adopt a ‘holonomic’ way of thinking, a dynamic and authentic understanding of the relationships within a business system, and an appreciation of the whole. The way we work is by empowering clients through a different way of thinking. We do this is by helping them to see and understand whole systems. This allows them to implement great customer experiences, powerful and effective strategies, and develop purposeful, meaningful and sustainable brands. The name we give this new way of seeing is holonomic thinking.

Holonomic Thinking can inspire new strategies by helping executives to upgrade their mental operating systems and developing a dynamic new way of seeing the whole organisation:

Systemic – Understanding the organisation as an organic and dynamic system of interrelated organs.

Experiential – Understanding the lived experience of each person – employees, management, leadership, stakeholders and the community.

Meaningful – Understanding how shared meaning emerges in the organisation over time, allowing the organisation to be able to become agile, efficient and transparent – an authentic whole.

Ethical – Understanding how human values are the foundation of authenticity, agility and change

In an early review of Holonomics, Fritjof Capra, author of The Hidden Connections, and coauthor of The Systems View of Life, said “The authors of this remarkable book have distilled the essence of the ideas and values taught at Schumacher College, a unique transformative learning centre based on systemic thinking and grounded in deep ecology, and they show how these teachings can be applied with many case studies of enlightened businesses. Holonomics is a powerful antidote to the fragmentation and materialistic orientation of today’s dominant culture.”

In this presentation we will introduce Holonomics and discuss some of the ways in which they have been introducing it to a number of the largest businesses and conglomerates in Brazil via our consultancy Holonomics Education. We will also introduce our Customer Experiences with Soul framework, and discuss the way in which it links with the Flourishing Business Canvas which they are now also introducing to businesses and organisations. 

To read the preface, introduction and first chapter of Holonomics please click on the See Inside link on this page: http://www.florisbooks.co.uk/book/Simon-Robinson/Holonomics/9781782500612

This is an introduction to the holonomic circle: A New Era of Design - Customer Experiences with Soul: http://betweencrowdsandempires.com/aneweraofdesign-customerexperienceswithsoul/

The agenda and F2F/virtual logistics for this meeting are posted to our LinkedIn forum here.  

Anyone who joins the LinkedIn forum is considered a member of this group and is welcome to join at the meeting.

• Part 1
• Antony Upward (SSBMG co-founder, Convener Flourishing Business Innovation Toolkit project)
• Doug Worts, Worldviews Consulting
• Simon Robinson (Co-author of Holonomics: Business Where People and Planet Matter, and co-founder of Holonomics Education)
• Part 2
• Simon Robinson (Co-author of Holonomics: Business Where People and Planet Matter, and co-founder of Holonomics Education)
• Antony Upward (SSBMG co-founder, Convener Flourishing Business Innovation Toolkit project)
• Ondine Hogeboom, Co-founder Lean4Flourishing
• Doug Worts, Worldviews Consulting