Download audio interview (45 min)

We have been busy working away at the next steps of our organizational restructuring, discovering more about how quickly an organization can evolve when the people involved work together and come together beyond ego, where the creative energy of the Authentic Self is released, and dynamic sparks start to fly in the midst of very practical and mundane tasks...

We've also been learning a lot about Risk Management . . .and entering the next 12 month phase of global communication and integration. Interestingly enough, we were advised as part of this next phase to begin to articulate our history, how we got to where we are.

One unusual step we took was to bring 21 students of Evolutionary Enlightenment, who met Andrew Cohen and became his students in 1986, together for a weekend retreat in the Dead Sea, to start documenting and telling our story. The enlightenment context that was alive in those early days was equally present now, demonstrating the power of the Mystery that ever lies beyond time and mind.

So, this entry is not much about Organizational Development in one sense, but I thought you might be interested to tune into an audio of an interview with me that Jeff Carreira did on his weekly program. It gives you a glimpse of the heart and origin of what has become a full fledged organization and a budding cultural movement...

Enjoy!

An Interview with Amy Edelstein
Download this episode (45 min)

In this episode Jeff Carreira interviews EnlightenNext Director of Communications Amy Edelstein about her meeting Andrew Cohen over 20 years ago only a few months after Cohen’s spiritual awakening and the birth of the teaching that he would later call Evolutionary Enlightenment.

To those folks who have just found this blog, I suggest starting a couple entries down and reading up so you get the background for this entry on how to take a spiritual organization in need of some real management and financial structure and create an organization that is operating along sound business principles with radically unleashed creative expression.

This entry is the last of a specific 4-part series....

ITAP – Interim Turn Around Plan: 6 Months to Organizational Health

 Charlie assured us we’d done excellent work. And he’s no softy. Neither is our Australian colleague who is vetting the process with Charlie. They were both pleased. And impressed. Sincerely. The quality of focus and the level of progress, from the kind of intelligence, focus, teamwork, and independent responsibility we were all carrying is moving this process forward in ways that are surprising people in the industry.

 But we weren’t there yet.

 So . . . the Senior Management Team went back in again.

 Two more days locked in the Conference Room grokking priorities, cutting budgets. And oops, finding 2 large ticket items that hadn’t even appeared on our budget but were already a critical part of our next 6 month plan.

 Shameless growth . . . irrepressible creativity. . . And the image of our tight-lipped Texan to keep us on track. ;-)

 We jigged aspects of our org chart in place that we hadn’t realized were skew, questioned “essential” projects again. And again. Critical staff? Up for review and/or reallocation for the short term.

 From 22 project area charts, each with their own line item needs, we whittled it down to 12 with clear priorities. We cut. And added. Everything had clear income sources. (Yes, some very smart work by our team and CFO).

 All the while we uncovered layers of bureaucratic egalitarianistic complexity that are clogging the arteries of our systems. Oh the great collective counter-culture, anti-hierarchy, “we’re all kittens in a basket together” legacy of the utopian sixties. W e set some emergency splints in to keep everything flowing, and created a list of “stuff to sort” out . . . next.

 We had a draft plan. But we needed the vision and context setting of our Chair. Part of the turning point and the thrill, we are finding ourselves at, is truly wanting to bring enlightened consciousness to bear on the steps our organization is taking. To create one integral, in the best sense of the word, organization that is guided by the best enlightened vision at the outset, not just as course correction. How much more progress could we make then?

 And frankly, how else really could we actually realize our goals? They’re big ones. But this whole process, we are realizing, is redefining our understanding of being “mission-centric”; of the spiritual life; of the marriage—no the utter non-difference in an evolutionary enlightenment context—between soul development, consciousness, the ground of being, and the world.

 So we had preliminary ITAP reviews with Andrew. There were specific course corrections. And something started cooking. Some sense of the whole and some sense of priorities not yet fully responded to.

 We went into a 3 hour Board Meeting by phone. Item by item. We hashed out the philosophy of the organization, some tough questions on staff; were given the assignments of new budget scenarios to formulate to compare possible cases.

 Our Texan—still rock-solid facilitator now to Board Member—cracked the whip and an occasional smile.

 10 days later the Board met again to vote on and institute and organizational 6-month turn-around plan. This happened to follow a monumental weekend retreat that Andrew held with 50 hand-selected students from his international core student body (see Andrew Cohen’s blog about a post 51% world). During this retreat, Andrew articulated more about that vision in the board meeting. About what he’s intuiting about the evolution of consciousness needing to be expressed in all quadrants. He mapped out ways he wants to work with students as partners to create this, and to create objective, measurable criteria  (that isn’t reductionistic or material) to mark the development. 

 More soon on that new ground….

 For now, suffice it to say that ITAP was approved, and we’re moving . . .

The next phase, start below 2 entries if you're new for a little background and context....

PART II: Making It Real: Strategic Planning, Change Management, Evolution of Consciousness (oh, and Culture)

We thought we dun good.

 

• First articulated strategic plan
• Simple actions
• New phase in a 20 year teaching.

 Not bad.

 Our quiet facilitator from Texas, Bob Voss (our CEO), and I all had a couple agitated sleepless nights. Bob called Charlie, bewildered and somewhat apologetic. What was wrong?

 Ahh, Long Term Organizational Strategic Direction is one thing.

 Stop the Bleeding for an organization in desperate need of financial turn-around is quite another.

 (If I were really good, I’d embed a little audio trumpet and drum roll here, but being a cusp-boomer, let’s just imagine I did the multi-media and carry on with the story in the next post…)

I thought you'd enjoy reading these working versions of the EnlightenNext Vision and Mission statements. We have already begun to use these to clarify programs, guide creative meetings, and prioritize....

Our Vision is for the authentic self, the creative impulse behind the evolving universe, to become the conscious driving force that enlightens the leading edge of consciousness and culture.

Our Mission is to liberate and harness the creativity and unparalleled positivity that is released when human beings come together beyond ego. Our purpose is to create an enlightened culture, recognizing that it is up to each one of us to create that future in every moment

Our Goals are:

• To inspire and participate in the creation of a new moral, ethical, philosophical and spiritual culture for the twenty-first century.

• To cultivate and grow an informal and formal movement of students, members, supporters and donors inspired by and committed to the vision of EnlightenNext.

• To create a dynamic, perpetually developing core group of awakened individuals, united in integrity, enlightened consciousness and evolutionary idealism who are responsible for moving the leading edge of consciousness forward.

• To create and present objective evidence that demonstrates what is possible at the leading edge of consciousness and culture.

BTW, I am writing while in the midst of Andrew Cohen's winter retreat in Lenox, MA. Some extraordinary work is being done, experimenting with conscious evolution. Sign up here for podcasts from the retreat, or download MP3s from Andrew's talks.

More soon...

Strategic Planning in an Evolutionary Enlightenment Context

OK, how do you go from spluttering organizational dysfunction to super-octane (hybrid of course) fueled machine? I’ll outline the actual steps we took. The formula may not be so unique, but the context, intention, spirit, and results have been so far, and the reasons why will be the subject of much thought over the months to come.

But, as promised, here’s the trail, and the mile markers:

1. An end of year EnlightenNext Board Meeting with the commitment to creating an organization-wide Strategic Plan for 2007.

2. Realization that two high level business strategists, with mergers and acquisitions experience, billion dollar budget managing experience, and a dedicated passion to the mission of EnlightenNext, were not only willing to help, they were ready—right away—to train us on how to develop a Strategic Plan (that works) and come facilitate the process on site. One being from Texas, and the other conferencing in from Australia, we considered ourselves pretty darn lucky.

3. Intensive budgeting by the CFO and COO with all Middle Managers, the kind that makes deep dental work seem almost like a vacation. 

4. A 2 day Intensive Strategic Planning Session with the entire Board (flown in 3 states and 2 continents) facilitated by our fearless and tight-lipped facilitator from Texas. Don’t worry, he’s from the bluer side of that red state.

We did some outrageous creative work, submerged deep in the think tank of what we call The Red Room. Our over-sized living-cum-conference room, so named because of the unmistakable claret carpet.

What took place was a flow of collective engagement, and unbroken rarified creative friction, where all the principles of autonomy and hierarchy, goal-seeking intention, and profound communion, oneness, freedom produced results beyond what we ever could have imagined.

What did we accomplish? The first session, in the space of an extended hour, Andrew, with the collaboration of two students, articulated Vision and Mission statements for EnlightenNext and set the foundation stone that was going to guide the process. This was a feat many internally were bowled over by. The speed and the precision. As we’d spent literally years, individually, in committee, in endless rewrites and failed attempts to distill our vast utopian ideal and revolutionary spirit into a publishable statement.

Somehow, Andrew, and the creative field created, and the way we worked together, did what the Chair and Founder of the organizational only could do. Capturing the essence of our ideals, that fire that burns at the core of each one of us. And that we each, very individually, all want to blaze out of control, spread far beyond the telltale spark, creating a real, non-local movement, and spawn a leap in culture and in consciousness.

With that cornerstone in place, we created a plan. Spidering, to distill Four Strategic Goals. Then we got down to brass tacks of the key actions we’ll implement to work towards the goals. Simple map. Simple methodology. But . . . when you mean business, and your sights are set high getting concrete simplicity out of complexity and lofty vision is hard won. But we did. Sometimes slogging away, sometimes racing ahead of ourselves. The spirit always high, and the camaraderie and professionalism unprecedented.

The final session, in our last review, something erupted that marks a watershed in Andrew’s understanding and teaching of Enlightenment, and specifically frames the next phase of our work as an organization and a spiritual fellowship together.

We had gone in for a last review, reading through where we’d come. Filling in Andrew on some of the practical steps we’d hashed out while he had been hard at work editing sections for his forthcoming book on evolutionary enlightenment.

Out of the blue, in the midst of a seemingly sleepy moment--as sometimes happens after two jam packed days and too much coffee--at that razor’s edge between the outer reaches of consciousness and the vast expanse of spiritual freedom and a real time, in-the-world organization, with individuals who are increasingly hell-bent on really creating a revolution of consciousness and culture in this world, in this life time … something clicked and all of the sudden Andrew erupted with a vision of the next (third major) phase of his teaching. Evolutionary Enlightenment Integral. (Read his blog entry for more.)

I will leave this post here for now, and get into the next phase anon . . .

First of all, thank you all who emailed after reading the first installment, it’s great to hear from everyone. There’s much to update so I’m going to dive straight in.

This past Friday, the 8 member EnlightenNext Board met by conference call for 3 hours to approve an Interim Turn Around Plan (ITAP, for those of you who like acronyms) that covers the upcoming 6 months. The beginning of this week we rolled it out to the organization – with some tough choices, project priorities, budgets, reallocation of staff—and the first Board Approved strategy for core staff development.

There are several interesting nuances of this which I will unpack below. For most of you business managers, setting a clear Strategic Plan may not sound like such a big deal, but for many (if not most) non-profits, clear budgets, measurables, and a project prioritization that adheres to agreed on Vision, Mission, Strategic Goals, and Primary Strategies is all too uncommon. And for our organization, a plan developed with this degree of metrics and collective buy-in is a first. It’s a milestone, and I have to say, one that for those of us who worked hard on it for the past 6 weeks are pretty proud of.

How did we get here?

Follow the breadcrumb trail in the next installment . . .

Most people who are actively identified with the spiritual path don't think much of governance. By that, I mean literally don't think much about it and/or don't put too much stock on the systems and pathways that we create for social cohesion by putting governing bodies in place.

I haven't been any different in practice, but in theory I've been fascinated by the systems of order, law, society, culture, justice. I’ve thought a lot about the vision of our founding fathers, the level of consciousness they rose to to create the Declaration of Independence and a framework for a free culture that works to uplift individuals at various levels, and that has, miraculously, stood the test of time.

Recently, I've had the opportunity to roll up my sleeves, dust off my thinking cap, and lean into creating an enlightened organizational structure, one that is truly integrated, AQAL (all quadrant-all level) – in Wilberian terms, at EnlightenNext. I serve in several key roles*, which affords me a unique vantage point—at times contradictory, and in that illuminating some of the very important nuances we are working with as we take a somewhat dysfunctional non-profit and metamorphasize it into something truly extraordinary.

The organization I work for is a unique one – at once a spiritual community, a publishing business, a global network of centers, and a residential retreat center. Our Chair and President, Andrew Cohen, is also the spiritual leader of almost all the staff.

The uniqueness of EnlightenNext is not simply due to its nature as an organization headed by a spiritual teacher and founded on spiritual principles. That's not all that uncommon. It has to do with the heart and soul of its mission: which is to liberate and harness the creativity that is released when people come together beyond ego, and with that, continually create a new and ever evolving future. At the heart of that mission is the passion and dedication of its founder, and his work to create a body of students who are true partners in this work.

Given all that, how and why did we discover our “dysfunction” and begin to push into some new frontiers where higher consciousness is the catalyst and fuel for getting our proverbial act togeher? The simple version is this:

As is not uncommon for 20 year old not-for-profit organizations, this past summer we found ourselves in an unsustainable situation as a business, organization, movement, and evolutionary structure. We had hired too many people (upwards of 40) without creating robust income streams to support them. We thrived on new programming and a standard of excellence without mapping out timelines, resources, and followup. We operated more on the “if you build it they will come” principle, than a service oriented approach that works with – and in response to -- our broader member base. The passion, inspiration, emphasis on consciousness (and we have truly explored and excelled in pushing some very unusual forms of collective consciousness, read here for more) and creativity, without the corresponding emphasis on business metrics, ROI, and clear hierarchical org chart) meant that we developed in certain areas, and in others we most certainly did not.

An unsustainable financial deficit made us wake up and smell the proverbial coffee. And let’s just say it was a pretty powerful Italian roast. As awful as the situation we found ourselves in was—the kind of effort and commitment that is being galvanized to uproot the causes and build solid foundations based on higher goals of evolution, is proving to be one of the most important things our organization could do right now, and is evolving our very understanding of what enlightenment is in the 21st century, and what it means to live and be guided by evolutionary developmental principles.

What I want to share and explore in this blog is our current work not just turning around our organization, but working in a most unusual way, in partnership with the liberated view of Andrew Cohen, to build what can measurably be seen to be a genuine third tier organization, one that is born from liberated creative energy, and one that releases, cultivates, and guides the expression of that creative impulse in each individual and every function of the organization—through enlightened structure.

What I look forward to writing about is our current and ongoing process to create this organization. I’ll backtrack some and also keep you posted on significant steps as we move forward but we do have success, in brief:

In the 5 months, since August 2006, we have:

1) Turned around a 7 figure deficit by 60%. And laid a budget and programming in place to reduce the deficit 100% by the end of another 6 months.

2) Created a strong Board of Directors, who are involved in and are guiding the strategic planning and budgeting of the organization.

3) Created and are training a Senior Management Team, along with Middle Managers, and clear staff lines.

So, more soon, and please feel free to email me with questions, suggestions, comments, case studies, books to read, blogs to subscribe to and let’s create a very dynamic online engagement with organizational development from a third tier-higher order of consciousness view.

More soon! Look forward to hearing from you,
Amy

PS - Read this new post "Making Enlightenment Meaningful" on Andrew Cohen's blog, it gives context for the kind of development I'm speaking about here.

**I currently serve as the Executive Assistant to the Chair and President of EnlightenNext, spiritual teacher Andrew Cohen, the Secretary of the Board, and Communications Director, a member of the Senior Management Team. Three very different spheres in the governing body, which at times conflict, and in that very conflict afford the opportunity to really consider hierarchy of view, and very different concerns and lenses of the multiple stakeholders in the organization.