How Insight Benefits Business Development
This is the interview with Russell Bishop, one of the co-founders of the Insight Seminars. View it here or read the transcript below.
Back in the 1970’s when this personal growth and personal transformation movement was beginning, I was in the earliest of days actually, going back into 1960’s – one of the things I noticed was that most of the seminars at the time, were rather mental, shall we say, and sometimes even – a little rough on the participants. And I thought, there was a different way that was more gentle, more honouring of the person, with more capability and freedom for people to express who they really are.
And so, when I created Insight, the basic thought I had was how to become more of who you already are, or how to become more of who you truly are. Now, a lot of people would wonder, “Why would I need any seminar to be more of who I really am?” Well, many of us have learned lots of different behaviours over the years, different ways that are supposed to be socially acceptable about who is it ok to be, how is it ok to be, and underneath that I find there are a lot of people who are settling for life as opposed to creating the life they would truly prefer. So Insight was really about how would you create the life you would prefer as opposed to what you may have settled for. Today,
So, Insight was really about how you would create the life you would prefer as opposed to what you may have settled for. Today, there is even more pressure on people, there are more demands on our time – we are digitally distracted by all kinds of things, and there is an almost social ecstasy that you feel around the world when you listen to people talking correctly about the problems that we have as a planet – whether there’s global warming, ice shelves falling apart, sea levels rising, air being polluted, water being destroyed. There’s a lot of issues that we have as a planet, and then there is the question: who are the people, living that and creating that?
And so, I don’t know anybody who would prefer to live in a polluted planet. I don’t know anybody who would prefer to live in a polluted inner environment. And so, a lot of what Insight is about today is the same as it always was: becoming more of who you already are. In today’s world we do need to work and work perhaps even more than ever, and yet, do we have a job to support our life or is it our life that supports our job?
I think it’s more about how do you have a job that supports your life, and there’s a lot of research today that shows when an organization demonstrates caring for its people, and allows the people to care for the organization, that the organization blossoms and it does better on all kinds of socio-economic metrics, including standard things like internal rates of return, shareholders values, stock price – there’s a lot of measurable benefit when you look after your people. So, in the business consulting I’ve done over these many years, I was…, I guess it’s more I’ve discovered that business strategies don’t work – people work the strategies. Business processes don’t work – people work the processes. Now, you need a strategy and you need processes, but if you don’t have the right people, it falls apart. So, what does it mean to have the right people?
Well, you want people who work in your organisation to show up alert, focused, concerned and capable. And you don’t want them coming to work worrying about what went wrong at home. And you don’t want people going home at night, worrying about what went wrong at work. So, there’s a certain pathway there which is about helping people discover what matters most, and how to make choices that allow them to bring into being what matters most. So, I like to talk about making a difference that’s worth making. A lot of differences can be made in the world, not many of them are worth making. What about businesses – is the business making a contribution, worth making? Are we doing something that matters?
