As many of you know, I have been writing about the social and unconscious dynamics behind the U.S. Presidential election of 2016.  This final post before the election is more of a meditation and prayer. Please read and forward to as many people that might benefit from reading it. Read my latest Huffington Post article. A Prayer for Tuesday And please remember to LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and DISCUSS with friends.  It is through  generous acts of sharing the ideas you value that

(This post was also published on The Huffington Post ) Introduction / Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four In Parts I through III, I summarized how our educational system was designed to advance less than a third of our population toward a bachelor’s degree and that the economic consequences for those without a bachelor’s degree were significant. Beginning in the 1970s, not only were the economic opportunities for less educated citizens more scarce, but the wages

(This post was also published on The Huffington Post ) Introduction / Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four From Part II: Prosperity was not disappearing from the American landscape, but simply shifting. In roughly the same 30-year period when growth in workers’ wages was slowing down to a crawl, individual wealth became so concentrated that the 400 richest billionaires in the United States had an accumulated wealth equal to half that of the U.S. population (150 mi

(This post was also published on The Huffington Post ) Introduction / Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four Somehow we have arrived at a moment in time when the entrance of a perceived tough and cunning figure with no need to talk in full sentences has become the advent of a savior, or at least a version of one from the bowels of World Wide Wrestling. What kind of savior is this? What collective pain can account for something so bizarre that if someone told me this

(This post was also published on The Huffington Post ) Introduction / Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four If a man going down into a river, swollen and swiftly flowing, is carried away by the current, how can he help others across? — Buddha Racism, nativism, xenophobia — and Donald Trump, oh my! Novelist Richard North Patterson summarizes the current situation we face: “T rump personifies a fear and hatred of ‘the other’ embodied by some of our history’s more fri

(This post was also published on The Huffington Post ) Introduction / Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four Mathematician and visionary Arthur M. Young introduced his book The Geometry of Meaning with the enigmatic words “All meaning is an angle.” Does meaning emerge from the tension of varying angles of perception? And if this is true, what angle of inquiry might be worthwhile to pursue? In this new series of posts (in four parts over the next 12 days), I explo

My new Huffington Post  piece explores the emerging field of integrative medicine.  I have been involved in the medical field as far back as 1972 when I did an internship at the Berkeley Free Clinic. It's where I first began to understand how optimal health is a joining together of the individual body-mind-spirit with the pro-social behaviors necessary for thriving in community. And care providers can play a critical role at the intersection of these two domains. There are n

Leading as Sacred Practice : A Retreat & Conference September 5-9, 2016 http://facilitation.kommunikationslotsen.de/training/leading-as-sacred-practice/ Please join me and my colleagues, David Sibbet, Gisela Wendling, and Holger Scholz for an extraordinary five days of learning, reflection, and collective discovery.  During our time together we will investigate how ritual, ceremony, and the natural world are central to remembering and recreating the sacred in contemporary ti

September 5-9, 2016 Registration and Brochure Please join me and my colleagues, David Sibbet, Gisela Wendling, and Holger Scholz for an extraordinary five days of learning, reflection, and collective discovery.  During our time together we will investigate how ritual, ceremony, and the natural world are central to remembering and recreating the sacred in contemporary times. Is the sacred purely a personal matter or a critical aspect of our group and collective evolution? Ha

The background to this new Huffington Post was a chance encounter between Carl Jung and the theologian and Chinese scholar, Richard Wilhelm.  Jung had been  struggling with early formulations of a collective unconscious when Wilhelm sent him the Taoist text, The Secret of the Golden Flower .  The manuscript helped crystallize Jung's thinking about both the collective unconscious and synchronicity.   The Taoist parable, in this post, captured for Jung the beauty and mysteriou

Dear Colleagues, I've gotten wonderful feedback on my latest Huffington post, Springtime for Authoritarians , and wanted to share it again for those who have not seen it. Also, I've been in contact with Jonathan Weiler, who is mentioned in the post, and he sent me a wonderful interview he did on CNN regarding the relevance of authoritarianism in understanding our current political climate. And please LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and DISCUSS with friends.  It is through  generous

In this new post, I write about a meeting with one of my first mentors, whose study of authoritarianism awakened my interest in the subtle interplay between personality and social system.  With a nod to Mel Brooks, a salute to Daniel Goleman, and a bow to Maya Angelou, I explore a new generation of thinking about the role authoritarianism plays in our current social and political climate. Read my latest Huffington Post article. And please LIKE, COMMENT, SHARE, and DISCUSS wi

What is the role of the sacred in your life?  Have the sacred dimensions become marginalized, dismissed, or ignored in the organizational world?  Is the sacred purely a personal matter relevant only to the individual or is it part of our group and collective evolution toward social cohesion and resilience? Please join me during the week of September 5th for an extraordinary five days of learning, reflection, and collective discovery.  The first days of the conference will be

For those interested in applying mindfulness and emotional intelligence to larger social forces, read my latest Huffington Post article. The political fanning of flames, the surging up of anger, and the demonization of the other are all signals, at the collective level, of something deeply unsettled. We have reason to be cautious and alert to the dangers ahead.  However, our inner attitude matters a great deal.  If we succumb to despair or simply meet anger with anger, we wi

Does spirit exist in all forms of life?  Is there a divine spark within us if we look closely enough? Some scholars speculate spiritual intelligence requires an intellectual capacity to contemplate the Cosmos.  So it is not surprising humans speculate that only other humans can have spiritual intelligence - especially given the reluctance of apes, whales, dogs, and cats to hold seminars on the subject. Last May, I had the great fortune of being welcomed into a community o

One of the core practices of collective wisdom is seeing whole systems . This requires us to step out of our particular bubble and ask essential questions, to diagnose critical relationships within a system, and to work in subtle realms, including what is not immediately apparent. Most significantly, seeing whole systems asks us to embrace both the light and shadow of human interactions, having faith that greater coherence and healthy functioning communities can be a result.

For the past weeks, I've been writing with a growing sense of urgency on the rising levels of fear and divisiveness evidenced in our political process here in the United States and around the world.  It occurred to me that I was witnessing a beauty pageant for demagogues.  What is a demagogue? This piece is a result of that reflection and concludes with the suggestion that we do not have to be passive participants.  The demagogue's cry for polarization must be our call to hon

My publisher, Berrett-Koehler, is featuring my book, Bringing Your Soul to Work , as a free e-book over the next 48 hours. They also offering 40% discount and free shipping on all their publications, including my other books, The Power of Collective Wisdom and The Stirring of Soul in the Workplace .  Great as gifts for friends. Get your free e-copy now.

Mixing in Leonard Cohen, Fortune Magazine, the Amida confession on Yom Kippur, Pope Francis, Volkswagen, and metaphors involving apples, I cooked up a hearty stew published on Huffington Post that I hope you will enjoy.

During the period I was writing the comparison between Donald Trump and Gorgeous George, I by chance was reading Bob Dylan's memoir and saw his story about meeting Gorgeous George... It struck me that George was a Trickster figure, evoking different responses depending on the context. For awhile now, I have been thinking about the nature of fate and destiny, particularly from the perspective of the mythologist Michael Meade. Now I saw an opportunity to put it together. The re