Ken Wilber on Levels of Consciousness, Integral Theory, and Their Effect on Business – (part 2) Episode #70

As a business professional are you aware of the various levels of consciousness?

It sounds like a strange question when you remember that this is a sales blog. But it’s important from a very fundamental level. The level of consciousness your prospects and clients are at, at any given time, is going to impact the way you interact with them and the way they understand and receive the things you have to say – including your sales presentation and responses to their objections. Today’s episode is a conversation with Ken Wilber, a leading philosopher who has done a lot of research about these levels of consciousness and what he has come to call “Integral Theory.” If you take the time to work through this conversation you’re going to benefit a good deal.

As a business professional are you aware of the various levels of consciousness?Click To Tweet

Business people tend to be strong in certain levels of consciousness.

When it comes to being a superstar in business or sales there are characteristics that lend themselves to greater success. Performance. Accomplishment. Competitiveness. When a person reaches the higher stages of consciousness in terms of intellect and reasoning, he or she can be very good at sales or business leadership. But if that person has not grown equally in other areas that have to do with their moral center as an individual, extortion, insider trading, and much more is the result. Ken Wilber explains these issues on this episode, so be sure you listen.

You need to understand where your company culture is in these stages of consciousness.

It’s obvious that companies have cultures. What we see is that the culture is often made up of people at varying levels of development within the company. Those differences in development often determine the roles the individuals play within the company. And when those differing levels of consciousness come into conflict with each other, personality and interpersonal problems begin to occur. Often the problems are never addressed because the root of the conflicts is not understood adequately.

You need to understand where your company culture is in these stages of consciousnessClick To Tweet

Why you can’t say that all hierarchies are bad.

One of the trends we see in the world and in business today are trends that are moving away from the idea of hierarchical business structures and organization. But the root belief of the movement is that hierarchy and ranking are inherently bad. But the reality is that there are different types of hierarchy and throwing all of them out causes a narcissistic dominance that nobody benefits from or wants. On this episode Ken Wilber explains why growth hierarchies are actually a good thing and how they function in any organization or business to bring about advancement and growth

How mindfulness can profoundly affect health and longevity.

Mindfulness is a practice of dropping beliefs and judgments and becoming aware of the moment. Meditation is one of the practices that enables people to become more mindful and the regular practice of it will help people move from one level of consciousness to another, effectively growing the person in a “waking up” sort of way. Ken Wilber chats with Anthony about the issue of mindfulness and its helpfulness to business and business practices, on this episode.

How mindfulness can profoundly affect health and longevity and success, on this episodeClick To Tweet

Outline of this great episode

Anthony’s introduction to Ken Wilber and why he’s on this episode.
The 8 stages of personal growth in humans.
Why 50% of world population are in the rational/achievement stage of development.
How business people tend to be those strong in certain areas of development.
Why the stages cannot be skipped and the impact it has on countries and cultures (even in business).
The concept of “whole-archy” (Zappos) and healthy hierarchies in companies.
The experiment where Ken reduced his brain wave activity through meditation.
The idea of mindfulness and the practical values of meditation as Ken sees it.