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THE LEGEND OF THE PHOENIX IS a tale about a mythical, sacred firebird that is said to have a 500- to 1000-year life cycle. According to legend, at the end of its life the phoenix builds a funeral pyre, which it then ignites. Both pyre and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes – from which a young phoenix emerges, reborn anew to live again. The phoenix is destined to live as long as its old self and its ability to be reborn from its own ashes implies that it is immortal.

Our modern, technological world is in a constant state of change, reinvention and transformation. People, organisations and brands are continually challenged to adjust, modify and reinvent in order to remain relevant in the face of unceasing innovation that affects us personally and professionally on a daily basis. And this transformation can be derived from either thoughtful and meaningful consideration, or kneejerk reaction.

We all want to be reborn from our ashes and live a purposeful, engaged life, but how are we to transform and sustain conscious innovation and emergence? Out of the shadows a new story of abundance and nurture is rising – a catalyst for lovingly serving and shaping conscious action and innovation for the sake of all mankind. It is ancient in origin, sacred and powerful. Like the rebirth and transformation of the phoenix, it is a fire that cannot be quenched.

We all want to be reborn from our ashes and live a purposeful, engaged life, but how are we to transform and sustain conscious innovation and emergence?

Deep, resonant, this new story ignites the spirit, purifying and burning away everything that isn’t truth, seeking kindred connection in an intuitive awakening and rediscovery of self.

This is the path of the Emergent.

Emergent people and organisations are those that enhance corporate performance while simultaneously improving the lives of millions of people around the world. They are conscious leaders, artisans, and innovators, galvanised by a higher purpose that acts as a compass for transformation and growth.

Companies seeking new competitive advantages are recognising the Emergent path as an effective strategy in the quest to forge long-term sustainability, and yet they are rarely equipped with – or even fully aware of how to develop – the necessary skills and acumen to transform intent into action.

My invitation to all organisations is to become Emergent, through conscious innovation and by identifying ways to authentically shift the focus of business culture from the traditional command-and-control, independent metaphor (that which gains power at the expense of community), to an interdependent model that is based in collective benefit and co-ownership.

If you’re just getting started on the journey and exploring ways to create stronger and more authentic alignment with your people – employees, customers, stakeholders – an excellent place to start is with the tenets of conscious capitalism.

The tenets include higher purpose, stakeholder orientation, conscious leadership and conscious culture. These form the foundation of Emergent enterprises such as Small Giants, Kinfolk and ecostore, which all possess a holistic worldview and generate every form of value that matters – emotional, social and financial.

If you’re further along the journey and actively engaged in purpose-led business, your challenge is likely one of a more practical nature that requires an essential toolset and techniques to catalyse the growth and impact that are already happening in your business. This book provides just such a toolset and the techniques to help you co-create a movement and sustain a culture of innovation.

How do you start on this path? The following points provide a ‘lifeline’ for any business leader seeking to co-create innovation and take conscious responsibility for their brand and business actions:

1. Map your universe: Who are the key stakeholders and influencers in your organisation? Analyse environmental factors to quantify the value and impact from an external engagement perspective.

2. Define your contribution: Create clarity of your enduring value, proposition and societal contribution. Are these at the nucleus of your organisation’s purpose?

3. Become an artisan of connection: Persuasive tactics are no longer enough to sustain your reputation and engagement with stakeholders. Survival and growth demands new skills, experience and tools. Identify ways to address incongruence of purpose and forge authentic connections with people. Without this essential leadership imperative it is impossible to establish and sustain community. Can you identify a known social problem that intersects with your business? How can you collaborate with people inside and outside of your organisation to address this problem?

4. Radical transparency and accountability: Protectionist behaviour will not save you. Organisations that co-create value with stakeholders and ‘think and act’ transparently in a collective sense do better in the long run.

I explore these ideas throughout this book, providing models and frameworks for you to adopt and culminating in the CATALYST Engagement System, an easy-to-implement ripple methodology for sustained growth and impact that I outline in chapter 9.

Moving from ‘seek and destroy’ to co-creation

For the past 20 years I’ve been engaged in a professional and pro bono capacity as a movement architect and strategist on large-scale social change agendas, including Live Earth, the United Nations’ Malaria Envoy, California Public Utilities Commission Engage 360, and the World Wildlife Fund Fight For the Reef. These organisations sought to create a movement when significant investment into traditional campaign mechanisms failed to achieve desired behaviour change goals or sustain engagement.

Interestingly, while these initiatives varied in quest and scope, their remit was always the same – mobilise a critical mass of awareness, engagement and advocacy to catalyse donor support.

Sustaining involvement in any change agenda is no mean feat and requires more than a lacklustre campaign devoid of vitality, force and conviction. Having spent more than a decade in the global advertising industry, I have witnessed the launch of hundreds of these campaigns. It was in this context that I began to realise something was inherently wrong with mainstream brand marketing, and that, by extension, institutional philanthropy and corporate social responsibility were also in trouble. The seek-and-destroy approach of targeting consumers statistically and without context, is like launching a rocket with a faulty guidance system.

Ubiquitous social media and social networking have certainly made it easier for marketers to adopt a more human approach; however, the reality is campaigns are media-driven, costly to maintain, and not proven to drive loyalty.

The seek-and-destroy approach of targeting consumers statistically and without context, is like launching a rocket with a faulty guidance system.

Statistical analysis, demographic research, creative design, channel planning and media buy are all attempts to pre-determine outcomes. At campaign ‘go-live’, the control tower observes the rocket launch into the stratosphere, hoping like crazy that it will fly true and without incident to reach its intended target. Does this behaviour seem somewhat insane to you?

Regardless of whether your organisation is a non-profit, corporate institution or grassroots community, the point I’m making is that marketers don’t have a crystal ball to see into the future and they have no control over the trajectory of a campaign once it has launched.

A lot can cause that rocket to falter, including economic instability, simultaneous competitor campaigns, industry aggressors and negative peer-to-peer reviews. No amount of deal persuasion or content optimisation is going to defy campaign gravity once your rocket has launched, not to mention the vast amounts of energy and resources that are required to keep your campaign rocket in the sky.

When the fuel (that is, the media budget and resources) is depleted, the rocket comes down and said brand or cause has zero visibility.

I expand on this in chapter 9, but basically the solution isn’t a shinier, more technologically advanced rocket. A self-sustaining system for innovation and an essential set of tools to transform engagement, growth and impact is what is really needed. That’s why co-creation is the answer.

Co-creation is imperative to your organisation for the following reasons. It:

• fuels fresh thinking and helps to inform and extend core expertise from an external perspective (outside-in innovation).

• ignites purpose and possibility, and levels of community intelligence, participation and contribution that would otherwise not be possible in conventional change and innovation methodologies.

• mitigates the risk of falling into the ‘innovation focus group’ rut and other old-school customer research models.

• empowers continuous learning while accomplishing aspirations and goals – and being fun!

Today, the success of a campaign is less about timing and more about curating context by establishing a system that resembles a ripple in nature – a ripple that permeates its environment and empowers people to participate as individuals, while showing the collective impact of their involvement. This is where campaign-driven advertising falls short. With this in mind, learning how to co-create a movement becomes a viable model for transforming the culture, growth and impact of organisations.

The success of your campaign is less about timing and more about curating context by establishing a system that resembles a ripple in nature – a ripple that permeates its environment and empowers people to participate as individuals, while showing the collective impact of their involvement.

The difference between a campaign and a movement is that people are emotionally invested in a movement, and are giving it life and meaning by contributing to its story and design. Co-creation is the essence of a movement – empowering autonomous, yet highly connected and interdependent action that is governed by a higher-order purpose.

In essence, a movement is an infinite cycle of connection, initiation and transference that causes one ripple after another. This perpetual cycle resembles the numerical pattern of growth described in Fibonacci’s spiral sequence (which originated in Italy in 1202). This sequence can be used to describe an amazing variety of patterns in maths and science, art and nature, and has been used in the development of ideas such as the golden ratio and self-similar curves. The Fibonacci sequence can also be seen in sacred geometry which, according to Australian author and lecturer Dr Stephen Skinner, also has its roots in the study of nature and the mathematical principles therein.

When considering natural growth patterns, we begin to understand the presence of spirals, and the connection between spirals and the Fibonacci sequence – and the higher-order purpose and perpetual growth that governs movements. I explore this context in chapter 9 as a premise for sustaining innovation and transforming the culture, growth and impact of organisations.

Whatever your cause or business, learning how to co-create effectively is a more considered, cost-effective, measurable, and sustainable model for innovation and growth, and a smarter, more agile system and strategy for engagement. Organisations that authentically seek to understand and imbue co-creation as a primary discipline will write the future and become the true heroes of industry.

Will yours be one of them?

A movement is an infinite cycle of connection, initiation and transference that causes one ripple after another.