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The Business
Acceleration Workshop
We developed
the workshop with Breakthrough Learning, an associate company
of Lifespring, Inc. that specializes in on-site company trainings.
The Workshop was designed primarily for Lifespring graduates,
though we are offering it to non-graduates as well, and is
more advanced than those trainings Breakthrough Learning presents
to its business clients.
How is the Business
Acceleration Workshop relevant to American business culture?
The charter of any business is to produce a profit. Within
that framework, people are often treated as tools, like money,
machines, and land. People have settled for this in past decades,
justifying the eight hours spent at work each day as the price
paid for the rewards of the remaining sixteen hours. In recent
years, we have abandoned this characterization of our work
life and have begun to seek personal fulfillment in our work.
The Business Acceleration Workshop is about supporting the
people within organizations to be in mutually fulfilling partnerships,
aligned with a purpose as noble as profit. One result is furthering
profit. Another is the humanization of the workplace.
The genesis
of the shift in our relationship with work is due, in large
part, to the unfolding of the information age. The widespread
use of the computer, internet, and other technologies has
integrated previously disparate functions, thereby rendering
us interdependent members of a unified whole. The prevalent
demand on today's professionals is to develop "people
skills," "communication skills," "negotiation
skills," and "management skills." Increasingly,
our role as social beings is being emphasized and we are called
upon to be effective with each other, to accomplish projects
together. Mastering interaction with the people in your network
of support is pivotal in your effectiveness and is a key feature
of the Business Acceleration Workshop.
The business
world recognizes and rewards individuals who think in action.
The concept of thinking in action relates to many of the central
tenets of the Basic Training: willingness to risk and to act
outside your 'comfort zone'; willingness to give up being
right; the power of teamwork; the fact that awareness is worth
nothing unless it causes committed action.
Thinking in
action or being in action is "showing up" consistent
with the project at hand. This is not talking, planning, assessing,
wanting or hoping, but dealing with what is actually in front
of you and becoming what is required to accomplish your project
effectively. You are a clearing in which any appropriate way
of being can be brought forth. The workshop speaks to that
ability.
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