Business is nothing else than relationships coming together to create tangible values, monetised in sign of recognition.
If you could agree to look at it from this perspective, you may also agree that the space between us – colleagues, partners, suppliers, customers, competitors… where the relationship happens is of great importance and possibly the key to…. miracles.
We are literally standing on the shores of a new possible paradigm in our approach to these relationships. Hundreds of new ventures, led by the energy of millennials are already embracing it and time is ripe for classical businesses to also take steps towards it.
This new paradigm is about shifting from the old viewpoint that vulnerability is weakness, danger and risk towards the realisation that miracles only happen through vulnerability. When we shake hands in business, we open the field of trust but if we are busy with our other hand drafting highly refined contractual risk mitigation agreements to protect ourselves against all sorts of possible prejudice, we are literally spending half (if not more) of our energy and ressources to hold ourselves back from the flow of life.
The Universe is truly benevolent. I have doubted that for a long time until I have come to this conclusion that millennia of ancient wisdom throughout the planet have been expressing in different ways. What is not benevolent is our human attitude and this is what we really need to change (I wish, pretty much ASAP).
So what makes a relationship miraculous? If you are logging into a few or more of the following ingredients, you can develop the trust that you are indeed getting close to the wavelength of miracles. And by the way, a miracle is not something external that falls on your head by accident, it is the produce of your own calibration to flow.
1) Forgiveness.
As the word entails, forgiveness is our ability to give forefront – without any guarantee that we are going to receive back and without counting on it. When we give freely in this way, we receive back in the same quality and often in ways we don’t foresee.
Forgiving is letting go of the attachment to the story of hurt and the strategies of revenge that we produce when we keep our focus on that hurt. If a business partner has not delivered, if a competitor has taken a harming move or if your colleague has let you down, forgiveness moves away our focus from hurt towards a new possibility of a better action.
It is through the practice of forgiveness that we ask that miraculous question: “what could I see in this situation that I don’t already know?” This question has opened so many new doors for me. It is the practice of walking into the unknown with no assumption from the past.
2) Action and not Reaction.
When we make our decisions based on what competitors did, what our boss expects or even what customers claim (yes even that), we are in reaction. Miraculous relationships are not the produce of reaction. They are instead leaning on what emerges from the unknown, inside out. Miraculous relationships are the encounter of wonder and excitement to be in service. Service is this humbling energy that protects us from the mind’s propensity for glory, victory, fame and all kinds of other addictive storylines.
3) Playfullness
It is a real tragedy for our humanity when we don’t let the children play freely. They have to move from one schedule to the next, learn unquestioned rules and improve, perform, succeed… Learning playfulness as adults when our childhood was not immersed in it is tough. A tournament is not play when there is ranking, points and competition.
Playfulness is the attribute of free and innocent play driven by curiosity and wonder, enthusiasm and excitement to explore. For the sake of it. We play to fulfil this inner yearning to play. Not to achieve anything. There is such simplicity and diversity in every individual’s approach to play and that’s what makes relationships very rich. In this richness with no other purpose than expressing our playfulness, miracles happen. Creative sparks turn into flowing ideas and out of nothing a new possibility emerges that opens the door to a whole new world. That’s a miracle.
4) Kindness
Miraculous relationships are very protective of the space between us and fill it with kindness. Kindness is the soil in which miracles grow and when we respect the space between us, anyone of us, with deep kindness, we allow the best in each of us to flourish.
Kindness (back to the point on vulnerability) is not a word we use much; particularly in business, many would turn their back on it. We are not accustomed to being kind with ourselves nor others. We associate kindness with weakness because many of us are still relating primarily to a patriarchal leadership style which is driven by domination, protection, aggression… Kindness is a feminine attribute; it belongs to the heart and not the mind. And really, miraculous relationships stem from the heart. The kind heart. Kindness is what will shape business to move away from competitive war-zones to miracle makers.
There are many more ingredients to miraculous relationships and every one adds up to the quality of the encounter. These are the four, in my experience which unleash the creativity, enthusiasm, innocence, benevolence and desire to explore together out of sheer curiosity into the unknown and for the awe of participating in miracles that emerge between us. Imagine what the world could become if our business relationships were more miraculous!
