Session 3b Opening Keynote: Organizational Cultural Approaches to Oneness and Flourishing at the International Conference on Consciousness-Based Leadership and Management, May 21-23, 2021 Hosted by Maharishi International University - College of Business Administration and Cosponsored by the Academy of Management (AOM) / Management, Spirituality & Religion (MSR)
miu.edu/cba/consciousness-conference

Panelists:
Dr. Robert E. Quinn, Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan – Keynote speaker. In Pursuit of Flourishing: Helping People Learn From Social Excellence.
Dr. Edard Sarath, Professor of Music, University of Michigan. Black Music Matters: Improvisation, Consciousness and the Future
Dr. Judi Neal, CEO, Edgewalkers International
Moderator:
Dr. Dennis Heaton, Professor of Management, Maharishi International University, USA.

This keynote session focuses on flourishing. In the first fifteen minutes,
Robert E. Quinn will make a presentation on helping people learn from social excellence. Drawing on the last twenty years of research in positive organizational scholarship, he will offer a framework of high performance. Drawing from his recent book with Anjan Thakor, The Ecomomics of Higher Purpose, he will discuss why CEOs and other leaders are limited in their ability to recognize, learn from, or co-create social excellence. He will discuss the evolution in consciousness necessary to bring about the emergence of flourishing social systems.

Edward Sarath’s presentation takes Black Lives Matter into the realm of the creative arts, with the rich legacy of Black American Music (BAM) as a primary vehicle. A consciousness-based view of BAM illuminates underlying principles that open up powerful connections to an array of contemporary issues, including social justice, ecological justice, educational reform, transcendence of political and ideological divides, arts-based spirituality and peace. Improvisation, at the heart of a BAM aesthetics and increasingly recognized for its application across fields as seemingly disparate as business, engineering, medicine, social activism and sports, exemplifies the creativity principle that will be central to how humanity navigates the complexities and turbulence of the present moment. Meditation and corresponding understanding of human consciousness as intersubjective and transcendent of (even if linked with) the physical is a further principle that underlies the improvisatory creativity realm. Inspired by a long legacy of jazz innovators, such as John Colrane, Alice Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and John McLaughlin, who harnessed the improvisation-meditation relationship in their lives and work, the presentation will describe how the Black Music Matters project seeks to operationalize this principle through performances, workshops, educational reform initiatives and community engagement projects that bring attention to BAM as a rich transformative treasure that has long been in our midst but eluded recognition.

Dr. Judi Neal: From Workplace Spirituality to Global Consciousness
The workplace spirituality movement began in the early 1990s, primarily in the corporate sector, although there were beginnings of interest in academia by the mid to late nineties. This talk traces the evolution of the field from a focus on private personal practices to more systemic approaches within organizations to a growing interest in consciousness-based leadership at three different levels. Each of these levels has implications for education, coaching, and a collective shift in humanity to an awareness of our Oneness.

Dr. Dennis Heaton is Dean of the College of Business and Professor of Management at Maharishi International University, Fairfield, Iowa. He earned an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership from Boston University. He has published extensive research on consciousness-based education and the unified theory of leadership.