I was invited to the Conference on Conscious Capitalism (link of the book )  in Oct 2013 I think it was. And there I met Richard Barrett. I was very moved by his presence and being. And struck a good rapport with him.

At lunch the next day he asked me, what has been most meaningful in this trip/ conference. And without blinking my eye, I said, it was meeting him. Whats interesting is that as the conversation meandered through many lanes, after 15 min I asked him what had been the most meaningful point for him and he laughed and said, ‘Meeting you’ – whether it was a joke or real, I felt it was synchronous. A wink from the universe. I told him I would like to be a trainer in the Barrett system since a very core aspect of my life work has been developing trainers. And I was scheduled to go to Australia for that but somehow the mind came in and postponed it so that I could do something which I was emotional about.

I later met Richard in S. Africa when I was invited to hold an ‘Open Space’ process for their global conference. And we spoke of the ‘ending of fear’ as I gifted him a book of J. Krishnamurti that has deeply touched me, ‘Freedom from the Known’ … – he said, that ‘End of Fear’ would be the title of his next book. He has recently written a book called ‘Fear, Love and the Destiny of nations’

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I find the Barrett Values tools the most amazing tools that I have come across for assessing the consciousness and values in an organisation and in many ways also for an individual, leader etc. To get a glimpse of its power, you may like to do a Free Personal Values Assessment (click the link). This is only the tip of the iceberg.

“Life unfolds along the lines of what you value most. Very few people have Truth or Reality as deep values. They may think that they value Truth, but their actions do not bear this out.
Generally, most people have competing and conflicting values, which manifest as both internal and external conflict. So just because you think something is your deepest value does not mean that it actually is. By deeply contemplating and clarifying what you value and aspire to, you become more unified, clear, and certain of your direction.”
– Adyashanti

One day, I spontaneously wrote a note on why I love the framework so much.

Culture & Values Assessment – Barrett Framework : Key Aspects 

What is powerful about this tool is:

1. The Individual Values, The Current Culture Values and the Desired Culture Values are arrived at by looking at the reality of what people feel from a selection of 70 to 90 values which are time-tested and field-proven over the last 20 years across 71 countries and close to 4000 organizations. These can also be customized.
Unlike most value based initiatives which arrive at a few values and then they have to be ‘cascaded’ – not a very co-creative process. Moreover, this framework enables a leveraging of ‘Personal Values’ which are always the fuel for building culture.

2. These values are mapped on 7 levels of Consciousness-
These are Survival (Financial Stability, Health), Relationship (Employee Communication), Self-Esteem(High Performance), Transformation(Learning & Renewal), Internal Cohesion(Internal Community), Making a Difference (Partnerships) and Service (to Humanity & Planet).

3. The tools unlike any other, embrace paradoxes and hence provide a very rich texture of reality.
Paradoxes like Intangible (‘Soft’ and Heart aspects) and Tangible (Measurable),
Logical & Intuitive, Deceptively Simple and Profoundly textured, Precise & Open to interpretation, Hierarchical & Network (‘Heterarchical’)

4. Return on Investment : The tool enables a calculation of a possible RoI based on certain parameters out of dialogue.

5. It reveals what is the specifically the beauty and also what is ‘dysfunctional’ in the culture and hence more targeted efforts can be designed for shifting the ground reality. This is calculated as ‘Entropy’ in the system.

6. Very easy to administer. It takes all of 15 minutes for a person to do the assessment on the internet and very rich data is revealed from that. Which can inform the culture and leadership transformation intervention.

7. The same framework is applicable for Individuals, Teams, Organization or Leadership and the Ecosystem which can include multiple stakeholders. It can also be sliced and diced based on what are the cross-sections needs to be studied more in depth.

8. The reality (Personal values, Existing lived values/ culture, Desired future values/ culture) captured is truly a co-created version instead of just the view of the top management and it can be sliced and diced to see the differences across locations and functions etc.

9. The Leadership Assessment reveals the key action areas including blind spots for highest leverage action.

There are more benefits but I feel these would suffice to inspire someone to consider using it.

Email me at kirangul@gmail.com if you need to know more!

Thanks Richard for co-creating this amazing constellation of possibilities/ tools for evolution of consciousness in an individual, in a leader, in an organisation and in community and society as a whole. I heard recently from Raj Sisodia, a dear friend and co-author  of ‘Conscious Capitaism’ that Richard is getting married in the near future. He must be close to 60 years of age – and that’s what is inspiring about him. Ever alive, ever enthusiastic, living life fully- of freedom and truth- and love.