Business in Rhyme: Exploring Inclusion In the Workplace

To be successful in business and in life starts with accepting and integrating the multitude of talents and interests you possess

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In Conversation With the Mission

(a poem from my book of poetry, The Whisper)

I disappeared from myself

The heart broke for caring too much

Caring about the prestigious work

I became a stranger

A stranger reimagining who I once was

A pilgrimage started in the self-sabotage of the mission

Of fitting into tasks

The pilgrimage to avoid my own fragmentation

I fell from the tower
And found on the muddy floor
My broken heart

The ego scared of the power of many and multitudes

Wrestling with the many voices within
The voice of the young exiled me
The voice of the achiever
And the voice of the Whisper singing in poetry

The whole is me

In conversation with myself
In conversation with the world

I invite you to join me
And make your own pilgrimage
Outside the scene and characters of my own

Within your own self and soul
Seeking for your many and multitudes.

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I spent years on the path of inclusion of the multitudes — the multitudes I contain, the multitudes we all contain.

I am many things: A scientist by background, for the love of wellbeing. A poet by vocation, for the love of truth. A business woman, for the love of resolution.

As a young chemist, I spent hours in the laboratory seeking the truth behind a chemical reaction. As a child, I also spent entire afternoons writing poems in search of the truth hidden behind the world I was just starting to know and make sense of. But my poetry was never integrated; it was my own way to hide and protect my truth, my multitudes, from being misunderstood. In so doing I exiled the creative, truer, most human me for the benefit of fitting into a family, a community, and a corporate job.

Thinking we have to pick one aspect of ourselves over another is like asking a rainbow to pick one color and just to be blue.

In business, as in our personal lives, we need to learn to embrace the multitudes. We need to redefine business as the journey of humankind development and collective growth that involves the journey of the soul: our soul and the soul of our business together. Each step we take then on this path of re-shaping the world of business closer to its true nature becomes a step we take into becoming whole.

We will not transform business by a new book or theory, but rather by transforming our way of being and by first accepting our HUMANITY.

In a recent report published by PwC, Reshaping the Workplace, where Millennials were the center of investigation, it was reported that: “The capacity to attract, retain and manage executive talents does not depend on the compensation package, but rather on our ability to create a sense of belonging to an organization that offers a long-term relationship and a professional experience”. If we consider that by 2020, Millennials will form 50% of the global workforce, this is a challenge business needs to get ready to face.

The role of a 21^st century leader that wants to innovate is the one of a social architect.

These leaders must be willing and capable of creating holistic business models where differences, emotions, intuition and creativity are celebrated, and where the multitudes are included and collectively valued rather than shamed or segregated. These leaders must be capable of talking business in rhyme and no longer focus exclusively on graphs and statistics. They need to be capable of engaging both emotionally and rationally to drive superior performance.

Poetry is a wonderful way to create a connection between the rational and the emotional. I have experienced in my life and career the profound power of poetry to develop a more acute consciousness and empathy. It is how I understand the world, myself and the interaction with others. It has been my personal journey to leadership.

For me, good leadership means integrating my multitudes, the poet as equal to the doctor and the business executive. It means accepting all the facets of myself rather than thinking I need conform in order to succeed in business and in life.

That’s why my motto is: There is no way to inclusion…inclusion is the way!

>Find other pieces by Fateme Banishoeib on her Author Page

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You may also enjoy reading Crossroads of the Immigrant Nation by Sayu Bhojwani