The idea of a conscious bank is not that it does different things from a “normal” bank but rather the way that it does it is conscious.
This distinguishes it from, for example, a social bank or a sustainable bank which has already got predefined notions of what is “good”. I do not necessarily disagree with them but the idea of a conscious bank is that if banking choices are made from a place of consciousness then the banking decisions will automatically be “good” by some definition.
Conscious
So what do I mean by conscious? In this case, it means coming from a place without ego. That is free from fear and the ego, or victim ego, that comes from this fear. If you are making a decision that is free from ego or fear then you are making a decision because it is coming from a higher place, a place of creation.
We begin with the individuals in the bank. They start by going through a process of creating goals that come from their true nature. Most people I know in banking, indeed in the world at large, come to work from a place of ego and fear. In fact, to a certain extent, this is the capitalist system and it has worked to harness people’s egos, especially in the forms of ego that can be attached to money, to drive economic growth. In this case, the end is used to justify the means, where economic growth is worth the pain of keeping people in their ego.
If, however, the individuals in the bank come from a place beyond ego, where in a way they are just as self-serving but because they are coming from a place of deeper fulfillment that self-service happens to be aligned with social service. This is not sacrificing the happiness of the individual for the happiness of the masses. This is massively going for your own enlightened happiness and in doing so bringing about the happiness of many.
It is a form of enlightened capitalism.
So as I tell my clients in finance executive coaching in London, the core activity, I believe at this stage, is to set the right goals. Goals that come from your true nature beyond ego.
When all the employees have such goals*, which can be private to themselves, then we have a conscious bank.
* and when there is a culture of focusing on these and calling out those who are ego-driven, especially those who are trying to game the “good nature” of the bank to get into an environment that they wouldn’t normally be let into.
