Could the next new thing already be 2,500 years old?

According to a new book, Buddha: 9 to 5: The Eightfold Path To Enlightening Your Workplace and Improving Your Bottom Line, a promising new approach to business can be found in the insightful teachings of Buddha.

Buddha: 9 to 5 is the first book to apply Buddha’s famous doctrine, The Eightfold Path, to Corporate America. Nancy Spears calls it “The Eightfold Path to Authentic Leadership,” providing a proven model that offers concrete strategies on improving communication and profitability in the workplace, regardless of a company’s size or industry. The eight key principles are:

Right View: Vision (communicating and listening with clear, unobstructed insight)
Right Intention: Mission (developing a mission and having full awareness of it in every action)
Right Speech (speaking with honesty, clarity, and directness)
Right Action: Accountability (holding yourself and others accountable)
Right Livelihood (loving what you do; being dedicated and committed)
Right Effort (combining intellect and intuition, and using meditation)
Right Mindfulness (staying focused and confronting challenges)
Right Concentration (thinking in the present moment, but with an eye on the long-term)

“Some CEOs have begun to take a Buddha: 9 to 5 approach to their businesses and have experienced great success in doing so,” says author Nancy Spears. “I spotlight several in my book, including Starbucks, IBM, Procter & Gamble, Timberland, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, and Salesforce.com. Indeed, a CEO, senior manager or middle manager, in the mindset of Buddha, can implement a highly effective way of doing business that will transform his or her corporation.”

Nancy is a former CEO and marketing executive who embraced spiritual practice as a means of survival in the corporate workplace. She was the founder of the national marketing and production agency, Creative Event Marketing, Inc., which she later sold to the Interpublic Group. She is currently involved in the launch of a new mass media business, as well as developing the Buddha in Life series. Additionally, she assists non-profits in development and marketing strategies and serves on the boards of directors and national councils for the Shambhala Mountain Center, the Aspen Center for Integral Health, the Children’s Health Foundation, and the Aspen Education Foundation.

“CEOs, executives, and managers seek ways to instill leadership that will yield positive financial results and improve employee morale,” notes Nancy. “Yet, few business philosophies offer practical, useful applications to accomplish this. Perhaps you have tried the latest management techniques for success, only to achieve marginal, short-term rewards. It’s time for a new approach that you can use every day. Bringing the principles of Buddha into the boardroom is a unique strategy to help you cultivate lasting success throughout the organization.”

Nancy can discuss the following, including how:

Buddha might approach any workplace situation, from layoffs to promotions to office politics to management.
To develop a CEO mission statement, Buddha style.
To address five liabilities that prevent us from accomplishing successful, positive communication: desire, aggression, delusion, envy, and arrogance.
To completely integrate the heart and mind, combining compassion and wisdom in real-life situations that arise in the workplace.
To handle a crisis or chaos in the boardroom, and to access meditation to cultivate the right effort and frame of mind.

Buddha: 9 to 5 offers its readers two dozen exercises to develop skills and principles for infusing work with compassion, vision, and mindfulness, including how to:

Communicate honestly, with integrity, clarity, and security in a way that will motivate and inspire others to greater productivity and more creativity.
Pursue the career that’s right for you – and how to find a way to be passionate about your job.
Become a better leader or manager by adopting an authentic values-based leadership style and harnessing the “four immeasurables” of a leader.
Engage your staff and co-workers in an uplifting way that awakens them.

“CEOs throughout Corporate America are discovering the integration of spirituality into the workplace. On the heels of the trillion dollar information technology age and fueled by corporate scandals and mistrustful shareholders, we are experiencing a grassroots movement of CEOs, leaders, and managers who are committed to bringing ethics and morality into business,” concludes Nancy. “Buddha: 9 to 5 supports and nurtures this spiritual epidemic to turn inward in order to outwardly transform how we do business and conduct our lives.”

Publication Data: Buddha: 9 to 5: The Eightfold Path to Enlightening Your Workplace and Improving Your Bottom Line by Nancy Spears; Adams Media, April 2007; Cloth; 192 Pages; $16.95; ISBN: 978-1598690538

Contact Information: [email protected]