Connecting with Business

Can you help us by suggesting ways that NGV can reach out to – and/or connect with businesses around ethical and sustainability agendas? We are partnering with Austral Group on an initiative where business school students support organisations with various challenges – we have asked for support to help us forge connections with the corporate marketplace. The following gives an overview of our current thinking of where psychologically informed perspectives on sustainability might support the business world.

Project description, objectives

Please tell us in detail about the situation/challenge you are facing and what your company needs help with.

We are living in unprecedented times in which more of us are becoming aware of the negative impact of humanity’s activities on the earth’s flora and on other species. If we carry on like this there is a real possibility that we will put in jeopardy the future of our species.

The question is what do we do about this?

The urgency towards action is compelling. However simply to act from our current structures of power – including systemic racism, and the privilege that is intrinsic to traditional capitalism – will continue to support current polarisation and division; rather than bringing humanity together.

The current times call for solutions in which everyone matters – and this means that an adequate response to current global crises needs to be grounded in a psychological ‘awakening’ – more awareness of our connection to each other and to the biosphere.

To put it bluntly, we have the option of continuing to get pounded by pandemics and extreme weather events, or we can come into relationship with our environment, and find sustainable ways to live and do business.

New Gestalt Voices is one of a number of organisations committed to supporting the emotional and embodied dialogues necessary to help people know that they are part of something larger. In all fields of life we need to believe that own personal process and actions are capable of making a difference.

We think that the business world is key as part of this overall situation. To date the worlds of business and psychology have operated largely independently – with business psychology mostly limited to the HR function and increasing productivity.This degree of this separation feels like a problem, and in future, engagement of psychology with business needs to widen its scope to take in the context in which business is operating.

Our challenge at NGV, most of us not being experts in the commercial world, is how do we create dialogue and creative forms of relationship and exchange between business and psychology. One idea for doing this is a radio station we have recently set up which presents a platform for meeting and interviewing business leaders.

We would like help from Austral business school students to suggest ways in which we can create relationships with business that might lead to longer-term partnerships and productive engagement around the above issues.

We would welcome suggestions for creative uses of marketing, as well as other ideas for how to create dialogue with business leaders – via social media perhaps, research, targeted events, ongoing peer-support groups – individual mentoring, or other awareness raising interventions, publishing/literature.

To get to this position we need to better understand the needs of business leaders around sustainability that may be supported by dialogue with psychologically informed practitioners and potentially with wider community stakeholders that NGV could facilitate. We need help to understand what would support business leaders to take a stand in favour of sustainable business, what are the barriers etc.?

Money is potentially a limiting factor. NGV currently makes very little income and we input most of our time for free – this bears on the scope of what is immediately possible.

Deliverables

Please indicate the expected outcome of the project in terms of key objectives, intended goals and needs (example: a marketing plan with full market analysis, recommendations for news staffing process etc. )

• A research report with results of research with business leaders to help us understand where they are around sustainability. What would support business leaders to move in a sustainable direction? What are the barriers?
• Outcome of market research to suggest what NGV could deliver – events/ themed groups connecting business stakeholders / courses/ toolkits etc.
• Marketing strategy & plan with ideas for different & innovative ways we can build relationships with the commercial sector – radio/ tips for creative use of social media in order to ‘penetrate’ the business market
• Set of tools/ideas for creative ways to influence.

Additional Comments

Please add any additional information about your company that may be relevant to the project

Gestalt – as an approach to psychotherapy, coaching and business mentoring – is an approach that aims at overcoming certain ‘symptoms’, allowing one to become more complete and creatively alive and freeing one from the blockages and unfinished business that diminish optimal satisfaction, self-realisation and growth.

Also it can be defined as an existential/experimental form that emphasises personal responsibility and focuses on the individual’s experience in the present moment, the relationship between practitioner and client and the environment and social context that informs the situation, and adjustments people make as a result of the general situation around them.