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    Because I am interested in holistic health, I had difficulty in coming to grips with the whole notion of doing business. To me, business dealings were the antithesis of holism. Business people seemed to be fueled by greed and self-serving interests, with little regard for the effect that their actions had on the other people involved.

    When I entered the holistic health field as a massage practitioner, and still later when I became the director of a holistic health training school, I had to come to grips with my feelings about business and learn how business and holism could interact. One day, after a distasteful negotiation for a possible new site for the school, I said to a friend of mine, "I am not going to do business this way. Where is consciousness in business?"
That question was the beginning of what has been a delightful journey of studying, practicing, and teaching a business methodology that I think is truly holistic. I call this methodology "win-win" because, to be truly holistic, all parties must win: the business, the customer, the employees, the community, and the environment.

    The purpose of all business, including win-win business, is to make money. If we go into an activity without establishing its purpose as that of making money, then, by definition, it is not a business. However, a business can not be holistically sound unless it introduces the notion of "value added." The business must produce a product or service that is wanted and needed, and in the process the lives of everyone involved must be enhanced in some way. Using this method to achieve the goal of making money is what sets win-win business apart from win-lose, or lose-lose, business.

    We can now look at a model for doing business that allows us to produce outstanding results for everyone. The model is based on the concept of synergy, which holds that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I know when my business is experiencing synergy because the results that are produced are beyond the ordinary. We're creating what looks like miracles to us. The results are greater than we imagined that they could be.

    The synergy model can be thought of as a triangle with four levels. The niche is at the bottom level and this term stands for the business product or service through which the business adds value. In my own case, my niche was my massage service. Massage added value to my client's lives, and I was rewarded for the service both financially and spiritually. When I became a school director, my niche became training others in massage.

    When you define your own niche, I suggest that you choose something that you like so much that you would do it without pay. Before turning it into a business, practice until you are really good at it. In the meantime, keep your antennae out, researching whether your chosen niche is something that people want and need. Ask yourself, is there a market for it?

    A number of people are satisfied at this level. In developing their niche they have found something that they like to do, that adds value, and for which they are rewarded. They have a win-win one person business. This was true for me both as a massage practitioner and as a beginning teacher of massage.

    When I hired the school's first employee, however, I jumped to the second level of the business model, which is called leverage. You are leveraging yourself when you reproduce yourself or your activity in some way. In most cases, leveraging involves people. Each person in my school is in some way a replication of me. I can, in effect, now be in more than once place at a time.

    It is very important at this stage to be certain that everyone involved is united in the way they are doing business. Many businesses get into trouble at this point, when the group acts like a multi-headed monster, with all heads going off in different directions at once.

    When we leverage with people, we move up to the third level, which is alignment. At this level, all of the people involved must be in complete agreement with regard to the business in order to avoid the multi-headed monster syndrome. Everyone must be clear and in agreement on how to do win-win business where value is added to everyone. They must understand and align on the purpose of the business, on what the product or service is that is adding value, and on the rules by which everyone is playing.

    My organization has spent several years in working with this synergy model. We have learned something about what works. I would like to share with you some of the techniques that we use.

    Three techniques that have made a big difference in the quality of our work lives are
        1) clearly defining our purposes and goals,
        2) learning how to make meetings work, and
        3) establishing agreements by which we conduct ourselves at work.

    Any group should have an understanding of why it is coming together and what it expects to accomplish. This means that it needs to clearly state its purpose, or guiding light, and short- and long-term goals. Goals should be achievable and measurable, for example, "to increase enrollment by 30%."

    The best technique that I have found for conducting meetings is to use the interaction method, as outlined in the book, How to Make Meetings Work, by Michael Doyel and David Staus. This method suggests that you use a facilitator to conduct meetings. The purpose of the facilitator is to be sure that everyone is heard and not attacked or put down for his or her ideas. The facilitator also keeps the group on purpose so that people know that the meeting accomplished something worthwhile. The facilitator should be a person who has no vested interest in the issues of the meeting, so that he or she can orchestrate the meeting with no bias toward a particular outcome.

    And finally, it is important to be clear about how we are going to work together. It would be very difficult to play any game without everyone knowing the rules and agreeing to play by them.

    Establishing your purpose and goals, using meeting time well, and having workable, supportive agreements create the condition for synergy, or outrageous results, to occur. Be prepared to hold onto your hat!Ê