“Challenges come our way to strengthen us and polish our souls to seek greatness. Giving into struggles is not what the human journey is about. It is about building resiliency to use the roadblocks as steppingstones and see the silver lining in each cloud. Success is forged by continuous polishing and never giving up on us and others around us.”
Dr. Kasthuri Henry, PhD, CTP, Six Sigma Black Belt, is driven by her mission of Building to Last and Ennobling for Success. Her ability to understand the importance of first developing the being and then bringing that authentic self to all the doing makes her a sought-after member of Forbes Coaches Council. She is an accomplished international business professional who trains organizations and coaches individuals across the world to grow with mindfulness demonstrating good governance to balance the interest of the individual, organization, and society for sustained mutual prosperity while driving continuous process improvement for economic sustainability.
Dr. Kas is the CEO of KasHenry Inc. (US) and LancerLution Ltd (Belize) as well as the Founder of Ennobled For Success Institute. Her business change management, financial strategy, business process improvement, and leadership acumen includes
• The global acquisition of the Duracell Brand by Warren Buffet from P&G and stand up as the global leader of acquisition and post-acquisition integration.
• The business transformation and modernization of the $22 billion dollar Chicago Teachers Pension Fund as the Fund’s CFO.
• Business Process improvement, automation, and lines of business integration for HSBC as the VP of Finance to strengthen financial reporting, real time analytics for effective decision making, and building sustained competitive advantage to be a market leader.
• A CFO at Aon transforming risk management and leadership decision making through initiating business analytics, continuous process improvement and implementing disaster recovery with regulatory compliance to rise above real-world challenges such as 9/11,
Katrina, S-OX Regulation Compliance, and more.
A graduate school professor, she continues to transform emerging leaders representing the US military, public safety, private sector, and nonprofit sectors via Southern Illinois University, DeVry University, and North Park University.
Dr. Kas shares her wisdom filled lessons to help others live an ennobled, empowered, and positive life by drawing from her life journey in her #1 International Best Seller Ennobled for Success: From Civil War to a US CFO. Her other world ranked books include The Resiliency Playbook and Ennobling Business for Success: Inspire – Ignite – Influence.
A centered approach to solving life’s challenges is the theme of her weekly international video podcast Unleash your Inner Goldilocks: How to get it just right.
– “Dr. Kasthuri Henry, Ennobled for Success, From Civil War to a US CFO, Oct 2020”
The world around us is rapidly evolving at previously unheard-of speed and evolving with it, we must. Evolving to remain relevant is a necessity. The guidance for this journey of intentional evolution comes from knowing, understanding and living our purpose. Our purpose remains the true north of our transformation, when we mindfully navigate life, even during turbulent times. The global pandemic has created the situation where every person around the world had the opportunity to take an introspective journey into their own life, work, and relationships to ponder their purpose and where the road forward was. This is such a transformative period , offering each one of us the perfect opportunity to choose our paths; not just the road we take, but how we take it as a whole person with our heart, mind, body and spirit intact.
The Great Resignation and the Silent Quitting seen in the workplace is the direct result of employees being devalued by employers. Failing to create an authentic sense of belonging to lay the foundation for inclusion is the lasting failure of most employers as they have historically rushed to build a profit-motivated transactional workplace culture. A culture of a disposable workforce rotating in and out through the proverbial revolving door. When workers evaluated their life purpose and determined their self-worth, they saw emerging opportunities in the rapidly growing work from anywhere global workplace culture that allowed them to harmonize life by balancing paid and unpaid work that is involved with human existence while making happiness the center of career choices.
The realities that were ignored prior to the pandemic became the center of focus and the workplace had to transform to meet the call of our times. That workplace transformation opened the door for workers to seek value-congruent prospects. The pandemic has also taught workers to become more self-reliant, giving them the courage to choose what is in their self-interest. Now, employers need to learn to embrace the human spirit and cultivate a culture of belonging while being purpose driven if they are to attract and retain talent that will innovate and grow their organization.
I see the opportunities that lie ahead. I realize that there will be a need for guidance for those individuals and organizations who need to lean on. As a nurturing global business leader and graduate school professor, who values the potential of every soul to live their full life, I believe in providing multiple sources of guidance for my students and teams. Born of this intentionality is Ennobling Business for Success: Inspire – Ignite – Influence (Oct 2022), focused on the human skills necessary for organizations to cultivate a sustainable culture rooted in humanity.
The soul of an organization is the character of that organization. From that organizational character stems the behaviors, values, and actions that drives the organizational economic engine. Since excellence is a habit demonstrated by consistent behavior, the human capital attraction and development becomes the new frontier of organizational excellence.
A leader embodies very different character traits than a boss. A boss exerts the positional power and uses fear, intimidation, and punitive measures to force their will on to the teams. A leader takes perspective, seeks input, creates an environment of psychological safety and drives results through their influence power. Therefore, a leader cultivates a culture of belonging and innovation.
Leaders are ennobled because they embody noble character traits such as kindness towards all stakeholders, empathy for the realities stakeholders face, grace under challenging situations, always value centric and not only when it is easy, invests in building self-sustaining ecosystems for everyone to thrive, and understands that employees are the true value creators of the business without whom there is no business profits. Ennobled leaders have mastered the art of the following:
1. Inspire: Inspire the human spirit so each soul feels valued and could live its full potential.
2. Ignite: Ignite the sense of purpose to mindfully build a fulfilling life.
3. Influence: Influence by design to thrive and leave a legacy of ennobling.
Leaders ennoble their businesses for success by employing a combination of the following strategies:]
1. Gratitude: The single most powerful positive brain chemistry booster and enhancer of emotional intelligence responsible for 80% of a person’s success.
2. Learning from Mistakes: Mistakes are not failures; they are learning opportunities for continuous improvement and innovation while giving up or never trying is the true failure.
3. Collaboration and Co-Creation: Building high-performance teams that drive lasting synergies to think outside the box and co-create in a collaborative manner.
4. Belonging: Cultivating a culture of belonging to embody inclusion of individuals and their perspectives thus delivering equity and diversity resulting in innovation and unleashing the hidden potential.
5. Mindfulness: Value each employee and honor that whole person and guide their success with value congruence.
Business is run by people, to serve people, and is facilitated by people. All stakeholders of all businesses are human. That makes human skills the secret sauce for business success. In an era of super specialized technical skills, the human skills have gone unaddressed and undeveloped through the educational process as well as professional development processes. Ignoring it is no longer an option when empathy and resiliency are the two highly sought-after workplace capabilities. Any business that seeks effective long-term economic success must be willing to invest in its human capital and cultivate a sustainable ennobling environment. BMD