In a Sage Summit 2015 panel, Deepak Chopra, Colin Powell, and Stephen Kelly share practical strategies for growing a business. Chopra highlights the massive cost of employee disengagement—only 20% of workers love their jobs, leading to a $300 billion annual loss in the U.S.—and explains how criticism, recognition of strengths, and genuine attention can dramatically lower disengagement rates. He stresses that happy employees are the primary driver of customer satisfaction and investor confidence, and recommends focusing on inspired teams, shared vision, complementary strengths, and personal well‑being (sleep, stress management, nutrition). Powell illustrates the power of respectful human connection through a story of greeting garage workers, emphasizing equality, networks, and the importance of simple gestures. Kelly, prompted by Chopra, outlines seven rules for attracting and retaining top talent, including deep listening, emotional intelligence, community contribution, expanding awareness, and action‑oriented SMART goal setting. Together, the panel presents a holistic view that combines employee engagement metrics, leadership behaviors, network building, personal health, and concrete goal‑setting to drive sustainable business success.
Chapters
Hey everyone, I'm here at Sage Summit 2015 in New Orleans, and I just came out of a great session with Stephen Kelly and Colin Powell and Deepak Chopra, and they were talking about some great strategies and ideas to help you grow your business, and I'm going to share with you some of the highlights from that speech today.
If you ask people globally if they love what they do every day in their jobs, only 20% of people say yes, which is a very sad commentary. In the United States alone, we have $300 billion lost every year. From disengaged or actively disengaged people in their jobs. What's the difference between actively disengaged and disengaged? The actively disengaged are not only unhappy, but they come to work with the intention of making everyone else unhappy. So, this is a huge burden in our jobs. If a supervisor or a manager ignores their employee, a particular employee, the disengagement score goes up by 45%. If on the other hand they don't ignore them but they criticize them, actually the employee gets better. The disengagement rate falls to less than 20% because people would rather be criticized than ignored. But if you notice a single strength that they have, the disengagement rate goes down to less than 1%. In the job world, you have to focus on 3 things. You have to have inspired teams, and inspiration comes from you, the leader of the workforce. And that is, you give them attention, which means you listen to them, appreciation, affection, to some extent acceptance even for their weaknesses. You make sure that you all have shared vision and then you complement each other's strengths because not everybody has the same strengths. That's what a good sports team is. So as people who give empowerment to others, think like a sports coach— shared vision, complementing strengths, emotional connections. If you do that, your business will be very successful. In fact, of the three constituencies that go to make an effective business, which is investors, employees, and customers, your employees come number one. And your customers will be happy if your employees are happy, and your investors will be happy, of course, if your customers are happy. You might be your own investor. You can actually track the success of a business just by what is called employee turnover rate. If the employee turnover rate is very high, you better watch out. And then there are other things, engaging with your community, but now you could have a global community even with a small business. Making sure you connect with other people who have strengths that complement yours, and that also is available now through LinkedIn and many other social media.
Networks.
And taking care of yourself, which means getting enough sleep every day, managing stress through whatever means you do, for me it's meditation, making sure you get exercise, remaining emotionally healthy with love, compassion, joy, equanimity, and proper nutrition. If you pay a little attention to just these things, your personal well-being, your social well-being, your community family well-being, career well-being, and financial well-being are off to a good start.
One day I want to be Secretary of State, I get bored. And I want to go down— I wanted a meditator to go away sometimes. But I decided to do that in the garage. Because the garage in State Park is small, considering all the cars that come in every morning. And I wanted to see how the guys did it. So I escaped my bodyguards and assistants to the back elevator and went into the garage. The garage was run by contract employees, all immigrants, making a few bucks over minimum wage. And so I'm wandering around and they spot me, and so they come over, "Mr. Secretary, you lost me, let me get back upstairs." I said, "Oh, fine, thank you." And they said, "What are you doing down here?" I said, "I wanted to talk to you guys. I wanted to see how you got all the cars in the morning. I know there are so many that you have to stack them 1, 2, and 3." And 2 and 3 can't leave until 1 leaves. So how do you decide every morning who's number 1, who's number 2, who's number 3? Is the job okay? Too much carbon monoxide? No, we're fine, sir. Thank you so much. Well, tell me, how do you decide who's number 1? They said, in Spanish, like this: When you pull in in the morning, if you stop by us, if you lower your window, if you look out, and if you smile, And if you say, "Good morning, how are you?" You're number one. Here we are, fixing you up. That's all there is. Here's the thing. In that car is an assistant secretary who is here in the organization, in charge of many countries. Outside that car is his immigrant contract employee, he lost everything in the invasion. They both have dreams, fears, anxieties, and ambitions, both of them. The one in the car has the option of helping the one outside the car achieve his dreams and ambitions and minimizing his fears. And so that's their structure in the organization. But at that moment of good morning, they're equal. They're two human beings recognizing each other as human beings and paying respect solely for the fact that we are united in human beings and together we can accomplish great things.
Deepak, you talked about how do you kind of attract the best people and keep the best people.
I personally recommend 7 7 rules that have expanded on the 7 spiritual laws for businesses. The first is be a really good listener, and that means be a good observer of what's happening in your company, with your employees and your customers. Listen to emotional cues, because lots of times people will be unhappy, but they will not You can read their body language. Listen with your soul. Take time to reflect. Reflect on what is the zeitgeist at the moment in the business world. One of the things that I know is part of the zeitgeist is contribution to community. Your own company does that, 2% of your income goes to supporting people. To how you can contribute to your community. Second, use emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence means the ability to feel your own emotions, empathy, and communicating in a way that doesn't make people feel insecure. Third, expand your awareness. Constantly ask yourself, What are we observing? What are we feeling? What's the current need in the business? And what's the remedy? How do we fulfill that need? You can ask that of your customers. What are you observing? What are you feeling? What do you need? How can I help you to fulfill that need? Third— no, fourth, be action-oriented. It's good to philosophize, But you have to be a role model for action. Develop SMART goals every year. SMART uses an acronym: Stretch more than you can reach, make everything measurable, make sure that your team, which is your employees, also agree, keep a record of your progress, and set time limits. Empower yourself with, as the General said, with self-esteem. You have to— in fact, I read in his book yesterday that you have to be in a way immune to criticism even though you are responsive to feedback, because criticism can let you down if you take it personally. Take responsibility for your health.
As a 12-year-old sweeping the floor, packing coffee bags, I knew from that very early age the connection between work, life, and family, and the great story of personal sacrifice for business owners. So why do we care at Sage so much for businesses like yours? Around the world, small and medium businesses are the lifeblood of the economy. Yes, in this USA alone, 66%, yes, two-thirds of the 12 million new jobs created since 2010 were created by small and medium businesses like yours. Many of you work more than 60 hours a week. You are the first ones in and you are the last ones out every day. You give up your holidays, you mortgage your homes, and you invest your life savings in your businesses. All to provide for your families, to create a legacy, to pursue your passion, to live your dreams. You are the true heroes of the economy, the risk-takers, the winners in America and every economy around the world. This is truly a noble cause for prosperity. And that is why, that is why we care so much. At Sage, we feel such a huge sense of responsibility as your trusted technology partner. We are your champion. We will fight for you. We will fight for the little guys. We will deliver products for you that let you work the way that you want to work. And that's why we're here today, here in New Orleans, at the largest small and medium business conference in the world.
