An Interview with John Montgomery, Lex Ultima & NOW Partners

During John Montgomery’s time in the startup world, he realized that there was a certain charisma of all the best leaders – they would emanate a field of consciousness and create a flow state. When your business is in a flow state, you attract all of the best employees, customers, and investors. An infectiously positive work environment will be a complete game-changer for any business. While observing these CEOs and organizations, John learned that companies that adopt sustainable principles provide five points greater return per year to investors than their conventional peers. Plus, businesses that lead from the heart will have more engaged employees and half of the turnover as their competition.

In This Episode:

• [01:00] Meet John Montgomery. John reveals the journey behind his career and the inspiration for his global movement of business as a force for good.
• [16:15] What John learned after observing a dozen successful CEOs and organizations.
• [26:15] The importance of meeting Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in an organization and why leaders should not be fear-based. 
• [47:40] The inspiration behind John’s book and documentary to touch on the spiritual change that is necessary for our world.  
• [53:55] Conscious leadership is people who are committed to waking up, growing up, cleaning up, and showing up. 

Key Takeaways:

• Leaders in a startup environment will emanate a field of consciousness that is harmonious and effective for peak performance. 
• A flow state will make your business a magnet for success – you will attract the best customers, investors, and employees. 
• An infectiously positive work environment is the secret to gaining market share, beating the competition, and increasing profits.  
• When you’re a visionary, you can easily be ten or twenty years in front of the market. 
• Leading from the heart will give you employees that are twice as productive, twice as engaged, and half of the turnover.

Meet John Montgomery

John Montgomery is a corporate lawyer whose current project is producing a full-feature documentary film, Awakening a Force for Good, about the global movement of business as a force for good. Here is a link to the trailer: https://vimeo.com/386398166 The password is “4good”.

John’s firm, Lex Ultima, provides transformation management to boards of directors, senior executives, and stockholders to help them adopt the triple-bottom-line approach to business necessary to become a benefit corporation and leverage its advantages. He also provides transformative executive coaching to senior executives through Lex Ultima and the Center for Creative Leadership, where he is an adjunct executive coach and is a partner with NOW Partners, a global management consulting firm.

A corporate lawyer since 1984, Montgomery served as a co-chair of the legal working group behind California’s historic benefit-corporation legislation and is a leading authority on this new corporate form. He is co-founding director and President of the Benefit Company Bar Association and co-founding director and Secretary of the Conscious Leadership Guild. Montgomery also serves on the advisory boards of B Lab Europe, The Purpose of the Corporation, Reporting 3.0, Vista Caballo, and Trimergence to help develop new approaches to capitalism and leadership. 

Prior to starting Lex Ultima in 2017, Montgomery co-founded Chrysallis, a behavior change company, in 2010 (acquired by Aduro in 2016) and founded Montgomery & Hansen, a prominent Silicon Valley corporate law firm, in 2003. Montgomery also founded Startworks Ventures, a benefit capital firm that has provided seed capital to new businesses since 2007, and is the author of Great from the Start: How Conscious Corporations Attract Success.

Resources:
John Montgomery on LinkedIn 
NOW Partners
NOW Partners on LinkedIn 
Center For Creative Leadership 
Reinventing Organizations