Creating Enlightened Organizations

Four Gateways to Spirit at Work

J. Neal

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137335142
• eBook ISBN: 9781137327673
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Ethics
• Index: Business

There is a growing movement to incorporate faith and spirituality in the workplace, to do things better, to utilize all the human capabilities of employees, and to truly revolutionize the role of business in the world. Creating Enlightened Organizations is the first book to provide a truly comprehensive approach to creating an organization designed to unleash full human potential in the workplace. Businesses have learned how to involve employees in problem solving, improve the emotional intelligence of their leaders, reengineer the business processes and create customer delight, but they have left out one essential ingredient that makes all the difference - the human spirit. There is a hunger for meaning and purpose in our workplaces and in our institutions. This book simplifies and organizes the best of what is going on in organizations at the individual, team and systems levels and provides guidance for putting it to practical use. It also offers a radically new view of the purpose of business in society and provides examples of leading edge organizations that make a positive difference in the world. Spirituality is the new competitive edge, and enlightened organizations know how to integrate the human spirit and spiritual values into their business practices.

GATEWAY I

CREATING PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION

The First Gateway is the individual path to spirituality in the workplace. What I’ve learned from research I’ve conducted with highly spiritual people is that they see work challenges as a real opportunity to practice their spiritual principles, to grow spiritually, and to become better persons. Creating personal transformation is a form of spirit at work that does not need any kind of organizational awareness or sanction. It is a very private and individual perspective, but provides a great deal of meaning, commitment, and creativity.

The First Gateway is the most widely utilized approach to spirituality in the workplace because it doesn’t cost anything, it doesn’t require consultants or workshops, and because you don’t need to get anyone’s approval to live your spiritual values in your work. Thousands of people around the world are attempting to live their faith at work and use spiritual practices in order to be more effective.

There are five chapters in this section. The first two chapters provide definitions and background on the broad concept of spirituality in the workplace. The next three chapters describe many different individual approaches to spirituality in the workplace. Some of these are things almost anyone can do, and some are more formal organizational programs.

To make the most out of this First Gateway, I invite you to go to www.fourgateways.com and take the First Gateway Assessment before you read on. This assessment is a list of questions that are useful to consider as you think about implementing spirituality in the workplace on the personal level. After you answer the questions that are most relevant to you, read through the “Comments on Assessment Questions” for guidance on which chapter material is likely to be of the most use to you.

1

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY THAT?

INTRODUCTION

It begins as an inner journey, a sense of unease, a sense of mystery, or a sense of calling. We may experience a sense of being a part of something larger while not being sure exactly what that is. As we listen to our inner voice or inner guidance and pay attention to the signs that the Universe seems to send us, we receive greater clarity on that which is calling us. We experience synchronicities and sometimes even small miracles. The time comes when we recognize we have learned some important things and we know that this knowledge can be useful to the world. The inner journey begins to transform into an outer journey. But the inner journey never ends.

A growing number of people are integrating their inner journey and their outer journey, and this has fed the emerging spirit at work movement. But some people have very strong concerns about the idea of spirit at work. This chapter explores the differences and similarities between religion and spirituality, which is one of the causes of this concern. When you bring up the topic of workplace spirituality, people will wonder, “What do you mean by that?” This chapter provides some suggestions about how to have this conversation.

IT BEGINS WITH OUR STORIES

I have been interested in spirituality in the workplace since 1987. At that time I worked as the manager of Organizational Development for a major defense contractor. In the course of my work, I learned that the company was breaking the law by making faulty ammunition that was sold to the US Government as if it met government specifications. I decided to blow the whistle on the company, because I could not get management to listen to my concerns. It really felt like they wanted to cover up the problem.¹

Some companies do not take kindly to people who blow the whistle. I was harassed and threatened, and even had to disappear for a while for my own safety. The assistant plant manager threatened to “break both the legs” of the whistleblower, and told people I was “dead meat.” Within six months of blowing the whistle I left my job, feeling forced out because of intimidation, threats, harassment, and reduction of job duties. I was eventually vindicated by a court ruling penalizing the company for this mistreatment.

The whole experience was quite devastating. I had spent years getting my PhD in organizational behavior because I wanted to help organizations to be more effective and to help people find more meaning in their work. But this experience made me question if I wanted to be in this field anymore and damaged my trust of organizations. I was unemployed for a year.

During this difficult time I found myself turning to spiritual literature for support and inspiration. Suddenly everything I read seemed to have practical application to my daily life. I returned to spiritual practices that had been meaningful when I was younger, but now I needed them for my sanity and to bring meaning to my work and career.

In my next job, teaching at a university in Connecticut, I made the commitment to be as authentic as I could possibly be, to be true to my spiritual values regardless of the cost to my career, and to allow myself to be guided in the ways I could be of service to the world instead of trying to plan out the details of my life.

The result of all this, I find, is that when I pay more attention to my spirituality, and when I consciously try to live more in alignment with my deepest values and beliefs, I am more effective in my work, and the most amazing and wonderful things seem to happen.

In 1992 I attended the Academy of Management annual conference in Atlanta, Georgia. While wandering through the bookseller area looking for potential textbooks for my classes, I came across a book called New Traditions in Business: Spirit and Leadership in the 21st Century, edited by John Renesch (1992). In this book there is a chapter by William Miller titled “How Do We Put Our Spiritual Values to Work?” I felt a surge of energy jolt through me like an electric shock.

Until this moment, I thought I was probably the only person in the world crazy enough to be trying to live by spiritual values in my work. I had never spoken about what I was doing to anyone because I was sure that I would be written off as some kind of New Age flake. But the realization that there was at least one other human being in the world who was walking on the same path gave me the message that he and I were both tapping into something much larger. That day I made the commitment to be open with my interest in spirituality and work. I began to do research and to learn everything I could about how spirituality and work might be connected. I was learning some things in my own spiritual practice that made a wonderful difference in my work and I felt that it was important to share these ideas with others.

I also began to find others who were having similar kinds of awakenings and were making a commitment to personally live more in alignment with their spiritual values and practices. Sharing our stories with each other helped us to have more courage in this new way of working, and helped to create a sense of community among the pioneers. In ancient and modern spiritual traditions, wisdom is passed on through stories; one of the best ways to begin having a conversation with others about spirit at work is to encourage people to share their stories of how they nourish their spirit at work.

I invite you to think about your own story and what brought you to an interest in spirituality in the workplace. Almost everyone I have met in the 22 years I have been working in this field starts out thinking that they are the only person crazy enough to think that you can be both spiritual and effective in business. But as people begin to live their spirituality more authentically in their work, they discover that spirituality and work are not contradictory at all, and find themselves more effective. They often begin looking around for others who share similar experiences, and these days it is pretty easy to find others who are integrating spirituality and work. Finding others gives them courage and can inspire them to continue to grow in this integration. If you personally have not yet found others, I encourage you to reach out and to share your story. You may find others in your workplace, your place of worship, or through interest groups on the web. The key thing to know is that you are not the only crazy person out there, and that, as the Apple “Think Different” campaign² made popular:

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

SOME BASIC ASSUMPTIONS

Given the sensitive nature of this topic, it is extremely important that anyone working with this material be respectful of others’ traditions, beliefs, and practices. We are here to learn from each other, but not to proselytize or to prove anyone wrong because they believe something differently from us.

Satinder Dhiman at Woodbury University teaches a course on “Spirit at Work.” His course is based on the following values and assumptions that he includes in his syllabus. I think they fit well for anyone working with integrating spirit at work.

We are not human beings on a spiritual journey; we are spiritual beings on a human journey.

The key questions for today’s managers and leaders are no longer issues of task and structure but are questions of spirit. (Hawley 1993: 1)

Work is not just a means to pay our bills; it is an abiding source to fulfill our destiny.

Work consciously-chosen, done with full awareness and care can lead to deepest self-fulfillment.

You are a thread in the web of life. Whatever you do to it, you do to yourself.

An organization is the sum total of spiritual selves of individuals who work in that organization.

When we change the way we see the world, we change the world.

“God grant that I may not seek so much to be understood as to understand.” Prayer of St. Francis

All things you can get from the outside are temporary. They can be taken away. Your permanent, real treasure is inside.

Successful corporate leaders of the 21st century will be spiritual leaders.

As you begin your own work on integrating spirit at work, reflect on this list and to add to it with your own assumptions about spirit at work. If you are working with others, encourage them to do the same, and use this as a basis for creative dialogue.

DEFINING OUR TERMS: RELIGION, FAITH, AND SPIRITUALITY

Religion, faith, and spirituality are not the same thing, although they are highly interrelated. In most of the literature, authors state that religion is one path to spirituality, but that people can be spiritual without being involved in a particular religion (Fox 1994, Hawley 1993, Judge 1999, Mitroff and Denton 1999, Nash and McLennan 2001). It is extremely important to communicate the distinction between these concepts because many people think you are talking about “religion in the workplace” when you mention “spirit at work” and then they become resistant. They are apprehensive about religious conflict in the workplace, about proselytizing, and about moral judgments. The majority of the people in this field are not talking about “religion in the workplace” per se, although many are talking about living their faith at work.

However, it is also important to remember and respect that many people in the workplace are deeply religious and that their faith helps them immensely in the work that they do. The concepts of faith, spirituality, and religion have differences, but they also overlap (see figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1 The relationship between faith, spirituality, and religion.

To speak of “spirit at work,” which is the primary term that is used in this book, does not mean that one is antireligious either. Religion and faith have been and will continue to be a major source of spiritual wisdom and practice. Whenever I work with students or clients on the topic of spirituality in the workplace, I always start with the “Religion vs. Spirituality Exercise” as a way of getting issues, concerns, and misunderstandings out on the table.

RELIGION VE...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Gateway I Creating Personal Transformation
• Gateway II Developing Enlightened Leaders and Teams
• Gateway III Creating Organizational Transformation
• Gateway IV Joining the Global Consciousness Shift
• Appendix A: International Spirit at Work Awards
• Appendix B: The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
• Notes
• References
• Index