CHAPTER 1

BEGINNING THE JOURNEY

Chapter One

Beginning the Journey

The journey is never-ending. It begins as an inner journey. A sense of unease. A sense of mystery. A sense of calling. 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 get greater clarity on that which is calling us. We begin to experience synchronicities and sometimes even small miracles. The time comes when we recognize that 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.

Overview of This Chapter

After a brief review of how I came to be interested in the field of spirituality in the workplace, this chapter looks at the differences and similarities between religion and spirituality. Then we’ll examine some of the trends that have led to the interest in spirituality in the workplace, and review some statistics that are relevant to this topic.

Getting Started

Whenever I do workshops, courses, or speeches on spirituality in the workplace, I am always asked how I got involved in this field of spirituality in the workplace. And whenever someone calls me to talk about spirituality in the workplace, I always ask them how they got involved in this. We need to hear each other’s stories. We learn so much from our stories. Probably the most important thing we each learn is that we are not the only one who cares about living in alignment with deeply held spiritual values.

You are not crazy. You are part of something bigger that seems to be emerging all over the planet.

I would like to share my story with you. After reading my story, think about your own story and there will be some questions for you to explore. If you can, create an opportunity to talk to other like-minded people about their interest in spirituality in the workplace and what brought them to it. We will follow up on these stories in Chapter Two. But first, please make yourself some notes about the following questions:

What does spirituality mean to you?

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How is your spirituality connected to religion, if at all?

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What does spirituality in the workplace mean to you?

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What experience have you had with spirituality in the workplace?

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Do you see any signs of a growing trend of interest in spirituality in the workplace, or is it just a passing fad? What is your evidence?

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My Story

I have been interested in spirituality in the workplace since 1987. At that time I worked as the Manager of Organizational Development for a large defense systems company in Illinois. In the course of my work, I learned that the company was breaking the law by making faulty ammunition that was sold to the U.S. 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.

Companies do not take kindly to people who blow the whistle. I was harassed and threatened, and even had to disappear for awhile for my own safety. The whole experience was quite devastating. I had spent years getting my Ph.D. 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 did great damage to my trust of organizations, and even made me question if I wanted to be in this field anymore.

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

Within six months after blowing the whistle I left my job, feeling very forced out because of the intimidation, threats, harassment, and reduction in job duties. I was unemployed for a year. Then seemingly out of nowhere I was asked by someone I didn’t know to teach a course on Women and Management at a university in Connecticut where I now lived. That course was truly a God-send. I felt a new sense of what I was supposed to be doing in the world and soon had a full-time job teaching management.

In this new job 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 is that I find 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. 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 as I was gave me the message that he and I were both tapped into something much larger. That day I made the commitment to be open with my interest in spirituality and work and to begin to do research and learn everything I could about how they might be connected. I was learning some powerful 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.

Reflections

Now think about your own story, and what brought you to an interest in spirituality in the workplace. If you know about other people who are interested in spirituality in the workplace, how did they come to get involved? If you don’t know, ask them.

What similarities are there between your story and the stories told by others?

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In what ways is your story unique?

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What key insights or learnings come out of my story, if any, or your own story that might be a guide for you in your work?

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Some Basic Principles

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 make anyone wrong because they believe something differently from us.

Satinder Dhiman at Woodbury University teaches a course on Spirituality in the Workplace. His course is based on the following values and assumptions, and I think they fit well for anyone working with this book:

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. Jack Hawley, in Reawakening the Spirit in Work, 1993, p. 1.

We all share a deep need to live, to love, to learn, and to leave a legacy. Stephen Covey

Work is not just a means to pay our bills; it is an abiding source to fulfil 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. What ever you do to it, you do to yourself.

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

To be completely honest with one self is the best effort a human being can make. Freud.

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

We must be the change we want to see in the world. Gandhi

In the world of spiritual realities, knowledge is always a function of being; the nature of what we experience is determined by what we ourselves are. Aldous Huxley

“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 21^st century will be spiritual leaders.

What spiritual principles would you add to this list that have been inspirational to you in your work?

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Religion vs. Spirituality

Religion 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 (c.f. Hawley 1993, Fox 1994). It is extremely important to be able to make the distinction between these two concepts because many people think you are talking about “religion in the workplace” when you mention “spirituality in the workplace” and they become resistant. They are concerned about religious conflict, about proselytizing, and about moral judgments. The majority of the people in this field are not talking about “religion in the workplace.” 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. So to speak of “spirituality in the workplace” does not mean that one is anti-religious either. Religion has been and will continue to be a major source of spiritual wisdom and practice. For those who are interested in learning more about the faith in the workplace movement, contact the Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School, the Crossroads Center for Faith and Work, and the Faith and Work Magazine

Defining Spirit

The word “Spirit” comes from the Latin words “spirare,” to breathe and ”spiritus,” the breath. Without breath, we would not be alive. So “Spirit” has something to do with the energy or force that gives us the gift of life. Gini Scott in her book The Empowered Mind provides the following definition of spirituality: “That which is traditionally believed to be the vital principle or animating force within living beings; that which constitutes one’s unseen intangible being; the real sense or significance of something.” (Scott 1994)

In most spiritual traditions, people believe that the spirit leaves our body when we die, and that it continues to develop. Russ Moxley the author of Leadership & Spirit, writes in Chapter 2 that spirit helps to define the “true, real, unique self that is us. It confirms our individuality....We are who we are because of spirit.” (Moxley, 2000)

Spirit is passionate; without passion no one can be truly spiritual. Deepak Chopra

Defining Spirituality

Most of the authors and consultants who work in the field of spirituality in the workplace define the human being as consisting of four parts or four types of energy:

1. Physical

2. Mental

3. Emotional

4. Spiritual

To some degree or another, the workplace tends to pay attention to the first three energies, but spiritual energy encompasses these other three and brings in the intangible, life-affirming energy that Fairholm (1997) in his book Capturing the Heart of Leadership describes as follows:

One’s spirituality is the essence of who he or she is. It defines the inner self, separate from the body, but including the physical and intellectual self....Spirituality also is the quality of being spiritual, of recognizing the intangible, life-affirming force in self and all human beings. It is a state of intimate relationship with the inner self of higher values and morality. It is a recognition of the truth of the inner nature of people.

Defining Spirituality in the Workplace

James Autry, author of books including Love and Profit and Life and Work, is the former CEO of Meredith Corporation, a very large magazine publishing company. Autry’s books are filled with his poetry, and a very popular one is “Threads” which is excerpted here. This poem is one of the simplest ways I know to describe what spirituality in the workplace is:

Listen.

In every office you hear the threads

of love and joy and fear and guilt,

the cries for celebration and reassurance,

and somehow you know that connecting those threads is what you are supposed to do

and business takes care of itself.

(Autry, 1991)

A more academic definition comes from an article I wrote for the Journal of Management Education titled “Spirituality in Management Education: A guide to resources”:

Spirituality in the workplace is about people seeing their work as a spiritual path, as an opportunity to grow personally and to contribute to society in a meaningful way. It is about learning to be more caring and compassionate with fellow employees, with bosses, with subordinates and customers. It is about integrity, being true to oneself and telling the truth to others. It means attempting to live your values more fully in your work. It can refer to the ways in which organizations structure themselves to support the spiritual development of employees. (Neal, 1997)

The Four Gateways

As stated earlier, there are four Gateways to Spirit at Work. The First Gateway is the individual path. What I’ve learned from research that I’ve conducted with highly spiritual people is that they see work as a real opportunity to practice their spiritual principles and to use work challenges as a way of growing spiritually and becoming a better person. This form of spirituality in the workplace does not need any kind of organizational awareness or sanction. It is a very private and personal approach, but one that provides a great deal of meaning, commitment, and creativity to those who work with this perspective.

In the Second Gateway there are several different management and consulting approaches that are starting to be used in the workplace to support spirituality in leadership and in team development. Barry Heerman has created a methodology called “Team Spirit” that is widely used in AT&T. Marlow Hotchkiss and Robert Ott and Colleen Kelly of Living Systems have developed a team approach based on Native American traditions called “Wisdom Council Meetings” that have been a significant decision-making and team-building tool at Xerox.

The Third Gateway focuses on the organizational level, and there are many different approaches to implementing spirituality systemically. The term “Narings Liv” is a Swedish phrase that is found at the top margin of their newspapers in the equivalent of the American “Help Wanted” section. Narings Liv means “Business.” However, the phrase, when translated literally, means “nourishment for life.” Tom Hurley tjhurley@chaord.org, Managing Director of The Chaordic Alliance http://www.chaordic.org, used to hold “Narings Liv” meetings with business executives to explore the question, “What would business look like if it were truly nourishing for life?” You might want to think about how much the organization you work really nourishes life. The field of spirituality in the workplace is exploring what organizations could be like if they were more nourishing to the human spirit.

The Fourth Gateway looks at the role of business in society from a spiritual perspective and look at the power that business has to transform the planet and to help create a positive shift in consciousness. John Hormann, co-author with Willis Harman of Creative Work (1990: 11), says “Business, the motor of our society, has the opportunity to be a new creative force on the planet, a force which could contribute to the well-being of many.” In this Gateway we ask fundamental questions about the nature and purpose of business and make some suggestions about how organizations can help to create a world that works for all.

Why Spirituality In The Workplace Is A Hot Issue

There have been four major trends that have led to an increased interest in integrating spirituality and work. The first is a result of the mergers, acquisitions, and the resultant downsizing in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s. It used to be that the psychological contract with an organization was that if you performed reasonably well and kept your nose clean that you would have a job for life. David Noer (in his book Healing the Wounds, states that there is now a “new employee contract.” This contract states that, as Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric put it, “we can’t guarantee you a job for life, but we will try to ensure that you are marketable.” The result of this is that people can no longer depend on the organization to provide them stability and security. In an evolutionary sense, this means that instead of looking externally for something to provide meaning, people are beginning to look internally. In some cases this means that people are examining their inner lives, their core values, their purpose in life, and finding that meaning comes from within, from their spirituality.

The second major trend is demographic. In the United States, baby boomers – which comprise the largest age segment of the population – are all reaching middle age at the same time. So in a sense, it is as if society is having a mid-life crisis. Middle age is a time for many when we look back at where are lives have come from and look forward to the kind of life we want to live in the future. It is a time of self-assessment, and can be a time of recommitment to deeper held values. This generation is the generation that grew up in the 1960’s and who began looking into Eastern religions and into non-traditional forms of spirituality. Now these people are in positions of power in society and are having a major impact on cultural norms. For this reason, spirituality has become a mainstream interest, as evidenced by the number of bestselling books on the topic as well as the themes of many popular movies and shows. All of this has a spillover effect into the workplace, as people who are interested in spirituality look at ways that they can apply their principles and practices in all parts of their lives, including work.

The third trend towards an interest in spirituality was driven by the turning of the millenium. As human beings, we tend to set aside certain holidays, anniversaries, and other special times as opportunities for contemplation on who we’ve become and what we’ve done poorly that we would like to change. New Year’s is traditionally a time in the secular Western culture for New Year’s Resolutions and for looking back at the past year, and making predictions about the future. The recent millenium celebration multiplied that “New Year’s” effect, and raised it to a global level of consciousness. As a human race we spent time looking back at our history and evaluating how far we’ve come. We also spent time thinking about this new millenium and what we would like to see for ourselves on this planet. These are basically spiritual questions, questions that get at the heart and the meaning of life.

Finally, in the United States and in many other industrialized countries, there has been a growing movement towards self-help groups. Primarily this has grown out of the Alcoholics Anonymous movement and the 12 step programs offer a very practical, non-religious, every-day kind of spirituality.

It should be noted that this increasing interest in spirituality in the workplace is an international phenomenon, but it is focused in industrialized countries, such as the United States, Canada, Mexico, Norway, United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand. There have been some activities in developing countries such as India, the Phillippines and Brazil, but they are not yet widespread. The reason for this is that in industrialized countries, we have had a materialistic and scientific philosophy that has split off and often denied the spiritual side of life. We are only now trying to integrate the two back together. However, in countries that are less industrialized, and in cultures such as the African-American, Latin-American, and Native-American cultures, spirituality is already more a part of everyday life.

The Universe pays me for being who I am and doing what I love doing. Shakti Gawain

Some Statistics and Trends

Gallup Poll

In a recent article in U.S. News & World Report (Nov. 1, 1999), Michele Conlin quotes a Gallup Poll that offers the statistics in Table 1. A more recent poll on religion in the United States can be found at the Gallup Organization’s website.

Table 1. Gallup Poll Statistics

48% of Americans have had the occasion to talk about their religious faith in the workplace in the past 24 hours

95% of Americans believe in God or a Universal Spirit

51% of Americans say that modern life leaves them too busy to enjoy God or to pray as they would like.

Ian Mitroff and Liz Denton recently published a book titled A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America (1999), Based on a sample of 131 returned questionnaires and 90 interviews with executives, they found:

1. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the respondents in our study did not have widely varying definitions of spirituality.

2. People do not want to compartmentalize or fragment their lives.

3. Respondents generally differentiated strongly between religion and spirituality.

4. They viewed religion as a highly inappropriate topic and form of expression in the workplace.

5. People are hungry for models of practicing spirituality in the workplace without offending their coworkers or causing acrimony.

6. Lacking positive role models of how to practice spirituality in the workplace, many people – not all – are terribly afraid even to use the words spirituality and soul.

7. There is a relatively small number of models for practicing spirituality responsibly in the workplace.

(Mitroff and Denton, 1999, pp.xv-xvii)

They also found that in general people seem to think that spirituality has positive benefits for the workplace so long as there is no promotion of traditional religion. A more concrete study showing the benefits of a transformational program in the workplace was conducted by a special projects division of McKinsey & Company, a major international consulting firm. The study was based in Australia, but conducted with 14 of their international clients in different countries. McKinsey consultants designed and implemented a spiritually-based training program that helped people to get in touch with their deepest values and their deepest sense of their own identity and their purpose in life. They were able to show measurable benefits of this program including increased productivity, reduced employee turnover, and increased market share. These results will be published in a forthcoming book by the two project leaders Gita Bellin and Michael Rennie.

Integral Culture Study – Paul Ray

In 2001, Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson published their book Cultural Creatives, which is a demographic study funded by The Fetzer Institute on the changing values in America. There are three major values orientations in the U.S.: Heartlanders, Modernists, and Cultural Creatives. This last group is the fastest growing group and the one that has the most significant impact on changes in society, because people in this group are always looking for ‘the better way.’

Ray estimated that the Cultural Creatives make up about 26% of the adult population, which would be over 44 million people! This finding is considered to have major marketing implications, since this group tends to be fairly affluent and well-educated. The Cultural Creatives can be broken down into two sub-groups: The Core Cultural Creatives, who are more personal growth centered, and the Green Cultural Creatives who are more focused on the environment and social justice. This means that approximately one fourth of the workforce is highly values-driven. Truly a critical mass, and a group to contend with if you are a manager.

Contemplative Practices in the Workplace Study – Chris Schaefer and Jeri Darling

This study was also funded by The Fetzer Institute http://www.fetzer.org. In interviews with over 80 people and surveys of about 150 people, Chris Schaefer and Jeri Darling, of High Tor Alliance found that the existence of contemplative practices in the workplace were much more widespread than they thought. Common practices include meditation, prayer, journaling, opening meetings with an inspirational reading, and being in nature. People felt that these practices made a positive difference in their effectiveness at work.

They also found that 80% of the people that they surveyed described themselves as very spiritual but not religious.

More Statistics

There is tremendous evidence of the growing interest in spirituality in the workplace, and a wealth of resources to support someone who wants to learn more about this field.

According the the U.S. News and World Report article cited earlier (Conlin 1999) over 10,000 Bible and prayer groups meet regularly in the workplace. There is a group called The International Coalition of Workplace Ministries that serves as a clearinghouse for the faith at work movement.

There are an increasing number of conferences on spirituality and business every year, and they are worldwide. For a current listing, visit the Spirit at Work website.

There are also an increasing number of universities offering courses related to spirituality in the workplace. Please visit the Spirit at Work website to see sample copies of syllabi from these courses.

Probably one of the most significant events to happen in the past few years is that the Academy of Management, which is the professional organization for professors who teach management and organizational behavior, approved the formation of an Interest Group on Management, Spirituality, and Religion in 1999. The reason that this is significant is that this is the most prestigious academic organization in the field of management, and they basically decide what is acceptable in the field and what is not. By approving this new interest group, the Board of the Academy is saying that spirituality in the workplace is a legitimate field of study and that research, teaching, and publishing are acceptable in this area.

A leadership textbook by Robert Lussier has recently been published and has a special section on spirituality in the workplace that I wrote (Lussier 2000). It is likely that we will see more and more evidence of the growing interest in spirituality in the workplace in the future.

Summary

In summary, it is important to remember that spirituality in the workplace and religion in the workplace are not the same thing, even though there may be some overlap. When we talk about this newly emerging field, it is important to be concise about the language we use, because there is so much room for misperception and misunderstanding.

In the past organizations have typically treated employees as if they were cogs in a machine or a pair of hands, to use two popular metaphors. But employees no longer want to feel like they have to shut parts of themselves down when they go into the workplace. The organization that can tap into the whole person, into all four energies – as Moxley (2000) describes in the companion book to this Book – will be the organization that will have creative, flexible, highly committed and talented people. Those are the things that give an organization its competitive edge in the 21^st Century.

Spirituality in the workplace is a dramatically growing trend, and it has major implications for management. Even if you don’t see yourself as spiritual, you will need to understand that up to 25% of your workforce could have very strong spiritual values, and you will need to learn how to work with that aspect of diversity. More evidence is coming to light that the leaders who do their inner work are likely to be the most effective and successful leaders of the future.

Exercise:

Take a piece of paper (or a flip chart page if you are working in a group) and draw a line down the middle. At the top of the left hand part of the page write “Religion.” At the top of the right hand part of the page write “Spirituality.” Then brainstorm the similarities and differences between these two concepts. If you are doing this in a group, follow the exercise with a discussion of the implications of your findings for the workplace.

Discussion or Journal Questions:

1. What does “spirituality” mean to you?

2. What does “spirituality in the workplace” mean to you?

3. What does “spirituality in the workplace” look like?

4. What does the concept of “religion in the workplace” mean to you?

5. How pervasive is this interest in spirituality in the workplace? Do you see evidence of it in your organization?

6. What personal and/or work experiences created your interest in spirituality in the workplace?

Internet Assignments

1. Search the Internet for information that supports or refutes the growing interest in spirituality.

2. Explore bookseller websites such as http://www.amazon.com or http://www.barnesandnoble.com to see how many of the bestselling books are on spirituality.

3. Visit http://www.bkpub.com or http://www.josseybass.com to find books that might be of interest to you. These two publishers are the major publishers of books on spirituality in the workplace.