Spirit and Fulfillment at Work: Why “Soulistic” Organizations Have the Ultimate Competitive Advantage
By Sean Voisen, February 2005
On any given Monday, have you ever taken a moment to look around your office at your co-workers and wonder: How many of these people actually love being here right now? How many of these people woke up this morning and said to themselves, “Thank God it’s Monday”? Chances are that if your office is anything like 99.9% of the workplaces found in America today, then not a single one of your co-workers is praising the start of another workweek. And chances are that you aren’t either. When did work become so much “work”?
Most people know that it doesn’t have to be this way. Most people understand that a job can be so much more than a job; that there’s more to life than the lackluster 8-to-5 workday with only a few spare moments of enjoyment sandwiched in there on the weekends. But very few people actually know how to go about changing the situation, and even fewer manage to take action and do something about it. Everybody is so preoccupied with working to feed their families that nobody has bothered to work on feeding their souls.
The average American spends ten of approximately sixteen waking hours either at work or commuting to and from work at least five days per week. A recent Gallup poll (September 2004) indicates that during these ten hours, 71% of Americans are not engaged in the work they’re doing. In fact, 16% are actively disengaged — a very poignant point indeed. The result for American businesses is a pool of workers with substantial potential in productivity and creativity, but drastic underutilization of that potential. It’s like sitting on top of a nuclear fusion generator and not bothering to learn how to turn it on. What happened? How can business be so blind?
Well, the theory is that during the late 1800s, when mankind ushered in the industrial era — the great age of man and machine – there was an unspoken pact in the business world that said when a worker came to work, she could leave her spirit at home. Work was for work, and that was it. The home or the church was the place for matters of the soul and personal growth and development. More and more work meant less and less time for human beings to work on those two nagging questions that nearly every person on the planet inevitably asks: Who am I? And, Why am I here? For nearly one-hundred years a disaffected and unfulfilled workforce lead lives of quiet desperation, but very few people cared or bothered to notice. For a while, the technology boom and advances in machinery more than made up for the resulting lack of worker productivity, camouflaging the problem from the public eye. Starting in the 1940s and the 1950s, Americans first and foremost sought job security, not fulfillment, in their zest to build the suburban paradise, an extension of the Manifest Destiny. Big businesses viewed human workforces as cogs in an intricate capitalist machine and the civil rights movement hadn’t even begun yet. The problem existed, but it was more or less transparent.
Fast-forward to today, where the average white-collar employee is now considered a “knowledge worker” and globalization demands creativity and innovation, something a machine or a computer can’t offer, from just about everyone. People are no longer as expendable as they once were. The humanists have returned, and at the beginning of the 21st century, businesses large and small are waking up to the most important realization to hit the capitalist mindset in a long, long time: Purpose, meaning and fulfillment matter. Happy people are productive people. Business is about more than filling pocketbooks; it’s about nourishing the human spirit.
This emerging trend, the return to personal authenticity and the growth of spirituality in the workplace, is something that The Voisen Cooperative has dubbed “The Soulistic Movement.” Albeit a fabricated word, “soulistic” aptly describes those organizations driven by and focused on the spirit or the soul of the people within them. Soulistic organizations are those organizations that focus on creating an environment where all players — employees, partners and customers — contribute to a greater purpose and know it. They foster an organizational culture that engenders worker fulfillment and happiness, and they make more money as a direct result. Why? Productivity, productivity, productivity. Numerous studies, including recent studies conducted by MIT’s Sloan School of Management and UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, have shown that those who feel that their jobs are directly tied to the fulfillment of their life’s purpose are more engaged, more creative, more productive and able to work with greater endurance than those who lack this deeper connection. So, what is the secret to creating a culture where workers can feel fulfilled? Soulistic organizations know: find creative ways to welcome spirituality into the workplace.
Sprituality at Work?
Spirituality in the workplace doesn’t mean that organizations who want to become more “soulistic” have to set up altars and welcome all the world’s religions inside company doors. And it doesn’t have anything to do with supposed “New Age” practices or principles either. It simply means allowing every member of an organization the time and resources to explore his or her own true self — desires, passions, ideas and purpose — and the freedom to express this true self in a more authentic manner. It means transforming a business into something much more than a business; it means transforming it into a lifelong learning community.
Does it sound far-fetched? Well, organizations who don’t plan on working to become soulistic organizations in the near future may soon find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Many of the nation’s top companies are already finding unique new ways to nurture the spirit of their employees and are reaping the benefits. Apple Computer, one of the most innovative and forward-thinking organizations in the world today, has a dedicated meditation and prayer room at its headquarters in Cupertino, California. The company allows its employees a half-hour each day for prayer or meditation (some sessions are lead by a former employee turned Buddhist monk) as a way to stimulate energy and creativity. Corporate leadership at Xerox frequently takes time out for weekend retreats that include traditional Native American vision quests. Executives at Aetna, a leading national provider of health benefits, frequently tout the importance of spirituality to their employees, and even Microsoft, notorious for its workaholic, “no holds barred” approach to business, sponsors an online prayer and meditation service. The freedom to take a moment to pause during the middle of a hectic workday, reconnect with the inner self in an authentic manner, and regain focus and composure can bring about far more innovation and insight than a non-stop, “lunch-at-the-desk” marathon ever could. As a result, soulistic organizations are a creative bunch.
Furthermore, soulistic organizations typically have a stronger sense of ethics and values than their competitors. The recent Enron and WorldCom debacles left such a bad taste in the mouths of many investors that they now frequently investigate the culture, values and ethics of the corporations they plan to invest in as a direct result. It should be no surprise, then, that consumers also naturally gravitate towards those companies who they feel are contributing to the greater good of the world, not those they feel are driven by greed.
By aligning their corporate mission with a unifying sense of purpose, and retaining an intuitive sense of their role in the larger community, soulistic organizations typically better understand the value of service. They are, in essence, service-based organizations. Successful, community-minded, service-based organizations like The Body Shop, Timberland and Patagonia can attest that the resulting positive public image does wonders for profitability. In short, and as Professor Ian Mitroff makes perfectly clear in his most recent book, A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America, “Spirituality could be the ultimate competitive advantage.”
Becoming a “Soulistic” Organization
So, what does it take to become a soulistic organization and gain this ultimate competitive advantage? Well, unfortunately the process is neither quick nor easy. One of the first things that any business leader must realize is that organizational transformation begins with personal transformation. Organizations don’t change; people do! This means that leaders — and that essentially includes everyone in an organization from the CEO down to the workers on the floor — must dedicate themselves to their own personal growth and development. They must dedicate themselves to lifelong learning. A tall order indeed, but it is essential. Finding fulfillment at work requires, first and foremost, the intimate knowledge of what it takes to be personally fulfilled.
Secondly, leadership must realize that employee fulfillment only occurs when the culture of an organization equally supports its employees’ physical, emotional, mental and spiritual needs. Office aesthetics and amenities are just as important as the freedom for employees to take a half-hour per day to reconnect to their life’s purpose. When employees are comfortable – physically, emotionally and spiritually — they are able to open up and share new ideas with greater ease. They are able to work without fear.
Finally, leadership must lead with a compelling vision, a strong set of core cultural values, and a well-defined purpose centered on service. During trying, turbulent times, or times of tedium and monotony, every member of a soulistic organization should be able to use the organizational purpose as a powerful reminder that though the work may sometimes be difficult, it’s ultimately a part of a bigger, more rewarding picture: serving and helping other people.
What’s Next?
Though still on the fringe of mainstream business thinking, the “Soulistic Movement” gains more and more momentum with each passing day. Already the market is flooded with books discussing the spirit-at-work phenomenon, including Love the Work You’re With by Richard C. Whiteley, The Stirring of Soul in the Workplace by Alan Briskin, The Corporate Mystic by Gay Hendricks, and even Jesus CEO by Laurie Beth Jones, just to name a few. As more and more people wake up to the fact that their work is leaving them with a life that feels unfulfilled, and that they might, as change management guru Larry Wilson says, “die with their music still inside them,” they will choose to take action. There simply is no other option. Though effective and successful at one time, the old ways of thinking, the old paradigms of the industrial era, are failing these days. People don’t want to go to work and have to leave their lives at home. They want their lives to be their work, and they want to love it.
Sources include:
- Spirituality and Ethics in Business by Corinne McLaughlin
- The New Spirit of Work by David Dorsey
- Love the Work You’re With by Richard C. Whiteley