Faith at Work: Do We Need Another Movement?

by Tom Heuerman, Ph.D.

I have come to the conclusion that whether or not a person is a religious believer does not matter much. Far more important is that they be good human beings.

What I propose is a spiritual revolution.

The Dalai Lama

"Faith at work­it's exploding and not just in the Bible Belt," said David Miller, executive director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at the Divinity School of Yale University.

"There's a spiritual yearning and hunger today that did not exist when I was growing up and entering the marketplace," added Miller.

Miller proclaimed that "faith at work" and "faith-friendly organizations" have become a movement and could be the answer to ethical scandals, low job satisfaction, and the lack of personal fulfillment in the workplace.

As I listened, I felt afraid of unspoken agendas. I thought about how fear, power, money, and dominance can underlie proposed movements­not all movements are good. Cynical questions went through my mind­frustrated idealism born of many years experience in organizations:

Is "faith at work" a code word for fundamentalism in search of a new market? 1

1 I recall a young supervisor who was recently "born again" and let everyone know it, whether they were interested or not. He preached to his employees and pressured them to pray with him and to kneel in the office and turn their lives over to God (his God). Although new in his religious conversion, he talked like an expert and assumed he was more spiritually developed than those he preached to­how did he know this? His behavior caused much anger, tension, and distraction in his office. Fortunately he stopped this immature behavior and went on to be a fine man.

What are "faith-unfriendly" and "faith-friendly" organizations?

Are the most "faith-unfriendly" organizations those where people impose their religious beliefs on others and discriminate against those who believe differently than they do?

Do Mr. Miller's words mean that the spiritually immature and insecure, who wear their religions on their sleeves for all to see (to dominate others and show us how superior they are), will be free to badger and harangue people at work?

In a "faith-friendly" organization will the faithful be rewarded and promoted over the competent?

"Faith-friendly organization" implies a paternalistic and top-down program imposed by people in authority. Is this rankism in disguise? Will "faith friendly" make organizations more insidiously paternalistic? Do people in organizations want "faith at work?

Is Mr. Miller naïve about the ability of people to handle religion at work?

I felt my emotions churn as Mr. Miller spoke and knew it was time to reflect on my reactions to his words and proclamations.

I thought back to a dinner more than 16 years earlier:

It was a cold, dark, and windy night in February 1991. We dined at Water's­a trendy restaurant on north Washington Avenue in the warehouse district of downtown Minneapolis.

My companion, Diane Olson, Ph.D., was my friend and consultant. We sat in a booth at the back of the restaurant. In awe of my learning from a leadership experience I was involved in, I discussed my insights with her. I was the leader of a 4,500 employee business unit at the Star Tribune newspaper, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This business unit was in the midst of a transformational change process.

I glanced around secretively, leaned over the table that separated us, and whispered to Diane, "You know this transformational change is spiritual­it's what free, caring, responsible, and authentic people do naturally." Diane smiled and nodded. She already knew and understood.

I feared saying the word spiritual out loud to Diane. I was convinced that had I described the change process as a spiritual journey, the mechanistic organization would have rejected me quickly. On the other hand, linking the change effort to materialism (reduced costs and increased revenues) provided heroic status­at least for a time.

The change effort focused on "value driven Leadership," vision, employee involvement and empowerment, and partnership with labor unions. We told employees the truth and shared information openly. We treated people with respect­people cared. We touch the spirits of many, found meaning in noble objectives, and felt alive. We went below the surface to the universal dynamics of life that touched our hearts. No one talked of faith or religion.

The Newtonian world view­the reason for employee unhappiness and disengagement at work--of the past several hundred years is an anti-spirit and anti-human world view.

This world view treats people as machines. The five senses do not matter in this world view and ethics, spirit, values, quality, and consciousness are marginalized. This is an emotionless world of rigid rule books and impermeable boundaries--a black and white world--an either/or world.

We know the impact the mechanistic world view has on human beings in organizations. Conformity is the first rule. The only quality required of a worker is obedience. We feel the alienation of being treated like a machine, although we don't talk about it--machines don't have feelings.

In a world where corporations are machines, where management is equated with control, where employees are children, where people are motivated by fear, where change is synonymous with pain, and where emotions are forbidden, many people are bored, afraid, confused, alienated, and angry. Many experience those emotions as "numbness."

How will being "faith-friendly" transform the vast shadow side of organizations when formal religions­that ritualize and celebrate faith--can't heal or bring wholeness to themselves or illuminate their own dark shadows?

I left the corporate world in 1994 to be part of the movement from a mechanistic world view to an ecological world view and the changes in the world such a shift would bring about. At its most fundamental level, this transformation is spiritual.

I believe that the leadership challenge of the 21st century is to achieve outstanding and sustainable business results (on a sustainable planet) by creating conditions for employee engagement that brings forth the massive human potential in organizations­the competitive advantage of our time. This is a spiritual challenge that emphasizes the shared spiritual principles of all religions.

The organic world--dynamic, uncertain, paradox filled, unpredictable, uncontrollable­is a creative world of high energy and encompasses the mechanical. To try to control this energy with linear, dualistic, and fragmented mechanical thinking, which denies much of what is real in life, is to deny life's potential. This is an alive, creative, and emotional world of choices--a world of gray--a both/and world­interrelated, interconnected, interdependent-- where little is certain. We honor science AND spirit. This is a creative world--a world in need of authenticity.

Since I left the corporate world, I've seen fads and quick-fixes come and go. Change programs are the Prozac of the 90's and early 2000's for people and organizations. Most people want a one-page list of instructions for an easy and painless mechanical fix that guarantees results and takes pain away quickly. Little is internalized or made part of a sustainable culture change. This magical thinking is not possible: sustainable change­like spirituality--is difficult, takes time, and requires new thinking and new skills.

Fads, quick-fixes, and hastily proclaimed movements are designed to deliver us from our fear as they enrich and give celebrity status to their founders who come and go.

Instead of removing uncomfortable emotions (and their causes), ill-conceived change efforts recreate what we are trying to change and bring forth insidious disappointments. These efforts fail because fear and anxiety are aspects of life; we cannot be rescued. The best way is to go through our fears and anxieties with value-driven actions­not via outside heroes or pseudo-magic.

Are "faith at work" and "faith-friendly" workplaces the next quick-fix doomed to disappoint?

The proponents (and more so their potential followers) of "faith at work" need to consider this possibility. As the Dalai Lama said of wise discernment: we need to think, think, and think when we consider our efforts and their impacts on people.

We have enough ideas. We have sufficient knowledge. We talk too much about change. We need to quit coming up with new movement after new movement. They only distract us from ourselves and keep us stuck in the status-quo.

Instead of talk we need courageous and authentic action from all. We need to go through our fear and anxiety and live the noble and idealistic values we say we believe in­whatever the source of those values.

Most people (90%) in the United States say they believe in God and 58 percent say their faith is important to them. If so, God is already present in the workplace­in the hearts and souls of believers­he/she just isn't doing well at work because many people do not live true to the God that resides within them when they are at work.

Is it an act of desperation to turn from the family and church to the for-profit organization to meet our spiritual hunger? If churches and families cannot meet the spiritual needs of people, how can organizations, where profit comes first, do what they cannot? Should we heal and renew those institutions rather than seek comfort in more desolate places? I think we look in the wrong places to meet our spiritual needs; we need to look within and find others who support what we find in ourselves.

I was once shocked to hear a religious man and CEO of a successful company say he struggled with knowing how to live his religious values at work. How could he not know what the right thing to do was if he had the values of his religion to guide him?

People can choose to live more true to their values and carry their religious spirit forward­not just on Sundays--all of the time. They don't need "friendliness" to do so; they need personal courage. Like-minded people will encourage and support their authenticity.

The spirituality we might talk about in the workplace is the human potential available to us if we humanize the workplace: We can talk about caring, courage, justice, service, freedom, learning, identity, diversity, community, inclusion, authenticity, relationships, responsibility, and accountability­even love.

If we want to express our spirituality at work, we might reflect on the following:

• Articulate and live our personal vision, values, and purpose in life, (they provide direction and meaning),
• the shadows within each of us, (this is how we transform ourselves),
• brave and authentic (this gives us wholeness),
• the golden rule; be the change we want to see in the world (this develops nobility and compassion),
• about ourselves, others, and the natural world (this connects us with all of life),
• the truth (have credibility and integrity),
• mistakes and apologize (be human),
• all of life with deep respect (feel connected to life),
• witness to abuse, elitism, bullying, disrespect, and unethical behavior and be a spiritual warrior ("in standing up to evil, leaders are made"--Peter Koestenbaum),
• responsible and accountable and practice tough-love ( be a grownup),
• your talents and help others do the same
• fulfill potential),
• people in decisions that affect them (grow commitment),
• people to make decisions about the work that they do (utilize the wisdom in the system),
• organizations that do not serve a noble purpose in what they do, leave supervisors and managers who mistreat others (walk your talk), and
• good work and leave a positive legacy.

For me, spirit at work is acting with courage and authenticity. Faith is living true to my self when I am scared and unsure of my path. No one can make my journey safe for me in a dominant culture that values conformity more than authenticity. I take my life's odyssey alone and it is dangerous at times.

We do not need to publicly promote our personal religious views in the workplace­this is a bad and destructive idea sure to divide people already divided by the fragmented boundaries of organizations­instead we can talk of universal principles that unite us, and we can quietly do the work of our God in the workplace. God would be much happier with us, I believe, if we talked less righteously and acted more courageously.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote that to save our world we must create the "good person." He defined the good person as:

• self-evolving person,
• fully human person,
• self-actualizing person.

I believe a good person is someone who continually develops and acts on good intentions.

I believe that in the chaos of today's world, we must focus first on being authentic and whole­concerned for others and continually transforming one's self to care more--and then on being good leaders, followers, and team members. Otherwise we end up with inauthentic and neurotic leaders who no one will follow into uncertainty.

Does our spiritual hunger reflect a failure of personal responsibility: our failure to meet our own spiritual needs and the failure of religious institutions to meet the needs of followers?

Is a more encompassing spirituality emerging--and gaining self-awareness­that will connect all people and call us to a higher morality?

A spirituality that will replace religious institutions in decline just as an ecological world view emerges to replace a mechanistic philosophy that no longer solves the problems that matter to us? We need new answers to our questions, new solutions to our problems, and more spirit in our lives.

Mature people know they are responsible for the world they created. They use the anxiety of life to create life anew.

Danah Zohar and Iam Marshall:

We don't need a new movement: we need the courage and authenticity to live the values that matter to us, whatever our religion.

Then we will bring forth the spiritual revolution The Dalai Lama calls for and the spirituality we yearn for.

References:

Hollis, James. Why Good People Do Bad Things.

Website: www.kennythemonk.com [1]

About the Author:

See Dr. Heuerman's author page in Selfhelp Magazine here [2].