Why spirituality needs to be reconnected to work.

“Move fast and break things”, Zuckerberg’s famous motto is now a thing of the past. Customers are demanding virtuous, responsible organisations that are not only for profit but also for good.

CEO’s across the globe have discovered the power of infusing spiritual practices, principles and values into the core of their multi-billion dollar businesses in order to create impactful organisations and meaningful workplaces.

Spiritual principles dig into the core of who we are as human beings. Principles such as compassion, kindness, and recognising each other as valuable and unique function as powerful cultural drivers in a business.

‘Ora et Labora’, Latin for prayer and work has been the secret of multi-million dollar businesses run from Monasteries.

Universal spiritual principles and practices can give any business and each one who works something to , something to , and something to .

‘Something to be’ has to do with identity. It is a foundation, a place for you to start. A large part of spirituality is finding out who you are and whom you were created to be. Beautiful words like vocation, purpose, and calling are located here.

It is a long and difficult journey to discover your identity, but an extremely powerful one. It is where we discover that we are unique in our gifts and talents, that we are all creative beings, and that we are worthy of love and in fact loved.

The powerful thing about this realisation is that when we finally see it and accept it, we also see it and cherish it in others. It is this very journey that gave humankind Universal Human Rights, Universities, and Hospitals because we see the same value in each human being that we have discovered in ourselves. This is, after all, what the greeting Namaste means, the soul in me honours the soul in you, or even the divine in me honours the divine in you.

What would a business look like where everyone knew this, knew their identity and that they belong, are enough, and worthy of love? What would a place like that design and bring to the world?

Easily the most difficult question in life, both for ourselves and our businesses.

Want to you really want?

Our desire is our bus ticket home, my spiritual director always tells me. The word desire actually means, ‘of the stars’, stars we need to navigate life by.

Used with true intent they will catapult you forward, used carelessly or for selfish motives, they will crush you. It is like holding on to the back of a truck when you are on a skateboard, great if you get it right, horrible if you mess it up, but the truck will keep on moving forward.. with or without you.

What do you want and what does your business want?

Profit, why?

Success, why?

The greater good, why?

Embedding spiritual values is about internalizing them and then embodying them. It is doing the deep hard work to figure out what do you want the future to truly be and whom you want to be in that future.

Lastly, spirituality invites us into action, once we have realised who we are, and we have something we want, the only thing left is something to do to get there.

And that something is to love, as trite as that sounds it is the truth. Human beings and organisations do not exist in isolation. We act as though we do, when our lives are good, everything is good, when our profit is up everything is good.

But it is not, we are all connected in an infinite complex system of relationships, and in spirituality relationships matter. Actually, that is one of the many definitions of spirituality, it is the connections between us, it lives in the in-between spaces.

It invites us to navigate those connections with kindness, compassion, understanding and yes

love.

Spirituality is an ancient meaning-making mechanism and, I believe, a need that exists on one level or another in every human being.

The millions of people that have gone before us over thousands of years left us great gifts, values, principles and practices that can help us create the world we want, and become the people we are meant to be.

Engaging spirituality in the workplace can foster engagement, well-being, and just good plain old joy.

Get skin in the game, start the work.

Pierre

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