Leadership and Spirituality
God and the Workplace ~Dr. Robert Terry
Can theological talk and action in a secular workplace happen without alienation, religious domination and lawsuits?
What are the implications of God’s plan for organizations—personally, professionally, internally and out in the world?
A Puzzle
‘Leadership Spirituality and the Workplace’ is a hot topic today. Seminars are conducted and well attended everywhere in the U.S. For example, St. Thomas School of Business Management Center offers a one day Spirit in Work Conference for $345.00. Its focus is The Force of Love in Action.
Fortune Magazine contained an article ‘God & Business’ that states: "bringing spirituality into the workplace violates the old idea that faith and fortune don’t mix. But a groundswell of believers is breaching the last taboo in corporate America". (July 9, 2001, p. 59)
Here are a couple of stories from the article:
At a lecture series called Faith@Work organized by the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, the senior pastor, the Reverend Dr. Thomas K. Tewell, urges business people to become “points of distribution” for God’s love in the marketplace. “Are you willing to be a channel in the divine economy? He asks.
At a church retreat near San Antonio, parishioners listen to the message of “everyday Christianity” delivered by David Miller, a former IBM executive and investment banker who now leads a faith-in-the-workplace group called the Avodah Institute. Miller, 44, left business to study at Princeton Theological Seminary, not to flee corporate America but to help knit closer ties between business and religion. “People often talk about the sacred-secular divide,” he says, “but my faith tells me that God is found in earth and rocks and buildings and institutions, and, yes, in the business world. Avodah, Hebrew word, means both “work” and “worship.” Marc Gunther, Fortune, July 9, 2001, P. 61)
Maybe you have heard of the God Squad. Michelle Conlin reported in Business Week:
Bottom-rung workers are also getting a sprinkling of the sacred at the workplace. Companies such as Taco Bell (YUM), Pizza Hut, and subsidiaries of Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) are hiring Army-style chaplains who offer any religious flavor requested. Member of these 24-hour God squads visit employees in hospitals, deal with nervous breakdowns, and respond to suicide threats. They’ll even say the vows on a worker’s wedding day or deliver the eulogy at her funeral.
A Probe
One of the best books on this theme is Spirituality@Work. Gregory F.A. Pierce and I have a great deal of overlap in perspective. He defines spirituality as follows:
“Spirituality is a disciplined attempt to align ourselves and our environment with God and to incarnate (enflesh, make real, materialize) God’s spirit in the world." (P. 16, Loyola Press, Chicago, 2001)
What then is work?
“Work is all the effort (paid or unpaid) we exert to make the world a better place, a little closer to the way God would have things.” (P. 18)
In ten short, pointed and thoughtful chapters, he outlines ten ways to live faith at work. I agree with all of them. Pierce understands well how time in the workplace dominates most employees’ lives. Many struggle with issues of balance with family and personal life. Some love to leave home and go to work. They are escaping from an unhappy family situation.
Issues surface continually at work that also causes stress and discomfort. It may be supervision, management decisions plus the decision-making processes themselves. As a consultant, mentor and leadership architect and educator, I continually run into very perplexing problems. Let me share a few.
A plant manager yells and screams at employees. The CEO sends him off for therapy. After a six month series of sessions, the manager became angry on the plant floor and spit on three employees. He was fired.
A CEO of a non-profit corporation yelled and swore at employees regularly. She fired many people and publicly stated she trusted no one. She was the organization. Her board found out about her. They threatened to fire her. She accommodated them to preserve her job, and then reverted to the same behavior. The board took no decisive action. The organization is losing its best employees and grants are declining.
A merger passes the legal and board processes. As it unfolds power issues take over disguised as reorganization. Who is going to control whom? The real issue is sidetracked and task forces are convened to solve structure concerns.
An old law case reemerged. It was thought to be settled. It was not and had merit. Executives decided to ignore it and move on. The company was sued, losing money and reputation.
An executive committee debated pay for performance. One person argued for equal pay for equal work, defined by job descriptions. Another wanted pay linked only to personal performance. Each had evidence that its side was right; no agreement was reached. The CEO, so frustrated with lack of agreement quit having executive meetings and fired two of the members.
You can tell that I get involved in fascinating and troublesome issues. As I mentor executives, such issues surface every week. What does God talk have to do with these kinds of problems?
If God talk is relevant, what methods are useful to connect God and work? And are they safe for honest exploration without offense? Issues of authenticity penetrate all the above issues and any others that come up. So God is present in everything going on. The secret is to figure out what is really going on and make wise action choices.
The metaphor of bringing Sunday to Monday is misplaced. That implies bringing religion into the workplace. I did that for years, bringing values, not theology, from Sunday to Monday. Now I am having the joy of figuring out the theological link. Sunday is in Monday; God is everywhere all the time.
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