Conscious Workplace
by Kathleen
Hawkins
 "A
person can't practice spirituality in
business," a CEO once told me. He explained that spirituality
is an exclusive, personal relationship between an individual
and that individual's concept of God Energy or a Higher Power.
He said that spirituality is a subjective experience that
cannot be quantified, qualified, manifested on the material
plane, or easily discussed.
"The closest
you can come to expressing your spirituality at work is by
tuning in to your intuition when you make decisions," he
concluded.
I agree that
an individual's spirituality is highly personal, but as with
all the great, universal concepts such as freedom, beauty, and
love, we can demonstrate our understanding of the greater
concept by expressing its qualities through our everyday
actions.
Freedom, for
example, means "liberty from slavery, oppression, or
incarceration," or "the condition of being free from
constraints." Two ways that we can manifest our understanding
of this universal concept is to vote and to take an active
stand against oppression when we see it happening.
Another
concept -- beauty -- means "a pleasing quality associated with
harmony of form or color." We each relate to beauty, however,
in our own personal ways. Some of us, for example, show an
understanding of beauty by landscaping our lawns or decorating
our homes. Others of us dress in style, appreciate a sunset,
paint a picture, hike in the mountains, or stop to smell the
flowers.
Love, also considered a
universal concept, is "an intense affection for another
person." When people are in love, however, they do certain
things to express that love such as spending time together,
giving each other tokens of that love, looking forward to
spending more time together, and exploring ways to deepen
their relationship.
Likewise when people have a
working relationship with a Greater Power, they find
themselves naturally expressing this relationship in their
lives.
At the office, for example,
we can demonstrate our personal relationship with, to quote
Ernest Holmes, the "Unity behind all things," by having
integrity, ethics, compassion for others, and respect for the
planet. By doing so, we re-enact our divine nature in the
workplace.
Life-Affirming Alternatives
Look in any bookstore and
you'll find evidence that people are demonstrating a greater
concern for global issues and seeing themselves and their
companies in relation to the Whole. They are opting for more
life-affirming alternatives to the popular 'warfare' model of
business, with all its bravado and frantic scrambling to seize
the largest market share. Growing numbers of executives across
the country are:
* showing
greater respect for their employees by inviting and
rewarding creative, individual contributions to the company
* fostering
teamwork and morale
*
encouraging and acknowledging individual accomplishments and
providing for career enhancement
* choosing
to cooperate instead of compete, both within the company and
between companies
* embracing
diversity
* exploring ways to
incorporate values, ethics, and integrity into the workplace
to make work a more enjoyable, rewarding experience for all
involved
There's no limit to
corporate creativity when an organization decides to express
spiritual principles in business. Here are some of the things
that people are doing:
* A publishing company in
New York provides a meditation room on the premises and
allows time for employees to use it if they wish.
* The president of a
successful advertising agency in California regularly
practices yoga, meditates, and reads inspirational material,
which increases his sense of well-being and his ability to
make wise decisions.
* A talent agency in
southern California sends models and actors only to those
assignments whose products reflect life-enhancing values.
* Companies are realizing
the importance of humor, and some have appointed 'negativity
patrols,' 'ambassadors of fun,' 'morale czars' or
'lieutenants of laughs' to help to keep people's spirits
high.
* More
companies are donating a percentage of their profits to
worthy causes.
*
Corporations are becoming more conscious of their effects on
the global economy and on the environment.
And growing
numbers of employees are responding in kind by:
* working
with renewed interest and dedication
* buying
stock in the company
* looking
for creative solutions to challenges that face the
organization
* taking advantage of
training and development opportunities offered by the
company so they can be more productive as employees on the
job
* recycling
office products
* joining
with management to meet the company's goals
* looking
for ways to cooperate with others as part of a team
* exploring
ways they can enjoy greater job satisfaction and
consequently be more valuable to the company
People report that this
positive approach is paying off in a big way. They're enjoying
increased personal fulfillment, greater job satisfaction, and
more profit. They're finding that when they put people and
quality products before profit, the business naturally
thrives.
Developing a Socially Conscious Workplace
To develop a more socially
responsible way of doing business that fosters a higher regard
for people and a greater respect for the planet, consider the
following ideas:
Conserve
Energy
1. Conduct
energy audits of the office building and, where energy is
being wasted, find ways to conserve it.
2. Carpool
and telecommute.
3. Schedule
conference calls rather than ask people to travel to attend
meetings.
4. Use
outside air in the winter for cooling, if possible, and the
sun for heat in the summers.
Protect the
Environment
5. Assess
the company's impact on the environment and find ways to
solve problems.
6. Support
environmental programs in the community.
7. Use
popcorn packing material instead of Styrofoam 'peanuts.'
8. Keep the costs of
products low by keeping overhead low.
9. Use alternatives to
animal testing and animal by-products.
10. Treat waste products
effectively.
11. Recycle
paper products and chemicals.
12. Use
soybean inks.
13. Shred paper and use
as packing material.
14. Make double-sided
copies when possible.
15. Use refillable pens
and reusable dishes.
16. Recycle
phone books and printer cartridges.
17. Compost
biodegradable products.
Education and
Community Outreach Programs
18. Invest
in the training of staff, customers, and the community.
19. Educate
while you advertise.
20. Provide
grants, scholarships, and apprenticeship programs.
21. Give
people time off to participate in yearly Earth Day
celebrations.
22. Sponsor
community programs, mulching events, and seminars.
23.
Participate in food collections.
24. Support
ethnic business.
25. Donate a
percentage of your profits to nonprofit causes.
Social
26. Offer-or
attend-workshops on diversity.
27. Promote
literacy.
28. Support
programs for the arts.
29. Provide
day care for employees' children.
30. Involve
employees in formulating policy and standard practices.
31. Reward
innovative thinking.
32. Do
business with companies that donate a percentage of profits
to worthy social causes.
When you have a working
relationship with a greater Power, you'll find yourself
naturally expressing this relationship in your life. And the
workplace will become an extension of your values, with all
the attendant characteristics: integrity, ethics, and
compassion.
The CEO mentioned in the
beginning of this chapter, incidentally, had a change of
mind/heart and became the founder of a company that publishes
books that encourage and support the evolution of
consciousness in the business community.
 This
article was excerpted from:
SPIRIT Incorporated: How to Follow Your Spiritual Path from 9 to 5
by Kathleen Hawkins.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, DeVorss
Publications. ©1998.
www.devorss.com
Info/Order this book.
About The
Author
Kathleen Hawkins is vice president of
the National Management Institute, in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and
the author of four books,
Time Management Made Easy; Test Your Entrepreneurial IQ;
Reverse Speech: Hidden Messages in Human Communication; and
SPIRIT Incorporated. Her articles and ideas on how to increase
personal and professional effectiveness have appeared in more than 200
publications. She's also a reading specialist -- with master's degrees in
reading education and creative writing -- and a professional speaker and a
business consultant. She's been using a spiritual perspective in
business as long as she has been in business. Visit her website at
www.winningspirit.com.
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