Does Spirituality belong in business? In leadership development? What is it? Does it 'work'? What are the risks?
This thesis written a decade ago is still in demand by researchers and practitioners alike. It is long, but worth the read if you are seriously interested in the subject.
EXCERPT...
Finally, as with spirituality, Spirituality at Work may be expressed in terms of specific beliefs and practices. Building on the ideas of Wilber (1996) and Gibbons (1999), Table 3 organises the individual and organizational aspects of Spirituality at Work in terms of their interior and exterior attributes. Exterior phenomena can be measured and observed by empirical methods. However, interior phenomena require phenomenological, narrative, or discursive approaches.
This table is far from definitive, but it does point out some gaps in our understanding that are suggestive of a research agenda. For example, while Mitroff & Denton (1999) have proposed certain dimensions along which a spiritual organization may be classified, these are principles and values (i.e. interior). The exterior, structural features of an organization that would promote more spiritual means and outcomes are also worthy of study[1]. These would include identifying reward systems, HR policies, organising principles (e.g. process versus functional, flat versus hierarchical), connectivity, and physical layout that would nurture individual spirituality at work, and assist the organization toward fulfilling more spiritual goals with more spiritual means.
Table 3: A proposed organising framework for Spirituality at Work |
||
|
Individual |
|
|
|
Organizational |
|
|
|
|
Interior |
Exterior |
The content of the tables in this section is preliminary in nature. Clearly more extensive development and elaboration is possible. And while classification and definition are modernist approaches, the process of doing this for spirituality identified the gap in our literature on mystical and Eastern spiritualities. Applying Wilber’s four quadrants to Spirituality at Work suggested a gap in our understanding of the lower-right (exterior-organizational) aspects of our field. Furthermore, this definition and classification becomes essential if we are to do more empirical or more rigorous research on Spirituality at Work, for spirituality may be too broad to study as a general phenomenon. It is not that we should endorse chiefly rational methods for understanding the ineffable, but as Wilber suggests, our evolution needs to transcend and include earlier methods of knowing (i.e. modernist approaches and the empirical-rational method), and not reject or abandon them.
Operationalizing spirituality – on measuring god?
In operationalizing spirituality, the pluralism discussed in the previous section becomes a serious issue. Not only are there multiple spiritual paths, but even paths which are superficially similar may, on deeper examination, have very different worldviews. For example, “Do you believe in God?” seems an easy place to start. However 95% of Americans say they do (Emmons & Crumpler, 1999) and it is clear that this God means different things to these people. For some God is real, immanent, omnipresent and material, but for others, like William James, God is impersonal and less concrete:
“I have no living sense of commerce with a God. I envy those who have, for I know that the addition of such a sense would help me greatly. The Divine, for my active life is limited to impersonal and abstract concepts which, as ideals, interest and determine me … yet there is something in me which makes response when I hear utterance from that quarter made by others … Something tells me - ‘thither lies the truth’ – and I am sure it is not old theistic prejudices of infancy”. (James, 1902)
[1]Millman et al. (1999) have analyzed this for a single organization – SouthWest Airlines – drawing attention to the possible links between Values, Goals, HR systems, and Outcomes.
