The Quest for Corporate Spiritual Responsibility
How can we design creative organizations that nurture and thrive the human spirit?
The time has come for ‘corporate spiritual responsibility’.
We need to acknowledge that humans are not just ‘resources’ for organizations. They are not ‘costs’ to be minimized. Humans have their souls, hopes, dreams, spirits, and wishes. They want to have work that is meaningful and useful. They want to feel good about what they do. They want to contribute to something bigger. They want to feel a part of something bigger.
‘Corporate spiritual responsibility’ might be the next wave of management paradigm that we need in order to design humane and creative organizations over the next few decades.
This article is my first attempt and exploration of this topic.
Is today’s modern corporation a psychopath?
The Corporation, a documentary film written by Joel Bakan, and directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott, asks the following question: If the modern-day corporation is a person, what kind of a person it this?
The answer is unsettling: The corporation is a psychopath.
Plenty of evidence is provided in the documentary about modern-day corporations and their psychopathic tendencies including:
- callous disregard for the feelings of other people,
- the incapacity to maintain human relationships,
- the reckless disregard for the safety of others,
- the deceitfulness (continual lying to deceive for profit),
- the incapacity to experience guilt, and
- the failure to conform to social norms and respect the law.
According to this perspective, the spirit of corporations is important, because it is the reason for their existence. The basic philosophy and spiritual intention of an organization greatly matter.
- Why does this corporation exist?
- What does it owe to our future generations and to the world?
- How does this corporation touch people’s lives?
- What does this organization do to make people happier and more spiritually fulfilled?
- How does this corporation apply the Golden Rule to everyone?
- How does this corporation question and control its greed and potentially destructive actions?
- How does this corporation strive to be a better citizen of this world and the universe?
- How does this corporation respond to people’s call for meaning? How does it encourage meaningful conversations and reflective spaces at work?
- How does it view its stakeholders — as third parties only having interests or as whole persons with minds, hearts, and spirits?
- How does this corporation encourage its members to express their deeper selves and their spirituality?
- How does this corporation maintain diversity, human rights, and multi-spiritual democracy?
- How does this corporation use its wealth? How does it contribute to a better and more equitable world?
- Does this corporation nourish positive spirituality and authenticity at work?
- What is the Gross Spiritual Happiness index in this corporation?
- How does this corporation strive to solve the complex problems of humanity and the community?
- Is this a spiritually hygienic and satisfying workplace?
Time is ripe for a paradigm shift in management.
As corporate social responsibility has been the macro wave of social movement in business, sustainability, and climate emergency measures follow.
Corporate spiritual responsibility builds upon these changes and it is focused on how corporations contribute to human wellbeing and inner peace.
What is ‘corporate spiritual responsibility’?
I define corporate spiritual responsibility as a concept whereby organizations consider and serve not only the social and economic interests of their employees and stakeholders but also their spiritual aspects and needs.
Therefore, corporate spiritual responsibility encompasses taking responsibility for the impact of their activities on the spiritual wellbeing and happiness of employees, customers, shareholders, and the wider community.
Corporate spiritual responsibility is based on the basic assumptions that:
- companies have responsibilities to contribute to the quality of life around them; and
- an integrative assessment of the quality of life includes the spiritual dimension as well.
The concept of corporate spiritual responsibility aims to re-examine, question, and reinvent the very basis of business organizations.
Corporate spiritual responsibility extends beyond the economic functions and social responsibilities of corporations and sees organizations voluntarily taking further steps to improve the spiritual well-being of employees and their families as well as for the local community and society at large.
This concept emphasizes the spiritual role of corporations as an important instrument for common good in a pluralistic society.
It stresses the spiritual role of business in addressing large scale complex human problems such as inequality, violence, poverty, war, ethical scandals, and global warming.
Contributions of corporations to the spiritual wellbeing of people can yield significant benefits in the areas of education, training, civil rights, ecology, sustainability, conservation and recreation, culture and the arts, medical care, and government performance.
Further benefits can be yielded in the areas of culture transformation, organizational design, inter-organizational capacity building, community development, peacebuilding, global organizing, small group development, conflict resolution, leadership development, and employee development programs.
Corporate spiritual responsibility concept can be defined as a process of achieving human development in an inclusive, holistic, and connected manner. It denotes that the spiritual aspects of human development are not separable from social, environmental, and economic aspects.
In line with this concept, ‘‘triple bottom line’’ that includes, incorporates and balances social, environmental, and economic performance (popularized as the 3P approach: people, planet, profits) can be widened to the “quadruple bottom line” that also includes the spiritual performance of organizations.
A Sincere Questioning and Reflection about our Profession
As a management scholar, I would like to share some reflections and observations about our profession. I acknowledge that these are subjective reflections rather than objective statements or declarations. Some of my statements may not be shared by other colleagues or they may be seen as too harsh or judgmental. Nevertheless, I assume that this reflection will be a good way of initiating dialog among colleagues about the nature and the future of the profession of management.
I believe, as managers, we have become too preoccupied with effectiveness, profit orientation, material success, competitiveness, and speed. We provided our employees with barren organizational environments where the Enrons could take root and flourish.
Using models that are too rigid, isolated, specialized, formal and unconnected, we created structures that stifled the needs our employees have for meaning, sense-making, reflection, exploration, creativity, discovery, connection, and spirituality.
We have advanced theorizing and teaching on the management of capital, resources, materials, and knowledge; whereas we have little understanding, research and teaching efforts or initiatives on the management of spirituality, emotions, hope, and virtues.
We have focused a lot on motivation while essentially neglecting inspiration. By imposing too much formal structure and content; we have suppressed reflective thought, individual creativity, and the innate human capacity for lifelong emotional, intellectual, and spiritual growth.
By focusing too much on problems and problem solving, we diminish employees’ abilities to nurture hope, discovery, imagination, inspiration, creativity, and storytelling.
By focusing too much on numbers, statistics, and material performance; managers neglect their followers’ needs for reflection, soulful engagement, inspiration, qualitative inquiry, narrative, meaning creation, and pattern formation.
By focusing too much on competition, we have harmed deep relationships, interpersonal trust, connection, cooperation, team spirit, and empathy.
We only focused on predictive, cause and effect models of human and organizational behavior.
We focused too much on analysis, ignoring synthesis.
We designed formal hierarchies and linear structures in our instruction and grading in our courses.
We separated management knowledge into managerial functions, disciplines, and further sub-disciplines.
We fragmented our values, our behavior, our families, our spirituality, our lives, and our work.
We separated our bodies from our minds, our minds from our hearts, our hearts from our soul, and our souls from one another.
The paradigm changes needed ahead of us
The need for transformation from barren workplaces into abundant workplaces:
The corporate world has increasingly become emotionally and spiritually barren. In our corporate environments, we have been witnessing some of the following disturbing symptoms and problems: a limited sense of the role of the self (no vision), neglect of positive and humane values (no heart), a lack of holistic vision (no mind), lack of meaning and reflection (no spirit), and violations of ethical codes ( no character).
Unfortunately, our workplaces have increasingly become barren. We need spiritual, emotional, and social abundance in today’s corporations.
Here is a brief list of problems in corporations of today:
- Organizations becoming formal, centralized, big, and bureaucratic
- Compartmentalization and routinization of work
2. Work devoid of meaning; dull and tiring work, emotional labor
- Decreased job satisfaction and commitment
- Increased depression, stress, and burnout
- Alienation, loneliness, and fear
- Cynicism and indifference
3. Excessive materialism at work
- Too much focus on material achievement and financial performance
- Focus on selfishness, ego, and pride (leading to interpersonal problems)
- Self-centered individuals and focus on self-interest
4) Barren organizations
- Emotionally barren: Lack of communication, empathy, compassion
- Intellectually barren: Lack of understanding of significance and meaning of work
- Spiritually barren: Lack of consideration of spirit, joy, laughter, and happiness
5) Instability, ambiguity, and chaos rampant in organizations and in the world
- Layoffs, downsizing, mergers, organizational changes
- Pandemics, global warming, climate emergency, inequality, and global-scale problems
6) Fear of not keeping up with new technologies
- Technology-driven knowledge economy, digitalization, automation, and dehumanizing effects
- Artificial intelligence revolution — the age of smart machines, algorithms, and robots
7) Scandals of unethical corporate behavior
- “The Enron effect”
- The motivation for profit and greed
The need for a renewed sense of spirit at work:
Breathing Life and Hope into Organizations: The Call for Spirit
Corporate spiritual responsibility perspective suggests that managers operating in the 21st century should better understand the higher dimensional physics and metaphysics of consciousness.
In addition, managers need to pay attention to the ‘heart’ to gain knowledge, understanding, and wisdom of the self and to provide their organizations with a new sense of meaning based on spirituality.
Corporations and employees are responding to a call for a deep sense of purpose, a significant sense of meaning, and a renewed commitment to spirituality.
As a new decade begins, it is becoming clear that employees and managers are experiencing a fundamental change of business world values and a change of paradigms.
One of the significant shifts we have recently witnessed regarding the purpose of corporations was the Business Roundtable open statement issued on August 19, 2019.
On August 19, 2019; the Business Roundtable issued an open letter titled “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation.”
One of the leading business lobbies in the United States, the Business Roundtable (BR) included the CEOs of leading companies from Apple to Walmart.
There were 181 signatures on this declaration. This one-page declaration ended as follows:
“Each of our stakeholders is essential. We commit to deliver value to all of them, for the future success of our companies, our communities and our country.”
This was the first time that the mainstream business understanding was shifting towards a more balanced view of corporations. Instead of short term profit maximization, the focus was on all stakeholders and the long term future of societies, people, and the planet.
There is a need for a deeper sense of purpose and meaning at work:
In the name of cool, detached, “scientific” objectivity, we lost our passionate and compassionate engagement.
Adopting only materialist, positivist, and reductionist theories, we have taught ourselves that human nature is basically selfish, mean, ruthless, opportunistic, and greedy.
We have not reflected upon developing, nourishing, or enabling positive values, virtues, altruism, social responsibility, wisdom, and compassion in our workplaces.
There is a new paradigm of a deeper sense of purpose and meaning at work. This new paradigm that is emerging has also been called “the spirituality movement”.
Ashmos and Duchon (2000) have described the spirituality movement as a major transformation where organizations make room for the spiritual dimension, which has to do with meaning, purpose, and a sense of community.
This new spiritual dimension embodies employees’ search for simplicity, meaning, self-expression, and interconnectedness to something higher (Marques, Dhiman, and King, 2007).
Spirituality provides a sense of purpose and meaning at work:
Providing a deeper sense of meaning and purpose for employees is important; as this enables employees to perform better and to be more productive and creative at work.
Incorporating spirituality at work provides employees and managers a deeper sense of meaning and purpose at work.
To effectively cope with chaos and complexity, we need to focus on ethics, social responsibility, collaboration, innovation, creativity, adaptation, flexibility, and system thinking.
However, what will be the starting point? In the middle of all pace and struggles, we first need to slow down and reflect. We should take a deep breath and pause.
We should reflect on ourselves and the meaning of work. We should ask ourselves where we are coming from and where we are going to and why.
Kouzes and Posner (1993) introduced a series of existential questions that leaders ask themselves to reflect on their own spirituality:
• What do I stand for? Why? Is there a reason for my existence and the corporation’s?
• Why am I doing this work? What is the meaning of the work I am doing?
• Where does this lead me to? Where do I really want to go?
• What brings me suffering? What gives me joy and tranquility? Why?
• What am I passionate about? What do I want for my life? Why?
• What do I really care about? Why?
These existential questions go deep to the heart of the issues we face at work. They have implications for the type of work we do; how we feel about the corporation that we work for; and how we balance our work and family lives.
The search for meaning at work is echoed universally as people seek deeper meaning and fulfillment in their careers.
The need for reflective spaces and wisdom at work
We need silent spaces and time at work to foster a sense of calm.
Spirituality can provide reflective spaces and capacity for renewal for us at work.
We need to provide ourselves a sense of clarity, openness, stillness, simplicity, and fresh thinking in the middle of all the complexity, changes, and fast pace at work.
Many corporations try to integrate spirituality and meditation practices into work.
Too much action and decision making in the fast-paced world of work is tiring. We need a pause.
It is hard for us to take a principled stance when decisions are made under pressure and stress.
We need to slow down and reflect on the long-term consequences of our decisions and actions.
We need safe spaces and creative reflective spaces to consider all these.
Human spirit demands reflective, artistic, and relational spaces at work.
To reflect, we must be able to slow down and take a long-term perspective.
Spirituality provides us a philosophical capacity for holistic and creative reflection at work. We can seek courage and inspiration from music, arts, meditation, and reflection.
Reflective spaces enable us to bring our passion, heart, soul, and spirit.
Reflective spaces enable us to develop our authenticity at work.
The need for compassion and benevolence at work
Spirituality often involves genuine concern for others and a love of one’s colleagues.
Spirituality provides us a sense of community, belonging, and connectedness.
We need to focus on interpersonal relationships, collective dimensions, and social dynamics to increase the quality of life at work.
Incorporating spirituality at work: a) provides employees and managers a sense of community and connectedness; b) increases their attachment, loyalty, and belonging to the organization.
We need to beyond the traditional boundaries of power, politics, and prejudice. We need to leave our egocentrism, frustrations, and biases. We should accept ourselves and others as who they are. This grows the capacities of compassion, tolerance, and love in people.
We need to become humble and gentle, serving as “servant leaders” (Greenleaf, 1977). Humility, integrity, service, and modesty are essential components of effective leadership.
According to Block (1993), stewardship chooses partnership over hierarchy; empowerment over dependency; and service over self-interest.
In an era of ethical scandals, corporate greed, egoism, and narcissism; spiritual living and working might be what we need more in corporate life.
We need to acknowledge that employees do not bring only their bodies and minds to work. They also bring their hearts, souls, creativity, talents, hopes, and unique spirits. We need to respect, support, and thrive all these dimensions.
Sincere regards;
Fahri
