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Spirituality in HR: What the traditional textbooks don't teach us

by Carol Sachowski

Long before it became trendy to incorporate work/life balance within the workplace, HR professionals were speaking in terms of organizational and employee health. But to many within our industry, this spirituality stuff is different. What is it and how do we incorporate what has become the new spiritual intelligence (SQ) movement into our everyday lives?

Defined as "the capacity to sense, understand and tap in to the highest part of ourselves, of others and of the world around us" (Paul G. Stoltz, Ph.D., author of The Adversity Quotient at Work), we are transiting from emotional IQ into a deeper realm. And deeper it is, getting at those issues within us that effect individual behaviour.

In the Fall issue of PeopleTalk, Vanessa Francis's article A Workplace with Soul spoke to approaching spiritual matters on an individual level of responsibility. In the days following the attack on New York and Washington, the CEO of Forrester Research in the US sent out a message to the employees on grief that was an individual approach to trauma and personal balance. This was roughly at the same time as the 2001 Spirituality Summit, held in Vancouver.

At this year's BCHRMA/WorldatWork Conference, guest speaker Ian Percy stated that "ninety to 95 percent of us will live, work and die without ever once knowing why we are here". What does all this mean to the average HR professional who, standing alongside a workplace colleague in this latest push for awareness, genuflects silently on their own ability to approach the workplace and self on a higher plain?

One thing is for sure, traditional HR textbooks don't teach this stuff. Author Jim Autrey in his book For Love and Profit had it right when he wrote What the Personnel Handbooks Never Tell Us:

"They leave a lot out of the personnel handbooks. Dying for instance. You can find funeral leave, but you can't find dying. You can't find what to do when a guy you've worked with since you both were pups looks you in the eye and says something about hope and chemotherapy. No phrases, no triplicate forms, no rating systems. Seminars won't do it, and it's too late for a new policy on sabbaticals. They don't tell you about eye contact and how easily it slips away when a woman who lost a breast says, "they didn't get it all." You can find essays on motivation but the business schools don't teach what the good manager says to keep people taking up the slack while someone steals a little more time, at the hospital. There's no help from those tapes you pop in the player while you drive or jog. They'd never get the voice right. And this poem won't help either. You just have to figure it out for yourself, and don't ever expect to do it well."

Reading from various sources causes one to pause and state, "perhaps there is some merit to this spirituality stuff afterall". So where does the HR individual turn to for assistance if the textbooks just don't cut it? Here are three books that may offer some perspective:

The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz. A wonderfully crafted work inspired by the author's brush with death and his family's ancient Mexican Toltec teachings, created by a society that explored and conserved spiritual knowledge centuries ago. The four keys to personal freedom that the book delves into are:

The Invitation, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. This book speaks directly to those life actions that matter most. It is a clear, everyday life approach to moving toward personal integrity and passion and written from a family friendly place. A taste of its power is encapsulated in the following lines:

"It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. It want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away."

Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chödrön, Director of Gampo Abbey, Nova Scotia, the first Tibetan monastery in North America established for Westerners. In the form of 59 traditional Tibetan Buddhist meditations, this handbook offers down-to-earth guidance on making friends with ourselves and offering compassion to others. A couple of examples told in often humorous words are:

Aside from whatever books may pique your interest, there are countless articles on spirituality that can be adapted just as easily to the workplace as to the person. In Ian Percy's article Balancing your Spiritual Center he notes that there are four levels of commitment: political, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. Using several analogies he demonstrates how the first level, political is the most superficial (you don't have to like it, just do it) and the fourth level, spiritual is the ultimate offering (taking a passionate stand against an evil).

Let us not forget the power of the personal mantra or credo. Considering yourself to be a person of integrity, create your own statement to help you walk through life. Do you do so with clean and clear intentions that are true to your nature and beliefs? Do you offer advice and guidance to those around you with honest motivation?

With the continuing move toward work/life balance and the personal quest for answers, many HR professionals already understand that SQ is fast becoming not just another factor to contend with, but perhaps a more truly human approach to life at the office. This realization means groundbreaking work on a level that many may not at first understand or trust.

However, breaking away from the canned and often costly approaches to resolving workplace conflict can make all the difference in the world for those involved and for the health of the organization. Life long change can be affected, and not just until the next grievance is filed.

As Ian Percy says in his article, the "true foundation of our personal and corporate lives is spiritual and we don't even come close to touching it. That is where the real power and permanence is. The real force for change lies in our spirit not in our strategies or our systems."