Spiritual Empowerment

"No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread." (Robert Burton, 1577-1640, English writer and clergyman, from The Anatomy of Melancholy, written 1621-51.)

Love and spirituality is a strange word to use in the context of business and management, but it shouldn't be.

For those who maybe find the concept of 'love' too emotive or sentimental, the word 'spirituality' is a useful alternative. Spirituality is a perspective in its own right, and it also represents ideas central to love as applied to business and organizations, i.e. the quality of human existence, personal values and beliefs, our relationships with others, our connection to the natural world, and beyond.

Given that love (or spirituality, whatever your preference) particularly encompasses compassion and consideration for other people, it follows that spoiling the world somewhere, or spoiling the world for future generations, is not acceptable and is not a loving thing to do.

Love in business and work means making decisions and conducting oneself in a way that cares for people and the world we live in.

Love and Spirituality are very much connected with motivation and change. People in modern organizations sometimes struggle to think how to 'motivate' their people - as if motivation is some sort of force you apply to somebody. In fact everything that truly motivates people - whether to perform better, to be more dependable and committed, to take initiative, to be courageous, to do the right thing, to adapt to change, etc., (I could go on but you get the point) - can be included within Love and Spirituality. Love makes people believe in themselves and feel valued, and liberates them to have this same effect on others. This builds confidence and trust. Spirituality enables people to connect with each other and with the things that truly matter in the world and their lives. This gives people meaning and purpose and relevance, which is at the heart of true motivation.

For a hundred years or more, millions upon millions of people who need love and spiritual meaning like they need food and drink, are denied these basic life requirements at a place that occupies the majority of their useful existence (their work), because love and spirituality (and all that these words represent) seemingly don't feature on the corporate agenda..

however.. Yes. However. As we know, things are changing.

People are most certainly now seeking more meaning from their work and from their lives.

People in far flung exploited parts of the world now have a voice, a stage, and an audience, largely enabled by technology and the worldwide web.

Customers, informed by the increasing transparency and availability of information, are demanding that organizations behave more responsibly and sensitively.

Increasing numbers of people are fed up with the traditionally selfish character of corporations and organizations and the way they conduct the themselves.

The growing transparency of corporate behavior in the modern world is creating a new real accountability - for the organizations which hitherto have protected the self-interests of the few to the detriment of everyone and everything else.

Now, very many people - staff, customers, everyone - demand and expect change.

Leaders need now to care properly for people and the future of the planet, not just to make a profit and to extract personal gain.

And so businesses and corporations are beginning to realize that genuinely caring for people everywhere is actually quite a sensible thing to do.

It is now more than ever necessary for corporations to make room for love and spirituality - to care for people and the world - alongside the need to make a profit.

Love, compassion, and spirituality - consideration for people and the world we live in - whatever you choose to call it - is now a truly relevant ethos in business and organizations.

For example,
The early huge Cadbury and Rowntree British enterprises were founded by Quakers and run on loving caring principles.

High finance and loving principles rarely appear in the same sentence now, but the original banking corporations Barclays and Lloyds were once loving and caring Quaker businesses. So were many smaller regional banks, long since swallowed by the multi-nationals.

'Breakout' is action focused towards breaking away from the past, being a different organization and bringing hearts AND minds to work. What one can learn at ANZ, apart from the power of working with energy, is that we can create transformation as a way of being, a way of life, a continual process that is consciously chosen within an organization to become more of what it's meant to be and for people to become more of their own potential. That's what happened and continues to happen under Siobhan McHale, at ANZ.

Who can talk to us about how our organization can benefit or change with Spiritual Empowerment Programmes ?

Strawberry Outbound highly recommends TADEKUM, founded by Naushir Engineer who has has brought transformation into lives of thousands of individuals. His programme on ‘Breaking Boundaries’ is specifically created for corporate spiritual initiatives.

Please visit www.tadekam.com for more information or to get in touch.

Note : Strawberry Outbound has nocommercial self-interest in this section on our website but chooses to recommend TADEKAM as an Important Corporate Initiative for companies looking at serious challenges at workplace, as we have personally experienced spiritual empowerment and transformation through their programmes.