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Career Planning
By Stephen C. Schoonover M.D. and Nicholas W. Weiler
Your Soul at Work - Five Steps to a More Fulfilling Career and Life
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A Fortune Magazine cover story reports a "growing quest for spiritual renewal in the workplace."
A group of middle-aged rebels in business suits meet to discuss how they can spend more time working from their "souls".
The Washington Post says "Talk of soul and spirituality is flowing freely in the workplace these days."
Executives at a business school conference meditate briefly as preparation for a discussion of "how to find one's true calling."
Fortune describes, "a counter culture bubbling up all over corporate America that wants to bridge the traditional divide between spirituality and work." They quote a Harvard Business School research fellow who follows the topic and agrees; "spirituality in the workplace is exploding."
Hearing all this, how should we as HR professionals respond? Is there a practical and acceptable way HR organizations can help people "bridge the divide between spirituality and work"? And should we even be trying to help people work "from their souls"? Is it appropriate for us, or our organizations, to get involved in something that is so uniquely personal for each individual?
We believe the answer to these questions is "yes". Why? Because the need to address this "exploding" issue may be impossible, or impractical to ignore. And because there are some very practical and acceptable ways organizations can help people bring their souls to work. Also, Those organizations that recognize and respond positively to this emerging need will have more satisfied, more productive employees.
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A New Urgency
The new, more introspective trend may in part be a natural reaction to the booming, possessions-oriented 90's. Fortune speaks of aging baby boomers starting to notice something is missing - beginning to feel a need that stock options and opulent life styles aren't satisfying. Many are asking, "Is this all there is?" One successful executive is quoted as saying, "You get to the top of the ladder and find that maybe it's leaning against the wrong building."
Now, with the added shocks of September 11 and additional rounds of downsizing, a new reality is setting in. The need to integrate what I do at work with a larger purpose that has personal meaning has taken on a new urgency, even among the twenties and thirties crowd who have never known anything but good times.
At first glance, already overworked HR professionals may be discouraged that another layer of employee need is coming down the pike. They may think, "Isn't it enough that with an already overloaded schedule I now have to deal with downsizing and the morale of those who aren't downsized?" "How can I deal with people's spiritual needs, especially in a climate where most organizational leaders feel uneasy and at a loss to address their employees' inner lives"?
While such a reaction is certainly understandable, there are some very practical ways to cope with these challenges. We've been developing techniques to help people bring their souls to work for over twenty years - and we've been implementing these programs in the toughest corporate environments. Invariably, the firms have benefited at the bottom line. These proven techniques have been used to help people who have been downsized as well as for building increased performance and job satisfaction among the rest of the workforce.
What we learned the hard way was that much of what we had did when we started our work was backwards. We had focused too much on the "outward" needs of the organization and not nearly enough on the "inner" needs of individual employees. It was only after observing what people who really succeed in their careers and lives do, with or without the help of their organizations, that we were able to build a truly effective process and tools to help others succeed.
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Quiet Revolutions
Through our work, we've been able to tap into and enable the higher aspirations of employees in Fortune 500 companies without setting off alarms. At GE's no-nonsense corporate headquarters we introduced inner-needs focused career and performance development programs that were so successful GE exported them to its businesses worldwide. Part of this practical approach has included the development of models articulating what competencies distinguish successful people with tools for developing them. These competency-based tool kits have been applied successfully across a full range of large Fortune 500 companies and small organizations, for profit and non-profit.
Our roadmap for helping people find and succeed in jobs they love got started years ago when we were asked to help a large company deal with unexpected layoffs. While initial efforts to help showed limited success, we noticed that some individuals were enormously successful at helping themselves. While others fell apart, these individuals "took charge" and negotiated themselves into new careers, many more rewarding than the jobs they lost. There was a clear pattern in what they did. We started capturing and translating that pattern into tools and techniques that help others succeed.
From the beginning, we believed that it's a myth that there has to be an irreparable split between spirituality and productivity at work. We have always found that the myth disappeared, or never came up, if we used a language that addressed both dimensions - and if the tools and techniques we proposed clearly enhanced both. It also helped that we based our action proposals not on theory, but on research and practical lessons from the trenches. Our research team has interviewed over 5000 people in large and small organizations worldwide.
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Your Soul at Work
We're not theologians but we highly respect those who are. We think people should work with their spiritual advisors to define "soul" in their own specific terms. Instead, we focus on a specialized definition that most people, no matter what their unique spiritual beliefs, can apply practically to their work lives.
For career purposes your soul is the inner you -the center of your being. It's that part of you that knows your deepest needs and aspirations and that's the source of your energy. If you leave your soul at home and have no time for it later, your job won't be very fulfilling.
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