Vision and Values A Glimpse of Bay Spirituality Pat McHenry Sullivan

Vision and Values
A Glimpse of Bay Spirituality
Pat McHenry Sullivan

What could you learn about spirit at work if you surfed the Internet for contacts and spent three weeks following leads in the Bay Area? When British industrial chaplain David Welbourn did that, he hoped to find many companies that openly espouse spiritual values. He wanted to ask how their spiritual approach was 'perceived by people [throughout] the organization -e.g., as a management initiative aimed at improving performance, a way of enhancing the quality of working life, a subtle form of manipulation, a way of developing the potential of people?' How and why was the approach implemented, and what were its results?

Though Welbourn found few companies, he did meet Andre Delbecq, who teaches a course in leadership and spirituality at Santa Clara University. Through Delbecq and other sources, he discovered chief executive officers with solid spiritual values, plus workplace ministers and noted authors.

While visiting recently with his wife, Jenny, Welbourn discovered that his work in England is like U.S. specialists in organizational transformation. He helps companies assess how their visions and values statements are being perceived and implemented. He communicates individual and organizational concerns, and he encourages management to operate by principles of service, fairness and respect for people's intrinsic worth - not just market worth.

The Welbourns worked with Whitney Roberson and members of her team, who have conducted spirituality and work dialogues throughout the Bay Area for years. They visited a class on reinventing work at the University of Creation Spirituality in Oakland and met its founder, Matthew Fox, author of 'Reinventing Work.' They enjoyed a dialogue between Fox and Margaret Wheatley, author of 'Leadership and the New Science.'

Welbourn was surprised at the extent of interest here in spirit at work, but he noted differing opinions about its significance. 'Some say spirituality is a passing fad; as business gets more tough and inhumane, interest in it will be swept away. Others are optimistic about a significant breakthrough in the near future.'

John Renesch, editor of 'The New Bottom Line: Bringing Heart & Soul to Business' and host of The Presidio Dialogues on conscious business (www.renesch.com/Presidio), says many senior executives are anonymously committed, but fear they would lose face by showing interest in something as 'soft' as spirituality. But big changes will happen, Renesch predicted, as managers let their interest slip out during management meetings and discover that others agree.
Agnieszka Winkler, CEO of TeamToolz in San Francisco, also believes a major business change is coming close, citing long articles in Fortune and other business magazines. She also notes a widespread increase in church attendance among people like herself who had long skipped church.

Ricardo Levy, CEO of Catalytica in Mountain View, understands concerns about spirit in business. 'The relentlessness of the market is extremely disturbing to the other path, the spiritual path. The market is like a hungry animal that is never satisfied.'
Steve Piersanti, president of Berrett-Koehler publishers, told Welbourn that for most people, money is still the bottom line. Also, staff members may be just as uncomfortable as upper management with words like 'spirituality,' but we can speak openly about these values in commonly accepted terms. His company is built on a foundation of stewardship and a partnership with authors.

Alan Briskin, author of 'Stirring of Soul in the Workplace' and co-author of 'Taking Your Soul to Work,' is one of those authors. He recently returned from Vancouver, where he became excited about groundbreaking meetings between environmentalists and large corporations. He says Thomas Moore's 'Care of the Soul' is one indicator that people everywhere are taking spirit seriously.

Allen Batts, CEO of The Best Connection in San Jose, was helped by Delbecq to bring his principles to business. 'If you have strong spiritual values, you can act more effectively in situations of real challenge. You know what to do. ' Batts admires leaders of Johnson & Johnson, who paid $100 million to combat the effects of product tampering that was not their fault. By swiftly putting consumer safety over shareholder return, Johnson & Johnson more than recouped those millions through increased consumer confidence and brand loyalty.

Batts compared J&J with companies who either deny problems or blame them on others. 'We're not called to always protect the bottom line as first priority, ' he says. 'Business decisions involve people and issues of integrity. It seems to me we ought to be doing the right thing first. If you worry about bottom line impact first, you are going to be dissuaded from doing the right thing.'

One who is committed to help executives discover and do the right thing is John Huntington. A former senior manager in Silicon Valley, Huntington now is a priest at St. Timothy's (Episcopal) in Mountain View, where he regularly counsels 30 CEOs and wants to develop corporate chaplaincy work.

The Welbourns also discovered many individuals and groups they did not have time to meet - groups at the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, breakfast meetings at various restaurants, college classes that discuss the subject.

Pat McHenry Sullivan is president of Visionary Resources in Oakland and on the faculty of Renaissance Lawyer. Visit her web site at www.visionary-resources.com

Also published Sunday, November 26, 2000 San Francisco Chronicle
URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/11/26/CS123405.DTL