If one wants to be competitive in this 21st Century, one should have the attitude to change and transform according to environment. Acquiring the right attitude to transform oneself, will result in increasing one’s productivity at the workplace.Spirituality, Productivity and Effective Management

Deepak Kumar

English

Research Papers in Economics

SEPTEMBER 2005 EFFECTIVE  EXECUTIVE 27
COVER STORY
Spirituality, Productivity
and Effective Management
Transforming a Business
“The desire for spirituality in the
workplace is a natural extension of
the current tendency of adults to use
spirituality to get through the chal-
lenges of their everyday lives.”
Christine Raymond,
General Manager and
Executive Editor of spirituality.com
T
he 21st Century faces unseen
challenges, poses more pressure
and puts in high demands for
success, both at the personal and or-
ganizational levels. Issues like ethical
behavior, norms in the workplace, ac-
countability, customs and social val-
ues, and the competing interests are
becoming more and more important.
The current challenges of this century
definitely call for personal and organi-
zational transformations.
Sean Voisen, Vice-President of Op-
erations for the eLuminate Consulting
Group, defines “Sprituality at Work”
as, “Allowing every member of an or-
ganization the time and resources to
explore his or her own true self – de-
sires, passions, ideas and purpose –
and the freedom to express this true
self in a more authentic manner.” He
further elaborates the concept as a
means of transforming a business into
something much more than a busi-
ness; it means transforming it into a
life-long learning community. The
crux is that organizational transfor-
mation begins with personal transfor-
mation.
How Spirituality can
Provide Better Productivity
at Work?
Case 1: Flexible Holiday System at
Sony: A Forward Step to
Spirituality at Work
According to the definition given by
Sean Voisen, spirituality at work im-
plies  using of a company’s resources
to explore the true self of an em-
ployee—desires, passions, ideas and
purpose. Akio Morita, Sony’s co-
founder,  is a classical example in this
regard.
Morito said, “No theory or plan or
government policy will make a busi-
ness a success; that can only be done
by people. The most important mis-
sion for a Japanese manager is to de-
velop a healthy relationship with his
employees, to create a family-like feel-
ing within the corporation, a feeling
that employees and managers share
the same fate.”  He included equality,
minimal pay differentials between the
management and the employees,
which created a better work environ-
ment and made his employees feel
that both the management and em-
ployees share the same fortune. Fur-
ther, he introduced the “Flexible Holi-
day system”, which allowed Sony
employees including management, to
take consecutive holidays according
Organizational transformation begins with personal
transformation.SEPTEMBER  2005 EFFECTIVE  EXECUTIVE 28
to their preferences which really ben-
efited the employees in deciding his/
her holiday duration. This flexible
holiday scheme led to the better pro-
ductivity of the employees and better
association with the organization.
In order to promote such em-
ployee-friendly schemes, organiza-
tions should take appropriate steps to
arrange for annual excursion trips,
more flexible working hours, and
closer communication network with
the help of seminars, discussions and
sports.
Case 2: DESS Technologies,
Mumbai
DESS Technologies, is a service pro-
vider in the area of imaging and
workflow management. During its in-
duction program, the company pro-
vides each em-
ployee with a
manual which
provides details
about the com-
pany, its mission,
employment
policy, hours of
operation/work,
employee hiring
policies, holi-
days, paid leaves,
professional stan-
dards and busi-
ness conduct, etc.
The purpose
of providing this
employee manual
is to make the system transparent, so
that the company resources and per-
sonal growth can be matched, while
the employee is associated with the
organization. In Sean Voisen’s words,
“It is an important and apparent spiri-
tuality at work.”  He becomes as he is
directed and a transformation is
needed at every stage; be it childhood,
adolescence or middle-age, a person
transforms himself in order to fit into
the surrounding environment. Simi-
larly in an organization, a person
transforms himself as he’s promoted
to various positions in the same/dif-
ferent organization. After all, there is
nothing permanent in this world; the
word “change” and Darwin’s theory
of the “survival of the fittest”, will al-
ways prove right.  If one wants to be
competitive in this 21st Century, one
should have the attitude to change
and transform according to environ-
ment. Acquiring the right attitude to
transform oneself, will result in in-
creasing one’s productivity at the
workplace.
Spirituality and Effective
Management
In simple words, management may be
defined as an efficient and organized
way of performing activities. It is a
process of aligning resources (both
material and human), towards getting
a committed workforce for achieving a
common target effectively (i.e. by per-
forming the right acts), and maximiz-
ing the social benefits. This underlies
the notion of suc-
cess. Recent re-
searches in the
field of manage-
ment science have
shown that the
success is highly
(positively) corre-
lated with the
emotional intelli-
gence. Emotional
intelligence is
now becoming the
index for a
worker’s success.
Emotional intelli-
gence and spiritu-
ality are again
strongly linked. This is so because a
spiritually enlightened person is
more balanced and emotionally up-
lifted. Balance becomes the key factor
in personal as well as organizational
success. There is a saying: “A suc-
cessful person is that who balances
the personal and organizational
goals.” Putting a spiritual and dedi-
cated person at work results in de-
creasing the costs of a company, better
order processing, inventory manage-
ment, better customer service, etc.
Thus, the spiritual component in the
managerial activity should be taken as
an integral part of the profession.
This works in the best interest of the
company and self, thus ensuring a
Deepak Kumar
Associate Consultant,
The ICFAI University Press.
Reference # 03M-2005-08-06-09
COVER STORY: Spirituality, Productivity and Effective Management
long, a fulfilling association between
the employee and the employer. The
key to successful management lies in
“Creating a movement that puts the
soul to the business.” Although these
ideas are theoretically sound, it’s too
hard to apply it. Putting spirituality at
the workplace is the biggest challenge
for any human resource manager. But
there seems no second option, if the
desire to succeed exists in any organi-
zation (or individual) in the current
global village.
Conclusion
Spirituality in the workplace, is the call
of the hour. In a world where natural
resources are shrinking, cultures are
fusing, believes are changing and pres-
sure is mounting to unseen heights, or-
ganizations need to come up with more
flexible, and thus, more enlightened
plans of management. Organizational
success now heavily depends on team
work, which in turn depends on indi-
viduals at different levels of the organi-
zational hierarchy. Individuals need to
be personally encouraged. Moral values
and ethical management should be
equally important in any organization.
Giving value to individual creativity,
better communication, respecting per-
sonal believes, cooperation and support
at times of needs (e.g., during a family
crises), timely breaks, sharing of passion
and drive towards work should all form
part and parcel of an organization. Maxi-
mum utilization of potential is possible
only when work is done, not just for the
sake of fulfillment of needs, but for the
sake of satisfaction; when the inner ener-
gies are unleashed to their maximum, to
give, both individual and organization,
their maximum value in terms of satis-
faction. Human being is a spiritual crea-
ture, irrespective of his/her believes or
even disbelieves and spirituality is a
process of exploration of the “inner
self”; both for the individual and the
organization. Therefore, spirituality in
the work place, is needed more than
ever before.
If one wants to be
competitive in this
21st Century, one should
have the attitude to change
and transform according to
environment. Acquiring the
right attitude to transform
oneself, will result in
increasing one’s
productivity at the
workplace

Spirituality, Productivity and Effective Management :Transforming a Business

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