If you are a corporate leader and you would like to include spirituality in your organisation's culture, you are not alone.

Business leaders we've met, and management students sometimes ask us if it's really possible to make spirituality an overt and explicit part of an organisational culture - without causing religious conflicts or being inappropriate to an otherwise secular way of operating.

(See also: Corporate Spirituality, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Today, there is a perceptible shift in the way business operates in the world - from a mechanistic and linear view to a more organic and holistic one. Decisions are more often peoplecentred. Business ethics have assumed importance.

Corporates no longer search for the elusive 'best talent'; they are seeking ways to realise the best in existing talent.

(See also: Corporate Spirituality, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

All religions are unanimous in denouncing the amassing of wealth. The Bible declares: Easier indeed it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. "Wealth undoes a man" - artham anartham, said Adi Sankaracharya. Fakiri, meaning voluntary poverty, is a way of life highly commended by the Sufi saints. Aparigraha, non-possession, is a value emphasised by the Bhagavad Gita.

(See also: Spirituality at workplace, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Does the recent interest exhibited in non-fiction titles such as The Soul of Business, A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America, The Stirring of Soul in the Workplace, The Three-Minute Meditation etc in the US point to the possible evolution of the "enlightened corporate sector"?

Do Indian managers, born in a land that has offered "yoga and meditation" to the world corporate sector (to overcome stress), have the "first-mover advantage"? These are the questions that should interest "enlightened" managers in "progressive" Indian corporations.

(See also: Spirituality at workplace, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna explains the virtues of detached action. As a professional manager, I find that there's a lot in the Gita that makes me a better practitioner of the art and craft of management. It is, I have discovered, a work on the philosophy of work.

My favourite shloka from Chapter II contains the essence of the Gita: "You have the right only to action, never to the fruits thereof; let not the fruit of your action be your motive; nor let there be any attachment to inaction."

(See also: Spirituality at workplace, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

There's this story about a writer who drifted into journalism. Sent to a distant island to cover a civil war, he happily lazed around in a beach house, watched spectacular sunrises and breathtaking sunsets, and occasionally heard the distant 'musical' rumble of guns.

He faithfully recorded all this, and was promptly sacked for missing the 'big story'. But while he was an utter failure as a journalist, wasn't he an astute observer of the relative truth of the waking state?

(See also: Spirituality and Journalism, Faith and Belief, Spiritual Guidance, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul)

Spirituality and Business: Corporate & Personal Search for Identity

In a reputed business school, a session on cause-related marketing and social responsibility of business was in progress. Two volunteers from the class had to simply describe themselves as persons as if to Ômarket' that idea like a product or service to the class.

Read more here: » Spirituality and Business: Corporate Personal Search for Identity

In the mid-1980's, while William was consulting on corporate creativity, he began to recognise a similarity in the language that people used to describe their moments of creative insight and their experience of spiritual inspiration. It dawned on him that the similarities were not by accident; but rather, it's because our spiritual nature literally means we are co-creators with the Divine...as Martin Buber, a 20 th century Jewish philosopher, reminds us:

"Destiny is not where we wait for God to push us. We take part in creation, meet the Creator, reach out to Him, helpers and companions."

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

Many years ago, the Hewlett-Packard Corporation surveyed their 200 most consistently successful leaders to discover their common management practises. One of their key practises was to create a set of values for their own workgroup, independent of but related to the company values. Then they measured every decision they made in the workgroup according to these values.

You as a leader can also do this by asking each person in your workgroup to identify one personal value they would like to have incorporated into the way your group works, day-to-day.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

Some years ago, a corporate executive asked William to coach and do a 360-degree feedback with one of his human resource managers who was having difficulty relating to his peers. The evening before they started their work together, William and the manager met for dinner just to get to know each other. For the first 30 minutes they talked about their backgrounds and work experiences; although William found the conversation interesting, he didn't feel that they were connecting at a deeper level.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

When your source of motivation comes from your spiritual basis, you will naturally experience an equanimous detachment, while at the same time being fully dedicated to and acting toward your goal.

The chairman of a large corporation once told us:

If you worry about the fruits, then you have your attention on the scoreboard and not the ball. If you concentrate on the ball, the scoreboard will happen automatically. If you are looking at the scoreboard, you will lose the ball. If you do good work, you will get the returns, so do not worry about them.

The Bhagavad Gita further explains:

Do your worldly duty, but do it without any attachment to it or desire for its fruits. Keep your mind always on the Divine.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

"Spirituality at work." Seeing or hearing these words, some people feel sceptical about whether spirituality can mix with work. Others feel cautious that some religious pressure will be put on them at work. Still others feel enthused at the possibility of expressing a more meaningful part of themselves through their jobs.

How about you? What comes to mind when you think about spirituality at work? People often ask us, "Can I really be spiritual at work? Can work really be a part of my spiritual path?" For us, the answer is unequivocally "Yes." With confidence, we invite you to join us in the weeks to come in exploring how you can indeed put your spirituality to work in practical and fulfilling ways.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

Imagine riding in a car whose four cylinder engine is working on only three cylinders, and whose gasoline is diluted with water. The car will struggle along, using only a part of its inherent power. It might still get you where you want to go, but with difficulty (and probably not up the steep hills!).

At work, if we are running on only the power of mind , body, and emotions, we're running on only three cylinders. And if we find ourselves reacting to situations with anxiety, agitation, or anger - and feeling "there's not enough time to do our best" - we're using diluted fuel. What's missing?

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

When an executive operates his or her business from a spiritual point of view, does it change their definition of the "bottom line"?

The term "bottom line" originally meant the last line of an income statement, the profits that remained after costs were deducted from revenues. Over time, it has come to mean something broader: "the key results" or the "most important outcomes" of an enterprise that drive its activities.

That shift in definition has followed the shift in the nature of business over the past century where the purpose of business and its bottom line measures have seen an evolution through four over-lapping contexts

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

While searching through some quotes from our spiritual teacher, we found one that has left a profound impression on us. It continually invites us to stop and ponder as to how it can be applied by leaders in the workplace.

If man is valued at his true worth, and treated as a Divine Spark enclosed in the body, then he will rise into new heights of achievement and produce all the necessities of life in profusion. He will not grab or cheat; he will be a good worker, a pure person, and a sincere spiritual aspirant. (Sathya Sai Speaks, Vol. IX)

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

In previous articles, we've shared inspiring stories of people who have found their "true calling" in their work. Another way that some people have walked this path is to deepen their calling as their career progresses.

The story of Peter Pruzan , Professor Emeritus from the Copenhagen Business School - and one of our colleagues in researching and writing about spiritual-based work - exemplifies that kind of deepening.

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

In our last article, we spoke about the art of dialogue and how it can inspire meaningful conversations that lead to aligned action. Another way of fostering communication that creates energy and momentum is appreciative inquiry  [1]  . In an article titled Appreciative Inquiry: A Transformative Paradigm  [2]  , the underlying concepts are explained as:

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

As we began to write this article on peace , which is the fourth of five human values we've been writing on (truth, righteousness, love, peace and non-violence), two things came to mind. The first was a Christian scripture that has meant a lot to each of us since childhood:

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds .

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)

When William was attending a Catholic secondary school, his teachers would ask the students if they had a "vocation", which meant a calling from God to enter a religious order, as a priest or monk. Only later as an adult did he understand the broader notion of "vocation" as a "calling" (vocation is from the Latin " vocare ", "to call"). A "calling" is any "strong inner impulse towards a course of action, especially when accompanied by a conviction of Divine influence."

See also: Spirituality At Work, Work As A Spiritual Practice, Spiritual Based Leadership)