"tis an accepted fact that the quality of ‘workmanship that we had in gold ‘omaments or household utensils in the past cannot be found to-day. ‘The reason is that the artisans of the earlier era considered themselves as creators and not appendages to a ‘manufacturing process." Spirituality for Individual and Corporate Success M)J Xavier* ABSTRACT ‘Though spirituality in the work place has received much needed attention in the management literature, it i fraught with considerable misunderstanding, mystification and mix-up of concepts. Material success is seen to be in conflict with spiritual motives. In this article itis shown that the Intelligence quotient, Emotional Quotient and Spiritual Quotient should be in syne with the task one is engaged in, in order to achieve success. However the quotient-mix needed in diferent stages of growth may be different. This article clearly defines three types of spirituality - primitive, dormant and enlightened spirituality - practiced at three different stages of growth, namely embarkation, emulation and emancipation (3EMs Model). A person at the emancipation stage is called a divinery who is engaged in the pursuit of immortality. The reward for spiritual pursuit isthe pursuit itself and the worldly success gencrally comics asaby- product. ‘The 3EMs model is equally applicable to organizations. Organizations that have leaders inthe ‘emancipation phase tend to create spiritually charged organizations. Their prime motive is not todestroy competition but to create standards for others toemulate. Further research is needed to ascertain the trigger points that propel a person or organization to the next stage. Also, scales need tobe developed toasses the spiritual growth stage ofan individual or organization. Speen in the workplace has received the much needed attention among the /academics (Mitroff and Denton,1999) and practitioners (Gunther, 2001; Brandt, E,, 1996). Though there is considerable amount of confusion on the definition of spirituality (Krishnakumar and Neck, 2002) and methods to measure spirituality (Heaton et al, 2004; Hall and Edwards,1996), research has been going on that links spirituality to leadership (Kakabadse et al, 2002; Chaleff, 1998; Fairholm, 1998), creativity (Miller, 1999) ethics Jackson, 1999) and education(Neal, 1998, Palmer, 2003). ‘There are several spirituality enabled success stories reported in business papers (Graham, 1999; Cohen, 1997). However, the legitimacy and relevance of some of the research into spirituality in the workplace has been questioned by Dean et al (2003). Frank (2001) is of the opinion that “management theory’ tends to look like theology. ‘Though spirituality is seen as one of the contributing factors to success in business, there are no formal frameworks or models reported in the literature that provide a normative guidelines for success. This paper proposes an integrated framework to understand the role played by spirituality in the growth and development of individuals and organizations. There are several problems that executives face with operationalizing spirituality in the work place because of the way spirituality is defined and understood. Primarily the mix-up between spirituality and religious belief; though compatible are not "Dinetor Tadion Tate of Management, Ranoidentical; and they may or may not coexist. In this article we define two types of spirituality, namely primitive spirituality and enlightened spirituality. Primitive spirituality is about blind faith in religious dogmas while enlightened spirituality is about a state where the individual understands and acts according tohiscalling. Secondly there is a thin line between superstition and spirituality. Consequently a tension builds up between rational goals and spiritual fulfillment. Traditionally religions have scorned the pursuit of material goals which has led to the belief that spirituality too is against worldly successes. In reality, spirituality is more suited to successful people than otherwise. Of course, spiritual people tend to view ‘material success/failure in the same way as they are ona divine mission. A person with a divine mission is called divinery as opposed toa visionary. Who is a Divinery? We call a person a visionary if he is able to think and plan far ahead of his fellowmen and achieve something, significant to a wider community over a period of time. Thistime frameis limited to four years for politician. It extends to 10 or 15 yearsin the case of business leaders. ‘These are people seeking their rewards in their current birth itself. The people who are working for attaining, immortality do not have a limited time frame. They are aiming at the generations to come to appreciate their work. Forsuch people, we propose the term divineries. They have divine qualities and they build eternal beauty into whatever they create. It is not clear whether Leonardo da Vind had any intention of entering contest when he painted Mona Lisa. Reams have been written about this small ‘masterpiece by Leonardo, and the gentle woman who is its subject has been adapted in turn as an aesthetic, philosophical and advertising symbol, eventually attaining immortality. Neither Galileo nor Euclid worked in a competitive environment to produce their epoch-making discoveries. We can extend the same logic to the great contributors to the arts and literature aswell. Who can bea divinery? Any one can becomea divinery provided he/she is able to free himself of the bondages of this world and enjoy doing anything that he does. However most people get so very entangled in the bondage of the family and work that they get a feeling of helplessness in terms of understanding the true ‘meaning of their coming to this world. A few people manage to free themselves from the bondage and progress further tomakinga contribution to the society. It is this fundamental desire to overcome the fear of death and a spiritual journey towards immortality that really brings out the best in the people. In this case you have no competitive benchmarks; but an inner drive to eave anindelible mark on everything that one does. Excellence in a competitive environment points to doing better than the competition and doing more of the same thing. If it has to make a difference to the human race, then it has to be something more than the excellence as defined for a competitive environment, something more fundamental than excelling a rival. The divineries make full use of their individuality and their originality — unpolluted by the world’s views. They are driven to create their masterpieces more by a desire to leave behind something beyond time, ie. immortal. Objects that go beyond their functionality and become an expression of the personality of its creator tend to become immortal. The mind works very differently when you have to fight competition versus when you are on a creative mood. A visionary does something to get the appreciation of others while a divinery works for fulfillment of something beyond the narrowly defined self. In fact competition, while it may raise the blood pressure and the flow of adrenaline temporarily, can Kill creativity. The mind gets so very obsessed with overcoming competition that it fails to bring the sacred dimension(s) tothe action, Passion forthe Job It is an accepted fact that the quality of workmanship that we had in gold ornaments or household utensilsin the past cannot be found to-day. The reason is that the artisans of the earlier era considered themselves as creators and not appendages to a manufacturing process. The goldsmith, iron-smith and the carpenter are known as viswakarmas in India, meaning creators as opposed to manufacturers. Extending the same notion, the potters, weavers and the cobblers are also creators; 60 too are the poets, artists and architects. The craftsman seeks rhythm in his life, color in his composition and harmony in his form in order toprotect an object which has a function and at the same time provides visual pleasure. Things that have survived the test of ime are things ofartisticnature. ‘Though the modern products are functionally very superior to the ancient ones, they tend to be dull and ‘unimaginative? Whatis lackingin them are the creative and artistic expressions. It is because of the separation of body mind and soul. Today's work environment is designed to getonly the body engaged in the workorat best involve a small portion of the mind. It rarely gets the person's soul engaged in the work. Its this lack of spiritual engagement that is devoid of passion for the work one is engaged in, results lackluster products and services. Look at any business letter. They are dull and boring, If we follow the same approach in our personal lives, ‘we will end up writing mechanistic love letters as shown inBox! Dox. 1 Mechanistic Love Letter ‘Dear Miss Muffet: Tamsoandsoand [have such and such. lunderstand ‘you are so and so and you have such and such... By ‘coming together we can produce/achieve such and such...Confirm whether my proposal is acceptable to you in comparison with other bids you have received. I would be happy to alter my terms to suit yourrequirements. Sincerely, ‘Taffet Love and romance is considered to be precious in all races that it cannot be expressed as a matter of fact. Every lover becomes a creative person penning poems and artfully decorating them before sending to his/her loved one. That is what is missing in business today. Whats conveyed is that business need not be devoid of passion and love. In our attempt to objectively manage the shareholders' money, we have become far removed from creative and artistic expressions. All that is recommended is that we put them back into business. Allow for individual expressions and creativity in business to reap rewards of very high order. Why can't business be made fun? If we can create a business environment that helps a person enjoy every bit of his/her job, then everything he/she delivers will be love poems. Whether organizations need love poems is a different question. Separation of Work, Religion and Social Life According to Pfeffer (1998), itis a myth to believe that people work for money. The primary motive of workis self expression and having fun. Mitroff (1999) in his article on spirituality in the work place says,”....... the separation of elements was a necessary strategy at earlier stages of human evolution. Art, science, and religion had to separate from each other to develop into ‘more mature forms. A characteristic of earlier stages of human development is that critical elements are so merged together that they have no separate identity. Thus, for development, the key elements need to be separate. However, at our current stage of human development, we face a new challenge. We have gone too far in separating the key elements. We need to integrate spirituality into management." Executives are expected to be conscious of their long- neglected spiritual identities as well as the spiritual realities of peers, partners, employees, customers and communities. The fruit of that very positive momentum is an awareness by many business leaders that economic mission statements need to express a new balance of co-operation and competition and that corporate charters need a mainstream shift from the stockholder to the stakeholder model. Whatit it means is that Business executives who find ways to touch the spiritual side of their people — letting go off the ego- driven, “command-and-control" work-force paradigm - ultimately are going to end up employing the most loyal, intelligent and morally awake individuals available in today's labor market. TheIQ,EQandSQ In the early part of the 20th century, IQ became a big issue, the measuring of our ‘intelligence quotient. In the mid-90s, Daniel Goleman took the research of neuroscientists and psychologists and popularized the notion of another quotient -EQ, emotional intelligence. Now, a third wave of scientific research suggesting we may be ‘hard wired’, neurologically, for spirituality has prompted the creation of SQ, the spirituality quotient.