I recently read St. Benedict’s Guide to Improving Your Work Life: Workplace as Worthplace by Michael Rock (2015).
In this book, MR makes a powerful case that thoughtful leaders can create engaging and meaningful work environments that not only serve customers and employees well, but make the world a better place, to boot. MR makes his case by linking powerful and affectual workplace practices to the tenets of St. Benedict and his accolytes.
My top takeaways:
– Presenteeism. A new word to me that means to be there physically, but not really there.
– There is tremendous power in respecting the divine presence in each individual and the subsequent connectedness to others, to creation and to God it entails.
– The three main anchors Benedict establishes are rootedness, ongoing engagement and openness to change, and the deep and inner art of listening.
– Leaders who pay attention and notice are worth their weight in gold.
– Above all, there must be trust.
– Real listening is an act of love.
– It is the active learner who inherits the future, not the learned.
– Awareness of the constancy of change and the commitment to continuous improvement are like ying and yang.
– Excellence is the direct result of our habits.
– Disinterested management always yields disengaged employees.
– Workplace only becomes Worthplace as result of intentional thought, practices, and systems.
My favorite quotes:
“Moreover, the community itself grows and derives excellence from working together, for work allows us to focus on someone or something besides ourselves, and in that way, draws us away from self-centeredness and toward otherness.” (p. 34)
“Mother Terea said, ‘We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in silence; see the stars, the moon, and the sun, how they move in silence.’ Silence is not a void that must be filled; it is a friend with whom we can be totally at ease.” (p. 53)
“If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, go on out and sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Handel and Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.’” – Martin Luther King, Jr in New Covenant Baptist Church, Chicago, 1967.
“When organizations pursue excellence, therefore, employees will experience 1) a meaning-based process in their work, 2) a sense of connectedness to colleagues, and 3) feelings of being engaged, doing an outstanding job with what they are doing. All three, especially the sustenance that comes from the experience of transcendence, will build a culture in which excellence can thrive.” (p. 69-70)
This book goes on the recommended list. It’s a good ‘un.
*If you’d like to read more of nc’s blatherings, go to nc’s Recursive Learning.
