Spirituality in workplace LO20159

AM de Lange (amdelange@gold.up.ac.za)
Thu, 10 Dec 1998 16:11:54 +0200

Replying to LO20115 --

Dear Organlearners,

Sherri Malouf <sherri@maloufinc.com> writes:

>What a wonderful concept -- Chief Sprituality Officer
>or CSO. I am struck by the lack of response to the
>post as I thought it to be very engaging. I decided to
>wait and see how others responded before I did.

Greetings Sherri,

Let me just have a look in my dictionaries if a certain word exists.
Aha, it does. Now what about the following three concepts which each
one is wonderful and dear to me:
Chief Creativity Officer
Chief Perceptivity Officer
Chief Spirituality Officer
(A shorter way to refer to them might be: Creativity Praetor,
Perceptivity Praetor, Spirituality Praetor.)

But there is something worrying me extremely. When I look at all three
chief officers from the viewpoint of creativity, from the viewpoint of
perceptivity and from the viewpoint of spirituality, I sense the same
worry. What will become of the wholeness within me? Wholeness is essential
to my creativity, perceptivity and spirituality. Wholeness is essential
for me to create (creativity), to learn (perceptivity) and to believe
(spirituality in the strict sense). Wholeness is even essential for these
three things to function together, for each one to strengthen the other
two.

My worry is the following. Will these three different officers honour and
promote my wholeness rather than impairing it? Will three different
officers be able to function in harmony?

Ok, I have made my point. Let us look at spirituality itself. Is it
possible to pay so much attention to spirituality that we may neglect
creativity and perceptivity? I can write a book on examples from history
to show that it has happened. If we neglect creativity, can we have a
healthy perceptivity and a healthy spirituality? If we neglect creativity
and perceptivity, can we have a healthy spirituality? Can we pay so much
attention to creativity that we may neglect perceptivity and spirituality.
Will such an over emphasised creativity be healthy? Likewise, can an over
emphasised perceptivity be healthy?

In a sense I am playing here with words. It all concerns the duality
body&mind. What I desire, is that wholeness should be honoured in this
dual and each of the parts "body" and "mind". In other words, I rather
need a Chief Wholeness Officer.

But then, as you know me by now, a new uneasiness begin. Is wholeness the
only thing essebtial to my creativity, perceptivity and spirituality? What
about sureness? So, let us get ourselves a Chief Sureness Officer! Soon we
will end up with seven different officers. Will seven different officers
be able to function in harmony?

I can go on and on and on, each time swithing to a different facet of
Systems Thinking. In fact, we do have to go on and on untill we have
covered all angles, painting a picture as rich as possible. Finally, when
we look at this rich picture, it all concerns the duality body&mind, the
PERSON.

Sherri, what I would love to have, is a Chief Persons Officer whose task
it is to let each person of the organisation develop harmoniously to
his/her fullest potential in ALL facets of humanness. This is the closest
I can get to "Spirituality in the workplace".

>Also Raju -- I like the idea that the position would float so
>that different influences could be felt. A distinct protection
>against the development of dogma!

Sherri, there is another important distinct protection against the
development of dogma.

Honour each person as a unique individual.

I want to thank you, Jan and Raju for sharing your thoughts.

Best wishes

-- 

At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>