DEBRA AND WILLIAM MILLER ON SPIRITUALITY

Interview with Debra and William Miller

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People are beginning to experience the emptiness of a materialistic, consumer-focused, high-stressed lifestyle and are beginning to say "no" to that way of life

Our own exploration of spirituality and work began in the mid-1980s. We began discussing spirituality and business with corporate executives and reflected on it in books and articles, as well as in audio programs and the media. We have also played a role in the evolution of spirituality and business at numerous international gatherings in North America, Europe and South Asia. What started roughly 20 years ago as an inner calling to explore a new perspective on personal and organizational leadership has evolved over the years into a primary focus of our work that reflects and expresses our own search for fulfilling our life's purpose.

Regarding whether spirituality is a fad: This is a response we gave to a BBC Asia reporter who asked us if we had any statistics to show that spirituality had improved profitability in the Asian region: "We strongly discourage making any implication that spirituality is a new fad or (even worse) a new tool for being more successful at work or in business. We have found that the media seems to focus a lot on this angle. For us, spirituality is a timeless, ageless, source of our being, not a here-today, gone-tomorrow fad. For us, the new focus on spirituality as it relates to work, business and leadership is a natural reflection of the spiritual awakening that is happening with all of humanity. It is part of our human evolution."

We sent him a statement we made in a white paper we wrote called "Spirituality: The New Emerging Context For Business Leadership", "To catch a glimpse of what this spiritual context might look like in the future, and where it might take business leadership, we are all faced with two challenges:
1. To inquire into the nature of spirituality and its impact on business leadership requires that we be willing to explore beyond the world of our day-to-day senses and thinking.
2. To attempt to paint a picture of how spiritual-based business leadership will unfold is much like trying to predict the impact of the internet in 1980, when we had just barely invented personal computers."

Are concepts like "spirituality in the workplace", "organization renewal", etc., meant only for mature organizations which have financial and human resources to support such activities? What about start-ups/ small scale industries, etc.?

The first year we moved to India in 2000, the young men at the university we live, did "grama seva" in the nearby villages, giving food and clothes to hundreds of families. Each time they or the professors who accompanied them speak about their experience, they speak about how the pure spiritual culture of India has been most preserved in these village people.

This humbly reminds us that spirituality is an inherent part of our nature as human beings and has nothing to do with how educated we are or how wealthy we are. To live from a spiritual basis at work requires our loving devotion, discipline and dedication, which are available to anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Also, we've noted that companies ranging from ServiceMaster in the US to Excel Industries in India were started as entrepreneurial companies by spiritual-based founders. Thus, the principles by which they operated from the very beginning-as small, perhaps under-capitalized, firms-were already spiritual. Those principles were the foundation upon which such companies have grown.

The point here is that spirituality in the workplace does not require substantial finance or human resources -as if it were a luxury that only the well-to-do companies could afford. In fact, one might make the case that it's actually easier to be spiritual as a start-up or small scale business rather than a mature one with lots of resources. In the latter case, with a large influx of people with many worldviews, it can sometimes be more difficult to create the spiritual unity that one enjoys in a smaller enterprise. In many cases, within larger corporations we've seen spiritual-based leaders making a difference within their sphere of influence, which often does not include the entire company, only their division/department/ unit.

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