Making Meaning at Work

Tending to the Soul of an Organization

“Whoever loses contact with his or her own soul is in trouble. Similarly, organizations that pay no attention to matters of soul are in trouble, even when financially productive. The current practices of so-called downsizing, managed care and bottom-line thinking in business and academe have led to the effacement of soul and the erosion of morale. 

Downsizing is a euphemism for depriving people of their livelihood. Managed care is really managed cost, a service only to insurance companies. Bottom-line thinking is too often thinking with your head in your bottom.”  

–James Hollis, The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other

If you work inside an organization, you have probably felt this neglect of its soul. You may think it impossible to tend to an organization’s soul, especially in a capitalist context. Prioritizing profit over the wellbeing of people is something we feel in the organizational culture, the way we and our colleagues behave day to day. It is too often reflected in an overly competitive way of being that leads to infighting and counterproductive competition inside the organization. 

Whether we are anointed leaders or so-called individual contributors, we often feel powerless to do anything about the soul-sucking nature of corporate culture. What’s happening underneath the surface on the individual level is usually a threat to our sense of self-worth. Our deepest most treasured values are being denied day after day. We think our ability to find meaning at work is limited or only possible if we are doing a certain type of “mission-driven” work. 

Making Meaning

I’m here to tell you there are ways to make meaning that are not surface-level or cliche. I have worked in the managed care industry mentioned in Hollis’ statement above and been fed hard-to-believe platitudes about the people we were “helping” through our obviously self-serving business model. 

I also managed to find personal growth through the relationships and meaning-making I cultivated consciously even in said soul-sucking environment. And I’ve spent lots of time and energy unpacking how that was possible so that I can help others do the same. 

I have studied the works of Jungian practitioners like Hollis and certified as a Strength Deployment Inventory facilitator–a method with origins in related psychodynamic approaches. For the past three years I have also studied the discipline of Positive Leadership as an affiliated member of the University of Louisville’s Center for Positive Leadership. 

I have seen how these methods can transform the leaders who practice them. By their nature, that is how they operate. Positive Leadership is “an episode in which one person exhibits the virtues that are relevant to that episode in exceptional ways that inspire others to follow.” Discrete, concrete. Powerful when repeated. 

Relationship Intelligence is defined by Tim Scudder, author of Working with SDI, Third Edition: A manual for developing relationship intelligence, as “the ability to construct productive interpersonal relationships, and, when effective interactions cannot be maintained, to minimize the harm to integrity of self and others.” How might our organizations thrive if we all improved our relationship intelligence? 

Being an exceptional, relationally-intelligent leader increases our sense of self-worth and lifts up those around us. It changes how we experience the world and how others experience us. Luckily, we know these are skills that can be taught. To those who want to learn. 

How to Heal

“For corporate bodies to heal, they must have managers who will address the question of the soul,”

Hollis also writes in The Eden Project. My bet is that you are a leader who is willing to address the question of the soul. 

If you are being called to make more meaning, lead others, and/or face impending change, perhaps a Frittata engagement is something you should consider. We help leaders tend to their own and their organizations’ souls through 1:1 coaching, leadership development programs, and team retreats. Our clients desire true transformation for themselves and their organizations. They are willing and eager to do the work.