Rev. Munib Younan, a Palestinian bishop, was elected President of the Lutheran World Federation on Saturday. The LWF, representing more than 70 million Christians in 79 countries, stood squarely behind the Palestinian leader with 300 of the 360 delegates' votes cast for him.

Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan and the Holy Land since 1998, Rev. Younan has worked tirelessly for reconciliation and nonviolent solutions to conflict. President of the Fellowship of Middle East Evangelical Churches, Rev. Younan also co–founded the Council of Religious Institutions in the Holy Land, comprised of the two chief rabbis of Israel, the Chief Judge of the Islamic Court in Palestine, other Muslim leaders, and the heads of the local churches.

Author of Witnessing for Peace: In Jerusalem and the World, Younan has earned the right to speak about nonviolent solutions to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. With a lifetime of ministry in the midst of conflict, Younan speaks and writes about the path of nonviolence, illustrating nonviolent principles with stories from his life and ministry.

In his acceptance speech, Rev. Younan called the church to dedicate itself to fighting "extremism and xenophobia, especially Anti-Semitism and Islamophobia." In a PBS interview in 2003, Younan called Palestinians to "understand the trauma of the Holocaust for Jews," and called Israelis to "understand the deep trauma of occupation in the depth of us Palestinians." Younan also stated that "Palestinians, Christian or Muslim, care for the security of Israel." At the same time, he pointed out that the "security of Israel depends on the freedom and justice of Palestinians."

Munib Younan, a rare leader cut from the same cloth as Gandhi and Martin Luther King, has demonstrated his ability to reach out with compassion for Israelis while at the same time standing firmly for justice for Palestinians. Lutherans have chosen a great man as their leader. May the world take note and stand behind them.

To leave a comment about his article, go to: Soulful leadership in Palestine

"It's only a money problem." With those words, Jennifer Barraclough, Director of Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham, England, addressed the fears of Woodbrooke's staff and board when the cash reserves dropped off precipitously after the financial crisis of late 2008 and Woodbrooke, like many non-profits, faced its worst deficit ever.

"It's only a money problem. It's not a problem of our strategy. It's not a problem of our policies. It's not a problem of our practices. It's not a problem of our people. It's only a money problem." As Jennifer reassured Woodbrooke's constituents, she reminded them that Woodbrooke had entered the financial crisis in the strongest position it had ever attained, and that its people, policies, and practices formed a solid foundation to face the coming storm.

The leadership team agreed on basic principles as they faced difficult decisions:
-Avoid layoffs
-Freeze pay
-Reduce benefits
As they wrestled with the challenges they faced, the leadership team worked together with their staffs to find imaginative ways to cut expenses that would leave staff positions intact. For example, when it became clear that Woodbrooke could no longer afford to provide the benefit of free staff meals in the way that it had been, the chef worked creatively to devise a plan which would reduce waste and offer staff a scaled–back version of free meals.

Morale remained high despite the cutbacks, as ideas were contributed from many quarters and layoffs avoided. Teams grew stronger as they worked together to face challenges.

Today, after a year and half, Woodbrooke finds itself growing financially stronger again. 2009 showed financial results much better than expected and the first half of 2010 started better than any year yet. No staff members have been laid off, and it may be possible to consider lifting the pay freeze.

"It's only a money problem." When leaders can "hold their nerve" and hold their organizations, keeping financial challenges in perspective, anything is possible.

To leave a comment about his article, go to: "It's Only a Money Problem"

As BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico worsens by the day, the world's eyes are on the self–proclaimed "green" company. Since the April 20 explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon oil rig, at least 6 million gallons of crude oil have gushed into Gulf waters, destroying fish and wildlife and shutting down fishing operations.

When former CEO Lord Browne announced that BP henceforth stood for "Beyond Petroleum," he emphasized that BP took seriously its identity as an energy company, not just an oil company. Committing the company to exploration of wind and solar power in addition to oil drilling, Browne also committed himself to lower–emissions gasoline. BP earned a reputation for corporate social responsibility, ranking in the Corporate Knights Global 100 in 2005 and 2006.

But a fatal explosion in Texas in 2005 and an oil spill at Prudhoe Bay in Alaska in 2006 revealed lax safety standards and tarnished the company's image. Investigations uncovered a culture of risk–taking and cost–cutting at the expense of worker and environmental safety.

Tony Hayward succeeded Browne after his retirement in 2008, pledging renewed commitment to safety. From the beginning of Hayward's tenure, however, observers questioned his commitment to Browne's vision of making BP a green energy company.

The current crisis in the Gulf calls into question both Hayward's commitment to and effectiveness in worker and environmental safety. The crisis could serve as an opportunity for Hayward, an opportunity to rethink BP's values and priorities.

Will the Gulf spill serve as a wake–up call for BP? Will the company realize that it needs to return to its commitment to be a green energy company? Only time will tell.

Lord Browne held out a noble vision for BP. Will Hayward return to that vision and succeed in making it manifest? If not, which oil company will? The first oil company that can make the leap to becoming a green energy company will show the world a desperately needed new way forward.

To leave a comment about his article, go to: BP's crisis: A call to become a green energy company (video)

Will Toyota repent? Last week Toyota announced yet another recall, this time of the Lexus GX 460 and the Land Cruiser Prado, luxury SUVs that had received a "don't buy" warning from Consumer Reports because of their rollover hazard. The 34,000 vehicles recalled worldwide last week bring the total to over nine million vehicles Toyota has recalled since November.

For decades Toyota was known for "the Toyota Way," an approach to business that focused on respect for people (both customers and employees) and continuous improvement. Experienced mentors taught new employees Toyota's practices, resulting in world-renowned quality of Toyota's products.

Yet the phenomenal growth of the past decade that resulted from Toyota's reputation for quality turned out to have a downside: Toyota left behind the Toyota Way in its race for growth. With not enough mentors available for new employees, with a reduced capacity to respond to complaints from customers, and with a rush to produce more cars resulting in less focus on quality, Toyota manufactured millions of flawed vehicles.

Akio Toyoda, president of the company founded by his grandfather, stated in February when he testified before the US Congress:

Quite frankly, I fear the pace at which we have grown may have been too quick. I would like to point out here that Toyota's priority has traditionally been the following: First; Safety, Second; Quality, and Third; Volume. These priorities became confused, and we were not able to stop, think, and make improvements as much as we were able to before, and our basic stance to listen to customers' voices to make better products has weakened somewhat. We pursued growth over the speed at which we were able to develop our people and our organization, and we should sincerely be mindful of that. I regret that this has resulted in the safety issues described in the recalls we face today, and I am deeply sorry for any accidents that Toyota drivers have experienced.

Yet many experienced his apology as too little, too late. Would he show wholehearted repentance and make amends the way Johnson and Johnson did with the Tylenol recall in 1982? The jury is still out.

As many have pointed out, the purpose of business is to serve the common good, to contribute to society. Of course businesses need to make a profit in order to survive and thrive. But profit is no more the purpose of business than breathing is the purpose of human life. Just as breathing is necessary for life so that humans can live out their purpose, profit is necessary for business so that a business can live out its purpose and make a contribution to society.

The current crisis faced by Toyota reminds us what frail human constructs businesses are, subject to the same temptations of greed and pride that individual humans face. Like individuals, businesses need to repent and restore relationships when they overreach themselves and go astray. Businesses tear the fabric of society when they lose their moral compass and forget their purpose.

Toyota will likely return to its core values eventually, and, as a consequence, to its former greatness. What remains to be seen is how long it will take, whether it can happen under the leadership of Akio Toyoda, and how much damage will have been done along the way to the company and to the societies in which Toyota manufactures and markets its vehicles.

The sooner Toyota fully repents, makes amends to its customers, fixes its manufacturing problems, and returns to the Toyota Way, the sooner it can return to its role as a leader in the auto industry. All eyes will be on Toyota as it determines whether and how to repent and return to being a company that contributes positively to the societies in which it operates.

To leave a comment about his article, go to: Will Toyota repent (video)?

The American healthcare struggle culminating in Sunday's vote brought out the best and the worst of legislators' and citizens' behavior. The worst of the behavior inflicted wounds that not only hurt individuals, but also damaged the nation's soul.

In some ways, the heat and polarization generated by the healthcare debate can be viewed as an opportunity, an opportunity to expose old wounds that have been festering and need to be healed. When Rep. James Clyburn received a fax of a noose along with racial slurs, when Rep. Emanuel Cleaver was spat upon by a protestor and called "ni—er," when Rep. John Lewis was called a "ni—er," it became clear, in ways that perhaps it hadn't been to all Americans, that racism is alive and well in America and needs to be addressed. When a U.S. Representative shouted "baby-killer" during Rep. Bart Stupak's speech on the floor of Congress, it became clear that slanderous speech is alive and well, even in the sacred halls of Congress. When pro–choice advocates characterized pro–life advocates as anti–woman and opposed to healthcare access for women, it became clear that intolerance and inability to hear the good will in others' positions is alive and well.

Racism, slander, and lack of respect for differing views damage the soul of the nation. America was built on the foundation of mutual respect and rigorous debate. When all positions are heard and seriously considered, the nation is richer for it. When some positions are shut out, the nation is impoverished. When people are demeaned because of their race or political position, the nation's soul is damaged. As Fannie Lou Hamer reminded us, "Nobody's free until everybody's free."

The healthcare struggle revealed gaps between America's espoused values and her lived values. America is not a "post–racial" society. America is not a tolerant society. America is not a society of mutual respect for differing points of view.

This is an opportunity for healing the old wounds that have been exposed, for closing the gap between espoused values and lived values. Will Republican leaders step forward and challenge their followers (and colleagues) on their racist and slanderous speech? Will Democratic leaders step forward and challenge their followers (and colleagues) on their intolerance and blind spots?

It's time to heal the nation. America faces problems of huge proportions. If Americans can step up to the challenge to address and heal the wounds, the health and energy that will be liberated to engage the problems will be immense. If we can't, we're destined to limp along when we need to run.

To leave a comment about his article, go to: Healing the nation's soul (video)

"Let us see what love can do," the words William Penn used to guide his experiment in government in Pennsylvania, can also serve as a guide at work. Particularly in health care, love can be a powerful force.

In these tough economic times, in the midst of downsizing and layoffs, healthcare workers are being asked to do more with less. As if the pressures they faced were not already enough, they are now expected to cover even more bases with fewer resources.

Studies show that patients heal more quickly when their caretakers are present to them emotionally and spiritually, as well as physically. Doctors and nurses who bring their whole selves to their patients, encountering the whole person with compassion, facilitate more healing than those who bring only medical expertise.

Yet, with greater pressure to cover more bases more quickly, caretakers face greater risk of compassion fatigue. How can they keep going, day after day, staying emotionally and spiritually fit so that they can be fully present to their patients?

The Seton Cove, in Austin, Texas, addresses this need by providing compassionate care to the caregivers of the Seton hospitals in and around Austin. The 10,000 employees at various sites have access to The Seton Cove's services, both at the center itself and at onsite programs that the center brings to the sites.

One of the onsite programs, the quarterly "Spirituality in the Workplace" luncheon series, features a different Seton hospital leader at each luncheon. The leader shares his/her story of navigating the tensions of serving in healthcare, how he or she has wrestled with taking care of patients while also staying whole. Then the leader facilitates a discussion among those present on how they address these same issues.

In another onsite luncheon series, the Tranquility Luncheons, hospital employees leave their posts for 30–minute luncheons (in two shifts, so that they can cover for one another) in which they are provided both lunch and food for the soul. The luncheons are advertised thus:

Is it possible to restore life balance over lunch? We'd like to think that such mindful changes can happen in small moments, so why not at lunch? Rejuvenating, simple practices will be shared and discussed with ample opportunity to practice.

At the luncheons, caregivers reflect on poetry and move into a brief meditation or journaling. After reading the poetry offered and reflecting on it individually, participants are invited to share with another person in the group.

Participants report that, though brief, the two types of luncheons provide welcome respite from the pressures they face. They leave with their souls renewed, having experienced compassion themselves and ready to meet their patients with compassion.

"Let us see what love can do." William Penn's words are exemplified at The Seton Cove. The Seton Cove has experimented with what compassion can do, and has found it to be one of the most powerful forces around. This Valentine's Day, take as your theme, "Let us see what love can do."

To leave a comment about his article, go to: Love at work

Have you broken your New Year's resolutions yet? If so, you're not alone. Studies show that 36% of New Year's resolutions are broken by the end of January. By the end of six months, over half are broken. Organizational change efforts follow a similar pattern: about 70% of all organizational change efforts fail to achieve the desired results. How are these statistics related?

Broken New Year's resolutions and failed organizational change efforts have something in common: they both neglect "competing commitments" to their peril. The learning that can occur through examining these competing commitments is the silver lining in the cloud. Self–reflective individuals and organizations can celebrate their failures as a way to learn and grow.

What if we thought of our broken New Year's resolutions not as evidence of weak willpower, but as a sign of other important commitments that need just as much attention as our resolutions need? A book that can help do just that is Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey's Immunity to Change: How to Overcome it and Unlock the Potential in You and Your Organization.

According to Kegan and Lahey, we break our New Year's resolutions because we don't pay attention to the commitments that compete with them. For example, one of my resolutions a couple of years ago was to get organized and de–clutter my home office. A year later, my home office was just as cluttered as ever, cluttered with the photos and memorabilia that came from my mother's house when I cleaned it out after her death a year before. I realized that I had a competing commitment: to hold onto those objects from the past and the memories that came with them. My competing commitment, to honor my mother's memory, was one that I could celebrate. Once I understood my competing commitment, I could honor both desires: to honor my mother's memory and to get organized, and find a way to express both commitments in my life.

Like individual New Year's resolutions, organizational change efforts tend to focus on desired change without digging deeper to examine competing commitments. We're all familiar with the term "resistance," used to describe the forces that keep us from changing, both individually and organizationally. It's easy to view resistance negatively, viewing it as the effort to cling to the old when it's time to usher in the new. If instead of thinking in terms of organizational resistance to change, we can think in terms of competing organizational commitments, we can mine rich veins of learning.

For example, when Jim Sanger came to St. Mary's Good Samaritan Hospital in southern Illinois as CEO, charged with merging two facilities, he knew that VPs, managers, and employees held competing commitments. They valued the relationships they had on their old teams in the separate facilities, at the same time that they committed themselves to moving forward with the merger. Jim honored the competing commitments by acknowledging the old teams and the strong relationships that had developed there. He committed himself to treating everyone with dignity and respect, building on the strengths of the old teams. He held leadership retreats at which people from both facilities not only worked together but also socialized together, gradually coming to know and respect one another. He committed himself to a "no–layoff" policy: whenever someone in a management position would leave either campus (but not before), the position was merged with the parallel position from the other campus. While the organizational change took slightly longer to achieve than if Jim had used another approach, the new teams were rock solid. By 2007, ten years after Jim's arrival, all the changes were still in place and the entire leadership team shared the same vision.

The next time you're feeling discouraged by a broken New Year's resolution or failed organizational change effort, look deeper. You're likely to find a competing commitment that is just as important and honorable as the "failed" commitment. If you can find a way to honor both commitments together, you may find yourself well on the road to success. What you learn from your "failure" can ultimately build a stronger foundation for moving toward your goal.

In the movie "Miracle on 34th Street," Kris Kringle, a department store Santa at Macy's, raises a storm of controversy when he tells a mother that she can buy the skates her child wants for Christmas at Gimbels, Macy's primary competitor.

A department store Santa, a low-paid temp worker, resides on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. "Miracle on 34th Street" is, among other things, the story of how someone in this lowly position helped people live by their deepest values in the most commercial season of the year.

The department store Santa has been told to direct customers to buy Macy's products. When the Macy's higher–ups hear that their Santa is sending people to Gimbels, at first they are not pleased. But later, when the press picks up the story with the message that Macy's is exhibiting the Christmas spirit, Gimbels gets in the act, too – sending people to Macy's when Macy's can better meet their customers' needs. The generosity spreads, with the outcome that the impossible happens: Mr. Macy ends up shaking hands with Mr. Gimbel.

The rest of the classic movie revolves around the question of whether Kris Kringle is really just a "nice old man" (and a lowly paid temp worker) or whether he is in fact the mythic Santa Claus himself. As events unfold, individuals are called to be their better selves and acknowledge the values of Christmas. A judge is influenced by his grandchildren and a prosecutor faces his own words to his son (insisting that Santa Claus exists). Even the fictional W.R. Macy himself, on the stand, ends up identifying Kris as the genuine article, based on the smiles of children lining up to see Kris and not the profit calculations of a department store magnate.

The transformations effected by the character of Kris Kringle in the movie are not a result of Kris being Santa Claus, but of calling out the best in the people around him. This is a lesson for everyone in the workplace, where one doesn't need to have power or mythic weight to make change happen, but one only needs to connect with the spirit and values of individuals themselves.

Kris Kringle, by being his best self and calling out others' best selves, transformed at least two department stores and numerous individuals in the movie. Even someone on the lowest rung of the corporate ladder, by connecting with people's hearts, can bring about transformation.

Steve Jobs was named CEO of the decade recently by Fortune magazine for remaking (count them) four major industries in the past ten years: computing, music, movies, and mobile phones. As Fortune pointed out in honoring Jobs, "remaking even one industry is a career–defining accomplishment:" Henry Ford, for example, defined the auto industry, while PanAm's Juan Trippe created the global airline. Remaking four industries is nothing short of remarkable.

Steve Jobs' stellar success can be attributed to his commitment to following his dreams, combined with strong business acumen and careful attention to detail. At age 20, after dropping out of Reed College, Jobs dreamed of creating a new kind of computer. Jobs and his friend Steve Wozniak built the first Apple computer in Jobs' parents' garage in Los Altos, CA. The Apple computer took off, loved by computer geeks.

In 1985, at age 30, Jobs was fired from the $2 billion company he had founded, loved, and driven to success. Due to a difference in philosophy and direction with the president he had hired, Jobs found himself unemployed.

Devastated, Jobs didn't know where to turn. Barred from the one thing he loved doing, Jobs felt hopeless. The devastation became an opportunity for soul–searching, for Jobs to reexamine what was important to him, and eventually, to re–choose his dream. In retrospect, speaking to Stanford students at their 2005 commencement, Jobs viewed the firing as the best thing that had ever happened to him: "The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life." Jobs started over again. He founded NeXT computers and drove his new company to even greater success.

In an ironic twist of fate, Apple bought NeXT in 1997, and Jobs found himself back at Apple's helm. Apple faced possible bankruptcy, and Jobs used what he had learned at NeXT about dreaming big to turn Apple around. The "Think Different" advertising campaign, the release of iTunes, the iPod, and the Mac OS X in 2001, the launch of the iTunes music stores in 2003, and the release of the iPhone in 2007 all stemmed from Jobs' ability to think outside the box. Along the way, Jobs survived pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant, dreaming big through it all. Now a $170 billion company, Apple outstrips Google and Dell.

Jobs dared to dream and he dreamed big, again and again. In this respect, Jobs models soulful leadership. Daring to dream propels leaders forward, allowing them to become the people they were created to be. While Jobs' imperious manner, single–mindedness (for many years, Apple's products were the least "green" of any in the industry because of Jobs' single focus on creating the quality he wanted, to the neglect of all else), and brush with scandal (a stock options backdating securities violation), mar his leadership record, Jobs has also proven teachable. For example, Jobs apologized for the securities violation and has admitted his slackness in allowing dirty technology in Apple products, now turning Apple around to become a leader in green technology.

While Steve Jobs still has some rough edges and needs to work on his people skills in management, he has much to teach the world about leadership. Daring to dream, again and again, in the face of failure and setback, Jobs has contributed to the world some of the most innovative technology it has ever seen. While not turning a blind eye to his limitations, may we learn from Jobs' strengths. Dreaming big in the face of impossible challenges is something this world could use more of.

How can you exercise soulful leadership at knifepoint? Are there ways an ordinary person can stay grounded and defuse a violent situation?

And what about violence that hasn't escalated to the point of knives or guns, such as verbal abuse at work, both abuse directed toward oneself and abuse directed toward others? What does soulful leadership look like in these situations?

Earlier this year, Julio Diaz, a New York City social worker exercised soulful leadership at knifepoint when he stepped off the subway and a teenager pulled a knife on him and demanded his wallet. After giving the teen his wallet, Diaz engaged him as he began to walk away, offering him his coat and inviting him to dinner. The would–be robber accepted the dinner invitation, and the conversation over dinner, through Diaz's masterful engagement with the teen and the teen's openness to listening, resulted in the teen returning the wallet and giving up his knife.

When they heard about the incident, many readers of the story asked themselves what they would have done, judged themselves as incapable of rising to the challenge in the way that Diaz did, and left it at that. Diaz became a hero, one who practices unattainable heroics that ordinary mortals can never expect to perform. It was easy to put him in the category of heroes like Desmond Tutu and Aung San Suu Kyi.

But treating the story in this way misses its most important lesson. There are hints in the story of Diaz's practice, practice, and more practice. People like Diaz and Tutu and Suu Kyi have been living this way for a long time. As Walter Wink points out in his book, Engaging the Powers, in a world that teaches flight or flight, those who want to practice a third way, the way of encountering violence with compassion and transforming it, must rehearse that third way. We need groups of people who gather to talk about situations they face every day, small and large, subtle and not so subtle. We need opportunities to brainstorm and role play "third way" responses.

We may not be able to start with soulful leadership at knifepoint. On a scale of 1–10, the situation in which Diaz found himself was a "10." Only because he had been practicing "1's," "2's," "5's," and "8's" over the years was he able to rise to the occasion when he encountered a "10." Fortunately, most of us don't encounter robberies at knifepoint regularly. But we do encounter "1's," "2's," and "5's" frequently. How do we respond, for example, to an angry driver in traffic? Or to an angry neighbor or co–worker or teen–age son or daughter? Do we intervene when we see a bully in the office or on the playground, and if so, how? How do we respond to a racist joke at work? And where do we get support for responding differently from the usual ways? What are our opportunities to gather with others and practice "third way" responses?

We may not have the wherewithal to exercise soulful leadership at knifepoint if we are confronted with it today. At the same time, with the help of other like–minded people, we can begin to practice that "third way" in the myriad situations we encounter every day, and begin to build up our "third way" muscles. And in the unlikely event that we are ever confronted with a "10" situation, as Diaz was, we just might be able to rise to the occasion.

What does soulful leadership look like in the current healthcare debate in the U.S.? How can elected officials and ordinary citizens provide real leadership in moving the debate forward?

The United States was founded upon the principle of participative democracy, a principle that assumes that wisdom emerges from the careful consideration of differing points of view. In order for participative democracy to work, informed citizens must engage in respectful discussion with one another and with their elected officials.

The past several weeks have witnessed the degeneration of town meetings on healthcare into shouting matches, with some who oppose President Obama's proposal for healthcare reform engaging in disruptive tactics designed to derail the debate. Quite apart from the issue of healthcare reform itself, such tactics are morally wrong.

Why? First, these tactics silence other voices, usually the majority of the attendees at a town hall meeting. The purpose of a town meeting is to hear representative viewpoints of all who gather. It is morally wrong to intentionally silence the voices of those with differing viewpoints. Second, these tactics erode the possibility of advancing the discussion and coming to a real solution. No matter what their position on healthcare reform, the vast majority of Americans agree that the current system isn't working. While their preferred solutions to the healthcare crisis may differ, all Americans deserve accurate information and respectful debate. And all Americans have the right to constructive meetings that help illuminate the questions and move toward answers. It is a waste of everyone's time and taxpayers' money when town meetings don't draw on the wisdom of differing perspectives to move toward constructive solutions.

Leaders have a moral obligation to create a safe space for all perspectives to be heard and considered. Recently, Texas Congressman Al Green demonstrated soulful leadership in the <town meeting he held on healthcare reform. He began the meeting by asking the nearly thousand–member crowd to vote on some "housekeeping" questions:

— Should we hear from members of the public?

— How many would like to ask questions? Please stand. In order to give more people a chance, should we limit the questions or statements to two minutes? Should we kill the mike if they go significantly over?

— If they continue to holler, should we ask them to leave so others can be heard?

— Should I begin with an opening statement?

After the group voted "aye" on every question, Green followed through by asking those who had questions to write them on index cards (along with their zip codes) and then he selected cards randomly from a bowl. He asked the audience to clap for each questioner before they knew the person's viewpoint. Then he gave each questioner two minutes at a roving mike held by a volunteer who pulled the mike away when the time was up.

The result? A civil town meeting in which different viewpoints were heard and citizens got a lesson in respecting those who differed from them.

In the weeks ahead, with Congress back in session, the health care debate will continue to heat up. Leaders would do well to ask themselves, "How can I learn from Al Green's example?" Citizens would do well to ask themselves, "How can I influence my legislators to create structures and processes that will ensure respectful and meaningful debate? How can I further constructive discussion among my friends and acquaintances, both with those with whom I agree and with those with whom I disagree?"

Who Americans become as individuals and as a country through the process of the healthcare debates may be just as important as what we create as a final product through them. What are you doing to encourage constructive discussion and influence who you and those around you are becoming?

Wall Street investor Bernard Madoff was sentenced this week to 150 years in jail. Madoff serves as this week's (or month's? or year's?) chilling warning of what happens when one repeatedly silences the stirrings of one's soul.

Bernard Madoff had spent many years working his "magic" on Wall Street, returning high yields on investments for philanthropists and private investors. Six months ago the news broke that he was engaging in shady practices all along, and had lost more than $50 billion of the money entrusted to him.

What happened to Madoff? He was known to many of his investors as a good friend. He gave millions to charity. Where did he go wrong?

By his own account, he went astray in the early nineties when the stock market stopped yielding high returns and he wanted his investments to continue to perform well for his clients. He entered into a Ponzi scheme then, thinking he could get out when times got better. Instead, he got more and more deeply entrenched, ultimately losing the money he had promised to invest responsibly.

The corrosion of leaders' souls is nothing new. A timeless problem, appearing in such places as the Bible in the person of King David and in Shakespeare in Richard II, the corrosion of a prominent person's soul occurs slowly, like a stone hollowed out by water drop by drop. People like Madoff, David, and Richard do not initially set out to harm countless people and end up disgraced and humiliated.

While the temptations of those with more power are greater, all of us face daily temptations to cut corners, to be less than our best selves. It's easy to point fingers at people like Madoff while similar struggles, albeit on a smaller scale, are occurring in our own souls every day. Our choices shape who we become day by day, week by week, year by year. For example, when I am leading a seminar I've led many times previously, I need to resist the temptation to lead it on automatic pilot and to take the participants for granted. I need to meet each new group afresh and attune myself to how I can best serve these specific people at this particular time.

We need to ask ourselves regularly: Are my choices today strengthening my soul or eroding it? In what ways are my choices making me the person I want to be? In what ways am I choosing a path that results in my being less than my best self? How can I get the support I need to make better choices? (Leaders on the slippery slope to disaster are notoriously isolated.)

Madoff serves as a timeless warning of what soulless leadership looks like. Let us use the opportunity his downfall provides not to point the finger in blame, imagining that we would never do such a thing, but to examine ourselves and see what direction our choices are taking us and those we influence.

Can tough economic times be the catalyst for strengthening relationships in an organization? Can tough times help an organization clarify and stay true to its values? Can tough times strengthen organizational performance?

Yes they can, if the leadership can help the organization stay deeply anchored in its soul in the midst of stormy seas. A leader must play two roles, must know how to be both a spiritual leader and a competent manager. These two roles rise to the fore in tough times more than in any other time.

At Pendle Hill, a Quaker study center near Philadelphia, the annual board meeting occurred in late October 2008, just a few weeks after the crash of the stock market. Board members came to the meeting suspecting that Pendle Hill's endowment had suffered substantially.

Lauri Perman, Pendle Hill's executive director, knew going into the board meeting that Pendle Hill's "biggest challenge was not financial but spiritual." She knew that the temptation of board members would be to give in to fear, and that if one person spoke at the board meeting from a stance of fear, that fear could be contagious. She knew that decisions made from a place of fear would likely be overly reactive, and would be recognized, in retrospect, as weak decisions. She knew that it was important for the board to remain calm, to make decisions from a place of calm rather than from a place of fear.

Lauri knew that fear that arises and is not acknowledged in a group can become corrosive. In the midst of the financial crisis, Lauri had continued to practice meditation and prayer, both individually and corporately, at the daily Pendle Hill meetings for worship and in staff and committee meetings. Through these times, Lauri felt guided to address directly the fears of board members when she met with them. She knew that her job "was to stand firm even when I was feeling buffeted."

Lauri played both roles in her opening remarks to the board. First, she provided the intellectual information the board needed, giving them accurate information about the status of the endowment and about her strategies for addressing the situation. Second, she addressed the emotional and spiritual needs of the board, realizing they needed a contagion of hope, confidence, and faith.

Through serving as a spiritual leader as well as a competent manager, Lauri invited the board to a deeper level. They moved below the "chop" at the surface of the water to a calmer place beneath, and made good decisions from the place of calm.

In the following months, with both the board and the management team, Lauri helped people work together from that place of calm. "We needed each other more than ever," she reflected. "And we needed to make sure we could listen to one another very deeply. We needed to really have faith that, together, we had among us everything we needed."

As she worked with the management team on the budget, facing questions of whether layoffs or salary cuts would be necessary, the group labored together, seeking the good of the whole organization. Ultimately, they found ways to decrease costs and increase income enough that layoffs and salary cuts proved unnecessary. By the time the staff learned that Pendle Hill would be able to move into the next year by committing to do without pay increases, by decreasing the employer contribution to health insurance to 80% of the cost for employees and children (and eliminating the employer contribution to spousal premiums) and by decreasing Pendle Hill's contribution to retirement funds, some staff thanked the management team for their hard work and their commitment to the values of the organization.

The academic year ended with stronger relationships on the board, stronger relationships on the management team, and stronger relationships between the board and the management team. Pendle Hill's values were clarified and reaffirmed in the budgeting process. And, because of the stronger relationships and the reaffirmation of values, morale remained good and the programs Pendle Hill offered were stronger than ever. Soulful leadership in tough economic times deepened and strengthened the organization.

What words come to mind when you think of layoffs? Fear? Anger? Despair? Abandonment? Betrayal? If so, you're not alone. Layoffs stir up in individuals and organizations the deepest, darkest emotions.

Are soulful layoffs possible? Can "soulful business" and layoffs go together?

For employer and employee alike, layoffs are the most dreaded implication of a recession. Because layoffs are dreaded, employers often do not face the necessity of layoffs until the last possible moment, and as a result, do not carefully think through how to best implement them, when they do become necessary, to minimize damage to individuals and to the organization.

Consequently layoffs leave in their wake not only wounded former employees but also shell–shocked remaining employees, who are now expected to do more with less. Furthermore, the remaining employees get the message that they shouldn't have any negative emotions; they should be feeling full of gratitude toward their employers because they still have a job.

Yet the remaining employees often suffer the most. While laid–off employees may be recipients of counseling, job training, and job placement assistance, the remaining employees are expected to soldier on with no extra support. They are experiencing grief from the sudden loss of co–workers with whom they shared daily work for years, even decades. They are experiencing fear, wondering when the other shoe will drop and they too will be let go. They are experiencing exhaustion, both emotional and physical, from what they have been through in the organizational downsizing and from the heavier workload placed upon them with no end in sight.

Because of this emotional overload, the remaining employees can't work to capacity. Morale plummets. Teamwork suffers. Malaise sets in across the organization.

When layoffs are necessary, how can they be done in a way that honors and respects the laid–off employees and the remaining employees alike? An earlier (February 09) newsletter focused on one model of doing layoffs that honors and respects laid-off employees. This month, we turn to the remaining employees.

Can layoffs be done in a way that honors and respects the remaining employees? Can they be done in a way that keeps the life and energy of the organization alive? Can they be done in such a way that the remaining employees bring their full commitment and motivation to work, at a time when the company most needs them to be their best selves?

As Debora Jackson, downsizing revitalization expert, points out in her article, "Revitalize Post–Downsize with New Emphasis" (Boston Women's Business), there are seven strategies for revitalization after layoffs:

First, develop a communications plan that meets employees at each of the stages of the grieving process. Be sensitive, honest, and clear. Second, develop an employee support plan, recognizing that different employees have different needs. Third, acknowledge feelings, providing opportunities for employees to express their feelings both individually and corporately. Fourth, re–establish organizational goals with the input of all employees. Fifth, develop an overall organizational plan to achieve the organizational goals. Sixth, explore how employees' career plans mesh with the organizational plan. Seventh, establish metrics to measure success against organizational goals.

Jackson's seven principles can be used in any company after layoffs, tailored, of course, to the particular culture of the company. The remaining employees need at least as much attention as those laid off. By paying attention to the needs of the remaining employees after a layoff, an organization can experience revitalization and can return to working at full capacity.

In these tough economic times, in the midst of downsizing and layoffs, healthcare workers are being asked to do more with less. As if the pressures they faced were not already enough, they are now expected to cover even more bases with fewer resources.

Studies show that patients heal more quickly when their caretakers are present to them emotionally and spiritually, as well as physically. Doctors and nurses who bring their whole selves to their patients, encountering the whole person with compassion, facilitate more healing than those who bring only medical expertise.

Yet, with greater pressure to cover more bases more quickly, caretakers face greater risk of compassion fatigue. How can they keep going, day after day, staying emotionally and spiritually fit so that they can be fully present to their patients?

The Seton Cove in Austin, Texas, addresses this need by providing care to the caregivers of the Seton hospitals in and around Austin. The 10,000 employees at various sites have access to The Seton Cove's services, both at the center itself and at onsite programs that the center brings to the sites.

Scott Quinn, program director, notes that an increasing number of caretakers and managers realize:

Without having some kind of internal life, they can't live the external life of caring for patients. They can't do the work without burning out.

The Seton Cove provides a variety of programs to nurture the inner life, including monthly onsite Tranquility Luncheons, quarterly luncheons featuring leaders relating their healthcare journeys, and onsite chair massage. All the programs are designed to be inclusive of employees of all faiths, as well as those who don't identify with any faith. Tranquility Rooms are also provided onsite, accessible to employees only. These rooms provide employees a respite from the rigors of healthcare by providing a peaceful space furnished with mechanized massage chairs, relaxing CD music, and contemplative literature. Managers use special "prescription pads" to prescribe 10 minutes in a Tranquility Room for an employee who has worked especially hard or encountered a particularly difficult patient or family.

A typical Tranquility Luncheon is scheduled in two half-hour slots (11:30–12 and 12:30–1), so that employees can cover for one another on a unit, thus enabling everyone to attend the lunch. Participants are welcomed into a tranquil atmosphere with music, and they receive a healthful lunch. They are invited to reflect on poetry and/or move into a brief meditation. They share their reflections with a neighbor, and may take a few moments of journaling. After 30 minutes they return to their posts, relieving their co–workers, who are then free to attend the next shift of Tranquility Luncheon.

The Tranquility Luncheons have been especially successful at the University Medical Center at Brackenridge, a tough inner–city hospital where understaffed units deal regularly with traumas such as gunshot wounds and domestic violence injuries. Caregivers repeatedly encountering such trauma know firsthand the danger of burnout and the need for renewal, and respond enthusiastically to Tranquility Luncheons.

Participants report that the Tranquility Luncheons, even though brief, minister to their souls and help them be their best selves as caretakers. Tasting the experience of a Tranquility Luncheon often leads a participant to get involved in other programs sponsored by The Seton Cove.

Moments of renewal are desperately needed by healthcare workers today. If caregivers are going to be able to be fully present to their patients, emotionally and spiritually as well as physically, they need to have their own souls nurtured. The Seton Cove provides a creative model of what can be done in the midst of the daily pressures of a healthcare workplace, even in the most challenging of circumstances.

With recent headlines about greed and corruption in banks, and about banks spending taxpayers' bailout money on executive bonuses and expensive office renovations, where are the signs of hope for the economy? Are banks destined to lead Western society (and the world) down the slippery slope to economic disaster?

While the banking news that makes the headlines is bleak, signs of hope in banking have been growing behind the scenes. Earlier this month, the Triodos Bank in the Netherlands announced a new Global Alliance for Banking on Values. Inspired by the "Banking on Values" orientation of Boston's Wainwright Bank, the Global Alliance draws together banks from around the world that have been operating on a sustainable model of banking for decades.

In announcing the Global Alliance, Peter Blom, chair of the executive board of the Triodos Bank, remarked to the assembled bankers,

These days people rarely associate the terms "banking" and "values." When people ask what you do for a living, just to answer "banking" is not enough. You can read on people's faces, "Are you one of them?"

He went on to hold up a vision of banking that serves communities, a tried and true vision that contrasts sharply with the model of banking that has dominated western culture for the past twenty years:

Banking is a noble profession. It is about enabling, about nurturing trust, about bridging, about being the honest intermediary, about building relationships. It is not an ordinary business. It represents a core function in society. A banker has always played a key role in building communities, not just financing businesses and making money.

While the large banks of the world have focused recently on short–term gain and risky speculation, the banks of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values have focused on long-term sustainability. The short-term approach has now proven glaringly disastrous. Fortunately, there is another model for the world to see, a model that has been operating quietly behind the scenes all the while (and incidentally, a model that, for most of the history of banking, was understood to be what banking was all about).

The Global Alliance for Banking on Values draws together banks as diverse as Shore Bank in Chicago (a bank committed to community development), BRAC Bank in Bangladesh (a leader in microfinance), and GLS Bank in Germany (a bank focused on education, the environment, and non-profits). All twelve Global Alliance banks have made a commitment to both profitability and partnerships in their communities. And all twelve have proven to be remarkably solid while banks around them collapse.

The Global Alliance for Banking on Values is a bright spot in the midst of the current banking crisis. May the banks of the world have eyes to see the vision of the Global Alliance and (re)turn to this model of banking before it's too late.

Valentine's Day is a perfect opportunity to reflect on love in business -- not the soap opera kind, but a deeper, more solid kind.

We all know the dangers of the soap opera kind of love in the workplace -- romantic entanglements deteriorating into sexual harassment suits, ineffectiveness at work, and the breakup of families. But there is an equal and opposite danger - the danger of staying so guarded at work that you never open your heart toward employees, clients, and customers.

We have seen too much of this lack of open-heartedness in business in the past six months. When executives receive bailout money and then use it on themselves while at the same time laying off workers and refusing to extend credit to customers, they display a singular hard-heartedness. When they use taxpayers' money to buy corporate jets or spend millions on office renovations, they demonstrate a dire dearth of compassion.

What might love in business look like in these economic times? Perhaps business leaders could take inspiration from a compassionate approach taken by CoreStates Bank in Philadelphia in the mid-nineties.

When Gus Tolson, director of Human Resources, and the company's CEO were informed that a decision had been made to lay off a thousand workers in the course of a merger, they faced a tough challenge: how could they exercise compassion in the midst of a layoff? Throughout his career in HR in various companies, Gus had insisted on considering not only the business impact of every decision, but also the decision''s impact on people. Furthermore, he had always insisted that leaders communicate with people in a way that would maintain their decency and integrity.

So when the merger and layoffs came along, Gus worked with the CEO to design CoreSearch, an internal training program for people in transition. Employees were informed early on about the merger and downsizing, and through CoreSearch, they were offered six months of training while still on salary in order to help place them in new positions. For six months, employees came to work every day and worked on developing new skills. They received training and worked temporarily in other parts of the business to gain expertise in new areas.

In designing CoreSearch, Gus consulted with external search firms to understand the psyche of a person in transition - a person who's been told that his job is ending, that he must find a new job with the company's help. The company wanted to create an environment in which people could feel good about themselves in the midst of their transitions. The process was designed around the person's needs rather than those of the company. “It would have been really easy for us to take the shortcut and not really think about the person, but just the organization,” Gus reflected. But the company didn't take the shortcut. Based on what he had learned, Gus provided employees with office space and told them, “You're still going to have a place that you can call your own. We want you to put pictures up there and make it yours. You're still going to get a paycheck. You're going to continue to report to work.”

In the end, the program boasted a placement rate of 84 percent and cost the company a few million dollars, a few million dollars spent on people rather than on a corporate jet or an office renovation. Because of Gus's commitment to developing people, shared by the company's CEO, a merger that could have spelled tragedy for many people became an opportunity for employees to learn new skills and to move forward into fulfilling work. Furthermore, the company became known for its integrity and compassion, a reputation worth millions more than the few million invested in the program.

This Valentine's Day, may business leaders take inspiration from the CoreSearch program and reflect on how to exercise love and compassion in these tough times. Doing so will not only help their employees, it will also gain them respect and improve their reputation in a business world that is desperate for role models in this uncharted territory in which it finds itself.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., had eyes to see the opportunity in a crisis. In the crisis of racial injustice in America in the 1950's and 1960's, with racial tensions heating to a boil, he saw the opportunity to move the country to a place of living the values of justice and equality it espoused. He also saw the opportunity to strengthen the nation's soul in the process.

While violence might have achieved the goal of racial justice, King knew that it would also undermine the nation's soul. By teaching biblical principles of nonviolence, King strengthened it instead. He understood that confronting injustice would require cooperation and sacrifice, sacrifice on the part of those who put their bodies in harm's way to expose the brutality of racism, and sacrifice on the part of those who would have to give up the privileges that the racist structures afforded them. And he understood that a spiritual foundation was necessary in order to inspire and undergird the sacrifice that was required. He exposited biblical stories of nonviolence, of loving one's enemy, challenging Americans to choose love and generosity over fear and withdrawal.

Today Americans, on the eve of a new presidency, face major challenges: a collapsing economy, environmental crisis, abortion, terrorism, war, to name but a few. In this moment, as in Martin Luther King's moment, there is opportunity in the crisis. This moment provides an opportunity for America to strengthen its soul as it confronts challenges. Addressing these challenges will require cooperation, ingenuity, and sacrifice on the part of many. Barack Obama can't tackle them alone. Leaders in business, healthcare, education, and other spheres will need to join political leaders in tackling the tough problems ahead.

For example, business leaders can rise to the challenge of the economic crisis by thinking creatively about how they can minimize layoffs in these tough economic times. They can make sacrifices themselves, rather than asking their frontline workers to make all the sacrifices. They might follow the lead of Reell Precision Manufacturing, a manufacturer of hinges and clutches located in the Twin Cities in Minnesota, whose leaders avoided layoffs in the economic downturn of 2000–2001. First, the Reell leadership team took profits down to zero. Then, when that wasn't enough, they asked everyone to take a pay cut. But rather than doing an across–the–board percentage pay cut, they did a graduated pay cut. Thus, the co–CEOs took a 17 percent pay cut while most hourly workers took a 7 percent pay cut. Those who earned less that $11.40 per hour took no cut. Though times were tough, morale remained high. Co–CEO Bob Carlson described the co–workers' response: "When we called everyone together and explained the situation we faced, and then announced our graduated pay cuts, there were tears in people's eyes. They thanked us from the bottom of their hearts."

Furthermore, executive pay at Reell is modest to begin with. As a general guideline, the CEOs at the time were committed to receiving no more than six times the lowest pay of any employee who had been there five years, and just ten times the lowest starting pay, in stark contrast to the eighty–to–one–hundred times ratio not uncommon in American companies today. "That just feels right," Bob Carlson explained. "It doesn't sit well with me to look at a company that I know has just gone through extensive layoffs in the past year and then read in the paper about the huge bonuses the executives got because they made more money that year."

The current crisis holds within it opportunity, an opportunity for Americans to strengthen their own souls and the soul of the nation through ingenuity, sacrifice, and working together across party lines. May we learn from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King about how to persevere in the face of adversity, and about how to seize the opportunity in the crisis.

At this darkest time of the year, both Jews and Christians celebrate holidays of light. Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, commemorates one of God's miracles: the long–burning oil that allowed the Jews to rededicate their holy temple in victory over foreign oppressors. Hanukkah celebrates the light of religious freedom after dark oppression. Christmas also celebrates the triumph of light over darkness: God's entering the world in Jesus, and the light of Christ overcoming the darkness in the world.

Both religions exhort the faithful to remember that the night is darkest just before the dawn, that we must not lose hope but that we must trust the God who has the power to deliver from even the darkest night.

Great spiritual teachers throughout the millennia have taught that any spiritual journey consists of ups and downs, and that sojourners on the spiritual path can experience a personal Dark Night of the Soul. If the faithful persevere, they will discover that the personal Dark Night, like the historical darkness commemorated by Christianity and Judaism, is darkest just before the dawn, and the breakthrough to the other side is worth the walk through the darkness.

In institutions, as in personal life, the deepest darkness comes just before the dawn. If an institution perseveres, it can experience the great power and light that comes with breaking through to the dawn.

Charles Colson is one who has experienced both the personal Dark Night and the institutional Dark Night, and he has seen the Light on the other side. Last week Charles Colson received the Presidential Citizens Medal, honoring him for more than thirty years of ministering to prisoners through Prison Fellowship, an organization he founded after his own experience in prison. Colson, convicted of obstruction of justice for his role in the Watergate scandal during his time in the Nixon administration, hit bottom and experienced a personal Dark Night. But instead of becoming bitter, he opened his heart and experienced Christ's transforming power. Out of his personal Dark Night came the Dawn of personal transformation, as Colson continued to experience the power of Christ in his life.

Furthermore, Colson came to see the institutional Dark Night of the U. S. prison system, a system that had sunk to lows of violence and abuse, hardening criminals instead of rehabilitating them. He founded the Justice Fellowship to complement the Prison Fellowship, working to establish restorative justice as an alternative to the retributive justice of the prison system, observing:

Rising rates of incarceration have given the U.S. the largest prison population in the world. At the same time, recidivism rates of over 66% indicate that American prisons function more as revolving doors for crime instead of the rehabilitative and correctional facilities we hope for them to be. Biblical restorative justice confronts these realities and presents a transforming perspective that reintegrates victims and offenders as productive members of safe communities.

Where restorative justice, an approach that involves taking responsibility and making amends, has been implemented, the justice system has gotten a taste of what it is to move from an institutional Dark Night to an Institutional Dawn. Recidivism rates decrease dramatically and both victims and offenders experience healing and reintegration.

In this season of darkness, let us remember, both personally and institutionally, what all the great spiritual traditions teach. Both personal Dark Nights and institutional Dark Nights can function, if we allow them to, as opportunities for transformation. Charles Colson, both through his personal experience of transformation and through his work for restorative justice, serves as an example of how light can emerge from deepest darkness.

John McCain, once known for his integrity and principles, had gradually allowed his soul to erode. The past several years have witnessed his reversing his stand against torture, his caving in to the Bush administration on economic and military issues, and, in his campaign, his adopting the same smear tactics that Bush used against him in 2000. What the North Vietnamese couldn't do when they held him as a prisoner of war, the Republican party, desperate to stay in power, did. They undermined his soul.

Yet it became clear at various points during the campaign that McCain's soul hadn't been entirely extinguished. McCain, clearly uneasy with the vitriolic attacks against Obama exhibited by some of his supporters, spoke out in defense of Obama. Last month, for example, he assured a crowd at one of his rallies that Obama was "a decent family man" when a supporter attacked Obama. McCain's principles were still smoldering inside him, aching to burst into flame, as his campaign sank into more and more negativity.

Last week McCain reclaimed his soul. His principled character took center stage again. In his concession speech, McCain hushed the crowd when they booed at the mention of Obama. He also exhorted his supporters:

"I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited."

McCain rose to the occasion, demonstrating a desire to work for the good of all. In conclusion, he said,

"I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president."

May McCain continue to allow his soul to lead him. If ever this country needed John McCain's soul, it is now. May McCain's soul hold tenaciously to center stage as McCain returns to the Senate and works with his President, Barack Obama, for the greater good of his country.

The current financial crisis, now international in scope, has awakened the world to the values vacuum at the core of the banking industry. This "anything goes" approach to banking has led to greed, to speculators reaching for more and more until their house of cards collapsed, with the resulting repercussions for the rest of us.

Bob Glassman, co–founder of Wainwright Bank in Boston, has been addressing this values vacuum for some time. In the early 1990s, Bob, then co–chairman of the bank, found himself in a challenging situation. A few years earlier, the bank had begun to experiment with social justice projects, most notably forming a partnership with the Pine Street Inn shelter to address homelessness. Although Bob was committed to a vision of social justice for the bank, he realized that not everyone on the bank's board shared his vision. While they were willing to tolerate a small experiment, a serious, ongoing commitment to social justice was unheard of for a bank. Concerned about the values vacuum in the banking industry, Bob puzzled over how the bank could stay true to its motto of "Banking on Values."

To address this challenge, Bob took small steps. First, he talked with his business partner, outlining his vision for values–centered banking and asking for his partner's support. With his partner's full support, he then went to the board. When Bob shared his vision for the direction of the bank, he found that some board members' eyes lit up and others' shut down. Some self–selected off the board, while new members who shared Bob's vision for the bank joined the board.

Bob also sought to develop shared vision among the members of the bank's management team. As some managers caught the vision and as new managers joined the bank for its vision, an inner core of board members and managers who shared the vision solidified. In time, the board articulated Wainwright Bank's mission:

With a sense of inclusion and diversity that extends from the mailroom to the boardroom, Wainwright Bank and Trust Company resolves to be a leading socially responsible bank. The Bank is equally committed to all its stakeholders – employees, customers, communities, and shareholders.

The shared vision became the rallying point for recruiting new board members and new employees, and also guided decisions about product development and employee policies.

Again and again, Bob Glassman returned to this vision of social justice as a mission for Wainwright Bank. As he sought to take small steps toward putting the mission into practice, he returned to the mission regularly for inspiration and guidance. By 2007, twenty years after the bank's founding, Wainwright Bank boasted numerous products that manifested its mission. The bank provides loans to underserved groups, including loans for affordable housing, homeless shelters, food banks, environmental protection, health centers, HIV/AIDS services, and immigration services. It also offers "Green Loans," loans with reduced interest rates for energy–efficient buildings.

Wainwright Bank has now become the market leader for the nonprofit world. By paying attention to an area that other banks didn't address, Wainwright Bank developed a cultural fluency for lending to non–profits, learning the complex lending laws and understanding the particular needs of the nonprofit world.

Bob Glassman's persistent focus on mission has paid off, financially as well as in terms of the common good. Naysayers assumed that Wainwright Bank would suffer financially for its idealism, claiming that loans for homeless shelters and food banks are risky business. In fact, the opposite is true: Wainwright Bank's $700 million in community development loans has experienced zero losses over the twenty years of the bank's life, in sharp contrast to other banks' loan portfolios. Bob Glassman has observed a "moral tenacity" in the nonprofit world's commitment to repaying loans. Furthermore, in this time of economic crisis, Wainwright Bank stands on solid ground while other banks collapse.

Wainwright Bank has demonstrated that another way is possible in banking. By staying focused on values, the bank has demonstrated, against the banking industry's conventional wisdom, that social conscience and profitability can mutually support one another. It's high time that other banks learn from Wainwright's example, and start "banking on values."

Dear Friends,

This month's newsletter is different from the usual, as I have a new book to announce. The Soul of a Leader (Crossroad) debuts this month. It will be available in independent bookstores near you, and also on Amazon.com. This month's newsletter article is an excerpt from the book, about a cafe for homeless people in Portland, Oregon called Sisters of the Road Cafe.

In order to increase the book's visibility Amazon, I'd like to invite you to participate in an Amazon launch on September 10. For every book sold that day on Amazon, I am donating $1 to Sisters of the Road Cafe, in honor of its co–founder Genny Nelson, one of the leaders featured in the book. Please click here for more information about the book, and follow the "order online" link under the image of the book cover to order the book on Amazon that day.

Many thanks for considering buying the book on Amazon launch day September 10 and I hope you enjoy the article that follows!

Warmly,
Margaret

Leaders who choose the path of leading with soul and manage to stay on track must eventually face the question of whether they will persevere to the end. The further the leader goes on the path of soul, the higher the stakes. Persevering to the end requires leaders to, among other things, understand and come to terms with violence. A soulful leader must learn to break the cycle of violence.

While violence may seem to be limited to countries at war and inner cities, it actually rears its ugly head in virtually all human institutions, whether nations, families, or organizations. The question for leaders is not whether they will encounter violence but how they will encounter it. Leaders who want to persevere to the end in leading with soul, to bring about deep and lasting transformation, must eventually face violence and their own response to it.

Forgiveness forms the foundation of Genny Nelson's leadership at Sisters of the Road, as she encounters violence regularly in working with homeless people. She reflects: "I don't think you can practice nonviolence without forgiveness. It is forgiveness of people who have harmed you and equally their forgiveness when you have harmed them – and ultimately forgiveness of one's self."

For example, whenever a staff member at Sisters of the Road Cafe utilizes nonviolent means to interrupt a verbal or physical conflict at the cafe, participants in the conflict are expected to cease and desist and are invited to reconcile with one another. Often Genny and other staff members must practice forgiveness as they become the targets of the violence they interrupt, and they must both ask for forgiveness and forgive themselves when they do not respond as fairly or compassionately as needed. The staff maintains firm boundaries regarding acceptable behavior; if unacceptable behavior continues, the person responsible for it is required to leave for a period of time. Anyone who is asked to leave is ultimately welcomed back after a formal conflict resolution process which includes telling their truth about the incident and contributing to a mutually agreed–upon solution that involves forgiveness and willingness to change. They get to start anew.

Even if it never comes to blows or bullets, leaders must invariably face their own inner violence and that of the people around them when anger fuels action and reaction. The natural response in those situations is to fight or flee, but soulful leaders may blaze a constructive third way out of the conflict. This is accomplished not by taking sides but by staying centered while thoughtfully inserting themselves into the conflict, intervening by being a reflective or prayerful presence. The goal of this intervention is not to dampen or smother the conflict, but to break the cycle by which violent conflicts naturally escalate. Breaking the cycle in this fashion opens the way for forgiveness, respect, and shared values, the "better angels of our nature," to rise in the conflicting parties, encouraging them to see creative solutions together.

Being in the middle of conflict, whether physical, emotional, or intellectual, takes its toll in stress, fear, and despair. Leaders faced with violence, whether bullying, threats, or dominating behavior, need to draw on their deepest spiritual resources to stay centered in these situations and rely on their everyday spiritual practices to restore them from the virtual or literal blows they absorb in the name of love. These resources allow them to persevere from a centered place and to lead by the example of their perseverance.

At Orlando Regional Healthcare in Orlando, Florida, spiritual care of patients is a priority. Indeed, Orlando Regional has been characterized by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations and state regulatory bodies as offering "state of the art" spiritual care for its patients.

How has this happened in a healthcare system that doesn't have a religious affiliation? More than 25 years ago, Orlando Regional committed itself to developing a strong chaplaincy program. The Spiritual Care Department articulated its mission: "to encourage the growth and healing of mind, body, and spirit through a spiritual presence of faith, hope, and love."

The mission gets lived out in a number of ways. First, spiritual care for patients and families is offered around the clock through hospital chaplains and connections with patients' own faith communities. The patient's chart includes not only medical information but also a spiritual assessment and record of care provided and a care plan. Second, the spiritual care department offers ethics consults and help with processing end-of-life decisions. Third, in the belief that caregivers can offer better spiritual care when they themselves are receiving spiritual care, Orlando Regional provides spiritual care for its team members. Team members are offered educational programs, pastoral counsel, and spiritual direction. Spiritual direction, the newest offering for team members, is described thus:

In spiritual direction, team members experience a safe environment in which they can 'unpack' their questions without fear of judgment. In that freedom, they are able to reflect deeply on their life experiences, often discovering that the questions, and the answers, are more common than once thought.

Finally, spirituality is integrated into patient care through complementary therapies. The Orlando Regional Mind/Body/Spirit Center works with chaplains to offer guided imagery, healing touch, walking the labyrinth, a healing high tea, and prayer shawls, among other offerings.

The Spiritual Care Department also convenes a Community Council on Spirituality and Healing, an interfaith group of community spiritual care providers. The Community Council seeks to improve the quality of spiritual care in healthcare, and to offer educational programs for team members and community healthcare professionals.

Through its long-term, careful, integrated commitment to spiritual care, Orlando Regional has served its patients and caregivers well. Spiritual care, part of caring for the whole person, has strengthened the human connection between caregiver and caregiver, and between caregiver and patient. Convinced that whole-person care contributes to healing, Orlando Regional has pioneered the way in spiritual care, and thus served its patients and community well.

On a midsummer's day, a walk around Woodbrooke's ten acres delights the senses. The thriving gardens, the manicured lawn, the wildlife in and around the pond, and the arboretum all attest to the pride and care given to the grounds. Moreover, the delightful grounds outside reflect the thriving programs inside, and invite the visitor to come in and experience the rest of what Woodbrooke has to offer.

It wasn't always so. Ten years ago, as the gardens at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham, England went to seed, the building sat in disrepair and staff morale sank lower and lower. Programs that had served audiences well for many years no longer met the needs of busy, late–twentieth–century participants. Buildings which had once seemed adequate no longer satisfied outside groups interested in utilizing them. A commission was appointed to examine Woodbrooke's viability for the future.

From the moment Jennifer Barraclough felt called to apply for the position of director, she encountered bumps on the road. Her "Who, me?" response to her sense of call from God, followed by acceptance that she might be just the right person for the job, was followed by a sense of shock when she wasn't chosen for an interview. When one of the two candidates interviewed dropped out and it became clear that the other had excellent academic credentials but none of the necessary practical experience, Jennifer was called back and eventually offered the job, which she accepted with some trepidation.

For her first four years in the job, Jennifer lived with an underlying sense of terror about her inadequacy. Comparing herself to others who had served in leadership at Woodbrooke, she thought she should try to be a brilliant academic and a dedicated social activist as well as an effective administrator. Fortunately, her terror was balanced by another part of her. She reflected:

"But the bit of you that is terrified is being consoled and comforted by the bit of you that knows something else."

The bit of her that knew something else kept going back to her original sense of call to the position, and that kept her going when times got tough. The bit of her that knew something else also kept praying, kept reading inspirational literature, kept turning to the art that nurtured her soul, kept turning to friends and mentors for support and encouragement.

Over time, Jennifer felt that she was sent exactly the people that Woodbrooke needed: a fabulous gardener, an excellent hotel manager, and a first–class chef, among others. Over the course of five or six years, through many ups and downs, the garden was restored to its former splendor, the building was renovated, the food service was upgraded, and the educational program was reconfigured to meet the needs of the future.

Jennifer gradually learned to accept herself for the person she was, understanding that God had called her to the position for her gifts and skills, not expecting her to be someone she wasn't. Like the flowers in the newly restored garden, Jennifer and the staff complemented one another well when they were planted in the right soil and given the right conditions for their particular needs. Then they could flourish and make their unique contributions to the whole.

Of course, nothing is perfect. And everything always changes. Staff retire, demands for programs change, the economy convulses. Running Woodbrooke will never be easy.

At the same time, with acceptance of herself and her gifts, with reliance on her spiritual practices, and with a strong staff with complementary gifts, Jennifer has turned Woodbrooke around and set it on firm footing for the twenty–first century. Gardens and institutions alike thrive with the appropriate acceptance, care, and nurture.

Kenya experienced a rocky beginning in 2008. With a contested election which led to violence, killing thousands and displacing thousands more, Kenya is just now beginning to get back on its feet.

While NGOs' efforts to help bring about healing and reconstruction are important, business has an equally important role to play in rebuilding the country. Business can rebuild the economic infrastructure and contribute to a thriving economy in ways that are unique to its place in society. While the news media reports on political happenings in Kenya, those of us outside of Africa hear little about business leaders, except when we hear about corrupt businesses in cahoots with corrupt political leaders.

Contrary to the image presented by the media, Kenya boasts many talented business leaders who lead with integrity, leaders who will be pivotal at this crucial moment in Kenya's history. Gerald Macharia, for example, is a Kenyan business executive who lives by his Christian faith. Macharia turns to the Bible for direction in his work, and seeks to conduct all his business dealings by its spiritual principles.

Macharia, blessed with considerable gifts in helping companies grow and turning around troubled companies, understands his gifts as God-given. He believes that, in the creation story in Genesis, humans were directed to use their gifts:
Our role was to maintain the good. So we can't sit back and admire creation, we have to work at it, to maintain the goodness. Wherever I go I see opportunities, and I turn those opportunities into real benefits for the people, for whomever the stakeholders are. That is my role in the calling to shepherd creation.

Macharia has shepherded creation well. At age 26, he turned around a division of a multinational company. A few years later, he served on a leadership team to develop products for the South market, the non–European, non–American market, for Colgate–Palmolive. At age 32, he became CEO of Kenfin, a Kenyan financial services company, and he turned it around in seven months, bringing it back to profitability.

After his tenure at Kenfin, Macharia accepted an invitation to head up Faulu Kenya, a Christian microfinance institution. Macharia transformed Faulu Kenya from an NGO into a commercial microfinance institution, growing it by leaps and bounds, all the while maintaining its spiritual principles. He also spun off another company from Faulu Kenya, which, by a few years later, had become a two and a half million–dollar company.

Macharia's reputation for integrity has earned him both friends and enemies. When encountering envy for his success or anger at his refusal to compromise his principles, he turns to biblical characters as role models, and he turns to God for strength and guidance. When he has faced social vilification and trumped-up charges in court, Macharia has trusted God to bring him through the trials.

Now the Clinton Foundation's representative in Kenya, heading up microfinance initiatives, as well as CEO of his own consulting company, Macharia's track record has demonstrated that living by spiritual principles in business pays off. He has made an impact financially, turning businesses around and growing businesses dramatically. He has made an impact socially, strengthening microfinance and the lives it supports. And he has made an impact on the soul of Kenyan business, demonstrating that doing business with integrity helps weave the fabric of society.

At this moment in the life of the country, Kenya needs to honor its talented and trustworthy business leaders. It needs to give them all the support they need to re–weave the tears in the fabric of society. And the international community needs to recognize the many unsung heroes like Gerald Macharia who are laboring in tremendously challenging conditions to revitalize Kenyan business and the country as a whole. Gerald Macharia and his colleagues, shepherds of creation, have an enormous opportunity ahead. May we give them our recognition, our support, and our prayers.

“Let us see what love can do,” the words William Penn used to guide his experiment in government in Pennsylvania, can also guide us at work. Particularly in health care, love can be a powerful force.

For example, at Joseph's House, a home for formerly homeless men and women with terminal illnesses in Washington, DC, staff, volunteers, and residents alike experiment with "what love can do." Love is the motivating force behind the Joseph's House experiment.

Patty Wudel, now director, first came to live at Joseph's House as a volunteer. What motivated her to work all day at her stressful job and then be available half the night for the sick and dying? It was the love she saw manifested there. Patty's first visit to Joseph's House came as the result of an invitation from one of the residents to Sunday brunch. As she sat at the big table and enjoyed the family–style meal with the residents, she knew that this place was different.

Joseph's House stresses compassion and community. Rather than being a charity that gives to people, Joseph's House is a community of people living with people. The family–style meals represent this philosophy. Over time, as Patty noticed the decline in some residents' health, she also observed that they continued to come to meals. When they couldn't feed themselves, other residents would sit next to them at the table and feed them. When they couldn't eat at all, they would still come to meals for the experience of community.

Loving sick and dying formerly homeless people isn't always easy. Creating community among those who live and work at Joseph's House carries many challenges. Yet for staff and residents, all the difficulties are more than compensated for by the rewards.

“There's a spirituality to the institution. You can feel it when you're in it,” claims Patty. “It can be recognized and nourished and met.” To nourish the spirituality of Joseph's House, Patty takes staff on retreat days, led by an outside facilitator. As their own souls are nurtured and as they build community as a staff, the spirituality of Joseph's House as an institution is nourished. In Patty's view, “Spirituality is not an add–on to the budget or the program. It's integral to the life of an institution.” 

“Let us see what love can do.” William Penn's words are exemplified at Joseph's House. Joseph's House has experimented with what love can do, and has found love to be one of the most powerful forces around. This Valentine's Day, take as your theme,  "Let us see what love can do."

Studies show that 35% of all New Year's resolutions have been broken by the end of January. Organizational change efforts, like New Year's resolutions, follow a similar pattern: about 70% of all organizational change efforts fail to achieve the desired results. How are these two statistics related?

Broken New Year's resolutions and failed organizational change efforts have something in common: they both neglect "competing commitments" to their peril. But the learning that can occur through examining these competing commitments is the silver lining in the cloud. Self-reflective individuals and organizations celebrate their failures as a way to learn and grow.

In How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work, Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey point to the competing commitments that prevent individuals and organizations from achieving their stated goals. We break our New Year's resolutions because we don't pay attention to the commitments that compete with them. For example, one of my resolutions for 2008 was to get organized and de-clutter my home office. It's the end of January, and my home office is just as cluttered as ever, cluttered with the photos and memorabilia that came from my mother's house when I cleaned it out after her death almost a year ago. I've realized that I have a competing commitment: to hold onto these objects from the past, and the memories that come with them. My competing commitment, to honor my mother's memory, is one that I can celebrate. Once I understand my competing commitment, I can honor both desires: to honor my mother's memory and to get organized, and find a way to express both commitments in my life.

Like individual New Year's resolutions, organizational change efforts tend to focus on desired change without digging deeper to examine competing commitments. We're all familiar with the term "resistance," used to describe the forces that keep us from changing, both individually and organizationally. It's easy to view resistance negatively, viewing it as the effort to cling to the old when it's time to usher in the new. If instead of thinking in terms of organizational resistance to change, we can think in terms of competing organizational commitments, we will be able to mine rich veins of learning.

For example, when hospital employees move to a new facility, they may "resist" the new team structures tailored to the new setting. By exploring employees' competing commitments (such as a commitment to honor the relationships built within the now obsolete team structure of the old setting), leaders can understand and respect employees' needs. Uncovering such competing commitments can help organizational leaders take into account important values that they overlooked.

The next time you're feeling discouraged by a broken New Year's resolution or a failed organizational change effort, look deeper. You're likely to find a competing commitment that is just as important and honorable as the "failed" commitment. If you can find a way to honor both commitments together, you may find yourself well on the road to success. What you learn from your "failure" can ultimately build a stronger foundation for moving toward your goal.

I don't know about you, but I don't like waiting, thank you very much. Like most of the people around me, I tend to rush from one thing to another in my busy life. When the bank puts me on hold during a phone call, or when I find myself stuck in a long line at the post office, I get impatient.

This season leading up to Christmas is Advent, a season of waiting for Christians around the world. What's the point of a season of waiting?

A season of waiting is countercultural, particularly in the West. In the business world, leaders and managers are rewarded for making quick decisions. Taking too much time to make decisions is seen as wasteful; in the business world, time is money. Yet at least half of managerial decisions fail, often because the decision-maker didn't wait, didn't weigh the decision wisely. Studies show that time pressure, the perceived need to appear decisive, and unrealistic expectations of superiors and subordinates are the causes of this failure.

Advent is about waiting for God, listening to God, looking for the new thing that God is doing. Advent holds a lesson for all of us in this busy world, especially organizational leaders. What would it look like to wait, to incarnate the lesson of Advent in one's daily work life?

Bob Carlson, retired co-CEO of Reell Precision Manufacturing, a Minnesota manufacturer of hinges and clutches, finds that he needs regularly scheduled, spiritually nurturing time away to be at his best. Walking in nature, listening to music, and attending worship services help to keep him nurtured and centered for his leadership role. Without the "down" time of waiting and being open, he finds that he's not his best self as a leader and decision-maker.

Genny Nelson, co-founder of Sisters of the Road, a café for the homeless in Portland, Oregon, spends her "down" time journaling. She also takes time out to pray at the downtown chapel, one her favorite places in the neighborhood. These practices help her to stop and wait, giving her perspective on the challenges she faces, and helping her to cultivate a calm and open inner disposition. She finds that her decisions are better as a result.

The next time I'm feeling tense and irritable while waiting, I will stop and breathe and remember the lesson of Advent. Bob Carlson and Genny Nelson make better organizational decisions because they are able to wait, and to be open. May we all learn from them.

In the early nineties, Landry's Bicycles in Boston faced a major crisis. The company had opened a new store six months later than planned, causing Landry's to miss out on part of its projected seasonal business. With the expenses of a new store, low revenues, an economic recession, and the rent due, the bank pulled Landry's loan and advised the company to file for bankruptcy. Struggling for survival and seeking a way forward, manager Tom Henry presented this apparently impossible challenge to a roundtable gathering of the support group for business leaders, Seeing Things Whole, to which he belonged. As he struggled under the burden of the Landry's situation, a member of the roundtable asked, "How might you see your work as a gift rather than as a burden?"

The roundtable member's question changed everything for Tom. Despite the seeming impossibility of the situation faced by Landry's, Tom began to view his work as gift rather than as burden. Furthermore, he preached that message to his co-workers at Landry's.

With this shift in perspective, Tom found new hope to face his challenges. After the bank pulled its loan, Landry's needed $40,000 immediately in order to avoid bankruptcy. Because he was viewing the opportunity to work at Landry's as a gift, and because he believed in the possibilities of Landry's, Tom branched out to other sources of financing, approaching friends for loans. An artist friend lent Landry's $5000 from his precious savings. Another friend sold stock he had inherited from his parents to provide another $5000 loan. Fairly quickly, with small loans from various supporters, Tom was able to raise the $40,000 he needed. Full of gratitude for the outpouring of support, Tom and the Landry's team reflected on the place of gratitude and the difference it had made for them. "There's no work better than our work in the world," Tom says, reflecting on his new perspective. "There's other good work, but there's no better work. It's a gift before it's a burden." The Landry's team vowed to make gratitude a cornerstone of their work.

The immediate crisis averted, Tom turned his attention to preparing the sales force for a strong season the next year. He decided to receive his co-workers at Landry's as gifts, and began to encourage others to do the same. He stressed the importance of regarding one another as mystery, of maintaining a sense of wonder toward one another. In a fast-paced business setting in which it's easy to view other people merely as objects useful to furthering one's goals, Tom sought to maintain a sense of awe toward each person as a unique human being.

With this foundation of gratitude, Landry's has discovered over the last decade and a half the power of giving thanks. Through viewing their work and one another as gift, the Landry's team has unleashed powerful energy and productivity. Employees love coming to work, customers are satisfied, and the business is thriving. Landry's has discovered a well-kept business secret: the power of giving thanks in the workplace.

Throughout his 25–year career as a human resources professional, Gus Tolson has persevered in putting people first. From his varied experiences working in the financial sector, for IBM, in the pharmaceutical industry, and currently for a specialty materials company, Gus has become all too familiar with the forces that exert themselves to push people to second, third or even last place in an organization. In all his positions, Gus has insisted on considering not only the business impact of every decision, but also the decision's impact on people. Furthermore, he insists that the company communicate with people in a way that maintains their decency and integrity.

Gus commits himself to being the same person at work that he is at home, to bringing his fun-loving, spiritual self to work. Even (perhaps especially) when his company faces major business challenges, Gus draws on all of who he is in order to put people first in the midst of a challenging situation.

For example, in the mid–'90s, when Gus was working at CoreStates bank in Philadelphia, the company faced a significant merger. Knowing that a thousand people would lose their jobs, Gus worked with the company's CEO to devise a way they could put people first, by supporting those who would find themselves in transition when the merger was completed. They designed an internal training program for those in transition called CoreSearch. Employees were informed early on about the merger and downsizing, and through CoreSearch, they were offered six months of training while still on salary in order to help place them in new positions.

In a move that was highly unusual at the time, CoreSearch committed to the ongoing development of employees in transition. For six months, employees came to work every day and worked on developing new skills. They received training and worked temporarily in other parts of the business to gain expertise in new areas. In designing CoreSearch, Gus consulted with external search firms to understand the psyche of a person in transition, a person who's been told that his job is ending, that he must find a new job with the company's help. The company wanted to create an environment in which people could feel good about themselves in the midst of their transitions.

The process was designed around the person's needs rather than those of the company. "It would have been really easy for us to take the shortcut and not really think about the person, the individual, but just the organization," Gus says. But the company didn't take the shortcut. Based on what he had learned, Gus provided everyone with office space and told them, "You're still going to have a place that you can call your own. We want you to put pictures up there and make it yours. You're still going to get a paycheck. You're going to continue to report to work."

In the end, the program boasted a placement rate of 84 percent and cost the company a few million dollars. Many employees expressed grateful sentiments: "I appreciate the effort that you demonstrated, the commitment that you made, to trying to keep me whole." Even those employees who didn't get jobs immediately had time for their transition and were treated with dignity and respect.

Gus Tolson has always been committed to putting people first. Because of his commitment, shared by the company's CEO, a merger that could have spelled tragedy for many people became an opportunity to learn new skills and to move forward into fulfilling work.

Two years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. New Orleans, the city that gave birth to jazz, had served for many years as an incubator for great musicians. Katrina wreaked havoc on New Orleans' music. With musicians homeless and separated from their bands, their instruments and sound systems damaged or lost, and their performance venues in ruins, it appeared that the New Orleans music scene was irrevocably damaged.

Would Hurricane Katrina spell the death of New Orleans jazz and the other music it had spawned? Not if the Edge, lead guitarist of U2, could help it. In a press release, Edge commented:

In the post–Katrina leadership vacuum in New Orleans, Edge founded Music Rising, partnering with producer Bob Ezrin and Gibson Guitar CEO Henry Juszkiewicz. Strongly committed to getting instruments back into the hands of musicians, Edge led the effort with heart and soul. Along with Bob and Henry, his partners, Edge dared to dream that members of the music industry, so often in competition, could come together for a worthy cause. The Music Rising partners invited all who are involved in the industry to participate, from musicians to instrument manufacturers to promoters.

In late 2005, Edge visited New Orleans and other Gulf Coast cities, talking to musicians and helping them to envision how their music could rise again. As he met musicians whose instruments had been lost or damaged, as he learned about their needs, he invited each musician to dream with him about what was possible.

The result? Each qualified musician received $1000 from Music Rising to purchase an instrument and the gear to go with it. Furthermore, MusiCares, a partner nonprofit which had signed on to distribute the grants, was able to make the instruments available to the musicians at wholesale prices.

Music Rising raises money through donations, auctions, benefit concerts, and sales of a specially designed Gibson guitar that has wood from New Orleans and other Gulf Coast areas replacing the usual plastic body. An online ticket auction held throughout the entire month of April 2006 involved 60 artists, working alongside Ticketmaster and other promoters. Fans bid on tickets to more than 80 concerts, and also bid on special Gibson guitars, autographed by participating musicians, that had been donated for the cause. Artists were quick to support the effort, and Ticketmaster donated all of its service fees. The auction raised substantial funds and dramatically increased awareness of the need.

Music Rising's biggest fundraising event, an April 2007 "Icons of Music" auction in New York, raised $2.5 million. Auction items included Edge's 1975 cream Gibson Les Paul custom guitar, which he had played on every U2 tour since 1985 (which sold for $240,000).

Two years after Katrina, with the need still great, Edge and the rest of the leadership team have recommitted themselves to rebuilding the music of New Orleans. Over 2500 professional musicians are back on their feet, with instruments received through Music Rising, and school and church music programs have been served as well. With all that it has already accomplished, Music Rising knows it can make a difference. Edge has demonstrated that leadership in the midst of despair is possible, and that when given an opportunity, people will open their hearts to those in need.

Today America celebrates Independence Day, the day she declared independence from the British crown. America's founding fathers, of course, knew the importance of independence — that's why they fought so hard to win it. At the same time, they knew the importance of interdependence, both the interdependence of forging alliances among the colonies and the interdependence of maintaining alliances abroad.

We would do well to learn from America's founding fathers and to apply their lessons to the workplace. How can workplaces exhibit both strong independence and strong interdependence?

Rabbi Samuel Karff knows the answer to this question. An experience as a dependent and vulnerable hospital patient caused Rabbi Karff to notice how equally dependent and vulnerable his caregivers were. From his patient bed, Rabbi Karff observed that the hospital could often be just as demoralizing for employees as it was for those they cared for. He wondered how the sense of calling, the sense of sacred vocation that had originally brought health care workers to the field, could be rekindled. How could a sense of dignity and independence be restored to health care workers and patients alike?

The resultant Sacred Vocation Program draws on caregivers' ability to practice both independence and interdependence as a way to help them rediscover their own passion for work. Through the program, Rabbi Karff has been able to help frontline caregivers claim independence from the obstacles and drudgery that demoralized them. As program participants meet in small groups, they can also draw on the power of alliances with one another and so tap into the strength of interdependence.

Now in its sixth year, the Sacred Vocation Program starts with small groups of eight to twelve employees learning to recognize their work as sacred vocation. Trained facilitators teach the group listening and community-building skills. In five 90-minute sessions, employees share stories of what brought them to health care, how their work is connected to their spirituality, and how they understand vocation. Rabbi Karff underscores the importance of affirming all forms of spirituality represented in the groups, both those forms connected to established religions and those with no particular religious connection.

Participants in Sacred Vocation share stories of the barriers that have prevented them from being healers, as they role play situations and brainstorm coping tips, collecting lists of the most helpful tips which are then circulated to all. For participants, the exercise is empowering, allowing them to experience the support of the group when they return to the front lines to practice the coping tips they have helped to create. At the end of the first phase of the program, the group writes a Sacred Vocation Oath. Taken publicly in a program graduation ceremony, the oath ends with the words, "No one can take away my power to heal." Group members thus claim their independence from the barriers they face every day, while also experiencing the interdependence of the small group support.

The second phase of Sacred Vocation focuses on improving the workplace. In five 60-minute small-group sessions, employees consider the changes management could make that would create a better environment for living out their sacred vocation at work. In a recent sacred vocation program, for example, a group of Certified Nursing Assistants made 27 recommendations to management, 24 of which were implemented. As a result, morale soared among the CNAs and patient satisfaction increased dramatically. The combination of the group's interdependence, open-minded management, and careful facilitation served to create a more highly functioning workplace.

What is the bottom line for this program that focuses on employees' sacred vocation, independence, and interdependence? Sacred Vocation boasts a high success rate, improving both employee morale and patient satisfaction. "The Sacred Vocation Program is probably the best investment we've made in the last ten years," says John McWhorter, CEO of Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas.

As Rabbi Karff has demonstrated, independence and interdependence can mutually coexist and strengthen one another. Frontline caregivers can learn to take more responsibility and claim their place in their organization as strong, independent workers. They can also learn the power of interdependence with the help of small-group support. This Independence Day, let's take a lesson from America's founding fathers and strengthen both independence and interdependence in our workplaces.

In a banking world known for its focus on the single bottom line of profitability, Boston's Wainwright Bank is known for its double bottom line, focusing on both people and profits.

Wainwright Bank's mission statement reads, in part:

What does this mean in the day-to-day operation of the bank? How does Wainwright Bank walk its talk?

First, Wainwright Bank walks its talk in terms of products. The bank provides loans to underserved groups, including loans for affordable housing, homeless shelters, food banks, environmental protection, health centers, HIV/AIDS services, and immigration services. Along with other socially responsible CDs, Wainwright Bank offers customers the option to invest in Equal Exchange CDs, which support coffee farmers in developing countries. In addition, CommunityRoom.net, a website-hosting service provided to all non-profits holding Wainwright Bank accounts, generates nearly $1 million in donations to the non-profits annually.

Linda Cornell, president/CEO of the Visiting Nurse Association of Eastern Massachusetts, testifies to what Wainwright Bank meant to her organization: "Wainwright Bank has been the epitome of the community bank — very socially responsible. We were a little community organization with a big dream, and they believed in us. They financed the dream and made it happen."

Second, Wainwright Bank walks its talk within the company. Wainwright Bank hires inclusively, not discriminating with regard to race, gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Sixty percent of Wainwright Bank's employees, and nearly 50 percent of the bank's officers, are women. Over 30 percent of the bank's employees are minorities, and 22 languages are spoken. The bank was one of the earliest to provide domestic partner benefits, leading the way in the banking industry.

Third, Wainwright Bank pays attention to its stakeholders. Naysayers assumed that Wainwright Bank would suffer financially for its idealism, claiming that loans for homeless shelters and food banks are risky business. In fact, the opposite is true: Wainwright Bank"s $600 million in community development loans has experienced zero losses over the 20 years of the bank's life, in sharp contrast to other banks' loans. Furthermore, Wainwright Bank has grown steadily over the past 20 years. In 2006, for example, loans increased 9 percent over 2005, and net interest income was $27.6 million, up from $26.9 million in 2005. Now boasting 11 branches in the Boston area, Wainwright Bank is among the 700 largest of the 8,000 banks in the United States.

Wainwright Bank has demonstrated, against the common wisdom of the banking industry, that social conscience and profitability can mutually support one another.

Meg Clapp, director of the 250-person Pharmacy Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, practices transparent servant leadership. She leads by personal example and staff collaboration. Clapp characterizes her leadership as an integration of “being” and “doing”: “Who I am at MGH is the same person you encounter 24/7 at home or at church.” Furthermore, she trains her managers to practice the same kind of leadership.

At the MGH Pharmacy, employees are hired for attitude as well as for skill: “We hire the best, brightest and most positive people with the expectation that they will learn, grow and share the spirit and energy with others." The growth is not left to chance: “We treat each person with the interest and awareness that you would expect to experience when you begin a significant relationship.” Clapp follows up the hiring with a year-long training program, aiming to give people the level of confidence they need to quickly become productive. Each new employee gets a training buddy, and receives mentoring throughout the program. Within a year of hiring, each employee articulates three goals, and then receives coaching to achieve those goals.

Consistently practicing transparent servant leadership is no easy task. How does Clapp do it? “Prayer is part of my day and is often the retreat I seek when the work is particularly difficult,” she explains. “I offer a 'moment away' to anyone working with me on a difficult situation to take the time to focus on what it is that we are supposed to accomplish. The other person may or may not pray, but I need to make space for the Holy Spirit to be present to the moment.” She sees her work as God's work in the world: “Together we are doing the work of God's love.”

What are the results of this kind of leadership? In her recent annual review, Clapp received the highest grade for human resource management. The department is known for its high standards and for how employees extend themselves to patients. The pharmacists are well respected in the medical community. With low turnover and high morale, the department is known as a great place to work.

At the MGH Pharmacy Department, Meg Clapp has demonstrated that servant leadership will positively impact the patient and the hospital as a whole. In the midst of a large, impersonal bureaucracy, the Pharmacy Department shines as a beacon of hope.

In this week when Jews celebrate Passover and Christians observe Holy Week, hospitality stands out. During the Passover meal, it is a tradition to open the front door in order to offer hospitality to all who are hungry. Hospitality is also part of Maundy Thursday, when Christians commemorate the hospitality Jesus offered to his disciples the night before his death, starting with the radical gesture of washing their feet as they began to celebrate the Passover meal together. Christians now celebrate this meal as the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion.

For both traditions, hospitality is central to the meals celebrated this week. As Jews and Christians alike are reminded this week of the importance of hospitality, what can they do to bring this practice into daily life? How can others learn from these traditions? How can the observances of this week spill over into the rest of the year?

One way is to make the workplace more intentionally hospitable toward both its employees and its customers. Aaberg Associates, a land surveying company located outside of Boston, is a good role model for hospitality in the workplace. Founded in 1996 by Doug Aaberg and his wife Ann, Aaberg Associates manifests its culture of hospitality in three ways: putting employees first, being family-friendly, and sponsoring events for employees.

In founding Aaberg Associates, Doug Aaberg reflected on what he had liked (and disliked) about his previous places of employment. He firmly believed that employees who were welcomed hospitably into the company and treated well would treat their customers well in turn. So when he started the company, respect for employees was at the top of his list. Doug respects his employees by providing everything they need to do their jobs well, and then trusting them to do it. He respects them by being open to learning from them whenever they have insights about how their jobs could be done better. And finally, he respects them by providing generous benefit packages, good salaries, and regular pay increases.

Consistent with putting employees first, Aaberg Associates also practices hospitality by being family friendly. When scheduling surveying teams, the firm takes family responsibilities into account, making allowances for children's performances and sports events, sick children, and elder care. Aaberg Associates also aims to be family friendly when scheduling vacations and personal leave, working around school and family schedules. In keeping with this philosophy, the company's benefits package includes generous allowance for personal and family leave, in addition to vacation time. Everyone understands the hospitable culture of the company, and everyone flexes for needs of families.

Finally, Aaberg Associates practices hospitality by planning events for employees. To celebrate the firm's fifth anniversary, all of its employees were treated to a surprise limo ride to downtown Boston, followed by a morning whale watch trip, and topped off by a late lunch in an upscale Boston waterfront restaurant. More recently, employees at an all-company retreat were invited to reflect on how their own stories connected with the company's story, and how the company could better help them live out their sense of calling in the world. One of the outcomes of the retreat was a request from employees that each of them be trained to see a job through from start to finish, so that no one would be trapped in boring "assembly-line" work. President Doug committed that day to the training, and the company has begun to equip all its employees for the entire range of work required on a job.

By practicing hospitality in the workplace, Aaberg Associates has discovered that it's possible to create a positive culture, serve customers well, and thrive financially. May the hospitality lessons of Passover and Maundy Thursday percolate into other workplace cultures as well as they have into Aaberg Associates.

Repentance, not a popular topic in Western culture, is even less popular in the workplace. Yet a little bit of repentance can go a long way in strengthening relationships and enhancing productivity at work.

JetBlue Airways recently practiced repentance with its customers. On the heels of a week of long delays, canceled flights, and poor customer service due to weather, David Neeleman, JetBlue's founder and CEO, sent an apology to all JetBlue customers.

"Words cannot express how truly sorry we are for the anxiety, frustration and inconvenience that we caused," Neeleman wrote. "This is especially saddening because JetBlue was founded on the promise of bringing humanity back to air travel and making the experience of flying happier and easier for everyone who chooses to fly with us. We know we failed to deliver on this promise last week."

In addition to the apology, Neeleman articulated "immediate corrective steps" that JetBlue was taking, as well as an "industry leading action," a customer Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights includes specific compensations for departure delays, cancellations, and ground delays (e.g., a $50 voucher for 2-4 hours' departure delay; or for a delay of more than 6 hours, a free round-trip ticket).

Of course, the apology and the customer Bill of Rights are only the first steps. Authentic repentance includes a change in behavior. Neeleman recognized this and asked customers to give JetBlue a chance to regain their trust: "You deserved better-a lot better-from us last week. Nothing is more important than regaining your trust and all of us here hope you will give us the opportunity to welcome you onboard again soon and provide you the positive JetBlue Experience you have come to expect from us."

Apologies are rare in the business world. With its apology and customer Bill of Rights, JetBlue has taken a courageous step. May this courageous statement bear fruit, and may it lead to real change in JetBlue's operations. In a world where errors are too often addressed with "spin" rather than repentance, may JetBlue's apology become an "industry leading action," inspiring other companies to practice repentance when the need arises.

Valentine’s Day is a perfect opportunity to reflect on love in the workplace — not the soap opera kind, but a deeper, more solid kind.

We all know the dangers of the soap opera kind of love in the workplace  — romantic entanglements deteriorating into sexual harassment suits, ineffectiveness at work, and the breakup of families. But there is an equal and opposite danger — the danger of staying so guarded at work that you never open your heart toward co-workers, clients, and customers.

How can love be practiced in appropriate ways in the workplace? Our Lady’s Hospice in Dublin, Ireland provides one model. Love is the operative principle at OLH, founded in 1879 by the Sisters of Charity. In hiring, Our Lady’s Hospice managers seek people who resonate with the mission. Above all, a candidate must exhibit “loving care.” Skills can be learned, but a loving heart must already be part and parcel of who the person is.

Not only are caregivers expected to treat their patients with loving care, there is also an expectation that loving care will be exhibited toward co-workers. Michael Connolly, now a nursing instructor at OLH, relates his experience of receiving this “loving care” in practical ways when he first came to Our Lady’s Hospice as a nurse:

Connolly experienced “loving care” in his first days on the job, and thus was introduced to the culture of Our Lady’s Hospice. He experienced openhearted colleagues who, by their behavior, encouraged him to be openhearted.

In the daily stress and strain of caring for the dying, a loving heart is essential. Employees at OLH find that the challenges of the daily work call them to love more deeply, and because of the supportive love they are given by colleagues, they are able to move to this deeper level of love.

Furthermore, the love they practice in the workplace helps employees become more loving family members and community members. Loving in the workplace, they find, helps them better love in all spheres of their lives.

This Valentine’s Day, try being a better lover at work. It will not only improve your workplace, it will improve your family and community life as well.

Have you broken your New Year's resolutions yet? If so, you're not alone. Studies show that 80 percent of New Year's resolutions are broken by Jan. 20.

What if you thought of your broken New Year's resolutions not as evidence of weak willpower, but as a sign of "competing commitments"? Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey do just that in their book "How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work."

Using your broken New Year's resolutions to identify your competing commitments can help you get to the bottom of what isn't working for you in your life. More importantly, identifying competing commitments can help you achieve your goals much more effectively than New Year's resolutions can.

Here's how it works, according to Kegan/Lahey: When you find yourself breaking a resolution, ask yourself, "In addition to this resolution, what else am I committed to?" (In my own case, my resolution to lose weight competes with my (mostly unstated) commitment to not feel hungry.)

Once the competing commitment is identified, you can begin to seek a win/win. Rather than having your competing commitments sabotage your resolution, you can dig deeper, identify your underlying assumptions, and take small steps to test whether those underlying assumptions are valid.

In the fast-paced, no-time-for-reflection workplace environment, where old patterns die hard, New Year's resolutions are particularly vulnerable. Julius Walls, CEO of Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, N.Y., is a good example of a business leader who looked beyond a superficial resolution and improved his business by doing so.

When Ben and Jerry's (his primary customer) raised the standards for the brownies Greyston Bakery was supplying them, Julius Walls resolved to meet these new standards. With a workforce consisting of "unemployable" workers (employees hired straight out of prison or drug treatment programs, for example) whom he was training to be employable, the easy way to fulfill his resolution and meet the new standards would have been to fire the non-performing employees. But because of his concern for his workers, Walls wouldn't have been able to follow through on this course. It would have been easy to make a resolution and fail, ultimately not meeting the new standards.

Instead, Walls considered his competing commitments: his commitment to give unemployable workers the training they needed to become employable, and his commitment to understand the challenges his workers faced and provide them with the support they needed to overcome those challenges. He realized that his underlying assumption had been "If I raise the standards, I will lose too many of the people I am trying to support."

Having identified his competing commitments and his underlying assumption, Walls could test that assumption by taking small steps. He raised the standards incrementally, all the while providing employees with targeted support, providing them with what they needed to meet the standards. The result was doubly rewarding. Not only did Greyston Bakery meet the new standards, but with the help of targeted support, his workers were also able to grow into the more employable workforce he had been trying to create.

By examining his resolutions and identifying the competing commitments that compromised them, Julius Walls was able to move Greyston Bakery to a higher level of production as well as achieve his goal of making unemployable people employable.

At this darkest time of the year, both Jews and Christians celebrate holidays of light. Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, commemorates one of God's miracles: the long-burning oil that allowed the Jews to rededicate their holy temple in victory over foreign oppressors. Hanukkah celebrates the light of religious freedom after dark oppression. Christmas also celebrates the triumph of light over darkness: God's entering the world in Jesus, and the light of Christ overcoming the darkness in the world.

Both religions exhort the faithful to remember that the night is darkest just before the dawn, that we must not lose hope but that we must trust the God who has the power to deliver from even the darkest night.

Great spiritual teachers throughout the millennia have taught that any spiritual journey consists of ups and downs, and that sojourners on the spiritual path can experience a personal Dark Night of the Soul. If the faithful persevere, they will discover that the personal Dark Night, like the historical darkness commemorated by Christianity and Judaism, is darkest just before the dawn, and the breakthrough to the other side is worth the walk through the darkness.

In the workplace as in personal life, the deepest darkness comes just before the dawn. If an organization perseveres, it can experience the great power and light that comes with breaking through to the dawn.

In 1992, Reell Precision Manufacturing found itself in a Dark Night when its decision-making process was questioned. Some workers at Reell, a Minnesota manufacturer of hinges and clutches, were feeling marginalized by a phrase in Reell's Direction Statement. While they felt valued and respected in their day-to-day life at Reell, they felt that the phrase, “Reell is committed to following the will of God,” articulated an explicit Christian foundation that excluded them. Steve Wikstrom, then vice-president of manufacturing, heard these concerns and initiated a process by which discernment could occur about (1) what Reell's foundation was and (2) how to best express that foundation.

Initially it seemed that Reell had hit a wall. The old way of discerning when there was an intractable problem, i.e., turning to an explicit corporate commitment to God and seeking God's will, was the very issue at stake. The very spiritual practice that had pulled the company through other hard times and had led to the company's earlier transformations was itself in question.

For the co-founders, "following the will of God" was a way to let go of their own egos and find the way forward that was best for the company as a whole. To change that phrase seemed to some to be forsaking Reell's entire spiritual foundation. Others, for whom the phrase “following the will of God” had no meaning, felt that there must be another way to express Reell's spiritual foundation that could include them. How were they to find a way forward?

After years of practicing discernment, Reell employees knew what the experience felt like, even if they described it in different ways. They knew how to be open to one another and listen deeply. They knew how to be open to something beyond themselves. They knew that the process involved a willingness to let go of their own agendas, and they knew how to distinguish between stubbornness and a matter of conscience. All this knowledge served them well in the process.

The experience was bumpy, with many ups and downs along the way, truly a Dark Night for Reell, but in the end, the group found a more inclusive way to express the spiritual foundation of the company. In fact, the new statement seemed to better express what Reell was already doing. Acknowledging the diversity of spiritualities present at Reell and the richness contributed by various spiritual traditions, “we are committed to following the will of God” was reworded to read “we are challenged to work and make decisions consistent with God's purpose for creation according to our individual understanding.” Reell had always welcomed spiritual diversity in its hiring and promotion practices; now the Direction Statement reflected this reality.

For over a decade, Reell lived with the revised Direction Statement and found it to generate high ownership and satisfaction in the company. In 2004, when the Direction Statement was revised again, the phrase “we are challenged to work and make decisions consistent with God's purpose for creation according to our individual understanding” remained the same.

Reell had found that persevering through the Dark Night led to a bright Dawn. While it would have been easy in the Dark Night to give up on the struggle, either by letting go of the commitment to discernment or by clinging tightly to the original phrase, Reell persevered and discovered the rich rewards on the other side.

We all know what a difference giving thanks can make in our personal lives. How can giving thanks make a difference in the workplace?

Giving thanks is a powerful fuel for energy, creativity, and engagement in the workplace. Complaints that bosses don't appreciate employees enough abound. It's easy to wait for someone at the top to start the appreciation in a workplace.

What can ordinary employees do? How can an attitude of gratitude be fostered throughout an organization, so that thanking one another becomes an organization's modus operandi and the power of gratitude can be harnessed for employees' welfare and for organizational impact?

At Landry's Bicycles in the Boston area, a culture of gratitude permeates the company. CEO Tom Henry views gratitude as the foundation of the company's esprit de corps. At Landry's the gratitude comes from everyone, not just from the top. For example, at a recent company retreat the lunch hour was devoted to giving thanks to one another. Employees took turns around the table thanking the person on their left, speaking about one another's gifts, devoting their attention to appreciating one another. They found that the energy generated by this thanksgiving powerfully fueled their visioning of what the company could be in the year ahead.

Landry's has also discovered how to make the annual review process more powerful by building the review on a foundation of gratitude. Annual reviews occur in small groups of five to six people meeting together offsite. The meeting begins with everyone expressing gratitude for something about the team or a teammate. By beginning with authentic gratitude, hearts are opened and egos are put aside. As a result, a high degree of honesty marks the tone of the year-end review. In marked contrast to employees in other companies, Landry's employees say that they can't wait for the next year's review.

Landry's has found that building a culture on gratitude humanizes the workplace. Tom Henry says, "You receive the people you work with as gifts, as mystery, as objects of wonder, not just as useful to you." Paradoxically, seeing other employees as gifts rather than as objects to be used ultimately increases energy and productivity. Business improves and financial performance increases.

Landry's has discovered a well-kept business secret: the power of thanksgiving for employee engagement and business productivity.

Hewlett-Packard is in the headlines for its spying activities. In an ironic juxtaposition, this week also witnesses the release of former HP CEO Carly Fiorina's new book, "Tough Choices," in which she defends her controversial leadership of the company from 1999 to 2005. What happened to this giant of ethical business?

In 1939, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard started HP in a garage. Built on a foundation of integrity and service, HP became known for the "HP Way," a way of doing business that "includes a deep respect for the individual, a dedication to affordable quality and reliability, a commitment to community responsibility, and a view that the company exists to make technical contributions for the advancement and welfare of humanity."

Just a few short months ago, Business Ethics magazine named HP No. 2 on its list of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2006. The only company to make it into the list's Top 10 for all seven years of the list's existence, HP was lauded by the magazine for its Digital Village program in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, for its accomplishments on the environmental front, and for its commitment to diversity.

What happened? How did this giant of ethical business fall?

First, like any Silicon Valley company that flourished during the dot-com boom, HP allowed creeping excesses and didn't address them wisely when cutbacks became necessary. Second, HP didn't attend carefully enough to leadership succession and the importance of the company's culture.

Third, and most importantly, HP hasn't kept its eye on its deepest values. The company is in danger of losing its soul. For example, HP's "deep respect for the individual" didn't translate into treating its employees in a respectful way several years ago when revenues dropped and layoffs became necessary. Rather than creatively thinking about how layoffs might be done according to the "HP Way," HP simply imitated other companies' approach to layoffs, thus destroying trust and weakening morale.

Likewise, in the current spying scandal, HP merely tried to stay within the bounds of the law, ignoring the larger question of ethics. As Bart Schwartz, the lawyer asked by HP to analyze its practices, reflected to The New York Times, "Doing it legally should not be the test; that is the given. You have to ask what is ethical."

The "HP Way" has provided a strong foundation for the company, a legacy strong enough to keep the company in the Top 10 of Business Ethics' list up through this year. While some of the company's practices have eroded the ethical foundation around the edges, much of the foundation still remains. Questionable practices have chipped away at HP's soul, but HP has not yet lost its soul.

Perhaps the giant hasn't fallen, but merely stumbled. Let's hope that this spying scandal can serve as a wake-up call, reminding HP of its deepest values, calling the company back to its core. It's possible that HP can regain its moral footing and live up to the "HP Way" during this challenging time. Let's hope that HP listens, and gives priority to its soul.

God doesn't make the distinction between sacred and secular which humans invent and invoke to exclude God from parts of their lives. This Labor Day, let's recognize the occasion for the holy-day it is, celebrating the holiness of labor.

In most religious traditions, daily work is honorable and yes, even sacred. The Genesis creation story, for example, is about six days of work, continually recognized as good and holy, culminating in creatures in God's image to continue the work of creation and care. Work in the Genesis story is God's self-expression, revealing limitless imagination (one trip to the zoo convinces us of this) and humor (witness the ostrich).

Part of being created in God's image is being a co-creator with God and, like God, having work to do. Though some Christian traditions have associated work with the curse of original sin, a closer look at the Genesis account reveals that God gave the man and the woman work to do before sin entered the world. Work is part of God's original good intention for humans. Because humans are created in God's image, they inherently need opportunities to express their creativity. God gives them work, and entrusts the care of the garden, the animals, and children to them. Work is good, holy, and part of the image of God within us.

Of course, the Genesis story goes on to say that sin entered the world and that work became tainted. The work that we know, whether it's paid work, work at home, or volunteer work, can include dishonest bosses, lazy employees, ungrateful families, petty jealousies, office gossips, Enron-like corporate scandals, unfair treatment, and worse. All of these things are real and all-too-present in our daily work. Yet focusing solely on the results of sin in the workplace ignores God's redemptive power and presence and the continual opportunity to reclaim the holiness of labor.

What would it look like to focus on God's redemptive power and presence in the workplace? What would it look like to focus on the sacredness of work?

Barb McIntyre, a nurse at HealthEast (a hospital system in the Twin Cities in Minnesota), is a prime example of one who focuses on the sacredness of work. A Roman Catholic, Barb came to HealthEast over 30 years ago, determined to see Christ in the face of each of her patients. After several years, she was promoted to head nurse. She offers her staff and patients respect and support. She leads with a light touch, recognizing the pressure of her nurses' jobs. She communicates her care for each one of her nurses as a person, doing such things as expressing appreciation regularly and also sending annual holiday cards in which she expresses gratitude for specific ways each has served in the previous year. She finds her staff coming to her to talk when crises arise in their personal lives.

A few years ago HealthEast's CEO took Barb to lunch, asking what HealthEast could learn from her about putting people first. Her retention and continuous improvement record had caught his eye, and he knew that she was incarnating HealthEast's values. Now Barb is held up as a role model, and she teaches others how to put people first at HealthEast, just as she does.

Barb knew that she could bring God's redemptive power and presence into the workplace. Patients and staff took notice, and eventually the entire hospital system benefitted. As one created in God's image, Barb was entrusted with the care of others: by staying true to her spiritual values, she was able to treat her patients and colleagues with consideration, fairness, and respect. For Barb McIntyre, there is no distinction between sacred and secular. When one person recognizes the sacredness of work, the ripple effect can be enormous.

America's founding fathers, at the same time that they wrote the Declaration of Independence, knew the value of interdependence. The survival of American business depends upon our knowing the same.

America's founding fathers knew that the colonies needed one another and that the colonists needed allies outside if they were going to survive as an independent entity. From the beginning, Americans wrestled with the tension between independence and interdependence, and in the early days, learned to build interdependence to strengthen their independence.

The survival of American business depends upon our knowing what those early colonists knew. We need to learn to balance the independent, entrepreneurial spirit, so essential to business creativity, perseverance, and success, with the interdependent spirit of learning to work together within a company and learning to see each business as an interdependent part of the larger social fabric.

Southwest Airlines, a company that has discovered this balance, demonstrated a strong independent spirit from the beginning. In 1966, Rollin King approached Herb Kelleher about starting an airline together. Herb responded, "Rollin, you're crazy. Let's do it!" A story of fighting for survival against impossible odds, Southwest's story illustrates the importance of a strong, independent, entrepeneurial spirit. Forged out of innovation in the face of adversity, Southwest achieved the competitive edge it needed to survive in a cutthroat business envieronment.

At the same time that it fought for survival as an independent, upstart company in a fiercely competitive environment, Southwest knew the importance of interdependence. Southwest's story illustrates how a culture which unleashes the human spirit can undergird a successful business model. Southwest's culture of encouraging creativity, joy, passion, teamwork, and esprit de corps, in short, interdependence, provided the competitive edge that made its independence possible.

Southwest stresses "relational competence," the ability of employees to work well on teams, to work well across teams, and to build strong connections with customers. Once Southwest turned a profit for the first time in 1973, its leaders looked around and realized what a good thing they had going. By sustaining their culture, Southwest could capitalize on the human spirit in its fullest expression. They could harness the power of fun, love, and creativity for business success. They have done so, and have enjoyed a profit every year since 1973, an unheard-of record in the airline industry.

In an era in which the pendulum has swung so far toward independence in business that leaders no longer know how to tend to the interdependent within a company nor do they have a sense of their interdependence with the wider society (witness Enron and WorldCom as extreme examples), Southwest Airlines stands as an example of what is possible. Independence and interdependence, wedded, make for business success over the long haul. What the colonists knew in 1776, Southwest Airlines can teach American business today.