Kindness includes so many wonderful things, like friendliness, pleasantness, generosity, and understanding.  Where kindness is practiced at work, there’s cooperation, not power tripping.  … Respectful teamwork, not bullying or harassment.  … Welcoming of differences, not hostility or favoritism.

All this makes for a workplace where people are more likely to be excited about going to work than dreading it.  At the end of the day, there’s a spring to their step and time for a rich life, not exhaustion or the urge to escape.

All this means that kindness also is a benefit to the financial bottom line.

As Jodi RR Smith, director of Mannersmith Etiquette Consulting in Marblehead, MA says, “People’s discomfort chills the workplace dynamic. When people feel respected, they are more likely to be fully present and engaged, ready to roll up their sleeves for effective work.”

Kindness is the Appropriate Form of “Love Your Neighbor” at Work

Khalil Gibran has called work, “love made visible.”  Jesus has said that the most important commandment after loving God is to love our neighbors as we love ourselves — with “neighbor” being expanded way beyond the traditional definition of a fellow tribesman or person who lives nearby.

The Golden Rule used to be touted as best way to love our neighbors.  Lately, there’s been talk of a higher standard, or the Platinum Rule.  Instead of doing unto others as we want them to do unto us, we do as they would wish to be done unto.  In other words, rather than assuming how someone wants to be treated, get to know him or her and discover their preferences.  (A great basic marketing practice!)

When we remember that others also want the blessing of being seen and honored as beings with unique viewpoints and preferences, the full Golden Rule works quite well.  Indeed, what employees want most from employers or fellow workers isn’t money or status.  It’s appreciation and acknowledgement — basic forms of kindness. Clients also want kindness in the form of honest, friendly, authentic service or products.

Legal Cases Show the Need for Kindness at Work

A few of the things I’ve seen while working part-time for employment lawyers over the years are very painful:

• Employees throwing a noose over an African-American employee’s head and calling it horseplay;
• Employers humiliating employees and retaliating against those who speak out against abuse at work;
• Insults based on employees’ sex, age, race, creed, or disability;
• Bullying, favoritism and sabotage at all levels of the corporate ladder.

When I entered the workforce in the 1960′s, many of these reprehensible activities were perfectly legal.  Over the years, employment law has slowly expanded to provide more freedom from harassment and a more equal job playing field.

Legal support for kindness — or at least protection against the worst unkindness — is moot if people don’t take the help that’s available to them.  Having summarized hundreds of depositions in employment law cases, I’m saddened by the number of people who don’t know how to set and maintain good boundaries.  Sometimes, they are motivated by their own misguided good intentions.

Witness an employee who thought if she simply pulled away every time her superior touched her inappropriately, he would get the message.  She didn’t want to humiliate him by speaking out, she said, and when he kept his hands to himself, she basically liked and respected him.

Like the neighbor in Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall,” we need good fences, or boundaries.  Sometimes, the greatest kindness one can do to a fellow employee or supervisor is say something like, “stop,” while a wrongdoing is small. That’s not easy for those of us who find it harder to be kind to ourselves than it is to be kind to others.

Kindness Goes Beyond Good Manners, Though That’s a Great Start.

A basic tenet of good manners is respect for self and others.  Ordinary good manners provide a great foundation for practicing kindness at work.

One of the most satisfying articles I ever wrote was for Workforce Management Magazine about a growing, informal etiquette for spirit and work, including an etiquette that which might be acceptable to atheists, spiritual eclectics, and devout believers of any faith. I hope you’ll check it out and add your own thoughts about kindness at work here..

Imagine:  a workplace filled with kindness.  It starts here, now.  It grows steadily, act of kindness by act of kindness.

As always, many blessings,

Pat McHenry Sullivan

Over the past 14 years, it’s been my great pleasure to interview hundreds of people about how their work and their spirituality support each other. The great world religions scholar Huston Smith,  graciously granted an interview of some basic tenets in each faith. Individuals have added their own rich insights, providing a marvelous, ever-growing picture of the many ways to put spiritual values to work everyday.

All Faiths Promote Right Livelihood

The term comes from Buddha’s instructions to his disciples not to cause harm through one’s work and to work ethically. Over the past thirty years there have been numerous discussions and writings from people of many faiths on what this might mean. Just a few:

• Finding work that suits talents and to which one feels deeply called. The Christian concept of vocation and the parable of the talents Matthew 25:14-30 are particularly relevant.
• Working with the same integrity and other values in the workplace that you honor in your place of worship. The Muslim concept of being the same person in the marketplace as you are in the mosque is a marvelous model.
• Engaging fully with the task at hand without forcing your will or ego on it. The Taoist concepts of Yin and Yang and the Hindu concept of surrendering the outcome of your work to God are wise guides.
• Weaving time for reflection and rest into times of work. The Jewish Sabbath and Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 (a time for everything in its season) are prime examples.
• Working in a way that respects the needs of others, including the earth and those not yet born. Prime examples are the environmental movements and the wisdom of native peoples, such as the Iroquois commandment to consider the impact of one’s actions to the seventh generation.

All Faiths Promote Paths to Wisdom

Whether you call it meditation, prayer, reflection or just a walk to clear your head, all faiths suggest that you get out of your ordinary mind, out of the limited view of your ego, and into a more timeless, universal way of seeing the world.

Because this blog often covers these topics, we won’t focus on them today. Except to say, whatever your faith, you already know some practices for slowing down, breathing, and opening up to guidance.

Indeed, one of the most spiritual persons I know is a lawyer who is an avowed atheist. He’s famously kind, compassionate, and ethical, but he doesn’t frame his thoughts about life and meaning in theological terms. He won’t use words like meditation or prayer, but obviously he gets into a state of deep reflection when he listens to country music and gets out of his over-worked left brain, into his heart.

I’d rather live in a world with one man who finds guidance without spiritual words than with than dozens who speak the spiritual words and don’t walk the spiritual walk — especially those who grow rich by promising spiritual “miracles” the easy way.

For More on the Wisdom of All Faiths for Work and Money, Come Back for Part II.

As a writer, long-time researcher and missionary for integrating spirituality, work and money, I could go on. And on. But I need to earn my living, and people don’t read much at one sitting any more. Therefore, we’ll take a break here.

Still to be explored in Part II (and maybe more parts as I really get going):

• All Faiths Promote Service
• All Faiths Promote Wise Use of Money
• All Faiths Promote Integrity
• All Faiths Promote Peace and Compassion

For a great collection of resources on right livelihood, see this article from Yes! Magazine.

How does the Wisdom of the World’s religions Enhance Your Relationship to Work and Money?

What do you already do to keep spirit alive at work? In your relationship to money?

What wisdom does your faith have for work and money?

What can you learn from other faiths?

As always, please share your thoughts and question.  Guest blogger ideas are welcome!

Many blessings,

Pat McHenry Sullivan

The original Prayer of St. Francis is posted in many cubicles and kept in many desk drawers.

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Hatred, love and every other element of the prayer of St. Francis shows up at work today.

Hatred shows up in not just in physical violence or screaming hatred, but also in all ways we can harm others through our work. Racial, sexual and other harassment or discrimination are definitely forms of hatred. So are rudeness and fraud. Theft. Lying about a product or service’s value. Any types of lies.

Hatred also extends to deliberate un-caring, which includes carelessness or indifference. Or helping others commit fraud, waste or abuse.

Obviously, we can’t give our love at work the way we would a child or spouse or close friend, but we can love through our work by doing a task carefully — as if we were doing it for our beloved. We can love by blessings our tasks and bringing all our consciousness to the work.

Being kind an compassionate to vendors, bosses and colleagues is a powerful way to love through work. So is confronting fraud, waste and abuse because we care more about the well-being of others than we fear retaliation for speaking truth to power.

In 2006, my husband John and I taught a class on spirituality and work, using the Prayer of St. Francis as a starting point or touchstone for making our work our prayer, our prayer our work.

Here’s our prayer for today’s workplace realities, based on the Prayer of St. Francis.

Make me an instrument of peace at work.

Where there are indifference or hatred, let me sow compassion and love.

Where there are fraud, waste, and abuse, let me sow accountability and help restore justice.

Where there are stress and burnout, help me sow purpose and divine calm.

Where there are darkness and confusion, help me find wisdom and clear sight.

Where there is sadness, help me promote healing and joy.

May all my tasks be done in harmony with all Creation.

May I always work in balance, true to myself and my purpose, on the level with others, giving to others, loving others, as I give to and love myself.

May my workplace be sacred space, where peaceful, divine order ripples out from each small act that I do, right here, right now, and always.

How does the prayer of St. Francis inspire your own workday prayer?

How can you put it What’s your prayer for your current realities around work?

As always, many blessing, Pat McHenry Sullivan.

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