Looking to help your staff
find meaning in their work?
Our seminars, worshops and retreats may be of interest…
Helping people find meaning in their work isn’t just a concern for the human resources or organizational development departments, but for all managers.
If you understand people, you know that financial incentives only go so far. Both staff and management also seek a life of meaning and purpose. Even the great robber barrons of yore (such as Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Whitney) and of the present (such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet) have sought meaning. In their case they found meaning in philanthropy.
It’s when employees are relatively happy with their pay and benefits that questions of meaning emerge are more likely to emerge. (Richard Farson discusses this in “Management of the Absurd.” Free Press, 1997.) They then require that the particular work that they do to relate to higher values and life’s ultimate meaning. When the staff of a company begin to express such concerns, it indicates that they require that their job becomes, according to Abraham Maslow, a vehicle for their self-actualization. I.E., their job becomes their calling, a route to their self-transcendence. They are then motivated to work a lot harder and inspired to accomplish great things.
Indeed, there has been a strong interest, in recent years, in what is known as “corporate spirituality.” A popular book, in that genre, is Rick Warren’s “A Purpose Driven Life.” Also, there exist retreats here in the United States and abroad, where managers and staff explore life’s deeper questions and sometimes even seek to attain a religious experience.
Perhaps, as manager of an organization or a CEO, you discern that your people are seeking meaning from the work that they do. Indeed, it has clearly become a concern of theirs. What, then, to do? There are, as we have indicated, many different seminars and retreats in the area of corporate spirituality. But we think that you might like what Dr. Mark Dillof has to offer. Dr. Dillof has taught college philosophy courses for many years. He has also offered philosophical counseling for just as long, through a subsidiary called, “Plato’s Attache: Life & Business Advisory” www.platosattache.com. More recently, he created another subsidiary called “Louisville Mystical Academy” www.mysticlou.com. It offers ongoing classes here in Louisville, Kentucky. A video of a short seminar that Dr. Dillof offered — to a very small audience of new managers — can be found on his speaker website: www.wonderseminars.com