Contemplative Organizations
Contemplative Net research participants offer practices to their clients and constituents, both in an individual and group context. But we also learned that a number of interviewees have brought these practices into their own workplaces, sharing them with co-workers and thereby infusing their organizations with a more contemplative flavor.
Just as Peter Senge (1994) has identified and defined the Learning Organization, our interviews have revealed that there is a constellation of elements that form a type of workplace that we call a Contemplative Organization.
Characteristics of the Contemplative Organization
As our research participants described how their organizations function, a number of characteristics emerged. The Contemplative Organization strives to:
- Incorporate contemplative practices into all aspects of work
- Embody its values
- Move between cycles of action and reflection
- Balances process with product
- Have an organizational structure that reflects a contemplative philosophy
A Contemplative Organization uses contemplative practices in the services it offers its constituents, but also as an organizing principle for the workplace. It is different from a faith-based organization in that it does not always explicitly acknowledge or insist that its employees identify with a specific religious tradition. The phrase "secular spirituality" has also been used to describe this phenomenon, but in a Contemplative Organization, the term "spirituality" may not even be used.
Of the organizations we profiled, the Greyston Foundation is probably the most well-developed example of a Contemplative Organization. Greyston, which provides comprehensive social services in Yonkers, NY, was founded in 1982 as an experiment in exploring the connections between Buddhist teachings and social change. Charles Lief, president of Greyston, summarized the elements that are part of the culture of a Contemplative Organization:
How does an organization that professes to be built upon core spiritual values or values of engaged social action actually manifest? How is it any different from an organization that doesn't make that kind of overt statement?...We spend time and we spend money on encouraging personal spiritual exploration. So we are an organization that finds it acceptable within the work day for people to explore their own contemplative practice...Institutional norms here are things like working with the Native American practice of council as a way of conducting meetings, and having periods of meditation or silence before and after we start events...We do encourage people to figure out ways of integrating their own spiritual practice into the work that they are doing, and are fairly flexible about helping people do that kind of work.
- Charles Lief, Greyston Foundation