Spiritual Business Leader - Part III
By K.Srinivas Rao
Let us continue our exploration of the effect of Spirituality in Business. Leaders who are spiritual are able to work differently, they are able to achieve big results with lesser effort. They are having a wonderful effect on their surroundings. There are many such leaders across the world. Let us explore two more.
The quotations are extracted from the public knowledge-base of the “Spiritual Based Leadership Research Programme” are © 2006 by the Global Dharma Center (GDC). GDC retains the copy right to all excerpts from this knowledge-base.
Philip Budin, USA
Philip Budin is the CEO of Budco Realty, New York. He is also a Meditation teacher and a Life coach.
The spiritual theme of Philip Budin is ‘equanimity’. He seeks equanimity in everything that he does. At the age of 30 Philip started his spiritual journey. He did not work for the next 10 years. But, he again went back to work at the age of 40 at the instance of his guru.
Philip says “Overall, the spirituality helps me in all situation of life. I don’t apply it towards business, I apply it towards myself”.
He says “In business, I do the best I can do to accomplish what I want to accomplish, and the results are in God’s hands and not mine. Not being attached to the results is a very freeing experience and a major part of my spiritual teaching – which is equanimity and being in the moment, each and every moment as it occurs. If you are attached to the result, you are living in the future based upon some expectation from the past. Equanimity puts you right in the moment, every moment”.
Philip uses the spiritual approach in conducting himself in the business. He quotes a few examples.
When he was firing an employee who did not keep with the values of his organization, he did not lose his temper. He maintained his equanimity.
“I brought the young man in and I fired him, very calmly, with love and with peace. I knew he had to be let go. Did I feel bad for him? Yes in one way, and no in another. I spoke to him and told him that we all have to be responsible for our actions now or at some point in the future. So I guess in a way he was lucky that this was happening to him now and not at some point in the future, when he might not know what it was happening for. He apologised and said it wouldn’t happen again; however, within our company he could no longer have been trusted. Because he was interested in spirituality, we had a small spiritual talk before he left. We talked about right action, right state of mind, consciousness, and being clear about our goals. I have had some brief contact with him since then; however, my choice is not to associate with him in the future”.
Philip maintained his toughness and clarity of mind about the issue. At the same time he focused upon making the young man realize his mistake rather than losing his cool over him.
Philip used spirituality to open doors in business. He tried to connect spiritually with the other person rather than have the usual round of drinks with the client as is common in business. It worked for him very well.
Philip says “spirituality was the easiest way to open the door to do business together. In the olden days the easiest way to open the door was to go out drinking with someone, but I don’t do that anymore”.
Philip realized the importance of spirituality and gained control on his own mind. He tries to influence others around him in a positive manner.
He says “When someone comes to me, meditation is the primary path that I recommend to them. The meditation I teach to others is to follow their breath and see how long they can do that before a thought comes in. As soon as they realise they can’t do this for more than 2 or 3 seconds, they become quite surprised and upset. They become especially upset when I ask them, “If you are not controlling your mind, then who is?” It’s a great question and is one that really blew me away. When I tried to focus on something years ago, I couldn’t do it. That’s when I asked, “If I’m not controlling my mind, then who the heck is?” That was a scary thought, at least to me. So when I am talking to people who are running companies and are in high profile positions and ask them this question, it makes them crazy. Some of them will run away and some of them will really work on it. Either way it is okay with me”.
Philip is a shining example of using spirituality and becoming a better business man!
Francisco Roberto Canada, Argentina
Francisco Roberto Canada is a Director and Partner of Errepar S.A, a major publishing firm in Argentina.
Francisco says “To me spirituality is the search for true happiness”. His spiritual theme is “Loving god”.
Francisco’s definition of purpose of business is as follows. “…Our goal is to make people aware of their inner potentials, to help bring out these potentials, and to always strive for excellence. Excellence is the way god made the world. I also think that this should be the purpose of the Business in general”.
Francisco’s views on success in business are as follows. “From my spiritual point of view, success goes beyond success on the physical plane…..though being profitable is necessary for our development, success for companies is not simply the success in the traditional finance sense, but it is tied to the principles of selfless service”.
Francisco has a unique way of developing good organizational culture. “The concept we work with is to be responsible, to perform right action, to do what has to be done in the weekly meetings, we replace the word dharma with responsibility: Responsibility for the whole company. Responsibility for the areas the people work in, responsibility in the relationship between the manager and his employees, responsibility in the relationships among the employees families, and the responsibility of all of us for ourselves”.
Francisco quotes an example of how he applied the spiritual values in to the actual way of working in the business.
“We hold weekly meetings with the Sales managers, product managers, systems managers, and all the staff. We talk about how to apply the teachings and principles of Spiritual leadership, both at work and in our daily life. In these meetings we focus on principles based on the human values of truth, right action, love, peace and non-violence – not on religion. We use examples from all religions, but each person has his own spiritual way. The employees accept this wonderful way”.
Francisco is using this method to ensure the organization culture continues to be what it was when the company was small and they could reach all employees directly.
“When we the three owners worked directly with everybody, there was a certain family spirit in the company. When we began growing as a business and then changed the organisational structure by installing general managers for each of the companies, the spirit of overall organisation suffered. People who stayed with us through all the 25 years tell us that they feel that with these weekly meetings , which we began three months ago, the whole organisation , all four companies, are going to revive the old family spirit”.
The spiritual ways of these two leaders is truly inspiring. By focusing on the larger purpose and taking a holistic view of things, they are able to deliver a wonderful performance in the business.