I was lucky enough yesterday to attend the opening hour of an online event hosted by the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations, where Mark Argent offered some fascinating introductory remarks about spirituality and religion in relation to organisational life.
I came away with plenty to think about – and I’m still actively reflecting on some of the insightful observations and ideas that Mark usefully shared.
As someone who has recently written a book called Being at Work that applies existentialist thinking to our working lives, I was particularly intrigued by Mark’s observations about religion in relation to rationalising the finitude of human existence.
Life at Work
This led me to begin to explore the notion that our relationship to organisational life might be serving a purpose that is akin to that of religion in respect to our temporality. A number of issues came up for me as I interrogated this notion.
Firstly, our lack of permanence in life means that we may well focus strongly on corporate entities on the assumption that they exist a good deal longer than we do. In some instances, it may be that we delude ourselves into thinking that these organisations will exist pretty much forever.
This seems to be borne out by the fact that most of us do not now buy musical artefacts that we then own – an LP or a CD – but instead rent our music from tech companies. This seems to presuppose that Apple will exist in perpetuity, even though the history of an entity such as the East India Company should be a constant reminder that even the most well-established and seemingly unshakeable organisation can suddenly disappear.
Secondly, this will go some way to explain how affected we feel when we learn of a company folding or undergoing some crisis. In a godlike fashion, the companies for whom we work or on whom we depend are tacitly deemed to be infinite and omnipresent – so our faith is shaken when this is challenged by profound change taking place in this context.
Lastly, while it is arguable that our close connection to a company means that we are dedicating a sizeable chunk of our limited time on Earth to activity related exclusively to paid employment, it may also be the case that such a connection creates the illusion that we are immersed in something timeless and ever present.
Hence, if we move beyond the economic, we can discern why dismissal, redundancy and pursuit of a different career might be seen to have such an impact on us as human beings. They take away our financial security…but also detach us from something perhaps perceived as infinite (which we, of course, are not) and a context which – instead of helping us to make meaning of our lives – imposes an external purpose and meaning upon us.
A Personal Reflection
These observations seem particularly profound to me at this point as – some while ago – I was staying in a lovely holiday lodge in Dorset. We were booked to stay until the Monday morning but needed to head home on the Sunday due to work commitments.
As I packed the car ahead of our departure, I was suddenly struck by the idea that whereas in most instances one leaves such accommodation a few hours ahead of someone new coming in to stay, on this occasion the lodge would continue to exist but this time as an empty space overnight. I would not be there, but where I had been and where I was expected to be in terms of the booking would be present without any acknowledgment of me.
This exploration of finitude on my part – things persisting in my absence and oblivion – led me to wonder whether we have a similar relationship with organisational life in an existentialist fashion.
A Meaning of this Meaning
Overall, these reflections have yet again reminded me as to how important our relationship to the workplace is in terms of our human existence. A careful consideration of our well-being at work should usefully start from a thoughtful exploration of our potentially somewhat religious relationship with seemingly permanent companies…and an effort to encourage us all to move beyond too tight a focus on working life exclusively and instead a concentration on being alive in the world.
