An exciting field of organizational research called workplace spirituality has emerged recently. It examines the sense of meaning, community, and inner life fulfillment people experience in their work and workplaces.

Leadership studies continues to explore transformational processes and how the people given roles of directing their organizations carry out their duties.

My research dissertation for a PhD in Leadership examined the correlation between leadership practices of pastors and the sense of meaning and community that paid and volunteer workers in their churches experienced. Over 250 churches from all denominations across North America participated in the study.

It found people were very satisfied with the work they did for their churches–regardless of the leadership practices of their pastors. However, the leadership practice of encouraging the heart was positively correlated with work experience, and the leadership practice of challenging the process was negatively correlated with workers’ experience of finding meaning in their work.

A PDF of the dissertation can be retrieved here: DeVost Dissertation-2010.

PowerPoint for Law 3

A PowerPoint of the Law 3 presentation can be retrieved here: Law 3 PowerPoint.

engage from Middle French engager from en- [in, put into] + gage pledge
1. to offer (as one’s life or word) as backing to a cause or aim
2. to attract and hold
3. to bind (as oneself) to do or to forbear doing something by or as if by formal promise or contract
4. to provide occupation for
5. to hold the attention of
6. to enter into contest with
[from Webster's Third New International Dictionary, 1981]

Why engagement matters

As in marriage, to do anything really well and consistently requires a commitment of time and effort—an engagement in which we give our focus and energy, and choose to become certain kinds of persons.

Engage! It’s more exciting than disengagement.

Alignment makes us part of something bigger

Etienne Wenger (in Communities of Practice) writes that the “process of alignment bridges time and space to form broader enterprises… We become part of something big because we do what it takes to play our part.”

Why we need to align

If I could do everything, I wouldn’t need anyone. The reason we have employees, managers, investors, etc. is that we are all constricted by our finite time, energy, and resources. Alignment is what allows us to harness our energies and produce something we could never do individually. As Wenger noted, alignment allows us to be part of something bigger.

For example, an accountant plays a part in improving society by producing the widgets of her company. She is also connected to the long history and wide community of accountants through alignment with an existing and developing professional accounting code of conduct.

Like negotiating the curves of a trail on a bicycle, alignment in our fast-paced and changing world requires attention and frequent adjustments.

Workplace: properties of a community of practice

The work in creating a holistic community of practice includes 1) mutual engagement, 2) a joint enterprise, and 3) a shared repertoire.

1. Mutual engagement. Sustaining of interpersonal relationships through the inevitable tensions and conflicts in dynamic workplaces. Disagreements and challenges can be forged into forms of participation that yield greater commitment rather than breakdown or passive conformity.
2. Joint enterprise. A workplace that is real and livable can be created by recognizing and continually coordinating the interconnections between individuals and with the organization in a way that honors respective aspirations.
3. Shared repertoire. A shared way of doing things can be developed that both reflects the organizational history of the way of doing things and remains open to changing conditions, revisiting goals, and improving processes.

[from Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity by Etienne Wenger]

Why integrity in the workplace matters

An early industrial model employed workers as mere assistants to the machine: comply and get a paycheck. A later and slightly more evolved industrial model for employees was the Organization Man: leave your personal life at home, this is work. Both models fracture the individual self. Neither foster a culture of employee growth and personal mastery.

For most adults, the workplace is one of the most significant contributors to their sense of well-being (or lack of it). Not only is work better, but life is better when we can connect with the people we work with. The Gallup Poll researcher Tom Rath (in Vital Friends) has found that people who had a best friend at work were seven times more likely to be engaged with their jobs; those with three close friends at work were 96% more likely to be extremely satisfied with their lives (not just their work).

Deliberate action can transform a workplace and improve employees’ lives. Tom Rath found that when managers discuss friendships with employees on a regular basis, it nearly triples the chances of employees having a “best friend at work.”

participate from part + capere to take
1. partake
2. to impart a share of
[from Webster's Third New International Dictionary, 1981]

leadership a meaning-making process (creating names, interpretations, and commitments to actions, other people, and values) of connecting people to one another and to some social activity, work, or enterprise
[from Making Common Sense: Leadership as Meaning-making in a Community of Practice by Drath and Palus]

leadership contrasted with management
leadership is an influence relationship to produce significant changes that reflect participants’ mutual purposes
management is an authority relationship to coordinate activities to produce or sell goods or services
[from the leadership scholar Joseph Rost in Leadership for the Twenty-First Century]

Why do leadership?

It’s fun to be part of a change initiative. It challenges our thinking and creativity, connects us with others who share a similar passion, and awakens a feeling of being alive.

Let’s participate in change initiatives—ones that are already going on, or by starting new ones. Be curious, experiment, and have fun—we’ll improve as we practice.

Because I hope we will work together, I’ve included this section to help you decide whether I’m a person you would like to work with on issues that you find important. Therefore, I’ve written this in my own first-person voice (rather than a more formal third-person) and have included a smattering of things I like in addition to resume-type information. The pictures above are of me canoeing at the Boundary Waters, teaching computer to a middle-school class, at the end of a Katy Texas Flatland Century ride with my sister, with my wife Katie.

My education and experience

Some favorite things

Why work and leadership are important

We contribute to others, stretch our abilities, and form our identities through work. We bring about intentional change through leadership.

Why I want to work with you

My passion is to advance a participative process of leadership and help transform workplaces into communities where employees find it worthwhile to engage in fulfilling the organization’s mission and to develop their potential and creativity.

Plan an initiative and make it count

Plan an initiative to transform your organization; increase the likelihood of success by basing it on solid theory.

The organization systems guru Peter Senge (in The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook) feels uneasy about tools and methods used in business that are not intentionally based on underlying theories because:

1. “Such ‘theory-less’ tools are not likely to significantly add to our store of generalizable knowledge.”
2. Without “underlying theory, we may not always appreciate the limitations of a tool.”
3. Only “tools based on important new theories … have the power to change how we think. … To paraphrase Albert Einstein, our present problems cannot be solved at the level of thinking at which they were created.”

Contact me to think through, research and engage with you to make your change initiatives count.

Thank you,
Richard DeVost, PhD

Consulting

Why hire a consultant for your important projects

The word consultant has its roots in the Latin consulere from com (with) + selere (gather together—as in the senate) and was used to seek advice.

The word project has the action oriented Latin roots of pro (forward) + jacere (to throw) and was used with plans, proposals, and schemes.

Our leadership roles call on us to throw forward our ideas and plans to produce significant change. Consultation is a process of gathering together individuals to broaden and deepen the perspectives and strategies used in these plans.

What and how I can contribute

My areas of focus are on leadership (how we work together to bring about change), workplace communities of practice (how we work together to provide our products and services), organizational alignment (how our products and services are connected to our organizations and to society), and workplace integrity (how our work is meaningfully integrated into our lives).

As you consider initiatives to improve your organization’s performance, I can bring to the table fresh perspectives from current organizational research, help articulate problems in a way that ties them to broader organizational goals and values, explore underlying causes of problems¹, develop procedures and artifacts to help people “work together” across and within organizational boundaries, and consider the processes and strategies used to implement change.

Coaching

Consulting is seeking outside counsel for plans or projects. Coaching, on the other hand, is for working on the self. The word comes from the Middle French coche (carriage) and transformed in meaning from “conveying in a coach” to “preparing a student for an exam” to its use today in athletics, education, business, and life.

You have considerable expertise at the things you do. How can I (or any coach) help you become better? Coaching is the process of expanding vocabulary² to draw previously unseen distinctions that will allow you to design new courses of action to navigate through current reality.

A coach can be a valuable ally in you efforts to understand, reimagine, and grow. Find one you are comfortable with.

Research

Work is an essential part of our lives. We become certain kinds of people from the choices and associations we make at work. Most of us want our lives to count for something and we want to experience a sense of belonging. When it reaches its potential, work can provide an environment in which we can meet these human needs.

However, the industrial revolution had a tendency to dehumanize work and define workers as replaceable parts in a larger system. Current social and organizational research reveals that providing for the full human person in the workplace³ (hence the name “workplace integrity”) yields not only greater employee satisfaction, but also greater productivity.

Effective change requires an understanding of where we are now. Mixed-methods of qualitative and quantitative research can shed light on current realities. As an outsider, I can work in a more unbiased way with your departments to first understand the current situation and then to help them make the work experience more meaningful and enjoyable.

Bibliography

¹Argyris, C. (1993). Knowledge for action: A guide to overcoming barriers to organizational change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

²Flaherty, J. (2005). Coaching: Evoking excellence in others (2nd ed.). Burlington, MA: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.

³Giacalone, R. A., & Jurkiewicz, C. L. (Eds.). (2003). Handbook of workplace spirituality and organizational performance. New York: M.E. Sharpe.