The Living Organization: Spirituality in the Workplace

by William A. Guillory

In Spirituality in the Workplace, internationally renowned consultant and corporate trainer Bill Guillory unveils a powerful new approach to business that is both ground-breaking and highly practical.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0933241143
• ISBN13: 9780933241145
• Release Date: October 1997
• Publisher: Innovations International
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.1" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

The Living Organization - Spirituality in the Workplace

William Guillory has hit the nail squarely on the head. It is about time that someone has been able to give solid thoughts as to how one can adapt to the ever changing workplace, while maintaining and enhancing spiritual values.With consolidation being the main focus of companies across North America, the pressures and anxiety are at extreme levels. William Guillory gives employees and executives a fresh insight into dealing with these changes.This is a must read for anyone who is experiencing change or chaos in the workplace. It is a must read for everyone!

Spirituality: A New Paradigm for the Workplace

In THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS, Thomas Kuhn suggested that the evolution of science was marked more by epistemological shifts than linear developments over time that reflected unchanging truths and practices. After Kuhn's analysis, scientists would never again be able to do "business as usual." William Guillory's work represents a similar epistemological shift, and like Kuhn's REVOLUTIONS has the potential to change the way that business is envisioned and actualized, literally challenging the business of "business and usual," and introducing an element that has yet to be fully explored in the numerous works that articulate transformative business practices. The future of business, for Guillory, is defined by one idea/practice: spirituality. SPIRITUALITY IN THE WORKPLACE: A GUIDE FOR ADAPTING TO THE CHAOTICALLY CHANGING WORKPLACE is William Guillory's contribution to the emerging conversation of how to effectively transform business and implement practices that will be responsive to, and inclusive of, empowerment, diversity, and organizational coherence. Guillory challenges some of our most sacred beliefs about difference and division: self and other, individuality and collectivism, and of course, spirituality and materialism. It is a book that offers a new vision of leadership, one that values intuition as much as observation, and the spiritual as much as the material. William Guillory's vision is, indeed, integrative, and reflects his own personal challenges and transformations. Guillory is the CEO and founder of Innovations Consulting International, and a highly sought after authority on facilitating organizational transformation, managing diversity, and creating contexts for individual empowerment. His work with organizational change and diversity led naturally to his own transformative self-reflections, reflections that moved him beyond the material concerns of a career to the spiritual possibilities of exploring his own deeply embedded life interests. He writes in the prologue of SPIRITUALITY of an experience in October of 1985 that changed both his life and his mind. "Words flowed through me at a rate with which I cold hardly keep pace. There were phrases and concepts I had never heard before, pouring into my consciousness." Those words and phrases, he relates, challenged one of our culture's most sacred division, the separation of the spiritual and the material. Guillory believes that this division needs to be understood, addressed, and ultimately healed if organizations are going to be able to adapt to accelerated change and potential crises. The multiple ways of addressing this division are revealed throughout the book, in both the titles and the contents of each chapter. Chapter one discusses "The Living Organization," and offers a biological metaphor for understanding organizational evolution. Chapter two "Spirituality as a source of wisdom," addresses directly the main focus of the book and offers both

Great book

Spirituality in the Workplace is a truly inspirational book that encourages individuals and organizations to incorporate their values and spirituality into their work endeavers. The powerful ideas inside this book show how we can align the spiritual, mental and physical components of our lives to become more fully functional in the workplace. Although the focus is on values and individual development, Bill also makes a strong business case for using these principles to create excellence within an organization. His real life examples and creative insights make this a interesting and motivating read.

The Living Organization - Spirituality in the Workplace

Reading Dr Guillory's book, I found myself looking at a totally new arena in the workplace. Many concepts and thoughts that can improve employees relations at any level in an organization. Much, much more then the trendy books recommended by most of corporate America today. A "must read" book for those looking for the missing connection.

A candidate for the best of the genre

With the increasing trend to introspection in Western society and inquiry into sources of personal meaning in all areas of one's life, it is not surprising that the place of spirituality in the workplace is also being examined. The past 5 years have seen a number of books appear on the subject; many of them fall into a couple of categories: they are broad and fuzzy surveys of the topic, or they try to define what spirituality SHOULD look like. This is inherently flawed because spirituality is a manifestation of personal belief and a reflection of corporate culture. Dr. Guillory's book is one of the very few I have seen to take a different, and I feel proper, approach. First, Dr. Guillory is by training a chemist and yet he tackles a nebulous topic like spirituality with ease and familiarity. He effectively applies a scientific rigor to treatment of the subject but never becomes preachy or inaccessable. The volume is clearly written, well organized, and has a VERY strong take-away for the reader, who can complete exercises in the book to the formation and manifestation of a personal belief system and apply that to a work setting. Throughout the process, Dr. Guillory seems to accompany and guide the reader through the exercises. It is as if he is writing from within a spiritual context, rather than standing on the outside looking in. This volume has a wonderful mix of information and applications, as well as illustration of schematic and thought-models, that serve as a springboard for further inquiry. I found this book stayed in my head long after I had closed the cover. The examples of how corporate leaders had developed their own corporate spirituality were inspiring and believable. In conclusion, I loved this book because it was practical, direct, entertaining, and enlightening. It is a roadmap and guidebook that others can use to navigate through a murky topic with ease.