Spirituality and effectiveness in today’s workplace

Abstract

The modern digital workplaces are strongly goal-oriented and are therefore dehumanizing. Stress, combined with poor interpersonal relationships, creates psychological distress for employees, which leads to the formation of a negative atmosphere in the workplace and a reduction in productivity. This negativity also often gets carried home by the individual as a form of spillover. The consequences for the body and the mind may be severe. This paper analyses how one overcomes the deleterious effects of stress through using spiritual edicts. The topic is investigated through a study of the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, as well as through the thoughts of India’s greatest minds such as Swami Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and Sri Rabindranath Tagore, along with Western management thinkers such as Peter Senge, Peter Drucker and others. The paper interprets and adopts the spiritual messages of these thought leaders and describes their practical application to the modern knowledge worker.