St. Benedict Still Rules

LONDON — At first, it sounds like an odd combination: an English monk leading workshops for business leaders on spiritual values in the workplace. But Father Dermot Tredget believes that the Rule of St. Benedict has much to teach the modern business world.

Archbishop John Foley, president of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, recently addressed a meeting of the International Association of Jesuit Business Schools in Loyola, Spain, and spoke of the “terrible dilemmas faced by married people with children in a tight job market who are asked to do something that is dishonest or, at least, open to ethical discussion — and who are fearful of questioning, of protesting or quitting, because they do not know where the next meal for themselves or their family might come from.”

Father Tredget has been running residential retreat workshops on spirituality in the workplace at Douai Abbey, Berkshire, England, since 1998. His approach to the thorny problems identified by Archbishop Foley: Apply the 1,500-year-old Rule of St. Benedict to modern business practice.

Participants in the weekend courses have included senior executives in multinationals and government agencies, IT consultants, coaches and sales managers.

Prior to joining the Benedictines, Father Tredget held senior management positions in the hotel and catering industry and in education. He is currently an associate tutor in the School of Management at Cranfield University, England, and visiting professor in business ethics at the University of Piacenza, Italy.

“The rule was based on earlier rules for monks who lived in the desert. The important thing about Benedict's rule is that it was written for monks who lived in a community under the direction of an abbot. It integrates work, spirituality and prayer,” he said.

The workshops explore issues such as why people work, what role “soft skills” such as humility and sensitivity have in the workplace, coping with anger, recognizing co-workers’ talents and gifts, and transforming failure into something positive.

“It's a fairly loose structure, which can be adapted to a particular group,” Father Tredget said.

Parallels

There are many parallels between running a monastery and running a business, Father Tredget said. “The Benedictine order is sometimes described as the world's first multinational. Apart from being a spiritual community, Benedictine monasteries have always had to be economically viable and able to adapt to modern technology without losing sight of their core values,” he said.

The businessman-turned-monk has taken St. Benedict's ideas even more directly into the workplace. “I've led workshops in several large international food production companies,” he said. “I think they are trying to make their workplace more spiritually friendly and give people permission to talk about spirituality — the ‘s’ word.”

Father Tredget has delivered his message to Protestants and non-Christians, as well as to Catholics. David Wescott, an executive coach and former human resources director of KPMG, one of the world's largest accounting firms, says that he knew nothing about the Rule of St. Benedict before taking the course run by Father Tredget.

“I'm an Anglican, and I'd never heard about the rule. What really impressed me was the simplicity and insights of St. Benedict,” Westcott said. “The rule deals with the nitty-gritty of life. I don't think I learned anything new. It was more a case of having my views reinforced.”

Businesses, he believes, can learn about the meaning of community from the monastic rule. “The monastic community exists with common purpose and to serve each other,” Westcott said. “So often in business, there is a common purpose, but we don't serve each other. If, as a result of their work, the Benedictine community has an abundance, then it gives the excess to the poor. This doesn't happen in business. Enough is never enough in business, but enough is enough in a monastic community.”

Added Westcott, “The Christian has a prophetic voice here. I made my views known when I was advising a major company on pay scales. There is much about capitalism that makes it the best system that we have, but it is also flawed in many ways. It needs a healthy dose of Christian morality to make sure it doesn't give in to unbridled greed.”

Finding Balance

Mary Maher, a Catholic and director of a public-sector company, said she took the course to look for a way to balance her active spiritual life and her job.

“One of the questions we looked at was if it was taboo to declare your faith in the workplace,” Maher said. “I was working in retail banking when I went on the course and I found the work alien to me. I felt a lot of conflict — all the motivation was money. There was no room to discuss ethics in a spiritual sense. It was difficult to have discussions that were not based around money. I felt I was drowning.”

Father Tredget's insights changed all that.

“The course encouraged me to have the courage to explain my beliefs at work,” Maher said. “I did it, and I discovered that other people at work were also trying to integrate a spiritual life with their job.”

Added the businesswoman, “I learned that the rule is not just for monks. It can be translated and adapted for work, family life and the wider community.”

Greg Watts writes from London.