This weekend, a number of the world’s spritual communities have been focusing on various practices and celebrations.
Does this have any relevance for UK businesses?
The Global Mind Project (March 24th, 2024), examined the role that spiritual practices play in supporting overall wellbeing. In the UK, the most serious finding of this research was, that out of 65 countries and 240,000 people surveyed:
The UK and Germany experience the least love for others among all countries surveyed.
And…other European countries don’t do so well either.
Here are some of the main findings:
- Those with a spiritual practice love and care for the wellbeing of a wider circle of people; those who don’t are five times more likely to love no-one.
- Mental wellbeing increases with greater feelings of love and care for others, but spirituality without love and care for others does not have any mental wellbeing benefits.
- Active spiritual practice is associated with a higher likelihood of love for others, regardless of religious affiliation.
Since 2019, Soul Corporations has been researching the impact of mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing on business performance and how to improve them. In this AI-powered, digital-hybrid world we’re living in, retention, customer service levels, employee engagement, productivity, mental and physical health, learning, commitment, work-life balance and even innovation can all be profoundly impacted by the climate in which people work from day-to-day.
Peak performance is when we put our heart and soul into what we do.
Accoring to Harvard Business Review: Research shows that when leaders encourage vulnerability and cultivate compassion at work, they enhance positive feelings and trust among workers — and that trust in leaders not only improves worker performance, it also helps employees feel safe opening up to their managers about personal challenges. Further, employees who work in compassionate environments are shown to be more innovative and adaptable, delivering higher-quality and more consistent work. In the longer term, compassion has been shown to help organizations attract and retain its most talented workers. It’s a win-win, both in terms of employees’ mental health and organizational success.
So, how can we create work cultures with more soul? Booking some yoga and meditation classes for lunch and a wellbeing app for people to do-it-themselves may not be enough. We need to shift the mind, heart and soul-set across the entire organisation if sustained improvements are to be seen. We must learn how to make AI-powered, digital-hybrid workplaces human and inspiring places to work and live.
Organisations that introduce practical and behavioural strategies to drive their business with soul, develop leaders who lead with soul, communicates with their customers with soul and invests in all their employees to help them optimise their physical, mental, emotional and even spiritual health, will be the winners in the near term and longer term.
Our latest book and coaching programme: The Mindful Communicator®, provides seven practical business principles, each grounded in spiritual practices from around the world, that can transform the way people experience working and how they work together to achieve results.
Email info@soulcorporations.com to find out more about the work we’re doing to enhance human performance in this digital age.
You can find a copy of the Global Mind Project research here.
