Hoop is een kwaliteit van de ziel
en hangt niet af van wat er in de wereld gebeurt.

Hoop is niet voorspellen of vooruitzien.
Het is een gerichtheid van de geest,
een gerichtheid van het hart, voorbij de horizon verankerd.

Hoop in deze diepe en krachtige betekenis
is niet hetzelfde als vreugde omdat alles goed gaat
of bereidheid je in te zetten voor wat succes heeft.

Hoop is ergens voor werken omdat het goed is,
niet alleen omdat het kans van slagen heeft.

Hoop is niet hetzelfde als optimisme.
Evenmin de overtuiging dat iets goed zal aflopen.
Wel de zekerheid dat iets zinvol is
ongeacht de afloop, het resultaat.

I especially liked the remark of Swami Pragyapad, representing the IAHV Founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, that people are losing faith.  And when you do so, people become depressed.  He further says: “Lack of human health leads to lack of human values. That is the crisis we are facing, and nobody is even thinking about this – the human crisis. Spirituality is the only solution.”  By the way, faith is one of the key elements in the spiritual leadership model that I’m researching.

Another person that touched me was Mrs. Sung-Joo Kim, who received the Ethics in Business Award for her exceptional commitment to social responsibility, especially in empowering women and young leaders.  It is woman of not many words, but a lot of deeds.   Having faith is demonstrated through action or deeds and is based on a willingness to do what it takes to do one’s personal best and maximize ones potential.

I also had the opportunity to discuss my work on spiritual leadership during the several breaks.  This is the first time where I felt comfortable to speak about spirituality out loud.  It gave me strength to talk more about it in other settings.  You find the poster here: poster presentation.

Warmly. Danny

My poster sessions are held on Friday Nov 6 at 14:00 and at 16:30.  You need to register to get access to the European Parliament.  Registration is free.

Hope to meet you there!

Inner court

A true experience, I would call it.

“Maison des Chevaliers” is a guest house in the middle of France and served as a rest place on our way to Spain.  It was madame Choux who welcomed us and gave a tour through this magnificent piece of history.  This manor was built in the XVIII century and possesses an extraordinary noble character.  We were able to stay in the Suite “Coté Sud”:  two spacious rooms, next to eachother and connected with a common door, oriented to the south and each one decorated in its own style.  This manor has a beautiful inner court. Flowers and green leaves gave  a touch of freshness to this court.  It was a place to gather with all the guests and to enjoy a glass of white wine just before dinner.  Dinner itself was served in the main salon and was a nice treat of interesting talks, delicious food and tasty wine.  This was our first experience in a guest house in France and it will definitely not be our last one. Cheers!

www.maisondeschevaliers.com

“Vision refers to a picture of the future with some implicit or explicit commentary on why people should strive to create that future” (Kotter, 1996, p. 68).  It must energize people, give meaning to work, and garner commitment. It should have broad appeal, define the vision’s destination and journey, reflect high ideals, and encourage hope and faith (Fry, 2003).

It’s clear that a vision cannot be a kind of picture that is dropped down by (top) management. It is built on something that defines and holds the organisation, i.e. the mission.  The mission is the organization’s reason for existence and provides a basis for creating the vision. It defines what the organization stands for in a larger sense and defines the company’s culture, core values, and reason for being. Culture consists of the set of key values, assumptions, understandings, and ways of thinking considered to be morally right that is shared by members of an organization and taught to new members as correct (Schein, 1990).

A shared vision is just one of the key elements of the Spiritual Leadership Theory developed by Fry (2003). 

Sources:

Fry, L.W. (2003). Toward a theory of spiritual leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 14 (6), 693-728.

Kotter, J. P. (1996). Leading change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Schein, E. H. (1990). Organizational culture. American Psychologist, 45(2), 109-119.

Spirituality, historically, has been rooted in religion.  However, its current use in business is most often not associated with any specific religious tradition. Moreover, spirituality is one of the latest phenomena to enter the realm of management debate .

According to Stamp (1991), spirituality is conceiving elusively “an awareness within individuals of a sense of connectedness that exists between inner selves and the world”.  In its wider sense, and parallel to ancient Greeks’ perspective, spirituality relates to “a feeling of being connected within one’s complete self, with others, the entire universe and/or with God”.

What about religion?  The main conclusion of one recent meta-analysis has been that “religion was predominantly associated with formal/organizational religion, while spirituality was more often associated with closeness with God and feelings of interconnectedness with the world and living things”. Religion focuses more upon the specific group and the organization, while spirituality is more generic, and may even encompass more than one religious approach. In many ways religion is just institutionalized spirituality.

What spirituality tells me, is that I’m not alone. Never, in fact.  Spirituality is like a glue among all of us.  It embraces and connects us all, both inside (inner self) and outside (environment).

Welcome to my blog.
Danny