PRESENCE AS SOUL TEXTURE
In the modern workplace, a negative atmosphere can be very destructive. When we speak of an individual, we speak of his presence. Presence is the way a person’s individuality comes toward you. Presence is the soul texture of the person. When we speak of this presence in relation to a group of people, we refer to it as atmosphere or ethos. The ethos of a workplace is a very subtle group presence. It is difficult to describe or analyze an ethos; yet you immediately sense its power and effect. Where the ethos is positive, wonderful things can happen. It is a joy to come to work because the atmosphere comes out to meet you, and it is caring, kind, and creative. If the ethos of the workplace is negative and destructive, then when people wake up in the morning, their first thought of going to work literally makes them ill. It is lonely that so many people have to spend so much of their short time in the world in a negative and destructive work ethos. The workplace can be quite hostile; it is often an environment of power. You are working for people who have power over you. They have the power to sack you, criticize and bully you, or compromise your dignity. This is not a welcoming atmosphere. People have power over us because we give our power away to them.
It is an interesting exercise to ask yourself what image you have of the people who have power over you. A friend of mine works in a school that has an insecure principal. He is weak and defensive and uses his power in a very negative way. Recently at a meeting, to start the school term, he berated the staff. The next day my friend ran into this man in town with his wife. She was shocked to recognize that outside of his power context, he looked totally insignificant. This startled her because she had projected such power onto him as school principal.
Sometimes we allow people to exercise destructive power over us simply because we never question them. When falsity masquerades as power, there is no force that can unmask it as swiftly as a question. We are all familiar with the story of the emperor’s new clothes. The emperor paraded through town in what he thought was his new suit, though in reality he was stark naked. Everyone cheered and said what a wonderful suit the emperor wore. They were all in complicit agreement until a little child blurted out the truth. The word of truth is completely powerful. The New Testament says, “Live in the truth and the truth shall set you free.” This maxim is relevant to every situation. Gentle, nonconfrontational questions that pursue the truth, as you see it, can prevent a person from taking over all the power in a situation. This will save complex and gentle people from being reduced to the function of an external controlled role.
WEAKNESS AND POWER
Frequently people in power are not as strong as they might wish to appear. Many people who desperately hunger for power are weak. They seek power positions to compensate for their own fragility and vulnerability. A weak person in power can never be generous with power because they see questions or alternative possibilities as threatening their own supremacy and dominance. If you are going to be creatively confrontational with such a person, you need to approach that person very gently in a nondirect manner. This is the only way that the word of your truth can reach such a frightened, powerful person.
The workplace as a place of power can also be a place of control. Control is destructive because it reduces your own independence and autonomy. You are placed back in an infantile role where you are dealing with an authority figure. Because of our untransfigured relationship to our parents, we sometimes turn authority figures into giants. There is a crucial distinction here between power and authority. When you are awake to the integrity of your inner power, then you are your own authority. The word authority signifies your authorship of your ideas and actions. The world functions through power structures. Consequently, it is desirable that genuine people of refined sensibility, imagination, and compassion leave themselves available to take up positions of power. A charismatic person in a powerful position can be an agent of far-reaching and positive change.
When you are being controlled, you are treated as an object rather than as a subject. Often people in power have an uncanny instinct at working the system against you. I know a millionaire who made his money in the clothes trade. The women working for him were poorly paid. Every so often, he would sense the tension building up among them. One day he turned the radio on really loud. Then all the workers began to complain. He watched the aggression building up until finally a group came to him and asked that the volume be lowered. He refused. They became more militant and threatened to go on strike. He insisted on keeping the volume loud. When they were almost out on the street, he lowered the volume. His strategy was to let them have the impression that they had the power. Then they returned to work, feeling they had won a victory over the boss, even though he had staged the conflict from the very beginning. This happened forty years ago. In the modern workplace, unionization and the development of workers’ rights means that employers can no longer get away with such obvious manipulation. Still the work situation continues to exploit people. Management is now more subtle in its strategies of control and alienation.
The workplace can be a place of great competition. Management sometimes plays workers against each other. Consequently, when you go into work you are in solo combat with your colleague in terms of productivity. Your colleagues begin to appear as a threat. Where productivity becomes God, each individual is reduced to a function. It would be wonderful if the workplace were a place of real inspiration, with the work engaging your creativity. Your gift would be welcomed there; your contribution seen. Everyone has a special gift. Your life becomes happier when your gift can grow and come to expression in your place of work. You are freed to receive inspiration from others. Furthermore, because the gift of each person in relation to the overall work is unique, there need be no competition among the workers. This makes the workplace hospitable to the energies, rhythms, and gifts of the soul. There is no reason why every workplace could not begin to develop such creativity.
Work should not serve the owners and the employers alone. Work should also serve the workers and the community. Structures should be developed whereby workers are able to share in the profits. The entry of imagination and the awakening of soul demand that work be understood as contributing to the creativity and improvement of the larger community. A firm or corporation that has large profits should assist and support the poor and the underprivileged. To create optimal conditions of work should become a priority. Furthermore, awkward but honest questions should be engaged. Work that creates products that endanger people or nature should be critiqued and changed.
One of the most powerful and prophetic analysts of work was Karl Marx. He showed how work can alienate a person from his or her nature and potential. Certain work can dull and darken human presence. In our century, some of the most prophetic, trenchant, and illuminating critical thought has come from this tradition. The school of critical theory has delivered a penetrating evaluation of industrial society. It has revealed that history and society internally influence the structure of human identity. The nature of work and consumerism diminish and oppress the self. Critical theory has made a great contribution to the recovery of soul by identifying the subtlety and pervasiveness of these alienating forces. It cuts through the colorful but fictitious surface image that conceals the quiet suffocation of individuality.