Trends

Along with their briefcases and laptops, the Indian Muslims now are no longer defensive about bringing their faith to work.

With more people becoming open about their spirituality—65% of Indian middle class Muslims say they insist on freedom to practise Islam at work place, and 48% say they talked about their religious faith at work at least once a week, according to the ‘Trend Research and Analysis Centre’ (TRAC). It would make sense that, along with their briefcases and laptops, the Indian Muslim is no longer defensive about bringing their faith to work.


The TRAC study found that the Indian middle class Muslim wants a deeper sense of meaning and fulfillment on the job—even more than they want money and time off.


Moreover, the New Economy itself has hot-wired an interest in systems thinking and chaos theory, which has forged some common ground with Islam by showing that science, is partly about irrational and inexplicable things. The Internet’s non-linear nature is pushing people to take unconventional, intuitive approaches to their work.


The acceptance of practising Muslims by Corporate India, especially in the information technology has led to a surge in the middle class Muslim taking to information technology in a big way. But perhaps, the largest driver of this trend is the mounting evidence that spiritually minded programs in the workplace not only soothe workers’ psyches, but also deliver improved productivity. Skeptics who scoff at the use of the words like spirituality and Corporate India in the same breath might write this off as just another management fad.


But a recently completed research project by McKinsey & Co. Australia, shows that when companies engage in programs that use spiritual techniques for their employees, productivity improves and turnover is greatly reduced. The first empirical study of the issue, “A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America”, published in October by Jossey-Bass, found that employees who work for organisations they consider to be religious are less fearful, less likely to compromise their values, and more able to throw themselves into their jobs. Says the book’s co-author, University of Southern California Marshall School of Business Professor, Ian I. Mitroff: “Spirituality could be the ultimate competitive advantage.” Fully 60% of those polled for the book say they believe in the beneficial effects of spirituality in the workplace, so long as there’s no pulpit promotion of traditional religion”.


For Ahmed Hussain, chief executive of Unique Software, it is the Quran that offers the best lessons for steering a business out of trouble. Five years ago, Hussain was a hard-headed workaholic who had long missed his kids’ school open day and dropped family outings. He worked holidays and weekends and often expected his 140 employees to do the same. But as the blow-ups with his family got worse and his hardware business stumbled, he had a breakdown. “I realised we were living in a completely material world,” Hussain said. “The higher purpose was being lost.”


He dropped out of corporate life for three months, studying the Quran for eight hours a day. After he returned to work, he started listening to other people’s ideas and slowly let go of his micro-managing ways. With changed outlook towards life, Hussain’s new business with new style of functioning, where he applied the teachings of Quran, helped increase sales. Instead of putting in those workaholic hours, he encouraged staff members to use flexi time, balancing work with family and social responsibility.


Spiritual thinking in Corporate India may seem as out of place as a typewriter at a high-tech company. But the warp speed of today’s business life is buckling rigid thinking, especially now that the sword-swinging warrior model has become such a loser. “More and more people are going to spiritual processes for help,” says consultant Adam Zubair, whose clients include multi-national companies.


All this spiritual revival is a sort of renaissance. In fact, what is happening now is something of a replay of the spiritual movement that took place at the last turn of the century.


Once words like “virtue,” “spirit,” and “ethics” got through the corporate door, God was not far behind. Seizing the moment, such spiritual gurus as Deepak Chopra and M. Scott Peck began advising corporate chieftains about how they could tie the new secular spirituality into their management techniques.


Body, emotion, brain. The only thing missing from the equation was spirit. Thus the time is perfect for the Indian Muslim to assert that Islam shows the way in the corporate jungle through its unique moral and value system.

(The writer can be reached at mh1964@rediffmail.com)