Askesis in Contemporary Organizational Life Mary Brown and Robert Halsall, Aberdeen Business School, UK 1. Introduction: Theoretical Exposition In Charles Handy’s Beyond Certainty: The Changing World of Organisations (Handy 1995), we find a chapter entitled ‘Make Your Business a Monastery’, in which he describes an executive seminar run by an international hotel chain, which was addressed by a Benedictine monk. The monk’s talk was received enthusiastically by the audience of hotel managers, because, Handy claims, ‘Their hotels, you could see them thinking, could be like his monastery’ (Handy 1995: 188). What he means by this, of course, is not that hotels should literally become like monasteries, locking their guests in cells, the hotel restaurant enforcing a vow of silence at meals, or forcing the guests to get up at dawn to pray, but the idea that they could make ‘hotel-keeping into a mission’ and that to ‘work for a cause can be wonderfully exciting, much more exciting than working for the shareholders.’ (ibid.) It is, therefore, not the ascetic lifestyle of the monk conventionally understood as one of self-denial, withdrawal from the world, and contemplation, which is being advocated, but a sense of devotion that can turn the arguably mundane world of hotel keeping into ‘a mission, a social business’. Similarly, in The Benedictine Rule of Leadership (Galbraith 2004), which applies the monastic rules of St. Benedict to management, we find an allusion to business as a community of faith, admission to which is one the basis of ‘formation’ of the self: The Benedictine concept of corporate formation is ... strategic. ... Formation is the formal process designed to teach values and vision. It provides the metaphors, language and skills to develop a way of thinking in line with the corporate interest. It creates a sense of employee self-development. ... And, unlike training, formation is education as to the ‘why’ things happen rather than just the ‘how’. (Galbraith 2004: 13) In the concept of ‘formation’ of the individual to be fit for a corporate vision, a process going beyond mere training, we see business as imbued with a ‘higher’ purpose, which the employee has to internalize. Of course, as critical management scholars familiar with the use of religious discourse by management gurus, we can interpret this rhetoric in terms of the now familiar employment of religious metaphors to induce ‘faith’ in the corporate mission (Pattison 1997) and to promote ‘devotion’ to a corporate culture and to ideals of customer service (Wilmott 1993, 2003). If we examine this ‘monastic’ rhetoric more deeply, however, we see more precisely what elements of the ascetic life management gurus see as appealing to business leaders. Firstly, working for a ‘cause’ is more exciting than simply working for shareholders. The use of the adjective exciting is significant, as excitement is not something we would normally associate with monasteries, characterised as they are by their commitment to a seemingly monotonous daily life. What is exciting about the

1

monastic life is the idea that work can be motivated by a cause, irrespective of the fact that this cause, in the case of the monastic community, is God, and that it would seem that this cause is lacking in the contemporary organisational life. In the modern age, which the theologian Paul Tillich characterized in 1925 as one of ‘‘self-contained finality’, the retreat to the ‘desert’ of contemplation of the early Christian Fathers would seem, at least, out of place, if not pathological. As Sloterdijk (1995: 105) says, ‘Most contemporaries ... would see the desire to escape the world as a form of illness’.1 The ‘excitement’ of asceticism, then, is related, not to withdrawal from the world, but to the necessity of giving work meaning beyond the material, the mere making of profit, and to the sense of elevation engendered by this devotion: ‘The sense of being used for a mighty purpose makes up for ... small inefficiencies, ... often lousy pay and poor conditions’ (Handy 1995: 189). The sense of being devoted to something higher, irrespective of whether a metaphysical entity corresponding to ‘God’ actually exists in the minds of the ‘devoted’, makes the ascetic/hotel manager, and by implication workers in general, willing to put up with, or even enjoy hardships such as, ‘lousy pay and poor conditions’. This lends a metaphysical aura to the idea of ‘formation’ of the individual to become part of a ‘corporate order’, whether this is based on ‘God’ or not. We can clearly see elements of this elevating discourse of asceticism upon which managerial discourse draws in Christian monastic writing, for example in the work of John Cassian (425-430), whose Monastic Institutes, in particular Book IV, ‘Of the Training of the Monks’ contains a comprehensive system of monastic rules: When the novice has worked ... for a whole year and demonstrated his care for

the pilgrims without any grumbling, if he has acquired humility and patience ... and is sufficiently tested by this lengthy occupation, he is permitted to associate with the congregation of brothers. (Cassian 1999: 44)

Juniors may not, without the knowledge or permission of their master, so

much as leave the room, nor even presume to satisfy the common demands of nature on their own authority. They are so eager to carry out without question whatever he asks them to do, as if they were commanded by God from heaven, that when occasionally impossibilities are asked of them, they obey with such

trusting devotion that they try to carry them out wholeheartedly and without the slightest hesitation. (Cassian 1999: 45)

The traditional virtues associated with monasticism which the trainee monk is to develop: humility, patience, eagerness to serve, and devotion, are clearly those which management gurus might see as desirable to apply to contemporary organizations. There is one fundamental element of this monasticism, however, which seems to be incompatible with the ‘postmodern’ workplace: that of unquestioning obedience to a master. The idea of an elevating devotion to work, drawing on a religious tradition, is, of course, nothing new. Weber talks of a vocation or calling as lending dignity to the ‘spirit of capitalism’ and as a means of psychological motivation of those who regarded themselves as the elect. However, central elements of Weber’s concept of

2

askesis, such as the necessity of ‘the destruction of the spontaneity of the instinct-driven enjoyment of life’ (Weber 2001: 72), seems hardly consistent with contemporary organisational life, supposedly imbued with the values of ‘fun’, ‘excitement’ and ‘pleasure’ (Rodrigues and Collinson 1995). Boltanski and Chiapello, in their examination of managerial discourse in the 1990s and its contribution to a ‘new spirit of capitalism’, point out that from the 1960s the Weberian notion of asceticism could no longer fulfil the function of giving a moral support to a capitalism based on such values of the ‘materialistic hedonism of the consumer society’ (2005: 28). On the other hand, they point out, management literature of the 1990s increasingly adopts a moralistic tone, not perhaps the direct moralising of an asceticism based on work as a source of salvation, but rather the moralising of the exemplum: the necessity of depicting the example of the exceptional being, the manager, who is ‘proficient at numerous tasks, constantly educating themselves, adaptable, with a capacity for self-organization and working with very different people’ (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005: 76). This ‘exceptional being’ who can serve as an exemplum under the ‘new spirit of capitalism’ does not possess authority by means of giving orders and strict rules, as in the monastic order, but by means of ‘pastoral’ guidance, being a ‘catalyst’, ‘visionary’, ‘coach’, or ‘source of inspiration’ to employees (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005: 77). The figure of the ‘business athlete’ advocated by Kanter corresponds to this ‘ascetic’ ideal, in that he/she ‘has the strength to balance somewhere in the middle, taking the best of the corpocrat’s discipline and the cowboy’s entrepreneurial zeal’ (1990: 361). We will return to the figure of the ‘athlete’ and the associated field of ‘spiritual exercises’ later in this exposition. Suffice it to say here that the manager as ‘ascetic athlete’ can serve as an exemplum for a culture in which the ‘leader’ must derive authority, not from issuing orders, but from establishing a culture where ‘everyone must know what they must do without having to be told’ (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005: 76). It has been noted that the evocation of increased worker autonomy and apparent rejection of the necessity of ‘command and control’ structures in postmodern managerial rhetoric of the 1990s is part of a utopia, but one based purely on ‘an instrumental interest in attracting and shaping the kind of employee who is capable of working effectively in a ‘fast-paced, ever changing, chaotic business environment’’ (Knights and Wilmott 2002: 66). This utopia of worker autonomy, then, is clearly based on a contradiction – that increased self-determination, brought about purely for reasons of a commercial imperative, might countenance ‘the possibility of pursuing lines that might subvert or refuse such imperatives’ (Knights and Wilmott 2002: 67). The utopia of a workplace in which ‘disobedience’ might be tolerated and indeed encouraged, may disguise a dystopia in which the obedience to the ‘master’/ ‘leader’, as in the medieval monastery, is the reality. The monastic notion of askesis invoked by Cassian, therefore, may not be as incompatible with this contemporary utopia of autonomy in the workplace as it at first appears, so long as we see this as part of a long tradition of utopias which ‘readily ... combine the notion of autonomy or freedom with oppressive control’ (Knights and Wilmott 2002: 60). To understand this apparent contradiction between a form of rhetoric which appears to advocate an organisational life based on values of the individual, autonomy and ‘empowerment’, and a form of life, the medieval monastery, in which the values of

3

willing subjugation, unquestioned obedience, humility, and self-abasement are central, we might, of course, draw on the familiar critique of the different notions of the individual in ascetic thinking by Foucault. He distinguishes between two notions of the individual: The first, close to the utopian notion of the autonomous individual invoked by postmodern management theorists, is characterized by the ‘absolute value attributed to the individual in his singularity and by the degree of independence conceded to him vis-à-vis the group to which he belongs and the institutions to which he is answerable’ (Foucault 1997: 42). The second notion, in which ‘one is called upon to take oneself as an object of knowledge and a field of action, so as to transform, correct, and purify oneself, and find salvation’(Ibid.), is close to the ascetic ideal of the monastery. By drawing a distinction between the Christian ascetic tradition, with its explicit rejection of ‘any individualism that might be inherent in the practice of reclusion’ (Foucault 1997: 43), and the Stoic philosophical conception of askesis as ‘spiritual exercises’, Foucault provides us with a means of critically reconciling the existence of these two notions of individuality in managerial discourse. Managerial discourse transforms the Stoic conception of askesis as spiritual exercises, which, in its original connection to self-improvement, the drive for perfection and Socratic self-examination, might have been seen as something positive, is translated into a form of ‘a permanent spiritual exercise’, divorced from true self-examination and into a means of discipline, a means of integrating employees into the ‘productive force of institutions’ (McGushin 2007: 12). If we see the renewal of interest in asceticism in management literature, then, rather than attesting to a renewed interest in ‘religion’ or ‘spirituality’, but as part of a programme of ‘spiritual exercises’ carried out very much within the world, rather than in the ‘desert’, we may be closer to a theoretical understanding of askesis in contemporary organizational life. In this anthropological schema, the manager might represent the monk as an exemplary ‘universal archetype’ of devotion, adaptation and compliance with norms (Pannikar 1982), rather than an other-worldly re-incarnation of St. Anthony, and the employee might represent someone who exists under a permanent commandment of ‘You must change your life’ (Sloterdijk 2009), perfectly compatible with the ‘therapeutic habitus’ of ‘play’, ‘fun’ and ‘happiness’ at work (Costea et al. 2007). Before examining the cultural implications of such an anthropological schema in detail, and in particular examining the recent work of the German cultural theorist Peter Sloterdijk on this, we will return to the notion of ‘spiritual exercises’ in its Stoic sense, and set out the principal elements of this as far as the development of ascetic attitudes in contemporary organisations are concerned. Firstly, central to the idea of life as a ‘spiritual exercise’, as Hadot (1995) emphasizes, is the connection with Socratic self-examination: ‘Every spiritual exercise is dialogical insofar as it is an ‘exercise of authentic presence’ of the self to itself, and of the self to others’ (Hadot 1995: 21). The idea of dialogue with the self is reflected, for instance, in the literary form of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, hypomnemata, or ‘personal notes written day to day’ (Hadot 1998: 11). Such a dialogue with the self need not actually be written down, nor necessarily take the form of a day to day examination, but, rather, consists of a mode of questioning, of how one represents things – events, people, one’s life – to oneself, and how one trains or disciplines the faculties in relation to the three

4

philosophical topoi identified by Epictetus: judgement, desire and inclination or impulsion (Hadot 1998). With regard to the first, desire, Epictetus defines the ‘trainee’ as ‘the person who abstains from desire, and who employs aversion only on the things that pertain to volition, practising especially on those things that are hard to work at’ (Epictetus 1890: 226). This is not the negation of bodily desire associated with later Christian asceticism, but the training of the faculty of desire to seek, not just those things which the self finds pleasurable, but even, and in particular, those things which it does not: I am rather inclined to pleasure: I will incline to the contrary side above measure for the sake of exercise. I am averse to pain: I will rub and exercise against this the appearances which are presented to me for the purpose of withdrawing my aversion from every such thing. (Epictetus 1890: 226) The parallel to this form of exercise for the ascetics of contemporary organizations might be the deliberate seeking out of aspects of work which are either unpleasant or ‘beneath’ the capabilities of the employee for purposes of ingratiation or demonstrating ‘commitment’, or the deliberate allocation of such tasks by managers to employees, to promote the kind of discipline or ‘aversion therapy’ described here by Epictetus. In the second element of ‘exercise’, the faculty of judgement is to be trained towards an inner attitude of objectivity, meaning detachment in the sense that, whatever happens to me, such outward events do not touch my ‘inner citadel’ or ‘impregnable islet of autonomy’ (Hadot 1998: 83). Examples of such an inner attitude of detachment or autonomy occur frequently in Marcus Aurelius, for example: Things cannot touch the soul (Meditations IV, 3) They cannot produce our judgements (V, 19) They themselves know nothing, and by themselves they affirm nothing (IX, 15) This Stoic notion of autonomy is often invoked within contemporary organizational settings in relation to change. The ideal ‘ascetic’ attitude of the employee to change might be described as such an attitude of ‘objectivity’ –the retention of an unchanging, adaptable core of commitment, which would be unaffected by outwards changes in management structures, job responsibilities etc. In the Stoic view of the world, changing outward circumstances, however unfavourable, are just ‘opportunities for training’ (Long 2002: 196). With the third topos, that of action or impulse, we come to that aspect of training which is essentially concerned with ethics, morality, and social relationships, or to put it in the terms of contemporary organizational discourse, interpersonal communication. Stoic asceticism has been seen in the modern era, in its advocacy of detachment, as being associated with emotional repression and insensitivity towards the needs of others (Long 2002: 244-5). This, however, is to misinterpret the Stoic attitude to happiness, whether of the self or others. Firstly, it attributes a difference between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ which is at odds with Stoic ethics and the Stoic self. The

5

form of happiness in Stoic thought is that of eudaimonia, ‘the state of "well-being" which is achieved by someone whose life is objectively admirable, notwithstanding its possible lack of emotional and material gratification’ (Long 2002: 190). ‘Well-being’ results not from the repressive control of desires or emotions, but through limiting oneself to the desires and emotions which it is deemed appropriate or reasonable to have within a culture. Emotions which it is not reasonable to have, particularly relevant to contemporary organizational life, include anger, jealousy, envy and irritability (Long 2002: 244). Importantly, the desire to control anger etc. should come from self-examination in the sense of training as ‘self pedagogy’, as outlined above, rather than just from explicit rules etc. As a ‘trainee’, we examine our powers, qualifications and potential, and having understood our limitations, we will no longer have such ‘inappropriate’ emotions. We see this ‘self-pedagogical’ discourse in contemporary organizations in the form of ‘personal development plans’, self-analyses of our ‘strengths and weaknesses’, and ‘anger management’ programmes, which we will examine in detail below. Having described the main elements of exercise and training in the Stoic idea of askesis, we need to pose the question, in what sense are such exercises ‘spiritual’, a question of importance given the fact that contemporary organizational askesis is associated in the literature with ‘spirituality’ and ‘religion’, albeit in a ‘New Age’ or ‘evangelical’ form (Nadesan 1999). ‘Spiritual’, in the Stoic sense, does not necessarily imply that exercises are inspired by belief in a religious or metaphysical entity, as in the case of those practised by later Christian ascetics such as Augustine or Ignatius of Loyola, but rather in the sense that they involve ‘‘the individual’s entire psychism’’ by means of which, ‘the individual raises himself up to the life of the objective Spirit; that is to say, he re-places himself within the perspective of the Whole’ (Hadot 1995: 82). The ‘Whole’ towards which the person engaged in exercises is striving is the state of eudaimonia.2 The individual to be trained towards this end, therefore, is to treat him/herself as a subject for therapy, as someone to be cured, as if entering the doctor’s surgery.3 This Stoic form of askesis, therefore, can serve as a model for a ‘therapeutic habitus’ of self-development, without necessarily, as Costea et al. argue, ‘sacrificing the integrity of the whole person’, but perfectly compatible with ‘liberating the entire ‘self’’(2007: 7). In the rest of this paper we will develop this argument, that contemporary organisational practices are based on, rather than spirituality or religion, a ‘de-spiritualisation of askesis’ (Sloterdijk 2009: 49). 2. Workplace ‘spirituality’ and monasticism Stamford (2000) suggests that churches have always mirrored the structures of contemporary secular organizations, and one might almost compare the monasteries of the medieval period with local government authorities. Certainly at the Reformation, theological and organizational changes intertwined, but, increasingly since the Enlightenment in Europe, church and secular worlds have separated (Bruce 1996).

6

However, as well as the adoption, originating in the USA, of ‘business’ techniques by faith-based organizations with varying degrees of success (Pattison, 1997), there has been over the last ten years or so a burgeoning area of research, again appearing to emanate from North America, on so-called Spirituality and Religion at Work (SRW). Mitroff and Denton (1999) performed what they term a ‘spiritual audit of corporate America’, developing a typology of spiritual experiences in the work environment. Benefiel (2003) has discussed spirituality in the context of organizational change, Fry (2003) extends the spirituality of organizations area to propose a theory of spiritual leadership, while Lips-Wiersma (2003), and Lund-Dean and others (2003) have addressed issues of appropriate methodologies with which to study these phenomena. These writers are generally enthusiastic about the idea that one’s work environment might provide an appropriate experience of spiritual enlightenment, and although those cited above have recognised academic credentials, there is an element of research driven by values in some more practitioner-oriented literature. Fenwick and Lange (1998), for instance, suggest that the Human Resource practitioner is now regarding SRW as the ‘new frontier of Human Resource Development’, while Krishnakumar and Neck (2002) discuss the ‘benefits’ of encouraging spirituality within organizations, and Rego and Pina e Cuhna (2008) suggest that employees who feel ‘psychological safety’ because of ‘improved spiritual climates’ in the workplace are more committed to their organizations, developing more sense of obligation to them. Handy’s hotel managers, for example, as suggested above, might be said to increase their devotion to the hotel by ‘buying in’ to the monastic analogy. In contrast with the sunny aspects of the above descriptions of SRW, both Ackers and Preston (1997) and Turnbull (2000, 2001) have described how the idea that organizations provide a spiritual experience may have a ‘dark side’, whereby commitment to the new ‘corporate culture’ is seen to mimic the experience of religious conversion. Rego and Pina e Cuhna’s idea of increased obligation to the organization begins to look more ambiguous. Pattison (1997) describes the situation when ‘management becomes religion’, and Carrette and King (2005) are even more concerned about what they regard as a reduction of spirituality to a consumer service. For them ‘corporate capitalism’ has ‘strip[ped] religion’s assets by plundering and repackaging its cultural resources’ (ibid: 15), and the cynical are not slow to notice that spirituality is the new ‘corporate buzzword’ (McDonald, 1999). It appears the main concern is the potential exploitation of the religious impulse by unscrupulous managers, exploitation which Tourish and Pinnington (2002) link with another contemporary obsession: the cult of leadership. They describe an ‘unholy trinity’ of transformational leadership, corporate cultism and spirituality. However, alongside the SRW theme is a parallel idea that organizations might learn more about management per se by revisiting the origins of Christian organization, viz. the monastic tradition, of which we have seen examples in the introduction. Kennedy (1999) and Tredget (2002) suggest that some of Fayol’s management ideas may have derived from the Rule of St Benedict, while Moberg and Calkins (2001) revisit the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola as a tool for examining business ethics. In The Guardian, Combe (1999) describes the then new course at Ampleforth Abbey designed by Tredget and others to apply the Rule of St Benedict to modern management practice: ‘The Abbot should never show tolerance of wrongdoing but ... should root it out completely... The Rule for reigning in errant monks is two private

7

warnings, followed by a public rebuke’. It is also clear that askesis is active rather than passive: ‘Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore all the community must be occupied at definite times’. Apparently modern managers find such edicts, together with the need to attend church services five times a day ‘refreshing’, but where did this tradition of monastic asceticism first develop? 3. Christianity and the Ascetic Tradition

St Mark, 2:18 And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? 2:19 And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 2:20 But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.

The Bible reference above is one of several in the Gospel accounts to suggest that the earliest followers of Jesus were not generally ascetics in the sense of denying their physical needs. Although it is also suggested in the Gospel accounts that Jesus undertook a long period of physical and mental askesis in the desert before deciding to embark on his preaching activities, this appears to have the specific purpose of achieving enlightenment. He is tempted by the Devil (Matthew 4.1ff) to capitalise on his spiritual gifts but elects to use them on behalf of God – the ‘higher cause’. The period of ascetic training for Jesus to achieve enlightenment appears rather compressed from the norm, as will be seen. Yet some of the earliest monastic Christians did embrace asceticism, frequently of an extreme type, and the idea of asceticism is associated with religions other than Christianity. From the above reference there appears to be an ascetic strand in Jewish religion (John the Baptist lives in the desert and refrains from drinking alcohol or eating anything other than a frugal diet). It is beyond the scope of this paper to investigate the cultural history of asceticism, other than to point out the idea, in a number of world religions, that enlightenment can be achieved by the performance of certain spiritual exercises. Some of these may involve the denial of physical needs, as expressed in some of the Eastern religions like Hinduism or Buddhism (and Pauline Christianity appears to endorse aspects of this view), but the early Desert Fathers also appear to be urging a constant vigilance about one’s actions and purposes in order to live a holy life. Ignoring the needs of the body is but one way of disciplining the mind, as will be explored below. 4. Desert Fathers and Early Christian Monastics The classic translation of early Christian writers (Staniforth, 1968) provides support for the view that the values of the so-called Apostolic Fathers, writing during the first hundred years CE, stress ways of living which suggest askesis. As Staniforth suggests (1968: 11), these writers were not ‘intellectual giants ... [and were] untroubled by the theological conundrums that were soon to perplex their successors’. But these early Christian officials (Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and others) frequently stress that the precepts of a Christian life should encompass obedience (27), unity for the common

8

good, hence subordination of the individual’s desires to this end (42-48), ‘anger management’ (78-79) and in general living a ‘disciplined way of life’ (87). Early converts are urged not to ‘rock the managerial boat’: ‘Abjure all factions, for they are the beginning of evils. Follow your bishop... as obediently as Jesus followed the father. Obey your clergy too, as you would the Apostles; give your Deacons the same reverence that you would to a command from God’ (121). These latter individuals are thought to assist the spiritual development of their flock by providing effective role models (exempla): ‘You [i.e. Church officials] must do justice to your position, by showing the greatest diligence both to its temporal and spiritual duties’ (127). It is a task akin to military training4: ‘for everyone must work together in unison at this training of ours; comrades in wrestling and racing, comrades in its aches and pains, comrades in its resting and its rising’ (129). In other words, developing as a Christian requires not just belief but also effort to practise self-examination and subordinate one’s will to the community’s rulings. Assertiveness is not encouraged, except perhaps when responding to criticism from non-Christians, although even this has to be done ‘with gentleness’. Like King David, Christians are urged constantly to be aware of their shortcomings, because ‘God’s sacrifice is a broken spirit’ (33). Although attitudes of the Apostolic Fathers and their followers to women generally emphasise the negative distractions of the latter, exceptions were made for the Virgin Mary, whom Athanasius proposed as an exemplar of asceticism, in particular praising her ability to [control] her anger and [extinguish] her wrath in her inmost parts’ (Mantel, 2009: 5): an early spiritual example of ‘anger management’. By the third century the persecution of Christians mentioned by the Apostolic Fathers had become systematic and a number of the early Christian thinkers took refuge in desert places, especially in Egypt. Even after Constantine adopted Christianity as the official religion of the Empire, many continued to be attracted to the solitary life, perhaps believing that they were somehow replicating John the Baptist’s desert sojourn, or the forty days of Christ in the desert. More realistically they may still have scented danger from the vagaries of contemporary rulers, and preferred to ‘keep a low profile’. For those wishing to undertake a solitary religious life, either as part of a small community or as a total solitary or hermit, the Philokalia (Gk: love of beauty), a collection of writings from the earliest period to 1400 CE, contained instructions to such spiritual aspirants on how to ensure that ‘the mind is purified, illumined and made perfect’ through practical5 and contemplative moral philosophy. While the emphasis of this work is on contemplation, the ‘Euergotinos’ (good work) is more about active Christian life and the practice of virtues like humility, chastity, love of neighbour and submission to God’s will. The theory appears to be that if the practical aspects of askesis are mastered the aspirant can then move on to the more contemplative practices of the Philokalia. In this way the early monastics and hermits attained heights of asceticism which would be difficult for contemporary religious individuals to achieve (Chrystostomos, 2005), but their aim is presented as union with the Divine Being through the practice of suitable spiritual exercises. Today we might describe this as experiencing altered states of consciousness. It appears that those eager to attain this divine rapture

9

gravitated towards the Desert fathers and gradually communities grew up around them. Athanasius’ biography of St Anthony in the fourth century actively promoted monasticism, with the latter presented as a role model for the ascetic life. Whilst Anthony was more of a solitary, Pachominus developed a cenobitic or community organization; by his death in 346 CE there were said to be over a thousand monasteries in existence, and the system spread to Western Europe through the efforts of Cassian, who later influenced St Benedict. The monastic system which developed through the mediaeval period in Europe essentially reflects three stages:

1. Purgatio: the struggle through prayer and ascetic practice to control the ‘flesh’ – lust, gluttony and other such materialistic desires and to trust God;

2. Illuminatio: having conquered such temptations, the monk becomes active in the practice of Christian virtues in the local community;

3. Unitio: where the monk achieved union with the Divine. This is never presented as an easy option and constant vigilance is required to ensure that the training is continuous, especially in the purgatio phase. 5. Application of Monasticism in ‘Organizational Spirituality’ From a twenty-first century standpoint we might question the apparent suppression of individualism of the monastic way of life and the emphasis on collectivism, with its resonances of totalitarian states. But these emphases would have been reflected in the overall culture of the time. One might suggest that the development of individualism in Europe begins in the sixteenth century – in art with Michelangelo and Leonardo, in religion with the rise of Protestantism, in literature with the Shakespeare corpus. But it is certain that the period of the development of monastic principles would not have relished individualism in the way that the post-Freudian generations have. The emphasis on askesis as sensory deprivation might be questionable in some cases: for example, what are we to make of St Anthony when he is described as ‘ashamed of eating and sleeping and the other necessities of the body, when he thought of the soul’s intelligence’ (Johnson, 2000: 26)? As well as being an early advocate of wearing a hair shirt, Anthony ‘never gave himself the refreshment of water, even for the feet, not dipping them in water, but in case of necessity’ (ibid. 27). Is this deliberate ignoring of the physical possibly understandable in a period where ‘the flesh’ had resonances of decay and degradation in the absence of antiseptics and other aids to hygiene? If individuals like Anthony might justifiably today be considered fanatical, there is no doubt that many cultures have used abstinence from physical actions (eating, drinking, washing, sexual activity) as an aid to preparing the mind to receive divine messages. That has always been the aim: transcendence. But how does this sit with the current interest by the management writers, described earlier, in things monastic? It may well be that the Catholic developers of the course for managers based on Benedict’s rule will have believed that their delegates may

10

pick up some of the wider spiritual precepts discussed therein (one of those involved is known to this author as a sincere practising Catholic who also happens to be a Human Resource Manager). So an introduction to the transcendent happens through delegates learning about the wider applications of Benedict’s Rule beyond the managerial. This is by no means usual, however; as Pattison (1997: 2) points out, it is rather that management itself may be regarded as an implicit religion with its own doctrines rituals and the like. He also insightfully notes that ‘as in most religions, the perspective of those who do not run the cult is often not attended to’, and this may be because of lack of understanding or more sinister reasons. Pattison’s intention is avowedly not ‘manager-bashing’ (7), but an attempt to understand the provenance of, amongst other things, idealism and perfectionism in management circles, as illustrated by such initiatives as Total Quality Management (TQM). In this latter area, as Pattison points out (1997: 74): ‘the call to perfection and an ideal kind of life [as evidenced by askesis – Author] has often led to despair and the abandonment of any kind of aspiration to virtue at all... because it seems too difficult and unattainable’. In monastic terms this is getting ‘stuck’ in purgatio, and, as Vernon (2004) ironically puts it, ‘dragging dark baggage around the office makes you less productive – better take a course in positive thinking or self-improvement’. Ackers and Preston (1997) consider management development (MD) in organizations, noting how a religious tone has ‘seeped into the discourse’: words like ‘conversion’ are used in the context of the MD programme they investigated. They suggest that the search for new experiences of social cohesion may indicate that a transactional employment relationship in an ‘individualist consumer society’ is no longer enough – but whether more transcendent versions are positive or toxic seems to depend on the intentions of the employer. The programme studied by Ackers and Preston emphasises that participation in such initiatives may ‘signal vulnerability not power’ – to gain rewards such as promotion (in monastic terms to move from purgatio to illuminatio) managers have to express enthusiasm for the organization’s programme. As Ackers and Preston point out (1997: 689), MD can be used to correct perceived faults in managers by proposing an ideal ‘organizational personality’ of which individual managers fall short. As they note (1997: ibid.) ‘it is one thing to be asked to address shortcomings – it’s another matter to have to be forced into remoulding your personality to suit your employer’. As one of their more enthusiastic (or gullible) respondents expressed it (1997: 693): ‘You’ve got to go away and focus on certain key things which can make you a better person’ (Author’s emphasis). However, as Ackers and Preston point out with some irony: ‘We are not concerned [here] with a search for the ultimate meaning of life but with the prosaic pursuit of business profits’ (1997: 695). A similar tale is told by Turnbull (2000) who focused specifically on the emotions engendered by systematic exposure of employees to quasi-religious imagery by organizational management. Unlike Ackers and Preston, who believe that most employees swiftly recant their ‘conversion’, Turnbull’s research seemed to suggest that managers were more malleable. The work ethic was rarely questioned by her respondents – long hours and absence from family was normal – but this loyalty and devotion to the greater ideal of the organization’s survival and flourishing was accepted as a manager’s duty (2000: 12). ‘The quest for meaning beyond the self’ (in monastic times this would have been one of the attractions for the aspirant) led people

11

to train actively for this opportunity, especially when, in the case of her organization of study, colleagues had been recently made redundant (or fallen off at the purgatio stage), and the more cynical were shunned. The importance of askesis was made clear by those still battling through purgatio: ‘We all live the values and we all believe in them, but it takes a lot of dedicated time to actually see it through’ (2000: 21). ‘When we slip, people are now saying “we are not going to slip back again are we chaps”, and it works’ (ibid.). One (female) employee shows apparent willingness to submit her identity to the organization for shaping as she claims to see this is for the common good and long term survival of the organization (ibid. 24). Where Turnbull differs from Ackers and Preston is in her assertion that such beliefs may become internalized, and that ‘believers’ may become disillusioned as they can never reach illuminatio or unitio. 6. Organizational Culture as a ‘Culture of Observance’ In Wittgenstein’s ‘Vermischte Bemerkungen’, a collection of remarks from his manuscripts published after his death, translated into English as ‘Remarks on Culture and Value’ (Wittgenstein 1980), we find the following remark, written in 1949: Culture is an observance. Or at least it presupposes an observance. (Remark 83e) In the original German the word is Ordensregel, which has the connotation of ‘monastic rule’. This remark has been interpreted in terms of contemporary asceticism and its relation to culture by the German theorist Sloterdijk in his latest work (Sloterdijk 2009). Whether explicitly understood as such by Wittgenstein or not, Sloterdijk argues, this conception of culture is an explicitly ascetic one, in the sense that monastic rule is ‘a set of prescriptions that cannot be grounded further, and which together provide the image of a form of life’ (Sloterdijk 2009: 214).6 The notion of ‘culture’ invoked by Wittgenstein, Sloterdijk argues, consists of a form of life, habits, practices, rituals, which are developed in a ‘secession’ from the mundane, ‘real’ world, here alluding to the artistic secession in turn of the century Vienna, an environment in which Wittgenstein himself was formed, in which rule following is in need of no further grounding. The essence of culture as an ‘observance’, then, is one which can be developed based on ‘in the course of extended experimentation with a practiced life ... newly developed ... by means of radical design’ (223), a modus vivendi, ‘which in its explicitness, rigour, vigilance and reduction to essentials can be compared to existence within a monastic order’ (216). The ‘rule of rules’ in this community of observance is the maxim ‘you must change your life’: those within the community must submit to the idea that they are engaging in ‘exercises’ in the sense set out earlier in this paper: ‘those participating in exercises become aware of their exercises as exercises, that is as engaging forms of life’ (229).Viewed in the anthropological sense argued for by Sloterdijk, it is apparent what elements of such a ‘secessionist’ view of culture appeal to management gurus, and what elements of ascetic ‘observance’ feature in contemporary organisational life. First, organizational culture as envisaged by management gurus is essentially such a secessionist notion, not in terms of either withdrawal from the world, as in the

12

medieval monastery, or a culture dedicated to the radical pursuit of artistic aims, as in the Vienna Secession, but one which is based on dedication to a single cause – profit and serving ‘the customer’. In an everyday ‘outside’ culture, one is not ‘ever asked if one wishes to sub-ordinate oneself to its rules’ indeed one does not ask oneself ‘whether there are any rules at all’ (Sloterdijk 2009: 215). The idea of being aware of rules, or of voluntarily submitting oneself to them, it might be argued, while clearly the case in the monastery, it might be objected, is hardly the case with the contemporary organization: if there are such rules, then one does not voluntarily submit oneself to them, but is obliged to do so if one wishes to be employed there. Here, however, we encounter the problem of explicit and implicit ascetic rules. There are three basic types of monastic rules (Derwich 2000). First, there are monastic rules as such, which define the main principles and spirit of monastic life, describing the programme of spiritual formation. These systems of rules tend to be written down, apply to the whole Order, but can also be adapted according to the needs of an individual monastery. Second, ‘customaries’ describe details of the practice of everyday life, such as taking meals, working and sleeping, and are not always written down. Thirdly, there are constitutions and monastic statutes, which establish the institutional framework for the development of monasticism. Within the contemporary ascetic organization there may be differing degrees of explicitness of ascetic practices: explicit codes governing the general spirit of life, such as mission and vision statements, and accompanying visions of how the individual can attain ‘perfection’ in the context of these ideals. Here the system of communication, in particular the communication of the path to perfection set out by exampla, plays an important role. At the other end of the scale, and particularly important for contemporary organizations intent on establishing patterns of ‘engaging life’ in secessionist cultures, are implicit patterns of behaviour, rituals, and habits, which, for this reason, can be even more important and pernicious than explicit rules, as they are ultimately arbitrary, their sole justification being ‘the way we do things here’. Whatever the degree of explicitness or implicitness, however, the fundamental tenet of organizational ascetic life is that one should submit oneself to the principle of ‘you must change your life’: ‘regardless of which particular prescriptions are at issue, it demands ... that each step, each movement of the hand be carried out with meditative care, and that each word be spoken prudently’ (Sloterdijk 2009: 214). We will now examine various elements of ascetic observance, as set down in typical Rules of monastic orders, and indicate what implications these have for cultural and communicative prescriptions in contemporary organizations. The first of these is the ‘spiritual ideal’ which determines the notions of perfection against which the ‘progress’ of a monk/organizational ascetic can be measured. In The Rule of the Master, an anonymous collection of monastic precepts from the 6th century, which served as a model for the Rule of St. Benedict, we find that the notion of progress towards the spiritual idea is represented by the metaphor of a ladder, upon which monks ascend or descend according to their progress towards perfection.7 The ascent of the ladder, which is attained in 12 rungs, from the first stage, in which the monk is in need of constant self-surveillance of ‘thought, tongue, hands, feet and self-will’ and is aware that ‘God is always, at every moment, looking at him from heaven, and that his deeds are everywhere kept in view by the Divinity and all are reported day after day by the angels’ (Rule of the Master: 132), to the 12th rung, by the ascent of which

13

he has sufficiently internalized the rules that they become a habit: ‘when the disciple completes the ascent of all these rungs ... he will ... successfully scale the ladder of his life ... whereby all that he previously observed not without fear, he will begin to keep without any effort, as though naturally out of habit’ (Rule of the Master: 138).

Fig 1. Icon of the Heavenly Ladder of St. John Klimakos, The Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai The metaphor of the ladder is a way of understanding the development of a culture based on the internalization of organizational objectives as a habitus, defined by Aquinas as a disposition determining the potency of the soul in relation to something desirable (Summa Theologica, Prima Secundae Partis, Question 49, Articles 1-4). We must distinguish this Scholastic version of habitus from our understanding of something which is merely a habit, which implies unconscious routine. A disposition to act in a certain way, such as by allegiance to organizational objectives, is developed into a habitus only by means of conscious formation and training, and is evidenced by repeated acts, on the basis of which it can be judged how far the trainee has ascended the ‘ladder’ towards perfection. The second element of observance is the exemplum set within the monastic community by the ‘Master’ and by the ‘manager’ in the contemporary ascetic organization. The principal means by which an exemplary nature is communicated is by means of the ascetic narrative. In Cassian’s Monastic Institutes, for instance, there are a number of such narratives, illustrating the unquestioning obedience of impossible orders or willingness to take on additional work. We will look at one such narrative, which occurs in Chapter 27 of Book 4 (see Appendix). We remember that one of the central principles of spiritual exercises is that the task designed for training should be against the trainee’s natural inclinations. The son, who was the only representative of the ‘earthly cares and affections that he had renounced and abandoned’ when the Abbot entered the monastery, is then an obvious choice to test

14

the degree to which training has succeeded. During the deliberate maltreatment of the child, despite his obvious emotional reaction to the treatment, the Abbot remains firm. What is revelatory about this narrative, however, is the next stage, where it is decided to ‘test his strength of mind still further’ by ordering him to throw his son into the Nile. The fact that, as it turns out, this was just a test, and the brethren fish the boy out of the river, is less important than the fact that ‘the deed would have been done’. The reaction of the Abbot, on finding out that what he had been required to do was just a ‘test’, demonstrates his acceptance of this as just an opportunity to show his ‘firmness of mind’ and ‘unwavering … determination’. The importance of managerial narratives testifying to ‘visions’ and encouraging teamwork in generating support for initiatives such as TQM has been well documented in the literature (Barley and Kunda 1992; Boje and Winsor 1993; Zachry 1999) Ascetic narratives of ‘fasting’, of which the modern literary paradigm is that of the ‘hunger artist’ (e.g. Kafka, Hamsun) might, within the organizational context, relate to ‘extreme’ acts of dedication, such as working excessive hours, or carrying on work in the face of illness. Such ascetic narratives, whether in literal or metaphorical form, seem to have undergone a renaissance in contemporary culture (Macho 2002). In contrast to the narratives of the Desert Fathers, however, in which ‘fasting’ was a means to an end, the achievement of ecstatic states of enlightenment, contemporary narratives, as Macho argues, seem to constitute ends in themselves. The contemporary function of such narratives for ascetic cultures, seems to be not that they not just provide examples of devotion, but bring home the idea that ‘work’ within such a culture is primarily ‘work on the self’: treating circumstances, no matter how contrary to our inclinations, as just opportunities for ‘training’. The third element of observance is attitudes towards complaining, grumbling etc. In contrast to the exemplary figure of the above narrative, the ‘murmurer’ as it is expressed in the Rule of St. Benedict, may perform the task set for him, but not with the requisite exemplary attitude: ‘if the disciple obey with ill-will, and murmur not only with his lips but even in his heart, although he fulfil the command, yet it will not be accepted by God (Rule of St. Benedict Ch.5). In the Rule of the Master, similarly, we find a condemnation of the ‘murmurer’ who, although he does what he is told, ‘still it will not be acceptable to God, who sees that he is murmuring in his heart ... and finds in it the wretched disposition of one who acts in this way’(Rule of the Master, Ch.7). This is, therefore, not principally about obeying or disobeying orders, but carrying them out without the requisite exemplary attitude. We can see numerous examples of such polarized schemata, with ‘exempla’ ascetics on the one hand, and ‘murmurers’ on the other, in popular management text books. In one such example, Kanter’s Changemasters, she contrasts the exemplary attitude to organizational change of the ‘changemasters’, who see in change, however inappropriate or unreasonable, ‘an opportunity on the horizon ... to shake up reality a little, to get an exciting new idea of what’s possible, to break through the old pattern and invent a new one. ... Where other people would say ‘That’s impossible. We’ve always done it this way,’ they see another approach. Where others see only problems, they see possibilities’ (Kanter 1992: 240), with the ‘laggards’ who question or grumble about change seeing ‘only problems’, ‘sticking to themselves’, and viewing conflict as ‘disruptive’ rather than ‘creative’, doing ‘only what is explicitly permitted’.

15

It might seem that the attitude of the ‘changemasters’ described here is far from ascetic, laced as the description is with the ‘exciting’ vocabulary of ‘shaking things up’ and ‘creativity’. The attitude to change of the ‘changemaster’ to change is ascetic, however, in the sense we have argued for earlier – they see changes in outward circumstances as ‘opportunities for training’, for discovering a new and ‘exciting’ self, whereas the ‘laggards’ whose objection to change might be based on rational grounds, are criticized for their lack of an ‘exemplary’ attitude and unwillingness to undertake the necessary ‘spiritual exercises’. 7. Askesis in the Workplace: some examples of HRM philosophies It is somewhat beyond the scope of this paper to rehearse all the arguments about the nature of Human Resource Management as a conceptual development of the term personnel management: suffice it to say that enthusiasts for the former emphasise its strategic nature and emphasis on alignment of the deployment of people in line with the organization’s (usually financial) objectives. There have been vociferous critics of the meaning of HRM – Legge (1995), for example, was an early sceptic, stressing that ‘hard’ HRM, that is, the idea that business needs should determine how ‘human resource’, that is, employees, should be acquired, deployed or dismissed, was in fact entwined with the ‘soft’ approach emphasising nurturance and development of individuals. Not least, for Legge, HRM is ‘unitarist’; that is, it assumes that all the human resource in an organization will be dedicated to the (senior management driven) goals of the organization. Roberts (2008) regards the managerialism project as an ‘extreme manifestation’ of HRM in that the latter seeks to constitute the life world of a mass of society. As he suggests, the HRM rhetoric assumes that there is, and should be, congruence of interest between employer and employee – as in the monastic world, the monks are there because they are excited by working for a cause, as we suggested earlier. And like the monastic rule, HRM demands ability from the employee to accept changes without resistance; senior managers as exempla both impose these on their subordinates and live the values themselves, as we saw in the respondents of Ackers and Preston and Turnbull. An interesting example of this rhetoric is the bizarrely successful story-within-a-story Who moved my Cheese? (Johnson, 1998) which has spawned book, video and other derivations, telling of four Disney-esque characters, mice and men, who ‘live in a maze and look for cheese to nourish them and make them happy’. In case the reader is unable to understand analogy, the text helpfully adds ‘cheese is a metaphor for what you want to have in life.’ When the cheese (jobs, relationships, status) is removed or otherwise disappears, there is no analysis of the ethics of this analogy. It breaks down anyway in the case of job ‘downsizing’, as it is never considered that the cheese seekers might have had significant influence in creating the so-called ‘cheese station’ – cheese is simply provided by management, and when ‘removed’ by them the characters have no choice other than to go and find ‘new cheese’. The characters who discuss this ‘myth’ are happily convinced by such gnomic apophthegms as ‘move with the cheese and enjoy it’, or ‘when you see that you can find and enjoy new cheese you change course’. Roberts might not be surprised by the success of this

16

‘modern fable’ which appears to promote stoic virtues of acceptance and ‘getting on with it’. Roberts (2008:63) has also noted the astonishing success of HRM as a concept and a social construction – in part because employees have accepted a role as ‘oblates’, a full self-offering to HRM as provider of human meaning, as also suggested by Ackers and Preston and Turnbull. Some examples follow of critical discussion of the ‘ascetic elements of HRM’ in the context of, firstly, anger management, and, secondly, training and self-development. 8. Managing Anger: self control and positive vibrations One of the skills which HRM practitioners are supposed to possess and are urged to develop is that of managing, or providing advice on managing, ‘difficult’ people, a group which appears to encompass those who cannot manage or control their emotions. We can illustrate the Stoic ascetic origins of contemporary HRM attitudes to anger by contrasting the views of Aristotle and Seneca on anger. In the Nicomathean Ethics, an account of the acquisition of moral virtue, Aristotle depicts excessive anger and irascibility as human defects, but concedes that, in certain circumstances, anger can be justified. This depends on whether the person is angry at the right things, at the right people, and for the right length of time:

The man who is angry at the right things and at the right people, and, further, as he ought, and as long as he ought, is praised. (Aristotle 1998: 96)

The ‘right things’ about which it is appropriate to be angry about would include, for Aristotle, injustice and maltreatment. They key in determining whether anger is appropriate, would be that we identify correctly the causes and the perpetrators of the injustice, etc., and that our anger with them is limited to achieving a rectification of the injustice, and not, for instance, ill will or a feeling of revenge towards them, if and when the injustice has been rectified. In fact, Aristotle argues, in some circumstances, not to be angry would be foolish, as any reasonable person would be angry:

For those who are not angry at the things they should be angry at are thought to be fools, and so are those who are not angry in the right way, at the right time, or with the right persons. (1998: 97)

Anger is justified, then, in the right circumstances, and indeed to be expected of the virtuous person. If we contrast this with the Stoic attitude, as exemplified in Seneca’s On Anger, we can see clearly that ‘anger management’ programmes in organizations are based on the latter, albeit without Seneca’s philosophical justification. Seneca’s justification for the need, not just to control but to extirpate anger, is the familiar ‘therapeutic’ argument employed by the Stoics (Nussbaum 1994: 405). The first step in Seneca’s argument is an anthropological one: that anger is not natural to, nor necessary for the human being:

17

Whether (anger) is in accordance with nature will become clear if we turn our eyes to man. What is more gentle than while he is a right state of mind? But what is more cruel than anger? What is more loving to others than man? What more hostile than anger? (Seneca 1928: 119)

Having defined anger as ‘unnatural’, Seneca’s next step is the ‘therapeutic turn’: having accepted this, we have to look within ourselves to recognize which deficiencies of our soul lead us to feel angry. Having done this, we can then identify ‘remedies’ to cure this ‘illness’ of the soul:

Just as in caring for the body certain rules are to be observed for guarding the health, others for restoring it, so we must use one means to repel anger, another to restrain it. In order that we may avoid anger, certain rules will be laid down which apply to the whole period of life. (205)

Having accepted that anger is unnatural and in all circumstances unjustified, we then commit ourselves to ‘training’, to a programme of self therapy. One further vital step in Seneca’s argument is that anger has a natural tendency towards violence and cruelty, in that it cannot be controlled. He illustrates this by citing a number of instances where anger has got out of control and gone beyond the bounds of reason:

If your goblet is broken, will the bowels of a human being be torn apart? (125) Seneca does not make the distinction which Aristotle does, that, within the bounds of appropriateness anger can be virtuous, but argues that in all circumstances it is injurious to the self and to others. This ‘therapeutic’ argument based on Stoicism, which turns attention away from the causes of justified anger, towards the self as the cause of anger, and towards failure to recognize one’s deficiencies and submit these to training, is similar to the ‘philosophy’ of ‘anger management’, as we will illustrate. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), the professional body which represents HR staff (and interestingly has never imported the HRM tag), provides members with a ‘toolkit’ to help them deal with ‘handling difficult people and difficult situations’, recognising that ‘the drive for efficiency and profit makes [managing difficult situations] more difficult: workers are asked to do more with fewer resources, and to satisfy the ever-increasing expectations of bosses, customers, colleagues and suppliers’ (CIPD, 2009). Notwithstanding the tacit assumption that ‘the drive for efficiency and profit’ might have some correlation with ‘difficult’ behaviour, and ignoring the fact that such ‘drives’ may be seen as manifestations of the unacceptable face of capitalism, the CIPD is one of many providers of such advice to assume that beleaguered staff will be capable of modifying their behaviour to present a stoic stance to the vicissitudes of contemporary organizational life. With adequate training, it is believed employees may be helped through ‘purgatio’ to control their desires/emotions and reach the illuminatio stage of actively practising the virtues of self-control, humility and submission to the will of the organization. The World Wide Web abounds with examples of trainers, Management Development consultants and HRM experts offering help to the manager or aspirant who seeks to eliminate ‘negative emotions’ such as anger in self or others. Some of these, like the

18

anonymous author of the ‘businessballs’ item on managing stress (www.businessballs.com), attempt to sweeten the pill by pointing out the ethical duty of employers to be vigilant about stress, of which anger is only one manifestation. But like the message of the CIPD, it is up to the employee to take action: ‘in the modern world it is difficult if not impossible to change stressful situations – what we can do is change [ourselves]... The management of anger (and any other unreasonable emotional behaviour [author’s emphasis] for that matter... can only be improved if the person wants to change’ (ibid.). It is noteworthy that this anonymous author also proposes that ‘love and spirituality at work’ is a good thing, as ‘bringing compassion and humanity to work reduces stress’. How this might work is not made clear; it might indicate a commitment to fair treatment by managers, or possibly that employees will be so concerned, like the monks who have advanced to illuminatio, in practising such Christian virtues that they will refrain from questioning the rules. At first sight the emphasis of the businessballs writer upon ‘healthy’ eating and drinking lots of water as a means of behaviour modification might seem far removed from the admonitions of St Anthony to avoid the latter, but there is the same emphasis on the aspirant ‘stopping to think’: ‘Why are you taking this risk with your body and mind? Commit to change before change is forced on you’ (ibid.). This is the message of Who moved my Cheese? – that the individual progresses through purgatio by accepting the vicissitudes of fortune and training the mind to be indifferent to them in stoic fashion. Interestingly the businessballs writer also reminds readers that our ancestors’ sleep patterns were governed by nature, yet ‘the stressful modern world is at odds with our genetic preferences’ and unnatural sleep patterns can also make us irritable and angry. But exactly how the individual can go back to ‘natural’ behaviours (in this case presumably getting up at sunrise and sleeping at sunset) and still operate successfully in the ‘stressful modern world’ is not made clear. The writer is torn between the ‘noble savage’ concept – what is ‘natural’ is good – and emphasising that these natural behaviours have to be managed or controlled. As Epictetus points out, the trainee is training the body to seek the things which it doesn’t necessarily find pleasurable, and to be objective in the stoic sense, so that outward events do not ‘touch the soul’ as Marcus Aurelius puts it. The internet site www.angermanagementexpert.co.uk is similarly sanguine about the possibility of developing the ‘constructive’ side of anger, acknowledging that there is such a thing as what the writer calls ‘positive anger’ (presumably anger that is triggered by injustice or unfair treatment, although this is not stated). The way anger is said to become ‘positive’ is through ‘redirecting’ it and taking control of emotions, although it is acknowledged that this is ‘not something that can be achieved very easily’. We are offered similar coping strategies such as diet and exercise to modify our moods, but the overall message is all about (re)gaining control and managing our emotions, ensuring they are ‘appropriate’. Angry people are urged to make lists of anger ‘triggers’ to work out whether anger is justified; like Marcus Aurelius, we need to reflect calmly on our behaviour by ‘keeping a journal and expressing [our] deepest feelings. The angermanagement writer, however, gives a passing nod to New Age approaches which is beyond the stoic, using pseudo-spiritual language: ‘inviting positive thoughts and creating a good feeling inside will draw you towards positive experiences’, and, ‘if you are feeling angry or aggressive your vibration will be negative... you will begin to attract people,

19

situations and experiences on the same vibration level as you’ Conversely, if you aim to be happy and relaxed: ‘ the harder it will be for a negative feeling to penetrate your positive vibrational shield’ with the result that ‘ you get more of what you think about and want’, in this case, not illuminatio but promotion. It’s up to the aspirant, though: if maintaining a ‘good work life balance’ is causing you stress or anger you can ‘reduce your hours or even your job’, an ambiguous phrase, especially as the HR department can advise you of your ‘rights and options’. The respondents of Ackers and Preston and Turnbull knew exactly what their options were – as managers/exempla, their work life balance was heavily skewed in favour of the former. 9. Managing yourself: the importance of continuing development If the aspirant/employee succeeds in achieving stoic calm, what more must they do to move toward illuminatio/promotion? As long ago as the 1980s, Pedler and Boydell, later to become ‘experts’ in Management Development, were writing for the ‘thinking manager’ (1985: 7) and recommending such individuals to ‘consider the whole person: to manage ideas, feelings and actions, to work with the physical, mental and spiritual parts of ourselves at work’. Like the early church fathers they stress the analogy between developing the psychic managerial self and physical exercise: ‘You can’t expect to get physically fit by going for one two mile run...’ The recommendations would not surprise Marcus Aurelius – such as starting a ‘self management logbook’ to jot down positive and negative experiences, and there little questionnaires and diagrams to get people started. Pedler and Boydell acknowledge that some will find their ideas like ‘psychosynthesis’ quirky, as well as the idea that one can visualise and interrogate one’s higher and lower selves by using visualisations and affirmations (in 1985 this sort of discourse was probably less encountered in management texts). However, the book is endearingly amateurish – occasional typo’s and the fact that a character in a case study changes their name half way through, for example – and has a sort of innocence about it which later texts do not. Readers are advised not to succumb to the ‘me-first-no-matter-what-the-cost’ style of management (1985:35), but to aim, again for ‘balance’ between their needs and those of the organization, and ‘if your spiritual beliefs include the existence of other beings (Guiding Angels or God(s), ask them for guidance’ (1985: 56). Determining one’s purpose in life (71) means not succumbing to arrogance which can lead to tyranny or despotism. Again rather charmingly, these authors use modified stages of craftwork: apprentice, journeyman, master, artist to illustrate the manager’s progression to illuminatio, and there is a sense that they believe the world they and their readers inhabit might allow such illumination to take place. However, it is noteworthy that the ‘thinking manager’ has now become for the CIPD the ‘thinking performer’. ‘Thinking performers’, a category to which those aspirants to membership of the CIPD, a prerequisite now to obtain jobs in HRM, are required to demonstrate belonging, have to prove it by evidencing ‘continuous professional development’ (CPD) through maintaining a ‘CPD portfolio’ rather like Marcus Aurelius’ hypomnemata.

20

The CIPD’s website on such concepts (www.cipd.co.uk) tells us that CPD is ‘continuous updating of professional knowledge and improvement of personal competence throughout your working life’, and that to capitalise on our experiences we need, like Marcus, to ‘reflect on them’. This involves, according to CIPD, for the aspirant member: ~ knowing where you are today ~ knowing where you want to be in future ~ making sure you get there In order not to be lost en route on this analogical journey, it will be necessary to record your hypomnemata to remind yourself why you were learning something, what you learned and how you will apply the learning. CIPD is apparently seeking evidence that ‘the learner’ can ‘identify personal improvement or development needs and translate these into individual or work learning objectives and personal development plans (PDPs – there is no shortage of acronyms in this area). Once learners have understood how important this is they are set to become ‘thinking performers’. The thinking performer, according to CIPD: ~ contributes to the organization’s purposes; ~ adds value through continuous challenge and self-improved goals (sic); ~ sets a positive example; ~ expresses constructive concerns about relevant issues [one assumes no uncontrolled anger]; ~ finds solutions that are better, cheaper or faster; ~ reinforces legally and ethically the compliance role of HR; ~ is customer focused. This paragon might appear rare (assuming that aspirants could interpret correctly some of the behaviours which are somewhat opaque – for example, how does one ‘reinforce the compliance role of HR’ when this cuts across the need to support the organization’s business objective?), but as a university presentation to students working towards CIPD membership puts it ‘Why would employers want employees to be anything else [than a thinking performer]? Organizations need to enlist the hearts and minds of employees’ (Bailey, 2008). Interestingly this unitarist view is presented unchallenged, but aspirants are reminded that ‘CPD is self-directed and requires motivation and commitment to improving one’s won personal standards, which for some individuals is a challenge in itself’. The subtext implies that they had better move on through purgatio at a brisk pace, as the responsibility is theirs alone to progress. If and when they do move on to illuminatio they can become exempla: ‘HR professionals should encourage and help development [of others] – a role model, mentor and coach will lead by example’. But unitio is never achieved as there is always more to do for the organization which replaces the Divine. 10. Conclusion We have argued in this paper that askesis, in various forms, is present in contemporary organizational life. By askesis, as we have shown, we do not

21

necessarily mean the commonly understood form of asceticism as retreat into a ‘desert’ of self-denial and deliberately inflicted hardship in pursuance of a religious state of enlightenment, although elements of this are obviously still present in organizations as ‘extreme’ ascetic behaviour, as we have pointed out. Such a conception of askesis would be incompatible with a postmodern managerial discourse which supposedly extols the utopian virtues of ‘empowerment’, ‘fun’ and ‘excitement’ at work. We also argue that contemporary askesis is not primarily associated with religion or ‘spirituality’ in the common sense, whether of an ‘evangelical’ or ‘new age’ form. We do not deny that contemporary managerial discourse may be inspired by religious worldviews of management gurus or ‘leaders’, nor that management, in its rhetoric, often employs religious metaphors to ‘inspire’ devotion in its ‘followers’. This should not, we argue, lead us to believe that this is primarily about religion as a belief system. Rather, we adhere to the view of Sloterdijk, that ‘religion’ in contemporary society and organizational life should be understood as a system of ‘anthropotechnic exercises’ and ‘observances’ designed for the purpose of ‘inner and outer formation of the self’ within a secessionist culture (2009: 134). Such ‘anthropotechnic’ practices, whether implicit or explicit, which we have discussed include the employment of ‘exemplary’ ascetic narratives for the purpose of communicating obedience and devotion, practices of self-examination and ‘therapy’ such as ‘personal development plans’, and practices for the extirpation of ‘inappropriate’ emotions such as anger. We have also argued that, in order to understand these practices and the ‘philosophy’ behind them, we need to re-connect the common understanding of askesis to the traditions of Ancient Philosophy, in particular the Stoics, in the sense that the goal of such ‘anthropotechnic’ practices is the creation of a state of eudaimonia, an outwardly engaging or admirable form of life, which may not fulfil all the emotional and material needs of the individual. The contemporary application of the Stoic notion of askesis, however, and this is where contemporary organizational askesis departs from the Stoic philosophy, is not primarily concerned with autonomy, fulfilment and genuine self-reflection, as the Stoics were, but on creating a culture of compliance, obedience, and a normalization of unacceptable conditions and practices. In this sense, we return to the quotation from which we set out, that organizational askesis is designed to create the myth of ‘being used for a mighty purpose’ which ‘makes up for ... small inefficiencies, ... often lousy pay and poor conditions’ of organizational life (Handy 1995: 189), in other words for the injustices, inequalities and mistreatment of individuals which are the reality of contemporary organizations. Finally, as we have perhaps painted a rather pessimistic picture of organizational askesis, there are perhaps reasons to think that organizational askesis and the managerial authority based on it may be on the verge of a challenge and decline. In the history of the early Christian monastic communities, it seems, the ‘elitist’ notion of the authority of monastic Masters as stemming from God through their exemplary asceticism came under challenge, both from within and outside the monastery. Rousseau (1978) points to a decline in such charismatic ascetic authority in the age of Jerome and Cassian, as the ‘self-assurance of the inspired ascetic’ (192) declined, when it was increasingly recognized that a person’s virtue stemmed, not from charismatic ascetic authority, but ‘by virtue of their own deeds’, and that all within the monastic community must ‘submit all things ... to the judgement of (their) own

22

conscience’ (Rousseau citing Cassian, 1978: 198). In the present crisis, which uncritical adherence to such ‘ascetic’ managerial practices has undoubtedly helped to create, we might find a seed for a challenge to this form of asceticism, and even a return to a more genuine form, whether a secular vision based on Stoicism, or a religious one based on the best traditions of spirituality.

23

24

Appendix: Cassian, The Monastic Institutes, Chapter 27

Notes 1 translation – R. Halsall. 2 Nussbaum (1994) points out that the translation of eudaimonia as ‘happiness’ does not adequately convey that the term in Stoic thought emphasized activity towards a completeness of life, she therefore renders it as ‘human flourishing’, Nussbaum, Martha, The Therapy of Desire. Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, p.15, footnote. 3 On the use of medical analogies in Stoic philosophy, see Nussbaum 1994, Ch.9, Stoic Tonics: Philosophy and Self-Government of the Soul. 4 The word ‘askesis’ of course comes from the Greek ơκεω: to train – Paul uses the same metaphor for spiritual development in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 and 2 Timothy 4:7 5 Interestingly there is an almost Hindu approach to correct breathing with the aim (amongst others) of ‘ridding the self of passion’. 6 Translation – R.Halsall. 7 We might note the frequency with which management development seminars and textbooks are called masterclasses. A search on Amazon.com revealed 119 management textbooks which had the word ‘materclass’ in the title. There is an obvious element of aggrandisement drawing on the artistic masterclass in this discourse, but, equally, the idea of the ascetic ‘master’, at whose feet one sits, seems also to be present.

25

. References Ackers, P, and Preston, D (1997) Born again: the ethics and efficacy of the conversion

experience in contemporary management development. Journal of Management Studies 34: 5 September 1997.

Allies, TW (1896) The Monastic Life from the Fathers of the Desert to Charlemagne. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co Ltd.

Anon: www.angermanagement.co.uk (10/05/09) Anon: www.businessballs.com/stressmanagement.htm (10/05/09) Anon (1977): The Rule of the Master, trans. L. Eberle, Kalamazoo, Michigan:

Cistercian Publications. Aristotle (1998) The Nicomachean Ethics. trans. D. Ross, Oxford: World’s Classics. Aquinas (1920) Summa Theologica. trans. The Fathers of the English Dominican

Province, Online edition: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2049.htmAurelius, M (1998) Meditations. trans. A Faquharson. Oxford: World’s Classics. Bailey, M (2008) Personal and Professional Development. Aberdeen: Robert Gordon

University. Barley, S. R. and G. Kunda. (1992) Design and devotion: The ebb and flow of rational

and normative ideologies of control in managerial discourse. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37:1-30.

Benefiel, M. (2003) Mapping the Terrain of Spirituality in Organizations Research. Journal of Organizational Change Management, vol. 16/4 (2003) p 367-377.

Boje, D & Winsor, R (1993). The resurrection of Taylorism: Total quality management's hidden agenda. Journal of Organizational Change Management. Vol. 6 (4): 57-70.

Boltanski, L and Chiapello, E (2005) The New Spirit of Capitalism. trans. G. Elliott, London: Verso.

The Bible Benedict (1914) The Rule of St. Benedict. trans. O. Blair, Abbey Press, Fort Augustus. Bruce, S. (1996) Religion in the Modern World: from Cathedrals to Cults. Oxford:

Oxford University Press Cassian, J (1999). The Monastic Institutes. trans. Father J. Bertram, London: St.Austin

Press. Carrette, J. and King, R. (2005) Selling Spirituality: the silent takeover of religion.

Abingdon: Routledge Chrysostomos, V (1980/2005) The Ancient Fathers of the Desert: Introduction and

Commentary. Brookline, MA: Hellenic College Press Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (2009) The Thinking Performer

Concept. www.cipd.co.uk/about/profstands/thinkingperformer (10/05/09) Combe, V (1999) How businessmen can learn from a sixth century saint. The

Guardian. Costea, B, Crump, N and Amiridis, K (2007) Managerialism and ‘infinite human

resourcefulness’: a commentary upon the ‘therapeutic habitus’, ‘derecognition of finitude’ and the modern sense of self. Journal for Cultural Research, Vol.11 (3).

26

Derwich, M (2000) Regulations: Christian Perspectives. In W. Johnston (ed.)

Encyclopedia of Monasticism. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1067-1070. Epictetus (1890) The Discourses. trans. London: George Long. Fenwick. T and Lange, E (1998) Defining spirit at work: finding common ground.

Journal of Organizational Change Management vol. 17 pp 26-42 Foucault, M (1997) The History of Sexuality 3: The Care of the Self. London:

Penguin. Fry, L.W. (2003) Toward a Theory of Spiritual Leadership. Leadership Quarterly Dec

03 Vol.14/6 p 693-728 Galbraith, O (2004) The Benedictine Rule of Leadership: Classic Management

Secrets You Can Use Today. Adams Media Corporation. Hadot, P (1995) Philosophy as a Way of Life. Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to

Foucault. trans. M Chase, Oxford: Blackwell. Hadot, P (1998) The Inner Citadel: the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. trans. M

Chase. Harvard University Press, 1998. Handy, C (1995) Beyond Certainty. The Changing Worlds of Organisations. London:

Hutchinson. Johnson, S (1998) Who moved my cheese? London: Vermilion. Johnson, W M (ed.) (2000) Encyclopaedia of Monasticism (2 vols.). London: Fitzroy

Dearborn. Kanter, R (1992) The Change Masters: Corporate Entrepreneurs at Work. London:

International Thomson Business Press. Kanter, R (2000) When Giants Learn to Dance: The Definitive Guide to Corporate

Success. London: Touchstone; New edition. Kennedy, MH (1999) Fayol’s Principles and the Rule of St Benedict: is there anything

new under the sun? Journal of Management History vol. 5 issue 5. Knights, D and Willmott, H (2002) Autonomy as utopia or dystopia. In M Parker (ed.)

Utopia and Organization. Oxford: Blackwell. Krishnakumar, S and Neck, CP (2002) The ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ of spirituality in

the workplace. Journal of Managerial Psychology Vol. 17 (3). Legge, K (1995) Human Resource Management: Rhetorics and Realities. London:

Macmillan Lips-Wiersma, M. (2003) Making Conscious Choices in doing Research in

Workplace Spirituality. Journal of Organisational Change Management 10/4, p 406-425

Long, A A (2002) Epictetus: a Stoic and Socratic guide to life. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Lund Dean, K. (2004) System Thinking’s Challenge to Research in Spirituality and Religion at Work: an interview with Ian Mitroff. Journal of Organisational Change Management Vol. 17 1, p 11-25.

Macho, T (2002) Neue Askese? Zur Frage nach der Aktualität des Verzichts. In G Sorgo (ed) Askese und Konsum. Vienna, Turia and Kant, 139-153.

Mantel, H (2009) Review of ‘Mother of God: a history of the Virgin Mary’ by Rubin, M. London Review of Books, vol. 31 no.7. 9/04/09 p 3-6

McDonald, M (1999) Shush. The guy in the cubicle is meditating: spirituality is the latest corporate buzzword. US News & World Report, Vol. 126 No. 17, pp. 46-7.

McGushin, E. (2007) Foucault’s askēsis. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

27

Mitroff, I and Denton, E (1999). A Spiritual Audit of Corporate America: A Hard

Look at Spirituality, Religion, and Values in the Workplace. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Moberg, D and Calkins, M (2001) Reflection in Business Ethics: Insights from St Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercises. Journal of Business Ethics 33: 257-270.

Pattison, S (1997) The Faith of the Managers: when management becomes religion. London: Cassell

Nadesan, M (1999) The Discourses of Corporate Spiritualism and Evangelical Capitalism. Management Communication Quarterly, 13; 3-42.

Nussbaum, M (1994) The Therapy of Desire. Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Pedler, M and Boydell, T (1985) Managing Yourself. London: Fontana Collins. Rego, A and Pina e Cuhna, M (2008) Workplace spirituality and organizational commitment: an empirical study. Journal of Organizational Change Management vol. 21 (1).

Roberts, R (2008) Personhood and Performance: Managerialism, Post-Democracy and the Ethics of ‘Enrichment’. Studies in Christian Ethics 21; 61

Rodrigues, S. and Collinson, D. (1995) ‘'Having Fun'?: Humour as Resistance in Brazil Organization Studies 16 (5), 739-768.

Rousseau, P (1978) Ascetics, Authority, and the Church. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Seneca (1928) Moral Essays. Vol.1. trans. J. Basore, London: Loeb Classical Library. Sloterdijk, P (1995) Weltfremdheit. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Sloterdijk, P (2009) Du mußt dein Leben ändern. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Stamford, P. (1999) God’s Managers: Management Today, April 1999. Staniforth (1968) Early Christian Writings. London: Penguin. Tillich, P. (1956) The Religious Situation (translation of Die religiose Lage der

Gegenwart, 1925) Meridian Press. Tourish, D and Pinnington, A (2002) Transformational leadership, corporate cultism

and the spirituality paradigm: an unholy trinity in the workplace? Human Relations vol. 55 (2) pp 147-172

Tredget, D (2002) ‘The Rule of Benedict’ and its relevance to the world of work. Journal of Managerial Psychology Vol. 17, issue 3, pp 219-229

Turnbull, S (2000a) Quasi-religious experiences in a corporate change programme – the roles of conversion and the confessional in corporate evangelism. Paper presented to the Critical Management Studies Conference, Waikato Management School, July 2001

Turnbull, S (2001) Corporate Ideology – meanings and contradictions for middle managers. British Journal of Management vol. 12 (3) pp 231-243

Vernon, M (2004) Resources for Living. The Guardian, 20/03/2004 Weber, M (2001) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. trans. S Kalberg,

Los Angeles: Roxbury. Wilmott, H (1993) ‘Strength is Ignorance; Slavery is Freedom’: Managing Culture in

Modern Organizations. Journal of Management Studies, 30: 4, 515-542. Wilmott, H (2003) Renewing Strength: Corporate Culture Revisited. M@n@gement

6, 3: 73-87. Wittgenstein, L (1980) Culture and Value. ed. trans. G.H. Von Wright, Oxford:

Blackwell.

28

Zachry, M (1999)Management Discourse and Popular Narratives: The Myriad Plots

of Total Quality Management. in J. Perkins et al. (eds.) Narrative and Professional Communication. Greenwood Publishing Group, 107-120.

29

30