iCasad: News

Yesterday evening I attended a lecture at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy by August Turak on The Business Secrets of the Trappists which was meant to share with business leaders how the power of the monastic tradition can transform not only one’s business but also one’s life. I first heard August Turak last month in an interview with Frank Statio on WUNC’s The State of Things and have since enjoyed both reading and conversing with Augie regarding his chart-topping four-part Forbes.com article, Business Secrets of the Trappists (April 14-17, 2009).

In addition to being a successful business executive and consultant for several Fortune 500 companies and an award-winning essayist, Turak has spent the last dozen of so years participating in and living up to three months as part of the monastic guest program at Mepkin Abbey, where I went on my Lenten retreat last March. While he was there he began to wonder what allowed these 20 or so men, whose average age is 70 and who work a mere four hours a day to operate a successful business that includes not only their egg (and now mushroom and compost) production for which they are famous throughout South Carolina but also to maintain a beautiful church, a wonderful library, a conference center, a guest center, a gift shop and more than a dozen immaculate retreat houses…while cooking for themselves and caring for their aged and infirm in a spotless state-of-the-art infirmary (Business Secrets, Part 1). As outlined in his article, his interview on The State of Things, and last night’s talk, Turak finds the following points to not only underlie the success of the monks of Mepkin Abbey but also to be a plan of service and selflessness for any successful business:

• high overarching mission
• selflessness
• commitment to excellence
• high ethical standards
• faithfulness
• trust
• living the life

These are fleshed out in his article as well as in his forthcoming book of the same title, however, during last night’s lecture Turak elaborated on a feature of what he calls intentionally transformational organizations by pointing out that such organizations possess and deploy a proven method for the last point, namely living the life, that begins not by offering a change in circumstance (we’ll give you a skill to make you rich) or condition (come with us and see the world) but rather a change in being (be transformed). He told several stories from his time at Mepkin Abbey in order to offer examples of how it is not necessarily the niceness per se of the community that strikes him but rather the degree to which these men live with ease a transformed life of selflessness. To do so they trust the process or, rather, submit to the disciple of the Rule of Saint Benedict which is the method for bringing about transformation of being among the monks. Turak noted that those who come to the monastery are no different than other men except that they come seeking to be changed and, in doing so, find the passion for their mission that transforms them into better versions of themselves. This approach Turak finds also in the Marine Corps, Alcoholics Anonymous, and other explicitly transformational organizations. In all of these cases we see a transformation from the grasping child declaring everything to be mine, mine to the selfless giving of one’s life in service of others in conformation to the life of Christ. Relying on Joseph Campbell and his understanding of the heroic transformation, Turak pointed out that the real transformation people are seeking is not that of condition (want food) or circumstance (want fame) but rather that of being which happens through being called, finding strength in the desert, undergoing a trial, and emerging to help others likewise be reborn, find enlightenment, and so forth. Turak illustrated this with the example of the film The Devil Wears Prada. I had an interesting reprise of this point about the failure of a change of condition or circumstance to satisfy one’s real desires as I was driving to work today listening to Joe Walsh of the Eagles singing It’s tough to handle this fortune and fame / Everybody’s so different, I haven’t changed (Life’s Been Good). Turak further argued that the goal of any transformational organization is to help people see that they are seeking such a transformation of being, to awaken them from the distractions or substitutions of other things, and bring about a change of heart. And any method for doing so—whether it is the novitiate, boot camp, the twelve steps, the catechumenate, or any other liminal period—should take people out of their comfort zone, blow their minds, get them out of the box or, in short, radically transform people from managing how to get things done to discerning what is worth doing.

Much of the remainder of Turak’s lecture as well as the majority of the questions and answers were addressed to business applications, sales, and so forth. As I further reflected on the talk it seemed to me that the method of transformation Turak is pointing to is precisely the same as Richard Rohr in calling for rituals of initiation built on the work of cultural anthropologist Victor Turner. It also struck me that if the goal of such transformation is complete selflessness in imitation of and conformation to Christ (that being my description of it, not Turak’s) that we cannot just adhere to any overarching mission it must be the only mission worth committing to with all of our hearts, mind, and strength in order to sustain not only ourselves but the organizations of which we become a part. Finally, before I had to dash off to a public computer to moderate my chat on fourth century Christian history, I found myself wondering what the relationship is between sales—of which Turak was so proud—and evangelization or recruiting. If the transformational organization sells or invites transformation in persons to Be a monk!, Be a Marine!, Be ruined for life! (JVC), how do we invite people to such transformation? How do we sell to people that transformation of circumstance or condition is not what they are really seeking but rather transformation of being (or consciousness)?