Working With a Higher Power
When Courtney “Mac” McGregor, a bishop in the Mormon Church, worked as a research scientist at pharmaceutical giant Hoffman-LaRoche, he faced a painful dilemma.
For his research on rheumatoid arthritis, he needed to use a fetal enzyme. But his church looks upon abortion as sinful in all but extreme cases.
McGregor’s conflict isn’t unusual. In an evermore multi-ethnic, multi-religious American society, religious beliefs and workplace values can often clash. But for many, faith also provides the framework to make better employees and managers.
For McGregor, now 59, the answer came not from consultations with other church officials--he didn’t consult any--or from conversations with his wife, who left the decision to him. Rather, his answer came during prayer when he realized that “I did not participate in the choice of the abortion.” Rather, his choice was whether “to throw away” the enzyme or “get some benefit from it.”
McGregor decided to work with the enzyme.
A different dilemma was faced by Mahmoud “Mike” Morad, then a real estate consultant with an affiliate of American Express. Morad’s religion--Islam--required him to pray five times a day--twice in the midst of his workday.
In addition to questioning the practicality of praying amid ringing telephones and office chatter, Morad, now 44, was concerned that by praying at work he would reveal his participation in a religion widely associated with terrorism. He could have lost sales, setting himself back professionally.
“At first, I was self-conscious,” he said. Nevertheless, he prayed, either in an empty room or in his car.
Initially, he hoped nobody would notice.
“Then, I became proud and hoped others would ask what I was doing. It was an opportunity to talk about religion and values,” he said. “The idea behind prayer is learning to do things on time. To be prompt five times a day means my commitment to God is fulfilled.”
That commitment spilled over to customers and co-workers, who praised Morad’s efficiency. As for possible fallout, “People may have decided not to do business with me because I am Muslim, but I would rather attribute it to chemistry. If that’s the reason, so be it.”
Now head of his own Axis America real estate affiliate in Fullerton, with two employees, Morad views his daily prayer rituals as a key element in his success.
Gen. Edward Meyer, 83, now chairman of Mitretek Systems, a software company in the Washington area, had to learn to balance the bottom line against his values while serving as Army chief of staff. From 1979 to 1983, Meyer was ordered to close bases across the country, including Ft. Ord near Monterey, Calif.
“I had pressure from congressmen not representing the affected areas, and from the Department of Defense to get out as quickly as possible, to not engage in follow-up activities,” said Meyer, a Catholic who is now involved in the Woodstock Business Conference, an organization trying to meld business and spiritual values.
“The pressure was constant--that I would be replaced by someone else. During certain periods, I would have been very happy to get fired.”
Yet Meyer considered those follow-up activities, including job counseling and ensuring health benefits and unemployment checks, as both right and necessary.
“Soldiers are not checkers to be moved around a board,” he said. “And I was in a position to help keep families together, rather than follow banal, money-grubbing instincts.”
The lessons Meyer learned then are no different from those he now applies in the civilian world, where he has had to close stores and manufacturing plants.
“Moral values and business values can be consistent. When they are not, I have to make a very serious consideration: Am I going to stay on this job where I can’t live with my own personal goals and objectives?,” he said.
Past a certain point, he said, “I cannot. In my own experience, when the bottom line is more important than anything else, there is just chaos and suffering.”
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For these three men, their faith helped them make difficult decisions and gave them greater peace of mind. They said it also makes them more skilled at workplace relationships.
McGregor credits his faith as key to creating a more positive work environment.
“A big complaint at LaRoche was lack of communication; people didn’t know what was going on even next door,” he said. “Church work taught me how to maximize communication, being conscious of others’ backgrounds and interests.
“I wouldn’t be a boss if not for my faith,” he said. “My management skills come largely from that.”
If faith has increasingly made its presence felt in the workplace, however, it has not always been in a positive manner.
Tamar Galatzan, 30, an attorney with the Anti-Defamation League, said that while complaints about prohibitions on religious garb in the workplace are down, complaints about religious proselytizing are up.
The ADL recently received a complaint alleging that a software company’s new president had held a meeting at which he quoted from the Bible and told his staff to “Think of Jesus when making sales.”
Afterward, he allegedly sent a memo reinforcing his message, requiring staffers to sign a paper stating that they believed in what he had said.
An employee who refused to sign was fired. His complaint is now being investigated by the ADL.
The ADL also represented an employee at a fast-food franchise whose owner allegedly inscribed Bible quotes on paychecks and gave his workers tests on the Bible, haranguing those who failed. Alleging religious harassment, the employee received an out-of-court settlement.
The ADL is also looking into a Colorado-based company that hired a woman whose responsibilities included putting up annual Christmas decorations. After a Jewish employee expressed discomfort, the woman, who had never before met a Jew, also brought in Hanukkah decor--only to get called in by company managers.
Hanukkah symbols, they allegedly proclaimed, were religious and should not be imposed upon other employees; Christmas decorations, they said, are not religious.
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The trick in resolving these types of cases, Galatzan said, is “to find the balance where individuals can appropriately practice their faith without imposing it on another.” Thus, she said, a religious photo on a person’s desk is most likely appropriate if intended for individual use, while that same photo blown up and hung on an office wall is likely inappropriate.
Father Oliver Williams, director of the Center for Ethics and Religious Values in Business at the University of Notre Dame, concurs that faith should be a source of individual strength rather than an outward imposition, and recalled a recent graduate with a job offer from an ad agency that did a lot of work for the cigarette industry.
Asked for his advice, Williams urged the graduate to spell out his reservations about writing copy for tobacco ads. The agency hired him anyhow, stipulating that he would never have to work on cigarette ads.
When faith-based individuals speak up, Williams said, creative solutions often result.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, 50, associate dean of the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, agrees that faith can be a major source of strength. Still, he warns, those who highlight their faith invite scrutiny not just about their faith but about how they live their lives.
“Whether you’re a boss or a mail room clerk, if your faith is important enough to think about what you eat [as per Jewish or Muslim requirements], or what you wear, then work has to be different, too,” Cooper said. “You either live up to a higher standard, or you create a lot of questions.”
The easiest way to maintain faith is to stay in one’s own community, where secular and religious beliefs interlock, he said. “For me, the more fulfilling challenge is to have enough confidence in my own identity that I can find common ground with people of other faiths.”
The challenge of the workplace, Cooper said, lies in each of us discovering and practicing our core values amid an increasingly materialistic world.
By learning to come from this deeper place, he said, we move beyond superficial labels and differing religious practices, focusing instead on “how not abuse each other.”
“That’s our challenge--how to create a society that honors this.”
