The Soul of Business: Why Companies Transform When Rooted Not Only in Ethics, But the Sacred
Cultures of Power and Productivity
We live in an increasingly uncertain and competitive world. Existential crises from yesteryear seem incomparable to those of today, in large part because technological advances propel change and risk at an exponentially faster pace. And the tolls of human consumerism and overconsumption are becoming increasingly evident in our climate crisis.
For all the good it can accomplish, capitalism and commercial activity have also been cancerous to the greater good — to all species, to the planet. While business and political leaders think about their legacies, few seem to consider such matters in relation to the soul. While ethical questions may be on many boardroom agendas, the sacred, spiritual roots of people’s values (and the worldviews that shape them) are confoundingly absent.
Put another way: our world has focused on one kind of power at the expense of another. The power to exercise control over crucial concerns, from supply chains to markets, dominates. But a different kind of power stemming from sacred spirituality, which helps mold us and our actions, seems harder to cultivate and celebrate in corporate settings.
In many ways, modern titans of the free market are a study in the antithesis of spiritually-embodied business. The richest person in the world, Elon Musk, went so far as to claim that “the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” And the current second-wealthiest person in the world, Jeff Bezos, once infamously said his employees should “wake up terrified every morning.” Why? Because terror increases productivity — and what place does spirituality have in business decisions, anyway?
Juliette Otterburn Hall is a managing partner at the business consultancy Value Squared. Ever since her previous career in the diplomatic service, Otterburn Hall’s chief concern has been the inner energies that power our lives, felt within and around us. “Societal changes are often driven by shifts in relation to the soul, which is to say the implicit connections people have with their values and purposes,” she says.
Later, as a TV producer, Otterburn Hall made programmes that portrayed the inner lives of gardens and houses, as well as others that explored the motivations of famous and influential people. But her interest evolved again when she moved into business consultancy.
“I saw a problem: that employees and business leaders alike grow divorced from their sense of what life might or should be about,” she says. “Many companies try to remedy the situation by writing mission statements and setting ethical standards. But I felt that helping business leaders connect with what they regard as most authentic could make a big difference.” To use an expression from David Brooks, how might they foster their eulogy as opposed to resumé virtues – the qualities they would like to be remembered for?
When Ethics is Not Enough
Of course, many companies assess the values that shape their activities and measure the impact they make on the environment. But such tasks almost inevitably morph from well-intentioned visionary statements to disciplinary codes; from the findings of enthusiastic team offsites to humdrum checkbox activities. Might that change when moral frameworks are bolstered by cultivating a deliberately soulful awareness?
Otterburn Hall felt that integrating this spiritual element could better keep ideals alive because it connects to people’s interior lives, which also house their ethical codes and compass. The sacred core at the heart of all human beings should not be absent in the workplace, but rather welcomed as the key to tackling otherwise tricky ethical issues.
Workplace standards and culture shifts around the world have made great strides in bringing morality and values into institutions, attaching ethical benchmarks to boardroom agendas and strategic planning. These are good steps. Necessary ones. Still, the deeper architecture of the corporate world remains largely untouched. Integrating virtue-signaling while still collectively focusing on demand for output and outcomes — often at breakneck speed — requires a deeper solution to create evolved workplaces. Ones with souls. Ones that appreciate our joint present, but also humanity’s future and shared flourishing. This deeper solution lies in recovering a sense of who we are as human beings.
“Pressure in the workplace can force out the space required for connection with deeper purposes,” Otterburn Hall adds. “What people miss is a chance to reflect on their professional lives — and this is doubly tragic because work provides a key context in which many people today might exercise their convictions. And yet, they feel that their personal beliefs are often not welcome.”
The question must be posed: what is the cost, not only to individuals but to the whole of society, if we forget our humanity?
Society’s Slow Loss of Soul
This deep crisis is not new, though it has intensified in recent generations. The story of spiritual forgetting begins when the pursuit of material wealth gradually eclipses all else. And when this happens on a societal scale, the result is sterile environments deprived of philosophy, virtue and sacred connection — to each other, but also to the collective and to the Earth as a living organism.
Economics philosopher Adam Smith saw this alienation from the Sacred emerging in the eighteenth century with the rise of modern capitalism. Smith emphasized that sympathy, empathy and moral judgment were essential components of human nature. But he also posited that human nature is inherently self-centered, though not necessarily in a selfish or negative way. In “The Wealth of Nations,” he famously wrote: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” He understood that evolving economic systems were fueling desires for consumption, which could turn into unrestrained self-interest, otherwise known as greed. And that material desires would not necessarily induce happiness.
Smith reckoned that the deception of capitalist economics was worth perpetuating because industry supported the great goal of the modern age: progress. He hypothesized that the technological and social improvements catalysed by this “progress” would make the personal price worth paying. What laissez-faire capitalists either didn’t care about or didn’t know to factor into the equation, though, was the cost to our souls.
Two centuries on, the hopes of such advancement are now openly questioned. Yes, many of the standard metrics against which a good life can be measured have improved. Yet where material convenience and wealth have grown, spiritual poverty abounds.
“You see the depth of these difficulties in all sorts of ways,” Otterburn Hall says. “The physical consequences of consumerism write the headlines almost everyday, which people witness firsthand when they travel — from less predictable weather to plastic-strewn coastlines. Or there are the disparities that shape modern life, both between those who have more money than they know what to do with and those who feel they rarely have enough, as well as across the generations. My sense is that younger people are less inclined to suffer for older generations, though are also unsure how to address their anxieties and concerns.”
The crisis fits into a broader picture in which earthly possessions and the capitalist obsession with control for monetization are prioritized over spiritual guidance and sacred living. “Take remuneration systems,” Otterburn Hall says. “They do not reward spiritual acumen or soulful sensibilities. Rather, businesses are driven by the kind of success that leads to a disconnect from such dimensions.”
Rediscovering Soulful Business
While morality has been forced back into the corporate world as power and profitability have corrupted intentions, ethical frameworks alone often fail because they lack spiritual depth. Companies must reconnect with energies of another dimension; something deeper than the drive for profit. But how? The question is one of discernment, but also of reflecting inward. We already have the roadmap.
Companies are human constructs; they cannot feel, decide or command. Companies are vessels for human souls. They become spiritually embodied when the humans within them do. When this shift starts from the inside, and is not only welcomed but celebrated, then workplaces can become cradles of lasting fulfillment, inspiration and purpose. This is starkly opposed to the cold, hard, process- and profit-driven machines of modern commercial and corporate industry.
To accomplish this reorientation, individual desires within the organisation should align with the purpose of the organisation – be that the delivery of services and goods, or the legacy of a better world. “If loves and longings are not left at the office door alongside raincoats, they can be a part of work life,” Otterburn Hall explains. “We live in a time when we can no longer afford to neglect fundamental questions of life. Moreover, when they are not an optional extra, they can support happiness, team dynamics, and loyalties.”
Change begins when business leaders recognise spirituality plays a foundational and fundamental, if sometimes covert, role in all human activities. “You know that the minute you walk into an office or boardroom and feel the energy present,” she explains. “A harmonious inner life, particularly in directors and managers, fosters a harmonious inner life across the organisation. That, in turn, fosters a virtuous spiral, which builds an integrated sense of purpose and direction.”
The Practicalities of Bringing Spirituality to Work
The importance of aligning what matters to individuals with organisational goals cannot be overstated. But it takes time and trust for people to discover what that means in practice. Sensitive questions need to be asked, which can leave individuals feeling exposed. “Honest conversations are not always easy to have, though collaborating on common purposes can also be revelatory, leading to releases of energy that bring new life to a company.”
The process must be iterative, too, with regular check-ins to build trust and sustain change. Much as organisations will commission regular reports on operational matters and market conditions, so too Value Squared has developed ways of regularly assessing spiritual progress. “While most companies measure engagement or job satisfaction, we focus on what we call spiritual progress — the lived sense of purpose, belonging, and alignment with values that drive long-term flourishing,” Otterburn Hall explains. “We assess this ‘temperature’ through a layered process that includes surveys asking about satisfaction and also risks such as burnout and loss of meaning, deep-dive conversations with individuals, also group sessions that examine the stories that people tell about the organisation.”
So rather than just asking “Are you happy at work?”, Value Squared asks whether individuals feel connected to something larger than themselves, whether the organisation’s stated purpose is actually felt, and whether values are enacted in everyday behaviours. The result is extensive reporting on the organisation’s inner life, providing not just HR data but a true picture of spiritual progress,
Working on organisational culture is therefore, also, critical. Traditionally, the spiritual values and health of a community would have been the church, guild or other religious entity’s responsibility. They maintained rituals and patterns of life that foster the unique power to draw people towards higher values and richer lives. It is worth asking how a company can similarly feed people’s sacred desires.
“A spiritually-integrated world needs to be a concern for all people, particularly those that exercise power,” Otterburn Hall believes. “A shared sacred worldview would traditionally have provided the context in which these matters could be considered. Nowadays that will likely not be available, so it is very much up to leaders to build the communities within which people can more freely engage with spiritual values.”
Patience will be paramount in this reality, as differing attitudes and spiritual practices will surface. Key will be to always seek and come back to the common sacred ground that is the basis for any organized religious or spiritual impetus.
Transformational Results From Centering the Sacred
We know what we stand to lose from unbalanced power structures and a paucity of soulful awareness in corporate environments — but what do we stand to gain from inviting the Sacred to work?
Otterburn Hall regularly witnesses the measurable impact of organisational consciousness around spiritual dynamics. This intentional evolution manifests as employee retention and wellbeing and, consequently, increased profitability. Perhaps most ironically for the capitalist machine that centers progress for profits over the soul: research from Abu Dhabi University shows links between workplace spirituality and enhanced employee performance. By welcoming and incorporating workplace spirituality, determination and resilience rise, and work stress and exhaustion decline.
Traditionally, the focus in M&A is on financials, operational synergies, and legal structuring. “What is often overlooked, and what we were brought in to address, is how the people inside the companies actually experience the merger: the cultural fit, the lived values, and the emotional landscape,” said Otterburn Hall.
This process included mapping the stated and lived values of both organisations and creating spaces for people in both companies to share how they felt about the merger — their hopes and their fears — and surfacing where the two organisations’ values naturally reinforced each other. This also helped examine where there were tensions that could undermine integration. In other words, the aim is not just to foster employee engagement but to treat culture and values as real assets.
Culture is also not regarded as an abstract concept or secondary. “We helped the leadership teams see how values alignment (or misalignment) would directly impact performance,” Otterburn Hall continues. “For example, whether decision-making styles, attitudes to risk, or client service philosophies would harmonise or clash. It also showed us what people were actually experiencing — not assumptions from the boardroom, but grounded insights into how staff at all levels understood the merger and how it was affecting morale and trust.”
Because values and people were central to the integration, the deal went beyond being financially viable; it was sustainable. Retention of key talent was higher than average, internal trust levels rose instead of declined, and the combined business was able to project a coherent, authentic culture to clients far faster than expected.
“Values and profit are not opposites, I have learnt that,” Otterburn Hall stresses. “Rather the one leads to the other.” Looking to the future, she hopes that active networks of like-minded leaders and companies focused on soul-driven business models will spread. That would facilitate the ease with which organisations could consider not only their ethical performance, but their spiritual wellbeing.
The good news is that the soulful dimension never disappeared, even if awareness of it dwindled. All that is required is the cultivation of the right mode of attention. “The Sacred is a resource that all companies have because they employ people,” Otterburn Hall concludes. “The sooner that resource is rediscovered and redeployed, the better.”
What does it mean to flourish — not just as workers, consumers or citizens, but as human beings in the modern era? And how might we rev the engine of a corporate spiritual awakening to help reach that future?
By Mark Vernon