Developing the Spiritual Advantage of Local Businesses

As economic developers, are we missing something?

Listen to this: "A host of organizations—among them Lucent Technologies, the Boeing Company, and Southwest Airlines—have recently begun to ponder such intangibles in an effort to attract and maintain a motivated, performance-boosting workforce. Books about the "ensoulment" of corporate life have been hitting best-seller lists lately, and conferences on spirituality and business have been springing up all over the United States and Canada." (Source: Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Center.)

Perhaps we should begin to explore how ED organizations can help companies nurture and develop their "spiritual advantage" as a strategy to strengthen business competitiveness. Ethics has become a much greater concern to business leaders thanks to Enron and many other companies. Maybe as a starting point, we should work on increasing the spiritual advantage of ED organizations. In that way, we might actually know what we are talking about.

Your thoughts?